WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. 
 
WITCH, WARLOCK, AND 
 MAGICIAN ^ 
 
 UMstorical Sfectcbcs of /IDaoic ant> Witchcraft 
 in ]n0lant> ant> Scotland 
 
 BY 
 
 XV. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS 
 
 Dreams and the light imaginings of men ' 
 
 SHELLEV 
 
 J. W. BOUT ON 
 706 & 1152 BROADWAY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 1889 
 
A* 
 
 
 
 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE following pages may be regarded as a contribu- 
 tion towards that * History of Human Error ' which 
 was undertaken by Mr. Augustine Caxton. I fear 
 that many minds will have to devote all their energies 
 to the work, if it is ever to be brought to completion ; 
 and, indeed, it may plausibly be argued that its 
 completion would be an impossibility, since every 
 generation adds something to the melancholy record 
 ' pulveris exigui parva munera/ However this may 
 be, little more remains to be said on the subjects 
 which I have here considered from the standpoint of 
 a sympathetic though incredulous observer. Alchemy, 
 Magic, Witchcraft how exhaustively they have been 
 investigated will appear from the list of authorities 
 which I have drawn up for the reader's convenience. 
 They have been studied by c adepts/ and by critics, 
 as realities and as delusions ; and almost the last 
 word would seem to have been said by Science 
 though not on the side of the adepts, who still con- 
 tinue to dream of the Hermetic philosophy, to lose 
 themselves in fanciful pictures, theurgic and occult, 
 and to write about the mysteries of magic with a 
 
 257437 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 simplicity of faith which we may wonder at, but are 
 bound to respect. 
 
 It has not been my purpose, in the present volume, 
 to attempt a general history of magic and alchemy, or 
 a scientific inquiry into their psychological aspects. I 
 have confined myself to a sketch of their progress in 
 England, and to a narrative of the lives of our prin- 
 cipal magicians. This occupies the first part. The 
 second is devoted to an historical review of witchcraft 
 in Great Britain, ajid an examination into the most 
 remarkable Witch-Trials, in which I have endeavoured 
 to bring out their peculiar features, presenting much 
 of the evidence adduced, and in some cases the so- 
 called confessions of the victims, in the original 
 language. I believe that the details, notwithstanding 
 the reticence imposed upon me by considerations of 
 delicacy and decorum, will surprise the reader, and 
 that he will readily admit the profound interest 
 attaching to them, morally and intellectually. I 
 have added a chapter on the ' Literature of Witchcraft,' 
 which, I hope, is tolerably exhaustive, and now offer 
 the whole as an eifort to present, in a popular and 
 readable form, the result of careful and conscientious 
 study extending over many years. 
 
 W. H. D. A. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PA UK 
 
 PROGRESS OF ALCHEMY IN EUROPE 1 
 
 BOOK I. 
 THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. ROGER BACON : THE TRUE AND THE LEGENDARY 27 
 
 II. THE STORY OF DR. JOHN DEE - 59 
 
 III. DR. DEE'S DIARY 93 
 
 IV. MAGIC AND IMPOSTURE : A COUPLE OF KNAVES - 102 
 V. THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS : WILLIAM 
 
 LILLY - 128 
 
 VI. ENGLISH ROSICRUCIANS - 181 
 
 BOOK II. 
 WITCHES AND WITCHCRAFT. 
 
 / EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT IN ENGLAND - 203 
 n. WITCHCRAFT IN ENGLAND IN THE SEVENTEENTH 
 
 / CENTURY - 244 
 
 IM. THE DECLINE OF WITCHCRAFT IN ENGLAND - 292 
 
 IV. THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND 303 
 
 V. THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT - - - 378 
 
WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PROGRESS OF ALCHEMY IN EUROPE. 
 
 THE word ^n/mua from which we derive our English 
 word ' chemistry ' first occurs, it is said, in the 
 Lexicon of Suidas, a Greek writer who flourished in 
 the eleventh century. Here is his definition of it : 
 
 4 Chemistry is the art of preparing gold and silver. The books 
 concerning it were sought out and burnt by Diocletian, on account 
 of the new plots directed against him by the Egyptians. He 
 behaved towards them with great cruelty in his search after the 
 treatises written by the ancients, his purpose being to prevent 
 them from growing rich by a knowledge of this art, lest, em- 
 boldened by measureless wealth, they should be induced to resist 
 the Eoman supremacy.' 
 
 Some authorities assert, however, that this art, or 
 pretended art, is of much greater antiquity than 
 Suidas knew of ; and Scaliger refers to a Greek 
 manuscript by Zozomen, of the fifth century, which 
 is entitled ' A Faithful Description of the Secret and 
 Divine Art of Making Gold and Silver.' We may 
 assume that as soon as mankind had begun to set an 
 artificial value upon these metals, and had acquired 
 
 1 
 
2 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. 
 
 some knowledge of chemical elements, their combina- 
 tions and permutations, they would entertain a desire 
 to multiply them in measureless quantities. Dr. 
 Shaw speaks of no fewer than eighty-nine ancient 
 manuscripts, scattered through the European libraries, 
 which are all occupied with ; the chemical art/ or 
 c the holy art,' or, as it is sometimes called, ' the 
 philosopher's stone ' ; and a fair conclusion seems to 
 be that c between the fifth century and the taking of 
 Constantinople in the fifteenth, the Greeks believed in 
 the possibility of making gold and silver/ and called 
 the supposed process, or processes, chemistry. 
 
 The delusion was taken up by the Arabians when, 
 under their Abasside Khalifs, they entered upon the 
 cultivation of scientific knowledge. The Arabians con- 
 veyed it into Spain, whence its diffusion over Chris- 
 tendom was a simple work of time, sure if gradual. 
 From the eleventh to the sixteenth century, alchemy 
 was more or less eagerly studied by the scholars of 
 Germany, Italy, France, and England ; and the 
 volumes in which they recorded both their learning 
 and their ignorance, the little they knew and the 
 more they did not know, compose quite a considerable 
 library. One hundred and twenty-two are enumerated 
 in the ' Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa,' of Mangetus, a 
 dry-as-dust kind of compilation, in two huge volumes, 
 printed at Geneva in 1702. Any individual who 
 has time and patience to expend ad libitum, cannot 
 desire a fairer field of exercise than the 'Bibliotheca.' 
 One very natural result of all this vain research and 
 profitless inquiry was a keen anxiety on the part of 
 
me 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 victims to dignify their labours by claiming for their 
 i sciences, falsely so-called/ a venerable and mys- 
 terious origin. They accordingly asserted that the 
 founder or creator was Hermes Trismegistus, whom 
 some of them professed to identify with Chanaan, the 
 son of Ham, whose son Mizraim first occupied and 
 peopled Egypt. Now, it is clear that any person 
 might legitimately devote his nights and days to the 
 pursuit of a science invented, or originally taught, 
 by no less illustrious an ancient than Hermes 
 Trismegistus. But to clothe it with the awe of a 
 still greater antiquity, they affirmed that its principles 
 had been discovered, engraved in Phoenician char- 
 acters, on an emerald tablet which Alexander the 
 Great exhumed from the philosopher's tomb. Un- 
 fortunately, as is always the case, the tablet was lost ; 
 but we are expected to believe that two Latin versions 
 of the inscription had happily been preserved. One 
 of these may be Englished as hereinunder : 
 
 1. I speak no frivolous things, but only what is 
 true and most certain. 
 
 2. What is below resembles that which is above, 
 and what is above resembles that which is below, 
 to accomplish the one thing of all things most 
 wonderful. 
 
 3. And as all things proceeded from the medita- 
 tion of the One God, so were all things generated 
 from this one thing by the disposition of Nature. 
 
 4. Its father is Sol, its mother Luna; it was 
 engendered in the womb by the air, and nourished by 
 the earth. 
 
 12 
 
4 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. 
 
 5. It is the cause of all the perfection of things 
 throughout the whole world. 
 
 6. It arrives at the highest perfection of powers if 
 it be reduced into earth. 
 
 7. Separate the earth from the fire, the subtle from 
 the gross, acting with great caution. 
 
 8. Ascend with the highest wisdom from earth 
 to heaven, and thence descend again to earth, and 
 bind together the powers of things superior and 
 things inferior. So shall you compass the glory of 
 the whole world, and divest yourself of the abjectness 
 of humanity. 
 
 9. This thing has more fortitude than fortitude 
 itself, since it will overcome everything subtle and 
 penetrate everything solid. 
 
 10. All that the world contains was created by it. 
 
 11. Hence proceed things wonderful which in this 
 wise were established. 
 
 12. For this reason the name of Hermes Tris- 
 megistus was bestowed upon me, because I am master 
 of three parts of the philosophy of the whole world. 
 
 13. This is what I had to say concerning the most 
 admirable process of the chemical art. 
 
 These oracular utterances are so vague and obscure 
 that an enthusiast may read into them almost any mean- 
 ing he chooses ; but there seems a general consensus of 
 opinion that they refer to the ' universal medicine ' 
 of the earlier alchemists. This, however, is of no 
 great importance, since it is certain they were 
 invented by some ingenious hand as late as the 
 fifteenth century. Another forgery of a similar kind 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 is the ' Tractatus Aureus de Lapidis Physici Secretis,' 
 also attributed to Hermes ; it professes to describe 
 the process of making this ' universal medicine/ or 
 ( philosopher's stone/ and the formulary is thus 
 translated by Thomson : 
 
 * Take of moisture an ounce and a half ; of meridional redness 
 that is, the soul of the sun a fourth part, that is, half an ounce ; 
 of yellow sage likewise half an ounce ; and of auripigmentum 
 half an ounce ; making in all three ounces.' 
 
 Such a recipe does not seem to help forward an 
 enthusiastic student to any material extent. 
 
 THE EARLIER ALCHEMISTS. 
 
 It is in the erudite writings of the great Arabian 
 physician, Gebir that is, Abu Moussah Djafar, sur- 
 named Al Soft, or The Wise that the science of 
 alchemy, or chemistry (at first the two were identi- 
 cal), first assumes a definite shape. Gebir flourished 
 in the early part of the eighth century, and wrote, it 
 is said, upwards of five hundred treatises on the 
 philosopher's stone and the elixir of life. In reference 
 to the latter mysterious potion, which possessed the 
 wonderful power of conferring immortal youth on 
 those who drank of it, one may remark that it was 
 the necessary complement of the philosopher's stone, 
 for what would be the use of an unlimited faculty of 
 making gold and silver unless one could be sure of 
 an immortality in which to enjoy its exercise ? 
 Gebir's principal work, the ' Summae Perfections/ 
 containing instructions for students in search of the 
 two great secrets, has been translated into several 
 
6 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. 
 
 European languages ; and an English version, by 
 Eichard Russell, the alchemist, was published in 
 1686. 
 
 Gebir lays down, as a primary principle, that all 
 metals are compounds of mercury and sulphur. They 
 all labour under disease, he says, except gold, which is 
 the one metal gifted with perfect health. Therefore, a 
 preparation of it would dispel every ill which flesh is 
 heir to, as well as the maladies of plants. We may 
 excuse his extravagances, however, in consideration 
 of the services he rendered to science by his discovery 
 of corrosive sublimate, red oxide of mercury, white 
 oxide of arsenic, nitric acid, oxide of copper, and 
 nitrate of silver, all of which originally issued from 
 Gebir's laboratory. 
 
 Briefly speaking, the hypothesis assumed by the 
 alchemists was this : all the metals are compounds, 
 and the baser contain the same elements as gold, 
 contaminated, indeed, with various impurities, but 
 capable, when these have been purged away, of assum- 
 ing all its properties and characters. The substance 
 which was to effect this purifying process they 
 called the philosopher's stone (lapis philosophorum), 
 though, as a matter of fact, it is always described 
 as a powder a powder red-coloured, and smelling 
 strongly. Few of the alchemists, however, venture 
 on a distinct statement that they had discovered or 
 possessed this substance. 
 
 The arch-quack Paracelsus makes the assertion, of 
 course ; unblushing mendacity was part of his stock- 
 in-trade ; and he pretends even to define the methods 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 by which it may be realized. Unfortunately, to 
 ordinary mortals his description is absolutely ^oin- 
 intelligible. Others there are who affirm that they 
 had seen it, and seen it in operation, transmuting 
 lead, quicksilver, and other of the inferior metals into 
 ruddy gold. One wonders that they did not claim a 
 share in a process which involved such boundless 
 potentialities of wealth! 
 
 Helvetius, the physician, though no believer in the 
 magical art, tells the following wild story in his 
 ' Vitulus Aureus ' : 
 
 On December 26, 1666, a stranger called upon him, 
 and, after discussing the supposed properties of the 
 universal medicine, showed him a yellow powder, 
 which he declared to be the lapis, and also five large 
 plates of gold, which, he said, were the product of its 
 action. Naturally enough, Helvetius begged for a 
 few grains of this marvellous powder, or that the 
 stranger would at least exhibit its potency in his 
 presence. He refused, however, but promised that he 
 would return in six weeks. He kept his promise, 
 and then, after much entreaty, gave Helvetius a pinch 
 of the powder about as much as a rape- seed. The 
 physician expressed his fe.ar that so minute a quantity 
 would not convert as much as four grains of lead ; 
 whereupon the stranger broke off one-half, and 
 declared that the remainder was more than sufficient 
 for the purpose. During their first conference, 
 Helvetius had contrived to conceal a little of the 
 powder beneath his thumb-nail. This he dropped into 
 some molten lead, but it was nearly all exhaled in 
 
8 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. 
 
 smoke, and the residue was simply of a vitreous 
 character. 
 
 On mentioning this circumstance to his visitor, he 
 explained that the powder should have been enclosed 
 in wax before it was thrown into the molten lead, 
 to prevent the fumes of the lead from affecting it. 
 He added that he would come back next day, and 
 show him how to make the projection ; but as he 
 failed to appear, Helvetius. in the presence of his wife 
 and son, put six drachms of lead into a crucible, and 
 as soon as the lead was melted, flung into it the 
 atoms of powder given to him by his mysterious 
 visitor, having first rolled them up in a little ball of 
 wax. At the end of a quarter of an hour he found 
 the lead transmuted (so he avers) into gold. Its 
 colour at first was a deep green; but the mixture, 
 when poured into a conical vessel, turned blood -red, 
 and, after cooling, acquired the true tint of gold. A 
 goldsmith who examined it pronounced it to be 
 genuine. Helvetius requested Purelius, the keeper 
 of the Dutch Mint, to test its value ; and two 
 drachms, after being exposed to aquafortis, were 
 found to have increased a couple of scruples in weight 
 an increase doubtlessly owing to the silver, which still 
 remained enveloped in the gold, despite the action of 
 the aquafortis. 
 
 It is obvious that this narrative is a complete 
 mystification, and that either the stranger was a 
 myth or Helvetius was the victim of a decep- 
 tion. 
 
 The recipes that the alchemists formulate those, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 that is, who profess to have discovered the stone, 
 or to have known somebody who enjoyed so rare a 
 fortune are always unintelligible or impracticable. 
 What is to be understood, for example, of the follow- 
 ing elaborate process, or series of processes, which 
 are recorded by Man get us, in his preface to the 
 ponderous 4 Bibliotheca Chemica ' (to which reference 
 has already been made) ? 
 
 1. Prepare a quantity of spirits of wine, so free 
 from water as to be wholly combustible, and so 
 volatile that a drop of it, if let fall, will evaporate 
 before it reaches the ground. This constitutes the 
 first menstruum. 
 
 2. Take pure mercury, revived in the usual 
 manner from cinnabar ; put it into a glass vessel 
 with common salt and distilled vinegar ; shake 
 violently, and when the vinegar turns black, pour it 
 off, and add fresh vinegar. Shake again, and con- 
 tinue these repeated shakings and additions until 
 the mercury no longer turns the vinegar black ; 
 the mercury will then be quite pure and very 
 brilliant. 
 
 3. Take of this mercury four parts ; of sublimed 
 mercury (mercurii meteor esati probably corrosive 
 sublimate), prepared with your own hands, eight 
 parts ; triturate them together in a wooden mortar 
 with a wooden pestle, till all the grains of running 
 mercury disappear. (This process is truly described 
 as ' tedious and rather difficult.') 
 
 4. The mixture thus prepared is to be put into a 
 sand-bath, and exposed to a subliming heat, which 
 
10 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. 
 
 is to be gradually increased until the whole sublimes. 
 Collect the sublimed matter, put it again into the 
 sand-bath, and sublime a second time ; this process 
 must be repeated five times. The product is a very 
 sweet crystallized sublimate, constituting the sal 
 sapientum, or wise men's salt (probably calomel), and 
 possessing wonderful properties. 
 
 5. Grind it in a wooden mortar, reducing it to 
 powder ; put this powder into a glass retort, and 
 pour upon it the spirit of wine (see No. 1) till it 
 stands about three finger-breadths above the powder. 
 Seal the retort hermetically, and expose it to a very 
 gentle heat for seventy-four hours, shaking it several 
 times a day ; then distil with a gentle heat, and the 
 spirit of wine will pass over, together with spirit of 
 mercury. Keep this liquid in a well-stoppered bottle, 
 lest it should evaporate. More spirit of wine is to 
 be poured upon the residual salt, and after digestion 
 must be distilled off, as before ; and this operation 
 must be repeated until all the salt is dissolved and 
 given off with the spirit of wine. A great work 
 will then have been accomplished ! For the mercury, 
 having to some extent been rendered volatile, will 
 gradually become fit to receive the tincture of gold 
 and silver. Now return thanks to God, who has 
 hitherto crowned your wonderful work with success. 
 Nor is this wonderful work enveloped in Cimmerian 
 darkness ; it is clearer than the sun, though preceding 
 writers have sought to impose upon us with parables, 
 hieroglyphs, fables, and enigmas. 
 
 6. Take this mercurial spirit, which contains our 
 
INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 magical steel in its belly (sic), and put it into a glass 
 retort, to which a receiver must be well and care- 
 fully adjusted ; draw off the spirit by a very gentle 
 heat, and in the bottom of the retort will remain 
 the quintessence or soul of mercury. This is to be 
 sublimed by applying a stronger heat to the retort 
 that it may become volatile, as all the philosophers 
 affirm : 
 
 * Si fixum solvas faciesque volare solutum, 
 Et volucrum figas faciet te vivere tutum.' 
 
 This is our luna, our fountain, in which ' the king ' 
 and ' the queen ' may bathe. Preserve this precious 
 quintessence of mercury, which is exceedingly volatile, 
 in a well-closed vessel for further use. 
 
 8. Let us now proceed to the production of common 
 gold, which we shall communicate clearly and dis- 
 tinctly, without digression or obscurity, in order 
 that from this common gold we may obtain our 
 philosophical gold, just as from common mercury we 
 have obtained, by the foregoing processes, philo- 
 sophical mercury. In the name of God, then, take 
 common gold, purified in the usual way by antimony, 
 and reduce it into small grains, which must be 
 washed with salt and vinegar until they are quite 
 pure. Take one part of this gold, and pour on it 
 three parts of the quintessence of mercury : as philo- 
 sophers reckon from seven to ten, so do we also 
 reckon our number as philosophical, and begin with 
 three and one. Let them be married together, like 
 husband and wife, to produce children of their own 
 kind, and you will see the common gold sink and 
 
12 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. 
 
 plainly dissolve. Now the marriage is consum- 
 mated ; and two things are converted into one. 
 Thus the philosophical sulphur is at hand, as the 
 philosophers say : ' The sulphur being dissolved, the 
 stone is at hand.' Take then, in the name of God, 
 our philosophical vessel, in which the king and 
 queen embrace each other as in a bedchamber, and 
 leave it till the water is converted into earth ; then 
 peace is concluded between the water and the fire 
 then the elements no longer possess anything con- 
 trary to each other because, when the elements are 
 converted into earth, they cease to be antagonistic ; 
 for in earth all elements are at rest. The philosophers 
 say : * When you shall see the water coagulate, believe 
 that your knowledge is true, and that all your opera- 
 tions are truly philosophical.' Our gold is no longer 
 common, but philosophical, through the processes it 
 has undergone : at first, it was exceedingly ' fixed ' 
 (Jixwii) ; then exceedingly volatile ; and again, ex- 
 ceedingly fixed : the entire science depends upon the 
 change of the elements. The gold, at first a metal, 
 is now a sulphur, capable of converting all metals 
 into its own sulphur. And our tincture is wholly 
 converted into sulphur, which possesses the energy 
 of curing every disease ; this is our universal 
 medicine against all the most deplorable ills of the 
 human body. Therefore, return infinite thanks to 
 Almighty God for all the good things which He hath 
 bestowed upon us. 
 
 9. In this great work of ours, two methods of 
 fermentation and projection are wanting, without 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 which the uninitiated will not readily follow out our 
 process. The mode of fermentation : Of the sulphur 
 already described take one part, and project it upon 
 three parts of very pure gold fused in a furnace. 
 In a moment you will see the gold, by the force of 
 the sulphur, converted into a red sulphur of an 
 inferior quality to the primary sulphur. Take one 
 part of this, and project it upon three parts of fused 
 gold ; the whole will again be converted into a 
 sulphur or a fixable mass ; mixing one part of this 
 with three parts of gold, you will have a malleable 
 and extensible metal. If you find it so, it is well ; if 
 not, add more sulphur, and it will again pass into a state 
 of sulphur. Now our sulphur will sufficiently be fer- 
 mented, or our medicine brought into a metallic nature. 
 
 10. The method of projection is this : Take of 
 the fermented sulphur one part, and project it upon 
 two parts of mercury, heated in a crucible, and you 
 will have a perfect metal ; if its colour be not suffi- 
 ciently deep, fuse it again, and add more fermented 
 sulphur, and thus it will gain colour. If it become 
 frangible, add a sufficient quantity of mercury, and it 
 will be perfect. 
 
 Thus, friend, you have a description of the 
 universal medicine, not only for curing diseases and 
 prolonging life, but also for transmuting all metals 
 into gold. Give thanks, therefore, to Almighty 
 God, who, taking pity on human calamities, hath at 
 last revealed this inestimable treasure, and made it 
 known for the common benefit of all. 
 
 Such is the jargon with which these so-called 
 
14 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. 
 
 philosophers imposed upon their dupes, and, to some 
 extent perhaps, upon themselves. As Dr. Thomson 
 points out, the philosopher's stone prepared by this 
 elaborate process could hardly have been anything 
 else than an amalgam of gold. Chloride of gold it 
 could not have contained, because such a prepara- 
 tion, instead of acting medicinally, would have 
 proved a most virulent poison. Of course, amalgam 
 of gold, if projected into melted lead or tin, and 
 afterwards cupellated, would leave a portion of gold 
 that is, exactly the amount which existed previously 
 in the amalgam. Impostors may, therefore, have 
 availed themselves of it to persuade the credulous 
 that it was really the philosopher's stone ; but the 
 alchemists who prepared the amalgam must have 
 known that it contained gold.* 
 
 It is well known that the mediae val magicians, 
 necromancers, conjurers call them by what name you 
 will who adopted alchemy as an instrument of im- 
 position, and by no means in the spirit of philosophical 
 inquiry and research which had characterized their 
 predecessors, resorted to various ingenious devices in 
 order to maintain their hold upon their victims. 
 Sometimes they made use of crucibles with false 
 bottoms at the real bottom they concealed a portion 
 of oxide of gold or silver covered with powdered 
 sulphur, which had been rendered adhesive by a little 
 gummed water or wax. When heat was applied the 
 false bottom melted away, and the oxide of gold or 
 
 * Cf. Stahl, * Fundamenta Chimise/ cap. ' De Lapide Philoso- 
 phorum '; and Kircher, ' Mundus Subterraneus.' 
 
INTRODUCTION. 1 5 
 
 silver eventually appeared as the product of the 
 operation at the bottom of the crucible. Some- 
 times they made a hole in a lump of charcoal, and 
 filling it with oxide of gold or silver, stopped up 
 the orifice with wax ; or they soaked charcoal in 
 a solution of these metals ; or they stirred the mixture 
 in the crucible with hollow rods, containing oxide of 
 gold or silver, closed up at the bottom with wax. A 
 faithful representation of the stratagems to which the 
 pseudo-alchemist resorted, that his dupes might not 
 recover too soon from their delusion, is furnished by 
 Ben Jonson in his comedy of ' The Alchemist,' and his 
 masque of ' Mercury vindicated from the Alchemists/ 
 The dramatist was thoroughly conversant with the 
 technicalities of the pretended science, and also with 
 the deceptions of its professors. In the masque he 
 puts into the mouth of Mercury an indignant protest : 
 
 1 The mischief a secret any of them knows, above the con- 
 suming of coals and drawing of usquebagh ; howsoever they may 
 pretend, under the specious names of Gebir, Arnold, Lully, or 
 Bombast of Hohenheim, to commit miracles in art, and treason 
 against nature ! As if the title of philosopher, that creature of 
 glory, were to be fetched out of a furnace !' 
 
 But while the world is full of fools, it is too much 
 to expect there shall be any lack of knaves to prey 
 upon them ! 
 
 IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 The first of the great European alchemists I take 
 to have been 
 
 Albertus Magnus or Albertus Teutonicus (Frater 
 Albertus de Colonia and Albertus Grotus, as he is also 
 
 
16 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. 
 
 called), a man of remarkable intellectual energy and 
 ^exceptional force of character, who has sometimes, 
 and not without justice, been termed the founder of 
 the Schoolmen. Neither the place nor the date of his 
 birth is authentically known, but he was still in his 
 young manhood when, about 1222, he was appointed 
 to the chair of theology at Padua, and became a 
 member of the Dominican Order. He did not long 
 retain the professorship, and, departing from Padua, 
 taught with great success in Ratisbon, Koln, S trass- 
 burg, and Paris, residing in the last-named city for 
 three years, together with his illustrious disciple, 
 Thomas Aquinas. In 1260 he was appointed to the 
 See of Ratisbon, though he had not previously held 
 any ecclesiastical dignity, but soon resigned, on the 
 ground that its duties interfered vexatiously with his 
 studies. Twenty years later, at a ripe old age, he 
 died, leaving behind him, as monuments of his per- 
 sistent industry and intellectual subtlety, one-and- 
 twenty ponderous folios, which include commentaries 
 on Aristotle, on the Scriptures, and on Dionysius the 
 Areopagite. Among his minor works occurs a treatise 
 / /"6n alchemy, which seems to show that he was a 
 devout believer in the science. 
 
 From the marvellous stories of his thaumaturgic 
 exploits which have come down to us, we may infer 
 that he had attained a considerable amount of skill in 
 experimental chemistry. The brazen statue which he 
 animated, and the garrulity of which was so offensive 
 that Thomas Aquinas one day seized a hammer, and, 
 provoked beyond all endurance, smashed it to pieces, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 may be a reminiscence of his powers as a ventriloquist. 
 And the following story may hint at an effective mani- 
 pulation of the camera obscura : Count William of 
 Holland and King of the Romans happening to pass 
 through Koln, Albertus invited him and his courtiers 
 to his house to partake of refreshment. It was mid- 
 winter ; but on arriving at the philosopher's resi- 
 dence they found the tables spread in the open 
 garden, where snowdrifts lay several feet in depth. 
 Indignant at so frugal a reception, they were on the 
 point of leaving, when Albertus appeared, and by his 
 courtesies induced them to remain. Immediately the 
 scene was lighted up with the sunshine of summer, a 
 warm and balmy air stole through the whispering 
 boughs, the frost and snow vanished, the melodies of 
 the lark dropped from the sky like golden rain. But 
 as soon as the feast came to an end the sunshine 
 faded, the birds ceased their song, clouds gathered 
 darkling over the firmament, an icy blast shrieked 
 through the gibbering branches, and the snow fell in 
 blinding showers, so that the philosopher's guests 
 were glad to fold their cloaks about them and retreat 
 into the kitchen to grow warm before its blazing fire. 
 Was this some clever scenic deception, or is the 
 whole a fiction ? 
 
 A knowledge of the secret of the Elixir Vitce was i^ 
 possessed (it is said) by Main de I' Isle, or Alanus de 
 Insulis ; but either he did not avail himself of it, or 
 failed to compound a sufficient quantity of the magic 
 potion, for he died under the sacred roof of Citeaux, 
 in 1298, at the advanced age of 110. 
 
 2 
 
18 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. 
 
 Arnold de Villeneuve, who attained, in the thir- 
 teenth century, some distinction as a physician, an 
 astronomer, an astrologer, and an alchemist and was 
 really a capable man of science, as science was then 
 understood formulates an elaborate recipe for rejuve- 
 nating one's self, which, however, does not seem to 
 have been very successful in his own case, since he 
 died before he was 70. Perhaps he was as disgusted 
 with the compound as (in the well-known epitaph) 
 the infant was with this mundane sphere he c liked 
 it not, and died.' I think there are many who would 
 forfeit longevity rather than partake of it. 
 
 ' Twice or thrice a week you must anoint your 
 body thoroughly with the manna of cassia ; and every 
 night, before going to bed, you must place over your 
 heart a plaster, composed of a certain quantity (or, 
 rather, uncertain, for definite and precise proportions 
 are never particularized) of Oriental saffron, red rose- 
 leaves, sandal-wood, aloes, and amber, liquefied in oil 
 of roses and the best white wax. During the day 
 this must be kept in a leaden casket. You must next 
 pen up in a court, where the water is sweet and the 
 air pure, sixteen chickens, if you are of a sanguine 
 temperament ; twenty-five, if phlegmatic ; and thirty, 
 if melancholic. Of these you are to eat one a day, 
 after they have been fattened in such a manner as to 
 have absorbed into their system the qualities which 
 will ensure your longevity; for which purpose they 
 are first to be kept without food until almost starved, 
 and then gorged with a broth of serpents and vinegar, 
 thickened with wheat and beans, for at least two 
 
INTRODUCTION. 19 
 
 months. When they are served at your table you 
 will drink a moderate quantity of white wine or claret 
 to assist digestion.' 
 
 I should think it would be needed ! 
 
 Among the alchemists must be included Pietro 
 d'Apono. He was an eminent physician; but, being 
 accused of heresy, was thrown into prison and died 
 there. His ecclesiastical persecutors, however, burned 
 his bones rather than be entirely disappointed of their 
 auto da fe. Like most of the mediaeval physicians, he 
 indulged in alchemical and astrological speculations ; 
 but they proved to Pietro d'Apono neither pleasurable 
 nor profitable. It was reputed of him that he had 
 summoned a number of evil spirits ; and, on their 
 obeying his call, had shut them up in seven crystal 
 vases, where he detained them until he had occasion 
 for their services. In his selection of them he seems 
 to have displayed a commendably catholic taste and 
 love of knowledge ; for one was an expert in poetry, 
 another in painting, a third in philosophy, a fourth in 
 physic, a fifth in astrology, a sixth in music, and a 
 seventh in alchemy. So that when he required in- 
 struction in either of these arts or sciences, he simply 
 tapped the proper crystal vase and laid on a spirit. 
 
 The story seems to be a fanciful allusion to the 
 various acquirements of Pietro d'Apono ; but if in- 
 tended at first as a kind of allegory, it came in due 
 time to be accepted literally. 
 
 I pass on to the great Spanish alchemist and ma 
 cian, Raymond Lully, or Lulli, who was scarcely inferior 
 
 22 
 
20 WITCH, WAELOCK, AND MAGICIAN. 
 
 in fame, or the qualities which merited fame, even to 
 Albertus Magnus. He was a man, not only of wide, but 
 of accurate scholarship : and the two or three hundred 
 treatises which proceeded from his pen traversed the 
 entire circle of the learning of his age, dealing with 
 almost every conceivable subject from medicine to 
 morals, from astronomy to theology, and from alchemy 
 to civil and canon law. His life had its romantic 
 aspects, and his death (in 1315 ?) was invested with 
 something of the glory of martyrdom ; for while he was 
 preaching to the Moslems at Bona, the mob fell upon 
 him with a storm of stones, and though he was still 
 alive when rescued by some Genoese merchants, and 
 conveyed on board their vessel, he died of the injuries 
 he had received before it arrived in a Spanish port. 
 
 There seems little reason to believe that Lulli 
 visited England about 1312, on the invitation of 
 Edward II. Dickenson, in his work on ' The Quint- 
 essences of the Philosophers/ asserts that his 
 laboratory was established in Westminster Abbey 
 that is, in the cloisters and that some time after his 
 return to the Continent a large quantity of gold-dust 
 was found in the cell he had occupied. Langlet du 
 Fresnoy contends that it was through the interven- 
 tion of John Cremer, Abbot of Westminster, a perse- 
 vering seeker after the lapis p/iilosophorum, that he 
 came to England, Cremer having described him to 
 King Edward as a man of extraordinary powers. 
 Robert Constantine, in his ' Nomenclator Scriptorum 
 Medicorum ' (1515), professes to have discovered 
 that Lulli resided for some time in London, and 
 
INTRODUCTION. 21 
 
 made gold in the Tower, and that he had seen some gold 
 pieces of his making, which were known in England 
 as the nobles of Raymond, or rose-nobles. But the 
 great objections to these very precise statements rests 
 on two facts pointed out by Mr. Waite, that the rose- 
 noble, so called because a rose was stamped on each 
 side of it, was first coined in 1465, in the reign of 
 Edward IV., and that there never was an Abbot 
 Cremer of Westminster. 
 
 Jean de Meung is also included among the alche- 
 mists ; but he bequeathed to posterity in his glorious 
 poem of the * Roman de la Rose ' something very 
 much more precious than would have been any 
 formula for making gold. In one sense he was in- 
 deed an alchemist, and possessed the secret of the 
 universal medicine ; for in his poem his genius has 
 transmuted into purest gold the base ore of popular 
 traditions and legends. 
 
 Some of the stories which Langlet du Fresnoy tells 
 of Nicholas Fiamel were probably invented long after 
 his death, or else we should have to brand him as a 
 most audacious knave. One of those amazing narra- 
 tives pretends that he bought for a couple of florins 
 an old and curious volume, the leaves of which three 
 times seven (this sounds better than twenty-one) in 
 number were made from the bark of trees. Each 
 seventh leaf bore an allegorical picture the first re- 
 presenting a serpent swallowing rods, the second a 
 cross with a serpent crucified upon it, and the third a 
 fountain in a desert, surrounded by creeping serpents. 
 
22 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. 
 
 Who, think you, was the author of this mysterious 
 volume ? No less illustrious a person than Abraham 
 the patriarch, Hebrew, prince, philosopher, priest, 
 Levite, and magian, who, as it was written in Latin, 
 must have miraculously acquired his foreknowledge 
 of a tongue which, in his time, had no existence. A 
 perusal of its mystic pages convinced Flamel that 
 he had had the good fortune to discover a complete 
 manual on the art of transmutation of metals, in 
 which all the necessary vessels were indicated, and 
 the processes described. But there was one serious 
 difficulty to be overcome: the book assumed, as a 
 matter of course, that the student was already in 
 possession of that all-important agent of transmuta- 
 tion, the philosopher's stone. 
 
 Careful study led Flamel to the conclusion that the 
 secret of the stone was hidden in certain allegorical 
 drawings on the fourth and fifth leaves ; but, then, to 
 decipher these was beyond his powers. He sub- 
 mitted them to all the learned savants and alchemical 
 adepts he could get hold of : they proved to be no 
 wiser than himself, while some of them actually 
 laughed at Abraham's posthumous publication as 
 worthless gibberish. Flamel, however, clung fast to 
 his conviction of the inestimable value of his ' find,' 
 and daily pondered over the two cryptic illustrations, 
 which may thus be described : On the first page of 
 the fourth leaf Mercury was contending with a figure, 
 which might be either Saturn or Time probably the 
 latter, as he carried on his head the emblematical 
 hour-glass, and in his hand the not less emblematical 
 
INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 scythe. On the second stage a flower upon a moun- 
 tain-top presented the unusual combination of a blue 
 stalk, with red and white blossoms, and leaves of 
 pure gold. The wind appeared to blow it about very 
 harshly, and a gruesome company of dragons and 
 griffins encompassed it. 
 
 Upon the study of these provokingly obscure 
 designs Flamel fruitlessly expended the leisure time 
 of thrice seven years : after which, on the advice of 
 his wife, he repaired to Spain to seek the assistance of 
 some erudite Jewish rabbi. He had been wandering 
 from place to place for a couple of years, when he 
 met, somewhere in Leon, a learned Hebrew physician, 
 named Canches, who agreed to return with him to 
 Paris, and there examine Abraham's volume. 
 Canches was deeply versed in all the lore of the 
 Cabala, and Flamel hung with delight on the words 
 of wisdom that dropped from his eloquent lips. But 
 at Orleans Canches was taken ill with a malady of 
 which he died, and Flamel found his way home, a 
 sadder, if not a wiser, man. He resumed his study 
 of the book, but for two more years could get no clue 
 to its meaning. In the third year, recalling some 
 deliverance of his departed friend, the rabbi, he per- 
 ceived that all his experiments had hitherto proceeded 
 upon erroneous principles. He repeated them upon 
 a different basis, and in a few months brought them 
 to a successful issue. On January 13, 1382, he con- 
 verted mercury into silver, and on April 25 into 
 gold. Well might he cry in triumph, ' Eureka !' 
 The great secret, the sublime magistery was his : he 
 
24 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. 
 
 had discovered the art of transmuting metals into 
 gold and silver, and, so long as he kept it to himself, 
 had at his command the source of inexhaustible 
 wealth. 
 
 At this time Nicholas Flamel, it is said, was about 
 eighty years old. His admirers assert that he also 
 discovered the elixir of immortal life ; but, as he died 
 in 1419, at the age (it is alleged) of 116, he must 
 have been content with the merest sip of it ! Why 
 did he not reveal its ingredients for the general benefit 
 of our afflicted humanity ? His immense wealth he 
 bequeathed to churches and hospitals, thus making a 
 better use of it after death than he had made of it in 
 his lifetime. For it is said that Flamel was a usurer, 
 and that his philosopher's stone was i cent per cent.' 
 It is true enough that he dabbled in alchemy, and pro- 
 bably he made his alchemical experiments useful in 
 connection with his usurious transactions. 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS 
 
CHAP. I. "I ROGER BACON. 27 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 ROGER BACON: THE TRUE AND THE LEGENDARY. 
 
 IT was in the early years of the fourteenth century 
 that the two pseudo- sciences of alchemy and astrology, 
 the supposititious sisters of chemistry and astronomy, 
 made their way into England. At first their pro- 
 gress was by no means so rapid as it had been on the 
 Continent; for in England, as yet, there was no 
 educated class prepared to give their leisure to the 
 work of experimental investigation. A solitary 
 scholar here and there lighted his torch at the altar- 
 fire which the Continental philosophers kept burning 
 with so much diligence and curiosity, and was 
 generally rewarded for his heterodox enthusiasm by 
 the persecution of the Church and the prejudice of 
 the vulgar. But by degrees the new sciences in- 
 creased the number of their adherents, and the more 
 active intellects of the time embraced the theory 
 of astral influences, and were fascinated by the delu- 
 sion of the philosopher's stone. Many a secret 
 furnace blazed day and night with the charmed 
 flames which were to resolve the metals into their 
 original elements, and place the pale student in 
 
28 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN, [BOOK I. 
 
 possession of the coveted magisterium, or ' universal 
 medicine.' At length the alchemists became a suffi- 
 ciently numerous and important body to draw the 
 attention of the Government, which regarded their 
 proceedings with suspicion, from a fear that the 
 result might injuriously affect the coinage. In 1434 
 the Legislature enacted that the making of gold or 
 silver should be treated as a felony. But the Parlia- 
 ment was influenced by a very different motive from 
 that of the King and his Council, its patriotic fears 
 being awakened lest the Executive, enabled by the 
 new science to increase without limit the pecuniary 
 resources of the Crown, should be rendered inde- 
 pendent of Parliamentary control. 
 
 In the course of a few years, however, broader and 
 more enlightened views prevailed ; and it came to 
 be acknowledged that scientific research ought to 
 be relieved from legislative interference. In 1455 
 Henry VI. issued four patents in succession to certain 
 knights, London citizens, chemists, monks, mass- 
 priests, and others, granting them leave and license 
 to undertake the discovery of the philosopher's stone, 
 4 to the great benefit of the realm, and the enabling 
 the King to pay all the debts of the Crown in real 
 gold and silver.' On the remarkable fact that these 
 patents were issued to ecclesiastics as well as laymen, 
 Prynne afterwards remarked, with true theological 
 acridity, that they were so included because they 
 were ' such good artists in transubstantiating bread 
 and wine in the Eucharist, and were, therefore, the 
 more likely to be able to effect the transmutation of 
 
CHAP. I.] ROGER BACON. 29 
 
 base metals into better.' Nothing came of the 
 patents. The practical common-sense of Englishmen 
 never took very kindly to the alchemical delusion, 
 and Chaucer very faithfully describes the contempt 
 with which it was generally regarded. Enthusiasts 
 there were, no doubt, who firmly believed in it, and 
 knaves who made a profit out of it, and dupes who 
 were preyed upon by the knaves ; and so it languished 
 on through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
 It seems at one time to have amused the shrewd 
 intellect of Queen Elizabeth, and at another to have 
 caught the volatile fancy of the second Villiers, Duke 
 of Buckingham. But alchemy was, in the main, the 
 modus vivendi of quacks and cheats, of such im- 
 postors as Ben Jonson has drawn so powerfully in his 
 great comedy a Subtle, a Face, and a Doll Common, 
 who, in the Sir Epicure Mammons of the time, found 
 their appropriate victims. These creatures played 
 on the greed and credulity of their dupes with suc- 
 cessful audacity, and excited their imaginations by 
 extravagant promises. Thus, Ben Jon son's hero runs 
 riot with glowing anticipations of what the alchemical 
 magisterium can effect. 
 
 * Do you think I fable with you 1 I assure you, 
 He that has once the flower of the sun, 
 The perfect ruby, which we call Elixir, 
 Not only can do that, but, by its virtue, 
 Can confer honour, love, respect, long life ; 
 Give safety, valour, yes, and victory, 
 To whom he will. In eight-and-twenty days 
 I'll make an old man of fourscore a child. . . . 
 
 'Tis the secret 
 Of nature naturized 'gainst all infections, 
 
30 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 Cures all diseases coining of all causes ; 
 
 A month's grief in a day, a year's in twelve, 
 
 And of what age soever in a month.' 
 
 The English alchemists, however, with a few ex- 
 ceptions, depended for a livelihood chiefly on their 
 1 sale of magic charms, love-philters, and even more 
 ' dangerous potions, and on horoscope- casting, and 
 for tune -telling by the hand or by cards. They acted, 
 i also, as agents in many a dark intrigue and unlawful 
 project, being generally at the disposal of the highest 
 bidder, and seldom shrinking from any crime. 
 
 The earliest name of note on the roll of the English 
 magicians, necromancers and alchemists is that of 
 
 KOGEK BACON. 
 
 This great man has some claim to be considered the 
 father of experimental philosophy, since it was he 
 who first laid down the principles upon which phy- 
 sical investigation should be conducted. Speaking 
 of science, he says, in language far in advance of his 
 times : c There are two modes of knowing by argu- 
 ment and by experiment. Argument winds up a 
 question, but does not lead us to acquiesce in, or feel 
 certain of, the contemplation of truth, unless the 
 truth be proved and confirmed by experience.' To 
 Experimental Science he ascribed three differentiating 
 characters : l First, she tests by experiment the grand 
 conclusions of all other sciences. Next, she discovers, 
 with reference to the ideas connected with other 
 sciences, splendid truths, to which these sciences 
 without assistance are unable to attain. Her third 
 prerogative is, that, unaided by the other sciences, 
 
CHAP. I.] ROGER BACON. 31 
 
 and of herself, she can investigate the secrets of 
 nature/ These truths, now accepted as trite and 
 self-evident, ranked, in Roger Bacon's day, as novel 
 and important discoveries. 
 
 He was born at Ilchester, in Somersetshire, in 1214. 
 Of his lineage, parentage, and early education we 
 know nothing, except that he must have been very 
 young when he went to Oxford, for he took orders 
 there before he was twenty. Joining the Franciscan 
 brotherhood, he applied himself to the study of 
 Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic ; but his genius 
 chiefly inclined towards the pursuit of the natural 
 sciences, in which he obtained such a mastery that 
 his contemporaries accorded to him the flattering 
 title of ' The Admirable Doctor/ His lectures 
 gathered round him a crowd of admiring disciples ; 
 until the boldness of their speculations aroused the 
 suspicion of the ecclesiastical authorities, and in 1257 
 they were prohibited by the General of his Order. 
 Then Pope Innocent IV. interfered, interdicting him 
 from the publication of his writings, and placing him 
 under close supervision. He remained in this state 
 of tutelage until Clement IV., a man of more liberal 
 views, assumed the triple tiara, who not only released 
 him from his irksome restraints, but desired him to 
 compose a treatise on the sciences. This was the origin 
 of Bacon's ' Opus Majus,' ' Opus Minus ' and i Opus 
 Tertius,' which he completed in a year and a half, and 
 despatched to Rome. In 1267 he was allowed to 
 return to Oxford, where he wrote his ' Compendium 
 Studii Philosophise.' His vigorous advocacy of new 
 
32 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 methods of scientific investigation, or, perhaps, his 
 unsparing exposure of the ignorance and vices of the 
 monks and the clergy, again brought down upon him 
 the heavy arm of the ecclesiastical tyranny. His 
 works were condemned by the General of his Order, 
 and in 1278, during the pontificate of Nicholas III., 
 he was thrown into prison, where he was detained for 
 several years. It is said that he was not released 
 until 1292, the year in which he published his latest 
 production, the ' Compendium Studii Theologiae.' 
 Two years afterwards he died. 
 
 In many respects Bacon was greatly in advance of 
 his contemporaries, but his general repute ignores his 
 real and important services to philosophy, and builds 
 up a glittering fabric upon mechanical discoveries and 
 inventions to which, it is to be feared, he cannot lay 
 claim. As Professor Adamson puts it, he certainly 
 describes a method of constructing a telescope, but 
 not so as to justify the conclusion that he himself 
 was in possession of that instrument. The invention 
 of gunpowder has been attributed to him on the 
 strength of a passage in one of his works, which, if 
 fairly interpreted, disposes at once of the pretension ; 
 besides, it was already known to the Arabs. Burning- 
 glasses were in common' use ; and there is no proof 
 that he made spectacles, although he was probably 
 acquainted with the principle of their construction. 
 It is not to be denied, however, that in his interesting 
 treatise on ' The Secrets of Nature and Art,'* he ex- 
 
 * Epistola Fratris Rogerii Baconis de Secretis Operibus Artis et 
 Naturae et de Nullitate Magiae. 
 
CHAP. I.] ROGER BACON. 33 
 
 hibits every sign of a far-seeing and lively intelligence, 
 and foreshadows the possibility of some of our great 
 modern inventions. But, like so many master-minds 
 of the Middle Ages, he was unable wholly to resist 
 the fascinations of alchemy and astrology. He believed 
 that various parts of the human body were influenced 
 by the stars, and that the mind was thus stimulated 
 to particular acts, without any relaxation or inter- 
 ruption of free will. His ' Mirror of Alchemy,' of 
 which a translation into French was executed by ' a 
 Gentleman of Dauphine/ and printed in 1507, abso- 
 lutely bristles with crude and unfounded theories as, 
 for instance, that Nature, in the formation of metallic 
 veins, tends constantly to the production of gold, but 
 is impeded by various accidents, and in this way 
 creates metals in which impurities mingle with the 
 fundamental substances. The main elements, he says, 
 are quicksilver and sulphur ; and from these all 
 metals and minerals are compounded. Gold he de- 
 scribes as a perfect metal, produced from a pure, 
 fixed, clear, and red quicksilver ; and from a sulphur 
 also pure, fixed, and red, not incandescent and un- 
 alloyed. Iron is unclean and imperfect, because 
 engendered of a quicksilver which is impure, too 
 much congealed, earthy, incandescent, white and red, 
 and of a similar variety of sulphur. The ' stone/ or 
 substance, by which the transmutation of the imper- 
 fect into the perfect metals was to be effected must be 
 made, in the main, he said, of sulphur and mercury. 
 
 It is not easy to determine how soon an atmosphere 
 of legend gathered around the figure of 'the Admirable 
 
 3 
 
34 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 Doctor ;' but undoubtedly it originated quite as much 
 in his astrological errors as in his scientific experi- 
 ments. Some of the myths of which he is the tradi- 
 tional hero belong to a very much earlier period, as, for 
 instance, that of his Brazen Head, which appears in the 
 old romance of ' Valentine and Orson,' as well as in 
 the history of Albertus Magnus. Gower, too, in his 
 ' Confessio Amantis,' relates how a Brazen Head was 
 fabricated by Bishop Grosseteste. It was customary 
 in those days to ascribe all kinds of marvels to men 
 who obtained a repute for exceptional learning, and 
 Bishop Grosseteste's Brazen Head was as purely a 
 fiction as Roger Bacon's. This is Gower's account : 
 
 ' For of the grete clerk Grostest 
 I rede how busy that he was 
 Upon the clergie an head of brass 
 To forge ; and make it fortelle 
 Of suche thinges as befelle. 
 And seven yeres besinesse 
 He laide, but for the lachesse* 
 Of half a minute of an hour . . . 
 He loste all that he hadde do.' 
 
 Stow tells a story of a Head of Clay, made at 
 Oxford in the reign of Edward II., which, at an 
 appointed time, spoke the mysterious words, ' Caput 
 decidetur caput elevabitur. Pedes elevabuntur supra 
 caput.' Returning to Roger Bacon's supposed in- 
 vention, we find an ingenious though improbable 
 explanation suggested by Sir Thomas Browne, in his 
 ' Vulgar Errors ' : 
 
 * Every one,' he says, ' is filled with the story of Friar Bacon, 
 that made a Brazen Head to speak these words, " Time is." 
 
 * Laches, oversight. 
 
CHAP. I.] ROGER BACON. 35 
 
 Which, though there went not the like relations, is surely too 
 literally received, and was but a mystical fable concerning the 
 philosopher's great work, wherein he eminently laboured : imply- 
 ing no more by the copper head, than the vessel wherein it was 
 wrought ; and by the words it spake, than the opportunity to be 
 watched, about the tempus ortus, or birth of the magical child, or 
 " philosophical King" of Lullius. the rising of the "terra foliata" 
 of Arnoldus ; when the earth, sufficiently impregnated with the 
 water, ascendeth white and splendent. Which riot observed, the 
 work is irrecoverably lost. . . . Now letting slip the critical 
 opportunity, he missed the intended treasure : which had he 
 obtained, he might have made out the tradition of making a 
 brazen wall about England : that is, the most powerful defence or 
 strongest fortification which gold could have effected.' 
 
 An interpretation of the popular myth which is 
 about as ingenious and far-fetched as Lord Bacon's 
 expositions of the ' Fables of the Ancients,' of which 
 it may be said that they possess every merit but that 
 of probability ! 
 
 Bacon's Brazen Head, however, took hold of the 
 popular fancy. It survived for centuries, and the 
 allusions to it in our literature are sufficiently 
 numerous. Cob, in Ben Jonson's comedy of ' Every 
 Man in his Humour,' exclaims : ' Oh, an my house 
 were the Brazen Head now! 'Faith, it would e'en 
 speak Mo fools yet /' And we read in Greene's * Tu 
 
 Quoque ' : 
 
 ' Look to yourself, sir ; 
 The brazen head has spoke, and I must have you.' 
 
 Lord Bacon used it happily in his ' Apology to the 
 Queen/ when Elizabeth would have punished the 
 Earl of Essex for his misconduct in Ireland : 
 ' Whereunto I said (to the end utterly to divert her), 
 " Madam, if you will have me speak to you in this 
 
 32 
 
36 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 argument, I must speak to you as Friar Bacon's head 
 spake, that said first, ' Time is,' and then, ' Time was] 
 and c Time would never be' for certainly " (said I) "it 
 is now far too late ; the matter is cold, and hath 
 taken too much wind." Butler introduces it in his 
 ' Hudibras ' : ' Quoth he, " My head's not made of 
 brass, as Friar Bacon's noddle was." And Pope, in 
 4 The Dunciad,' writes : ' Bacon trembled for his 
 brazen head.' A William Terite, in 1604, gave to 
 the world some verse, entitled c A Piece of Friar 
 Bacon's Brazen-head's Prophecie.' And, in our own 
 time, William Blackworth Praed has written ' The 
 Chaunt of the Brazen Head,' which, in his prose 
 motto, he (in the person of Friar Bacon) addresses 
 as ' the brazen companion of his solitary hours.' 
 
 'THE FAMOUS HISTORIE OF FRIAR BACON.' 
 
 Towards the end of the sixteenth century, the 
 various legends which had taken Friar Bacon as their 
 central figure were brought together in a connected 
 form, and wrought, along with other stories of magic 
 and sorcer}^ into a continuous narrative, which 
 became immensely popular. It was entitled, ' The 
 Famous Historic of Friar Bacon : Conteyning the 
 Wonderful Thinges that he Did in his Life ; also the 
 Manner of his Death ; with the Lives and Deaths of 
 the Two Conjurers, Bungye and Vandermast,' and has 
 been reprinted by Mr. Thorns, in his ' Early English 
 Romances.' 
 
 ' According to this entertaining authority, the Friar 
 was ' born in the West part of England, and was 
 
CHAP. I.] HISTOEY OF FKIAR BACON. 37 
 
 sonne to a wealthy farmer, who put him to the schoole 
 to the parson of the towne where he was borne ; not 
 with intent that hee should turne fryer (as hee did), 
 but to get so much understanding, that he might 
 manage the better the wealth hee was to leave him. 
 But young Bacon took his learning so fast, that the 
 priest could not teach him any more, which made him 
 desire his master that he would speake to his father 
 to put him to Oxford, that he might not lose that 
 little learning that he had gained. . . . The father 
 aifected to doubt his son's capacity, and designed him 
 still to follow the same calling as himself ; but the 
 student had no inclination to drive fat oxen or consort 
 with unlettered hinds, and stole away to "a cloister" 
 some twenty miles off, where the monks cordially 
 welcomed him. Continuing the pursuit of knowledge 
 with great avidity, he attained to such repute that the 
 authorities of Oxford University invited him to repair 
 thither. He accepted the invitation, and grew so 
 excellent in the secrets of Art and Nature, that not 
 England only, but all Christendom, admired him.' 
 
 There, in the seclusion of his cell, he made the 
 Brazen Head on which rests his legendary fame. 
 
 'Heading one day of the many conquests of England, he 
 bethought himselfe how he might keepe it hereafter from the 
 like conquests, and so make himselfe famous hereafter to all 
 posterities. This, after great study, hee found could be no way 
 so well done as one ; which was to make a head of brasse, and if 
 he could make this head to speake, and heare it when it speakes, 
 then might hee be able to wall all England about with brasse.* 
 
 * This patriotic sentiment would seem to show that the book 
 was written or published about the time of the Spanish Armada. 
 
38 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 To this purpose he got one Fryer Bungey to assist him, who was 
 a great scholar and a magician, but not to bee compared to 
 Fryer Bacon : these two with great study and paines so framed a 
 head of brasse, that in the inward parts thereof there was all 
 things like as in a naturall man's head. This being done, they 
 were as farre from perfection of the worke as they were before? 
 for they knew not how to give those parts that they had made 
 motion, without which it was impossible that it should speake : 
 many bookes they read, but yet coulde not finde out any hope of 
 what they sought, that at the last they concluded to raise a spirit, 
 and to know of him that which they coulde not attaine to by 
 their owne studies. To do this they prepared all things ready, 
 and went one evening to a wood thereby, and after many cere- 
 monies used, they spake the words of conjuration ; which the 
 Devill straight obeyed, and appeared unto them, asking what 
 they would 1 " Know," said Fryer Bacon, " that wee have made 
 an artificiall head of brasse, which we would have to speake, to 
 the furtherance of which wee have raised thee ; and being raised, 
 wee will here keepe thee, unlesse thou tell to us the way and 
 manner how to make this head to speake." The Devill told him 
 that he had not that power of himselfe. "Beginner of lyes," said 
 Fryer Bacon, " I know that thou dost dissemble, and therefore 
 tell it us quickly, or else wee will here bind thee to remaine 
 during our pleasures." At these threatenings the Devill con- 
 sented to doe it, and told them, that with a continual fume of 
 the six hottest simples it should have motion, and in one month 
 space speak ; the time of the moneth or day hee knew not : also 
 hee told them, that if they heard it not before it had done speak- 
 ing, all their labour should be lost. They being satisfied, licensed 
 the spirit for to depart. 
 
 'Then went these two learned fryers home againe, and pre- 
 pared the simples ready, and made the fume, and with continuall 
 watching attended when this Brazen Head would speake. Thus 
 watched they for three weekes without any rest, so that they were 
 so weary and sleepy that they could not any longer refraine from 
 rest. Then called Fryer Bacon his man Miles, and told him that 
 it was not unknown to him what paines Fryer Bungey and 
 himselfe had taken for three weekes space, onely to make and to 
 heare the Brazen Head speake, which if they did not, then had 
 they lost all their labour, and all England had a great losse 
 thereby ; therefore hee intreated Miles that he would watch 
 
CHAP. I.] HISTORY OF FRIAR BACON. 39 
 
 whilst that they slept, and call them if the head speake. " Fear 
 not, good master," said Miles, " I will not sleepe, but harken and 
 attend upon the head, and if it doe chance to speake, I will call 
 you ; therefore I pray take you both your rests and let mee alone 
 for watching this head." After Fryer Bacon had given him a 
 great charge the second time, Fryer Bungey and he went to 
 sleepe, and Miles was lefte alone to watch the Brazen Head. 
 Miles, to keepe him from sleeping, got a tabor and pipe, and 
 being merry disposed, with his owne musicke kept from sleeping 
 at last. After some noyse the head spake these two words, 
 "TiME IS." Miles, hearing it to speake no more, thought his 
 master would be angry if hee waked him for that, and therefore 
 he let them both sleepe, and began to mocke the head in this 
 manner : " Thou brazen-faced Head, hath my master tooke all 
 these paines about thee, and now dost thou requite him with two 
 words, TIME is? Had hee watched with a lawyer so long as 
 hee hath watched with thee, he would have given him more and 
 better words than thou hast yet. If thou canst speake no wiser s 
 they shal sleepe till doomes day for me : TIME is ! I know Time 
 is, and that you shall heare, Goodman Brazen-face. 
 
 * " Time is for some to eate, 
 
 Time is for some to sleepe, 
 Time is for some to laugh, 
 
 Time is for some to weepe. 
 ' " Time is for some to sing, 
 
 Time is for some to pray, 
 Time is for some to creepe, 
 
 That have drunken all the day. 
 
 ' " Do you tell us, copper-nose, when TIME IS ? I hope we 
 schollers know our times, when to drink drunke, when to kiss 
 our hostess, when to goe on her score, and when to pay it that 
 time comes seldome." After halfe an houre had passed, the 
 Head did speake againe, two words, which were these, "TiME 
 WAS." Miles respected these words as little as he did the former, 
 and would not wake them, but still scoffed at the Brazen Head 
 that it had learned no better words, and have such a tutor as his 
 master : and in scorne of it sung this song : 
 
 * " Time was when thou, a kettle, 
 
 wert filled with better matter ; 
 But Fryer Bacon did thee spoyle 
 when he thy sides did batter. 
 
40 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 ' " Time was when conscience dwelled 
 
 with men of occupation ;; 
 Time was when lawyers did not thrive 
 so well by men's vexation. 
 
 ' " Time was when kings and beggars 
 
 of one poore stuff had being ; 
 Time was when office kept no knaves 
 that time it was worth seeing. 
 
 ' " Time was a bowle of water 
 
 did give the face reflection ; 
 Time was when women knew no paint, 
 which now they call complexion. 
 
 * " TIME WAS ! I know that, brazen-face, without your telling ; 
 I know Time was, and I know what things there was when Time 
 was ; and if you speake no wiser, no master shall be waked for 
 mee." Thus Miles talked and sung till another halfe-houre was 
 gone : then the Brazen Head spake again these words, " TIME is 
 PAST ;" and therewith fell downe, and presently followed a 
 terrible noyse, with strange flashes of fire, so that Miles was halfe 
 dead with feare. At this noyse the two Fryers awaked, and 
 wondred to see the whole roome so full of smoake ; but that 
 being vanished, they might perceive the Brazen Head broken 
 and lying on the ground. At this sight they grieved, and called 
 Miles to know how this came. Miles, halfe dead with feare, 
 said that it fell doune of itselfe, and that with the noyse and fire 
 that followed he was almost frighted out of his wits. Fryer Bacon 
 asked him if hee did not speake 1 "Yes," quoth Miles, "it spake, 
 but to no purpose : He have a parret speake better in that time 
 that you have been teaching this Brazen Head." 
 
 ' " Out on thee, villaine !" said Fryer Bacon ; " thou hast undone 
 us both : hadst thou but called us when it did speake, all England 
 had been walled round about with brasse, to its glory and our 
 eternal fames. What were the words it spake ?" " Very few," 
 said Miles, " and those were none of the wisest that I have heard 
 neither. First he said, ' TIME is.' " " Hadst thou called us then," 
 said Fryer Bacon, " we had been made for ever." " Then," said 
 Miles, " half-an-hour after it spake againe, and said, ' TIME WAS.' " 
 "And wouldst thou not call us then?" said Bungey. "Alas!'' 
 said Miles, " I thought hee would have told me some long tale, 
 and then I purposed to have called you : then half-an-houre after 
 
CHAP. I.] HISTORY OF FRIAR BACON. 41 
 
 he cried, ' TIME is PAST,' and made such a noyse that hee hath 
 waked you himselfe, mee thinkes." At this Fryer Bacon was in 
 such a rage that hee would have beaten his man, but he was 
 restrained by Bungey : but neverthelesse, for his punishment, he 
 with his art struck him dumbe for one whole month's space. 
 Thus the greate worke of these learned fryers was overthrown, to 
 their great grief es, by this simple fellow.' 
 
 The historian goes on to relate many instances of 
 Friar Bacon's thaumaturgical powers. He captures 
 a town which the king had besieged for three months 
 without success. He puts to shame a German con- 
 juror named Vandermast, and he performs wonders 
 in love affairs ; but at length a fatal result to one of 
 his magical exploits induces him to break to pieces 
 his wonderful glass and doff his conjurer's robe. 
 Then, receiving intelligence of the deaths of Vander- 
 mast and Friar Bungey, he falls into a deep grief, 
 so that for three days he refuses to partake of food, 
 and keeps his chamber. 
 
 1 In the time that Fryer Bacon kept his Chamber, hee fell into 
 divers meditations ; sometimes into the vanity of Arts and 
 Sciences j then would he condemne himselfe for studying of 
 those things that were so contrary to his Order soules health ; 
 and would say, That magicke made a man a Devill : sometimes 
 would hee meditate on divinity ; then would hee cry out upon 
 himselfe for neglecting the study of it, and for studying magicke : 
 sometime would he meditate on the shortnesse of mans life, then 
 would he condemne himselfe for spending a time so short, so ill as 
 he had done his : so would he goe from one thing to another, and 
 in all condemne his former studies.' 
 
 1 And that the world should know how truly he did repent his 
 wicked life, he caused to be made a great fire ; and sending for 
 many of his friends, schollers, and others, he spake to them after 
 this manner : My good friends and fellow students, it is not 
 unknown to you, how that through my Art I have attained to 
 that credit, that few men living ever had : of the wonders that I 
 
42 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 have done, all England can speak, both King and Commons : I 
 have unlocked the secrets of Art and Nature, and let the world 
 see those things that have lay en hid since the death of Hermes,* 
 that rare and profound philosopher : my studies have found the 
 secrets of the Starres ; the bookes that I have made of them do 
 serve for precedents to our greatest Doctors, so excellent hath my 
 judgment been therein. I likewise have found out the secrets of 
 Trees, Plants, and Stones, with their several uses ; yet all this 
 knowledge of mine I esteeme so lightly, that I wish that I were 
 ignorant and knew nothing, for the knowledge of these things (as 
 I have truly found) serveth not to better a man in goodnesse, but 
 onely to make him proude and thinke too well of himselfe. What 
 hath all my knowledge of Nature's secrets gained me 1 Onely 
 this, the losse of a better knowledge, the losse of Divine Studies, 
 which makes the immortal part of man (his soule) blessed. I have 
 found that my knowledge has beene a heavy burden, and has kept 
 downe my good thoughts ; but I will remove the cause, which are 
 these Bookes, which I doe purpose here before you all to burne. 
 They all intreated him to spare the bookes, because in them there 
 were those things that after-ages might receive great benefit by. 
 He would not hearken unto them, but threw them all into the 
 fire, and in that flame burnt the greatest learning in the world. 
 Then did he dispose of all his goods ; some part he gave to poor 
 schollers, and some he gave to other poore folkes : nothing left he 
 for himselfe : then caused hee to be made in the Church-Wall a 
 Cell, where he locked himselfe in, and there remained till his 
 Death. His time hee spent in prayer, meditation, and such Divine 
 exercises, and did seeke by all means to perswade men from the 
 study of Magicke. Thus lived hee some two years space in that 
 
 * Hermes Trismegistus ('thrice great'), a fabulous Chaldean 
 philosopher, to whom I have already made reference. The 
 numerous writings which bear his name were really composed by 
 the Egyptian Platonists ; but the mediaeval alchemists pretend to 
 recognise in him the founder of their art. Gower, in his ' Con- 
 fessio Amantis,' says : 
 
 ' Of whom if I the names calle, 
 Hermes was one the first of alle, 
 To whom this Art is most applied.' 
 
 The name of Hermes was chosen because of the supposed magical 
 powers of the god of the caduceus. 
 
CHAP. I.] HISTORY OF FRIAR BACON. 43 
 
 Cell, never comming forth : his meat and drink he received in at 
 a window, and at that window he had discourse with those that 
 came to him ; his grave he digged with his owne nayles, and was 
 there layed when he dyed. Thus was the Life and Death of this 
 famous Fryer, who lived most part of his life a Magician, and 
 dyed a true Penitent Sinner and Anchorite.' 
 
 Upon this popular romance Greene, one of the best 
 of the second-class Elizabethan dramatists, founded 
 his rattling comedy, entitled * The Historye of Fryer 
 Bacon and Fryer Bungay,' which was written, it 
 would seem, in 1589, first acted about 1592, and 
 published in 1594. He does not servilely follow the 
 old story-book, but introduces an under-plot of his 
 own, in which is shown the love of Prince Edward 
 for Margaret, the ' Fair Maid of Fressingfield/ whom 
 the Prince finally surrenders to the man she loves, 
 his favourite and friend, Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. 
 
 GREENE'S COMEDY. 
 
 In Scene I., which takes place near Framlingham, 
 in Suffolk, we find Prince Edward eloquently expa- 
 tiating on the charms of the Fair Maid to an audience 
 f his courtiers, one of whom advises him, if he would 
 prove successful in his suit, to seek the assistance of 
 Friar Bacon, a 'brave necromancer, 1 who 'can make 
 women of devils, and juggle cats into coster- 
 mongers/* The Prince acts upon this advice. 
 
 Scene II. introduces us to Friar Bacon's cell at 
 
 Brasenose College, Oxford (an obvious anachronism, 
 
 as the college was not founded until long after Bacon's 
 
 time). Enter Bacon and his poor scholar, Miles, 
 
 * That is, costard, or apple, mongers. 
 
44 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 with books under his arm ; also three doctors of 
 Oxford : Burden, Mason, and Clement. 
 
 BACON. Miles, where are you? 
 
 MILES. Hie sum, doctissime et reverendissime Doctor. (Here I am, 
 most learned and reverend Doctor.) 
 
 BACON. Attulisti nostros libros meos de necromantia ? (Hast thou 
 brought my books of necromancy 1) 
 
 MILES. Ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum habitare libros in 
 unum ! (See how good and how pleasant it is to dwell among 
 books together !) 
 
 BACON. Now, masters of our academic state 
 That rule in Oxford, viceroys in your place, 
 Whose heads contain maps of the liberal arts, 
 Spending your time in depths of learned skill, 
 Why flock you thus to Bacon's secret cell, 
 A friar newly stalled in Brazen-nose 1 ? 
 Say what's your mind, that I may make reply. 
 
 BURDEN. Bacon, we hear that long we have suspect, 
 That thou art read in Magic's mystery : 
 In pyromancy,* to divine by flames ; 
 To tell by hydromancy, ebbs and tides ; 
 By aeromancy to discover doubts, 
 To plain out questions, as Apollo did. 
 
 BACON. Well, Master Burden, what of all this 1 
 MILES. Marry, sir, he doth but fulfil, by rehearsing of these 
 names, the fable of the ' Fox and the Grapes ' : that which is 
 above us pertains nothing to us. 
 
 BURD. I tell thee, Bacon, Oxford makes report, 
 Nay, England, and the Court of Henry says 
 Thou'rt making of a Brazen Head by art, 
 Which shall unfold strange doubts and aphorisms, 
 And read a lecture in philosophy : 
 And, by the help of devils and ghastly fiends, 
 Thou mean'st, ere many years or days be past, 
 To compass England with a wall of brass. 
 BACON. And what of this ? 
 
 MILES. What of this, master ! why, he doth speak mystically ; 
 for he knows, if your skill fail to make a Brazen Head, yet 
 
 * See Appendix to the present chapter, p. 58. 
 
CHAP, i.] GREENE'S COMEDY. 45 
 
 Master Waters' strong ale will fit his time to make him have a 
 copper nose. . . . 
 
 BACON. Seeing you come as friends unto the friar, 
 Resolve you, doctors, Bacon can by books 
 Make storming Boreas thunder from his cave, 
 And dim fair Luna to a dark eclipse. 
 The great arch-ruler, potentate of hell, 
 Tumbles when Bacon bids him, or his fiends 
 Bow to the force of his pentageron.*. . . 
 I have contrived and framed a head of brass 
 (I made Belcephon hammer out the stuff), 
 And that by art shall read philosophy : 
 And I will strengthen England by my skill, 
 That if ten Caesars lived and reigned in Rome, 
 With all the legions Europe doth contain, 
 They should not touch a grass of English ground : 
 The work that Ninus reared at Babylon, 
 The brazen walls framed by Semiramis, 
 Carved out like to the portal of the sun, 
 Shall not be such as rings the English strand 
 From Dover to the market-place of Rye. 
 
 In this patriotic resolution of the potent friar the 
 reader will trace the influence of the national enthu- 
 siasm awakened, only a few years before Greene's 
 comedy was written and produced, by the menace of 
 the Spanish Armada. 
 
 It is unnecessary to quote the remainder of this 
 scene, in which Bacon proves his magical skill at 
 the expense of the jealous Burden. Scene III. 
 passes at Harleston Fair, and introduces Lacy, Earl 
 of Lincoln, disguised as a rustic, and the comely 
 
 * The pentageron, or pentagramma, is a mystic figure pro- 
 duced by prolonging the sides of a regular pentagon till they 
 intersect one another. It can be drawn without a break in the 
 drawing, and, viewed from five sides, exhibits the form of the 
 letter A (pent-alpha), or the figure of the fifth proposition in 
 Euclid's First Book. 
 
46 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 Margaret. In Scene IV., at Hampton Court, Henry III. 
 receives Elinor of Castile, who is betrothed to his son, 
 Prince Edward, and arranges with her father, the 
 Emperor, a competition between the great German 
 magician, Jaques Vandermast, and Friar Bacon, ' Eng- 
 land's only flower/ In Scene Y. we pass on to 
 Oxford, where some comic incidents occur between 
 Prince Edward (in disguise) and his courtiers ; and 
 in Scene VI. to Friar Bacon's cell, where the friar 
 shows the Prince in his ' glass prospective,' or magic 
 mirror, the figures of Margaret, Friar Bungay, and 
 Earl Lacy, and reveals the progress of Lacy's suit to 
 the rustic beauty. Bacon summons Bungay to Ox- 
 ford straddling on a devil's back and the scene 
 then changes to the Regent-house, and degenerates 
 into the rudest farce. At Fressingfield, in Scene VIIL, 
 we find Prince Edward threatening to slay Earl Lacy 
 unless he gives up to him the Fair Maid of Fressing- 
 field ; but, after a struggle, his better nature prevails, 
 and he retires from his suit, leaving Margaret to 
 become the Countess of Lincoln. Scene IX. carries 
 us back to Oxford, where Henry III., the Emperor, 
 and a goodly company have assembled to witness the 
 trial of skill between the English and the German 
 magicians the first international competition on 
 record! in which, of course, Vandermast is put to 
 ridicule. 
 
 Passing over Scene X. as unimportant, we return, 
 in Scene XL, to Bacon's cell, where the great magician 
 is lying on his bed, with a white wand in one hand, a 
 book in the other, and beside him a lighted lamp. 
 
CHAP, i.] GREENE'S COMEDY. 47 
 
 The Brazen Head is there, with Miles, armed, keeping 
 watch over it. Here the dramatist closely follows 
 the old story. The friar falls asleep ; the head speaks 
 once and twice, and Miles fails to wake his master. 
 It speaks the third time. ' A lightning flashes forth, 
 and a hand appears that breaks down the head with a 
 hammer.' Bacon awakes to lament over the ruin of 
 his work, and load the careless Miles with unavailing 
 reproaches. But the whole scene is characteristic 
 enough to merit transcription : 
 
 SCENE XI. Friar Bacon's Cell. 
 
 FRIAR BACON is discovered lying on a bed, with a white 
 stick in one hand, a book in the other, and a lamp lighted 
 beside him; and the BRAZEN HEAD, and MILES with 
 weapons by him. 
 
 BACON. Miles, where are you ? 
 
 MILES. Here, sir. 
 
 BACON. How chance you tarry so long ? 
 
 MILES. Think you that the watching of the Brazen Head craves 
 no furniture ? I warrant you, sir, I have so armed myself that if 
 all your devils come, 1 will not fear them an inch. 
 
 BACON. Miles, 
 
 Thou know'st that I have dived into hell, 
 And sought the darkest palaces of fiends ; 
 That with my magic spells great Belcephon 
 Hath left his lodge and kneeled at my cell ; 
 The rafters of the earth rent from the poles, 
 And three-form'd Luna hid her silver looks, 
 Tumbling upon her concave continent, 
 When Bacon read upon his magic book. 
 With seven years' tossing necromantic charms, 
 Poring upon dark Hecat's principles, 
 I have framed out a monstrous head of brass, 
 That, by the enchanting forces of the devil, 
 Shall tell out strange and uncouth aphorisms, 
 And girt fair England with a wall of brass. 
 Bungay and I have watch'd these threescore days, 
 
48 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 And now our vital spirits crave some rest : 
 
 If Argus lived and had his hundred eyes, 
 
 They could not over-watch Phobetor's* night. 
 
 Now, Miles, in thee rests Friar Bacon's weal : 
 
 The honour and renown of all his life 
 
 Hangs in the watching of this Brazen Head ; 
 
 Therefore I charge thee by the immortal God 
 
 That holds the souls of men within his fist, 
 
 This night thou watch ; for ere the morning star 
 
 Sends out his glorious glister on the north 
 
 The Head will speak. Then, Miles, upon thy life 
 
 Wake me ; for then by magic art I'll work 
 
 To end my seven years' task with excellence. 
 
 If that a wink but shut thy watchful eye, 
 
 Then farewell Bacon's glory and his fame ! 
 
 Draw close the curtains, Miles : now, for thy life, 
 
 Be watchful, and . . . (Falls asleep.) 
 
 MILES. So ; I thought you would talk yourself asleep anon ; 
 and 'tis no marvel, for Bungay on the days, and he on the nights, 
 .have watched just these ten and fifty days : now this is the night, 
 and 'tis my task, and no more. Now, Jesus bless me, what a 
 goodly head it is ! and a nose ! You talk of Nos^ autem glori- 
 Jicare ; but here's a nose that I warrant may be called Nos autem 
 populare for the people of the parish. Well, I am furnished with 
 weapons : now, sir, I will set me down by a post, and make it as 
 good as a watchman to wake me, if I chance to slumber. I 
 thought, Goodman Head, I would call you out of your memento.^ 
 Passion o' God, I have almost broke my pate! (A great noise.) 
 Up, Miles, to your task ; take your brown-bill in your hand ; 
 here's some of your master's hobgoblins abroad. 
 
 THE BRAZEN HEAD (speaks). Time is. 
 
 MILES. Time is ! Why, Master Brazen-Head, you have such a 
 capital nose, and answer you with syllables, ' Time is "? Is this 
 my master's cunning, to spend seven years' study about 'Time 
 is '? Well, sir, it may be we shall have some better orations 
 
 * From the Greek <o/3o, fear ; <f>6(3qrpa, bugbears. 
 
 t Bad puns were evidently common on the stage before the 
 days of Victorian burlesque. 
 
 J So Shakespeare, ' 1 Hen. IV.,' iii. Falstaffsays : 'I make as 
 good use of it as many a man doth of a death's head, or a memento 
 house.' 
 
CHAP, i.] GREENE'S COMEDY. 49 
 
 of it anon : well, I'll watch you as narrowly as ever you were 
 watched, and I'll play with you as the nightingale with the glow- 
 worm ; I'll set a prick against my breast.* Now rest there, 
 Miles. Lord have mercy upon me, I have almost killed myself. 
 (A great noise.) Up, Miles ; list how they rumble. 
 
 THE BRAZEN HEAD (loquitur). Time was. 
 
 MILES. Well, Friar Bacon, you have spent your seven years' 
 study well, that can make your Head speak but two words at 
 once, ' Time was.' Yea, marry, time was when my master was a 
 wise man; but that was before he began to make the Brazen 
 Head. You shall lie while you ache, an your head speak no 
 better. Well, I will watch, and walk up and down, and be a 
 peripatetianf and a philosopher of Aristotle's stamp. (A great 
 noise.) What, a fresh noise ? Take thy pistols in hand, Miles. 
 (A lightning flashes forth, and a Hand appears that breaks down the 
 HEAD with a hammer.) Master, master, up ! Hell's broken loose ! 
 Your Head speaks ; and there's such a thunder and lightning, 
 that I warrant all Oxford is up in arms. Out of your bed, and 
 take a brownbill in your hand ; the latter day is come. 
 
 BACON. Miles, I come. (Rises and comes forward. ) 
 
 O, passing warily watched ! 
 Bacon will make thee next himself in love. 
 When spake the Head 1 
 
 MILES. When spake the Head 1 Did you not say that he 
 should tell strange principles of philosophy ? Why, sir, it speaks 
 but two words at a time. 
 
 BACON. Why, villain, hath it spoken oft ? 
 
 MILES. Oft ! ay, marry hath it, thrice ; but in all those three 
 times it hath uttered but seven words. 
 
 BACON. As how ? 
 
 MILES. Marry, sir, the first time he said, ' Time is,' as if Fabius 
 Commentator^ should have pronounced a sentence ; then he said, 
 
 * So in the ' Passionate Pilgrim ': 
 
 1 Save the nightingale alone : 
 She, poor bird, as all forlorn, 
 Leaned her breast uptill a thorn.' 
 
 t A peripatetic, or walking philosopher. Observe the facetious- 
 ness in ' Aristotle's stamp.' Aristotle was the founder of the 
 Peripatetics. 
 
 t Fabius Cunctator, or the Delayer, so called from the policy of 
 delay which he opposed to the vigorous movements of Hannibal. 
 
 4 
 
50 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 ' Time was ;' and the third time, with thunder and lightning, as 
 in great choler, he said, 'Time is past.' 
 
 BACON. 'Tis past, indeed. Ah, villain ! Time is past ; 
 My life, my fame, my glory, are all past. 
 Bacon, 
 
 The turrets of thy hope are ruined down, 
 Thy seven years' study lieth in the dust : 
 Thy Brazen Head lies broken through a slave 
 That watched, and would not when the Head did will. 
 What said the Head first ? 
 
 MILES. Even, sir, 'Time is.' 
 
 BACON. Villain, if thou hadst called to Bacon then, 
 If thou hadst watched, and waked the sleepy friar, 
 The Brazen Head had uttered aphorisms, 
 And England had been circled round with brass : 
 But proud Asmenoth,* ruler of the North, 
 And Demogorgon,! master of the Fates, 
 Grudge that a mortal man should work so much. 
 Hell trembled at my deep-commanding spells, 
 Fiends frowned to see a man their over-match ; 
 Bacon might boast more than a man might boast ; 
 But now the braves^ of Bacon have an end, 
 
 One would suppose that the humour here, such as it is, would 
 hardly be perceptible to a theatrical audience. 
 
 * In the old German ' Faustbuch,' the title of Prince of the 
 North ' is given to Beelzebub. 
 
 f Demogorgon, or Demiourgos the creative principle of evil 
 figures largely in literature. He is first mentioned by Lactantius, 
 in the fourth century ; then by Boccaccio, Boiardo, Tasso (' Gieru- 
 salemme Liberata '), and Ariosto (' Orlando l^urioso '). Marlowe 
 speaks, in * Tamburlaine,' of 'Gorgon, prince of Hell.' Spenser, 
 in ' The Faery Queen,' refers to 
 
 ' Great Gorgon, prince of darkness and dead night, 
 At which Cocytus quakes, and Styx is put to flight.' 
 Milton, in ' Paradise Lost,' alludes to ' the dreaded name of 
 Demogorgon.' Dryden says : ' When the moon arises, and 
 Demogorgon walks his round.' And he is one of the dramatis 
 persons of Shelley's ' Prometheus Unbound ': ' Demogorgon, a 
 tremendous gloom. ... A mighty Darkness, filling the seat of 
 power.' 
 
 I Boasts. So in Peele's 'Edward I': 'As thou to England 
 brought'st thy Scottish braves.' 
 
CHAP, i.] GREENE'S COMEDY. 5J 
 
 Europe's conceit of Bacon hath an end, 
 His seven years' practice sorteth to ill end : 
 And, villain, sith my glory hath an end, 
 I will appoint thee to some fatal end.* 
 Villain, avoid ! get thee from Bacon's sight ! 
 Vagrant, go, roam and range about the world, 
 And perish as a vagabond on earth ! 
 
 MILES. Why, then, sir, you forbid me your service ? ^ ^ 
 
 BACON. My service, villain, with a fatal curse, 
 That direful plagues and mischief fall on thee. 
 
 MILES. Tis no matter, I am against you with the old proverb, 
 c The more the fox is cursed, the better he fares.' God be with 
 you, sir : I'll take but a book in my hand, a wide-sleeved gown 
 on my back, and a crowned capf on my head, and see if I can 
 merit promotion. 
 
 BACON. Some fiend or ghost haunt on thy weary steps, 
 Until they do transport thee quick to Hell ! 
 For Bacon shall have never any day. 
 To lose the fame and honour of his Head. 
 
 [Exeunt. 
 
