Reading Witchcraft: Stories of Early English Witches

Reading Witchcraft

Reading Witchcraft explores the stories told by and about ‘witches’ and their ‘victims’, and questions what can be recovered from their trial records, early news books, pamphlets and personal accounts. In her wide-ranging selection of original sources, Marion Gibson uncovers truth, fiction and incertitude in stories of witchcraft. Who told them and why? How were they recorded? And how they might have been distorted or stereotyped? Reading Witchcraft looks closely at these legal documents and printed pamphlets and shows that their representations of witchcraft are far from straightforward. Even the simplest story can mask a complex creative process which sometimes led to the deaths of innocent people. We are left with a challenging record of the power of the human imagination. Reading Witchcraft is an exciting and invaluable study of witchcraft stories. It offers an innovative, nuanced discussion of original historical sources and the issues which surround their interpretation. Marion Gibson is Lecturer at the University of Exeter.

Reading Witchcraft Stories of early English witches

Marion Gibson

London and New York

First published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1999 Marion Gibson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Reading Witchcraft: stories of early English witches/Marion Gibson p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Witchcraft-England-History-16th century. 2. Witchcraft-England-History-17th century. 3. Trials (Witchcraft)-England-History-17th century. 4. Trials (Witchcraft)-England-History-17th century. I. Title BF1581.G535 1999 133.4′3′094209031–dc21 ISBN 0-203-97644-4 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-415-20645-6 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-20646-4 (Print Edition)

Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction

1

The witch, the pedlar and the pedlar’s son

1

Rereading witchcraft: which stories and why do we need to reread them?

6

PART I Records 1

2

3

viii

11

Ghost-writers—dialogue, interrogation and the production of the records of witchcraft

13

Questions

13

Answers: pre-scripted or imaginative, resistance or confession?

20

Writers: clerks and pamphleteers

34

A case study of The Apprehension and confession of three notorious Witches

40

Witchcraft trials and a methodology for reading them

49

Preparing for trial

50

Indictment

53

Arraignment and plea

55

Reporting evidence—documents and oral testimony

56

Reporting evidence—vivid accounts

61

Verdict and sentence

63

Reporting evidence—a case study of The Witches of Northamptonshire and a related manuscript

64

London and Middlesex—Goodcole

70

Conclusions

72

Deconstructing generic stories

75

vi

Denial narratives—Scot and Gifford

80

Questions and answers

83

Simple denial

84

More complex denial

84

Witch’s revenge—Thomas Potts and King James

90

Reporting revenge—stereotypes and specifics

92

Professional revenges

95

From witch’s revenge to motiveless malignity

96

Motiveless malignity

99

PART II Pamphlets

4

5

105

Introduction to Part II

107

Genre and subgenre: change in 1590

107

Change in sources

108

Change in authorship

109

Change in intention

109

Changes which redefine witchcraft

110

‘Necessary’ and ‘triviall’ pamphlets

113

‘Necessary’ pamphlets—deconstructing earnestness

115

‘Necessary’ pamphlets—why is it important to be earnest?

122

‘Sincere and studied triviality’: ‘triviall’ pamphlets

133

‘Necessary’ nature, ‘triviall’ style?

135

Increasing complexity—serious silliness in witchcraft reporting

138

A case study of A Most Wicked worke of a wretched Witch

146

Prefaces

151

Prefaces about witchcraft? Sin, vice and verse

153

Witchcraft in four Jacobean prefaces: demonology and doubt

164

An Open Conclusion, or ‘Where do we go from here?’

179

The decline of the witchcraft pamphlet

179

Some final questions

183

vii

Appendix 1–Sources for patterns of questioning

185

Appendix 2–A Rehearsall both straung and true, the Windsor witches and the Privy Council

187

Appendix 3–Murder pamphlets

189

Notes

191

Bibliography

221

Primary sources

221

Manuscripts

225

Secondary sources

225

Index

231

Acknowledgements

Research and writing are like malaria. Once started, recurrence is inevitable, and the fevered agony is the same each time—or worse. Lots of people nursed me through the creation of this book, and I would like to thank my parents, my colleagues and my friends for their support. Special thanks to Harry, Laura, Sarah, Kate and Rob, Katherine, Anna, Pippa, Mark, Neil, Matthew, Nathan, Amanda, Becky, Dave, Sejal, Alan, Karen, George, Edward, Robin and James, Adam, Jo and Gabriel, Paul, Dave, Bob, Nicky, Mary, Angela, and Chris for a mixture of ideas, draft-reading, proofreading, advice, distraction, kind words and love. Many scholars helped me in thinking through the ideas in this book: Gareth Roberts, Jonathan Barry, Jim Sharpe, Barbara Rosen, J.S.Cockburn, Diane Purkiss, Lyndal Roper, J.M.Beattie, John Baker, William Monter, Marianne Hester, Barbara Singleton, Matthew McGuinness, Nathan Johnstone, Harry Bennett, Nick Smart, Richard Williams, Robin Jacoby, Todd Gray, Alex Walsham and the students on the MA programme ‘The History and Literature of Witchcraft’ at the University of Exeter. Su Guy and Heather Eva at Exeter University Library were unfailingly kind and helpful, and thanks also to the staff of the Bodleian Library, PRO, the British Library, the university libraries of Edinburgh and East Anglia, Devon RO, Essex RO, Berkshire RO, and the College of Wooster Library, Ohio. Lizzie Ash, Heather Clarke, and the Library and Media Services at the University of Plymouth, Exmouth Campus, provided excellent technical support and help. Thanks to the British Academy for financial support, and to Heather McCallum for accepting the book and giving frequent advice. I’d like to thank Barbara Singleton and Kristin Jeanne Leuschner for permission to quote from their unpublished works, and Lyndal Roper, J.S.Cockburn, J.M.Beattie and John Baker for permission to quote from their letters to me. The book is dedicated to my parents, Angela and Neville, with love.

Introduction

The witch, the pedlar and the pedlar’s son Which of the elements in the following story are true? On 18 March 1612 a young woman called Alizon Device went out from her home in the Forest of Pendle in Lancashire to beg, and walked along the road at Colne Field towards the neighbouring village of Colne.1 On the way there she met a pedlar and asked him to sell her some pins. But the pedlar refused to open his pack for her, and would not sell her any. Almost immediately a black dog appeared to Alizon Device and said to her, ‘What wouldst thou have me to do unto yonder man?’ Alizon asked, ‘What canst thou do at him?’ The dog replied that he could lame the pedlar and Alizon responded with ferocious brevity: ‘Lame him’. The pedlar fell down lame and Alizon was later arrested and tried for her attack on him by witchcraft. Readers of such a story will divide into two main groups: those who accept that the magical details in the story are probable, and those who do not believe in magic. There will be further divisions within the second group: for example, those who suggest that the talking dog was an hallucination of Alizon’s, those who believe that she was pressed by the prosecuting authorities into creating a folktale-like story, those who read her story as a voluntary adoption of the powerful mythic status of a witch. Some will see the whole story as fiction, while others contend that the pedlar really did fall ill, or that Alizon really saw a (mute) black dog. But what about the naturalistic details of the story? Was Alizon really a beggar? Did the pedlar refuse to trade with her? It is on stories like these that both early modern and twentieth-century understandings of witchcraft are based. This book sets out to retell and examine such stories, and asks how we should read them, and what we should read into them. We know of the events surrounding Alizon Device and the pedlar because one of the officials at Alizon’s trial was a clerk, Thomas Potts, who had been commissioned by the trial judges to produce an account of the nineteen witches arraigned at Lancaster assizes in August 1612. In the resulting book The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster, Potts carried out his task with anxious zeal and a good deal of flair, using legal documents, an eyewitness report of events in court and several passages of abusive commentary to recreate vividly for the reader the activities of the Lancashire witches, their trials and convictions. However, Potts’ account doesn’t give us a single truth about Alizon Device—he gives us three versions of her story. The version given above is from

2

INTRODUCTION

Alizon Device’s own confession. In his pamphlet Potts presents this as being a transcript of what she said in court, but in fact it is clearly a copy of the statement which she made to the magistrate (a document known as an ‘examination’) on her arrest several months before. Potts admits as much in saying that her confession ‘agreeth verbatim with her owne Examination…when she was apprehended and taken’.2 Potts, therefore, is not always completely trustworthy in his reporting. The second version of her story comes from the pedlar himself. Also presented as courtroom testimony, again possibly erroneously or deceitfully,3 it records that the pedlar, John Law, went with his Packe of wares at his backe thorow Colne-field: where unluckily he met with Alizon Device, now Prisoner at the Barre, who was very earnest with him for pinnes, but he would give her none: whereupon she seemed to be very angry; and when he was past her, hee fell downe lame in great extremitie.4 The pedlar does not say that Alizon asked to buy pins, but that she begged them from him. Alizon’s version, given at her examination, is quite contradictory: this Examinate met with a Pedler on the high-way, called Colne-field, neere unto Colne: and this Examinate demanded of the said Pedler to buy some pinnes of him.5 Since Alizon also said that she was going out to beg in Trawden Forest that day, it may seem likely that she would beg pins from John Law rather than ask to buy them. But John Law’s son, Abraham, gives yet another version of events in Potts’ account, which begins to make the reader question the stability and truthfulness of any of the stories about the case. Abraham Law, whose statement is also presented by Potts as a transcript of what was said in court, said that he had been sent for by letter on 21 March 1612, and had found his father ‘speechlesse, and had the left-side lamed all save his eye’. The modern reader hastily redefines the word ‘lamed’ and may conclude that John Law had had a stroke. But Abraham then describes his conversation with his father, who had something recovered his speech, and did complaine that hee was pricked with Knives, Elsons, and Sickles, and that the same hurt was done to him at Colne-field, presently after that Alizon Device had offered to buy some pinnes of him, and she had no money to pay for them withall; but as this Examinates father told this Examinate, he gave her some pinnes.6 He says that Alizon begged pins from his father, but that John Law gave her pins rather than refusing them. This leaves Alizon no valid reason to attack him. What really happened that day in March 1612, and how can the reader, the historian or the student of Jacobean popular literature tell? Potts’ famous pamphlet provides a useful case study of the problems involved in reading Elizabethan and Jacobean accounts of witchcraft. By printing transcripts of legal material rather than narrating events himself, he lets us see the encounter between the

INTRODUCTION 3

witch, the pedlar and the witness as directly as possible, without obvious authorial intervention.7 But as a result of this technique we are unsure of the true shape of the story, since we have three different versions. Is it a story of charity denied, the model proposed by Keith Thomas and explored by Alan Macfarlane, as a feature of (or explanation of) witchcraft episodes? In this model, the victim refuses to give the witch the charitable help which he or she—usually she—requested, then the witch becomes angry, and the victim suffers a misfortune. Or is this story instead a report of a failed business transaction, a refusal to sell? Or is it neither of these, but rather an example of charitable generosity rewarded by ingratitude and aggression? This last model is a common witchcraft story in Jacobean, although not Elizabethan, times and is often told by victims of high social status. Abraham Law, as a cloth-dyer, might have thought himself above the beggars and sheep-stealers who in Potts’ account compose the witch’s family, and he might have constructed the story as one about the ingratitude of the poor.8 But the most challenging reading of the three versions of the story is a sceptical one: did any of the events happen in the way described, or are we looking at a story which is so self-contradictory, or so obviously a flexible strategic construct, that we cannot read it as representing any kind of truth? This book will explore all four of these possibilities, dissecting all the known Elizabethan and Jacobean examples of witchcraft stories in pamphlets to draw new and surprising conclusions about the materials of which they are made, the stereotypical nature of their shapes and content, and their strategic use by witches, victims and pamphleteers. Unsurprisingly, no attempt was made at Alizon Device’s trial to analyse these conflicting stories, or to point out contradictions. The seventeenth-century court was content to synthesise the three versions of events and move on: John Law was pitied by the judge, who ordered that some provision should be made for him by local magnates, while Alizon Device wept and knelt, lamented that she could not cure her victim, agreed that she had deserved death, and was taken away to await sentence and execution.9 The court rushed to judgement, and Potts gave his interpretation and analysis of events, choosing one version of the story above the other: Behold, above all the rest, this lamentable spectacle of a poore distressed Pedler; how miserably hee was tormented, and what punishment hee endured for a small offence, by the wicked and damnable practise of this odious Witch. In this synthesising summary, Potts ignores Abraham Law’s evidence that no offence was committed by the pedlar. He chooses instead to privilege, without comment, the stereotypical story of the witch taking revenge for a refusal of neighbourly help. This version of events would have provided the court with a story which would be likely to secure conviction, on the basis that this account clearly shows plausible evidence of criminal motive—offence taken, revenge enacted, result.10 However, all three versions of the story, including the one omitting motive, were available to the court, and we cannot know which were heard and which accepted. Potts chose the most convenient story in legal terms, and the one with the most satisfyingly deterministic shape—the most satisfying fiction. Yet he believes that in taking this view from his legal documents he has

4

INTRODUCTION

reached the truth of real events. For the modern reader, however, the above discussion of the three stories is more likely to suggest that in reading witchcraft narratives it is important not to mistake representation for reality. In this case the representations of events by witch, victim and witness are all different, and in other cases we should be equally wary about accepting stories of witchcraft as objective reports of facts. If we do, we make the same mistake as Potts—and there is something of this uncomplicated approach to sources in many scholarly accounts of witchcraft. Keith Thomas, for example, agrees with Potts (and with Reginald Scot and George Gifford’s sixteenthcentury accounts of witchcraft) in emphasising the importance of refusal of charity as a trigger for witchcraft attack.11 Recent challenges to this view have emphasised different aspects of early modern conflict (over trade, local politics or female power, for example) but basically all accept that it is relatively safe to reconstruct real events in early modern England from pamphlet accounts of witchcraft, or from the legal records or eyewitness stories on which they were so often based.12 In this way modern scholars and writers on witchcraft have responded to stories of witchcraft in exactly the same way as the sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century authorities did: they have synthesised the stories, looked for patterns in them that would allow coherent interpretation of supposedly ‘real’ events, and treated the stories about witchcraft as if they were almost transparent, a window through which we can view early modern life and see, vividly, witches and their victims interacting. While good historians like Alan Macfarlane, Keith Thomas, J.A.Sharpe and Clive Holmes do not believe in magic, they often believe that other activities or occurrences described in witchcraft pamphlets are factual.13 This book sets out to question this assumption, and to turn it into a far more tentative assertion. It is important to explore the truthfulness of stories of witchcraft, looking at who told them and why, how they were recorded, how they might have been distorted or stereotyped, and at factors which shape their presentation in print. Before beginning, it is important to define what is meant by ‘truth’, ‘reality’, ‘fact’ and other such terms. If we are questioning the truthfulness of stories, then what would we wish to define as a ‘true’ story about witchcraft? This would depend in part on what we believe ‘witchcraft’ to be. In simplified terms, this book proceeds on the basis that magic does not work, but that some ‘witches’ may have believed both that it did, and that they used it. Equally, it seems likely that some ‘witches’ had no experience of magical practices beyond the beliefs and stories current in their communities—that, when prosecuted, they were accused of a crime which they had never even tried to commit. All these people would have been, in modern terms, ‘innocent’ victims of a misconception about the possibilities of human and diabolic power. A ‘witch’, for the purposes of this discussion, is thus a person defined as such by his or her society, and has no intrinsic, essential qualities which would make the label an objective one. Diane Purkiss calls such a person a ‘blank screen’ on to which fantasies were projected.14 I would add that the ‘witch’ may choose to accept the label, and may even court it or create it, but this book concentrates on the moment when the community codifies its identification of the person as a witch in a legal document or printed story, and on what happens during and after that process and because of it.15 The definition of witchcraft and of what it is to be a witch would thus depend in part on stereotypes rather than individual

