Lancashire Folk-lore Part 20

The Son, to whom the Father creeps and bends, Stands in as much fear of the groom, his Man!

All in such rare disorder, that in some As it breeds pity, and in others wonder, So in the most part laughter. It is thought This comes by WITCHCRAFT!

THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES OF 1612.

King James VI. of Scotland, in 1594 (nine years before he ascended the English throne as James I.), wrote and published his disgracefully credulous and cruel treatise, ent.i.tled "Daemonologie," containing statements as to the making of witches, and their practice of witchcraft, which, _if true_, would only prove their revealer to be deep in the councils of Satan, and a regular member or attendant of a.s.semblages of witches. The royal witch-hater held that, as witchcraft is an act of treason against the prince, the evidence of barnes [children] or wives [weak women], or ever so defamed persons [_i.e._, of character however infamous], may serve for sufficient witnesses against them; for [he asks], who but witches can be provers, and so witnesses of the doings of witches? Besides evidence, "there are two other good helps that may be used for their trial; the one is the finding of their _mark_, and then trying the insensibleness thereof; the other is floating on the water" [or drowning], &c. Having thus opened the door by admitting the loosest evidence and the most absurd tests for the most unjust convictions, the royal fanatic adds, that all witches [_i.e._, persons thus convicted] ought to be put to death, without distinction of age, s.e.x, or rank. This "British Solomon" ascended the English throne in 1603, and, as might have been expected, witch-finders soon plied their infamous vocation with success. The wild and desolate parts of the parish of Whalley furnished a fitting scene for witch a.s.semblies, and it was alleged that such meetings were held at Malkin Tower, in Pendle Forest, within that parish. At the a.s.sizes at Lancaster in the autumn of 1612, twenty persons, of whom sixteen were women of various ages, were committed for trial, and most of them tried for witchcraft. Their names were--1. Elizabeth Southerne, widow, _alias_ "Old Demdike" (aged eighty or more); 2. Elizabeth Device [probably Davies], _alias_ "Young Demdike," her daughter; 3. James Device, son of No. 2; 4. Alizon Device, daughter of No. 2; 5. Anne Whittle, widow, _alias_ "Chattox," _alias_ Chatterbox [more probably Chadwicks], the rival witch of "Old Demdike"

(and, like her, eighty or more years of age); 6. Anne Redferne, daughter of No. 5; 7. Alice Nutter; 8. Katherine Hewytt, _alias_ "Mould-heels;"

9. Jane Bulc.o.c.k, of the Moss End; 10. John Bulc.o.c.k, her son; 11. Isabel Robey; and 12. Margaret Pearson, of Padiham. No. 12 was tried first for murder by witchcraft; 2nd for bewitching a neighbour; 3rd for bewitching a horse; and, being acquitted of the two former charges, was sentenced for the last to stand upon the pillory in the markets of c.l.i.theroe, Padiham, Colne, and Lancaster for four successive market days, with a printed paper upon her head, stating her offence. The twelve persons already named were styled "Witches of Pendle Forest." The following eight were called "Witches of Samlesbury:"--13. Jennet Bierley; 14.

Ellen Bierley; 15. Jane Southworth; 16. John Ramsden; 17. Elizabeth Astley; 18. Alice Gray; 19. Isabel Sidegraves; and 20. Lawrence Haye.

The last four were all discharged without trial. The sensation produced by these trials was immense, not only in this, but throughout neighbouring counties, and Thomas Potts, Esq., the clerk of the court, was directed by the judges of a.s.size, Sir Edward Bromley, Knt., and Sir James Altham, Knt., to collect and publish the evidence and other doc.u.ments connected with the trial, under the revision of the judges themselves; and Potts's "Discovery of Witches," originally published in 1613, has been reprinted by the Chetham Society (vol. vi.), under the editorship of its president, Mr. James Crossley, F.S.A. According to Potts, Old Mother Demdike, the princ.i.p.al actress in the tragedy, was a general agent for the devil in all these parts; no man escaping her or her furies that ever gave them occasion of offence, or denied them anything they stood in need of. The justices of the peace in this part of the country, Roger Nowell and Nicholas Bannister, having learned that Malkin Tower [Malkin is a north-country name for a hare], in the Forest of Pendle, the residence of Old Demdike and her daughter, was the resort of the witches, ventured to arrest their head and another of her followers, and to commit them to Lancaster Castle. Amongst the rest of the voluntary confessions made by the witches, that of Dame Demdike is preserved. She confessed that, about twenty years ago, as she was coming home from begging, she was met near Gould's Hey, in the forest of Pendle, by a spirit or devil in the shape of a boy, the one half of his coat black and the other brown, who told her to stop, and said that if she would give him her soul, she should have anything she wished for.