 Scene XII. passes in King Henry's Court, and the 
 royal consent is given to Earl Lacy's marriage with 
 the Fair Maid, which is fixed to take place on the 
 same day as Prince Edward's marriage to the Princess 
 Elinor. In Scene XIII. we again go back to Bacon's 
 cell. The friar is bewailing the destruction of his 
 Brazen Head to Friar Bungay, when two young gentle- 
 men, named Lambert and Sealsby, enter, in order to 
 look into the ' glass prospective,' and see how their 
 fathers are faring. Unhappily, at this very moment, 
 the elder Lambert and Sealsby, having quarrelled, are 
 engaged ' in combat hard by Fressingfield,' and stab 
 each other to the death, whereupon their sons imme- 
 
 * This reiteration of the same final word, for the sake of 
 emphasis, is found in Shakespeare, 
 t A corner or college cap. 
 
 42 
 
52 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 diately come to blows, with a like fatal result. Bacon, 
 deeply affected, breaks the magic crystal which has 
 been the unwitting cause of so sad a catastrophe, 
 expresses his regret that he ever dabbled in the un- 
 holy science, and announces his resolve to spend the 
 remainder of his life 'in pure devotion.' 
 
 At Fressingfield, in Scene XIV., the opportune 
 arrival of Lacy and his friends prevents Margaret 
 from carrying out her intention of retiring to the 
 nunnery at Framlingham, and with obliging readiness 
 she consents to marry the Earl. Scene XV. shifts to 
 Bacon's cell, where a devil complains that the friar 
 hath raised him from the darkest deep to search about 
 the world for Miles, his man, and torment him in 
 punishment for his neglect of orders. 
 
 Miles makes his appearance, and after some comic 
 dialogue, intended to tickle the ears of the ground- 
 lings, mounts astride the demon's back, and goes off 
 
 to ! In Scene XVI., and last, we return to the 
 
 Court, where royalty makes a splendid show, and the 
 two brides the Princess Elinor and the Countess 
 Margaret display their rival charms. Of course the 
 redoubtable friar is present, and in his concluding 
 speech leaps over a couple of centuries to make a 
 glowing compliment to Queen Elizabeth, which seems 
 worth quotation : 
 
 ' I find by deep prescience of mine art, 
 Which once I tempered in my secret cell, 
 That here where Brute did build his Troynovant,* 
 
 * An allusion to the old legend that Brut, or Brutus, great- 
 grandson of ^Eneas, founded New Troy (Troynovant), or 
 London. 
 
CHAP. L] GREENE'S COMEDY. 53 
 
 From forth the royal garden of a King 
 
 Shall flourish out so rich and fair a bud, 
 
 Whose brightness shall deface proud Phrebus' flower, 
 
 And overshadow Albion with her leaves. 
 
 Till then Mars shall be master of the field, 
 
 But then the stormy threats of war shall cease : 
 
 The horse shall stamp as careless of the pike, 
 
 Drums shall be turned to timbrels of delight ; 
 
 With wealthy favours Plenty shall enrich 
 
 The strand that gladded wandering Brute to see, 
 
 And peace from heaven shall harbour in these leaves 
 
 That gorgeous beautify this matchless flower : 
 
 Apollo's heliotropian* then shall stoop, 
 
 And Venus' hyacinthf shall vail her top ; 
 
 Juno shall shut her gilliflowers up, 
 
 And Pallas' bay shall 'bash her brightest green ; 
 
 Ceres' carnation, in consort with those, 
 
 Shall stoop and wonder at Diana's rose. J 
 
 So much for Greene's comedy of ' Friar Bacon and 
 Friar Bungay ' not, on the whole, a bad piece of 
 work. 
 
 Among the earlier English alchemists I may next 
 name, in chronological order, George Ripley, canon 
 of Bridlington, who, in 1471, dedicated to King Ed- 
 ward III. his once celebrated ' Compound of Alchemy ; 
 or, The Twelve Gates leading to the Discovery of the 
 Philosopher's Stone.' These 'gates,' each of which 
 he describes in detail, but with little enlightenment to 
 the uninitiated reader, are: 1. Calcination; 2. Solu- 
 tion ; 3. Separation ; 4. Conjunction ; 5. Putrefac- 
 
 * Probably the reference is to the sunflower. 
 
 t The classic writers usually identify the hyacinth with 
 Apollo. 
 
 t The rose, that is, of the Virgin Queen an English Diana 
 Elizabeth. In Shakespeare's ' Midsummer Night's Dream' (Act iv., 
 scene 1) we read of ' Diana's bud.' 
 
54 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 tion ; 6. Congelation ; 7. Cibation ; 8. Sublimation ; 
 9. Fermentation; 10. Exaltation; 11. Multiplication; 
 and 12. Projection. In his old age Ripley learned 
 wisdom, and frankly acknowledged that he had wasted 
 his life upon an empty pursuit. He requested all 
 men, if they met with any of the five-and-twenty 
 treatises of which he was the author, to consign them 
 to the flames as absolutely vain and worthless. 
 
 Yet there is a wild story that he actually discovered 
 the ' magisterium,' and was thereby enabled to send a 
 gift of 100,000 to the Knights of St. John, to assist 
 them in their defence of Rhodes against the Turks. 
 
 Thomas Norton, of Bristol, w T as the author of i The 
 Ordinall of Alchemy ' (printed in London in 1652). 
 He is said to have been a pupil of Ripley, under 
 whom (at the age of 28) he studied for forty days, 
 and in that short time acquired a thorough know- 
 ledge of ' the perfection of chemistry.' Ripley, how- 
 ever, refused to instruct so young a man in the 
 master-secret of the great science, and the process 
 from ' the white ' to * the red powder/ so that Norton 
 was compelled to rely on his own skill and industry. 
 Twice in his labours a sad disappointment overtook 
 him. On one occasion he had almost completed the 
 tincture, when the servant whom he employed to 
 look after the furnace decamped with it, supposing 
 that it was fit for use. On another it was stolen by 
 the wife of William Canning, Mayor of Bristol, who 
 immediately sprang into immense wealth, and as some 
 amends, I suppose, for his ill-gotten gains, built the 
 
CHAP. I.] THOMAS D ALTON. 55 
 
 beautiful steeple of the church of St. Mary, Redcliffe 
 the church afterwards connected with the sad story 
 of Chatterton. As for Norton, he seems to have lived 
 in poverty and died in poverty (1477). 
 
 The ' Ordinall of Alchemy ' is a tedious panegyric 
 of the science, interspersed with a good deal of the 
 vague talk about white and red stones and the philo- 
 sophical magnesia in which c the adepts ' delighted. 
 
 To Norton we owe our scanty knowledge of Thomas 
 Dalton, who flourished about the middle of the 
 fifteenth century. He had the reputation of being a 
 devout Churchman until he was accused by a certain 
 Debois of possessing the powder of projection. Debois 
 roundly asserted that Norton had made him a thousand 
 pounds of gold (lucky man !) in less than twelve hours. 
 Whereupon Dalton simply said, ' Sir, you are for- 
 sworn.' His explanation was that he had received 
 the powder from a canon of Lichfield, on undertaking 
 not to use it until after the canon's death; and that 
 since he had been so troubled by his possession of it, 
 that he had secretly destroyed it. One Thomas Her- 
 bert, a squire of King Edward, waylaid the unfortu- 
 nate man, and shut him up in the castle of Gloucester, 
 putting heavy pressure upon him to make the coveted 
 tincture. But this Dalton would not and could not 
 do ; and after a captivity of four years, Herbert 
 ordered him to be brought out and executed in his 
 presence. He obeyed the harsh summons with great 
 delight, exclaiming, ' Blessed art Thou, Lord Jesus ! 
 I have been too long absent from Thee. The science 
 
56 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 Thou gavest me I have kept without ever abusing it ; 
 I have found no one fit to be my heir ; wherefore, 
 sweet Lord, I will restore Thy gift to Thee again. 7 
 
 ' Then, after some devout prayer, with a smiling 
 countenance he desired the executioner to proceed. 
 Tears gushed from the eyes of Herbert when he 
 beheld him so willing to die, and saw that no 
 ingenuity could wrest his secret from him. He gave 
 orders for his release. His imprisonment and threat- 
 ened execution were contrived without the King's 
 knowledge to intimidate him into compliance. The 
 iniquitous devices having failed, Herbert did not dare 
 to take away his life. Dalton rose from the block 
 with a heavy countenance, and returned to his abbey, 
 much grieved at the further prolongation of his 
 earthly sojourn. Herbert died shortly after this 
 atrocious act of tyranny, and Debois also came to an 
 untimely end. His father, Sir John Debois, was slain 
 at the battle of Tewkesbury, May 4, 1471 ; and two 
 days after, as recorded in Stow's "Annales," he himself 
 (James Debois) was taken, with several others of the 
 Lancastrian party, from a church where they had fled 
 for sanctuary, and was beheaded on the spot/ 
 
 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I. 
 
 The ancient magic included various kinds of divination, of 
 which the principal may here be catalogued : 
 
 Aeromancy, or divination from the air. If the wind blew from 
 the east, it signified good fortune (which is certainly not the 
 general opinion !) ; from the west, evil ; from the south, calamity ; 
 from the north, disclosure of what was secret ; from all quarters 
 simultaneously (!), hail and rain. 
 
CHAP. I.] APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I. 57 
 
 Axinomancy, practised by the Greeks, more particularly for the 
 purpose of discovering criminals. An axe poised upon a stake, or 
 an agate on a red-hot axe, was supposed by its movement to 
 indicate the offender. Or the names of suspected persons were 
 called out, and the movement of the axe at a particular name was 
 understood to certify guilt. 
 
 Belomancy, in use among the Arabs, was practised by means of 
 arrows, which were shot off, with written labels attached to them; 
 and the inscription on the arrow first picked up was accepted as 
 prophetic. 
 
 Bibliomancy, divining by means of the Bible, survived to a 
 comparatively recent period. The passage which first caught the 
 eye, on a Bible being opened haphazard, was supposed to indi- 
 cate the future. This was identical with the Sortes Tirgiliance, 
 the only difference being that in the latter, Virgil took the 
 place of the Bible. Everybody knows in connection with the 
 Sortes the story of Charles I. and Lord Falkland. 
 
 Botanomancy, divining by means of plants and flowers, can 
 hardly be said to be extinct even now. In Goethe's 'Faust,' 
 Gretchen seeks to discover whether Faust returns her affection 
 by plucking, one after another, the petals of a star-flower (stern- 
 blume, perhaps the china-aster), while she utters the alternate 
 refrains, ' He loves me !' ' He loves me not !' as she plucks the 
 last petal, exclaiming rapturously, ' He loves me !' According to 
 Theocritus, the Greeks used the poppy-flower for this purpose. 
 
 Capnomancy, divination by smoke, the ancients practised in two 
 ways : they threw seeds of jasmine or poppy in the fire, watching 
 the motion and density of the smoke they emitted, or they 
 observed the sacrificial smoke. If the smoke was thin, and shot 
 up in a straight line, it was a good omen. 
 
 Cheiromancy (or Palmistry), divination by the hand, was worked 
 up into an elaborate system by Paracelsus, Cardan, and others. 
 It has long been practised by the gipsies, by itinerant fortune-tellers, 
 and other cheats ; and recently an attempt has been made to 
 give it a fashionable character. 
 
 Coscinomancy was practised by means of a sieve and a pair of 
 shears or forceps. The forceps or shears were used to suspend a 
 sieve, which moved (like the axe in axinomancy) when the name 
 of a guilty person was mentioned. 
 
 Crystattomancy, divining by means of a crystal globe, mirror, or 
 beryl. Of this science of prediction, Dr. Dee was the great 
 
58 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 English professor ; but the reader will doubtless remember the 
 story of the Earl of Surrey and his fair ' Geraldine.' 
 
 Geomancy, divination by casting pebbles on the ground. 
 
 Hydromancy, divination by water, in which the diviner showed 
 the figure of an absent person. ' In this you conjure the spirits 
 into water; there they are constrained to show themselves, as 
 Marcus Varro testifieth, when he writeth how he had seen a boy 
 in the water, who announced to him in a hundred and fifty verses 
 the end of the Mithridatic war.' 
 
 Oneiromancy, divination by dreams, is still credited by old 
 women of both sexes. Absurdly baseless as it is, it found be- 
 lievers in the old time among men of culture and intellectual 
 force. Archbishop Laud attached so much importance to his 
 dreams that he frequently recorded them in his diary ; and even 
 Lord Bacon seems to have thought that a prophetic meaning 
 was occasionally concealed in them. 
 
 Onychomancy, or Onymancy, divination by means of the nails of 
 an unpolluted boy. 
 
 Pyromancy, divination by fire. ' The wife of Cicero is said, 
 when, after performing sacrifice, she saw a flame suddenly leap 
 forth from the ashes, to have prophesied the consulship to her 
 husband for the same year.' Others resorted to the blaze of a 
 torch of pitch, which was painted with certain colours. It was a 
 good omen if the flame ran into a point ; bad when it divided. 
 A thin-tongued flame announced glory ; if it went out, it signified 
 danger ; if it hissed, misfortune. 
 
 fiabdomancy, divination by the rod or wand, is mentioned by 
 Ezekiel. The use of a hazel-rod to trace the existence of water 
 or of a seam of coal seems a survival of this practice. But 
 enough of these follies : 
 
 ' Necro-, pyro-, geo-, hydro-, cheiro-, coscinomancy, 
 With other vain and superstitious sciences.' 
 
 Tomkis, ' Albumazar,' ii. 3. 
 
CHAP. II.] THE STORY OF DR. JOHN DEE. 59 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE STOKY OF DK. JOHN DEE. 
 
 THE world must always feel carious to know the 
 exact moment when its great men first drew the 
 breath of life ; and it is satisfactory, therefore, to be 
 able to state, on the weighty authority of Dr. Thomas 
 Smith, that Dr. John Dee, the famous magician and 
 'philosopher/ was born at forty minutes past four 
 o'clock on the morning of July 13, 1527. Accord- 
 ing to the picturesque practice of latter-day biographers, 
 here I ought to describe a glorious summer sunrise, 
 the golden light spreading over hill and pasture, the 
 bland warm air stealing into the chamber where lay 
 the mother and her infant ; but I forbear, as, for all I 
 know, this particular July morning may have been 
 cloudy, cold, and wet ; besides, John, the son of 
 Rowland Dee, was born in London. From like want 
 of information I refrain from comments on Master 
 Dee's early bringing-up and education. But it is re- 
 ported that he gave proof of so exceptional a capacity, 
 and of such a love of letters, that, at the early age of 
 fifteen, he was sent to the University of Cambridge, to 
 study the classics and the old scholastic philosophy. 
 
60 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 There, for three years, he was so vehemently bent, he 
 says, on the acquisition of learning, that he spent 
 eighteen hours a day on his books, reserving two only 
 for his meals and recreation, and four for sleep an 
 unhealthy division of time, which probably over- 
 stimulated his cerebral system and predisposed him to 
 delusions and caprices of the imagination. Having 
 taken his degree of B.A., he crossed the seas in 1547 
 4 to speak and confer ' with certain learned men, chiefly 
 mathematicians, such as Gemma Frisius, Gerardus 
 Mercator, Gaspar a Morica, and Antonius Gogara ; of 
 whom the only one now remembered is Mercator, as 
 the inventor of a method of laying down hydro- 
 graphical charts, in which the parallels and meridians 
 intersect each other at right angles. After spending 
 some months in the Low Countries he returned home, 
 bringing with him 'the first astronomer's staff of 
 brass that was made of Gemma Frisius' devising, the 
 two great globes of Gerardus Mercator' s making, and 
 the astronomer's ring of brass (as Gemma Frisius had 
 newly framed it)/ 
 
 Returning to the classic shades of Granta, he began 
 to record his observations of ' the heavenly influences 
 in this elemental portion of the world :' and I suppose 
 it was in recognition of his scientific scholarship that 
 Henry VIII. appointed him to a fellowship at Trinity 
 College, and Greek under-reader. In the latter 
 capacity he superintended, in 1548, the performance 
 of the 'Eipnvrj of Aristophanes, introducing among 
 ' the effects ' an artificial scarabasus, which ascended, 
 with a man and his wallet of provisions on its back, 
 
CHAP. II.] THE STORY OF DR. JOHN DEE. 61 
 
 to Jupiter's palace. This ingenious bit of mechanism 
 delighted the spectators, but, after the manner of the 
 time, was ascribed to Dee's occultism, and he found it 
 convenient to retire to the Continent (1548), residing 
 for awhile at Louvain, and devoting himself to hermetic 
 researches, and afterwards at Paris (1580), where he 
 delivered scientific lectures to large and distinguished 
 audiences. ' My auditory in Rhemes Colledge,' he 
 says, s was so great, and the most part older than my 
 selfe, that the mathematicall schooles could not hold 
 them ; for many were faine, without the schooles, at 
 the windowes, to be auditors and spectators, as they 
 best could help themselves thereto. I did also dictate 
 upon every proposition, beside the first exposition. 
 And by the first foure principall definitions represent- 
 ing to the eyes (which by imagination onely are 
 exactly to be conceived), a greater wonder arose among 
 the beholders, than of my Aristophanes Scarabseus 
 mounting up to the top of Trinity-hall in Cambridge.' 
 The accomplishments of this brilliant scientific 
 mountebank being noised abroad over all Europe, the 
 wonderful story reached the remote Court of the 
 Muscovite, who offered him, if he would take up his 
 residence at Moscow, a stipend of 2,000 per annum, 
 his diet also to be allowed to him free out of e the 
 Emperor's own kitchen, and his place to be ranked 
 amongst the highest sort of the nobility there, and of 
 his privy councillors/ Was ever scholar so tempted 
 before or since ? In those times, the Russian Court 
 seems to have held savants and scholars in as 
 much esteem as nowadays it holds prima-donnas and 
 
62 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 ballerines. Dee also received advantageous proposals 
 from four successive Emperors of Germany (Charles V., 
 Ferdinand, Maximilian II. , and Rudolph II.), but the 
 Muscovite's outbade them all. A residence in the 
 heart of Russia had no attraction, however, for the 
 Oxford scholar, who, in 1551, returned to England 
 with a halo of fame playing round his head (to speak 
 figuratively, as Dee himself loved to do), which 
 recommended him to the celebrated Greek professor 
 at Cambridge, Sir John Cheke. Cheke introduced 
 him to Mr. Secretary Cecil, as well as to Edward VI. , 
 who bestowed upon him a pension of 100 crowns per 
 annum (speedily exchanged, in 1553, for the Rectory 
 of Upton-upon- Severn). At first he met with favour 
 from Queen Mary ; but the close correspondence he 
 maintained with the Princess Elizabeth, who ap- 
 preciated his multifarious scholarship, exposed him 
 to suspicion, and he was accused of practising against 
 the Queen's life by divers enchantments. Arrested 
 and imprisoned (at Hampton Court), he was subjected 
 to rigorous examinations, and as no charge of treason 
 could be proved against him, was remitted to Bishop 
 Bonner as a possible heretic. But his enemies failed 
 again in their malicious intent, and in 1555 he received 
 his liberty. Imprisonment and suffering had not 
 quenched his activity of temper, and almost imme- 
 diately upon his release he solicited the Queen's assent 
 to a plan for the restoration and preservation of 
 certain precious manuscripts of classical antiquity. 
 He solicited in vain. 
 
 When Elizabeth came to the throne, Dee, as a 
 
CHAP. II.] THE STORY OF DR. JOHN DEE. 63 
 
 proficient in the occult arts, was consulted by Dudley 
 (afterwards Earl of Leicester) as to the most suit- 
 able and auspicious day for her coronation. She 
 testified to her own belief in his skill by employing 
 him, when her image in wax had been discovered in 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields, to counteract the evil charm. 
 But he owed her favour, we may assume, much 
 more to his learning, which was really extensive, 
 than to his supposed magical powers. He tells us 
 that, shortly before her coronation, she summoned 
 him to Whitehall, remarking to his patrons, Dudley 
 and the Earl of Pembroke, c Where my brother hath 
 given him a crown, I will give him a noble.' She 
 was certainly more liberal to Dee than to many of 
 her servants who were much more deserving. In 
 December, 1564, she granted him the reversion of 
 the Deanery of Gloucester. Not long afterwards 
 his friends recommended him for the Provostship of 
 Eton College. ' Favourable answers ' were returned, 
 but he never received the Provostship. He ob- 
 tained permission, however, to hold for ten years the 
 two rectories of Upton and Long Ledenham. Later 
 in her reign (July, 1583), when two great nobles 
 invited themselves to dine with him, he was com- 
 pelled to decline the honour on account of his poverty. 
 The Queen, on being apprised of this incident, sent 
 him a present of forty angels of gold. We shall come 
 upon other proofs of her generosity. 
 
 Dee was travelling on the Continent in 1571, and 
 on his way through Lorraine was seized with a 
 dangerous sickness ; whereupon the Queen not only 
 
64 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 sent ' carefully and with great speed ' two of her 
 physicians, but also the honourable Lord Sidney 
 4 in a manner to tend on him,' and 'to discern how 
 his health bettered, and to comfort him from her 
 Majesty with divers very pithy speeches and gracious, 
 and also with divers rarities to eat, to increase his 
 health and strength.' Philosophers and men of letters, 
 when they are ailing, meet with no such pleasant 
 attentions nowadays ! But the list of Elizabeth's 
 bounties is not yet ended. The much-travelling 
 scholar, who saw almost as much of cities and men 
 and manners as Odysseus himself, had wandered 
 into the farthest parts of the kingdom of Bohemia ; 
 and that no evil might come to him, or his com- 
 panion, or their families, she sent them her most 
 princely and royal letters of safe-conduct. After 
 his return home, a little before Christmas, 1589, 
 hearing that he was unable to keep house as liberally 
 as became his position and repute, she promised to 
 assist him with the gift of a hundred pounds, and 
 once or twice repeated the promise on his coming 
 into her presence. Fifty pounds he did receive, 
 with which to keep his Christmas merrily, but what 
 became of the other moiety he was never able to 
 discover. A malignant influence frequently inter- 
 posed, it would seem, between the Queen's benevolence 
 in intention and her charity in action ; and the un- 
 fortunate doctor was sometimes tantalized with 
 promises of good things which failed to be realized. 
 On the whole, however, I do not think he had much 
 to complain of; and the reproach of parsimony so 
 
CHAP. II.] THE STORY OF DR. JOHN DEE. 65 
 
 often levelled at great Gloriana would certainly not 
 apply to her treatment of Dr. Dee. 
 
 She honoured him with several visits at Mortlake, 
 where he had a pleasant house close by the river- 
 side, and a little to the westward of the church 
 surrounded by gardens and green fields, with bright 
 prospects of the shining river. Elizabeth always 
 came down from Whitehall on horseback, attended 
 by a brave retinue of courtiers ; and as she passed 
 along, her loyal subjects stood at their doors, or 
 lined the roadside, making respectful bows and 
 curtseys, and crying, i God save the Queen !' One 
 of these royal visits was made on March 10, 1675, 
 the Queen desiring to see the doctor's famous 
 library ; but learning that he had buried his wife 
 only four hours before, she refused to enter the 
 house. Dee, however, submitted to her inspection 
 his magic crystal, or ' black stone/ and exhibited 
 some of its marvellous properties ; her Majesty, for 
 the better examination of the same, being taken down 
 from her horse ' by the Earl of Leicester, by the 
 Church wall of Mortlack.' 
 
 She was at Dr. Dee's again on September 17, 
 
 1580. This time she came from Richmond in her 
 coach, a wonderfully cumbrous vehicle, drawn by 
 six horses ; ' and when she was against my garden 
 in the fielde/ says the doctor, ' her Majestie staide 
 there a good while, and then came into the street at 
 the great gate of the field, where her Majestie 
 
 E espied me at my dore, making reverent and dutifull 
 obeysance unto her, and with her hand her Majestie 
 1 
 
66 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 beckoned for me to come to her, and I came to her 
 coach side ; her Majestie then very speedily pulled 
 off her glove, and gave me her hand to kiss ; and 
 to be short, her Majestie wished me to resort 
 oftener to her Court, and by some of her Privy 
 Chamber to give her Majestie to wete (know) when I 
 came there/ 
 
 Another visit took place on October 10, 1580 : 
 i The Queenes Majestie to my great comfort (hord 
 quinta) came with her train from the Court, and at 
 my dore graciously calling me unto her, on horseback 
 exhorted me briefly to take my mother's death 
 patiently ; and withal told me, that the Lord 
 Treasurer had greatly commended my doings for her 
 title royall, which he had to examine. The which 
 title in two rolls of velome parchment his Honour 
 had some houres before brought home, and delivered 
 to Mr. Hudson for me to receive at my coming from 
 my mother's buriall at church. Her Majestie re- 
 membered also then, how at my wives buriall it was 
 her fortune likewise to call upon me at my house, as 
 before is noted.' 
 
 Dee's library as libraries went then was not 
 unworthy of royal inspection. Its proud possessor 
 computed it to be worth 2,000, which, at the 
 present value of money, would be equal, I suppose, 
 to 10,000. It consisted of about 4,000 volumes, 
 bound and unbound, a fourth part being MSS. He 
 speaks of four ' written books ' one in Greek, two 
 in French, and one in High Dutch as having cost 
 him 533, and inquires triumphantly what must 
 

 CHAP. II.] THE STORY OF DR. JOHN DEE. 67 
 
 have been the value of some hundred of the best of 
 all the other written books, some of which were the 
 autograplda of excellent and seldom-heard-of authors ? 
 He adds that he spent upwards of forty years in 
 collecting this library from divers places beyond 
 the seas, and with much research and labour in 
 England. 
 
 Of the c precious books ' thus collected, Dee does 
 not mention the titles ; but he has recorded the rare 
 and exquisitely made ' instruments mathematical ' 
 which belonged to him : An excellent, strong, and 
 fair quadrant, first made by that famous Richard 
 Chancellor who boldly carried his discovery-ships 
 past the Icy Cape, and anchored them in the White 
 Sea. There was also an excellent radius astro- 
 nomicus, of ten feet in length, the staff and cross 
 very curiously divided into equal parts, after Richard 
 Chancellor's quadrant manner. Item, two globes of 
 Mercator's best making : on the celestial sphere Dee, 
 with his own hand, had set down divers comets, 
 their places and motions, according to his individual 
 observation. Item, divers other instruments, as 
 the theorie of the eighth sphere, the ninth and 
 tenth, with an horizon and meridian of copper, made 
 by Mercator specially for Dr. Dee. Item, sea- com- 
 passes of different kinds. Item, a magnet- stone, 
 commonly called a loadstone, of great virtue. 
 Also an excellent watch-clock, made by one Dibbley, 
 ' a notable workman, long since dead/ by which the 
 time might sensibly be measured in the seconds of 
 an hour that is, not to fail the 360th part of an 
 
 52 
 
68 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN, [BOOK I. 
 
 hour. We need not dwell upon his store of docu- 
 ments relating to Irish and Welsh estates, and of 
 ancient seals of arms ; but my curiosity, I confess, 
 is somewhat stirred by his reference to ' a great 
 bladder/ with about four pounds weight of ' a very 
 sweetish thing,' like a brownish gum, in it, arti- 
 ficially prepared by thirty times purifying, which the 
 doctor valued at upwards of a hundred crowns. 
 
 While engaged in learned studies and corre- 
 spondence with learned men, Dee found time to 
 indulge in those wild semi- mystical, transcendental 
 visions which engaged the imagination of so many 
 mediaeval students. The secret of ' the philosopher's 
 stone ' led him into fascinating regions of specula- 
 tion, and the ecstasies of Rosicrucianism dazzled him 
 with the idea of holding communication with the 
 inhabitants of the other world. How far he was 
 sincere in these pursuits, how far he imparted into 
 them a spirit of charlatanry, I think it is impossible 
 to determine. Perhaps one may venture to say 
 that, if to some small extent an impostor, he was, to 
 a much larger extent, a dupe ; that if he deceived 
 others, he also deceived himself ; nor is he, as 
 biography teaches, the only striking example of the 
 credulous enthusiast who mingles with his enthu- 
 siasm, more or less unconsciously, a leaven of 
 hypocrisy. As early as 1571 he complains, in the 
 preface to his ' English Euclid,' that he is jeered at 
 by the populace as a conjurer. By degrees, it is 
 evident, he begins to feel a pride in his magical 
 

 CHAP. II.] THE STORY OF DR. JOHN DEE. 69 
 
 attainments. He records with the utmost gravity 
 his remarkable dreams, and endeavours to read the 
 future by them. He insists, moreover, on strange 
 noises which he hears in his chamber. In those 
 days a favourite method of summoning the spirits 
 was to bring them into a glass or stone which had 
 been prepared for the purpose ; and in his diary, 
 under the date of May 25, 1581, he records for the 
 first time that he had held intercourse in this way 
 with supra-mundane beings. 
 
 Combining with his hermetico-magical speculations 
 religious exercises of great fervour, he was thus en- 
 gaged, one day in November, 1582, when suddenly 
 upon his startled vision rose the angel Uriel ' at the 
 west window of his laboratory,' and presented him 
 with a translucent stone, or crystal, of convex shape, 
 possessing the wonderful property of introducing its 
 owner to the closest possible communication with the 
 world of spirits. It was necessary at times that this 
 so-called mirror should be turned in different posi- 
 tions before the observer could secure the right focus ; 
 and then the spirits appeared on its surface, or in 
 different parts of the room by reason of its action. 
 Further, only one person, whom Dee calls the skryer, 
 or seer, could discover the spirits, or hear and inter- 
 pret their voices, just as there can be but one medium, 
 I believe, at a spiritualistic seance of the present day. 
 But, of course, it was requisite that, while the medium 
 was absorbed in his all-important task, some person 
 should be at hand to describe what he saw, or pro- 
 fessed to see, and commit to paper what he heard, or 
 
70 WITCH, 
 
 professed to hear ; and a seer with a lively imagina- 
 tion and a fluent tongue could go very far in both 
 directions. This humbler, secondary position Dee re- 
 served for himself. Probably his invention was not 
 sufficiently fertile for the part of a medium, or else he 
 was too much in earnest to practise an intentional 
 deception. As the crystal showed him nothing, he 
 himself said so, and looked about for someone more 
 sympathetic, or less conscientious. His choice fell at 
 first on a man named Barnabas Saul, and he records 
 in his diary how, on October 9, 1581, this man 'was 
 strangely troubled by a spiritual creature about mid- 
 night.' In a MS. preserved in the British Museum, 
 he relates some practices which took place on 
 December 2, beginning his account with this state- 
 ment : ' I willed the skryer, named Saul, to looke into 
 my great crystalline globe, if God had sent his holy 
 angel Azrael, or no.' But Saul was a fellow of small 
 account, with a very limited inventive faculty, and on 
 March 6, 158 2, he was obliged to confess 'that he neither 
 heard nor saw any spiritual creature any more.' Dee 
 and his inefficient, unintelligent skryer then quarrelled, 
 and the latter was dismissed, leaving behind him an 
 unsavoury reputation. 
 
 EDWARD KELLY. 
 
 Soon afterwards our magician made the acquaint- 
 ance of a certain Edward Kelly (or Talbot), who was 
 in every way fitted for the mediumistic role. He was 
 clever, plausible, impudent, unscrupulous, and a 
 most accomplished liar. A native of Worcester, 
 
CHAP. II.] EDWARD KELLY. 71 
 
 where he was born in 1555, he was bred up, accord- 
 ing to one account, as a druggist, according to 
 another as a lawyer; but all accounts agree that he 
 became an adept in every kind of knavery. He was 
 pilloried, and lost his ears (or at least was condemned 
 to lose them) at Lancaster, for the offence of coming, 
 or for forgery ; afterwards retired to Wales, assumed 
 the name of Kelly, and practised as a conjurer and 
 alchemist. A story is told of him which illustrates the 
 man's unhesitating audacity, or, at all events, the 
 notoriety of his character: that he carried with him 
 one night into the park of Walton-le-Dale, near 
 Preston, a man who thirsted after a knowledge of the 
 future, and, when certain incantations had been com- 
 pleted, caused his servants to dig up a corpse, in- 
 terred only the day before, that he might compel it to 
 answer his questions. 
 
 How he got introduced to Dr. Dee I do not profess 
 to know ; but I am certainly disinclined to accept the 
 w r onderful narrative which Mr. Waite renders in so 
 agreeable a style that Kelly, during his Welsh 
 sojourn, was shown an old manuscript which "his 
 landlord, an innkeeper, had obtained under peculiar 
 circumstances. ' It had been discovered in the tomb 
 of a bishop who had been buried in a neighbouring 
 church, and whose tomb had been sacrilegiously up- 
 torn by some fanatics/ in the hope of securing the 
 treasures reported to be concealed within it. They 
 found nothing, however, but the aforesaid manuscript, 
 and two small ivory bottles, respectively containing a 
 ponderous white and red powder. ' These pearls 
 
72 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 beyond price were rejected by the pigs of apostasy : 
 one of them was shattered on the spot, and its 
 ruddy, celestine contents for the most part lost. The 
 remnant, together with the remaining bottle and the 
 unintelligible manuscript, were speedily disposed of 
 to the innkeeper in exchange for a skinful of wine.' 
 The innkeeper, in his turn, parted with them for one 
 pound sterling to Master Edward Kelly, who, be- 
 lieving he had obtained a hermetic treasure, hastened 
 to London to submit it to Dr. Dee. 
 
 This accomplished and daring knave was engaged 
 by the credulous doctor as his skryer, at a salary of 
 50 per annum, with 'board and lodging,' and all ex- 
 penses paid. These were liberal terms ; but it must be 
 admitted that Kelly earned them. Now, indeed, the 
 crystal began to justify its reputation ! Spirits 
 came as thick as blackberries, and voices as numerous 
 as those of rumour ! Kelly's amazing fertility of 
 fancy never failed his employer, upon whose confi- 
 dence he established an extraordinary hold, by judici- 
 ously hinting doubts as to the propriety of the work 
 he had undertaken. How could a man be other than 
 trustworthy, when he frankly expressed his sus- 
 picions of the mala fides of the spirits who responded 
 to the summons of the crystal ? It was impossible 
 so the doctor argued that so candid a medium 
 could be an impostor, and while resenting the impu- 
 tations cast upon the i spiritual creatures,' he came to 
 believe all the more strongly in the man who 
 slandered them. The difference of opinion gave rise, 
 of course, to an occasional quarrel. On one occasion 
 
CHAP. II.] EDWARD KELLY. 73 
 
 (in April, 1582) Kelly specially provoked his em- 
 ployer by roundly asserting that the spirits were 
 demons sent to lure them to their destruction; and 
 by complaining that he was confined in Dee's house 
 as in a prison, and that it would be better for him to 
 be near Cotsall Plain, where he might walk abroad 
 without danger. 
 
 Some time in 1583 a certain c Lord Lasky,' that is, 
 Albert Laski or Alasco, prince or waiwode of Siradia 
 in Poland, and a guest at Elizabeth's Court, made 
 frequent visits to Dee's house, and was admitted to 
 the spirit exhibitions of the crystal. It has been sug- 
 gested that Kelly had conceived some ambitious pro- 
 jects, which he hoped to realize through the agency 
 of this Polish noble, and that he made use of the 
 crystal to work upon his imagination. Thence- 
 forward the spirits were continually hinting at great 
 European revolutions, and uttering vague predictions 
 of some extraordinary good fortune which was in pre- 
 paration for Alasco. On May 28 Dee and Kelly 
 were sitting in the doctor's study, discussing the 
 prince's affairs, when suddenly appeared perhaps it 
 was an optical trick of the ingenious Kelly ' a 
 spiritual creature, like a pretty girl of seven or nine 
 years of age, attired on her head, with her hair rowled 
 up before, and hanging down very long behind, with 
 a gown of soy, changeable green and red, and with a 
 train ; she seemed to play up and down, and seemed 
 to go in and out behind my books, lying in heaps ; 
 and as she should ever go between them, the books 
 seemed to give place sufficiently, dividing one heap 
 
 
74 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 from the other while she passed between them. 
 And so I considered, and heard the diverse reports 
 which E. K. made unto this pretty maid, and I said, 
 " Whose maiden are you ?" Here follows the con- 
 versation' inane and purposeless enough, and yet 
 deemed worthy of preservation by the credulous 
 doctor : 
 
 DOCTOR DEE'S CONVERSATION WITH THE SPIRITUAL CREATURE. 
 
 SHE. Whose man are you 1 
 
 DEE. I am the servant of God, both by my bound duty, and 
 also (I hope) by His adoption. 
 
 A VOICE. You shall be beaten if you tell. 
 
 SHE. Am not I a fine maiden 1 give me leave to play in your 
 house ; my mother told me she would come and dwell here. 
 
 (She went up and down with most lively gestures of a young 
 girl playing by herself, and divers times another spake 
 to her from the corner of my study by a great perspective 
 glasse, but none was seen beside herself.) 
 
 SHE. Shall 1 1 I will. (Now she seemed to answer me in the 
 foresaid corner of my study.) I pray you let me tarry a little 1 
 (Speaking to me in the foresaid corner.) 
 
 DEE. Tell me what you are. 
 
 SHE. I pray you let me play with you a little, and I will tell 
 you who I am. 
 
 DEE. In the name of Jesus then, tell me. 
 
 SHE. I rejoice in the name of Jesus, and I am a poor little 
 maiden ; I am the last but one of my mother's children ; I have 
 little baby children at home. 
 
 DEE. Where is your home 1 
 
 SHE. I dare not tell you where I dwell, I shall be beaten. 
 
 DEE. You shall not be beaten for telling the truth to them that 
 love the truth ; to the Eternal Truth all creatures must be 
 obedient. 
 
 SHE. I warrant you I will be obedient ; my sisters say they 
 must all come and dwell with you. 
 
 DEE. I desire that they who love God should dwell with me, 
 and I with them. 
 
 SHE, I love you now you talk of God. 
 

 CHAP. II.] EDWARD KELLY. 75 
 
 DEE. Your eldest sister her name is Esimeli. 
 
 SHE. My sister is not so short as you make her. 
 
 DEE. 0, 1 cry you mercy \ she is to be pronounced Esimlli ! 
 
 KELLY. She smileth ; one calls her, saying, Come away, 
 maiden. 
 
 SHE. I will read over my gentlewomen first ; my master Dee 
 will teach me if I say amiss. 
 
 DEE. Eead over your gentlewomen, as it pleaseth you. 
 
 SHE. I have gentlemen and gentlewomen ; look you here. 
 
 KELLY. She bringeth a little book out of her pocket. She 
 pointeth to a picture in the book. 
 
 SHE. Is not this a pretty man ? 
 
 DEE. What is his name ? 
 
 SHE. My (mother) saith his name is Edward : look you, he 
 hath a crown upon his head ; my mother saith that this man was 
 Duke of York. 
 
 And so on. 
 
 The question here suggests itself, Was this passage 
 of nonsense Dr. Dee's own invention ? And has he 
 compiled it for the deception of posterity ? I do not 
 believe it. It is my firm conviction that he recorded 
 in perfect good faith though I own my opinion is 
 not very complimentary to his intelligence the ex- 
 travagant rigmarole dictated to him by the arch- 
 knave Kelly, who, very possibly, added to his many 
 ingenuities some skill in the practices of the ventrilo- 
 quist. No great amount of artifice can have been 
 necessary for successfully deceiving so admirable a 
 subject for deception as the credulous Dee. It is 
 probable that Dee may sometimes have suspected he 
 was being imposed upon ; but we may be sure he 
 was very unwilling to admit it, and that he did his 
 best to banish from his mind so unwelcome a sus- 
 picion. As for Kelly, it seems clear that he had con- 
 
76 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 ceived some widely ambitious and daring scheme, 
 which, as I have said, he hoped to carry out through 
 the instrumentality of Alasco, whose interest he 
 endeavoured to stimulate by flattering his vanity, and 
 representing the spiritual creature as in possession of 
 a pedigree which traced his descent from the old 
 Norman family of the Lacys. 
 
 With an easy invention which would have done 
 credit to the most prolific of romancists, he daily 
 developed the characters of his pretended visions.* 
 Consulting the crystal on June 2, he professed to 
 see a spirit in the garb of a husbandman, and this 
 spirit rhodomontaded in mystical language about 
 the great work Alasco was predestined to accomplish 
 in the conversion and regeneration of the world. 
 Before this invisible fictionist retired into his former 
 obscurity, Dee petitioned him to use his influence on 
 behalf of a woman who had committed suicide, and 
 of another who had dreamed of a treasure hidden in a 
 cellar. Other interviews succeeded, in the course of 
 which much more was said about the coming purifi- 
 cation of humanity, and it was announced that a new 
 code of laws, moral and religious, would be entrusted 
 
 * ' Adeo viro prae credulo errore jam factus sui impos et 
 mente captus, et Daemones, quo arctius horrendis hisce Sacris 
 adhserescent illius ambition! vanae summse potestatis in Patria 
 adipiscendse spe et expectatione lene euntis ilium non solius 
 Polonise sed alterius quoque regni, id est primo Polonise, deinde 
 alterius, viz. Moldavise Kegem fore, et sub quo magnse universi 
 mundi mutationes incepturas esse, Judseos convertendos, et ab illo 
 Sarsemos et Ethnicos vexillo crucis superandos, facili ludifi- 
 carentur.' Dr. Thomas Smith, ' Vitse Eruditissimorum ac lllus- 
 trium Virorum,' London, 1707. * Vita Joannis Dee,' p. 25. 
 
CHAP. II.] EDWARD KELLY. 77 
 
 to Dee and his companions. What a pity that this 
 code was never forthcoming ! A third spirit, a 
 maiden named Galerah, made her appearance, all 
 whose revelations bore upon Alasco, and the great- 
 ness for which he was reserved : ' I say unto thee, his 
 name is in the Book of Life. The sun shall not passe 
 his course before he be a king. His counsel shall 
 breed alteration of his State, yea, of the whole world. 
 What wouldst thou know of him ?' 
 
 ' If his kingdom shall be of Poland/ answered Dee, 
 ' in what land else ?' 
 
 ' Of two kingdoms/ answered Galerah. 
 
 ' Which ? I beseech you.' 
 
 4 The one thou hast repeated, and the other he 
 seeketh as his right.' 
 
 ' God grant him/ exclaimed the pious doctor, 
 ' sufficient direction to do all things so as may please 
 the highest of his calling.' 
 
 * He shall want no direction/ replied Galerah, 'in 
 anything he desireth.' 
 
 Whether Kelly's invention began to fail him, or 
 whether it was a desire to increase his influence over 
 his dupe, I will not decide ; but at this time he 
 revived his pretended conscientious scruples against 
 dealing with spirits, whom he calumniously declared 
 to be ministers of Satan, and intimated his intention 
 of departing from the unhallowed precincts of Mort- 
 lake. But the doctor could not bear with equanimity 
 the loss of a skryer who rendered such valuable service, 
 and watched his movements with the vigilance of 
 alarm. It was towards the end of June, the month 
 
78 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 made memorable by such important revelations, that 
 Kelly announced, one day, his design of riding from 
 Mortlake to Islington, on some private business. 
 The doctor's fears were at once awakened, and he fell 
 into a condition of nervous excitement, which, no 
 doubt, was exactly what Kelly had hoped to pro- 
 voke. ' I asked him,' says Dee, ; why he so hasted to 
 ride thither, and I said if it were to ride to Mr. 
 Henry Lee, I would go thither also, to be acquainted 
 with him, seeing now I had so good leisure, being 
 eased of the book writing. Then he said, that one 
 told him, the other day, that the Duke (Alasco) did 
 but flatter him, and told him other things, both 
 against the Duke and me. I answered for the Duke 
 and myself, and also said that if the forty pounds' 
 annuity which Mr. Lee did offer him was the chief 
 cause of his minde setting that way (contrary to 
 many of his former promises to me), that then I 
 would assure him of fifty pounds yearly, and would 
 do my best, by following of my suit, to bring it to 
 pass as soon as I possibly could, and thereupon did 
 make him promise upon the Bible. Then Edward 
 Kelly again upon the same Bible did sweare unto me 
 constant friendship, and never to forsake me ; and, 
 moreover, said that unless this had so fallen out, he 
 would have gone beyond the seas, taking ship at 
 Newcastle within eight days next. And so we plight 
 our faith each to other, taking each other by the 
 hand upon these points of brotherly and friendly 
 fidelity during life, which covenant I beseech God 
 to turn to His honour, glory, and service, and the 
 
CHAP. II.] EDWARD KELLY. 79 
 
 comfort of our brethren (His children) here on 
 earth/ 
 
 This concordat, however, was of brief duration. 
 Kelly, who seems to have been in fear of arrest.* still 
 threatened to quit Dee's service ; and by adroit 
 pressure of this kind, and by unlimited promises to 
 Alasco, succeeded in persuading his two confederates 
 to leave England clandestinely, and seek an asylum 
 on Alasco's Polish estates. Dee took with him his 
 second wife, Jane Fromond, to whom he had been 
 married in February, 1578, his son Arthur (then 
 about four years old), and his children by his first 
 wife. Kelly was also accompanied by his wife and 
 family. 
 
 On the night of September 21, 1583, in a storm 
 of rain and wind, they left Mortlake by water, 
 and dropped down the river to a point four or five 
 miles below Gravesend, w r here they embarked on 
 board a Danish ship, which they had hired to take 
 them to Holland. But the violence of the gale was 
 such that they were glad to transfer themselves, after 
 a narrow escape from shipwreck, to some fishing- 
 smacks, which landed them at Queenborough, in the 
 Isle of Sheppey, in safety. There they remained until 
 the gale abated, and then crossed the Channel to 
 Brill on the 30th. Proceeding through Holland and 
 Friesland to Embden and Bremen, they thence made 
 their way to Stettin, in Pomerania, arriving on 
 Christmas Day, and remaining until the middle of 
 January. 
 
 * He was suspected of coining false money, bufc Dr. Dee 
 declares he was innocent. (June, 1583.) 
 
80 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 Meanwhile, Kelly was careful not to intermit those 
 revelations from the crystal which kept alive the 
 flame of credulous hope in the bosom of his two 
 dupes, and he was especially careful to stimulate the 
 ambition of Alasco, whose impoverished finances 
 could ill bear the burden imposed upon them of 
 supporting so considerable a company. They reached 
 Siradia on February 3, 1584, and there the spirits 
 suddenly changed the tone of their communications ; 
 for Kelly, having unexpectedly discovered that 
 Alasco's resources were on the brink of exhaustion, 
 was accordingly prepared to fling him aside with- 
 out remorse. The first spiritual communication 
 was to the effect that, on account of his sins, he 
 would no longer be charged with the regeneration of 
 the world, but he was promised possession of the 
 Kingdom of Moldavia. The next was an order to 
 Dee and his companions to leave Siradia, and repair 
 to Cracow, where Kelly hoped, no doubt, to get rid 
 of the Polish prince more easily. Then the spirits 
 began to speak at shorter intervals, their messages 
 varying greatly in tone and purport, according, I 
 suppose, as Alasco's pecuniary supplies increased or 
 diminished ; but eventually, when all had suffered 
 severely from want of money, for it would seem that 
 their tinctures and powders never yielded them as 
 much as an ounce of gold, the spirits summarily 
 dismissed the unfortunate Alasco, ordered Dee and 
 Kelly to repair to Prague, and entrusted Dee with a 
 Divine communication to Rudolph II., the Emperor 
 of Germany. 
 
CHAP. II.] EDWARD KELLY. 81 
 
 Quarrels often occurred between the two adepts 
 during the Cracow period. In these Kelly was 
 invariably the prime mover, and his object was 
 always the same : to confirm his influence over the 
 man he had so egregiously duped. At Prague, Dee 
 was received by the Imperial Court with the distinc- 
 tion due to his well-known scholarship ; but no 
 credence was given to his mission from the spirits, 
 and his pretensions as a magician were politely 
 ignored. Nor was he assisted with any pecuniary 
 benevolences ; and the man who through his crystal 
 and his skryer had apparently unlimited control over 
 the inhabitants of the spiritual world could not count 
 with any degree of certainty upon his daily bread. 
 He failed, moreover, to obtain a second interview 
 with the Emperor. On attending at the palace, he 
 was informed that the Emperor had gone to his 
 country seat, or else that he had just ridden forth to 
 enjoy the pleasures of the chase, or that his imperfect 
 acquaintance with the Latin tongue prevented him 
 from conferring with Dee personally ; and eventually, 
 at the instigation of the Papal nuncio, Dee was ordered 
 to depart from the Imperial territories (May, 1586). 
 
 The discredited magician then betook himself to 
 Erfurt, and afterwards to Cassel. He would fain 
 have visited Italy, where he anticipated a 'cordial 
 welcome at those Courts which patronized letters 
 and the arts, but he was privately warned that at 
 Rome an accusation of heresy and magic had been 
 preferred against him, and he had no desire to fall 
 into the fangs of the Inquisition. In the autumn 
 
 6 
 
82 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 of 1586, the Imperial prohibition having apparently 
 been withdrawn, he followed Kelly into Bohemia ; 
 and in the following year we find both of them 
 installed as guests of a wealthy nobleman, named 
 Rosenberg, at his castle of Trebona. Here they 
 renewed their intercourse with the spirit world, and 
 their operations in the transmutation of metals. 
 Dee records how, on December 9, he reached the 
 point of projection ! Cutting a piece out of a brass 
 warming-pan, he converted it by merely heating it 
 in the fire, and pouring on it a few drops of the 
 magical elixir a kind of red oil, according to some 
 authorities into solid, shining silver. And there 
 goes an idle story that he sent both the pan and the 
 piece of silver to Queen Elizabeth, so that, with her 
 own eyes, she might see how exactly they tallied, 
 and that the piece had really been cut out of the 
 pan ! About the same time, it is said, the two 
 magicians launched into a profuse expenditure, 
 Kelly, on one of his maid -servants getting married, 
 giving away gold rings to the value of 4,000. Yet, 
 meanwhile, Dee and Kelly were engaged in sharp 
 contentions, because the spirits fulfilled none of the 
 promises made by the latter, who, his invention 
 (I suppose) being exhausted, resolved, in April, 
 1587, to resign his office of ' skryer/ and young 
 Arthur Dee then made an attempt to act in his 
 stead. 
 
 The conclusion I have arrived at, after studying 
 the careers and characters of our two worthies, is 
 that they were wholly unfitted for each other's 
 
CHAP. II.] EDWARD KELLY. 83 
 
 society ; a barrier of ' incompatibility ' rose straitly 
 between them. Dee was in earnest ; Kelly was 
 practising a sham. Dee pursued a shadow which 
 he believed to be a substance ; Kelly knew that the 
 shadow was nothing more than a shadow. Dee was 
 a man of rare scholarship and considerable intel- 
 lectual power, though of a credulous and supersti- 
 tious temper ; Kelly was superficial and ignorant, 
 but clever, astute, and ingenious, and by no means 
 prone to fall into delusions. The last experiment 
 which he made on Dee's simple-mindedness stamps 
 the man as the rogue and knave he was ; while it 
 illustrates the truth of the preacher's complaint that 
 there is nothing new under the sun. The doctrine 
 of free marriage propounded by American enthusiasts 
 was a remanet from the ethical system of Mr. Edward 
 Kelly. 
 
 Kelly had long been on bad terms with his wife, 
 and had conceived a passionate attachment towards 
 Mrs. Dee, who was young and charming, graceful in 
 person, and attractive in manner. To gratify his 
 desires, he resorted to his old machinery of the 
 crystal and the spirits, and soon obtained a revela- 
 tion that it was the Divine pleasure he and Dr. Dee 
 should exchange partners. Demoralized and abased 
 as Dee had become through his intercourse with 
 Kelly, he shrank at first from a proposal so contrary 
 to the teaching and tenor of the religion he pro- 
 fessed, and suggested that the revelation could 
 mean nothing more than that they ought to live on 
 
 62 
 
84 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 a footing of cordial friendship. But the spirits 
 insisted on a literal interpretation of their com- 
 mand. Dee yielded, comparing himself with much 
 unction to Abraham, who, in obedience to the Divine 
 will, consented to the sacrifice of Isaac. The parallel, 
 however, did not hold good, for Abraham saved his 
 son, whereas Dr. Dee lost his wife ! 
 
 It was then Kelly's turn to affect a superior 
 morality, and he earnestly protested that the spirits 
 could not be messengers from heaven, but were 
 servants of Satan. Whereupon they then declared that 
 he was no longer worthy to act as their interpreter. 
 But why dwell longer on this unpleasant farce ? By 
 various means of cajolery and trickery, Kelly con- 
 trived to accomplish his design. 
 
 This communistic arrangement, however, did not 
 long work satisfactorily at least, so far as the ladies 
 were concerned ; and one can easily understand that 
 Mrs. Dee would object to the inferior position she 
 occupied as Kelly's paramour. However this may be, 
 Dee and Kelly parted company in January, 1589 ; the 
 former, according to his own account, delivering up to 
 the latter the mysterious elixir and other substances 
 which they had made use of in the transmutation of 
 metals. Dee had begun to turn his eyes wistfully 
 towards his native country, and welcomed with un- 
 feigned delight a gracious message from Queen Eliza- 
 beth, assuring him of a friendly reception. In the 
 spring he took his departure from Trebona ; and it 
 is said that he travelled with a pomp and circum- 
 stance worthy of an ambassador, though it is difficult 
 
CHAP. II.] EDWARD KELLY. 85 
 
 to reconcile this statement with his constant com- 
 plaints of poverty. Perhaps, after all, his three 
 coaches, with four horses to each coach, his two or 
 three waggons loaded with baggage and stores, 
 and his hired escort of six to twenty-four soldiers, 
 whose business it was to protect him from the 
 enemies he supposed to be lying in wait for him, 
 existed only, like the philosopher's stone, in the 
 imagination ! He landed at Gravesend on Decem- 
 ber 2, was kindly received by the Queen at Richmond 
 a day or two afterwards, and before the year had run 
 out was once more quietly settled in his house ' near 
 the riverside ' at Mortlake. 
 
 Kelly, whom the Emperor Maximilian II. had 
 knighted and created Marshal of Bohemia, so strong 
 a conviction of his hermetic abilities had he impressed 
 on the Imperial mind, remained in Germany. But 
 the ingenious, plausible rogue was kept under such 
 rigid restraint, in order that he might prepare an 
 adequate quantity of the transmuting stone or 
 powder, that he wearied of it, and one night en- 
 deavoured to escape. Tearing up the sheets of his 
 bed, he twisted them into a rope, with which to 
 lower himself from the tower where he was confined. 
 But he was a man of some bulk ; the rope gave way 
 beneath his weight, and falling to the ground, he 
 received such severe injuries that in a few days he 
 expired (1593). 
 
 Dee's later life was, as Godwin remarks, 'bound 
 in shallows and miseries.' He had forfeited the 
 
 
86 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 respect of serious-minded men by his unworthy con- 
 federacy with an unscrupulous adventurer. The 
 Queen still treated him with some degree of con- 
 sideration, though she had lost all faith in his 
 magical powers, and occasionally sent him assistance. 
 The unfortunate man never ceased to weary her with 
 the repetition of his trials and troubles, and strongly 
 complained that he had been deprived of the income 
 of his two small benefices during his six years' 
 residence on the Continent. He related the sad tale 
 of the destruction of his library and apparatus by 
 an ignorant mob, which had broken into his house 
 immediately after his departure from England, ex- 
 cited by the rumours of his strange magical practices. 
 He enumerated the expenses of his homeward 
 journey, arguing that, as it had been undertaken by 
 the Queen's command, she ought to reimburse him. 
 At last (in 1592) the Queen appointed two members 
 of her Privy Council to inquire into the particulars 
 of his allegations. These particulars he accordingly 
 put together in a curious narrative, which bore the 
 long-winded title of : 
 
 ' The Compendious Rehearsall of John Dee, his dutiful Declara" 
 cion and Proof of the Course and Race of his Studious Lyfe, for 
 the Space of Half e an Hundred Yeares, now (by God's Favour and 
 Helpe) fully spent, and of the very great Injuries, Damages, and 
 Indignities, which for those last nyne Years he hath in England 
 sustained (contrary to Her Majesties very gracious Will and 
 express Commandment), made unto the Two Honourable Com- 
 missioners, by Her Most Excellent Majesty thereto assigned, 
 according to the intent of the most humble Supplication of the 
 said John, exhibited to Her Most Gracious Majestic at Hampton 
 Court, Anno 1592, November 9.' 
 
CHAP. II.] EDWARD KELLY. 87 
 
 It has been remarked that in this ' Compendious 
 Eehearsal ' he alludes neither to his magic crystal, 
 with its spiritualistic properties, nor to the wonderful 
 powder or elixir of transmutation. He founds his 
 claim to the Queen's patronage solely upon his 
 intellectual eminence and acknowledged scholarship. 
 Nor does he allude to his Continental experiences, 
 except so far as relates to his homeward journey. 
 But he is careful to recapitulate all his services, and 
 the encomiastic notices they had drawn from various 
 quarters, while he details his losses with the most 
 elaborate minuteness. The quaintest part of his 
 lamentable and most fervent petition is, however, its 
 conclusion. Having shown that he has tried and ex- 
 hausted every means of raising money for the support 
 of his family, he concludes : 
 
 * Therefore, seeing the blinded lady, Fortune, doth not governe 
 in this commonwealth, butjustitia and prudentia, and that in better 
 order than inTullie's "Republica," or bookes of offices, they are laied 
 forth to be followed and performed, most reverently and earnestly 
 (yea, in manner with bloody teares of heart), I and my wife, our 
 seaven children, and our servants (seaventeene of us in all) do this 
 day make our petition unto your Honors, that upon all godly, 
 charitable, and just respects had of all that, which this day you 
 have seene, heard, and perceived, you will make such report unto 
 her Most Excellent Majestie (with humble request for speedy 
 reliefes) that we be not constrained to do or suffer otherwise than 
 becometh Christians, and true, and f aithfull, and obedient subjects 
 to doe or suffer ; and all for want of due mainteynance.' 
 
 The main object Dee had in view was the master- 
 ship of St. Cross's Hospital, which Elizabeth had 
 formerly promised him. This he never received ; 
 but in December, 1594, he was appointed to the 
 
88 WITCH, WARLOCK, AXD MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 Chancellorship of St. Paul's Cathedral, which in the 
 following year he exchanged for the wardenship of 
 the College at Manchester. He still continued his 
 researches into supernatural mysteries, employing 
 several persons in succession as ' skryers ' ; but he 
 found no one so fertile in invention as Kelly, and the 
 crystal uttered nothing more oracular than answers 
 to questions about lovers' quarrels, hidden treasures, 
 and petty thefts the common stock-in-trade of the 
 conjurer. In 1602 or 1604, he retired from his 
 Manchester appointment, and sought the quiet and 
 seclusion of his favourite Mortlake. His renown as 
 ' a magician ' had greatly increased not a little, it 
 would seem, to his annoyance; for on June 5, 1604, 
 we find that he presented a petition to James I. at 
 Greenwich, soliciting his royal protection against the 
 wrong done to him by enemies who mocked him as 
 * a conjurer, or caller, or invocator of devils/ and 
 solemnly asserting that 4 of all the great number of 
 the very strange and frivolous fables or histories 
 reported and told of him (as to have been of his 
 doing) none were true.' It is said that the treat- 
 ment Dee experienced at this time was the primary 
 cause of the Act passed against personal slander 
 (1604) a proof of legislative wisdom which drew 
 from Dee a versified expression of gratitude in 
 which, let us hope, the sincerity of the gratitude is 
 not to be measured by the quality of the verse. It is 
 addressed to ' the Honorable Members of the 
 Commons in the Present Parliament/ and here is a 
 specimen of it, which will show that, though Dee's 
 
CHAP. II.] EDWAKD KELLY. 89 
 
 crystal might summon the spirits, it had no control 
 over the Muses : 
 
 * The honour, due unto you all, 
 
 And reverence, to you each one 
 I do first yield most spe-ci-all ; 
 
 Grant me this time to heare my mone. 
 
 ' Now (if you will) full well you may 
 
 Fowle sclaundrous tongues for ever tame ; 
 And helpe the truth to beare some sway 
 In just defence of a good name.' 
 
 Thenceforward Dee sinks into almost total ob- 
 scurity. His last years were probably spent in great 
 tribulation ; and the man who had dreamed of con- 
 verting, Midas-like, all he touched into gold, seems fre- 
 quently to have wanted bread. It was a melancholy 
 ending to a career which might have been both useful 
 and brilliant, if his various scholarship and mental 
 energy had not been expended upon a delusion. Un- 
 fortunately for himself, Dee, with all his excellent 
 gifts, wanted that greatest gift of all, a sound judgment. 
 His excitable fancy and credulous temper made him 
 the dupe of his own wishes, and eventually the tool 
 of a knave far inferior to himself in intellectual power, 
 but surpassing him in strength of will, in force of 
 character, in audacity and inventiveness. Both 
 knave and dupe made but sorry work of their lives. 
 Kelly, as we have seen, broke his neck in attempting 
 to escape from a German prison, and Dee expired in 
 want and dishonour, without a friend to receive his 
 last sigh. 
 
 He died at Mortlake in 1608, and was buried in 
 
90 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK 1. 
 
 the chancel of Mortlake Church, where, long after- 
 wards, Aubrey, the gossiping antiquary, was shown 
 an old marble slab as belonging to his tomb. 
 
 His son Arthur, after acting as physician to the 
 Czar of Russia and to our own Charles L, established 
 himself in practice at Norwich, where he died. 
 Anthony Wood solemnly records that this Arthur, in 
 his boyhood, had frequently played with quoits of 
 gold, which his father had cast at Prague by means 
 of his * stone philosophical.' How often Dee must 
 have longed for some of those ' quoits ' in his last sad 
 days at Mortlake, when he sold his books, one by 
 one, to keep himself from starvation! 
 
 After Dee's death, his fame as a magician under- 
 went an extraordinary revival; and in 1659, when 
 the country was looking forward to the immediate 
 restoration of its Stuart line of kings, the learned 
 Dr. Meric Casaubon thought proper to publish, in 
 a formidable folio volume, the doctor's elaborate re- 
 port of his or rather Kelly's supposed conferences 
 with the spirits a notable book, as being the initial 
 product of spiritualism in English literature. In 
 his preface Casaubon remarks that, though Dee's 
 6 carriage in certain respects seemed to lay in works of 
 darkness, yet all was tendered by him to kings and 
 princes, and by all (England alone excepted) was 
 listened to for a good while with good respect, and by 
 some for a long time embraced and entertained.' 
 And he adds that ' the fame of it made the Pope 
 bestir himself, and filled all, both learned and un- 
 learned, with great wonder and astonishment. . . . 
 

 CHAP. II.] EDWARD KELLY. 91 
 
 As a whole, it is undoubtedly not to be paralleled in 
 its kind in any age or country.' 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 In the curious 'Apologia' published by Dee, in 1595, in the 
 form of a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, ' containing a 
 most briefe Discourse Apologeticall, with a plaine Demonstration 
 and formal Protestation, for the lawfull, sincere, very faithfull 
 and Christian course of the Philosophical! studies and exercises of 
 a certaine studious Gentleman, an ancient Servant to her most 
 excellent Maiesty Koyall,' he furnishes a list of 'sundry Bookes 
 and Treatises ' of which he was the author. The best known of 
 his printed works is the 'Monas Hieroglyphica, Mathematice, 
 Anagogice que explicata ' (1564), dedicated to the Emperor 
 Maximilian. Then there are 'Propse deumata Aphoristica ;' 
 * The British Monarchy,' otherwise called the ' Petty Navy 
 Koyall: for the politique security, abundant wealth, and the 
 triumphant state of this kingdom (with God's favour) procuring ' 
 (1576); and 'Paralaticae Commentationis, Praxcosque Nucleus 
 quidam ' (1573). His unpublished manuscripts range over a wide 
 field of astronomical, philosophical, and logical inquiry. The 
 most important seem to be ' The first great volume of famous and 
 rich Discoveries/ containing a good deal of speculation about 
 Solomon and his Ophirian voyage ; ' Prester John, and the first 
 great Cham;' 'The Brytish Complement of the perfect Art of 
 Navigation ;' ' The Art of Logicke, in English ;' and ' De Hominis 
 Corpore, Spiritu, et Anima : sive Microcosmicum totius Philo 
 sophise Naturalis Compendium.' 
 
 The character drawn of Dr. Dee by his learned biographer, Dr. 
 Thomas Smith, by no means confirms the traditional notion of 
 him as a crafty and credulous practiser in the Black Art. It is, 
 on the contrary, the portrait of a just and upright man, grave in 
 his demeanour, modest in his manners, abstemious in his habits ; 
 a man of studious disposition and benevolent temper ; a man held 
 in such high esteem by his neighbours that he was called upon to 
 arbitrate when any differences arose between them ; a fervent 
 Christian, attentive to all the offices of the Church, and zealous in 
 the defence of her faith. 
 
 Here is the original : ' Si mores exterioremque vitae cultum 
 contemplemur, non quicquam ipsi in probrum et ignominium verti 
 
92 
 
 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 possit; ut pote sobrius, probus, affectibus sedatis, compositisque 
 moribus, ab omni luxu et gulzi liber, justi et sequi studiosis- 
 simus, erga pauperes beneficus, vicinis facilis et benignus, 
 quorum lites, atrisque partibus contendentium ad ilium tanquam 
 ad sapientum arbitrum appellantibus, moderari et desidere solebat : 
 in publicis sacris coetibus et in orationibus frequens, articulorum 
 Christianse fidei, in quibus omnes Orthodoxi conveniunt, strenuus 
 assertor, zelo in hsereses, a primitiva Ecclesia damnatas, flagrans, 
 inqui Peccorum, qui virginitatem B. Marise ante partum Christ! 
 in dubium vocavit, accerime invectus : licet de controversiis inter 
 Eomanenses et Keformatos circa reliqua doctrinse capita non adeo 
 semperose solicitus, quin sibi in Polonia et Bohemia, ubi religio 
 ista dominatur, Missae interesse et communicare licere putaverit, 
 in Anglia, uti antea, post redditum, omnibus Ecclesise Anglicanae 
 ritibus conformis.' It must be admitted that Dr. Smith's Latin is 
 not exactly ' conformed ' to the Ciceronian model. 
 
CHAP. III.] DR. DEE'S DIARY. 93 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 DR. DEE'S DIARY. 
 
 I AM not prepared to say, with its modern editor, 
 that Dr. Dee's Diary* sets the scholar magician's 
 character in its true light more clearly than anything 
 that has yet been printed; but I concede that it 
 reveals in a very striking and interesting manner the 
 peculiar features of his character his superstitious 
 credulity, and his combination of shrewdness and 
 simplicity as well as his interesting habits. I shall 
 therefore extract a few passages to assist the reader in 
 forming his opinion of a man who was certainly in 
 many respects remarkable. 
 
 (i.) I begin with the entries for 1577: 
 
 ' 1577, January 16th. The Erie of Leicester, Mr. Philip Sidney, 
 Mr. Dyer,f etc., came to my house (at Mortlake). 
 
 1 1577, January 22nd. The Erie of Bedford came to my house. 
 
 '1577, March llth. My fall uppon my right nuckel bone, hora, 
 9 fere mane, wyth oyle of Hypericon (Hypericum, or St. John's 
 Wort) in twenty-four howers eased above all hope : God be 
 thanked for such His goodness of (to 1) His creatures. 
 
 * 'The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee,' edited by J. 0. Halliwell 
 (Phillipps) for the Camden Society, 1842. 
 
 f This was Sir Edward Dyer, the friend of Spenser and Sidney, 
 remembered by his poem ' My Mind to me a Kingdom is.' 
 
94 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 '1577, March 24th. Alexander Simon, the Ninevite, came to 
 me, and promised me his service into Persia. 
 
 '1577, May 1st. I received from Mr. William Harbut of 
 St. Gillian his notes uppon my " Monas."* 
 
 ' 1577, May 2nd. I understode of one Vincent Murfryn his 
 abbominable misusing me behinde my back ; Mr. Thomas Besbich 
 told me his father is one of the cokes of the Court. 
 
 '1577, May 20th. I hyred the barber of Cheswik, Walter 
 Hooper, to kepe my hedges and knots in as good order as he saw 
 them then, and that to be done with twice cutting in the yere at 
 the least, and he to have yerely five shillings, meat and drink. 
 
 '1577, June 26th. Elen Lyne gave me a quarter's warning. 
 
 '1577, August 19. The " Hexameron Brytanicum " put to 
 printing. (Published in 1577 with the title of " General and 
 Rare Memorials pertayning to the perfect Art of Navigation. ") 
 
 ' 1577, November 3rd. William Rogers of Mortlak about 7 of 
 the clok in the morning, cut his own throte, by the fiende his 
 instigator. 
 
 ' 1577, November 6th. Sir Umfrey Gilbertt cam to me to 
 Mortlak. 
 
 ' 1577, November 22nd. I rod to Windsor to the Q. Majestic. 
 
 1 1577, November 25th. I spake with the Quene hora quinta; 
 I spoke with Mr. Secretary Walsingham.J I declared to the 
 Quene her title to Greenland, Estotiland, and Friesland. 
 
 4 1577, December 1st. I spoke with Sir Christopher Hatton ; 
 he was made Knight that day. 
 
 ' 1577, December -th. I went from the Courte at Wyndsore. 
 
 '1577, December 30th. Inexplissima ilia calumnia de R. 
 Edwardo, iniquissima aliqua ex parte in me denunciebatur : ante 
 aliquos elapsos diro, sed . . . sua sapientia me innocentem.' 
 
 I cannot ascertain of what calumny against 
 Edward VI. Dee had been accused ; but it is to be 
 hoped that his wish was fulfilled, and that he was 
 acquitted of it before many days had elapsed. 
 
 I have omitted some items relating to moneys 
 
 * The 'Monas Hieroglyphica.' 
 
 t The celebrated navigator, whose heroic death is one of our 
 worthiest traditions, 
 'j A warm and steady friend to Dr. Dee. 
 
CHAP. III.] DR. DEE'S DIARY. 95 
 
 borrowed. It is sufficiently plain, however, that Dee 
 never intended his Diary for the curious eyes of the 
 public, and that it mainly consists of such memoranda 
 as a man jots down for his private and personal use. 
 Assuredly, many of these would never have been re- 
 corded if Dee had known or conjectured that an 
 inquisitive antiquarian, some three centuries later, 
 would exhume the confidential pages, print them in 
 imperishable type, and expose them to the world's 
 cold gaze. It seems rather hard upon Dr. Dee that 
 his private affairs should thus have become every- 
 body's property! Perhaps, after all, the best thing a 
 man can do who keeps a diary is to commit it to the 
 flames before he shuffles off his mortal coil, lest some 
 laborious editor should eventually lay hands upon it, 
 and publish it to the housetops with all its sins upon it ! 
 But as in Dr. Dee's case the offence has been committed, 
 I will not debar my readers from profiting by it. 
 (ii.) 1578-1581. 
 
 1 1578, June 30th. I told Mr. Daniel Rogers, Mr. Hackluyt of 
 the Middle Temple being by, that Kyng Arthur and King Maty, 
 both of them, did conquer Gelindia, lately called Friseland, which 
 he so noted presently in his written copy of Mon . . . thensis (?), 
 for he had no printed boke thereof.' 
 
 What a pity Dr. Dee has not recorded his authority 
 for King Arthur's Northern conquests ! The Mr. 
 Hackluyt here mentioned is the industrious compiler 
 of the well-known collection of early voyages. 
 
 Occasionally Dee relates his dreams, as on Sep- 
 tember 10, 1579 : c My dream of being naked, and 
 rny skyn all overwrought with work, like some kinde 
 of tuft mockado, with crosses blue and red ; and on 
 
96 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 my left arme, about the arme, in a wreath, this word 
 I red sine me nihil potestis facer e.' 
 
 Sometimes he resorts to Greek characters while 
 using English words : 
 
 * 1579, December 9th. 0/; viyr (i.i vvi<p dp&^ib dar ovs xa/a ro 'sp 
 avB rowxjib 'ip, ffuivy, " Miffrpeg Ass, you up xovxsivzd o<p p/X5, vog va/as 
 (Avffr (3& Zay^ccpiag ; (3e op job %ps, s ffa/. 80 vvzX a$ dig dod !" 
 
 * 1579, December 28th. I reveled to Roger Coke the gret 
 secret of the elixir of the salt op ax&r&g, ovs VKKOV a wdped.' 
 
 Other entries refer to this Mr. Eoger Coke, or 
 Cooke, who seems to have been Dee's pupil or appren- 
 tice, and at one time to have enjoyed his confidence. 
 They quarrelled seriously in 1581. 
 
 M581, September 5th. Eoger Cook, who had byn with me 
 from his 14 years of age till 28, of a melancholik nature, pycking 
 and devising occasions of just cause to depart on the suddayn, 
 about 4 of the clok in the afternone requested of me lycense to 
 depart, wheruppon rose whott words between us ; and he, imagin- 
 ing with himself that he had, the 12 of July, deserved my great 
 displeasure, and finding himself barred from view of my philo- 
 sophicall dealing with Mr. Henrik, thought that he was utterly 
 recast from intended goodness toward him. Notwithstanding 
 Roger Cook his unseamely dealing, I promised him, if he used 
 himself toward me now in his absens, one hundred pounds as 
 sone as of my own clene hability I myght spare so much ; and 
 moreover, if he used himself well in life toward God and the 
 world, I promised him some pretty alchimicall experiments, 
 whereuppon he might honestly live.' 
 
 1 1581, September 7th. Eoger Cook went for altogether from 
 me.' 
 
 In February, 1601, however, this quarrel was 
 made up. 
 
 (iii.) Of the learned doctor's colossal credulity the 
 Diary supplies some curious proofs : 
 
 ' 1581, March 8th. It was the 8 day, being Wensday, hora 
 noctis 10-11, the strange noyse in my chamber of knocking ; and 
 
CHAP. III.] DR. DEE'S DIARY. 97 
 
 the voyce, ten times repeted, somewhat like the shriek of an owle, 
 bat more longly drawn, and more softly, as it were in my 
 chamber. 
 
 '1581, August 3rd. All the night very strange knocking and 
 rapping in my chamber. August 4th, and this night likewise. 
 
 '1581, October 9th. Barnabas Saul, lying in the ... hall, 
 was strangely trubled by a spirituall creature about mydnight. 
 
 ' 1582, May 20th. Robertus Gardinerus Salopiensis lactum 
 mihi attulit minimum de materia lapidis, divinitus sibi revelatus 
 de qua. 
 
 * 1582, May 23rd. Robert Gardiner declared unto me hora 4J 
 a certeyn great philosophicall secret, as he had termed it, of a 
 spirituall creature, and was this day willed to come to me and 
 declare it, which was solemnly done, and with common prayer. 
 
 ' 1590, August 22nd. Ann, my nurse, had long been tempted 
 by a wycked spirit : but this day it was evident how she was 
 possessed of him. God is, hath byn, and shall be her protector 
 and deliverer ! Amen. 
 
 ' 1590, August 25th. Anne Frank was sorowful, well com- 
 forted, and stayed in God's mercyes acknowledging. 
 
 ' 1590, August 26th. At night I anoynted (in the name of 
 Jesus) her brest with the holy oyle. 
 
 ' 1590, August 30th. In the morning she required to be 
 anoynted, and I did very devoutly prepare myself, and pray for 
 virtue and powr, and Christ his blessing of the oyle to the expul- 
 sion of the wycked, and then twyce anoynted, the wycked one 
 did rest a while.' 
 
 The holy oil, however, proved of no effect. The 
 poor creature was insane. On September 8 she made 
 an attempt to drown herself, but was prevented. On 
 the 29th she eluded the dexterity of her keeper, and 
 cut her throat. 
 
 (iv.) Occasionally we meet with references to 
 historic events and names, but, unfortunately, they 
 are few : 
 
 * 1581, February 23rd. I made acquayntance with Joannes 
 Bodonius, in the Chamber of Presence at Westminster, the 
 ambassador being by from Monsieur.' 
 
 7 
 
98 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 Bodonius, or Bodin, was the well-known writer 
 upon witchcraft. 
 
 '1581, March 23rd. At Mortlak came to me Hugh Smyth, 
 who had returned from Magellan strayghts and Vaygatz. 
 
 '1581, July 12th. The Erie of Leicester fell fowly out with 
 the Erie of Sussex, Lord Chamberlayn, calling each other trayter, 
 whereuppon both were commanded to kepe theyr chamber at 
 Greenwich, wher the court was.' 
 
 This was the historic quarrel, of which Sir Walter 
 Scott has made such effective use in his ' Kenil- 
 worth.' 
 
 '1583, January 13th. On Sonday, the stage at Paris Garden 
 fell down all at once, being full of people beholding the bear- 
 bay ting. Many being killed thereby, more hurt, and all amased. 
 The godly expownd it as a due plage of God for the wickedness 
 ther used, and the Sabath day so profanely spent.' 
 
 This popular Sabbatarian argument, which occa- 
 sionally crops up even in our own days, had been 
 humorously anticipated, half a century before, by Sir 
 Thomas More, in his 'Dyalogue' (1529): 'At Beverley 
 late, much of the people being at a bear-baiting, 
 the church fell suddenly down at evening-time, and 
 overwhelmed some that were in it. A good fellow 
 that after heard the tale told " So," quoth he, " now 
 you may see what it is to be at evening prayers when 
 you should be at the bear-baiting !" 
 
 The Paris Garden Theatre at Bankside had been 
 erected expressly for exhibitions of bear-baiting. 
 The charge for admission was a penny at the gate, a 
 penny at the entry of the scaffold or platform, and a 
 penny for ' quiet standing.' During the Common- 
 wealth this cruel sport was prohibited; but it was 
 
CHAP. III.] DR. DEE'S DIARY. 99 
 
 revived at the Kestoration, and not finally suppressed 
 until 1835. 
 
 1 1583, January 23rd. The Ryght Honorable Mr. Secretary 
 Walsingham came to my howse, where by good luk he found Mr. 
 Adrian Gilbert (of the famous Devonshire family of seamen), and 
 so talk was begonne of North West Straights discovery. 
 
 * 1583, February llth. The Quene lying at Richmond went to 
 Mr. Secretary Walsingham to dinner ; she coming by my dore, 
 graciously called me to her, and so I went by her horse side, as 
 far as where Mr. Hudson dwelt. Ep pcuitiri a%tS pi o(3vffxup&\i o<p 
 /Aovvffizvpis arars : di^s (Siffdavarog spir. 
 
 '1583, March 6th. I, and Mr. Adrian Gilbert and John 
 Davis (the Arctic discoverer), did mete with Mr. Alderman 
 Barnes, Mr. Tounson, Mr. Young and Mr. Hudson, about the 
 K W. voyage. 
 
 ' 1583, April 18th. The Quene went from Richmond toward 
 Greenwich, and at her going on horsbak, being new up, she called 
 for me by Mr. Rawly (Sir Walter Raleigh) his putting her in 
 mynde, and she sayd, " quod defertur non aufertur," and gave me 
 her right hand to kiss. 
 
 4 1590, May 18th. The two gentlemen, the unckle Mr. 
 Richard Candish (Cavendish), and his nephew, the most famous 
 Mr. Thomas Candish, who had sayled round about the world, did 
 visit me at Mortlake. 
 
 1 1590, December 4th. The Quene's Majestic called for me at 
 my dore, circa 3J a meridie as she passed by, and I met her at 
 Est Shene gate, where she graciously, putting down her mask, did 
 say with mery chere, " I thank thee, Dee ; there wus never 
 promisse made, but it was broken or kept." I understode her 
 Majesty to mean of the hundred angels she promised to have 
 sent me this day, as she yesternight told Mr. Richard Candish. 
 
 4 1595, October 9th. I dyned with Sir Walter Rawlegh at 
 Durham House.' 
 
 (v.) Some of the entries which refer to Dee's con- 
 nection with Lasco and Kelly are interesting : 
 
 '1583, March 18th. Mr. North from Poland, after he had 
 byn with the Quene he came to me. I received salutation from 
 Alaski, Palatine in Poland. 
 
 ' 1583, May 13th. I became acquaynted with Albertus Laski 
 
 72 
 
100 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 at 7J at night, in the Erie of Leicester his chamber, in the court 
 at Greenwich. 
 
 '1583, May 18th. The Prince Albertus Laski came to me at 
 Mortlake, with onely two men. He came at afternone, and 
 tarryed supper, and after sone set. 
 
 * 1583, June 15th. About 5 of the clok cum the Polonian 
 prince, Lord Albert Lasky, down from Bisham, where he had 
 lodged the night before, being returned from Oxford, whither he 
 had gon of purpose to see the universityes, wher he was very 
 honorably used and enterteyned. He had in his company Lord 
 Eussell, Sir Philip Sydney, and other gentlemen : he was rowed 
 by the Quene's men, he had the barge covered with the Quene's 
 cloth, the Quene's trumpeters, etc. He came of purpose to do 
 me honour, for which God be praysed ! 
 
 ' 1583, September 21st. We went from Mortlake, and so the 
 Lord Albert Lasky, I, Mr. E. Kelly, our wives, my children and 
 familie, we went toward our two ships attending for us, seven or 
 eight myle below Gravesende. 
 
 ' 1586, September 14th. Trebonam venimus. 
 
 '1586, October 18th. E. K. recessit a Trebona versus Pragam 
 curru delatus j mansit hie per tres hebdomadas. 
 
 ' 1586, December 19th. Ad gratificandam Domino Edouardo 
 Garlando, et Francisco suo fratri, qui Edouardus nuncius mi hi 
 missus erat ab Imperatore Moschoriae ut ad ilium venirem, E. K. 
 fecit proleolem (?) lapidis in proportione unius . . . gravi arense 
 super quod vulgaris oz. et J et producta est optime auri oz. fere : 
 quod aurum post distribuimus a crucibolo una dedimus Edouardo. 
 
 ' 1587, January 18th. Eediit E. K. a Praga. E. K. brought 
 with him from the Lord Rosenberg to my wyfe a chayne and 
 juell estemed at 300 duckettes ; 200 the juell stones, and 100 the 
 gold. 
 
 '1587, September 28th. I delivered to Mr. Ed. Kelley 
 (earnestly requiring it as his part) the half of all the animall 
 which was made. It is to weigh 20 oz. ; he wayed it himself in 
 my chamber : he bowght his waights purposely for it. My lord 
 had spoken to me before for some, but Mr. Kelly had not 
 spoken. 
 
 ' 1587, October 28th and 29th. John Carp did begyn to make 
 furnaces over the gate, and he used of my rownd bricks, and for 
 the yron pot was contented now to use the lesser bricks, 60 to 
 make a furnace. 
 
CHAP, m.] DR. DEE'S 
 
 '1587, November 8th. E, K. terribilis expostulatio, accusatio, 
 etc., hora tertia a meridie. 
 
 1 1587, December 12th. Afternone somewhat, Mr. Ed. Kelly 
 [did] his lamp overthrow, the spirit of wyne long spent to nere, 
 and the glas being not stayed with buks about it, as it was wont 
 to be ; and the same glass so flitting on one side, the spirit was 
 spilled out, and burnt all that was on the table where it stode, 
 lynnen and written bokes, as the bok of Zacharias, with the 
 "Alkanor" that I translated out of French, for some by [boy?] 
 spirituall cowld not ; " Kowlaschy," his third boke of waters 
 philosophicall ; the boke called * c Angelicum Opus ;" all in 
 pictures of the work from the beginning to the end ; the copy of 
 the man of Bad wise "Conclusions for the Transmution of 
 Metalls ;" and 40 leaves in 4to., entitled " Extractiones Dunstat," 
 which he himself extracted and noted out of Dunstan his boke, 
 and the very boke of Dunstan was but cast on the bed hard by 
 from the table.' 
 
