Part 1 (2/2)
Clement's, was tried before a jury of twenty-four of her countrymen, and found guilty of the diabolical crime of Sorcery. She was therefore hanged and burnt as a witch, and her goods were confiscated to the King [James I.], and to the Seigneurs to whom they belonged.
It may be interesting to note here the opinion of Mr. Philippe Le Geyt, the famous commentator on the const.i.tution and laws of Jersey, and one of the most enlightened men of his time, who for many years was Lieutenant-Bailiff of that island. He was born in 1635 and died in 1715, in his eighty-first year. In Vol. I., page 42, of his works, there occurs a pa.s.sage of which the following is a translation:--
As Holy Scripture forbids us to allow witches to live, many persons have made it a matter of conscience and of religion to be severe in respect to such a crime. This principle has without doubt made many persons credulous. How often have purely accidental a.s.sociations been taken as convincing proofs? How many innocent people have perished in the flames on the a.s.serted testimony of supernatural circ.u.mstances? I will not say that there are no witches; but ever since the difficulty of convicting them has been recognized in the island, they all seem to have disappeared, as though the evidence of the times gone by had been but an illusion. This shows the instability of all things here below.
Coming down now to within a century ago, we find an article in the _Gazette de Jersey_, of Sat.u.r.day, March 10th, 1787, complaining of the great increase of wizards and witches in the island, as well as of their supposed victims. The writer says that the scenes then taking place were truly ridiculous, and he details a case that had just occurred at St. Brelade's as corroborative of his a.s.sertion. It appears that a worthy householder there, had dreamed that a certain wizard appeared to him and ordered him to poison himself at a date which was specified, enjoining him above all things not to mention the incident to anyone. The poor silly fellow was dreadfully distressed, for he felt convinced that he would have to carry out the disagreeable command. At the same time he was quite unable to keep so momentous a secret to himself, and so he divulged the approaching tragedy to his wife. The good woman's despair was fully equal to his own, and after much anxious domestic counsel they determined to seek the good offices of a White Witch (_une Queraude_), with the hope that her incantations might overcome the evil spells of the Black Witch who was causing all the mischief. This White Witch prescribed lengthened fasting and other preparations for the great ordeal, and on a given night she and the bewitched householder, together with his wife and four or five trusty friends with drawn swords, shut themselves up in a room, and commenced their mysterious ceremonial. There was the boiling of occult herbs; the roasting of a beeve's heart stuck full of nails and pins; the reading of certain pa.s.sages from the family Bible; a mighty gesticulating with the swords, which were first thrust up the chimney to prevent the Black Witch from coming down, and anon were pointed earthward to hinder him from rising up; and so the ridiculous game went on. The only person who benefited was of course the imposter, who was paid for her services; while we may perhaps charitably hope that her dupes also were afterwards easier in their minds. The writer adds that many other persons besides this man at St. Brelade's, had latterly believed themselves bewitched, and had consulted wizards, who were thus driving a profitable trade.
Among the indications and symptoms of a witch, are reckoned various bodily marks and spots, said to be insensible to pain (page 20), inability to shed tears, &c. The p.r.i.c.king of witches was at one time a lucrative profession both in England and Scotland, one of the most noted p.r.i.c.kers being a wretched imposter named Matthew Hopkins who was sent for to all parts of the country to exercise his vile art. Ralph Gardner, in his _England's Grievance Discovered_ (1655), speaks also of two p.r.i.c.kers, Thomas Shovel and Cuthbert Nicholson, who, in 1649 and 1650, were sent by the magistrates of Newcastle-on-Tyne, into Scotland, there to confer with another very able man in that line and bring him back to Newcastle. They were to have twenty s.h.i.+llings, but the Scotchman three pounds, per head _of all they could convict_, and a free pa.s.sage there and back. When these wretches got to any town--for they tried all the chief market-towns in the district--the crier used to go round with his bell, desiring ”all people that would bring in any complaint against any woman for a witch, they should be sent for and tried by the person appointed.” As many as thirty women were brought at once into the Newcastle town-hall, stripped and p.r.i.c.ked, and twenty-seven set aside as guilty. Gardner continues:--
The said witch-finder acquainted Lieutenant-Colonel Hobson that he knew women whether they were witches or no by their looks; and when the said person was searching of a personable and good-like woman, the said colonel replied and said, 'Surely this woman is none, and need not be tried;'
but the Scotchman said she was, for the town said she was, and therefore he would try her; and presently, in sight of all the people, laid her body naked to the waist, with her clothes over her head, by which fright and shame all her blood contracted into one part of her body, and then he ran a pin into her thigh, and then suddenly let her coats fall, and then demanded whether she had nothing of his in her body, but did not bleed? But she, being amazed, replied little. Then he put his hands up her coats and pulled out the pin, and set her aside as a guilty person and child of the devil, and fell to try others, whom he made guilty.