She asked his name, and was told _Tib_. She consented, from the hope of gain, to give him her soul. For several years she had no occasion to make any application to her evil spirit; but one Sunday morning, having a little child upon her knee, and she being in a slumber, the spirit appeared to her in the likeness of a brown dog, and forced himself upon her knee, and begun to suck her blood under her left arm, on which she exclaimed, "Jesus! save me!" and the brown dog vanished, leaving her almost stark mad for eight weeks. On another occasion she was led, being blind, to the house of Richard Baldwyn, to obtain payment for the services her daughter had performed at his mill, when Baldwyn fell into a pa.s.sion, and bid them to get off his ground, calling them w----s and witches, and saying he would burn the one and hang the other. On this, _Tib_ appeared, and they concerted matters to revenge themselves on Baldwyn; how, is not stated. This poor mendicant pretender to the powers of witchcraft, in her examination stated that the surest way of taking a man's life by witchcraft is to make a picture of clay, like unto the shape of the person meant to be killed, and when they would have the object of their vengeance suffer in any particular part of his body, to take a thorn or pin and p.r.i.c.k it into that part of the effigy; and when they would have any of the body to consume away, then to burn that part of the figure; and when they would have the whole body to consume, then to burn the clay image; by which means the afflicted will die. The substance of the examinations of the so-called witches and others, may be given as follows:--Old Demdike persuaded her daughter, Elizabeth Device, to sell herself to the devil, which she did, and in turn initiated her daughter, Alizon Device, in these infernal arts. When the old witch had been sent to Lancaster Castle, a grand convocation of seventeen witches and three wizards was held at Malkin Tower on Good Friday, at which it was determined to kill Mr. M'Covell, the governor of the castle, and to blow up the building, to enable the witches to make their escape. The other two objects of this convocation were to christen the familiar of Alizon Device, one of the witches in the castle, and also to bewitch and murder Mr. Lister, a gentleman of Westby-in-Craven, Yorkshire. The business being ended, the witches, in quitting the meeting, walked out of the barn, named Malkin Tower, in their proper shapes, but on reaching the door, each mounted his or her spirit, which was in the form of a young horse, and quickly vanished. Before the a.s.sizes, Old Demdike, worn out by age and trouble, died in prison. The others were brought to trial. The first person arraigned before Sir Edward Bromley, who presided in the criminal court, was Ann Whittle, _alias_ "Chattox," who is described by Potts as a very old, withered, spent, and decrepit creature, eighty years of age, and nearly blind, a dangerous witch, of very long countenance, always opposed to Old Demdike, for whom the one favoured, the other hated deadly, and they accused each other in their examinations. This witch was more mischievous to men's goods than to themselves; her lips ever chattered as she walked (hence, probably, her name of Chattox or Chatterbox), but no one knew what she said. Her abode was in the Forest of Pendle, amongst the company of other witches, where the woollen trade was carried on, she having been in her younger days a wool-carder. She was indicted for having exercised various wicked and devilish arts called witchcrafts, enchantments, charms and sorceries, upon one Robert Nutter, of Greenhead, in the Forest of Pendle, and with having, by force thereof, feloniously killed him. To establish this charge her own examination was read, from which it appeared that fourteen or fifteen years ago, a thing like "a Christian man" had importuned her to sell her soul to the devil, and that she had done so, giving to her familiar the name of _Fancy_. On account of an insult offered to her daughter, Redfern, by Robert Nutter, they two conspired to place a bad wish upon Nutter, of which he died. It was further deposed against her that John Device had agreed to give Old Chattox a dole of meal yearly if she would not hurt him, and that when he ceased to make this annual tribute, he took to his bed and died. She was further charged with having bewitched the drink of John Moore, and also with having, without using the churn, produced a quant.i.ty of b.u.t.ter from a dish of skimmed milk! In the face of this evidence, and no longer anxious about her own life, she acknowledged her guilt, but humbly prayed the judges to be merciful to her daughter, Anne Redfern; but her prayer was in vain. Against Elizabeth Device, the testimony of her own daughter, a child nine years of age, was received; and the way in which her evidence was given, instead of filling the court with horror, seems to have excited their applause and admiration. Her familiar had the form of a dog and was called _Bull_, and by his agency she bewitched to death John and James Robinson and James Mitton; the first having called her a strumpet, and the last having refused to give Old Demdike a penny when she asked him for charity. To render her daughter proficient in the art, the prisoner taught her two prayers, by one of which she cured the bewitched, and by the other procured drink. The person of Elizabeth Device, as described by Potts, seems witch-like. "She was branded (says he) with a preposterous mark in nature; her left eye standing lower than her right; the one looking down and the other up at the same time." Her process of destruction was by modelling clay or marl figures, and wasting her victims away along with them. James Device was convicted princ.i.p.ally on the evidence of his child-sister, of bewitching and killing Mrs. Ann Towneley, the wife of Mr. Henry Towneley, of the Carr, by means of a picture of clay; and both he and his sister were witnesses against their mother. This wizard (James Device), whose spirit was called _Dandy_, is described as a poor, decrepit boy, apparently of weak intellect, and so infirm, that it was found necessary to hold him up in court on his trial.

