Books: Lives of the Necromancers

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It is not the least curious circumstance respecting the life of Dee,
that in 1659, half a century after his death, there remained still
such an interest respecting practices of this sort, as to authorise
the printing a folio volume, in a complex and elaborate form, of his
communications with spirits. The book was brought out by Dr. Meric
Casaubon, no contemptible name in the republic of letters. The editor
observes respecting the hero and his achievements in the Preface,
that, "though his 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."
He goes on to say, that "the fame of it made the pope bestir himself,
and filled all, both learned and unlearned, with great wonder and
astonishment." He adds, that, "as a whole it is undoubtedly not to
be paralleled in its kind in any age or country." In a word the
editor, though disavowing an entire belief in Dee's pretensions, yet
plainly considers them with some degree of deference, and insinuates
to how much more regard such undue and exaggerated pretensions are
entitled, than the impious incredulity of certain modern Sadducees,
who say that "there is no resurrection; neither angel, nor spirit."
The belief in witchcraft and sorcery has undoutedly met with some
degree of favour from this consideration, inasmuch as, by recognising
the correspondence of human beings with the invisible world, it has
one principle in common with the believers in revelation, of which
the more daring infidel is destitute.

EARL OF DERBY.

The circumstances of the death of Ferdinand, fifth earl of Derby,
in 1594, have particularly engaged the attention of the contemporary
historians. Hesket, an emissary of the Jesuits and English Catholics
abroad, was importunate with this nobleman to press his title to the
crown, as the legal representative of his great-grandmother Mary,
youngest daughter to king Henry the Seventh. But the earl, fearing,
as it is said, that this was only a trap to ensnare him, gave
information against Hesket to the government, in consequence of which
he was apprehended, tried and executed. Hesket had threatened the
earl that, if he did not comply with his suggestion, he should live
only a short time. Accordingly, four months afterwards, the earl was
seized with a very uncommon disease. A waxen image was at the same
time found in his chamber with hairs in its belly exactly of the same
colour as those of the earl. [211] The image was, by some zealous
friend of lord Derby, burned; but the earl grew worse. He was himself
thoroughly persuaded that he was bewitched. Stow has inserted in his
Annals a minute account of his disease from day to day, with a
description of all the symptoms.

KING JAMES'S VOYAGE TO NORWAY.

While Elizabeth amused herself with the supernatural gifts to which
Dee advanced his claim, and consoled the adversity and destitution
to which the old man, once so extensively honoured, was now reduced,
a scene of a very different complexion was played in the northern
part of the island. Trials for sorcery were numerous in the reign
of Mary queen of Scots; the comparative darkness and ignorance of
the sister kingdom rendered it a soil still more favourable than
England to the growth of these gloomy superstitions. But the mind
of James, at once inquisitive, pedantic and self-sufficient,
peculiarly fitted him for the pursuit of these narrow-minded and
obscure speculations. One combination of circumstances wrought up
this propensity within him to the greatest height.

James was born in the year 1566. He was the only direct heir to the
crown of Scotland; and he was in near prospect of succession to that
of England. The zeal of the Protestant Reformation had wrought up
the anxiety of men's minds to a fever of anticipation and forecast.
Consequently, towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth, a point which
greatly arrested the general attention was the expected marriage of
the king of Scotland. Elizabeth, with that petty jealousy which
obscured the otherwise noble qualities of her spirit, sought to
countermine this marriage, that her rival and expected successor might
not be additionally graced with the honours of offspring. James fixed
his mind upon a daughter of the king of Denmark. By the successful
cabals of Elizabeth he was baffled in this suit; and the lady was
finally married to the duke of Bavaria. The king of Denmark had
another daughter; and James made proposals to this princess. Still
he was counteracted; till at length he sent a splendid embassy, with
ample powers and instructions, and the treaty was concluded. The
princess embarked; but, when she had now for some time been expected
in Scotland, news was brought instead, that she had been driven back
by tempests on the coast of Norway. The young king felt keenly his
disappointment, and gallantly resolved to sail in person for the port,
where his intended consort was detained by the shattered condition
of her fleet. James arrived on the twenty-second of October 1589,
and having consummated his marriage, was induced by the invitation
of his father-in-law to pass the winter at Copenhagen, from whence
he did not sail till the spring, and, after having encountered a
variety of contrary winds and some danger, reached Edinburgh on the
first of May in the following year.