 This so-called ' Book of St. Dunstan ' was one 
 which Kelly professed to have bought from a Welsh 
 innkeeper, who, it was alleged, had found it among 
 the ruins of Glastonbury. 
 
 4 1588, February 8th. Mr. E. K., at nine of the clok, afternone, 
 sent for me to his laboratory over the gate to see how he distilled 
 sericon, according as in tyme past and of late he heard of me out 
 of Bipley. God lend his heart to all charity and virtue ! 
 
 * 1588, August 24th. Vidi divinam aquam demonstratione 
 magnifici domini et amici mei incomparabilis Dfomini] Ed. Kelii 
 ante meridiem tertia hora. 
 
 ' 1588, December 7th. ypsar ppsvdwTr -Trpopiffid <pop {tavt, avd ruuo 
 (pop 6s divy.'* 
 
 * This Diary, written in a very small and illegible hand on the 
 margins of old almanacs, was discovered by Mr. W. H. Black in 
 the Ashmolean Library at Oxford. 
 
WITCH, ; WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK i. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MAGIC AND IMPOSTURE A COUPLE OF KNAVES. 
 
 THE secrecy, the mystery, and the supernatural pre- 
 tensions associated with the so-called occult sciences 
 necessarily recommended them to the knave and 
 the cheat as instruments of imposition. If some of 
 the earlier professors of Hermeticism, the first seekers 
 after the philosophical stone, were sincere in their 
 convictions, and actuated by pure and lofty motives, 
 it is certain that their successors were mostly dis- 
 honest adventurers, bent upon turning to their 
 personal advantage the credulous weakness of their 
 fellow- creatures. With some of these the chief object 
 was money ; others may have craved distinction and 
 influence ; others may have sought the gratification 
 of passions more degrading even than avarice or 
 ambition. At all events, alchemy became a synonym 
 for fraud : a magician was accepted as, by right of 
 his vocation, an impostor ; and the poet and the 
 dramatist pursued him with the whips of satire, 
 invective, and ridicule, while the law prepared for 
 him the penalties usually inflicted upon criminals. 
 These penalties, it is true, he very frequently con- 
 
CHAP. IV.] MAGIC AND IMPOSTURE. 103 
 
 trived to elude ; in many instances, by the exercise of 
 craft and cunning ; in others, by the protection of 
 powerful personages, to whom he had rendered ques- 
 tionable services ; and again in others, because the 
 agent of the law did not care to hunt him down so 
 long as he forbore to bring upon himself the glare of 
 publicity. Thus it came to pass that generation after 
 generation saw the alchemist still practising his un- 
 wholesome trade, and probably he retained a good deal 
 of his old notoriety down to as late a date as the 
 beginning of the eighteenth century. It must be 
 admitted, however, that his alchemical pursuits 
 gradually sank into obscurity, and that it was more 
 in the character of an astrologer, and as a manufac- 
 turer of love-potions and philtres, of charms and 
 waxen images not to say as a pimp and a bawd 
 that he looked for clients. In the Spectator, for in- 
 stance, that admirable mirror of English social life in 
 the early part of the eighteenth century, you will find 
 no reference to alchemy or the alchemist ; but in the 
 Guardian Addison's light humour plays readily enough 
 round the delusions or deceptions of the astrologer. 
 The reader will remember the letter which Addison 
 pretends to have received with great satisfaction from 
 an astrologer in Moornelds. And in contemporary 
 literature generally, it will be found that the august 
 inquirer into the secrets of nature, who aimed at the 
 transmutation of metals and the possession of im- 
 mortal youth, had by this time been succeeded by an 
 obscure and vulgar cheat, who beguiled the ignorant 
 and weak by his jargon about planetary bodies, and 
 
104 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 his cheap stock-in-trade of a wig and a gown, a 
 wand, a horoscope or two, and a few coloured vials. 
 This ' modern magician ' is, indeed, a common char- 
 acter in eighteenth -century fiction. 
 
 But a century earlier the magician retained some 
 little of the ' pomp and circumstance ' of the old 
 magic, and was still the confidant of princes and 
 nobles, and not seldom the depository of State secrets 
 involving the reputation and the honour of men and 
 women of the highest position. So much as this 
 may be truly asserted of Simon Foraian, who 
 flourished in the dark and criminal period of the 
 reign of James I., when the foul practices of mediaeval 
 Italy were transferred for the first and last time to an 
 English Court. Forman was born at Quidham, a 
 village near Wilton, in Wilts, in 1552. Little is 
 known of his early years ; but he seems to have 
 received a good education at the Sarum Grammar 
 School, and afterwards to have been apprenticed to a 
 druggist in that ancient city. Endowed with con- 
 siderable natural gifts and an ambitious temper, he 
 made his way to Oxford, and was entered at Magda- 
 lene College, but owing to lack of means was unable 
 to remain as a student for more than two years. To 
 improve his knowledge of astrology, astronomy, and 
 medicine, he visited Portugal, the Low Countries, 
 and the East. 
 
 On his return he began to practise as a physician 
 in Philpot Lane. London ; but, as he held no 
 diploma, was four times imprisoned and fined as a 
 quack. Eventually he found himself compelled to 
 
CHAP. IV.] MAGIC AND IMPOSTUKE. 105 
 
 take the degree of M.D. at Cambridge (June 27, 
 1603) ; after which he settled in Lambeth, and carried 
 on the twofold profession of physician and astrologer. 
 In his comedy of ' The Silent Woman/ Ben Jonson 
 makes one of his characters say : ' I would say thou 
 hadst the best philtre in the world, and could do 
 more than Madam Medea or Doctor Forman/ whence 
 we may infer that the medicines he compounded were 
 not of the orthodox kind or approved by the faculty. 
 Lovers resorted to him for potions which should 
 soften obdurate hearts ; beauties for powders and 
 washes which might preserve their waning charms ; 
 married women for drugs to relieve them of the 
 reproach of sterility ; rakes who desired to corrupt 
 virtue, and impatient heirs who longed for immediate 
 possession of their fortunes, for compounds which 
 should enfeeble, or even kill. Such was the character 
 of Doctor Forman's sinister ' practice.' Among those 
 who sought his unscrupulous assistance was the in- 
 famous Countess of Essex, though Forman died 
 before her nefarious schemes reached the stage of 
 fruition. 
 
 His death, which took place on the 12th of Sep- 
 tember, 1611, was attended (it is said) by remark- 
 able circumstances. The Sunday night previous, ' his 
 wife and he being at supper in their garden-house, 
 she being pleasant, told him she had been informed 
 he could resolve whether man or wife should die 
 first. "Whether shall I," quoth she, "bury you or 
 no r " Oh, Truais," for so he called her, " thou shalt 
 bury me, but thou wilt much repent it." " Yea, but 
 
106 WITCH, WAKLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 how long first ?" " I shall die," said he, " on Thurs- 
 day night." Monday came ; all was well. Tuesday 
 came, he not sick. Wednesday came, and still he 
 was well, with which his impertinent wife did much 
 twit him in his teeth. Thursday came, and dinner 
 was ended, he very well ; he went down to the water- 
 side, and took a pair of oars to go to some buildings 
 he was in hand with in Puddle Dock. Being in the 
 middle of the Thames, he presently fell down, only 
 saying, " An impost, an impost," and so died. A 
 most sad storm of wind immediately following.' 
 
 It seems as if these men could never die without 
 bringing down upon the earth a grievous storm or 
 tempest ! The preceding story, however, partakes 
 too much of the marvellous to be very easily accepted. 
 
 According to Anthony Wood, this renowned 
 magician was 'a person that in horary questions, 
 especially theft, was very judicious and fortunate ' 
 (in other words, he was well served by his spies and 
 instruments) ; ' so, also, in sickness, which was 
 indeed his masterpiece ; and had good success in 
 resolving questions about marriage, and in other 
 questions very intricate. He professed to his wife 
 that there would be much trouble about Sir Robert 
 Carr, Earl of Somerset, and the Lady Frances, his 
 wife, who frequently resorted to him, and from whose 
 company he would sometimes lock himself in his 
 study one whole day. He had compounded things 
 upon the desire of Mrs. Anne Turner, to make the 
 said Sir Robert Carr calid quo ad hanc, and Robert, 
 Earl of Essex frigid quo ad hanc ; that his, to his wife 
 
CHAP. IV.] A CAUSE CELEBRE. 107 
 
 the Lady Frances, who had a mind to get rid of him 
 and be wedded to the said Sir Robert. He had also 
 certain pictures in wax, representing Sir Robert and 
 the said Lady, to cause a love between each other, 
 with other such like things.' 
 
 A CAUSE CELEBRE. 
 
 Lady Frances Howard, second daughter of the 
 Earl of Suffolk, was married, at the age of thirteen, 
 to Robert, Earl of Essex, who was only a year older. 
 The alliance was dictated by political considerations, 
 and had been recommended by the King, who did 
 not fail to attend the gorgeous festivities that cele- 
 brated the occasion (January 5th, 1606). As it was 
 desirable that the boy-bridegroom should be separated 
 for awhile from his child-wife, the young Earl was sent 
 to travel on the Continent, and he did not return to 
 claim his rights as a husband until shortly after 
 Christmas, 1609, when he had just passed his 
 eighteenth birthday. In the interval his wife had 
 developed into one of the most beautiful, and, unfor- 
 tunately, one of the most dissolute, women in 
 England. Naturally impetuous, self-willed, and un- 
 scrupulous, she had received neither firm guidance nor 
 wise advice at the hands of a coarse and avaricious 
 mother. Nor was James's Court a place for the cul- 
 tivation of the virtues of modesty and self-restraint. 
 The young Countess, therefore, placed no control upon 
 her passions, and had already become notorious for her 
 disregard of those obligations which her sex usually 
 esteem as sacred. At one time she intrigued with 
 
108 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 Prince Henry, but he dismissed her in angry disgust 
 at her numerous infidelities. Finally, she crossed 
 the path of the King's handsome favourite, Sir Robert 
 Carr, and a guilty passion sprang up between them. 
 It is painful to record that it was encouraged by her 
 great-uncle, Lord Northampton, who hoped through 
 Carr's influence to better his position at Court ; and 
 it was probably at his mansion in the Strand that the 
 plot was framed of which I am about to tell the issue. 
 But the meetings between the two lovers sometimes 
 took place at the house of one of Carr's agents, a 
 man named Coppinger. 
 
 At first, when Essex returned, the Countess re- 
 fused to live with him ; but her parents ultimately 
 compelled her to treat him as her husband, and even 
 to accompany him to his country seat at Chartley. 
 There she remained for three years, wretched with an 
 inconceivable wretchedness, and animated with wild 
 dreams of escape from the husband she hated to the 
 paramour she loved. 
 
 For this purpose she sought the assistance of Mrs. 
 Anne Turner, the widow of a respectable physician, 
 and a woman of considerable personal charms, who 
 had become the mistress of Sir Arthur Mainwaring.* 
 Mrs. Turner introduced her to Dr. Simon Forman, 
 and an agreement was made that Forman should 
 
 * This woman has a place in the records of fashion as intro- 
 ducer of the novelty of yellow-starching the extensive ruffs 
 which were then generally worn. When Lord Chief Justice 
 Coke sentenced her to death (as we shall hereafter see) for her 
 share in the murder of Overbury, he ordered that ' as she was the 
 person who had brought yellow-starched ruffs into vogue, she 
 
 
CHAP. IV.] A CAUSE CELEBRE. 109 
 
 exercise his magical powers to fix young Carr's affec- 
 tions irrevocably upon the Countess. The intercourse 
 between the astrologer and the ladies became very 
 frequent, and the former exercised all his skill to 
 carry out their desires. At a later period, Mrs. 
 Forman deposed in court ' that Mrs. Turner and her 
 husband would sometimes be locked up in his study 
 for three or four hours together/ and the Countess 
 learned to speak of him as her ' sweet father/ 
 
 The Countess next conceived the most flagitious 
 designs against her husband's health ; and, to carry 
 them out, again sought the assistance of her un- 
 scrupulous quack, who accordingly set to work, 
 made waxen images, invented new charms, supplied 
 drugs to be administered in the Earl's drinks, and 
 washes in which his linen was to be steeped. These 
 measures, however, did not prove effectual, and 
 letters addressed by the Countess at this time to 
 Mrs. Turner and Dr. Forman complain that f my lord 
 is very well as ever he was,' while reiterating the sad 
 story of her hatred towards him, and her design to 
 be rid of him at all hazards. In the midst of the 
 intrigue came the sudden death of Dr. Forman, who 
 seems to have felt no little anxiety as to his share in 
 it, and, on one occasion, as we have seen, professed 
 to his wife ' that there would be much trouble about 
 Carr and the Countess of Essex, who frequently 
 resorted unto him, and from whose company he would 
 
 should be hanged in that dress, that the same might end in shame 
 and detestation.' As the hangman was also adorned with yellow 
 ruffs, it is no wonder that Coke's prediction was amply fulfilled. 
 
110 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 sometimes lock himself in his study a whole day.' 
 Mrs. Forman, when, at a later date, examined in 
 court, deposed 'that Mrs. Turner came to her house 
 immediately after her husband's death, and did de- 
 mand certain pictures which were in her husband's 
 study, namely, one picture in wax, very mysteriously 
 apparelled in silk and satin ; as also another made in 
 the form of a naked woman, spreading and laying 
 forth her hair in a glass, which Mrs. Turner did con- 
 fidently aifirm to be in a box, and she knew in what 
 part of the room in the study they were.' We also 
 learn that Forman, in reply to the Countess's re- 
 proaches, averred that the devil, as he was informed, 
 had no power over the person of the Earl of Essex. 
 The Countess, however, was not to be diverted from 
 her object, and, after Forman's death, employed two 
 or three other conjurers one Gresham, and a Doctor 
 Lavoire, or Savory, being specially mentioned. 
 
 What followed has left a dark and shameful stain 
 on the record of the reign of James I. The King 
 personally interfered on behalf of his favourite, and 
 resolved that Essex should be compelled to surrender 
 his wife. For this purpose the Countess was in- 
 structed to bring against him a charge of conjugal 
 incapacity ; and a Commission of right reverend pre- 
 lates and learned lawyers, under the presidency one 
 blushes to write it of Abbot, Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, was appointed to investigate the loathsome 
 details. A jury of matrons was empanelled to deter- 
 mine the virginity of Lady Essex, and, as a pure 
 young girl was substituted in her place, their verdict 
 
CHAP. IV.] A CAUSE CELEBRE. Ill 
 
 was, of course, in the affirmative ! As for the Com- 
 mission, it decided, after long debates, by a majority 
 of seven to five, that the Lady Frances was entitled 
 to a divorce the majority being obtained, however, 
 only by the King's active exercise of his personal influ- 
 ence (September, 1613). The lady having thus been 
 set free from her vows by a most shameless intrigue, 
 James hurried on a marriage between her and his 
 favourite, and on St. Stephen's Day it was cele- 
 brated with great splendour. In the interval Carr 
 had been raised to the rank and title of Earl of 
 Somerset, and his wife had previously been made 
 Viscountess Rochester. 
 
 A strenuous opponent of these unhallowed nuptials 
 had been found in the person of Sir Thomas Over- 
 bury, a young man of brilliant parts, who stood 
 towards Somerset in much the same relation that 
 Somerset stood towards the King. At the outset he 
 had looked with no disfavour on his patron's intrigue 
 with Lady Frances, but had actually composed the 
 love-letters which went to her in the Earl's name ; 
 but, for reasons not clearly understood, he assumed a 
 hostile attitude when the marriage was proposed. As 
 he had acquired a knowledge of secrets which would 
 have made him a dangerous witness before the Divorce 
 Commission, the intriguers felt the necessity of getting 
 him out of the way. Accordingly, the King pressed 
 upon him a diplomatic appointment on the Continent, 
 and when this was refused committed him to the 
 Tower. There he lingered for some months in failing 
 health until a dose of poison terminated his sufferings 
 

 112 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 on September 13, 1613, rather more than three months 
 before the completion of the marriage he had scriven 
 ineffectually to prevent. This poison was unquestion- 
 ably administered at the instigation of Lady Essex, 
 though under what circumstances it is not easy to 
 determine. The most probable supposition seems to 
 be that an assistant of L obeli, a French apothecary 
 who attended Overbury, was bribed to administer the 
 fatal drug. 
 
 For two years the murder thus foully committed 
 remained unknown, but in the summer of 1615, when 
 James's affection for Somerset was rapidly declining, 
 and a new and more splendid favourite had risen in 
 the person of George Yilliers, some information of the 
 crime was conveyed to the King by his secretary, 
 Winwood. How Winwood obtained this information 
 is still a mystery ; but we may, perhaps, conjecture 
 that he received it from the apothecary's boy, who, 
 being taken ill at Flushing, may have sought to 
 relieve his conscience by confession. A few weeks 
 afterwards, Helwys, the Lieutenant of the Tower, 
 under an impression that the whole matter had been 
 discovered, acknowledged that frequent attempts had 
 been made to poison Overbury in his food, but that 
 he had succeeded in defeating them until the apothe- 
 cary's boy eluded his vigilance. Who sent the poison 
 he did not know. The only person whose name he 
 had heard in connection with it was Mrs. Turner, and 
 the agent employed to convey it was, he said, a 
 certain Richard Weston, a former servant of Mrs. 
 Turner, who had been admitted into the Tower as a 
 
CHAP. IV. J A CAUSE CELEBRE. 113 
 
 keeper, and entrusted with the immediate charge of 
 Overbnry. 
 
 On being examined, Western at first denied all 
 knowledge of the affair ; but eventually he confessed 
 that, having been rebuked by Helwys, he had thrown 
 away the medicaments with which he had been en- 
 trusted ; and next he accused Lady Somerset of 
 instigating him to administer to Overbury a poison, 
 which would be forwarded to him for that purpose. 
 Then one Rawlins, a servant of the Earl, gave infor- 
 mation that he had been similarly employed. As 
 soon as Somerset heard that he was implicated, he 
 wrote to the King protesting his innocence, and de- 
 claring that a conspiracy had been hatched against 
 him. But many suspicious particulars being dis- 
 covered, he was committed to the custody of Sir 
 Oliver St. John ; while Weston, on October 23, was 
 put on his trial for the murder of Overbury, and 
 found guilty, though no evidence was adduced against 
 him which would have satisfied a modern jury. 
 
 On November 7 Mrs. Turner was brought before 
 the Court. Her trial excited the most profound 
 curiosity, and Westminster Hall was crowded by an 
 eager multitude, who shuddered with superstitious 
 emotion when the instruments employed by Forman 
 in his magical rites were exposed to view.* It would 
 
 * Arthur Wilson, in his ' Memoirs/ furnishes a strange account 
 of the practices in which Lady Essex, Mrs. Turner, and the con- 
 jurer took part. ' The Countess of Essex,' he says, ' to strengthen 
 her designs, finds out one of her own stamp, Mrs. Turner, a doctor 
 of physic's widow, a woman whom prodigality and looseness had 
 brought low ; yet her pride would make her fly any pitch, rather 
 
 8 
 
114 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 seem that Mrs. Turner, when arrested, immediately 
 sent her maid to Forman's widow, to urge her to 
 
 than fall into the jaws of Want. These two counsel together how 
 they might stop the current of the Earl's affection towards his 
 wife, and make a clear passage for the Viscount in his place. To 
 effect which, one Dr. Forman, a reputed conjurer (living at 
 Lambeth) is found out; the women declare to him their grievances; 
 he promises sudden help, and, to amuse them, frames many little 
 pictures of brass and wax some like the Viscount and Countess, 
 whom he must unite and strengthen, others like the Earl of Essex, 
 whom he must debilitate and weaken ; and then with philtrous 
 powders, and such drugs, he works upon their persons. And to 
 practise what effects his arts would produce, Mrs. Turner, that 
 loved Sir Arthur Manwaring (a gentleman then attending the 
 Prince), and willing to keep him to her, gave him some of the 
 powder, which wrought so violently with him, that through a 
 storm of rain and thunder he rode fifteen miles one dark night 
 to her house, scarce knowing where he was till he was there. 
 Such is the devilish and mad rage of lust, heightened with art 
 and fancy. 
 
 ' These things, matured and ripened by this juggler Forman, 
 gave them assurance of happy hopes. Her courtly incitements, 
 that drew the Viscount to observe her, she imputed to the 
 operation of those drugs he had tasted ; and that harshness and 
 stubborn comportment she expressed to her husband, making 
 him (weary of such entertainments) to absent himself, she thought 
 proceeded from the effects of those unknown potions and powders 
 that were administered to him. So apt is the imagination to take 
 impressions of those things we are willing to believe. 
 
 ' The good Earl, finding his wife nurseled in the Court, and seeing 
 no possibility to reduce her to reason till she were estranged from the 
 relish and taste of the delights she sucked in there, made his con- 
 dition again known to her father. The old man, being troubled with 
 his daughter's disobedience, embittered her, being near him, with 
 wearisome and continued chidings, to wean her from the sweets 
 she doted upon, and with much ado forced her into the country. 
 But how harsh was the parting, being sent away from the place 
 where she grew and flourished ! Yet she left all her engines and 
 imps behind her : the old doctor and his confederate, Mrs. Turner, 
 must be her two supporters. She blazons all her miseries to them 
 

 CHAP. IV.] A CAUSE C^LEBRE. 115 
 
 burn before the Privy Council sent to search her 
 house any of her husband's papers that might con- 
 tain dangerous secrets. She acted on the advice, but 
 overlooked a few documents of great importance, in- 
 cluding a couple of letters written by Lady Essex to 
 Mrs. Turner and Forman. The various articles 
 seized in Forman's house referred, however, not to 
 the murder of Overbury, but to the conjurations em- 
 ployed against the Earls of Somerset and Essex. 
 1 There was shewed in Court,' says a contemporary 
 report, ' certaine pictures of a man and a woman made 
 in lead, and also a moulde of brasse wherein they 
 were cast, a blacke scarfe alsoe full of white crosses, 
 which Mrs. Turner had in her custody/ besides ' in- 
 chanted paps and other pictures.' There was also a 
 parcel of Forman's written charms and incantations. 
 ' In some of those parchments the devill had par- 
 ticular names, who were conjured to torment the lord 
 Somersett and Sir Arthur Mannering, if theire loves 
 
 at her depart, and moistens the way with her tears. Chartley 
 was an hundred miles from her happiness ; and a little time thus 
 lost is her eternity. When she came thither, though in the 
 pleasantest part of the summer, she shut herself up in her 
 chamber, not suffering a beam of light to peep upon her dark 
 thoughts. If she stirred out of her chamber, it was in the dead 
 of the night, when sleep had taken possession of all others but 
 those about her. In this implacable, sad, and discontented 
 humour, she continued some months, always murmuring against, 
 but never giving the least civil respect to, her husband, which the 
 good man suffered patiently, being loth to be the divulger of his 
 own misery ; yet, having a manly courage, he would sometimes 
 break into a little passion to see himself slighted and neglected ; 
 but having never found better from her, it was the easier to bear 
 with her.' 
 
 82 
 
116 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 should not contynue, the one to the Countesse, the 
 other to Mrs. Turner. 7 Visions of a dingy room 
 haunted by demons, who had been summoned from 
 the infernal depths by Forman's potent spells, stimu- 
 lated the imagination of the excited crowd until they 
 came to believe that the fiends were actually there in 
 the Court, listening in wrath to the exposure of their 
 agents ; and, behold ! in the very heat and flush of 
 this extravagant credulity, a sudden crack was heard 
 in one of the platforms or scaffolds, causing i a great 
 fear, tumult, and commotion amongst the spectators 
 and through the hall, every one fearing hurt, as if the 
 devil had been present and grown angry to have his 
 workmanship known by such as were not his own 
 scholars.' The narrator adds that there was also a 
 note showed in Court, made by Dr. Forman, and 
 written on parchment, signifying what ladies loved 
 what lords ; but the Lord Chief Justice would not 
 suffer it to be read openly. This ' note,' or book, was a 
 diary of the doctor's dealings with the persons named ; 
 and a scandalous tradition affirms that the Lord Chief 
 Justice would not have it read because his wife's name 
 was the first which caught his eye when he glanced 
 at the contents. 
 
 Mrs. Turner's conviction followed as a matter of 
 course upon Weston's. There was no difficulty in 
 proving that she had been concerned in his pro- 
 ceedings, and that if he had committed a crime she 
 was particeps criminis. Both she and Weston died 
 with an acknowledgment on their lips that they 
 were justly punished. Her end, according to all 
 
CHAP. IV.] A CAUSE CELEBRE. 117 
 
 accounts, was sufficiently edifying. Bishop Good- 
 man quotes the narrative of an eye-witness, one 
 Mr. John Castle, in which we read that, ' if detesta- 
 tion of painted pride, lust, malice, powdered hair, 
 yellow bands, and the rest of the wardrobe of Court 
 vanities ; if deep sighs, tears, confessions, ejacula- 
 tions of the soul, admonitions of all sorts of 
 people to make God and an unspotted conscience 
 always our friends ; if the protestation of faith and 
 hope to be washed by the same Saviour and the like 
 mercies that Magdalene was, be signs and demon- 
 strations of a blessed penitent, then I will tell you 
 that this poor broken woman went a cruce ad 
 gloriam, and now enjoys the presence of her and our 
 Redeemer. Her body being taken down by her 
 brother, one Norton, servant to the Prince, was in a 
 coach conveyed to St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, where, 
 in the evening of the same day, she had an honest 
 and a decent burial.' Her sad fate seems to have 
 appealed strongly to public sympathy, and to have 
 drawn a veil of oblivion over the sins and follies 
 of her misspent life. A contemporary versifier 
 speaks of her in language worthy of a Lucretia : 
 
 ' how the cruel cord did misbecome 
 Her comely neck ! and yet by Law's just doom 
 Had been her death. Those locks, like golden thread, 
 That used in youth to enshrine her globe-like head, 
 Hung careless down ; and that delightful limb, 
 Her snow-white nimble hand, that used to trim 
 Those tresses up, now spitefully did tear 
 And rend the same ; nor did she now forbear 
 To beat that breast of more than lily-white, 
 Which sometime was the bed of sweet delight. 
 
118 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 From those two springs where joy did whilom dwell, 
 Grief's pearly drops upon her pale cheek fell.' 
 
 The next to suffer was an apothecary named 
 Franklin, from whom the poison had been procured. 
 ' Before he was executed, he threw out wild hints of 
 the existence of a plot far exceeding in villainy that 
 which was in course of investigation. He tried to 
 induce all who would listen to him to believe that 
 he knew of a conspiracy in which many great lords 
 were concerned ; and that not only the late Prince 
 [Henry] had been removed by unfair means, but that 
 a plan had been made to get rid of the Electress 
 Palatine and her husband. As, however, all this 
 was evidently only dictated by a hope of escaping the 
 gallows, he was allowed to share with the others a 
 fate which he richly deserved.' 
 
 After the execution of these smaller culprits, some 
 months elapsed before Bacon, as Attorney-General, 
 was directed to proceed against the greater. It was 
 not until May 24, 1616, that the Countess of 
 Somerset was put upon her trial before the High 
 Steward's Court in Westminster Hall. Contem- 
 porary testimony differs strangely as to her behaviour. 
 One authority says that, whilst the indictment was 
 being read, she turned pale and trembled, and when 
 Weston's name was mentioned hid her face behind 
 her fan. Another remarks : ' She won pity by her 
 sober demeanour, which, in my opinion,' he adds, 
 ' was more curious and confident than was fit for a 
 lady in such distress, yet she shed, or made show of 
 
CHAP. IV.] A CAUSE CELEBRE. 119 
 
 some tears, divers times.' The evidence against her 
 was too strong to be confuted, and she pleaded guilty. 
 When the judge asked her if she had anything to 
 say in arrest of judgment, she replied, in low, 
 almost inaudible tones, that she could not extenuate 
 her fault. She implored mercy, and begged that 
 the lords would intercede with the King on her 
 behalf. Sentence was then pronounced, and the 
 prisoner sent back to the Tower, to await the King's 
 decision. 
 
 On the following day the Earl was tried. Bacon 
 again acted as prosecutor, and in his opening speech 
 he said that the evidence to be brought forward by 
 the Government would prove four points : 1. That 
 Somerset bore malice against Overbury before the 
 latter's imprisonment ; 2. That he devised the plan 
 by which that imprisonment was effected ; 3. That 
 he actually sent poisons to the Tower ; 4. That 
 he had made strenuous efforts to conceal the proofs 
 of his guilt. He added that he himself would 
 undertake the management of the case on the first 
 two points, leaving his subordinates, Montague and 
 Crew, to deal with the third and fourth. 
 
 Bacon had chosen for himself a comparatively easy 
 task. The ill-feeling that had existed between 
 Overbury and his patron was beyond doubt ; while 
 it was conclusively shown, and, indeed, hardly dis- 
 puted, that Somerset had had a hand in Overbury 's 
 imprisonment, and in the appointment of Helwys 
 and Weston as his custodians. Passages from Lord 
 Northampton's letters to the Earl proved the exist- 
 
] 20 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 ence of a plot in which both were mixed up, and 
 that Helwys had expressed an opinion that Over- 
 bury 's death would be a satisfactory termination of 
 the imbroglio. But he might probably have based 
 this opinion on the fact that Overbury was seriously 
 ill, and his recovery more than doubtful. 
 
 When Bacon had concluded his part of the case, 
 Ellesmere, who presided, urged Somerset to confess 
 his guilt. ' No, my lord/ said the Earl calmly, 
 i I came hither with a resolution to defend myself.' 
 
 Montague then endeavoured to demonstrate that 
 the poison of which Overbury died had been adminis- 
 tered with Somerset's knowledge. But he could 
 get no further than this : that Somerset had been 
 in the habit of sending powders, as well as tarts and 
 jellies, to Overbury ; but he did not, and could not 
 prove that the powders were poisonous. Nor was 
 Serjeant Crew able to advance the case beyond the 
 point reached by Bacon ; he could argue only on the 
 assumption of Somerset's guilt, which his colleagues 
 had failed to establish. 
 
 In our own day it would be held that the case for 
 the prosecution had completely broken down ; and I 
 must add my conviction that Somerset was in no 
 way privy to Overbury's murder. He had assented 
 to his imprisonment, because he was weary of his 
 importunity ; but he still retained a kindly feeling 
 towards him, and was evidently grieved at the 
 serious nature of his illness. As a matter of fact, 
 it was not proved even that Overbury died of 
 poison, though I admit that this is put beyond 
 
CHAP. IV,] A CAUSE CELEBRE. 121 
 
 doubt by collateral circumstances. Somerset's posi- 
 tion, however, before judges who were more or less 
 hostilely disposed, with the agents of the Crown bent 
 on obtaining his conviction, and he himself without 
 legal advisers, was both difficult and dangerous. He 
 was embarrassed by the necessity of keeping back 
 part of his case. He was unable to tell the whole 
 truth about Overbury 's imprisonment. He could 
 not make known all that had passed between Lady 
 Essex and himself before marriage, or that Over- 
 bury had been committed to the Tower to prevent 
 him from giving evidence which would have certainly 
 quashed Lady Essex's proceedings for a divorce. 
 And, in truth, if he mustered up courage to tell 
 this tale of shame, he could not hope that the peers, 
 most of whom were his enemies, would give credence 
 to it, or that, if they believed it, they would refrain 
 from delivering an adverse verdict. 
 
 Yet he bore himself with courage and ability, 
 when, by the flickering light of torches, for the day 
 had gone down, he rose to make his defence. Ac- 
 knowledging that he had consented to Overbury' s 
 imprisonment in order that he might throw no 
 obstacles in the way of his marriage with Lady 
 Essex, he firmly denied that he had known anything 
 of attempts to poison him. The tarts he had sent 
 were wholesome, and of a kind to which Overbury 
 was partial ; if any had been tampered with, he was 
 unaware of it. The powders he had received from 
 Sir Eobert Killigrew, and simply sent them on ; and 
 Overbury had admitted, in a letter which was before 
 
122 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 the Court, that they had done him no mischief. 
 Here Crew interrupted : The three powders from 
 Killigrew had been duly accounted for ; but there 
 was a fourth powder, which had not been accounted 
 for, and had (it was assumed) contained poison. 
 Now, it was improbable that the Earl could re- 
 member the exact history of every powder sent to 
 Overbury two years before, and, besides, it was a 
 mere assumption on the part of the prosecution that 
 this fourth powder was poison. But Somerset's 
 inability to meet this point was made the most of, 
 and gave the peers a sufficient pretext for declaring 
 him guilty. The Earl received his sentence with 
 the composure he had exhibited throughout the 
 arduous day, which had shown how a nature 
 enervated by luxury and indulgence can be braced 
 up by the chill air of adversity, and contented him- 
 self with expressing a hope that the Court would 
 intercede with the King for mercy. 
 
 I have dwelt at some length on the details of this 
 celebrated trial because it is the last (in English 
 jurisprudence) in which men and women of rank 
 have been mixed up with the secret practices of the 
 magician ; though, for other reasons, it is one of 
 very unusual interest. In briefly concluding the 
 recital, I may state that James was greatly relieved 
 when the trial was over, and he found that nothing 
 damaging to himself had been disclosed. It is 
 certain that Somerset was in possession of some 
 dark secret, the revelation of which was much 
 dreaded by the King ; so that precautions had even 
 
CHAP. IV.] DR. LAMBE. 123 
 
 been taken, or at all events meditated, to remove 
 him from the Court if he entered upon the dangerous 
 topic, and to continue the trial in his absence. He 
 would probably have been silenced by force. The 
 Earl, however, refrained from hazardous disclosures, 
 and James could breathe in peace. 
 
 On July 13, the King pardoned Lady Somerset, 
 who was certainly the guiltiest of all concerned. 
 The Earl was left in prison, with sentence of death 
 suspended over him for several years, in order, no 
 doubt, to terrify him into silence. A few months 
 before his death, James appears to have satisfied 
 himself that he had nothing to fear, and ordered the 
 Earl's release (January, 1622). Had he lived, he 
 would probably have restored him to his former in- 
 fluence and favour.* 
 
 DE. LAMBE. 
 
 A worthy successor to Simon Forman appeared in 
 Dr. Lambe, or Lamb, who, in the first two Stuart 
 reigns, attained a wide celebrity as an astrologer and 
 a quack doctor. A curious story respecting his pre- 
 tended magical powers is related by Richard Baxter 
 in his Certainty of the World of Spirits ' (1691). 
 Meeting two acquaintances in the street, who 
 evidently desired some experience of his skill in the 
 occult art, he invited them home with him, and 
 
 * See ' The State Trials ;' ' The Carew Letters ;' Spedding, 
 ' Life and Letters of Lord Bacon ;' Amos, * The Grand Oyer of 
 Poisoning ;' and S. K. Gardiner, * History of England,' vol. iv., 
 1607-1616. 
 
124 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 ushered them into an inner chamber. There, to their 
 amazement, a tree sprang up before their eyes in the 
 middle of the floor. Before they had ceased to 
 wonder at this sight surprising, three diminutive men 
 entered, with tiny axes in their hands, and, nimbly 
 setting to work, soon felled the tree. The doctor 
 then dismissed his guests, who went away with a 
 conviction that he was as potent a necromancer as 
 Roger Bacon or Cornelius Agrippa. 
 
 That same night a tremendous gale arose, so that 
 the house of one of Lambe's visitors rocked to and 
 fro, threatening to topple over with a crash, and bury 
 the man and his wife in the ruins. In great terror 
 his wife inquired, ' Were you not at Dr. Lambe's 
 to-day?' The husband acknowledged that it was so. 
 1 And did you bring anything away from his house ?' 
 Yes: when the dwarfs felled the tree, he had been 
 foolish enough to pick up some of the chips, and put 
 them in his pocket. Here was the cause of the hurri- 
 cane ! With all speed he got rid of the chips ; the 
 storm immediately subsided, and the remainder of the 
 night was spent in undisturbed repose. 
 
 Lambe was notorious for the lewdness of his life 
 and his evil habits. But his supposed skill and 
 success as a soothsayer led to his being frequently 
 consulted by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, 
 with the result that each helped to swell the volume 
 of the other's unpopularity. The Puritans were 
 angered at the Duke's resort to a man of Lambe's 
 character and calling ; the populace hated Lambe as 
 the tool and instrument of the Duke. In 1628 the 
 
CHAP. IV.] DR. LAMBE. 125 
 
 brilliant favourite of Charles I. was the best-hated 
 man in England, and every slander was hurled at 
 him that the resources of political animosity could 
 supply. The ballads of the time an indisputably 
 satisfactory barometer of public opinion inveighed 
 bitterly and even furiously against his luxuriousness, 
 his love of dress, his vanity, his immorality, and his 
 proved incompetence as soldier and statesman. He 
 was accused of having poisoned Lords Hamilton, 
 Lennox, Southampton, Oxford, even James I. him- 
 self. He had sat in his boat, out of the reach of 
 danger, while his soldiers perished under the guns of 
 Ee. He had corrupted the chastest women in England 
 by means of the love-philtre which Dr. Lambe con- 
 cocted for him. In a word, the air was full of the 
 darkest and dreadest accusations. 
 
 Lambe's connection with the Duke brought on a 
 catastrophe which his magical art failed to foresee or 
 prevent. He was returning, one summer evening it 
 was June 13 from the play at the Fortune Theatre, 
 when he was recognised by a company of London 
 prentices. With a fine scent for the game, they 
 crowded round the unfortunate magician, and hooted 
 at him as the Duke's devil, hustling him to and fro, 
 and treating him with cruel roughness. To save 
 himself from further violence, he hired some sailors 
 to escort him to a tavern in Moorgate Street, where 
 he supped. On going forth again, he found that 
 many of his persecutors lingered about the door ; and, 
 bursting into a violent rage, he threatened them with 
 his vengeance, and told them ' he would make them 
 
126 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 dance naked/ Still guarded by his sailors, he 
 hurried homeward, with the mob close at his heels, 
 shouting and gesticulating, and increasing every 
 minute both in numbers and fury. In the Old 
 Jewry he turned to face them with his protectors ; 
 but this movement of defence, construed into one of 
 defiance, stimulated the passions of the populace to an 
 ungovernable pitch ; they made a rush at him, from 
 which he took refuge in the Windmill tavern. A 
 volley of stones smashed against pane and door ; and 
 with shouts, screams, and yells, they demanded that 
 he should be given up. But the landlord, a man of 
 courage and humanity, would not throw the poor 
 wretch to his pursuers as the huntsman throws the 
 captured fox to the fangs of his hounds. He detained 
 him for some time, and then he provided him with a 
 disguise before he would suffer him to leave. The 
 precaution was useless, for hate is keen of vision: 
 the man was recognised ; the pursuit was resumed, 
 and he was hunted through the streets, pale and 
 trembling with terror, his dress disordered and soiled, 
 until he again sought an asylum. The master of this 
 house, however, fell into a paroxysm of alarm, and 
 dismissed him hastily, with four constables as a body- 
 guard. But what could these avail against hundreds? 
 They were swept aside the doctor, bleeding and 
 exhausted, was flung to the ground, and sticks and 
 stones rained blows upon him until he was no longer 
 able to ask for mercy. One of his eyes was beaten 
 out of its socket ; and when he was rescued at length 
 by a posse of constables and soldiers, and conveyed to 
 
CHAP. IV.] DR. LAMBE. 127 
 
 the Compter prison, it was a dying man who was 
 borne unconscious across its threshold. 
 
 Such was the miserable ending of Dr. Lambe. 
 Charles I. was much affected when he heard of it ; 
 for he saw that it was a terrible indication of the 
 popular hostility against Lambe' s patron. The 
 murderers had not scrupled to say that if the Duke 
 had been there they would have handled him worse ; 
 they would have minced his flesh, so that every one 
 of them might have had a piece. Summoning to his 
 presence the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, the King 
 bade them discover the offenders ; and when they 
 failed in what was an impossible task, he imposed 
 a heavy fine upon the City. 
 
 The ballad -writers of the day found in the magi- 
 cian's fate an occasion for attacking Buckingham : 
 one of them, commenting on his supposed contempt 
 for Parliament, puts the following arrogant defiance 
 into his mouth: 
 
 ' Meddle with common matters, common wrongs, 
 To th' House of Commons common things belong. . . 
 Leave him the oar that best knows how to row 
 And State to him that the best State doth know. . . 
 Though Lambe be dead, /'// stand, and you shall see 
 I'll smile at them that can but bark at me.' 
 
1 28 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS : WILLIAM 
 
 LILLY. 
 
 ' Lilly was a prominent, and, in the opinion of many of his 
 contemporaries, a very important personage in the most eventful 
 period of English history. He was a principal actor in the 
 farcical scenes which diversified the bloody tragedy of civil war ; 
 and while the King and the Parliament were striving for mastery 
 in the field, he was deciding their destinies in the closet. The 
 weak and the credulous of both parties who sought to be 
 instructed in " destiny's dark counsels," flocked to consult the 
 " wily Archimagus," who, with exemplary impartiality, meted out 
 victory and good fortune to his clients, according to the extent of 
 their faith and the weight of their purses. A few profane 
 Cavaliers might make his name the burthen of their malignant 
 rhymes a few of the more scrupulous among the saints might 
 keep aloof in sanctified abhorrence of the " Stygian sophister "- 
 but the great majority of the people lent a willing and reverential 
 ear to his prophecies and prognostications. Nothing was too high 
 or too low, too mighty or too insignificant, for the grasp of his 
 genius. The stars, his informants, were as communicative on the 
 most trivial as on the most important subjects. If a scheme was 
 set on foot to rescue the King, or to retrieve a stray trinket ; to 
 restore the royal authority, or to make a frail damsel an honest 
 woman ; to cure the nation of anarchy, or a lap-dog of a surfeit 
 William Lilly was the oracle to be consulted. His almanacks 
 were spelled over in the tavern, and quoted in the Senate ; they 
 nerved the arm of the soldier, and rounded the period of the 
 orator. The fashionable beauty, dashing along in her calash from 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGTCIANS. 129 
 
 St. James's or the Mall, and the prim starched dame from Watling 
 Street or Bucklersbury, with a staid foot-boy, in a plush jerkin, 
 plodding behind her the reigning toast among " the men of wit 
 about town," and the leading groaner in a tabernacle concert 
 glided alternately into the study of the trusty wizard, and poured 
 into his attentive ear strange tales of love, or trade, or treason. 
 The Roundhead stalked in at one door, whilst the Cavalier was 
 hurried out at the other. 
 
 ' The confessions of a man so variously consulted and trusted, 
 if written with the candour of a Cardan or a Rousseau, would 
 indeed be invaluable. The " Memoirs of William Lilly, though 
 deficient in this particular, yet contain a variety of curious and 
 interesting anecdotes of himself and his contemporaries, which, 
 when the vanity of the writer or the truth of his art is not con- 
 cerned, may be received with implicit credence. 
 
 ' The simplicity and apparent candour of his narrative might 
 induce a hasty reader of this book to believe him a well-meaning 
 but somewhat silly personage, the dupe of his own speculations 
 the deceiver of himself as well as of others. But an attentive 
 examination of the events of his life, even as recorded by himself, 
 will not warrant so favourable an interpretation. His systematic 
 and successful attention to his own interest, his dexterity in 
 keeping on "the windy side of the law," his perfect political 
 pliability, and his presence of mind and fertility of resources 
 when entangled in difficulties, indicate an accomplished impostor, 
 not a crazy enthusiast. It is very possible and probable that, at 
 the outset of his career, he was a real believer in the truth and 
 lawfulness of his art, and that he afterwards felt no inclination 
 to part with so pleasant and so profitable a delusion. . . Of his 
 success in deception, the present narrative exhibits abundant proofs. 
 The number of his dupes was not confined to the vulgar and illiter- 
 ate, but included individuals of real worth and learning, of hostile 
 parties and sects, who courted his acquaintance and respected his 
 predictions. His proceedings were deemed of sufficient import- 
 ance to be twice made the subject of a Parliamentary inquiry ; 
 and even after the Restoration when a little more scepticism, if 
 not more wisdom, might have been expected we find him 
 examined by a Committee of the House of Commons respecting 
 his foreknowledge of the Great Fire of London. We know not 
 whether it " should more move our anger or our mirth " to see 
 our assemblage of British Senators the contemporaries of 
 
 9 
 
130 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 Hampden and Falkland, of Milton and Clarendon, in an age 
 which moved into action so many and such mighty energies 
 gravely engaged in ascertaining the cause of a great national 
 calamity from the prescience of a knavish fortune-teller, and 
 puzzling their wisdoms to interpret the symbolical flames which 
 blazed in the misshapen woodcuts of his oracular publications. 
 
 'As a set-off against these honours may be mentioned the 
 virulent and unceasing attacks of almost all the party scribblers 
 of the d&y ; but their abuse he shared in common with men 
 whose talents and virtues have outlived the malice of their con- 
 temporaries. ' Retrospective Review. 
 
 WILLIAM LILLY was born at Diseworth, in Leicester- 
 shire, on May 1, 1602. He came of an old and re- 
 putable family of the yeoman class, and his father- 
 was at one time a man of substance, though, from 
 causes unexplained, he fell into a state of great im- 
 poverishment. William from the first was intended 
 to be a scholar, and at the age of eleven was sent to 
 the grammar-school at Ashby -de-la- Zouch, where he 
 made a fair progress in his classical studies. In his 
 sixteenth year he began to be much troubled in his 
 dreams regarding his chances of future salvation, and 
 felt a large concern for the spiritual welfare of his 
 parents. He frequently spent the night in weeping 
 and praying, and in an agony of fear lest his sins 
 should offend .God. That in this exhibition of early 
 piety he was already preparing for his career of self- 
 hypocrisy and deception, I will not be censorious 
 enough to assert ; but in after-life his conscience was 
 certainly much less sensitive, and he ceased to trouble 
 himself about the souls of any of his kith and kin. 
 
 He was about eighteen when the collapse of his 
 father's circumstances compelled him to leave school. 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 131 
 
 He had used his time and opportunities so well that 
 he had gained the highest form, and the highest place 
 on that form. He spoke Latin as readily as his 
 native tongue: could improvise verses upon any 
 theme all kinds of verses, hexameter, pentameter, 
 phalenciac, iambic, sapphic so that if any ingenious 
 youth came from remote schools to hold public dis- 
 putations, Lilly was always selected as the Ashby- de- 
 la- Zouch champion, and in that capacity invariably 
 won distinction. ' If any minister came to examine 
 us,' he said, ' I was brought forth against him, nor 
 would I argue with him unless in the Latin tongue, 
 which I found few could well speak without breaking 
 Priscian's head; which, if once they did, I would 
 complain to my master, Non bene intelliget linguare 
 Latinam, nee prorsus loquitur. In the derivation of 
 words, I found most of them defective; nor, indeed, 
 were any of them good grammarians. All and every 
 of those scholars who were of my form and stand- 
 ing went to Cambridge, and proved excellent divines ; 
 only I, poor William Lilly, was not so happy; 
 fortune then frowning upon my father's present con- 
 dition, he not in any capacity to maintain me at the 
 University.' 
 
 The res angustce domi pressing heavily upon the 
 quick-witted, ingenious, and active young fellow, he 
 set forth as so many Dick Whittingtons have done 
 before and since to make his fortune in London 
 City. His purse held only 20s., with which he pur- 
 chased a new suit hose, doublets, trunk, and the 
 like and with a donation from his friends of 10s., he 
 
 92 
 
132 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 took leave of his father ( i then in Leicester gaol for 
 debt ') on April 4th, and tramping his way to London, 
 in company with ' Bradshaw the carrier/ arrived 
 there on the 9th. When he had gratified the carrier 
 and his servants, his capital was reduced to 7s. 6d. 
 in money, a suit of clothes on his back, two shirts, 
 three bands, one pair of shoes, and as many stockings. 
 The master to whom he had been recommended 
 Leicestershire born, like himself a certain Gilbert 
 Wright, received him kindly, purchasing for him a 
 new cloak a welcome addition to Lilly's scanty 
 wardrobe; and Lilly then settled down, contentedly 
 enough, to his laborious duties, though they were 
 hardly of a kind to gratify the tastes of an earnest 
 scholar. ' My work,* he says, 4 was to go before my 
 master to church ; to attend my master when he 
 went abroad ; to make clean his shoes ; sweep the 
 street ; help to drive bucks when he washed ; fetch 
 water in a tub from the Thames (I have helped to 
 carry eighteen tubs of water in one morning) ; weed 
 the garden ; all manner of drudgeries I willingly per- 
 formed ; scrape trenchers/ etc. 
 
 In 1624 his mistress (he says) died of cancer in 
 the breast, and he came into possession by way of 
 legacy, I suppose of a small scarlet bag belonging 
 to her, which contained some rare and curious things. 
 Among others, several sigils, amulets, or charms : 
 some of Jupiter in trine, others of the nature of 
 Venus ; some of iron, and one of gold pure angel 
 gold, of the bigness of a thirty -shilling piece of King 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 133 
 
 James's coinage. In the circumference, on one side, 
 was engraven, Vicit Leo de tribu Judce Tetragram- 
 maton, and within the middle a holy lamb. In the 
 circumference on the obverse side were Amraphel and 
 three + + + , and in the centre, Sanctus Petrus Alpha 
 et Omega. 
 
 According to Lilly, this sigil was framed under the 
 following circumstances : 
 
 ' His mistress's former husband travelling into Sussex, happened 
 to lodge in an inn, and to lie in a chamber thereof, wherein, not 
 many months before, a country grazier had lain, and in the night 
 cut his own throat. After this night's lodging he was per- 
 petually, and for many years, followed by a spirit, which vocally 
 and articulately provoked him to cut his throat. He was used 
 frequently to say, " I defy thee, I defy thee," and to spit at the 
 spirit. This spirit followed him many years, he not making any- 
 body acquainted with it ; at last he grew melancholy and discon- 
 tented, which being carefully observed by his wife, she many 
 times hearing him pronounce, "I defy thee," desired him to 
 acquaint her with the cause of his distemper, which he then did. 
 Away she went to Dr. Simon Forman, who lived then in Lambeth, 
 and acquaints him with it ; who having framed this sigil, and 
 hanged it about his neck, he wearing it continually until he died, 
 was never more molested by the spirit. I sold the sigil for 
 thirty-two shillings, but transcribed the words verbatim as I have 
 related.' 
 
 Lilly continued some time longer in the service 
 of Master Gilbert Wright. When the plague broke 
 out in London in 1625, he, with a fellow -servant, 
 was left in charge of his employer's house. He seems 
 to have taken things easily enough, notwithstanding 
 the sorrow and suffering that surrounded him on 
 every side. Purchasing a bass-viol, he hired a master 
 to instruct him in playing it ; the intervals he spent 
 in bowling in Lincoln's Inn Fields, with Wat the 
 
134 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 Cobbler, Dick the Blacksmith, and such -like com- 
 panions. c We have sometimes been at our work at 
 six in the morning, and so continued till three or 
 four in the afternoon, many times without bread or 
 drink all that while. Sometimes I went to church 
 and heard funeral sermons, of which there was then 
 great plenty. At other times I went early to St. 
 Antholin's, in London, where there was every morn- 
 ing a sermon. The most able people of the whole 
 city and suburbs were out of town ; if any remained, 
 it were such as were engaged by parish officers to 
 remain ; no habit of a gentleman or woman con- 
 tinued ; the woeful calamity of that year was 
 grievous, people dying in the open fields and in open 
 streets. At last, in August, the bills of mortality so 
 increased, that very few people had thoughts of 
 surviving the contagion. The Sunday before the 
 great bill came forth, which was of five thousand and 
 odd hundreds, there was appointed a sacrament at 
 Clement Danes'; during the distributing whereof I 
 do very well remember we sang thirteen parts of the 
 11 9th Psalm. One Jacob, our minister (for we had 
 three that day, the communion was so great), fell sick 
 as he was giving the sacrament, went home, and was 
 buried of the plague the Thursday following/ 
 
 Having been led by various circumstances to apply 
 himself to the study of astrology, he sought a guide 
 and teacher in the person of one Master Evans, whom 
 he describes as poor, ignorant, boastful, drunken, and 
 knavish ; he had a character, or reputation, however, 
 for erecting a figure (or horoscope) predicting future 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 135 
 
 events, discovering secrets, restoring stolen goods, 
 and even for raising spirits, when it so pleased him. 
 Of this crafty cheat he relates an extraordinary story. 
 Some time before Lilly became acquainted with him, 
 Lord Bothwell and Sir Kenelm Digby visited him at 
 his lodgings in the Minories, in order that they 
 might enjoy what is nowadays called a spiritualistic 
 seance.' The magician drew the mysterious circle, 
 and placed himself and his visitors within it. He 
 began his invocations ; but suddenly Evans was 
 caught up from the others, and transferred, he knew 
 not how, to Battersea Fields, near the Thames. Next 
 morning a countryman discovered him there, fast 
 asleep, and, having roused him, informed him, in 
 answer to his inquiries, where he was. Evans in the 
 afternoon sent a messenger to his wife, to acquaint 
 her with his safety, and dispel the apprehensions she 
 might reasonably entertain. Just as the messenger 
 arrived, Sir Kenelm Digby also arrived, not un- 
 naturally curious to learn the issue of the preceding 
 day's adventure. This monstrous story Evans told 
 to Lilly, who, I suppose, affected to believe it, and 
 asked him how such an issue chanced to attend on 
 his experiment. Because, the knave replied, in per- 
 forming the invocation rites, he had carelessly 
 omitted the necessary suffumigation, and at this 
 omission the spirit had taken offence. It is evident 
 that the spirits insist on being treated with due 
 regard to etiquette. 
 
 Lilly, by the way, records some quaint biographical 
 particulars respecting the astrologers of his time ; 
 
136 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 they are not of a nature, however, to elevate our 
 ideas of the profession. One would almost suppose 
 that free intercourse with the inhabitants of the 
 unseen world had an exceptionally bad effect on the 
 morals and manners of the mortals who enjoyed it ; 
 or else the spirits must have had a penchant for low 
 society. Lilly speaks of one William Poole, who 
 was a nibbler at astrological science, and, in addition, 
 a gardener, an apparitor, a drawer of lime, a plas- 
 terer, a bricklayer ; in fact, he bragged of knowing no 
 fewer than seventeen trades such was the versatility 
 of his genius ! It is pleasant to know that this won- 
 derfully clever fellow could condescend to ' drolling,' 
 and even to writing poetry (heaven save the mark!), 
 of which Lilly, in his desire to astonish posterity, has 
 preserved a specimen. Master Poole's rhymes, how- 
 ever, are much too offensively coarse to be transferred 
 to these pages. 
 
 This man of many callings died about 1651 or 
 1652, at St. Mary Overy's, in South wark, and Lilly 
 quotes a portion of his last will and testament : 
 
 ' Item. I give to Dr. Arder all my books, and one manuscript 
 of my own, worth one hundred of Lilly's Introduction. 
 
 ' Item. If Dr. Arder gives my wife anything that is mine, I 
 wish the D 1 may fetch him body and soul.' 
 
 Terrified at this uncompromising malediction, the 
 doctor handed over all the deceased conjurer's books 
 and goods to Lilly, who in his turn handed them 
 over to the widow ; and in this way Poole's curse 
 was eluded, and his widow got her rights. 
 
 The true name of this Dr. Arder, it seems, was 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 137 
 
 Richard Delahay. He had originally practised as an 
 attorney ; but falling into poverty, and being driven 
 from his Derbyshire home by the Countess of Shrews- 
 bury, he turned to astrology and physic, and looked 
 round about him for patients, though with no very 
 great success. He had at one time known a Charles 
 Sledd, a friend of Dr. Dee, ' who used the crystal, 
 and had a very perfect sight ' in modern parlance, 
 was a good medium. 
 
 Dr. Arder often declared to Lilly that an angel 
 had on one occasion offered him a lease of life for a 
 thousand years, but for some unexplained reasons he 
 declined the valuable freehold. However, he out- 
 lived the Psalmist's span, dying at the ripe old age 
 of eighty. 
 
 A much more famous magician was John Booker, 
 who, in 1632 and 1633, gained a great notoriety by 
 his prediction of a solar eclipse in the nineteenth 
 degree of Aries, 1633, taken out of ' Leuitius de Magnis 
 Conjunctionibus,' namely, ' Reges et Principes/ etc., 
 both the King of Bohemia and Gustavus, King of 
 Sweden, dying during ' the effects of that eclipse.' 
 
 John Booker was born at Manchester, of good 
 parentage, in 1601. In his youth he attained a very 
 considerable proficiency in the Latin tongue. From 
 his early years we may take it that he was destined 
 to become an astrologer he showed so great a 
 fancy (otherwise inexplicable !) for poring over old 
 almanacks. In his teens he was despatched to 
 London to serve his apprenticeship to a haberdasher 
 
138 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 in Lawrence Lane. But whether he contracted a 
 distaste for the trade, or lacked the capital to start 
 on his own account, he abandoned it on reaching 
 manhood, and started as a writing-master at Hadley, 
 in Middlesex. It is said that he wrote singularly 
 well, i both Secretary and Roman.' Later in life he 
 officiated as clerk to Sir Christopher Clithero, Alder- 
 man of London, and Justice of the Peace, and also to 
 Sir Hugh Hammersley, Alderman, and in these 
 responsible positions became well known to many 
 citizens who, like Cowper's John Gilpin, were ' of 
 credit and renown/ 
 
 In star-craft this John Booker was a past master ! 
 His verses upon the months, framed according to their 
 different astrological significations, t being blessed 
 with success, according to his predictions/ made him 
 known all over England. He was a man of ' great 
 honesty,' abhorring any deceit in the art he loved and 
 studied. So says Lilly ; but it is certain that if an 
 astrologer be in earnest, he must deceive himself, if 
 he do not deceive others. This Booker had much 
 good fortune in detecting thefts, and was not less an 
 adept in resolving love-questions. His knowledge of 
 astronomy was by no means limited ; he understood 
 a good deal of physic ; was a great advocate of the 
 antimonial cup, whose properties were first dis- 
 covered by Basil Valentine ; not unskilled in chemis- 
 try, though he did not practise it. He died in the 
 sweet odour of a good reputation in 1667, leaving 
 behind him a tolerable library (which was purchased 
 by Elias Ashmole, the antiquary), a widow, four 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 139 
 
 children, and the MSS. of his annual prognostica- 
 tions. During the Long Parliament period he pub- 
 lished his t Bellum Hibernicale, 7 which is described 
 as l a very sober and judicious book,' and, not long 
 before his death, a small treatise on Easter Day, 
 wherein he displayed a laudable erudition. 
 
 Lilly has also something to say about a Master 
 Nicholas Fiske, licentiate in physic, who came of a 
 good old family, and was born near Framlingham, in 
 Suffolk. He was educated for the University, but 
 preferred staying at home, and studying astrology 
 and medicine, which he afterwards practised at Col- 
 chester, and at several places in London. 
 
 'He was a person very studious, laborious, of good appre- 
 hension, and had by his own industry obtained both in astrology, 
 physic, arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, and algebra, singular 
 judgment : he would in astrology resolve horary questions very 
 soundly, but was ever diffident of his own abilities. He was ex- 
 quisitely skilful in the art of directions upon nativities, and had j 
 a .good genius in performing judgment thereupon ; but very un- 
 happy he was that he had no genius in teaching his scholars, for 
 he never perfected any. His own son Matthew hath often told 
 me that when his father did teach any scholars in his time, they 
 would principally learn of him. He had Scorpio ascending (/), and \ 
 was secretly envious to those he thought had more parts than 
 himself. However, I must be ingenuous, and do affirm that by 
 frequent conversation with him I came to know which were the 
 best authors, and much to enlarge my judgment, especially in the 
 art of directions : he visited me most days once after I became 
 acquainted with him, and would communicate his most doubtful 
 questions unto me, and accept of my judgment therein rather 
 than his own.' 
 
 Resuming his own life-story, Lilly records an 
 important purchase which he made in 1634 the 
 
140 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 great astrological treatise, the ' Ars Notaria,' a large 
 parchment volume, enriched with the names and 
 pictures of those angels which are thought and be- 
 lieved by wise men to teach and instruct in all the 
 several liberal sciences as if heaven were a scientific 
 academy, with the angels giving lectures as professors 
 of astrology, medicine, mathematics, and the like ! 
 Next he describes how he sought to extend his fame 
 as a magician by attempting the discovery of a 
 quantity of treasure alleged to have been concealed 
 in the cloister of Westminster Abbey ; and having 
 obtained permission from the authorities, he repaired 
 thither, one winter night, accompanied by several 
 gentlemen, and by one John Scott, a supposed expert 
 in the use of the Mosaical or divining rods. The 
 hazel rods were duly played round about the cloister, 
 and on the west side turned one over the other, a 
 proof that the treasure lay there. The labourers, 
 after digging to a depth of six feet, came upon a 
 coffin ; but as it was not heavy, Lilly refrained from 
 opening it, an omission which he afterwards regretted. 
 From the cloister they proceeded to the Abbey 
 Church, where, upon a sudden, so fierce, so high, so 
 blustering and loud a wind burst forth, that they 
 feared the west end of the church would fall upon 
 them. Their rods would not move at all ; the 
 candles and torches, all but one, were extinguished, 
 or burned very dimly. John Scott, Lilly's partner, 
 was amazed, turned pale, and knew not what to think 
 or do, until Lilly gave command to dismiss the 
 demons. This being done, all was quiet again, and the 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 141 
 
 party returned home about midnight. * I could never 
 since be induced/ says Master Lilly, with sublime 
 impertinence, * to join with any in such-like actions. 
 The true miscarriage of the business,' he adds, ' was 
 
 O ' 
 
 by reason of so many people being present at the 
 operation ; for there were about thirty, some laughing, 
 others deriding, so that if we had not dismissed the 
 demons, I believe most part of the Abbey Church had 
 been blown down f Secrecy and intelligent operators,' 
 he adds, ' with a strong confidence and knowledge of 
 what they are doing, are best for this work/ They 
 are, at all events, for conspiracy and collusion. 
 
 In reading a narrative like this, one finds it not 
 easy to satisfy one's self how far it has been written in 
 good faith, or how far it is compounded of credulity 
 or of conscious deception how far the writer has 
 unwittingly imposed upon himself, or is knowingly 
 imposing upon the reader. That Lilly should gravely 
 transmit to posterity such a record, if aware that it 
 was an audacious invention, seems hardly credible ; 
 and yet it is still less credible that a man so shrewd 
 and keen-witted should believe in the operations of 
 demons, and in their directing a blast of wind against 
 the Abbey Church because they resented his search 
 for a hidden treasure, to which they at least could have 
 no claim ! As great wit to madness nearly is allied, 
 so is there a dangerous proximity between credulity 
 and imposture, and the man who begins by being a 
 dupe often ends by becoming a knave. Perhaps 
 there are times when the axiom should be reversed. 
 
 Lilly's astrological pursuits appear to have affected 
 
142 WITCH, WAKLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 his health : he grew lean and haggard, and suffered 
 much from hypochondria ; so that, at length, he 
 resolved to try the curative effects of country air, 
 and removed, in the spring of 1636, to Hersham, a 
 quiet and picturesque hamlet, near Walton-on-the- 
 Thames. He did not give up his London house, 
 however, until thirty years later (1665), when he 
 finally settled at Hersham as a country gentleman, 
 and a person of no small consideration. 
 
 Having recovered his health in his rural quarters, 
 our great magician returned to London, and practised 
 openly his favourite art. But a secret intelligence 
 apprising him that he was not sufficiently an adept, 
 he again withdrew into the country, where he 
 remained for a couple of years, immersed, I suppose, 
 in occult studies. We may take it that he really 
 entered on a professional career in 1644, when a 
 ' happy thought ' inspired him to bring out the first 
 yearly issue of his prophetical almanac, or ' Merlinus 
 Anglicus Junior.' In his usual abrupt and dis- 
 jointed style he gives the following account of 
 his publication : ' I had given, one day, the copy 
 thereof unto the then Mr. [afterwards Sir Bui- 
 strode] Whitlocke, who by accident was reading 
 thereof in the House of Commons. Ere the Speaker 
 took the chair, one looked upon it, and so did many, 
 and got copies thereof; which, when I heard, I 
 applied myself to John Booker to license it, for then 
 he was licenser of all mathematical books. ... He 
 wondered at the book, make many impertinent obli- 
 terations, formed many objections, swore it was not 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 143 
 
 possible to distinguish betwixt King and Parliament 
 [0 shrewd John Booker !] ; at last licensed it accord- 
 ing to his own fancy. I delivered it unto the printer, 
 who being an arch Presbyterian, had five of the 
 ministry to inspect it, who could make nothing of it, 
 but said that it might be printed, for in that I 
 meddled not with their Dagon. The first impression 
 was sold in less than one week. When I presented 
 some [copies] to the members of Parliament, I com- 
 plained of John Booker, the licenser, who had defaced 
 my book ; they gave me order forthwith to reprint it 
 as I would, and let me know if any durst resist me 
 in the reprinting or adding what I thought fit : so 
 the second time it came forth as I would have it.' 
 
 In June, 1644, Lilly published his ' Supernatural 
 Sight,' and also ' The White King's Prophecy,' of 
 which, in three days, eighteen hundred copies were 
 sold. He issued the second volume of his ' Pro- 
 phetical Merlin,' in which he made use of the King's 
 nativity, and discovering that his ascendant was 
 approaching to the quadrature of Mars about June, 
 1645, delivered himself of this oracular utterance, 
 as ambiguous as any that every fell from the lips of 
 the Pythian priestess : 
 
 ' If now we fight, a victory stealeth upon us ' 
 
 which he afterwards boasted to be a clear prediction of 
 the defeat of Charles I. at Naseby, and, of course, would 
 equally well have served to have explained a royal 
 victory. Whitlocke, in his ' Memorials of Affairs in 
 his own Times/ states that he met the astrologer in 
 
144 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 the spring of 1645, and jestingly asking him what 
 events were likely to take place, Lilly repeated this 
 prophecy of a victory. He remarks that in 1648 
 some of Lilly's prognostications ' fell out very 
 strangely, particularly as to the King's fall from his 
 horse about this time/ But it would have been 
 strange if a man so well informed of public affairs, 
 and so shrewd, as William Lilly, had never been 
 right in his forecasts. And a lucky coincidence will 
 set an astrologer up in credit for a long time, his 
 numerous failures being forgotten. 
 
 In this same memorable and eventful year he pub- 
 lished his ' Starry Messenger,' with an interpretation 
 of three mock suns, or parhelia, which had been 
 seen in London on the 29th of May, 1644, King 
 Charles II. 's birthday. Complaint was immediately 
 made to the Parliamentary Committee of Examina- 
 tion that it contained treasonable and scandalous 
 matter. Lilly was summoned before the Committee, 
 but several of his friends were upon it, and voted the 
 charges against him frivolous as, indeed, they were 
 so that he met with his usual good fortune, and came 
 off with flying colours. 
 
 All the English astrologers of the old school seem 
 to have been startled and confounded by the inno- 
 vations of this dashing young magician, with his 
 yearly almanacks and political predictions and self- 
 advertisement, especially a certain Mr. William 
 Hodges, who lived near Wolverhampton, and can- 
 didly confessed that Lilly did more by astrology than 
 he himself could do by the crystal, though he under- 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 145 
 
 stood its use as well as any man in England. Though 
 a strong royalist, he could never strike out any good 
 fortune for the King's party the stars in their 
 courses fought against Charles Stuart. The angels 
 whom he interviewed by means of the crystal were 
 Raphael, Gabriel, and Ariel ; but his life was wanting 
 in the purity and holiness which ought to have been 
 conspicuous in a man who was favoured by communi- 
 cations from such high celestial sources. 
 
 A proof of his skill is related by Lilly on the 
 authority of Lilly's partner, John Scott. 
 
 Scott had some knowledge of surgery and physic ; 
 so had Will Hodges, who had at one time been a 
 schoolmaster. Having some business at Wolver- 
 hampton, Scott stayed for a few weeks with Hodges, 
 and assisted him in dressing wounds, letting blood, 
 and other chirurgical matters. When on the point 
 of returning to London, he asked Hodges to show 
 him the face and figure of the woman he should 
 marry. Hodges carried him into a "field near his 
 house, pulled out his crystal, bade Scott set his foot 
 against his, and, after a pause, desired him to look 
 into the crystal, and describe what he saw there. 
 
 ' I see,' saith Scott, ' a ruddy -complexioried wench, 
 in a red waistcoat, drawing a can of beer.' 
 
 1 She will be your wife/ cried Hodges. 
 
 t You are mistaken, sir,' rejoined Scott. 'So soon 
 as I come to London, I am engaged to marry a tall 
 gentlewoman in the Old Bailey.' 
 
 ' You will marry the red gentlewoman,' replied 
 Hodges, with an air of imperturbable assurance. 
 
 10 
 
146 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 On returning to London, Scott, to his great 
 astonishment, found that his tall gentlewoman had 
 jilted him, and taken to herself another husband. 
 Two years afterwards, in the course of a Kentish 
 journey, he refreshed himself at an inn in Canter- 
 bury ; fell in love with its ruddy-complexioned bar- 
 maid ; and, when he married her, remembered her 
 red waistcoat, her avocation, and Mr. Hodges ' his 
 crystal/ 
 
 An amusing story is told of this man Hodges. 
 
 A neighbour of his, who had lost his horse, re- 
 covered the animal by acting upon the astrologer's 
 advice. Some years afterwards he unluckily conceived 
 the idea of playing upon the wise man a practical joke, 
 and obtained the co-operation of one of his friends. 
 He had certainly recovered his horse, he said, in the 
 way Hodges had shown him, but it was purely a 
 chance, and would not happen again. ' So come, let 
 us play him a trick. I will leave some boy or other 
 at the town's end with my horse, and we will then 
 call on Hodges and put him to the test.' 
 
 This was done, and Hodges said it was true the 
 horse was lost, and would never be recovered. 
 
 ' I thought what fine skill you had/ laughed the 
 gentleman ; my horse is walking in a lane at the 
 town's end.' 
 
 Whereupon Hodges, with an oath, as was his evil 
 habit, asserted that the horse was gone, and that his 
 owner would never see him again. Ridiculing the 
 wise man without mercy, the gentleman departed, 
 and hastened to the town's end, and there, at the 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 147 
 
 appointed place, the boy lay stretched upon the 
 ground, fast asleep, with the bridle round his arm, 
 but the horse was gone ! 
 
 Back to Hodges hurried the chap-fallen squire, 
 ashamed of his incredulity, and eagerly seeking 
 assistance. But no ; the conjurer swore freely ' Be 
 gone be gone about your business ; go and look for 
 your horse.' He went and he looked, east and west, 
 and north and south, but his horse saw never more. 
 
 Let us next hear what Lilly has to tell us of 
 Dr. tapper, the parson of Great Lindford, in Buck- 
 inghamshire, the advowson of which parish belonged 
 to him. He sprang from a good old stock, according 
 to the witness of King James himself. For when his 
 brother, Eobert Napper, an opulent Turkey merchant, 
 was to be made a baronet in James's reign, some 
 dispute arose whether he could prove himself a gen- 
 tleman for three or more descents. 'By my soul,' 
 exclaimed the King, ' I will certify for tapper, that 
 he is of above three hundred years' standing in his 
 family ; all of them, by my soul, gentlemen !' The 
 parson was legitimately arid truly master of arts ; 
 his claim to the title of doctor, however, seems to 
 have been dubious. Miscarrying one day in the pulpit, 
 he never after ventured into it, but all his lifetime 
 kept in his house some excellent scholar to officiate 
 for him, allowing him a good salary. Lilly speaks 
 highly of his sanctity of life and knowledge of medi- 
 cine, and avers that he cured the falling sickness by 
 constellated rings, and other diseases by amulets. 
 
 102 
 
148 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 The parents of a maid who suffered severely from 
 the falling sickness applied to him, on one occasion, 
 for a cure. He fashioned for her a constellated ring, 
 upon wearing of which she completely recovered. 
 Her parents chanced to make known the cure to some 
 scrupulous divines, who immediately protested that 
 it was done by enchantment. ' Cast away the ring/ 
 they said ; ' it's diabolical ! God cannot bless you, if 
 you do not cast it away.' The ring was thrown into 
 a well, and the maid was again afflicted with her 
 epilepsy, enduring the old pain and misery for a 
 weary time. At last the parents caused the well to 
 be emptied, and regained the ring, which the maid 
 again made use of, and recovered from her fits. Thus 
 things went on for a year or two, until the Puritan 
 divines, hearing that she had resumed the ring, in- 
 sisted with her parents until they threw the ring away 
 altogether ; whereupon the fits returned with such 
 violence that they betook themselves to the doctor, told 
 their story, acknowledged their fault, and once more 
 besought his assistance. But he could not be per- 
 suaded to render it, observing that those who despised 
 God's mercies were not capable or not worthy of 
 enjoying them. 
 
 We do not dismiss this story as entirely apocryphal, 
 knowing that, in the cure or mitigation of nervous 
 diseases, the imagination exercises a wonderful in- 
 fluence. There are well-authenticated instances of 
 4 faith healing ' not a whit less extraordinary than 
 this case described by Lilly of the maiden and the 
 ring. It would be trivial, perhaps, to hint that a 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 149 
 
 good many maidens have been cured of some, at 
 least, of their ailments by a ring. 
 
 In 1646 Lilly printed a collection of prophecies, 
 with the explanation and verification of ' Aquila ; or, 
 The White King's Prophecy/ as also the nativities 
 of Archbishop Laud and the Earl of Strafford, and a 
 learned speech, which the latter intended to have 
 spoken on the scaffold. In the following year he 
 completed his ' Introduction unto Astrology/ or 
 ' Christian Astrology/ and was summoned, along 
 with John Booker, to the head-quarters of Fairfax, 
 at Windsor. They were conveyed thither in great 
 pomp and circumstance, with a coach and four 
 horses, welcomed in hearty fashion, and feasted in 
 a garden where General Fairfax lodged. In the 
 course of their interview with the general he said to 
 them : 
 
 * That God had blessed the army with many signal victories, 
 and yet their work was not finished. He hoped God would go 
 along with them until His work was done. They sought not 
 themselves, but the welfare and tranquillity of the good people 
 and whole nation ; and, for that end, were resolved to sacrifice 
 both their lives and their own fortunes. As for the art that Lilly 
 and Booker studied, he hoped it was lawful and agreeable to 
 God's Word : he himself understood it not, but doubted not they 
 both feared God, and therefore had a good opinion of them both.' 
 
 Lilly replied : 
 
 ' My lord, I am glad to see you here at this time. Certainly, 
 both the people of God, and all others of this nation, are very 
 sensible of God's mercy, love, and favour unto them, in directing 
 the Parliament to nominate and elect you General of their armies, 
 a person so religious, so valiant. 
 
150 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 ' The several unexpected victories obtained under your Excel- 
 lency's conduct will eternize the same unto all posterity. 
 
 'We are confident of God's going along with you and your 
 army until the great work, for which He ordained you both, is 
 fully perfected, which we hope will be the conquering and sub- 
 version of your and the Parliament's enemies ; and then a quiet 
 settlement and firm peace over all the nation unto God's glory, 
 and full satisfaction of tender consciences. 
 
 t Sir, as for ourselves, we trust in God ; and, as Christians, we 
 believe in Him. We do not study any art but what is lawful 
 and consonant to the Scriptures, Fathers, and antiquity, which 
 we humbly desire you to believe.' 
 
 They afterwards paid a visit to Hugh Peters, the 
 famous Puritan ecclesiastic, who had lodgings in the 
 Castle. They found him reading ' an idle pamphlet,' 
 which he had received from London that morning. 
 1 Lilly, thou art herein,' he exclaimed. 4 Are not you 
 there also ?' ' Yes, that I am,' he answered. 
 
 The stanza relating to Lilly ran as follows : 
 
 ' From th' oracles of the Sibyls so silly, 
 The curst predictions of William Lilly, 
 And Dr. Sibbald's Shoe-Lane Philly, 
 
 Good Lord, deliver me.' 
 
 After much conference with Hugh Peters, and 
 some private discourse betwixt the two c not to be 
 divulged/ they parted, and Master Lilly returned to 
 London. 
 
 In 1647 he published i The World's Catastrophe/ 
 1 The Prophecies of Ambrose Merlin ' (both or which 
 were translated by Elias Ashmole), and * Trithemius 
 of the Government of the World, by the Presiding 
 Angels ' all three tracts in one volume. 
 
 Notwithstanding his services to the Parliamentary 
 cause, Lilly secretly retained a strong attachment 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 151 
 
 towards Charles L, and he was consulted by Mrs. 
 Whorwood, a lady who enjoyed the royal confidence, 
 as to the best place for the concealment of the King, 
 when he escaped from Hampton Court. After the 
 usual sham of 'erecting a figure' had been gone 
 through, Lilly advised that a safe asylum might be 
 found in Essex, about twenty miles from London. 
 1 She liked my judgment very well/ he says, and 
 being herself of sharp j udgment, remembered a place 
 in Essex about that distance, where was an excellent 
 house, and all conveniences for his reception. But, 
 either guided by an irresistible destiny, or misled by 
 Ashburnham, whose good faith has been sometimes 
 doubted, he went away in the night-time westward, 
 and surrendered himself to Colonel Hammond, in the 
 Isle of Wight. 
 
 With another unfortunate episode in the King's 
 later career, Lilly was also connected. During the 
 King's confinement at Carisbrooke the Kentishmen, 
 in considerable numbers, rose in arms, and joined 
 with Lord Goring ; at the same time many of the 
 best ships revolted, and a movement on behalf of the 
 King was begun among the citizens of London. 
 1 His Majesty then laid his design to escape out of 
 prison by sawing the iron bar of his chamber 
 window ; a small ship was provided, and anchored 
 not far from the Castle, to bring him into Sussex ; 
 horses were provided ready to carry him through 
 Sussex into Kent, so that he might be at the head of 
 the army in Kent, and from thence to march imme- 
 diately to London, where thousands then would have 
 
152 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 armed for him.' Lilly was brought acquainted with 
 the plot, and employed a locksmith in Bow Lane to 
 make a saw for cutting asunder the iron bar, and 
 also procured a supply of aqua fortis. But, as every- 
 body knows, the King was unable to force his body 
 through the narrow casement, even after the removal 
 of the bar, and the plot failed. 
 
 When the Parliament sent Commissioners into the 
 Island to negotiate with Charles the terms of a con- 
 cordat, of whom Lord Saye was one, Lady Whorwood 
 again sought Lilly's assistance and advice. After 
 perusing his ' figure/ he told her the Commissioners 
 w T ould arrive in the Island on such a date ; elected a 
 day and hour when the King would receive the Com- 
 missioners and their propositions ; and as soon as 
 these were read, advised the King to sign them, and in 
 all haste to accompany the Commissioners to London. 
 The army being then far removed from the capital, 
 and the citizens stoutly enraged against the Parlia- 
 mentary leaders, Charles promised he would do so. 
 But, unfortunately, he allowed Lord Saye to dis- 
 suade him from signing the propositions, on the 
 assurance that he had a powerful party both in the 
 House of Lords and the House of Commons, who 
 would see that he obtained more favourable condi- 
 tions. Thus was lost almost his last chance of 
 retaining his crown, and baffling the designs of his 
 enemies. 
 
 Whilst the King, in his last days, was at Windsor 
 Castle, on one occasion, when he was taking the air 
 upon the leads, he looked through Captain Wharton's 
 
CHAP. V.J LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 153 
 
 'Almanack.' 'My book/ saith he, 'speaks well as 
 to the weather/ A Master William Allen, who was 
 standing by, inquired, 'What saith his antagonist, 
 Mr. Lilly ?' ' I do not care for Lilly,' remarked his 
 Majesty, 'he has always been against me/ infusing 
 some bitterness into his expressions. ' Sir/ observed 
 Allen, 'the man is an honest man, and writes but 
 what his art informs him/ ' I believe it/ said his 
 Majesty, ' and that Lilly understands astrology as 
 well as any man in Europe.' 
 
 In 1648 the Council of State acknowledged Lilly's 
 services with a grant of 50, and a pension of 100 
 a year, which, however, he received for two years 
 only. 
 
 In the following January, while the King lay at 
 St. James's House, Lilly began his observations, he 
 tells us, in the following oracular fashion : 
 
 ' I am serious, I beg and expect justice ; either fear 
 or shame begins to question offenders. 
 
 ' The lofty cedars begin to divine a thundering 
 hurricane is at hand ; God elevates man contempt- 
 ible. 
 
 4 Our demigods are sensible, we begin to dislike 
 their actions very much in London more in the 
 country. 
 
 ' Blessed be God, who encourages His servants, 
 makes them valiant, and of undaunted spirit to go on 
 with His decrees : upon a sudden, great expectations 
 arise, and men generally believe a quiet and calm 
 time draws nigh.' 
 
154 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 Our garrulous and egotistical conjurer, who seems 
 really to have believed that he exercised a considerable 
 influence upon the course of events, though his posi- 
 tion was no more important than that of the fly upon 
 the wheel, evidently wished to connect these com- 
 monplaces with the execution of Charles I. : 
 
 1 In Christmas holidays,' he writes, ' the Lord Gray 
 of Groby, and Hugh Peters, sent for me to Somerset- 
 House, with directions to bring them two of my 
 almanacks. I did so. Peters and he read January's 
 observations. " If we are not fools and knaves," 
 saith he, " we shall do justice." Then they whispered. 
 / understood not their meaning until his Majesty was 
 beheaded. They applied what I wrote of justice to 
 be understood of his Majesty, which was contrary to 
 my intention ; for Jupiter, the first day of January, 
 became direct; and Libra is a sign signifying justice. 
 I implored for justice generally upon such as had 
 cheated in their places, being treasurers and such-like 
 officers. I had not then heard the least intimation of 
 bringing the King unto trial, and yet the first day 
 thereof I was casually there, it being upon a Saturday. 
 For going to Westminster every Saturday in the 
 afternoon, in these times, at Whitehall I casually met 
 Peters. " Come, Lilly, wilt thou go hear the King 
 tried?" "When?" said I. "Now just now; go 
 with me." I did so, and was permitted by the guard 
 of soldiers to pass up to the King's Bench. Within 
 one quarter of an hour came the judges ; presently 
 his Majesty, who spoke excellently well, and majes- 
 tically, without impediment in the least when he 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 155 
 
 spoke. I saw the silver top of his staff unexpectedly 
 fall to the ground, which was took up by Mr. Rush- 
 worth ; and then I heard Bradshaw, the judge, say to 
 his Majesty : " Sir, instead of answering the Court, 
 you interrogate their power, which becomes not one 
 in your condition.'' These words pierced my heart 
 and soul, to hear a subject thus audaciously to re- 
 prehend his Sovereign, who ever and anon replied with 
 great magnanimity and prudence.' 
 