Upon evidence of this kind no fewer than ten of these unfortunate people were found guilty at Lancaster, and sentenced to suffer death. Eight others were acquitted; why, it is not easy to see, for the evidence appears to have been equally strong, or rather equally weak and absurd, against all. The ten persons sentenced were--Ann Whittle _alias_ "Chattox," Elizabeth Device, James Device, Anne Redfern, Alice Nutter, Catherine Hewytt, John Bulc.o.c.k, Jane Bulc.o.c.k, Alizon Device, and Isabel Robey.

The judge, Sir Edward Bromley, in pa.s.sing sentence on the convicted prisoners, said, "You, of all people, have the least cause of complaint; since on the trial for your lives there hath been much care and pains taken; and what persons of your nature and condition were ever arraigned and tried with so much solemnity? The court hath had great care to receive nothing in evidence against you but matter of fact(!)[129] As you stand simply (your offence and b.l.o.o.d.y practices not considered) your fate would rather move compa.s.sion than exasperate any man; for whom would not the ruin of so many poor creatures at one time touch, as in appearance simple, and of little understanding? But the blood of these innocent children, and others his Majesty's subjects whom cruelly and barbarously you have murdered and cut off, cries unto the Lord for vengeance. It is impossible that you, who are stained with so much innocent blood, should either prosper or continue in this world, or receive reward in the next." Having thus shut the door of hope, both as to this life and the future, the judge proceeded to urge the wretched victims of superst.i.tion to repentance! and concluded by sentencing them all to be hanged. They were executed at Lancaster on the 20th of August, 1612, for having bewitched to death "by devilish practices and h.e.l.lish means" no fewer than sixteen inhabitants of the Forest of Pendle. These were, 1. Robert Nutter, of Greenhead. 2. Richard a.s.sheton, son of Richard a.s.sheton, Esq., of Downham. 3. A child of Richard Baldwin, of Westhead, in the Forest of Pendle. 4. John Device, or Davies, of Pendle.

5. Ann Nutter, daughter of Anthony Nutter, of Pendle. 6. A child of John Moor, of Higham. 7. Hugh Moor, of Pendle. 8. John Robinson, _alias_ Swyer. 9. James Robinson. 10. Henry Mytton, of Rough Lee. 11. Ann Towneley, wife of Henry Towneley, of Carr Hall, gentleman. 12. John Duckworth. 13. John Hargreaves, of Goldshaw Booth. 14. Blaize Hargreaves, of Higham. 15. Christopher Nutter. 16. Ann Folds, near Colne. John Law, a pedlar, was also bewitched, so as to lose the use of his limbs, by Alizon Device, because he refused to give her some pins without money, when requested to do so by her on his way from Colne.

Alizon Device herself _was a beggar by profession_, and the evidence sufficiently proved that Law's affliction was nothing more than what would now be termed paralysis of the lower extremities.

In his _Introduction_ to _Potts's Discovery of Witches_, Mr. Crossley observes that "the main interest in reviewing this miserable band of victims will be felt to centre in Alice Nutter. Wealthy, well conducted, well connected, and placed probably on an equality with most of the neighbouring families, and the magistrate before whom she was brought and by whom she was committed, she deserves to be distinguished from the companions with whom she suffered, and to attract an attention which has never yet been directed to her. That James Device, on whose evidence she was convicted, was instructed to accuse her by her own nearest relatives, and that the magistrate, Roger Nowell, entered actively as a confederate into the conspiracy, from a grudge entertained against her on account of a long-disputed boundary, are allegations which tradition has preserved, but the truth or falsehood of which, at this distance of time, it is scarcely possible satisfactorily to examine. Her mansion, Rough Lee, is still standing, a very substantial and rather fine specimen of the houses of the inferior gentry, _temp._ James I., but now divided into cottages."