Lieutenant-Colonel Hobson, perceiving the alteration of the aforesaid woman by her blood settling in her right parts, caused that woman to be brought again, and her clothes pulled up to her thigh, and required the Scot to run the pin into the same place, and then it gushed out of blood, and the said Scot cleared her, and said she was not a child of the devil.
If this precious wretch had not been stopped he would have declared half the women in the north country to be witches. But the magistrates and the people got tired of him at last, and his imposture being discovered, he was hanged in Scotland. At the gallows he confessed that he had been the death of 220 men and women in England and Scotland, simply for the sake of the twenty s.h.i.+llings which he generally received as blood-money.
The belief in _Sorcerots_, or witches' spells of a peculiar kind, mentioned in the _Depositions_ (pages 22, 23, &c.) receives curious modern confirmation by a kindred superst.i.tion still current among the emanc.i.p.ated negroes of the United States. It was described in a letter on ”Voudouism in Virginia” which appeared in the _New York Tribune_, dated Richmond, September 17, 1875. Mr. Moncure D. Conway, in quoting this and commenting on it in his _Demonology and Devil-Lore_ (Vol. I.
pages 68-69), says that it belongs to a cla.s.s of superst.i.tions generally kept close from the whites, as he believes, because of their purely African origin. Mr. Conway is, however, probably mistaken about the origin, seeing that the same belief prevailed in Guernsey three centuries ago. The extract from the letter is as follows:--
If an ignorant negro is smitten with a disease which he cannot comprehend, he often imagines himself the victim of witchcraft, and having no faith in ”white folks' physic” for such ailments, must apply to one of these quacks. A physician residing near the city [Richmond] was invited by such a one to witness his mode of procedure with a dropsical patient for whom the physician in question had occasionally charitably prescribed. Curiosity led him to attend the seance, having previously informed the quack that since the case was in such hands he relinquished all connection with it. On the coverlet of the bed on which the sick man lay, was spread a quant.i.ty of bones, feathers, and other trash.
The charlatan went through with a series of so-called conjurations, burned feathers, hair, and tiny fragments of wood in a charcoal furnace, and mumbled gibberish past the physician's comprehension. He then proceeded to rip open the pillows and bolsters, and took from them some queer conglomerations of feathers. These he said had caused all the trouble. Sprinkling a whitish powder over them, he burnt them in his furnace. A black offensive smoke was produced, and he announced triumphantly that the evil influence was destroyed, and that the patient would surely get well. He died not many days later, believing, in common with his friends and relatives, that the conjurations of the ”trick doctor” had failed to save him only because resorted to too late.
From the above it is evident that the natural tendency of wool and feathers to felt and clog together, has been distorted, by widely different peoples, into an outward and visible sign that occult and malignant influences were at work.
As to the manner in which wizards and witches were put to the question in Guernsey--that is tortured until they confessed whatever was required of them--Mr. Warburton, a herald and celebrated antiquary who wrote in the reign of Charles II., has given a circ.u.mstancial account, the correctness of which may be relied on. His _Treatise on the History, Laws and Customs of the Island of Guernsey_, bears the date of 1682, and at page 126 he says:--
By the law approved (_Terrien_, Lib. xii. cap. 37), torture is to be used, though not upon slight presumption, yet where the presumptive proof is strong, and much more when the proof is positive, and there wants only the confession of the party accused. Yet this practice of torturing does not appear to have been used in the island for some ages, except in the case of witches, when it was too frequently applied, near a century since. The custom then was, when any person was supposed guilty of sorcery or witchcraft, they carried them to a place in the town called _La Tour Beauregard_, and there, tying their hands behind them by the two thumbs, drew them to a certain height with an engine made for that purpose, by which means sometimes their shoulders were turned round; and sometimes their thumbs torn off; but this fancy of witches has for some years been laid aside.
