Chapter IX: Part 9

F 4 _b_. "_The said Iennet Deuice, being a yong Maide, about the age of nine yeares._"] This child must have been admirably trained, (some Master Thomson might have been near at hand to instruct her,) or must have had great natural capacity for deception. She made an excellent witness on this occasion. What became of her after the wholesale extinction of her family, to which she was so mainly instrumental, is not now known. In all likelihood she dragged on a miserable existence, a forlorn outcast, pointed at by the hand of scorn, or avoided with looks of horror in the wilds of Pendle. As if some retributive punishment awaited her, she is reported to have been the Jennet Davies who was condemned in 1633, on the evidence of Edmund Robinson the younger, with Mother Dickenson and others, but not executed. Her confession, if she made one at the second trial, might not have been unsimilar to that of Alexander Sussums, of Melford in Suffolk, who, Hearne tells us, confessed "that he had things which did draw those marks I found upon him, but said he could not help it, for that all his kinred were naught. Then I asked him how it was possible they could suck without his consent. He said he did consent to that. Then I asked him again why he should do it when as God was so merciful towards him, as I then told him of, being a man whom I had been formerly acquainted withal, as having lived in town. He answered again, he could not help it, for that all his generation was naught; and so told me _his mother and aunt were hanged, his grandmother burnt for witchcraft, and ten others of them questioned and hanged_. This man is yet living, notwithstanding he confessed the sucking of such things above sixteen years together."--_Confirmation_, p. 36.

G 3 _a_. "_Anne Crouckshey._"] Anne Cronkshaw.

G 3 _b_ 1. "_Vpon Good Friday last there was about twentie persons._"] This meeting, if not a witches' Sabbath, was a close approximation to one. On the subject of the Sabbath, or periodical meeting of witches, De Lancre is the leading authority. He who is curious cannot do better than consult this great hierophant, (his work is entitled Tableau de l'Inconstance des mauvais Anges et Demons. Paris, 1613, 4to.) whose knowledge and experience well qualified him to have been constituted the Itinerant Master of Ceremonies, an officer who, he assures us, was never wanting on such occasions. In that singular book, _The History of Monsieur Oufle_, p. 288, (English Translation, 1711, 8vo.) are collected from various sources all the ceremonies and circumstances attending the holding the Sabbath. It appears that non-attendance invariably incurred a penalty, which is computed upon the average at the eighth part of a crown, or in French currency at ten sous--that, though the contrary has been maintained by many grave authors, egress and ingress by the chimney (De Lancre had depositions without number, he tells us, _vide_ p. 114, on this important head,) was not a matter of solemn obligation, but was an open question--that no grass ever grows upon the place where the Sabbath is kept; which is accounted for by the circumstance of its being trodden by so many of those whose feet are constitutionally hot, and therefore being burnt up and consequently very barren--that two devils of note preside on the occasion, the great negro, who is called Master Leonard, and a little devil, whom Master Leonard sometimes substitutes in his place as temporary vice-president; his name is Master John Mullin. (De Lancre, p. 126.) With regard to a very important point, the bill of fare, great difference of opinion exists: some maintaining that every delicacy of the season, to use the newspaper phrase, is provided; others stoutly asserting that nothing is served up but toads, the flesh of hanged criminals, dead carcases fresh buried taken out of Churchyards, flesh of unbaptized infants, or beasts which died of themselves--that they never eat with salt, and that their bread is of black millet. (De Lancre, pp. 104, 105.) In this diversity of opinion I can only suggest, that difference of climate, habit, and fashion, might possibly have its weight, and render a very different larder necessary for the witches of Pendle and those of Gascony or Lorrain. The fare of the former on this occasion appears to have been of a very substantial and satisfactory kind, "beef, bacon, and roasted mutton:" the old saying so often quoted by the discontented masters of households applying emphatically in this case:--

"God sends us good meat, but the devil sends cooks."

We find in the present report no mention made of the

"Dance and provencal song"

which formed one great accompaniment of the orgies of the southern witches. Bodin's authority is express, that each, the oldest not excused, was expected to perform a coranto, and great attention was paid to the regularity of the steps. We owe to him the discovery, which is not recorded in any annals of dancing I have met with, that the lavolta, a dance not dissimilar, according to his description, to the polka of the present day, was brought out of Italy into France by the witches at their festive meetings. Of the language spoken at these meetings, De Lancre favours us with a specimen, valuable, like the Punic fragment in the Poenolus, for its being the only one of the kind. _In nomine patrica araguenco petrica agora, agora, Valentia jouando goure gaiti goustia._ As it passes my skill, I can only commend it to the especial notice of Mr. Borrow against his next journey into Spain. What was spoken at Malkin Tower was, doubtless, a dialect not yet obsolete, and which Tummus and Meary would have had no difficulty in comprehending. On the subject of these witches' Sabbaths, Dr. Ferriar remarks, in his curious and agreeable _Essay on Popular Illusions_, (see _Memoirs of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society_, vol. iii., p. 68,) a sketch which it is much to be regretted that he did not subsequently expand and revise, and publish in a separate form:--

