Chapter VI: Part 6

In the meantime the third child was born, and as the mother's health was delicate, it was sent out to nurse at a farm-house some two or three miles distant, and it was then that Calverley charged his wife, to her face, with adultery, adding that he felt positively assured that the children were Leventhorpe's. She indignantly repelled the charge, assuring him, with an appeal to the Virgin Mary as to the truth of what she was saying, that the children were his and nobody else's; but he would not listen to her denials--called her tears, which were flowing profusely, the hypocritical tears of a strumpet, and cursed and swore at her, threatening a dire vengeance on her and her seducer, and finally left her in a fit of hysterics in the hands of her women, who had rushed in on hearing her screams. He then went downstairs to his dining room and sat down to dinner, but could not eat much, each mouthful as he swallowed it seeming as if it would choke him. "Take these things away," he exclaimed in a furious tone to his servants, "and bring me sack, and plenty of it." The terrified menials saw that he was in one of his maniacal moods, and knew that it would be aggravated by drinking, but dared not disobey him. The sack was placed on the table, and he dismissed the attendants with a curse. Flagon after flagon he poured out and drank in rapid succession, which soon produced its natural effect. "Ah, demon!" said he, "have you come again to torment me? Why sit you there, opposite me, grinning and gesticulating? You are an ugly devil, sure enough, with your fiery eyes, your pointed horns, and your barbed tail. You tell me that it were but just to murder my wife, Leventhorpe, and their brats, and I don't know but what the advice is good. Aye, twirl your tail as a dog does when he is pleased; you think you have got another recruit for your nether kingdom, and you are right. I live here a hell upon earth, and I do not see that I shall be much the worse off with you below; besides I shall have the satisfaction of vengeance, and that will repay me amply for any after-death punishment. Aye, grin on, but leave me now to finish this bottle in quietness, for I cannot drink with comfort whilst you are grimacing and jibing at me there." He spoke this in a loud tone of voice, to which the scared servants were listening at the door, after which he continued to drain goblet after goblet, giving forth utterances more and more incoherent, until at length he fell from his chair with a heavy thump on the floor. Hearing this, the servants entered, and found him, as they had often found him before, in a state of senseless intoxication, and carried him up to bed.

Having slept off his debauch, he awoke late the following morning with a raging thirst, which he endeavoured to assuage by deep draughts of ale. Breakfast he could eat none, but continued drinking until his familiar demon again made his appearance, and seemed to incite him to the fulfilment of his vow of revenge. Leventhorpe was out of his reach, but the other destined victims were at hand, and what more fitting time than the present for the execution of his purpose? He selected a dagger from his store of weapons, and carefully sharpened it to a fine point; then gave directions to have his horse saddled and brought to the door of the hall to await his pleasure. As he had three or four men-servants, who might hinder him in his intent, he sent them on several errands about the estate, and when they had departed, leaving only the female domestics in the house, he went, dagger in hand, into the hall, where he found his eldest son playing. Seizing him by the hair of his head, he stabbed him in three or four places, and, taking him in his arms, carried him bleeding to his mother's apartment. "There," said he, throwing the body down, "is one of the fruits of your illicit intercourse, and the others must share the same fate." So saying, he laid hold of his second son, who was in the room, and stabbed him to the heart. The mother, shrieking with terror and agony, rushed forward to save the child, but was too late, and herself received three or four blows from the dagger, and fell senseless to the floor, but more from horror and fright than from her wounds, which were but slight, thanks to a steel stomacher which she wore. Imagining that he had killed her as well as the children, he mounted his horse and rode towards the village, where his youngest child was at nurse, with the intention of killing it also, but on the road he was thrown from his horse, and before he could re-mount was secured by his servants, who had gone in pursuit of him.

He was taken before the nearest magistrate--Sir John Bland, of Kippax--and in the course of his examination stated that he had meditated the deed for four years, and that he was fully convinced that the children were not his. He was committed to York Castle and brought to trial, but refusing to plead, was subjected to _peine forte et dure_. He was taken to the press-yard, stripped to his shirt, and laid on a board with a stone under his back; his arms were stretched out and secured by cords; another board was placed over his body, upon which were laid heavy weights one by one, he being asked in the intervals if he still refused. He bore the agony with firmness and endurance, even when the great pressure broke his ribs and caused them to protrude from the sides. As weight after weight was added, nothing could be extorted from him save groans caused by the intensity of the pain, which at length ceased and the weights were removed, revealing a mere mass of crushed bloody flesh and mangled bones.

