Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Chapter 10a



      Chapter 10 - The Witch Mania

What wrath of gods, or wicked influence
    Of tears, conspiring wretched men t' afflict,
Hath pour'd on earth this noyous pestilence,
    That mortal minds doth inwardly infect
With love of blindness and of ignorance?

Spencer's Tears of the Muses.
Countrymen: Hang her! beat her! kill her!
Justice: How now? Forbear this violence!
Mother Sawyer: A crew of villains a knot of bloody hangmen!
    set to torment me! I know not why.
Justice: Alas! neighbour Banks, are you a ringleader in mischief?
    Fie abuse an aged woman!
Banks: Woman! a she hell-cat, a witch! To prove her one, we no
    sooner set fire on the thatch of her house, but in she came
    running, as if the Devil had sent her in a barrel of
    gunpowder.


Ford's Witch of Edmonton.

The belief that disembodied spirits may be permitted to revisit
this world, has its foundation upon that sublime hope of
immortality, which is at once the chief solace and greatest
triumph of our reason. Even if revelation did not teach us, we
feel that we have that within us which shall never die; and all
our experience of this life but makes us cling the more fondly to
that one repaying hope. But in the early days of "little
knowledge," this grand belief became the source of a whole train
of superstitions, which, in their turn, became the fount from
whence flowed a deluge of blood and horror. Europe, for a period
of two centuries and a half, brooded upon the idea, not only that
parted spirits walked the earth to meddle in the affairs of men,
but that men had power to summon evil spirits to their aid to work
woe upon their fellows. An epidemic terror seized upon the
nations; no man thought himself secure, either in his person or
possessions, from the machinations of the devil and his agents.
Every calamity that befell him, he attributed to a witch. If a
storm arose and blew down his barn, it was witchcraft; if his
cattle died of a murrain-if disease fastened upon his limbs, or
death entered suddenly, and snatched a beloved face from his
hearth—they were not visitations of Providence, but the works of
some neighbouring hag, whose wretchedness or insanity caused the
ignorant to raise their finger, and point at her as a witch. The
word was upon everybody's tongue—France, ItaLy, Germany, England,
Scotland, and the far North, successively ran mad upon this
subject, and for a long series of years, furnished their tribunals
with so many trials for witchcraft that other crimes were seldom
or never spoken of. Thousands upon thousands of unhappy persons
fell victims to this cruel and absurd delusion. In many cities of
Germany, as will be shown more fully in its due place hereafter,
the average number of executions for this pretended crime, was six
hundred annually, or two every day, if we leave out the Sundays,
when, it is to be supposed, that even this madness refrained from
its work.

A misunderstanding of the famous text of the Mosaic law, "Thou
shalt not suffer a witch to live," no doubt led many conscientious
men astray, whose superstition, warm enough before, wanted but a
little corroboration to blaze out with desolating fury. In all
ages of the world men have tried to hold converse with superior
beings; and to pierce, by their means, the secrets of futurity. In
the time of Moses, it is evident that there were impostors, who
trafficked upon the credulity of mankind, and insulted the supreme
majesty of the true God by pretending to the power of divination.
Hence the law which Moses, by Divine command, promulgated against
these criminals; but it did not follow, as the superstitious
monomaniacs of the middle ages imagined, that the Bible
established the existence of the power of divination by its edicts
against those who pretended to it. From the best authorities, it
appears that the Hebrew word, which has been rendered, venefica,
and witch, means a poisoner and divineress—a dabbler in spells, or
fortune-teller. The modern witch was a very different character,
and joined to her pretended power of foretelling future events
that of working evil upon the life, limbs, and possessions of
mankind. This power was only to be acquired by an express compact,
signed in blood, with the devil himself, by which the wizard or
witch renounced baptism, and sold his or her immortal soul to the
evil one, without any saving clause of redemption.

There are so many wondrous appearances in nature, for which
science and philosophy cannot, even now, account, that it is not
surprising that, when natural laws were still less understood, men
should have attributed to supernatural agency every appearance
which they could not otherwise explain. The merest tyro now
understands various phenomena which the wisest of old could not
fathom. The schoolboy knows why, upon high mountains, there
should, on certain occasions, appear three or four suns in the
firmament at once; and why the figure of a traveller upon one
eminence should be reproduced, inverted, and of a gigantic
stature, upon another. We all know the strange pranks which
imagination can play in certain diseases—that the hypochondriac
can see visions and spectres, and that there have been cases in
which men were perfectly persuaded that they were teapots. Science
has lifted up the veil, and rolled away all the fantastic horrors
in which our forefathers shrouded these and similar cases. The man
who now imagines himself a wolf, is sent to the hospital, instead
of to the stake, as in the days of the witch mania; and earth,
air, and sea are unpeopled of the grotesque spirits that were once
believed to haunt them.

Before entering further into the history of Witchcraft, it may be
as well if we consider the absurd impersonation of the evil
principle formed by the monks in their legends. We must make
acquaintance with the primum mobile, and understand what sort of a
personage it was, who gave the witches, in exchange for their
souls, the power to torment their fellow-creatures. The popular
notion of the devil was, that he was a large, ill-formed, hairy
sprite, with horns, a long tail, cloven feet, and dragon's wings.
In this shape he was constantly brought on the stage by the monks
in their early "miracles" and "mysteries." In these
representations he was an important personage, and answered the
purpose of the clown in the modern pantomime. The great fun for
the people was to see him well belaboured by the saints with clubs
or cudgels, and to hear him howl with pain as he limped off,
maimed by the blow of some vigorous anchorite. St. Dunstan
generally served him the glorious trick for which he is
renowned—catching hold of his nose with a pair of red-hot pincers,
till
"Rocks and distant dells resounded with his cries."

Some of the saints spat in his face, to his very great annoyance;
and others chopped pieces off his tail, which, however, always
grew on again. This was paying him in his own coin, and amused the
populace mightily; for they all remembered the scurvy tricks he
had played them and their forefathers. It was believed that he
endeavoured to trip people up, by laying his long invisible tail
in their way, and giving it a sudden whisk when their legs were
over it;—that he used to get drunk, and swear like a trooper, and
be so mischievous in his cups as to raise tempests and
earthquakes, to destroy the fruits of the earth and the barns and
homesteads of true believers;—that he used to run invisible spits
into people by way of amusing himself in the long winter evenings,
and to proceed to taverns and regale himself with the best,
offering in payment pieces of gold which, on the dawn of the
following morning, invariably turned into slates. Sometimes,
disguised as a large drake, he used to lurk among the bulrushes,
and frighten the weary traveller out of his wits by his awful
quack. The reader will remember the lines of Burns in his address
to the "De'il," which so well express the popular notion on this
point—

"Ae dreary, windy, winter night,
The stars shot down wi' sklentin light,
Wi' you, mysel, I got a fright

Ayont the lough;
Ye, like a rash-bush, stood in sight

Wi' waving sough.
The cudgel in my nieve did shake,
Each bristled hair stood like a stake,
When wi' an eldritch stour, ‘quaick! quaick!'

Among the springs
Awa ye squatter'd, like a drake,

On whistling wings."


In all the stories circulated and believed about him, he was
represented as an ugly, petty, mischievous spirit, who rejoiced in
playing off all manner of fantastic tricks upon poor humanity.
Milton seems to have been the first who succeeded in giving any
but a ludicrous description of him. The sublime pride which is the
quintessence of evil, was unconceived before his time. All other
limners made him merely grotesque, but Milton made him awful. In
this the monks showed themselves but miserable romancers; for
their object undoubtedly was to represent the fiend as terrible as
possible: but there was nothing grand about their Satan; on the
contrary, he was a low mean devil, whom it was easy to circumvent
and fine fun to play tricks with. But, as is well and eloquently
remarked by a modern writer,87* the subject has also its serious
side. An Indian deity, with its wild distorted shape and grotesque
attitude, appears merely ridiculous when separated from its
accessories and viewed by daylight in a museum; but restore it to
the darkness of its own hideous temple, bring back to our
recollection the victims that have bled upon its altar, or been
crushed beneath its ear, and our sense of the ridiculous subsides
into aversion and horror. So, while the superstitious dreams of
former times are regarded as mere speculative insanities, we may
be for a moment amused with the wild incoherences of the patients;
but, when we reflect, that out of these hideous misconceptions of
the principle of evil arose the belief in witchcraft˜that this was
no dead faith, but one operating on the whole being of society,
urging on the wisest and the mildest to deeds of murder, or
cruelties scarcely less than murder˜that the learned and the
beautiful, young and old, male and female, were devoted by its
influence to the stake and the scaffold˜every feeling disappears,
except that of astonishment that such things could be, and
humiliation at the thought that the delusion was as lasting as it
was universal.

Besides this chief personage, there was an infinite number of
inferior demons, who played conspicuous parts in the creed of
witchcraft. The pages of Bekker, Leloyer, Bodin, Delrio, and De
Lancre abound with descriptions of the qualities of these imps and
the functions which were assigned them. From these authors, three
of whom were commissioners for the trial of witches, and who wrote
from the confessions made by the supposed criminals and the
evidence delivered against them, and from the more recent work of
M. Jules Garinet, the following summary of the creed has been,
with great pains, extracted. The student who is desirous of
knowing more, is referred to the works in question; he will find
enough in every leaf to make his blood curdle with shame and
horror: but the purity of these pages shall not be soiled by
anything so ineffably humiliating and disgusting as a complete
exposition of them; what is here culled will be a sufficient
sample of the popular belief, and the reader would but lose time
who should seek in the writings of the Demonologists for more
ample details. He will gain nothing by lifting the veil which
covers their unutterable obscenities, unless, like Sterne, he
wishes to gather fresh evidence of "what a beast man is." In that
case, he will find plenty there to convince him that the beast
would be libelled by the comparison.

It was thought that the earth swarmed with millions of demons of
both sexes, many of whom, like the human race, traced their
lineage up to Adam, who, after the fall, was led astray by devils,
assuming the forms of beautiful women to deceive him. These demons
"increased and multiplied," among themselves, with the most
extraordinary rapidity. Their bodies were of the thin air, and
they could pass though the hardest substances with the greatest
ease. They had no fixed residence or abiding place, but were
tossed to and fro in the immensity of space. When thrown together
in great multitudes, they excited whirlwinds in the air and
tempests in the waters, and took delight in destroying the beauty
of nature and the monuments of the industry of man. Although they
increased among themselves like ordinary creatures, their numbers
were daily augmented by the souls of wicked men—of children
still-born—of women who died in childbed, and of persons killed in
duels. The whole air was supposed to be full of them, and many
unfortunate men and women drew them by thousands into their mouths
and nostrils at every inspiration; and the demons, lodging in
their bowels or other parts of their bodies, tormented them with
pains and diseases of every kind, and sent them frightful dreams.
St. Gregory of Nice relates a story of a nun who forgot to say her
benedicite, and make the sign of the cross, before she sat down to
supper, and who, in consequence, swallowed a demon concealed among
the leaves of a lettuce. Most persons said the number of these
demons was so great that they could not be counted, but Wierus
asserted that they amounted to no more than seven millions, four
hundred and five thousand, nine hundred, and twenty-six; and that
they were divided into seventy-two companies or battalions, to
each of which there was a prince or captain. They could assume any
shape they pleased. When they were male, they were called incubi;
and when female, succubi. They sometimes made themselves hideous;
and at other times, they assumed shapes of such transcendant
loveliness, that mortal eyes never saw beauty to compete with
theirs.