The solemn meetings of witches are supposed to be put beyond
all doubt by the numerous confessions of criminals, who have
described their ceremonies, named the times and places of
meeting, and the persons present, and who have agreed in
their relations, though separately delivered.[78] But I
would observe, first, that the circumstances told of those
festivals are ridiculous and incredible in themselves; for
they are represented as gloomy and horrible, yet with a
mixture of childish and extravagant fancies, more likely to
disgust and alienate than to conciliate the minds of the
guests. They have every appearance of uneasy dreams;
sometimes the devil and his subjects _say mass_, sometimes
he _preaches_ to them, more commonly he was seen in the form
of a black goat, surrounded by imps in a thousand frightful
shapes; but none of these forms are _new_, they all resemble
known quadrupeds or reptiles. Secondly, I observe, that
there is direct proof furnished even by demonologists, that
all these supposed journies and entertainments are nothing
more than dreams. Persons accused of witchcraft have been
repeatedly watched, about the time which they had fixed for
the meeting; they have been seen to anoint themselves with
soporific compositions, after which they fell into profound
sleep, and on awaking, several hours afterwards, they have
related their journey through the air, their amusement at
the festival, and have named the persons whom they saw
there. In the instance told by Hoffman, the dreamer was
chained to the floor. Common sense would rest satisfied
here, but the enthusiasm of demonology has invented more
than one theory to get rid of these untoward facts. Dr.
Henry More, as was formerly mentioned, believed that the
astral spirit only was carried away: other demonologists
imagined that the witch was really removed to the place of
meeting, but that a cacodemon was left in her room, as an
[Greek: eidôlon], to delude the spectators. Thirdly, some
stories of the festivals are evidently tricks. Such is that
related by Bodinus, with much gravity: a man is found in a
gentleman's cellar, and apprehended as a thief; he declares
his wife had brought him thither to a witch-meeting, and on
his pronouncing the name of God, she and all her companions
had vanished, and left him inclosed. His wife is immediately
seized, on this righteous evidence, and hanged, with several
other persons, named as present at the meeting.

[Footnote 78: There is a grave relation, in Delrio, of a witch being shot flying, by a Spanish centinel, at the bridge of Nieulet, near Calais, after that place was taken by the Spaniards. The soldier saw a black cloud advancing rapidly, from which voices issued: when it came near, he fired into it; immediately a witch dropped. This is _undoubted proof_ of the meetings!--_Disq. Mag._, p. 708.]

G 3 _b_ 2. "_Christopher Iackes, of Thorny-holme, and his wife._"] This would appear to be Christopher Hargreaves, called here Christopher Jackes, for o' or of Jack, according to the Lancashire mode of forming patronymics.

G 4 _a_. "_The first was, for the naming of the Spirit, which Alizon Deuice, now Prisoner at Lancaster, had: But did not name him, because shee was not there._"] Gaule says, speaking of the ceremonies at the witches' solemn meetings: "If the witch be outwardly Christian, baptism must be renounced, and the party must be rebaptized in the Devil's name, and a new name is also imposed by him; and here must be godfathers too, for the Devil takes them not to be so adult as to promise and vow for themselves." (_Cases of Conscience touching Witches_, page 59. 1646, 12mo.) But Gaule does not mention any naming or baptism of spirits and familiars on such occasions.

G 4 _b_. "_Romleyes Moore._"] Romilly's or Rumbles Moor, a wild and mountainous range in Craven, not unaptly selected for a meeting on a special emergency of a conclave of witches.

H 2 _a_ 1. "_Was so insensible, weake, and vnable in all thinges, as he could neither speake, heare, or stand, but was holden vp._"] Pitiable, truly, was the situation of this unhappy wretch. Brought out from the restraint of a long imprisonment, before and during which he had, as we may conjecture, been subjected to every inhumanity, in a state more dead than alive, into a court which must have looked like one living mass, with every eye lit up with horror, and curses, not loud but deep, muttered with harmonious concord from the mouths of every spectator.

H 2 _a_ 2. "_Anne Towneley, wife of Henrie Townely, of the Carre._"] Would this be Anne, the daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Catterall, of Catterall and Little Mitton, Esq., who married Henry Townley, the son of Lawrence Townley? (See Whitaker's _Whalley_, p. 396.) The Townleys of Barnside and Carr were a branch of the Townleys, of Townley. Barnside, or Barnsete, is an ancient mansion in the township of Colne, which, Whitaker observes, was abandoned by the family, for the warmer situation of Carr, about the middle of the last century.

H 2 _a_ 3. "_Master Nowel humbly prayed Master Towneley might be called._"] It is to be regretted we have no copy of the _viva voce_ examination of Mr. Townley, the husband of the lady whose life was said to have been taken away by witchcraft. The examinations given in this tract are altogether those of persons in a humble rank of life. The contrast between their evidence and that of an individual occupying the position of the descendant of one of the oldest families in the neighbourhood, with considerable landed possessions, might have been amusing and instructive.

H 2 _a_ 4. "_Master Nowell humbly prayed, that the particular examinations taken before him and others might be openly published and read in court._"] This kind of evidence, the witnesses being in court, and capable of being examined, would not be received at the present day. At that time a greater laxity prevailed.

H 3 _a_. "_Sheare Thursday._"] The Thursday before Easter, and so called, for that, in the old Fathers' days, the people would that day, "shave their hedes, and clypp their berdes, and pool their heedes, and so make them honest against Easter Day."--_Brand's Popular Antiquities_, vol. i., p. 83, edition 1841.

K _b_ 1. "_A Charme._"] Sinclair, in his _Satan's Invisible World Discovered_, informs us, that "At night, in the time of popery, when folks went to bed, they believed the repetition of this following prayer was effectual to preserve them from danger, and the house too.

"Who sains the house the night,
They that sains it ilka night.
Saint Bryde and her brate,
Saint Colme and his hat,
Saint Michael and his spear,
Keep this house from the weir;
From running thief,
And burning thief;
And from and ill Rea,
That be the gate can gae;
And from an ill weight,
That be the gate can light
Nine reeds about the house;
Keep it all the night,
What is that, what I see
So red, so bright, beyond the sea?
'Tis he was pierc'd through the hands,
Through the feet, through the throat,
Through the tongue;
Through the liver and the lung.
Well is them that well may
Fast on Good-friday."

which lines are not unlike some of those in the present "charme," which, evidently much corrupted by recitation, is a very singular and interesting string of fragments handed down from times long anterior to the Reformation, when they had been employed as armour of proof by the credulous vulgar against the Robin Goodfellows, urchins, elves, hags, and fairies of earlier superstition. I regret that I cannot throw more light upon it. The concluding lines are not deficient in poetical spirit.