It was to be expected that variable weather and storms should
characterise the winter-season in these seas. But the storms were
of longer continuance and of more frequent succession, than was
usually known. And at this period, when the proposed consort of James
first, then the king himself, and finally both of them, and the hope
of Protestant succession, were committed to the mercy of the waves,
it is not wonderful that the process of the seasons should be
accurately marked, and that those varieties, which are commonly
ascribed to second causes, should have been imputed to extraordinary
and supernatural interference. It was affirmed that, in the king's
return from Denmark, his ship was impelled by a different wind from
that which acted on the rest of his fleet.

It happened that, soon after James's return to Scotland, one Geillis
Duncan, a servant-maid, for the extraordinary circumstances that
attended certain cures which she performed, became suspected of
witchcraft. Her master questioned her on the subject; but she would
own nothing. Perceiving her obstinacy, the master took upon himself
of his own authority, to extort confession from her by torture. In
this he succeeded; and, having related divers particulars of
witchcraft of herself, she proceeded to accuse others. The persons
she accused were cast into the public prison.

One of these, Agnes Sampson by name, at first stoutly resisted the
torture. But, it being more strenuously applied, she by and by became
extremely communicative. It was at this period that James personally
engaged in the examinations. We are told that he "took great delight
in being present," and putting the proper questions. The unhappy
victim was introduced into a room plentifully furnished with
implements of torture, while the king waited in an apartment at a
convenient distance, till the patient was found to be in a suitable
frame of mind to make the desired communications. No sooner did he
or she signify that they were ready, and should no longer refuse to
answer, than they were introduced, fainting, sinking under recent
sufferings which they had no longer strength to resist, into the royal
presence. And here sat James, in envied ease and conscious "delight,"
wrapped up in the thought of his own sagacity, framing the enquiries
that might best extort the desired evidence, and calculating with
a judgment by no means to be despised, from the bearing, the turn
of features, and the complexion of the victim, the probability whether
he was making a frank and artless confession, or had still the secret
desire to impose on the royal examiner, or from a different motive
was disposed to make use of the treacherous authority which the
situation afforded, to gratify his revenge upon some person towards
whom he might be inspired with latent hatred and malice.

Agnes Sampson related with what solicitude she had sought to possess
some fragment of the linen belonging to the king. If he had worn it,
and it had contracted any soil from his royal person, this would be
enough: she would infallibly, by applying her incantations to this
fragment, have been able to undermine the life of the sovereign. She
told how she with two hundred other witches had sailed in sieves from
Leith to North Berwick church, how they had there encountered the
devil in person, how they had feasted with him, and what obscenities
had been practised. She related that in this voyage they had drowned
a cat, having first baptised him, and that immediately a dreadful
storm had arisen, and in this very storm the king's ship had been
separated from the rest of his fleet. She took James aside, and, the
better to convince him, undertook to repeat to him the conversation,
the dialogue which had passed from the one to the other, between the
king and queen in their bedchamber on the wedding-night. Agnes Sampson
was condemned to the flames.

JOHN FIAN.

Another of the miserable victims on this occasion was John Fian, a
schoolmaster at Tranent near Edinburgh, a young man, whom the ignorant
populace had decorated with the style of doctor. He was tortured by
means of a rope strongly twisted about his head, and by the boots.
He was at length brought to confession. He told of a young girl, the
sister of one of his scholars, with whom he had been deeply enamoured.
He had proposed to the boy to bring him three hairs from the most
secret part of his sister's body, possessing which he should be
enabled by certain incantations to procure himself the love of the
girl. The boy at his mother's instigation brought to Fian three hairs
from a virgin heifer instead; and, applying his conjuration to them,
the consequence had been that the heifer forced her way into his
school, leaped upon him in amorous fashion, and would not be
restrained from following him about the neighbourhood.