INTRODUCTION 5

‘realities’. Stereotypes are defined here as agreed patterns used by communities and members of those communities to identify individual events or people as connected with the impossible crime of witchcraft. The stereotype may or may not reflect the actual form and sequence of events, or the features of an individual’s life, but whether it reflects these or not it is recognisable chiefly by its ubiquity. It is unconnected with reality but follows its features closely. Thus, this book does not seek to identify real objects at the heart of the definition of ‘witchcraft’ and ‘a witch’: in textual terms—in pamphlets, particularly—both ideas are definable only from the outside, since any central reality is inaccessible. One is left with only a husk of representation, which suggests the shape of a reality which is missing, but also highlights its absence. How then, can one define a truthful story about this impossible crime? I would suggest that by ‘truth’ or ‘accuracy’ we should mean ‘closeness to events’. Events such as the speaking of curses or incantations, arrests, begging, illness and neighbourly quarrels happened tangibly in early modern England and were recorded, and although we can have no access to these events beyond the accounts given by those who recorded them, we can be fairly certain that at the centre of each cluster of accounts is some event, or string of events, which were perceived by contemporary observers to be connected with alleged magic—however distorted, mistaken or multinatured the accounts of these events may appear to us to be. Given this definition of truth, it is up to individual readers of accounts to decide what is true—which account is closest to inaccessible tangibilities or ‘reality’. Malcolm Gaskill suggests that ‘truth is no more than a version of reality which satisfies an audience, or which cannot either be proved or disproved more conclusively’,16 but it is also the case that we are trying to reconstruct a once tangible reality, also called ‘the truth’. Our decision about which version to accept as the best representation of this, our accepted ‘truth’, usually has to be based on internal evidence: on our trust of the teller of each event, which we might assess by (among other factors) an examination of his or her tone, level of access to the reported events, and possible reasons for perceiving them in a certain way and telling the story in a particular form.17 We can also compare accounts of events, looking for consensus or difference, and add to our judgement—which will always be subjective—other evidence such as records of unrelated aspects of the lives of the storytellers or their communities. Subjectivity is inevitable in any assessment of such hotly contested and unfamiliar material, but this should not prevent inquiry while we await an impossibly objective methodology, since subjectivity can be both informed and reasoned, and therefore useful to the scholar.18 By using the above definitions, and by recourse to the means described above, we can produce some tentative hierarchies of the truthfulness of accounts, although individual versions of the hierarchies might differ substantially. This book does not pretend to find a grand unifying theory of the relative truthfulness of accounts of witchcraft, but it attempts to make readers aware of both the necessity for creating such hierarchies of truthfulness and of the occasionally insoluble difficulties of constructing it.19 It is a kind of empirically based ‘genealogy’ of witchcraft in the Foucauldian sense, following multiple and diverging branches of inquiry back from a point once accepted as stable: the definition of witchcraft, our knowledge of what witchcraft was. ‘Genealogy’

6

INTRODUCTION

disturbs what was previously considered immobile; it fragments what was thought unified; it shows the heterogeneity of what was imagined consistent with itself. What convictions and, far more decisively, what knowledge can resist it?20 Rereading witchcraft: which stories and why do we need to reread them? The exploration of fact and fiction in stories of witchcraft which this book presents is based on a literary and legal-historical analysis of a variety of sources. The most important sources for early modern English witchcraft stories are Elizabethan and Jacobean witchcraft pamphlets, but the book also uses legal records, other unpublished documents, and possession pamphlets. About forty works are the core of our primary sources for understanding witchcraft, including all nineteen surviving news pamphlets concerning cases of witchcraft (1566–1621), with four examples of such material in other works—A World of Wonders (1595), The Triall of Maist. Dorrell (1599), The Most Cruell and Bloody Murther (1606) and Alexander Roberts’ A Treatise of Witchcraft (1616). The discussion takes in all the English possession pamphlets, the pamphlets generated by the Darrell controversy, unpublished material from the case of John Walsh/Welsh in 1566, the Northamptonshire case of 1612, and the Mary Glover controversy of 1602, Edward Fairfax’s unpublished ‘Daemonologia’, and several witchcraft pamphlets from the early Commonwealth.21 The book takes a fresh look at the witchcraft stories told in these works, especially the news pamphlets, and explores their sources, authorship, ideologies, styles and genres to come to a better understanding of the construction of stories of witchcraft and our interpretation of them. No other book on witchcraft has attempted this, and therefore our understanding of what witchcraft was is hampered by reliance on stories whose origins are at best unclear, and at worst murky, confused by multiple authorship, deliberate deceit and propagandist intent. Perhaps the most important conclusion of my study of witchcraft stories is that a change in sources, authorship, ideological position, style and genre can entirely change the form and content of pamphlet stories about witchcraft—which it does in the 1590s. Since these stories form the basis of our understanding of what witchcraft was, the perception that the stories are flexible or unreliable has important implications for all readers of witchcraft stories, but especially for scholars using witchcraft pamphlets as records. Re-emphasising that they are only representations of events, such a perception suggests that witchcraft pamphlets need to be studied structurally, with traditional literary inquiries into their construction, as well as considered in a more historical way as databases of ‘facts’. Malcolm Gaskill’s work on stereotypes, and most recently on stories in murder pamphlets, is moving the study of representations in the same direction.22 This book will begin the exploration of what makes and shapes a witchcraft story, looking at how interrogative and legal forms determined the content of some witchcraft pamphlets, while narrative forms and literary conventions shape the content of others, and how we read them. Barbara Rosen, in Witchcraft in England 1558–1618 (originally published as Witchcraft in 1969)23 pointed, without ever explicitly saying so, to the important fact that the stories in most early witchcraft pamphlets were based on

INTRODUCTION 7

transcribed legal documents, whilst later ones were more traditionally literary.24 The processes of the legal system, which generated the documents whose contents are reproduced in the pamphlets, are therefore examined in Chapters 1 to 3 as being formative of their representations of witchcraft. In later pamphlets, where documents are seldom reproduced, the literary conventions, authorship and sources of the apparently transparent stories need examination (Chapter 4) before we accept their reports of witchcraft as either ‘factual’ or straightforward representations. Some of the pamphlets also seem to be using their stories of witchcraft as a vehicle for other concerns, as explored in Chapter 4. The prefaces of pamphlets receive consideration in Chapter 5 as the most overt attempts to shape our reading of witchcraft. This book tries to answer the following questions—What kinds of stories about witchcraft are told in pamphlets? What is a witchcraft pamphlet? Why are they so? How do their representations of witchcraft stories affect how we perceive and study witchcraft now? ‘Witchcraft’ is not, as I have said, a definable quantity of truthfully reported facts, easily separable from the form in which they are reported, because it is a representation of magical activities which did not really occur in the way described—an important element in the creation of conflicting stories like those told by Alizon Device and the Law family. It is also often part of ‘illiterate culture’ represented by the literate. Moreover, the witchcraft stories are being told for many purposes, from news to instruction to entertainment. The method of representation of witchcraft, and the aims and conventions of the method, clearly determine what is included or omitted, how the stories are told and what effect they had on contemporaries, and have now on the modern reader. Pamphlets, manuscripts and legal records need to be recognised as texts, representing, and not merely transmitting, information about witchcraft. This book develops a growing interest among historians in the form of accounts of witchcraft. While there is legitimate interest in the content of accounts—the social status of victims and witches, the gendered nature of witchcraft and so on—some recent scholarly writings about witchcraft have been more concerned with the form in which witchcraft episodes are represented than with the content of the stories. This book opens up a further investigation along the lines suggested by Bernard Rosenthal’s Salem Story, which shows that ‘uncovering what happened in [a] witchcraft episode becomes a textual problem—one of narration’.25 Jonathan Barry adds that witch stories are ‘shaped by contemporary conventions about what would carry conviction as a truthful or entertaining account…whether they be accounts of witnesses at a trial or a witch’s confession’. We must recognise ‘problems of bias and selectivity’, he urges, and that ‘the line between fact and fiction…will be blurred, not just for the subsequent historian but also for the contemporary participants’.26 AnddespiteThomas’s interest in the anthropological aspect of witchcraft accusations, concern with the form of stories about witchcraft is a product of his insight that there was a stylized character about witchcraft as an explanatory theory. It could not be indefinitely extended to account for any misfortune, but was more plausible when confined to those disasters for which witches were conventionally held responsible.27

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INTRODUCTION

Thomas built on Evans-Pritchard’s work with the Azande tribe, which suggested that consultation of oracles and use of counter-magic were ‘stereotyped’ and ‘functional…a social mechanism’ and extended this perception to cover stories about witchcraft.28 This historical-anthropological idea of stylised or conventional perceptions of reality is a useful starting point for a new look at witchcraft narratives. Literary scholars have also given attention to the stereotypical nature of witchcraft stories—some more enthusiastically than others. Sandra Clark, writing on popular literature, remarks wearily that witchcraft reports are ‘all essentially similar in outline, and both tedious and harrowing to read’.29 In a more positive spirit, Kristin Jeanne Leuschner, Frances Dolan and Deborah Willis explored pamphlets actively seeking literary patterns of similarity in stories, while Diane Purkiss began reading them as constructed texts.30 This book pushes such research further, suggesting that the patterning and constructedness noticed by these writers might be worthy of investigation in its own right. Malcolm Gaskill suggested that witchcraft stereotypes did not always reflect reality, but the issue can be more complicated, in that we have no access to the seemingly masked reality.31 The issue is made even more complex by the probability that, as Jean-Noel Kapferer remarked, stories ‘organize our perception to validate themselves’ so that the teller sees what he or she expects will make the most coherent story.32 Thus stories of witchcraft are not only narrations which are easily stereotyped but this stereotype feeds back to shape the teller’s and the hearer’s perception of reality. Since it was the representation of events by victim and witch to the justice and then to the judge and jury which mattered in prelim inary hearings and in court, as shown in Potts’ pamphlet and explored in Chapter 2, this circular need for coherence and plausibility is important. As Barry says, ‘the printed and legal-record evidence we have of witchcraft is stereotyped by its status as legal evidence’.33 Returning to Potts’ stories of Alizon Device as an example, we might suggest that each participant clearly tells the story which would be expected, even demanded, of them as a confessing witch, a victim, and a concerned witness. The literary, storytelling stereotype is more important in shaping the account and the consequences of its telling than are the inaccessibilities of whatever really happened. But if the stories told in witchcraft pamphlets are not ‘true’ in the conventional sense, then are they completely unreliable guides to whatever witchcraft was? The legal historian James Cockburn calls them ‘invariably sensational treatments, deliberately but inconsistently overdrawn in order to heighten tension or point a moral’.34 ‘Sensational’ is a common description.35 In fact, pamphlets about witchcraft are not invariably sensational, especially when using transcripts of functional legal documents. It is also hard to tell what is overdrawn, since one has no access to the events before they were represented, and witchcraft is in any case a supernatural, ‘fictional’ phenomenon. Cockburn is right that ‘it is quite clear that the reliability of the pamphlets is heavily qualified by both carelessness and fabrication’,36 but while his superb edition of legal records from the Home Circuit (the judges’ annual visitation of the courts in the Home Counties) suggests the Essex and Hertfordshire pamphlets are intermittently sensational, their reports of such facts as names, familial relationships, status, charges, pleas, verdicts and sentences usually tally with legal records, with some glaring exceptions. There is no reason to suspect wholesale pamphlet fabrication. A dislike of pamphlet evidence because

INTRODUCTION 9

it often adds to ‘original trial documentation’ privileges records as ‘fact’ with pamphlets as mere reports, but, problematically, legal records are themselves often inaccurate, and Dolan argues that both are equally ‘representations that often conform to conventions, and may or may not correspond to…actual experiences’.37 However, we cannot check the absolute truth of events, especially where magic is said to be involved. Perhaps the safest ‘facts’ are those which can be compared with existing unrelated records for an impartial or at least differently biased account. Cockburn is right in identifying the pamphlets’ reliability as heavily qualified, but they are not totally unreliable, any more than are legal records. My conclusions about stories of witchcraft in pamphlets thus resemble Cockburn’s about indictments: they are an ‘attractive’ resource of limited value as the basis for the naive sociological analysis to which [they have] most often been subjected…this is not to suggest that assize indictments [here, pamphlets] contain no reliable material of a quantifiable nature, merely to emphasise the necessity of first giving due attention to the complex problems of interpretation with which they are clearly synonymous.38 Pamphlet stories of witchcraft should be treated more like oral history than proven fact.39 In this way we can still read them for what they tell us about witchcraft, without regarding them as verifiable truth. I shall discuss the stories of witchcraft told in witchcraft pamphlets in a way that will illuminate the problems perceived by the distrustful, yet also defend the stories from accusations of complete worthlessness, making them available for use by readers in a more sophisticated and sceptical way. Under the heading ‘Records’, Part I of the book reads the pamphlets as troublesome historical sources. Chapter 1 asks who created witches’ stories, and how their legal documents should be treated when found in pamphlets. Chapter 2 considers the use of documents in trying witches, and the usefulness of pamphleteers’ accounts of trials; while Chapter 3 returns to pre-trial documents to question the reliability of witnesses’ informations, the unstable basis for the elicited confessions and trials discussed in Chapters 1 and 2. Part II, ‘Pamphlets’, considers the pamphlets as literature. Chapter 4 looks at authorial propaganda and at the entertainment value in witchcraft—factors affecting our view of what witchcraft was—and Chapter 5 at the homiletic or informational prefaces of witchcraft pamphlets, which introduced the sections containing the stories. This Introduction raises issues of historical data developed in Part I, while an Introduction to Part II and a Conclusion discuss literary issues of the development and decline of witchcraft pamphlets, the development of stories of witchcraft in them and the implications for reading accounts in witchcraft pamphlets. Those who work with stories about witches should regard them as a fascinating and important resource, but must avoid the pitfalls of regarding them as if they were objective and unproblematic, of taking them as read.

