A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 Part 20

Francis...o...b..rne, a literary man whose reputation hardly survived his century, but an essayist of great fame in his own time,[59] was a man who made his fortune by sailing against rather than with the wind. It was conventional to believe in witches and Osborne would not for any consideration be conventional. He a.s.sumed the skeptical att.i.tude,[60]

and perhaps was as influential as any one man in making that att.i.tude fashionable.

From these lesser lights of the literary world we may pa.s.s to notice the att.i.tude a.s.sumed by three men of influence in their own day, whose reputations have hardly been dimmed by time, Bacon, Selden, and Hobbes.

Not that their views would be representative of their times, for each of the three men thought in his own way, and all three were in many respects in advance of their day. At some time in the reign of James I Francis Bacon wrote his _Sylva Sylvarum_ and rather incidentally touched upon witchcraft. He warned judges to be wary about believing the confessions of witches and the evidence against them. "For the witches themselves are imaginative and believe oft-times they do that which they do not; and people are credulous in that point, and ready to impute accidents and natural operations to witchcraft. It is worthy the observing, that ... the great wonders which they tell, of carrying in the air, transporting themselves into other bodies, &c., are still reported to be wrought, not by incantations, or ceremonies, but by ointments, and anointing themselves all over. This may justly move a man to think that these fables are the effects of imagination."[61]

Surely all this has a skeptical sound. Yet largely on the strength of another pa.s.sage, which has been carelessly read, the great Bacon has been tearfully numbered among the blindest leaders of the blind.[62] A careful comparison of his various allusions to witchcraft will convince one that, while he a.s.sumed a belief in the practice,[63] partly perhaps in deference to James's views,[64] he inclined to explain many reported phenomena from the effects of the imagination[65] and from the operation of "natural causes" as yet unknown.[66]

Bacon, though a lawyer and man of affairs, had the point of view of a philosopher. With John Selden we get more directly the standpoint of a legal man. In his _Table Talk_[67] that eminent jurist wrote a paragraph on witches. "The Law against Witches," he declared, "does not prove there be any; but it punishes the Malice of those people that use such means to take away mens Lives. If one should profess that by turning his Hat thrice and crying Buz, he could take away a man's life (though in truth he could do no such thing) yet this were a just Law made by the State, that whosoever should turn his Hat thrice and cry Buz, with an intention to take away a man's life, shall be put to death."[68] As to the merits of this legal quip the less said the better; but it is exceedingly hard to see in the pa.s.sage anything but downright skepticism as to the witch's power.[69]

It is not without interest that Selden's point of view was exactly that of the philosopher Hobbes. There is no man of the seventeenth century, unless it be Oliver Cromwell or John Milton, whose opinion on this subject we would rather know than that of Hobbes. In 1651 Hobbes had issued his great _Leviathan_. It is unnecessary here to insist upon the widespread influence of that work. Let it be said, however, that Hobbes was not only to set in motion new philosophies, but that he had been tutor to Prince Charles[70] and was to become a figure in the reign of that prince.[71] Hobbes's work was directed against superst.i.tion in many forms, but we need only notice his statement about witchcraft, a statement that did not by any means escape his contemporaries. "As for Witches," he wrote, "I think not that their witchcraft is any reall power; but yet that they are justly punished for the false beliefe they have that they can do such mischief, joined with their purpose to do it if they can."[72] Perhaps the great philosopher had in mind those pretenders to diabolic arts who had suffered punishment, and was so defending the community that had rid itself of a preying cla.s.s. In any case, while he defended the law, he put himself among the disbelievers in witchcraft.

From these opinions of the great we may turn to mark the more trivial indications of the shifting of opinion to be found in the pamphlet literature. It goes without saying that the pamphlet-writers believed in that whereof they spoke. It is not in their outspoken faith that we are interested, but rather in their mention of those opponents at whose numbers they marvelled, and whose incredulity they undertook to shake.