Although the devil and his legions could appear to mankind at any
time, it was generally understood that he preferred the night
between Friday and Saturday. If Satan himself appeared in human
shape, he was never perfectly, and in all respects, like a man. He
was either too black or too white—too large or too small, or some
of his limbs were out of proportion to the rest of his body. Most
commonly his feet were deformed; and he was obliged to curl up and
conceal his tall in some part of his habiliments; for, take what
shape he would, he could not get rid of that encumbrance. He
sometimes changed himself into a tree or a river; and upon one
occasion he transformed himself into a barrister, as we learn from
Wierus, book iv, chapter ix. In the reign of Philippe le Bel, he
appeared to a monk in the shape of a dark man, riding a tall black
horse—then as a friar—afterwards as an ass, and finally as a
coach-wheel. Instances are not rare in which both he and his
inferior demons have taken the form of handsome young men; and,
successfully concealing their tails, have married beautiful young
women, who have had children by them. Such children were easily
recognizable by their continual shrieking—by their requiring five
nurses to suckle them, and by their never growing fat.

All these demons were at the command of any individual, who would
give up his immortal soul to the prince of evil for the privilege
of enjoying their services for a stated period. The wizard or
witch could send them to execute the most difficult missions:
whatever the witch commanded was performed, except it was a good
action, in which case the order was disobeyed, and evil worked
upon herself instead.

At intervals, according to the pleasure of Satan, there was a
general meeting of the demons and all the witches. This meeting
was called the Sabbath, from its taking place on the Saturday or
immediately after midnight on Fridays. These Sabbaths were
sometimes held for one district, sometimes for another, and once
at least, every year, it was held on the Brocken, or among other
high mountains, as a general sabbath of the fiends for the whole
of Christendom.

The devil generally chose a place where four roads met, as the
scene of this assembly, or if that was not convenient, the
neighbourhood of a lake. Upon this spot nothing would ever
afterwards grow, as the hot feet of the demons and witches burnt
the principle of fecundity from the earth, and rendered it barren
for ever. When orders had been once issued for the meeting of the
Sabbath, all the wizards and witches who failed to attend it were
lashed by demons with a rod made of serpents or scorpions, as a
punishment for their inattention or want of punctuality.

In France and England, the witches were supposed to ride uniformly
upon broomsticks; but in Italy and Spain, the devil himself, in
the shape of a goat, used to transport them on his back, which
lengthened or shortened according to the number of witches he was
desirous of accommodating. No witch, when proceeding to the
Sabbath, could get out by a door or window, were she to try ever
so much. Their general mode of ingress was by the keyhole, and of
egress, by the chimney, up which they flew, broom and all, with
the greatest ease. To prevent the absence of the witches from
being noticed by their neighbours, some inferior demon was
commanded to assume their shapes and lie in their beds, feigning
illness, until the Sabbath was over.

When all the wizards and witches had arrived at the place of
rendezvous, the infernal ceremonies of the Sabbath began. Satan,
having assumed his favourite shape of a large he-goat, with a face
in front and another in his haunches, took his seat upon a throne;
and all present, in succession, paid their respects to him, and
kissed him in his face behind. This done, he appointed a master of
the ceremonies, in company with whom he made a personal
examination of all the wizards and witches, to see whether they
had the secret mark about them by which they were stamped as the
devil's own. This mark was always insensible to pain. Those who
had not yet been marked, received the mark from the master of the
ceremonies; the devil at the same time bestowing nicknames upon
them. This done, they all began to sing and. dance in the most
furious manner, until some one arrived who was anxious to be
admitted into their society. They were then silent for a while,
until the new-comer had denied his salvation, kissed the devil,
spat upon the Bible, and sworn obedience to him in all things.
They then began dancing again with all their might, and singing
these words,

"Alegremos, Alegremos!
  Que gente va tenemos!"

In the course of an hour or two, they generally became wearied of
this violent exercise, and then they all sat down and recounted
the evil deeds they had done since their last meeting. Those who
had not been malicious and mischievous enough towards their
fellow-creatures, received personal chastisement from Satan
himself, who flogged them with thorns or scorpions till they were
covered with blood, and unable to sit or stand.

When this ceremony was concluded, they were all amused by a dance
of toads. Thousands of these creatures sprang out of the earth;
and standing on their hind-legs, danced, while the devil played
the bagpipes or the trumpet. These toads were all endowed with the
faculty of speech, and entreated the witches to reward them with
the flesh of unbaptized babes for their exertions to give them
pleasure. The witches promised compliance. The devil bade them
remember to keep their word; and then stamping his foot, caused
all the toads to sink into the earth in an instant. The place
being thus cleared, preparation was made for the banquet, where
all manner of disgusting things were served up and greedily
devoured by the demons and witches; although the latter were
sometimes regaled with choice meats and expensive wines from
golden plates and crystal goblets; but they were never thus
favoured unless they had done an extraordinary number of evil
deeds since the last period of meeting.

After the feast, they began dancing again; but such as had no
relish for any more exercise in that way, amused themselves by
mocking the holy sacrament of baptism. For this purpose, the toads
were again called up, and sprinkled with filthy water; the devil
making the sign of the cross, and all the witches calling out, "In
nomine Patrica, Aragueaco Petrica, agora! agora! Valentia, jouando
goure gaits goustia!" which meant, "In the name of Patrick,
Petrick of Aragon,—now, now, all our ills are over!"

When the devil wished to be particularly amused, he made the
witches strip off their clothes and dance before him, each with a
cat tied round her neck, and another dangling from her body in
form of a tail. When the cock crew, they all disappeared, and the
Sabbath was ended.

This is a summary of the belief which prevailed for many centuries
nearly all over Europe, and which is far from eradicated even at
this day. It was varied in some respects in several countries, but
the main points were the same in France, Germany, Great Britain,
Italy, Spain, and the far North of Europe.

The early annals of France abound with stories of supposed
sorcery, but it was not until the time of Charlemagne that the
crime acquired any great importance. "This monarch," says M. Jules
Garinet, 88* "had several times given orders that all
necromancers, astrologers, and witches should be driven from his
states; but as the number of criminals augmented daily, he found
it necessary at last to resort to severer measures. In
consequence, he published several edicts, which may be found at
length in the Capitulaire de Baluse. By these, every sort of
magic, enchantment, and witchcraft was forbidden; and the
punishment of death decreed against those who in any way evoked
the devil˜compounded love-philters˜afflicted either man or woman
with barrenness˜troubled the atmosphere˜excited tempests˜destroyed
the fruits of the earth˜dried up the milk of cows, or tormented
their fellow-creatures with sores and diseases. All persons found
guilty of exercising these execrable arts, were to be executed
immediately upon conviction, that the earth might be rid of the
burthen and curse of their presence; and those even who consulted
them might also be punished with death."89*

After this time, prosecutions for witchcraft are continually
mentioned, especially by the French historians. It was a crime
imputed with so much ease, and repelled with so much difficulty,
that the powerful, whenever they wanted to ruin the weak, and
could fix no other imputation upon them, had only to accuse them
of witchcraft to ensure their destruction. Instances, in which
this crime was made the pretext for the most violent persecution,
both of individuals and of communities, whose real offences were
purely political or religious, must be familiar to every reader.
The extermination of the Stedinger, in 1244; of the Templars, from
1317 to 1323; the execution of Joan of Arc, in 1439; and the
unhappy scenes of Arras, in 1469; are the most prominent. The
first of these is perhaps the least known, but is not among the
least remarkable. The following account, from Dr. Kortum's
interesting history90* of the republican confederacies of the
Middle Ages, will show the horrible convenience of imputations of
witchcraft, when royal or priestly wolves wanted a pretext for a
quarrel with the sheep.

The Frieslanders, inhabiting the district from the Weser to the
Zuydersee, had long been celebrated for their attachment to
freedom, and their successful struggles in its defence. As early
as the eleventh century, they had formed a general confederacy
against the encroachments of the Normans and the Saxons, which was
divided into seven seelands, holding annually a diet under a large
oaktree at Aurich, near the Upstalboom. Here they managed their
own affairs, without the control of the clergy and ambitious
nobles who surrounded them, to the great scandal of the latter.
They already had true notions of a representative government. The
deputies of the people levied the necessary taxes, deliberated on
the affairs of the community, and performed, in their simple and
patriarchal manner; nearly all the functions of the representative
assemblies of the present day. Finally, the Archbishop of Bremen,
together with the Count of Oldenburg and other neighbouring
potentates, formed a league against that section of the
Frieslanders, known by the name of the Stedinger, and succeeded,
after harassing them, and sowing dissensions among them for many
years, in bringing them under the yoke. But the Stedinger,
devotedly attached to their ancient laws, by which they had
attained a degree of civil and religious liberty very uncommon in
that age, did not submit without a violent struggle. They arose in
insurrection, in the year 1204, in defence of the ancient customs
of their country—refused to pay taxes to the feudal chiefs, or
tithes to the clergy, who had forced themselves into their
peaceful retreats, and drove out many of their oppressors. For a
period of eight-and-twenty years the brave Stedinger continued the
struggle single-handed against the forces of the Archbishops of
Bremen and the Counts of Oldenburg, and destroyed, in the year
1232, the strong castle of Slutterberg, near Delmenhorst, built by
the latter nobleman as a position from which he could send out his
marauders to plunder and destroy the possessions of the peasantry.

The invincible courage of these poor people proving too strong for
their oppressors to cope with by the ordinary means of warfare,
the Archbishop of Bremen applied to Pope Gregory IX. for his
spiritual aid against them. That prelate entered cordially into
the cause, and launching forth his anathema against the Stedinger
as heretics and witches, encouraged all true believers to assist
in their extermination. A large body of thieves and fanatics broke
into their country in the year 1233, killing and burning wherever
they went, and not sparing either women or children, the sick or
the aged, in their rage. The Stedinger, however, rallied in great
force, routed their invaders, and killed in battle their leader,
Count Burckhardt of Oldenburg, with many inferior chieftains.

Again the pope was applied to, and a crusade against the Stedinger
was preached in all that part of Germany. The pope wrote to all
the bishops and leaders of the faithful an exhortation to arm, to
root out from the land those abominable witches and wizards. "The
Stedinger," said his Holiness, "seduced by the devil, have abjured
all the laws of God and man; slandered the Church—insulted the
holy sacraments—consulted witches to raise evil spirits—shed blood
like water—taken the lives of priests, and concocted an infernal
scheme to propagate the worship of the devil, whom they adore
under the name of Asmodi. The devil appears to them in different
shapes; sometimes as a goose or a duck, and at others in the
figure of a pale, black-eyed youth, with a melancholy aspect,
whose embrace fills their hearts with eternal hatred against the
holy church of Christ. This devil presides at their Sabbaths, when
they all kiss him and dance around him. He then envelopes them in
total darkness, and they all, male and female, give themselves up
to the grossest and most disgusting debauchery."

In consequence of these letters of the pope, the Emperor of
Germany, Frederic II, also pronounced his ban against them. The
Bishops of Ratzebourg, Lubeck, Osnabruek, Munster, and Minden took
up arms to exterminate them, aided by the Duke of Brabant, the
Counts of Holland, of Cloves, of the Mark, of Oldenburg, of
Egmond, of Diest, and many other powerful nobles. An army of forty
thousand men was soon collected, which marched, under the command
of the Duke of Brabant, into the country of the Stedinger. The
latter mustered vigorously in defence of their lives and
liberties, but could raise no greater force, including every man
capable of bearing arms, than eleven thousand men to cope against
the overwhelming numbers of their foe. They fought with the energy
of despair, but all in vain. Eight thousand of them were slain on
the field of battle; the whole race was exterminated; and the
enraged conquerors scoured the country in all directions—slew the
women and children and old men—drove away the cattle—fired the
woods and cottages, and made a total waste of the land.