It will be noticed in the subsequent _Confessions_ of witches (page 11, &c.), that a number of colons (:) are inserted in the text where they would not be required as ordinary marks of punctuation. These correspond, however, to similar pauses in the original records, and evidently indicate the successive stages by which the story was wrung from the wretched victims. They are thus endowed with a sad and ghastly significance, which must be borne in mind when the confessions are read. It must also be remembered that these confessions were not usually made in the connected form in which they stand recorded, but were rather the result of leading questions put by the inquisitors, such as: How old were you when the Devil first appeared to you? What form did he a.s.sume? What parish were you in? What were you doing? &c., &c.
Melancholy and revolting as all this is, yet the tortures made use of in Guernsey were far from possessing those refinements of cruelty and that intensity of brutality which characterised the methods practiced in some other countries. Let us take as a proof of this, the notable case of Dr. Fian and his a.s.sociates, who were tried at Edinburgh, in the year 1591. The evidence was of the usual ridiculous kind, and a confession--afterwards withdrawn--was extorted by the following blood-curdling barbarities, as is quoted by Mr. C.K. Sharpe, in his _Historical Account of the Belief in Witchcraft in Scotland_:--
The said Doctor was taken and imprisoned, and used with the accustomed paine provided for those offences inflicted upon the rest, as is aforesaid. First, by thrawing of his head with a rope, whereat he would confesse nothing. Secondly, he was perswaded by faire meanes to confesse his follies; but that would prevaile as little. Lastly, hee was put to the most severe and cruell paine in the world, called the bootes, who, after he had received three strokes, being inquired if he would confesse his d.a.m.nable actes and wicked life, his toong would not serve him to speak; in respect whereof, the rest of the witches willed to search his toong, under which was founde two pinnes thrust up into the heade, whereupon the witches did say, now is the charme stinted, and shewed that these charmed pins were the cause he could not confesse any thing; then was he immediately released of the bootes, brought before the King, his confession was taken, and his own hand willingly set thereunto.... But this Doctor, notwithstanding that his owne confession appeareth remaining in recorde under his owne hande-writing, and the same thereunto fixed in the presence of the King's majestie, and sundrie of his councell, yet did he utterly denie the same. Whereupon the Kinges majestie, perceiving his stubbourne wilfulnesse, conceived and imagined that in the time of his absence hee had entered into newe conference and league with the devill, his master, and that hee had beene agayne newly marked, for the which he was narrowly searched; but it coulde not in anie wice be founde; yet, for more tryall of him to make him confesse, hee was commaunded to have a most straunge torment, which was done in this manner following: His nailes upon all his fingers were riven and pulled off with an instrument called in Scottish a turkas, which in England wee call a payre of pincers, and under everie nayle there was thrust in two needles over, even up to the heads; at all which tormentes notwithstanding the Doctor never shronke anie whit, neither woulde he then confesse it the sooner for all the tortures inflicted upon him. Then was hee, with all convenient speed, by commandement, convaied againe to the torment of the bootes, wherein he continued a long time, and did abide so many blowes in them, that the legges were crusht and beaten together as small as might bee, and the bones and flesh so bruised that the blood and marrow spouted forth in great abundance, whereby they were made unserviceable for ever; and notwithstanding all those grievous paines and cruell torments, hee would not confess anie thing; so deeply had the devill entered into his heart, that hee utterly denied all that which he had before avouched, and would saie nothing thereunto but this, that what he had done and sayde before, was onely done and sayde for fear of paynes which he had endured. After this horrible treatment the wretched man was strangled and burnt.
