Books: Lives of the Necromancers

W >> William Godwin >> Lives of the Necromancers

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25

Twenty-two years elapsed after this scene, when a wretched man, of
the name of Edmund Robinson, conceived on the same spot the scheme
of making himself a profitable speculation from a similar source.
He trained his son, eleven years of age, and furnished him with the
necessary instructions. He taught him to say that one day in the
fields he had met with two dogs, which he urged on to hunt a hare.
They would not budge; and he in revenge tied them to a bush and
whipped them; when suddenly one of them was transformed into an old
woman and the other into a child, a witch and her imp. This story
succeeded so well, that the father soon after gave out that his son
had an eye that could distinguish a witch by sight, and took him round
to the neighbouring churches, where he placed him standing on a bench
after service, and bade him look round and see what he could observe.
The device, however clumsy, succeeded, and no less than seventeen
persons were apprehended at the boy's selection, and conducted to
Lancaster Castle. These seventeen persons were tried at the assizes,
and found guilty; but the judge, whose name has unfortunately been
lost, unlike sir James Altham and sir Edward Bromley, saw something
in the case that excited his suspicion, and, though the juries had
not hesitated in any one instance, respited the convicts, and sent
up a report of the affair to the government. Twenty-two years on this
occasion had not elapsed in vain. Four of the prisoners were by the
judge's recommendation sent for to the metropolis, and were examined
first by the king's physicians, and then by Charles the First in
person. The boy's story was strictly scrutinised. In fine he confessed
that it was all an imposture; and the whole seventeen received the
royal pardon. [218]

LADY DAVIES.

Eleanor Tuchet, daughter of George lord Audley, married sir John
Davies, an eminent lawyer in the time of James the First, and author
of a poem of considerable merit on the Immortality of the Soul. This
lady was a person of no contemptible talents; but what she seems most
to have valued herself upon, was her gift of prophecy; and she
accordingly printed a book of Strange and Wonderful Predictions. She
professed to receive her prophecies from a spirit, who communicated
to her audibly things about to come to pass, though the voice could
be heard by no other person. Sir John Davies was nominated lord chief
justice of the king's bench in 1626. Before he was inducted into the
office, lady Eleanor, sitting with him on Sunday at dinner, suddenly
burst into a passion of tears. Sir John asked her what made her weep.
To which she replied, "These are your funeral tears." Sir John turned
off the prediction with a merry answer. But in a very few days he
was seized with an apoplexy, of which he presently died. [219]--She
also predicted the death of the duke of Buckingham in the same year.
For this assumption of the gift of prophecy, she was cited before
the high-commission-court and examined in 1634. [220]

EDWARD FAIRFAX.

It is a painful task to record, that Edward Fairfax, the harmonious
and elegant translator of Tasso, prosecuted six of his neighbours
at York assizes in the year 1622, for witchcraft on his children.
"The common facts of imps, fits, and the apparition of the witches,
were deposed against the prisoners." The grand jury found the bill,
and the accused were arraigned. But, we are told, "the judge, having
a certificate of the sober behaviour of the prisoners, directed the
jury so well as to induce them to bring in a verdict of acquittal."
[221] The poet afterwards drew up a bulky argument and narrative in
vindication of his conduct.

DOCTOR LAMB.

Dr. Lamb was a noted sorcerer in the time of Charles the First. The
famous Richard Baxter, in his Certainty of the World of Spirits,
printed in 1691, has recorded an appropriate instance of the
miraculous performances of this man. Meeting two of his acquaintance
in the street, and they having intimated a desire to witness some
example of his skill, he invited them home with him. He then conducted
them into an inner room, when presently, to their no small surprise,
they saw a tree spring up in the middle of the apartment. They had
scarcely ceased wondering at this phenomenon, when in a moment there
appeared three diminutive men, with little axes in their hands for
the purpose of cutting down this tree. The tree was felled; and the
doctor dismissed his guests, fully satisfied of the solidity of his
pretensions. That very night however a tremendous hurricane arose,
causing the house of one of the guests to rock from side to side,
with every appearance that the building would come down, and bury
him and his wife in the ruins. The wife in great terror asked, "Were
you not at Dr. Lamb's to-day?" The husband confessed it was true.
"And did you not bring away something from his house?" The husband
owned that, when the little men felled the tree, he had been idle
enough to pick up some of the chips, and put them in his pocket.
Nothing now remained to be done, but to produce the chips, and get
rid of them as fast as they could. This ceremony performed, the
whirlwind immediately ceased, and the remainder of the night became
perfectly calm and serene.