10

Part I Records

12

1 Ghost-writers—dialogue, interrogation and the production of the records of witchcraft

In trying to understand witchcraft, the logical place to begin is with the ‘witches’ themselves. These women and men suffered or died because of what they said, or what was said about them, and in examining these words we give them another chance to speak and to be less misunderstood. Defined by their community as ‘witches’, how did they represent themselves, and how (and to whom) did they tell stories of their ‘witchcraft’? This chapter explores the processes of questioning witches, their responses and storytelling, and how these processes were recorded in the magistrates’ ‘examinations’ which appear in witchcraft pamphlets. In doing this we can ask how the forms of question, answer and recording might shape the way that witchcraft was represented. A better understanding of the structure and content of documents about witchcraft is essential to any detailed reading of them, in pamphlets or elsewhere. There are three sections of the debate: first, ‘Questions’ traces possible, largely unrecorded, magistrates’ questions shaping accounts; ‘Answers’ discusses witches’ cooperation with, and resistance to, questioners;1 finally, ‘Writers’ discusses the makers of records, and pamphleteers, who together shape the final, printed, representation of witchcraft. Examinations and the pamphlets which use them emerge as collaborative representations rather than records. If we can begin to analyse these multivocal documents to see who is telling us what about witchcraft and why, we can suggest what witchcraft meant to the different types of people who constructed it. Rather than assessing which elements of documents and pamphlets are ‘factual’, we can decide whose interests were served by each kind of representation of witchcraft, giving a far more sophisticated understanding of the many things people wanted witchcraft to be. Questions The circumstances surrounding the questioning of witches can be summarised quite simply. When a community suspected one of its members of witchcraft, the victim or victims of the alleged witchcraft attack, or their friends or relatives, would go to the local magistrate and request action. The victim would give the magistrate a verbal ‘information’ consisting of accusations against the suspect, and the Justice would have it recorded. He would then send for the suspect and question him or her. The suspected witch’s response would be similarly recorded, as an ‘examination’. These examinations

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are the basis of many early pamphlets. But how were these statements elicited? Witches and magistrates were people like us, with motives like us, and not simply the players of roles—we should look in detail at what these people, as individuals, had to say. In English cases of this period, no torture was used to elicit confessions, and there was apparently no questioning formula encoded for magistrates faced with a suspected witch, as there was in many European legal systems. Questions were, however, the means of getting information, and there do seem to have been recurrent patterns of questioning and response.2 In at least ten out of twenty-nine examinations, judging by the first words spoken by the suspected witch, the first question must have been a variant of ‘How did you become a witch?’3 Essex witch Elizabeth Frauncis is reported as having said: Fyrst she learned this arte of witchcraft at the age of xii yeres of hyr grandmother whose nam was mother Eve of Hatfyelde Peverell disseased. Item when shee taughte it her, she counseiled her to renounce GOD and his worde, and to geve of her bloude to Sathan (as she termed it) whyche she delyvered her in the lykenesse of a whyte spotted Catte, and taughte her to feede the sayde Catte with breade and mylke and she dyd so, also she taught her to call it Sathan and to kepe it in a basket.4 Elizabeth’s examination begins as a confession of her guilt because it apparently begins after that crucial question. Yet problems of interpretation are immediately apparent. First, the report is in the third person, so the witch’s own words are rewritten by a clerk. Second, knowing for certain whether questions elicited this statement is impossible. Third, how many questions might have produced this passage? Fourth, what were their exact words and tone? Last, since examinations could be written up to two days after they had been conducted, are these ‘answers’ a summary, revised into coherence?5 Probably clerks recorded accurately the basic content and order of statements, but their freedom to edit is demonstrated by their omission of questions, and witches are represented as confessing unprompted and coherently.6 For the legal system, concerned to produce documents which might need to convince in court, witchcraft seems to have been about causal links, narrative coherence and establishing guilt in a clear confession concerned with the origin of malevolent power, the reason why it was used, and the effect on the victim.7 This investigative priority of the judicial system, embodied in the questions which were asked, would determine the stories told and thus our understanding of what witchcraft was. It is necessary to identify questions, where possible, but it is equally important to consider why they were asked. For example, was the judicial priority of this first question, based on the articulation of cause and effect and the investigation of a higher power beyond the witch, also that of the community, victims and suspects? Anthropological studies like Evans-Pritchard’s or Favret-Saada’s suggest that the wider community is usually uninterested in the origin or precise operation of witchcraft power, and in this period in England, George Gifford’s Dialogue concerning Witches and Witchcraftes was intended to counter the same apathy by explaining the devilish tricks which, he argued, gave witches power to harm and heal.8 The origins of witchcraft power were of primary importance to demonologists like Gifford, and there was much religiously

GHOST WRITERS—RECORDS OF WITCHCRAFT 15

charged discussion of how the devil empowered and marked his servants, with King James even describing the process as a witch’s ‘entresse and prentishippe’ in his or her ‘craft’, systematising and formalising the supposed contract with the devil and the consequence of the witch’s empowerment.9 When one contrasts this learned interest in witchcraft’s origins with the apparent popular unconcern which it was designed to combat, it seems likely that learned men determined the need for inquiry during the examination into the circumstances of a witch’s initiation. These men operated as individuals—Sir James Altham, Brian Darcey, Clement Sisley, Roger Nowell, Henry Fortescue, Sir Henry Gray —rather than as a class, but they were the judges and magistrates who determined in part what witchcraft was seen as. If the question about origins is one of theirs, then they would have asked it for their own benefit, and not that of the victim. In formal terms, the concern with finding a logical beginning for events shaped legal and pamphlet representations of witchcraft, possibly making it seem far more coherent than it was. Given that the suspected witch’s examination was produced through dialogue between witch, questioner and the accusations of informants, it is astonishingly focused, held together by the cause-and-effect arrangement of the inquiry, a format which makes it seem that the suspect believed what he or she said and articulated it easily. In fact the suspect may be articulating the questioner’s beliefs, and responding to his interests and his logic, in a story structured by the order in which his questions were asked. Hence Elizabeth Frauncis begins her account of herself as witch by explaining how she acquired her power. Which other questions might have shaped Elizabeth’s account of witchcraft, and how would Henry Fortescue’s, the magistrate’s, logic run? If her statement is a clue to her questioning, Elizabeth might have been asked: ‘How did you learn witchcraft? Where does the teacher live? Is she living? What did she teach you?’ These are relatively open questions (except the first, which presupposes criminality) and would allow her to tell her ‘own’ story based on the questioner’s assumption of guilt. But she might have been asked: ‘Did you learn your witchcraft from your grandmother? Did she counsel you to renounce God?’, and so on.10 Possibly Elizabeth is being allowed more input than that, because the writer records her using her own terminology (‘as she termed it’). A fruitful way of asking the first question might be: ‘From whom did you learn your witchcraft?’, a question which assumes guilt and potentially produces another suspect. Linked questions could then follow up the double incrimination. And, since all the other witches who begin their statements with this basic pattern name their teacher, it suggests that the ‘usual’ first question was this ‘From whom…?’, or that this element was included in a cluster of ‘usual’ first questions.11 The concern to know how witchcraft became possible for each witch is a recurrent theme even in examinations which apparently did not begin with the question ‘From whom did you learn your witchcraft?’ Another first question might be ‘From where or whom did you get your familiar spirit?’, possibly producing answers such as: ‘This examinate saith, that one Fustian Kirtle, otherwise called Whitecote, a witch of Barking, came to her house about seaven or eight yeeres agoe and gave her a thing like a Moule…’12 and ‘Fyrst she receyved this cat of this frances wife in ye order as is before sayde, who wild her to cal him Sathan, and told her that yf she made muche of him he would do for her what she wolde have him to do’.13

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GHOST WRITERS—RECORDS OF WITCHCRAFT

In a third model of examination, beginning again with the origins of witchcraft power, some witches, instead of naming a human source of skill, describe how they met the devil, a statement which might be prompted by a first question such as that asked by Henry Goodcole in his gaol examination of Elizabeth Sawyer: ‘By what meanes came you to have acquaintance with the Divell, and when was the first time that you saw him, and how did you know that it was the Divell?’14 Possibly unbroken strings of questions were asked here. Goodcole’s composite recording of his questions suggests this, but other witches’ answers may suggest the same. For example, in contrast to Goodcole’s (post conviction) assumption of guilt, Joan Cunny appears to have been asked initially, and apparently uniquely, whether or not she was a witch, in her pre-trial examination. Then she names her teacher, and what Mother Humfrye taught her: In primis, this examinate saith and confesseth, that she hath knowledge and can doo the most detestable Arte of Witchecraft, and that she learned this her knowledge in the same, of one mother Humfrye of Maplested, who told her that she must kneele down upon her knees, and make a Circle on the ground, and pray unto Sathan the cheefe of the Devills…15 These statements seem well integrated, and perhaps the questions eliciting them were linked to move the suspect’s revelations on, from the teacher to the lesson taught. This is a logical next step taken in other examinations too. In the examination of Ellen Greene, the suspect says first that Joan Willimot of Goadby came to her in the wolds six years ago, and then explains what Willimot taught her: she ‘perswaded this examinate to forsake God, and betake her to the divel, and shee would give her two spirits…’16 It is difficult to tell whether any eliciting questions were asked singly or as composites. The elements of such composites might be ‘From whom did you learn your witchcraft, when, and what did he or she tell you to do?’ and/or ‘From whom did you get your spirits, when, and what did he or she tell you they would do, and what were you to feed them on?’ However, composite questions might create problems of memory for the suspect, and therefore the apparently composite answers may be a subsequent grouping by the scribe. Again, witchcraft would be represented by him as an intelligible matter, readily defined and confessed by a practitioner, in a way that facilitated prosecution and was then put into print as self-evidently true. But the answers do seem linked by a logic which a questioner might follow rather than a suspect lucidly confess.17 Interestingly for comparison, the three witches who begin by saying they met the devil follow an alternative conventional model of learning witchcraft, which may have come from conventions of questioning also. They might have been asked ‘When, where, and in what shape did the devil come, and what did he say?’, because all three suspects follow this pattern in their stories and finally say that the devil asked for their souls, possibly reflecting another, more specific, question. The only other significant pattern of statements in examinations, suggesting again a pattern of questioning, occurs at the end, or near the end, of examinations. Presumably, between the establishing questions, if such a model were used, and the concluding ones,

GHOST WRITERS—RECORDS OF WITCHCRAFT 17

the suspect might be freer to speak of what he or she wished. But at the end of the examination, the pattern suggests a desire in questioners to find other witches. In seven cases the last statement or statements made by the witch name other suspects, information possibly elicited to be acted upon. Joan Prentice’s examination ends: Lastly the said examinate saith, and confesseth, that one Elizabeth Whale, the wife of Michael Whale of Henningham Sibble aforesaid labourer, and Elizabeth Mott, the wife of John Mot of the saide Towne Cobler, are as well acquainted with her Bidd [a spirit] as her selfe is, but knoweth not what hurt they or any of them have doone to any of their neighbours.18 Joan Cunny and Joan Upney both discuss their daughters’ use of their own spirits in the same way (although Cunny’s examination ends with two other questions probably based on informations). Presumably as a result, Margaret Cunny was tried and imprisoned, a woman named Alice Upney was imprisoned but discharged, as were Elizabeth Mott and Elizabeth Whale.19 Ales Hunt named her sister Margery Sammon in her last statement, as having spirits and Margery was questioned in 1582 and probably tried but acquitted in 1584.20 Ellen Greene named another witch later condemned, Joan Willimot, in her penultimate statement, while Elizabeth Fraunces named two women in the last three of four items of confession.21 In Elizabeth Stile’s gaol examination she named four witches in her first four items, but this seems likely to have been due to the circumstances of the examination, which occurred in Reading Gaol and was possibly prompted by a letter from the Privy Council. They might have wanted to know or confirm at once who else was involved. All these statements could have been prompted by questions such as ‘Do you know any other witches?’ or ‘Is anyone else involved in your crimes?’ Sometimes familiars provide the link between the examinate and other suspects—for example between Elizabeth Frauncis and Agnes Waterhouse in 1566, Joan Cunny and her daughters, Joan Upney and hers—suggesting that magistrates might have asked: ‘Where are your familiars now?’ or ‘Did you give your spirits to anyone?’ The recipient could then be asked the ‘usual’ first question about the source of their spirits or skill. In a loose question (actually recorded) inviting as many names as could be given, Anne Chattox was asked finally ‘how many sundry persons have been bewitched to death and by whom’.22 Chattox responded by naming a group of witches of which she was one. Most witches made no connection between themselves and the other witches’ activities, but, like Elizabeth Fraunces in 1579, simply reported what they knew of them. Only in Elizabeth Stile’s gaol examination, and diffused throughout Chattox’s evidence and the rest of the 1612 Pendle case, is there any strong belief in witches as collaborating or conspiring. Again this may be due to the circumstances of interrogation: in Stile’s case (Windsor, 1579) treason was suspected and in Pendle (Lancashire, 1612) a gunpowder plot to blow up Lancaster Castle was being investigated.23 Questions here might be likely to stress collaboration, secrecy and plots, and might have produced, as a response, models of witchcraft to suit them, in these cases accounts of something like a sabbath, at least a witches’ meeting. Most witches seem to see themselves as solitary, but what do their questioners believe? It is impossible to be certain, but accounts like those in Potts’ pamphlet and the Windsor pamphlet