The following list gives a few--and only a few--of the direful results to which this widespread superst.i.tion led. The instances are chiefly taken from Dr. Reville's _History of the Devil_, and Haydn's well-known _Dictionary of Dates_:--
At Toulouse a n.o.ble lady, fifty-six years of age, named Angela de Labarete, was the first who was burnt as a sorceress, in which special quality she formed part of the great _auto-da-fe_ which took place in that city in the year 1275; at Carcasonne, from 1320 to 1350, more than four hundred executions for witchcraft are on record; in 1309 many Templars were burnt at Paris for witchcraft; Joan of Arc was burnt as a witch at Rouen, May 30th, 1431; in 1484 Pope Innocent VIII. issued a bull against witchcraft, causing persecutions to break out in all parts of Christendom; during three months of the year 1515, about five hundred witches were burnt at Geneva; in 1524 many persons were burnt for the same crime in the Diocese of Como; about the year 1520 a great number suffered in France, and one sorcercer confessed to having 1,200 a.s.sociates; from 1580 to 1595--a period of fifteen years--about nine hundred witches were burnt in Lorraine; between 1627 and 1629, no fewer than one hundred and fifty-seven persons, old and young, and of all ranks, were burnt at Wurtzburg, in Bavaria; in 1634 a clerk named Urbain Grandier, who was parish priest at Loudon, was burnt on a charge of having bewitched a whole convent of Ursuline nuns; in 1654 twenty poor women were put to death as witches in Brittany; in 1648-9 serious disturbances on account of witchcraft took place in Ma.s.sachusetts; and in 1683 dreadful persecutions raged in Pennsylvania from the same cause; in 1692, at Salem, in New England, nineteen persons were hanged by the Puritans for witchcraft, and eight more were condemned, while fifty others confessed themselves to be witches, and were pardoned; in 1657 the witch-judge Nicholas Remy boasted of having burnt nine hundred persons in fifteen years; in one German princ.i.p.ality alone, at least two hundred and forty-two persons were burnt between 1646 and 1651, including many children from one to six years of age; in 1749 Maria Renata was burnt at Wurtzburg for witchcraft; on January 17th, 1775, nine old women were burnt at Kalish, in Poland, on a charge of having bewitched and rendered unfruitful the lands belonging to the palatinate; at Landshut, in Bavaria, in 1756, a young girl of thirteen years was convicted of impure intercourse with the Devil and put to death. There were also executions for sorcery at Seville, in Spain, in 1781, and at Glarus, in Switzerland, in 1783; while even as late as December 15th, 1802, five women were condemned to death for sorcery at Patna, in the Bengal Presidency, by the Brahmins, and were all executed.
IN ENGLAND the record of Witchcraft is also a melancholy chapter. A statute was enacted declaring all witchcraft and sorcery to be felony without benefit of clergy, 33 Henry VIII. 1541; and again 5 Elizabeth, 1562, and 1 James I. 1603. The 73rd Canon of the Church, 1603, prohibits the Clergy from casting out devils. Barrington estimates the judicial murders for witchcraft in England, during two hundred years, at 30,000; Matthew Hopkins, the ”witch-finder,” caused the judicial murder of about one hundred persons in Ess.e.x, Norfolk, and Suffolk, 1645-7; Sir Matthew Hale burnt two persons for witchcraft in 1664; about 1676 seventeen or eighteen persons were burnt as witches at St. Osyths, in Ess.e.x; in 1705 two pretended witches were executed at Northampton, and five others seven years afterwards; in 1716, a Mrs. Hicks, and her daughter, a little girl of nine years old, are said to have been hanged as witches at Huntingdon, but of this there seems to be some doubt. The last really authentic trial in England for witchcraft took place in 1712, when the jury convicted an old woman named Jane Wenham, of Walkerne, a little village in the north of Hertfords.h.i.+re, and she was sentenced to be hanged. The judge, however, quietly procured a reprieve for her, and a kind-hearted gentleman in the neighbourhood gave her a cottage to live in, where she ended her days in peace.
With regard to the mobbing of reputed sorcerers, it is recorded that in the year 1628, Dr. Lamb, a so-called wizard, who had been under the protection of the Duke of Buckingham, was torn to pieces by a London mob. While even as late as April 22nd, 1751, a wild and tossing rabble of about 5,000 persons beset and broke into the work-house at Tring, in Hertfords.h.i.+re, where seizing Luke Osborne and his wife, two inoffensive old people suspected of witchcraft, they ducked them in a pond till the old woman died. After which, her corpse was put to bed to her husband by the mob, of whom only one person--a chimney-sweeper named Colley, who was the ringleader--was brought to trial and hanged for the detestable outrage.
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