K _b_ 2. "_Ligh in leath wand._"] Leath is no doubt lithe, flexible. What "ligh in" is intended for, unless it be lykinge, which the _Promptorium Parvulorum_ (_vide_ part i. p. 304) explains by lusty, or craske, _Delicativus_, crassus, I am unable to conjecture. It is clear, that the wand in one hand is to steck, _i.e._ stake, or fasten, the latch of hell door, while the key in his other hand is to open heaven's lock.

K _b_ 3. "_Let Crizum child goe to it Mother mild._"] The chrisom, according to the usual explanation, was a white cloth placed upon the head of an infant at baptism, when the chrism, or sacred oil of the Romish Church, was used in that sacrament. If the child died within a month of its birth, that cloth was used as a shroud; and children so dying were called chrisoms in the old bills of mortality.

K _b_ 4. "_A light so farrandly._"] Farrandly, or farrantly, a word still in use in Lancashire, and which is equivalent to fair, likely, or handsome. (See _Lancashire Dialect and Glossary_.) "Harne panne," _i.e._, cranium.--_Promptorium Parvulorum_, p. 237.

K 2 _a_ 1. "_Vpon the ground of holy weepe._"] I know not how to explain this, unless it mean the ground of holy weeping, _i.e._, the Garden of Gethsemane.

K 2 _a_ 2. "_Shall neuer deere thee._"] The word to dere, or hurt, says Mr. Way, _Promptorium Parvulorum_, p. 119, is commonly used by Chaucer and most other writers until the sixteenth century:

"Fyr he schal hym nevyr dere."
_Coeur de Lion_, 1638.

Fabyan observes, under the year 1194, "So fast besyed this good Kyng Richarde to vex and dere the infydelys of Sury." Palsgrave gives, "To dere or hurte a noye nuire, I wyll never dere you by my good wyll." Ang. Sax., [Anglo-Saxon: derian] _nocere_, [Anglo-Saxon: derung] _læsio_.

K 3 _a_. "_The Witches of Salmesbvry._"] Or, more properly, Samlesbury. This wicked attempt on the part of this priest, or Jesuit, Thompson, _alias_ Southworth, to murder the three persons whose trial is next reported, by suborning a child of the family to accuse them of what, in the excited state of the public mind at the time, was almost certain to consign them to a public execution, has few parallels in the annals of atrocity. The plot was defeated, and the lives of the persons accused, Jennet Bierley, Ellen Bierley, and Jane Southworth, saved, by no sagacity of the judge or wisdom of the jury, but by the effect of one simple question, wrung from the intended victims on the verge of anticipated condemnation, and which, natural as it might appear, was one the felicity of which Garrow or Erskine might have envied. It demolished, like Ithuriel's spear, the whole fabric of imposture, and laid it open even to the comprehension of Sir Edward Bromley and Master Thomas Potts. This was a case which well deserved Archbishop Harsnet for its historian. His vein of irony, which Swift or Echard never surpassed, and the scorching invective of which he was so consummate a master, would have been well employed in handing down to posterity a scene of villainy to which the frauds of Somers and the stratagems of Weston were mere child's play. We might then have had, from the most enlightened man of his age, a commentary on the statute 1st James First, which would have neutralized its mischief, and spared a hecatomb of victims. His resistless ridicule would, perhaps, have accomplished at once what was slowly and with difficulty brought about by the arguments of Scot and Webster, the establishment of the Royal Society, and a century's growth of intelligence and knowledge.

K 3 _b_ 1. "_A Seminarie Priest._"] Of this Thompson, _alias_ Southworth, I find no account in Dodd's _Catholic Church History_. A John Southworth is noticed, vol. iii. p. 303, who is described as of an ancient family in Lancashire, and who was executed at Tyburn, June 28th, 1655. His dying speech is to be found in the same volume, p. 360. The interval of time, as well as the difference of surname, excludes the presumption of his being identical with the person referred to in the text, the hero of this extraordinary conspiracy, and who was probably of the family of Sir John Southworth, after mentioned.

K 3 _b_ 2. "_A Iesuite, whereof this Countie of Lancaster hath good store._"] Lancashire was, about this period, the great hot-bed of Popish recusants. From the very curious list of recusants given (Baines's _Lancashire_, vol. i. p. 541,) it would seem that Samlesbury was one of their strongholds:--

James Cowper a seminarie prieste receipted releived and
mainteined att the lodge of Sir John Southworthe in
Samlesburie Parke by Mr. Tho: Southworthe, one of the
younger sonnes of the said Sir John. And att the howse of
John Warde dwellinge in Samlesburie Park syde. And the said
Prieste sayeth Masse att the said lodge and att the said
Wards howse. Whether resorte, Mr. Sowthworthe, Mres. An
Sowthworthe, John Walmesley servante to Sir John
Southworthe, Tho. Southworthe dwellinge in the Parke, John
Gerrerde, servante to Sir John Southworthe, John Singleton,
John Wrighte, James Sherples iunior, John Warde of
Samlesburie, John Warde of Medler thelder, Henrie Potter of
Medler, John Gouldon of Winwicke, Thomas Gouldon of the
same, Roberte Anderton of Samlesburie and John Sherples of
Stanleyhurst in Samlesburie.--_Baines's Lancashire_, vol. i.
p. 543.

Att the lodge in Samlesburie Parke there be masses daylie
and Seminaries dyuerse Resorte thither as James Cowpe,
Harrisson Bell and such like, The like vnlawfull meetings
are made daylie att the howse of John Warde by the Parke
syde of Samlesburie all wiche matters, masses, resorte to
Masses, receipting of Seminaries wilbe Justifyed by Mr. Adam
Sowtheworthe Thomas Sherples and John Osbaldston.--_Ibid._,
p. 544.

K 4 _b_. "_Picked her off._"] Threw her off.

L _a_. "_Hugh Walshmans._"] The wife of Hugh Walshman, of Samlesbury, is mentioned in the list of recusants; Baines, vol. i. p. 544.