Dr. Lamb at length became so odious by his reputation for these
infernal practices, that the populace rose upon him in 1640, and tore
him to pieces in the streets.--Nor did the effects of his ill fame
terminate here. Thirteen years after, a woman, who had been his
servant-maid, was apprehended on a charge of witchcraft, was tried,
and in expiation of her crime was executed at Tyburn.

URBAIN GRANDIER.

A few years previously to the catastrophe of Dr, Lamb, there occurred
a scene in France which it is eminently to the purpose of this work
to record. Urbain Grandier, a canon of the church, and a popular
preacher of the town of Loudun in the district of Poitiers, was in
the year 1634 brought to trial upon the accusation of magic. The first
cause of his being thus called in question was the envy of his rival
preachers, whose fame was eclipsed by his superior talents. The second
cause was a libel falsely imputed to him upon cardinal Richelieu,
who with all his eminent qualities had the infirmity of being
inexorable upon the question of any personal attack that was made
upon him. Grandier, beside his eloquence, was distinguished for his
courage and resolution, for the gracefulness of his figure, and the
extraordinary attention he paid to the neatness of his dress and the
decoration of his person, which last circumstance brought upon him
the imputation of being too much devoted to the service of the fair.

About this time certain nuns of the convent of Ursulines at Loudun
were attacked with a disease which manifested itself by very
extraordinary symptoms, suggesting to many the idea that they were
possessed with devils. A rumour was immediately spread that Grandier,
urged by some offence he had conceived against these nuns, was the
author, by the skill he had in the arts of sorcery, of these
possessions. It unfortunately happened, that the same capuchin friar
who assured cardinal Richelieu that Grandier was the writer of the
libel against him, also communicated to him the story of the possessed
nuns, and the suspicion which had fallen on the priest on their
account. The cardinal seized with avidity on this occasion of private
vengeance, wrote to a counsellor of state at Loudun, one of his
creatures, to cause a strict investigation to be made into the charge,
and in such terms as plainly implied that what he aimed at was the
destruction of Grandier.

The trial took place in the month of August 1634; and, according to
the authorised copy of the trial, Grandier was convicted upon the
evidence of Astaroth, a devil of the order of Seraphims, and chief
of the possessing devils, of Easas, of Celsus, of Acaos, of Cedon,
of Asmodeus of the order of thrones, of Alex, of Zabulon, of
Naphthalim, of Cham, of Uriel, and of Achas of the order of
principalities, and sentenced to be burned alive. In other words,
he was convicted upon the evidence of twelve nuns, who, being asked
who they were, gave in these names, and professed to be devils, that,
compelled by the order of the court, delivered a constrained
testimony. The sentence was accordingly executed, and Grandier met
his fate with heroic constancy. At his death an enormous drone fly
was seen buzzing about his head; and a monk, who was present at the
execution, attested that, whereas the devils are accustomed to present
themselves in the article of death to tempt men to deny God their
Saviour, this was Beelzebub, which in Hebrew signifies the God of
flies, come to carry away to hell the soul of the victim. [222]

ASTROLOGY.

The supposed science of astrology is of a nature less tremendous,
and less appalling to the imagination, than the commerce with devils
and evil spirits, or the raising of the dead from the peace of the
tomb to effect certain magical operations, or to instruct the living
as to the events that are speedily to befal them. Yet it is well
worthy of attention in a work of this sort, if for no other reason,
because it has prevailed in almost all nations and ages of the world,
and has been assiduously cultivated by men, frequently of great
talent, and who were otherwise distinguished for the soundness of
their reasoning powers, and for the steadiness and perseverance of
their application to the pursuits in which they engaged.

The whole of the question was built upon the supposed necessary
connection of certain aspects and conjunctions or oppositions of the
stars and heavenly bodies, with the events of the world and the
characters and actions of men. The human mind has ever confessed an
anxiety to pry into the future, and to deal in omens and prophetic
suggestions, and, certain coincidences having occurred however
fortuitously, to deduce from them rules and maxims upon which to build
an anticipation of things to come.

