|
Lancashire
Witches : A story with many pathetic and
pitiable features, and one which is eloquent of
the ignorance and credulity of the age, is that
of the Lancashire Witches. Not very far from
Manchester lies Pendelbury Forest, a gloomy
though romantic and picturesque spot. At the
time when
it was inhabited by the witches—that is to say,
about the
beginning of the ijth century—it was held in
such terror by law-abiding folks'that they
scarcely dared to approach it. They imagined it
to be the haunt of witches and demons, the scene
of all sorts of frightful orgies and diabolical
rites. So that when Roger Nowel, a country
magistrate, hit upon the plan of routing the
witches out of their den, and thus ridding the
district of their malevolent influence, he
fancied he would be doing a public-spirited and
laudable action. He promptly began by seizing
Elizabeth Demdike and Ann Chattox, two women of
eighty years of age, one of them blind, and the
other threatened with blindness, both of them
living in squalor and abject poverty. Demdike's
daughter, Elizabeth Device, and her
grandchildren, James and Alison Device, were
included in the accusation, and Ann Redferne,
daughter of Chattox was apprehended with her
mother. Others were seized in quick
succession—Jane Bulcock and her son John, Alice
Nutter, Catherine Hewitt, and Isabel Roby. All
of them were induced—by what means it were
better not to enquire too closely—to make a more
or less detailed confession of their
communication with the Devil. When this had been
extorted from them, they were sent to prison in
Lancaster Castle, some fifty miles away, there
to await trial for their misdeeds.
They had not lain in prison very long when the
authorities were informed that about twenty
witches had assembled on Good Friday, at
Malkin's Tower, the home of Elizabeth Device, in
order to compass the death of one Covel, to blow
up the castle in which their companions were
confined, and rescue the prisoners, and also to
kill a man called Lister, which last purpose
they accomplished by means of diabolical agency.
In the summer assizes of 1612 the prisoners were
tried for witchcraft, and were all found guilty.
The woman Demdike had died in prison, and thus
escaped a more ignominious death at the gallows.
The principal witnesses who appeared against
Elizabeth Device were her grandchildren, James
and Jennet Device. Directly the latter entered
the witness-box her grandmother set up a
terrible yelling punctuated by bitter
execrations. The child, who was only nine years
of age, begged that the prisoner might be
removed as she could not otherwise proceed with
her evidence. Her request was granted, and she
and her brother swore that the Devil had visited
their grandmother in the shape of a black dog,
and asked what were her wishes. She had
intimated that she desired the death of one John
Robinson, whereupon the fiend told her to make a
clay image of Robinson and gradually crumble it
to pieces, saying that as she did so the man's
life would decay and finally perish. On such
evidence ten persons were hanged, including the
aged Ann Chattox.
It is shocking to reflect that, at a period when
literature and learning were at their height,
such cruelty could be tolerated, not only by the
vulgar and uneducated, but by the learned judges
who pronounced the sentence. The women were old
and ignorant and probably weak-minded. No doubt
they began in time to invest themselves with
those powers, which their neighbours credited to
them, and to believe themselves fit objects for
the awe and terror of the people. It is even
possible that they may have seen some sort of
visions, or hallucinations, which they persuaded
themselves were evil spirits attending on them
Thus their own cunning and ignorance may have
hastened their downfall.
Twenty-two years later a similar outrage, on the
same spot, was narrowly avoided, by the
shrewdness of the judge who tried the case. A
certain misguided man, by name Edmund Robinson,
thought to profit by the general belief in
witchcraft. To this end he taught his young son,
a boy of eleven to say that one day he
encountered in the fields two dogs, with which
he tried to catch a hare. But the animals would
not obey his bidding, and at length he tied them
to a post and whipped them, when they
immediately turned into a witch and her imp.
this monstrous story gained such credence that
vvhen Robinson declared that his son possessed a
sort.of second-sight, which enabled him to
distinguish a witch at a glance, no one thought
of denying his statement. Accordingly, he took
the boy to the neighbouring churches, set him on
a bench, and bade him point out the ivitches. No
less than seventeen persons were thus accused
and might have been hanged had not the judge's
suspicions been aroused by the story, for the
jury did not hesitate to convict them. However,
the doubts of the worthy judge gained a respite
for the prisoners, some of whom were sent to
London for examination by the King's physician
and by the king himself. The boy's story was
investigated and found to be merely a tissue of
lies, as, indeed, the child himself confessed it
to be.
Home | Alternative
Medicine | Astrology | Channeling
|
Divination |
Esoteric & Occult |
Food
|
Life
After Death | Michael
Teachings
| Mind
& Body | Paranormal
| Philosophy
& Religion |
Relationships
| Spiritual
Growth
| World
Issues
|