This same Fian acted an important part in the scene at North Berwick
church. As being best fitted for the office, he was appointed recorder
or clerk to the devil, to write down the names, and administer the
oaths to the witches. He was actively concerned in the enchantment,
by means of which the king's ship had nearly been lost on his return
from Denmark. This part of his proceeding however does not appear
in his own confession, but in that of the witches who were his
fellow-conspirators.

He further said, that, the night after he made his confession, the
devil appeared to him, and was in a furious rage against him for his
disloyalty to his service, telling him that he should severely repent
his infidelity. According to his own account, he stood firm, and
defied the devil to do his worst. Meanwhile the next night he escaped
out of prison, and was with some difficulty retaken. He however
finally denied all his former confessions, said that they were
falshoods forced from him by mere dint of torture, and, though he
was now once more subjected to the same treatment to such an excess
as must necessarily have crippled him of his limbs for ever, he proved
inflexible to the last. At length by the king's order he was
strangled, and his body cast into the flames. Multitudes of unhappy
men and women perished in this cruel persecution. [212]

KING JAMES'S DEMONOLOGY.

It was by a train of observations and experience like this, that James
was prompted seven years after to compose and publish his Dialogues
on Demonology in Three Books. In the Preface to this book he says,
"The fearfull abounding at this time in this countrey, of these
detestable slaves of the Diuel, the Witches or enchaunters, hath moved
me (beloued Reader) to dispatch in post this following Treatise of
mine, not in any wise (as I protest) to serue for a shew of my
learning and ingine, but onely (moued of conscience) to preasse
thereby, so farre as I can, to resolue the doubting hearts of many,
both that such assaults of Satan are most certainely practised, and
that the instruments thereof merits most seuerely to be punished."

In the course of the treatise he affirms, "that barnes, or wiues,
or neuer so diffamed persons, may serue for sufficient witnesses and
proofes in such trialls; for who but Witches can be prooves, and so
witnesses of the doings of Witches?" [213] But, lest innocent persons
should be accused, and suffer falsely, he tells us, "There are two
other good helps that may be used for their trial: the one is, the
finding of their marke [a mark that the devil was supposed to impress
upon some part of their persons], and the trying the insensibleness
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 bloud, as if the bloud were crying
to the heauen for revenge of the murtherer, God hauing appointed that
secret supernaturall signe, for triall of that secret unnaturall
crime, so it appears that God hath appointed (for a supernaturall
signe of the monstrous impietie of Witches) that the water shall
refuse to receive them in her bosome, that haue shaken off them the
sacred water of Baptisme, and wilfully refused the benefite thereof:
No, not so much as their eyes are able to shed teares (threaten and
torture them as ye please) while first they repent (God not permitting
them to dissemble their obstinacie in so horrible a crime.)" [214]

STATUTE, 1 JAMES I.

In consequence of the strong conviction James entertained on the
subject, the English parliament was induced, in the first year of
his reign, to supersede the milder proceedings of Elizabeth, and to
enact that "if any person shall use, practice, or exercise any
invocation or conjuration of any evil and wicked spirit, or shall
consult, covenant with, entertain, employ, feed or reward any evil
and wicked spirit, to or for any intent and purpose; or take up any
dead man, woman, or child out of their grave, or the skin, bone, or
any part of any dead person, to be used in any manner of witchcraft,
sorcery or enchantment, or shall use any witchcraft, sorcery or
enchantment, whereby any person shall be killed, destroyed, wasted,
consumed, pined or lamed in his or her body, or any part thereof;
that then every such offender, their aiders, abettors and counsellors
shall suffer the pains of death." And upon this statute great numbers
were condemned and executed.

FORMAN AND OTHERS.

There is a story of necromancy which unfortunately makes too prominent
a figure in the history of the court and character of king James the
First. Robert earl of Essex, son of queen Elizabeth's favourite, and
who afterwards became commander in chief of the parliamentary forces
in the civil wars, married lady Frances Howard, a younger daughter
of the earl of Suffolk, the bride and bridegroom being the one
thirteen, the other fourteen years old at the time of the marriage.
The relatives of the countess however, who had brought about the
match, thought it most decorous to separate them for some time, and,
while she remained at home with her friends, the bridegroom travelled
for three or four years on the continent. The lady proved the greatest
beauty of her time, but along with this had the most libertine and
unprincipled dispositions.