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suggest that stories of sabbaths are linked, in these cases at least, to questioning based on anxiety about conspiracies among the learned and those in authority. Once one considers how witchcraft stories were elicited, it is easy to see that their whole shape and sequence might be determined by factors which are now almost invisible in the finished text of the narrative of witchcraft. But the shaping of the content of the stories is less easily traceable than the shaping of their form. There has been much debate among scholars about whether the content of stories of witchcraft is determined by the questioner or the suspected witch. There are two basic polar positions, represented by a number of scholars, with a variety of intervening standpoints. On the one hand, Carlo Ginzburg argued that scholarship on witchcraft in the 1970s and 1980s was ‘giving little or no attention to the attitudes and behaviour of the persecuted’, and he discussed as validly ‘popular’ his witches’ accounts of Italian and pan-European fertility cults, on the basis that the suspects knew what they were describing and told, to a greater or lesser extent, their own stories.24 The alternative reading was based on Norman Cohn’s book Europe’s Inner Demons, which saw the confessions of witches concerning sabbaths, sex and child-eating as badly distorted by inquisitors on the basis of centuries-old stereotypes of anti-human sects, first used against Jews and lepers. His witches were thus silenced victims, much as Jews were victims of Hitler’s Holocaust, a parallel made by Cohn himself.25 There are many variants of these positions, some of which will be discussed later, but surprisingly few writers have responded to challenges of reading such as those posed by Ginzburg and Cohn by discussing the patterns of exchange between questioner and suspect in their sources in any great detail—Diane Purkiss’ The Witch in History contains the best examples. There is much high-quality analysis elsewhere of general patterns and content itself, but little sustained nit-picking at the miniature formal ‘negotiations’, as Purkiss calls them, between questioner and witch.26 This book argues for closer attention to the structure of texts at the heart of our understanding of witchcraft—for, in a sense, micro-micro-history—in the hope of fostering a better appreciation of content, too. The benefits of close textual analysis can be seen here: we can engage in reconstructive reading of documents in situations where questions are not recorded and thus can easily be overlooked as motivating factors, and we can trace the interplay of suggestion and response until patterns emerge and the reader is forced to question the whole basis of stories about witchcraft, in informed detail. Once again, it is important to try to identify individual elements of the story of witchcraft as coming from particular shaping sources, to determine authorship of the shaped text. We might, therefore, so far have seen several models for magisterial authorship— patterns of questioning to begin and end an examination—rather than several coherent and popularly accepted models of how one became a witch, though the two are not, of course, mutually exclusive.27 This is partly a distinction between ‘popular’ and imposed beliefs, but more a matter of the apparent central concerns and coherence of the narratives being guaranteed by the form in which they had to be represented. Elizabeth Cohen, discussing inquisitorial examinations, suggests that ‘the law and its enforcers shaped these texts by defining the subject-matter, the rhetoric, and the genre’—a pretty comprehensive list which one could well apply to these secular English records.28 A coherent narrative, concentrating on the fraught issues of the origin of magical power

GHOST WRITERS—RECORDS OF WITCHCRAFT 19

and the cause and effect of its use is what one might expect from a document which was produced in this way in order to establish criminal responsibility. And it is generally agreed that this was the purpose of the examination. J.M.Beattie says that the examination, as designed by the statutes during Queen Mary’s reign, was a vigorous searching out of the evidence that would lead to a conviction…the magistrate’s task was to ensure that…the strongest evidence of [the suspect’s] guilt would be contained in the depositions and examination.29 This edited story of guilt would be shaped by questions from the JP on behalf of the legal authorities. But it might also reflect the victim’s view of events, since he or she had usually already decided that the suspect was guilty. Some magisterial questions could be based on victims’ informations, as we shall see. In simple summary, we need to consider whose concerns shape these examinations, and indeed informations, and their model of what witchcraft is, before the witch speaks a word. So far we have looked at the questioner’s input into the account. To borrow a metaphor from Jeanne Favret-Saada, it would appear that he is a co-author of the story of witchcraft rather than merely an editor, but that he has editorial functions in determining the organisation of the text and probably selecting its content. His function is to ‘commission’ a story, choosing, as Cohen said, subject matter, rhetoric and genre, but the generative work has to be done by the suspected witch before the magistrate can edit his or her text. Witch and questioner may be battling for control of the process, or they may be collaborating, knowingly or not, ghost-writing one another’s contributions. This account, in the interests of trying to discover fractures in, and questions behind, the apparently seamless narrative, perhaps overstresses the role of the questioner. There are other people involved in his selection of material and his approach to the process of questioning. We do not know, for example, precisely who determines the sequence and content of questioning. One would assume that the magistrate took the leading role, but what about the responses of the suspect, and the order and concerns of the victims’ informations? Henry Goodcole, in his post-conviction gaol examination of a witch, is the only questioner to record why he asked what he did, telling us his sources for various questions. Interestingly, many of his questions are determined by what the witch, or witnesses against her, have already said: ‘I asked this question because she sayd that the Divell did not alwayes speake to her’, he explains, and ‘I asked this of her, because that some children of a good bignesse, and reasonable understanding, informed the Court, that they had divers times seene her feed two white ferrets with white bread and milk’. Others come from Goodcole himself: ‘Upon my generall suspition I asked of her this question.’ Goodcole also describes the tone of some of his questions—‘I asked…very earnestly’— and offers comments illuminating his and others’ reactions to the answers, which must have in turn determined what else the witch revealed or invented: a gentleman by name Mr. Maddox standing by, and hearing of her say the word blaspheming, did aske of her, three or foure times, whether the Divell sayd have I found you blaspheming, and shee confidently sayd, I [aye].30

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Thus questioning looks like a collaborative process, with victims’ and onlookers’ concerns channelled through the questioner. Such a perception of the questioner himself as a composite function of other people’s concerns further complicates any simple notion of witch—questioner conflict, which will be explored next, and means that we also need to look in more depth at the input of victims and witnesses. Whoever determines questions, it appears from Goodcole’s account that, once asked, questions in part predetermine answers: there is no escape from some of them, and Goodcole’s witch, Elizabeth Sawyer, is seen to be following his lead. However, she sometimes refuses to do so, and suspects can resist a question in various ways. What happens after the question is asked, and how does this shape our perceptions of what witchcraft was? Answers: pre-scripted or imaginative, resistance or confession? If a witch is answering questions when he or she gives a statement, it is hard to tell what is going on once the question has been left hanging in the air. In considering whether or not we know how witches themselves represent witchcraft, we have to ask several questions. Where is the boundary between the witch’s own unsuggested story or representation of events, and that of the victim, which the witch may know? Where is the line between the witch’s story and the suggestions of the questioner? Finally, what about the scribe who records what the final, agreed, representation is in the examination? Who determines the witch’s story: the witch or other people? Jeanne Favret-Saada, questioning twentiethcentury ‘witches’ and victims, saw her own input (questions and responses) as ‘part of the text’ of the witchcraft stories she elicited, and herself as ‘co-author’, while Jean-Noel Kapferer theorises (in discussing rumours) that ‘no information is passed on unidirectionally. All concerned parties converse with each other, the rumour [here, the witchcraft story] being the final consensus of their collective deliberations’.31 The ‘concerned parties’ in a witchcraft examination would be the victim, who initiated the process and, importantly, told the basic story; the questioning magistrate; the witch, answering and adding information; and the scribe, noting and editing events. Their ‘conversation’ and ‘collective deliberations’ produced what we now read, and it is important to explore how much input each person, and each role, had. If we suppose that the victim is the key figure, then the first model for a witchcraft confession might thus be that the witch tells a story against him/herself which he or she already knows, suggested to the witch by the victim or by gossip based around the victim. This would displace both questioner and witch as co-authors, and make the victim the original storyteller. The resultant story would not necessarily be put to the suspected witch by the questioner—the witch may already know it. Malcolm Gaskill suggests that this might be happening in the seventeenth-century case of Margaret Moore: ‘it is possible that accumulated vocalized suspicions, rumours and accusations of witchcraft suggested to her that she actually possessed the powers attributed to her by others’.32 The witch would accept the victims’ stories here. But if the questioner has his own agenda, and this determines what the witch says, then the second model is that the witch accepts his story.

GHOST WRITERS—RECORDS OF WITCHCRAFT 21

This is not necessarily the model of a learned interrogator imposing his beliefs on an unresisting populace, because the questioner has still most likely acquired the stories he seeks to investigate from victims’ informations against the witch, and, as we have said, there is an element of co-authorship in their relationship. There seems to be very little evidence in pamphlets of learned acculturation of suspects by questioners except (as usual, debatably) in the cases reported by Potts in 1612 and perhaps the 1579 Windsor case represented in A Rehearsall both straung and true (1579). We do not know what the magistracy as a class believed, so we cannot easily recognise their input into examinations. Where we (uncertainly) have evidence of a JP’s beliefs, in A true and just Recorde of 1582, where the JP Brian Darcey may have written the preface, they make almost no impact on the examinations.33 Paradoxically, the JPs’ elusive scribes are almost more visible, since we can at least read the words written by the scribe, although written under the magistrate’s direction. Equally, victims and witches have some version of their representations of witchcraft recorded—but the words of JPs are deliberately excluded. Because of this deliberate silence, the two models of the victim or the questioner determining the witch’s story are hard to separate because accusation and gossip turn into informations, and informations into questions, so that the magistrate’s input is unclear. The witch might be asked by the questioning JP about material shaped in all essentials by the victim. The third model of shaping the witch’s story is that the scribe makes the story coherent, when in fact no conclusion was arrived at. This would make him the editor rather than the JP. Tidying up of the account is inevitable, but to suggest that the scribe is primarily responsible for the resultant coherent narrative seems a little too paranoiac a reading of collaborative documents, attributing all control to a single, shadowy figure—although the scribe’s existence needs to be remembered. Finally, model four, witches may tell a story of their own making—they may be the author of their own autobiography.34 We cannot identify any representation of witchcraft by a witch as being unconditioned by what he or she has previously heard or been accused of. But we can, I think, see input from the witch if he or she tells a story which might have been suggested by a victim or the questioner, but tells it in a way which serves the witch’s interest as well as, or against, those of the victim or questioner. In the cases investigated by Carlo Ginzburg and documented in The Night Battles, accused Italian ‘witches’ (the benandanti) told extraordinary stories of innocent fertility rituals which were initially of little use to their questioners. Ginzburg concluded that these stories were genuinely the witches’ own, and that later confessions of material more useful to the prosecution showed how the witches’ stories were distorted from their original shape. For him, the need for this distortion proved that the original material was the witches’ own. In English cases we might see the same pattern in stories that are really about something other than witchcraft, as it is defined by statute (which it would be contrary to the JP’s interests to hear), stories that begin as resistance to confession (against the victim’s interests) but slip into acceptance of blame, and stories which appear cooperative but in fact are less obliging than they look (against the interests of both victim and JP). The witch may also altogether refuse to confess, but this silence does not help us examine his or her version of witchcraft: either these witches believe that all speech about witchcraft was dangerous and in being

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represented was always misrepresented (they might be correct) or their denials have been silenced, compressed into a single statement of non-cooperation such as ‘shee coulde bee brought to confesse nothing’.35 Allofthese models are problematic, for how can we know the witch’s intention? But looking at witches’ stories, considering how they were elicited, but also how a response was made, is illuminating and brings us closer to an understanding of witchcraft narratives as influenced by many factors, negotiated and of flexible significance.36 We return to the idea of co-authorship, and must understand this many-voiced complexity if we want to investigate what witchcraft meant to whom and whose version of it we are reading. It is worth exploring the witch’s co-authorship in detail, and looking at how it might work in actual sources. The first and second models of the authorship of witchcraft stories, discussed above, stress victim and questioner input and argue against input from the witch. He or she had a reputation for witchcraft and thus had ready-made stories to tell from gossip about himself or herself. There are clearly elements of this rewording of a ready-made story in some witches’ accounts of their activities. In the case against Joan Pechey of St Osyth, Essex, Margery Sammon says ‘that she hath hard the widowe Hunt to say: that the sayde Joan Pechey shoulde say that shee coulde tell what any man saide or did at any time in there houses’. Whether Widow Hunt heard Joan say this or heard that she said it is perhaps unclear, but the latter seems probable, with three people involved in commenting on Pechey Barbara Rosen calls it ‘hearsay of hearsay’. Neighbourly surveillance and gossip is here part of an information against a witch, and it then contributes directly to an examination, when Joan Pechey, questioned on the same day as Margery Sammon, denies that ‘ever shee sayde to any of her neighbours, or to any other person in secrete sorte or meerely, that she knew or could tell what any man in the Towne at any time dyd or sayed’.37 Exactly the same words recur, suggesting that the questioner or clerk had the witness’s information before him when questioning the witch. The detail of such informations and questions based on them would leave the witch with no need to use his or her imagination—although in this case Pechey refused to accept the story. It is unsurprising that the stories of the St Osyth witches fit together, building upon one another, since they were examined consecutively, most likely in the same house. Overhearings and gossip, stories in verbal circulation which later form informations, might thus predetermine the stories told by these witches. Equally, some answers given by witches are possibly based on gossip, such as that recounted by Elizabeth Fraunces, who said: that she knoweth one Elizabeth Lorde a widowe, dwellyng in the same parishe of Hatfielde and so hath doen of longe tyme, of whom she hard, that about seven or eight yeres paste she brought drinke in a crewse [pot], and gave it to one Jhon Fraunces servaunte to goodman Some of the same parishe, shortly after the taking of whiche drinke he sickened, and died. 3 Item she further confesseth that she likewise knoweth that the same Widdowe Lorde, was saied to have bewitched one Jone Robertes, servaunte to old Higham, in a peece of an Apple cake whiche she gave her, upon the eatyng whereof she presently sickened, and not long after died.38

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Elizabeth has heard each story. If such representations of witchcraft were circulating generally, many stories would be available to a widely suspected witch when he or she was asked to confess. This might account for the coherence of some examination narratives, if we preferred to believe that the witch, not the scribe, was responsible for it. The witch may not be creating a narrative of his or her crimes; but may be repeating what others have said about him or her. Joan Upney of Dagenham said that ‘she ranne away, because she heard John Harrolde and Richard Foster say she was a witch’.39 Some stories clearly circulated for years: Elizabeth Fraunces’ first story is seven or eight years old. Any agreed communal narrative could be told lucidly by the witch when asked to reply to an accusation, although it might be a deceptive representation of his or her belief about what had really occurred.40 This would argue against models of witches’ confessions which stress their imaginative input, because their stories could be predetermined by others. It would also suggest that the questioner had little input, being only a channel for community narratives. Our model of co-authorship would thus collapse, leaving the victims and witnesses, and gossip from the wider community, as the authors of the story of witchcraft. But presumably, although these narratives had been volunteered to the magistrate initially, he had elicited them and formalised them as informations, further complicating our understanding of the origin of such stories and reinforcing the idea that there was a pooling of interests and expected stories by the victim and magistrate. Should the victim be regarded merely as a source for the two co-authors’ story, or should he or she be added to a triumvirate of co-authors? The latter seems a more accurate metaphor for what we have seen so far. It is likely that victim and magistrate believed that their role was to investigate the truth, which, for them, meant that the JP would elicit from the victim a story of events, and then elicit from the witch confirmation of the agreed version of the story—the ‘known true story’, as Kristin Jeanne Leuschner describes it.41 This presumably seemed a transparent and just proceeding and there was no need to foreground it in the texts which it produced. Therefore, our co-authors are completely lacking in self-awareness, and, in an added layer of hermeneutic unclarity, we cannot trust the pamphlets to show us an already-elicited story as predetermined. In one case deliberate concealment seems to have been attempted. In W.W’s (and/or Brian Darcey’s) account of the St Osyth case, there are very suspicious discrepancies. On 24 February 1581/2 an examination records that the St Osyth witch Ales Hunt was ‘asked, if she never did feede her spirits with mylke out of a lyttle trenyng [wooden] dishe, [and] sayde no’. This information is recorded as being given against her by her stepdaughter Febey Hunt, aged 8, who, ‘being caried after this confession by the Constables to her fathers house, she…chose out the dishe, out of which they were fedde, from amongst many other dishes’. When Ales denies the accusation, she is shown the dish, fetched ‘by the Constable’. It is unlikely that anyone could have identified this except Febey. But Febey’s information is dated 25 February, a day after Ales’. Exactly the same discrepancy clouds the relationship between Annis Dowsing’s information (dated 18 March 1581/2) against her mother Annis Heard, and Heard’s examination (dated 17 March), in which Heard clearly responds to the child’s detailed fantasy, including familiars’ names: ‘Crow’ and ‘Donne’. And the pattern is repeated with the Celles children and their parents in the same case.42 Controversial child evidence thus