 Lilly tells us that during the siege of Colchester he 
 and his fellow-astrologer, Booker, were sent for, to 
 encourage the soldiers by their vaticinations, and in 
 this they succeeded, as they assured them the town 
 would soon be surrendered which was actually the 
 case. Our prophet, however, if he could have ob- 
 tained leave to enter the town, would have carried all 
 his sympathies, and all his knowledge of the condi- 
 tion of affairs in the Parliament's army, to Sir Charles 
 Lucas, the Royalist Governor. He had a narrow 
 escape with his life during his sojourn in the camp of 
 the besiegers. A couple of guns had been placed so 
 as to command St. Mary's Church, and had done 
 great injury to it. One afternoon he was standing in 
 the redoubt and talking with the cannoneer, when 
 the latter cried out for everybody to look to himself, 
 as he could see through his glass that there was a 
 piece in the Castle loaded and directed against his 
 work, and ready to be discharged. Lilly ran in hot 
 haste under an old ash-tree, and immediately the 
 cannon-shot came hissing over their heads. ' No 
 danger now/ said the gunner, ' but begone, for there 
 
156 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 are five more loading !' And so it was. Two 
 hours later those cannon were fired, and unluckily 
 killed the cannoneer who had given Lilly a timely 
 warning. 
 
 The practice of astrology must have been exceed- 
 ingly lucrative, for Lilly is known to have acquired a 
 considerable fortune. In 1651 he expended 1,030 in 
 the purchase of fee-farm rents, equal in value to 120 
 per annum. And in the following year he bought 
 his house at Hersham, with some lands and buildings, 
 for 950. In the same year he published his ' Annus 
 Tenebrosus/ a title which he chose not ' because of the 
 great obscurity of the solar eclipse/ but in allusion to 
 ' those underhand and clandestine counsels held in 
 England by the soldiery, of which he would never, 
 except in generals, give information to any Parliament 
 man/ Unfortunately, Lilly's knowledge was always 
 embodied ' in generals/ and the misty vagueness of 
 his vaticinations renders it impossible for the reader 
 to pin them down to any definite meaning. You 
 may apply them to all events or to none. Their 
 elastic indications of things good and evil may be 
 made to suit the events of the nineteenth century 
 almost as well as those of the seventeenth. 
 
 Many characters Mr. William Lilly must be owned 
 to have represented with great success. But that all- 
 essential one if we desire to secure the confidence of 
 our contemporaries, and the respect of posterity of 
 an honest man, I fear he was never able to personate 
 successfully. Of the craft and cunning he could at 
 times display he records a striking illustration 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 157 
 
 evidently with entire satisfaction to himself, and 
 apparently never suspecting that it might not be so 
 favourably regarded by others, and especially by 
 those plain, commonplace people who make no pre- 
 tensions to hermetic learning or occult knowledge, 
 but have certain unsophisticated ideas as to the laws 
 of morality and fair dealing. 
 
 In his 1651 ' Almanack ' he asserted that the Par- 
 liament stood upon tottering foundations, and that 
 the soldiery and commonalty would combine against 
 it a conclusion at which every intelligent onlooker 
 must by that time have arrived, without * erecting a 
 figure ' or consulting the starry heavens. 
 
 This previous attempt at forecasting the future ' lay 
 for a whole week,' says its author, ' in the Parliament 
 House, much criticised by the Presbyterians ; one 
 disliking this sentence, another that, and others dis- 
 liking the whole. In the end a motion was made 
 that it should be examined by a Committee of the 
 House, with instructions to report concerning its 
 errors. 
 
 ' A messenger attached me by a warrant from that 
 Committee. I had private notice ere the messenger 
 came, and hasted unto Mr. Speaker Lenthall, ever my 
 friend. He was exceeding glad to see me, told me 
 what was done, called for " Anglicus," marked the 
 passages which tormented the Presbyterians so highly. 
 I presently sent for Mr. Warren, the printer, an 
 assured cavalier, obliterated what was most offensive, 
 put in other more significant words, and desired only 
 to have six amended against next morning, which 
 
158 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 very honestly he brought me. I told him my design 
 was to deny the book found fault with, to own only 
 the six books. I told him I doubted he would be 
 examined. "Hang them!" said he; "they are all 
 rogues. I'll swear myself to the devil ere they shall 
 have an advantage against you, by my oath." 
 
 1 The day after, I appeared before the Committee. 
 At first they showed me the true " Anglicus," and 
 asked if I wrote and printed it.' 
 
 Lilly, after pretending to inspect it, denied all 
 knowledge of it, asserting that it must have been 
 written with a view to do him injury by some 
 malicious Presbyterian, at the same time producing 
 the six amended copies, to the great surprise and per- 
 plexity of the Committee. The majority, however, 
 were inclined to send him to prison, and some had 
 proposed Newgate, others the Gate House, when one 
 Brown, of Sussex, who had been influenced to favour 
 Lilly, remarked that neither to Newgate nor the Gate 
 House were the Parliament accustomed to send their 
 prisoners, and suggested that the most convenient 
 and legitimate course would be for the Sergeant-at- 
 Arms to take this Mr. Lilly into custody. 
 
 ' Mr. Strickland, who had for many years been the 
 Parliament's ambassador or agent in Holland, when 
 he saw how they inclined, spoke thus : 
 
 ' " I came purposely into the Committee this day 
 to see the man who is so famous in those parts where 
 I have so long continued. I assure you his name is 
 famous over all Europe. I come to do him justice. 
 A book is produced by us, and said to be his ; he 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 159 
 
 denies it ; we have not proved it, yet will commit 
 him. Truly this is great injustice. It is likely he 
 will write next year, and acquaint the whole world 
 with our injustice, and so well he may. It is my 
 opinion, first to prove the book to be his ere he be 
 committed." 
 
 i Another old friend of mine spoke thus : 
 i " You do not know the many services this man 
 hath done for the Parliament these many years, or 
 how many times, in our greatest distresses, on ap- 
 plying unto him, he hath refreshed our languishing 
 expectations ; he never failed us of comfort in our 
 most unhappy distresses. I assure you his writings 
 have kept up the spirits both of the soldiery, the 
 honest people of this nation, and many of us Parlia- 
 ment men ; and at last, for a slip of his pen (if it were 
 his), to be thus violent against him, I must tell you, 
 I fear the consequence urged out of the book will 
 prove effectually true. It is my counsel to admonish 
 him hereafter to be more wary, and for the present to 
 dismiss him." 
 
 1 Notwithstanding anything that was spoken on 
 my behalf, I was ordered to stand committed to the 
 Sergeant-at-Arms. The messenger attached my 
 person said I was his prisoner. As he was carrying 
 me away, he was called to bring me again. Oliver 
 Cromwell, Lieutenant-General of the army, having 
 never seen me, caused me to be produced again, when 
 he steadfastly beheld me for a good space, and then I 
 went with the messenger; but instantly a young 
 clerk of that Committee asks the messenger what he 
 
160 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 did with me. Where is the warrant? Until that is 
 signed you cannot seize Mr. Lilly, or shall [not]. 
 Will you have an action of false imprisonment against 
 you? So I escaped that night, but next day stayed 
 the warrant. That night Oliver Cromwell went to 
 
 Mr. R . rriy friend, and said : " What, never a man 
 
 to take Lilly's cause in hand but yourself ? None to 
 take his part but you? He shall not be long there." 
 Hugh Peters spoke much in my behalf to the Com- 
 mittee, but they were resolved to lodge me in the 
 Sergeant's custody. One Millington, a drunken 
 member, was much my enemy, and so was Cawley 
 and Chichester, a deformed fellow, unto whom I had 
 done several courtesies. 
 
 ' First thirteen days I was a prisoner, and though 
 every day of the Committee's sitting I had a petition 
 to deliver, yet so many churlish Presbyterians still 
 appeared I could not get it accepted. The last day 
 of the thirteen, Mr. Joseph Ash was made chairman, 
 unto whom my cause being related, he took my peti- 
 tion, and said I should be bailed in despite of them 
 all, but desired I would procure as many friends as I 
 could to be there. Sir Arthur Haselrig and Major 
 Galloway, a person of excellent parts, appeared for me, 
 and many more of my old friends came in. After two 
 whole hours' arguing of my cause by Sir Arthur and 
 Major Galloway, and other friends, the matter came 
 to this point : I should be bailed, and a Committee 
 nominated to examine the printer. The order of the 
 Committee being brought afterwards to him who 
 should be Chairman, he sent me word, do what I 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 161 
 
 would, he would see all the knaves hanged, or he 
 would examine the printer. This is the truth of the 
 story. ' 
 
 Lilly's biographer, however anxious he may be to 
 imitate biographers generally, and whitewash his 
 hero, feels that in this episode of his life the great 
 seer fell miserably below the heroic standard, and 
 was guilty of pusillanimous as well as unveracious 
 and dishonourable conduct. Yet Lilly is evidently 
 unaware of the unfavourable light in which he has 
 shown himself, and ambles along in an easy and 
 well- satisfied mood, as if to the sound of universal 
 applause. 
 
 On February 26, 1654, Lilly lost his second wife, 
 and I regret to say he seems to have borne the loss 
 with astonishing equanimity. On April 20 Crom- 
 well expelled from the House our astrologer's great 
 enemies, the Parliament men, and thereby won his 
 most cordial applause. He breaks out, indeed, into a 
 burst of devotional praise Gloria Patri as if for 
 some special and never-to-be-forgotten mercy. A 
 German physician, then resident in London, sent to 
 him the following epigram : 
 
 Strophe Alcaica: G-eneroso Domino Gulielmo Lillio Astrologo, de 
 dissoluto super Parliamento : 
 
 ' Quod calculasti Sydere prsevio, 
 Miles peregit numine conscio ; 
 Gentis videmus nunc Senatum 
 Marti togaque gravi leviatum.' 
 
 His widower's weeds, if he ever wore them, he 
 soon discarded, marrying his third wife in October, 
 
 11 
 
162 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 eight months after the decease of his second. This, 
 his latest partner and helpmate, was signified in his 
 nativity, he says, by Jupiter in Libra, which seems 
 to have been a great comfort to him, and perhaps to 
 his wife also. * Jupiter in Libra ' sounds as well, 
 indeed, as 'that blessed word, Mesopotamia.' 
 
 In reference to the restoration of Charles II., in 
 1660, Lilly unearths an old prophecy attributed to 
 Ambrose Merlin, and written, he says, 990 years 
 before. 
 
 ' He calls King James the Lion of Righteousness, 
 and saith, when he died, or was dead, there would 
 reign a noble White King ; this was Charles I. 
 The prophet discovers all his troubles, his flying 
 up and down, his imprisonment, his death, and 
 calls him Aquila. What concerns Charles II. is,' 
 says Lilly, ' the subject of our discourse ; in the Latin 
 copy it is thus : 
 
 ' Deinde ab Austro veniet cum Sole super ligneos equos, 
 et super spumantem inundationem maris, Pullus Aquilce 
 navigans in Britanniam. 
 
 ' Et applicans statim tune altam domum Aquilce 
 sitiens, et cito aliam sitiet. 
 
 ' Deinde Pullus Aquilce nidificabit in summa rupe 
 totius Britannice : necjuvenis occidet, nee adsenem vivet. 1 
 
 This, in an old copy, is Englished thus : 
 
 ( After then shall come through the south with 
 the sun, on horse of tree, and upon all waves of the 
 sea, the Chicken of the Eagle, sailing into Britain, 
 and arriving anon to the house of the Eagle, he shall 
 show fellowship to these beasts. 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 163 
 
 ' After, the Chicken of the Eagle shall nestle in the 
 highest rock of all Britain : nay, he shall nought be 
 slain young ; nay, he nought come old/ 
 
 Master William Lilly then supplies an explana- 
 tion, or, as he calls it, a verification, of these vener- 
 able predictions. We shall give it in his own 
 words : 
 
 i His Majesty being in the Low Countries when 
 the Lord -General had restored the secluded members, 
 the Parliament sent part of the royal navy to bring 
 him for England, which they did in May, 1660. 
 Holland is east from England, so he came with the 
 sun ; but he landed at Dover, a port in the south 
 part of England. Wooden horses are the English 
 ships. 
 
 ' Tune nidificabit in summo rupium. 
 
 ' The Lord- General, and most of the gentry in 
 England, met him in Kent, and brought him unto 
 London, then to White-hall. 
 
 ' Here, by the highest Rooch (some write Rock) 
 is intended London, being the metropolis of all 
 England. 
 
 4 Since which time, unto this very day, I write this 
 story, he hath reigned in England, and long may he 
 do hereafter.' (Written on December 20, 1667.) 
 
 Lilly quotes a prophecy, printed in 1588, in Greek 
 characters, which exactly deciphered, he says, the 
 long troubles the English nation endured from 1641 
 to 1660, but he omits to tell us where he saw it, or 
 who was its author. It ended in the following 
 mysterious fashion : 
 
 112 
 
164 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 ' And after that shall come a dreadful dead man, 
 and with him a royal G ' (it is gamma, F, in the 
 Greek, intending C in the Latin, being the third 
 letter in the alphabet), ' of the best blood in the 
 world, and he shall have the crown, and shall set 
 England in the right way, and put out all heresies.' 
 
 To a man who could read the secrets of the stars, 
 and divine the events of the future, there was, of 
 course, nothing mysterious or obscure in these lines, 
 and their meaning he had no difficulty in determin- 
 ing. Monkery having been extinguished above 
 eighty or ninety years, and the Lord-General's name 
 being Monk, what more clear than that he must be 
 the i dead man ' ? And as for the royal F, or C, who 
 came of the best blood of the world, it was evident 
 that he could be no other than Charles II. ? The 
 unlearned reader, who has neither the stars nor 
 the crystal to assist him, will, nevertheless, arrive at 
 the conclusion that if prophecies can be interpreted 
 in this liberal fashion, there is nothing to prevent 
 even him from assuming the role of an interpreter ! 
 
 But let it be noted that, according to our brilliant 
 magicians, * these two prophecies were not given 
 vocally by the angels, but by inspection of the crystal 
 in types and figures, or by apparition, the circular 
 way, where, at some distance, the angels appear, 
 representing by forms, shapes, and motions, what is 
 demanded. It is very rare, yea, even in our days, 
 for any operator or master to have the angels speak 
 articulately ; when they do speak, it is like the Irish, 
 much in the throat. 1 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 165 
 
 In June, 1660, Lilly was summoned before a 
 Committee of the House of Commons to answer to 
 an inquiry concerning the executioner employed to 
 behead Charles I. Here is his account of the 
 examination : 
 
 4 God's providence appeared very much for me that 
 day, for walking in Westminster Hall, Mr. Richard 
 Pennington, son to my old friend, Mr. William 
 Pennington, met me, and inquiring the cause of my 
 being there, said no more, but walked up and down 
 the Hall, and related my kindness to his father unto 
 very many Parliament men of Cheshire and Lancashire, 
 Yorkshire, Cumberland, and those northern counties, 
 who numerously came up into the Speaker's chamber, 
 and bade me be of good comfort ; at last he meets 
 Mr. Weston, one of the three [the two others were 
 Mr. Prinn and Colonel King] unto whom my matter 
 was referred for examination, who told Mr. Penning- 
 ton that he came purposely to punish me, and would 
 be bitter against me ; but hearing it related, namely, 
 my singular kindness and preservation of old Mr. 
 Pennington's estate, to the value of 6,000 or 
 7,000, "I will do him all the good I can," says he. 
 lt I thought he had never done any good ; let me see 
 him, and let him stand behind me where I sit." I 
 did so. At my first appearance, many of the young 
 members affronted me highly, and demanded several 
 scurrilous questions. Mr. Weston held a paper 
 before his mouth ; bade me answer nobody but Mr. 
 Prinn ; I obeyed his command, and saved myself 
 much trouble thereby ; and when Mr. Prinn put any 
 
166 WITCH, WAKLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 difficult or doubtful query unto me, Mr. Weston 
 prompted me with a fit answer. At last, after 
 almost one hour's tugging, I desired to be fully heard 
 what I could say as to the person who cut Charles I.'s 
 head off. Liberty being given me to speak, I related 
 what follows, viz. : 
 
 ' That the next Sunday but one after Charles I. 
 was beheaded, Robert Spavin, Secretary unto Lieu- 
 tenant-General Cromwell at that time, invited himself 
 to dine with me, and brought Anthony Peirson and 
 several others along with him to dinner: that their 
 principal discourse all dinner-time was only who it 
 was that beheaded the King. One said it was the 
 common hangman ; another, Hugh Peters ; others 
 also were nominated, but none concluded. Robert 
 Spavin, so soon as dinner was done, took me by the 
 hand, and carried me to the south window : saith he, 
 " These are all mistaken, they have not named the 
 man that did the fact: it was Lieu tenant- Colonel 
 Joyce. I was in the room when he fitted himself for 
 the work, stood behind him when he did it; when 
 done, went in again with him. There is no man 
 knows this but my master, namely, Cromwell, Com- 
 missary Ireton, and myself." " Doth not Mr. Rush- 
 worth know it?" said I. " No, he doth not know it," 
 saith Spavin. The same thing Spavin since had 
 often related unto me when we were alone. Mr. 
 Prinn did, with much civility, make a report hereof 
 in the House; yet Norfolk, the Serjeant, after my 
 discharge, kept me two days longer in arrest, pur- 
 posely to get money of me. He had six pounds, and 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 167 
 
 his messenger forty shillings ; and yet I was attached 
 but upon Sunday, examined on Tuesday, and then 
 discharged, though the covetous Serjeant detained me 
 until Thursday. By means of a friend, I cried quit- 
 tance with Norfolk, which friend was to pay him his 
 salary at that time, and abated Norfolk three pounds, 
 which he spent every penny at one dinner, without 
 inviting the wretched Serjeant ; but in the latter end 
 of the year, when the King's Judges were arraigned 
 at the Old Bailey, Norfolk warned me to attend, 
 believing I could give information concerning Hugh 
 Peters. At the Sessions I attended during its con- 
 tinuance, but was never called or examined. There 
 I heard Harrison, Scott, Clement, Peters, Harker, 
 Scroop, and others of the King's Judges, and Cook 
 the Solicitor, who excellently defended himself; I 
 say, I did hear what they could say for themselves, 
 and after heard the sentence of condemnation pro- 
 nounced against them by the incomparably modest 
 and learned Judge Bridgman, now Lord Keeper of 
 the Great Seal of England.' 
 
 In spite of Spavin's circumstantial statement, as 
 recorded by Lilly, it is now conclusively established 
 that the executioner of Charles I. was Richard 
 Brandon, the common executioner, who had previ- 
 ously beheaded the Earl of Strafford. It is said that 
 he was afterwards seized with poignant remorse for 
 the act, and died in great mental suffering. His 
 body was carried to the grave amid the execrations of 
 an excited and angry populace. 
 
 Though our astrologer, as we have seen, was at 
 
168 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 heart a Royalist, his services towards the Parlia- 
 mentary cause were sufficiently conspicuous to ex- 
 pose him after the Restoration to a good deal of 
 persecution ; and he found it advisable to sue out his 
 pardon under the Great Seal, which cost him, as he 
 takes care to tell us, 13 6s. 8d. 
 
 He claimed to have foreseen the Restoration, and 
 all the good things which flowed or were expected 
 to have flowed from that ' auspicious event.' In 
 page 111 of his ' Prophetical Merlin/ published in 
 1644, dwelling upon three sextile aspects of Saturn 
 and Jupiter made in 1659 and 1660, he says: ' This, 
 their friendly salutation, comforts us in England : 
 every man now possesses his own vineyard ; our 
 young youth grow up unto man's estate, and our old 
 men live their full years ; our nobles and gentlemen 
 rest again ; our yeomanry, many years disconsolated, 
 now take pleasure in their husbandry. The merchant 
 sends out ships, and hath prosperous returns ; the 
 mechanic hath quick trading ; here is almost a new 
 world ; new laws, new lords. Now any county of 
 England shall shed no more tears, but rejoice with 
 and in the many blessings God gives or affords her 
 annually/ 
 
 He also wrote, he says, to Sir Edward Walker, 
 Garter King-at-Arms in 1659, when, by the way, the 
 restoration of Charles II. was an event that loomed in 
 the near future, and was anticipated by every man of 
 ordinary political sagacity : ' Tu, Dominusque vester 
 videbitis Angliam, infra duos annis ' (You k and your 
 Lord shall see England within two years). ' For 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 169 
 
 in 1662,' adds the arch impostor, in his strange 
 astrological jargon, ' his moon came by direction to 
 the body of the sun.' 
 
 ' But he came in upon the ascendant directed unto the 
 trine of Sol- and antiscion of Jupiter.' 
 
 No doubt he did. Who would presume to contra- 
 dict our English Merlin ? 
 
 In 1663 and 1664 he served as churchwarden 
 surely the first and last astrologer who filled that re- 
 spectable office of Walton-upon-Thames, settling as 
 well as he could the affairs of that ' distracted parish ' 
 upon his own charges. 
 
 An absurdly frivolous accusation was brought 
 against him in the year 1666. He was once more sum- 
 moned before a Committee of the House of Commons, 
 because in his book, c Monarchy or No Monarchy,' 
 published in 1651, he had introduced sixteen plates, 
 of which the eighth represented persons digging 
 graves, with coffins and other emblems of mortality, 
 and the thirteenth a city in flames. Hence it was 
 inferred that he must have had something to do with 
 the Great Fire which had destroyed so large a part of 
 London, if riot with the Plague, which had almost 
 depopulated it. The chairman, Sir Robert Burke, 
 on his coming into the Committee's presence, ad- 
 dressed him thus : 
 
 ' Mr. Lilly, this Committee thought fit to summon 
 you to appear before them this day, to know if you 
 can say anything as to the cause of the late Fire, or 
 whether there might be any design therein. You 
 are called the rather hither, because in a book of 
 
170 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 yours, long since printed, you hinted some such 
 thing by one of your hieroglyphics.' 
 
 Whereto Mr. Lilly replied, with a firm assumption 
 of superior wisdom and oracular knowledge : 
 
 * May it please your Honours, After the behead- 
 ing of the late King, considering that in the three 
 subsequent years the Parliament acted nothing which 
 concerned the settlement of the nation in peace ; and 
 seeing the generality of people dissatisfied, the 
 citizens of London discontented, the soldiery prone 
 to mutiny, I was desirous, according to the best 
 knowledge God had given me, to make inquiry by 
 the art I studied, what might from that time happen 
 unto the Parliament and nation in general. At last, 
 having satisfied myself as well as I could, and per- 
 fected my judgment therein, I thought it most con- 
 venient to signify my intentions and conceptions 
 thereof in Forms, Shapes, Types, Hieroglyphics, etc., 
 without any commentary, that so my judgment might 
 be concealed from the vulgar, and made manifest only 
 unto the wise. I herein imitating the examples of 
 many wise philosophers who had done the like.' 
 
 ' Sir Robert,' saith one, ' Lilly is yet sub vestibulo.' 
 
 1 Having found, sir,' continued Lilly, ' that the 
 city of London should be sadly afflicted with a great 
 plague, and not long after with an exorbitant Fire, I 
 framed those two hieroglyphics as represented in the 
 book, which in effect have proved very true.' 
 
 4 Did you foresee the year ?' inquired a member of 
 the Committee. 
 
 ' I did not,' said Lilly, ' nor was desirous ; of that 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 171 
 
 I made no scrutiny. Now, sir,' he proceeded, 
 'whether there was any design of burning the 
 city, or any employed to that purpose, I must deal 
 ingenuously with you, that since the Fire, I have 
 taken much pains in the search thereof, but can- 
 not or could not give myself any the least satisfac- 
 tion therein. I conclude, that it was the only finger 
 of God; but what instruments he used thereunto, I 
 
 am ignorant. 
 
 In 1665 Lilly finally left London, and settling 
 down at Hersham, applied himself to the study of 
 medicine, in which he arrived at so competent a 
 degree of knowledge, assisted by diligent observation 
 and experiment, that, in October, 1670, on a testi- 
 monial from two physicians of the College in London, 
 he obtained from the Archbishop of Canterbury a 
 license to practise. In his new profession this clever, 
 plausible fellow was, of course, successful. Every 
 Saturday he rode to Kingston, whither the poorer 
 sort flocked to him from all the countryside, and he 
 dispensed his advice and prescriptions freely and 
 without charge. From those in a better social 
 position he now and then took a shilling, and some- 
 times half a crown, if it were offered to him ; but he 
 never demanded a fee. And, indeed, his charity 
 towards the poor seems to have been real and 
 unaffected. He displayed the greatest care in con- 
 sidering and weighing their particular cases, and in 
 applying proper remedies for their infirmities a line 
 of conduct which gained him deserved popularity. 
 
172 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. 
 
 Gifted with a robust constitution, he enjoyed good 
 health far on into old age. He seems to have had no 
 serious illness until he was past his seventy-second 
 birthday, and from this attack he recovered com- 
 pletely. In November, 1675, he was less fortunate, 
 a severe attack of fever reducing him to a condition 
 of great physical weakness, and so affecting his eye- 
 sight that thenceforward he was compelled to employ 
 the services of an amanuensis in drawing up his 
 annual astrological budget. After an attack of 
 dysentery, in the spring of 1681, he became totally 
 blind ; a few weeks later he was seized with paralysis ; 
 and on June 9 he passed away, ' without any show 
 of trouble or pangs.' 
 
 He was buried, on the following evening, in the 
 chancel of Walton Church, where Elias Ashmole, a 
 month later, placed a slab of fair black marble (' which 
 cost him six pounds four shillings and sixpence '), 
 with the following epitaph, in honour of his departed 
 friend : ' Ne Oblivione conteretur Urna GULIELMI 
 LILLII, Astrologi Peritissimi Qui Fatis cessit, Quinto 
 Idus Junii, Anno Christ! Juliano, MDCLXXXI, Hoc 
 ill! posuit amoris Monumentum ELIAS ASHMOLE, 
 Armiger/ There is a pagan flavour about the 
 phrases ' Qui Fatis cessit,' and ' Quinto Idus Junii/ and 
 they read oddly enough within the walls of a Chris- 
 tian church. 
 
 There are two sides to every shield. As regards 
 our astrologer, the last of the English magicians who 
 held a position of influence, let us first take the silver 
 side, as presented in the eulogistic verse of Master 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 173 
 
 George Smalridge, scholar at Westminster. Thus 
 it is that he describes his hero's capacity and 
 potentiality. ' Our prophet's gone,' he exclaims in 
 
 lugubrious tones 
 
 1 No longer may our ears 
 
 Be charmed with musick of th' harmonious spheres : 
 Let sun and moon withdraw, leave gloomy night 
 To show their Nuncio's fate, who gave more light 
 To th' erring world, than all the feeble rays 
 Of sun or moon ; taught us to know those days 
 Bright Titan makes ; followed the hasty sun 
 Through all his circuits ; knew the unconstant moon, 
 And more constant ebbings of the flood ; 
 And what is most uncertain, th' factious brood, 
 Flowing in civil broils : by the heavens could date 
 The flux and reflux of our dubious state. 
 He saw the eclipse of sun, and change of moon 
 He saw ; but seeing would not shun his own : 
 Eclipsed he was, that he might shine more bright, 
 And only changed to give a fuller light. 
 He having viewed the sky, and glorious train 
 Of gilded stars, scorned longer to remain 
 In earthly prisons : could he a village love 
 Whom the twelve houses waited for above V 
 
 The other side of the shield is turned towards us 
 by Butler, who, in his ' Hudibras,' paints Lilly with 
 all the dark enduring colours which a keen wit could 
 place at the disposal of political prejudice. When 
 Hudibras is unable to solve 'the problems of his 
 fate,' Ralpho, his squire, advises him to apply to the 
 famous thaumaturgist. He says : 
 
 ' Not far from hence doth dwell 
 
 A cunning man, hight Sidrophel, 
 
 That deals in Destiny's dark counsels, 
 
 And sage opinions of the Moon sells ; 
 
 To whom all people, far arid near, 
 
 On deep importances repair : 
 
174 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 When brass and pewter hap to stray, 
 And linen slinks out o' the way ; 
 When geese and pullen are seduced, 
 And sows of sucking pigs are choused ; 
 When cattle feel indisposition, 
 And need th' opinion of physician ; 
 When murrain reigns in hogs or sheep, 
 And chickens languish of the pip ; 
 When yeast and outward means do fail, 
 And have no pow'r to work on ale ; 
 When butter does refuse to come, 
 And love proves cross and humoursome ; 
 To him with questions, and with urine, 
 They for disco v'ry flock, or curing.' 
 
 After this humorous reductio ad absurdum of Tally's 
 pretensions as an astrologer, the satirist proceeds to 
 allude to his dealings with the Puritan party : 
 
 ' Do not our great Reformers use 
 This Sidrophel to forebode news ; 
 To write of victories next year, 
 And castles taken, yet i' th' air ? 
 Of battles fought at sea, and ships 
 Sunk, two years hence, the last eclipse V 
 
 The satirist then devotes himself to a minute 
 exposure of Lilly's pretensions : 
 
 ' He had been long t' wards mathematics, 
 Optics, philosophy, and statics ; 
 Magic, horoscopy, astrology, 
 And was old dog at physiology ; 
 But as a dog that turns the spit 
 Bestirs himself, and plies his feet 
 To climb the wheel, but all in vain, 
 His own weight brings him down again, 
 And still he's in the self-same place 
 Where at his setting out he was ; 
 So in the circle of the arts 
 Did he advance his nat'ral parts . . . 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIAN'S. 175 
 
 Whate'er he laboured to appear, 
 His understanding still was clear ; 
 Yet none a deeper knowledge boasted, 
 Since old Hodge Bacon and Bob Grosted.' 
 
 (Eobert Grostete, Bishop of Lincoln [temp. 
 Henry III.], whose learning procured him among 
 the ignorant the reputation of being a conjurer.) 
 
 ' He had read Dee's prefaces before 
 The Dev'l and Euclid o'er and o'er ; 
 And all th' intrigues 'twixt him and Kelly, 
 Lascus, and th' Emperor, would tell ye ; 
 But with the moon was more familiar 
 Than e'er was almanack well-wilier; 
 Her secrets understood so clear, 
 That some believed he had been there; 
 Knew when she was in fittest mood 
 For cutting corns or letting blood . . .' 
 
 Continuing his enumeration of the conjurer's 
 various and versatile achievements, the poet says 
 he can 
 
 ' Cure warts and corns with application 
 
 Of med'cines to th' imagination ; 
 
 Fright agues into dogs, and scare 
 
 With rhymes the toothache and catarrh ; 
 
 Chase evil spirits away by dint 
 
 Of sickle, horse-shoe, hollow flint ; 
 
 Spit fire out of a walnut-shell, 
 
 Which made the Roman slaves rebel ; 
 
 And fire a mine in China here 
 
 With sympathetic gunpowder. 
 
 He knew whats'ever's to be known, 
 
 But much more than he knew would own . . . 
 
 How many diffrent specieses 
 
 Of maggots breed in rotten cheese ; 
 
 And which are next of kin to those 
 
 Engendered in a chandler's nose ; 
 
 Or those not seen, but understood, 
 
 That live in vinegar and wood .' 
 
176 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 In the course of the long dialogue that takes place 
 between Hudibras and the astrologer, Butler con- 
 trives to introduce a clever and trenchant exposure 
 of the follies and absurdities, the impositions and 
 assumptions, of the art of magic. With reference to 
 the pretensions of astrologers, he observes that 
 
 * There's but the twinkling of a star 
 Between a man of peace and war, 
 A thief and justice, fool and knave, 
 A huffing officer and a slave, 
 A crafty lawyer and pick-pocket, 
 A great philosopher and a blockhead, 
 A formal preacher and a player, 
 A learn'd physician and man-slayer ; 
 As if men from the stars did suck 
 Old age, diseases, and ill-luck, 
 Wit, folly, honour, virtue, vice, 
 Trade, travel, women, claps, and dice ; 
 And draw, with the first air they breathe, 
 Battle and murder, sudden death. 
 Are not these fine commodities 
 To be imported from the skies, 
 And vended here among the rabble, 
 For staple goods and warrantable ? 
 Like money by the Druids borrowed 
 In th' other world to be restored.' 
 
 The character of Lilly is to some extent a problem, 
 and I confess it is not one of easy or direct solution. 
 As I have already hinted, it is always difficult to draw 
 the line between conscious and unconscious imposture 
 to determine when a man who has imposed upon 
 himself begins to impose upon others. But was 
 Lilly self-deceived ? Or was he openly and knowingly 
 a fraud and a cheat ? For myself I cannot answer 
 either question in the affirmative. I do not think he 
 
CHAP. V.] LAST OF THE ENGLISH MAGICIANS. 177 
 
 was entirely innocent of deception, but I also believe 
 that he was not wholly a rogue. I think he had a 
 lingering confidence in the reality of his horoscopes, 
 his figures, his stellar prophecies ; though at the 
 same time he did not scruple to trade on the credulity 
 of his contemporaries by assuming to himself a power 
 and a capacity which he did not possess, and knew 
 that he did not possess. Despite his vocation, he 
 seems to have lived decently, and in good repute. 
 The activity of his enemies failed to bring against him 
 any serious charges, and we know that he enjoyed 
 the support of men of light and leading, who would 
 have stood aloof from a common charlatan or a vulgar 
 knave. He was, it is certain, a very shrewd and 
 quick observer, with a keen eye for the signs of the 
 times, and a wide knowledge of human nature; and 
 his success in his peculiar craft was largely due to 
 this alertness of vision, this practical knowledge, and 
 to the ingenuity and readiness with which he made 
 use of all the resources at his command. 
 
 NOTE. DR. DEE'S MAGIC CRYSTAL. 
 
 Horace Walpole gives an amusing account of Kelly's famous 
 crystal, and of the useful part it played in a burglary committed 
 at his house in Arlington Street in the spring of 1771. At the 
 time, he was taking his ease at his Strawberry Hill villa, near Ted- 
 dington, when a courier brought him news of what had occurred. 
 Writing to his friend, Sir Horace Mann, March 22, he says : 
 
 ' I was a good quarter of an hour before I recollected that it 
 was very becoming to have philosophy enough not to care about 
 what one does care for ; if you don't care, there is no philosophy 
 in bearing it. I despatched my upper servant, breakfasted, fed 
 the bantams as usual, and made no more hurry to town than 
 Cincinnatus would if he had lost a basket of turnips. I left in 
 
 12 
 
178 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 my drawers 270 of bank bills and three hundred guineas, not 
 to mention all my gold and silver coins, some inestimable 
 miniatures, a little plate, and a good deal of furniture, under no 
 guard but that of two maidens. . . . 
 
 ' When I arrived, my surprise was by no means diminished. I 
 found in three different chambers three cabinets, a large chest, and 
 a glass case of china wide open, the locks not picked, but forced, 
 and the doors of them broken to pieces. You will wonder that 
 this should surprise me, when I had been prepared for it. Oh, 
 the miracle was that I did not find, nor to this time have found, 
 the least thing missing ! In the cabinet of modern medals there 
 were, and so there are still, a series of English coins, with down- 
 right John Trot guineas, half-guineas, shillings, sixpences, and 
 every kind of current money. Not a single piece was removed. 
 Just so in the Roman and Greek cabinet, though in the latter 
 were some drawers of papers, which they had tumbled and 
 scattered about the floor. A great exchequer desk, that belonged 
 to my father, was in the same room. Not being able to force the 
 lock, the philosophers (for thieves that steal nothing deserve the 
 title much more than Cincinnatus or I) had wrenched a great 
 flapper of brass with such violence as to break it into seven 
 pieces. The trunk contained a new set of chairs of French 
 tapestry, two screens, rolls of prints, and a suit of silver stuff 
 that I had made for the King's wedding. All was turned topsy- 
 turvy, and nothing stolen. The glass case and cabinet of shells 
 had been handled as roughly by these impotent gallants. Another 
 little table with drawers, in which, by the way, the key was left, 
 had been opened too, and a metal standish, that they ought to 
 have taken for silver, and a silver hand-candlestick that stood 
 upon it, were untouched. Some plate in the pantry, and all 
 my linen just come from the wash, had no more charms for them 
 than gold or silver. In short, I could not help laughing, especially 
 . as the only two movables neglected were another little table with 
 drawers and the money, and a writing-box with the bank-notes, 
 both in the same room where they made the first havoc. In 
 short, they had broken out a panel in the door of the area, and 
 unbarred and unbolted it, and gone out at the street-door, which 
 they left wide open at five o'clock in the morning. A passenger 
 had found it so, and alarmed the maids, one of whom ran naked 
 into the street, and by her cries waked my Lord Romney, who 
 lives opposite. The poor creature was in fits for two days, but at 
 
CHAP. V. 
 
 NOTE. 179 
 
 first, finding my coachmaker's apprentice in the street, had sent 
 him to Mr. Con way, who immediately despatched him to me 
 before he knew how little damage I had received, the whole 
 of which consists in repairing the doors and locks of my cabinets 
 and coffers. 
 
 ' All London is reasoning on this marvellous adventure, and not 
 one argument presents itself that some other does not contradict. 
 I insist that I have a talisman. You must know that last winter, 
 being asked by Lord Ye re to assist in settling Lady Betty 
 Germaine's auction, I found in an old catalogue of her collection 
 this article, " The Black Stone into which Dr. Dee used to call his 
 spirits" Dr. Dee, you must know, was a great conjurer in the 
 days of Queen Elizabeth, and has written a folio of the dialogues 
 he held with his imps. I asked eagerly for this stone; Lord Yere 
 said he knew of no such thing, but if found, it should certainly 
 be at my service. Alas, the stone was gone ! This winter I was 
 again employed by Lord Frederick Campbell, for I am an absolute 
 auctioneer, to do him the same service about his father's (the 
 Duke of Argyll's) collection. Among other odd things, he 
 produced a round piece of shining black marble in a leathern 
 case as big as the crown of a hat, and asked me what that possibly 
 could be 1 I screamed out, " Oh, Lord ! I am the only man in 
 England that can tell you ! . . . It is Dr. Dee's 'Black Stone.' " 
 It certainly is; Lady Betty had formerly given away or sold, 
 time out of mind, for she was a thousand years old, that part of 
 the Peterborough collection which contained natural philosophy. 
 So, or since, the Black Stone had wandered into an auction, for 
 the lotted paper was still on it. The Duke of Argyll, who 
 bought everything, bought it. Lord Frederick [Campbell] gave 
 it to me ; and if it was not this magical stone, which is only of 
 high-polished coal, that preserved my chattels, in truth I cannot 
 guess what did.'* 
 
 At the great Strawberry Hill sale, in 1842, which dispersed the 
 Walpole Collection, it was described in the catalogue as 'a singularly 
 interesting and curious relic of the superstition of our ancestors 
 the celebrated Speculum of Kennel Coal, highly polished, in a 
 leathern case. It is remarkable for having been used to deceive 
 the mob (!) by the celebrated Dr. Dee, the conjurer, in the reign 
 of Queen Elizabeth,' etc. 
 
 * Horace Walpole (Earl of Orford), 'Letters,' v. 290, et seq. 
 
 122 
 
180 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 The authorities of the British Museum purchased this ' relic of 
 the superstition of our ancestors ' for the sum of twelve guineas. 
 It is neither more nor less than what it has been described, a 
 polished piece of cannel-eoal, and thus explains the allusion in 
 Butler's ' Hudibras ' : 
 
 ' Kelly did all his feats upon 
 The devil's looking-glass a stone.' 
 
CHAP. VI.] ENGLISH EOSICRUCIANS. 181 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ENGLISH ROSICRUCIANS. 
 
 IT is not very easy to trace the origin of the Rosicru- 
 cian Brotherhood. It is not easy, indeed, to get at 
 the true derivation of the name ' Rosicrucian.' Some 
 authorities refer it to that of the ostensible founder of 
 the society, the mysterious Christian Rosenkreuse, but 
 who can prove that such an individual ever existed ? 
 Others borrow it from the Latin word ros, dew, and 
 crux, a cross, and explain it thus : l Dew/ of all 
 natural bodies, was esteemed the most powerful 
 solvent of gold ; and * the cross/ in the old chemical 
 language, signified light, because the figure of a cross 
 exhibits at the same time the three letters which form 
 the word lux. 4 Now, lux is called the seed, or 
 menstruum, of the red dragon; or, in other words, 
 that gross and corporeal light, which, when properly 
 digested and modified, produces gold/ So that, 
 according to this derivation, a Rosicrucian is one who 
 by the intervention and assistance of the ' dew ' seeks 
 for ' light ' that is, the philosopher's stone. But such 
 an etymology is evidently too fanciful, and assumes 
 too much to be readily accepted, and we try a third 
 
182 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 derivation, namely, from rosa and crux ; in support 
 of which may be adduced the oldest official docu- 
 ments of the brotherhood, which style it the c Broe- 
 derschafft des Eoosen Creutzes,' or Rose- Crucians, or 
 1 Fratres Rosatae Crucis ;' while the symbol of the 
 order is ' a red rose on a cross.' Both the rose and 
 the cross possess a copious emblematic history, and 
 their choice by a secret society, which clothed its 
 beliefs and fancies in allegorical language, is by no 
 means difficult to understand. ' The rose,' says 
 Eliphas Levi, in his f Histoire de la Magie,' c which 
 from time immemorial has been the symbol of beauty 
 and life, of love and pleasure, expressed in a mystical 
 manner all the protestations of the Renaissance. It 
 was the flesh revolting against the oppression of the 
 spirit; it was Nature declaring herself to be, like 
 Grace, the daughter of God ; it was Love refusing to 
 be stifled by celibacy ; it was Life desiring to be no 
 longer barren ; it was Humanity aspiring to a natural 
 religion, full of love and reason, founded on the reve- 
 lation of the harmonies of existence of which the rose 
 was for initiates the living and blooming symbol. . . . 
 The reunion of the rose and the cross- such was the 
 problem proposed by supreme initiation, and, in effect, 
 occult philosophy, being the universal synthesis, 
 should take into account all the phenomena of Being. 
 It may be doubted, however, whether this ingenious 
 symbolism has anything at all to do with Rosicru- 
 cianism ; but it is not the less a fact that the rose 
 and the cross were chosen because they were recog- 
 nised emblems. And probably because the rose typi- 
 
CHAP. VI.] ENGLISH IIOSICRUCIANS. 183 
 
 fied secrecy, while the cross was a protest against the 
 tyranny and superstition of the Papacy. 
 
 We hear nothing of Rosicrucianism until the 
 beginning of the seventeenth century. The earlier 
 alchemists knew nothing of its theosophic doctrines ; 
 and the earlier Rosicrucians did not dabble in alchemy. 
 The connection between the two was established at a 
 later date ; when the quest of the ' elixir of life ' and the 
 ' philosopher's stone ' was grafted upon the mysticism 
 which had taken up the ancient teaching of the 
 Alexandrian Platonists, combining with it much of 
 the allegorical jargon of Paracelsus, and something 
 of the theology of Luther and the German Reformers. 
 The antiquity claimed for the brotherhood in the 
 ' Fama Fraternitatis ' is purely a myth. For my 
 own part, I must regard as its virtual founder 
 though he may not have been its actual initiator 
 the celebrated Johann Valentine Andreas, who with 
 wide and profound learning united a lively imagina- 
 tion, and was, moreover, a man of pure and lofty 
 purpose. The regeneration of humanity, the extirpa- 
 tion of the vices and follies which had sprung up in 
 the dark shadow of the mediaeval Church, was the 
 dream of his life ; and it is beyond doubt that he 
 hoped to realize it by secret societies bound together 
 for the purpose of reforming the morals of the age 
 and inspiring men with a love of wisdom. This is 
 proved by three of his acknowledged works, namely, 
 ' Reipublicae Christianapolitana3 Descriptio,' 4 Turris 
 Babel, sive Judiciorum de Fraternitate Rosaceae 
 Crucis Chaos/ and 'Christiana Societatis Idea'; and 
 
184 WITCH, WAKLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 I venture to think, though Mr. Waite will not have 
 it so, that the author of these works was also the 
 author of the 'Fama,' as well as of the c Confessio 
 Fraternitatis ' and the l Nuptee Chymicae/ in which he 
 gathered up all the floating dreams and traditions 
 bearing on his subject, and gave to them a certain 
 form and order, infusing into them a fascinating 
 
 ' O O 
 
 poetical colouring, and inspiring them with his own 
 idealistic speculations. 
 
 4 Akin to the school of the ancient Fire-Believers,' 
 says Ennemoser, ' and of the magnetists of a later 
 period, of the same cast as those speculators and 
 searchers into the mysteries of Nature, drawing from 
 the same well, are the theosophists of the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries. These practised chemistry, 
 by which they asserted they could explore the pro- 
 foundest secrets of Nature. As they strove, above all 
 earthly knowledge, after the Divine, and sought the 
 Divine light and fire, through which all men can 
 acquire the true wisdom, they were called the Fire- 
 Philosophers (philosophi per ignem).' They were 
 identical with the Rosicrucians, and in the books of 
 the later Rosicrucians we meet with the same mys- 
 ticism and transcendental philosophy as in theirs. 
 
 Whether we agree in accepting Andreas as the 
 founder of the order, or as simply its hierophant, we 
 must admit that the rise of Rosicrucianism dates from 
 the publication of the ' Fama ' and the ' Confessio 
 Fraternitatis.' They produced an immense sensation, 
 passed through several editions, and were devoured 
 by multitudes of eager readers. ' In the library at 
 
CHAP. VI.] ENGLISH ROSICRUCIANS. 185 
 
 Gottingen,' says De Quincey (adapting from Professor 
 Buhle), 'there is a body of letters addressed to the 
 imaginary order of Father Rosy Cross, from 1614 to 
 1617, by persons offering themselves as members. 
 . . . As certificates of their qualifications, most of 
 the candidates have enclosed specimens of their skill 
 in alchemy and cabalism. . . . Many other literary 
 persons there were at that day who forbore to write 
 letters to the society, but threw out small pamphlets 
 containing their opinions of the order, and of its place 
 of residence.' 
 
 It is not my business, however, to write a history 
 of Eosicrucianism. I have desired simply to say so 
 much about its origin as will serve as a preface to 
 my account of the principal English members of the 
 brotherhood. The reader who would know more 
 about its origin and extension, its pretensions and 
 professors, may consult Hecket horn's ' Secret Socie- 
 ties of all Ages and Countries,' Ennemoser's ' History 
 of Magic/ Thomas de Quincey's essay on ' Rosicrucians 
 and Freemasons/ and Arthur Edward Waite's ' Real 
 History of the Rosicrucians.' * 
 
 The greatest English Rosicrucian, and most dis- 
 tinguished of the disciples of Paracelsus, was Robert 
 Fludd (or Flood, or De Fluctibus), a man of singular 
 erudition, of great though misdirected capacity, and 
 of a vivid and fertile imagination. 
 
 The second son of Sir Thomas Flood, Treasurer 
 of War to Queen Elizabeth, he was born at Milgate 
 
 * See also Louis Figuier's ' L'Alchimie et les Alchimistes,' a 
 popular and agreeable survey ; and the more erudite work of Pro- 
 fessor Buhle. 
 
] 86 WITCH, WAKLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 House, in the parish of Bersted, Kent, in the year 
 1574. At the age of seventeen he was entered of 
 St. John's College, Oxford. His father had originally 
 intended him for a military life, but finding that his 
 inclinations led him into the peaceful paths of scholar- 
 ship, he forbore to oppose them, and the youth entered 
 upon a particular study of medicine, which drew him, 
 no doubt, into a pursuit of alchemy and chemistry. 
 Having graduated both in the arts and sciences, he 
 went abroad, and for six years travelled over France, 
 Germany, Italy, and Spain, making the acquaintance 
 of the principal Continental scholars, as well as of the 
 enthusiasts who belonged to the theosophic school of 
 the divine Paracelsus, and the adepts who dabbled in 
 the secrets of the Cabala. Keturning to England in 
 1605, he became a member of the College of Physicians, 
 and settled down to practise in Coleman Street, London, 
 where, about 1616, he was visited by the celebrated 
 German alchemist, Michael Maier. 
 
 His active imagination stimulated by his know- 
 ledge of the Rosicrucian doctrines, he resolved on 
 revealing to his countrymen the true light of science 
 and wisdom. He had already, as a believer in the 
 theory of magnetism, introduced into England the 
 celebrated ' weapon salve ' of Paracelsus, which healed 
 the severest wound by sympathy not being applied 
 to the wound itself, but to the weapon or instrument 
 that had caused it. The recipe, as formulated by 
 Paracelsus, would hardly be approved by modern 
 practitioners : ' Take of moss growing on the head of 
 a thief who has been hanged and left in the air, of 
 
CHAP. VI.] ENGLISH ROSICRUCIANS. 187 
 
 real mummy, of human blood still warm, one ounce 
 each ; of human suet, two ounces ; of linseed-oil, tur- 
 pentine, and Armenian bole, of each two drachms. 
 Mix together thoroughly in a mortar, and keep the 
 salve in a narrow oblong urn/ This, or, I presume, 
 some similar compound, Fludd tried with success in 
 several cases, and no wonder ; for while the sword 
 was anointed and put away, the wound was well 
 washed and carefully bandaged a process which has 
 been known to succeed in our own day without the 
 intervention of any salve whatever ! Fludd contended 
 that every disease might be cured by the magnet if it 
 were properly applied ; but that as every man had, 
 like the earth, a north pole and a south, magnetism 
 could be produced only when his body occupied a 
 boreal position. The salve, at all events, grew into 
 instant favour. Among other believers in its virtues 
 was Sir Kenelm Digby, who, however, converted the 
 salve into a powder, which he named 4 the powder of 
 sympathy.' But it had its incredulous opponents, of 
 whom the most strenuous was a certain Pastor Foster, 
 who published an invective entitled ' Hyplocrisma 
 Spongus ; or, A Sponge to Wipe Away the Weapon 
 Salve/ and affirmed that it was as bad as witchcraft 
 to use or recommend such an unguent, that its in- 
 ventor, the devil, would at the Last Day claim 
 every person who had meddled with it. ' The devil,' 
 he said, 'gave it to Paracelsus, Paracelsus to the 
 Emperor, the Emperor to a courtier, the courtier to 
 Baptista Porta, and Baptista Porta to Doctor Fludd, 
 a doctor of physic, yet living and practising in the 
 
188 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 famous city of London, who now stands tooth and 
 nail for it.' Tooth and nail Dr. Fludd met his ad- 
 versary, and the public were infinitely amused by the 
 vehemence of his style in his pamphlet, ' The Spung- 
 ing of Parson Foster's Spunge ; wherein the Spunge- 
 carrier's immodest Carriage and Behaviour towards 
 his Brethren is detected ; the bitter Flames of his 
 Slanderous Reports are, by the sharp Vinegar of 
 Truth, corrected and quite extinguished ; and, lastly, 
 the Virtuous Validity of his Spunge in wiping away 
 the Weapon Salve, is crushed out and clean abolished.' 
 In all the dreams of the mediaeval philosophy in 
 the philosopher's stone and the stone philosophic, in 
 the universal alkahest, in the magical ' elixir vitae ' 
 Dr. Fludd was a serious believer. It was a favourite 
 hypothesis of his that all things depended on two 
 principles condensation, or the boreal principle, and 
 rarefaction, the southern or austral. The human 
 body, he averred, was governed by a number of 
 demons, whom he distributed over a rhomboidal 
 figure. Further, he taught that every disease had 
 its own particular demon, the evil influence of which 
 could be neutralized only by the assistance of the 
 demon placed opposite to it in the rhomboid. The 
 doctrines of the Rosicrucian brotherhood he defended 
 with a charming enthusiasm, and when they had 
 been attacked by Libavius and others, he set them 
 forth in what he conceived to be their true light in his 
 ' Apologia Compendiaria Fraternitatem de Rosea- 
 Cruce suspicionis et infamise Maculis Aspersam,' etc. 
 (published at Leyden in 1616) a work which entitles 
 
CHAP. VI.] ENGLISH ROSICRUCIANS. 189 
 
 him to be regarded as the high-priest of their mysteries. 
 It was severely criticised, however, by contemporary 
 men of science, as by Kepler, Gassendus (in his 
 ' Epistolica Exercitatio '), and Mersenne, whose search- 
 ing analysis of the pretensions of the fraternity pro- 
 voked from Fludd an elaborate reply, entitled * Sum- 
 mum Bonum, quod est Magiee, Cabalae, Alchemiae, 
 Fratrum Roseae-Crucis verorum, et adversus Mer- 
 senium Calumniatorem.'* 
 
 In addition to the foregoing works, Fludd gave to 
 :he world : 
 
 1. ' Utriusque Cosmi, Majoris et Minoris, Technica 
 Historia,' 2 vols., folio, Oppenheim, 1616; 2. ' Trac- 
 tatus Apologeticus Integritatem Societatis de Rosea- 
 Oruce Defendens,' Ley den, 1617 ; 3. ' Monochordon 
 Mundi Symphoniacum, seu Replicatio ad Apologiam 
 Johannis Kepleri,' Frankfort, 1620; 4. 'Anatomise 
 Amphitheatrum effigie triplici Designatum,' Frank- 
 fort, 1623; 5. i Philosophia Sacra et vere Christiana, 
 seu Meteorologica Cosmica,' Frankfort, 1626; 6. 
 * Medicina Catholica, seu Mysterium Artis Medicandi 
 Sacrarium/ Frankfort, 1631 ; 7. 'Integrum Morborum 
 Mysterium/ Frankfort, 1631 ; 8. c Clavis Philosophise 
 et Alchymiaj,' Frankfort, 1633; 9. 'Philosophia 
 Mosaica/ Goudac, 1638 ; and 10. ' Pathologia Dsemo- 
 niaca,' Goudac, 1640. 
 
 The last two treatises were posthumous publications. 
 
 * This is sometimes ascribed to Joachim Fritz, but no one can 
 doubt that virtually it is Fludd's, who accompanied it with a 
 defence of his general philosophical teaching, entitled 'Sophise 
 cum Moria Certamen.' But whose was * the Wisdom,' and whose 
 4 the Folly ' 1 
 
190 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 Fludd died in London in 1637, and was buried in 
 Bersted Church, where an imposing monument per- 
 petuates his memory. It represents him seated, with 
 his hand on a book, from the perusal of which his 
 head has just been lifted. Just below are two volumes 
 (there were eight originally) in marble, inscribed 
 respectively, ' Mysterium Cabalisticum ' and ' Philo- 
 sophia Sacra.' The epitaph runs as follows : l viii. 
 Die Mensis vii. A D ni , M.D.C.XXXVII. Odoribvs vana 
 vaporat crypta tegit cineres nee speciosa tros qvod 
 mortale minvs tibi. Te committimvs vnvm ingenii 
 vivent hie monvmenti tvi nam tibi qvi similis scribit 
 moritvrqve sepvlchrvm pro tota eternvm posteritate 
 facit. Hoc monvmentvm Thomas Flood Gore Courti 
 in-coram apud Cantianos armiger infoelicissimum in 
 charissimi patrvi svi memoriam erexit die Mensis 
 Avgvsti, M. B.C. xxx vn.' 
 
 I shall not weary the reader w T ith an analysis of 
 any of Fludd' s elaborately mystical productions. 
 They are as dead as anything can be, and no power 
 that I know of could breathe into them the breath of 
 life. But I may quote a few specimen or sample 
 sentences, so to speak, which will afford an idea of 
 their style and tone : 
 
 1 Particulars are frequently fallible, but universal 
 never. Occult philosophy lays bare Nature in her 
 complete nakedness, and alone contemplates the wis- 
 dom of universals by the eyes of intelligence. Accus- 
 tomed to partake of the rivers which flow from the 
 Fountain of Life, it is unacquainted with grossness 
 and with clouded waters/ 
 
CHAP. VI.] ENGLISH KUSICKUCIANS. 191 
 
 In reference to Music, which he says stands in the 
 same relation to arithmetic as medicine to natural 
 philosophy, he revives the Pythagorean idea of the 
 harmony of the universe : ' What is this music (of 
 men) compared with that deep and true music of the 
 wise, whereby the proportions of natural things are 
 investigated, the harmonical concord and the qualities 
 of the whole world are revealed, by which also con- 
 nected things are bound together, peace established 
 between conflicting elements, and whereby each star 
 is perpetually suspended in its appointed place by its 
 weight and strength, and by the harmony of its 
 herent spirit.' 
 
 Light. * Nothing in this world can be accom- 
 plished without the mediation or divine act of light.' 
 
 Magic. ' That most occult and secret department 
 of physics, by which the mystical properties of 
 natural substances are extracted, we term Natural 
 Magic. The wise kings who (led by the new star 
 from the east) sought the infant Christ, are called 
 Magi, because they had attained a perfect knowledge 
 of natural things, whether celestial or sublunar. This 
 branch of the Magi also includes Solomon, since he 
 was versed in the arcane virtues and properties of 
 all substances, and is said to have understood the 
 nature of every plant, from the cedar to the hyssop. 
 Magicians who are proficient in the mathematical 
 division construct marvellous machines by means of 
 their geometrical knowledge ; such were the flying 
 dove of Archytas, and the brazen heads of Roger 
 Bacon and Albertus Magnus, which are said to have 
 
192 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 spoken. Venefic magic is familiar with potions, 
 philtres, and with the various preparations of poisons; 
 it is, in a measure, included in the natural division, 
 because a knowledge of the properties of natural 
 things is requisite to produce its results. Necromantic 
 magic is divided into Goetic, maleficent, and theurgic. 
 The first consists in diabolical commerce with un- 
 clean spirits, in rites of criminal curiosity, in illicit 
 songs and invocations, and in the invocation of the 
 souls of the dead. The second is the adjuration of 
 the devils by the virtue of Divine names. The third 
 pretends to be governed by good angels and the 
 Divine will, but its wonders are most frequently 
 performed by evil spirits, who assume the names of 
 God and of the angels. This department of necro- 
 mancy can, however, be performed by natural powers, 
 definite rites and ceremonies, whereby celestial and 
 Divine virtues are reconciled and drawn to us ; the 
 ancient Magi formulated in their secret books many 
 rules of this doctrine. The last species of magic is 
 the thaumaturgic, begetting illusory phenomena ; by 
 this art the Magi produced their phantasms and other 
 marvels/ 
 
 The Creation. c According to Fludd's philosophy/ 
 says Mr. Waite, ' the whole universe was fashioned 
 after the pattern of an archetypal world which existed 
 in the Divine ideality, and was framed out of unity 
 in a threefold manner. The Eternal Monad or Unity, 
 without any regression from His own central pro- 
 fundity, compasses complicity the three cosmical 
 dimensions, namely, root, square, and cube. If we 
 

 CHAP. VI.] ENGLISH KOSICRUCIANS. 193 
 
 multiply unity as a root, in itself, it will produce 
 only unity for its square, which being again multi- 
 plied in itself, brings forth a cube, which is one with 
 root and square. Thus we have three branches 
 differing in formal progression, yet one unity in 
 which all things remain potentially, and that after a 
 most abstruse manner. The archetypal world was 
 made by the egression of one out of one, and by the 
 regression of that one, so emitted into itself b} r 
 emanation. According to this ideal image, or 
 archetypal world, our universe was subsequently 
 fashioned as a true type and exemplar of the Divine 
 Pattern ; for out of unity in His abstract existence, 
 viz., as it was hidden in the dark chaos, or potential 
 mass, the bright flame of all formal being did shine 
 forth, and the spirit of wisdom, proceeding from 
 them both, conjoined the formal emanation with the 
 potential matter, so that by the union of the divine 
 emanation of light, and the substantial darkness, 
 which was water, the heavens were made of old, and 
 the whole world.'* 
 
 THOMAS VAUGHAN. 
 
 Another English Rosicrucian to whom allusion 
 must briefly be made is Thomas Yaughan, who in 
 his writings assumes the more classical appellation of 
 Eugenius Philalethes ('truth-lover'), and in his 
 travels was known as Carnobius in Holland, and 
 Doctor Zheil in America. He was born about 
 1612 ; .was educated at Oxford ; wandered afterwards 
 * Waite, ' History of the Rosicrucian s,' p. 385. 
 
 18 
 
194 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 through many countries ; embraced the delusions of 
 alchemy and the Kosy Cross ; accreted round his per- 
 sonality a number of wild and extravagant stories; and 
 finally disappeared into such complete oblivion that 
 the time and place of his death are alike unknown. 
 
 The writings attributed to him are : 1. i Anthro- 
 posophia Magica ; or, A Discourse of the Nature of 
 Man and his State after Death ; ' and ' Anima 
 Magica Abscondita ; or, A Discourse of the Univer- 
 sal! Spirit of Nature/ London, 1650. 2. ' Magia 
 Adamica ; or, The Antiquities of Magic,' same place 
 and date. 3. ' The Man-Mouse taken in a Trap ;* 
 a reply to Henry More, who had criticised his 
 4 Anthroposophia Magica.' 4. ' Lumen de Lumine ; 
 or, A New Magicall Light discovered and communi- 
 cated to the World/ London, 1651. 5. ' The Second 
 Wash ; or, The Moor Scoured Once More, being a 
 charitable Cure for the Distractions of Abazonomastix ' 
 [Henry More], London, 1651. 6. 'The Fame and 
 Confession of the Fraternity of R. C., with a Preface 
 annexed thereto, and a short declaration of their 
 physicall work/ London, 1652. 7. 'Euphrates; or, 
 The Waters of the East, being a Short Discourse of 
 that Great Fountain whose water flows from Fire, 
 and carries in it the beams of the Sun and Moon/ 
 London, 1656. 8. ' A Brief Natural History/ Lon- 
 don, 1669. And 9. ' Introitus Apertus ad Occlu- 
 surn Regis Palatium. Philalethse Tractatus Tres : 
 i. Metallorum Metamorphosis ; ii. Brevis Manductio 
 ad Rubrium Coelestem ; iii. Fons Chymicae Yeritatis/ 
 London, 1678. 
 
CHAP. VI.] THOMAS VAUGHAN. 195 
 
 Yaughan seems to have led a wandering life, and 
 to have fallen ' often into great perplexities and 
 dangers from the mere suspicion that he possessed 
 extraordinary secrets.' The suspicion, I should say, 
 was abundantly justified, since he made gold at will, 
 and knew the composition of the wonderful elixir ! 
 On one occasion, he tells us, he went to a goldsmith, 
 desiring to sell him twelve hundred marks' worth of 
 gold ; but the goldsmith at first sight pronounced 
 that it had never come out of any mine, but was the 
 production of art, seeing that it was not of the 
 standard of any known kingdom. Yaughan adds 
 that he was so confounded at this statement though, 
 surely, he must have expected it that he at once 
 departed, leaving the gold behind him. But the 
 strangest part of his history is, that a writer in 1749 
 speaks of him as living then, at the respectable old 
 age of 137. i A person of great credit at Nuremberg, 
 in Germany, affirms that he conversed with him but 
 a year or two ago. Nay, it is further asserted that 
 this very individual is the president of the Illum- 
 inated in Europe, and that he sits as such in all their 
 annual meetings.' Mayhap he is sitting at them 
 still ! Only if he have discovered, not only the secret 
 of the transmutation of metals, but that of the inde- 
 finite prolongation of life, is it not cruelly selfish of 
 him to withhold it we will not say from the world 
 at large, which deserves to be punished for its 
 scepticism and incredulity, but from the members 
 of his own fraternity ? 
 
 132 
 
196 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 JOHN HEYDON. 
 
 The English Rosicrucians are few in number ran 
 gurgite in vasto nantes and when I have added John 
 Heydon to Vaughan arid Fludd, I shall have named 
 the most distinguished. Heydon was the author of 
 { The Wise Man's Crown ; or, The Glory of the Rosie 
 Cross' (1664); ' The Holy Guide, leading the Way 
 to Unite Art and Nature, with the Rosie Cross Un- 
 covered ' (1662) ; and ' A New Method of Rosicrucian 
 Physic; by John Heydon, the Servant of God and 
 the Secretary of Nature ' (1658). In the last-named 
 he describes himself as an attorney who will not pity 
 his clients, if he had any ? practising at Westminster 
 Hall all term times as long as he lived, and in the 
 vacations devoting himself to alchemical and Rosi- 
 crucian speculation. His introduction (' An Apologue 
 for an Epilogue ') is full of such outrageous non- 
 sense as to suggest suspicion of his sanity. He 
 speaks of Moses, Elias, and Ezekiel as the prophets 
 and founders of Rosicrucianism. Its present believers, 
 he says, may be few in number, but their position is 
 incomparably glorious. They are the eyes and ears 
 of the great King of the universe, seeing all things 
 and hearing all things ; they are seraphically illumin- 
 ated ; they belong to the holy company of em- 
 bodied souls and immortal angels ; they can assume 
 any shape at will, and possess the power of working 
 miracles. They can walk in the air, banish epidemics 
 from stricken cities, pacify the most violent storms, 
 heal every disease, and turn all metals into gold. 
 
CHAP. VI. 
 
 JOHN HEYDON. 197 
 
 He had known, he says, two illustrious brethren, 
 named Williams and Walford, and had seen them per- 
 form miracles a statement which brands him either 
 as a knave or a dupe. 'I desired one of them to tell 
 me/ he says, ' whether my complexion were capable 
 of the society of my good genius. " When I see you 
 again," said he (which was when he pleased to come 
 to me, for I knew not where to go to him), " I will 
 tell you." When I saw him afterwards, he said: 
 " You should pray to God : for a good and holy man 
 can offer no greater or more acceptable service to 
 God than the oblation of himself his soul." Pie said 
 also, that the good genii were the benign eyes of God, 
 running to and fro in the world, and with love and 
 pity beholding the innocent endeavours of harmless 
 and single-hearted men, ever ready to do them good 
 and to help them.' 
 
 Heydon advocated, without enforcing his precepts 
 by example, the Rosicrucian dogma, that men could 
 live without eating and drinking, affirming that all 
 of us could exist in the same manner as the singular 
 people dwelling near the source of the Ganges, 
 described by his namesake, Sir Christopher Heydon* 
 (but certainly by no other traveller), who had no 
 mouths, and therefore could not eat, but lived by the 
 breath of their nostrils except when they went on a 
 far journey, and then, to recuperate their strength, they 
 inhaled the scent of flowers. He dilated on the ' fine 
 foreign fatness' which characterized really pure air the 
 
 * Author of 'A Defence of Judiciall Astrologie,' printed at 
 Cambridge in 1603. 
 

 1 C J8 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I. 
 
 air being impregnated with it by the sunbeams and 
 affirmed that it should suffice for the nourishment of 
 the majority of mankind. He was not unwilling, 
 however, that people with gross appetites should eat 
 animal food, but declared it to be unnecessary for 
 them, and that a much more efficacious mode would 
 be to use the meat, nicely cooked, as a plaster on the 
 pit of the stomach. By adopting this external treat- 
 ment, they would incur no risk of introducing 
 diseases, as they did by the broad and open gate of 
 the mouth, as anyone might see by the example of 
 drink ; for so long as a man sat in water, he knew 
 no thirst. He had been acquainted so he declared 
 with many Eosicrucians who, by using wine as a 
 bath, had fasted from solid food for several years. 
 And, as a matter of fact, one might fast all one's life, 
 though prolonged for 300 years, if one ate no meat, 
 and so avoided all risk of infection by disease. 
 
 Growing confidential in reference to his imaginary 
 fraternity, he states that its chiefs always carried 
 about with them their symbol, the R.C., an ebony 
 cross, flourished and decked with roses of gold ; the 
 cross typifying Christ's suffering for the sins of man- 
 kind, and the golden roses the glory and beauty of His 
 Eesurrection. This symbol was carried in succession 
 to Mecca, Mount Calvary, Mount Sinai, Haran, and 
 three other places, which I cannot pretend to identify 
 Casele, Apamia, and Chaulateau Yiciosa Caunuch : 
 these were the meeting-places of the brotherhood. 
 
 i The Rosie Crucian Physick or Medicines,' says 
 this bravely-mendacious gentleman, ' I happily and 
 
CHAP. VI.] JOHN HEYDON. 199 
 
 unexpectedly light upon in Arabia, which will 
 prove a restoration of health to all that are afflicted 
 with sickness which we ordinarily call natural, 
 and all other diseases. These men have no small 
 insight into the body : Walford, Williams, and 
 others of the Fraternity now living, may bear up in 
 the same likely equipage with those noble Divine 
 Spirits their Predecessors ; though the unskilfulness 
 in men commonly acknowledges more of supernatural 
 assistance in hot, unsettled fancies, and perplexed 
 melancholy, than in the calm and distinct use of 
 reason; yet, for mine own part, I look upon these 
 Rosie Crucians above all men truly inspired, and 
 more than any that professed themselves so this 
 sixteen hundred years, and I am ravished with admi- 
 ration of their miracles and trans cendant mechanical 
 inventions, for the solving the Phenomenon of the 
 world. I may, without offence, therefore, compare 
 them with Bezaliel, Aholiab, those skilful workers of 
 the Tabernacle, who, as Moses testifies, were filled 
 with the Spirit of God, and therefore were of an ex- 
 cellent understanding to find out all manner of 
 curious work/ 
 
 The plain fact is that Hey don's books are fictions 
 purely imaginative work, based on some rough and 
 ready knowledge of the old alchemy and the new 
 magic ; partly allegorical and mystical, such as a 
 quick invention might readily conceive under the 
 influence of theosophic study, and partly borrowed 
 from Henry More, and other writers of the same 
 stamp. The island inhabited by Rosicrucians, which 
 he describes in the introduction to c The Holy Guide/ 
 
200 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK I 
 
 was evidently suggested by Sir Thomas More's 
 ' Utopia,' and Bacon's ' New Atlantis.' It would be 
 easy to point out his obligations elsewhere. 
 
 I may add, in bringing this chapter to a close, that 
 Dr. Edmund Dickenson, one of Charles II. 's physi- 
 cians, professed to be a member of the brotherhood, 
 and wrote a book upon one of their supposed 
 doctrines, entitled ' De Quinta Essentia Philoso- 
 phoruni,' which was printed at Oxford in 1686. 
 
 Whatever may be our opinion of Eosicrucianism, 
 which, I believe, still finds some believers and adepts 
 in this country, we must acknowledge that the litera- 
 ture of poetry, and fiction is indebted to it consider- 
 ably. The machinery of Pope's exquisite poem, 
 ' The Rape of the Lock,' was borrowed from Para- 
 celsus and Jacob Bohmen not directly, it is true, 
 but through the medium of the Abbe de Yillars' 
 sparkling romance, ' Le Comte de Gabalis.' ' Accord- 
 ing to those gentlemen,' says Pope, ' the four elements 
 are inhabited by spirits, which they call sylphs, 
 gnomes, nymphs, and salamanders.' 
 
 The Rosicrucian water-nymph supplied La Motte 
 Fouque with the idea of that graceful and lovely 
 creation, ' Undine,' and Sir Walter Scott has invested 
 his ' White Lady of Avenel ' with some of her attri- 
 butes. 
 
 William Godwin's romance of ' St. Leon ' turns on 
 the Rosicrucian fancy of immortal life ; while Lord 
 Lytton's i Zanoni ' is practically a Rosicrucian fiction. 
 The influence of the Rosicrucian writers is also appa- 
 rent in the same author's ' A Strange Story.' 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 WITCHES AND WITCHCRAFT. 
 
CHAP. I.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 203 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 To various conspicuous and easily intelligible causes \ 
 the witch and the warlock, like the necromancer and 
 the astrologer, owed their power with the multitude. 
 First, there was the eager desire which humanity not 
 unnaturally feels to tear aside the veil of Isis, and 
 obtain some knowledge of that Other World which is 
 hidden so completely from it. Next must be taken 
 into account man's greed for temporal advantages, 
 his anxiety to direct the course of events to his 
 personal benefit; a^fcl, lastly, his malice against his 
 fellows. Thus we see that the influence enjoyed by 
 the sorcerer and the magician had its origin in the 
 unlawful passions of humanity, in whose history the 
 pages that treat of witches and witchcraft are painful j 
 and humiliating reading. 
 
 To define the limit between the special functions of 
 the magician and the witch is somewhat difficult, 
 more especially as the position of the witch gradually 
 decreased in reputation and importance. There is a 
 great gulf between the witch of Endor, or the witch 
 of classical antiquity, or the witch of the Norse Sagas, 
 
204 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 or the witch of the Saxons, and the English or 
 Scottish witch of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
 turies. The former were surrounded with an atmo- 
 sphere of dread and mystery ; the latter was the 
 creature of vulgar and commonplace traditions. In 
 the early age of witchcraft, the witch, like the magi- 
 cian, summoned spirits from the vasty deep, dis- 
 covered the hiding-places of concealed treasures, 
 struck down men or beasts by her spells, or covered 
 the heavens with clouds and let loose the winds of 
 destruction and desolation. Both could blight the 
 promise of the harvest, baffle the plans of their 
 enemies, or wither the health of their victims. But 
 while the magician was frequently a man of ability 
 and learning, and belonged to the cultured classes, 
 Vthe witch was almost always a woman of the lower 
 orders, ignorant and uneducated, though occasionally 
 ladies of high rank, and even ecclesiastics, have been 
 accused of practising withcraffo 
 
 [While witchcraft was a power in the land, the 
 witch, or warlock, was popularly supposed to be the 
 direct instrument, and, indeed, the bond-slave, of the 
 Evil One, fulfilling his behests in virtue of a com- 
 pact, written in letters of blood, by which the witch 
 made over her soul to the Infernal Power in return 
 for the enjoyment of supernatural prerogatives for a 
 fixed period. This treaty having been concluded, 
 the witch received a mark on some part of the body, 
 which was thenceforward insensible of pain the 
 stigma or devil's mark, by which he might know his 
 own again. A familiar imp or spirit was assigned to 
 
CHAP. I.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 205 
 
 her, generally in the form of an animal, and more 
 particularly in that of a black cat or dog.^ Round 
 this general idea were gathered a iiumbef~of horrible 
 and unclean conceptions, onjvhich, happily, it will not 
 be necessary to enlarge. ,' The devil, it was said, .re- 
 sorted to carnal communication with his servants, 
 being denominated succubus when, the favourite was 
 a female, and incubus when a male was chosen. It 
 was alleged, too, that on certain occasions the devil, 
 with his familiars, and the great company of witches 
 and warlocks whose souls he had bought, assembled 
 in - the dead of night in some remote and savage 
 wilderness, to hold that frightful carnival of the 
 Witches' Sabbat jwhich Goethe has depicted so power- 
 fully in the second part of ' Faust.' ^The human 
 imagination has not invented, I thinlcT^my scene 
 more horrible, more degrading, or more bestial. We 
 may suppose, however, that it was not conceived by 
 any single mind, or even people, or in any single 
 generation, but that it gradually took up additional 
 details from different nations, at different times, until 
 it was developed into the terrible whole presented by 
 the medieval writers. ! 
 
 This wild and awful revel was called the Sabbat 
 because it took place after midnight on Friday ; that 
 is, on the Jewish Sabbath a curious illustration of 
 the popular antipathy against the Jews. 
 
 The spot where it was held never bloomed again 
 with flower or herb ; the burning feet of the demons 
 blighted it for ever. 
 
 Witch or warlock who failed to obey the summons 
 
 J 
 
206 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 of the master was lashed by devils with rods made of 
 scorpions or serpents, in chastisement of his or her 
 contumacy.! 
 
 The guests repaired thither, according to the belief 
 entertained in France and England, upon broom- 
 sticks ; but in Spain and Italy it was thought that 
 the devil himself, in the shape of a goat, conveyed 
 them on his back, which he contracted or elongated 
 according to the number he carried. The witch, 
 when starting on her aerial journey, would not quit 
 her house by door or window ; but astride on her 
 broomstick made her exit by the chimney. During her 
 absence, to prevent the suspicions of her neighbours 
 from being aroused, an inferior demon assumed the 
 semblance of her person, and lay in her bed, pre- 
 tenjding to be ill or asleep. 
 
 [A curious story may here be introduced. In 
 April, 1611, a Provencal cure, named Gaurifidi, was 
 
 V \ \s 
 
 accused of sorcery before the Parliament of Aix. In 
 the course of trial much was said in proof of the 
 power of the demons. Several witnesses asserted 
 that Gaurifidi, after rubbing himself with a magic 
 oil, repaired to the Sabbat, and afterwards returned 
 to his chamber down the chimney. One day, when 
 this sort of thing was exciting the imagination of the 
 judges, an extraordinary noise was heard in the 
 chimney of the hall, terminating suddenly in the 
 apparition of a tall black man, who shook his head 
 vigorously. The judges, thinking the devil had 
 come in person to the rescue of his servant, took to 
 their heels, with the exception of one Thorm, the 
 
CHAP. I.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 207 
 
 reporter, who was so hemmed in by his desk that he 
 was unable to move. Terror-stricken at the sight before 
 him, with his body all of a tremble, and his eyes 
 starting from his head, he made repeated signs of the 
 cross, until the supposed fiend was equally alarmed, 
 since he could not understand the cause of the 
 reporter's evident perturbation. On recovering from 
 his embarrassment he made himself known he 
 was a sweep, who had been operating on a chimney 
 on the roof above, but, when ready to return, had 
 mistaken the entrance, and thus unwillingly intruded 
 himself into the chamber of the Parliament. ~j 
 
 The unclean ceremonies of the Witches' Sabbat 
 were ' inaugurated ' by Satan, ~| who, in his favourite 
 assumption of a huge he-goat (a suggestion, no 
 doubt, from Biblical imagery), with one face in front, 
 and another between his haunches, took his place 
 upon his throne. After all present had done homage 
 by kissing him on the posterior face, he appointed a 
 master of the ceremonies, and, attended by him, mad 
 a personal examination of any guest to ascertain if I 
 or she bore the stigma, which indicated his right if 
 ownership. Any who were found without it received 
 the mark at once from the master of the ceremonie , 
 while the devil bestowed on them a nickname 
 Thereafter all began to dance and sing with wild 
 extravagance 
 
 ' There is no rest to-night for anyone : 
 When one dance ends another is begun ' 
 
 until some neophyte arrived, and sought admission 
 into the circle of the initiated. Silence prevailed 
 
208 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 while thejiewcomer^went through the usual formjif 
 denying her salvation, spitting upon the Bible^kissing 
 the devil, and jwearmg^obedience to him jn^jjjjjmigs^ 
 The dancing then renewed its fury, and a hoarse chorus 
 
 went up of 
 
 1 Alegremos, alegremos, 
 Que gente va tenemos !' 
 
 When spent with Ae__yiolenj^jexercise, they sat 
 jown, and, like the witches^jn/ Macbeth/ related 
 the evil things each had done since the last Sabbat^ 
 those who had not been sufficiently active being 
 chastised by Satan himself until they were drenched 
 in blood. A dance of toads was the next entertain- 
 ment. They sprang up out of the earth by thousands, 
 and danced on their hind-legs while Satan played on 
 the bagpipes or the trumpet, after which they solicited 
 the witches to reward them for their exertions by 
 feeding them with the flesh of unbaptized babes. Was 
 there ever a more curious mixture of the grotesque 
 and the horrible? At a stamp from the devil's foot 
 they returned to the earth whence they came, and a 
 banquet was served up, the nature of which the reader 
 may be left to imagine! Dancing was afterwards 
 resumed, while those who had no partiality for the 
 pastime found amusement in burlesquing the sacra- 
 ment of baptism, the toads being again summoned 
 and sprinkled with holy water, while the devil made 
 the sign of the cross, and the witches cried out in 
 chorus : 4 In nomine Patrica, Aragueaco Patrica, 
 agora, agora! Yalentia, jurando gome guito goustia !' 
 that is, ' In the name of Patrick, Patrick of Aragon 
 now, now, all our ills are over!' 
 
CHAP. I.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 209 
 
 Sometimes the devil would cause the witches to 
 strip themselves, and dance before him in their 
 nakedness, each with a cat tied round her neck, and 
 another suspended from her body like a tail. At 
 cockcrow the whole phantasmagoria vanished. 
 
 One cannot help wondering who first conceived 
 the idea of these horrid saturnalia. Did it spring 
 from the diseased imagination of some half-mad monk, 
 brooding in the solitude of his silent cell, who 
 gathered up all these unclean and grim images and 
 worked them into so ghastly a picture? They are 
 partly heathen, partly Christian ; partly classical, 
 partly Teutonic a strange and unwholesome com- 
 pound, as ' thick and slab ' as the hell-broth mixed by 
 the hags on ' the blasted heath ' ! 
 
 In these pages I am concerned only with our own 
 ' tight little island,' into which the superstition was 
 most certainly introduced by the northern invaders. 
 It would derive strength and consistency from the 
 teaching of the Old Testament, which distinctly 
 recognises the existence of witchcraft. 'Let not a 
 witch live !' is the command given in Exodus 
 (chapter xxii.) ; and similar threats against witches, 
 wizards and the like frequently occur in the books 
 of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Says Sir William 
 Blackstone : ' To deny the possibility, nay, the actual 
 existence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly 
 to contradict the revealed Word of God in vario.us 
 passages of the Old and New Testaments, and the 
 thing itself is a truth to which every nation in the 
 world hath, in its turn, borne testimony, either by 
 
 14 
 
WITCH, WABLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 example seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory 
 laws, which at least suppose the possibility of a 
 commerce with evil spirits.' The Church at a very 
 early period admitted its existence, and fulminated 
 against all who practised it. The fourth canon of the 
 Council of Auxerre, in 525, stringently prohibited all 
 resort to sorcerers, diviners, augurs, and the like. A 
 canon of the Council held at Berkhampstead in 696 
 condemned to corporal punishment, or mulcted in a 
 fine, every person who made sacrifices to the evil 
 spirits. Under the name of sortilegium, the offence 
 was treated eventually as a kind of heresy, for which, 
 on the first occasion, the offender, if penitent, was 
 punished by the Ecclesiastical Courts ; but if there 
 were no abjuration, or a relapse after abjuration, she 
 was handed over to the secular power to be executed 
 by authority of the writ de heretico comburendo. At a 
 later date, statutes against witchcraft were enacted 
 by Parliament, and the offence was both tried and 
 punished by the civil power. Such statutes were 
 passed in the reigns of Henry YIIL, Elizabeth, and 
 James I. Legislation derives its chief support from 
 public opinion ; and these statutes are a proof that 
 the existence of witchcraft was generally believed in. 
 iFor centuries in this country,' says Mr. Inderwick, 
 
 1" .. 
 