The two children died, and the third lived to succeed to the estates. The mother also recovered, and married for her second husband Sir Thomas Burton, Knight.

"Two Most Unnatural and Bloodie Murthers, by Master Calverley, a Yorkshire gentleman, upon his wife and two children, 1605." Edited by J. Payne Collier, 1863.

"A Yorkshire Tragedy, not so new as lamentable, by Mr. Shakespeare; acted at the Globe, 1608. London 1619. With a portrait of the brat at nurse." Attributed to Shakespeare (without proof) by Stevens and others.

"The Fatal Extravagance. By Joseph Mitchell, 1720." A play based on the same subject, and performed at the Lincoln's Inn Theatre.

The incident is also introduced by Harrison Ainsworth in his romance of "Rookwood."

The Bewitched House of Wakefield.

In the earlier half of the seventeenth century, and during the Commonwealth, there dwelt in a mud-walled and thatched cottage, in the environs of Wakefield, a "wise woman," as she was styled, named Jennet Benton, with her son, George Benton. He had been a soldier in the Parliamentarian army, but, since its disbandment, had loafed about Wakefield without any ostensible occupation, living, as it appeared, on his mother's earnings in her profession. As a "wise woman," she was resorted to by great numbers of people--by persons who had lost property, to gain a clue to the discovery of the pilferers--by men to learn the most propitious times for harvesting, sheepshearing, etc.--by matrons to obtain charms for winning back their dissipated or unfaithful husbands to domestic life, as it existed the first few months after marriage--and by young men and maidens for consultation with her on matters of love; and, as no advice was given without its equivalent in the coin of the realm, she made a very fair living, and was enabled to maintain her son in idleness, who was wont to spend a great part of his time in pot houses, with other quondam troopers, their chief topics of discourse being disputed points of controversy between the Independents and Presbyterians, and revilings of the Popish whore of Babylon and her progeny, the Church of England. Although not imbued with much of the spirit of piety, Benton, in his campaigning career, had imbibed much of the fanaticism, superstition, and phraseology of the lower class of the Puritans, such of them as assumed the hypocritical garb of Puritanism to curry favour with their superiors, who were, as a rule, men of sincere piety, and, in so doing, somewhat overdid the part by altogether out-Puritaning them in the extravagance of their outbursts of zeal, and in the almost blasphemous use of Scriptural expressions. Such was Benton amongst his companions, and he passed for a fairly godly man. With his mother, however, he cast off all this assumption of religion and the use of Bible phrases, for she was a woman who despised all religions alike, and sneered equally at the "snivelling cant" of the Puritans, the proud arrogance of the Bishops of the Church, and the "absurd drivellings" of the Separatists; but these ideas she was sufficiently wise to keep to herself, or confide them to her son alone. She even went occasionally to church and conventicle, that she might stand well with her customers, who were of all sects. She had, besides, a voluble tongue, and was not deficient in intelligence, so that she was able to converse with all, each one according to his doctrinal bias, so as to leave an impression that she was not opposed but rather inclined to the particular theological dogma then under discussion.

There was, however, a vague idea prevalent in Wakefield that Mother Benton was a witch, had intercourse with the Devil, and was a dangerous person to deal with otherwise than on friendly terms. She was old, wrinkled, and ungainly in features; unmistakable characteristics of the sisterhood. She was possessed of wisdom in occult matters seemingly superhuman, which could only be derived from a compact with Satan. She had a huge black cat, presumably an imp, her familiar, who would bristle up his hair and spit viciously at the old woman's visitors until restrained by her command. On one occasion, however, a handsome young man came from her cottage followed by the cat, which was observed to purr and rub himself affectionately against his legs, who, it was assumed, could be none other than the Father of Evil himself, who had assumed that guise to pay a friendly visit to his servant and disciple. She was also sometimes away from her cottage for a night, and the inquiry arose--for what purpose, excepting to attend a Sabbath of the witches. It is true she had never been seen passing through the air astride of her broom, but it was noticed that whenever she was absent on such occasions her broom, which usually stood outside her cottage door, disappeared also, and was found in its place again on her return.