Just as absurd and effectual was the charge brought against the
Templars in 1307, when they had rendered themselves obnoxious to
the potentates and prelacy of Christendom. Their wealth, their
power, their pride, and their insolence had raised up enemies on
every side; and every sort of accusation was made against them,
but failed to work their overthrow, until the terrible cry of
witchcraft was let loose upon them. This effected its object, and
the Templars were extirpated. They were accused of having sold
their souls to the devil, and of celebrating all the infernal
mysteries of the witches' Sabbath. It was pretended that, when
they admitted a novice into their order, they forced him to
renounce his salvation and curse Jesus Christ; that they then made
him submit to many unholy and disgusting ceremonies, and forced
him to kiss the Superior on the cheek, the navel, and the breech;
and spit three times upon a crucifix. That all the members were
forbidden to have connexion with women, but might give themselves
up without restraint to every species of unmentionable debauchery.
That when, by any mischance, a Templar infringed this order, and a
child was born, the whole order met, and tossed it about like a
shuttlecock from one to the other until it expired; that they then
roasted it by a slow fire, and with the fat which trickled from it
anointed the hair and beard of a large image of the devil. It was
also said that, when one of the knights died, his body was burnt
into a powder, and then mixed with wine and drunk by every member
of the order. Philip IV, who, to exercise his own implacable
hatred, invented, in all probability, the greater part of these
charges, issued orders for the immediate arrest of all the
Templars in his dominions. The pope afterwards took up the cause
with almost as much fervour as the King of France; and in every
part of Europe, the Templars were thrown into prison and their
goods and estates confiscated. Hundreds of them, when put to the
rack, confessed even the most preposterous of the charges against
them, and by so doing, increased the popular clamour and the hopes
of their enemies. It is true that, when removed from the rack,
they denied all they had previously confessed; but this
circumstance only increased the outcry, and was numbered as an
additional crime against them. They were considered in a worse
light than before, and condemned forthwith to the flames, as
relapsed heretics. Fifty-nine of these unfortunate victims were
all burned together by a slow fire in a field in the suburbs of
Paris, protesting to the very last moment of their lives, their
innocence of the crimes imputed to them, and refusing to accept of
pardon upon condition of acknowledging themselves guilty. Similar
scenes were enacted in the provinces; and for four years, hardly a
month passed without witnessing the execution of one or more of
these unhappy men. Finally, in 1313, the last scene of this
tragedy closed by the burning of the Grand-Master, Jacques de
Molay, and his companion, Guy, the Commander of Normandy. Anything
more atrocious it is impossible to conceive; disgraceful alike to
the monarch who originated, the pope who supported, and the age
which tolerated the monstrous iniquity. That the malice of a few
could invent such a charge, is a humiliating thought for the lover
of his species; but that millions of mankind should credit it, is
still more so.

The execution of Joan of Arc is the next most notorious example
which history affords us, of the imputation of witchcraft against
a political enemy. Instances of similar persecution, in which this
crime was made the pretext for the gratification of political or
religious hatred, might be multiplied to a great extent. But it is
better to proceed at once to the consideration of the bull of Pope
Innocent, the torch that set fire to the longlaid train, and
caused so fearful an explosion over the Christian world. It will
be necessary, however, to go back for some years anterior to that
event, the better to understand the motives that influenced the
Church in the promulgation of that fearful document.

Towards the close of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth
century, many witches were burned in different parts of Europe. As
a natural consequence of the severe persecution, the crime, or the
pretenders to it, increased. Those who found themselves accused
and threatened with the penalties, if they happened to be persons
of a bad and malicious disposition, wished they had the power
imputed to them, that they might be revenged upon their
persecutors. Numerous instances are upon record of half-crazed
persons being found muttering the spells which were supposed to
raise the evil one. When religion and law alike recognized the
crime, it is no wonder that the weak in reason and the strong in
imagination, especially when they were of a nervous temperament,
fancied themselves endued with the terrible powers of which all
the world was speaking. The belief of their neighbours did not lag
behind their own, and execution was the speedy consequence.

As the fear of witchcraft increased, the Catholic clergy strove to
fix the imputation of it upon those religious sects, the pioneers
of the Reformation, who began about this time to be formidable to
the Church of Rome. If a charge of heresy could not ensure their
destruction, that of sorcery and witchcraft never failed. In the
year 1459, a devoted congregation of the Waldenses, at Arras, who
used to repair at night to worship God in their own manner in
solitary places, fell victims to an accusation of sorcery. It was
rumored in Arras that in the desert places to which they retired,
the devil appeared before them in human form, and read from a
large book his laws and ordinances, to which they all promised
obedience; that he then distributed money and food among them, to
bind them to his service, which done, they gave themselves up to
every species of lewdness and debauchery. Upon these rumours,
several creditable persons in Arras were seized and imprisoned,
together with a number of decrepit and idiotic old women. The
rack, that convenient instrument for making the accused confess
anything, was of course put in requisition. Monstrelet, in his
Chronicle, says that they were tortured until some of them
admitted the truth of the whole accusations, and said besides,
that they had seen and recognized, in their nocturnal assemblies,
many persons of rank; many prelates, seigneurs, governors of
bailliages, and mayors of cities, being such names as the
examiners had themselves suggested to the victims. Several who had
been thus informed against, were thrown into prison, and so
horribly tortured, that reason fled, and, in their ravings of
pain, they also confessed their midnight meetings with the devil,
and the oaths they had taken to serve him. Upon these confessions
judgment was pronounced: the poor old women, as usual in such
cases, were hanged and burned in the market-place; the more
wealthy delinquents were allowed to escape, upon payment of large
sums. It was soon after universally recognized that these trials
had been conducted in the most odious manner, and that the judges
had motives of private vengeance against many of the more
influential persons who had been implicated. The Parliament of
Paris afterwards declared the sentence illegal, and the judges
iniquitous; but its arrêt was too late to be of service even to
those who had paid the fine, or to punish the authorities who had
misconducted themselves; for it was not delivered until thirty-two
years after the executions had taken place.

In the mean time, accusations of witchcraft spread rapidly in
France, Italy, and Germany. Strange to say, that although in the
first instance chiefly directed against heretics, the latter were
as firm believers in the crime as even the Catholics themselves.
In after times we also find that the Lutherans and Calvinists
became greater witchburners than ever the Romanists had been: so
deeply was the prejudice rooted. Every other point of belief was
in dispute, but that was considered by every sect to be as well
established as the authenticity of the Scriptures, or the
existence of a God.

But at this early period of the epidemic the persecutions were
directed by the heads of the Catholic Church. The spread of heresy
betokened, it was thought, the coming of Antichrist. Florimond, in
his work concerning the Antichrist, lets us fully into the secret
of these prosecutions. He says, "All who have afforded us some
signs of the approach of Antichrist agree that the increase of
sorcery and witchcraft is to distinguish the melancholy period of
his advent; and was ever age so afflicted as ours? The seats
destined for criminals in our courts of justice are blackened with
persons accused of this guilt. There are not judges enough to try
them. Our dungeons are gorged with them. No day passes that we do
not render our tribunals bloody by the dooms which we pronounce,
or in which we do not return to our homes, discountenanted and
terrified at the horrible confessions which we have heard. And the
devil is accounted so good a master, that we cannot commit so
great a number of his slaves to the flames, but what there shall
arise from their ashes a sufficient number to supply their place."

Florimond here spoke the general opinion of the Church of Rome;
but it never suggested itself to the mind of any person engaged in
these trials, that if it were indeed a devil, who raised up so
many new witches to fill the places of those consumed, it was no
other than one in their own employ—the devil of persecution. But
so it was. The more they burned, the more they found to burn;
until it became a common prayer with women in the humbler walks of
life, that they might never live to grow old. It was sufficient to
be aged, poor, and ill-tempered, to ensure death at the stake or
the scaffold.

In the year 1487 there was a severe storm in Switzerland, which
laid waste the country for four miles around Constance. Two
wretched old women, whom the popular voice had long accused of
witchcraft, were arrested on the preposterous charge of having
raised the tempest. The rack was displayed, and the two poor
creatures extended upon it. In reply to various leading questions
from their tormentors, they owned, in their agony, that they were
in the constant habit of meeting the devil, that they had sold
their souls to him, and that at their command he had raised the
tempest. Upon this insane and blasphemous charge they were
condemned to die. In the criminal registers of Constance there
stands against the name of each the simple but significant phrase,
"convicta et combusta."

This case and hundreds of others were duly reported to the
ecclesiastical powers. There happened at that time to be a Pontiff
at the head of the Church who had given much of his attention to
the subject of witchcraft, and who, with the intent of rooting out
the crime, did more to increase it than any other man that ever
lived. John Baptist Cibo, elected to the Papacy in 1485, under the
designation of Innocent VIII, was sincerely alarmed at the number
of witches, and launched forth his terrible manifesto against
them. In his celebrated bull of 1488, he called the nations of
Europe to the rescue of the church of Christ upon earth,
emperilled by the arts of Satan, and set forth the horrors that
had reached his ears; how that numbers of both sexes had
intercourse with the infernal fiends; how by their sorceries they
afflicted both man and beast; how they blighted the marriage bed,
destroyed the births of women and the increase of cattle; and how
they blasted the corn on the ground, the grapes of the vineyard,
the fruits of the trees, and the herbs of the field. In order that
criminals so atrocious might no longer pollute the earth, he
appointed inquisitors in every country, armed with the apostolic
power to convict and punish.

It was now that the Witch Mania, properly so called, may be said
to have fairly commenced. Immediately a class of men sprang up in
Europe, who made it the sole business of their lives to discover
and burn the witches. Sprenger, in Germany, was the most
celebrated of these national scourges. In his notorious work, the
Malleus Maleficarum, he laid down a regular form of trial, and
appointed a course of examination by which the inquisitors in
other countries might best discover the guilty. The questions,
which were always enforced by torture, were of the most absurd and
disgusting nature. The inquisitors were required to ask the
suspected whether they had midnight meetings with the devil?
whether they attended the witch's sabbath on the Brocken? whether
they had their familiar spirits? whether they could raise
whirlwinds and call down the lightning? and whether they had
sexual intercourse with Satan?

Straightway the inquisitors set to work; Cumarius, in Italy,
burned forty-one poor women in one province alone, and Sprenger,
in Germany, burned a number which can never be ascertained
correctly, but which, it is agreed on all hands, amounted to more
than five hundred in a year. The great resemblance between the
confessions of the unhappy victims was regarded as a new proof of
the existence of the crime. But this is not astonishing. The same
questions from the Malleus Maleficarum, were put to them all, and
torture never failed to educe the answer required by the
inquisitor. Numbers of people whose imaginations were filled with
these horrors, went further in the way of confession than even
their tormenters anticipated, in the hope that they would thereby
be saved from the rack, and put out of their misery at once. Some
confessed that they had had children by the devil; but no one, who
had ever been a mother, gave utterance to such a frantic
imagining, even in the extremity of her anguish. The childless
only confessed it, and were burned instanter as unworthy to live.