 4 strange as it may now appear, a denial of the exist- 
 ence of such demoniacal agency was deemed equal to 
 a confession of atheism, and to a disbelief in the 
 Holy Scriptures themselves. Not only did Lord 
 Chancellors, Lord Keepers, benches of Bishops, and 
 Parliament after Parliament attest the truth and the 
 
CHAP. I.J EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 211 
 
 existence of witchcraft, but Addison, writing as late 
 as 1711, in the pages of the Spectator, after describing 
 himself as hardly pressed by the arguments on both 
 sides of this question, expresses his own belief that 
 there is, and has been, witchcraft in the land.' At 
 the same time, it is pleasant to remember that there 
 have almost always been a few minds, bolder and more 
 enlightened than the rest, to protest against a credulity 
 which led to acts of the greatest inhumanity, and 
 fostered a grotesque and dangerous superstition. 
 "It is in the twelfth century that we first obtain, in 
 England, any distinct indications of the nature o 
 this superstition, and it is then we first meet with 
 the written compact between the devil and his victim 
 The story of the old woman of Berkeley, with which 
 Southey's ballad has made everybody familiar, is 
 related by William of Malniesbury, on the authority 
 of a friend who professed to have been an eye-witness 
 of the facts. When the devil, we read, announced to 
 the witch that the term of her compact had nearly 
 expired, she summoned to her presence the monks of 
 the neighbouring monastery and her children, con- 
 fessed her sins, acknowledged her criminal compact, 
 and displayed a curious anxiety lest Satan should 
 secure her body as well as her soul. ' Sew me in a 
 stag's hide/ she said, ' and, placing me in a stone 
 coffin, shut me in with lead and iron. Load this 
 with a heavy stone, and fasten down the whole with 
 three iron chains. Let fifty psalms be sung by night, 
 and fifty masses be said by day, to baffle the power 
 of the demons, and if you can thus protect my body 
 
 142 
 
212 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 for three nights, on the fourth day you may safely 
 bury it in the ground.' These precautions, though 
 religiously observed, proved ineffectual. On the first 
 night the monks bravely resisted the efforts of the 
 fiends, who, however, on the second night, renewed 
 the attack with increased vehemence, burst open the 
 gates of the monastery, and rent asunder two of the 
 chains which held down the coffin. On the third 
 night, so terrible was the hurly-burly, that the 
 monastery shook to its foundations, and the terror- 
 stricken priests paused, aghast, in the midst of their 
 ministrations. Then the doors flew apart, and into 
 the sacred place stalked a demon, who rose head and 
 shoulders above his fellows. Stopping at the coffin, 
 he, in a terrible voice, commanded the dead to rise. 
 The woman answered that she was bound by the 
 third chain : whereupon the demon put his foot on the 
 coffin, the chain snapped like a thread, the coffin-lid 
 fell off, the witch arose, and was hurried to the church- 
 door, where the demon, mounting a huge black horse, 
 swung his victim on to the crupper, and galloped 
 away into the darkness with the swiftness of an arrow, 
 while her shrieks resounded through the air. 
 
 There are many allusions in the old monastic 
 chronicles which illustrate the development of public 
 opinion in reference to witches and their craft. Thus, 
 John of Salisbury describes the nocturnal assemblies 
 of the witches, the presence of Satan, the banquet, 
 and the punishment or reward of the guests according 
 to the failure or abundance of their zeal. William of 
 Malmesbury tells us that on the highroad to Rome 
 
CHAP. I.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 213 
 
 dwelt a couple of beldams, of ill repute, who enticed 
 the weary traveller into their wretched hovel, and by 
 their incantations transformed him into a horse, a 
 dog, or some other animal similar to the transforma- 
 tions we read of in Oriental tales and that this 
 animal they sold to the first comer, in this way 
 picking up a tolerable livelihood.; One day, a 
 jongleur, or mountebank, asked for a night's lodging, 
 and when he disclosed his vocation to the two hags, 
 they informed him that they had an ass of remarkable 
 capacity, which, indeed, could do everything but speak, 
 and that they were willing to sell it. The sum asked 
 was large, but the ass displayed such wonderful in- 
 telligence that the jongleur gladly paid it. and de- 
 parted, taking with him the ass and a piece of advice 
 from the old women not to let the ass go near run- 
 ning water. For some time all went well, the ass 
 became an immense attraction, and the jongleur was 
 growing passing rich, when, in one of his drunken 
 fits, he allowed the animal to escape. Running directly 
 to the nearest stream, it plunged in, and immediately 
 resumed its original shape as a handsome young man, 
 who explained that he had been transformed by the 
 spells of the two crones. 
 
 The first trial for witchcraft in England occurred 
 in the tenth year of King John, when, as recorded in 
 the ' Abbreviatio Placitorum,' Agnes, wife of Ado the 
 merchant, accused one Gideon of the crime ; but he 
 proved his innocence by the ordeal of Ted-hot iron. 
 The first trial which has been reported with any 
 degree of particularity belongs to the year 1324. 
 
214 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [ B OOK II. 
 
 Some citizens of Coventry, it would appear, had 
 suffered severely at the hands of the prior, who had 
 been supported in his exactions by the two Despensers, 
 Edward II. 's unworthy favourites. In revenge, they 
 plotted the death of the prior, the favourites, and the 
 King. For this purpose they sought the assistance 
 of a famous magician of Coventry, named Master 
 John of Nottingham, and his man, Robert Marshall 
 of Leicester. The conspiracy was revealed by the 
 said Robert Marshall, probably because his pecuniary 
 reward was unsatisfactory, and he averred that John 
 of Nottingham and himself, having agreed to carry 
 out the desire of the citizens, the latter, on Sunday, 
 March 13, brought an instalment of the stipulated 
 fee, together with seven pounds of wax and two 
 yards of canvas ; that with this wax he and his 
 master made seven images, representing respectively 
 the King (with his crown), the two Despensers, the 
 prior, his caterer, and his steward, and one Richard 
 de Lowe the last named being introduced merely 
 as a lay-figure on which to test the efficacy of the 
 charm. 
 
 The two wizards retired to an old ruined house at 
 Shorteley Park, about half a league from Coventry, 
 where they remained at work for several days, and 
 about midnight on the Friday following Holy Cross 
 Day, the said Master John gave to the said Robert a 
 sharp-pointed leaden branch, and commanded him to 
 insert it about two inches deep in the forehead of the 
 image representing Richard de Lowe, this being 
 intended as an experiment. It was done, and next 
 
CHAP. I.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 215 
 
 morning Master John sent his servant to Lowe's 
 house to inquire after his condition, who found him 
 screaming and crying 'Harrow!' He had lost his 
 memory, and knew no one, and in this state he con- 
 tinued until dawn on the Sunday before Ascension, 
 when Master John withdrew the branch from the 
 forehead of the image and thrust it into the heart. 
 There it remained until the following Wednesday, 
 when the unfortunate man expired. Such was Robert 
 Marshall's fable, as told before the judges ; but ap- 
 parently it met with little credence, and the trial, after 
 several adjournments, fell to the ground. 
 
 Wonderful stories are told by the later chroniclers 
 of a certain Eudo de Stella, who had acquired great 
 notoriety as a sorcerer. William of Newbury says 
 that his ' diabolical charms ' collected a large com- 
 pany of disciples, whom he carried with him from 
 place to place, adding to their number wherever he 
 stopped. At times he encamped in the heart of a 
 wood, where sumptuous tables were^suddenly spread 
 with all kinds of dainty dishes and fragrant wines, 
 and every wish breathed by the meanest guest was im- 
 mediately fulfilled. Some of Eudo's followers, however, 
 confided to our authority that there was a strange 
 want of solidity in these magically -supplied viands, and 
 that though they ate of them continually, they were 
 never satisfied. But it appears that whoever once 
 tasted of the sorcerer's meats, or received from him a 
 gift, thereby became enrolled among his followers. 
 And the chronicler supplies this irrefutable proof: A 
 knight of his acquaintance paid a visit to the wizard, 
 
216 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 and endeavoured to turn him from his evil practices. 
 When he departed, Eudo presented his squire with 
 a handsome hawk, which the knight, observing, 
 advised him to cast away. Not so the squire: he 
 rejoiced in his high-mettled bird ; but they had 
 scarcely got out of sight of the wizard's camp before 
 the hawk's talons gripped him more and more 
 closely, and at last it flew away with him, and he was 
 never more heard of. 
 
 The trial of Dame Alicia Kyteler, or Le Poer, 
 takes us across the seas, but it furnishes too many 
 interesting particulars to be entirely ignored. 
 Hutchinson informs . us that, in 1324, Bishop de 
 Ledrede, of Ossory, in the course of a visitation of 
 his diocese, came to learn that, in the city of Kil- 
 kenny, there had long resided certain persons 
 addicted to various kinds of witchcraft ; and that the 
 chief offender among them was a Dame Alicia 
 Kyteler. As she was a woman of considerable 
 wealth, which might prove of great benefit to the 
 Church, the episcopal zeal blazed up strongly, and 
 she and her accomplices were ordered to be put upon 
 their trial. 
 
 The accusation against them was divided into 
 seven distinct heads : 
 
 First : That, in order to give effect to their sorcery, 
 they were wont altogether to deny the faith of Christ 
 and of the Church for a year or month, according as 
 the object to be attained was greater or less, so that 
 during this longer or shorter period they believed in 
 nothing that the Church believed, and abstained from 
 

 CHAP. I.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 217 
 
 worshipping Christ's body, from entering a church, 
 from hearing Mass, and from participating in the 
 Sacrament Second: That they propitiated the 
 demons with sacrifices of living animals, which they 
 tore limb from limb, and offered, by scattering them 
 in cross-roads, to a certain demon, Robert Artisson 
 (filius Artis), who was ' one of the poorer class of 
 hell/ Third: That by their sorceries they sought 
 responses and oracles from demons. Fourth : That 
 they used the ceremonies of the Church in their 
 nocturnal meetings, pronouncing, with lighted 
 candles of wax, sentence of excommunication even 
 against the persons of their own husbands, naming 
 expressly every member, from the sole of the foot to 
 the top of the head, and at length extinguishing the 
 candles with the exclamation, * Fi ! fi ! fi ! Amen !' 
 Fifth: That with the intestines and other inner 
 parts of cocks sacrificed to the demons, with ' certain 
 horrible worms/ various herbs, the nails of dead men, 
 the hair, brains, and clothes of children who had died 
 unbaptized, and other things too disgusting to 
 mention, boiled in the skull of a certain robber who 
 had been beheaded, on a fire made of oak-sticks, 
 they had invented powders and ointments, and also 
 candles of fat boiled in the said skull, with certain 
 charms, which things were to be instrumental in ex- 
 citing love or hatred, and in killing or torturing the 
 bodies of faithful Christians, and for various other 
 unlawful purposes. Sixth: That the sons and 
 daughters of the four husbands of the same Dame 
 Alice had made their complaint to the Bishop, that 
 
218 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICFAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 she, by such sorcery, had procured the death of her 
 husbands, and had so beguiled and infatuated them, 
 that they had given all their property to her and her 
 ^on [by her first husband, William Outlawe], to the 
 perpetual impoverishment of their own sons and heirs : 
 insomuch that her present [and fourth] husband, Sir 
 John Le Poer, was reduced to a most miserable con- 
 dition of body by her ointments, powders, and other 
 magical preparations; but, being warned by her 
 maidservant, he had forcibly taken from his wife the 
 keys of her house, in w r hich he found a bag filled 
 with the ' detestable ' articles above mentioned, which 
 he had sent to the Bishop. Seventh: That there 
 existed an unholy connection between the said Lady 
 Alice and the demon called Robert Artisson, who 
 sometimes appeared to her in the form of a cat, 
 sometimes in that of a black shaggy dog, and at 
 others in the form of a black man, with two tall 
 companions as black as himself, each carrying in his 
 hand a rod of iron. Some of the old chroniclers 
 embroider upon this charge the fanciful details that 
 her offering to the demon was nine red cocks' and 
 nine peacocks' eyes, which were paid on a certain 
 stone bridge at a cross-road ; that she had a magical 
 ointment,* w r hich she rubbed upon a coulter or 
 
 * So in Duclerq's * Memoires ' (' Collect, du Pantheon '), p. 141, 
 we read of a case at Arras, in which the sorcerers were accused of 
 using such an ointment: 'D'ung oignement que le diable leur 
 avoit bailie, ils oindoient une vergue de bois bien petite, et leurs 
 palmes et leurs mains, puis mectoient celle virguelte entre leurs 
 jambes, et tantost ils s'en volvient ou ils voullvient estre, pur- 
 desseures bonnes villes, bois et cams; et les portoit le diable 
 au lieu ou ils debvoient faire leur assemblee.' 
 
CHAP. I.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 219 
 
 plough handle, in order that the said coulter might 
 carry her and her companions whithersoever they 
 wished to go ; that in her house was found a conse- 
 crated wafer, with the devil's name written upon it ; 
 and that, sweeping the streets of Kilkenny between 
 complin and twilight, she raked up all the ordure 
 towards the doors of her son, William Outlawe, 
 saying to herself: 
 
 ' To the house of William my son, 
 Hie all the wealth of Kilkenny town.' 
 
 The lady, rejoicing in powerful friends and 
 advisers, defied the Bishop and all his works. She 
 was excommunicated, and her son summoned to 
 appear before the Bishop for the offence of harbouring 
 and concealing her ; but Dame Alice's friends re- 
 taliated by throwing the Bishop into prison for 
 several days. He revenged himself by placing the 
 whole diocese under an interdict, and again summon- 
 ing William Outlawe to appear on a certain day ; but 
 before the day arrived, he in his turn was cited before 
 the Lord Justice, to answer for having imposed an 
 interdict on his diocese, and to defend himself against 
 accusations submitted by the seneschal. The Bishop 
 pleaded that it was unsafe for him to travel ; but the 
 plea was not allowed, and, to save himself from further 
 molestation, he recalled the interdict. 
 
 The quarrel was not yet fought out. On the 
 Monday following the octave of Easter, the seneschal, 
 Arnold de la Poer, held his judicial court in the 
 Assize Hall at Kilkenny. Thither repaired the 
 Bishop, and, though refused admission, he forced his 
 
220 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 way in, robed in full pontificals, carrying in his hand 
 the Host in pyx of gold, and attended by a numerous 
 train of friars and clergy. But he was received with 
 a storm of insults and reproaches, which compelled 
 him to retire. Upon his repeated protests, however, 
 and at the intercession of some influential personages, 
 his return was permitted. Being ordered to take 
 his stand at the criminal's bar, he exclaimed that 
 Christ had never been treated so before, since He 
 stood at the bar before Pontius Pilate ; and he loudly 
 called upon the seneschal to order the arrest of the 
 persons accused of sorcery, and their deliverance into 
 his hands. When the seneschal abruptly refused, 
 he opened the book of the decretals, and saith, ' You, 
 Sir Arnold, are a knight, and instructed in letters, 
 and that you may not have the excuse of ignorance, 
 we are prepared to prove by these decretals that you 
 and your officials are bound to obey our order in this 
 matter, under heavy penalties.' 
 
 * Go to the church with your decretals,' replied the 
 seneschal, ' and preach there, for none of us here will 
 listen to you.' 
 
 In the Bishop's character there must have been a 
 fine strain of perseverance, for all these rebuffs failed 
 to baffle him, and he actually succeeded, after a suc- 
 cession of disappointments and a constant renewal of 
 difficulties, in obtaining permission to bring the 
 alleged offenders to trial. Most of them suffered 
 imprisonment ; but Dame Alice escaped him, being 
 secretly conveyed to England. Of all concerned in 
 the affair, only one was punished Petronella of 
 
CHAP. T.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 221 
 
 Meath, who was selected as a scapegoat, probably 
 because she had neither friends nor means of de- 
 fence. 
 
 By order of the Bishop she was six times flogged, 
 after which the poor tortured victim made a confes- 
 sion, in which she declared not only her own guilt, 
 but that of everybody against whom the Bishop had 
 proceeded. She affirmed that in all Britain, nay, 
 indeed, in the whole world, was no one more skilled 
 in magical practices than Dame Alice Kyteler. She 
 was brought to admit the truth though in her heart 
 she must have known its absolute falsehood* of 
 the episcopal indictment, and pretended that she had 
 been present at the sacrifices to the Evil One that 
 she had assisted in making the unguents with the 
 unsavoury materials already mentioned, and that 
 with these unguents different effects were produced 
 upon different persons the faces of certain ladies, 
 for instance, being made to appear horned like goats ; 
 that sbe had been present at the nocturnal revelries, 
 and, with her mistress's assistance, had frequently 
 pronounced sentence of excommunication against her 
 own husband, with all due magical rites ; that she 
 had attended Dame Alice in her assignations with 
 the demon, Robert Artisson, and had seen acts of an 
 immorality so foul that I dare not allude to it pass 
 
 * That is, of sacrificing to the Evil One, of meeting the demon 
 Robert Artisson, and so on ; though it is quite possible that 
 strange unguents were made and administered to different persons, 
 and that Dame Alice and her companions played at being sorcerers. 
 Some of the so-called witches, as we shall see, encouraged the 
 deception on account of the influence it gave them. 
 
222 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 between them. Having been coerced and tortured 
 into this amazingly wild and fictitious confession, 
 the poor woman was declared guilty, sentenced, and 
 burned alive, the first victim of the witchcraft delu- 
 sion in Ireland. 
 
 It is worthy of observation that the mind of the 
 public was roused to a much stronger feeling of 
 hostility against witchcraft than against magic. 
 Alchemists, astrologers, fortune-tellers, diviners, and 
 the like, might incur suspicion, and sometimes punish- 
 ment ; but, on the whole, they were treated with 
 tolerance, and even with distinction. For this 
 inequality of treatment two or three reasons suggest 
 themselves. In the crime of witchcraft the central 
 feature was the compact with the demon, and it was 
 natural that men should resent an act which entailed 
 the eternal loss of the soul. Again, witchcraft, much 
 more frequently than magic, was the instrument of 
 personal ill-feeling, and was more generally directed 
 against the lower classes. The magician seldom used 
 his power except when liberally paid by an employer ; 
 the witch, it was thought, exercised her skill for the 
 gratification of her own malice. However this may 
 be, an imputation of witchcraft became, in the fifteenth 
 century, a formidable affair, ensuring the death or 
 ruin of the unfortunate individual against whom it 
 was made. There was no little difficulty in defend- 
 ing one's self; and in truth, once made, it clung to 
 its victim like a Nessus's shirt, and with a result as 
 deadly. 
 
CHAP. I.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 223 
 
 Its value as a political ' move ' was shown in the 
 persecution of the Knights Templars, and, in our 
 own history, in Cardinal Beaufort's "Intrigue against 
 Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who governed Eng- 
 land as Protector during the minority of Henry YI. 
 
 The Cardinal struck at the Duke through his 
 beautiful wife, Eleanor Cobham. In July, 1441, two 
 ecclesiastics, Roger Bolingbroke, and Thomas South- 
 well, a canon of St. Stephen's Chapel, were arrested 
 on a charge of high treason ; ' for it was said that 
 the said Master Roger should labour to consume the 
 King's person by way of necromancy ; and that the 
 said Master Thomas should say masses upon certain 
 instruments with the which the said Master Roger 
 should use his said craft of necromancy.' Bolingbroke 
 was a scholar, an adept in natural science, and an 
 ardent student of astronomy : William of Worcester 
 describes him as one of the most famous clerks of 
 the world. One Sunday, after having undergone 
 rigorous examination, he was conveyed to St. Paul's 
 Cross, where he was mounted ' on a high stage above 
 all men's heads in Paul's Churchyard, whiles the 
 sermon endured, holding a sword in his right hand 
 and a sceptre in his left, arrayed in a marvellous 
 array, wherein he was wont to sit when he wrought 
 his necromancy/ 
 
 The Duchess of Gloucester, meanwhile, perceiving 
 that her ruin was intended, fled to sanctuary at 
 Westminster. Before the King's Council Boling- 
 broke was brought to confess that he had plied his 
 magical trade at the Duchess's instigation, ' to know 
 
224 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 what should fall of her, and to what estate she should 
 come.' In other words, he had cast her horoscope, 
 a proceeding common enough in those days, and one 
 which had no treasonable complexion. The Cardinal's 
 party, however, seized upon Bolingbroke's confession, 
 and made such use of it that the unfortunate lady 
 was cited to appear before an ecclesiastical tribunal 
 composed of Chicheley, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, Cardinal 
 Kemp, Archbishop of York, and Ayscongh, Bishop 
 of Salisbury, on July 2, ' to answer to divers articles 
 of necromancy, of witchcraft or sorcery, of heresy, and 
 of treason.' Bolingbroke was brought forward as a 
 witness, and repeated that the Duchess 'first stirred 
 him to labour in his necromancy.' 
 
 After this, he and Southwell were indicted as prin- 
 cipals of treason, and the Duchess as accessory, 
 though, if his story were true, their positions should 
 have been reversed. At the same time, a woman 
 named Margery Goodman, and known as the ' Witch 
 of Eye,' was burned at Srriithfield because in former 
 days she had given potions and philtres to Eleanor 
 Cobham, to enable her to secure the Duke of Glouces- 
 ter's affections. Roger Bolingbroke was hung, drawn, 
 and quartered, according to the barbarous custom of 
 the age ; Southwell escaped a similar fate by dying 
 in the Tower before the day appointed for his trial. 
 The charge of high treason brought against them 
 rested entirely on the allegation that, at the Duchess's 
 request, they had made a waxen image to resemble 
 the King, and had placed it before a fire, that, as 
 

 CHAP. I.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 225 
 
 it gradually melted, so might the King gradually 
 languish away and die. As for the Duchess, she was 
 sentenced to do penance, which she fulfilled ' right 
 meekly, so that the more part of the people had her 
 in great compassion,' on Monday, November 13, 
 1441, walking barefoot, with a lighted taper in her 
 hand, from Temple Bar to St. Paul's, where she 
 offered the taper at the high altar. She repeated the 
 penance on the Wednesday and Friday following, 
 walking to St. Paul's by different routes, and on each 
 occasion was accompanied by the Lord Mayor, the 
 sheriffs, and the various guilds, and by a multitude 
 of people, whom the repute of her beauty and her 
 sorrows had attracted, so that what was intended for 
 a humiliation became really a triumph. She was 
 afterwards imprisoned in Chester Castle, and thence 
 transferred to the Isle of Man. 
 
 The charge of sorcery which Richard III. brought 
 against Lord Hastings, accusing him of having wasted 
 his left arm, though from his birth it had been fleshless, 
 dry, and withered, is made the basis of an effective 
 scene in Shakespeare's i Richard III/ His brother's 
 widow, Queen Elizabeth Woodville, was included in 
 the charge, and Jane Shore was named as her accom- 
 plice. This frail beauty was brought before the 
 Council, and accused of having endeavoured the ruin 
 and destruction of the Protector in several ways,' and 
 particularly * by witchcraft had decayed his body, 
 and with the Lord Hastings had contrived to assas- 
 sinate him.' The indictment, however, was not sus- 
 
 15 
 
226 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 tained, and her offence was reduced to that of lewd 
 living. Whereupon she was handed over to the 
 Bishop of London to do public penance for her sin 
 on Sunday morning in St. Paul's Cathedral church. 
 Clothed in a white sheet, with a wax taper in her 
 hand, and a cross borne before her, she was led in 
 procession from the episcopal palace to the cathedral, 
 where she made open confession of her fault. The 
 moral effect of this exhibition seems to have been 
 considerably marred by the beauty of the penitent, 
 which produced upon the multitude an impression 
 similar to that which the bared bosom of Phryne 
 produced upon her judges in the days of old. 
 
 I In 1480 Pope Innocent VIII. issued a Bull en- 
 joining the detection, trial, and punishment (by burn- 
 ing) of witches. This was the first formal recognition 
 of witchcraft by the head of the Church. In England 
 the first Act of Parliament levelled at it was passed 
 in 1541. Ten years later two more statutes were 
 enacted, one relating to false prophecies, and the 
 other to conjuration, witchcraft and sorcery. But in 
 no one of these was witchcraft condemned qua witch- 
 craft ; they were directed against those who, by means 
 of spells, incantations, or compacts with the devil, 
 threatened the lives and properties of their neigh- 
 bours. ' When, in 1561, Sir Edward Waldegrave, one 
 of Mary Stuart's councillors, was arrested by order of 
 Secretary Cecil as 'a mass-monger/ the Bishop of 
 London, to whom he was remitted, felt no disposi- 
 tion to inflict a heavy penalty for hearing or saying 
 of mass ; but, on inquiry, he discovered that the 
 
CHAP. I.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 227 
 
 officiating priest had been concerned in concocting ' a 
 love-philtre/ and he then decided that sorcery would 
 afford a safer ground for process. He applied, there- 
 fore, to Chief Justice Catlin, to learn what might be 
 the law in such cases, and was astonished when he 
 was told that no legal provision had been made for 
 them. Previously they came before the Church 
 Courts ; but these had been deprived of their powers 
 by the Reformation, and the only precedent he could 
 find for moving in the matter belonged to the reign 
 of Edward III., and was thus entered on the roll: 
 
 ' Ung homme f ut prinse en Southwark avec ung teste et ung 
 visaige dung homme morte avec ung lyvre de sorcerie en son 
 male et fut amesn6 en barike du Roy devant Knyvet Justice, mais 
 nulle indictment fut vers lui, por qui les clerkes luy fierement 
 jurement quo jamais ne feroit sorcerie en apres, et fut delyvoti 
 del prison, et le teste et les lyvres furent arses a Totehyll a les 
 costages du prisonnier.' (That is : A man was taken in South- 
 wark, with a dead man's skull and a book of sorcery in his 
 wallet, and was brought up at the King's Bench before Knyvet 
 Justice ; but no indictment was laid against him, for that the 
 clerks made him swear he would meddle no more with sorcery, 
 and the head and the books were burnt at Tothill Fields at the 
 prisoner's charge.) 
 
 i ^ 
 But in the following year Parliament passed an 
 
 Act which denned witchcraft as a capital crime, 
 whether it was or was not exerted to the injury of the 
 lives, limbs, and possessions of the lieges. Thence- 
 forward the persecution of witches took its place 
 among English institutions. During the latter years 
 of Elizabeth's reign several instances occurred. Thus, 
 on July 25, 1589, three witches were burnt at Chelms- 
 ford. The popular mind was gradually familiarized 
 with the idea of witchcraft, and led to concentrate its 
 
 152 
 
WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 attention on the individual marks, or characteristics, 
 which were supposed to indicate its professors. Even 
 among the higher classes a belief in its existence 
 became very general, and it is startling to find a man 
 like the learned and pious Bishop Jewell, in a sermon 
 before Queen Elizabeth, saying : ' It may please your 
 Grace to understand that witches and sorcerers within 
 these last four years are marvellously increased within 
 this your Grace's realm. Your Grace's subjects pine 
 away even unto the death ; their colour fadeth ; their 
 flesh rotteth ; their speech is benumbed ; their senses 
 are bereft ! I pray God they may never practise further 
 than upon the subject !' (1598). 
 
 \The witches in ' Macbeth ' those weird sisters 
 who met at midnight upon the blasted heath, and in 
 their caldron brewed so deadly a ' hell-broth ' par- 
 take of the dignity of the poet's genius, and belong 
 to the vast ideal wo'rld of his imagination.' No such 
 midnight hags crossed the paths of ordinary mortals. 
 The Elizabethan witch, who scared her neighbours in 
 town and village, and flourished on their combined 
 ignorance and superstition, appears, however, in ' The 
 Merry Wives of Windsor,' where Master Ford de- 
 scribes the fat woman of Brentford ' as ' a witch, a 
 quean, an old cozening quean !' He adds : ' Have I 
 not forbid her my house ? She comes of errands, 
 does she ? We are simple men ; we do not know 
 what's brought to pass under the profession of for- 
 tune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by 
 the figure ; and such daubery as this is beyond our 
 
CHAP. I.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 229 
 
 element.' Most of Master Ford's contemporaries, I 
 fear, were, in this matter, ' simple men.' ( Even per- 
 sons of rank and learning, of position and refinement, 
 were as credulous as their poorer, more ignorant, and 
 more vulgar neighbours ; were just as ready to believe 
 that an untaught village crone had made a compact 
 with the devil, and bartered her soul for the right of 
 straddling across a broom or changing herself into a 
 black cat ! \ 
 
 Near Warboise, in Huntingdonshire, in 1593, lived 
 two gentlemen of good estate Mr. Throgmorton and 
 Sir Samuel Cromwell. The former had five daughters, 
 of whom the eldest, Joan, was possessed with a lively 
 imagination, which busied itself constantly with ghosts 
 and witches. On one occasion, when she passed the 
 cottage of an old and infirm woman, known as Mother 
 Samuel, the good dame, with a black cap on her head, 
 was sitting at her door knitting. Mistress Joan ex- 
 claimed that she was a witch, hurried home, went into 
 convulsions, and declared that Mother Samuel had 
 bewitched her. In due course, her sisters followed 
 her example, and they too laid the blame of their fits 
 on Mother Samuel. The parents, not less infatuated 
 than the children, lent ready ears to their wild tales, 
 and carried them to Lady Cromwell, who, as a friend 
 of Mrs. Throgmorton, took the matter up right 
 earnestly, and resolved that the supposed witch 
 should be put to the ordeal. Sir Samuel was by 
 no means unwilling; and the children, encouraged 
 by this prompt credulity, let loose their fertile inven- 
 
230 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 tions. They declared that Mother Samuel sent a 
 legion of evil spirits to torment them incessantly. 
 Strange to say, these spirits had made known their 
 names, which, though grotesque, had nothing of a 
 demoniac character about them ' First Smack, 7 
 ' Second Smack,' 'Third Smack,' 'Blue,' * Catch/ 
 6 Hardname/ and ' Pluck ' names invented, of course, 
 by the young people themselves. 
 
 At length the aggrieved Throgmorton, summoning 
 all his courage, repaired to Mother Samuel's humble 
 residence, seized upon the unhappy old crone, and 
 dragged her into his own grounds, where Lady Crom- 
 well and Mrs. Throgmorton and her children thrust 
 long pins into her body to see if they could draw 
 blood. With unmeasured violence, Lady Cromwell 
 tore the old woman's cap from her head, and plucked 
 out a handful of her gray hair, which she gave to 
 Mrs. Throgmorton to burn, as a charm that w r ould 
 protect her from all further evil practices. Smarting 
 under these injuries, the poor old woman, in a moment 
 of passion, invoked a curse upon her torturers a 
 curse afterwards remembered against her, though at 
 the time she was allowed to depart. For more than 
 a year her life was made miserable by the incessant 
 persecution inflicted upon her by the two hostile 
 families, who, on their part, declared that her demons 
 brought upon them all kinds of physical ills, pre- 
 vented their ewes and cows from bearing, and turned 
 the milk sour in the dairy-pans. It so happened 
 that Lady Cromwell was seized with a sudden illness, 
 of which she died, and though some fifteen months 
 
CHAP. I.] EAKLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 231 
 
 had elapsed since the utterance of the curse, on poor 
 Mother Samuel was placed the responsibility. Sir 
 Samuel Cromwell, therefore, felt called upon to punish 
 her for her ill- doing. 
 
 By this time the old woman, partly through listen- 
 ing to the incessant repetition of the charges against 
 her, and partly, perhaps, from a weak delight in the 
 notoriety she had attained, had come to believe, or to 
 think she believed, that she was really the witch 
 everybody declared her to be -just as a young 
 versifier is sometimes deluded into a conviction of 
 his poetic genius through unwisely crediting the 
 eulogies of an admiring circle of friends and relatives. 
 On one occasion, she was forcibly conveyed into Mrs. 
 Throgmorton's house when Joan was in one of her 
 frequently-recurring fits, and ordered to exorcise the 
 demon that was troubling the maid, with the formula : 
 4 As I am a witch, and the causer of Lady Cromwell's 
 death, I charge thee, fiend, to come out of her!' The 
 poor creature did as she was told, and confessed, 
 besides, that her husband and her daughter were her 
 associates in witchcraft, and that all three had sold 
 their souls to the devil. On this confession the whole 
 family were arrested, and sent to Huntingdon Gaol. 
 Soon afterwards they were tried before Mr. Justice 
 Fenner, and put to the torture. 
 
 In her agony the old woman confessed anything 
 that was required of her she was a witch, she had 
 bewitched the Throgmortons, she had caused the 
 death of Lady Cromwell. Her husband and her 
 daughter, stronger-minded, resolutely asserted their 
 
232 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 innocence. Ignorance, however, would not be denied 
 its victims ; all three were sentenced to be hanged, 
 and to have their bodies burned. The daughter, who 
 was young and comely, was regarded compassionately 
 by many persons, and advised to gain at least a 
 respite by pleading pregnancy. She indignantly 
 refused to sacrifice her good name. They might 
 falsely call her a witch, she exclaimed, but they 
 should not be able to say that she had acknowledged 
 herself to be a harlot. Her old mother, however, 
 caught at the idea, and openly asserted that she was 
 with child, the court breaking out into loud laughter, 
 in which she fatuously joined. The three victims 
 suffered on April 7, 1595. 
 
 Out of the confiscated property of the Samuels, Sir 
 Samuel Cromwell, as lord of the manor, received a 
 sum of 40, which he converted into an annual rent- 
 charge of 40s. for the endowment of an annual sermon 
 or lecture on the iniquity of witchcraft, to be delivered 
 by a D.D. or B.D. of Queen's College, Cambridge. 
 This strange memorial of a shameful and ignorant 
 superstition was discontinued early in the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
 In 1594, Ferdinando, Earl of Derby, died in and 
 from the firm conviction that he was mortally be- 
 witched, though he had no knowledge of the person 
 who had so bewitched him. 
 
 About the same time there lived in an obscure part 
 of Lancashire, not far from Pendle, two families of 
 the names of Dundike and Chattox respectively, who 
 
CHAP. I.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 233 
 
 both pretended to enjoy supernatural privileges, and 
 were therefore as bitterly antagonistic as if they had 
 belonged to different political factions. Their neigh- 
 bours, however, seem to have believed in the superior 
 claims of the head of the Dundike family, Mother 
 Dundike, who pretended that she had enjoyed her 
 unhallowed powers for half a century. The year in 
 which occurred the incidents I am about to describe 
 was, so to speak, her jubilee. 
 
 Mother Dundike must have been a woman of lively 
 imagination, if we may form conclusions from her 
 graphic account of the circumstances attending her 
 initiation into the great army of ' the devil's own.' One 
 day, when returning from a begging expedition, she 
 was accosted by a boy, dressed in a parti-coloured gar- 
 ment of black and white, who proved to be a demon, 
 or evil spirit, and promised her that, in return for the 
 gift of her soul, she should have anything and every- 
 thing she desired. On inquiring his name, she was 
 told it was Tib; and here I may note that the 
 ' princes and potentates ' of the nether world seem to 
 have had a great predilection for monosyllabic names, 
 and names of a vulgar and commonplace character. 
 The upshot of the conversation between Tib and the 
 woman was the surrender of her soul on the liberal 
 conditions promised, and for the next five or six years 
 the said devil frequently appeared unto her ' about 
 daylight-gate ' (near evening), and asked what she 
 would have or do. With wonderful unselfishness she 
 replied, ' Nothing.' Towards the end of the sixth 
 year, on a quiet Sabbath morning, while she lay 
 
234 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 asleep, Tib came in the shape of a brown dog, forced 
 himself to her knee, and, as she wore no other gar- 
 ment than a smock, succeeded in drawing blood. 
 Awaking suddenly, she exclaimed, ' Jesu, save my 
 child !' but had not the power to say, { Jesu, save mef 
 Whereupon the brown dog vanished, and for a space 
 of eight weeks she was 4 almost stark mad.' 
 
 The matter-of-fact style which distinguishes Mother 
 Dundike's confession may also be traced in the state- 
 ments of her children and grandchildren, who all 
 speak as if witchcraft were an everyday reality, and 
 as if evil spirits in various common disguises went to 
 and fro in the land with edifying regularity. Let us 
 turn to the evidence, if such it may be called, of 
 Alison Device, a girl of about thirteen or fourteen 
 years of age. Incriminating her grandmother with- 
 out scruple, she declared that when they were on the 
 tramp, the old woman frequently persuaded her to 
 allow a devil or i familiar ' to suck at some part of her 
 body, after which she might have and do what she 
 would though, strange to say, neither she nor any- 
 one else ever availed themselves of their powers to 
 improve their material condition, but lingered on in 
 poverty and privation. James Device, one of Mother 
 Dundike's grandsons, said that on Shrove Tuesday 
 she bade him go to church to receive the sacrament 
 not, however, to eat the consecrated bread, but to 
 bring at away, and deliver it to ' such a Thing' as 
 should meet him on his way homeward. But he dis- 
 obeyed the injunction, and ate the sacred bread. On 
 his way home, when about fifty yards from the 
 
CHAP. I.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 235 
 
 church, he was met by a * Thing in the shape of a 
 hare/ which asked him whether he had brought the 
 bread according to his grandmother's directions. He 
 answered that he had riot; and therefore the Thing 
 threatened to rend him in pieces, but he got rid of it 
 by calling upon God. 
 
 Some few days later, hard by the new church in 
 Pendle, a Thing appeared to him like to a brown dog, 
 asked him for his soul, and promised in return that 
 he should be avenged on his enemies. The virtuous 
 youth replied, somewhat equivocatingly, that his soul 
 was not his to give, but belonged to his Saviour Jesus 
 Christ ; as much as was his to give, however, he was 
 contented to dispose of. Two or three days later 
 James Device had occasion to go to Cave Hall, where 
 a Mrs. Towneley angrily accused him of having stolen 
 some of her turf, and drove him from her door with 
 violence. When the devil next appeared this time 
 like a black dog he found James Device in the right 
 temper for a deed of wickedness. He was instructed 
 to make an image of clay like Mrs. Towneley ; which 
 he did, and dried it the same night by the fire, and 
 daily for a week crumbled away the said image, and 
 two days after it was all gone Mrs. Towneley died ! 
 In the following Lent, one John Duckworth, of the 
 Launde, promised him an old shirt ; but when young 
 Device went to his house for the gift, he was denied, 
 and sent away with contumely. The spirit c Dandy ' 
 then appeared to him, and exclaimed : ' Thou didst 
 touch the man Duckworth/ which he, James Device, 
 denied ; but the spirit persisted : c Yes ; thou didst 
 
236 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 touch him, and therefore he is in my power.' Device 
 then agreed with the demon that the said Duckworth 
 should meet with the same fate as Mrs. Towneley, 
 and in the following week he died. 
 
 It is a curious fact that the old woman Chattox, the 
 head of the rival faction of practitioners in witchcraft, 
 accused Mother Dundike of having inveigled her into 
 the ranks of the devil's servants. This was about 1597 
 or 1598. To Mrs. Chattox the Evil One appeared as 
 he has appeared to too many of her sex in the shape 
 of a man. Time, midnight; place, Elizabeth Dun- 
 dike's tumble-down cottage. He asked, as usual, for 
 her soul, which she at first refused, but afterwards, at 
 Mother Dundike's advice and solicitation, agreed to 
 part with. ' Whereupon the said wicked spirit then 
 said unto her, that he must have one part of her body 
 for him to suck upon ; the which she denied then to 
 grant unto him ; and withal asked him, what part of 
 her body he would have for that use ; who said, he 
 would have a place of her right side, near to her ribs, 
 for him to suck upon ; whereunto she assented. And 
 she further said that, at the same time, there was a 
 Thing in the likeness of a spotted bitch, that came 
 with the said spirit unto the said Dundike, which did 
 then speak unto her in Anne Chattox' s hearing, and 
 said, that she should have gold, silver, and worldly 
 wealth at her will ; and at the same time she saith 
 there was victuals, viz., flesh, butter, cheese, bread, 
 and drink, and bid them eat enough. And after their 
 eating, the devil called Fancy, and the other spirit 
 
CHAP. I.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 237 
 
 calling himself Tib carried the remnant away. And 
 she saith, that although they did eat, they were never 
 the fuller nor better for the same ; and that at their 
 said banquet the said spirits gave them light to see 
 what they did, although they had neither fire nor 
 candle-light; and that there be both she-spirits and 
 (he-)devils.' 
 
 In a later chapter I shall have occasion to refer 
 to the confessions of the various persons impli- 
 cated in this ' Great Oyer ' of witchcraft. What 
 comes out very strongly in them is the hostility 
 which existed between the Chattoxes and the Dun- 
 dikes, and their respective adherents. In Pendle 
 Forest there were evidently two distinct parties, one 
 of which sought the favour and sustained the pre- 
 tensions of Mother Dundike, the other being not less 
 steadfast in allegiance to Mother Chattox. As to 
 these two beldams, it is clear enough that they 
 encouraged the popular credulity, resorted to many 
 ingenious expedients for the purpose of supporting 
 their influence, and unscrupulously employed that 
 influence in furtherance of their personal aims. They 
 knowingly played at a sham game of commerce with 
 the devil, and enjoyed the fear and awe with which 
 their neighbours looked up to them. It flattered 
 their vanity; and perhaps they played the game so 
 long as to deceive themselves. ' Human passions are 
 always to a certain degree infectious. Perceiving 
 the hatred of their neighbours, they began to think 
 that they were worthy objects of detestation and 
 terror, that their imprecations had a real effect, and 
 
238 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 their curses killed. The brown horrors of the forest 
 were favourable to visions, and they sometimes almost 
 believed that they met the foe of mankind in the 
 night.' To the delusions of the imagination, especi- 
 ally when suggested by pride and vanity, there are no 
 means of putting a limit ; and it is quite possible that 
 in time these women gave credence to their own absurd 
 inventions, and saw a demon or familiar spirit in 
 every hare or black or brown dog that accidentally 
 crossed their path. 
 
 For awhile the witches created a reign of terror in 
 the forest. But the interlacing animosities which 
 gradually sprang up between its inhabitants were the 
 fertile source of so much disorder that, at length, a 
 county magistrate of more than ordinary energy, 
 Roger No well, Esq., described as a very honest and 
 religious gentleman, conceived the idea that, by sup- 
 pressing them, he should do the State good service. 
 Accordingly he ordered the arrest of Dundike arid 
 Chattox, Alison Device, and Anne Redfern, and each, 
 in the hope of saving her life, having made a full 
 confession, he committed them to Lancaster Castle, 
 on April 2, 1612, to take their trials at the next 
 assizes. 
 
 No attempt was made, however, to search Malkin 
 Tower. This lonely ruin was regarded with super- 
 stitious dread by the peasantry, who durst never 
 approach it, on account of the strange unearthly 
 noises and the weird creatures that haunted its wild 
 recesses. James Device, when examined afterwards 
 by Nowell, deposed that about a month before his 
 
CHAP. I.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 239 
 
 arrest, as he was going towards his mother's house in 
 the twilight, he met a brown dog coming from it, 
 and, of course, a brown dog was the disguise of an 
 evil spirit. About two or three nights after, he 
 heard a great number of children shrieking and 
 crying pitifully in the same uncanny neighbourhood ; 
 and at a later date his ears were shocked by a loud 
 yelling, ' like unto a great number of cats.' We 
 have heard the same sounds ourselves, at night, in 
 places which did not profess to be haunted ! It is 
 very possible that Dame Dundike, who was obviously 
 a crafty old w T oman, with much knowledge of human 
 nature, had something to do with these noises and 
 appearances, for it was to her interest to maintain 
 the eerie reputation of the Tower, and prevent the 
 intrusion of inquisitive visitors. With all her little 
 secrets, it was natural enough she should say, c Procul 
 este, profanij while she would necessarily seize every 
 opportunity of extending and strengthening her 
 authority. 
 
 It was the general belief that the Malkin Tower 
 was the place where the witches annually kept their 
 Sabbath on Good Friday, and in 1612, after Dame 
 Dundike' s arrest, they met there as usual, in excep- 
 tionally large numbers, and, after the usual feasting, 
 conferred together on 4 the situation ' to use a slang 
 phrase of the present day. Elizabeth Device pre- 
 sided, and asked their advice as to the best method 
 of obtaining her mother's release. There must have 
 been some daring spirits among those old women ; 
 for it was proposed so runs the record to kill 
 
240 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 Lovel, the gaoler of Lancaster Castle, and another 
 man of the name of Lister, accomplish an informal 
 4 gaol-delivery/ and blow up the prison ! Even with 
 the help of their familiars, they would have found this 
 a difficult and dangerous enterprise, and we do not 
 wonder that the proposal met with general disfavour. 
 Seldom, if ever, do conspirators meet without a 
 traitor in their midst ; and on this occasion there 
 was a traitor in Malkin Tower in the person of 
 Janet Device, the youngest daughter of Alison 
 Device, and grand-daughter of the unfortunate old 
 woman who was lying ill and weak in Lancaster 
 Gaol. A girl of only nine years of age, she was an 
 experienced liar and thoroughly unscrupulous ; and 
 having been bribed by Justice Nowell, she informed 
 against the persons present at this meeting, and 
 secured their arrest. The number of prisoners at 
 Lancaster was increased to twelve, among whom were 
 Elizabeth Device, her son James, and Alice Nutter, of 
 Rough Lea, a lady of good family and fair estate. 
 There is good reason to believe that the last-named 
 was in no way implicated in the doings of the so- 
 called witches, but that she was introduced by Janet 
 Device to gratify the greed of some of her relatives - 
 who, in the event of her death, would inherit her 
 property and the ill-feeling of Justice Nowell, 
 whom she had worsted in a dispute about the 
 boundary of their respective lands. The charges 
 against her were trivial, and amounted to no more 
 than that she had been present at the Malkin Tower 
 convention, and had joined with Mother Dundike and 
 

 CHAP. I.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 241 
 
 Elizabeth Device in bewitching to death an old man 
 named Mitton. The only witnesses against her were 
 Janet and Elizabeth Device, neither of whom was 
 worthy of credence. 
 
 Blind old Mother Dundike escaped the terrible 
 penalty of an unrighteous law by dying in prison 
 before the day of trial. But justice must have been 
 well satisfied with its tale of victims. Foremost 
 among them was Mother Chattox, the head of the 
 anti-Dundike faction i a very old, withered, spent, 
 and decrepit creature/ whose sight was almost gone, 
 and whose lips chattered with the meaningless babble 
 of senility. When judgment was pronounced upon 
 her, she uttered a wild, incoherent prayer for Divine 
 mercy, and besought the judge to have pity upon 
 Anne Eedfern, her daughter. The next person for 
 trial was Elizabeth Device, who is described as 
 having been branded ' with a preposterous mark in 
 nature, even from her birth, which was her left eye 
 standing lower than the other ; the one looking 
 down, the other looking up ; so strangely deformed 
 that the best that were present in that honourable 
 assembly and great audience did affirm they had not 
 often seen the like.' When this woman discovered 
 that the principal witness against her was her own 
 child, she broke out into such a storm of curses and 
 reproaches that the proceedings came to a sudden 
 stop, and she had to be removed from the court 
 before her daughter could summon up courage to 
 repeat the fictions she had learned or concocted. 
 The woman was, of course, found guilty, as were 
 
 16 
 
242 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 also James and Alison Device, Alice Nutter, Anne 
 Kedfern, Katherine Hewit, John and Jane Balcock, 
 all of Pendle. and Isabel Roby, of Win die, most of 
 whom strenuously asserted their innocence to the last. 
 On August 13, the day after their trial, they were 
 burnt ' at the common place of execution, near to 
 Lancaster ' the unhappy victims of the ignorance, 
 superstition, and barbarity of the age. 
 
 Janet Device, as King's evidence, obtained a par- 
 don, though she acknowledged to have taken part in 
 the practices of her parents, and confessed to having 
 learned from her mother two prayers, one to cure the 
 bewitched, and the other to get drink. The former, 
 which is obviously a pasticcio of the old Eoman 
 Catholic hymns and traditional rhymes, runs as 
 follows : 
 
 ' Upon Good Friday, I will fast while I may 
 
 Untill I heare them knell 
 
 Our Lord's owne bell. 
 
 Lord in His messe 
 
 With His twelve Apostles good, 
 
 What hath He in His hand ? 
 
 Ligh in leath wand : 
 
 What hath He in His other hand ? 
 
 Heaven's door key. 
 
 Open, open, Heaven's door keys ! 
 
 Stark, stark, hell door. 
 
 Let Criznen child 
 
 Goe to its mother mild ; 
 
 What is yonder that crests a light so farrndly 1 
 
 Thine owne deare Sonne that's nailed to the Tree. 
 
 He is naild sore by the heart and hand, 
 
 And holy harne panne. 
 
 Well is that man 
 
 That Fryday spell can, 
 
 His child to learne ; 
 
CHAP. I.] EARLY HISTORY OF WITCHCRAFT. 243 
 
 A crosse of blew and another of red, 
 
 As good Lord was to the Roode. 
 
 Gabriel laid him downe to sleepe 
 
 Upon the ground of holy weepe ; 
 
 Good Lord came walking by. 
 
 Sleep'st thou, wak'st thou, Gabriel ? 
 
 No, Lord, I am sted with sticks and stake 
 
 That I can neither sleepe nor wake : 
 
 Rise up, Gabriel, and goe with me, 
 
 The stick nor the stake shall never dure thee. 
 
 Sweet Jesus, our Lord, Amen ! 
 
 The other prayer consisted only of the Latin 
 phrase : l Crucifixus hoc signurn vitam aeternam. 
 Amen/* 
 
 * Thomas Pott's 'Wonderful Discoverie of Witches in the 
 Countie of Lancashire' (1615), reprinted by the Chetham 
 Society, 1845. 
 
 162 
 
244 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 WITCHCEAFT IN ENGLAND IN THE 17TH CENTURY. 
 
 iTnE accession of James I., a professed demonologist, 
 and an expert in all matters relating to witchcraft, 
 gave a great impulse to the persecution of witches in 
 England. * Poor old women and girls of tender age 
 were walked, swum, shaved, and tortured ; the 
 gallows creaked and the fires blazed/ In accordance 
 with the well-known economic law, that the demand 
 creates the supply, it was found that, in proportion 
 as trials and tortures increased, so did the number 
 of witches, until half the old hags in England sup- 
 posed themselves, or were supposed by others, to 
 have made compacts with the devil. Legislation 
 then augmented its severity, and Parliament, in com- 
 pliance with the wishes of the new King, passed an 
 Act by which sorcery and witchcraft were made 
 felony, without benefit of clergy. For some years 
 the country was witch-ridden, and it is appalling to 
 think of the hundreds of hapless, ignorant, and 
 innocent creatures who were cruelly done to death 
 under the influence of this extraordinary mania. \ 
 

 CHAP. II.] WITCHCRAFT IN THE 17TH CENTURY. 245 
 
 A remarkable case tried at King's Lynn in 1606 
 is reported in Ho well's ' State Trials/ I avail myself 
 of the summary furnished by Mr. Inderwick. 
 
 Marie, wife of Henry Smith, grocer, confessed, 
 under examination, that, being indignant with some 
 of her neighbours because they prospered in their 
 trade more than she did, she oftentimes cursed them ; 
 and that once, while she was thus engaged, the devil 
 appeared in the form of a black man, and willed that 
 she should continue in her malice, envy, and hatred, 
 banning and cursing, and then he would see that she 
 was revenged upon all to whom she wished evil. 
 There was, of course, a compact insisted upon : that 
 she should renounce God, and embrace the devil and 
 all his works. After this he appeared frequently 
 once as a mist, once as a ball of fire, and twice he 
 visited her in prison with a pair of horns, advising 
 her to make no confession, but to rely upon him. 
 
 The evidence of the acts of witchcraft was as 
 follows : 
 
 John Oakton, a sailor, having struck her boy, she 
 cursed him roundly, and hoped his fingers would rot 
 off, which took place, it was said, two years after- 
 wards. 
 
 She quarrelled with Elizabeth Hancock about a 
 hen, alleging that Elizabeth had stolen it. When the 
 said Elizabeth denied the- theft, she bade her go in- 
 doors, for she would repent it ; and that same night 
 Elizabeth had pains all over her body, and her bed 
 jumped up and down for the space of an hour or 
 more. Elizabeth then consulted her father, and was 
 
246 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 taken by him to a wizard named Drake, who taught 
 her how to concoct a witch-cake w r ith all the nastiest 
 ingredients imaginable, and to apply it, with certain 
 words and conjurations, to the afflicted parts. For 
 the time Elizabeth was cured ; but some time after- 
 wards, when she had been married to one James 
 Scott, a great cat began to go about her house, and 
 having done some harm, Scott thrust it twice 
 through with his sword. As it still ran to and fro, 
 he smote it with all his might upon its head, but 
 could not kill it, for it leaped upwards almost a yard, 
 and then crept down. Even when put into a bag, 
 and dragged to the muck-hill, it moved and stirred, 
 and the next morning was nowhere to be found. 
 And this same cat, it was afterwards sworn, sat on 
 the chest of Cicely Balye, and nearly suffocated her, 
 because she had quarrelled with the witch about her 
 manner of sweeping before her door; and the said 
 witch called the said Cicely ' a fat-tailed sow,' and 
 said her fatness would shortly be abated, as, indeed, 
 it was. 
 
 Edmund Newton swore that he had been afflicted 
 with various sicknesses, and had been banged in the 
 face with dirty cloths, because he had undersold 
 Marie Smith in Dutch cheeses. She also sent to him 
 a person clothed in russet, with a little bush beard 
 and a cloven foot, together with her imps, a toad, and 
 a crab. One of his servants took the toad and put 
 it into the fire, when it made a groaning noise for a 
 quarter of an hour before it was consumed, ' during 
 which time Marie Smith, who sent it, did endure (as 
 
CHAP. II.] WITCHCRAFT IN THE 17TH CENTURY. 247 
 
 was reported) torturing pains, testifying the grief 
 she felt by the outcries she then made.' 
 
 Upon this evidence such as it was and upon her 
 own confession, Marie Smith was convicted and sen- 
 tenced to death. On the scaffold she humbly acknow- 
 ledged her sins, prayed earnestly that God might 
 forgive her the wrongs she had done her neighbours, 
 and asked that a hymn of her own choosing ' Lord, 
 turn not away Thy face ' might be sung. Then 
 she died calmly. It is, no doubt, a curious fact if, 
 indeed, it be a fact, but the evidence is by no means 
 satisfactory that she confessed to various acts of 
 witchcraft, and to having made a compact with the 
 devil ; but even this alleged confession cannot receive 
 our credence when we reflect on the inherent absurdity 
 and impossibility of the whole affair. 
 
 In 1619, Joan Flower and her two daughters, 
 Margaretta and Philippa, formerly servants at Belvoir 
 Castle, were tried before Judges Hobart and Bromley, 
 on a charge of having bewitched to death two sons 
 of the sixth Earl of Rutland, and found guilty. The 
 mother died in prison; the two daughters were 
 executed at Lincoln. 
 
 THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES. 
 
 My chronological survey next brings me to the 
 famous case of the Lancashire witches. 
 
 I have already told the story of the Dundikes and 
 the Chattoxes, and their exploits in Pendle Forest. 
 In the same locality, two-and-twenty years later, 
 
248 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 lived a man of the name of Robinson, to whom it 
 occurred that the prevalent belief in witchcraft 
 might be turned to account against his neighbours. 
 In this design he made his son a lad about eleven 
 years old his instrument. After he had been 
 properly trained, he was instructed by his father, on 
 February 10, 1633, to go before two justices of the 
 peace, and make the following declaration : 
 
 That, on All Saints' Day, while gathering wild 
 plums in Wheatley Lane, he saw a black greyhound 
 and a brown scamper across the fields. They came 
 up to him familiarly, and he then discovered that 
 each wore a collar shining like gold. As no one 
 accompanied them, he concluded that they had 
 broken loose from their kennels ; and as at that 
 moment a hare started up only a few paces from him, 
 he thought he would set them to hunt it, but his 
 efforts were all in vain ; and in his wrath he took the 
 strings that hung from their collars, tied both to a 
 little bush, and then whipped them. Whereupon, in 
 the place of the black greyhound, started up the wife 
 of a man named Dickinson, and in that of the brown 
 a little boy. In his amazement, young Robinson (so 
 he said) would have run away, but he was stayed by 
 Mistress Dickinson, who pulled out of her pocket ' a 
 piece of silver much like untoafine shilling/ and offered 
 it to him, if he promised to be silent. But he refused, 
 exclaiming : * Nay, thou art a witch !' Whereupon, 
 she again put her hand in her pocket, and drew forth 
 a string like a jingling bridle, which she put over the 
 head of the small boy, and, behold, he was turned 
 
CHAP. II.] THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES. 249 
 
 into a white horse, with a change as quick as that of 
 a scene in a pantomime. Upon this white horse the 
 woman placed, by force, young Robinson, and rode 
 with him as far as the Hoar-Stones a house at 
 which the witches congregated together where 
 divers persons stood about the door, while others 
 were riding towards it on horses of different colours. 
 These dismounted, and, having tied up their horses, 
 all went into the house, accompanied by their friends, 
 to the number of threescore. At a blazing fire some 
 meat was roasting, and a young woman gave Robin- 
 son flesh and bread upon a trencher, and drink in a 
 glass, which, after the first taste, he refused, and 
 would have no more, saying it was nought. Pre- 
 sently, observing that certain of the company re- 
 paired to an adjoining barn, he followed, and saw six 
 of them on their knees, pulling at six several ropes 
 which were fastened to the top of the house, with the 
 result that joints of meat smoking hot, lumps of 
 butter, and milk ' syleing,' or straining from the said 
 ropes, fell into basins placed underneath them. When 
 these six were weary, came other six, and pulled 
 right lustily ; and all the time they were pulling they 
 made such foul faces that they frightened the peep- 
 ing lad, so that he was glad to steal out and run 
 home. 
 
 No sooner was his escape discovered than a party 
 of the witches, including Dickinson's wife, the wife of 
 a man named Loynds, and Janet Device, took up the 
 pursuit, and over field and scaur hurried headlong, 
 nearly overtaking him at a spot called Boggard Hole, 
 
 
250 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK IL 
 
 when the opportune appearance of a couple of horse- 
 men induced them to abandon their quarry. But 
 young Robinson was not yet ' out of the wood. 7 In 
 the evening he was despatched by his father to bring 
 home the cattle, and on the way, in a field called the 
 Oilers, he fell in with a boy who picked a quarrel 
 with him, and they fought together until the blood 
 flowed from his ears, when, happening to look down, 
 he saw that his antagonist had cloven feet, and, much 
 affrighted, set off at full speed to execute his commis- 
 sion. Perceiving a light like that of a lantern, he 
 hastened towards it, in the belief it was carried by a 
 neighbour ; but on arriving at the place of its shining 
 he found there a woman whom he recognised as the 
 wife of Loynds, and immediately turned back. Falling 
 in again with the cloven-footed boy, he thought it 
 prudent to take to his heels, but not before he had 
 received a blow on the back which pained him sorely. 
 
 In support of this extraordinary story, the elder 
 Robinson deposed that he had certainly sent his son 
 to bring in the kine ; that, thinking he was away too 
 long, he had gone in search of him, and discovered 
 him in such a distracted condition that he knew 
 neither his father nor where he was, and so continued 
 for very nearly a quarter of an hour before he came 
 to himself. 
 
 The persons implicated by the boy Robinson were 
 immediately arrested, and confined in Lancaster 
 Castle. Some of them for he told various stories, 
 and in each introduced new r characters he did not 
 know by name, but he protested that on seeing them 
 
CHAP. IL] THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES. 251 
 
 lie should recognise them, and for this purpose he 
 was carried about to the churches in the surrounding 
 district to examine the congregations. The method 
 adopted is thus described by Webster : ' It came to 
 pass that this said boy was brought into the church 
 of Kildwick, a large parish church, where I (being 
 then curate there) was preaching in the afternoon, 
 and was set upon a stall (he being but about ten or 
 eleven years old) to look about him, which moved 
 some little disturbance in the congregation for awhile. 
 And, after prayers, I inquiring what the matter was, 
 the people told me it was the boy that discovered 
 witches, upon which I went to the house where he 
 was to stay all night, where I found him and two 
 very unlikely persons that did conduct him and 
 manage his business. I desired to have some dis- 
 course with the boy in private, but they utterly 
 refused. Then, in the presence of a great many 
 people, I took the boy near me and said: " Good boy, 
 tell me truly, and in earnest, didst thou see and hear 
 such strange things of the meeting of witches as is 
 reported by many that thou dost relate, or did not 
 some person teach thee to say such things of thy- 
 self ?" But the two men, not giving the boy leave to 
 answer, did pluck him from me, and said he had been 
 examined by two able justices of the peace, and they 
 did never ask him such a question ; to whom I replied, 
 the persons accused therefore had the more wrong.' 
 
 In all, some eighteen women, married and single 
 the charge was generally made against women, as 
 probably less capable of self-defence, and more im- 
 
252 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 pressionable than men were brought to trial at Lan- 
 caster Assizes. There was really no evidence against 
 them but the boy Robinson's, and to sustain it his 
 unfortunate victims were examined for the stigmata, 
 or devil-marks, which, of course, were found in ample 
 quantity. Against seventeen a verdict of guilty was 
 returned, one or two being convicted on their own 
 confessions the most perplexing incident in the 
 whole case, for as these confessions were unquestion- 
 ably false, they who made them were really lying 
 away their own lives. By what impulse of morbid 
 vanity, or diseased craving for notoriety, or strange 
 mental delusion, were they inspired ? And whence 
 came the wild and even foul ideas which formed the 
 staple of their delirious narratives ? How did these 
 quiet, stolid, unlettered Lancashire peasant-women 
 become possessed of inventions worthy of the grimmest 
 of German tales of diablerie ? It is easier to ask these 
 questions than to answer them ; but when the witch 
 mania was once kindled in a neighbourhood it seems, 
 like a pestilential atmosphere, to have stricken with 
 disease every mind that was predisposed to the recep- 
 tion of unwholesome impressions. 
 
 The confession of Margaret Johnson, made on 
 March 9, 1613, has been printed before, but it has so 
 strong a psychological interest that I cannot omit it 
 here. It may be taken as a type of the confessions 
 made by the victims of credulity under similar cir- 
 cumstances : 
 
 ' Betweene seven or eight yeares since, shee being in her house 
 at Marsden in greate passion and anger, and discontented, and 
 
CHAP. II.] THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES. 253 
 
 withall oppressed with some want, there appeared unto her a 
 spirit or devill in the similitude and proportion of a man, 
 apparelled in a suite of black, tied about with silke pointes, whoe 
 offered her, yff shee would give him her soule, hee would supply 
 all her wantes, and bring to her whatsoever shee wanted or 
 needed, and at her appointment would helpe her to kill and 
 revenge her either of men or beastes, or what she desired ; and, 
 after a solicitation or two, shee contracted and condicioned with 
 the said devill or spiritt for her soule. And the said devill bad 
 her call him by the name of Memiilion, and when shee called 
 hee would bee ready to doe her will. And she saith that in all 
 her talke and conference shee called the said Memiilion her god. 
 
 'And shee further saith that shee was not at the greate 
 meetinge of the witches at Hare-stones in the forest of Pendle 
 on All Saintes Day last past, but saith shee was at a second 
 meetinge the Sunday after All Saintes Day at the place aforesaid, 
 where there was at that time betweene thirty and forty witches, 
 which did all ride to the same meetinge. And thead of the said 
 meetinge was to consult for the killing and hunting of men and 
 beastes ; and that there was one devill or spiritt that was more 
 greate and grand devill than the rest, and yff anie witch desired 
 to have such an one, they might have such an one to kill or hurt 
 anie body. And she further saith, that such witches as have sharpe 
 boanes are generally for the devill to prick them with which have no 
 papps nor duggs, but raiseth blood from the place pricked with the 
 boane, which witches are more greate and grand witches than they which 
 have papps or dugs (/). And shee being further asked what 
 persons were at their last meetinge, she named one Carpnell and 
 his wife, Kason and his wife, Pickhamer and his wife, Duffy and 
 his wife, and one Jane Carbonell, whereof Pickhamer's wife is the 
 most greate, grand, and an orcyent witch; and that one witch alone 
 can kill a beast, and yf they bid their spiritt or devill to goe and 
 pricke or hurt anie man in anie particular place, hee presently will 
 doe it. And that their spiritts have usually knowledge of their 
 bodies. And shee further saith the men witches have women 
 spiritts, and women witches have men spiritts ; that Good 
 Friday is one of their constant daies of their generall meetinge, 
 and that on Good Friday last they had a meetinge neere Pendle 
 water-side ; and saith that their spirit doeth tell them where 
 their meetinge must bee, and in what place ; and saith that if a 
 witch desire to be in anie place upon a soddaine, that, on a dogg, 
 
 
254 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 or a tod, or a catt, their spiritt will presently convey them 
 thither, or into anie room in anie man's house. 
 
 ' But shee saith it is not the substance of their bodies that 
 doeth goe into anie such roomes, but their spiritts that assume 
 such shape and forme. And shee further saith that the devill, 
 after hee begins to sucke, will make a papp or a dug in a short 
 time, and the matter hee sucketh is blood. And further saith 
 that the devill can raise foule wether and stormes, and soe hee did 
 at their meetinges. And shee further saiih that when the devill 
 came to suck her pappe, he came to her in the likeness of a catt, 
 sometimes of one collour, and sometimes of another. And since 
 this trouble befell her, her spirit hath left her, and shee never saw 
 him since.' 
 
 Happily, the judge who presided at the trial of 
 these deluded and persecuted unfortunates was dis- 
 satisfied with the evidence, and reprieved them until 
 he had time to communicate with the Privy Council, 
 by whose orders Bridgman, Bishop of Chester, pro- 
 ceeded to examine into the principal cases. Three of 
 the supposed criminals, however, had died of anxiety 
 and suffering before the work of investigation began, 
 and a fourth was sick beyond recovery. The cases 
 into which the Bishop inquired were those of Margaret 
 Johnson, Frances Dicconson, or Dickinson, Mary 
 Spencer, and Mrs. Hargrave. Margaret Johnson the 
 good Bishop describes as a widow of sixty, who was 
 deeply penitent. ' I will not add,' she said, ' sin to sin. 
 I have already done enough, yea, too much, and will 
 not increase it. I pray God I may repent/ This 
 victim of hallucination had confessed herself to be a 
 witch, as we have seen, and was characterized by the 
 Bishop as ' more often faulting in the particulars of 
 her actions.' Frances Dicconson, however, and Mary 
 Spencer, absolutely denied the truth of the accusa- 
 
CHAP. II.] THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES. 255 
 
 tions brought against them. Frances, according to 
 the boy Robinson, had changed herself into a dog ; 
 but it transpired that she had had a quarrel with the 
 elder Kobinson. Mary Spencer, a young woman of 
 twenty, said that Robinson cherished much ill-feeling 
 against her parents, who had been convicted of witch- 
 craft at the last assizes, and had since died. She 
 repeated the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed, 
 and declared that she defied the devil and all his 
 works. A story had been set afloat that she used to 
 call her pail to follow her as she ran. The truth was 
 that she often trundled it down-hill, and called to it 
 in jest to come after her if she outstripped it. She 
 could have explained every circumstance in court, 
 4 but the wind was so loud and the throng so great, 
 that she could not hear the evidence against her.' 
 
 This last touch, as Mr. S. R. Gardiner remarks, 
 completes the tragedy of the situation. ' History,' as 
 he says, f occupies itself perforce mainly with the 
 sorrows of the educated classes, whose own peers 
 have left the records of their wrongs. Into the 
 sufferings of the mass of the people, except when 
 they have been lashed by long-continued injustice 
 into frenzy, it is hard to gain a glimpse. For once 
 the veil is lifted, and we see, as by a lightning flash, 
 the forlorn and unfriended girl, to whom the inhuman 
 laws of her country denied the services of an advocate, 
 baffled by the noisy babble around her in her efforts 
 to speak a word on behalf of her innocence. The 
 very Bishop who examined her was under the influ- 
 ence of the legal superstition that every accused 
 
 
256 WITCH, WAKLOCK, AND MAUICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 person was the enemy of the King. He had heard, 
 he said, that the father of the boy Robinson had 
 offered, for forty shillings, to withdraw his charge 
 against Frances Dicconson, " but such evidence being, 
 as the lawyers speak, against the King," he " thought 
 it not meet without further authority to examine." 
 
 The Bishop, however, like the judge, was dis- 
 satisfied with the evidence; and the accused persons 
 were eventually sent up to London, where they were 
 examined by the King's physicians, the Bishops, the 
 Privy Council, and by King Charles himself. Some 
 medical men and midwives reported that Margaret 
 Johnson was deceived in her idea that she bore on 
 her body a sign or mark that her blood had been 
 sucked. Doubts as to the truth of the boy Robinson's 
 story being freely entertained, he was separated from 
 his father, and he then revealed the whole invention 
 to the King's coachman. He had heard stories told 
 of witches and their doings, and out of these had 
 concocted his ghastly fiction to save himself a whip- 
 ping for having neglected to bring home his mother's 
 cows. His father, perceiving at once how much might 
 be made out of the tale, took it up and expanded it ; 
 manipulated it so as to serve his feelings of revenge or 
 avarice, and then taught the boy how to repeat the en- 
 larged and improved version. It was all a lie from 
 beginning to end. The day on which he pretended to 
 have been carried to the Witches' Sabbath at the Hoar- 
 Stones, he was a mile distant, gathering plums in a 
 farmer's orchard. The accused were then admitted 
 to the King's presence, and assured that their lives 
 
CHAP. II.] THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES. "257 
 
 were safe. Further than this Charles seems to have 
 been unable to go ; for as late as 1636 these innocent 
 and ill-treated persons were still lying in Lancaster 
 Castle. It is satisfactory to state, however, that both 
 the boy Robinson and his father were thrown into 
 prison. 
 
 Fresh cases of witchcraft sprang up in the Pendle 
 district, and early in 1636 four more women were 
 condemned to death at the Lancaster Assizes. Bishop 
 Bridgman, who was again directed to make inquiries, 
 found that two of them had died in gaol, and that of 
 the two others, one had been convicted on a mad- 
 man's evidence, and that of a woman of ill fame; 
 while the only proof alleged against the other was 
 that a fleshy excrescence of the size of a hazel-nut 
 grew on her right ear, and the end of it, being bloody, 
 was supposed to have been sucked by a familiar 
 spirit. The two women seem to have been pardoned ; 
 but, as in the former case, public opinion set too 
 strongly against them to admit of their being released. 
 
 THE WITCHES OF SALMESBURY. 
 
 The singular circumstances connected with the 
 supposed outbreak of witchcraft in Pendle Forest 
 have, to a great extent, obscured the strange case of 
 the witches of Salmesbury, though it presents several 
 features worthy of consideration. 
 
 Three persons were accused Jennet Bierley, Ellen 
 Bierley, and Jane Southworth and their supposed 
 victim was one Grace Sowerbutts. In the language 
 
 17 
 
258 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 of Mr. Thomas Potts, they were led into error by 
 1 a subtle practice and conspiracy of a seminary priest, 
 or Jesuit, whereof this county of Lancaster hath good 
 store, who by reason of the general entertainment 
 they find, and great maintenance they have, resort 
 hither, being far from the eye of Justice, and, there- 
 fore, procul a fulmine.'' At their trial, which took 
 place before Mr. Justice Bromley at Lancaster, on 
 .Wednesday, August 19, the evidence of Grace Sower- 
 butts was to the following effect : 
 
 That for the space of some years past (at the time 
 of the trial she was only fourteen) she had been 
 haunted and vexed by four women, namely, Jennet 
 Bierley, her grandmother, Ellen Bierley, wife to 
 Henry Bierley, Jane Southworth, and a certain Old 
 Dorwife. Lately, these four women drew her by the 
 hair of her head, and laid her on the top of a hay- 
 mow in the said Henry Bierley's barn. Not long 
 after, Jennet Bierley met her near her house, first 
 appearing in her own likeness, and after that as a 
 black dog, and when she, Grace Sowerbutts, went 
 over a stile, she picked her off. However, she was 
 not hurt, and, springing to her feet, she continued 
 her way to her aunt's at Osbaldeston. That evening 
 she told her father what had occurred. On Saturday, 
 April 4, going towards Salmesbury Butt to meet her 
 mother, she fell in, at a place called the Two Briggs, 
 with Jennet Bierley, first in her own shape, and after- 
 wards in the likeness of a two-legged black dog ; and 
 this dog kept close by her side until they came to a 
 pool of water, when it spake, and endeavoured to 
 
CHAP. II.] THE WITCHES OF SALMESBURY. 259 
 
 persuade her to drown herself therein, saying it 
 was a fair and an easy death. Whereupon, she 
 thought there came to her one in a white sheet, and 
 carried her away from the pool, and in a short space 
 of time both the white thing and the black dog de- 
 parted; but after Grace had crossed two or three 
 fields, the black dog re- appeared, and conveyed her 
 into Hugh Walshman's barn close at hand, laid her 
 upon the floor, covered her with straw on her body 
 and hay on her head, and lay down on the top of the 
 straw for how long a time Grace was unable to 
 determine ; because, she said, her speech and senses 
 were taken from her. When she recovered her con- 
 sciousness, she was lying on a bed in Walshman's 
 house, having been removed thither by some friends 
 who had found her in the barn within a few hours of 
 her having been taken there. As it was Monday 
 night when she came to her senses, she had been in 
 her trance or swoon, according to her marvellous 
 story, for about forty -eight hours. 
 
 On the following day, Tuesday, her parents fetched 
 her home ; but at the Two Briggs Jennet and Ellen 
 Bierley appeared in their own shapes, and she fell 
 down in another trance, remaining unable to speak or 
 walk until the following Friday. 
 
 All this was remarkable enough, but Grace Sower- 
 butts or the person who had tutored her felt it was 
 not sufficiently grim or gruesome to make much 
 impression on a Lancashire jury, accustomed in witch 
 trials to much more harrowing details. She pro- 
 ceeded, therefore, to recall an incident of a more 
 
 172 
 
260 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK IT. 
 
 attractive character. A good while, she said, before the 
 trance business occurred, she accompanied her aunt, 
 Ellen Bierley, and her grandmother, Jennet Bierley, to 
 the house of one Thomas Walshman. It was night, 
 and all the household were asleep, but the doors flew 
 open, and the unexpected visitors entered. Grace 
 and Ellen Bierley remained below, while Jennet 
 made her way to the sleeping-room of Thomas 
 Walshman and his wife, and thence brought a little 
 child, which, as Grace supposed, must have been in 
 bed with its father and mother. Having thrust a 
 nail into its navel, she afterwards inserted a quill, 
 and sucked for a good while ( !) ; then replaced the 
 child with its parents, who, of course, had never 
 roused from their sleep. The child did not cry when 
 it was thus abused, but thenceforth languished, and 
 soon afterwards died. And on the night after its 
 burial, the said Jennet and Ellen Bierley, taking 
 Grace Sowerbutts with them, went to Salmesbury 
 churchyard, took up the body, and carried it to 
 Jennet's house, where a portion of it was boiled in a 
 pot, and a portion broiled on the coals. Of both 
 portions Jennet and Ellen partook, and would have 
 had Grace join them in the ghoul-like repast, but she 
 refused. Afterwards Jennet and Ellen seethed the 
 bones in a pot, and with the fat that came from them 
 said they would anoint their bodies, so that they 
 might sometimes change themselves into other 
 shapes. 
 
 The next story told by this abandoned girl is too 
 foul and coarse for these pages, and we pass on to the 
 
CHAP. II.] THE WITCHES OF SALMESBURY. 261 
 
 conclusion of her evidence. On a certain occasion, 
 she said, Jane Southworth, a widow, met her at the 
 door of her father's house, carried her to the loft, and 
 laid her upon the floor, where she was found by 
 her father unconscious, and unconscious she remained 
 till the next day. The widow Southworth then 
 visited her again, took her out of bed, and placed her 
 upon the top of a hayrick, three or four yards from 
 the ground. She was discovered in this position by 
 a neighbour's wife, and laid in her bed again, but 
 remained speechless and senseless as before for two or 
 three days. A week or so after her recovery, Jane 
 Southworth paid her a third visit, took her away 
 from her home, and laid her in a ditch near the house, 
 with her face downwards. The usual process 
 followed: she was discovered and put to bed, but 
 continued unconscious this time, however, only for 
 a day and a night. And, further, on the Tuesday 
 before the trial, the said Jane Southworth came again 
 to her father's house, took her and carried her into 
 the barn, and thrust her head amongst ' a company of 
 boards ' which were standing there, where she was 
 soon afterwards found, and, being again placed in a 
 bed, remained in her old fit until the Thursday night 
 following. 
 
 After Grace Sowerbutts had finished her evidence, 
 Thomas Walshman was called, who proved that his 
 child died when about a year old, but of what disease 
 he knew not; and that Grace Sowerbutts had been 
 found in his father's barn, and afterwards carried into 
 his house, where she lay till the Monday night t as if 
 
262 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 she had been dead. 7 Then one John Singleton's 
 deposition was taken: That he had often heard his 
 old master, Sir John Southworth, say, touching the 
 widow Southworth, that she was, as he thought, an 
 evil woman and a witch, and that he was sorry for 
 her husband, who was his kinsman, for he believed 
 she would kill him. And that the said Sir John, in 
 coming or going between Preston and his own house 
 at Salmesbury, mostly avoided passing the old wife's 
 residence, though it was the nearest way, entirely 
 out of fear of the said wife. (Brave Sir John !) 
 
 This evidence, it is clear, failed to prove against 
 the prisoners a single direct act of witchcraft ; but so 
 credulous were judge and jury in matters of this 
 kind, that, notwithstanding the vague and suspicious 
 character of the testimony brought forward, it would 
 have gone hard with the accused, but for an acci- 
 dental question which disclosed the fact that the girl, 
 Grace Sowerbutts, had been prompted in her inco- 
 herent narrative, and taught to sham her fits of 
 unconsciousness, by a Roman priest or Jesuit, named 
 Thompson or Southworth, who was actuated by 
 motives of fanaticism. 
 
 4 How well this project,' exclaims the indignant 
 Potts, ' to take away the lives of these innocent poor 
 creatures by practice and villainy, to induce a young 
 scholar to commit perjury, to accuse her own grand- 
 mother, aunt, etc.. agrees either with the title of a 
 Jesuit or the duty of a religious Priest, who should 
 rather profess sincerity and innocency than practise 
 treachery. But this was lawful, for they are heretics 
 
CHAP. II.] THE WITCHES OF S .\LMESBURY. 263 
 
 accursed, to leave the company of priests, to frequent 
 churches, hear the word of God preached, and profess 
 religion sincerely.' The horrors which he taught 
 his promising pupil, Thompson probably gathered 
 from the pages of Bodin and Delrio, or some of the 
 other demonologists. Potts continues : 
 
 4 Who did not condemn these women upon this 
 evidence, and hold them guilty of this so foul and 
 horrible murder ? But Almighty God, who in His 
 providence had provided means for their deliverance, 
 although the priest, by the help of the Devil, had 
 provided false witnesses to accuse them ; yet God 
 had prepared and placed in the seat of justice an 
 upright judge to sit in judgment upon their lives, 
 who after he had heard all the evidence at large 
 against the prisoners for the King's Majesty, demanded 
 of them what answer they could make. They humbly 
 upon their knees, with weeping tears, desired him 
 for God's cause to examine Grace Sowerbutts, who 
 set her on, or by whose means this accusation came 
 against them.' 
 
 The countenance of Grace Sowerbutts immediately 
 underwent a great change, and the witnesses began 
 to quarrel and accuse one another. The judge put 
 some questions to the girl, who, for the life of her, 
 could make no direct or intelligible answer, saying, 
 with obvious hesitation, that she was put to a master 
 to learn, but he had told her nothing of this. 
 
 4 But here,' continues Potts, ' as his lordship's care 
 and pains was great to discover the practices of those 
 odious witches of the Forest of Pendle, and other 
 
WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK IL 
 
 places, now upon their tribunal before him; so was 
 he desirous to discover this damnable practice to 
 accuse these poor women and bring their lives in 
 danger, and thereby to deliver the innocent. 
 
 ' And as he openly delivered it upon the bench, in 
 the hearing of a great audience : That if a Priest or 
 Jesuit had a hand in one end of it, there would 
 appear to be knavery and practice in the other end 
 of it. And that it might better appear to the whole 
 world, examined Thomas Sowerbutts what [the] 
 Master taught his daughter: in general terms, he 
 denied all. 
 
 c The wench had nothing to say, but her Master 
 told her nothing of this. In the end, some that were 
 present told his lordship the truth, and the prisoners 
 informed him how she went to learn with one 
 Thompson, a Seminary Priest, who had instructed 
 and taught her this accusation against them, because 
 they were once obstinate Papists, and now came to 
 Church. Here is the discovery of this Priest, and of 
 his whole practice. Still this fire increased more and 
 more, and one witness accusing another, all things 
 were laid open at large. 
 
 1 In the end his lordship took away the girl from 
 her father, and committed her to Mr. Leigh, a very 
 religious preacher, and Mr. Chisnal, two Justices of 
 the Peace, to be carefully examined/ 
 
 The examination was as follows : 
 
 ' Being demanded whether the accusation she laid 
 upon her grandmother, Jennet Bierley, Ellen Bierley, 
 and Jane Southworth, of witchcraft, namely, of the 
 
CHAP. II.] THE WITCHES OF SALMKSBURY. 265 
 
 killing of the child of Thomas Walshman with a nail 
 in the navel, the boiling, eating, and oiling, thereby 
 to transform themselves into divers shapes, was true ; 
 she doth utterly deny the same : or that ever she saw 
 any such practices done by them. 
 
 ' She further saith, that one Master Thompson, 
 which she taketh to be Master Christopher South- 
 worth, to whom she was sent to learn her prayers, 
 did persuade, counsel, and advise her, to deal as 
 formerly hath been said against her said Grandmother, 
 Aunt, and Southworth's wife. 
 
 ' And further she confesseth and saith, that she 
 never did know, or saw any Devils, nor any other 
 Visions, as formerly by her hath been alleged and 
 informed. 
 
 ' Also she confesseth and saith, that she was not 
 thrown or cast upon the hen-ruff and hay-mow in 
 the barn, but that she went up upon the Mow herself 
 by the wall- side. 
 
 1 Being farther demanded whether she ever was at 
 the Church, she saith, she was not, but promised here- 
 after to go to the Church, and that very willingly.' 
 
 The three accused were also examined, and declared 
 their belief that Grace Sowerbutts had been trained 
 by the priest to accuse them of witchcraft, because 
 they ' would not be dissuaded from the Church/ 
 
 ' These examinations being taken, they were brought 
 into the Court, and there openly in the presence of 
 this great audience published and declared to the 
 jury of life and death ; and thereupon the gentlemen 
 of their jury required to consider of them. For 
 
 
266 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 although they stood upon their Trial, for matter of 
 fact of witchcraft, murther, and much more of the 
 like nature: yet in respect all their accusations did 
 appear to be practice, they were now to consider of 
 them and to acquit them. Thus were these poor 
 innocent creatures, by the great care and pains of this 
 honourable Judge, delivered from the danger of this 
 conspiracy; this bloody practice of the Priest laid 
 open : of whose fact I may lawfully say, Etiam si ego 
 tacuero clamabunt lapides. 
 
 ' These are but ordinary with Priests and Jesuits : 
 no respect of blood, kindred, or friendship can move 
 them to forbear their conspiracies ; for when he had 
 laboured treacherously to seduce and convert them, 
 and yet could do no good, then devised he this 
 means. 
 