L 2 _a_ 1. "_Brought a little child._"] The evidence against the Pendle witches exhibits meagreness and poverty of imagination compared with the accumulated horrors with which the Jesuit, fresh, it may be, from Bodin and Delrio, made his "fire burn and cauldron bubble." With respect to this old story of the magical use made of the corpses of infants, Ben Jonson, in a note on

"I had a dagger: what did I with that?
Killed an infant to have his fat;"

tells us with great gravity:

Their killing of infants is common, both for confection of
their ointment (whereto one ingredient is the fat boiled, as
I have shewed before out of Paracelsus and Porta) as also
out of a lust to do murder. _Sprenger in Mal. Malefic._
reports that a witch, a midwife in the diocese of Basil,
confessed to have killed above forty infants (ever as they
were new born, with pricking them in the brain with a
needle) which she had offered to the devil. See the story of
the three witches in _Rem. Dæmonola lib. cap._ 3, about the
end of the chapter. And M. Phillippo Ludwigus Elich _Quæst._
8. And that it is no new rite, read the practice of Canidia,
_Epod. Horat. lib. ode_ 5, and Lucan, _lib._ 6, whose
admirable verses I can never be weary to transcribe:--

Nec cessant à cæde manus, si sanguine vivo
Est opus, erumpat jugulo qui primus aperto.
Nec refugit cædes, vivum si sacra cruorem
Extaque funereæ poscunt trepidantia mensæ.
Vulnere si ventris, non quâ natura vocabat,
Extrahitur partus calidus ponendus in aris;
Et quoties sævis opus est, et fortibus umbris
Ipsa facit maneis. Hominum mors omnis in usu est.

_Ben Johnson's Works, by Gifford_, vol. vii. p. 130.

L 2 _a_ 2. "_They said they would annoint themselues._"] Ben Jonson informs us:

When they are to be transported from place to place, they
use to anoint themselves, and sometimes the things they ride
on. Beside Apul. testimony, see these later, _Remig.
Dæmonolatriæ lib._ 1. _cap._ 14. _Delrio, Disquis. Mag. l._
2. _quæst._ 16. _Bodin Dæmonoman. lib._ 2 _c._ 14. _Barthol.
de Spina. quæst. de Strigib. Phillippo Ludwigus Elich.
quæst._ 10. _Paracelsus in magn. et occul. Philosophia_,
teacheth the confection. _Unguentum ex carne recens natorum
infantium, in pulmenti, forma coctum, et cum herbis
somniferis, quales sunt Papaver, Solanum, Cicuta_, &c. And
_Giov. Bapti. Porta, lib._ 2. _Mag. Natur. cap._ 16.--_Ben
Jonson's Works by Gifford_, vol. vii. p. 119.

L 3 _a_. "_Did carrie her into the loft._"] There is something in this strange tissue of incoherencies, for knavery has little variety, which forcibly reminds us of the inventions of Elizabeth Canning, who ought to have lived in the days when witchcraft was part of the popular creed. What an admirable witch poor old Mary Squires would have made, and how brilliantly would her persecutor have shone in the days of the Baxters and Glanvilles, who acquitted herself so creditably in those of the Fieldings and the Hills.

L 4 _b_ 1. "_Robert Hovlden, Esquire._"] This individual would be of the ancient family of Holden, of Holden, the last male heir of which died without issue, 1792. (See Whitaker's _Whalley_, 418.)

L 4 _b_ 2. "_Sir John Southworth._"] In this family the manor of Samlesbury remained for three hundred and fifty years. This was, probably, the John (for the pedigree contained in Whitaker's _Whalley_, p. 430, does not give the clearest light on the subject) who married Jane, daughter of Sir Richard Sherburne, of Stonyhurst, and who took a great lead amongst the Catholics of Lancashire. What was the degree of relationship between Sir John and the husband of the accused, Jane Southworth, there is nothing in the descent to show. Family bickering might have a share, as well as superstition, in the opinion he entertained, "that she was an evil woman." Of the old hall at Samlesbury, the residence of the Southworths, a most interesting account will be found in Whitaker's _Whalley_, p. 431. He considers the centre of very high antiquity, probably not later than Edward III; and observes, "There is about the house a profusion and bulk of oak that must almost have laid prostrate a forest to erect it."

M 1 _b_. "_The particular points of the Evidence._"] What a waste of ingenuity Master Potts displays in this recapitulation, where he is merely slaying the slain, and where his wisdom was not needed. Had he applied it to the service of the Pendle witches, he would have found still grosser contrarieties, and as great absurdity. But in that case, there was no horror of Popery to sharpen his faculties, or Jesuit in the background to call his humanity into play.

M 2 _a_. "_The wrinkles of an old wiues face is good euidence to the Iurie against a Witch._"] _Si sic omnia!_ For once the worthy clerk in court has a lucid interval, and speaks the language of common sense.

M 2 _b_. "_But old Chattox had Fancie._"] A great truth, though Master Potts might not be aware of the extent of it.

M 4 _a_. "_M. Leigh, a very religious Preacher._"] Parson of Standish, a man memorable in his day. He published several pieces, amongst others the two following: 1. "The Drumme of Devotion," by W. Leigh, of Standish, 1613.--2. "News of a Prodigious Monster in Aldington, in the Parish of Standish, in Lancashire," 1613, 4to, which show him to have been an adept in the science of title-making. He was one of the tutors of Prince Henry, and was great-grandfather of Dr. Leigh, author of the _History of Lancashire_.