THE SAMLESBURY WITCHES.

The trials of these persons took place at the same a.s.sizes, and before the same judge. Against Jane and Ellen Bierley and Jane Southworth, all of Samlesbury, charged with having bewitched Grace Sowerb.u.t.ts there, the only material evidence was that of Grace Sowerb.u.t.ts herself, a girl of licentious and vagrant habits, who swore that these women (one of them being her grandmother), did draw her by the hair of the head and lay her upon the top of a hay-mow, and did take her senses and memory from her; that they appeared to her sometimes in their own likeness, and sometimes like a black dog. She declared that they by their arts had induced her to join their sisterhood; and that they were met from time to time by "four black things going upright and yet not like men in the face," who conveyed them across the Ribble, where they danced with them, &c. The prisoners were also charged with bewitching and slaying a child of Thomas Walshman's, by placing a nail in its navel; and after its burial, they took up the corpse, when they ate part of the flesh, and made an "_unxious_ ointment" by boiling the bones. This was more than even the capacious credulity of the judge and jury could digest. The Samlesbury witches were, therefore, acquitted, and a seminary priest named Thompson _alias_ Southworth, was suspected by two of the county magistrates [the Rev. William Leigh and Edward Chisnall, Esq.,] to whom the affair was afterwards referred, of having instigated Sowerb.u.t.ts to make the charge; but this imputation was not supported by any satisfactory evidence.

WITCHCRAFT AT MIDDLETON.

About 1630, a man named Utley, a reputed wizard, was tried, found guilty, and hanged, at Lancaster, for having bewitched to death, Richard, the son of Ralph a.s.sheton, Esq., of Downham, and Lord of Middleton.[130]

WITCHCRAFT IN 1633-34.

In 1633, a number of poor and ignorant people, inhabitants of Pendle Forest, or the neighbourhood, were apprehended, upon the information of a boy named Edmund Robinson, and charged with witchcraft. The following is a copy of Robinson's deposition:--

"The examination of Edmund Robinson, son of Edmund Robinson, of Pendle Forest, mason, taken at Padiham, before Richard Shuttleworth [of Gawthorpe, Esq., then forty-seven or forty-eight] and John Starkie, Esq. [one of the seven demoniacs of Cleworth, in 1595] two of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace, within the county of Lancaster, 10th of February, A.D. 1633 [1634]. Who informeth upon oath (being examined concerning the great outrages of the witches), and saith, that upon All Saints' Day last past [Nov. 1, 1633], he, this informer, being with one Henry Parker, a next door neighbour to him, in Wheatley-lane, desired the said Parker to give him leave to get some bulloes [? bullace], which he did. In which time of getting bulloes, he saw two greyhounds, viz., a black and a brown one, come running over the next field towards him; he verily thinking the one of them to be Mr. Nutter's, and the other to be Mr. Robinson's, the said Mr. Nutter and Mr. Robinson having then such like. And the said greyhounds came to him and fawned on him, they having about their necks either of them a collar, and to either of which collars was tied a string, which collars, as this informant affirmeth, did shine like gold; and he thinking that some either of Mr. Nutter's or Mr.

Robinson's family should have followed them, but seeing n.o.body to follow them, he took the said greyhounds, thinking to hunt with them, and presently a hare rise [rose] very near before him, at the sight of which he cried 'Loo! loo!' but the dogs would not run.