At this time the belief in witchcraft was universally prevalent, as we find in the narrative of the witches of Fuystone, in the forest of Knaresborough, who played such pranks in the family of Edward Fairfax, the translator of Tasso, about the same time. Indeed it was considered as impious then to doubt their existence as it is now-a-days of their master and instigator, for is there not a Scriptural precept--"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live?" and was there not a witch of Endor who summoned the spirit of Samuel? Besides, had not many decrepit half-witted old women, when subjected to torture, confessed that they had entered into compact with the Devil, bargaining their souls for length of years and the power of inflicting mischief on their neighbours? It is quite certain that the evidences of Mother Benton being one of the sisterhood of Satan were so palpable that had she not been so useful in Wakefield in her vocation of a "wise woman" she would have been subjected to the usual ordeal, by way of testing whether she were a witch or not. This ordeal consisted of stripping the accused, tying her thumbs to her great toes and throwing her into a pond: if she floated, it was a proof that she, having rejected the baptismal water of regeneration, the water rejected her, and she was hauled out and burnt at the stake as an undoubted witch, but if she sank and were drowned she was declared innocent; so that, were she guilty or innocent of the foul crime, the result was pretty much the same, excepting in the mode of terminating her existence.

At this time one Richard Jackson held a farm called Bunny Hall, under a Mr. Stringer, of Sharlston, which lay near to Jennet Benton's cottage. Over one of Jackson's fields was a pathway, really for the use of the tenant of the farm, but which was used on sufferance by others, Jennet and her son frequently having occasion to pass along it. Jackson, however, in consequence of the damage done to his crops by passengers, disputed the right of the public, and issued a public notice that after a certain date it would be closed. The people of Wakefield, in reply to the notice, asserted that it was an ancient footpath that had belonged to the public time out of mind, and that they intended to continue the use of it in spite of Jackson's prohibition. Jennet and her son were the ringleaders of this opposition, and after the closure of the path, passed over the railings placed across the entrance, and were going along as they had been wont to do, when they were met by Daniel Craven, one of Jackson's servants, who told them that they could not be allowed to cross the field as it was private property. An angry altercation ensued, in the course of which George Benton took up a piece of flint and threw it with great force at Craven, "wherewith he cut his overlipp and broake two teeth out of his chaps," and thus having overcome their opponent they went onward and out at the other end. An action for trespass was then laid against George Benton by Farmer Jackson, who appears to have won his cause, as Benton "submitted to it, and indevors were used to end the difference, which was composed and satisfaction given unto the said Craven;" satisfaction of a pecuniary nature, no doubt.

A few days after the judicial termination of the case, "Jackson _v._ Benton," the farmer was riding home from Wakefield market. He had to pass Jennet's cottage on his road, and he thought to accost her in a conciliatory style, as he did not wish to be at variance with his neighbours, especially with one who had the reputation of being "a wise woman," whose services he might require in cases of pilfering, sheep stealing, and the like; in cases of sickness amongst his children, or a murrain amongst his cattle; or in other cases beyond the ken of ordinary mortals; hence he considered it politic to remain on good terms with her, although he had felt it his duty to maintain the action for trespass.

As he approached the cottage, the old woman was seated outside her door, watching a cauldron suspended from cross sticks, in which was simmering a decoction of herbs, to eventuate in a love philtre probably for some love-sick maiden. By her side was seated her black cat, who bridled up and spat viciously at the farmer as he came up.

"Ah, mother Benton," said he, reining up, "busy as usual, I see, preparing something for the benefit of one of your clients."

"It is no business of yours what I am preparing," she replied. "I sent not for you, nor do I want your conversation or interference in my concerns. Go your way, or it may be the worse for you."

"Nay, good dame, be not angry, I came not to interfere with your concerns; I merely stopped on my road home to say 'good even' to you, and to see if I could be of any service to you, for I desire to cultivate the good-will of my neighbours."

"And a pretty way you have of doing so by prosecuting them in law courts for maintaining the rights of themselves and their ancestors for generations past."

"That I was compelled to do, good Jennet, for the maintenance of my own rights. It was a necessity forced upon me, but I bear no ill-will to either you or your son. And see, as a proof thereof, I have brought you a new kirtle from Wakefield," at the same time drawing from his saddlebags a flaming scarlet garment of that kind, which he threw into her lap.

"Farmer Jackson," said she, "come not here with your honied lips and deceitful expressions of friendship. I want none of your gifts," and taking up the kirtle, she rent it into a dozen pieces, and thrust them into the fire under the cauldron.

"Listen to me one moment," commenced Jackson, but the old beldame, rising up into a majestic attitude, interrupted him with, "I will listen no more to your hypocritical palaver. You have done me a grievous wrong in citing my son before your law courts, it is an unpardonable offence, and soon shall you know what it is to incur the wrath of Jennet Benton, the wise woman of Wakefield. Within a twelvemonth and a day, Farmer Jackson, shall you find at what cost you set the myrmidons of the law upon me and my belongings, and from that time to your life's end shall you rue that day's work. It is I, the wise woman of Wakefield, who say it, and see if I am not a true soothsayer, and merit the appellation I bear. That is all I have got to say," and she passed into her cottage, whilst the farmer rode homeward, not without a foreboding of impending evil.