For fear the zeal of the enemies of Satan should cool, successive
Popes appointed new commissions. One was appointed by Alexander
VI, in 1494; another by Leo X, in 1521, and a third by Adrian VI,
in 1522. They were all armed with the same powers to hunt out and
destroy, and executed their fearful functions but too rigidly. In
Geneva alone five hundred persons were burned in the years 1515
and 1516, under the title of Protestant witches. It would appear
that their chief crime was heresy, and their witchcraft merely an
aggravation. Bartolomeo de Spina has a list still more fearful. He
informs us that, in the year 1524, no less than a thousand persons
suffered death for witchcraft in the district of Como, and that
for several years afterwards the average number of victims
exceeded a hundred annually. One inquisitor, Remigius, took great
credit to himself for having, during fifteen years, convicted and
burned nine hundred.

In France, about the year 1520, fires for the execution of witches
blazed in almost every town. Danæus, in his Dialogues of Witches,
says they were so numerous that it would he next to impossible to
tell the number of them. So deep was the thraldom of the human
mind, that the friends and relatives of the accused parties looked
on and approved. The wife or sister of a murderer might sympathise
in his fate, but the wives and husbands of sorcerers and witches
had no pity. The truth is that pity was dangerous, for it was
thought no one could have compassion on the sufferings of a witch
who was not a dabbler in the art: to have wept for a witch would
have insured the stake. In some districts, however, the
exasperation of the people broke out, in spite of superstition.
The inquisitor of a rural township in Piedmont burned the victims
so plentifully, and so fast, that there was not a family in the
place which did not lose a member. The people at last arose, and
the inquisitor was but too happy to escape from the country with
whole limbs. The Archbishop of the diocese proceeded afterwards to
the trial of such as the inquisitor had left in prison.

Some of the charges were so utterly preposterous that the poor
wretches were at once liberated; others met a harder, but the
usual fate. Some of them were accused of having joined the
witches' dance at midnight under a blasted oak, where they had
been seen by creditable people. The husbands of several of these
women (two of whom were young and beautiful) swore positively that
at the time stated their wives were comfortably asleep in their
arms; but it was all in vain. Their word was taken, but the
Archbishop told them they had been deceived by the devil and their
own senses. It was true they might have had the semblance of their
wives in their beds, but the originals were far away, at the
devil's dance under the oak. The honest fellows were confounded,
and their wives burned forthwith.

In the year 1571, five poor women of Verneuil were accused of
transforming themselves into cats, and in that shape attending the
sabbath of the fiends˜prowling around Satan, who presided over
them in the form of a goat, and dancing, to amuse him, upon his
back. They were found guilty, and burned. 91*

In 1564, three wizards and a witch appeared before the Presidents
Salvert and D'Avanton: they confessed, when extended on the rack,
that they anointed the sheep-pens with infernal unguents to kill
the sheep—that they attended the sabbath, where they saw a great
black goat, which spoke to them, and made them kiss him, each
holding a lighted candle in his hand while he performed the
ceremony. They were all executed at Poitiers.

In 1571, the celebrated sorcerer, Trois Echelles, was burned in
the Place de Grêve, in Paris. He confessed, in the presence of
Charles IX, and of the Marshals de Montmorency, De Retz, and the
Sieur du Mazille, physician to the King, that he could perform the
most wonderful things by the aid of a devil to whom he had sold
himself. He described at great length the saturnalia of the
fiends—the sacrifices which they offered up—the debaucheries they
committed with the young and handsome witches, and the various
modes of preparing the infernal unguent for blighting cattle. He
said he had upwards of twelve hundred accomplices in the crime of
witchcraft in various parts of France, whom he named to the King,
and many of whom were afterwards arrested and suffered execution.

At Dôle, two years afterwards, Gilles Garnier, a native of Lyons,
was indicted for being a loup-garou, or man-wolf, and for prowling
in that shape about the country at night to devour little
children. The indictment against him, as read by Henri Camus,
doctor of laws and counsellor of the King, was to the effect that
he, Gilles Garnier, had seized upon a little girl, twelve years of
age, whom he drew into a vineyard and there killed, partly with
his teeth and partly with his hands, seeming like wolf's paws—that
from thence he trailed her bleeding body along the ground with his
teeth into the wood of La Serre, where he ate the greatest portion
of her at one meal, and carried the remainder home to his wife;
that, upon another occasion, eight days before the festival of All
Saints, he was seen to seize another child in his teeth, and would
have devoured her had she not been rescued by the
country-people—and that the said child died a few days afterwards
of the injuries he had inflicted; that fifteen days after the same
festival of All Saints, being again in the shape of a wolf, he
devoured a boy thirteen years of age, having previously torn off
his leg and thigh with his teeth, and hid them away for his
breakfast on the morrow. He was, furthermore, indicted for giving
way to the same diabolical and unnatural propensities even in his
shape of a man, and that he had strangled a boy in a wood with the
intention of eating him, which crime he would have effected if he
had not been seen by the neighhours and prevented.

Gilles Garnier was put to the rack, after fifty witnesses had
deposed against him: he confessed everything that was laid to his
charge. He was, thereupon, brought back into the presence of his
judges, when Dr. Camus, in the name of the Parliament of Dole,
pronounced the following sentence:—

"Seeing that Gilles Garnier has, by the testimony of credible
witnesses, and by his own spontaneous confession, been proved
guilty of the abominable crimes of lycanthropy and witchcraft,
this court condemns him, the said Gilles, to be this day taken in
a cart from this spot to the place of execution, accompanied by
the executioner (maître executeur de la haute justice), where he,
by the said executioner, shall be tied to a stake and burned
alive, and that his ashes be then scattered to the winds. The
Court further condemns him, the said Gilles, to the costs of this
prosecution."

"Given at Dole, this 18th day of January, 1573."

In 1578, the Parliament of Paris was occupied for several days
with the trial of a man, named Jacques Roller. He, also, was found
guilty of being a loup-garou, and in that shape devouring a little
boy. He was burnt alive in the Place de Grêve.

In 1579, so much alarm was excited in the neighbourhood of Melun
by the increase of witches and loup-garous, that a council was
held to devise some measures to stay the evil. A decree was
passed, that all witches, and consulters with witches, should be
punished with death; and not only those, but fortune-tellers and
conjurors of every kind. The Parliament of Rouen took up the same
question in the following year, and decreed that the possession of
a grimoire, or book of spells, was sufficient evidence of
witchcraft; and that all persons on whom such books were found
should be burned alive. Three councils were held in different
parts of France in the year 1583, all in relation to the same
subject. The Parliament of Bourdeaux issued strict injunctions to
all curates and clergy whatever, to use redoubled efforts to root
out the crime of witchcraft. The Parliament of Tours was equally
peremptory, and feared the judgments of an offended God, if all
these dealers with the devil were not swept from the face of the
land. The Parliament of Rheims was particularly severe against the
noueurs d'aiguillette, or "tyers of the knot;" people of both
sexes, who took pleasure in preventing the consummation of
marriage, that they might counteract the command of God to our
first parents, to increase and multiply. This Parliament held it
to be sinful to wear amulets to preserve from witchcraft; and that
this practice might not be continued within its jurisdiction, drew
up a form of exorcism, which would more effectually defeat the
agents of the devil, and put them to flight.

A case of witchcraft, which created a great sensation in its day,
occurred in 1598, at a village in the mountains of Auvergne, about
two leagues from Apchon. A gentleman of that place being at his
window, there passed a friend of his who had been out hunting, and
who was then returning to his own house. The gentleman asked his
friend what sport he had had; upon which the latter informed him
that he had been attacked in the plain by a large and savage wolf,
which he had shot at, without wounding; and that he had then drawn
out his hunting-knife and cut off the animal's fore-paw, as it
sprang upon his neck to devour him. The huntsman, upon this, put
his hand into his bag to pull out the paw, but was shocked to find
that it was a woman's hand, with a wedding-ring on the finger. The
gentleman immediately recognized his wife's ring, "which," says
the indictment against her, "made him begin to suspect some evil
of her." He immediately went in search of her, and found her
sitting by the fire in the kitchen, with her arm hidden underneath
her apron. He tore off her apron with great vehemence, and found
that she had no hand, and that the stump was even then bleeding.
She was given into custody, and burned at Riom in presence of some
thousands of spectators.92*

In the midst of these executions, rare were the gleams of mercy;
few instances are upon record of any acquittal taking place when
the charge was witchcraft. The discharge of fourteen persons by
the Parliament of Paris, in the year 1589, is almost a solitary
example of a return to reason. Fourteen persons, condemned to
death for witchcraft, appealed against the judgment to the
Parliament of Paris, which for political reasons had been exiled
to Tours. The Parliament named four commissioners, Pierre Pigray,
the King's surgeon, and Messieurs Leroi, Renard, and Falaiseau,
the King's physicians, to visit and examine these witches, and see
whether they had the mark of the devil upon them. Pigray, who
relates the circumstance in his work on Surgery, book vii, chapter
the tenth, says the visit was made in presence of two counsellors
of the court. The witches were all stripped naked, and the
physicians examined their bodies very diligently, pricking them in
all the marks they could find, to see whether they were insensible
to pain, which was always considered a certain proof of guilt.
They were, however, very sensible of the pricking, and some of
them called out very lustily when the pins were driven into them.
"We found them," continues Pierre Pigray, "to be very poor, stupid
people, and some of them insane; many of them were quite
indifferent about life, and one or two of them desired death as a
relief for their sufferings. Our opinion was, that they stood more
in need of medicine than of punishment, and so we reported to the
Parliament. Their case was, thereupon, taken into further
consideration, and the Parliament, after mature counsel amongst
all the members, ordered the poor creatures to be sent to their
homes, without inflicting any punishment upon them."

Such was the dreadful state of Italy, Germany, and France, during
the sixteenth century, which was far from being the worst crisis
of the popular madness with regard to witchcraft. Let us see what
was the state of England during the same period. The Reformation,
which in its progress had rooted out so many errors, stopped short
at this, the greatest error of all. Luther and Calvin were as firm
believers in witchcraft as Pope Innocent himself, and their
followers showed themselves more zealous persecutors than the
Romanists. Dr. Hutchinson, in his work on Witchcraft, asserts that
the mania manifested itself later in England, and raged with less
virulence than on the Continent. The first assertion only is true;
but though the persecution began later both in England and
Scotland, its progress was as fearful as elsewhere.

It was not until more than fifty years after the issuing of the
Bull of Innocent VIII. that the Legislature of England thought fit
to make any more severe enactments against sorcery than those
already in operation. The statute of 1541 was the first that
specified the particular crime of witchcraft. At a much earlier
period, many persons had suffered death for sorcery in addition to
other offences; but no executions took place for attending the
witches' sabbath, raising tempests, afflicting cattle with
barrenness, and all the fantastic trumpery of the Continent. Two
statutes were passed in 1551; the first, relating to false
prophecies, caused mainly, no doubt, by the impositions of
Elizabeth Barton, the Holy Maid of Kent, in 1534, and the second
against conjuration, witchcraft, and sorcery. But even this
enactment did not consider witchcraft as penal in itself, and only
condemned to death those who by means of spells, incantations, or
contracts with the devil, attempted the lives of their neighbours.
The statute of Elizabeth, in 1562, at last recognized witchcraft
as a crime of the highest magnitude, whether exerted or not to the
injury of the lives, limbs, and possessions of the community. From
that date, the persecution may be fairly said to have commenced in
England. It reached its climax in the early part of the
seventeenth century, which was the hottest period of the mania all
over Europe.