Whereupon being very angry he took them, and with the strings that were at their collars, tied either of them to a little bush on the next hedge, and with a rod that he had in his hand he beat them. And instead of the black greyhound, one d.i.c.konson wife stood up (a neighbour), whom this informer knoweth; and instead of the brown greyhound a little boy, whom this informer knoweth not. At which sight this informer being afraid, endeavoured to run away, but being stayed by the woman, viz., by d.i.c.konson's wife, she put her hand into her pocket and pulled out a piece of silver much like to a fair shilling, and offered to give him to hold his tongue, and not to tell, which he refused, saying, 'Nay, thou art a witch.' Whereupon she put her hand into her pocket again, and pulled out a string like unto a bridle, that jingled, which she put upon the little boy's head that stood up in the brown greyhound's stead; whereupon the said boy stood up a white horse. Then immediately the said d.i.c.konson's wife took this informer before her upon the said horse and carried him to a new house called h.o.a.re-stones, being about a quarter of a mile off; whither when they were come there were divers persons about the door, and he saw divers others come riding upon horses of several colours towards the said house, which tied their horses to a hedge near to the said house, and which persons went into the said house, to the number of three score or thereabouts, as this informer thinketh, where they had a fire and meat roasting, and some other meat stirring in the house, whereof a young woman, whom he, this informer, knoweth not, gave him flesh and bread upon a trencher, and drink in a gla.s.s, which, after the first taste, he refused, and would have no more, and said it was nought. And presently after, seeing divers of the company going to a barn adjoining, he followed after, and there he saw six of them kneeling, and pulling at six several ropes, which were fastened or tied to the top of the house, at or with which pulling came then in this informer's sight flesh smoking, b.u.t.ter in lumps, and milk as it were syling [skimming or straining] from the said ropes, all which fell into basins which were placed under the said ropes. And after that these six had done, there came other six, which did likewise; and during all the time of their so pulling, they made such foul faces that feared this informer, so as he was glad to steal out and run home; whom, when they wanted, some of their company came running after him, near to a place in a highway called Boggard-hole, where this informer met two hors.e.m.e.n, at the sight whereof the said persons left following him; and the foremost of which persons that followed him, he knoweth to be one Loynd wife, which said wife, together with one d.i.c.konson wife, and one Janet Davies, he hath seen at several times in a croft or close adjoining to his father's house, which put him in a great fear. And further this informer saith, upon Thursday after New Year's Day last past, he saw the said Loynd wife sitting upon a cross piece of wood being near the chimney of his father's dwelling-house: and he, calling to her, said, 'Come down, thou Loynd wife,' and immediately the said Loynd wife went up out of his sight. And further, this informer saith, that after he was come from the company aforesaid to his father's house, being towards evening, his father bade him go fetch home two kine to seal [cows to yoke], and in the way, in a field called the Ollers [_i.e._, Alders,] he chanced to hap upon a boy who began to quarrel with him, and they fought so together till this informer had his ears made very b.l.o.o.d.y by fighting; and looking down, he saw the boy had a cloven foot, at which sight he was afraid, and ran away from him to seek the kine. And in the way he saw a light like a lantern, towards which he made haste, supposing it to be carried by some of Mr. Robinson's people; but when he came to the place he only found a woman standing on a bridge, whom, when he saw her, he knew to be Loynd wife, and knowing her he turned back again, and immediately he met with the aforesaid boy, from whom he offered to run; which boy gave him a blow on the back, which caused him to cry. And he further saith, that when he was in the barn, he saw three women take three pictures from off the beam, in the which pictures many thorns, or such like things, sticked; and that Loynd wife took one of the said pictures down; but the other two women that took the other two pictures down he knoweth not. And being further asked what persons were at the meeting aforesaid, he nominated these persons hereafter mentioned; viz., d.i.c.konson wife, Henry Priestly wife and her son, Alice Hargreaves, widow, Jennet Davies, William Davies, the wife of Henry Jacks and her son John, James Hargreaves of Marsden, Miles wife of d.i.c.ks, James wife, Saunders as he believes, Lawrence wife of Saunders, Loynd wife, Boys wife of Barrowford, one Holgate and his wife as he believes, Little Robin wife of Leonards of the West Close.

"Edmund Robinson of Pendle, father of the said Edmund Robinson, the aforesaid informer, upon oath saith, that upon All Saints' Day he sent his son, the aforesaid informer, to fetch home two kine to seal, and saith that he thought his son stayed longer than he should have done, and went to seek him; and in seeking him heard him cry very pitifully, and found him so afraid and distracted, that he neither knew his father, nor did know where he was, and so continued very near a quarter of an hour before he came to himself; and he told this informer his father all the particular pa.s.sages that are before declared in the said Edmund Robinson his son's information."

Upon such evidence as the above, these poor creatures, chiefly women and children, were committed by the two magistrates named, to Lancaster Castle, for trial. On their trials at the a.s.sizes, a jury, doubtless full of prejudice and superst.i.tious fear, found seventeen of them guilty. The judge respited the convicts and reported the case to the king in council. They were next remitted to the Bishop of Chester (Dr.