Nowhere better than in the prefaces of the pamphleteers can evidence be found of the growing skepticism. The narrator of the Northampton cases in 1612 avowed it his purpose in writing to convince the "many that remaine yet in doubt whether there be any Witches or no."[73] That ardent busybody, Mr. Potts, who reported the Lancaster cases of 1612, very incidentally lets us know that the kinsfolk and friends of Jennet Preston, who, it will be remembered, suffered at York, declared the whole prosecution to be an act of malice.[74] The Yorkshire poet and gentleman, Edward Fairfax, who made such an ado about the sickness of his two daughters in 1622 and would have sent six creatures to the gallows for it, was very frank in describing the opposition he met. The accused women found supporters among the "best able and most understanding."[75] There were, he thought, three kinds of people who were doubters in these matters: those who attributed too much to natural causes and who were content to call clear cases of bewitchment convulsions, those who when witchcraft was broached talked about fairies and "walking ghosts," and lastly those who believed there were no witches. "Of this opinion I hear and see there be many, some of them men of worth, religious and honest."[76]

The pamphlet-writers of James's reign had adjusted themselves to meet opposition. Those of the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth were prepared to meet ridicule.[77] "There are some," says the narrator of a Yorkshire story, "who are of opinion that there are no Divells nor any witches....

Men in this Age are grown so wicked, that they are apt to believe there are no greater Divells than themselves."[78] Another writer, to bolster up his story before a skeptical public, declares that he is "very chary and hard enough to believe pa.s.sages of this nature."[79]

We have said that the narrators of witch stories fortified themselves against ridicule. That ridicule obviously must have found frequent expression in conversation, but sometimes it even crept into the newspapers and tracts of the day. The Civil Wars had developed a regular London press. We have already met with expressions of serious opinion from it.[80] But not all were of that sort. In 1654 the _Mercurius Democritus_, the _Punch_ of its time, took occasion to make fun of the stories of the supernatural then in circulation. There was, it declared, a strange story of a trance and apparition, a ghost was said to be abroad, a woman had hanged herself in a tobacco pipe. With very broad humor the journal took off the strange reports of the time and concluded with the warning that in "these distempered times" it was not safe for an "idle-pated woman" to look up at the skies.[81]

The same mocking incredulity had manifested itself in 1648 in a little brochure ent.i.tled, _The Devil seen at St. Albans, Being a true Relation how the Devill was seen there in a Cellar, in the likeness of a Ram; and how a Butcher came and cut his throat, and sold some of it, and dressed the rest for himselfe, inviting many to supper, who did eat of it_.[82]

The story was a clever parody of the demon tracts that had come out so frequently in the exciting times of the wars. The writer made his point clear when he declared that his story was of equal value with anything that "Britannicus" ever wrote.[83] The importance of these indications may be overestimated. But they do mean that there were those bold enough to make fun. A decade or two later ridicule became a two-edged knife, cutting superst.i.tion right and left. But even under the terribly serious Puritans skepticism began to avail itself of that weapon, a weapon of which it could hardly be disarmed.

In following the history of opinion we must needs mention again some of the incidents of certain cases dealt with in earlier chapters, incidents that indicate the growing force of doubt. The reader has hardly forgotten the outcome of the Lancashire cases in 1633. There Bishop Bridgeman and the king, if they did not discredit witchcraft, discredited its manifestation in the particular instance.[84] As for William Harvey, he had probably given up his faith in the whole business after the little incident at Newmarket.[85] When we come to the time of the Civil Wars we cannot forget that Stearne and Hopkins met opposition, not alone from the Huntingdon minister, but from a large party in Norfolk, who finally forced the witchfinder to defend himself in court. Nor can we forget the witch-p.r.i.c.ker of Berwick who was sent a-flying back to his native northern soil, nor the persistent Mrs.

Muschamp who tramped over Northumberland seeking a warrant and finding none.

The course of opinion is a circuitous one. We have followed its windings in and out through more than half a century. We have listened as respectfully as possible to the vagaries of country parsons and university preachers, we have heard from scholars, from gentlemen, from jurists and men of affairs, from physicians and philosophers. It matters little now what they thought or said, but it did matter then. We have seen how easy a thing it was to fall into the error that a middle course was nearest truth. Broad was the way and many there were that walked therein. Yet even those who travelled that highway found their direction shifting. For there was progress in opinion. With every decade the travellers, as well those who strayed aside as those who followed the crowd, were getting a little nearer to truth.