The very circumstance that she had vowed her faith at the altar when
she was not properly capable of choice, inspired into the wayward
mind of the countess a repugnance to her husband. He came from the
continent, replete with accomplishments; and we may conclude, from
the figure he afterwards made in the most perilous times, not without
a competent share of intellectual abilities. But the countess shrank
from all advances on his part. He loved retirement, and woed the lady
to scenes most favourable to the development of the affections: she
had been bred in court, and was melancholy and repined in any other
scene. So capricious was her temper, that she is said at the same
time to have repelled the overtures of the accomplished and popular
prince Henry, the heir to the throne.

It happened about this period that a beautiful young man, twenty years
of age, and full of all martial graces, appeared on the stage. King
James was singularly partial to young men who were distinguished for
personal attractions. By an extraordinary accident this person, Robert
Carr by name, in the midst of a court-spectacle, just when it was
his cue to present a buckler with a device to the king, was thrown
from his horse, and broke his leg. This was enough: James naturally
became interested in the misfortune, attached himself to Carr, and
even favoured him again and again with a royal visit during his cure.
Presently the young man became an exclusive favourite; and no honours
and graces could be obtained of the sovereign but by his interference.

This circumstance fixed the wavering mind of the countess of Essex.
Voluptuous and self-willed in her disposition, she would hear of no
one but Carr. But her opportunities of seeing him were both short
and rare. In this emergency she applied to Mrs. Turner, a woman whose
profession it was to study and to accommodate the fancies of such
persons as the countess. Mrs. Turner introduced her to Dr. Forman,
a noted astrologer and magician, and he, by images made of wax, and
various uncouth figures and devices, undertook to procure the love
of Carr to the lady. At the same time he practised against the earl,
that he might become impotent, at least towards his wife. This however
did not satisfy the lady; and having gone the utmost lengths towards
her innamorato, she insisted on a divorce in all the forms, and a
legal marriage with the youth she loved. Carr appears originally to
have had good dispositions; and, while that was the case, had
assiduously cultivated the friendship of Sir Thomas Overbury, one
of the most promising young courtiers of the time. Sir Thomas
earnestly sought to break off the intimacy of Carr with lady Essex,
and told him how utterly ruinous to his reputation and prospects it
would prove, if he married her. But Carr, instead of feeling how much
obliged he was to Overbury for this example of disinterested
friendship, went immediately and told the countess what the young
man said.

From this time the destruction of Overbury was resolved on between
them. He was first committed to the Tower by an arbitrary mandate
of James for refusing an embassage to Russia, next sequestered from
all visitors, and finally attacked with poison, which, after several
abortive attempts, was at length brought to effect. Meanwhile a
divorce was sued for by the countess upon an allegation of impotence;
and another female was said to have been substituted in her room,
to be subjected to the inspection of a jury of matrons in proof of
her virginity. After a lapse of two years the murder was brought to
light, the inferior criminals, Mrs. Turner and the rest, convicted
and executed, and Carr, now earl of Somerset, and his countess, found
guilty, but received the royal pardon.--It is proper to add, in order
to give a just idea of the state of human credulity at this period,
that, Forman having died at the time that his services were deemed
most necessary, one Gresham first, and then a third astrologer and
enchanter were brought forward, to consummate the atrocious projects
of the infamous countess. It is said that she and her second husband
were ultimately so thoroughly alienated from each other, that they
resided for years under the same roof, with the most careful
precautions that they might not by any chance come into each other's
presence. [215]

LATEST IDEAS OF JAMES ON THE SUBJECT.

It is worthy of remark however that king James lived to alter his
mind extremely on the question of witchcraft. He was active in his
observations on the subject; and we are told that "the frequency of
forged possessions which were detected by him wrought such an
alteration in his judgment, that he, receding from what he had written
in his early life, grew first diffident of, and then flatly to deny,
the working of witches and devils, as but falshoods and delusions."
[216]

LANCASHIRE WITCHES.