Bridgeman), who certified his opinion of the case, which, however, does not appear. Subsequently, four of these poor women, Margaret Johnson, Frances d.i.c.konson, Mary Spencer, and the wife of one of the Hargreaveses, were sent for to London, and examined, first by the king's physicians and surgeons, and afterwards by Charles I. in person. The strangest part of this sad story of superst.i.tion is that one of the four, who underwent examination before the magistrates, trial before "my lords the king's justices," a sifting question by the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Chester, aided, probably, by his chancellor, archdeacons, chaplains, proctors, &c., next before the lords of his majesty's privy council, and lastly, before his sacred majesty the king himself, whose very touch would remove the king's evil,--one of these four women, doubtless after much badgering, bullying, and artful questioning, actually made a confession of her guilt as a witch. When this was made it does not appear; but here is the confession as preserved in Dodsworth's Collection of MSS., vol. lxi. p. 47:--

"THE CONFESSION OF MARGARET JOHNSON.--That betwixt seven and eight years since, she being in her own house in Marsden in a great pa.s.sion of anger and discontent, and withal pressed with some want, there appeared unto her a spirit or devil in the proportion or similitude of a man, apparelled in a suit of black, tied about with silk points; who offered that if she would give him her soul he would supply all her wants, and bring to her whatsoever she did need; and at her appointment would in revenge either kill or hurt whom or what she desired, were it man or beast. And saith, that after a solicitation or two, she contracted and covenanted with the said devil for her soul. And that the said devil or spirit bade her call him by the name of Mamilian; and when she would have him do anything for her, call in 'Mamilian,' and he would be ready to do her will. And saith, that in all her talk and confidence she calleth her said devil, 'Mamil, my G.o.d.' She further saith that the said Mamilian, her devil (by her consent) did abuse and defile * * * And saith that she was not at the great meeting at h.o.a.re-stones, at the Forest of Pendle, upon All Saints' Day, where * * * But saith she was at a second meeting the Sunday next after All Saints' Day, at the place aforesaid, where there was at the time between thirty and forty witches, who did all ride to the said meeting, and the end of the meeting was to consult for the killing and hurting of men and beasts. And that besides their private familiars or spirits, there was one great or grand devil or spirit, more eminent than the rest.

And if any desire to have a great and more wonderful devil, whereby they may have more power to hurt, they may have one such. And saith that such witches as have sharp bones given them by the devil to p.r.i.c.k them, have no paps or dugs whereon the devil may suck; but the devil receiveth blood from the place p.r.i.c.ked with the bone; and they are more grand witches than any that have marks. She also saith, that if a witch had but one mark, she hath but one spirit; if two, then two spirits; if three, yet but two spirits. And saith that their spirits usually have keeping of their bodies. And being desired to name such as she knew to be witches, she named, &c. And if they would torment a man, they bid their spirit go and torment him in any particular place. And that Good Friday is one constant day for a yearly general meeting of witches, and that on Good Friday last they had a meeting near Pendle water-side. She also saith that men witches usually have women spirits, and women witches men spirits. And their devil or spirit gives them notice of their meeting, and tells them the place where it must be. And saith, if they desire to be in any place upon a sudden their devil or spirit will, upon a rod, dog, or anything else, presently convey them thither; yea, into any room of a man's house. But she saith, it is not the substance of their bodies, but their spirit [that] a.s.sumeth such form and shape as go into such rooms. She also saith that the devil (after he begins to suck) will make a pap or dug in a short time, and the matter which he sucks is blood. And saith that their devils can cause foul weather and storms, and so did at their meetings. She also saith that when her devil did come to suck her pap, he usually came to her in the likeness of a cat, sometimes of one colour and sometimes of another. And that since this trouble befel her, her spirit hath left her, and she never saw him since."

One cannot read this farrago of revolting absurdities without instinctively feeling that no uneducated woman could have dictated it; that it must have been prepared and dressed up for her to attach her mark, and that all she did was to make the cross to it, in fear, peradventure, of impending tortures. It is at least satisfactory to know that all these examinations of the poor women by legal, ecclesiastic, and regal authorities had a beneficial result. Strong presumption was afforded that the chief witness, the boy Robinson, had been suborned to accuse the prisoners falsely; and they were accordingly discharged. The boy afterwards confessed that he was suborned. The story excited, at the time, so much interest in the public, that in the following year, 1634, was acted and published a play ent.i.tled "The Witches of Lancashire,"

which Steevens cites in ill.u.s.tration of Shakspeare's witches. _Dr.

Whitaker's Whalley._ [Reference is probably made here to Heywood and Broome's play of "The late Lancashire Witches" (London, 1634, quarto).

There was a much later play ent.i.tled "The Lancashire Witches," by Shadwell (London, 1682)].

THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES OF 1633-4.

Sir Wm. Pelham writes, May 16, 1634, to Lord Conway:--"The greatest news from the country is of a huge pack of witches, which are lately discovered in Lancashire, whereof, 'tis said, 19 are condemned, and that there are at least 60 already discovered, and yet daily there are more revealed: there are divers of them of good ability, and they have done much harm. I hear it is suspected that they had a hand in raising the great storm, wherein his Majesty [Charles I.] was in so great danger at sea in Scotland." The original is in the State Paper Office.[131]

LANCASHIRE WITCH-FINDERS.