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appears, deceptively, to complement, not predetermine, witches’ stories. Hunt accepted her pre-scripted story, but the others refused to assent to or retell theirs. This is a reminder that it was possible for witches to resist confession along lines suggested by other people. Witches do far more than merely accept the story forced on them, or expected from them, by their questioner. Just as Elizabeth Cohen sees court testimonies as a kind of autobiography, Diane Purkiss, in a chapter entitled ‘Self-Fashioning by Women: Choosing to be a Witch’, argues that ‘women’s confessions show women accused of witchcraft shaping their own stories’. Purkiss tends to think of confession as ‘rewriting’, however, while I see the witch as an author/co-author of original material in his or her own right. We might agree on her definition of certain types of confession as being ‘a narrative that represents a compromise between the story of the accused and the questions put to her’.43 This variant on the fourth model described above returns us to examining the strength of witches’ authorship within the structure of triple co-authors. As Lyndal Roper says of her female witches, ‘Witches were not always mere consumers of male discourse, providing witchcraft fantasy on order. They used the elements of their culture to create narratives which made sense of their lives’. But Roper also sees the German witches she discusses as ‘colluding’ with their examiners even though they are being tortured into confessing. My perception of what witches are doing in cooperating with questioners would modify this significantly, since I do not believe that men and women accused of witchcraft are masochistically willing their own pain, but Roper’s case would actually be even stronger in discussing English witches who were not subjected to torture but in comparison confess almost willingly.44 Roper’s other insight should also be further explored, since she suggests usefully that witches are creating narratives which make sense of their lives, and using their confessions as vehicles for speaking about many things other than witchcraft, even if, in the process, their words may be interpreted as a simple confession. In fact they often resist the questioner for some time before confessing something which he might be able to interpret unambiguously as an admission of witchcraft, and some confessions never ‘attain’ that level of clarity. This process depends partly on what is meant by ‘witchcraft’ and it is one of the contentions of this book that, judging by the variety of the representations of it, witchcraft probably meant a wider variety of things to sixteenth-century English people than we can easily imagine. Some of the stories cited here are less about maleficium, feud in the community or neighbourly conflict, than they are about personal, psychological matters, as with Roper’s witches. Why did men and women describe meetings with the devil? Why did they list their sins and quarrels and beg for forgiveness? What were the relationships between parents and the children who testified against them? Witchcraft seems to be ‘a multi-faceted nexus’, as Robin Briggs usefully described it—a meeting place of all kinds of meanings.45 Suspected witches could use their examinations to discuss a number of different things which might be of more concern to them than whatever definition of witchcraft the magistrate had in mind. Content, however, is related to form. The partially cooperative stories told by witches fall into several patterns. The first category of stories which resist incrimination yet at the same time appear to assist in it are those that do not primarily represent ‘witchcraft’ as defined by the statutes. The witch as author is telling a story about her or his own concerns.

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This kind of narrative is exemplified by Elizabeth Frauncis’s examination, printed in The Examination and Confession of certaine Wytches at Chensforde (1566). Elizabeth is exactly like the German witches described by Lyndal Roper. These are women troubled by familial relationships, guilt about lovers, jealousy, infanticide, and possibly also postnatally depressed.46 Their stories express these guilts and conflicts, inner and outer. Elizabeth Frauncis’ confession of sins in her examination for witchcraft may simply have been a great relief to her: she described how she had slept with a lover who then refused to marry her, wished her spirit to kill the man, aborted his child after his death, slept with her husband before their marriage, wished for the death of their children and lamed her husband because they quarrelled. Rosen sees Elizabeth’s confession in terms of ‘guilt’ at giving into satanic temptation.47 Her spirit was called Sathan and he would bear the blame in the traditional framework of temptation, fall, repentance and absolution, while the sinner was, with due penance, exonerated. But the magistrate could not absolve Elizabeth and she was lucky to escape with a year’s imprisonment after pleading guilty in court, an unusual occurrence—possibly reflecting a deep sense of culpability in her unhappy life?48 How far should we believe that what we are reading is autobiographical? Perhaps the unique nature of Elizabeth’s confession and its sometimes total unhelpfulness to the magistrate means that it is a representation of herself as she would wish to be seen, rather than herself playing the desired role of ‘witch’. For her, ‘witchcraft’ seems to have been about sin as much as magic. But, while Frauncis’ confession is probably based on personal experience, it is also true that she was examined, according to the Examination (1566) by ‘Doctor Cole’ as well as by Henry Fortescue JP, and so the religious context might have affected her confession. It is, after all, more appropriate to a church court, where a penance would have been the probable punishment.49 Her 1566 version of witchcraft is perhaps also a reflection of attitudes to witchcraft before the 1563 statute, which secularised the crime of witchcraft and its punishment, turning it from sin into felony. Perhaps the really unexpected aspect of her confession, one which was of little use to victims or questioners and thus perhaps the witch’s own, is that her story is also shaped by a folktale. Her acquisition of a talking cat, who promised her riches, goods, sheep, a rich husband and an easier life, is remarkably Puss in Boots-like and, while that story might not have been current at the time in all its modern aspects, the wish-fulfilling shape of the story is common. It seems like a representation of witchcraft from a discourse other than the legal, which, given that this account is shaped by being a legal examination, is perhaps an indication that the folktale aspects of it are something beyond or pre-existing the legalistic form in which it is represented. Such stories suggest input from the witch in shaping his or her response to the legal system and its definition of witchcraft. A second pattern of partially cooperative confession is different, and more widely appreciated, because of Carlo Ginzburg’s account of the benandanti.50 Their developing confessions show the version of ‘witchcraft’ which comes from other discourses (pagan rituals, folktales, popular culture) slipping into the traditional confession of witchcraft (harmful magic or maleficium, and devil worship) as it is discussed with the examiner. In English pamphlets this ‘other discourse’, the witch’s own version of ‘witchcraft’, is often medicinal, the language and skills of cunning-magic. Sometimes it is alternatively supernatural—not harmful witchcraft but possession of, and by, spirits. Examinations

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which contain a slippage from the witch’s story of witchcraft to that of the court show how the meaning of witchcraft is negotiated and mutable, that co-authorship is demonstrably at work, and thus incidentally that legal documents and witchcraft pamphlets cannot be seen as repositories of facts because there is often a progression or change within them.51 Examinations are not unified wholes. There are different types of slippage from the witch’s own story to the questioner’s, because witches have different positions from which to slip. Some witches, like John Walsh or Joan Willimot, deny maleficium not because they deny that they keep spirits but because they see the nature of their spirits as good. This position then erodes under questioning, until in both cases confessions in more traditional legal moulds of witchcraft are made. Walsh resists more successfully than Willimot in never admitting that he had harmed anyone, but his spirit becomes more and more like the devil—perhaps because his examination was in a church court and the emphasis was as much on sin as maleficium. Some witches, like Ursley Kempe and Annis Glascock of St Osyth, begin their path to acceptance of the questioner’s idea of witchcraft by talking about their own experiences of being bewitched, and the cures prescribed. In Ursley’s case this led to her confessing her own cunning activities (Diane Purkiss describes this as a ‘minimalist confession’) and finally to confessions of witchcraft.52 This progression, crossing gradually between discourses, is a matter of the examinate changing role from victim, even potentially informant, to witch. As recently as the 1960s, Jeanne Favret-Saada watched a similar process of transformation from victim to witch in Jean and Josephine Babin in rural France, who first told her that Jean was bewitched and needed healing, but then revealed that he was suspected of bewitching his neighbour.53 In the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English cases described in the pamphlets, the ambiguous use of the title ‘examination’ also to describe victims’ informations shows the flexibility of the representation of the suspect: in one statement, an accuser; in the next, a confessing witch. If witches are the authors of their own autobiographies, then the genre is very flexible, and magisterial (co-authorial) pressure can be seen pushing the suspect towards selecting the right type of story to tell—if not seizing control of the material itself. Suspected witches who can be seen responding to this pressure usually keep control of their narrations very effectively. There may come a moment when they appear to break under pressure, but they do not become mouthpieces for the magistrate after this moment—far from it. Elizabeth Bennet of St Osyth is the most extreme example of a witch who begins by talking about matters well outside the narrow definition of witchcraft (although interestingly related to it) and ends by confessing to it. But describing her as ‘being represented as a witch’ is extremely problematic, and is to take the simplistic line her examiner Brian Darcey took; in effect a misrepresentation. What did Elizabeth mean to represent herself as? What did witchcraft mean to her? Being accused of causing several deaths by witchcraft, she denied everything until the JP Darcey fraudulently threatened her with burning and hanging, at which point she, crying, told how she had retorted a curse from her neighbour back on to himself, apparently by substituting his name for hers at the end of the anathema.54 A cow of his had supposedly died as a result, but she said she thought that he had killed it by beating it himself. This seems a very mild form of witchcraft and not an important confession, since the witch

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carefully avoids blame. But in fact it is a key strategy in her confession, since, as an opening gambit, it set the pattern for her next statements: she confessed to increasingly serious acts of witchcraft, but would not accept that she was responsible for them. Instead Elizabeth told an elaborate story of victimisation and enslavement to the wishes of evil spirits, seeing her crimes as their fault. She explained that above two yeeres past, there came unto her two spirits, one called Suckin, being blacke like a Dogge, the other called Lierd, beeing red like a Lion…On a time as this examinat was comming from mill, the spirite called Suckin came unto her and did take her by the coate, and helde her that shee coulde not goe forwarde nor remoove by the space of two houres, at the which (this examinat saith) she was much amased, and shee saith, that the spirite did aske her if she this examinat woulde goe with it: Whereat shee this examinat saide, In the name of God, what art thou: Thou wilt not hurt mee, at the which speeche it said no, & this Examinat saith, that shee then prayed devoutly to Almightie God to deliver her from it: at which time the spirite did depart.55 This is clearly not the start of a conventional witchcraft confession. It most resembles a narrative of obsession, a kind of possession in which the victim was controlled from outside his or her body by a spirit. A comparable example is Agnes Browne’s story, a victim ‘on whom the spirite haunteth’ in the Examination (1566). Agnes was repeatedly accosted by an ape-faced black dog. At first playful, demanding butter, he became angry when Agnes obeyed the instructions of a priest who had been called to her. She said to the dog, ‘in the name of Jesus what hast thou there’, and he ‘sayde that I spake evyll woordes’ and ‘departed’.56 Like Agnes’s dog, Elizabeth’s Suckin returns several times and is banished with appeals to ‘God to deliver her from that evill spirite’. He returns with Lierd and they ask ‘why she was so snappish yesterday’, to which she retorts, ‘I trust I am in the faith of God, and you shall have no power over mee’. Later, the spirit taking Elizabeth by the leg, she says, ‘God and the holy Ghost deliver me from the evill spirites’. These are the stock answers of obsession or possession victims when tempted by hostile spirits. In her story, God does deliver Elizabeth, making her representation of herself more like the godly victim of witchcraft than like a witch.57 Obsessing spirits were thought to tempt victims to suicide or threaten to kill them, and they often got more violent as the victim resisted demands to obey or worship them. Like a victim of obsession, Elizabeth says she was attacked by her spirits, who took her by the hips as she forked the fire and, she says, told her seeing thou wilt not be ruled, thou shalt have a cause, and would have thrust this examinat into ye burning Oven, & so had (as this examinate saith) but for the foresaide forke, but this examinat striving and dooing what shee coulde to her uttermost, the saide spirite burnt her arme, the which burning is apparaunt and evidently too bee seene.58

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The stories of accepted victims show exactly the same pattern: Agnes Browne was threatened with a knife; Jane Throckmorton was tempted to thrust her head into fire; Joane Jorden was thrown downstairs.59 Here, the spirit wants Elizabeth to ‘be ruled’, showing how she is shaping her story to suggest a loss of control over her life, and a resort to magical powers only under duress. She was terrified of the spirits, she says, describing how ‘her eies were like to start out of her head’, and how she desired God to govern and guide her. At last she turns her confession around completely, reaching the desired point by stating clearly that ‘shee came by the saide spirits’ when ‘one Mother Turner did sende them unto her to her house (as shee thinketh) for that she had denyed the sayde Mother Turner of mylke’.60 This is a perfect obsession victim’s narrative, resisting telling the expected witch’s story of guilt by implying that the ‘witch’ is in fact the victim of another witch. In this way Elizabeth, although she is not strong enough to resist the drift into confession, moves towards an assertion that the spirits which were inflicted upon her are the source of the evil which she is supposed to have done, and that she has done little harm herself. This strategy—conscious or not—is needed because, like other witches, Elizabeth’s confessions become increasingly serious. She is prepared to admit that, when the spirits returned, ‘for that Byet had oftentimes misused her this examinat and her Cattell, shee saith, that shee caused Lyard in ye likenes of a Lion to go & plague the said Byets beastes unto death…’61 Such a crime would have resulted in imprisonment and the pillory. But further than this Elizabeth does not seem prepared to go. When it becomes necessary to confess that a woman died as a result of her witchcraft, the suspected witch actively resists incrimination of herself, and blames her spirits for everything: about Whitsontyde last past, the spirit called Suckin, did come agayne at that tyme unto her, sayeing to this Examinate, that he had mette Byettes wife two severall tymes…And saieth it tolde this Examinate, it had plagued ye said Byets wife to the death. She this Examinate saying it was done by the spirite, but not by the sending of this Examinate. The sayde spirite sayeing, I know that Byet and his wife have wronged thee greatly, and doone thee severall hurtes, and beaten thy swyne, and thrust a pytchforke in one of them, the which the spirite sayde to have doone, to winne credit with this Examinate.62 She denies maleficium against Byet’s wife by saying that the spirit acted autonomously. Here again the story is of temptation—the spirit wants to be credited, believed in, perhaps to tempt Elizabeth to use him. Eventually she does, sending him to kill Byet, the most serious confession, punishable by execution, and representing the downfall of her attempt to remain blameless. But Elizabeth resisted over several pages of text and hers is a story which fits Favret-Saada’s observation that ‘most of those who are accused of witchcraft manage…to transform their story into that of an ordinary bewitched’.63 Elizabeth Bennet’s confession shows just how flexible witchcraft stories are, how they are created by the questioning-negotiating-confessing situation as much as by any real events, and how they can be used by the witch against the questioner as well as vice versa.