N 3 _b_. "_The Arraignment and Triall of Anne Redferne._"] This poor woman seems to have been regularly hunted to death by her prosecutors, who pursued her with all the dogged pertinacity of blood-hounds. Neither the imploring appeal for mercy, in her case, from her wretched mother, who did not ask for any in her own, nor the want of even the shadow of a ground for the charge, had the slightest effect upon the besotted prejudices of the judge and jury. Acquitted on one indictment, she is now put on her trial on another; the imputed crime being her having caused the death of a person, who did not even accuse her of being accessory to it, nearly eighteen years before, by witchcraft; the only evidence, true or false, being, that she had been seen, about the same period, making figures of clay or marl. Her real offence, it may well be conjectured, was her having rejected the improper advances of the ill-conditioned young man whose death she was first indicted for procuring, and to which circumstance the rancour of his relations, the prosecutors, may evidently be traced. It is gratifying to know that she had firmness of mind to persist in the declaration of her innocence to the last.

O 3 _a_. "_Alice Nutter._"] We now come to a person of a different description from any of those who have preceded as parties accused, and on whose fate some extraordinary mystery seems to hang. Alice Nutter was not, like the others, a miserable mendicant, but was a lady of large possessions, of a respectable family, and with children whose position appears to have been such as, it might have been expected, would have afforded her the means of escaping the fate which overtook her humbler companions.

"I knew her a good woman and well bred,
Of an unquestion'd carriage, well reputed
Amongst her neighbours, reckoned with the best."
_Heywood's Lancashire Witches._

She is described as the wife of Richard Nutter of the Rough Lee, and mother of Miles Nutter, who were in all likelihood nearly related to the other Nutters whose descent has been given. The tradition is, that she was closely connected by relationship or marriage with Eleanor Nutter, the daughter of Ellis Nutter of Pendle Forest, the grandmother of Archbishop Tillotson. That she was the victim of a foul and atrocious conspiracy, in which the movers were some of her own family, there seems no reason to doubt. The anxiety of her children to induce her to confess may possibly have originated in no impure or sinister motive, but it is difficult altogether to dismiss from the mind the suspicion that her wealth was her great misfortune; and that to secure it within their grasp her own household were passive, if not active, agents in her destruction. Any thing more childish or absurd than the evidence against her--as, for instance, that she joyned in killing Henry Mitton because he refused a penny to Old Demdike--it would not be easy, even from the records of witch trials, to produce. As regards Alice Nutter, Potts is singularly meagre, and it is to be lamented that the deficiency of information cannot at present be supplied. Almost the only fact he furnishes us with is, that she died maintaining her innocence. It would have been most interesting to have had the means of ascertaining how she conducted herself at her trial and after her condemnation; and how she met the iniquitous injustice of her fate, sharpened, as it must have been, by the additional bitterness of the insults and execrations of the blind and infuriated populace at her execution. It is far from improbable that some of the correspondence now deposited in the family archives in the county hitherto unpublished may ultimately furnish these particulars.

Alice Nutter was doubtless the original of the story of which Heywood availed himself in _The Late Lancashire Witches_, 1634, 4to, which is frequently noticed by the writers of the 17th century--that the wife of a Lancashire country gentleman had been detected in practising witchcraft and unlawful arts, and condemned and executed. In that play there can be little hesitation in ascribing to Heywood the scenes in which Mr. Generous and his wife are the interlocutors, and to Broome, Heywood's coadjutor, the subordinate and farcical portions. It is a very unequal performance, but not destitute of those fine touches, which Heywood is never without, in the characters of English country gentlemen and the pathos of domestic tragedy. The following scene, which I am tempted to extract, though very inferior to the noble ones in his _Woman Killed by Kindness_, between Mr. and Mrs. Frankford, which it somewhat resembles in character, is not unworthy of this great and truly national dramatic writer:--

MR. GENEROUS. WIFE. ROBIN, _a groom._

_Gen._ My blood is turn'd to ice, and all my vitals Have ceas'd their working. Dull stupidity Surpriseth me at once, and hath arrested That vigorous agitation, which till now Exprest a life within me. I, methinks, Am a meer marble statue, and no man. Unweave my age, O time, to my first thread; Let me lose fifty years, in ignorance spent; That, being made an infant once again, I may begin to know. What, or where am I, To be thus lost in wonder?

_Wife._ Sir.

_Gen._ Amazement still pursues me, how am I chang'd, Or brought ere I can understand myself Into this new world!

_Rob._ You will believe no witches?

_Gen._ This makes me believe all, aye, anything; And that myself am nothing. Prithee, Robin, Lay me to myself open; what art thou, Or this new transform'd creature?

_Rob._ I am Robin; And this your wife, my mistress.

_Gen._ Tell me, the earth Shall leave its seat, and mount to kiss the moon; Or that the moon, enamour'd of the earth, Shall leave her sphere, to stoop to us thus low. What, what's this in my hand, that at an instant Can from a four-legg'd creature make a thing So like a wife!

_Rob._ A bridle; a jugling bridle, Sir.

_Gen._ A bridle! Hence, enchantment. A viper were more safe within my hand, Than this charm'd engine.-- A witch! my wife a witch! The more I strive to unwind Myself from this meander, I the more Therein am intricated. Prithee, woman, Art thou a witch?

_Wife._ It cannot be denied, I am such a curst creature.

_Gen._ Keep aloof: And do not come too near me. O my trust; Have I, since first I understood myself, Been of my soul so chary, still to study What best was for its health, to renounce all The works of that black fiend with my best force; And hath that serpent twined me so about, That I must lie so often and so long With a devil in my bosom?

_Wife._ Pardon, Sir. [_She looks down._]

_Gen._ Pardon! can such a thing as that be hoped? Lift up thine eyes, lost woman, to yon hills; It must be thence expected: look not down Unto that horrid dwelling, which thou hast sought At such dear rate to purchase. Prithee, tell me, (For now I can believe) art thou a witch?

_Wife._ I am.

_Gen._ With that word I am thunderstruck, And know not what to answer; yet resolve me. Hast thou made any contract with that fiend, The enemy of mankind?

_Wife._ O I have.

_Gen._ What? and how far?

_Wife._ I have promis'd him my soul.

_Gen._ Ten thousand times better thy body had Been promis'd to the stake; aye, and mine too, To have suffer'd with thee in a hedge of flames, Than such a compact ever had been made. Oh-- Resolve me, how far doth that contract stretch?

