against Witches—Punishment—Last Executions for Witchcraft—Inability to weep and sink—Modern Cases of Witchcraft.
There has not been much legislation against witches in England, the Acts simply keeping in force. It is said that Athelstane in 928 made witchcraft a capital crime, but our ‘statutes at large’ give 33 Henry VIII., cap. 8 (1541), as the first Act really touching witchcraft, as coming within the ken of this book. Next comes 5 Elizabeth, cap. 16 (1562), and then 1 James I., cap. 12 (1604), previously substantially quoted. This was the law of the land until it was abolished in 1736, 9 George II., cap. 5, which did away with capital punishment for witchcraft, and the present law on the subject dates from 1822, 3 George IV., where the word ‘witchcraft’ certainly disappears, and only ‘All Persons pretending to be Gipsies: all Persons pretending to tell Fortunes, or using any subtle Craft, Means, or Device, by Palmistry, or other wise, to deceive or impose upon any of His Majestys subjects,’ shall be adjudged ‘Common Rogues and Vagabonds,’ and sentenced as such.
Formerly the poor wretches were burned, a fearful fate, as Scot says, quoting Bodin. ‘Item, if a woman confesse freelie herein, before question37 be made; and yet afterward denie it; she is neuerthelesse to be burned.’ Possibly the last case of burning for witchcraft is one I shall record later on, at Bury St. Edmunds, in 1644; but the same year one Alice Hudson was burned at York for receiving small sums of money from the Devil.38
The last case of burning in Scotland was in Sutherland, in 1722, and the last in Ireland at Glarus, a servant being burnt as a witch in 1786. Probably the last burning for witchcraft, in any so-called civilized country, is the following, taken from the Steamer Edition of the Panama Star and Herald of June 5, 1871: ‘According to the Porvenir of Callao (Peru), 29th ult., a woman has been burnt in the public square of a town in the province of Guavina, about thirty-four leagues from the port of Iquique, for being a witch. This punishment, worthy of the flourishing days of the Spanish Inquisition, was ordered by the Lieutenant-Governor and Judge of the Province.’
Hutchinson, a very careful writer, whose ‘Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft,’ etc., was first published in 1718, and the second edition in 1720, says, referring to a case we shall hear of anon: ‘Susan Edwards, Mary Trembles, and Temperance Lloyd, hanged at Exeter, confess’d themselves Witches, but died with good Prayers in their Mouths. I suppose these are the last Three that have been hanged in England. 1682.’
James I. was ruthless against witches, vide the following:
‘Philomathes. Then to make an ende of our conference, since I see it drawes late, what forme of punishment thinke yee merites these Magicians and Witches? For I see that yee account them to be al alike guiltie.
Epistemon. They ought to be put to death according to the Law of God, the civill and imperiall Law, and municipall Law of all Christian nations.
Phi. But what kinde of death, I pray you?
Epi. It is commonly used by fire, but that is an indifferent thing to be used in every countrey, according to the Law or custome thereof.
Phi. But ought no sexe, age, nor ranke to bee exempted?
Epi. None at al (being so used by the lawful magistrate) for it is the highest point of Idolatry, wherein no exception is admitted by the Law of God.
Phi. Then bairnes may not be spared?
Epi. Yea, not a haire the lesse of my conclusion. For they are not that capable of reason as to practise such things.’
Before quitting the subject of witches for cases of witchcraft, it occurs to me that I have omitted one or two peculiarities relating to them. First of all, one personal peculiarity they had, according to the infallible authority Bodin—an inability to weep, or, at all events, they could only screw out three tears. And this was a great test, so much so that a form of conjuration is given in the ‘Malleus Maleficarum,’ and translated by Scot, which bears strongly upon this point: ‘I coniure thee by the amorous teares, which Jesus Christ our Saviour shed upon the crosse for the saluation of the world; and by the most earnest and burning teares of his mother the most glorious virgine Marie, sprinkled upon his wounds late in the euening; and by all the teares which euerie saint and elect vessell of God hath poured out heere in the world, and from whose eies he hath wiped away all teares; that, if thou be without fault, thou maist poure downe teares abundantlie; and, if thou be guiltie, that thou weepe in no wise: In the name of the father, of the sonne, and of the holie ghost: Amen. And note (saith he) that the more you coniure, the lesse she wepeth.’
But the same authority says: ‘She must be well looked unto, otherwise she will put spettle priuilie upon hir cheeks, and seeme to weepe.’ King James says, ‘Not so much as their eies are able to shead teares, (threaten and torture them as yee please) ... albeit the women kinde especially, be able otherwaies to shead teares at every light occasion when they will, yea, although it were dissemblingly like the Crocodiles.’
He also says, with reference to their inability to sink in water: ‘It appeares that God hath appointed (for a supernatural signe of the monstrous impiety of Witches) that the water shall refuse to receive them in her bosome, that have shaken off them the sacred Water of Baptisme, and wilfully refused the benefite thereof.’
This ordeal by water has been practised to a very late date, and ‘swimming her for a witch’ has been often heard in this century. The scientific and proper method of preparing the witch is by tying her right thumb to her left great toe, and vice versâ, and this ordeal had this simplicity: If the putative witch sank well, she was innocent; and if she swam, she could either be ducked and ill treated till she died, as too often was the case, or she was ipso facto a confessed witch.
Another ordeal was, to take a piece of the thatch from off the reputed witch’s cottage, and set fire to it; if she came to the person so burning the thatch, her witchcraft was incontestable.
Another was, to weigh the witch against the church Bible, and this test, too, has come down to modern times. One instance will suffice. ‘One Susana Hannokes, an elderly woman of Wingrove, near Aylesbury, was accused by a neighbour for bewitching her spinning wheel, so that she could not make it go round, and offered to make oath of it before a magistrate; on which, the husband, in order to justify his wife, insisted upon her being tried by the church Bible, and that the accuser should be present: accordingly, she was conducted to the parish church, where she was stript of all her cloathes to her shift and under-coat, and weighed against the Bible; when, to the no small mortification of her accuser, she out-weighed it, and was honourably acquitted of the charge.’39
But in this nineteenth century of ours, with all its boasted civilization, witchcraft is still believed in in England, as the following two or three instances will testify:
S. A. S., writing in Notes and Queries, June 25, 1853, says, ‘A cottager, who does not live five minutes’ walk from my house, found his pig seized with a strange and unaccountable disorder. He, being a sensible man, instead of asking the advice of a veterinary surgeon, immediately went to the white witch (a gentleman who drives a flourishing trade in this neighbourhood). He received his directions, and went home, and implicitly followed them. In perfect silence, he went to the pigsty; and, lancing each foot and both ears of the pig, he allowed the blood to run into a piece of common dowlas. Then, taking two large pins, he pierced the dowlas in opposite directions; and, still keeping silence, entered his cottage, locked the door, placed the bloody rag upon the fire, heaped up some turf over it, and, reading a few verses of the Bible, waited