A few cases of witch persecution in the sixteenth century will
enable the reader to form a more accurate idea of the progress of
this great error than if he plunged at once into that busy period
of its history when Matthew Hopkins and his coadjutors exercised
their infernal calling. Several instances occur in England during
the latter years of the reign of Elizabeth. At this time the
public mind had become pretty familiar with the details of the
crime. Bishop Jewell, in his sermons before Her Majesty, used
constantly to conclude them by a fervent prayer that she might be
preserved from witches. Upon one occasion, in 1598, his words
were, "It may please your Grace to understand that witches and
sorcerers, within these last four years, are marvellously
increased within this your Grace's realm. Your Grace's subjects
pine away even unto the death; their colour fadeth—their flesh
rotteth—their speech is benumbed—their senses are bereft! I pray
God they may never practise further than upon the subject!"

By degrees, an epidemic terror of witchcraft spread into the
villages. In proportion as the doctrines of the Puritans took root
this dread increased, and, of course, brought persecution in its
train. The Church of England has claimed, and is entitled to the
merit, of having been less influenced in these matters than any
other sect of Christians; but still they were tainted with the
superstition of the age. One of the most flagrant instances of
cruelty and delusion upon record was consummated under the
authority of the Church, and commemorated till a very late period
by an annual lecture at the University of Cambridge.

This is the celebrated case of the Witches of Warbois, who were
executed about thirty-two years after the passing of the statute
of Elizabeth. Although in the interval but few trials are
recorded, there is, unfortunately, but too much evidence to show
the extreme length to which the popular prejudice was carried.
Many women lost their lives in every part of England without being
brought to trial at all, from the injuries received at the hands
of the people. The number of these can never be ascertained.

The case of the Witches of Warbois merits to be detailed at
length, not only from the importance attached to it for so many
years by the learned of the University, but from the singular
absurdity of the evidence upon which men, sensible in all other
respects, could condemn their fellow-creatures to the scaffold.

The principal actors in this strange drama were the families of
Sir Samuel Cromwell and a Mr. Throgmorton, both gentlemen of
landed property near Warbois, in the county of Huntingdon. Mr.
Throgmorton had several daughters, the eldest of whom, Mistress
Joan, was an imaginative and melancholy girl, whose head was
filled with stories of ghosts and witches. Upon one occasion she
chanced to pass the cottage of one Mrs. or, as she was called,
Mother Samuel, a very aged, a very poor, and a very ugly woman.
Mother Samuel was sitting at her door knitting, with a black cap
upon her head, when this silly young lady passed, and taking her
eyes from her work she looked steadfastly at her. Mistress Joan
immediately fancied that she felt sudden pains in all her limbs,
and from that day forth, never ceased to tell her sisters, and
everybody about her, that Mother Samuel had bewitched her. The
other children took up the cry, and actually frightened themselves
into fits whenever they passed within sight of this terrible old
woman.

Mr. and Mrs. Throgmorton, not a whir wiser than their children,
believed all the absurd tales they had been told; and Lady
Cromwell, a gossip of Mrs. Throgmorton, made herself very active
in the business, and determined to bring the witch to the ordeal.
The sapient Sir Samuel joined in the scheme; and the children thus
encouraged gave loose reins to their imaginations, which seem to
have been of the liveliest. They soon invented a whole host of
evil spirits, and names for them besides, which, they said, were
sent by Mother Samuel to torment them continually. Seven spirits
especially, they said, were raised from hell by this wicked woman
to throw them into fits; and as the children were actually subject
to fits, their mother and her commeres gave the more credit to the
story. The names of these spirits were, "First Smack," "Second
Smack," "Third Smack," "Blue," "Catch," "Hardname," and "Pluck."

Throgmorton, the father, was so pestered by these idle fancies,
and yet so well inclined to believe them, that he marched
valiantly forth to the hut where Mother Samuel resided with her
husband and daughter, and dragged her forcibly into his own
grounds. Lady Cromwell, Mrs. Throgmorton, and the girls were in
waiting, armed with long pins to prick the witch, and see if they
could draw blood from her. Lady Cromwell, who seems to have been
the most violent of the party, tore the old woman's cap off her
head, and plucking out a handful of her grey hair, gave it to Mrs.
Throgmorton to burn, as a charm which would preserve them all from
her future machinations. It was no wonder that the poor creature,
subjected to this rough usage, should give vent to an involuntary
curse upon her tormentors. She did so, and her curse was never
forgotten. Her hair, however, was supposed to be a grand specific,
and she was allowed to depart, half dead with terror and ill
usage. For more than a year, the families of Cromwell and
Throgmorton continued to persecute her, and to assert that her
imps afflicted them with pains and fits, turned the milk sour in
their pans, and prevented their cows and ewes from bearing. In the
midst of these fooleries, Lady Cromwell was taken ill and died. It
was then remembered that her death had taken place exactly a year
and a quarter since she was cursed by Mother Samuel, and that on
several occasions she had dreamed of the witch and a black cat,
the latter being of course the arch-enemy of mankind himself.

Sir Samuel Cromwell now conceived himself bound to take more
energetic measures against the sorceress, since he had lost his
wife by her means. The year and a quarter and the black cat were
proofs positive. All the neighbours had taken up the cry of
witchcraft against Mother Samuel; and her personal appearance,
unfortunately for her, the very ideal of what a witch ought to be,
increased the popular suspicion. It would appear that at last the
poor woman believed, even to her own disadvantage, that she was
what everybody represented her to be. Being forcibly brought into
Mr. Throgmorton's house, when his daughter Joan was in one of her
customary fits, she was commanded by him and Sir Samuel Cromwell
to expel the devil from the young lady. She was told to repeat her
exorcism, and to add, "as I am a witch, and the causer of Lady
Cromwell's death, I charge thee, fiend, to come out of her!" She
did as was required of her, and moreover confessed that her
husband and daughter were leagued with her in witchcraft, and had,
like her, sold their souls to the devil. The whole family were
immediately arrested, and sent to Huntingdon to prison.

The trial was instituted shortly afterwards before Mr. Justice
Fenner, when all the crazy girls of Mr. Throgmorton's family gave
evidence against Mother Samuel and her family. They were all three
put to the torture. The old woman confessed in her anguish that
she was a witch—that she had cast her spells upon the young
ladies, and that she had caused the death of Lady Cromwell. The
father and daughter, stronger in mind than their unfortunate wife
and parent, refused to confess anything, and asserted their
innocence to the last. They were all three condemned to be hanged,
and their bodies burned. The daughter, who was young and
good-looking, excited the pity of many persons, and she was
advised to plead pregnancy, that she might gain at ]east a respite
from death. The poor girl refused proudly, on the ground that she
would not be accounted both a witch and a strumpet. Her
half-witted old mother caught at the idea of a few weeks' longer
life, and asserted that she was pregnant. The court was convulsed
with laughter, in which the wretched victim herself joined, and
this was accounted an additional proof that she was a witch. The
whole family were executed on the 7th of April, 1593.

Sir Samuel Cromwell, as lord of the manor, received the sum of 40
pounds out of the confiscated property of the Samuels, which he
turned into a rent-charge of 40 shillings yearly, for the
endowment of an annual sermon or lecture upon the enormity of
witchcraft, and this case in particular, to be preached by a
doctor or bachelor of divinity of Queen's College, Cambridge. I
have not been able to ascertain the exact date at which this
annual lecture was discontinued, but it appears to have been
preached so late as 1718, when Dr. Hutchinson published his work
upon witchcraft.

To carry on in proper chronological order the history of the witch
delusion in the British isles, it will be necessary to examine
into what was taking place in Scotland during all that part of the
sixteenth century anterior to the accession of James VI. to the
crown of England. We naturally expect that the Scotch,—a people
renowned from the earliest times for their powers of
imagination,—should be more deeply imbued with this gloomy
superstition than their neighhours of the South. The nature of
their soil and climate tended to encourage the dreams of early
ignorance. Ghosts, goblins, wraiths, kelpies, and a whole host of
spiritual beings, were familiar to the dwellers by the misty glens
of the Highlands and the romantic streams of the Lowlands. Their
deeds, whether of good or ill, were enshrined in song, and took a
greater hold upon the imagination because "verse had sanctified
them." But it was not till the religious reformers began the
practice of straining Scripture to the severest extremes, that the
arm of the law was called upon to punish witchcraft as a crime per
se. What Pope Innocent VIII. had done for Germany and France, the
preachers of the Reformation did for the Scottish people.
Witchcraft, instead of being a mere article of faith, became
enrolled in the statute book; and all good subjects and true
Christians were called upon to take arms against it. The ninth
Parliament of Queen Mary passed an act in 1563, which decreed the
punishment of death against witches and consulters with witches,
and immediately the whole bulk of the people were smitten with an
epidemic fear of the devil and his mortal agents. Persons in the
highest ranks of life shared and encouraged the delusion of the
vulgar. Many were themselves accused of witchcraft; and noble
ladies were shown to have dabbled in mystic arts, and proved to
the world that, if they were not witches, it was not for want of
the will.

Among the dames who became notorious for endeavouring to effect
their wicked ends by the devil's aid, may be mentioned the
celebrated Lady Buccleugh, of Branxholme, familiar to all the
readers of Sir Walter Scott; the Countess of Lothian, the Countess
of Angus, the Countess of Athol, Lady Kerr, the Countess of
Huntley, Euphemia Macalzean (the daughter of Lord Cliftonhall),
and Lady Fowlis. Among the celebrated of the other sex who were
accused of wizzardism was Sir Lewis Ballantyne, the Lord Justice
Clerk for Scotland, who, if we may believe Scot of Scotstarvet,
"dealt by curiosity with a warlock called Richard Grahame," and
prayed him to raise the devil. The warlock consented, and raised
him in propriâ personâ, in the yard of his house in the Canongate,
"at sight of whom the Lord Justice Clerk was so terrified that he
took sickness and thereof died." By such idle reports as these did
the envious ruin the reputation of those they hated, though it
would appear in this case that Sir Lewis had been fool enough to
make the attempt of which he was accused, and that the success of
the experiment was the only apocryphal part of the story.

The enemies of John Knox invented a similar tale, which found
ready credence among the Roman Catholics; glad to attach any
stigma to that grand scourge of the vices of their church. It was
reported that he and his secretary went into the churchyard of St.
Andrew's with the intent to raise "some sanctes;" but that, by a
mistake in their conjurations, they raised the great fiend
himself, instead of the saints they wished to consult. The popular
rumour added that Knox's secretary was so frightened at the great
horns, goggle eyes, and long tail of Satan, that he went mad, and
shortly afterwards died. Knox himself was built of sterner stuff,
and was not to be frightened.

The first name that occurs in the records of the High Court of
Justiciary of persons tried or executed for witchcraft is that of
Janet Bowman, in 1582, nine years after the passing of the act of
Mary. No particulars of her crimes are given, and against her name
there only stand the words, "convict and brynt." It is not,
however, to be inferred that, in this interval, no trials or
executions took place; for it appears on the authority of
documents of unquestioned authenticity in the Advocates' Library
at Edinburgh,93* that the Privy Council made a practice of
granting commissions to resident gentlemen and ministers, in every
part of Scotland, to examine, try, and execute witches within
their own parishes. No records of those who suffered from the
sentence of these tribunals have been preserved; but if popular
tradition may be believed, even to the amount of one-fourth of its
assertions, their number was fearful. After the year 1582, the
entries of executions for witchcraft in the records of the High
Court become more frequent, but do not average more than one per
annum; another proof that trials for this offence were in general
entrusted to the local magistracy. The latter appear to have
ordered witches to the stake with as little compunction, and after
as summary a mode, as modern justices of the peace order a poacher
to the stocks.