We have many narratives on record of houses that have been the scenes of remarkable disturbances and strange apparitions, of furniture moved from place to place without apparent agency, of domestic utensils thrown about by no perceptible impelling power, and of noises attributable to no human cause, problems that in many cases have never been solved, but which have usually been ascribed to some mischievous goblin, or to the ghost of some unhappy person who has come by death unfairly and by foul means.

Farmer Jackson's house and homestead from this time, for the period of a year and a day, became haunted in this fashion, but here there could be no doubt as to the cause. It was the spell cast over it by the machinations of the witch, Jennet Benton, and it was in fact not a haunted but a bewitched house.

As Jackson rode home he thought of the curse laid upon him by the witch, but being a strong-minded man he did not entertain the current superstition as to the superhuman diabolic power said to be possessed by such persons, and he felt little or no apprehension on that score; yet he inclined so far to the popular belief as to fear that by some means she might cast incantations over his cattle and crops, so as to cause the former to sicken and die, and the latter to wither and come to naught.

On reaching his home he stabled his horse, and going indoors he accosted his wife with some cursory remark, but she made no reply, and he thought to himself, "She is sullen to-night--in one of her tantrums; what's the matter, I wonder." He then sat down to supper, with his children about him, and a couple of maid-servants employed in some domestic duty, when his wife inquired, "Why are you all so silent; are you all dumb; have you got anything to tell me about the doings at the market, husband, goodman?" "What on earth do you mean?" inquired Jackson; "I spoke to you when I came in, and there has been noise enough among the children since then to waken the Seven Sleepers." Mrs. Jackson still stood staring, with a vacant countenance, and said, after a pause, "Why don't you reply? It seems as if one were in the charnel-house of the church, surrounded by the dead." It then occurred to Jackson that his wife must have suddenly become stone deaf, and by means of signs and such writing as the family had at command, he ascertained that such was the fact; but he dreamt not that it was the beginning of the witch's spell.

A night or two after, one of the children was stricken by an epileptic fit, throwing itself about with great violence and twisting its body with strange contortions, with convulsive writhings, and requiring to be held down by three or four persons to prevent its doing itself an injury.

One morning the swineherd of the farm came into the room where Jackson was sitting at breakfast, and with a scared countenance told him that a herd of swine that had been shut up in a barn the previous night "had broake thorrow two barn dores," and had fled no one knew whither. A search was immediately instituted, but it was not until after two or three days that a portion of the herd was found at a considerable distance from the farm, the remainder being lost altogether.

On another occasion Jackson himself, "although helthfull of body, was suddenly taken without any probable reason to be given or naturall cause appearing, being sometimes in such extremity that he conceived himselfe drawne in pieces at the hart, backe, and shoulders." During the first fit he heard the sound of music and dancing, as if in the room where he lay. He partially recovered the following day, but at twelve o'clock the next night he had another fit, and during its continuance he heard a loud ringing of bells, accompanied by sounds of singing and dancing. He inquired of his wife, who appears by this time to have recovered her sense of hearing, what the bell-ringing and singing meant; but she replied that she heard nothing of it, as also did his man. "He asked them againe and againe if they heard it not. At last he and his wife and servant heard it (what?) give three hevie groones. At that instant doggs did howle and yell at the windows as though they would heve puld them in pieces."

Jackson now became fully convinced that he was enduring all these trials and sufferings from the curse of the witch Jennet, and he expressed this opinion to his friends who came to condole with him. They, with neighbourly feeling, proposed to put the question to the test by submitting the old woman to the usual ordeal of the horse pond; but he would not hear of this, not even yet, with such probable evidence, believing that Satan could be authorised to endow old women with such mischievous powers. By the counsel of his friends, however, he sanctioned the sending a deputation to Jennet to investigate the matter. The deputation went to her cottage and told her their errand, but she only laughed at them. "It is true," said she, "that I called down the wrath of Heaven upon him and his belongings for his cruel persecution of a helpless widow and her orphan son; and if God has listened to my supplication, and sent calamity upon him, it is intended as a warning to him that, for the future, he may be more merciful to the poor and unprotected. If he chooses to blame any one, he must attribute his punishment to a much higher power than a feeble mortal such as I am."