Dr. Webster, in his "Display of Witchcraft," depicts the consternation and alarm amongst the old and decrepit, from the machinations of the witch-finders. Of the boy Robinson, who was a witness on several trials of witches, he says--"This said boy was brought into the church at Kildwick [in Yorkshire, on the confines of Lancashire], a large parish church, where I, being then curate there, was preaching in the afternoon, and was set upon a stool to look about him, which moved some little disturbance in the congregation for a while. After prayers, I enquired what the matter was: the people told me that it was the boy that discovered witches; upon which I went to the house where he was to stay all night, and here I found him and two very unlikely persons, that did conduct him and manage the business. I desired to have some discourse with the boy in private, but that they utterly refused. Then, in the presence of a great many people, I took the boy near me and said: 'Good boy, tell me truly and in earnest, didst thou see and hear such strange things at the meeting of witches as is reported by many thou didst relate?' But the two men, not giving the boy leave to answer, did pluck him from me, and said he had been examined by two _able_ justices of the peace, and _they did never ask him such a question_. To whom I replied, the persons accused had therefore the more wrong." Dr. Webster subsequently adds, that "The boy Robinson, in more mature years, acknowledged that he had been instructed and suborned to make these accusations against the accused persons, by his father and others, and that, of course, the whole was a fraud. By such wicked means and unchristian practices, divers innocent persons lost their lives; and these wicked rogues wanted not greater persons (even of the ministry too) that did authorise and encourage them in their diabolical courses; and the like in my time happened here in Lancashire, where divers, both men and women, were accused of supposed witchcraft, and were so unchristianly and inhumanly handled, as to be stript stark naked, and laid upon tables and beds to be searched for their supposed witch-marks; so barbarous and cruel acts doth diabolical instigation, working upon ignorance and superst.i.tion, produce."

THE FOREST OF PENDLE--THE HAUNT OF THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES.

The Forest of Pendle is a portion of the greater one of "Blackburnshire," and is so called from the celebrated mountain of that name, over the declivity of which it extends, and stretches in a long but interrupted descent of five miles to the Water of Pendle, a barren and dreary tract. Dr. Whitaker observes of this and the neighbouring forests, and the remark even yet holds good, "that they still bear the marks of original barrenness and recent cultivation; that they are still distinguished from the ancient freehold tracts around them, by want of old houses, old woods, high fences (for these were forbidden by the forest laws); by peculiarities of dialect and manners in their inhabitants; and lastly, by a general air of poverty which all the opulence of manufactures cannot remove." He considers that "at an uncertain period during the occupancy of the Lacies, the first principle of population (in these forests) commenced;" it was found that these wilds, bleak and barren as they were, might be occupied to some advantage in breeding young and depasturing lean "cattle, which were afterwards fattened in the lower domain. _Vaccaries_, or great upland pastures, were laid out for this purpose; _booths_ or mansions erected upon them for the residence of herdsmen; and at the same time that herds of deer were permitted to range at large as heretofore, _lawnds_, by which are meant parks within a forest, were enclosed, in order to chase them with greater facility, or by confinement to produce fatter venison.

Of these lawnds Pendle had New and Old Lawnd, with the contiguous Park of Ightenhill." In the early part of the 17th century the inhabitants of this district must have been, with few exceptions, a wretchedly poor and uncultivated race, having little communication with the occupants of the more fertile regions around them, and in whose minds superst.i.tion, even yet unextinguished, must have had absolute and uncontrollable domination. Under the disenchanting influence of steam, still much of the old character of its population remains. The "parting genius" of superst.i.tion still clings to the h.o.a.ry hill tops and rugged slopes and mossy water sides, along which the old forest stretched its length, and the voices of ancestral tradition are still heard to speak from the depth of its quiet hollows, and along the course of its gurgling streams. He who visits Pendle will find that charms are yet generally resorted to amongst the lower cla.s.ses; that there are hares which, in their persuasion, never can be caught, and which survive only to baffle and confound the huntsman; that each small hamlet has its peculiar and gifted personage, whom it is dangerous to offend; that the wise man and woman (the white witches of our ancestors) still continue their investigations of truth, undisturbed by the rural police or the progress of the schoolmaster; that each locality has its haunted house; that apparitions still walk their ghostly rounds,--and little would his reputation for piety avail that clergyman in the eyes of his parishioners, who should refuse to lay those "extravagant and erring spirits," when requested, by those liturgic ceremonies which the orthodoxy of tradition requires. In the early part of the reign of James I., and at the period when his execrable statute against witchcraft might have been sharpening its appet.i.te by a temporary fast for the full meal of blood by which it was eventually glutted--for as yet it could count no recorded victims--two wretched old women with their families resided in the Forest of Pendle. Their names were Elizabeth Southernes and Ann Whittle, better known, perhaps, in the chronicles of witchcraft by the appellations of Old Demdike and Old Chattox [perhaps, Chadwick].