As James VI. advanced in manhood, he took great interest in the
witch trials. One of them especially, that of Gellie Duncan, Dr.
Fian, and their accomplices, in the year 1591, engrossed his whole
attention, and no doubt suggested in some degree, the famous work
on Demonology which he wrote shortly afterwards. As these witches
had made an attempt upon his own life, it is not surprising, with
his habits, that he should have watched the case closely, or
become strengthened in his prejudice and superstition by its
singular details. No other trial that could be selected would give
so fair an idea of the delusions of the Scottish people as this.
Whether we consider the number of victims, the absurdity of the
evidence, and the real villany of some of the persons implicated,
it is equally extraordinary.

Gellie Duncan, the prime witch in these proceedings, was servant
to the Deputy Bailiff of Tranent, a small town in Hadingtonshire,
about ten miles from Edinburgh. Though neither old nor ugly (as
witches usually were), but young and good-looking, her neighbours,
from some suspicious parts of her behaviour, had long considered
her a witch. She had, it appears, some pretensions to the healing
art. Some cures which she effected were so sudden, that the worthy
Bailiff, her master, who, like his neighbours, mistrusted her,
considered them no less than miraculous. In order to discover the
truth, he put her to the torture; but she obstinately refused to
confess that she had dealings with the devil. It was the popular
belief that no witch would confess as long as the mark which Satan
had put upon her remained undiscovered upon her body. Somebody
present reminded the torturing Bailie of this fact, and on
examination, the devil's mark was found upon the throat of poor
Gellie. She was put to the torture again, and her fortitude giving
way under the extremity of her anguish, she confessed that she was
indeed a witch—that she had sold her soul to the devil, and
effected all her cures by his aid. This was something new in the
witch creed, according to which, the devil delighted more in
laying diseases on, than in taking them off; but Gellie Duncan
fared no better on that account. The torture was still applied,
until she had named all her accomplices, among whom were one
Cunningham, a reputed wizard, known by the name of Dr. Fian, a
grave and matron-like witch, named Agnes Sampson, Euphemia
Macalzean, the daughter of Lord Cliftonhall, already mentioned,
and nearly forty other persons, some of whom were the wives of
respectable individuals in the city of Edinburgh. Every one of
these persons was arrested, and the whole realm of Scotland thrown
into commotion by the extraordinary nature of the disclosures
which were anticipated.

About two years previous to this time, James had suddenly left his
kingdom, and proceeded gallantly to Denmark, to fetch over his
bride, the Princess of Denmark, who had been detained by contrary
weather in the harbour of Upslo. After remaining for some months
in Copenhagen, he set sail with his young bride, and arrived
safely in Leith, on the 1st of May 1590, having experienced a most
boisterous passage, and been nearly wrecked. As soon as the arrest
of Gellie Duncan and Fian became known in Scotland, it was
reported by everybody who pretended to be well-informed that these
witches and their associates had, by the devil's means, raised the
storms which had endangered the lives of the King and Queen.
Gellie, in her torture, had confessed that such was the fact, and
the whole kingdom waited aghast and open-mouthed for the
corroboration about to be furnished by the trial.

Agnes Sampson, the "grave and matron-like" witch implicated by
Gellie Duncan, was put to the horrible torture of the
pilliewinkis. She laid bare all the secrets of the sisterhood
before she had suffered an hour, and confessed that Gellie Duncan,
Dr. Fian, Marion Lineup, Euphemia Macalzean, herself, and upwards
of two hundred witches and warlocks, used to assemble at midnight
in the kirk of North Berwick, where they met the devil; that they
had plotted there to attempt the King's life; that they were
incited to this by the old fiend himself, who had asserted with a
thundering oath that James was the greatest enemy he ever had, and
that there would be no peace for the devil's children upon earth
until he were got rid of; that the devil upon these occasions
always liked to have a little music, and that Gellie Duncan used
to play a reel before him on a trump or Jew's harp, to which all
the witches danced.

James was highly flattered at the idea that the devil should have
said that he was the greatest enemy he ever had. He sent for
Gellie Duncan to the palace, and made her play before him the same
reel which she had played at the witches' dance in the kirk.

Dr. Fian, or rather Cunningham, a petty schoolmaster at Tranent,
was put to the torture among the rest. He was a man who had led an
infamous life, was a compounder of and dealer in poisons, and a
pretender to magic. Though not guilty of the preposterous crimes
laid to his charge, there is no doubt that he was a sorcerer in
will, though not in deed, and that he deserved all the misery he
endured. When put on the rack, he would confess nothing, and held
out so long unmoved, that the severe torture of the boots was
resolved upon. He endured this till exhausted nature could bear no
longer, when Insensibility kindly stepped in to his aid. When it
was seen that he was utterly powerless, and that his tongue
cleaved to the roof of his mouth, he was released. Restoratives
were administered; and during the first faint gleam of returning
consciousness, he was prevailed upon to sign, ere he well knew
what he was about, a full confession, in strict accordance with
those of Gellie Duncan and Agnes Sampson. He was then remanded to
his prison, from which, after two days, he managed, somehow or
other, to escape. He was soon recaptured, and brought before the
Court of Justiciary, James himself being present. Fian now denied
all the circumstances of the written confession which he had
signed; whereupon the King, enraged at his "stubborn wilfulness,"
ordered him once more to the torture. His finger nails were riven
out with pincers, and long needles thrust up to the eye into the
quick; but still he did not wince. He was then consigned again to
the boots, in which, to quote a pamphlet published at the time,94*
he continued "so long, and abode so many blows in them, that his
legs were crushed and beaten together as small as might be, and
the bones and flesh so bruised, that the blood and marrow spouted
forth in great abundance, whereby they were made unserviceable for
ever."

The astonishing similarity of the confessions of all the persons
implicated in these proceedings has often been remarked. It would
appear that they actually endeavoured to cause the King's death by
their spells and sorceries. Fian, who was acquainted with all the
usual tricks of his profession, deceived them with pretended
apparitions, so that many of them were really convinced that they
had seen the devil. The sum of their confessions was to the
following effect:-

Satan, who was, of course, a great foe of the reformed religion,
was alarmed that King James should marry a Protestant princess. To
avert the consequences to the realms of evil, he had determined to
put an end to the King and his bride by raising a storm on their
voyage home. Satan, first of all, sent a thick mist over the
waters, in the hope that the King's vessel might be stranded on
the coast amid the darkness. This failing, Dr. Fian, who, from his
superior scholarship, was advanced to the dignity of the devil's
secretary, was commanded to summon all the witches to meet their
master, each one sailing on a sieve on the high seas.

On All-hallowmas Eve, they assembled to the number of upwards of
two hundred, including Gellie Duncan, Agnes Sampson, Euphemia
Macalzean, one Barbara Napier, and several warlocks; and each
embarking in a riddle, or sieve, they sailed "over the ocean very
substantially." After cruising about for some time, they met with
the fiend, bearing in his claws a cat, which had been previously
drawn nine times through the fire. This he delivered to one of the
warlocks, telling him to cast it into the sea, and cry "Hola!"
This was done with all solemnity, and immediately the ocean became
convulsed—the waters hissed loudly, and the waves rose mountains
high,
"Twisting their arms to the dun-coloured heaven."

The witches sailed gallantly through the tempest they had raised,
and landing on the coast of Scotland, took their sieves in their
hands, and marched on in procession to the haunted kirk of North
Berwick, where the devil had resolved to hold a preaching. Gellie
Duncan, the musician of the party, tripped on before, playing on
her Jew's harp, and singing,

"Cummer, go ye before, Cummer, go ye;
  Gif ye will not go before, Cummer, let me!"

Arrived at the kirk, they paced around it withershins, that is, in
reverse of the apparent motion of the sun. Dr. Fian then blew into
the key-hole of the door, which opened immediately, and all the
witches entered. As it was pitch dark, Fian blew with his mouth
upon the candles, which immediately lighted, and the devil was
seen occupying the pulpit. He was attired in a black gown and hat,
and the witches saluted him, by crying, "All hail, master!" His
body was hard, like iron; his face terrible; his nose, like the
beak of an eagle; he had great burning eyes; his hands and legs
were hairy; and he had long claws upon his hands and feet, and
spake with an exceedingly gruff voice. Before commencing his
sermon, he called over the names of his congregation, demanding
whether they had been good servants, and what success had attended
their operations against the life of the King and his bride.

Gray Meill, a crazy old warlock, who acted as beadle or
doorkeeper, was silly enough to answer, "that nothing ailed the
King yet, God be thanked;" upon which the devil, in a rage,
stepped down from the pulpit, and boxed his ears for him. He then
remounted, and commenced the preaching, commanding them to be
dutiful servants to him, and do all the evil they could. Euphemia
Macalzean and Agnes Sampson, bolder than the rest, asked him
whether he had brought the image or picture of King James, that
they might, by pricking it, cause pains and diseases to fall upon
him. "The father of lies" spoke truth for once, and confessed that
he had forgotten it; upon which Euphemia Macalzean upbraided him
loudly for his carelessness. The devil, however, took it all in
good part, although Agnes Sampson and several other women let
loose their tongues at him immediately. When they had done
scolding, he invited them all to a grand entertainment. A newly
buried corpse was dug up, and divided among them, which was all
they had in the way of edibles. He was more liberal in the matter
of drink, and gave them so much excellent wine that they soon
became jolly. Gellie Duncan then played the old tune upon her
trump, and the devil himself led off the dance with Euphemia Mac
alzean. Thus they kept up the sport till the cock crew.

Agnes Sampson, the wise woman of Keith, as she was called, added
some other particulars in her confession. She stated, that on a
previous occasion, she had raised an awful tempest in the sea, by
throwing a cat into it, with four joints of men tied to its feet.
She said also, that on their grand attempt to drown King James,
they did not meet with the devil after cruising about, but that he
had accompanied them from the first, and that she had seen him
dimly in the distance, rolling himself before them over the great
waves, in shape and size not unlike a huge haystack. They met with
a foreign ship richly laden with wines and other good things,
which they boarded, and sunk after they had drunk all the wine,
and made themselves quite merry.

