restored to health, and, mirabile dictu! as the white witch had predicted, the old woman, who it was supposed had bewitched the pig, came to inquire after the pig’s health. The animal never suffered a day’s illness afterwards. My informant was the owner of the pig himself.
‘Perhaps, when I heard this story, there may have been a lurking expression of doubt upon my face, so that my friend thought it necessary to give me farther proof. Some time ago, a lane in this town began to be looked upon with a mysterious awe, for every evening a strange white rabbit would appear in it, and, running up and down, would mysteriously disappear. Dogs were frequently put on the scent, but all to no purpose, the white rabbit could not be caught; and rumours began to assert pretty confidently that the white rabbit was nothing more nor less than a witch. The man whose pig had been bewitched was all the more confident, as, every evening when the rabbit appeared, he had noticed the bedroom window of his old enemy’s window open! At last, a large party of bold-hearted men, one evening, were successful enough to find the white rabbit in a garden, the only egress from which is through a narrow passage between two cottages, all the rest of the garden being securely surrounded by brick walls.
‘They placed a strong guard in this entry, to let nothing pass, while the remainder advanced as skirmishers among the cabbages: one of these was successful, and caught the white rabbit by the ears, and, not without some trepidation, carried it towards the reserve in the entry. But, as he came nearer to his friends, his courage grew, and gradually, all the wrongs his poor pig had suffered took form and vigour in a powerful kick at the poor little rabbit. No sooner had he done this than, he cannot tell how, the rabbit was out of his grasp; the people in the entry saw it come, but could not stop it; through them all it went, and has never been seen again.
‘But now to the proof of the witchcraft. The old woman, whom all suspected, was laid up in her bed for three days afterwards, unable to walk about, all the consequence of the kick she had received in the shape of a white rabbit!’
Chapter XV.
Commencement of Witchcraft in England—Dame Eleanor Cobham—Jane Shore—Lord Huntingford—Cases from the Calendars of State Papers—Earliest Printed Case, that of John Walsh—Elizabeth Stile—Three Witches tried at Chelmsford—Witches of St. Osyth—Witches of Warboys—Witches of Northamptonshire.
At what date the higher cult of sorcery or magic became the drivel known as witchcraft is uncertain. I am almost inclined to place it (in England) at 1441; but then the charge was purely political, and I think that the Calendars of State Papers for nearly a century afterwards bear the statement out, that for some time afterwards they were so. The case of Dame Eleanor Cobham is very tersely told in ‘Baker’s Chronicle.’40
‘Whilst these Alterations passed in France, a more unnatural (sic) passed in England; the Uncle riseth against the Nephew, the Nephew against the Uncle; the Duke of Gloucester brings Articles against the Cardinal, charging him with affecting Preheminence, to the Derogation of the King’s Prerogative, and Contempt of his Laws; which Articles are delivered to the King, and by him to his Council, who, being most of the Clergy, durst not meddle in them, for fear of offending the Cardinal. On the other Side, the Cardinal, finding nothing whereof directly to accuse the Duke of Gloucester himself, accuseth his other self, the Lady Eleanor Cobham, the Duke’s Wife, of Treason for attempting, by Sorcery and Witchcraft, the Death of the King, and Advancement of her Husband to the Crown: For which, tho’ acquitted of the Treason, she is adjudged to open Penance, namely, to go with a Wax Taper in her hand, Hoodless (save through a Kerchief) through London, divers Days together, and after, to remain in perpetual imprisonment in the Isle of Man. The Crime objected against her was, procuring Thomas Southwel, John Hunne, Priests, Roger Bolingbroke, a supposed Necromancer, and Margery Jordan, called the Witch of Eye, in Suffolk, to devise a Picture of Wax in Proportion of the King, in such sort by Sorcery, that, as the Picture consumed, so the King’s body should consume: For which they were all condemned. The Witch was burnt at Smithfield, Bolingbroke was hanged, constantly affirming upon his Death, That neither the Duchess, nor any other from her, did ever require more of him, than only to know, by his Art, how long the King should live. John Hunne had his Pardon, and Southwel died the Night before he should have been executed.’
Shakespeare takes up the common tale about the bewitchment of Richard III. (Act III., scene 4):
‘Gloucester. Then be your eyes the witness of their evil;
Look how I am bewitch’d; behold my arm
Is, like a blasted sapling, wither’d up:
And this is Edward’s wife, that monstrous witch,
Consorted with that harlot-strumpet Shore,
That, by their witchcraft, thus have markèd me.’
Monarchs in the sixteenth century were especially jealous (for their own sakes) of this trafficking with the foul fiend. According to Hutchinson, in 1541, ‘The Lord Hungerford beheaded for procuring certain Persons to conjure, that they might know how long Henry VIII. would live.’ Another authority, however, states that ‘Lord Hungerford was attainted and executed, for keeping an heretical chaplain.’
Queen Elizabeth in 1562 being suspicious of the Countess of Lenox, had her imprisoned on a trumped-up case of sorcery and witchcraft. But the Devil evidently had a spite against this Protestant Princess, for in the Calendar of State Papers for 1584 we read, ‘The Names of the Confederates against Her Majesty, who have diverse and sundry times conspired her life, and do daily confederate against her.’ Among others we find Lord Paget, Sir Geo. Hastings, Sir Thos. Hamner, ‘Ould Birtles the great devel, Darnally the sorcerer, Maude Twogood enchantresse, the ould witch of Ramsbury, several other olde witches, Gregson the north tale teller, who was one of them 3 that stole awaye the Earle of Northumberlande’s head frome one of the turrettes of York &c.’
We can scarcely wonder at the hatred of James I. of England to witches, seeing how he had been pestered with them in his realm of Scotland, two instances of which are recorded in the Calendars of State Papers. ‘1591. 21 May. Witches have been discovered in Scotland, who practised the King’s death, with the privity of Bothwell.’ ‘1600 16⁄20 Ap. The Queen of Scotland is said to be a zealous Catholic, and the King inclined thereto, because an Agnus Dei given him by the Queen had miraculously saved him in a tempest at sea, stirred up by witches, as the Witches themselves confess.’
It is a curious fact, well worthy the thinking over, that England and Europe had a comparative immunity from the assaults of the Devil, until after the Reformation, when for a time he became rampagious, troubling even the arch-Reformer Luther himself.
The earliest English printed book on witchcraft, pure and simple, that I can find is ‘The Examination of John Walsh,’ London, 1566. He confessed to having trafficked with ‘Feries’ and learned much from them respecting stolen goods and bewitched people; but in replying to his eighth interrogatory, ‘He being demaunded whether he had euer any Familiar or no; he sayth that he had one of his sayde mayster. Which Familiar (after his booke of Circles was taken from him by one Robert Baber of Crokehorne, then being Constable, in the yeare 1565) he could neuer do anything touching his Familiar, nor the use thereof, but hys Familiar dyd then depart from him, and wyll neuer come to him agayne, as he sayth. And further, he sayth upon his oth, that his familiar would sometyme come unto hym lyke a gray blackish Culuer,41 and somtyme lyke a brended