_Wife._ What interest in this Soul myself could claim, I freely gave him; but his part that made it I still reserve, not being mine to give.

_Gen._ O cunning devil: foolish woman, know, Where he can claim but the least little part, He will usurp the whole. Thou'rt a lost woman.

_Wife._ I hope, not so.

_Gen._ Why, hast thou any hope?

_Wife._ Yes, sir, I have.

_Gen._ Make it appear to me.

_Wife._ I hope I never bargain'd for that fire, Further than penitent tears have power to quench.

_Gen._ I would see some of them.

_Wife._ You behold them now (If you look on me with charitable eyes) Tinctur'd in blood, blood issuing from the heart. Sir, I am sorry; when I look towards heaven, I beg a gracious pardon; when on you, Methinks your native goodness should not be Less pitiful than they; 'gainst both I have err'd; From both I beg atonement.

_Gen._ May I presume 't?

_Wife._ I kneel to both your mercies.

_Gen._ Knowest thou what A witch is?

_Wife._ Alas, none better; Or after mature recollection can be More sad to think on 't.

_Gen._ Tell me, are those tears As full of true hearted penitence, As mine of sorrow to behold what state, What desperate state, thou'rt fain in?

_Wife._ Sir, they are.

_Gen._ Rise; and, as I do you, so heaven pardon me; We all offend, but from such falling off Defend us! Well, I do remember, wife, When I first took thee, 'twas _for good and bad_: O change thy bad to good, that I may keep thee (As then we past our faiths) 'till Death us sever. O woman, thou hast need to weep thyself Into a fountain, such a penitent spring As may have power to quench invisible flames; In which my eyes shall aid: too little, all. _Late Lancashire Witches, Act 4._

P 2 _a_ 1. "_Being examined by my Lord._"] She had evidently learned her lesson well; but this was, with all submission to his Lordship, if adopted as a test, a mighty poor one. Jennet Device must have known well the persons of the parties she accused, and who were now upon their trial, as they were all her near neighbours.

P 2 _a_ 2. "_Whether she knew Iohan a Style?_"] His Lordship's introduction of this apocryphal legal personage on such an occasion is very amusing. Had he studied Littleton and Perkins a little less, and given some attention to the Lancashire dialect, and some also to the study of that great book, in which even a judge may find valuable matter, the book of human nature, he might have been more successfull in his examination. Jack's o' Dick's o' Harry's would have been more likely to have been recognised as a veritable person of this world by Jennet Device, than such a name as Johan a Style; which, though very familiar at Westminster, would scarcely have its prototype at Pendle. But Jennet Device, young as she was, in natural shrewdness was far more than a match for his lordship.

P 3 _a_. "_Katherine Hewit, alias Movld-heeles._"] Of this person, who comes next in the list of witches, our information is very scanty. She was not of Pendle, but of Colne; and as her husband is described as a "clothier," may be presumed to have been in rather better circumstances than Elizabeth Southernes or Anne Whittle's families. She made no confession.

P 4 _a_ 1. "_Anne Foulds of Colne. Michael Hartleys of Colne._"] Folds and Hartley are still the names of families at and in the neighbourhood of Colne.

P 4 _a_ 2. "_Had then in hanck a child._"] The meaning of this term is clear, the origin rather dubious. It may come from the Scotch word, _to hanck_, i.e. to have in holdfast or secure, vide Jamieson's Scotch Dictionary, tit. hanck, or from handkill, to murder, vide Jamieson, under that word; or lastly, may be metaphorically used, from hanck, also signifying a skein of yarn or worsted which is tied or trussed up.

Q 2 _a_. "_Iohn Bulcocke, Iane Bulcocke his mother._"] The condition of these persons is not stated. It may be conjectured that they were of the lowest class.

Q 3 _a_ 1. "_At the Barre hauing formerly confessed._"] Why is not their confession given?

Q 3 _a_ 2. "_Crying out in very violent and outrageous manner, even to the gallowes._"] The latter end of these unfortunate people was perhaps similar to that of Isobel Crawford, executed in Scotland the year after for witchcraft, who, on being sentenced, openly denied all her former confessions, and died without any sign of repentance, offering repeated interruption to the minister in his prayer, and refusing to pardon the executioner.

Q 4 _a_. "_Master Thomas Lister of Westby._"] See note on p. Y _a_.

Q 4 _b_. "_The said Bulcockes wife doth know of some Witches to bee about Padyham and Burnley._"] Precious evidence this to put the lives of two poor creatures into jeopardy.

R _a_. "_Accused the said Iohn Bulcock to turne the Spitt there._"] What a fact this would have been for De Lancre. With all his accurate statistics on the subject of the witches' Sabbath, he was not aware that a turnspit was a necessary officer on such occasions, as well as a master of ceremonies. This artful and well instructed jade, Jennet Device, must have borne especial malice against John Bulcock.

R 1 _b_. "_The names of the Witches at the Great Assembly and Feast at Malking-Tower, viz. vpon Good-Friday last, 1612._"] In this list of fourteen individuals, Master Potts has omitted "the painful steward so careful to provide mutton," James Device, who made up the number to fifteen. Of these persons seven were not indicted: Jennet Hargraves, the wife of Hugh Hargraves, of Barley under Pendle; Elizabeth Hargraves, the wife of Christopher Hargraves; Christopher Howgate, the son of Old Demdike; Christopher Hargraves, who is described as of Thurniholme, or Thornholme, and as Christopher o' Jacks, and was husband of Elizabeth Hargraves; Grace Hay, of Padiham; Anne Crunkshey, of Marchden, or more properly, Cronkshaw of Marsden; and Elizabeth Howgate, the wife of Christopher Howgate. The two Howgates were, it may be, the "one Holgate and his wife," mentioned in Robinson's deposition in 1633. Alice Graie, or Gray, included in the list, was indicted, though no copy of the indictment is afforded by Potts, and, singular as it may seem, acquitted. Richard Miles' wife, of the Rough Lee, stated to have been present in some of the depositions, (G 3 _b_,) was, beyond doubt, Alice Nutter, so called as the wife of Richard and mother of Miles Nutter.