Some of these disclosures were too much even for the abundant
faith of King James, and he more than once exclaimed, that the
witches were like their master, "extreme lyars." But they
confessed many other things of a less preposterous nature, and of
which they were, no doubt, really guilty. Agnes Sampson said she
was to have taken the King's life by anointing his linen with a
strong poison. Gellie Duncan used to threaten her neighbours by
saying she would send the devil after them; and many persons of
weaker minds than usual were frightened into fits by her, and
rendered subject to them for the remainder of their lives. Dr.
Finn also made no scruple in aiding and abetting murder, and would
rid any person of an enemy by means of poison, who could pay him
his fee for it. Euphemia Macalzean also was far from being pure.
There is no doubt that she meditated the King's death, and used
such means to compass it as the superstition of the age directed.
She was a devoted partizan of Bothwell, who was accused by many of
the witches as having consulted them on the period of the King's
death. They were all found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged and
burned. Barbara Napier, though found guilty upon other counts, was
acquitted upon the charge of having been present at the great
witch-meeting in Berwick kirk. The King was highly displeased, and
threatened to have the jury indicted for a wilful error upon an
assize. They accordingly reconsidered their verdict, and threw
themselves upon the King's mercy for the fault they had committed.
James was satisfied, and Barbara Napier was hanged along with
Gellie Duncan, Agnes Sampson, Dr. Fian, and five-and-twenty
others. Euphemia Macalzean met a harder fate. Her connexion with
the bold and obnoxious Bothwell, and her share in poisoning one or
two individuals who had stood in her way, were thought deserving
of the severest punishment the law could inflict. Instead of the
ordinary sentence, directing the criminal to be first strangled
and then burned, the wretched woman was doomed "to be bound to a
stake, and burned in ashes, quick to the death." This cruel
sentence was executed on the 25th of June 1591.

These trials had the most pernicious consequences all over
Scotland. The lairds and ministers in their districts, armed with
due power from the privy council, tried and condemned old women
after the most summary fashion. Those who still clung to the
ancient faith of Rome were the severest sufferers, as it was
thought, after the disclosures of the fierce enmity borne by the
devil towards a Protestant King and his Protestant wife, that all
the Catholics were leagued with the powers of evil to work woe on
the realm of Scotland. Upon a very moderate calculation, it is
presumed that from the passing of the act of Queen Mary till the
accession of James to the throne of England, a period of
thirty-nine years, the average number of executions for witchcraft
in Scotland was two hundred annually, or upwards of seventeen
thousand altogether. For the first nine years the number was not
one quarter so great; but towards the years 1590 to 1593, the
number must have been more than four hundred. The case last cited
was one of an extraordinary character. The general aspect of the
trials will be better seen from that of Isabel Gowdie, which, as
it would be both wearisome and disgusting to go through them all,
is cited as a fair specimen, although it took place at a date
somewhat later than the reign of James. This woman, wearied of her
life by the persecutions of her neighbours, voluntarily gave
herself up to justice, and made a confession, embodying the whole
witch-creed of the period. She was undoubtedly a monomaniac of the
most extraordinary kind. She said that she deserved to be
stretched upon an iron rack, and that her crimes could never be
atoned for, even if she were to be drawn asunder by wild horses.
She named a long list of her associates, including nearly fifty
women and a few warlocks. They dug up the graves of unchristened
infants, whose limbs were serviceable in their enchantments. When
they wanted to destroy the crops of an enemy, they yoked toads to
his plough, and on the following night Satan himself ploughed the
land with his team, and blasted it for the season. The witches had
power to assume almost any shape; but they generally chose either
that of a cat or a hare, oftenest the latter. Isabel said, that on
one occasion, when she was in this disguise, she was sore pressed
by a pack of hounds, and had a very narrow escape with her life.
She reached her own door at last, feeling the hot breath of the
pursuing dogs at her haunches. She managed, however, to hide
herself behind a chest, and got time to pronounce the magic words
that could alone restore her to her proper shape. They were :—

"Hare! hare!
  God send thee care!

I am in a hare's likeness now;
But I shall be a woman e'en now!
  Hare! hare!
  God send thee care!"

If witches, when in this shape, were bitten by the dogs, they
always retained the marks in their human form; but she had never
heard that any witch had been bitten to death. When the devil
appointed any general meeting of the witches, the custom was that
they should proceed through the air mounted on broomsticks, or on
corn or bean-straws, pronouncing as they went:—

"Horse and partook, horse and go,
  Horse and pellats, ho! ho! ho!"

They generally left behind them a broom, or a three-legged stool,
which, when placed in their beds and duly charmed, assumed the
human shape till their return. This was done that the neighhours
might not know when they were absent.

She added, that the devil furnished his favourite witches with
servant imps to attend upon them. These imps were called "The
Roaring Lion," "Thief of Hell," "Wait-upon-Herself," "Ranting
Roarer," "Care-for-Naught," &c. and were known by their liveries,
which were generally yellow, sad-dun, sea-green, pea-green, or
grass-green. Satan never called the witches by the names they had
received at baptism; neither were they allowed, in his presence,
so to designate each other. Such a breach of the infernal
etiquette assuredly drew down his most severe displeasure. But as
some designation was necessary, he re-baptized them in their own
blood by the names of "Able-and-Stout," "Over-the-dike-with-it,"
"Raise-the-wind," "Pickle-nearest-the-wind,"
"Batter-them-down-Maggy," "Blow-Kale," and such like. The devil
himself was not very particular what name they called him so that
it was not "Black John." If any witch was unthinking enough to
utter these words, he would rush out upon her, and beat and buffet
her unmercifully, or tear her flesh with a wool-card. Other names
he did not care about; and once gave instructions to a noted
warlock that whenever he wanted his aid, he was to strike the
ground three times and exclaim, "Rise up, foul thief!"

Upon this confession many persons were executed. So strong was the
popular feeling, that no one once accused of witchcraft was
acquitted; at least, acquittals did not average one in a hundred
trials. Witch-finding, or witch-pricking became a trade, and a set
of mercenary vagabonds roamed about the country, provided with
long pins to run into the flesh of supposed criminals. It was no
unusual thing then, nor is it now, that in aged persons there
should be some spot on the body totally devoid of feeling. It was
the object of the witchpricker to discover this spot, and the
unhappy wight who did not bleed when pricked upon it, was doomed
to the death. If not immediately cast into prison, her life was
rendered miserable by the persecution of her neighbours. It is
recorded of many poor women, that the annoyances they endured in
this way were so excessive, that they preferred death. Sir George
Mackenzie, the Lord Advocate, at the time when witch-trials were
so frequent, and himself a devout believer in the crime, relates,
in his "Criminal Law," first published in 1688, some remarkable
instances of it. He says, "I went, when I was a justice-depute, to
examine some women who had confessed judicially: and one of them,
who was a silly creature, told me, under secrecy, that she had not
confessed because she was guilty, but being a poor creature who
wrought for her meat, and being defamed for a witch, she knew she
should starve; for no person thereafter would either give her meat
or lodging, and that all men would beat her and set dogs at her;
and that, therefore, she desired to be out of the world; whereupon
she wept most bitterly, and upon her knees called God to witness
to what she said." Sir George, though not wholly elevated above
the prejudices of his age upon this subject, was clearsighted
enough to see the danger to society of the undue encouragement
given to the witch-prosecutions. He was convinced that
three-fourths of them were unjust and unfounded. He says, in the
work already quoted, that the persons who were in general accused
of this crime, were poor ignorant men and women, who did not
understand the nature of the accusation, and who mistook their own
superstitious fears for witchcraft. One poor wretch, a weaver,
confessed that he was a warlock, and, being asked why, he replied,
because "he had seen the devil dancing, like a fly, about the
candle!" A simple woman, who, because she was called a witch,
believed that she was, asked the judge upon the bench, whether a
person might be a witch and not know it? Sir George adds, that all
the supposed criminals were subjected to severe torture in prison
from their gaolers, who thought they did God good service by
vexing and tormenting them; "and I know," says this humane and
enlightened magistrate, "that this usage was the ground of all
their confession; and albeit, the poor miscreants cannot prove
this usage, the actors in it being the only witnesses, yet the
judge should be jealous of it, as that which did at first elicit
the confession, and for fear of which they dare not retract it."
Another author,95* also a firm believer in witchcraft, gives a
still more lamentable instance of a woman who preferred execution
as a witch to live on under the imputation. This woman, who knew
that three others were to be strangled and burned on an early day,
sent for the minister of the parish, and confessed that she had
sold her soul to Satan. "Whereupon being called before the judges,
she was condemned to die with the rest. Being carried forth to the
place of execution, she remained silent during the first, second,
and third prayer, and then, perceiving that there remained no more
but to rise and go to the stake, she lifted up her body, and, with
a loud voice, cried out, "Now all you that see me this day, know
that I am now to die as a witch, by my own confession, and I free
all men, especially the ministers and magistrates, of the guilt of
my blood. I take it wholly upon myself. My blood be upon my own
head. And, as I must make answer to the God of heaven presently, I
declare I am as free of witchcraft as any child. But, being
delated by a malicious woman, and put in prison under the name of
a witch, disowned by my husband and friends, and seeing no ground
of hope of ever coming out again, I made up that confession to
destroy my own life, being weary of it, and choosing rather to die
than to live." As a proof of the singular obstinacy and blindness
of the believers in witches, it may be stated, that the minister
who relates this story only saw in the dying speech of the unhappy
woman an additional proof that she was a witch. True indeed is it,
that "none are so blind as those who will not see."

It is time, however, to return to James VI, who is fairly entitled
to share with Pope Innocent, Sprenger, Bodinus, and Matthew
Hopkins the glory or the odium of being at the same time a chief
enemy and chief encourager of witchcraft. Towards the close of the
sixteenth century, many learned men, both on the Continent and in
the isles of Britain, had endeavoured to disabuse the public mind
on this subject. The most celebrated were Wierus in Germany,
Pietro d'Apone in Italy, and Reginald Scot in England. Their works
excited the attention of the zealous James, who, mindful of the
involuntary compliment which his merits had extorted from the
devil, was ambitious to deserve it by still continuing "his
greatest enemie." In the year 1597 he published, in Edinburgh, his
famous treatise on Demonology. Its design may be gathered from the
following passage in the introduction. "The fearful abounding,"
says the King, "at this time, and in this country, of these
detestable slaves of the devil, the witches, or enchanters, hath
moved me, beloved reader, to despatch in post this following
treatise of mine, not in any wise, as I protest, to serve for a
show of mine own learning and ingene (ingenuity), but only (moved
of conscience) to press thereby, so far as I can, to resolve the
doubting hearts of many; both that such assaults of Satan are most
certainly practised, and that the instrument thereof merits most
severely to be punished, against the damnable opinions of two,
principally in our age, whereof the one, called Scot, an
Englishman, is not ashamed, in public print, to deny that there
can be such thing as witchcraft, and so maintains the old error of
the Sadducees, in denying of spirits. The other, called Wierus, a
German physician, sets out a public apology for all these
crafts-folks, whereby procuring for them impunity, he plainly
betrays himself to have been one of that profession." In other
parts of this treatise, which the author had put into the form of
a dialogue to "make it more pleasant and facile," he says,
"Witches ought to be put to death, according to the law of God,
the civil and imperial law, and the municipal law of all Christian
nations: yea, to spare the life, and not strike whom God bids
strike, and so severely punish in so odious a treason against God,
is not only unlawful, but doubtless as great a sin in the
magistrate, as was Saul's sparing Agag." He says also, that the
crime is so abominable, that it may be proved by evidence which
would not be received against any other offenders,—young children,
who knew not the nature of an oath, and persons of an infamous
character, being sufficient witnesses against them; but lest the
innocent should be accused of a crime so difficult to be acquitted
of, he recommends that in all cases the ordeal should be resorted
to. He says, "Two good helps may be used: the one is, the finding
of their mark, and the trying the insensibleness thereof; the
other is their floating on the water; for, as in a secret murther,
if the dead carcass be at any time thereafter handled by the
murtherer, it will gush out of blood, as if the blood were crying
to Heaven for revenge of the murtherer, (God having appointed that
secret supernatural sign for trial of that secret unnatural
crime); so that it appears that God hath appointed (for a
supernatural sign of the monstrous impiety of witches) that the
water shall refuse to receive them in her bosom, that have shaken
off them the sacred water of baptism, and wilfully refused the
benefit thereof; no, not so much as their eyes are able to shed
tears (threaten and torture them as you please), while first they
repent (God not permitting them to dissemble their obstinacy in so
horrible a crime). Albeit, the womenkind especially, be able
otherwise to shed tears at every light occasion, when they will;
yea, although it were dissembling, like the crocodiles."