[1] "Printed by Cantrel Legge, Printer to the Universitie of Cambridge"

(1608, 1610).

[2] See _Discourse of the d.a.m.ned Art of Witchcraft_, ch. VII, sect. I.

[3] His literary executor, Thomas Pickering, late of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and now "Minister of Finchingfield in Ess.e.x," who prepared the _Discourse_ for the press (both in its separate form and as a part of Perkins's collected works), and who dedicates it to Sir Edward c.o.ke, is, however, equally silent as to James, though in his preface he mentions Scot by name.

[4] _Ibid._, ch. IV, sect. I. See also ch. II.

[5] _Ibid._, ch. VII, sect. II.

[6] _Ibid._, ch. VI.

[7] _Ibid._, ch. VII, sect. II.

[8] _Ibid._, ch. VII, sect. II.

[9] James Mason, "Master of Artes," whose _Anatomie of Sorcerie_ ("printed at London by John Legatte, Printer to the Universitie of Cambridge," 1612), puts him next to Perkins in chronological order, needs only mention in pa.s.sing. He takes the reality of sorcery for granted, and devotes himself to argument against its use.

[10] _... Shewing the True and Right Methode of the Discovery._ Cotta was familiar with the more important trials of his time. He knew of the Warboys, Lancaster, and York trials and he probably had come into close contact with the Northampton cases. He had read, too, several of the books on the subject, such as Scot, Wier, and Perkins. His omission of King James's work is therefore not only curious but significant. A second edition of his book was published in 1625.

[11] See _Triall of Witchcraft_, ch. XIV.

[12] See _ibid._, p. 48.

[13] _Ibid._, 66-67.

[14] See _ibid._, ch. VI. Cotta speaks of the case as six years earlier.

[15] _Ibid._, 62, 66.

[16] _A Short Discoverie_, 70.

[17] _Triall of Witchcraft_, 83-84.

[18] _A Short Discoverie_, 51-53.

[19] _Triall of Witchcraft_, 70.

[20] Roberts's explanation of the p.r.o.neness of women to witchcraft deserves mention in pa.s.sing. Women are more credulous, more curious, "their complection is softer," they have "greater facility to fall,"

greater desire for revenge, and "are of a slippery tongue." _Treatise of Witchcraft_, 42-43.

[21] "In Cheshire and Coventry," he tells us. "Hath not Coventrie," he asks (p. 16), "beene usually haunted by these h.e.l.lish Sorcerers, where it was confessed by one of them, that no lesse than three-score were of that confedracie?... And was I not there enjoyned by a necessity to the discoverie of this Brood?"

[22] For the whole case see Howell, _State Trials_, II.

[23] See article on Bernard in _Dict. Nat. Biog._

[24] See below, appendix C, list of witch cases, under 1626.

[25] See _Guide to Grand-Jurymen_, Dedication.

[26] _Ibid._, 11-12.

[27] _Ibid._, 53.

[28] _Ibid._, 214.

[29] This he did on the authority of a repentant Mr. Edmonds, of Cambridge, who had once been questioned by the University authorities for witchcraft. _Ibid._, 136-138.

[30] _Guide to Grand-Jurymen_, 22-28.

[31] He was "for the law, but agin' its enforcement."

[32] _Select Cases of Conscience Touching Witches and Witchcraft_ (London, 1646).

[33] _Ibid._, 92.

[34] _Ibid._, 94, 97. That Gaule was a Puritan, as has been a.s.serted, appears from nothing in his book. If he dedicated his _Select Cases_ to his townsman Colonel Walton, a brother-in-law of Cromwell, and his _Mag-astro-mancer_ (a later diatribe against current superst.i.tions) to Oliver himself, there is nothing in his prefatory letters to show him of their party. Nor does the tone of his writings suggest a Calvinist. That in 1649 we find Gaule chosen to preach before the a.s.sizes of Huntingdon points perhaps only to his popularity as a leader of the reaction against the work of Hopkins.

[35] _Antidote to Atheisme_, 129.