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Elizabeth Bennet’s is a narrative which is less obliging than it looks, a representation of the witch by herself in a way apparently designed, however unconsciously, to be ambiguous, to collude and not to collude. There is a definite struggle for authorship going on here. As Ginzburg says, ‘the witch has been vanquished, but even now her response is not the desired one’.64 And it is not unique. Compare the narrative shaped by Joan Prentice, who says that she told her ferret: goe unto maister Glascocks house, and nippe one of his Children a little, named Sara, but hurt it not, and the next night he resorted unto her againe, and told her that he had doon as she willed him: namely, that he had nipped Sara Glascock, and that she should dye therof, to whome she answered and saide, thou villaine what hast thou doon, I bid thee to nip it but a little and not to hurt it, and hast thou killed the childe?65 Diane Purkiss comments that this case shows how a woman in the disempowered position of witch suspect was able to use verbal and storytelling skill to shape for herself an identity which showed her in the best possible light while acceding to the demand for confession, repentance and reparation…a narrative that represents a compromise between the story of the accused and the questions put to her; Prentice admits to the crime, but subtly places the blame for it on the demons who acted on her behalf.66 In a similar way, Joan Upney simply omits to mention whether she ordered her familiars to attack victims, saying only that she left a toad at Harrold’s house ‘and it pinched his wife’, and that another toad ‘went over her threshold as Richard Fosters wife was coming that way, and it went and pinched her, and never returned againe’.67 There are possibly other story shapes which confess while resisting guilt: possibly all witches who say they met their spirits by chance, issued an instruction and never saw them again, are trying to distance themselves from the guilt of possessing and feeding a spirit. Elizabeth Fraunces met a dog, asked him to plague Poole’s wife, gave him some bread ‘and since then she never sawe him’, while Alse Gooderige (in an informal examination) says much the same, except that the dog returned to report his crime, and later appears to the witch in gaol. Ales Manfield says that she kept, fed and sent the spirits of her friend Margaret Grevell, but only on Grevell’s behalf.68 Other witches refusing to blame themselves, or to represent themselves as uncomplicatedly wicked, describe the spirit’s violence when they refused to obey it. Anne Chattox’s spirit bit her when she refused temptation to attack a victim, while Demdike’s Tibb pushed her into a ditch for refusing to help make pictures (magical images).69 Here again witchcraft is about sin, temptation and fall, even coercion, as with Elizabeth Bennet. Anne Chattox also tried ‘in place of…accusations of murdered children…to substitute victims less worthy of concern’, as Edgar Peel and Pat Southern put it. She would only admit to killing a cow.70 These witches, like Roper’s German ones, ‘collude’ with their examiners in carrying out ‘creative work’, but they are using their narratives in a very personal, expressive, dynamic way. In appreciating the

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complexity of their stories, and reading them as more than ‘confessions’, we see witches as agents creatively and perhaps consciously authoring their own stories. Scholars are now beginning to imagine their motives for constructing witchcraft as they do, or at least remember that they may have motives.71 Otherwise we are missing a layer of meaning and shaping in a narrative—the confession or examination—which we have long accepted as summative of part of what witchcraft was. Of all the witches who co-author their stories by confessing, yet resisting confession, Margery Sammon uses her story in the most sophisticated way. Like other witches, she confesses when her courage fails, but then, unlike Elizabeth Bennet and the others, she uses the story established by her confession to find an acceptable escape from guilt and from punishment, instead of getting deeper into the conventional representation of a witch by admitting to progressively graver crimes. Carlo Ginzburg describes a similar witch ‘pursu[ing] a course that she hopes offers an avenue of escape, embellishing and refining her original story’, and Margery does exactly this.72 She initially refused to admit having any spirits, even when accused by Ales Hunt, saying ‘I defie thee, though thou art my sister’. But when Ales whispered in her ear she confessed ‘with great submission and many teares’ that she had two spirites delyvered her by her mother…And that she asking her mother what shee should doe with them, she bad her keepe them and feede them: This Examinate asking wherewithall: her mother answered, if thou doest not give them mylke, they will sucke of thy blood…And this Examinate beeing asked how often she had given them meate sithence she had them, saieth and confesseth, that she fed them twise out of a dyshe with mylke…This Examinate sayeth also, that when shee tooke them of her mother, shee sayde unto her, if thou wilte not keepe the said spirits, then send them to mother Pechey, for I know she is a Witch, and will bee glad of them. And saith further, that shee hearing, that Ursleye Kempe was apprehended, and fearing that shee shoulde bee called in question, saieth thereupon shee tooke the saide spirites being in a basket, and in the evening wente into the grounde of her Master, and so into Reads grounde, and bad them goe to the sayde mother Pechey: At which wordes they skypped out of the said basket, and wente before this Examinate, shee this Examinate sayeing, all evill goe with you, and the Lorde in heaven blesse mee from yee; And sayeth, shee myghte see the sayde spyrites goeing towarde a barred style, goeing over into Howe lane: And when they came at the style, shee saieth, they skypped over the same style and wente the readye waye to mother Pecheys house; And saieth shee verily thinketh the sayde mother Pechey hath them.73 Margery accepts that she had or has spirits, but as the story progresses distances herself from them. She fed them not on blood, but milk only; she appears not to imagine using them; and she creates and avails herself of an option to get rid of them, carefully incriminating Joan Pechey in the course of describing casually her intended gift. Familiars seem everyday commodities in Margery’s studiedly unmagical representation of her activities. She visualises in detail her motive for releasing them, the time, place and her route there,

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making clear her seemingly truthful, innocent practicality. She formalises her symbolic separation from them with something like a charm or prayer banishing evil, and her representation is so detailed, so mimetic of what she describes, and so atmospheric, that we can almost see them skipping to and over the stile, physically distanced from her, and firmly located with someone else. The stile represents an imaginative boundary—once the evil has gone over, Margery is free from it. It is unclear how conscious this manipulation of confession is, but the result is convenient. Margery admits no maleficium. She could be, and later was, tried for possession of spirits, but such charges are rare.74 I am not suggesting that Margery knew this, but that, forced into confession by fear and distress, she did her best to represent her involvement with witchcraft in a plausibly limited way. We have to consider the human practicalities and dynamics of confession in discussing such examinations as representations of witchcraft. A storyteller as sophisticated and desperate as Margery Sammon should make us pause to ask exactly whose story we are hearing, and whose interests are served in its potentially deceptive telling. We might want to celebrate the cleverness or imaginative felicity of witches like Margery, but there is a darker side to the belief that witches manipulate their confessions. If, as Roper suggested, witches are in control of their stories, the collusive, suicidal model of witches’ representations of themselves must then be examined. Thus, the flip side of the fourth model for understanding witchcraft confessions (to add to the ideas that they are authored by victim, questioner or scribe, or by witches resisting incrimination) is that some witches tell deeply self-incriminating stories designed exclusively by themselves because they derive short-term authority and benefits from confession. Antero Heikkinen remarks that, when a poor woman was interrogated, ‘she suddenly found herself the centre of attention, an important person whom the judge and spectators listened to intently’,75 and he speculates that she talked readily accordingly. This, although an unsympathetic reading, could be true in some of the cases we have looked at. The St Osyth witch Ursley Kempe probably gained a gratifying sibylline reputation by her confession, since she was consulted in prison by several sick people who had heard of her much-confessed cunning. She was also in effect courted by JPs wanting more information. In an astonishing example of a witch gratefully accepting a tailor-made representation of herself as guilty, her fellow villager Ales Manfield then copied Ursley’s confession closely. She, like Kempe, said she had four spirits, two hes and two shes. She cooperated with other witches in sending them, she asserted, just as Ursley Kempe worked with Ales Newman. Ales Manfield told the magistrate that her spirits told her about other witches, as Kempe’s did, and she said she saw spirits in other witches’ houses when they were out, as Ursley confessed that she did. Ales Manfield even mimics Ursley Kempe’s most strikingly collusive phrase—Kempe named other witches to the magistrate by saying that ‘her white spirit told her’ the other women were witches. Ales uses the same words, but her empty parroting of self-incriminating motifs is demonstrated by the fact that earlier she had said that all her spirits were black. Most of Manfield’s information is based on what we have read in earlier-dated examinations. She goes beyond mere collaboration with her questioner, seizing control of her own story to the extent that she refuses to follow Darcey’s lead when he suggests she has been lying and should withdraw her

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confession.76 This is a strange, confusing, kind of resistance to magisterial input—the witch does not manipulate her story in order to escape; she forces her conviction on the reluctant legal official. Co-authorship collapses for a moment here, in the extraordinary spectacle of a witch refusing to retract material which her supposedly more powerful co-author/co-editor finds unacceptable. Ales Manfield is very unusual in her choice of story. In fact she exceeded her role model in the vehemence of her uncompromising creativity. Her inspiration, Ursley Kempe, was being more conventionally strategic, and thus more sophisticated, in authoring her own self-incrimination. She explained how she had committed witchcraft, named four other witches, wept and begged forgiveness, and appeared to reach the height of blameworthy collusion with her interrogator-oppressor in recalling him for another confession: The said Ursley, being committed to the ward & keeping of the Constable that night, upon some speeches that shee had passed, said, that shee had forgotten to tell M.Darcey one thing, whereupon the next day she was brought before Brian Darcey, & the second time examined…77 But this ‘confession’, in fact, she used to shift or at least spread blame from herself to Ales Newman. It reads not simply as a self-indulgent, attention-seeking ploy, but as a complex rethinking of her position. Ursley retold the stories of her first examination, saying now that she did not send the spirits herself to her victims, but that Ales Newman did. For example, Ursley had said ‘that shee [Ursley] sent Tyffin to punishe Thorlows wife, and Pigin Letherdalls Childe’. Now she says that Ales had taken the spirits away with her, and Ursley went to her and: declared to her that Thorlows wife and she were fallen out, and prayed the said Newemans wife to sende the spirite called Tittey, unto her to plague the sayde Thorlowes wife…and tolde her of the falling out between Stratton and her, and requested the saide Newmans wife, to sende Jacke the spirite unto Strattons wife to plague her, ye which the said Ales Newman promised this examinate to doe the next night, as this examinate saith shee did…and did shewe her that one Letherdalls wife and shee were fallen out, and sayth, that shee prayed her to sende one of the spirites unto her younge chylde: whereunto the sayd Ales answered well, she would…and this examinate saith, that she the said Ales sent the spirit Pigin to plague ye said child…78 What Ursley intended cannot be reconstructed from this, but in effect it absolves her of blame for either keeping or sending spirits. It seems that even a very collusive, self-incriminating confession is not what it seems—as an example of manipulation of the expected form of examination, Ursley’s apparently suicidal confession is as skilful as Margery Sammon’s backtracking from an admission of possessing spirits to a safer position of distance from guilt. Witches struggling within the constraints of a triangular or dual relationship, where each party wants to shape the final story, waver between representations of themselves in a way which makes categorisation of their levels of

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control of their stories difficult.79 In a sense, categorisation is not the point—but a better understanding of the dynamics of such situations is an important outcome. The dynamics of the surviving witchcraft examinations seem to be about cooperation, co-authorship and negotiation. Oddly, all sides agree that there is a story to be told, even though the stories may be completely different. Records printed in pamphlets are bound to be self-selecting to some extent in that silence, or a stubborn denial of all involvement with witchcraft, on the part of the witch would be dull for readers of pamphlets, but some examples of this are preserved, suggesting that resistance was possible. This rejection of guilt is the last ‘model’ of representations of witches by themselves. We cannot know how frequent it was. It breaks the cooperative link with the questioner which generated all the stories we have been examining. It is hard to tell what circumstances would produce a refusal to tell a story, although it is noticeable that, in the St Osyth account, the only pamphlet to record a long process of interrogation fully, suspects interviewed later in the progress of the investigation refuse to confess anything, while earlier suspects confess copiously. Some later suspects refuse to tell stories of any kind, perhaps perceiving that any representation of the supernatural might slip into the ill-defined category of witchcraft, as demonstrated by Elizabeth Bennet’s examination. Others simply reject all the accusations flatly, like Ales Newman or Margaret Grevell, leaving little record except brief comments on quarrels or conversations, perhaps recorded as being suspicious, taken out of context by guilt-seeking selection.80 Such records of deliberate silence are rare. More common are records that show witches resisting selectively, shaping their narration to confess to some crimes, but reject responsibility for others. For example, in her post-conviction confession, Elizabeth Sawyer will admit killing nurse-children, of which she had been acquitted; but, when asked if she had killed the woman of whose murder she was convicted, says categorically, ‘No, I did not by my meanes procure against her the least hurt’. She replied to one question, ‘I never did any such thing’, a complete rejection of the expected attitude and of narrative willingness. Similarly, Joan Pechey’s examination statements have a potentially sullen, defiant tone: she was asked by Brian Darcey JP what colour her kitten was, and ‘sayed she could not tell, saying yee maye goe and see’—hardly a subservient, respectful response.81 Again, this questions both the views that witches are simply victims, or that they are particularly compliant storytellers. They neither accept proffered representations of themselves gratefully, contributing little to their own stories, nor do they necessarily fantasise willingly, jumping at the chance to receive attention, to be treated seriously by their male social superiors, and to talk about their inner lives. They do not seem to be easily exploited, but neither are they to blame for their downfall. This leaves us wondering: What do witches want? We have a better idea of what magistrates and questioning divines want, not in terms of their ideology of witchcraft, but in that questioners simply want a clear confession from the suspect if they believe them to be guilty. We can also imagine what victims want, which will be the subject of Chapter 3. But we are only just beginning to consider the third party—witches. The above confessions show witches responding to examinations in very sophisticated ways, either by design or simply as an expression of complex imaginations and events. Witches under examination seem to enter a state of detachment from reality, in which