Add to which, it is flattering to the pride of man, to suppose all
nature concerned with and interested in what is of importance to
ourselves. Of this we have an early example in the song of Deborah
in the Old Testament, where, in a fit of pious fervour and exaltation,
the poet exclaims, "They fought from heaven; the stars in their
courses fought against Sisera." [223]

The general belief in astrology had a memorable effect on the history
of the human mind. All men in the first instance have an intuitive
feeling of freedom in the acts they perform, and of consequence of
praise or blame due to them in just proportion to the integrity or
baseness of the motives by which they are actuated. This is in reality
the most precious endowment of man. Hence it comes that the good man
feels a pride and self-complacency in acts of virtue, takes credit
to himself for the independence of his mind, and is conscious of the
worth and honour to which he feels that he has a rightful claim. But,
if all our acts are predetermined by something out of ourselves, if,
however virtuous and honourable are our dispositions, we are overruled
by our stars, and compelled to the acts, which, left to ourselves,
we should most resolutely disapprove, our condition becomes slavery,
and we are left in a state the most abject and hopeless. And, though
our situation in this respect is merely imaginary, it does not the
less fail to have very pernicious results to our characters. Men,
so far as they are believers in astrology, look to the stars, and
not to themselves, for an account of what they shall do, and resign
themselves to the omnipotence of a fate which they feel it in vain
to resist. Of consequence, a belief in astrology has the most
unfavourable tendency as to the morality of man; and, were it not
that the sense of the liberty of our actions is so strong that all
the reasonings in the world cannot subvert it, there would be a fatal
close to all human dignity and all human virtue.

WILLIAM LILLY.

One of the most striking examples of the ascendancy of astrological
faith is in the instance of William Lilly. This man has fortunately
left us a narrative of his own life; and he comes sufficiently near
to our time, to give us a feeling of reality in the transactions in
which he was engaged, and to bring the scenes home to our business
and bosoms.

Before he enters expressly upon the history of his life, he gives
us incidentally an anecdote which merits our attention, as tending
strongly to illustrate the credulity of man at the periods of which
we treat.

Lilly was born in the year 1602. When certain circumstances led his
yet undetermined thoughts to the study of astrology as his principal
pursuit, he put himself in the year 1632 under the tuition of one
Evans, whom he describes as poor, ignorant, drunken, presumptuous
and knavish, but who had a character, as the phrase was, for erecting
a figure, predicting future events, discovering secrets, restoring
stolen goods, and even for raising a spirit when he pleased. Sir
Kenelm Digby was one of the most promising characters of these times,
extremely handsome and graceful in his person, accomplished in all
military exercises, endowed with high intellectual powers, and
indefatigably inquisitive after knowledge. To render him the more
remarkable, he was the eldest son of Everard Digby, who was the most
eminent sufferer for the conspiracy of the Gunpowder Treason.

It was, as it seems, some time before Lilly became acquainted with
Evans, that lord Bothwel and sir Kenelm Digby came to Evans at his
lodgings in the Minories, for the express purpose of desiring him
to shew them a spirit. Sir Kenelm was born in the year 1603; he must
have been therefore at this time a young man, but sufficiently old
to know what he sought, and to choose the subjects of his enquiry
with a certain discretion. Evans consented to gratify the curiosity
of his illustrious visitors. He drew a circle, and placed himself
and the two strangers within the circle. He began his invocations.
On a sudden, Evans was taken away from the others, and found himself,
he knew not how, in Battersea Fields near the Thames. The next morning
a countryman discovered him asleep, and, having awaked him, in answer
to his enquiries told him where he was. Evans in the afternoon sent
a messenger to his wife, to inform her of his safety, and to calm
the apprehensions she might reasonably entertain. Just as the
messenger arrived, sir Kenelm Digby came to the house, curious to
enquire respecting the issue of the adventure of yesterday. Lilly
received this story from Evans; and, having asked him how such an
event came to attend on the experiment, was answered that, in
practising the invocation, he had heedlessly omitted the necessary
suffumigation, at which omission the spirit had taken offence.