It may afford matter for speculation, whether any real meeting took place of any of the persons above enumerated, which gave occasion for the monstrous versions of the witnesses at this trial. It is far from unlikely, that on the apprehension and commitment of Old Demdike, Old Chattox, Alizon Device, and Anne Redfern to Lancaster, a meeting would take place of their near relations, and others who might attend from curiosity, or from its being rumoured that they were themselves implicated by the confessions of those apprehended, and who by such attendance sealed their dooms. In all similar fabrications there is generally some slight foundation of fact, some scintilla of homely truth, from which, like the inverted apex of a pyramid, the disproportioned fabric expands. It is possible that, from the simple occurrence of an unusual attendance at Malking Tower on Good Friday, not unnatural under the circumstances, some of the witnesses, ignorant and easily persuaded, might be afterwards led to believe in the existence of those monstrous superadditions with which the convention was afterwards clothed. However this may be, there must have been at hand for working up the materials into a plausible form, some drill sergeant of evidence behind the curtain, who had his own interest to serve or revenge to gratify. The two particulars in the narrative that one feels least disposed to question, are, that James Device stole a wether from John Robinson of Barley, to provide a family dinner on Good Friday, and that when the meat was roasted John Bulcock performed the humble, but very necessary, duty of turning the spit.

R 3 _a_. "_My Lord Gerrard._"] Thomas Gerard, son and heir of Sir Gilbert Gerard, Master of the Robes 23d Elizabeth, was raised to the peerage by the title of Lord Gerard of Gerard's Bromley, in Staffordshire, 1603. He died 1618.

S _a_. "_Kniues, Elsons, and Sickles._" In the _Promptorium Parvulorum_, p. 138, to Elsyn (elsyng^k) Sibula, Mr. Way appends this note: "This word occurs in the Gloss on Gautier de Bibelesworth, Arund. MS. 220, where a buckled girdle is described:--

"Een isy doyt le hardiloun (þe tunnge)
Passer par tru de subiloun (a bore of an alsene.)

"An elsyne,--acus, subula. Cath. Ang. Sibula, an elsyn, an alle or a bodkyn. ORTUS. In the inventory of the goods of a merchant at Newcastle, A.D. 1571, occur, 'vj. doss' elsen heftes, 12_d_; 1 clowte and 1/2 a C elsen blades, viij_s_. viij_d_; xiij. clowtes of talier, needles, &c.' Wills and Inventories published by the Surtees Society, l. 361. The term is derived from the French _alene_; elson for cordwayners, alesne. Palsg. In Yorkshire and some other parts of England an awl is still called an elsen."

S _b_. "_Which the said Alizon confessing._"] In the case of this paralytic pedlar, John Law, his mishap could scarcely be called such, as it would for the remainder of his life, be an all-sufficient stock-in-trade for him, and popular wonder and sympathy, without the judge's interposition, would provide for his relief and maintenance. The near apparent connection and correspondence of the _damnum minatum_ and _damnum secutum_, in this instance, imposed upon this unfortunate woman, as it had done upon many others, and gave to her confession an earnestness which would appear to the unenlightened spectator to spring only from reality and truth.

S 3 _b_. "_Margaret Pearson._"] This Padiham witch fared better than her neighbours, being sentenced only to the pillory. Nothing affords a stronger proof of the vindictive pertinacity with which these prosecutions were carried on than the fact of this old and helpless creature being put on her trial three several times upon such evidence as follows. Chattox, like many other persons in her situation, was disposed to have as many companions in punishment, crime or no crime, as she could compass, and denounced her accordingly: "The said Pearson's wife is as ill as shee."

T _a_. "_The said Margerie did carrie the said Toade out of the said house in a paire of tonges._"] This toad was disposed of more easily than that of Julian Cox, as to which see Glanvil's _Collection of Relations_, p. 192:--

Another witness swore, that as he passed by Cox her door,
she was taking a pipe of tobacco upon the threshold of her
door, and invited him to come in and take a pipe, which he
did. And as he was talking Julian said to him, Neighbour,
look what a pretty thing there is. He look't down, and there
was a monstrous great toad betwixt his leggs, staring him in
the face. He endeavoured to kill it by spurning it, but
could not hit it. Whereupon Julian bad him forbear, and it
would do him no hurt. But he threw down his pipe and went
home, (which was about two miles off of Julian Cox her
house,) and told his family what had happened, and that he
believed it was one of Julian Cox her devils. After, he was
taking a pipe of tobacco at home, and the same toad appeared
betwixt his leggs. He took the toad out to kill it, and to
his thinking cut it in several pieces, but returning to his
pipe, the toad still appeared. He endeavoured to burn it,
but could not. At length he took a switch and beat it. The
toad ran several times about the room to avoid him he still
pursuing it with correction. At length the toad cryed and
vanish't, and he was never after troubled with it.

Dr. More's comment on the circumstance is written with all the seriousness so important a part of a witch's supellex deserves. He commences defending the huntsman, who swore that he hunted a hare, and when he came to take it up, he found it to be Julian Cox:

Those half-witted people thought he swore false, I suppose
because they imagined that what he told implied that Julian
Cox was turned into an hare. Which she was not, nor did his
report imply any such real metamorphosis of her body, but
that these ludicrous dæmons exhibited to the sight of this
huntsman and his doggs the shape of an Hare, one of them
turning himself into such a form, and others hurrying on the
body of Julian near the same place, and at the same
swiftness, but interposing betwixt that hare-like spectre
and her body, modifying the air so that the scene there, to
the beholders sight, was as if nothing but air were there,
and a shew of earth perpetually suited to that where the
hare passed. As I have heard of some painters that have
drawn the sky in an huge large landskip, so lively that the
birds have flown against it, thinking it free air, and so
have fallen down. And if painters and juglers by the tricks
of legerdemain can do such strange feats to the deceiving of
the sight, it is no wonder that these airy invisible spirits
as far surpass them in all such præstigious doings as the
air surpasses the earth for subtilty.