During all this time Jackson's house was rendered almost uninhabitable by noises and apparitions, so that the servants fled from it panic-stricken, and others could not be found to take their places. The commencement of the disturbances was some six months after the utterance of the curse. The family were seated at supper when a tremendous crash was heard in the next room, as if some heavy metal vessel had been flung violently on the floor. Supposing it to be something that had fallen from a shelf or a hook in the ceiling, they went into the room, but found nothing to account for the noise. At other times it would seem as if all the doors of the house were being slammed to, or the windows shaken as by a storm of wind, although there was not the slightest agitation in the atmosphere. Then would occur shrieks as of persons in distress, groans as of sufferers in agonies of pain, and bursts of demoniac laughter, with a flapping of huge bat-like wings. "Apparitions like blacke dogges and catts were also scene," which darted out from under the furniture and usually passed out up the chimney, it being immaterial whether or not a fire was blazing in the grate. Along with all these disturbances in the house and unaccountable illnesses of the various members of the household, the horses and cattle of the farm were subjected to similar inflictions, much to the detriment of Jackson's material prosperity. Week after week news came in of the death of horses, cows, and sheep: and in his deposition at York, Jackson said that "since the time the said Jennet and George Benton threatened him he hath lost eighteen horses and meares, and he conceives he hath had all this loss by the use of some witchcraft or sorcerie by the said Jennet and George Benton."

For a twelvemonth and a day these disturbances, sufferings, and losses continued, rendering Jackson almost bankrupt, and then they all at once ceased.

Being fully convinced that these troubles had been caused by the diabolical incantations of the witch Jennet, he brought a charge against her and her son, at York, of practising witchcraft against him, and they were tried at the assizes on the 7th June, 1656. The depositions of the trial are printed in a volume published by the Surtees Society in 1861, entitled "Depositions from the Castle of York relating to offences committed in the northern counties during the seventeenth century. Edited by J. Raine."

_ELEGANTLY BOUND IN CLOTH GILT, DEMY 8vo., 6s._

YORKSHIRE FAMILY ROMANCE.

By FREDERICK ROSS, F.R.H.S.

AUTHOR OF "THE RUINED ABBEYS OF ENGLAND," "CELEBRITIES OF YORKSHIRE WOLDS," "BIOGRAPHIA EBORACENSIS," "THE PROGRESS OF CIVILISATION," ETC.

Amongst Yorkshire Authors Mr. FREDERICK ROSS occupies a leading place. For over sixty years he has been a close student of the history of his native county, and perhaps no author has written so much and well respecting it. His residence in London has enabled him to take advantage of the important stores of unpublished information contained in the British Museum, the Public Record Office, and in other places. He has also frequently visited Yorkshire to collect materials for his works. His new book is one of the most readable and instructive he has written. It will be observed from the following list of subjects that the work is of wide and varied interest, and makes a permanent contribution to Yorkshire literature.

CONTENTS:

The Synod of Streoneshalh.
The Doomed Heir of Osmotherley.
St. Eadwine, the Royal Martyr.
The Viceroy Siward.
Phases in the Life of a Political Martyr.
The Murderer's Bride.
The Earldom of Wiltes.
Blackfaced Clifford.
The Shepherd Lord.
The Felons of Ilkley.
The Ingilby Boar's Head.
The Eland Tragedy.
The Plumpton Marriage.
The Topcliffe Insurrection.
Burning of Cottingham Castle.
The Alum Workers.
The Maiden of Marblehead.
Rise of the House of Phipps.
The Traitor Governor of Hull.

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Old Church Lore.

By WILLIAM ANDREWS, F.R.H.S.,

_Author of "Curiosities of the Church," "Old-Time Punishments," "Historic Romance," etc._

CONTENTS.

The Right of Sanctuary--The Romance of Trial--A Fight between the Mayor of Hull and the Archbishop of York--Chapels on Bridges--Charter Horns--The Old English Sunday--The Easter Sepulchre--St. Paul's Cross--Cheapside Cross--The Biddenden Maids Charity--Plagues and Pestilences--A King Curing an Abbot of Indigestion--The Services and Customs of Royal Oak Day--Marrying in a White Sheet--Marrying under the Gallows--Kissing the Bride--Hot Ale at Weddings--Marrying Children--The Passing Bell--Concerning Coffins--The Curfew Bell--Curious Symbols of the Saints--Acrobats on Steeples--A carefully-prepared Index.

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HULL: WILLIAM ANDREWS & CO., THE HULL PRESS. London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, & Co., Ltd.

* * * * * *

Transcriber's note:

Obvious printer errors have been corrected. Otherwise, the author's original spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been left intact.