Both had attained, or reached the verge of the advanced age of eighty, and were evidently in a state of extreme poverty, subsisting with their families by occasional employment, by mendicancy, but princ.i.p.ally, perhaps, by the a.s.sumption of that unlawful power which commerce with spirits of evil was supposed to procure, and of which their s.e.x, life, appearance, and peculiarities might seem to the prejudiced neighbourhood in the Forest to render them not unsuitable depositaries.[132]

[For the details of the witchcraft alleged to be practised by these old crones and their families, with their trials and fate, see an article (page 185 _supra_) in the present volume, ent.i.tled "The Lancashire Witches of 1612."]

PENDLE HILL AND ITS WITCHES.

(From Rev. Richard James's _Iter Lancastrense_.)

"Penigent, Pendle Hill, and Ingleborough, Three such hills be not in all England thorough."[133]

I long to climb up Pendle[134]: Pendle stands Round cop, surveying all the wild moor lands, And Malkin's Tower,[135] a little cottage, where Report makes caitiff witches meet, to swear Their homage to the devil, and contrive The deaths of men and beasts. Let who will dive Into this baneful search, I wonder much If judges' sentence with belief on such Doth pa.s.s: then sure, they would not for lewd gain Bad clients favour, or put good to pain Of long pursuit; for terror of the fiend Or love of G.o.d, they would give causes end With equal justice. Yet I do confess Needs must strange fancies poor old wives possess, Who in those desert, misty moors do live, Hungry and cold, and scarce see priest to give Them ghostly counsel. Churches far do stand In laymen's hands, and chapels have no land To cherish learned curates,[136] though Sir John Do preach for four pounds unto Haslingden.

Such yearly rent, with right of begging corn, Makes John a sharer in my Lady's horn: He drinks and prays, and forty years this life Leading at home, keeps children and a wife.[137]

These are the wonders of our careless days: Small store serves him who for the people prays.

WITCHCRAFT ABOUT 1654.

Dr. Webster, in his _Display of Witchcraft_, dated February 23, 1673, mentions two cases somewhat vaguely, in the following terms:--"I myself have known two supposed witches to be put to death at Lancaster, within these eighteen years [_i.e._, between 1654 and 1673] that did utterly deny any league or covenant with the devil, or even to have seen any visible devil at all; and may not the confessions of those (who both died penitent) be as well credited as the confessions of those that were brought to such confessions by force, fraud, or cunning persuasion and allurement?"

A LIVERPOOL WITCH IN 1667.

In the MS. _Rental of Sir Edward More_ (p. 62), dated in the year 1667, it is gravely recorded that one of his tenants residing in Castle-street, Liverpool, was a witch, descended from a witch, and inheriting the faculty of witchcraft in common with her maiden sister:--"Widow Bridge, a poor old woman, her own sister Margaret Ley, being arraigned for a witch, confessed she was one, and when she was asked how long she had so been, replied, since the death of her mother, who died thirty years agone, and at her decease she had nothing to leave her and this widow Bridge, that were sisters, but her two spirits, and named then the elder spirit to this widow, and the other spirit to her, the said Margaret Ley. G.o.d bless me and all mine from such legacies.

Amen."[138]

THE WITCH OF SINGLETON.

The village of Singleton [in the Fylde] is remarkable only for having been the residence of "Mag Shelton," a famous witch in her day. Her food, we are told, was _haggis_ (at that time commonly used in the district) made of boiled groats, mixed with thyme or parsley. Many are the wild tales related of her dealings in the black art. The cows of her neighbours were constantly milked by her; the pitcher in which she conveyed the stolen milk away, walking before her in the shape of a goose. Under this disguise her depredations were carried on till a neighbour, suspecting the trick, struck the seeming goose, and lo!

immediately it was changed into a broken pitcher, and the vaccine liquor flowed. Once only was this witch foiled by a powerful spell, the contrivance of a maiden, who, having seated her in a chair, before a large fire, and stuck a bodkin, crossed with two weaver's healds, about her person, thus fixed her irremovably to her seat.[139]