When such doctrines as these were openly promulgated by the
highest authority in the realm, and who, in promulgating them,
flattered, but did not force the public opinion, it is not
surprising that the sad delusion should have increased and
multiplied, until the race of wizards and witches replenished the
earth. The reputation which he lost by being afraid of a naked
sword, he more than regained by his courage in combating the
devil. The Kirk showed itself a most zealous coadjutor, especially
during those halcyon days when it was not at issue with the King
upon other matters of doctrine and prerogative.

On his accession to the throne of England, in 1603, James came
amongst a people who had heard with admiration of his glorious
deeds against the witches. He himself left no part of his ancient
prejudices behind him, and his advent was the signal for the
persecution to burst forth in England with a fury equal to that in
Scotland. It had languished a little during the latter years of
the reign of Elizabeth; but the very first Parliament of King
James brought forward the subject. James was flattered by their
promptitude, and the act passed in 1604. On the second reading in
the House of Lords, the bill passed into a committee, in which
were twelve bishops. By it was enacted, "That if any person shall
use, practise, or exercise any conjuration of any wicked or evil
spirit, or shall consult, covenant with, or feed any such spirit,
the first offence to be imprisonment for a year and standing in
the pillory once a quarter; the second offence to be death."

The minor punishment seems but rarely to have been inflicted.
Every record that has been preserved, mentions that the witches
were hanged and burned, or burned without the previous strangling,
"alive and quick." During the whole of James's reign, amid the
civil wars of his successor, the sway of the Long Parliament, the
usurpation of Cromwell, and the reign of Charles II, there was no
abatement of the persecution. If at any time it raged with less
virulence, it was when Cromwell and the Independents were masters.
Dr. Zachary Grey, the editor of an edition of "Hudibras," informs
us, in a note to that work, that he himself perused a list of
three thousand witches who were executed in the time of the Long
Parliament alone. During the first eighty years of the seventeenth
century, the number executed has been estimated at five hundred
annually, making the frightful total of forty thousand. Some of
these cases deserve to be cited. The great majority resemble
closely those already mentioned, but two or three of them let in a
new light upon the popular superstition.

Every one has heard of the "Lancashire witches," a phrase now used
to compliment the ladies of that county for their bewitching
beauty; but it is not every one who has heard the story in which
it originated. A villainous boy, named Robinson, was the chief
actor in the tragedy. He confessed, many years afterwards, that he
had been suborned by his father and other persons to give false
evidence against the unhappy witches whom he brought to the stake.
The time of this famous trial was about the year 1634. This boy
Robinson, whose father was a wood-cutter, residing on the borders
of Pendle Forest, in Lancashire, spread abroad many rumours
against one Mother Dickenson, whom he accused of being a witch.
These rumours coming to the ears of the local magistracy, the boy
was sent for, and strictly examined. He told the following
extraordinary story, without hesitation or prevarication, and
apparently in so open and honest a manner, that no one who heard
him doubted the truth of it:—He said, that as he was roaming about
in one of the glades of the forest, amusing himself by gathering
blackberries, he saw two greyhounds before him, which he thought
at the time belonged to some gentleman of the neighbourhood. Being
fond of sport, he proposed to have a course, and a hare being
started, he incited the hounds to run. Neither of them would stir.
Angry at the beasts, he seized hold of a switch, with which he was
about to punish them, when one of them suddenly started up in the
form of a woman, and the other, of a little boy. He at once
recognised the woman to be the witch Mother Dickenson. She offered
him some money to induce him to sell his soul to the devil; but he
refused. Upon this she took a bridle out of her pocket, and,
shaking it over the head of the other little boy, he was instantly
turned into a horse. Mother Dickenson then seized him in her arms,
sprang upon the horse; and, placing him before her, rode with the
swiftness of the wind over forests, fields, bogs, and rivers,
until they came to a large barn. The witch alighted at the door;
and taking him by the hand, led him inside. There he saw seven old
women, pulling at seven halters which hung from the roof. As they
pulled, large pieces of meat, lumps of butter, loaves of bread,
basins of milk, hot puddings, black puddings, and other rural
dainties, fell from the halters on to the floor. While engaged in
this charm they made such ugly faces, and looked so fiendish, that
he was quite frightened. After they had pulled, in this manner
enough for an ample feast, they set-to, and showed, whatever might
be said of the way in which their supper was procured, that their
epicurism was a little more refined than that of the Scottish
witches, who, according to Gellie Duncan's confession, feasted
upon dead men's flesh in the old kirk of Berwick. The boy added,
that as soon as supper was ready, many other witches came to
partake of it, several of whom he named. In consequence of this
story, many persons were arrested, and the boy Robinson was led
about from church to church, in order that he might point out to
the officers, by whom he was accompanied, the hags he had seen in
the barn. Altogether about twenty persons were thrown into prison;
eight of them were condemned to die, including Mother Dickenson,
upon this evidence alone, and executed accordingly. Among the
wretches who concocted this notable story, not one was ever
brought to justice for his perjury; and Robinson, the father,
gained considerable sums by threatening persons who were rich
enough to buy off exposure.

Among the ill weeds which flourished amid the long dissensions of
the civil war, Matthew Hopkins, the witch-finder, stands eminent
in his sphere. This vulgar fellow resided, in the year 1644, at
the town of Manningtree, in Essex, and made himself very
conspicuous in discovering the devil's marks upon several unhappy
witches. The credit he gained by his skill in this instance seems
to have inspired him to renewed exertions. In the course of a very
short time, whenever a witch was spoken of in Essex, Matthew
Hopkins was sure to be present, aiding the judges with his
knowledge of "such cattle," as he called them. As his reputation
increased, he assumed the title of "Witchfinder General," and
travelled through the counties of Norfolk, Essex, Huntingdon, and
Sussex, for the sole purpose of finding out witches. In one year
he brought sixty poor creatures to the stake. The test he commonly
adopted was that of swimming, so highly recommended by King James
in his Demonologie. The hands and feet of the suspected persons
were tied together crosswise, the thumb of the right hand to the
toe of the left foot, and vice versa. They were then wrapped up in
a large sheet or blanket, and laid upon their backs in a pond or
river. If they sank, their friends and relatives had the poor
consolation of knowing they were innocent, but there was an end of
them: if they floated, which, when laid carefully on the water was
generally the case, there was also an end of them; for they were
deemed guilty of witchcraft, and burned accordingly.

Another test was to make them repeat the Lord's prayer and creed.
It was affirmed that no witch could do so correctly. If she missed
a word, or even pronounced one incoherently, which in her
trepidation, it was most probable she would, she was accounted
guilty. It was thought that witches could not weep more than three
tears, and those only from the left eye. Thus the conscious
innocence of many persons, which gave them fortitude to bear
unmerited torture without flinching, was construed by their
unmerciful tormentors into proofs of guilt. In some districts the
test resorted to was to weigh the culprit against the church
Bible. If the suspected witch proved heavier than the Bible, she
was set at liberty. This mode was far too humane for the
witch-finders by profession. Hopkins always maintained that the
most legitimate modes were pricking and swimming.

Hopkins used to travel through his counties like a man of
consideration, attended by his two assistants, always putting up
at the chief inn of the place, and always at the cost of the
authorities. His charges were twenty shillings a town, his
expenses of living while there, and his carriage thither and back.
This he claimed whether he found witches or not. If he found any,
he claimed twenty shillings a head in addition when they were
brought to execution. For about three years he carried on this
infamous trade, success making him so insolent and rapacious, that
high and low became his enemies. The Rev. Mr. Gaul, a clergyman of
Houghton, in Huntingdonshire, wrote a pamphlet impugning his
pretensions, and accusing him of being a common nuisance. Hopkins
replied in an angry letter to the functionaries of Houghton,
stating his intention to visit their town; but desiring to know
whether it afforded many such sticklers for witchcraft as Mr.
Gaul, and whether they were willing to receive and entertain him
with the customary hospitality, if he so far honoured them. He
added, by way of threat, that in case he did not receive a
satisfactory reply, "He would waive their shire altogether, and
betake himself to such places where he might do and punish, not
only without control, but with thanks and recompence." The
authorities of Houghton were not much alarmed at his awful threat
of letting them alone. They very wisely took no notice either of
him or his letter.

Mr. Gaul describes in his pamphlet one of the modes employed by
Hopkins, which was sure to swell his revenues very considerably.
It was a proof even more atrocious than the swimming. He says,
that the "Witch-finder General" used to take the suspected witch
and place her in the middle of a room, upon a stool or table,
cross-legged, or in some other uneasy posture. If she refused to
sit in this manner, she was bound with strong cords. Hopkins then
placed persons to watch her for four-and-twenty hours, during
which time she was to be kept without meat or drink. It was
supposed that one of her imps would come during that interval, and
suck her blood. As the imp might come in the shape of a wasp, a
moth, a fly, or other insect, a hole was made in the door or
window to let it enter. The watchers were ordered to keep a sharp
look-out, and endeavour to kill any insect that appeared in the
room. If any fly escaped, and they could not kill it, the woman
was guilty; the fly was her imp, and she was sentenced to be
burned, and twenty shillings went into the pockets of Master
Hopkins. In this manner he made one old woman confess, because
four flies had appeared in the room, that she was attended by four
imps, named "Ilemazar," "Pye-wackett," "Peck-in-the-crown," and
"Grizel-Greedigut."

It is consoling to think that this impostor perished in his own
snare. Mr. Gaul's exposure and his own rapacity weakened his
influence among the magistrates; and the populace, who began to
find that not even the most virtuous and innocent were secure from
his persecution, looked upon him with undisguised aversion. He was
beset by a mob, at a village in Suffolk, and accused of being
himself a wizard. An old reproach was brought against him, that he
had, by means of sorcery, cheated the devil out of a certain
memorandum-book, in which he, Satan, had entered the names of all
the witches in England. "Thus," said the populace, "you find out
witches, not by God's aid, but by the devil's." In vain he denied
his guilt. The populace longed to put him to his own test. He was
speedily stripped, and his thumbs and toes tied together. He was
then placed in a blanket, and cast into a pond. Some say that he
floated; and that he was taken out, tried, and executed upon no
other proof of his guilt. Others assert that he was drowned. This
much is positive, that there was an end of him. As no judicial
entry of his trial and execution is to be found in any register,
it appears most probable that he expired by the hands of the mob.
Butler has immortalized this scamp in the following lines of his

"Hudibras:
"Hath not this present Parliament
  A lieger to the devil sent,
  Fully empower'd to treat about
  Finding revolted witches out?
  And has he not within a year
  Hang'd threescore of them in one shire?
  Some only for not being drown'd,
  And some for sitting above ground
  Whole days and nights upon their breeches,
  And feeling pain, were hang'd for witches;
  And some for putting knavish tricks
  Upon green geese or turkey chicks;
  Or pigs that suddenly deceased
  Of griefs unnatural, as he guess'd;
  Who proved himself at length a witch,
  And made a rod for his own breech."