A more melancholy tale does not occur in the annals of necromancy
than that of the Lancashire witches in 1612. The scene of this story
is in Pendlebury Forest, four or five miles from Manchester,
remarkable for its picturesque and gloomy situation. Such places were
not sought then as now, that they might afford food for the
imagination, and gratify the refined taste of the traveller. They
were rather shunned as infamous for scenes of depredation and murder,
or as the consecrated haunts of diabolical intercourse. Pendlebury
had been long of ill repute on this latter account, when a country
magistrate, Roger Nowel by name, conceived about this time that he
should do a public service, by rooting out a nest of witches, who
rendered the place a terror to all the neighbouring vulgar. The first
persons he seized on were Elizabeth Demdike and Ann Chattox, the
former of whom was eighty years of age, and had for some years been
blind, who subsisted principally by begging, though she had a
miserable hovel on the spot, which she called her own. Ann Chattox
was of the same age, and had for some time been threatened with the
calamity of blindness. Demdike was held to be so hardened a witch,
that she had trained all her family to the mystery; namely, Elizabeth
Device, her daughter, and James and Alison Device, her grandchildren.
In the accusation of Chattox was also involved Ann Redferne, her
daughter. These, together with John Bulcock, and Jane his mother,
Alice Nutter, Catherine Hewit, and Isabel Roby, were successively
apprehended by the diligence of Nowel and one or two neighbouring
magistrates, and were all of them by some means induced, some to make
a more liberal, and others a more restricted confession of their
misdeeds in witchcraft, and were afterwards hurried away to Lancaster
Castle, fifty miles off, to prison. Their crimes were said to have
universally proceeded from malignity and resentment; and it was
reported to have repeatedly happened for poor old Demdike to be led
by night from her habitation into the open air by some member of her
family, when she was left alone for an hour to curse her victim, and
pursue her unholy incantations, and was then sought, and brought again
to her hovel. Her curses never failed to produce the desired effect.

These poor wretches had been but a short time in prison, when
information was given, that a meeting of witches was held on Good
Friday, at Malkin's Tower, the habitation of Elizabeth Device, to
the number of twenty persons, to consult how by infernal machinations
to kill one Covel, an officer, to blow up Lancaster Castle, and
deliver the prisoners, and to kill another man of the name of Lister.
The last was effected. The other plans by some means, we are not told
how, were prevented.

The prisoners were kept in jail till the summer assizes; and in the
mean time it fortunately happened that the poor blind Demdike died
in confinement, and was never brought up to trial.

The other prisoners were severally indicted for killing by witchcraft
certain persons who were named, and were all found guilty. The
principal witnesses against Elizabeth Device were James Device and
Jennet Device, her grandchildren, the latter only nine years of age.
When this girl was put into the witness-box, the grandmother, on
seeing her, set up so dreadful a yell, intermixed with bitter curses,
that the child declared that she could not go on with her evidence,
unless the prisoner was removed. This was agreed to; and both brother
and sister swore, that they had been present, when the devil came
to their grandmother in the shape of a black dog, and asked her what
she desired. She said, the death of John Robinson; when the dog told
her to make an image of Robinson in clay, and after crumble it into
dust, and as fast as the image perished, the life of the victim should
waste away, and in conclusion the man should die. This evidence was
received; and upon such testimony, and testimony like this, ten
persons were led to the gallows, on the twentieth of August, Ann
Chattox of eighty years of age among the rest, the day after the
trials, which lasted two days, were finished. The judges who presided
on these trials were sir James Altham and sir Edward Bromley, barons
of the exchequer. [217]

From the whole of this story it is fair to infer, that these old women
had played at the game of commerce with the devil. It had flattered
their vanity, to make their simpler neighbours afraid of them. To
observe the symptoms of their rustic terror, even of their hatred
and detestation, had been gratifying to them. They played the game
so long, that in an imperfect degree they deceived 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 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.--But, when Elizabeth Device
actually saw her grandchild of nine years old placed in the
witness-box, with the intention of consigning her to a public and
an ignominious end, then the reveries of the imagination vanished,
and she deeply felt the reality, that, where she had been somewhat
imposing on the child in devilish sport, she had been whetting the
dagger that was to take her own life, and digging her own grave. It
was then no wonder that she uttered a preternatural yell, and poured
curses from the bottom of her heart. It must have been almost beyond
human endurance, to hear the cry of her despair, and to witness the
curses and the agony in which it vented itself.

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