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their imagination is freed from many usual constraints, yet retains an acute consciousness of real events and material context, which can be reinterpreted to suit themselves, the questioner, or both. Both participants shape what we read. In literary terms, witches and magistrates are authors collaborating on a story known at some level to be fiction, or at least devilish illusion. The victim contributes to this process, too. They then combine their versions of the story to represent it in a highly opaque way at an unknown distance from the truth of any real events. Therefore, events are hidden behind their joint or divergent intentions and reconstructing these intentions is extremely problematic. As Jeanne Favret-Saada remarks, it becomes clear that ‘any information on the subject [of witchcraft] is not informative, but only moments in a strategy’—a useful motto for anyone seeking to understand witchcraft, since in part it is the strategy we must seek to reconstruct.82 The attempted uncovering of patterns of questioning, and now patterns of confession and resistance, is the focus of this discussion because if pamphlets about witches, usually supposed to be sources close to witchcraft events, cannot show us anything about witchcraft which is not multiply mediated, then we should not trust them as much as we have done in constructing ‘factual’ accounts. They cannot tell us truths. We ought instead to realise that they can tell us about how witches, witnesses, magistrates, legal clerks, pamphleteers, and perhaps readers, wanted witchcraft to be seen. Disentangling their various contributions is very difficult, but in discussing witchcraft as represented in pamphlets we must be aware of the multitude of competing, collaborating, voices in them and not homogenise these conflicting representations or confuse them with reality. Readers of pamphlets react like magistrates if they accept examinations as given, coherent and truthful.83 We find ourselves, however sympathetically, evaluating the witchcraft confessions as data, rather than asking about the processes of their production and representation. In fact the typicality and categorisable nature of the witches’ stories suggest not factuality but generic representations of witchcraft by witches, perhaps because of the questions asked of them and their need to respond by resisting or cooperating. There is, however, a final layer of representation which stands between us and the stories from the legal system which we have been reading—the writers. Writers: clerks and pamphleteers After the co-authors, questioner, witch and victim, had created a mutually acceptable representation of events, it was recorded—a further shaping of content and form which adds another layer to the complexity of the documents. A clerk was the writer of the examinations and informations we read.84 Does this make the clerk a fourth author? Clerks would be interested in producing a coherent, clearly structured account, a functional legal document, and their examinations are therefore presented as a series of unproblematic statements. From these, indictable offences could be chosen at the assizes. For the clerk, acting for the magistrate, the document was a summation of the whole dialogical process of examination, written up a maximum of two days after the actual dialogue had occurred, and thus potentially covering or substantially reshaping any detailed account of what had actually been said and why.85 From this description it can be seen that

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examinations are somewhere between a modern statement made to the police and the executive minutes of a meeting, recording only decisive moments. Analysis of the input of various participants is thus based on an already complicated foundation, because the ‘recording’ writers are elusive, and their intention, beyond their official role, is irrecoverable. These ‘authors’ are supposedly channels for information, but we have by now enough suspicion of objectivity to suggest that we ought to add them to our list of the shapers of records of witchcraft. They are not supposed to produce new material, but in codifying what has been produced they may substantially alter it: if the clerk is not an author—which he may be—then perhaps the most suitable analogy for the role of the clerk is with adaptation. Clerks record material in a way that makes it suitable for public use in court, and thus produce another layer of interpretation between us and the original process. Beyond the clerks are the pamphleteers. These would traditionally be seen as the ‘authors’ of witchcraft pamphlets, but we have seen that in some pamphlets they use material already authored by others. They too may edit and adapt, but they are on the whole more or less scrupulous anthologists of the works of others. This section discusses the use of documents by pamphleteers, and looks back at the writing of the clerks through the prism of the use and even misrepresentation of documents by those pamphleteers who are bad anthologists, corrupting their texts. In the interplay between clerks’ and pamphleteers’ accounts one can see various views of witchcraft. Narrative accounts clash with documents, while documents themselves are unreliable. We might hope that an examination gives a clearer representation than a narrative would of what witchcraft meant to the participants in the recorded events—as I began this chapter by suggesting—but can we be sure? Both forms are bound by certain conventions, clouded by irrecoverable authorial intention, and are equally representations, not facts. Legal documents like examinations and informations are only more ‘accurate’ than narratives because they are more direct representations, more closely following the words of the participants in real or perceived events. But we have seen how selective they are. While we can suggest that the clerkly writer was closer to the actual events than the pamphleteer who edits his documents, can we really conclude that he gives us a more accurate representation of witchcraft, or what witchcraft meant? And, first, can we always tell which of those representations we are reading—that of the clerk or the pamphleteer? Where they have access to them, pamphleteers do not usually seem to alter the words of clerks in examinations and informations. But they often make it disturbingly unclear whether particular material is from an identifiable legal document or not. The first pamphlet which prints witches’ examinations shows how confused pamphleteers were about their sources, and how liable they are to misrepresent their very nature. It describes its contents on the title page as ‘The Examination and Confession of certaine Wytches at Chensforde in the Countie of Essex, before the Quenes majesties Judges, the xxvi daye of July, anno 1566’, implying that the examinations were taken before the judges at the assizes on that date. Inside there is more confusion with the same documents called ‘the examination of them with their confession before Doctor Cole and master Foscue at the same Sise’.86 This open contradiction suggests a lack of understanding of the legal system in the pamphleteers, since the two latter are probably the examiners.

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Dr Cole is not named in the assize records but Master Foscue is probably Henry Fortescue JP, of Faulkbourne, the neighbouring parish to Hatfield Peverel, where the witches came from. The confusion over who played which role is exemplified by Notestein’s account of the case, taken from the pamphlet and repeated in summary in recent times by C.R.Unsworth: A major trial at Chelmsford in 1566 was conducted by the reverend Thomas Cole, a local rector, Sir John Fortescue, Keeper of the Queen’s Wardrobe, John Southcote, justice of the King’s Bench, with Sir Gilbert Gerard, the Queen’s Attorney. It was unclear whether the last of these eminent figures was in charge of the prosecution or sitting in judgement, some of the evidence suggesting the latter. Southcote and Gerard were the judges, as a mass of records show (Gerard probably sitting alone to deal with crown cases) and there was no such role as is imagined for Gerard as prosecutor. The magistrate Fortescue and the divine Cole (in some capacity) were thus probably the men by whom the examination was produced when the witch was apprehended and brought before them. The pamphleteers do not elucidate this, and describe the examinations as ‘verbatum as nere as could be gathered’, which is unlikely, since they were almost certainly acquired by the pamphleteers as written documents.87 This is probable, because their format is so like other examinations: great detail, bald statements with the legal language of magistrates and clerks, each statement beginning with ‘Item’. They are not verbal narrations or colloquial paraphrases, but functional, unembroidered written reports. The term ‘verbatum’ does not even describe the recording of the witches’ answers, as we have seen. Thus, even conscientious pamphleteers using apparently genuine legal documents can blur the epistemological status and source of what they print. Later pamphleteers seem to understand their sources better, notably the compiler of A true and just Recorde (1582), who may have been JP Brian Darcey or someone directed by him. Therefore the pamphlet accurately describes its contents as the ‘Information, Examination and Confession of all the Witches, taken at S.Oses…written orderly’ and ‘a late view of tryall…the orderly processe in whose examinations…[is] knit up in a fewe leaves of paper’. Darcey took the examinations himself, and in their similarity to examinations surviving in legal records they appear untouched. His reproduction of what was written might be embellished by authorial intrusions into the examinations such as: the said Bryan Darcey finding this examinate to bee obstinate, and that shee coulde bee brought to confesse nothing, said to this Examinat, that hee woulde sever and part her and her spirites a sunder, nay sayth shee this examinat, that shal ye not, for I wil carry them with me, and hold being taken of her wordes, after some distance she added (if she have any).88 This situating of a witch’s statements in the context of magisterial questioning—and here, trickery—is unique to the St Osyth pamphlet. The witch’s words in response to the trick question are even textually highlighted, bracketed off at the end of the examination to

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make the ‘distance’ between them and her incriminating statement more suspicious. But this narrative addition bringing in Darcey is probably contemporary with the examination rather than a later editing for publication as a pamphlet, because it is so integral to the witch’s confession, so necessary to her conviction. While Darcey or his minions seem to have been their own editors, working over the examinations and informations so thoroughly as to compile a table of data from them at the back of the pamphlet, they did not produce examinations and informations which read like paraphrases, and seem to be leaving their documents as ‘verbatum’ as possible. A provenance like this (correct technical description, known circumstances of production, known trial records and JP, recognisable legal style, careful factual treatment) makes these documents the most certainly genuine examinations and informations appearing in pamphlets. We are clearly going to read these documents differently from any which appear to have been embellished after the pre-trial stage with material from an unknown source. Such material will not be any less representative, but we would have no idea how far its content was from the irrecoverable events which are most directly recorded in the pre-trial documents. If we have a proven status for material, as we do in A true and just Recorde, we know at least what its context is, and therefore what some of its biases and omissions are likely to be. But in other pamphlets there is no such provenance. We have no idea how the pamphleteers acquired their material, it is informally described or structured, and there is no named JP. Thus it is unclear whose representation of witchcraft we are reading—clerk or pamphleteer, or someone in between. In any case, we have acquired a new author, since the anthologist pamphleteer is trespassing into the text. In the 1579 pamphlet A Detection of damnable driftes, apparent paraphrasing might be suggested by the narrative style of the informations. For example, ‘The Evidence given against Elleine Smithe’ begins, ‘There was one Jhon Chaundeler dwellyng in Maldon, whose wife named Alice Chaundeler, was mother unto this Elleine Smithe, and for Witchcrafte was executed long before…’ This is a ‘once upon a time’ opening, with no ‘Imprimis’ or ‘Item’ like Elizabeth Fraunces’s examination, which is printed before it. It is also revealed that the man we initially suppose to be the informant, Chaundeler, is dead, and there is no named witness to suggest the pamphleteer is simply transcribing word for word a written information (perhaps consisting of what someone else had said about Chaundeler). The next item, although numbered ‘2’ as if it was documentary, takes liberties with reporting, suggesting a paraphrase. It describes Elleine Smithe’s son being refused charity by John Estwood, and how he ‘wente home and tolde his mother’, and later how she came ‘dissemblyngly’ to Estwood’s house. Both the quotations suggest assumptions by the pamphleteer, making the narrative flow, since, while Estwood might have inferred both, or the son (who gives evidence in item four) might have reported them, it was unusual to record the opinions of witnesses in this way, the tone of most examinations being baldly factual.89 Examinations contain nouns and verbs but few adjectives. On stylistic grounds, then, this examination seems likely to have been reshaped by the pamphleteer. A decisive indication of this is given when the third item refers to Smithe as being in prison: ‘Also it was avouched, and by this prisoner confessed…’ This shows that what we are reading is a report from Elleine Smithe’s trial of the ‘evidence given’ against her, as

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the subtitle implied, not a legal document at all. On A8 is another indication that the pamphleteer heard rather than read the evidence: he describes Robart Cornell as ‘of Suersem’, which Rosen silently amends to ‘of Seward’s End’, a village a mile from Wimbish. This is not a likely visual misreading.90 The account here could be based on shorthand notes taken as evidence was given, which would paraphrase the kind of material found in informations. However we cannot rely on the Detection to be composed entirely of paraphrased informations and examinations. The account of Margery Staunton begins ‘Imprimis’ and ‘Item’ as transcriptions of informations would, but the heading is ‘the effecte of the Evidence againste Mother Staunton…who was arraigned, but not executed, for that no manslaughter, or murder was objected against her’ (A6v). This vagueness (no Christian name) and reference to the trial and its outcome suggest a court report rather than written informations as the source, but the texts of the accounts read exactly like informations which are identified as such. Thus their status is unclear. We even see the creation of such a document of unclear status in this part of the pamphlet: Imprimis, this Mother Staunton, late of the parishe of Wimbishe in Essex, came to the house of one Thomas Prat of Broke Walden, Jhon Farrour of Libleburie beeyng presente, and one Thomas Swallowe, and the saied Mother Staunton, beyng demaunded by one of them how she did, she aunswered, that a knave had beaten her: saiyng she was a Witche, then saied he again, in good faithe Mother Staunton, I thinke you bee no Witche, no Maister [quoth] she, I am none in deede, although I can tell what belongeth to that practice, of which woordes, the goodman of the house tooke witnesse of the aforenamed parties, and delivered a bill subscribed with their handes thereof, to Maister George Nicolles. Marianne Hester says that this bill is to ‘endorse that [Mother Staunton] is not a witch’ but this would be unusual. It would be unlikely to be taken into account at her trial, since until 1597 no defence evidence was allowed. In any case the next two items show Prat as suspicious of Mother Staunton and treating her cruelly. George Nichols was the local JP, so here we may see information being given to him that would end up in an information against the witch, to be sent with her examination to the assizes, if the case was proceeded with.91 But this is not, presumably, an information itself, since the account of it is contained within the paragraph quoted above, which may itself be an information—or a paraphrased information? Interpretative difficulties abound. Who are the authors here, and whose version of witchcraft events are we reading? Luckily for those who want to be aware of authorship, some paraphrases of evidence are more obvious than the evidence given against Mother Staunton. In The severall factes of Witch-crafte, approoved and laid to the charge of Margaret Harkett (1585), phrases in apparent informations, like ‘this ungodly woman’ and ‘this Witch’, and judgemental interpretations such as ‘she was stealinge of Wood’, sound suspiciously non-legal, and again the informants are not named (although they are possibly the main characters in their own stories, the Frynde family, William Goodwinne and Master Mashe).92 In A Treatise of Witchcraft (1616), pamphleteer Alexander Roberts almost certainly paraphrased informations, now full of godly comment, to add to the witch’s confession to