 1 God of His great mercy deliver us all from them 
 and their damnable conspiracies : and when any of his 
 Majesty's subjects, so free and innocent as these, shall 
 come in question, grant them as honourable a trial, 
 as reverend and worthy a judge to sit in judgment 
 upon them, and in the end as speedy a deliverance. 
 
 ' And for that which I have heard of them, seen with 
 my eyes, and taken pains to read of them, my humble 
 prayer shall be to God Almighty, Vt convertantur 
 ne pereant. Aut confundantur ne noceant.'* 
 
 I pass on to a remarkable trial for witchcraft which 
 took place at Taunton Assizes in August, 1626, one 
 
 * Potts, * Wonderful Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of 
 Lancaster' (1613). 
 

 CHAP. II.] THE WITCHES OF TAUNTON. ' 267 
 
 Edward Ball and Joan Greedie being charged with 
 having practised upon a certain Edward Dinham. 
 
 It seems that the complainant, when under the 
 witch-spell, possessed no fewer than three voices 
 namely, his own natural voice, and two artificial 
 voices, of which one was shrill and pleasant, the 
 other deadly and hollow. These two voices belonged 
 respectively to the good and evil spirits which 
 alternately prevailed over him. As it is said that 
 they spoke without any movement of the lips or 
 tongue, it is probable the man was a natural ventrilo- 
 quist, and made use of his gift to imperil the lives of 
 Ball and Greedie, against whom he may have enter- 
 tained a hostile feeling. He gave the following 
 specimen of the conversation which took place 
 between him and his spirits : 
 
 GOOD SPIRIT. How comes this man to be thus tormented 1 
 
 BAD SPIRIT. He is bewitched. 
 
 GOOD. Who hath done it 1 
 
 BAD. That I may not tell. 
 
 GOOD. Aske him agayne. 
 
 DINHAM. Come, come, prithee, tell me who hath bewitched me 
 
 BAD. A woman in greene cloathes and a black hatt, with a 
 large poll ; and a man in a gray suite, with blue stockings. 
 
 GOOD. But where are they 1 
 
 BAD. She is at her house, and hee is at a taverne in Yeohall 
 [Youghal] in Ireland. 
 
 GOOD. But what are their names 1 
 
 BAD. Nay, that I will not tell. 
 
 GOOD. Then tell half of their names. 
 
 BAD. The one is Johan, and the other Edward. 
 
 GOOD. Nowe tell me the other half. 
 
 BAD. That I may not. 
 
 GOOD. Aske him agayne. 
 
 DINHAM. Come, come, prithee, tell me the other half. 
 
 BAD. The one is Greedie, and the other Ball. 
 
268 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 This information having been obtained, a messenger 
 is sent to a certain house, where the unfortunate Joan 
 is straightway arrested. The conversation, if this 
 absurd rigmarole can be so called, was afterwards 
 resumed, the man conveniently going into one of his 
 'fits ' for the purpose: 
 
 GOOD. But are these witches ? 
 
 BAD. Yes ; that they are. 
 
 GOOD. Howe came they to bee soe ? 
 
 BAD. By discent. 
 
 GOOD. But ho we by discent ? 
 
 BAD. From the grandmother to the mother, and from the 
 mother to the children. 
 
 GOOD. But howe aree they soe 1 
 
 BAD. They aree bound to us, and wee to them. 
 
 GOOD. Lett mee see the bond. 
 
 BAD. Thou shalt not. 
 
 GOOD. Lett mee see it, and if I like I will scale alsoe. 
 
 BAD. Thou shalt, if thou wilt not reveale the contentes 
 thereof. 
 
 GOOD. I will not. 
 
 As usual, the Good Spirit gets its way, and the 
 bond is produced, drawing from the Good Spirit an 
 exclamation of anguish : ' Alas ! oh, pittifull, pitti- 
 full, pittifull ! What ? eight seales, bloody seales 
 four dead, and four alive ? Ah, miserable !' 
 
 DINHAM. Come, come, prithee, tell me, Why did they bewitch 
 me? 
 
 BAD. Because thou didst call Johane Greedie witche. 
 DINHAM. Why, is shee not a witche 1 
 BAD. Yes ; but thou shouldest not have said soe. 
 GOOD. But why did Ball bewitche him ? 
 BAD. Because Greedie was not stronge enough. 
 
 A messenger is now sent after Ball ; but on reach- 
 ing his hiding-place, he finds that the poor man has 
 

 CHAP. II.] THE WITCHES OF TATJNTON. 269 
 
 just escaped, and he meets with people who had seen 
 his flight. Dinham and his voices then join in a 
 discourse, from which it appears that before they 
 bewitched Dinham they had been guilty of various 
 ' evil practices,' and had compassed the death of, at 
 least, one of their victims. Six days afterwards 
 Dinham has another ' fit/ and a second unsuccessful 
 effort is made to track and arrest Ball. Disgusted 
 with this failure, the Good Spirit strenuously opposes 
 the Evil Spirit in his resolve to secure Dinham's 
 soul: 
 
 BAD. I will have him, or else I will torment him eight tymes 
 more. 
 
 GOOD. Thou shalt not have thy will in all thinges ; thou shalt 
 torment him but four times more. 
 
 BAD. I will have thy soule. 
 
 GOOD. If thou wilt answer me three questions, I will seale and 
 goe with thee. 
 
 BAD. I will. 
 
 GOOD. Who made the world 1 
 
 BAD. God. 
 
 GOOD. Who created mankynde 1 
 
 BAD. God. 
 
 GOOD. Wherefore was Christ Jesus His precious blood shed ? 
 
 BAD. I'le no more of that. 
 
 Here the patient was seized with the most violent 
 convulsions, foaming at the mouth, and struggling 
 with clenched hands and contorted limbs. 
 
 Another fit came off a few days afterwards, and in 
 this Dinham was exposed to a double temptation : 
 
 BAD. If thou wilt give me thy soule, I will give thee gold 
 enough. 
 
 GOOD. Thy gold will scald my fingers. 
 
270 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 BAD. If thou wilt give me thy soule, I will give thee dice, and 
 thou shalt winne infinite somes of treasure by play. 
 
 GOOD. If thou canst make every letter in this booke [a Prayer- 
 book which Dinham held in his hand] a die, I will. 
 
 BAD. That I cannott. 
 
 GOOD. Laudes, laudes, laudes ! 
 
 BAD. Thou shalt have ladies enough ladies, ladies, ladies ! . . . 
 
 GOOD. If thou canst make every letter in this book a ladie, I will. 
 
 Here the Bad Spirit made an attempt to cast away 
 the book, but, after a violent struggle, was defeated ; 
 and then the Good Spirit celebrated his victory in 
 4 the sweetest niusicke that ever was heard.' Even- 
 tually Ball was captured, and Dinham then declared 
 that his ' two voices ' ceased to trouble him. Greedie 
 and Ball were both committed for trial, but no record 
 exists of their execution, and we may hope that they 
 were acquitted of charges supported by such absurd 
 and fallacious evidence. 
 
 Edward Fairfax, a man of ability and culture the 
 refined and melodious translator of Tasso's Christian 
 epic prosecuted six of his neighbours at York 
 Assizes, in 1622, for practising witchcraft on his 
 children. The grand jury found a true bill against 
 them, and the accused were brought to trial. But 
 the judge, who had been privately furnished with a 
 certificate of their ' sober behaviour,' contrived so to 
 influence the jury as to obtain a verdict of acquittal. 
 The poet afterwards published an elaborate defence 
 of his conduct. His folly may be excused, per- 
 haps, since even such men as Raleigh and Bacon 
 inclined towards a belief in witchcraft ; and the 
 judicious Evelyn makes it one of his principal corn- 
 
CHAP. II.] THE WITCHES OF TAUNTON. 271 
 
 plaints against solitude that it created witches. 
 Hobbes, in his ' Leviathan/ takes, however, a more 
 enlightened view: 'As for witches/ he says, 'I 
 think not that their witchcraft is any real power ; but 
 yet that they are justly punished for the false belief 
 they have that they can do such mischief, joined 
 with their purpose to do it if they can.' 
 
 Even the stir and tumult of the Civil War did not 
 suspend the persecuting activity of a degraded super- 
 stition. In 1644 eight witches of Manningtree, in 
 Essex, were accused of holding witches' meetings 
 every Friday night ; were searched for teats and 
 devils' marks, convicted, and, with twenty-nine of 
 their fellows, hung. In the following year there 
 were more hangings in Essex ; and in Norfolk a 
 score of witches suffered. In 1650 a woman was 
 hung at the Old Bailey as a witch. ' She was found 
 to have under her armpits those marks by which 
 witches are discovered to entertain their familiars/ 
 In April, 1652, Jean Peterson, the witch of Wapping, 
 was hung at Tyburn ; and in July of the same year 
 six witches perished at Maidstone. 
 
 In 1653 Alice Bodenham, a domestic servant, was 
 tried at Salisbury before Chief Justice Wilde, and 
 convicted. It is not certain, however, that she was 
 executed. 
 
 In 1658 Jane Brooks was executed for practising 
 witchcraft on a boy of twelve, named Henry James, 
 at Chard, in Somersetshire; in 1663 Julian Cox, at 
 Taunton, for a similor offence. 
 

 272 , WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 ^\ T 
 
 4? N* 
 
 THE WITCH-FINDEK : MATTHEW HOPKINS. 
 
 The severe legislation against witchcraft had thus 
 the effect which invariably attends legislation when 
 it becomes unduly repressive of increasing the 
 offence it had been designed to exterminate. (_Jt was 
 attended, also, by another result, which is equally 
 common bringing to the front a number of informers 
 who, at the cost of many innocent lives, turned it to 
 their personal advantage. Of these witch-finders, the 
 most notorious was Matthew Hopkins, of Manning- 
 tree, in Essex. When he first started his infamous 
 trade, I cannot ascertain, but his success would seem 
 to have been immediate. His earliest victims he 
 found in his own neighbourhood. But, as his reputa- 
 tion grew, he extended his operations over the whole 
 of Essex ; and in a very short time, if any case of 
 supposed witchcraft occurred, the neighbours sent for 
 Matthew Hopkins as an acknowledged expert, whose 
 skill would infalliby detect the guilty person. 
 
 His first appearance at the assizes was in the spring 
 of 1645^ when he accused an unfortunate old woman, 
 named Elizabeth Clarke. To collect evidence against 
 her, he watched her by night in a room in a 
 Mr. Edwards' s house, in which she was illegally 
 detained. At her trial he had the audacity to affirm 
 that, on the third night of his watching, after he had 
 refused her the society of one of her imps, she con- 
 fessed to him that, some six or seven years before, she 
 had given herself over to the devil, who visited her in 
 the form of ' a proper gentleman, with a hazel beard/ 
 
CHAP. II.J MATTHEW HOPKINS. 273 
 
 Soon after this, he said, a little dog came in fat, 
 short-legged, and with sandy spots besprinkled on the 
 white ground-colour of its tub-like body. When he 
 prevented it from approaching the woman who 
 declared it was Jacmara, one of her imps it straight- 
 way vanished. Next came a greyhound, which she 
 called Vinegar Tom ; and next a polecat. Improving 
 in fluent and fertile mendacity, Hopkins went on to 
 assert that, on returning home that night, about ten 
 of the clock, accompanied by his own greyhound, he 
 saw his dog give a leap and a bound, and hark 
 away as if hunting a hare ; and on following him, he 
 espied a little white animal, about the size of a 
 kitten, and observed that his greyhound stood aloof 
 from it in fright ; and by-and-by this imp or kitten 
 danced about the dog, and, as he supposed, bit a piece 
 from its shoulder, for the greyhound came to him 
 shrieking and crying, and bleeding from a great 
 wound. Hopkins further stated that, going into his 
 yard that same night, he saw a Black Thing, shaped 
 like a cat, but thrice as big, sitting in a strawberry -bed, 
 with its eyes fixed upon him. When he approached 
 it, the Thing leaped over the pale towards him, as 
 he thought, but, on the contrary, ran quite through 
 the yard, with his greyhound after it, to a great gate, 
 which was underset ' with a pair of tumbril strings,' 
 threw it wide open, and then vanished, while his dog 
 returned to him, shaking and trembling exceedingly. 
 
 In these unholy vigils of his, Hopkins was accom- 
 panied by one ' John Sterne, of Manningtree, gentle- 
 man,' who, as a matter of course, confirmed all his 
 
 18 
 
 
274 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 statements, and added the interesting detail that the 
 third imp was called Sack-and- Sugar. The two 
 wretches forced their way into the house of another 
 woman, named Rebecca West, from whom they 
 extracted a confession that the first time she saw the 
 devil, he came to her at night, told her he must be 
 her husband, and finally married her ! The cruel 
 tortures to which these and so many other unhappy 
 females were exposed must undoubtedly have told on 
 their nervous systems, producing a condition of 
 hysteria, and filling their minds with hallucinations, 
 which, perhaps, may partly have been suggested by the 
 ' leading questions ' of the witch-finders themselves. 
 It is to be observed that their confessions wore a 
 striking similarity, and that all the names mentioned of 
 the so-called imps or familiars were of a ludicrous 
 character, such as Prick - ear, Frog, Robin, and 
 Sparrow. Then the excitement caused by these trials 
 so wrought on the public mind that witnesses were 
 easily found to testify apparently in good faith to 
 the evil things done by the accused, and even to 
 swear that they had seen their familiars. Thus one 
 man declared that, passing at daybreak by the house 
 of a certain Anne West, he was surprised to find her 
 door open. Looking in, he descried three or four 
 Things 3 , like black rabbits, one of which ran after him. 
 He seized and tried to kill him, but in his hands the 
 Thing seemed a mere piece of wool, which extended 
 lengthwise without any apparent injury. Full speed 
 he made for a neighbouring spring, in which he tried 
 to drown him, but as soon as he put the Thing in the 
 
CHAP. II.] MATTHEW HOPKIXS. 
 
 water, he vanished from his sight. Returning to the 
 house, he saw Anne West standing at the door ' in 
 her smock,' and asked her why she sent her imp 
 to trouble him, but received no answer. 
 
 His experiments having proved successful, Hopkins 
 took up witch-finding as a vocation, one which pro- 
 vided him with the means of a comfortable livelihood, 
 while it gratified his ambition by making him the 
 terror of many and the admiration of more, investing 
 him with just that kind of power which is delightful 
 to a ^narrow and commonplace mind. Assuming the 
 title of ' Witch -finder-General/ and taking with him 
 John Sterne, and a woman, whose business it was 
 to examine accused females for the devil's marks, 
 he travelled through the counties of Essex, Norfolk, 
 Huntingdon, and Sussex. 
 
 He was at Bury, in Suffolk, in August, 1645, and 
 there, on the 27th, no fewer than eighteen witches 
 were executed at once through his instrumentality. 
 A hundred and twenty more were to have been tried, 
 but the approach of the royal troops led to the 
 adjournment of the Assize. In one year this whole- 
 sale murderer caused the death of sixty poor creatures. 
 The ' test ' he generally adopted was that of ' swim- 
 ming,' which James I. recommends with much 
 unction in his 'Demonologie.' The hands and feet of 
 the accused were tied together crosswise, the thumb of 
 the right hand to the big toe of the left foot, and vice 
 versa. She was then wrapped up in a large sheet or 
 blanket, and laid upon her back in a pond or river. 
 If she sank, she was innocent, but established her 
 
 182 
 
276 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 innocence at the cost of her life ; if she floated, which 
 was generally the case, as her clothes afforded a 
 temporary support, she was pronounced guilty, and 
 hanged with all possible expedition. 
 
 Another ' test ' was the repetition of the Lord's 
 Prayer, which, it was believed, no witch could 
 accomplish. Woe to the unfortunate creature who, 
 in her nervousness, faltered over a syllable or stumbled 
 at a word ! Again she was forced into some awkward 
 and painful attitude, bound with cords, and kept food- 
 less and sleepless for four-and -twenty hours. Or she 
 was walked continuously up and down a room, an 
 attendant holding each arm, until she dropped with 
 fatigue. Sometimes she was weighed against the 
 church Bible, obtaining her deliverance if she proved 
 to be heavier. But this last-named test was too 
 lenient for the "Witch-finder- General, who preferred 
 the swimming ordeal. 
 
 One of his victims at Bury was a venerable clergy- 
 man, named Lowes, who had been Vicar of Brandes- 
 ton, near Framlingham, for fifty years. ' After he was 
 found with the marks/ says Sterne, i in his con- 
 fession ' when made, to whom, or under what cir- 
 cumstances, we are not informed ' he confessed that 
 in pride of heart to be equal, or rather above God, 
 the devil took advantage of him, and he covenanted 
 with the devil, and sealed it with his blood, and had 
 those familiars or spirits which sucked on the marks 
 found on his body, and did much harm both by sea 
 and land, especially by sea ; for he confessed that he, 
 being at Lungar Fort [Landguard Fort], in Suffolk, 
 
CHAP. II.] MATTHEW HOPKINS. 277 
 
 where he preached, as he walked upon the wall or 
 works there, he saw a great sail of ships pass by, and 
 that, as they were sailing by, one of his three imps, 
 namely, his yellow one, forthwith appeared to him, 
 and asked him what he should do, and he bade him go 
 and sink such a ship, and showed his imp a new ship 
 among the middle of the rest (as I remember), one 
 that belonged to Ipswich ; so he confessed the imp 
 went forthwith away, and he stood still and viewed 
 the ships on the sea as they were a- sailing, and per- 
 ceived that ship immediately to be in more trouble 
 and danger than the rest ; for he said the water was 
 more boisterous near that than the rest, tumbling up 
 and down with waves, as if water had been boiled in 
 a pot, and soon after (he said), in a short time, it 
 sunk directly down into the sea as he stood and 
 viewed it, when all the rest sailed down in safety ; 
 then he confessed he made fourteen widows in one 
 quarter of an hour. Then Mr. Hopkins, as he told 
 me (for he took his confession), asked him if it did 
 not grieve him to see so many men cast away in a 
 short time, and that lie should be the [cause of so 
 many poor widows on a sudden ; but he swore by 
 his Maker he was joyful to see what power his imps 
 had : and so likewise confessed many other mischiefs, 
 and had a charm to keep him out of the jail and 
 hanging, as he paraphrased it himself; but therein 
 the devil deceived him, for he was hanged that Michael- 
 mas time, 1645, at Bury St. Edmunds.' Poor old 
 man ! This so-called confession has a very dubious 
 air about it, and reads as if it had been invented by 
 
278 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 Matthew Hopkins, who, as Sterne naively acknow- 
 ledges, c took the confessions,' apparently without 
 any witness or reporter being present. 
 
 The Witch-finder-General, when on his expedi- 
 tions of inquiry, assumed the style of a man of 
 fortune. He put up always at the best inns, and 
 lived in the most luxurious fashion, which he could 
 well afford to do, as, when invited to visit a town, 
 he insisted on payment of his expenses for board and 
 lodging, and a fee of twenty shillings. This sum he 
 claimed under any circumstances; but if he succeeded 
 in detecting any witches, he demanded another fee of 
 twenty shillings for each one brought to execution. 
 Generally his pretensions were admitted without 
 demur ; but occasionally he encountered a sturdy 
 opponent, like the Rev. Mr. Gaul, of Great Staughton, 
 in Huntingdonshire, who attacked him in a briskly- 
 written pamphlet as an intolerable nuisance. Hopkins 
 replied by an angry letter to one of the magistrates 
 of the town, in which he said : ' I am to come to 
 Kimbolton this week, and it shall be ten to one but I 
 will come to your town first ; but I would certainly 
 know afore whether your town affords many sticklers 
 for such cattle [i.e. witches], or [is] willing to give 
 and afford us good welcome and entertainment, as 
 other where I have been, else I shall waive your 
 shire (not as yet beginning in any part of it myself), 
 and betake me to such places where I do and may 
 persist without control, but with thanks and recom- 
 pense/ 
 
 Neither Mr. Gaul nor the magistrates of Great 
 
CHAP. II.] MATTHEW HOPKINS. 279 
 
 Staughton showed any anxiety in regard to the witch- 
 finder's threat. On the contrary, Mr. Gaul returned to 
 the charge in a second pamphlet, entitled i Select Cases 
 of Conscience touching Witches and Witchcraft/ in 
 which, while admitting the existence of witches for 
 he was not above the superstition of his age and 
 country he vigorously attacked Hopkins for accus- 
 ing persons on insufficient evidence, and denounced 
 the atrocious cruelties of which he and his associates 
 were guilty. I have no doubt that this manly 
 language helped to bring about a wholesome change 
 of public opinion. In the eastern counties so bitter a 
 feeling of resentment arose, that Hopkins found it 
 advisable to seek fresh woods and pastures new. In 
 the spring of 1647 he was at Worcester, where four un- 
 fortunates were condemned on the evidence of himself 
 and his associates. But the indignation against him 
 deepened and extended, and he hastily returned to 
 his native town, trembling for his wretched life. 
 There he printed a defence of his conduct, under the 
 title of ' The Discovery of Witches, in answer to 
 several queries lately delivered to the Judge of Assize 
 for the county of Norfolk ; published by Matthew 
 Hopkins, witch-finder, for the benefit of the whole 
 kingdom.' His death occurred shortly afterwards. 
 According to Sterne, he died the death of a righteous 
 man, having i no trouble of conscience for what he 
 had done, as was falsely reported for him/ But the 
 more generally accepted account is an instance of 
 'poetical justice' of Nemesis satisfied which I 
 heartily hope is authentic. It is said that he was 
 
280 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 surrounded by a mob in a Suffolk village, and accused 
 of being himself a wizard, and of having, by his 
 tricks of sorcery, cheated the devil out of a memoran- 
 dum-book, in which were entered the names of all the 
 witches in England. ' Thus,' cried the populace, 
 ' you find out witches, not by God's name, but by 
 the devil's.' He denied the charge ; but his accusers 
 determined that he should be subjected to his 
 favourite test. He was stripped ; his thumbs and toes 
 were tied together ; he was wrapped in a blanket, and 
 cast into a pond. Whether he was drowned, or 
 whether he floated, was taken up, tried, sentenced, 
 and executed, authorities do not agree; but they 
 agree that he never more disturbed the peace of the 
 realm as a witch-finder. 
 
 Butler has found a niche for this knave, among 
 other knaves, in his ' Hudibras ' : 
 
 ' Hath not this present Parliament 
 A lieger to the Devil sent, 
 Fully empowered to set about 
 Finding revolted witches out 1 
 And has he not within a year 
 Hanged threescore of them in one shire ? 
 Some only for not being drowned, 
 And some for sitting above ground 
 Whole days and nights upon their breeches, 
 And, feeling pain, were hanged for witches. . . 
 Who proved himself at length a witch, 
 And made a rod for his own breech ' 
 
 the engineer hoist with his own petard happily a by 
 no means infrequent mode of retribution. 
 
 Sterne, the witch-finder's colleague, not unnaturally 
 shared in the public disfavour, and in defence of him- 
 
CHAP. II.] A GAOL-DELI V KEY. 281 
 
 self and his deceased partner gave to the world a 
 1 Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft,' in which 
 he acknowledges to have been concerned in the detec- 
 tion and condemnation of some 200 witches in the 
 counties of Essex, Suffolk, Northampton, Huntingdon, 
 Bedford, Norfolk arid Cambridge, and the Isle of Ely. 
 He adds that ' in many places I never received penny 
 as yet, nor any like, notwithstanding I have bonds 
 for satisfaction, except I should sin ; but many rather 
 fall upon me for what hath been received, but I hope 
 such suits will be disannulled, and that when I have 
 been out of moneys for towns in charges and otherwise, 
 such course will be taken that I may be satisfied and 
 paid with reason.' One can hardly admire sufficiently 
 the brazen effrontery of this appeal ! 
 
 The number of persons imprisoned on suspicion of 
 witchcraft grew so large as to excite the alarm of the 
 Government, who issued stringent orders to the 
 country magistrates to commit for trial persons 
 brought before them on this charge, and forbade 
 them to exercise summary jurisdiction. Eventually 
 a commission was given to the Earl of Warwick, and 
 others, to hold a gaol-delivery at Chelmsford. Lord 
 Warwick, who had done good service to the State as 
 Lord High Admiral, was sagacious and fair-minded. 
 But with him went Dr. Edmund Calamy, the eminent 
 Puritan divine, to see that no injustice was done to 
 the parties accused. This proved an unfortunate 
 choice; for Calamy, who, in his sermon before the 
 judges, had enlarged on the enormity of the sin of 
 
282 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 witchcraft, sat on the bench with them, and unhappily 
 influenced their deliberations in the direction of 
 severity. As a result, sixteen persons were hanged 
 at Yarmouth, fifteen at Chelmsford, besides some 
 sixty at various places in Suffolk. 
 
 Whitlocke, in his ' Memorials/ speaks of many 
 ' witches ' as having been put upon their trial at 
 Newcastle, through the agency of a man whom he 
 calls ' the Witch-finder.' Another of the imitators of 
 Hopkins, a Mr. Shaw, parson of Eusock, came to 
 condign humiliation (1660). Having instigated some 
 bucolic barbarians to put an old woman, named Joan 
 Bibb, to the water-ordeal, she swam right vigorously 
 in the pool, and struggled with her assailants so 
 strenuously that she effected her escape. Afterwards 
 she brought an action against the parson for insti- 
 gating the outrage, and obtained 20 damages. 
 
 In 1664, Elizabeth Styles, of Bayford, Somerset- 
 shire, was convicted and sentenced to death, but 
 died in prison before the day fixed for her execution. 
 It is said that she made a voluntary confession 
 without inducement or torture in the presence of 
 the magistrates and several divines another case 
 (if it be true) of the morbid self-delusion which in 
 times of popular excitement makes so many victims. 
 
 One feels the necessity of speaking with some 
 degree of moderation respecting the credulity of the 
 ignorant and uneducated classes, when one finds so 
 
CHAP. II.] AT BUEY ST. EDMUNDS. 283 
 
 sound a lawyer and so admirable a Christian as Sir 
 Matthew Hale infected by the mania. No other blot, 
 I suppose, is to be found on his fame and character ; 
 and that he should have incurred this indelible stain, 
 and fallen into so pitiable an error, is a problem by 
 no means easy of solution. 
 
 At the Lent Assize, in 1664, at Bury St. Edmunds, 
 two aged women, named Rose Cullender and Amy 
 Duny were brought before him on a charge of having 
 bewitched seven persons. The nature of the evidence 
 on which it was founded the reader will appreciate 
 from the following examples : 
 
 Samuel Pacey. of Lowestoft, a man of good repute 
 for sobriety and other homely virtues, having been 
 sworn, said : That on Thursday, October 10 last, his 
 younger daughter Deborah, about nine years old, fell 
 suddenly so lame that she could not stand on her 
 feet, and so continued till the 17th, when she asked 
 to be carried to a bank which overlooked the sea, and 
 while she was sitting there, Amy Duny came to the 
 witness's house to buy some herrings, but was denied. 
 Twice more she called, but being always denied, went 
 away grumbling and discontented. At this instant 
 of time the child was seized with terrible fits ; com- 
 plained of a pain in her stomach, as if she were being 
 pricked with pins, shrieking out ' with a voice like a 
 whelp/ and thus continuing until the 30th. This 
 witness added that Amy Duny, being known as a 
 witch, and his child having, in the intervals of her 
 fits, constantly exclaimed against her as the cause of 
 her sufferings, saying that the said Amy did appear 
 
284 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 to her and frighten her, he began to suspect the said 
 Amy, and accused her in plain terms of injuring his 
 child, and got her ' set in the stocks.' Two days 
 afterwards, his daughter Elizabeth was seized with 
 similar fits ; and both she and her sister complained 
 that they were tormented by various persons in the 
 town of bad character, but more particularly by 
 Amy Duny, and by another reputed witch, Rose 
 Cullender. 
 
 Another witness deposed that she had heard the 
 two children cry out against these persons, who, they 
 said, threatened to increase their torments tenfold if 
 they told tales of them. ' At some times the children 
 would see Things run up and down the house in the 
 appearance of mice; and one of them suddenly 
 snapped one with the tongs, and threw it in the fire, 
 and it screeched out like a bat. At another time, the 
 younger child, being out of her fits, went out of doors 
 to take a little fresh air, and presently a little Thing 
 like a bee flew upon her face, and would have gone 
 into her mouth, whereupon the child ran in all haste 
 to the door to get into the house again, shrieking out 
 in a most terrible manner ; whereupon this deponent 
 made haste to come to her, but before she could reach 
 her, the child fell into her swooning fit, and, at last, 
 with much pain and straining, vomited up a twopenny 
 nail with a broad head ; and after that the child had 
 raised up the nail she came to her understanding, and 
 being demanded by this deponent how she came by 
 this nail, she answered that the bee brought this nail 
 and forced it into her mouth.' 
 
CHAP. II.] AT BURY ST. EDMUNDS. 285 
 
 Such evidence as this failing to satisfy Serjeant 
 Keeling, and several magistrates who were present, 
 of the guilt of the accused, it was resolved to resort 
 to demonstration by experiment. The persons be- 
 witched were brought into court to touch the two 
 old women; and it was observed (says Hutchinson) 
 that when the former were in the midst of their fits, 
 and to all men's apprehension wholly deprived of all 
 sense and understanding, closing their fists in such a 
 manner as that the strongest man could not force 
 them open, yet, at the least touch of one of the 
 supposed witches Eose Cullender, by name they 
 would suddenly shriek out, opening their hands, 
 which accident would not happen at any other 
 person's touch. i And lest they might privately see 
 when they were touched by the said Eose Cullender, 
 they were blinded with their own aprons, and the 
 touching took the same effect as before. There was 
 an ingenious person that objected there might be a 
 great fallacy in this experiment, and there ought not 
 to be any stress put upon this to convict the parties, 
 for the children might counterfeit this their dis- 
 temper, and, perceiving w r hat was done to them, they 
 might in such manner suddenly alter the erection 
 and gesture of their bodies, on purpose to induce 
 persons to believe that they were not natural, but 
 wrought strangely by the touch of the prisoners. 
 Wherefore, to avoid this scruple, it was privately 
 desired by the judge that the Lord Cornwallis, Sir 
 Edmund Bacon, and Mr. Serjeant Keeling, and some 
 other gentleman then in court, would attend one of 
 
286 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 the distempered persons in the farthest part of the 
 hall whilst she was in her fits, and then to send for 
 one of the witches to try what would then happen, 
 which they did accordingly ; and Amy Duny was 
 brought from the bar, and conveyed to the maid. 
 They then put an apron before her eyes ; and then 
 one other person touched her hand, which produced 
 the same effect as the touch of the witch did in the 
 court. Whereupon the gentlemen returned, openly 
 protesting that they did believe the whole transaction 
 of the business was a mere imposture.' As, in truth, 
 it was. 
 
 It is remarkable that Sir Matthew Hale was still 
 unconvinced. He invited the opinion of Sir Thomas 
 Browne, a man of great learning and ability the 
 author of the ' Eeligio Medici,' and other justly 
 famous works who admitted that the fits were 
 natural, but thought them ' heightened by the devil 
 co-operating with the malice of the witches, at whose 
 instance he did the villanies/ Sir Matthew then 
 charged the jury. There were, he said, two questions 
 to be considered : First, whether or not these 
 children were bewitched ? And, second, whether 
 the prisoners at the bar had been guilty of bewitching 
 them ? That there were such creatures as witches, he 
 did not doubt; and he appealed to the Scriptures, 
 which had affirmed so much, and also to the wisdom 
 of all nations, which had enacted laws against such 
 persons. Such, too, he said, had been the judgment 
 of this kingdom, as appeared by that Act of Parlia- 
 ment which had provided punishment proportionable 
 
CHAP. II.] AT BURY ST. EDMUNDS. 287 
 
 to the quality of the offence. He desired them to 
 pay strict attention to the evidence, and implored the 
 great God of heaven to direct their hearts in so 
 weighty a matter ; for to condemn the innocent, and 
 set free the guilty, was ' an abomination to the 
 Lord.' 
 
 After a charge of this description, the jury 
 naturally brought in a verdict of ' Guilty.' Sentence 
 of death was pronounced ; and the two poor old 
 women, protesting to the last their innocence, suffered 
 on the gallows. Who will not regret the part played 
 by Sir Matthew Hale in this judicial murder ? It is 
 no excuse to say that he did but share in the popular 
 belief. One expects of such a man that he will rise 
 superior to the errors of ordinary minds ; that he 
 will be guided by broader and more enlightened 
 views by more humane and generous sympathies. 
 Instead of attempting an apology which no act can 
 render satisfactory, it is better to admit, with Sir 
 Michael Foster, that 'this great and good man was 
 betrayed, notwithstanding the rectitude of his inten- 
 tions, into a great mistake, under the strong bias of 
 early prejudices.' 
 
 Gradually, however, a disbelief in witchcraft grew 
 up in the public mind, as intellectual inquiry widened 
 its scope, and the relations of man to the Unseen 
 World came to be better understood. Among the 
 educated classes the old superstition expired much 
 more rapidly than among the poorer ; and so we find 
 that though convictions became rarer, committals and 
 trials continued tolerably frequent until the closing 
 
288 
 
 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 years of the eighteenth century. To the ghastly roll 
 of victims, however, additions continued to be made. 
 Thus in August, 1682, three women, named Temper- 
 ance Lloyd, Susannah Edwards, and Mary Trembles, 
 were tried at Exeter before Lord Chief Justice North 
 and Mr. Justice Eaymond, convicted of various acts 
 of witchcraft, and sentenced to death. Before their 
 trial they had confessed to frequent interviews with 
 the devil, who appeared in the shape of a black man 
 as long (or as short) as a man's arm ; and one of 
 them acknowledged to have caused the death of 
 four persons by witchcraft. Some portion of these 
 monstrous fictions they recanted under the gallows ; 
 but even on the brink of the grave they persisted in 
 claiming the character of witches, and in asserting 
 that they had had personal intercourse with the 
 devil. 
 
 In March, 1684, Alicia Welland was tried before 
 Chief Baron Montague at Exeter, convicted, and 
 executed* 
 
 To estimate the extent to which the belief in 
 witchcraft, during the latter part of the seventeenth 
 century, operated against the lives of the accused, 
 Mr. Inderwick has searched the records of the 
 Western Circuit, from 1670 to 1712 inclusive, and 
 ascertained that out of fifty -two persons tried in that 
 period on various charges of witchcraft, only seven 
 were convicted, and one of these seven was reprieved. 
 ' What occurred on the Western/ he remarks, ' pro- 
 bably went on at each of the several circuits into 
 which the country was then divided ; and one cannot 
 
CHAP. II.] SOME ACQUITTALS. 289 
 
 doubt that in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Huntingdon, 
 and Lancashire, where the witches mostly abounded, 
 the charges and convictions were far more numerous 
 than in the West. The judges appear, however, not 
 to have taken the line of Sir Matthew Hale, but, as 
 far as possible, to have prevented convictions. 
 Indeed, Lord Jeffreys who, when not engaged on 
 political business, was at least as good a judge as 
 any of his contemporaries and Chief Justice Herbert, 
 tried and obtained acquittals of witches in 1685 and 
 1686 at the very time that they were engaged on the 
 Bloody Assize in slaughtering the participators in 
 Monrnouth's rebellion. It is also a remarkable fact 
 that, from 1686 to 1712, when charges of witchcraft 
 gradually ceased, charges and convictions of malicious 
 injury to property in burning haystacks, barns, and 
 houses, and malicious injuries to persons and to 
 cattle, increased enormously, these being the sort of 
 accusations freely made against the witches before 
 this date.' 
 
 I think there can be little doubt that many evil- 
 disposed persons availed themselves of the prevalent 
 belief in witchcraft as a cover for their depredations 
 on the property of their neighbours, diverting sus- 
 picion from themselves to the poor wretches who, 
 through accidental circumstances, had acquired 
 notoriety as the devil's accomplices. It would also 
 seem probable that not a few of the reputed witches 
 similarly turned to account their bad reputation. It 
 is not impossible, indeed, that there may be a certain 
 degree of truth in the tales told of the witches' 
 
 19 
 
290 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 meetings, and that in some rural neighbourhoods the 
 individuals suspected of being witches occasionally 
 assembled at an appointed rendezvous to consult 
 upon their position and their line of operations. 
 The practices at these gatherings may not always 
 have been kept within the limits of decency and 
 decorum ; and in this way the loathsome details with 
 which every account of the witches' meetings are 
 embellished may have had a real foundation. 
 
 That the judges at length began persistently to 
 discourage convictions for witchcraft is seen in the 
 action of Lord Chief Justice Holt at the Bury St. 
 Edmunds Assize in 1694. An old woman, known as 
 Mother Munnings, of Harks, in Suffolk, was brought 
 before him, and the witnesses against her retailed the 
 village talk' how that her landlord, Thomas Purnel, 
 who, to get her out of the house she had rented from 
 him, had removed the street-door, was told that ' his 
 nose should lie upward in the churchyard ' before the 
 following Saturday ; and how that he was taken ill 
 on the Monday, died on the Tuesday, and was buried 
 on the Thursday. How that she had a familiar in 
 the shape of a polecat, and how that a neighbour, 
 peeping in at her window one night, saw her take 
 out of her basket a couple of imps the one black, 
 the other white. And how that a woman, named 
 Sarah Wager, having quarrelled with her, was 
 stricken dumb and lame. All this tittle-tattle was 
 brushed aside in his charge by the strong common- 
 sense of the judge ; and the jury, under his direction, 
 
CHAP. II.] THOSE ACQUITTALS. 291 
 
 returned a verdict of ' Not guilty/ Dr. Hutchinson 
 remarks : ' Upon particular inquiry of several in or 
 near the town, I find most are satisfied that it is a 
 very right judgment. She lived about two years 
 after, without doing any known harm to anybody, 
 and died declaring her innocence. Her landlord was 
 a consumptive-spent man, and the words not exactly 
 as they swore them, and the whole thing seventeen 
 years before. . . . The white imp is believed to have 
 been a lock of wool, taken out of her basket to 
 spin ; and its shadow, it is supposed, was the black 
 one/ 
 
 In the same year (1694) a woman, named 
 Margaret Elniore, was tried at Ipswich ; in 1695 one 
 Mary Gay at Launceston; and in 1696 one Elizabeth 
 Hume at Exeter ; but in each case, under the 
 direction of Chief Justice Holt, a verdict of acquittal 
 was declared. Thus the seventeenth century went 
 its way in an unaccustomed atmosphere of justice 
 and humanity. 
 
 192 
 
292 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK IT. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE DECLINE OF WITCHCRAFT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 [THE honour of discouraging prosecutions for witch- 
 craft belongs in the first place to France, which 
 abolished them as early as 1672, and for some years 
 previously had refrained from sending any victims to 
 the scaffold or the stake. In England, the same effect 
 was partly due, perhaps, to the cynical humour of the 
 Court of Charles II., where many, who before ventured 
 only to doubt, no longer hesitated to treat the subject 
 with ridicule; ' Although/ says Mr. Wright, ' works 
 like those of Baxter and Glanvil had still their 
 weight with many people, yet in the controversy 
 which was now carried on through the instrumentality 
 of the press, those who wrote against the popular 
 creed had certainly the best of the argument. Still, it 
 happened from their form and character that the books 
 written to expose the absurdity of the belief in 
 sorcery were restricted in their circulation to the 
 more educated classes, while popular tracts in defence 
 of witchcraft and collections of cases were printed in a 
 cheaper form, and widely distributed among that class 
 in society where the belief was most firmly rooted. The 
 
CHAP. III.] DECLINE OF WITCHCRAFT. 4 293 
 
 effect of these popular publications has continued in 
 some districts down to the present day. Thus the 
 press, the natural tendency of which was to enlighten 
 mankind, was made to increase ignorance by pandering 
 to the credulity of the multitude.' 
 
 I have spoken of the seventeenth century as going 
 out in an atmosphere of justice and humanity. But 
 an ancient superstition dies hard, and the eighteenth 
 century, when it dawned upon the earth, found the 
 belief in witchcraft still widely extended in England. 
 Even men of education could not wholly surrender 
 their adhesion to it. We read with surprise Addi- 
 son's opinion in The Spectator, ' that the arguments 
 press equally on both sides,' and see him balancing 
 himself between the two aspects of the subject in a 
 curious state of mental indecision. 'When I hear the 
 relations that are made from all parts of the world/ he 
 says, * I cannot forbear thinking that there is such an 
 intercourse and commerce with evil spirits, as that 
 which we express by the name of witchcraft. But 
 when I consider,' he adds, 'that the ignorant and 
 credulous parts of the world abound most in these 
 relations, and that the persons among us who are 
 supposed to engage in such an infernal commerce are 
 people of a weak understanding and crazed imagina- 
 tion, and at the same time reflect upon the many 
 impostures and delusions of this nature that have 
 been detected in all ages, I endeavour to suspend niy 
 belief till I hear more certain accounts than any which 
 have yet come to my knowledge.' And then he 
 comes to a halting and unsatisfactory conclusion, 
 
294 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 which will seem almost grotesque to the reader of the 
 preceding pages, with their details of succubi and 
 incubi, imps and familiars, black cats, pole-cats, goats, 
 and the like : ' In short, when I consider the ques- 
 tion, whether there are such persons in the world as 
 we call witches, my mind is divided between two 
 opposite opinions, or, rather (to speak my thoughts 
 freely), I believe in general that there is, and has 
 been, such a thing as witchcraft, but, at the same time, 
 can give no credit to any particular instance of it.' 
 
 Addison goes on to draw the picture of a witch of 
 the period, ' Moll White,' who lived in the neighbour- 
 hood of Sir Roger de Coverley, ' a wrinkled hag, with 
 age grown double.' This old woman had the reputa- 
 tion of a witch all over the country; her lips were 
 observed to be always in motion, and there was not a 
 switch about her house which her neighbours did not 
 believe had carried her several hundreds of miles. 
 1 If she chanced to stumble, they always found sticks 
 or straws that lay in the figure of a cross before her. 
 If she made any mistake at church, and cried Amen 
 in a wrong place, they never failed to conclude that 
 she was saying her prayers backwards. There was 
 not a maid in the parish that would take a pin of her, 
 though she should offer a bag of money with it. ... 
 If the dairy- maid does not make her butter to come 
 so soon as she would have it, Moll White is at the 
 bottom of the churn. If a horse sweats in the stable, 
 Moll White has been upon his back. If a hare makes 
 an unexpected escape from the hounds, the huntsman 
 curses Moll White. 
 
CHAP, ill.] DECLINE OF WITCHCRAFT. 295 
 
 ' I have been the more particular in this account,' 
 says Addison, ' because I know there is scarce a 
 village in England that has not a Moll White in it. 
 When an old woman begins to dote, and grow 
 chargeable to a parish, she is generally turned into a 
 witch, and fills the whole country with extravagant 
 fancies, imaginary distempers, and terrifying dreams. 
 In the meantime, the poor wretch that is the innocent 
 occasion of so many evils begins to be frighted at 
 herself, and sometimes confesses secret commerces and 
 familiarities that her imagination forms in a delirious 
 old age. This frequently cuts off charity from the 
 greatest objects of compassion, and inspires people 
 with a malevolence towards those poor decrepit parts 
 of our species in whom human nature is defaced by 
 infirmity and dotage.' 1 
 
 On March 2,1703,one Eichard Hathaway, apprentice 
 to Thomas Wiling, a blacksmith in Southwark, was 
 tried before Chief Justice Holt at the Surrey Assizes, 
 as a cheat and an impostor, having pretended that he 
 had been bewitched by Sarah Morduck, wife of a 
 Thames waterman, so that he had been unable to eat 
 or drink for the space of ten weeks together; had 
 suffered various pains; had constantly vomited nails 
 and crooked pins; had at times been deprived of 
 speech and sight, and all through the wicked cunning 
 of Sarah Morduck ; further, that he was from time to 
 time relieved of his ailments by scratching the said 
 Sarah, and drawing blood from her. On these charges 
 Sarah had been committed by the magistrates, and was 
 
296 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 tried as a witch at the Guildford Assizes in February, 
 1701. It was then proved in her defence that 
 Dr. Martin, minister, of the parish of Southwark, 
 hearing of Hathaway' s troubles and method of obtain- 
 ing relief, had resolved to put the matter to a fair 
 test; and repairing to Hathaway' s room, in one of his 
 semi-conscious and wholly blind intervals, had, in the 
 presence of many witnesses, pretended to give to the 
 supposed sufferer the arm of Sarah Morduck, when it 
 was really that of a woman whom he had called in 
 from the street. Hathaway, in ignorance of the trick 
 played upon him, scratched the wrong arm, and 
 immediately professed to recover his sight and senses. 
 On finding his deception discovered, Hathaway looked 
 greatly ashamed, and attempted no defence or excuse, 
 when Dr. Martin severely reproached him for his conduct. 
 The populace, however, remained unconvinced, and 
 when Dr. Martin and his friends had departed, accom- 
 panied Hathaway to the house of Sarah Morduck, 
 whom they savagely ill-treated. They then declared 
 that the woman who had lent herself as a subject for 
 experiment was also a witch, and loaded her with 
 contumely, while her husband gave her a beating. It 
 further appeared that, on one occasion, when Hathaway 
 alleged he had been vomiting crooked pins and nails, 
 he had been searched, and hundreds of packets of 
 pins and nails found in his pockets, and on his hands 
 being tied behind him, the vomiting immediately 
 ceased. Eventually the jury acquitted Sarah Mor- 
 duck, and branded Hathaway as a cheat and an 
 impostor. The lower classes, however, received the 
 
CHAP. III.] DECLINE OF WITCHCRAFT. 297 
 
 verdict with contempt, mobbed Dr. Martin, and 
 raised a collection for Hathaway as for a man of 
 many virtues whom fortune had ill-treated. A magis- 
 trate, Sir Thomas Lane, who sided with the mob, sum- 
 moned Sarah Morduck before him, and after she had 
 been scratched by Hathaway in his presence, ordered 
 her to be examined for devil-marks by two women 
 and a doctor. Though none could be detected, his 
 prejudice was so extreme that he committed her as a 
 witch to the Wood Street Compter, refusing bail to the 
 extent of 500. Dr. Martin, with other gentlemen, 
 again came to her assistance, and ultimately she was 
 released on reasonable surety. 
 
 The Government now thought it time to support 
 the cause of justice, and, carrying out the verdict of 
 the Guildford jury, indicted Hathaway as a cheat, 
 and himself and his friends for assaulting Sarah 
 Morduck. In addition to the evidence previously 
 adduced, it was shown that, being in bad health, he 
 had been placed in the custody of a Dr. Kenny, a 
 surgeon, who, desiring to test the truth of his fasting, 
 made holes in the partition wall of his compartment, 
 and watched his proceedings for about a fortnight, 
 during which period, while pretending to fast, he was 
 observed to feed heartily on the food conveyed to 
 him, and once, having received an extra allowance of 
 whisky, he got tipsy, played a tune on the tongs, and 
 danced before the fire. At the trial a Dr. Hamilton 
 was called for the defence; but, Balaam-like, he 
 banned rather than blessed, for having affirmed that 
 the man's fasting was the chief evidence of witchcraft, 
 
298 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK 
 
 ' Doctor,' said the Chief Justice, e do you think it 
 possible for a man to fast a fortnight?' 'I think 
 not/ he replied. c Can all the devils in hell help a 
 man to fast so long?' 'No, my lord/ said the 
 doctor ; ' I think not.' These answers were con- 
 clusive; and without leaving the box, the jury found 
 Hathaway guilty, and he was sentenced by Chief 
 Justice Holt to pay a fine of one hundred marks, to 
 stand in the pillory on the following Sunday for two 
 hours at Southwark, the same on the Tuesday at the 
 Royal Exchange, the same on the Wednesday at 
 Temple Bar, the next day to be whipped at the 
 House of Correction, and afterwards to be imprisoned 
 with hard labour for six months. 
 
 Two reputed witches, Eleanor Shaw and Mary 
 Phillips, were executed at Northampton on March 17, 
 1705 ; and on July 22, 1712, five Northamptonshire 
 
 witches, Agnes Brown, Helen Jenkinson, A Bill, 
 
 Joan Vaughan, and Mary Barber, suffered at the same 
 place. 
 
 \ It is generally believed that the last time an 
 English jury brought in a verdict of guilty in a case 
 of witchcraft was in 1712, when a poor Hertfordshire 
 peasant woman, named Jane Wenham, was tried 
 before Mr. Justice Powell, sixteen witnesses, includ- 
 ing three clergymen, supporting the accusation. The 
 evidence was absurd and frivolous ; but, in spite of 
 its frivolousness and absurdity, and the poor woman's 
 fervent protestations of innocence, and the judge's 
 strong summing-up in her favour, a Hertfordshire 
 jury convicted her. The judge was compelled by the 
 
CHAP. III.] DECLINE OF WITCHCRAFT. 299 
 
 law to pronounce sentence of death, but he lost no 
 time in obtaining from the Queen a pardon for the 
 unfortunate woman. But, on emerging from her 
 prison, she was treated by the mob with savage 
 ferocity ; and, to save her from being lynched, 
 Colonel Plumer, of Gilson, took her into his service, 
 in which she continued for many years, earning and 
 preserving the esteem of all who knew her. 
 
 But there is a record of an execution for witchcraft, 
 that of Mary Hicks and her daughter, taking place in 
 1716 (July 28) ; and though it is not indubitably 
 established, I do not think its authenticity can well 
 be doubted.' 
 
 In January, 1736, an old woman of Frome, re- 
 puted to be a witch, was dragged from her sick-bed, 
 put astride on a saddle, and kept in a mill-pond for 
 nearly an hour, in the presence of upwards of 200 
 people. The story goes that she swam like a cork, 
 but on being taken out of the water expired imme- 
 diately. A coroner's inquest was held on the body, 
 and three persons were committed for trial for man- 
 slaughter ; but it is probable that they escaped punish- 
 ment, as nobody seems to have been willing to appear 
 in the witness-box against them. 
 
 Among the vulgar, indeed, the superstition was 
 hard to kill. In the middle of the last century, a 
 poor man and his wife, of the name of Osborne, each 
 about seventy years of age, lived at Tring, in Hert- 
 fordshire. On one occasion, Mother Osborne, as she 
 was commonly called, went to a dairyman, appropri- 
 ately named Butterfield, and asked for some butter- 
 
300 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 milk ; but was harshly repulsed, and informed that he 
 had scarcely enough for his hogs. The woman replied 
 with asperity that the Pretender (it was in the '45 that 
 this took place) would soon have him and his hogs. It 
 was customary then to connect the Pretender and the 
 devil in one's thoughts and aspirations ; and the 
 ignorant rustics soon afterwards, when Butterfield's 
 calves sickened, declared that Mother Osborne had 
 bewitched them, with the assistance of the devil. 
 Later, when Butterfield, who had given up his farm 
 and taken to an ale-house, suffered much from fits, 
 Mother Osborne was again declared to be the cause 
 (1751), and he was advised to send to Northampton- 
 shire for an old woman, a white witch, to baffle her 
 spells. The white witch came, confirmed, of course, 
 the popular prejudice, and advised that six men, armed 
 with staves and pitchforks, should watch Butterfield's 
 house by day and night. The affair would here, per- 
 haps, have ended ; but some persons thought they 
 could turn it to their pecuniary advantage, and, 
 accordingly, made public notification that a witch 
 would be ducked on April 22. On the appointed 
 day hundreds flocked to the scene of entertainment. 
 The parish officers had removed the two Osbornes 
 for safety to the church ; and the mob, in revenge, 
 seized the governor of the workhouse, and, collecting 
 a heap of straw, threatened to drown him, and set 
 fire to the town, unless they were given up. In a 
 panic of fear the parish officers gave way, and the two 
 poor creatures were immediately stripped naked, their 
 thumbs tied to their toes, and, each being wrapped 
 
CHAP. III.] DECLINE OF WITCHCRAFT. 301 
 
 in a coarse sheet, were dragged a couple of miles, and 
 then flung into a muddy stream. Colley, a chimney- 
 sweep, observing that the woman did not sink, 
 stepped into the pool, and turned her over several 
 times with a stick, until the sheet fell off, and her 
 nakedness was exposed. In this miserable state 
 exhausted with fatigue and terror, sick with shame, 
 half choked with mud she was flung upon the 
 bank ; and her persecutors alas for the cruelty of 
 ignorance! kicked and beat her until she died. 
 Her husband also sank under his barbarous maltreat- 
 ment. It is satisfactory to know that Colley, as the 
 worst offender, was brought to trial on a charge of 
 wilful murder, found guilty, and most righteously 
 hanged. The crowd, however, who witnessed his 
 execution, lamented him as a martyr, unjustly 
 punished for having delivered the world from one of 
 Satan's servants, and overwhelmed with execrations 
 the sheriff whose duty it was to see that the behests 
 of the law were carried out. 
 
 [n February. 1759, Susannah Hannaker, of 
 "mgrove, Wilts, was put to the ordeal of 
 weighing, but fortunately for herself outweighed 
 the church Bible, against which she was tested. 
 In June, 1760, at Leicester; in June, 1785, at 
 Northampton; and in April, 1829, at Monmouth, 
 persons were tried for ducking supposed witches. 
 Similar cases have occurred in our own time. On 
 September 4, 1863, a paralytic Frenchman died of 
 an illness induced by his having been ducked as a 
 wizard in a pond at Castle Hedingham, in Essex. 
 
302 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 And an aged woman, named Anne Turner, reputed 
 to be a witch, was killed by a man, partially insane, 
 at the village of Long Compton, in Warwickshire, on 
 September 17, 1875. But the reader needs no further 
 illustrations of the longevity of human error, or the 
 terrible vitality of prejudice, especially among the 
 uneducated. The thaumaturgist or necromancer, 
 with his wand, his magic circle, his alembics and 
 crucibles, disappeared long ago, because, as I have 
 already pointed out, his support depended upon a 
 class of society whose intelligence was rapidly 
 developed by the healthy influences of literature 
 and science ; but the sham astrologer and the pseudo- 
 witch linger still in obscure corners, because they 
 find their prey among the credulous and the ignorant. 
 The more widely we extend the bounds of knowledge, 
 the more certainly shall we prevent the recrudescence 
 of such forms of imposture and aspects of delusion as 
 in the preceding pages I have attempted to describe, 
 
CHAP. IV.] THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 303 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 AMONG the people of Scotland, a more serious-minded 
 and imaginative race than the English, the super- 
 stition of witchcraft was deeply rooted at an early 
 period. Its development was encouraged not only 
 by the idiosyncrasies of the national character, but 
 also by the nature of the country and the climate in 
 which they lived. The lofty mountains, with their 
 misty summits and shadowy ravines their deep 
 obscure glens were the fitting homes of the wildest 
 fancies, the eeriest legends; and the storm crashing 
 through the forests, and the surf beating on the rocky 
 shore, suggested to the ear of the peasant or the 
 fisherman the voices of unseen creatures of the 
 dread spirits of the waters and the air. To men who 
 believed in kelpie and wraith and the second sight, 
 a belief in witch and warlock was easy enough. And 
 it was not until the Calvinist reformers imported 
 into Scotland their austere and rigid creed, with its 
 literal interpretation of Biblical imagery, that witch- 
 craft came to be regarded as a crime. It was not 
 until 1563 that the Parliament of Scotland passed a 
 
304 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 statute constituting ' witchcraft and dealing with 
 witches ' a capital offence. It is true that persons 
 accused of witchcraft had already suffered death as 
 the Earl of Mar, brother of James III., who was 
 suspected of intriguing with witches and sorcerers in 
 order to compass his brother's death, and Lady 
 Glamis, in 1532, charged with a similar plot against 
 James V. but in both these cases it was the treason 
 which was punished rather than the sorcery. 
 
 In the Scottish criminal records the first person 
 who suffered death for the practice of witchcraft was 
 a Janet Bowman, in 1572. No particulars of her 
 offence are given ; and against her name are written 
 only the significant words, ' convict and byrnt.' 
 
 A remarkable case, that of Bessie Dunlop, belongs 
 to 1576.* She was the wife of an Ayrshire peasant, 
 Andrew Jack. According to her own statement, she 
 was going one day from her house to the yard of 
 Monkcastle, driving her cows to the pasture, and 
 greeting over her troubles for she had a milch-cow 
 nigh sick to death, and her husband and child were 
 lying ill, and she herself had but recently risen from 
 childbed when a strange man met her, and saluted her 
 with the words, c Gude day, Bessie !' She answered 
 civilly, and, in reply to his questions, acquainted him 
 with her anxieties ; whereupon he informed her that 
 her cow, her two sheep, and her child would die, but 
 that her gude man would recover. She described 
 this stranger in graphic language as l an honest, wele- 
 
 * Pitcairn, * Criminal Trials,' i. 49-58. This chapter is mainly 
 founded on the reports in Pitcairn. 
 
CHAP. IV.] THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 305 
 
 elderlie man, gray bairdit, and had ane gray coat 
 with Lumbart slevis of the auld fassoun ; ane pair of 
 gray brekis and quhyte schankis, gartaurt above the 
 knee; ane black bonnet on his heid, cloise behind 
 and plane before, with silkin laissis drawin throw the 
 lippis thairof; and ane quhyte wand in his hand/ 
 He told Bessie that his name was Thomas Reid, and 
 that he had been killed at the Battle of Pinkie. 
 Extraordinary as was this information, it did not 
 seem improbable to her when she noted the manner 
 of his disappearance through the yard of Monkcastle : 
 ' I thocht he gait in at ane narroware hoill of the 
 dyke [wall], nor ony erdlie man culd haif gaun 
 throw; and swa I was sumthing fleit [terrified].' 
 
 Thomas Reid's sinister predictions were duly ful- 
 filled. Soon afterwards, he again met Bessie, and 
 boldly invited her to deny her religion, and the faith 
 in which she was christened, in return for certain 
 worldly advantages. But Bessie steadfastly refused. 
 
 This visitor of hers was under no fear of the 
 ordinance which is supposed to limit the mundane 
 excursions of i spiritual creatures ' to the hours 
 between sunset and cockcrow ; for he generally made 
 his appearance at mid -day. It is not less singular 
 that he made no objection to the presence of humanity. 
 On one occasion he called at her house, where she sat 
 conversing with her husband and three tailors, and, 
 invisible to them, plucked her by the apron, and led 
 her to the door, and thence up the hill-end, where he 
 bade her stand, and be silent, whatever she might 
 hear or see. And suddenly she beheld twelve 
 
 20 
 
306 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 persons, eight women and four men ; the men clad 
 in gentlemen's clothing, and the women with plaids 
 round about them, very seemly to look at. Thomas 
 was among them. They bade her sit down, and 
 said : l Welcome, Bessie ; wilt thou go with us 7 But 
 she made no answer, and after some conversation 
 among themselves, they disappeared in a hideous 
 whirlwind. 
 
 When Thomas returned, he informed her that the 
 persons she had seen were the ' good wights,' who 
 dwell in the Court of Faery, and he brought her an 
 invitation to accompany them thither an invitation 
 which he repeated with much earnestness. She 
 answered, with true Scotch caution : ' She saw no 
 profit to gang that kind of gates, unless she knew 
 wherefore.' 
 
 ' Seest thou not me,' he rejoined, c worth meat and 
 worth clothes, and good enough like in person ?' 
 
 The prospect, however, could not beguile her ; and 
 she continued firm in her simple resolve to dwell 
 with her husband and bairns, whom she had no wish 
 to abandon. Off went Thomas in a storm of anger ; 
 but before long he recovered his temper, and 
 resumed his visits, showing himself willing to ' fetch 
 and carry ' at her request, and always treating her 
 with the deference due to a wife and mother. The 
 only benefit she derived from this friendship was, she 
 said, the means of curing diseases and recovering 
 stolen property, so that her witchcraft was of the 
 simplest, innocentest kind. There was no compact 
 with the devil, and it injured nobody except doctors 
 
CHAP. IV.] THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 307 
 
 and thieves. Yet for yielding to this hallucination 
 the product of a vivid imagination, stimulated, we 
 suspect, by much solitary reverie Bessie Dunlop 
 was ' convyct and byrnt.' Mayhap, as she was led 
 to the death-fire, she may have dreamecl that she had 
 done better to have gone with Thomas Reid to the 
 Court of Faery ! 
 
 The combination of the fairy folklore with the 
 gloomier inventions of witchcraft occurs again in the 
 case of Alison Pierson (1588). There was a certain 
 William Simpson, a great scholar and physician, and 
 a native of Stirling. While but a child, he was 
 taken away from his parents ' by a man of Egypt, a 
 giant,' who led him away to Egypt with him, ' where 
 he remained by the space of twelve years before he 
 came home again.' On his return, he made the 
 acquaintance of Alison, who was a near relative, and 
 cured her of certain ailments ; but soon afterwards, 
 less fortunate in treating himself, he died. Some 
 months had passed when, one day as Alison was 
 lying on her bed, sick and alone, she was suddenly 
 addressed by a man in green clothes, who told her 
 that, if she would be faithful, he would do her good. 
 In her first alarm, she cried for help, but no one hear- 
 ing, she called upon the Divine Name, when her 
 visitor immediately disappeared. Before long, he 
 came to her again, attended by many men and 
 women ; and compelling her to accompany them, they 
 set off in a gay procession to Lothian, where they 
 found puncheons of wine, with drinking-cups, and 
 
 202 
 
308 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 enjoyed themselves right heartily. Thenceforward 
 she was on the friendliest terms with the ' good neigh- 
 bours/ even visiting the Fairy Queen at her court, 
 where, according to her own account, she was made 
 much of, was treated, indeed, as ' one of themselves/ 
 and allowed to see them compounding wonderful 
 healing- salves in miniature pans over tiny fires. 
 
 It would seem that this woman had acquired a con- 
 siderable knowledge of l herbs and simples/ and that 
 the medicines she made up effected remarkable cures. 
 No doubt it was for the purpose of enhancing the 
 value of her concoctions that she professed to have 
 obtained the secret of them from the fairies. So great 
 was her repute for medicinal skill, that the Archbishop 
 of St. Andrews sought her advice in a dangerous 
 illness, and, by her directions, ate ' a sodden food/ 
 and at two draughts absorbed a quart of good claret 
 wine, which she had previously medicated, greatly 
 benefiting thereby. 
 
 Alison had a fertile fancy and a fluent tongue, and 
 told stories of the fairies and their doings which did 
 credit to her invention. It does not appear that she 
 injured anybody, except, perhaps, by her drugs, but, 
 then, even the faculty sometimes do that! But, like 
 Bessie Dunlop, she was convicted of witchcraft, and 
 burned. The surprising thing about this and similar 
 cases is, that the poor woman should have assisted in 
 her own condemnation by devising such extraordinary 
 fictions. What was the use of them ? A prisoner on 
 a charge which, if proved against her, meant a terrible 
 death, what object did she expect to gain ? Was it 
 
CHAP. IV.] THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 309 
 
 all done for the sake of the temporary surprise and 
 astonishment her tale created ? that she might be 
 the heroine of an hour ? Men have, we know, their 
 strange ambitions, but if this were Alison Pier son's, 
 it was one of the very strangest. 
 
 In the next case I shall bring forward, that of 
 Dame Fowlis, we come upon the trail of actual crime. 
 Dame Fowlis, second wife of the chief of the clan 
 Munro, was by birth a Roise or Ross, of Balnagown. 
 To effect the aggrandisement of her own family, she 
 plotted the death of Robert, her husband's eldest son, 
 in order to marry his wealthy widow to her brother, 
 George Roise or Ross, laird of Balnagown ; but as 
 he, too, was married, it was necessary to get rid of his 
 wife also. For this ' double event/ she employed, with 
 little attempt at concealment, three ' notorious witches' 
 Agnes Ro}^, Christian Roy, and Marjory Nayre 
 Mac Allister, alias Loskie Loncart besides one William 
 MacGillivordam, and several other persons of dubious 
 reputation. About Midsummer, 1576, Agnes Roy 
 was despatched to bring Loskie Loncart into Darne 
 Fowlis 7 presence. The result of this interview was 
 soon apparent. Clay images of the two doomed 
 individuals were made, and exposed to the usual 
 sorceries ; while MacGillivordam obtained a supply of 
 poison from Aberdeen, which the cook was bribed to 
 put into a dish intended for the lady of Balnagown' s 
 table. It did not prove mortal, as anticipated, but 
 afflicted the unfortunate lady with a long and severe 
 illness. Dame Fowlis, however, felt no remorse, but 
 
310 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 continued her plots, gradually widening their scope 
 until she resolved to kill all her husband's children by 
 his first wife, in order to secure the inheritance for 
 her own. In May, 1577, she instructed Macgilli- 
 vordam to procure a large quantity of poison. He 
 refused, unless his brother was made privy to the 
 transaction. I suppose this was done, as the poison 
 was obtained, and proved to be so deadly in its nature 
 that two persons a woman and a boy were killed 
 by accidentally tasting of it. 
 
 Foiled in her scheme, Dame Fowlis resorted to the 
 practices of witchcraft, and bought, in June, for five 
 shillings, ' an elf arrow-head ' that is, a rude flint 
 implement belonging to the neolithic age. On 
 July 2, she and her accomplices met together in 
 secret conclave ; and having made an image of butter 
 to resemble Robert Munro, they placed it against the 
 wall; and then, with the elf arrow-head, Loskie 
 Loncart shot at it for eight times, but each time with- 
 out success, a proof that the familiars of the devil, 
 like their master, could not always hit the mark. 
 Meeting a second time for the same purpose, they 
 made an image of clay, at which Loskie shot twelve 
 times in succession, invariably missing, to the great 
 disappointment of all concerned. The failure was 
 ascribed to the elf arrow-head, and in August another 
 was procured ; two figures of clay were also made, for 
 Robert Munro and for Lady Balnagown, respectively ; 
 at the latter Dame Fowlis shot twice, and at the 
 former Loskie Loncart shot thrice ; but the shooting 
 was no better than before, and the two images being 
 
CHAP. IV.] THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 311 
 
 accidentally broken, the charm was destroyed. It 
 was proposed to try poison again, but by this time 
 the authorities had gained information of what was 
 going on, and towards the end of November, Christian 
 Roy, who had been present at the third meeting, was 
 arrested. Being put to the torture, she confessed 
 everything, and, together with some of her con- 
 federates, was convicted of witchcraft and burnt. 
 Dame Fowlis, who assuredly was not the least guilty 
 person, escaped to Caithness, but, after remaining in 
 concealment for nine months, was allowed to return to 
 her home. In 1588, her husband died, and was 
 succeeded in his estates by Robert Munro, who 
 revived the charge of witchcraft against his step- 
 mother, and obtained a commission for her examina- 
 tion and that of her surviving accomplices. Dame 
 Fowlis was put on her trial on July 22, 1590 ; but she 
 had money and friends, and contrived to obtain a ver- 
 dict of acquittal. 
 
 It is one of the most remarkable features of this re- 
 markable case that, as soon as her acquittal was pro- 
 nounced, a new trial was opened, in which the defendant 
 was her other stepson, Hector Munro,* who had been, 
 only an hour before, the principal witness against her. 
 The allegations against him were: first, that, during the 
 sore sickness of his brother, in the summer of 1588, he 
 had consulted with ' three notorious and common 
 witches' respecting the best means of curing him, and 
 had sheltered them for several days, until compelled by 
 his father to send them about their business; and, 
 * Pitcaini, ut ante, i. 192, 202, 285. 
 
312 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 second, that falling ill himself, in January, 1559, he 
 had caused a certain Marion Maclngaruch, c one of the 
 most notorious and rank witches in the whole realm/ 
 to be brought to him, and who, after administering 
 three draughts of water out of three stones which she 
 carried with her, declared that his sole chance of 
 recovery lay in the sacrifice of ' the principal man of 
 his blood.' After due consultation, they decided that 
 this vicarious sufferer must be George Munro. his 
 step - brother, the eldest son of Dame Fowlis. 
 Messengers were accordingly sent in search of him. 
 Apprehending no evil, he obeyed the call, and five 
 days afterwards arrived at the house of Hector 
 Munro. Following the directions of the witch, 
 Hector received his brother in silence, giving him his 
 left hand, and taking him by the right hand, and 
 uttering no word of greeting until he had spoken. 
 George, astounded by the dullness of his reception, 
 which he could not but contrast with the warmth of 
 the invitations, remained in his brother's sick-room an 
 hour without speaking. At last he asked Hector how 
 he felt. i The better that you have come to visit 
 me,' replied Hector, and then was again silent, for so 
 the witch had ordained. An hour after midnight 
 appeared Marion Maclngaruch, with several assist- 
 ants; and, arming themselves with spades, they re- 
 paired to a nook of ground at the sea-side, situated 
 between the boundaries of the estates of the two 
 lairds, and there, removing the turf, they dug a grave 
 of the size of the invalid. 
 
 Marion returned to the house, and gave directions 
 
CHAP. IV.] THE WITCHES OF SCOTLAND. 313 
 
 to her confederates as to the parts they were to play 
 in the startling scene which was yet to be enacted. 
 It was represented to her that if George died 
 suddenly suspicions would be aroused, with a result 
 dangerous to all concerned ; and she thereupon under- 
 took that he should be spared until April 17 next 
 thereafter. Hector was then wrapped up in a couple 
 of blankets, and carried to the grave in silence. In 
 silence he was deposited in it, and the turf lightly 
 laid upon him, while Marion stationed herself by his 
 side. His foster-mother, one Christiana Neill Day- 
 zell, then took a young lad by the hand, and ran the 
 breadth of nine ridges, afterwards inquiring of the 
 witch ' who might be her choice/ and receiving for 
 answer, i That Hector was her choice to live, and his 
 brother George to die for him.' This ceremony was 
 thrice repeated, and the sick man was then taken 
 from the grave, and carried home, the most absolute 
 silence still being maintained. 
 
 Such an experience on a bitter January night 
 might well have proved fatal to the subject of it ; 
 but, strange to say, Hector Munro recovered - 
 probably from the effect on his imagination of rites 
 so peculiar and impressive ; whereas, in the month 
 of April, George Munro was seized with a grievous 
 illness, of which, in the following June, he died. 
 Grateful for the cure she had effected, Hector received 
 the witch Marion into high favour, installing her at 
 his uncle's house of Kildrummadyis, entertaining her 
 * as if she had been his spouse, and giving her such 
 pre-eminence in the county that none durst offend 
 
314 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 her.' But it is the nature of such unhallowed con- 
 federacies to surrender, sooner or later, their dark r 
 dread secrets. Whispers spread abroad, gradually 
 shaping themselves into a connected story which 
 invited judicial investigation. A warrant was issued 
 for the arrest of Marion Maclngurach ; but for some 
 time Hector Munro contrived to conceal her, until 
 Dame Fowlis discovered and made known that she 
 was lying in the house at Fowlis. She was arrested 
 and, making a full confession of her actions, was 
 sentenced to death, and burnt. Hector Munro. 
 however, was more fortunate, and obtained his 
 acquittal. 
 
 JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 
 
 These, and other cases of witchcraft which, as the 
 mania extended, occurred in various parts of the 
 country, attracted the attention of King James, and 
 made a profound impression upon him. Taking up 
 the study of the subject with enthusiasm, he inquired 
 into the demonology of France and Germany, where 
 it had been matured into a science; and this so 
 thoroughly that he became, as already stated, an 
 expert, and was really entitled to pronounce authori- 
 tative decisions. His example, however, had a dis- 
 astrous effect, confirming and deepening the popular 
 credulity to such an extent that the common people, 
 for a time, might have been divided into two great 
 classes witches and witch-finders. That in such 
 circumstances many acts of cruelty should be per- 
 petrated was inevitable. So complete was the de- 
 
CHAP. IV.] JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 315 
 
 moralization, that the most trivial physical or mental 
 peculiarity was held to be an indubitable witch-mark, 
 and young and old were hurried to the stake like 
 sheep to the slaughter. 
 
 In August, 1589, King James was married, by 
 proxy, to Princess Anne of Denmark ; and the im- 
 patient monarch was eagerly awaiting the arrival of 
 his bride from Copenhagen, when the unwelcome 
 intelligence reached him that the vessels conveying 
 her and her suite had been overtaken by a storm, 
 and, after a narrow escape from destruction, had put 
 into the port of Upsal, in Norway, with the intention 
 of remaining there until the following spring. The 
 eager bridegroom, summoning up all his courage 
 he had no love for the sea resolved to go in search 
 of his queen, and, having found her, to conduct her 
 to her new home. At Upsal the marriage was duly 
 solemnized ; and husband and wife then voyaged to 
 Copenhagen, where they spent the winter. The 
 homeward voyage was not undertaken until the 
 following spring ; and it was on May Day, 1590, 
 that James and his Queen landed at Leith, after an 
 experience of the sea which confirmed James's dis- 
 taste for it. 
 
 The political disorder of the country, and the hold 
 which the new superstition had obtained upon the 
 minds of the people, encouraged the circulation of 
 dark mysterious rumours in connection with the 
 King's unfavourable passage ; and a general belief 
 soon came to be established that the tempestuous 
 weather which had so seriously affected it was due to 
 
316 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 the intervention of supernatural powers, at the in- 
 stigation of human treachery. Suspicion fixed at 
 length upon the Earl of Bothwell, who was arrested 
 and committed to prison ; but in June, 1591, con- 
 trived to make his escape, and conceal himself in the 
 remote recesses of the Highlands. Not long after- 
 wards, some curious circumstances attending certain 
 cures which a servant girl Geillis, or Gillies, 
 Duncan had performed, led to her being suspected 
 of witchcraft ; and this suspicion opened up a series 
 of investigations, which revealed the existence of an 
 extraordinary conspiracy against the King's life. 
 
 Geillis Duncan was in the employment of David 
 Seton, deputy -bailiff of the small town of Tranent, 
 in Haddingtonshire. Unlike the witch of English 
 rural life, she was young, comely, and fair-com- 
 plexioned ; and the only ground on which the idea 
 of witchcraft was associated with her was the 
 wonderful quickness with which she had cured some 
 sick and diseased persons, the fact being that she was 
 well acquainted with the healing properties of herbs. 
 When her master severely interrogated her, she at 
 once denied all knowledge of the mysteries of the 
 black art. He then, without leave or license, put 
 her to the torture ; she still continued to protest her 
 innocence. It was a popular conviction that no 
 witch would confess so long as the devil-mark on 
 her body remained undiscovered. She was subjected 
 to an indecent examination the stigma was found 
 (said the examiners) on her throat; she was again 
 subjected to the torture. The outraged girl's forti- 
 
CHAP. IV.] JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 317 
 
 tude then gave way ; she acknowledged whatever her 
 persecutors wished to learn. Yes, she was a witch t 
 She had made a compact with the devil ; all her 
 cures had been effected by his assistance quite a 
 new feature in the character of Satan, who has not 
 generally been suspected of any compassionate feeling 
 towards suffering humanity. That she had done 
 good instead of harm availed the unfortunate Geillis 
 nothing. She was committed to prison ; and the 
 torture being a third time applied, made a fuller 
 confession, in which she named her accomplices or 
 confederates, some forty in number, residing in 
 different parts of Lothian. Their arrest and ex- 
 amination disclosed the particulars of one of the 
 strangest intrigues ever concocted. 
 
 The principal parties in it were Dr. Fian, or Frain, 
 a reputed wizard, also known as John Cunningham ; 
 a grave matron, named Agnes Sampson ; Euphemia 
 Macalzean, daughter of Lord Cliftonhall ; and 
 Barbara Napier. Fian, or Cunningham, was a 
 schoolmaster of Tranent, and a man of ability and 
 education ; but his life had been evil he was a 
 vendor of poisons and, though innocent of the pre- 
 posterous crimes alleged against him, had dabbled in 
 the practices of the so-called sorcery. When a 
 twisted cord was bound round his bursting temples, 
 he would confess nothing ; and, exasperated by his 
 fortitude, the authorities subjected him to the terrible 
 torture of ' the boots/ Even this he endured in 
 silence, until exhausted nature came to his relief 
 with an interval of unconsciousness. He was then 
 
318 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 released ; restoratives were applied ; and, while he 
 hovered on the border of sensibility, he was induced 
 to sign ' a full confession/ Being remanded to his 
 prison, he contrived, two days afterwards, to escape; 
 but was recaptured, and brought before the High 
 Court of Justiciary, King James himself being 
 present. Fian strenuously repudiated the so-called 
 confession which had been foisted upon him in his 
 swoon, declaring that his signature had been obtained 
 by a fraud. Whereupon King James, enraged at 
 what he conceived to be the man's stubborn wilful- 
 ness, ordered him again to the torture. His finger- 
 nails were torn out with pincers, and long needles 
 thrust into the quick ; but the courageous man made 
 no sign. He was then subjected once more to the 
 barbarous 'boots/ in which he continued so long, 
 and endured so many blows, that ' his legs were 
 crushed and beaten together as small as might be, 
 and the bones and flesh so bruised, that the blood 
 and marrow spouted forth in great abundance, 
 whereby they were made unserviceable for ever/ 
 
 As ultimately extorted from the unfortunate Fian, 
 his confession shows a remarkable mixture of impos- 
 ture and self-deception a patchwork of the false- 
 hoods he believed and those he invented. Singularly 
 grotesque is his account of his introduction to the 
 devil: He was lodging at Tranent, in the house of 
 one Thomas Trumbill, who had offended him by 
 neglecting to ' sparge ' or whitewash his chamber, as 
 he had promised ; and, while lying in his bed, medi- 
 tating how he might be revenged of the said Thomas, 
 
CHAP. IV.] JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 
 
 319 
 
 the devil, clothed in white raiment, suddenly appeared, 
 and said : ' Will ye be my servant, and adore me 
 and all my servants, and ye shall never want?' 
 Never want ! The bribe to a poor Scotch dominie 
 was immense; Fian could not withstand it, and at 
 once enlisted among ' the Devil's Own/ As his first 
 act of service, he had the pleasure of burning down 
 Master Trumbill's house. The next night Beelzebub 
 paid him another visit, and put his mark upon him 
 with a rod. Thereafter he was found lying in his 
 chamber in a trance, during which, he said, he was 
 carried in the spirit over many mountains, and 
 accomplished an aerial circumnavigation of the globe. 
 In the future he attended all the nightly conferences 
 of witches and fiends held throughout Lothian, dis- 
 playing so much energy and capacity that the devil 
 appointed him to be his ' registrar and secretary/ 
 
 The first convention at which he was present 
 assembled in the parish church of North Berwick, a 
 breezy, picturesque seaport at the mouth of the Forth, 
 about sixteen miles from Preston Pans. Satan occu- 
 pied the pulpit, and delivered 'a sermon of doubtful 
 speeches/ designed for their encouragement His 
 servants, he said, should never want, and should ail 
 nothing, so long as their hairs were on, and they let- 
 no tears fall from their eyes. He bade them spare 
 not to do evil, and advised them to eat, drink, and 
 be merry: after which edifying discourse they did 
 homage to him in the usual indecent manner. Fian, 
 
 O ' 
 
 as I have said, was an evil-living man, and needed 
 ho exhortation from the devil to do wicked things. 
 
320 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 In the course of his testimony he invented, as was so 
 frequently the strange practice of persons accused of 
 witchcraft, the most extravagant fictions as, for 
 instance : One night he supped at the miller's, a few 
 miles from Tranent; and as it was late when the 
 revel ended, one of the miller's men carried him home 
 on horseback. To light them on their way through 
 the dark of night, Fian raised up four candles on the 
 horse's ears, and one on the staff which his guide 
 carried; their great brightness made the midnight 
 appear as noonday ; but the miller's man was so 
 terrified by the phenomenon that, on his return home, 
 he fell dead. 
 
 Let us next turn to the confession of Agnes 
 Sampson, ' the wise wife of Keith,' as she was 
 popularly called. She was charged with having 
 done grave injury to persons who had incurred her 
 displeasure; but she seems, when all fictitious details 
 are thrust aside, to have been simply a shrewd and 
 sagacious old Scotchwoman, with much force of 
 character, who made a decent living as a herb-doctor. 
 Archbishop Spottiswoode describes her as matronly 
 in appearance, and grave of demeanour, and adds 
 that she was composed in her answers. Yet were 
 those answers the wildest and most extraordinary 
 utterances imaginable, and, if they be truly recorded, 
 they convict her of unscrupulous audacity and un- 
 failing ingenuity. 
 
 She affirmed that her service to the devil began 
 after her husband's death, when he appeared to her 
 in mortal likeness, and commanded her to renounce 
 
CHAP. IV.] JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 321 
 
 Christ, and obey him as her master. For the sake of 
 the riches he promised to herself and her children, 
 she consented ; and thereafter he came in the guise of 
 a dog, of which she asked questions, always receiving 
 appropriate replies. On one occasion, having been 
 summoned by the Lady Edmaston, who was lying- 
 sick, she went out into the garden at night, and 
 called the devil by his terrestrial or mundane alias 
 of Elva. He bounded over the stone wall in the 
 likeness of a dog, and approached her so close that 
 she was frightened, and charged him by the law he 
 believed in ' to keep his distance. She then asked 
 him if the lady would recover ; he replied in the 
 negative. In his turn he inquired where the gentle- 
 women, her daughters, were; and being informed 
 that they were to meet her in the garden, said that 
 one of them should be his leman. c Not so,' 
 exclaimed the wise wife undauntedly ; and the devil 
 then went away howling, like a whipped schoolboy, 
 and hid himself in the well until after supper. The 
 young gentlewomen coming into the bloom and per- 
 fumes of the garden, he suddenly emerged, seized the 
 Lady Torsenye, and attempted to drag her into the 
 well; but Agnes gripped him firmly, and by her 
 superior strength delivered her from his clutches. 
 Then, with a terrible yell, he disappeared. 
 
 Yet another story: Agnes, with Greillis Duncan 
 and other witches, desiring to be revenged on the 
 deputy bailiff, met on the bridge at Fowlistruther, 
 and dropped a cord into the river, Agnes Sampson 
 crying, 'Hail! Holloa!' Immediately they felt the 
 
 21 
 
322 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 end of the cord dragged down by a great weight ; 
 and on drawing it up, up came the devil along with 
 it ! He inquired if they had all been good servants, 
 and gave them a charm to blight Seton and his 
 property ; but it was accidentally diverted in its opera- 
 tion, and fell upon another person a touch of realism 
 worthy of Defoe ! 
 
 Euphemia Macalzean, a lady of high social position, 
 daughter and heiress of Lord Cliftonhall (who was 
 eminent as lawyer, statesman, and scholar), seems to 
 have been involved in this welter of intrigue, con- 
 spiracy, and deception, through her adherence to 
 Bothwell's faction, and her devotion to the Koman 
 communion. Her confession was as grotesque and 
 unveracious as that of any of her associates. She was 
 made a witch (she said) through the agency of an 
 Irishwoman 'with a fallen nose/ and, to perfect her- 
 self in the craft, had paid another witch, who resided 
 in St. Mnian's Row, Edinburgh, for ' inaugurating ' 
 her with 'the girth of ane gret bikar/ revolving it 
 1 oft round her head and neck, and ofttimes round her 
 head.' She was accused of having administered poison 
 to her husband, her father-in-law, and some other 
 persons ; and whatever may be thought of the allega- 
 tions of sorcery and witchcraft, this heavier charge 
 seems to have been well-founded. Euphemia said 
 that her acquaintance with Agnes Sampson began 
 with her first accouchement, when she applied to her 
 to mitigate her pains, and she did so by transferring 
 them to a dog. At her second accouchement, Agnes 
 transferred them to a cat. 
 