Lilly made some progress in astrology under Evans, and practised the
art in minor matters with a certain success; but his ambition led
him to aspire to the highest place in his profession. He made an
experiment to discover a hidden treasure in Westminster Abbey; and,
having obtained leave for that purpose from the bishop of Lincoln,
dean of Westminster, he resorted to the spot with about thirty persons
more, with divining rods. He fixed on the place according to the
rules, and began to dig; but he had not proceeded far, before a
furious storm came on, and he judged it advisable to "dismiss the
demons," and desist. These supernatural assistants, he says, had taken
offence at the number and levity of the persons present; and, if he
had not left off when he did, he had no doubt that the storm would
have grown more and more violent, till the whole structure would have
been laid level with the ground.

He purchased himself a house to which to retire in 1636 at Hersham
near Walton on Thames, having, though originally bred in the lowest
obscurity, twice enriched himself in some degree by marriage. He came
to London with a view to practise his favourite art in 1641; but,
having received a secret monition warning him that he was not yet
sufficiently an adept, he retired again into the country for two
years, and did not finally commence his career till 1644, when he
published a Prophetical Almanac, which he continued to do till about
the time of his death. He then immediately began to rise into
considerable notice. Mrs. Lisle, the wife of one of the commissioners
of the great seal, took to him the urine of Whitlocke, one of the
most eminent lawyers of the time, to consult him respecting the health
of the party, when he informed the lady that the person would recover
from his present disease, but about a month after would be very
dangerously ill of a surfeit, which accordingly happened. He was
protected by the great Selden, who interested himself in his favour;
and he tells us that Lenthal, speaker of the house of commons, was
at all times his friend. He further says of himself that he was
originally partial to king Charles and to monarchy: but, when the
parliament had apparently the upper hand, he had the skill to play
his cards accordingly, and secured his favour with the ruling powers.
Whitlocke, in his Memorials of Affairs in his Own Times, takes
repeated notice of him, says that, meeting him in the street in the
spring of 1645, he enquired of Lilly as to what was likely speedily
to happen, who predicted to him the battle of Naseby, and notes in
1648 that some of his prognostications "fell out very strangely,
particularly as to the king's fall from his horse about this time."
Lilly applied to Whitlocke in favour of his rival, Wharton, the
astrologer, and his prayer was granted, and again in behalf of
Oughtred, the celebrated mathematician.

Lilly and Booker, a brother-astrologer, were sent for in great form,
with a coach and four horses, to the head-quarters of Fairfax at
Windsor, towards the end of the year 1647, when they told the general,
that they were "confident that God would go along with him and his
army, till the great work for which they were ordained was perfected,
which they hoped would be the conquering their and the parliament's
enemies, and a quiet settlement and firm peace over the whole nation."
The two astrologers were sent for in the same state in the following
year to the siege of Colchester, which they predicted would soon fall
into possession of the parliament.

Lilly in the mean while retained in secret his partiality to Charles
the First. Mrs. Whorwood, a lady who was fully in the king's
confidence, came to consult him, as to the place to which Charles
should retire when he escaped from Hampton Court. Lilly prescribed
accordingly; but Ashburnham disconcerted all his measures, and the
king made his inauspicious retreat to the isle of Wight. Afterwards
he was consulted by the same lady, as to the way in which Charles
should proceed respecting the negociations with the parliamentary
commissioners at Newport, when Lilly advised that the king should
sign all the propositions, and come up immediately with the
commissioners to London, in which case Lilly did not doubt that the
popular tide would turn in his favour, and the royal cause prove
triumphant. Finally, he tells us that he furnished the saw and _aqua
fortis_, with which the king had nearly removed the bars of the
window of his prison in Carisbrook Castle, and escaped. But Charles
manifested the same irresolution at the critical moment in this case,
which had before proved fatal to his success. In the year 1649 Lilly
received a pension of one hundred pounds _per annum_ from the
council of state, which, after having been paid him for two years,
he declined to accept any longer. In 1659 he received a present of
a gold chain and medal from Charles X king of Sweden, in acknowledgment
of the respectful mention he had made of that monarch in his almanacs.

Lilly lived to a considerable age, not having died till the year 1681.
In the year 1666 he was summoned before a committee of the house of
commons, on the frivolous ground that, in his Monarchy or No Monarchy
published fifteen years before, he had introduced sixteen plates,
among which was one, the eighth, representing persons digging graves,
with coffins, and other emblems significative of mortality, and, in
the thirteenth, a city in flames. He was asked whether these things
referred to the late plague and fire of London. Lilly replied in a
manner to intimate that they did; but he ingenuously confessed that
he had not known in what year they would happen. He said, that he
had given these emblematical representations without any comment,
that those who were competent might apprehend their meaning, whilst
the rest of the world remained in the ignorance which was their
appointed portion.