And the like præstigiæ may be in the toad. It might be a
real toad (though actuated and guided by a dæmon) which was
cut in pieces, and that also which was whipt about, and at
last snatcht out of sight (as if it had vanished) by these
aerial hocus-pocus's. And if some juglers have tricks to
take hot coals into their mouth without hurt, certainly it
is not surprising that some small attempt did not suffice to
burn that toad. That such a toad, sent by a witch and
crawling up the body of the man of the house as he sate by
the fire's side, was overmastered by him and his wife
together, and burnt in the fire; I have heard credibly
reported by one of the Isle of Ely. _Of these dæmoniack
vermin, I have heard other stories also, as of a rat that
followed a man some score of miles trudging through thick
and thin along with him._ So little difficulty is there in
that of the toad.--_Glanvil's Collection of Relations_, p.
200.

T 2 _a_ 1. "_Isabel Robey._" This person was of Windle, in the parish of Prescot, a considerable distance from Pendle. The Gerards were lords of the manor of Windle. Sir Thomas Gerard, before whom the examinations were taken, was created baronet, 22nd May, 9th James I.; and thrice married. From him the present Sir John Gerard, of New Hall, near Warrington, is descended. Sir Thomas was determined that the hundred of West Derby should have its witch as well as the other parts of the county. A more melancholy tissue of absurd and incoherent accusations than those against this last of the prisoners convicted on this occasion, it would not be easy to find; who was hanged, for all that appears, because one person was suddenly "pinched on her thigh, as she thought, with four fingers and a thumb," and because another was "sore pained with a great warch in his bones."

T 2 _a_ 2. "_This Countie of Lancaster, which now may lawfully bee said to abound asmuch in Witches of diuers kindes as Seminaries, Iesuites, and Papists._"] Truly, the county palatine was in sad case, according to Master Potts's account. If the crop of each of these was over abundant, it was from no fault of the learned judges, who, in their commissions of _Oyer and Terminer_, subjected it pretty liberally to the pruning-hook of the executioner.

T 2 _a_ 3. "_This lamentable and wofull Tragedie, wherein his Maiestie hath lost so many Subjects, Mothers their Children, Fathers their Friends and Kinsfolk._" The Lancashire bill of mortality, under the head witchcraft, so far as it can be collected from this tract, will run thus:--

1. Robert Nutter, of Greenhead, in Pendle. 2. Richard Assheton, son of Richard Assheton, of Downham, Esquire. 3. Child of Richard Baldwin, of Wheethead, within the forest of Pendle. 4. John Device, or Davies, of Pendle. 5. Anne Nutter, daughter of Anthony Nutter, of Pendle. 6. Child of John Moore, of Higham. 7. Hugh Moore, of Pendle. 8. John Robinson, _alias_ Swyer. 9. James Robinson. 10. Henry Mytton, of the Rough Lee. 11. Anne Townley, wife of Henry Townley, of the Carr, gentleman. 12. John Duckworth. 13. John Hargraves, of Goldshaw Booth. 14. Blaze Hargraves, of Higham. 15. Christopher Nutter. 16. Anne Folds, of Colne.

Sixteen persons reported dead of this common epidemic, besides a countless number with pains and "starkness in their limbs," and "a great warch in their bones!" No wonder that Doctors Bromley and Potts thought active treatment necessary, with a decided preference for hemp, as the leading specific.

T 3 _b_. "_With great warch in his bones._"] Warch is a word well known and still used in this sense, _i.e._, pain, in Lancashire.

T 4 _b_ 1. "_The said Peter was now satisfied that the said Isabel Robey was no Witch, by sending to one Halseworths, which they call a wiseman._"] I honour the memory of this Halsworth, or Houldsworth, as I suppose it should be spelled, for he was indeed a wise man in days when wisdom was an extremely scarce commodity.

T 4 _b_ 2. "_To abide vpon it._"] _i.e._, my abiding opinion is.

X _a_. "_Elizabeth Astley, John Ramsden, Alice Gray, Isabel Sidegraues, Lawrence Hay._"] The specific charges against these persons, with the exception of Alice Gray, do not appear, nor is it said where their places of residence were. Alice Gray was reputed to have been at the meeting of witches at Malkin's Tower, and to her the judge refers, perhaps, in particular, when he says, "Without question, there are amongst you that are as deepe in this action as any of them that are condemned to die for their offences."

X _b_. "_The Execution of the Witches._"] We could have dispensed with many of the flowers of rhetoric with which the pages of this discovery are strewed, if Master Potts would have favoured us with a plain, unvarnished account of what occurred at this execution. It is here, in the most interesting point of all, that his narrative, in other respects so full and abundant, stops short, and seems curtailed of its just proportions. The "learned and worthy preacher," to whom the prisoners were commended by the judge, was probably Mr. William Leigh, of Standish, before mentioned. Amongst his papers or correspondence, if they should happen to have been preserved, some account may eventually be found of the sad closing scene of these melancholy victims of superstition.

X 2 _a_. "_Neither can I paint in extraordinarie tearmes._"] The worthy clerk is too modest. He is a great painter, the Tintoretto of witchcraft.

Y _a_ 1. "_Hauing cut off Thomas Lister, Esquire, father to this gentleman now liuing._"] Thomas Lister, of Westby, ancestor of the Listers, Lords Ribblesdale, married Jane, daughter of John Greenacres, Esquire, of Worston, county of Lancaster, and was buried at Gisburn, February 8th, 1607. His son, Thomas Lister, referred to as the "gentleman now living," married Jane, daughter of Thomas Heber, Esq., of Marton, after mentioned, and was buried at Gisburn, July 10th, 1619.