CHAP. IV.] JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 323 
 
 As a determined enemy of the Protestant religion, 
 Satan was inimical to King James's marriage with a 
 Protestant princess, and to break up an alliance which 
 would greatly limit his power for evil, he determined 
 to sink the ship that carried the newly-married couple 
 on their homeward voyage. His first device was to 
 hang over the sea a very dense mist, in the hope that 
 the royal ship would miss her course, and strike on 
 some dangerous rock. When this device failed, 
 Dr. Fian was ordered to summon all the witches to 
 meet their master at the haunted kirk of North 
 Berwick. Accordingly, on All-Hallow-mass Eve, 
 they assembled there to the number of two hundred ; 
 and each one embarking in ' a riddle/ or sieve,* they 
 sailed over the ocean ' very substantially,' carrying 
 with them flagons of wine, and making merry, 
 and drinking ' by the way.' After sailing about for 
 some time, they met with their master, bearing in 
 his claws a cat, which had previously been drawn 
 nine times through the fire. Handing it to one of 
 the warlocks, he bade him cast it into the sea, and 
 shout ' Hola !' whereupon the ocean became con- 
 vulsed, and the waters seethed, and the billows rose 
 like heaving mountains. On through the storm 
 sailed this eerie company until they reached the 
 Scottish coast, where they landed, and, joining hands, 
 danced in procession to the kirk of North Berwick, 
 Geillis Duncan going before them, playing a reel 
 upon her Jew's-harp, or trump formerly a favourite 
 
 * So the witch in ' Macbeth ' (Act I., sc. 3) says : 
 'In a sieve I'll thither sail.' 
 
 212 
 
324 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 musical instrument with the Scotch peasantry and 
 singing : 
 
 * Cummer, go ye before ; cummer, go ye ; 
 Gif ye will not go before, cummer, let me !' 
 
 Having arrived at their rendezvous, they danced 
 round it ' withershins ' that is, in reverse of the 
 apparent motion of the sun. Dr. Fian then blew 
 into the keyhole of the door, which opened im- 
 mediately, and all the witches and warlocks entered 
 in. It was pitch-dark ; but Fian lighted the tapers 
 by merely blowing on them, and their sudden blaze 
 revealed the devil in the pulpit, attired in a black 
 gown and hat. The description given of the fiend 
 reveals the stern imagination of the North, and is 
 characteristic of the ' weird sisters ' of Scotland, 
 who form, as Dr. Burton remarks, so grand a con- 
 trast to i the vulgar grovelling parochial witches of 
 England/ His body was hard as iron ; his face 
 terrible, with a nose like an eagle's beak ; his eyes 
 glared like fire ; his voice was gruff as the sound of 
 the east wind ; his hands and legs were covered with 
 hair, and his hands and feet were armed with long 
 claws. On beholding him, witches and warlocks, 
 with one accord, cried : ' All hail, master !' He then 
 called over their names, and demanded of them 
 severally whether they had been good and faithful 
 servants, and what measure of success had attended 
 their operations against the lives of King James and 
 his bride which surely he ought to have known ! 
 Gray Malkin, a foolish old warlock, who officiated as 
 beadle or janitor, heedlessly answered, That nothing 
 
CHAP. IV.] JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 325 
 
 ailed the King yet, God be thanked ! At which the 
 devil, in a fury, leaped from the pulpit, and lustily 
 smote him on the ears. He then resumed his 
 position, and delivered his sermon, commanding 
 them to act faithfully in their service, and do all the 
 evil they could. Euphemia Macalzean and Agnes 
 Sampson summoned up courage enough to ask him 
 whether he had brought an image or picture of the 
 King, that, by pricking it with pins, they might 
 inflict upon its living pattern all kinds of pain and 
 disease. The devil was fain to acknowledge that he 
 had forgotten it, and was soundly rated by Euphemia 
 for his carelessness, Agnes Sampson and several 
 other women seizing the opportunity to load him 
 with reproaches on their respective accounts. 
 
 On another occasion, according to Agnes Sampson, 
 she, Dr. Fian, and a wizard of some energy, named 
 Kobert Grierson, with several others, left Grierson's 
 house at Preston Pans in a boat, and went out to sea 
 to 4 a tryst.' Embarking on board a ship, they 
 drank copiously of good wine and ale, after which 
 they sank the ship and her crew, and returned home. 
 And again, sailing from North Berwick in a boat like 
 a chimney, they saw the devil in shape and size 
 resembling a huge hayrick rolling over the great 
 waves in front of them. They went on board a 
 vessel called The Grace of God, where they enjoyed, 
 as before, an abundance of wine and ' other good 
 cheer.' On leaving it, the devil, who was under- 
 neath the ship, raised an evil wind, and it perished. 
 
 Some of these stories proved to be too highly 
 
326 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 coloured even for the credulity of King James ; and 
 he rightly enough exclaimed that the witches were, 
 like their master, 'extraordinary liars.' It is said, 
 however, that he changed his opinion after Agnes 
 Sampson, in a private conference which he accorded 
 to her, related the details of a conversation between 
 himself and the Queen that had taken place under 
 such circumstances as to ensure inviolable secrecy. 
 It is curious that a very similar story is told of 
 Jeanne Dare whom our ancestors burned as a witch 
 and King Charles VI. of France. 
 
 Despite the machinations of the devil and the 
 witches, King James and Queen Anne, as we know, 
 escaped every peril, and reached Leith in safety. The 
 devil sourly remarked that James was ' a man of 
 God/ and was evidently inclined to let him alone 
 severely ; but the Preston Pans conspirators, in- 
 stigated, perhaps, by some powerful personages who 
 kept prudently in the background, resolved on 
 another attempt against their sovereign's life. On 
 Lammas Eve (July 31, 1590), nine of the ring- 
 leaders, including Dr. Fian, Agnes Sampson, 
 Euphemia Macalzean, and Barbara Napier, with some 
 thirty confederates, assembled at the New Haven, 
 between Musselburgh and Preston Pans, at a spot 
 called the Fairy Holes, where they were met by the 
 devil in the shape of a black man, which was 
 * thought most meet to do the turn for the which 
 they were convened.' Agnes Sampson at once pro- 
 posed that they should make a final effort for the 
 King's destruction. The devil took an unfavourable 
 
CHAP. IV.] JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 327 
 
 view of the prospects of their schemes ; but he 
 promised them a waxen image, and directed them 
 to hang up and roast a toad, and to lay its drippings 
 mixed with strong wash, an adder's skin, and f the 
 thing on the forehead of a new- foaled foal 9 in 
 James's path, or to suspend it in such a position 
 that it might drip upon his body. This precious 
 injunction was duly obeyed, and the toad hung up 
 where the dripping would fall upon the King, 
 1 during his Majesty's being at the Brig of Dee, the 
 day before the common bell rang, for fear the Earl 
 Bothwell should have entered Edinburgh/ But the 
 devil's foreboding was fulfilled, and the conspirators 
 missed their aim, the King happening to take a 
 different route to that by which he had been ex- 
 pected. 
 
 It is useless to repeat more of these wild and 
 desperate stories, or to inquire too closely into their 
 origin. Fact and fiction are so mixed up in them, 
 and the embellishments are so many and so bold, 
 that it is difficult to get at the nucleus of truth ; but, 
 setting aside the witch or supernatural element, we 
 seem driven to the conclusion that these persons had 
 combined together for some nefarious purpose. 
 Whether they intended to compass the King's death 
 by the superstitious practices which the credulity of 
 the age supposed to be effective, or whether these 
 practices were intended as a cover for surer means, 
 cannot now be determined. Nor can we pretend to 
 say whether all who were implicated in the plot by 
 the confession of Geillis Duncan were really guilty. 
 
328 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 Dr. Fian, at all events, protested his innocence to the 
 last ; and with regard to him and others, the 
 evidence adduced was painfully inadequate. But 
 they were all convicted and sentenced to death. In 
 the case of Barbara Napier, the majority of the jury 
 at first acquitted her on the principal charges ; but 
 the King was highly indignant, and threatened them 
 with a trial for ' wilful error upon an assize.' To 
 avoid the consequences, they threw themselves upon 
 the King's mercy, and were benevolently ' pardoned.' 
 Poor Barbara Napier was hanged. So was Dr. 
 Fian, on Castle Hill, Edinburgh (in January, 1592), 
 and burned afterwards. So were Agnes Sampson, 
 Agnes Thomson, and their real or supposed con- 
 federates. The punishment of Euphemia Macalzean 
 was exceptionally severe. Instead of the ordinary 
 sentence, directing the criminal to be first strangled 
 and then burnt, it was ordered that she should be 
 'bound to a stake, and burned in ashes, quick to the 
 death/ This fate befell her on June 25, 1591. 
 
 It was an unhappy result of this remarkable trial 
 that it confirmed King James in his belief that he 
 possessed a rare faculty for the detection of witches 
 and the discovery of witchcraft. Continuing his in- 
 vestigation of the subject with fanatical zeal, he 
 published in Edinburgh, in 1597, the outcome ot his 
 researches in his 4 Daemonologie ' an elaborate 
 treatise, written in the form of a dialogue, the spirit 
 of which may be inferred from its author's prefatory 
 observations : ' The fearful abounding,' he says, 4 at 
 this time and in this country, of these detestable 
 
CHAP. IV.] JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 329 
 
 slaves of the devil, the witches or enchanters, hath 
 moved me (beloved reader) to despatch in post this 
 following treatise of mine, not in any wise (as I 
 protest) to serve for a show of mine own learning 
 and ingene, but only (moved of conscience) to press 
 thereby, so far as I can, to resolve the doubting 
 hearts of many, both that such assaults of Satan are 
 most certainly practised, and that the instrument 
 thereof merits most severely to be punished, against 
 the damnable opinions of two, principally in our 
 age ; whereof the one called Scot, an Englishman, is 
 not ashamed in public print to deny that there can 
 be such thing as witchcraft, and so maintains the 
 old error of the Sadducees in denying of spirits. 
 The other, called Wierus, a German physician, sets 
 out a public apology for all these crafts-folks, where- 
 by procuring for them impunity, he plainly betrays 
 himself to have been one of that profession.' 
 
 Not only is King James fully convinced of the 
 existence of witchcraft, but he is determined to treat 
 it as a capital crime. 'Witches,' he affirms, 'ought to 
 be put to death, according to the laws of God, the 
 civil and imperial law, and the municipal law of all 
 Christian nations ; yea, to spare the life, and not 
 strike whom God bids strike, and so severely punish 
 so odious a treason against God, is not only unlawful, 
 but, doubtless, as great a sin in the magistrate as was 
 Saul's sparing Agag.' Conscious that the evidence 
 brought against the unfortunate victims was generally 
 of the weakest possible character, he contends that 
 because the crime is generally abominable, evidence in 
 
330 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 proof of it may be accepted which would be refused 
 in other offences ; as, for example, that of young 
 children who are ignorant of the nature of an oath, 
 and that of persons of notoriously ill-repute. And 
 the sole chance of escape which he offers to the 
 accused is that of the ordeal. ' Two good helps/ he 
 says, f may be used: the one is the finding of their 
 marks, and the trying the insensibleness thereof; the 
 other is their floating on the water, for, as in a secret 
 murther, if the dead carcase be at any time thereafter 
 handled by the murtherer, it will gush out of blood, 
 as if the blood were raging to the Heaven, for revenge 
 of the murtherer (God having appointed that secret 
 supernatural sign for trial of that secret unnatural 
 crime), so that it appears that God hath appointed 
 (for a supernatural sign of the monstrous impiety 
 of witches), that the water shall refuse to receive 
 them in her bosom that have shaken off them the 
 sacred water of baptism, and wilfully refused the 
 benefit thereof ; no, not so much as their eyes are 
 able to shed tears at every light occasion when they 
 will ; yea, although it were dissembling like the 
 crocodiles, God not permitting them to dissemble 
 their obstinacy in so horrible a crime.' 
 
 Encouraged by the practice and teaching of their 
 sovereign, the people of Scotland, whom the anthro- 
 pomorphism of their religious creed naturally pre- 
 disposed to believe in the personal appearances of the 
 devil, undertook a regular campaign against those ill- 
 fated individuals whom malice or ignorance, or their 
 
CHAP. IV.] JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 331 
 
 own mental or physical peculiarities, or other causes, 
 branded as his bond-slaves and accomplices. Religious 
 animosity, moreover, was a powerful factor in stimu- 
 lating and sustaining the mania ; and the Scotch 
 Calvinist enjoyed a double gratification when some 
 poor old woman was burned both as a witch and a 
 Roman Catholic. It has been calculated that, in the 
 period of thirty-nine years, between the enactment of 
 the Statute of Queen Mary and the accession of James 
 to the English throne, the average number of persons 
 executed for witchcraft was 200 annually, making an 
 aggregate of nearly 8,000. For the first nine years 
 about 30 or 40 suffered yearly ; but latterly the annual 
 death-roll mounted up to 400 and 500. James at 
 last grew alarmed at the prevalence of witchcraft 
 in his kingdom, and seems to have devoted no small 
 portion of his time to attempts to detect and ex- 
 terminate it. 
 
 In 1591 the Earl of Bothwell was imprisoned for 
 having conspired the King's death by sorcery, in 
 conjunction with a warlock named Richie Graham. 
 Graham was burned on March 8, 1592. Bothwell 
 was not brought to trial until August 10, 1593, 
 when several witches bore testimony against him, 
 but he obtained an acquittal. 
 
 In 1597, on November 12, four women were tried by 
 the High Court of Justiciary, in Edinburgh, on various 
 charges of witchcraft. Their names are recorded as 
 Christina Livingstone, Janet Stewart, Bessie Aikin, 
 and Christina Sadler. Their trials, however, present 
 no special features of interest. 
 
332 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK IL 
 
 Passing over half a century, we come to the recru- 
 descence of the witch-mania, which followed on the 
 restoration of Charles II. Mr. E. Burns Begg has 
 recently edited for the Society of Antiquaries of 
 Scotland a report of various witch trials in Forfar 
 and Kincardineshire, in the opening years of that 
 monarch's reign, which supplies some further illus- 
 trations of the characteristics of Scottish witchcraft. 
 Here we meet with the strange word ' Covin ' or 
 6 Coven ' (apparently connected with ' Covenant ' or 
 1 Convention') as applied to an organization or guild 
 of witches. In 1662 the Judge-General-Depute for 
 Scotland tried thirteen ' Coviners,' who had been 
 detected by the efforts of a committee consisting of 
 the ministers and schoolmasters of the district, 
 together with the 'Laird of Tullibole.' Of these 
 thirteen unfortunate victims only one was a man. 
 All were found guilty by the jury, and sentenced to 
 death. Eleven suffered at the stake ; one died before 
 the day of execution, and one was respited on account 
 of her pregnancy. The evidence was of the usual 
 extraordinary tenor, and the so-called fc confessions ' 
 of the accused were not less puzzling than in other 
 cases. In Mr. Begg's opinion, which seems to me 
 well founded, there really was in and around the 
 Crook of Devon a local Covin, or regularly organized 
 band of so-called witches who acted under the direc- 
 tion of a person whom they believed to be Satan. 
 He suggests that at this period there would be many 
 wild and unscrupulous characters, disbanded soldiers, 
 and others, who found their profit in the ' blinded 
 
CHAP. IV.] JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 333 
 
 allegiance* of the witches and warlocks. The diffi- 
 culty is, what was this profit ? The witches do not 
 seem to have paid anything in money or in kind. 
 There are allusions which point to acts of immorality, 
 and in several instances one can understand that 
 personal enmities were gratified ; but on the whole 
 the personators of Satan had scant reward for all their 
 trouble. And how was it that they were never 
 denounced by any of their victims ? How was it 
 that the vigilance which detected the witches never 
 tripped up their master ? How are we to explain 
 the diversity of Satan's appearances ? At one time he 
 was i ane bonnie lad ;' at another, an ' unco-like man, 
 in black-coloured clothes and ane blue bonnet ;' at 
 another, a ' black iron-hard man ;' and yet again, 
 4 ane little man in rough gray clothes.' Occasionally 
 he brought with him a piper, and the witches danced 
 together, and the ground under them was all fire- 
 flaughts, and Andrew Watson had his usual staff in 
 his hand, and although he is a blind man, yet danced 
 he as nimbly as any of the company, and made also 
 great merriment by singing his old ballads ; and 
 Isabel Shyrrie did sing her song called ' Tinkletum, 
 Tankletum.' Alas, that no obliging pen has trans- 
 mitted ' Tinkletum, Tankletum ' to posterity ! One 
 could point to a good many songs which the world 
 could have better spared. ' Tinkletum, Tankletum ' 
 there is something amazingly suggestive in the 
 words ; possibilities of humour, perhaps of satire ; 
 humour and satire which might have secured for 
 Isabel Shyrrie a place among Scottish poetesses, 
 
334 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 whereas now she comes before us in no more attrac- 
 tive character than that of a Coviner a deluded or 
 self- deluding witch. 
 
 Let us next betake ourselves to the East Coast, 
 and make the acquaintance of Isabel Gowdie, whose 
 1 confessions ' are among the most extraordinary 
 documents to be met with even in the records o 
 Scottish witchcraft. It is impossible, I think, to 
 overrate their psychological interest. The first is, 
 perhaps, the most curious; and as no summary or 
 condensation would do justice to its details, I shall 
 place it before the reader in extenso, with no other 
 alteration than that of Englishing the spelling. It 
 was made at Auldearn on April 13, 1662, in presence 
 of the parish minister, the sheriff-depute of Nairn, 
 and nine lairds and farmers of good position : 
 
 ' As I was going betwixt the towns (i.e., farmstead- 
 ings) of Drumdeevin and The Heads, I met with the 
 Devil, and there covenanted in a manner with him ; 
 and I promised to meet him, in the night-time, in the 
 Kirk of Auldearn,^ which I did. And the first thing 
 I did there that night, I denied my baptism, and did 
 put the one of my hands to the crown of my head, 
 and the other to the sole of my foot, and then 
 renounced all betwixt my two hands over to the 
 
 * It is a singular circumstance, as Pitcairn remarks, that in 
 almost all the confessions of witches, or at least of the Scottish 
 witches, their initiation, and many of their meetings, are said to 
 have taken place within churches, churchyards, and consecrated 
 ground ; and a certain ritual, in imitation, or mockery, of the 
 forms of the Church, is uniformly said to have been gone through. 
 
CHAP. IV.] JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 335 
 
 Devil. He was in the Reader's desk, and a black book 
 in his hand. Margaret Brodie, in Auldearn, held me 
 up to the Devil to be baptized by him, and he marked 
 me in the shoulder, and sucked out my blood at that 
 mark, and spouted it in his hand, and, sprinkling it 
 on my head, said, u I baptize thee, Janet, in my own 
 name !" And within awhile we all removed. The 
 next time that I met with him was in the New 
 Wards of Inshoch. . . . He was a mickle, black, 
 rough [hirsute] man, very cold; and I found his 
 nature all cold within me as spring- wall- water.* 
 Sometimes he had boots, and sometimes shoes on 
 his feet; but still his feet are forked and cloven. He 
 would be sometimes with us like a deer or a roe. 
 John Taylor and Janet Breadhead, his wife, in 
 Belmakeith, . . . Douglas, and I myself, met in the 
 kirkyard of Nairn, and we raised an unchristened 
 child out of its grave ; and at the end of Bradley's 
 cornfielcftand, just opposite to the Mill of Nairn, we 
 took the said child, with the nails of our fingers and 
 toes, pickles of all sorts of grain, and blades of kail 
 [colewort], and hacked them all very small, mixed 
 together; and did put a part thereof among the 
 muck-heaps, and thereby took away the fruit of his 
 corns, etc., and we parted it among two of our Covins. 
 When we take corns at Lammas, we take but about 
 two sheaves, when the corns are full ; or two stalks of 
 
 Tkail, or thereby, and that gives us the fruit of the 
 corn-land or kail-yard, where they grew. And it 
 
 * In the Forfarshire reports, alluded to on p. 332, the witches 
 always speak of the devil's body and kiss as deadly cold. 
 
336 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 may be, we will keep it until Yule or Pasche, and 
 then divide it amongst us. There are thirteen persons 
 [the usual number] in my Covin. 
 
 ' The last time that our Covin met, we, and another 
 Covin, were dancing at the Hill of Earlseat ; and 
 before that, betwixt Moynes and Bowgholl; and 
 before that we were beyond the Mickle-burn ; and the 
 other Covin being at the Downie-hills, we went from 
 beyond the Mickle-burn, and went beside them, to the 
 houses at the Wood-End of Inshoch ; and within a 
 while went home to our houses. Before Candlemas 
 we went be-east Kinloss, and there we yoked a plough 
 of paddocks [frogs]. The Devil held the plough, and 
 John Young, in Mebestown, our Officer, did drive 
 the plough. Paddocks did draw the plough as oxen ; 
 quickens wor sowmes [dog-grass served for traces] ; a 
 riglon's [ram's] horn was a coulter, and a piece of a 
 riglon's horn was a sock. We went two several times 
 about; and all we of the Covin went still up and 
 down with the plough, praying to the Devil for the 
 fruit of that land, and that thistles and briars might 
 grow there. 
 
 ' When we go to any house, we take meat and 
 drink ; and we fill up the barrels with our own .... 
 again ; and we put besoms in our beds with our 
 husbands, till we return again to them. We were in 
 the Earl of Moray's house in Darnaway, and we got 
 enough there, and did eat and drink of the best, and 
 brought part with us. We went in at the windows. 
 I had a little horse, and would say, "Horse and 
 Hattock, in the Devil's name !" And then we would 
 
CHAP. IV.] JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 337 
 
 fly away, where we would, like as straws would fly 
 upon a highway. We will fly like straws where we 
 please ; wild straws and corn-straws will be horses to 
 us, and we put them betwixt our feet and say, 
 " Horse and Hattock, in the Devil's name !" And 
 when any see these straws in a whirlwind, and do 
 not sanctify themselves, we may shoot them dead at 
 our pleasure. Any that are shot by us, their souls 
 will go to Heaven, but their bodies remain with us, 
 and will fly as horses to us, as small as straws.* 
 
 ' I was in the Downie Hills, and got meat there from 
 the Queen of Fairy, more than I could eat. The 
 Queen of Fairy is heavily clothed in white linen, and 
 in white and lemon clothes, etc. ; and the King of 
 Fairy is a brave man, well favoured, and broad -faced, 
 etc. There were elf-bulls, routing and skirling up 
 and down there, and they affrighted me. 
 
 4 When we take away any cow's milk, we pull the 
 tail, and twine it and plait it the wrong way, in the 
 Devil's name; and we draw the tedder (so made) in 
 betwixt the cow's hinder-feet, and out betwixt the 
 cow's fore-feet, in the Devil's name, and thereby take 
 with us the cow's milk. We take sheep's milk even 
 so [in the same manner]. The way to take or give 
 back the milk again, is to cut that tedder. When we 
 take away the strength of any person's ale, and give 
 
 * Pitcairn remarks, with justice, that the above details are, 
 perhaps, in all respects the most extraordinary in the history of 
 witchcraft of this or of any other country. Isabel Gowdie must 
 have been a woman with a powerful and rank imagination, who, 
 had she lived in the present day, might, perhaps, have produced 
 a work of fiction of the school of Zola. 
 
 22 
 
338 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 it to another, we take a little quantity out of each 
 barrel or stand of ale, and put it in a stoop in the 
 Devil's name, and in his name, with our own hands, 
 put it amongst another's ale, and give her the strength 
 and substance and " heall " of her neighbour's ale. 
 And to keep the ale from us, that we have no power 
 over it, is to sanctify it well. We get all this power 
 from the Devil; and when we seek it from him, we 
 will him to be " our Lord." 
 
 1 John Taylor, and Janet Bread head, his wife, in 
 Belmakeith, Bessie Wilson in Aulderne, and Margaret 
 Wilson, spouse to Donald Callam in Aulderne, and I, 
 made a picture of clay, to destroy the Laird of Park's 
 male children. John Taylor brought home the clay 
 in his plaid nook [the corner of his plaid] ; his wife 
 broke it very small, like meal, and sifted it with a 
 sieve, and poured in water among it, in the Devil's 
 name, and wrought it very sure, like rye-bout [a stir- 
 about made of rye-flour] ; and made of it a picture of 
 the laird's sons. It had all the parts and marks of a 
 child, such as head, eyes, nose, hands, feet, mouth, 
 and little lips. It wanted no mark of a child, and 
 the hands of it folded down by its sides. It was like 
 a pow [lump of dough], or a flayed egrya [a sucking- 
 pig, which has been scalded and scraped]. We laid 
 the face of it to the fire, till it strakned [shrivelled], 
 and a clear fire round about it, till it was red like a 
 coal. After that, we would roast it now and then ; 
 each other day there would be a piece o^ w ^ll 
 roasted. The Laird of Park's wh^j e male children 
 by it are to suffer, if it be not r ^ an d brokin, as 
 
CHAP. IV.] JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 339 
 
 well as those that are born and dead already. It was 
 still put in and taken out of the fire in the Devil's 
 name. It was hung up upon a crock. It is yet in 
 John Taylor's house, and it has a cradle of clay about 
 it. Only John Taylor and his wife, Janet Bread- 
 head, Bessie and Margaret Wilson in Aulderne, and 
 Margaret Brodie, these, and I, were only at the 
 making of it. All the multitude of our number of 
 witches, of all the Covins, kent [kenned, knew] all of 
 it, at our next meeting after it was made. And the 
 witches yet that are overtaken have their own powers, 
 and our powers which we had before we were taken, 
 both. But now I have no power at all. 
 
 6 Margaret Kyllie, in .... is one of the other 
 Covin : Meslie Hirdall, spouse to Alexander Ross, in 
 Loanhead, is one of them ; her skin is fiery. Isabel 
 Nicol, in Lochley, is one of my Covin. Alexander 
 Elder, in Earlseat, and Janet Finlay, his spouse, are 
 of my Covin. Margaret Haslum, in Moynes, is one ; 
 Margaret Brodie, in Aulderne, Bessie and Margaret 
 Wilson there, and Jane Martin there, and Elspet 
 Mshie, spouse to John Mathew there, are of my 
 Covin. The said Jane Martin is the Maiden of our 
 Covin. John Young, in Mebestown, is Officer to 
 our Covin. 
 
 1 Elspet Chisholm, and Isabel More, in Aulderne, 
 Maggie Brodie .... and I, went into Alexander 
 Cumling's litt-house [dye-house], in Aulderne. I 
 went in, in the likeness of a ken [jackdaw] ; the said 
 Elspet Chisholm was in the shape of a cat. Isabel 
 More was a hare, and Maggie Brodie a cat, and .... 
 
 222 
 
340 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 We took a thread of each colour of yarn that was on 
 the said Alexander Cumling's litt-fatt [ dyeing- vat] , 
 and did cast three knots on each thread, in the Devil's 
 name, and did put the threads in the vat, withersones 
 about in the vat in the Devil's name, and thereby 
 took the whole strength of the vat away, that it 
 could litt [dye] nothing but only black, according to 
 the colour of the Devil, in whose name we took away 
 the strength of the right colours that were in the vat.' 
 
 The second confession, made at Aulderne, on May 3, 
 1662, is not less remarkable than the foregoing : 
 
 ' . . . . After that time there would meet but some- 
 times a Covin [i.e., thirteen], sometimes more, some- 
 times less ; but a Grand Meeting would be about the 
 end of each Quarter. There is thirteen persons in each 
 Covin; and each of us has one Sprite to wait upon us, 
 when we please to call upon him. I remember not all 
 the Sprites' names, but there is one called Swin, which 
 waits upon the said Margaret Wilson in Aulderne ; he 
 is still [ever] clothed in grass-green ; and the said 
 Margaret Wilson has a nickname, called u Pickle 
 nearest the wind." The next Sprite is called " Rosie," 
 who waits upon Bessie Wilson, in Aulderne; he is 
 still clothed in yellow; and her nickname is " Through 
 the corny ard." . . . The third Sprite is called " The 
 Roaring Lion," who waits upon Isabel Mcol, in 
 Lochlors ; and [he is still clothed*] in sea-green ; 
 her nickname is "Bessie Rule." The fourth Sprite is 
 
 * There are mutilations in the original manuscript, and the 
 bracketed words are conjectural. 
 
CHAP. IV.] JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 
 
 341 
 
 
 called " Mak Hector," who [waits upon Jane*] 
 Martin, daughter to the said Margaret Wilson ; he is a 
 young-like devil, clothed still in grass-green. [Jane 
 Martin is*] Maiden to the Covin that I am of; and 
 her nickname is " Over the dyke with it," because the 
 Devil [always takes the*] Maiden in his hand nix 
 time we damn " Gillatrypes ;" and when he would leap 
 from . . .* he and she will say, "Over the dyke with 
 it!" The name of the fifth Sprite is "Robert the 
 [Rule," and he is still clothed in*] sad-dun, and seems 
 to be a Commander of the rest of the Sprites ; and 
 he waits upon Margaret Brodie, in Aulderne. [The 
 name of the saxt Sprite] is called " Thief of Hell 
 wait upon Herself;" and he waits also on the said 
 Bessie Wilson. The name of the seventh [Sprite is 
 called] " The Read Reiver;" and he is my own Spirit, 
 that waits on myself, and is still clothed in black. 
 The eighth Spirit [is called] " Robert the Jackis," still 
 clothed in dun, and seems to be aged. He is a 
 glaiked, glowked Spirit ! The woman's [nickname] 
 that he waits on is "Able and Stout !" [This was 
 Bessie Hay.] The ninth Spirit is called " Laing," 
 and the woman's nickname that he waits upon is 
 "Bessie Bold" [Elspet Nishie]. The tenth Spirit is 
 named " Thomas a Fiarie," etc. There will be many 
 other Devils, waiting upon [our] Master Devil; but 
 he is bigger and more awful than the rest of the 
 Devils, and they all reverence him. I will ken 
 
 * There are mutilations in the original manuscript, and the 
 bracketed words are conjectural. 
 
342 WITCH, WAKLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 them all, one by one, from others, when they appear 
 like a man. 
 
 4 When we raise the wind, we take a rag of cloth, 
 and wet it in water ; and we take a beetle and knock 
 the rag on a stone, and we say thrice over: 
 
 ; " I knock this rag upon this stane, 
 
 To raise the wind, in the Devil's name ; 
 It shall not lie until I please again !" 
 
 When we would lay the wind, we dry the rag, and 
 say (thrice over) : 
 
 ' " We lay the wind in the Devil's name, 
 
 [It shall not] rise while we [or I] like to raise it again !" 
 
 And if the wind will not lie instantly [after we say 
 this], we call upon our Spirit, and say to him : 
 
 ' "Thief ! Thief ! conjure the wind, and cause it to [lie ? . . .]" 
 
 We have no power of rain, but we will raise the wind 
 when we please. He made us believe [ . . .] that 
 there was no God beside him. 
 
 4 As for Elf arrow-heads, the Devil shapes them 
 with his own hand [and afterwards delivers them ?] 
 to Elf-boys, who " whyttis and dightis " [shapes and 
 trims] them with a sharp thing like a packing-needle ; 
 but [when I was in Elf-land ?] I saw them whytting 
 and dighting them. When I was in the Elves' 
 houses, they will have very . . . them whytting and 
 dighting ; and the Devil gives them to us, each of us 
 so many, when . . . Those that dightis them are 
 little ones, hollow, and boss-backed [humped-backed]. 
 They speak gowstie [roughly] like. When the 
 Devil gives them to us, he says : 
 
CHAP. IV.] JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 343 
 
 " ' Shoot these in my name, 
 
 And they shall not go heall hame !" 
 
 And when we shoot these arrows (we say) : 
 
 " * I shoot you man in the Devil's name, 
 He shall not win heall hame ! 
 And this shall be always true ; 
 There shall not be one bit of him on lieiw " [on life, alive]. 
 
 c We have no bow to shoot with, but spang [jerk] 
 them from the nails of our thumbs. Sometimes we 
 will miss ; but if they twitch [touch], be it beast, or 
 man, or woman, it will kill, tho' they had a jack [a 
 coat of armour] upon them. When we go in the 
 shape of a hare, we say thrice over : 
 
 ' " I shall go into a hare, 
 
 With sorrow, and such, and mickle care ; 
 And I shall go in the Devil's name, 
 Ay, until I come home [again !]." 
 
 And instantly we start in a hare. And when we 
 would be out of that shape, we will say : 
 
 ' " Hare ! hare ! God send thee care ! 
 I am in a hare's likeness just now, 
 But I shall be in a woman's likeness even [now]." 
 
 When we would go in the likeness of a cat, we say 
 thrice over : 
 
 1 " I shall go [in till ane cat], 
 
 [With sorrow, and such, and a black] shot ! 
 And I shall go in the Devil's name, 
 Ay, until I come home again !" 
 
 And if we [would go in a crow, then] we say thrice 
 over: 
 
344 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 1 " I shall go intill a crow, 
 
 With sorrow, and such, and a black [thraw ! 
 And I shall go in the Devil's name,] 
 Ay, until I come home again !" 
 
 And when we would be out of these shapes, we say : 
 
 ' " Cat, cat [or crow, crow], God send thee a black shot [or black 
 thraw !] 
 
 I was a cat [or crow] just now, 
 But I shall be [in a woman's likeness even now]. 
 Cat, cat" [as supra]. 
 
 If we go in the shape of a cat, a crow, a hare, or 
 any other likeness, etc., to any of our neighbours' 
 houses, being witches, we will say : 
 
 ' " [I (or we) conjure] thee go with us [or me] " ! 
 
 And presently they become as we are, either cats, 
 hares, crows, etc., and go [with us whither we would. 
 When] we would ride, we take windle- straws, or 
 been-stakes [bean-stalks], and put them betwixt our 
 feet, and say thrice : 
 
 * " Horse and Hattock, horse and go, 
 Horse and pellatris, ho ! ho !" 
 
 And immediately we fly away wherever we would; 
 and lest our husbands should rniss us out of our beds, 
 we put in a besom, or a three-legged stool, beside 
 them, and say thrice over : 
 
 * " I lay down this besom [or stool] in the Devil's name, 
 Let it not stir till I come home again !" 
 
 And immediately it seems a woman, by the side of our 
 husband. 
 
CHAP. IV,] JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 345 
 
 * We cannot turn in [to] the likeness of [a lamb or 
 a dove ?] When my husband sold beef, I used to 
 put a swallow's feather in the head of the beast, and 
 [say thrice], 
 
 ' " [I] put out this beef in the Devil's name, 
 That mickle silver and good price come hame !" 
 
 4 1 did even so [whenever I put] forth either horse, 
 nolt [cattle], webs [of cloth], or any other thing to 
 be sold, and still put in this feather, and said the 
 [same words thrice] over, to cause the commodities 
 sell well, and .... thrice over 
 
 ' " Our Lord to hunting he [is gone] 
 
 marble stone, 
 
 He sent word to Saint Knitt . . ." 
 
 ' When we would heal any sore or broken limb, 
 we say thrice over .... 
 
 ' " He put the blood to the blood, till all up stood ; 
 The lith to the lith, Till all took nith ; 
 Our Lady charmed her dearly Son, With her tooth and her 
 
 tongue, 
 
 And her ten fingers 
 In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost !" 
 
 1 And this we say thrice over, stroking the sore, 
 and it becomes whole. 2ndlie. For the Bean- Shaw 
 [bone-shaw, i.e., the sciatica], or pain in the haunch: 
 " We are here three Maidens charming for the bean- 
 shaw; the man of the Midle-earth, blew beaver, land- 
 fever, maneris of stooris, the Lord fleigged (terrified) 
 the Fiend with his holy candles and yard foot-stone ! 
 There she sits, and here she is gone ! Let her never 
 
346 WITCH, WAKLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 come here again !" 3rdli. For the fevers, we say 
 thrice over, " I forbid the quaking-fevers, the sea- 
 fevers, the land-fevers, and all the fevers that God 
 ordained, out of the head, out of the heart, out of the 
 back, out of the sides, out of the knees, out of the 
 thighs, from the points of the fingers to the nibs of 
 the toes; net fall the fevers go, [some] to the hill, 
 some to the heep, some to the stone, some to the 
 stock. In St. Peter's name, St. Paul's name, and all 
 the Saints of Heaven. In the name of the Father, 
 the Son, and of the Holy Ghost !" And when we 
 took the fruit of the fishes from the fishers, we went 
 to the shore before the boat would come to it; and 
 we would say, on the shore-side, three several times 
 over : 
 
 4 " The fishers are gone to the sea, 
 
 And they will bring home fish to me ; 
 
 They will bring them home intill the boat, 
 
 But they shall get of them but the smaller sort !" 
 
 So we either steal a fish, or buy a fish, or get a fish 
 irom them [for naught], one or more. And with 
 that we have all the fruit of the whole fishes in the 
 boat, and the fishes that the fishermen themselves will 
 have will be but froth, etc. 
 
 1 The first voyage that ever I went with the rest of 
 our Covins was [to] Ploughlands ; and there we shot 
 a man betwixt the plough-stilts, and he presently 
 fell to the ground, upon his nose and his mouth ; and 
 then the Devil gave me an arrow, and caused me 
 shoot a woman in that field; which I did, and she fell 
 

 I 
 
 CHAP. IV.] JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 347 
 
 down dead.* In winter of 1660, when Mr. Harry 
 Forbes, Minister at Aulderne, was sick, we made a 
 bag of the galls, flesh, and guts of toads, pickles of 
 barley, parings of the nails of fingers and toes, the 
 liver of a hare, and bits of clouts. We steeped all 
 this together, all night among water, all hacked (or 
 minced up) through other. And when we did put it 
 among the water, Satan was with us, and learned us 
 the words following, to say thrice over. They are 
 thus : 
 
 * 1st. " He is lying in his bed ; he is lying sick and sore ; 
 
 Let him lie intill his bed two months and [three] days 
 
 more ! 
 1 2nd. " Let him lie intill his bed ; let him lie intill it sick and 
 
 sore ; 
 Let him lie intill his bed months two and three days 
 
 more ! 
 
 4 3rd. " He shall lie intill his bed, he shall lie in it sick and sore; 
 He shall lie intill his bed two months and three days 
 more !" 
 
 ' When we had learned all these words from the 
 Devil, as said is, we fell all down upon our knees, 
 with our hair down over our shoulders and eyes, and 
 our hands lifted up, and our eyes [upon] the Devil, 
 and said the foresaid words thrice over to the Devil, 
 strictly, against [the recovery of] Master Harry 
 Forbes [from his sickness]. In the night time we 
 came in to Mr. Harry Forbes's chamber, where he 
 lay, with our hands all smeared out of the bag, to 
 swing it upon Mr. Harry, when he was sick in his 
 
 * These, it is needless to say, were pure inventions, and by no 
 means amusing ones. 
 
348 WITCH, WAKLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 bed ; and in the daytime [one of our] number, who 
 was most familiar and intimate with him, to wring or 
 swing the bag [upon the said Mr. Harry, as we 
 could] not prevail in the night time against him, 
 which was accordingly done. Any of .... comes in 
 to your houses, or are set to do you evil, they will look 
 uncouth - like, thrown .... hurly - like, and their 
 clothes standing out. The Maiden of our Covin, 
 Jane Martin, was [. . . . We] do no great matter 
 without our Maiden. 
 
 'And if a child be forespoken [bewitched], we take 
 the cradle .... through it thrice, and then a dog 
 through it; and then shake the belt above the fire 
 [. . . . and then cast it] down on the ground, till a 
 dog or cat go over it, that the sickness may come 
 [. . . . upon the dog or cat].' 
 
 With these extended quotations the reader will 
 probably be satisfied, and in concluding my account 
 of Isabel Gowdie, I must now adopt a process of 
 condensation. 
 
 Among other freaks and fancies of a disordered 
 imagination, Isabel declared that she merited to be 
 stretched upon a rack of iron, and that if torn to 
 pieces by wild horses, the punishment would not 
 exceed the measure of her iniquities. These iniquities 
 comprehended every act attributed by the superstition 
 of the time to the servants of the devil, which had 
 been carefully gathered up by this monomaniac from 
 contemporary witch-tradition. The cruellest thing 
 was, that she involved so large a number of innocent 
 

 CHAP. IV.] JAMES I. AND THE WITCHES. 349 
 
 persons in the peril into which she herself had reck- 
 lessly plunged, naming nearly fifty women, and I for- 
 get how many men, as her associates or accomplices. 
 She affirmed that they dug up from their graves the 
 bodies of unbaptized infants, and having dismembered 
 them, made use of the limbs in their incantations. 
 That when they wished to destroy an enemy's crops, 
 they yoked toads to his plough ; and on the following 
 night the devil, with this strange team, drove furrows 
 into the land, and blasted it effectually. The devil, 
 it would seem, was so long and so incessantly occu- 
 pied with high affairs in Scotland, that surely the 
 rest of the world must have escaped meanwhile the 
 evils of his interference ! Witches, added Isabel, were 
 able to assume almost any shape, but their usual 
 choice was that of a hare, or perhaps a cat. There 
 was some risk in either assumption. Once it hap- 
 pened that Isabel, in her disguise of a hare, was hotly 
 pursued by a pack of hounds, and narrowly escaped 
 with her life. When she reached her cottage-door 
 she could feel the hot breath of her pursuers on her 
 haunches ; but, contriving to slip behind a chest, she 
 found time to speak the magic words which alone 
 could restore her to her natural shape, namely : 
 
 1 " Hare ! hare ! God send thee care ! 
 I am in a hare's likeness now; 
 But I shall be a woman e'en now. 
 Hare ! hare ! God send thee care !" 
 
 
 If witches, while wearing the shape of hare or cat, 
 were bitten by the dogs, they always retained the 
 
350 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 marks on their human bodies. When the devil 
 called a convention of his servants, each proceeded 
 through the air like the witches of Lapland and 
 other countries astride on a broomstick [or it 
 might be on a corn or bean straw], repeating as they 
 went the rhyme : 
 
 ' Horse and paddock, horse and go, 
 Horse and pellatris, ho ! ho !' 
 
 They usually left behind them a broom, or three- 
 legged stool, which, properly charmed and placed in 
 bed, assumed a likeness to themselves until they 
 returned, and prevented suspicion. This seems to 
 have been the practice of witches everywhere. 
 Witches specially favoured by their master were pro- 
 vided with a couple of imps as attendants, who 
 boasted such very mundane names as f The Roaring 
 Lion,' ' Thief of Hell/ * Ranting Roarer/ and l Care for 
 Nought ' a great improvement on the vulgar mono- 
 syllables worn by the English imps and were dressed, 
 as already described, in distinguishing liveries : sea- 
 green, pea-green, grass-green, sad-dun, and yellow. 
 The witches were never allowed at least, not in the 
 infernal presence to call themselves, or one another, 
 by their baptismal names, but were required to use 
 the appellations bestowed on the devil when he re- 
 baptized them, such as 'Blue Kail,' 'Raise the Wind/ 
 ' Batter-them-down Maggie/ and ' Able and Stout.' 
 The reader will find in the reports of the trial much 
 more of this grotesque nonsense the vapourings of 
 a distempered brain. The judges, however, took it 
 
CHAP. IV.] CASE OF JANET WISHART. 351 
 
 seriously, and Isabel Gowdie, or Gilbert, and many of 
 her presumed accomplices, were duly strangled and 
 burned (in April, 1662). 
 
 CASE OF JANET WISHART. 
 
 The case of Janet Wisharfc, wife of John Leyis, 
 carries us away to the North of Scotland. It presents 
 some peculiar features, and therefore I shall put it 
 before the reader, with no more abridgment than is 
 absolutely needful. It is of much earlier date than 
 the preceding.* 
 
 'i. In the month of April, or thereabout, in 1591, 
 in the "gricking" of the day, [that is, in the dawn,] 
 Janet Wishart, on her way back from the blockhouse 
 and Fattie, where she had been holding conference 
 with the devil, pursued Alexander Thomson, mariner, 
 coming forth of Aberdeen to his ship, ran between 
 him and Alexander Fidler, under the Castle Hill, as 
 swift, it appeared to him, as an arrow could be shot 
 forth of a bow, going betwixt him and the sun, and 
 cast her " cantrips" in his way. Whereupon, the said 
 Alexander Thomson took an immediate " fear and 
 trembling," and was forced to hasten home, take to 
 his bed, and lie there for the space of a month, so 
 that none believed he would live ; one half of the 
 day burning in his body, as if he had been roasting 
 in an oven, with an extreme feverish thirst, " so that 
 he could never be satisfied of drink," the other half of 
 the day melting away his body with an extra- 
 ordinarily cold sweat. And Thomson, knowing she 
 
 * From the ' Records of the Burgh of Aberdeen/ printed for the 
 Spalding Club, 1841. 
 
352 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 had cast this kind of witchcraft upon him, sent his 
 wife to threaten her, that, unless she at once relieved 
 him, he would see that she was burnt. And she, 
 fearing lest he should accuse her, sent him by the two 
 women a certain kind of beer and some other drugs 
 to drink, after which Thomson mended daily, and re- 
 covered his former health.' 
 
 It is to be noted that Janet flatly denied the 
 coming of Mrs. Thomson on any such errand. 
 
 ' ii. Seven years before, on St. Bartholomew's Day, 
 when Andrew Ardes, webster [weaver], in his play, 
 took a linen towel, and put it about the said Janet's 
 neck, not fearing any evil from her, or that she would 
 be oifended, Janet, "in a devilish fury and wodnes" 
 [madness], exclaimed, " Why teasest thou me ? 
 Thou shalt die! I shall give bread to my bairns 
 this towmound [twelvemonth], but thou shalt not 
 bide a month with thine to give them bread/' And 
 immediately after the said Andre w's departure from 
 her, he took to his bed for the space of eight days : 
 the one half of the day roasting in his whole body as 
 in a furnace, and the other half with a vehement 
 sweat melting away; so that, by her cruel murther 
 and witchcraft, the said Andrew Ardes died within 
 eight days. And the day after his departure, his 
 widow, " contracting a high displeasure," took to her 
 bed, and within a month deceased ; so that all their 
 bairns are now begging their meat.' 
 
 This was testified to be true by Elspeth Ewin, 
 spouse to James Mar, mariner, but was denied by 
 the accused. 
 
CHAP. IV.] CASE OF JANET WISHART. 353 
 
 c iii. Twenty-four years ago, in the month of May, 
 when she dwelt on the School Hill, next to Adam 
 Mair's, she was descried by Andrew Brabner the 
 younger, John Leslie, of the Gallowgate, Robert 
 Sanders, wright, Andrew Simson, tailor, and one 
 Johnson, who were then schoolboys, stealing forth 
 from the said Adam Mair's yard, at two in the morn- 
 ing, "greyn growand bear"; and instantly, being 
 pointed out by the said scholars to the wife of the 
 said Adam, she, in her fury, burst forth upon the 
 scholars : " Well have ye schemed me, but I shall 
 gar the best of you repent!" And she added that, 
 ere four in the afternoon, she would make as many 
 wonder at them as should see them. Upon the same 
 day, between two and three in the afternoon, the said 
 scholars passed to the Old Watergang in the Links to 
 wash themselves; and after they had done so, and 
 dried, the said John Leslie and Johnson took a race 
 beside the Watergang, and desperately threw them- 
 selves into the midst of the Watergang, and were 
 drowned, through the witchcraft which Janet had 
 cast upon them. And thus, as she had promised, she 
 did murder them.' 
 
 This was testified by Eobert Sanders and Andrew 
 Simson, but was denied by the accused. 
 
 ' iv. Sixteen years since, or thereby, she [the accused] 
 and Malcolm Carr's wife, having fallen at variance 
 and discord, she openly vowed that the latter should 
 be confined to her bed for a year and a day, and 
 should not make for herself a single cake : immedi- 
 ately after which discord, the said Malcolm's wife 
 
 23 
 
354 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 went to her own house, sought her bed, and lay half 
 a year bed -stricken by the witchcraft Janet had cast 
 upon her, according to her promise ; one half of the 
 day burning up her whole body as in a fiery furnace, 
 the other half melting away her body with an extra- 
 ordinary sweat, with a congealed coldness. 1 
 
 v. She was also accused of lending to Meryann 
 Nasmith a pair of head-sheets in childbed, into which 
 she put her witchcraft : which sheets, as soon as she 
 knew they had taken heat about the woman's head, 
 immediately she went and took them from her ; and 
 before she [Janet] was well out of the house, Mery- 
 ann went out of her mind, and was bound hand and 
 foot for three days. 
 
 vi. Three years since, or thereby, James Ailhows, 
 having been a long time in her service, Janet desired 
 him to continue with her, and on his refusing, { Gang 
 where you please,' she said, ' I will see that you do 
 not earn a single cake of bread for a year and a day.' 
 And as soon as he quitted her service, he was seized 
 with an extremely heavy sickness and (wodnes) 
 delirium, with a continual burning heat and cold 
 sweating, and lay bedfast half a year, according to 
 her promise, through the devilish witchcraft she had 
 cast upon him. So that he was compelled to send to 
 Benia for another witch to take the witchcraft from 
 him : who came to this town and washed him in 
 water running south, and put him through a girth, 
 with some other ceremonies that she used. And he 
 paid her seventeen marks, and by her help recovered 
 health again. 
 
CHAP. IV.] CASE OF JANET WISH ART. 355 
 
 vii. For twenty years past she continually and 
 nightly, after eleven o'clock, when her husband and 
 servants had! gone to their beds, put on a great fire, 
 and kept it up all night, and sat before it using 
 witchcraft, altogether contrary to the nature of well- 
 living persons. And on those nights when she did 
 not make up the fire, she went out of the house, and 
 stayed away all night where she pleased. 
 
 viii. She caused . . . ., then in her service, and 
 lately shepherd to Mr. Alexander Fraser, to take 
 certain drugs of witchcraft made by her, such as old 
 shoon, and cast them in the fire of John Club, stabler, 
 her neighbour ; since which time, through her witch- 
 craft, the said John Club has become completely im- 
 poverished. 
 
 ix. She and Janet Patton having fallen into 
 variance and discord, Janet Patton called the witch 
 1 Karling,' to whom she answered that she would 
 give her to understand if she was a witch, and would 
 try her skill upon her. And immediately afterwards, 
 Janet Patton [like everybody else concerned in these 
 mysterious doings] took to her bed, with a vehement, 
 great, and extraordinary sickness, for one half the day, 
 from her middle up, burning as in a fiery furnace, 
 with an insatiable drought, which she could not slake ; 
 the other half-day, melting away with sweat, and from 
 her middle down as cold as ice, so that through the 
 witchcraft cast upon her she died within a month. 
 
 x. The particulars given of the case of James 
 Lowe, stabler, are almost the same. He refused to 
 lend his kill and barn, and on the same day he was 
 
 232 
 
356 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 seized with this remarkable sickness half a day 
 burning hot, and half a day ice-cold. On his death- 
 bed he accused Janet Wishart of being the cause of 
 his misfortune, saying, " That if he had lent to her 
 his kill and kilbarn, he wald haf bene ane lewand 
 man." His wife and only son died of the same kind 
 of disease, and his whole gear, amounting to more 
 than 3,000, was altogether wracked and thrown away, 
 so that there was left no memory of the said James, 
 succession of his body, nor of their gear. 
 
 xi. John Pyet, stabler, is named as another victim. 
 
 xii. There is an air of novelty about the next case, 
 that of John Allan, cutler, Janet Wishart' s son-in-law. 
 Quarrelling with his wife, he c dang ' her, ' where- 
 upon Mistress Allan complained to her mother, who 
 immediately betook herself to her son-in-law's house, 
 i bostit ' him, and promised to gar him repent that 
 ever he saw or kent her. Shortly afterwards, either 
 she or the devil her master, in the likeness of a brown 
 tyke, came nightly for five or six weeks to his 
 window, forced it open, leaped upon the said John, 
 dang and buffeted him, while always sparing his 
 wife, who lay in bed with him, so that the said John 
 became half-wod and furious. And this persecution 
 continued, until he threatened to inform the ministry 
 and kirk -session. 
 
 xiii. The next case must be given verbatim, it is 
 so striking an example of ignorant prejudice : 
 
 ' Four years since, or thereby, she carne in to Walter 
 Healing's dwelling-house, in the Castlegate of Aber- 
 deen, to buy wool, which they refused to sell. There- 
 

 CHAP. IV.] CASE OF JANET WISHART. 357 
 
 after, she came to the said Walter's bairn, sitting on 
 her mother's knee, and the said Walter played with 
 her. And she said, " This is a comely child, a fine 
 child," without any further words, and would not 
 say " God save her!" And before she reached the 
 stair-foot, the bairn, by her witchcraft, in presence of 
 both her father and mother, " cast her gall," changed 
 her colour like dead, and became as weak as "ane 
 pair of glwffis," and melted continually away with an 
 extraordinary sweating and extreme drought, which 
 that same day eight days, at the same hour, she came 
 in first, and then the bairn departed. And for no 
 request nor command of the said Walter, nor others 
 whom he directed, she would not come in again to 
 the house to " visie " the bairn, although she was oft 
 and divers times sent for, both by the father and 
 mother of the bairn, and so by her witchcraft she 
 murdered the bairn/ 
 
 xiv. On Yule Eve, in '94, at three in the morning, 
 Janet, remaining in Gilbert Mackay's stair in the 
 Broadgate, perceived Bessie Schives, spouse of Robert 
 Blinschell, going forth of her own house to the 
 dwelling-house of James Davidson, notary, to his 
 wife, who was in travail. She came down the stair, 
 and cast her cantrips and witchcraft in her way, and 
 the said Bessie being in perfect health of body, and 
 as blithe and merry as ever she was in her days, 
 when she went out of the same James Davidson's 
 house, or ever she could win up her own stair, took a 
 great fear and trembling that she might scarcely win 
 up her own stair, and immediately after her up- 
 
358 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 coming, went to her naked bed, lay continually for 
 the space of eighteen weeks fast bed- sick, bewitched 
 by Janet Wishart, the one half-day roasting as in a 
 fiery furnace, with an extraordinary kind of drought, 
 that she could not be slaked, and the other half- day 
 in an extraordinary kind of sweating, melting, and 
 consuming her body, as a white burning candle, 
 which kind of sickness is a special point of witch- 
 craft; and the said Bessie Schives saw none other 
 but Janet only, who is holden and reputed a common 
 witch. 
 
 xv. At Midsummer was a year or thereby, Elspeth 
 Eeid, her daughter-in-law, came into her house at 
 three in the morning, and found her sitting, mother 
 naked as she was born, at the fireside, and another 
 old wife siclike mother naked, sitting between her 
 shoulders [!], making their cantrips, whom the said 
 Elspeth seeing, after she said 'God speed,' immedi- 
 ately went out of the house ; thereafter, on the same 
 day, returned again, and asked of her, what she was 
 doing with that old wife ? To whom she answered, 
 that she was charming her. And as soon as the said 
 Elspeth went forth again from Janet Wishart' s house, 
 immediately she took an extraordinary kind of sick- 
 ness, and became ' like a dead senseless fool,' and so 
 continued for half a year. 
 
 xvi. She [Janet] and her daughter, Violet Leyis, 
 desired .... her woman to go with her said 
 daughter, at twelve o'clock at night, to the gallows, 
 and cut down the dead man hanging thereon, and 
 take a part of all his members from him, and burn 
 

 CHAP. IV.J CASE OF JANET WISHART. 359 
 
 the corpse, which her servant would not do, and, 
 therefore, she was instantly sent away. 
 
 xvii. The following deposition is, however, the 
 most singular of all : 
 
 Twelve years since, or thereby, Janet came into 
 Katherine Eattray's, behind the Tolbooth, and while 
 she was drinking in the said Katherine's cellar, 
 Katherine reproved her for drinking in her house, 
 because, she said, she was a witch. Whereupon, she 
 took a cup full of ale, and cast it in her face, and said 
 that if she were indeed a witch, the said Katherine 
 should have proof of it ; and immediately after she 
 had quitted the cellar, the barm of the said Katherine's 
 ale all sank to the bottom of the stand, and no had abaid 
 [a bead] thereon during the space of sixteen weeks. 
 And the said Katherine finding herself ' skaithit,' 
 complained to her daughter, Katherine Ewin, who 
 was then in close acquaintance with Janet, that she 
 had bewitched her mother's ale; and immediately 
 thereafter the said Katherine Ewin called on Janet, 
 and said, ' Why bewitched you my mother's ale ?' and 
 requested her to help the same again. Which Janet 
 promised, if Katherine Ewin obeyed her instructions 
 . ... to rise early before the sun, without com- 
 mending herself to God, or speaking, and neither 
 suining herself nor her son sucking on her breast ; to 
 go, still without speaking, to the said Katherine 
 Eat tray's house, and not to cross any water, nor 
 wash her hands ; and enter into the said Katherine 
 Eattray's house, where she would find her servant 
 brewing, and say to her thrice, ' I to God, and thou 
 
360 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 to the devil!' and to restore the same barm where it 
 was again ; ' and to take up thrie dwattis on the 
 southt end of the gauttreyis, and thair scho suld find 
 ane peice of claithe, fowr newikit, with greyn, red, 
 and blew, and thrie corss of clewir girss, and cast the 
 same in the fyir; quhilk beand cassin in, her barm 
 suld be restorit to hir againe, lyik as it was restorit 
 in effect.' And the said Katherine Ewin, when 
 cracking [gossiping] with her neighbours, said she 
 could learn them a charm she had gotten from Janet 
 Wishart, which when the latter heard, she promised 
 to do her an evil turn, and immediately her son, suck- 
 ing on her breast, died. And at her first browst, or 
 brewing, thereafter, the whole wort being played and 
 put in 4 lumes,' the doors fast, and the keys at her 
 own belt, the whole wort was taken away, and the 
 haill lumes fundin dry, and the floor dry, and she 
 could never get trial where it yird to. And when the 
 said Katherine complained to the said Janet Wishart, 
 and dang herself and her good man both, for injuries 
 done to her by taking of her son's life and her wort 
 [which Katherine seems to have thought of about 
 equal value], she promised that all should be well, 
 giving her her draff for payment. And the said 
 Katherine, with her husband Ambrose Gordon, being 
 in their beds, could not for the space of twenty days 
 be quit of a cat, lying nightly in their bed, between 
 the two, and taking a great bite out of Ambrose's 
 arm, as yet the place testifies, and when they gave up 
 the draff, the cat went away. 
 
 Some fourteen more charges were brought against 
 
CHAP. IV.] CASE OF JANET WISH ART. 361 
 
 her. She was tried on February 17, 1596, before the 
 Provost and Baillies of Aberdeen, and found guilty 
 upon eighteen counts of being a common witch and 
 sorcerer. Sentence of death by burning was recorded 
 against her, and she suffered on the same day as 
 another reputed witch, Isabel Cocker. The expenses 
 of their execution are preserved in the account-books 
 of the Dean of Guild, 1596-1597, and prove that 
 witch- burning was a luxury scarcely within the reach 
 of the many. 
 
 JANETT WISCHART AND ISSBEL COCKER. 
 
 Item. For twentie loades of peattes to burne 
 
 thame xM. 
 
 Item. For ane Boile of Coillis xxiiiisft. 
 
 Item. For four Tar barrellis xxvish. viiid. 
 
 Item. For fyr and Iron barrellis ... ... xvish. \iiid. 
 
 Item. For a staik and dressing of it xvish. 
 
 Item. For four fudoms [fathoms ?] of Towis . . . mish. 
 
 Item. For careing the peittis, coillis, and barrellis 
 
 to the Hill ... ... ... ... viiis^. iiii^. 
 
 Item. To on Justice for their execution xiiish. uiid. 
 
 
 clivshillings. 
 
 On several occasions commissions were issued by 
 the King, in favour of the Provost and some of the 
 Baillies of the burgh, and the Sheriff of the county, 
 for the purpose of ' haul ding Justice Courtis on 
 Witches and Sorceraris.' These commissioners gave 
 warrants in their turn to the minister and elders of 
 each parish in the shire, to examine parties suspected 
 of witchcraft, and to frame a ' dittay ' or indictment 
 against such persons. It was an inevitable result that 
 
362 WITCH, WABLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 all the scandalous gossip of the community was 
 assiduously collected ; while any individual who had 
 become, from whatsoever cause, an object of jealousy 
 or dislike to her neighbours, was overwhelmed by a 
 mass of hearsay or fictitious evidence, and by the 
 conscious or unconscious exaggerations of ignorance, 
 credulity, or malice. 
 
 As an example of the kind of stuff stirred up by 
 this parochial inquisition, I shall take the return 
 furnished to the commissioners by Mr. John Ross, 
 minister of Lumphanan : 
 
 ' i. Elspet Strathauchim, in Wartheil, is indicted to 
 have charmed Maggie Clarke, spouse to Patrick 
 Bunny, for the fevers, this last year, with " ane sleipth 
 and ane thrum " [a sleeve and thread]. She is indicted, 
 this last Hallow e'en, to have brought forth of the 
 house a burning coal, and buried the same in her own 
 yard. She is indicted to have bewitched Adam 
 Gordon, in Wark, and to have been the cause of his 
 death, and that because, she coming out of his service 
 without his leave, he detained some of her gear, which 
 she promised to do ; and after his death wanted [to 
 have it believed] that she had gotten " assythment " of 
 him. She is indicted to have said to Marcus Gillam, 
 at the Burn of Camphil, that none of his bairns 
 should live, because he would not marry her ; which 
 is come to pass, for two of them are dead. She is 
 indicted continually to have resorted to Margaret 
 Baine her company. 
 
 'ii. Isabel Forbes. She is indicted to have 
 bewitched Gilbert Makim, in Glen Mallock, with a 
 
CHAP. IV.] A PAROCHIAL INQUISITION. 363 
 
 spindle, a " rok," and a "foil ;" as Isabel Ritchie like- 
 wise testified. 
 
 ' iii. James Og is indicted to have passed on Rud- 
 day, five years since, through Alexander Cobain's 
 corn, and have taken nine stones from his u avine rig " 
 [corn-rick], and cast on the said Alexander's "rig," 
 and to have taken nine "lokis" [handfuls] of meal 
 from the said Alexander's " rig," and cast on his own. 
 He is indicted to have bewitched a cow belonging to 
 the said Alexander, which he bought from Kristane 
 Burnet, of Cloak ; this cow, though his wife had 
 received milk from her the first night, and the morn- 
 ing thereafter, gave no milk from that time forth, but 
 died within half a year. He is indicted to have 
 passed, five years since, on Lammas-Day, through 
 the said Alexander's corn, and having " gaine nyne 
 span/' to have struck the corn with nine strokes of a 
 white wand, so that nothing grew that year but 
 " fichakis." He is indicted that, in the year aforesaid 
 or thereabouts, having corn to dry, he borrowed fire 
 from his neighbour, haiffing of his avine them 
 presently ; and took a " brine " of the corn on his 
 back, and cast it three times " woodersonis " [or 
 " withersonis," ut supra, that is, west to east, in the 
 direction contrary to the sun's course] above the 
 " kill." He is indicted that, three years since, 
 Alexander Cobaine being in Leith, with the Laird 
 of Cors, his " wittual," he came up early one morn- 
 ing, at the back of the said Alexander's yard, with 
 a dish full of water in his hand, and to have cast the 
 water in the gate to the said Alexander's door, and 
 
364 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 then perceiving that David Duguid, servant to the 
 said Alexander, was beholding him, to have fled 
 suddenly ; which the said David also testifies. 
 
 4 iv. Agnes Frew. She is indicted to have taken 
 three hairs out of her own cow's tail, and to have cut 
 the same in small pieces, and to have put them in her 
 cow's throat, which thereafter gave milk, and the 
 neighbours' none. Also, she is indicted that [she 
 took] William Browne's calf in her axter, and 
 charmed the same, as, also, she took the clins [hoofs] 
 from forefeitt aff it, with a piece of " euerry bing," 
 and caused the said William's wife to " yeird " the 
 same ; which the said William's wife confessed, albeit 
 not in this manner. Also, she took up Alexander 
 Tailzier's calf, lately [directly] after it was calved, and 
 carried it three times about the cow. Also, she was 
 seen casting a horse's fosser on a cow. 
 
 ' v. Isabel Eoby. She is indicted to have bidden her 
 gudeman, when he went to St. Fergus to buy cattle, 
 that if he bought any before his home-coming, he should 
 go three times " woodersonis " about them, and then 
 take three " ruggis " off a dry hillock, and fetch home 
 to her. Also, that dwelling at Ardmair, there came in 
 a poor man craving alms, to whom she offered milk, 
 but he refused it, because, as he then presently said, 
 she had three folks' milk and her own in the pan ; and 
 w r hen Elspet Mackay, then present, wondered at it, 
 he said, " Marvel not, for she has thy farrow kye's 
 milk also in her pan." Also, she is commonly seen 
 in the form of a hare, passing through the town, for 
 as soon as the hare vanishes out of sight, she appears.' 
 
CHAP. IV.] A PAROCHIAL INQUISITION. 365 
 
 1 vi. Margaret Riancli, in Green Cottis, was seen in 
 the dawn of the day by James Stevens embracing 
 every nook of John Donaldson's house three times, 
 who continually thereafter was diseased, and at last 
 died. She said to John Ritchie, when he took a tack 
 [a piece of ground] in the Green Cottis, that his gear 
 from that day forth should continually decay, and so 
 it came to pass. Also, she cast a number of stones 
 in a tub, amongst water, which thereafter was seen 
 dancing. When she clips her sheep, she turns the 
 bowl of the shears three times in their mouth. Also, 
 James Stevens saw her meeting John Donaldson's 
 " hoggs " [sheep a year old] in the burn of the Green 
 Cottis, and casting the water out between her feet 
 backward, in the sheep's face, and so they all died. 
 Also she confessed to Patrick Gordon, of Kincragie, 
 and James Gordon, of Drumgase, that the devil was in 
 the bed between her and William Ritchie, her harlot, 
 and he was upon them both, and that if she happened 
 to die for witchcraft, that he [Ritchie] should also die, 
 for if she was a devil, he was too. 
 
 'There are three of these persons, Elspeet Strath- 
 auchim, James Og, and Agnes Frew, whose accusa- 
 tions the Presbytery of Kincardine, within whose 
 bounds they dwell, counted insufficient, having duly 
 considered the whole circumstances, always remitted 
 them to the trial of an assize, if the judges thought it 
 expedient. 
 
 ' [Signed] MR. JHONE Ros, 
 
 ' Minister at Lumphanan.' 
 
366 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 It would not be easy to find a more painful exhibi- 
 tion of clerical ignorance and incapacity. Probably 
 many of the allegations which Mr. John Ross records 
 are true, as the practice of charms was common 
 enough among the peasantry both of Scotland and 
 England, and is even yet not wholly extinct ; but, 
 taken altogether, they did not amount to witchcraft, the 
 very essence of which was a compact with the devil, 
 and in no one of the preceding cases is such a compact 
 mentioned. And one must take the existence of the 
 gross superstition and credulity which is here 
 disclosed to be irrefutable testimony that, as a pastor 
 and teacher, Mr. John Ross was a signal failure at 
 Lumphanan. 
 
 I have already alluded to those pathetic instances of 
 self-delusion in which the reputed witch has been her 
 own enemy, and furnished the evidence needed for her 
 condemnation in her own confession a confession of 
 acts which she must have known had never occurred ; 
 building up a strange fabric of fiction, and perishing 
 beneath its weight. It would seern as if some of 
 these unfortunate women came to believe in them- 
 selves because they found that others believed in 
 them, and assumed that they really possessed the 
 powers of witchcraft because their neighbours insisted 
 that it was so. Nor will this be thought such an 
 improbable explanation when it is remembered that 
 history affords more than one example of prophets 
 and founders of new religions whom the enthusiastic 
 devotion of their followers has persuaded into a 
 
CHAP. IV.] A PAROCHIAL INQUISITION. 367 
 
 belief in the authenticity of the credentials which 
 they themselves had originally forged, and the truth 
 of the revelations which they had invented. 
 
 From this point of view a profound interest 
 attaches to the official ' dittay ' or accusation against 
 one Helen Fraser, who was convicted and sentenced to 
 death in April, 1597, since it shows that she was 
 condemned principally upon the evidence which she 
 herself supplied : 
 
 ' i. John Ramsay, in Newburght, being sick of a 
 consuming disease, sent to her house, in Aikinshill, 
 to seek relief, and was told by her that she would do 
 what lay in her power for the recovery of his health ; 
 but bade him keep secret whatever she spake or did, 
 because the world was evil, and spoke no good of 
 such mediciners. She commanded the said John to 
 rise early in the morning, to eat " sourrakis " about 
 sunrise, while the dew was still upon them ; also to eat 
 " valcars," and to make u lavrie " kale and soup. More- 
 over, to sit down in a door, before the fowls flew to their 
 roost, and to open his breast, that when the fowls flew 
 to the roost over him he might receive the wind of 
 their wings about his breast, for that was very profit- 
 able to loose his heart-pipes, which were closed. But 
 before his departure from her, she made him sit down, 
 bare-headed, on a stool, and said an orison thrice upon 
 his head, in which she named the Devil. 
 
 c ii. Item. The said Helen publicly confessed in 
 Foverne, after her apprehension, that she was a 
 common abuser of the people; and that, further, to 
 sustain herself and her bairns, she pretended know- 
 
368 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 ledge which she had not, and undertook to do things 
 which she could not. This was her answer, when she 
 was accused by the minister of Foverne, for that she 
 abused the people, and when he inquired the cause of 
 her evil report throughout the whole country. This 
 she confessed upon the green of Foverne, before the 
 laird, the minister, and reader of Foverne, Patrick 
 Findlay in Newburght, and James Menzies at the 
 New Mills of Foverne. 
 
 'iii. Item. Janet Ingram, wife to Adam Finnie, 
 dwelling for the time at the West burn, in Balhelueis, 
 being sick, and affirming herself to be bewitched, for 
 she herself was esteemed by all men to be a witch, she 
 sent for the said Helen Frazer to cure her. The said 
 Helen came, and tarried with her till her departure 
 and burial, and at her coming assured the said Janet 
 that within a short time she would be well enough. 
 But the sickness of the said Janet increased, and was 
 turned into a horrible fury and madness, in such sort 
 that she always and incessantly blasphemed, and 
 pressed at all times to climb up the wall after the 
 " heillis" and scraped the wall with her hands. After 
 that she had been grievously vexed for the space of 
 two days from the coming of Helen Frazer, her 
 mediciner, to her, she departed this life. Being dead, 
 her husband went to charge his neighbours to convey 
 her burial, but before his returning, or the coming of 
 any neighbour to the carrying of the corpse, the said 
 Helen Frazer, together with two or three daughters of 
 the said Janet (whereof one yet living, to wit, Malye 
 Finnie, in the Blairtoun of Balhelueis, is counted a 
 

 CHAP. IV.] A PAROCHIAL INQUISITION. 369 
 
 witch), had taken up the corpse, and had carried her, 
 they alone, the half of the distance to the kirk, until 
 they came to the Moor of Cowhill ; when the said 
 Adam and others his neighbours came to them, and at 
 their coming the said Helen fled away through the 
 moss to Aikinshill, and went no further towards the 
 kirk. 
 
 4 iv. Item. A horse of Duncan Alexander, in New- 
 burcht, being bewitched, the said Helen translated 
 the sickness from the horse to a young cow of 
 the said Duncan ; which cow died, and was cast 
 into the burn of the Newburcht, for no man would 
 eat her. 
 
 4 v. Item. -The said Helen made a compact with 
 certain laxis fishers of the Newburcht, at the kirk of 
 Foverne, in Mallie Skryne's house, and promised to 
 cause them to fish well, and to that effect received of 
 them a piece of salmon to handle at her pleasure for 
 accomplishing the matter. Upon the morrow she 
 came to the Newburcht, to the house of John 
 Ferguson, a laxis fisher, and delivered unto him in a 
 closet four cuts of salmon with a penny ; after that 
 she called him out of his own house, from the com- 
 pany that was there drinking with him, and bade him 
 put the same in the horn of his coble, and he should 
 have a dozen of fish at the first shot ; which came to 
 pass. 
 
 4 vi. Item. The said Helen, by witchcraft, enticed 
 Gilbert Davidson, son to William Davidson, in 
 Lytoune of Meanye, to love and marry Margaret 
 Strauthachin (in the Hill of Balgrescho) directly 
 
 24 
 
370 WITCH, WAKLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 against the will of his parents, to the utter wreck 
 of the said Gilbert. 
 
 'vii. Item. At the desire of the said Margaret 
 Strauthachin, by witchcraft, the said Helen made 
 Catherine Fetchil, wife to William Davidson, furious, 
 because she was against the marriage, and took 
 the strength of her left side and arm from her ; in 
 the which fury and feebleness the said Catherine 
 died. 
 
 ' viii. Item. The said Helen, at the desire of the 
 foresaid Margaret Strauthachin, bewitched William 
 Hill, dwelling for the time at the Hill of Balgrescho, 
 through which he died in a fury [i.e., a fit of 
 delirium]. 
 
 ' ix. Moreover, at the desire foresaid, the said Helen 
 by witchcraft slew an ox belonging to the said William ; 
 for while Patrick Hill, son to the said William, and 
 herd to his father, called in the cattle to the fold, at 
 twelve o'clock, the said Helen was sitting in the yeite, 
 and immediately after the outcoming of the cattle out 
 of the fold, the best ox of the whole herd instantly died. 
 
 ' x. Item The said Helen counselled Christane 
 Henderson, vulgarly called mickle Christane, to put 
 one hand to the crown of her head, and the other to 
 the sole of her foot, and so surrender whatever was 
 between her hands, and she should want nothing that 
 she could wish or desire. 
 
 ' xi. Item. The said Christane Henderson, being 
 henwife in Foverne, the young fowls died thick ; for 
 remedy whereof, the said Helen bade the said 
 Christane take all the chickens or young fowls, and 
 
CHAP. IV.] A. PAROCHIAL INQUISITION. 37 1 
 
 draw them through the link of the crook, and take 
 the hindmost, and slay with a fiery stick, which thing 
 being practised, none died thereafter that year. 
 
 ' xii. Item. When the said Helen was dwelling in 
 the Moorhill of Foverne, there came a hare betimes, 
 and sucked a milch cow pertaining to William 
 Findlay, at the Mill of the Newburght, whose house 
 was directly afornent the said Helen's house, on the 
 other side of the Burn of Foverne, wherethrough the 
 cow pined away, and gave blood instead of milk. 
 This mischief was by all men attributed to the said 
 Helen, and she herself cannot deny but she was 
 commonly evil spoken of for it, and affirmed, after her 
 apprehension at Foverne, that she was so slandered. 
 
 ' xiii. Item. When Alexander Hardy, in Aikinshill, 
 departed this life, it grieved and troubled his con- 
 science very mickle, that he had been a defender of the 
 said Helen, and especially that he, accompanied with 
 Malcolm Forbes, travailed, against their conscience, 
 with sundry of the assessors when she suffered an 
 assize, and especially with the Chancellor of the 
 Assize, in her favour, he knowing evidently her to be 
 guilty of death. 
 
 ' xiv. Item. The said Helen being a domestic in 
 the said Alexander Hardy's house, disagreed with 
 one of the said Alexander's servants, named Andrew 
 Skene, and intending to bewitch the said servant, the 
 evil fell upon Alexander, and he died thereof. 
 
 4 xv. Item. When Robert Goudyne, now in 
 Balgrescho, was dwelling in Blairtoun of Balhe- 
 luies, a discord fell out betwixt Elizabeth Dempster, 
 
 242 
 
372 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 nurse to the said Robert for the time, and Chris tane 
 Henderson, one of the said Helen's familiars, as her 
 own confession aforesaid purports, and the country 
 well knows. Upon the which discord, the said 
 Christane threatened the said Elizabeth with an evil 
 turn, and to the performing thereof, brought the said 
 Helen Frazer to the said Robert's house, and caused 
 her to repair oft thereto. After what time, immedi- 
 ately both the said Elizabeth and the infant to whom 
 she gave suck, by the devilry of the said Helen, fell 
 into a consuming sickness, whereof both died. And 
 also Elspet Cheyne, spouse to the said Robert, fell into 
 the selfsame sickness, and was heavily diseased thereby 
 for the space of two years before the recovery of his 
 health. 
 
 ' xvi. Item. By witchcraft the said Helen abstracted 
 and withdrew the love and affection of Andrew Tilli- 
 duff of Rainstoune, from his spouse Isabel Cheyne, to 
 Margaret Neilson, arid so mightily bewitched him, 
 that he could never be reconciled with his wife, or 
 remove his affection from the said harlot ; and when 
 the said Margaret was begotten with child, the said 
 Helen conveyed her away to Cromar to obscure the 
 fact. 
 
 ' xvii. Item. Wherever the said Helen is known, or 
 has repaired there many years bygone, she has been, 
 and is reported by all, of whatsoever estate or sex, to 
 be a common and abominable witch, and to have 
 learned the same of the late Maly Skene, spouse to 
 the late Cowper Watson, with whom, during her life- 
 time, the said Helen had continual society. The 
 
CHAP. IV.] A PAROCHIAL INQUISITION. 373 
 
 said Maly was bruited to be a rank witch, and her 
 said husband suffered death for the same crime. 
 
 ' xviii. Item. When Kobert Merchant, in the New- 
 brucht, had contracted marriage, and holden house 
 for the space of two years with the late Christane 
 White, it happened to him to pass to the Moorhill of 
 Foverne, to sow corn to the late Isabel Bruce, the 
 relict of the late Alexander Frazer, the said Helen 
 Frazer being familiar and actually resident in the 
 house of the said Isabel, she was there at his coming : 
 from the which time forth the said Robert found his 
 affection violently and extraordinarily drawn away from 
 the said Christane to the said Isabel, a great love being 
 betwixt him and the said Christane always thereto- 
 fore, and no break of love, or discord, falling out or 
 intervening upon either of their parts, which thing 
 the country supposed and spake to be brought about 
 by the unlawful travails of the said Helen. 
 
 ' [Signed] THOMAS TILIDEFF, 
 
 c Minister, at Fovern, with my hand. 
 
 * Item. A common witch by open voice and com- 
 mon fame.' 
 
 I have given this ' dittay ' in full, from a convic- 
 tion that no summary would do justice to its terrible 
 simplicity. Upon the evidence which it afforded, 
 Helen Frazer was brought before the Court of 
 Justiciary, in Aberdeen, on April 21, 1597, and 
 found guilty in 'fourteen points of witchcraft and 
 sorcery.' 
 
374 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 The burning of witches went merrily on, so that 
 the authorities of Aberdeen were compelled to get in 
 an adequate stock of fuel. We note in the municipal 
 accounts, under the date of March 10, that there 
 was ' bocht be the comptar, and laid in be him in 
 the seller in the Chappell of the Castel hill, ane 
 chalder of coillis, price thairof, with the bieing and 
 metting of the same, xvi/$. iiiisA.' As is usually the 
 case, the frequency of these sad exhibitions whetted at 
 first the public appetite for them ; it grew by what it 
 fed on. One of the items of expense in the execution 
 of a witch named Margaret Clerk, is for carrying of 
 'four sparris, to withstand the press of the pepill, 
 quhairof thair was twa broken, viiis. viiid.' 
 
 Among the victims committed to the flames in 
 1596-97, we read the names of 4 Katherine Fergus and 
 [Sculdr], Issobel Richie, Margaret Og, Helene Rodger, 
 Elspet Hendersoun, Katherine Gerard, Christin Reid, 
 Jenet Grant, Helene Frasser, Katherine Ferrers, Helene 
 Gray, Agnes Yobster, Jonat Douglas, Agnes Smelie, 
 Katherine Alshensur, and ane other witche, callit 
 * . . .' seventeen in all. That during their im- 
 prisonment they were treated with barbarous rigour, 
 may be inferred from the following entries : 
 
 Item. To Alexander Eeid, smyth, for twa pair of 
 
 schecMUs to the Witches in the Stepill . . . xxxiisA. 
 
 Item. To John Justice, for burning vpon the cheik 
 of four seurerall personis suspect of witchcraft 
 and baneschit xxvisA. vin^. 
 
 Item. Givin to Alexander Home for macking of 
 joggis, stapillis, and lockis to the witches, during 
 the haill tynie forsaid ... ... ... ... xlvish. viiid. 
 
 Expense on Witches aucht-score, xlii/i. xviis/i. iiiidf. 
 
CHAP, iv.] WITCH MANIA IN ABERDEEN. 375 
 
 On September 21, 1597, the Provost, Baillies 
 and Council of Aberdeen considered the faithfulness 
 shown by William Dun, the Dean of Guild, in the 
 discharge of his duty, ' and, besides this, his extra- 
 ordinarily talcing pains in the burning of the great 
 number of the witches burnt this year, and on the four 
 pirates, and bigging of the port on the Brig of Dee, 
 repairing of the Grey Friars kirk and steeple thereof, 
 and thereby has been abstracted from his trade of 
 merchandise, continually since he was elected in the 
 said office. Therefore, in recompense of his extra- 
 ordinary pains, and in satisfaction thereof (not to 
 induce any preparative to Deans of Guild to crave a 
 recompense hereafter), but to encourage others to 
 travail as diligently in the discharge of their office, 
 granted and assigned to him the sum of forty-seven 
 pounds three shillings and fourpence, owing by him 
 of the rest of his compt of the unlawis [fines] of the 
 persons convict for slaying of black fish, and dis- 
 charged him thereof by their presents for ever.' 
 
 At length a wholesome reaction took place; the 
 public grew weary of the number of executions, and, 
 encouraged by this changes of sentiment, person 
 accused of witchcraft boldly rebutted the charge, and 
 laid complaints against their accusers for defamation 
 of character. In official circles, it is true, a belief in 
 the alleged crime lingered long. As late as 1669, 
 4 the new and old Councils taking into their serious 
 consideration that many malefices were committed 
 and done by several persons in this town, who are 
 mala fama, and suspected guilty of witchcraft upon 
 
376 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 many of the inhabitants of this town, several ways, 
 and that it will be necessary for suppressing the like 
 in time coming, and for punishing the said persons 
 who shall be found guilty ; therefore they do unanim- 
 ously conclude and ordain that any such person, who 
 is suspect of the like malefices, may be seized upon, 
 and put in prisoun, and that a Commission be sent 
 for, for putting of them to trial, that condign justice 
 may be executed upon them, as the nature of the 
 offence does merit.' No more victims, however, were 
 sacrificed ; nor does it appear that any accusation of 
 witchcraft was preferred. 
 