MATTHEW HOPKINS.

Nothing can place the credulity of the English nation on the subject
of witchcraft about this time, in a more striking point of view, than
the history of Matthew Hopkins, who, in a pamphlet published in 1647
in his own vindication, assumes to himself the surname of the
Witch-finder. He fell by accident, in his native county of Suffolk,
into contact with one or two reputed witches, and, being a man of
an observing turn and an ingenious invention, struck out for himself
a trade, which brought him such moderate returns as sufficed to
maintain him, and at the same time gratified his ambition by making
him a terror to many, and the object of admiration and gratitude to
more, who felt themselves indebted to him for ridding them of secret
and intestine enemies, against whom, as long as they proceeded in
ways that left no footsteps behind, they felt they had no possibility
of guarding themselves. Hopkins's career was something like that of
Titus Oates in the following reign, but apparently much safer for
the adventurer, since Oates armed against himself a very formidable
party, while Hopkins seemed to assail a few only here and there, who
were poor, debilitated, impotent and helpless.

After two or three successful experiments, Hopkins engaged in a
regular tour of the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and
Huntingdonshire. He united to him two confederates, a man named John
Stern, and a woman whose name has not been handed down to us. They
visited every town in their route that invited them, and secured to
them the moderate remuneration of twenty shillings and their expences,
leaving what was more than this to the spontaneous gratitude of those
who should deem themselves indebted to the exertions of Hopkins and
his party. By this expedient they secured to themselves a favourable
reception; and a set of credulous persons who would listen to their
dictates as so many oracles. Being three of them, they were enabled
to play the game into one another's hands, and were sufficiently
strong to overawe all timid and irresolute opposition. In every town
to which they came, they enquired for reputed witches, and having
taken them into custody, were secure for the most part of a certain
number of zealous abettors, who took care that they should have a
clear stage for their experiments. They overawed their helpless
victims with a certain air of authority, as if they had received a
commission from heaven for the discovery of misdeeds. They assailed
the poor creatures with a multitude of questions constructed in the
most artful manner. They stripped them naked, in search for the
devil's marks in different parts of their bodies, which were
ascertained by running pins to the head into those parts, that, if
they were genuine marks, would prove themselves such by their
insensibility. They swam their victims in rivers and ponds, it being
an undoubted fact, that, if the persons accused were true witches,
the water, which was the symbol of admission into the Christian
church, would not receive them into its bosom. If the persons examined
continued obstinate, they seated them in constrained and uneasy
attitudes, occasionally binding them with cords, and compelling them
to remain so without food or sleep for twenty-four hours. They walked
them up and down the room, two taking them under each arm, till they
dropped down with fatigue. They carefully swept the room in which
the experiment was made, that they might keep away spiders and flies,
which were supposed to be devils or their imps in that disguise.

The most plentiful inquisition of Hopkins and his confederates was
in the years 1644, 1645 and 1646. At length there were so many persons
committed to prison upon suspicion of witchcraft, that the government
was compelled to take in hand the affair. The rural magistrates before
whom Hopkins and his confederates brought their victims, were obliged,
willingly or unwillingly, to commit them for trial. A commission was
granted to the earl of Warwick and others to hold a sessions of
jail-delivery against them for Essex at Chelmsford, Lord Warwick was
at this time the most popular nobleman in England. He was appointed
by the parliament lord high admiral during the civil war. He was much
courted by the independent clergy, was shrewd, penetrating and active,
and exhibited a singular mixture of pious demeanour with a vein of
facetiousness and jocularity. With him was sent Dr. Calamy, the most
eminent divine of the period of the Commonwealth, to see (says Baxter
[224]) that no fraud was committed, or wrong done to the parties
accused. It may well be doubted however whether the presence of this
clergyman did not operate unfavourably to the persons suspected. He
preached before the judges. It may readily be believed, considering
the temper of the times, that he insisted much upon the horrible
nature of the sin of witchcraft, which could expect no pardon, either
in this world or the world to come. He sat on the bench with the
judges, and participated in their deliberations. In the result of
this inquisition sixteen persons were hanged at Yarmouth in Norfolk,
fifteen at Chelmsford, and sixty at various places in the county of
Suffolk.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25