 According to Sir Walter Scott, a woman was burnt 
 as a witch in Scotland as late as 1722, by Captain 
 Ross, sheriff-depute of Sutherland ; but this was, 
 happily, an exceptional barbarity, and for some years 
 previously the pastime of witch-burning had practically 
 been extinct. It is a curious fact that educated Scotch- 
 men, as I have already noted, retained their super- 
 stition long after the common people had abandoned 
 it. In 1730, Professor Forbes, of Glasgow, published 
 his ' Institutes of the Law of Scotland,' in which he 
 spoke of witchcraft as ' that black art whereby strange 
 and wonderful things are wrought by power derived 
 from the devil,' and added: ' Nothing seems plainer to 
 me than that there may be and have been witches, 
 and that perhaps such are now actually existing.' 
 Six years later, the Seceders from the Church of 
 Scotland, who professed to be the true representatives 
 of its teaching, strongly condemned the repeal of the 
 laws against witchcraft, as ' contrary,' they said, 'to 
 
CHAP. IV.] DECLINE OF WITCHCRAFT. 
 
 377 
 
 the express letter of the law of God/ But they were 
 hopelessly behind the time; public opinion, as the 
 result of increased intelligence, had numbered witch- 
 craft among the superstitions of the past, and we may 
 confidently predict that its revival is impossible. 
 
378 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOQK II. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 
 
 IT should teach us humility when we find a belief in 
 witchcraft and demonology entertained not only by 
 the uneducated and unintelligent classes, but also by 
 the men of light and leading, the scholar, the 
 philosopher, the legislator, who might have been 
 expected to have risen above so degrading a super- 
 stition. It would be manifestly unfair to direct our 
 reproaches at the credulous prejudices of the multitude 
 when Francis Bacon, the great apostle of the experi- 
 mental philosophy, accepts the crude teaching of his 
 royal master's ' Demonologie/ and actually discusses 
 the ingredients of the celebrated ' witches' ointment, ' 
 opining that they should all be of a soporiferous 
 character, such as henbane, hemlock, moonshade, 
 mandrake, opium, tobacco, and saffron. The weak- 
 ness of Sir Matthew Hale, to which reference has been 
 made in a previous chapter, we cannot very strongly 
 condemn, when we know that it was shared by Sir 
 Thomas Browne, who had so keen an eye for the 
 errors of the common people, and whose fine and 
 liberal genius throws so genial a light over the pages 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 379 
 
 of the ' Religio Medici.' In his ' History of the 
 World,' that consummate statesman, poet, and scholar, 
 Sir Walter Raleigh, gravely supports the vulgar 
 opinions which nowadays every Board School 
 alumnus would reject with disdain. Even the 
 philosopher of Malmeshury, the sagacious author of 
 'The Leviathan/ Thomas Hobbes, was infected by 
 the prevalent delusion. Dr. Cudworth, to whom we 
 owe the acute reasoning of the treatises on ' Moral 
 Good and Evil/ and ' The True Intellectual System 
 of the Universe/ firmly holds that the guilt of a 
 reputed witch might be determined by her inability 
 or unwillingness to repeat the Lord's Prayer. 
 Strangest of it all is it to find the pure and lofty 
 spirit of Henry More, the founder of the school of 
 English Platonists, yielding to the general super- 
 stition. With large additions of his own, he re- 
 published the Rev. Joseph Glanvill's notorious work, 
 ' Sadducismus Triumphatus 'a pitiful example of 
 the extent to which a fine intellect may be led 
 astray, though Mr. Lecky thinks it the most power- 
 ful defence of witchcraft ever published. And the 
 sober and fair-minded Robert Boyle, in the midst of 
 his scientific researches, found time to listen, with 
 breathless interest, to ' stories of witches at Oxford, 
 and devils at Muston.' 
 
 Among the Continental authorities on witchcraft, 
 the chief of those who may be called its advocates 
 are, Martin Antonio Delrio (1551-1608), who pub- 
 lished, in the closing years of the sixteenth century, 
 his i Disquisitionarum Magicarum Libri Sex/ a for- 
 
380 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 midable folio, brimful of credulity and ingenuity, 
 which was translated into French by Duchesne in 
 1611, and has been industriously pilfered from by 
 numerous later writers. Delrio has no pretensions 
 to critical judgment ; he swallows the most monstrous 
 inventions with astounding facility. 
 
 Eeference must also be made to the writings of 
 Kemigius, included in Fez' i Thesaurus Anecdotorum 
 Novissimus/ and to the great work by H. Institor 
 and J. Sprenger, ' Malleus Maleficarum/ as well as to 
 Basin, Molitor (' Dialogus de Lamiis '), and other 
 authors, to be found in the 1582 edition of 'Mallei 
 quorundam Maleficarum/ published at Frankfort. 
 
 On the same side we find the great philosophical 
 lawyer and historian John Bodin (1530-1596), the 
 author of the ' Kepublicse,' and the ' Methodus ad 
 facilem Historiarum Cognitionem.' In his * Demono- 
 manie des Sorcius ' he recommends the burning of 
 witches and wizards with an earnestness which should 
 have gone far to compensate for his heterodoxy on 
 other points of belief and practice. He informs us 
 that from his thirty-seventh year he had been attended 
 by a familiar spirit or demon, which touched his ear 
 whenever he was about to do anything of which his 
 conscience disapproved ; and he quotes passages from 
 the Psalms, Job, and Isaiah, to prove that spirits 
 indicate their presence to men by touching and even 
 pulling their ears, and not only by vocal utterances. 
 
 Also, Thomas Erastus (1524-1583), physician and 
 controversialist, who took so busy a part in the 
 theological dissensions of his time. In 1577 he 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 381 
 
 published a tract (' De Lamiis') on the lawfulness of 
 putting witches to death. It is strange that he should 
 have been mastered by the gross imposture of witch- 
 craft, when he could expose with trenchant force the 
 pretensions of alchemists, astrologers, and Rosi- 
 crucians. 
 
 Happily, the cause of humanity, truth and toler- 
 ance was not without its eager and capable defenders. 
 The earliest I take to have been the Dutch physician, 
 Wierus, who, in his treatise ' De Praestigiis/ pub- 
 lished at Basel in 1564, vigorously attacked the cruel 
 prejudice that had doomed so many unhappy creatures 
 to the stake. He did not, however, deny the existence 
 of witchcraft, but demanded mercy for those who 
 practised it on the ground that they were the devil's 
 victims, not his servants. That he should have 
 been wholly devoid of credulity would have been 
 more than one could rightly have expected of a 
 disciple of Cornelius Agrippa. 
 
 A stronger and much more successful assailant 
 appeared in Reginald Scot (died 1599), a younger 
 son of Sir John Scot, of Scot's Hall, near Smeeth, who 
 published his celebrated ' Discoverie of Witchcraft ' in 
 1584 a book which, in any age, would have been 
 remarkable for its sweet humanity, breadth of view, 
 and moderation of tone, as well as for its literary 
 excellencies. One wonders where this quiet Kentish 
 gentleman, whose chief occupations appear to have 
 been gardening and planting, accumulated his eru- 
 dition, and how, in the face of the superstitions of 
 his contemporaries, he arrived at such large and 
 
382 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 liberal conclusions. The scope of his great work is 
 indicated in its lengthy title : c The Discoverie 
 of Witchcraft, wherein the lewd dealing of Witches 
 and Witchmongers is notablie detected, the knaverie 
 of conjurers, the impietie of enchanters, the follie of 
 sooth saiers, the impudent falsehood of couseners, the 
 infidelitie of atheists, the pestilent practices of Pytho- 
 nists, the curiositie of figure-casters [horoscope- 
 makers], the vanitie of dreamers, the beggarlie art 
 of Alcumystrie, the abhomination of idolatrie, the 
 horrible art of poisoning, the vertue and power of 
 naturall magike, and all the conveyances of Legierde- 
 main and juggling are deciphered : and many other 
 things opened, which have long lain hidden, howbeit 
 verie necessarie to be knowne. Heerevnto is added a 
 treatise upon the Nature and Substance of Spirits and 
 Devils, etc. : all latelie written by Reginald Scot, 
 Esquire. 1 John iv. 1 : " Believe not e verie spirit, 
 but trie the spirits, whether they are of God; for 
 many false prophets are gone out into the world." 
 
 From a book so well known a new edition has 
 recently appeared it is needless to make extracts ; 
 but I transcribe a brief passage in illustration of the 
 vivacity and manliness of the writer : 
 
 ' I, therefore (at this time), do only desire you to 
 consider of my report concerning the evidence that is 
 commonly brought before you against them. See first 
 whether the evidence be not frivolous, and whether 
 the proofs brought against them be not incredible, 
 consisting of guesses, presumptions, and impossi- 
 bilities contrary to reason, Scripture, and nature. See 
 also what persons complain upon them, whether they 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 383 
 
 be not of the basest, the unwisest, and the most faith- 
 less kind of people. Also, may it please you, to weigh 
 what accusations and crimes they lay to their charge, 
 namely : She was at my house of late, she would have 
 had a pot of milk, she departed in a chafe because she 
 had it not, she railed, she cursed, she mumbled and 
 whispered; and, finally, she said she would be even 
 with me : and soon after my child, my cow, my sow, 
 or my pullet died, or was strangely taken. Nay (if it 
 please your Worship), I have further proof: I was 
 with a wise woman, and she told me I had an ill 
 neighbour, and that she would come to my house ere 
 it was long, and so did she ; and that she had a mark 
 about her waist, and so had she: God forgive me, 
 my stomach hath gone against her a great while. 
 Her mother before her was counted a witch ; she hath 
 been beaten and scratched by the face till blood was 
 drawn upon her, because she hath been suspected, and 
 afterwards some of those persons were said to amend. 
 These are the certainties that I hear in their evidences. 
 'Note, also, how easily they may be brought to 
 confess that which they never did, nor lieth in the 
 power of man to do ; and then see whether I have 
 cause to write as I do. Further, if you shall see that 
 infidelity, popery, and many other manifest heresies 
 be backed and shouldered, and their professors ani- 
 mated and heartened, by yielding to creatures such 
 infinite power as is wrested out of God's hand, and 
 attributed to witches: finally, if you shall perceive 
 that I have faithfully and truly delivered and set 
 down the condition and state of the witch, and also 
 of the witchmonger, and have confuted by reason and 
 
384 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 law, and by the Word of God itself, all mine adversary's 
 objections and arguments ; then let me have your 
 countenance against them that maliciously oppose 
 themselves against me. 
 
 ' My greatest adversaries are young ignorance and 
 old custom. For what folly soever tract of time hath 
 fostered, it is so superstitiously pursued of some, as 
 though no error could be acquainted with custom. 
 But if the law of nations would join with such 
 custom, to the maintenance of ignorance and to the 
 suppressing of knowledge, the civilest country in 
 the world would soon become barbarous. For as 
 knowledge and time disco vereth errors, so doth super- 
 stition and ignorance in time breed them.' 
 
 In another fine passage Scot says : 
 
 ' God that knoweth my heart is witness, and 
 you that read my book shall see, that my drift 
 and purpose in this enterprise tendeth only to 
 these respects. First, that the glory and power of 
 God be not so abridged and abused, as to be thrust 
 into the hand or lip of a lewd old woman, whereby 
 the work of the Creator should be attributed to the 
 power of a creature. Secondly, that the religion of 
 the Gospel may be seen to stand without such peevish 
 trumpery. Thirdly, that lawful favour and Christian 
 compassion be rather used towards these poor souls 
 than rigour and extremity. Because they which are 
 commonly accused of witchcraft are the least sufficient 
 of all other persons to speak for themselves, as having 
 the most base and simple education of all others ; the 
 extremity of their age giving them leave to dote, their 
 

 CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 385 
 
 poverty to beg, their wrongs to chide and threaten 
 (as being void of any other way of revenge), their 
 humour melancholical to be full of imaginations, from 
 whence chiefly proceedeth the vanity of their con- 
 fessions, as that they can transform themselves and 
 others into apes, owls, asses, dogs, cats, etc. ; that 
 they can fly in the air, kill children with charms, 
 hinder the coming of butter, etc. 
 
 ' And for so much as the mighty help themselves 
 together, and the poor widow's cry, though it reach 
 to heaven, is scarce heard here upon earth, I thought 
 good (according to my poor ability) to make inter- 
 cession, that some part of common rigour and some 
 points of hasty judgment may be advised upon. For 
 the world is now at that stay (as Brentius, in a most 
 godly sermon, in these words affirmeth), that even, as 
 when the heathen persecuted the Christians, if any 
 were accused to believe in Christ, the common people 
 cried A d leonem ; so now, of any woman, be she never 
 so honest, be she accused of witchcraft, they cry Ad 
 ignem.' 
 
 Scot's attack upon the credulity of his contempo- 
 raries, strenuous and capable as it was, did not bear 
 much fruit at the time ; while it exposed him to 
 charges of Atheism and Sadduceeism from several 
 small critics, who were supported by the authority of 
 James I., and, at a later date, of Dr. Meric Casaubon. 
 He found a fellow-labourer, however, in his work of 
 humanity, in the Rev. George Gifford, of Maldon, 
 Essex, who in 1593 published 'A Dialogue concern- 
 
 25 
 
386 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 ing Witches and Witchcraft, in which ' is layed open 
 how craftily the Divell deceiveth not only the Witches 
 but Many other, and so leadeth them awaie into 
 Manie Great Errours.' It will be seen from the title 
 that the writer does not adopt the uncompromising 
 line of Reginald Scot, but inclines rather to the 
 standpoint of Wierus. There is, however, a good 
 deal of ability in his treatment of the question ; and 
 some account of the ' Dialogue' reprinted by the Percy 
 Society in 1842, should be interesting, I think, to the 
 reader. 
 
 The interlocutors are named Samuel, Daniel, 
 Samuel's wife, M. B., a schoolmaster, and the good- 
 wife R. 
 
 The dialogue opens with Samuel and Daniel, the 
 former of whom is a fanatical believer in witches. 
 1 These evil-favoured old witches,' he says, ' do trouble 
 me.' He repeats the common rumour that there is 
 scarcely a town or village in the shire but has one or 
 two witches in it. ' In good sooth,' he adds, ' I may 
 tell it to you as to my friend, when I go but into 
 my closes, I am afraid, for I see now and then a hare, 
 which my conscience giveth me is a witch, or some 
 witch's spirit, she stareth so upon me. And sometime 
 I see an ugly weasel run through my yard; and there 
 is a foul, great cat sometimes in my barn, which I 
 have no liking unto.' Having introduced his friend, 
 who is less credulous than himself, to his wife and 
 his home, he promotes an argument between him and 
 another friend, M. B., a schoolmaster, on this qucestio 
 vexata. 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITER A.TURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 387 
 
 M. B. starts with a good deal of fervour : 
 
 ' The word of God doth show plainly that there be witches, 
 and commandeth they should be pat to death. Experience hath 
 taught too many what harms they do. And if any have the gift 
 to minister help against them, shall we refuse it V 
 
 But after some discussion he agrees, at Daniel's 
 instance, to consider the subject in a spirit of sober 
 argument; and the first question they take up is: 
 ' Are there witches that work by the Devil ?' The 
 conversation then proceeds as follows : 
 
 DANIEL. It is so evident by the Scriptures, and in all experience, 
 that there be witches which work by the devil, or rather, I may 
 say, the devil worketh by them, that such as go about to prove 
 the contrary, do show themselves but cavillers. 
 
 M. B. I am glad we agree on that point ; I hope we shall in 
 the rest. What say you to this ? That the witches have their 
 spirits. Some hath one ; some hath more, as two, three, four, or 
 five. Some in one likeness and some in another, as like cats, 
 weasels, toads, or mice, whom they nourish with milk or with a 
 chicken, or by letting them suck now and then a drop of blood, 
 whom they call if they be offended with any, and send them to 
 hurt them in their bodies, yea, to kill them, and to kill their 
 cattle. 
 
 DANIEL. Here is great deceit, and great illusion ; here the 
 Devil leadeth the ignorant people into foul errors, by which he 
 draweth them headlong into many grievous sins. 
 
 M. B. Nay, then, I see you are awry, if you deny these things, 
 and say they be but illusions. ... I did dwell in a village within 
 these five years where there was a man of good wealth, and sud- 
 denly, within ten days' space, he had three kine died, his gelding, 
 worth ten pounds, fell lame, he was himself taken with a great 
 pain in his back, and a child of seven years old died. He sent to 
 the woman at E. H., and she said he was plagued by a witch, 
 adding, moreover, that there were three women witches in that 
 town, and one man witch, willing him to look whom he most 
 suspected. He suspected an old woman, and caused her to be 
 carried before a justice of peace and examined. With much ado 
 at the last she confessed all, which was this in effect that she 
 
 252 
 
388 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 had three spirits, one like a cat, which she called Lightfoot ; another 
 like a toad, which she called Lunch; the third like a weasel, 
 which she called Makeshift. This Lightfoot, she said, one Mother 
 Bailey, of W., sold her above sixteen years ago, for an oven- cake, 
 and told her the cat would do her good service ; if she would, she 
 might send her of her errands. This cat was with her but a 
 while, but the weasel and the toad came and offered their service. 
 The cat would kill kine, the weasel would kill horses, the toad 
 would plague men in their bodies. She sent them all three (as 
 she confessed) against this man. She was committed to the 
 prison, and there she died before the assizes. 
 
 Daniel then strikes into the conversation, enlarging 
 on the Scriptural description of devils as ' mighty and 
 terrible spirits, full of rage and power and cruelty '- 
 principalities and powers, the rulers of the darkness 
 of this world and forcibly insisting that if spirits so 
 awful and potential as these assumed the shapes of 
 such paltry vermin as cats, mice, toads, and weasels, 
 it must be out of subtilty to cover and hide the 
 mighty tyranny and power which they exercise over 
 the hearts of the wicked. And he argues that such 
 spirits would never deign to be a witch's servant or 
 to do her bidding. M. B. contends, however, that, 
 although he be lord, yet is he content to serve her 
 turn ; and the witches confess, he says, that they call 
 forth their demons, and send them on what errands 
 they please, and hire them to hurt in their bodies and 
 their cattle those against whom they cherish angry 
 and revengeful feelings. ' I am sorry,' says Daniel 
 mildly, ' you are so far awry ; it is a pity any man 
 should be in such error, especially a man that hath 
 learning, and should teach others knowledge.' 
 
 After some further disputation, M. B. is brought to 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 389 
 
 admit that God giveth the devils power to plague and 
 seduce because of man's wickedness; but he asks 
 whether a godly, faithful man or woman may not be 
 bewitched. We see, he says, that the devil had 
 power given him of old, as over Job. But Daniel 
 will not admit that this is a case in point, because it 
 is not said that the devil dealt with Job through 
 the agency of witches. Thereupon Samuel, perceiv- 
 ing the drift of his argument to be that the devil has 
 no need to act by instruments so mean and even 
 degraded, and would assuredly never be at their com- 
 mand ; that, consequently, there can be no witchcraft, 
 because there is no necessity for it, suddenly inter- 
 poses : 
 
 ' With your leave, M. B., I would ask two or three questions of 
 my friend. There was but seven miles hence, at W. H., one M. ; 
 the man was of good wealth, and well accounted of among his 
 neighbours. He pined away with sickness half a year, and at 
 last died. After he was dead, his wife suspected ill-dealing. She 
 went to a cunning man, who told her that her husband died of 
 witchery, and asked her if she did not suspect any. Yes, there 
 was one woman she did not like, one Mother W. ; her husband 
 and she fell out, and he fell sick within two days after, and never 
 recovered. He showed her the woman as plain in a glass as we 
 see one another, and taught her how she might bring her to 
 confess. Well, she followed his counsel, went home, caused her 
 to be apprehended and carried before a justice of peace. He 
 examined her so wisely that in the end she confessed she killed 
 the man. She was sent to prison, she was arraigned, condemned, 
 and executed \ and upon the ladder she seemed very penitent, 
 desiring all the world to forgive her. She said she had a spirit in 
 the likeness of a yellow dun cat. This cat came unto her, as she 
 said, as she sat by the fire, when she was fallen out with a 
 neighbour of hers, and wished that the vengeance of God might 
 light upon him and his. The cat bade her not be afraid; she 
 would do her no harm. She had served a dame five years in 
 
390 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 Kent that was now dead, and, if she would, she would be her 
 servant. " And whereas," said the cat, " such a man hath mis- 
 used thee, if thou wilt I will plague him in his cattle." She 
 sent the cat ; she killed three hogs and one cow. The man, 
 suspecting, burnt a pig alive, and, as she said, her cat would never 
 go thither any more. Afterward she fell out with that M. She 
 sent her cat, who told her that she had given him that which he 
 should never recover ; and, indeed, the man died. Now, do you 
 not think the woman spoke the truth in all this ? Would the 
 woman accuse herself falsely at her death ? Did not the cat 
 become her servant *? Did not she send her ? Did she not 
 plague and kill both man and beast ? What should a man think 
 of this ? 
 
 DANIEL. You propound a particular example, and let us 
 examine everything in it touching the witch. You say the cat 
 came to her when she was in a great rage with one of her 
 neighbours, and did curse, wishing the vengeance of God to fall 
 upon him and his. 
 
 SAM. She said so, indeed. I heard her with my own ears, for 
 I was at the execution. 
 
 DAN. Then tell me who set her in such a devilish rage, so to 
 curse and ban, as to wish that the vengeance of God might light 
 upon him and his 1 Did not the cat 1 
 
 SAM. Truly I think that the devil wrought that in her. 
 
 DAN. Very well. Then, you see, the cat is the beginning of 
 this play. 
 
 SAM. Call you it a play 1 It was no play to some. 
 
 DAN. Indeed, the witch at last had better have wrought hard 
 than been at her play. But I mean Satan did play the juggler ; 
 for doth he not offer his service 1 Doth lie not move her to send 
 him to plague the man 1 Tell me, is she so forward to send, as 
 he is to be sent 1 Or do you not take it that he ruleth in her 
 heart, and even wholly directeth it to this matter 1 
 
 SAM. I am fully persuaded he ruleth her heart. 
 
 DAN. Then was she his drudge, and not he her servant. He 
 needeth not to be hired and entreated; for if her heart were to 
 send him anywhere, unto such as he knoweth he cannot hurt, nor 
 seeth how to make any show that he hurteth them, he can 
 quickly turn her from that. Well, the cat goeth and killeth the 
 man, certain hogs, and a cow. How could she tell that the cat 
 did it ? 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITER AT UHE OF WITCHCRAFT. 391 
 
 SAM. How could she tell ? Why, he told her, man, and she 
 saw and heard that he lost his cattle. 
 
 DAN. The cat would lie would she not 1 for they say such 
 cats are liars. 
 
 SAM. I do not trust the cat's words, but because the thing fell 
 out so. 
 
 DAN. Because the hogs and the cow died, are you sure the cat 
 did kill them ? Might they not die of some natural causes, as 
 you see both men and beasts are well, and die suddenly 1 
 
 In this way the dialogue proceeds, with a good deal 
 of ingenuity and some degree of dramatic spirit ; and 
 though the reasoning is not without its fallacies, yet 
 it is sufficiently clear and forcible, on the whole, as a 
 protest on the side of liberality and tolerance. 
 
 The next branch of the subject taken up for con- 
 sideration is ' the help and remedy ' that is sought for 
 against witches i at the hands of cunning men ;' 
 Daniel contending that, if the cunning men can 
 render any assistance, it must be through the devil's 
 instrumentality, and, therefore, Christian men are not 
 justified in availing themselves of it. The alleged 
 cures performed by witches, Daniel refers to the 
 influence of the imagination ; and in this category he 
 tells an amusing story. ' There was a person in 
 London,' he say, ' acquainted with the magician Fento. 
 Now, this Fento had a black dog, whom he called 
 Bomelius. This party afterwards had a conceit that 
 Bomelius was a devil, and that he felt him within 
 him. He was in heaviness, and made his moan to 
 one of his acquaintances, who had a merry head, and 
 told him he had a friend could remove Bomelius. 
 He bade him prepare a breakfast, and he would bring 
 him. Then this was the cure : he (the friend) made 
 
392 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 him be stripped naked and stand by a good fire, and 
 though he were fat enough of himself, basted him all 
 over with butter against the fire, and made him wear a 
 sleek-stone next his skin under his belly, and the man 
 had immediate relief, and gave him afterwards great 
 thanks/ 
 
 ' The conceit, or imagination, does much,' continues 
 Daniel, ' even when there is no apparent disease. A 
 man feareth he is bewitched; it troubleth all the 
 powers of his mind, and that distempereth his body, 
 making great alterations in it, and bringeth sundry 
 griefs. Now, when his mind is freed from such 
 imaginations, his bodily griefs, which flew from the 
 same, are eased. And a multitude of Satan's is of 
 the same character.' 
 
 The conversation next turns upon the danger of 
 shedding innocent blood, which is inseparable from 
 the execution of alleged witches ; while juries, says 
 Daniel, must become guilty of shedding innocent 
 blood by condemning as guilty, and that upon their 
 solemn oath, such as be suspected upon vain sur- 
 mises, and imaginations, and illusions, rising from 
 blindness and infidelity, and fear of Satan which is 
 in the ignorant sort. 
 
 M. B. If you take it that this is one craft of Satan to bring many 
 to be guilty of innocent blood, and even upon their oaths, which 
 is horrible, what would you have the judges and juries to do, 
 when they are arraigned of suspicion to be witches 1 
 
 DAN. What would I have them do 1 I would wish them to be 
 most wary and circumspect that they be not guilty of innocent 
 blood. And that is, to condemn none but upon sure ground, and 
 infallible proof ; because presumptions shall not warrant or excuse 
 them before God, if guiltless blood be shed. 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 393 
 
 Replying to observations made by the school- 
 master, Daniel continues : 
 
 'You bring two reasons to prove that in convicting witches 
 likelihoods and presumptions ought to be of force more than 
 about thieves or murderers. The first, because their dealing is 
 secret ; the other, because the devil will not let them confess. 
 Indeed, men, imagining that witches do work strange mischiefs, 
 burn in desire to have them hanged, as hoping then to be free ; 
 and then, upon such persuasions as you mention, they suppose it 
 is a very good work to put to death all which are suspected. 
 But, touching thieves and murderers, let men take heed how 
 they deal upon presumptions, unless they be very strong ; for we 
 see that juries sometimes do condemn such as be guiltless, which 
 is a hard thing, especially as they are upon their oath. And in 
 witches, above all other, the people had need to be strong, because 
 there is greater sleight of Satan to pursue the guiltless into death 
 than in the other. Here is special care and wisdom to be used. 
 And so likewise for their confessing. Satan doth gain more by 
 their confession than by their denial, and therefore rather be- 
 wrayeth them himself, and forceth them unto confession oftener 
 than unto denial.' 
 
 Samuel at first is reluctant to accept this state- 
 ment. It has always been his belief that the devil is 
 much angered when witches confess and betray 
 matters ; and in confirmation of this belief, or at 
 least as some excuse for it, he relates an anecdote. 
 Of course, one woman had suspected another to be a 
 witch. She prevailed upon a gentleman to send for 
 the suspected person, and having accused her in his 
 presence, left him to admonish her with due severity, 
 and to persuade her to renounce the devil and all his 
 works. While he was thus engaged, and she was 
 stoutly denying the accusation brought against her, 
 a weasel or lobster suddenly made its appearance. 
 ' Look/ said the gentleman, ' yonder is thy spirit.' 
 
394 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 4 Ah, master !' she replied, ' that is a vermin ; there 
 be many of them everywhere/ Well, as they went 
 towards it, it vanished out of sight ; by-and-by it re- 
 appeared, and looked upon them. 4 Surely,' said the 
 gentleman, 4 it is thy spirit;' but she still denied, 
 and with that her mouth was drawn awry. Then he 
 pressed her further, and she confessed all. She con- 
 fessed she had hurt and killed by sending her spirit. 
 The gentleman, not being a magistrate, allowed her 
 to go home, and then disclosed the affair to a justice. 
 When she reached home another witch accosted her, 
 and said : ' Ah, thou beast, what hast thou done ? 
 Thou hast betrayed us all. What remedy now ?' said 
 she. ' What remedy ?' said the other ; ' send thy 
 spirit and touch him.' She sent her spirit, and of a 
 sudden the gentleman had, as it were, a flash of fire 
 about him : he lifted up his heart to God, and felt no 
 hurt. The spirit returned, and said he could not 
 hurt him, because he had faith. 'What then,' said 
 the other witch, ' hath he nothing that thou mayest 
 touch ?' i He hath a child,' said the other. * Send 
 thy spirit,' said she, ' and touch the child.' She sent 
 her spirit ; the child was in great pain, and died. 
 The witches were hanged, and confessed. 
 
 Daniel, by an ingenious analysis, soon dismisses this 
 absurd story, which, like all such stories, he takes 
 to be further evidence of Satan's craft, and no dis- 
 proof at all of the argument he has laid down. 
 ' Then,' says Samuel, ' I will tell you of another thing 
 which was done of late. 
 
 4 A woman suspected of being a witch, and of 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 395 
 
 having done harm among the cattle, was examined 
 and brought to confess that she had a spirit, which 
 resided in a hollow tree, and spoke to her out of a 
 hole in the trunk. And whenever she was offended 
 with any persons she went to that tree and sent her 
 spirit to kill their cattle. She was persuaded to 
 confess her faults openi}', and to promise that she 
 would utterly forsake such ungodly ways : after she 
 had made this open confession, the spirit came unto 
 her, being alone. " Ah !" said he, "thou hast confessed 
 and betrayed all. I could turn it to rend thee in 
 pieces :" with that she was afraid, and went away, 
 and got her into company. Within some few weeks 
 after she fell out greatly into anger against one man. 
 Towards the tree she goeth, and before she came at 
 it " Oh !" said the spirit, "wherefore comest thou ? 
 Who hath angered thee ?" " Such a man," said the 
 witch. " And what wouldest thou have me do ?" 
 said the spirit. "He hath," saith she, "two horses 
 going yonder ; touch them, or one of them." Well, I 
 think even that night one of the horses died, and the 
 other was little better. Indeed, they recovered again 
 that one which was not dead, but in very evil case. 
 Now methinketh it is plain : he was angry that she 
 had betrayed all. And yet when she came to the 
 tree he let go all displeasure and went readily. 7 
 
 There is much common-sense, as we should nowa- 
 days call it, in Daniel's comments on this extra- 
 ordinarily wild story. ' Do you think/ he is repre- 
 sented as saying, k that Satan lodgeth in a hollow 
 tree ? Is he become so lazy and idle ? Hath he 
 
396 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 left off to be as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may 
 devour ? Hath he put off the bloody and cruel 
 nature of the fiery dragon, so that he mindeth no 
 harm but when an angry woman entreats him to go 
 kill a cow or a horse ? Is he become so doting with 
 age that man shall espy his craft yea, be found 
 craftier than he is ?' 
 
 And now for the winding-up of Parson Gifford's 
 ' Dialogue.' Tis to be wished that all the parsons 
 of his time had been equally sensible and courageous. 
 
 M. B. I could be content to hear more in these matters ; I see 
 how fondly I have erred. But seeing you must be gone, I hope 
 we shall meet here again at some other time. God keep you ! 
 
 SAM. I am bound to give you great thanks. And, I pray you, 
 when occasion serveth, that you come this way. Let us see you 
 at my house. 
 
 M. B. I thought there had not been such subtle practices of 
 the devil, nor so great sins as he leadeth men into. 
 
 SAM. It is strange to see how many thousands are carried 
 away, and deceived, yea, many that are very wise men. 
 
 M. B. The devil is too crafty for the wisest, unless they have 
 the light of God's Word. 
 
 SAMUEL'S WIFE. Husband, yonder cometh the goodwife E. 
 
 SAM. I wish she had come sooner. 
 
 GOODWIFE E. Ho, who is within, by your leave ? 
 
 SAMUEL'S WIFE. I would you had come a little sooner ; here 
 was one even now that said you were a witch. 
 
 GOODWIFE R Was there one said I am a witch? You do 
 but jest. 
 
 SAMUEL'S WIFE. Nay, I promise you he was in good earnest. 
 
 GOODWIFE E. I a witch ? I defy him that saith it, though 
 he be a lord. I would all the witches in the land were hanged, 
 and their spirits by them. 
 
 M. B. Would you not be glad, if their spirits were hanged 
 up with them, to have a gown furred with some of their skins ? 
 
 GOODWIFE E. Out upon them. There were few ! 
 
 SAM. Wife, why didst thou say that the goodwife E, is a 
 witch 1 He did not say so. 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 397 
 
 SAMUEL'S WIFE. Husband, I did mark his words well enough ; 
 he said she is a witch. 
 
 SAM. He doth not know her, and how could he say she is a 
 witch ? 
 
 SAMUEL'S WIFE. What though he did not know her ? Did he 
 not say that she played the witch that heated the spit red hot, 
 and thrust it into her cream when the butter would not come ? 
 
 SAM. Indeed, wife, thou sayest true. He said that was a 
 thing taught by the devil, as also the burning of a hen, or of a 
 hog alive, and all such like devices. 
 
 GOODWIFE R. Is that witchcraft ? Some Scripture man hath 
 told you so. Did the devil teach it 1 Nay, the good woman at 
 R. H. taught it my husband : she doth more good in one year 
 than all those Scripture men will do so long as they live. 
 
 M. B. Who do you think taught it the cunning woman at 
 E.H.1 
 
 GOODWIFE R It is a gift which God hath given her. I 
 think the Holy Spirit of God doth teach her. 
 
 M. B. You do not think, then, that the devil doth teach her? 
 GOODWIFE R. How should I think that the devil doth teach 
 her? Did you ever hear that the devil did teach any good 
 thing ? 
 
 M. B. Do you know that was a good thing ? 
 GOODWIFE R. Was it not a good thing to drive the evil spirit 
 out of any man ? 
 
 M. B. Do you think the devil was afraid of your spit ? 
 GOODWIFE R. I know he was driven away, and we have been 
 rid of him ever since. 
 
 M. B. Can a spit hurt him ] 
 
 GOODWIFE R. It doth hurt him, or it hurteth the witch : one 
 of them, I am sure : for he cometh no more. Either she can get 
 him come no more, because it hurteth him : or else she will let 
 him come no more, because it hurteth her. 
 
 M. B. It is certain that spirits cannot be hurt but with 
 spiritual weapons : therefore your spit cannot fray nor hurt the 
 devil. And how can it hurt the witch 1 You did not think she 
 was in your cream, did you 1 
 
 GOODWIFE R. Some think she is there, and therefore when 
 they thrust in the spit they say : * If thou beest here, have at 
 thine eye.' 
 
 M. B. If she were in your cream, your butter was not very 
 cleanly. 
 
398 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 GOODWIFE R. You are merrily disposed, M. B. I know you 
 are of my mind, though you put these questions to me. For I 
 am sure none hath counselled more to go to the cunning folk 
 than you. 
 
 M. B. I was of your mind, but I am not now, for I see how 
 foolish I was. I am sorry that I offended so grievously as to 
 counsel any for to seek unto devils. 
 
 GOODWIFE R. Why, M. B., who hath schooled you to-day? 
 I am sure you were of another mind no longer agone than yester- 
 day. 
 
 SAMUEL'S WIFE. Truly, goodwife R., I think my husband is 
 turned also : here hath been one reasoning with them three or 
 four hours. 
 
 GOODWIFE R. Is your husband turned, too? I would you 
 might lose all your hens one after another, and then I would 
 she would set her spirit upon your ducks and your geese, and 
 leave you not one alive. Will you come to defend witches ? . . . 
 
 M. B. You think the devil can kill men's cattle, and lame both 
 man and beast at his pleasure: you think if the witch entreat 
 him and send him, he will go, and if she will not have him go, he 
 will not meddle. And you think when he doth come, you can 
 drive him away with a hot spit, or with burning a live hen or a 
 
 Pig- 
 
 GOODWIFE R. Never tell me I think so, for you yourself have 
 thought so ; and let them say what they can, all the Scripture 
 men in the world shall never persuade me otherwise. 
 
 M. B. I do wonder, not so much at your ignorance as at this, 
 that I was ever of the same mind that you are, and could not see 
 mine own folly. 
 
 GOODWIFE R. Folly ! how wise you are become of a sudden ! 
 I know that their spirits lie lurking, for they foster them ; and 
 when anybody hath angered them, then they call them forth and 
 send them. And look what they bid them do, or hire them to 
 do, that shall be done : as when she is angry, the spirit will ask 
 her, ' What shall I do V ' Such a man hath misused me,' saith 
 she ; ' go, kill his cow ' ; by-and-by he goeth and doeth it. ' Go, 
 kill such a woman's hens ' ; down go they. And some of them 
 are not content to do these lesser harms ; but they will say, ' Go, 
 make such a man lame, kill him, or kill his child.' Then are 
 they ready, and will do anything ; and I think they be happy 
 that can learn to drive them away. 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 399 
 
 M. B. If I should reason with you out of the words of God, 
 you should see that all this is false, which you say. The devil 
 cannot kill nor hurt anything ; no, not so much as a poor hen. 
 If he had power, who can escape him 1 Would he tarry to be 
 sent or entreated by a woman ? He is a stirrer up unto all 
 harms and mischiefs. 
 
 GOODWIFE R. What will you tell me of God's word 1 Doth 
 not God's word say there be witches ? and do not you think God 
 doth suffer bad people 1 Are you a turncoat ? Fare you well ; I 
 will no longer talk with you. 
 
 M. B. She is wilful indeed. I will leave you also. 
 
 SAMUEL. I thank you for your good company. 
 
 About the same time that Gifford was endeavour- 
 ing to teach his countrymen a more excellent way of 
 dealing with the vexed questions of demonology and 
 witchcraft, a Dutch minister, named Bekker, scandal- 
 ized the orthodox by a frank denial of all power 
 whatsoever to the devil, arid, consequently, to the 
 witches and warlocks who were supposed to be at one 
 and the same time his servants and yet his employers. 
 His ' Monde Enchante ' (originally written in Dutch) 
 consists of four ponderous volumes, remarkable for 
 prolixity and repetition, as well as for a certain 
 originality of argument. There was no just ground, 
 however, as Hallam remarks, for throwing imputa- 
 tions on the author's religious sincerity. He shared, 
 however, the opprobrium that attaches to all who 
 deviate in theology from the orthodox path; and it 
 must be admitted that his Scriptural explanations in 
 the case of the demoniacs and the like are more 
 ingenious than satisfactory. 
 
 A violent trumpet-note on the side of intolerance 
 was blown by King James I. in 1597 in his famous 
 
400 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 ' Daemonologia.' It is written in the form of a 
 dialogue, and numbers about eighty closely- printed 
 pages. James, as the reader has seen, had had ample 
 personal experience of witches and their ' cantrips/ 
 and had 'got up' the subject with a commendable 
 amount of thoroughness. He divides witches into 
 eight classes, who severally work their evil designs 
 against mankind ; then he subdivides into white and 
 black witches, of whom the former are the more 
 dangerous ; and again into ' acted ' and * pacted ' 
 witches, the former depending for their power on 
 their supernatural gifts, and the latter having made a 
 compact with Satan contrary to * all rules and orders 
 of nature, art or grace.' Further, the demons have a 
 classification of their own ; some of the higher ranks 
 of the demon archy looking down contemptuously 
 enough on those of the inferior grades, who consist 
 of c the damned souls of departed conjurers.' These 
 4 damned souls ' discharge all kinds of mean and 
 servile offices bringing fire from heaven for the 
 convenience of their employers ; conveying bodies 
 through the air; conjuring corn from one field into 
 another ; imparting a show of life to dead bodies ; 
 and raising the wind for witches to sell to their 
 nautical customers who received pieces of knotted 
 rope, and, untying the first knot, secured a favourable 
 breeze, for the second a moderate wind, and for the 
 third a violent gale. 
 
 After describing the rites in vogue on the con- 
 clusion of a compact between witch and devil, King 
 James enlarges on other points of ceremonial, such 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 401 
 
 as the making of various magic circles sometimes 
 round, sometimes triangular, sometimes quadrangular ; 
 the use of holy water and crosses in ridicule of the 
 papists ; and the offer to the demons of some living 
 animal. He adds that the great witches' meetings 
 frequently took place in churches : and he says that 
 the witches mutter and hurriedly mumble through 
 their conjurations i like a priest despatching a hunt- 
 ing masse ; ; and that if they step out of a circle in a 
 sudden alarm at the horrible appearance assumed by 
 the demon, he flies off with them body and soul. 
 
 The royal expert proceeds to indicate the means 
 by which you may detect a witch. ' There are two 
 good helpes that may be used for their trials ; the 
 one is the finding of their marke and the trying the 
 insensibility thereof. The other is their fleeting on 
 the water : for as in a secret murther, if the dead 
 carkasse be at any time thereafter handled by the 
 murtherer, it will gush out of blood, as if the blood 
 were crying to the heaven for revenge of the 
 murtherer, God having appoynted that secret super- 
 naturale signe for triale of that secret unnaturale 
 crime, so it appears that God hath appoynted (for a 
 supernaturale signe of the monstrous impietie of 
 witches) that the water shall refuse to receive them 
 in her bosome that have shaken off them the sacred 
 water of Baptism and willingly refused the benefit 
 thereof: no, not so much as their eies are able to 
 shed teares (threaten and torture them as you please) 
 while first they repent (God not permitting them to 
 dissemble their obstinacie in so horrible a crime), 
 
 26 
 
402 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 albeit the womenkind especially "be able other waies 
 to shed teares at every light occasion when they will, 
 yea altho' it were dissemblingly like the crocodiles.' 
 
 Incidentally, our witch-hunting King offers an 
 explanation of a peculiarity which, no doubt, our 
 readers have already noted the great numerical 
 superiority of witches over warlocks. ' The reason 
 is easie,' he says ; 'for as that sex is frailer than 
 man is, so is it easier to be intrapped in the grosse 
 snares of the devil, as was over well prooved to be 
 true by the serpente deceiving of Eva at the begin- 
 ning, which makes him the homelier with that sex 
 sensine [ever since]/ 
 
 As regards the external appearance of witches, he 
 remarks that they are not generally melancholic ; 
 4 but some are rich and worldly wise, some are fat 
 and corpulent, and most part are given over unto the 
 pleasures of the flesh ; and further experience daily 
 proves how loth they are to confess without torture, 
 which witnesseth their guiltinesse.' He concludes 
 by asking, ' Who is safe ?' and replies that the only 
 safe person is the magistrate, when assiduously em- 
 ployed in bringing witches to justice. One Reginald 
 Scot, Esq., however, hop-grower and brewer of 
 Smeeth, in Kent, a persistent disbeliever in and 
 ridiculer of witchcraft, who had the courage to break 
 lances with the King and the bench of Bishops in 
 contemporary pamphlets, and is called by the King 
 an 4 Englishman of damnable opiniones,' irreverently 
 answered this question by saying that the only safe 
 person was the King himself, as his sex prevented 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 403 
 
 his being taken for a witch, and the whole kingdom 
 was satisfied that he was no conjurer. 
 
 In 1616, John Gotta, a Northampton physician, 
 published a forcibly written attack on the vulgar 
 delusion, under the title of ' The Trial of Witchcraft,' 
 which reached a second (and enlarged) edition in 
 1624. Cotta was also the author of a fierce blast 
 against quacks ' Discovery of the Dangers of 
 ignorant Practisers of Physick in England/ 1612; 
 and of a not less vehement attack on the aurum 
 potabile of the chemists, entitled, ' Cotta contra 
 Antonium, or An Ant. Anthony/ 1623. 
 
 There is a lively work by John Gaul, preacher of 
 the Word at Great Haughton, in the county of 
 Huntingdon ' Select Cases of Conscience touching 
 Witches and Witchcraft/ 1646, which is worth 
 looking into. Gaul was a courageous and persevering 
 opponent of the great witch-finder, Hopkins. 
 
 The unhappy victims of popular prejudice found a 
 strenuous champion also in Sir Robert Filmer, who, 
 in 1653, published his ' Advertisement to the Jury- 
 men of England, touching Witches, together with a 
 Difference between an English and Hebrew Witch.' 
 Filmer is best known to students by his Patriarcha/ 
 an apology for the paternal government of kings, 
 which does violence to all constitutional principles, 
 but has at least the negative merit of obvious sincerity 
 on the part of its writer. It is somewhat surprising 
 to find a mind like Filmer's, fettered as it was by so 
 
 262 
 
404 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 many prejudices and a slavish adherence to prescrip- 
 tion, openly urging the cause of tolerance and 
 enlightenment, and vigorously demolishing the sham 
 arguments by which the believers in witchcraft 
 endeavoured to support their grotesque theories. 
 
 Three years later followed on the same side a 
 certain Thomas Ady, M.A., who, with considerable 
 vivacity, fulminated against the witch-mongers and 
 witch-torturers in his tractate, ' A Candle in the 
 Dark ; or, A Treatise concerning the Nature of 
 Witches and Witchcraft : being Advice to Judges, 
 Sheriffs, Justices of the Peace, and Grand Jurymen, 
 what to do before they pass sentence on such as are 
 arraigned for their lives as Witches.' The quaintly - 
 worded dedication ran as follows : 
 
 ' To the Prince of the Kings of the Earth. It is 
 the manner of men, heavenly King, to dedicate 
 their books to some great men, thereby to have their 
 works protected and countenanced among them ; but 
 Thou only art able by Thy Holy Spirit of Truth, to 
 defend Thy Truth, and to make it take impression in 
 the heart and understanding of men. Unto Thee 
 alone do I dedicate this work, entreating Thy Most 
 High Majesty to grant that, whoever shall open this 
 book, Thy Holy Spirit may so possess their under- 
 standing as that the Spirit of error may depart from 
 them, and that they may read and try Thy Truth by 
 the touchstone of Thy Truth, the Holy Scriptures ; 
 and finding that Truth, may embrace it and forsake 
 their darksome inventions of Anti- Christ, that have 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 405 
 
 deluded and defiled the nations now and in former 
 ages. Enlighten the world, Thou art the Light of 
 the World, and let darkness be no more in the world, 
 now or in any future age ; but make all people to 
 walk as children of the light for ever ; and destroy 
 Anti- Christ that hath deceived the nations, and save 
 us the residue by Thyself alone ; and let not Satan 
 any more delude us, for the Truth is thine for ever.' 
 
 In 1669 John Wagstaffe published ' The Question 
 of Witchcraft Debated.' According to Wood, he was 
 the son of John Wagstaffe, a London citizen ; was 
 born in Cheapside ; entered as a commoner of Oriel 
 College, Oxford, towards the end of 1649 ; took the 
 degrees in Arts, and applied himself to the study of 
 politics and other learning. ' At length being raised 
 from an academical life to the inheritance of Hasland 
 by the death of an uncle, who died without male 
 issue, he spent his life afterwards in single estate/ 
 He died in 1677. Wood describes him as ( a little 
 crooked man, and of a despicable presence. He was 
 laughed at by the boys of this University because, as 
 they said, he himself looked like a little wizard.' 
 
 His book is illuminated throughout by the generous 
 sympathies of a large and liberal mind. His perora- 
 tion has been described, and not unjustly, as 4 lofty ' 
 and ' memorable,' and, when animated by a noble 
 earnestness, the writer's language rises into posi- 
 tive eloquence. ' I cannot think,' he says, ' without 
 trembling and horror on the vast numbers of people 
 that in several ages and several countries have been 
 
406 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK IF. 
 
 sacrificed unto this cold opinion. Thousands, ten 
 thousands, are upon record to have been slain, and 
 many of them not with simple deaths, but horrid, 
 exquisite tortures. And yet, how many are there 
 more who have undergone the same fate, of whom 
 we have no memorial extant ? Since therefore the 
 opinion of witchcraft is a mere stranger unto 
 Scripture, and wholly alien from true religion ; since 
 it is ridiculous by asserting fables and impossibilities ; 
 since it appears, when duly considered, to be all 
 bloody and full of dangerous consequence unto the 
 lives and safety of men; I hope that with this my 
 discourse, opposing an absurd and pernicious error, 
 I cannot at all disoblige any sober, unbiased person, 
 especially if he be of such ingenuity as to have freed 
 himself from a slavish subjection unto those preju- 
 dicial opinions which custom and education do with 
 too much tyranny impose. 
 
 ' If the doctrine of witchcraft should be carried up 
 to a height, and the inquisition after it should be 
 entrusted in the hands of ambitious, covetous, and 
 malicious men, it would prove of far more fatal con- 
 sequences unto the lives and safety of mankind than 
 that ancient heathenish custom of sacrificing men 
 unto idol gods, insomuch that we stand in need of 
 another Heracles Liberator, who, as the former freed 
 the world from human sacrifice, should, in like 
 manner, travel from country to country, and by his 
 all -commanding authority free it from this evil and 
 base custom of torturing people to confess themselves 
 witches, and burning them after extorted confessions. 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 407 
 
 Surely the blood of men ought not to be so cheap, 
 nor so easily to be shed by those who, under the 
 name of God, do gratify exorbitant passions and 
 selfish ends ; for without question, under this side 
 heaven, there is nothing so sacred as the life of man, 
 for the preservation whereof all policies and forms 
 of government, all laws and magistrates are most 
 especially ordained. Wherefore I presume that this 
 discourse of mine, attempting to prove the vanity 
 and impossibility of witchcraft, is so far from any 
 deserved censure and blame, that it rather deserves 
 commendation and praise, if I can in the least measure 
 contribute to the saving of the lives of men. ' 
 
 Meric Casaubon, a man of abundant learning and 
 not less abundant superstition, attempted a reply to 
 Wagstaffe in his treatise ' Of Credulity and Incredulity 
 in Things Divine and Spiritual' (1670). 
 
 At Thornton, in the parish of Gas wold, Yorkshire, 
 was born, on the 3rd of February, 1610, one of the 
 ablest and most successful of the adversaries of the 
 witch- maniacs, John Webster. It is supposed that 
 he was educated at Cambridge ; but the first event 
 in his career of which we have any certain knowledge 
 is his admission to holy orders in the Church of 
 England by Dr. Morton, Bishop of Durham. In 
 1634 we find him officiating as curate at Kildwick in 
 Craven, and nine years later as Master of the Free 
 Grammar School at Clitheroe. He seems afterwards 
 to have held for a time a military chaplaincy, then to 
 
408 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 have withdrawn from the Church of England, and 
 taken refuge in some form of Dissent. In 1653 his 
 new religious views found expression in his ' Saints' 
 Guide,' and in 1654, in ' The Judgment Set and the 
 Books Opened,' a series of sermons which he had 
 originally preached at All Hallows' Church in Lom- 
 bard Street. It was in this church the incident 
 occurred which Wood has recorded : ' On the 12th of 
 October, 1653, William Erbury, with John Webster, 
 sometime a Cambridge scholar, endeavoured to knock 
 down learning and the ministry both together in a 
 disputation that they then had against two ministers 
 in a church in Lombard Street, London. Erbury 
 then declared that the wisest ministers and the purest 
 churches were at that time befooled, confounded, and 
 defiled by reason of learning. Another while he 
 said that the ministry were monsters, beasts, asses, 
 greedy dogs, false prophets, and that they are the 
 Beast with seven heads and ten horns. The same 
 person also spoke out and said that Babylon is 
 the Church in her ministers, and that the Great 
 Whore is the Church in her worship, etc., so that 
 with him there was an end of ministers and churches 
 and ordinations altogether. While these things were 
 babbled to and fro, the multitude, being of various 
 opinions, began to mutter, and many to cry out, and 
 immediately it came to a meeting or tumult (call it 
 which you please), wherein the women bore away the 
 bell, but lost some of them their kerchiefs ; and the 
 dispute being hot, there was more danger of pulling 
 down the church than the ministry.' 
 

 CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 409 
 
 In 1654, our iconoclastic enthusiast strongly but 
 not without good reason assailed the educational 
 system then in vogue at Oxford and Cambridge in 
 his treatise, ' Academiarurn Examen/ which created 
 quite a sensation in ' polite circles,' fluttering the 
 dove-cots of the rulers of the two Universities. Very 
 curious, however, are its sympathetic references to 
 the old Hermetic mysteries, Rosicrucianism, and 
 astrology, to the fanciful abstractions and dreamy 
 speculations of Paracelsus, Van Helinont, Fludd, and 
 Dr. Dee. One cannot but wonder that so acute and 
 vigorous an intellect should have allowed itself to be 
 entangled in the delusions of the occult sciences. 
 But his study of the works of the old philosophers 
 was, no doubt, the original motive of the laborious 
 research which resulted in his ' Metallographia ; or, 
 A History of Metals' (1671). In this learned and 
 comprehensive treatise are declared ' the signs of Ores 
 and Minerals, both before and after Digging, the 
 causes and manner of their generations, their kinds, 
 sorts, and differences ; with the description of sundry 
 new Metals, or Semi- Metals, and many other things 
 pertaining to Mineral Knowledge. As also the hand- 
 ling and showing of their Vegetability, and the dis- 
 cussion of the most difficult Questions belonging to 
 Mystical Chymistry, as of the Philosopher's Gold, 
 their Mercury, the Liquor Alkahest, Aurum potabile, 
 and such like. Gathered forth of the most approved 
 Authors that have written in Greek, Latin, or High 
 Dutch, with some Observations and Discoveries of the 
 Author Himself. By John Webster, Practitioner in 
 
410 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 Physick and Chirurgery. " Qui principia naturalia 
 in seipso ignoraverit, hie jam multum remotus est ab 
 arte nostra, quoniam non habet radiam veram super 
 quam in ten tionem suamfundit. ' ' Geber, Sum. Perfect. , 
 lib. L, p. 2i: 
 
 In 1677, Webster, who had abandoned the cure of 
 souls for that of bodies, produced the work which 
 entitles him to honourable mention in these pages. 
 According to the fashion of the day, its title was 
 almost as long as a table of contents. I transcribe 
 it here in extenso : 
 
 6 The Displaying of supposed Witchcraft, Wherein 
 is affirmed that there are many sorts of Deceivers and 
 Impostors. And Divers persons under a passive 
 Delusion of Melancholy and Fancy. But that there 
 is a Corporeal League made betwixt the Devil and the 
 Witch, Or that he sucks on the Witches Body, has 
 Carnal Copulation, or that Witches are turned into 
 Cats or Dogs, raise Tempests or the like, is utterly 
 denied and disproved. Wherein also is handled the 
 Existence of Angels and Spirits, the Truth of Appari- 
 tions, the Nature of Astral and Sidereal Spirits, the 
 Force of Charms and Philters ; with other Abstruse 
 Matters. By John Webster, Practitioner in Physic. 
 " Falsce etenim opiniones Hominum prceoccupantes, non 
 solumsurdos sed utccecosfaciunt, ita ut videre nequeant, 
 quce aliis perspicua apparent." Galen, lib. viii., de 
 Comp. Med. London. Printed by I. M., and are to 
 be sold by the Booksellers in London, 1677.' 
 
 W^ebster, who was evidently a man of restless and 
 inquiring intellect, and independent judgment, died 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 411 
 
 on June 18, 1682, and was buried in St. Margaret's, 
 Clitheroe, where his monument may still be seen. Its 
 singular inscription must have been devised by some 
 astrological sympathizer : 
 
 Qui hanc figuram intelligunt 
 Me etiam intellexisse, intelligent. 
 
 Here follows a mysterious figure of the sun, with 
 several circles and much astrological lettering, which 
 it is unnecessary to reproduce. The inscription con- 
 tinues : 
 
 Hie jacet ignotus mundo mersus que tumultus 
 Invidise, semper mens tamen sequa fecit, 
 Multa tulit veterum ut sciret secreta sophorum 
 Ac tandem vires noverit ignis aquae. 
 
 Johannes Hyphantes sive Webster. 
 
 In villa Spinosa supermontana, in 
 
 Parochia silvse cuculatse, in agro 
 
 Eboracensi, natus 1610, Feb. 3. 
 
 Ergastulum animse deposuit 1682, Junii 18. 
 
 Annoq. setatis suse 72 currente. 
 Sicq. peroravit moriens mundo huic valedicens, 
 Aurea pax vivis, requies seterna sepultis. 
 
 In 1728, Andrew Millar, at the sign of The 
 Buchanan's Head, against St. Clement's Church in 
 the Strand, published ' A System of Magick : or, A 
 History of the Black Art,' by Daniel Defoe ; a book 
 which, though it by no means justifies its title, is 
 one of more than passing interest, partly from the 
 renown of its author, and partly from the light it 
 throws on the popularity of magic among the English 
 middle classes in the earlier years of the eighteenth 
 
412 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 century. As it has not been reprinted for the last 
 fifty years, and is not very generally known, some 
 glimpses of the stuff it is made of may be acceptable to 
 the curious reader.* 
 
 In his preface Defoe lavishes a good deal of con- 
 tempt on contemporary pretenders to the character of 
 magician, who by sham magical practices imposed on a 
 public ignorant, and therefore credulous. Magicians, 
 he says, in the first ages were wise men ; in the middle 
 ages, madmen ; in these latter ages, they are cunning 
 men. In the earliest times they were honest ; in the 
 middle time, rogues ; in these last times, fools. At 
 first they dealt with nature ; then with the devil ; 
 and now, not with the devil or with nature either. 
 In the first ages the magicians were wiser than the 
 people ; in the second age wickeder than the people ; 
 and in this later age the people are both worse and 
 wickeder than the magicians. Like many other 
 generalizations, this one of Defoe's is more pointed 
 than true ; and it is evident that the so-called magi- 
 cians could not have flourished had there not been an 
 ignorant class who readily accepted their pretensions. 
 
 Defoe's account of the origin of magic is so vague 
 as to suggest that he knew very little of the sub- 
 ject he was writing about. ' I have traced it,' he says, 
 ' as far back as antiquity gives us any clue to dis- 
 cover it by : it seems to have its beginning in the 
 ignorance and curiosity of the darkest ages of the 
 world, when miracle and something wonderful was 
 
 * Some authorities doubt the authorship ; but the internal 
 evidence seems to me to justify the claim made for it as Defoe's. 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 413 
 
 expected to confirm every advanced notion ; and 
 when the wise men, having racked their invention to 
 the utmost, called in the devil to their assistance for 
 want of better help ; and those that did not run into 
 Satan's measures, and give themselves up to the 
 infernal, yet trod so near, and upon the very verge 
 of Hell, that it was hard to distinguish between the 
 magician and the devil, and thus they have gone 
 on ever since : so that almost all the dispute between 
 us and the magicians is that they say they converse 
 with good spirits, and we say if they deal with any 
 spirits, it is with the devil.' 
 
 Here the greatness of his theme stimulates Defoe 
 into poetry, which differs very little, however, from 
 his prose, so that a brief specimen will content 
 everybody : 
 
 * Hail ! dangerous science, falsely called sublime, 
 Which treads upon the very brink of crime. 
 Hell's mimic, Satan's mountebank of state, 
 Deals with more devils than Heaven did e'er create. 
 The infernal juggling-box, by Heaven designed, 
 To put the grand parade upon mankind. 
 The devil's first game which he in Eden played, 
 When he harangued to Eve in masquerade.' 
 
 Dividing his treatise into two parts, our author, in 
 the introduction to Part L, discusses the meaning of 
 the principal terms in magical lore ; who, and what 
 kind of people, the magicians were ; and the mean- 
 ing originally given to the words ' magic ' and 
 'magician.' As a matter of course, he strays back 
 to the old Chaldean days, when a magician, he says, 
 was simply a mathematician, a man of science, who, 
 
414 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 stored with knowledge and learning, was a kind of 
 walking dictionary to other people, instructing the 
 rest of mankind on subjects of which they were 
 ignorant ; a wise man, in fact, who interpreted omens, 
 ill signs, tokens, and dreams ; understood the signs 
 of the times, the face of the heavens, and the 
 influences of the superior luminaries there. When 
 all this wisdom became more common, and the magi 
 had communicated much of their knowledge to the 
 people at large, their successors, still aspiring to a 
 position above, and apart from, the rest of the world, 
 were compelled to push their studies farther, to 
 inquire into nature, to view the aspect of the heavens, 
 to calculate the motions of the stars, and more par- 
 ticularly to dwell upon their influences in human 
 affairs thus creating the science of astrology. But 
 these men neither had, nor pretended to have, any 
 compact or correspondence with the devil or with 
 any of his works. They were men of thought, or, if 
 you please, men of deeper thinking than the ordinary 
 sort ; they studied the sciences, inquired into the 
 works of nature and providence, studied the meaning 
 and end of things, the causes and events, and con- 
 sequently were able to see further into the ordinary 
 course and causes both of things about them, and 
 things above them, than other men. 
 
 Such were the world's gray forefathers, the 
 magicians of the elder time, in whom was found 
 * an excellent spirit of wisdom.' There were others 
 not less learned whose studies took a different direc- 
 tion ; who inquired into the structure and organiza- 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 415 
 
 tion of the human body ; who investigated the origin, 
 the progress, and the causes of diseases and dis- 
 tempers, both in men and women ; who sought out 
 the physical or medicinal virtues of drugs and plants ; 
 and as by these means they made daily discoveries in 
 nature, of which the world, until then, was ignorant, 
 and by which chey performed astonishing cures, they 
 naturally gained the esteem and reverence of the 
 people. 
 
 Sir Walter Ealeigh contends that only the word 
 ' magic,' and not the magical art, is derived from 
 Simon Magus. He adds that Simon's name was not 
 Magus, a magician, but Gors, a person familiar with 
 evil spirits ; and that he usurped the title of Simon 
 the Magician simply because it was then a good and 
 honourable title. Defoe avails himself of Raleigh's 
 authority to sustain his own opinion, that there is 
 a manifest difference between magic, which is wisdom 
 and supernatural knowledge, and the witchcraft and 
 conjuring which we now understand by the word. 
 
 In his second chapter Defoe classifies the magic of 
 the ancients under three heads : i. Natural, which 
 included the knowledge of the stars, of the motions 
 of the planetary bodies, and their revolutions and 
 influences ; that is to say, the study of nature, of 
 philosophy, and astronomy ; ii. Artificial or Rational, 
 in which was included the knowledge of all judicial 
 astrology, the casting or calculating nativities, and the 
 cure of diseases ( 1 ) by particular charms and figures 
 placed in this or that position ; (2) by herbs gathered 
 at this or that particular crisis of time ; (3) by saying 
 
416 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 such and such words over the patient ; (4) b}' such 
 and such gestures ; (5) by striking the flesh in such 
 and such a manner, and innumerable such-like pieces 
 of mimicry, working not upon the disease itself, but 
 upon the imagination of the patient, and so affecting 
 the cure by the power of nature, though that nature 
 were set in operation by the weakest and simplest 
 methods imaginable ; and, iii. Diabolical, which was 
 wrought by and with the concurrence of the devil, 
 carried on by a correspondence with evil spirits 
 with their help, presence, and personal assistance and 
 practised chiefly by their priests. Defoe argues that 
 the ancients at first were acquainted only with the 
 purer form of magic, and that, therefore, sorcery and 
 witchcraft were of much later development. The 
 cause and motive of this development he traces in his 
 third chapter (' Of the Reason and Occasion which 
 brought the ancient honest Magi, whose original 
 study was philosophy, astronomy, and the works of 
 nature, to turn sorcerers and wizards, and deal 
 with the Devil, and how their Conversation began 5 ). 
 Egyptologists will find Defoe's comments upon 
 Egyptian magic refreshingly simple and unhistorical, 
 and his identifications of the Pyramids with magical 
 practices is wildly vague and hypothetical. Of the 
 magic which was really taught and practised among 
 the ancient people of Egypt, Defoe, of course, knows 
 nothing. He tells us, however, that the Jews learned 
 it from them. He goes on to speculate as to the time 
 when that close intercourse began between the devil 
 and his servants on earth which is the foundation of 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 417 
 
 the later or diabolical magic, and concludes that his 
 first visible appearance on this mundane stage was 
 as the enemy of Job. Thence he is led to inquire, 
 in his fourth chapter, what shapes the devil assumed 
 on his first appearances to the magicians and others, 
 in the dawn of the world's history, and whether he is 
 or has been allowed to assume a human shape or no. 
 And he suggests that his earliest acquaintance with 
 mankind was made through dreams, and that by this 
 method he contrived to infuse into men's minds an 
 infinite variety of corrupt imaginations, wicked desires, 
 and abhorrent conclusions and resolutions, with some 
 ridiculous, foolish, and absurd things at the same 
 time. 
 
 Defoe then proceeds to tell an Oriental story, which, 
 doubtlessly, is his own invention : 
 
 Ali Albrahazen, a Persian wizard, had. it is said, 
 this kind of intercourse with the devil. He was a 
 Sabean by birth, and had obtained a wonderful reputa- 
 tion for his witchcraft, so that he was sent for by the 
 King of Persia upon extraordinary occasions, such as 
 the interpretation of a dream, or of an apparition, like 
 that of Belshazzar's handwriting, or of some meteor 
 or eclipse, and he never failed to give the King satis- 
 faction. For whether his utterances were true or 
 false, he couched them always in such ambiguous 
 terms that something of what he predicted might 
 certainly be deduced from his words, and so seem to 
 import that he had effectually revealed it, whether he 
 had really done so or not. 
 
 This Ali, wandering alone in the desert, and 
 
 27 
 
418 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 musing much upon the appearance of a fiery meteor, 
 which, to the great terror of the country, had flamed 
 in the heavens every night for nearly a month, sought 
 to apprehend its significance, and what it should por- 
 tend to the world ; but, failing to do so, he sat down, 
 weary and disheartened, in the shade of a spreading 
 palm. Breathing to himself a strong desire that 
 some spirit from the other world would generously 
 assist him to arrive at the true meaning of a phenome- 
 non so remarkable, he fell asleep. And, lo ! in his 
 sleep he dreamed a dream, and the dream was this : 
 that a tall man came to him, a tall man of sage and 
 venerable aspect, with a pleasing smile upon his 
 countenance ; and, addressing him by his name, told 
 him that he was prepared to answer his questions, and 
 to explain to him the signification of the great and 
 terrible fire in the air which was terrifying all Arabia 
 and Persia. 
 
 His explanation proved to be of an astronomical 
 character. These fiery appearances, he said, were 
 collections of vapour exhaled by the influence of the 
 sun from earth or sea. As to their importance to 
 human affairs, it was simply this : that sometimes by 
 their propinquity to the earth, and their power of 
 attraction, or by their dissipation of aqueous vapours, 
 they occasioned great droughts and insupportable 
 heats ; while, at other times, they distilled heavy and 
 unusual rains, by condensing, in an extraordinary 
 manner, the vapours they had absorbed. And he 
 added : ' Go thou and warn thy nation that this fiery 
 meteor portends an excessive drought and famine ; for 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 419 
 
 know that by the strong exhalation of the vapours of 
 the earth, occasioned by the meteor's unusual nearness 
 to it, the necessary rains will be withheld, and to a 
 long drought, as a matter of course, famine and 
 scarcity of corn succeed. Thus, by judging accord- 
 ing to the rules of natural causes, thou shalt predict 
 what shall certainly come to pass, and shalt obtain 
 the reputation thou so ardently desirest of being a 
 wise man and a great magician.' 
 
 4 This prediction,' said Ali, ' was all very well as 
 regarded Arabia ; but would it apply also to Persia ?' 
 4 No,' replied the devil ; for Ali's interlocutor was no 
 less distinguished a personage fiery meteors from 
 the same causes sometimes produced contrary events ; 
 and he might repair to the Persian Court, and pre- 
 dict the advent of excessive rains and floods, which 
 would greatly injure the fruits of the earth, and occa- 
 sion want and scarcity. ' Thus, if either of these 
 succeed, as it is most probable, thou shalt assuredly 
 be received as a sage magician in one country, if not 
 in the other ; also, to both of them thou mayest 
 suggest, as a probability only, that the consequence 
 may be a plague or infection among the people, 
 which is ordinarily the effect as well of excessive 
 wet as of excessive heat. If this happens, thou shalt 
 gain the reputation thou desirest ; and if not, seeing 
 thou didst not positively foretell it, thou shalt not 
 incur the ignominy of a false prediction.' 
 
 Ali was very grateful for the devil's assistance, and 
 failed not to ask how, at need, he might again secure 
 it. He was told to come again to the palm-tree, and 
 
 272 
 
420 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 to go around it fifteen times, calling him thrice by 
 his name each time : at the end of the fifteenth cir- 
 cumambulation he would find himself overtaken by 
 drowsiness ; whereupon he should lie down with his 
 face to the south, and he would receive a visit from 
 him in vision. The devil further told him the magic 
 name by which he was to summon him. 
 
 The magician's predictions were duly made and 
 duly fulfilled. Thenceforward he maintained a con- 
 stant communication with the devil, who, strange to 
 say, seems not to have exacted anything from him in 
 return for his valuable, but hazardous, assistance. 
 
 Defoe's fifth chapter contains a further account of 
 the devil's conduct in imitating divine inspirations ; 
 describes the difference between the genuine and the 
 false ; and dwells upon signs and wonders, fictitious 
 as well as real. In chapter the sixth our author 
 treats of the first practices of magic and witchcraft 
 as a diabolical art, and explains how it was handed 
 on to the Egyptians and Phoenicians, by whom it was 
 openly encouraged. He offers some amusing remarks 
 on the methods adopted by magicians for summoning 
 the devil, who seems to be at once their servant and 
 master. In parts of India they go up, he says, to the 
 summit of some particular mountain, where they call 
 him with a little kettledrum, just as the good old 
 wives in England hive their bees, except that they 
 beat it on the wrong side. Then they pronounce 
 certain words which they call ' charms,' and the devil 
 appears without fail. 
 
 It is not easy to discover in history what words 
 
CHAP. V.J THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 421 
 
 were used for charms in Egypt and Arabia for so 
 many ages. It is certain they differed in different 
 countries ; and it is certain they differed as the 
 magicians acted together or individually. Nor are 
 we less at a loss to understand what the devil could 
 mean by suffering such words, or any words at all, to 
 charm, summon, alarm, or arouse him. The Greeks 
 have left us, he says, a word which was used by the 
 magicians of antiquity pretty frequently that famous 
 trine or triangular word, Abracadabra : 
 
 ABRACADABRA 
 
 ABRACADABR 
 
 ABRACADAB 
 
 ABRACADA 
 
 A B R A C A D 
 
 A B R A C A 
 
 A B R A C 
 
 A B R A 
 
 A B R 
 
 A B 
 
 A 
 
 ' There is abundance of learned puzzle among the 
 ancients to find out the signification of this word : 
 the subtle position of the letters gave a kind of 
 reverence to them, because they read it as it were 
 every way, upwards and downwards, backwards and 
 forwards, and many will have it still that the devil 
 put them together : nay, they begin at last to think it 
 was old Legion's surname, and whenever he was 
 called by that name, he used to come very readily ; 
 for which reason the old women in their chimney- 
 corners would be horribly afraid of saying it often 
 over together, for if they should say it a certain 
 
422 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 number of times, they had a notion it would certainly 
 raise the devil. 
 
 ' They say, on the contrary, that it was invented 
 by one Basilides, a learned Greek ; that it contained 
 the great and awful name of the Divinity ; and that 
 it was used for many years for the opposing the 
 spells and charms of the Pagans ; that is, the 
 diabolical spells and charms of the pagan magi- 
 cians.' 
 
 In the seventh chapter we read of the practice and 
 progress of magic, as it is now explained to be a 
 diabolical art ; how it spread itself in the world, and 
 by what degrees it grew up to the height which it 
 has since attained. 
 
 The introduction to the second part of Defoe's 
 work is devoted to an exposition of the Black Art 
 * as it really is/ and sets forth c why there are several 
 differing practices of it in the several parts of the 
 world, and what those practices are ; as, also, what is 
 contained in it in general.' He defines it as 'a new 
 general term for all the branches of that correspon- 
 dence which mankind has maintained, or does, or 
 can carry on, between himself and the devil, between 
 this and the infernal world.' And he enumerates 
 these branches as : Divining, or Soothsaying ; Ob- 
 serving of Times; Using Enchantment; Witchcraft; 
 Charming, or Setting of Spells ; Dealing with Familiar 
 Spirits ; Wizardising, or Sorcery ; and Necromancy. 
 
 The first chapter treats of Modern Magic, or the 
 Black Art in its present practice and perfection. 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 423 
 
 In the second chapter the scene is changed : as the 
 devil acted at first with his Black Art without the 
 magicians, so the magicians seem now to carry it on 
 without the devil. This is written in Defoe's best 
 style of sober irony. ' The magicians/ he says, 
 ' were formerly the devil's servants, but now they 
 are his masters, and that to such a degree, that it is 
 but drawing a circle, casting a few figures, muttering 
 a little Arabic, and up comes the devil, as readily as 
 the drawer at a tavern, with a D'ye call, sir ? or like 
 a Scotch caude [caddie?], with What's your honour's 
 wullj sir? Nay, as the learned in the art say, he 
 must come, he can't help it : then as to tempting, he 
 is quite out of doors. And I think, as the Old 
 Parliament did by the bishops, we may e'en vote him 
 useless. In a word, there is no manner of occasion 
 for him : mankind are as froward as he can wish and 
 desire of them ; nay, some cunning men tell us we 
 sin faster than the devil can keep pace with us : as 
 witness the late witty and moderately wicked Lady 
 . . . ., who blest her stars that the devil never 
 tempted her to anything ; he understood himself 
 better, for she knew well enough how to sin without 
 him, and that it would be losing his time to talk to 
 her.' 
 
 Defoe furnishes an entertaining account of his 
 conversation with a countryman, who had been to a 
 magician at Oundle. Whether true or fictitious, the 
 narrative shows that many of the favourite tricks 
 performed at spiritualistic seances in our own time 
 were well known in Defoe's : 
 
424 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 COUNTRYMAN. I saw my old gentleman in a great chair, and 
 two more in chairs at some distance, and three great candles, and 
 a great sheet of white paper upon the floor between them ; every 
 one of them had a long white wand in their hands, the lower end 
 of which touched the sheet of paper. 
 
 DEFOE. And were the candles upon the ground too ? 
 
 C. Yes, all of them. 
 
 D. There was a great deal of ceremony about you, I assure 
 you. 
 
 C. I think so, too, but it is not done yet : immediately I heard 
 the little door stir, as if it was opening, and away I skipped as 
 softly as I could tread, and got into my chair again, and sat there 
 as gravely as if I had never stirred out of it. I was no sooner 
 set, but the door opened indeed, and the old gentleman came out 
 as before, and turning to me, said, ' Sit still, don't ye stir ;' and at 
 that word the other two that were with him in the room walked 
 out after him, one after another, across the room, as if to go out 
 at the other door where I came in ; but at the further end of the 
 room they stopped, and turned their faces to one another, and 
 talked ; but it was some devil's language of their own, for I could 
 understand nothing of it. 
 
 D. And now I suppose you were frighted in earnest 1 
 
 C. Ay, so I was ; but it was worse yet, for they had not stood 
 long together, but the great elbow-chair, which the old gentleman 
 sat in at the little table just by me, began to stir of itself; at which 
 the old gentleman, knowing I should be afraid, came to me, and 
 said, ' Sit still, don't you stir, all will be well ; you shall have no 
 harm ;' at which he gave his chair a kick with his foot, and saith, 
 ' Go !' with some other words, and other language ; and away went 
 the obedient chair , sliding, two of its legs on the ground, and the other 
 two off, as if somebody had dragged it by that part. 
 
 D. And so, no doubt, they did, though you could not see it. 
 
 C. And as soon as the chair was dragged or moved to the end 
 of the room, where the three, I know not what to call 'em, were, 
 two other chairs did the like from the other side of the room, and 
 so they all sat down, and talked together a good while ; at last 
 the door at that end of the room opened too, and they all were 
 gone in a moment, without rising out of their chairs ; for I am 
 sure they did not rise to go out, as other folks do. 
 
 D. What did you think of yourself when you saw the chair stir 
 so near you ? 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 425 
 
 C. Think ! nay, I did not think ; I was dead, to be sure I was 
 dead, with the fright, and expected I should be carried away, 
 chair and all, the next moment. Then it was, I say, that my hair 
 would have lifted off my hat, -if it had been on, I am sure it 
 would. 
 
 D. Well, but when they were all gone, you came to yourself 
 again, I suppose 1 
 
 C. To tell you the truth, master, I am not come to myself yet. 
 
 D. But go on, let me know how it ended. 
 
 C. Why, after a little while, my old man came in again, called 
 his man to set the chairs to rights, and then sat him down at the 
 table, spoke cheerfully to me, and asked me if I would drink, 
 which I refused, though I was a-dry indeed. I believe the fright 
 had made me dry ; but as I never had been used to drink with 
 the devil, I didn't know what to think of it, so I let it alone. 
 
 In his third chapter (' Of the present pretences of 
 the Magicians ; how they defend themselves ; and 
 some examples of their practice ') Defoe has a lively 
 account of a contemporary magician, a Dr. Bowman, 
 of Kent, who seems to have been a firm believer in 
 what is now called Spiritualism. He was a green old 
 man, who went about in a long black velvet gown 
 and a cap, with a long beard, and his upper lip 
 trimmed ' with a kind of muschato.' He strongly 
 repudiated any kind of correspondence or intercourse 
 with the devil ; but hinted that he derived much 
 assistance from the good spirits which people the 
 invisible world. After dwelling on the follies of the 
 learned, and the superstitions of the ignorant, this 
 lordly conjurer said : 'You see how that we, men of 
 art, who have studied the sacred sciences, suffer by 
 the errors of common fame ; they take us all for 
 devil-mongers, damned rogues, and conjurers/ 
 
 The fourth chapter discusses the doctrine of 
 
426 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 spirits as it is understood by the magicians ; how far 
 it may be supposed there may be an intercourse with 
 superior beings, apart from any familiarity with the 
 devil or the spirits of evil ; with a transition to the 
 present times. 
 
 And so much for the Art of Magic ' as expounded 
 by Daniel Defoe. 
 
 In 1718 appeared Bishop Hutchinson's 'Historical 
 Essay concerning Witchcraft/ a book written in a 
 most liberal and tolerant spirit, and. at the same time, 
 with so much comprehensiveness and exactitude, that 
 later writers have availed themselves freely of its 
 stores. 
 
 Reference may also be made to 
 
 John Beaumont, ' Treatise of Spirits, Apparitions, 
 Witchcrafts, and other Magical Practices/ 1705. 
 
 James Braid (of Manchester), ' Magic, Witchcraft, 
 Animal Magnetism, Hypnotism, and Electro- Biology' 
 (1852), in which there is very little about witch- 
 craft, but a good deal about the influence of the 
 imagination. 
 
 J. C. Colquhoun, History of Magic, Witchcraft, 
 and Animal Magnetism/ 1851. 
 
 Rev. Joseph G-lanvill, ' Sadducismus Triumphatus ; 
 or, A full and plain Evidence concerning Witches and 
 Apparitions/ 1670. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott, ' Letters on Demonology and 
 Witchcraft/ 1831. 
 
 Howard Williams, ' The Superstitions of Witch- 
 craft/ 1865. 
 
CHAP. V.] THE LITERATURE OF WITCHCRAFT. 427 
 
 It may be a convenience to the reader if I indicate 
 some of the principal foreign authorities on this 
 subject. Such as Institor and Sprenger's great 
 work, 'Malleus Maleficarum ' (Nuremberg, 1494); 
 The monk Heisterbach's (Caesarius) c Dialogus Mi- 
 raculorum ' (ed. by Strange), 1851 ; Cannaert's 
 i Proces des Sorcieres en Belgique/ 1848 ; Dr. W. G. 
 Soldan's * Geschichte der Hexenprocesse ' (1843) ; 
 G. C. Horst's l Zauber-Bibliothek, oder die Zauberei, 
 Theurgie und Mantik, Zauberei, Hexen und Hexen 
 processen, Damonen, Gespenster und Geisterer- 
 scheinungen/ in 6 vols., 1821 a most learned and 
 exhaustive work, brimful of recondite lore; Collin de 
 Plancy's i Dictionnaire Infernal ; ou Repertoire Uni- 
 versel des Etres, des Livres, et des Choses qui tiennent 
 aux Apparitions, aux Divinations, a la Magie,' etc., 
 1844 ; Michelet's ' La Sorciere ' is, of course, bril- 
 liantly written ; R. Reuss's ' La Sorcellerie au xvi e . 
 et xvii e . Siecle/ 1872 ; Tartarotti's ' Del Congresso 
 Notturno delle Lamie/ 1749; F. Perreaud's 'De- 
 monologie, ou Traite des Demons et Sorciers,' 
 1655; H. Boguet's 'Discours des Sorciers/ 1610 
 (very rare) ; and Cotton Mather's ' Wonders of the 
 Invisible World/ 1695 a monument of credulity, 
 prejudice, and bigotry. 
 
 BOOKS ON MAGIC. 
 
 It may also be convenient to the reader if I enumerate 
 a few of the principal authorities on the history of 
 Magic, Sorcery, and Alchemy. A very exhaustive 
 list will be found in the * Bibliotheca Majrica et Pneu- 
 
428 WITCH, WARLOCK, AND MAGICIAN. [BOOK II. 
 
 matica/ by Graessel, 1843 ; and an ' Alphabetical 
 Catalogue of Works on Hermetic Philosophy and 
 Alchemy is appended to the ; Lives of Alchemystical 
 Philosophers/ by Arthur Edward Waite, 1888. For 
 ordinary purposes the following will be found suffi- 
 cient : Langlet du Fresnoy, ' Histoire de la Philo- 
 sophic Hermetique/ 1742 ; Gabriel Naude, ' Apologie 
 pour les Grands Hommes faussement soupqonnes de 
 Magie/ 1625 ; Martin Antoine Delrio, ' Disquisi- 
 tionum Magicarum, libri sex/ 1599 ; L. F. Alfred 
 Maury, ' La Magie et 1'Astrologie dans TAntiquite et 
 au Moyen Age/ etc.. 1860 ; Eus. Salverte, ' Sciences 
 Occultes/ ed. by Littre, 1856 (see the English trans- 
 lation, ' Philosophy of Magic/ with Notes by Dr. A. 
 Todd Thomson, 1846); Abbe de Villars, 'Entretiens 
 du Comte de Gabalis ' (' Voyages Imaginaires/ tome 34), 
 Englished as * The Count de Gabalis : being a divert- 
 ing History of the Rosicrucian Doctrine of Spirits/ 
 etc., 1714; Elias Ashmole, ' Theatrum Chemicum 
 Britannicum ;' Roger Bacon, ' Mirror of Alchemy/ 
 1597 ; Louis Figuier, ' Histoire de 1'Alchimie et les 
 Alchimistes/ 1865; Arthur Edward Waite, 'The 
 Real History of the Rosicrucians/ 1887 ; Hargrave 
 Jennings, ' The Rosicrucians/ new edit. ; William 
 Godwin, * Lives of the Necromancers/ 1834 ; Dr. T. 
 Thomson, 'History of Chemistry/ 1831; 'Encyclo- 
 paedia Britannica/ in locis ; Dr. Kopp, ' Geschichte 
 der Chemie ;' G. Rodwell, < Birth of Chemistry/ 1874 ; 
 Haerfor, 'Histoire de la Chimie/ etc., etc. 
 
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