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him. In The most wonderfull and true storie (1597), there is an extremely brief paraphrase of an examination before Master Graysley, esquire, JP, who, after ordering the constable of Stapenhill to arrest Alse Gooderige and Elizabeth Wright, questioned them. But all that is reported is one response of Alse’. This pamphlet was written by Jesse Bee and others and then ‘abridged’ by John Denison, so it has been twice altered at least, and has at least two authors.93 These accounts, which have clearly been tampered with in ways which we cannot easily reconstruct, cannot be studied in the same way as more probable transcripts of legal documents, because their origin, degree of editing and status generally is so unclear—although, as I have said, the difference between them and actual examinations is between two different versions of representation, not between truth and fiction. Again we are left wondering exactly how meaningful is any view of witchcraft which we Can base on these extremely problematic texts. There is a slightly clearer situation for the reader, where it seems evident that, as with Elleine Smithe, probable paraphrases of documents were reported from the trial by pamphleteers. At least here we have a context for the paraphrase, we know that it is connected with the legal system for which the documents were originally created, so we can reconstruct some of the significance of particular anecdotes and the motives of those involved in recording events. There are several ways of identifying reports from court. In The Triall of Maist. Dorrell (1599), the ‘evidences given in against’ Anne Kerke are interrupted by a remark from Lord Justice Anderson. In The most cruell and bloody murther (1606), which contains ‘the severall Witch-crafts…of one Johane Harrison’, the only link between the two cases described in the pamphlet is that the Dells were tried by the same petty jury as two witches named Stokes, who may become ‘Joan Harrison’ or ‘A.H.’ and her daughter in the pamphlet.94 This suggests that the pamphlet’s information-like lists of the witches’ crimes, and more general information about all the accused came from the trial—the only time and place where all this information came together. A World of Wonders (1595) mentions witnesses bound over, evidence given at the Assizes, an encounter between witch and witness after the evidence was given, the name of the JP and an account of his examination of the witch and his subsequent fall, in which he dislocated a bone, events after the trial, and the witch’s execution, making for confused interpretation of sources but suggesting a strong connection with the trial. Stories are arranged under the names of individual victims, and the account seems likely to be based around paraphrased informations. But, curiously, most of these bear no relation to the witch’s actual indictments, which survive in court records, so that they were probably not used at the trial itself. In an additional layer of complexity in transmission of this material, the 1595 pamphlet is almost certainly taken from the lost pamphlet The Examination and Confession of a notorious Witch named Mother Arnold (1574).95 Thus even trial accounts are confusing because, while we can suggest that a person who attended the trial was the source, we cannot reconstruct the use of evidence at the trial or by the recorder as clearly as we might wish. In some cases the pamphleteer probably attended the trial but seems to have little knowledge of it beyond its date, location and outcome. In the Detection (1579) the pamphleteer does not even know the assize date—although presumably he attended and he seems to have had in his possession an actual examination, of Elizabeth Fraunces. The severall factes of Witch-crafte (1585) is very unclear about its sources. Was the

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pamphleteer at the trial or not? The mixing of different types of document and narration make the pamphlets epistemologically very uncertain, and much identification of documents as ‘unaltered’ or ‘paraphrased’ is always going to depend upon a small range of comparisons, and internal evidence which is hard to prove or disprove. As a case study it is useful to consider the Apprehension (1589), which seems to be a ragbag of pre-trial examinations and trial reports, in so far as it is possible to identify its elements. It shows how documents can be used, framed, added to and possibly edited, and how many different uses of such documents a single pamphlet may contain. It may serve as a warning against the use of material from pamphlets as if its origin and authorship were certain, all its information of equal status, and its tone and purpose unified. A case study of The Apprehension and confession of three notorious Witches The Apprehension and confession of three notorious Witches (1589) contains three examinations, which appear untouched, although as we shall see this is a tentative conclusion. The title reports that the first, Joan Cunny’s, was taken before Anthony Mildmay esquire on the last day of March. This was probably at Stisted in Essex, since Joan is said to have come from there. There is no reference to Anthony Mildmay in any assize record, but the Mildmays were ubiquitous in local administration and this might be a mistaken name or someone from another county (unusual but possible).96 The examination is formally conventional, fully headed with the place, name and addition of the witch, the name of her examiner, his status and the date, beginning ‘Imprimis’ and divided into statements beginning ‘Whereupon…And…And likewise…And further saith’. The tone is correctly flat and unsensational: Likewise she confesseth, that she sent her saide sprites, to hurt Maister Kitchin Minister of the saide towne, and also to one George Coe of the saide towne shoomaker, to hurt him likewise: but they coulde not, and the cause why they could not, as the saide sprites tolde her, was because they had at their comming a strong faith in God, and had invocated and called upon him, that they could doo them no harme.97 We have here at least three of our usual authors: magistrate, suspect, clerk. The examination rings true in style and factual content compared with existing examples. But it is surrounded by sensational marginal notes: This witch had nine Spirits 2 of them were like unto a black dog, having the faces of a Toade. These spirits belonging to this witch, did sucke commonly upon a sore leg which this mother Cunny had. She had fower principall spirits. The first was Jack. The second was Jyll. The third was Nicholas. The fourth was Ned. Jack killed mankinde. Jyll killed women-kinde. Nicholas killed horses. Ned killed Cattell.98

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The notes are in completely different vocabulary: the witch is represented colloquially as ‘Mother Cunny’, and dismissively with the judgemental ‘this witch’. The source of this extratextual information appears to be different too, although the final note is carefully tied into the text, referring to the above account of Master Kitchin: ‘Note how Gods spirit confoundeth the impes of wickednesse’. This comment on the text, emphasising the importance of one point, is not adding new facts (which might conceivably have been done by someone in the legal system, although this seems unlikely given the tone), but it is editorial, legally irrelevant, a commentary. This strongly suggests the framing of this documentary evidence by the pamphleteer. The author probably emerges from the margin into the text on A4. The tone suddenly changes: And beeing further examined, she confesseth that although her saide spirits at some time can have no power to hurt men, yet they may have power to hurt their Cattell. This Joane Cunny, living very lewdly, having two lewde Daughters, no better then naughty packs, had two Bastard Children: beeing both boyes, these two Children were cheefe witnesses, and gave in great evidence against their Grandam and Mothers, the eldest being about 10 or 12 yeeres of age. Against this Mother Cunny the elder Boye gave in this evideoce [sic] which she herselfe after confessed… The second sentence is narrative, full of nasty opinion, adjectives and whole phrases of comment, a completely different type of representation. This voice is thus apparently from beyond the legal milieu, probably a pamphleteer. The pamphleteer may after all be several different people, quite apart from the three clerks who wrote the examinations—or the pamphleteer may have several voices, this being just one. We can only call him ‘gossipy voice’, because that is all that we know of him. The gossipy voice refers to the trial: for him, the children were ‘witnesses’, and ‘gave in great evidence’. This might refer to paraphrased informations which the pamphleteer heard and noted, but the second story told by the elder boy is of a boy whom his grandmother lamed, ‘and the same boy’, says the gossipy voice, ‘came to the barre lame and gave evidence against her’.99 This author or his informant saw that the boy was lame, therefore the source of this text was at the trial. The account is even more likely to be a trial report because the gossipy voice goes on to describe how the witch’s spirit blew down a tree on Sir Edward Huddlestone’s ground ‘beeing high Sheriffe of the Sheere’, and then adds ‘which Master high Sheriffe acknowledged to be blown down in a great calme’. Huddlestone was sheriff in 1589 and would have been present at the assizes, bringing the assize calendar with him as the high point of his year in office.100 Thus he is probably recorded by the pamphleteer because he was on hand to comment on evidence concerning himself. Joan Cunny’s examination is thus supplemented and framed by notes and a trial report from a pamphleteer—something not immediately obvious, but which entirely alters our perception of the relative epistemological status of the pamphlet’s elements, their authorship and the versions of witchcraft in them. After this account by the pamphleteer in one of his incarnations, the examination of Joan Upney is printed without external comment. The magistrate and witch are again the

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authors, with the clerk. This document is much shorter than Cunny’s, but is properly headed as being taken before Sir Henry Gray, knight, on 3 May 1589. Perhaps it is short and ‘vague’, as Rosen says, containing no really decisive admission of guilt, because Sir Henry was a busy man, who was excused from attending the assizes probably because he was on official business.101 There is no addition to this document (or the examination of Joan Prentice, which follows), perhaps because, despite the impression given on B2v-B3, all the witches were tried by different juries and the pamphleteer (or gossipy voice) may have attended only Joan Cunny’s arraignment.102 Therefore he could not comment on the other two. Knowledge of such a context alters traditional perceptions of any pamphlet as an organised, single-authored piece of reliable reportage, a carefully designed and directed representation of witchcraft, perhaps even propaganda. Willis notices this, calling pamphlets ‘strung together…a collage of voices’.103 This one, like most others, is an arbitrary collection of multiply authored materials produced for wholly different purposes, and representing witches in completely different ways. Joan Cunny is first seen as a legally defined and disempowered criminal, confessing her crimes in a controlled, emotionless list, in an officially approved, ‘true’ and definitive, version of her story, supposedly from her own lips. But then she is seen as the subject of a gossipy tale, entertainingly represented as a stereotypically wicked woman and notorious witch, given liveliness and realism by the scurrilous storyteller and situated in court in dramatic conflict with her own grandchildren. Each representation frames her and defines her activities, each is equally important in understanding what witchcraft meant to the persons who produced it. Is the second less serious, or more accessible? How are we intended to see witchcraft in this narration: as a matter of entertainment or public information? Why do the two accounts present such different views of Cunny as a woman, the 80-year-old widow of the examination, the lewd naughty pack of the commentary, and which gives us more ‘accurate’ information about her place in the community? With Joan Upney one returns to the first type of representation, but this examination seems perfunctory, and Upney appears a shadowy figure. We see her differently because the legal version of her is unframed. Can we rely on such a brief sketch to tell us what ‘witchcraft’ is perceived to be? Is the account of her simply included because the pamphleteer happened to have acquired it? And why is there no account of Margaret Cunny, also found guilty? Pamphlet accounts of witchcraft often raise more questions than they answer, beginning to seem incoherent, assembled in more or less random order, a mixture of functional accounts and authorial inference, forced and stretched into saleable shape. Generalising about such pamphlets or their contents is certainly dangerous, and even minimal inferences are questionable. Kristin Jeanne Leuschner, for example, infers that the authors of witchcraft pamphlets ‘construct an orderly picture of the judicial system to replace the uncontrolled rumors which attended witchcraft prosecutions’ and suggests that in A Rehearsall both straung and true (1579) and the Detection (1579) ‘each pamphlet gives ample factual evidence of the harm caused by witches in answer to anyone who would argue otherwise’.104 These assumptions, though only by implication, reconstruct an authorial intention which is far from clear once the fragmentation and disorder of the

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pamphlets is appreciated. Marianne Hester similarly accepts that they ‘were (according to their introductory sections) written as statements against witchcraft’, but we shall see that the prefaces are usually unconnected to the legal documents the pamphlets contain. Clive Holmes asserts that evidence in A true and just Recorde (1582) suggests that local men (not women, as in Rushton or Sharpe’s discussions of female accusers) took ‘the effective decision to organize their neighbours’. Edward Upcher had long suspected [Joan] Robinson for the death of his wife. He visited the gaoled St Osyth woman, Ursley Kemp, who, under Darcey’s relentless questioning, had become his star witness, confessing Satanic practises, and naming a wide coven of accomplices; she readily confirmed Upcher’s suspicion, and he led the Walton prosecution…In Oakley, John Wadde, a yeoman who had suffered heavy stock losses for several years, was the first formally to denounce [Annis] Heard.105 This assumption is based on the fact that these men led the list of givers of information in this case. Darcey or his co-workers have linked these witnesses’ informations together unusually—but there is no evidence of any kind to suggest that the first name on the list was the first accuser, much less the leader or organiser of the whole group.106 Each accuser may be giving a separate information, later printed in random order. A true and just Recorde often prints documents in unchronological order and no assumption about historical reality can be made from the printed order of documents for publication without mistaking representation for truth. Holmes also asserts that ‘this “anonymous” tract is obviously Darcey’s own work’. Even assuming that Darcey was his own clerk, and prefacer, and the constructor of the valedictory table, this is a sweeping generalisation. Likewise, Hester views pamphlets as ‘a supplement to the court records’ and characterises the tone of the pamphlets as ‘chatty’, which does not reflect the massive variation between such writers as ‘gossipy voice’, the clerkly legal documents, and Joan Prentice’s exceptional examination, the final document of the Apprehension (1589).107 Joan Prentice’s examination is completely unlike Upney’s. It is extraordinarily detailed, with a narrative drive and sense of authorial control of the representation of the witch which is mysterious, and of troubling complexity. It is more formal than Upney’s examination, which has no ‘In primis’ or ‘Items’, as Prentice’s has. It has an almost literary concern with narrative style and coherency. In this it is like the ‘effecte of the Evidence given against Mother Nokes’ in the Detection (1579), or the paraphrased informations in The severall factes of Witch-crafte (1585), but it outdoes all previous small departures from functionality. For comparison, Mother Nokes was said to have disabled a young man for stealing her daughter’s gloves and he is described in the following style: A Certaine Servant to Thomas Spycer of Lamberd Ende in Essex yoman, sporting, and passing away the time in play with a great number of youth, chaunced to snatch a paire of Gloves out of the pockette of this Mother Nokes Daughter…which he protesteth to have done in jest. Her Mother perceivyng it, demaunded the Gloves of him, but he geving no greate eare to her wordes departed towardes the

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feeldes…quoth the same Mother Nokes to her Daughter, lette him alone, I will bounce him well enough, at what time he being sodainely taken, and reft of his limmes fell doune…108 This is clearly an imaginative account, short on specifics, except the employer’s name (perhaps he was the informant or witness) and with unlikely (because probably undocumented) insight into the mind of the young man and the witch, and figurative phrases like ‘geving no great eare’. Direct speech is not uncommon in examinations, but in more factual ones it stands out more clearly. Here it fits in with the colloquial, storytelling tone of the other clauses.109 But Joan Prentice’s examination is far more strikingly authored than this. Whether this style is owing to Joan’s imagination, the examination writer’s, or to the pamphleteer, is debatable, but in favour of the examination writer is the argument that he would be unlikely to write down Joan’s every word, in her syntax, and therefore the stylish way in which he reports the story seems likely to be his own. The literary aspects also blend perfectly and inextricably with the legal language and framework, making revision by a pamphleteer less likely. But complete inability to prove this demonstrates what complex documents these are, both as they stand, and more so once they are publicised as news, or literature, divorced from the circumstances of their origin and, having passed through several hands, presented as a different kind of text. Joan Prentice’s examination is an oral testimony, created by questions which shape its content, possibly based on the informations of victims, recorded up to two days later by an author free to add his own perceptions, read out in court, potentially recorded by an author there (as plays were recorded in shorthand and pirated in the period) but more likely taken to a publisher (it was entered in the Stationers’ Register to Thomas Lawe), edited by another author (the pamphleteer) and printed (by Edward Allde). In this one text there could be eight different levels of input, each with mistakes and new readings (victim, witch, questioner, clerk, court clerk, shorthand writer, editor-author, printer), without the two other examinations in the pamphlet and the possibility of multiple hack authorship in the publishing house. How can we comment on this multilayered text? Close reading must obviously come first. Joan Prentice’s examination begins with her name, status, place and the date of the examination, but there is, curiously, no named magistrate taking it. It opens: In primis, this saide examinate saith and confesseth, that about sixe yeares last past, betweene the feastes of all Saintes, and the birth of our Lord God, the devill appeered unto her in the Almeshouse aforesaide [Sible Hedingham]: about ten of the Clock in the night time, beeing in the shape and proportion of a dunnish culloured Ferrit, having fiery eyes, and the saide Examinate beeing alone in her Chamber, and sitting upon a low stoole, preparing her selfe to bedward: the Ferrit standing with his hinder legs upon the ground, and his fore legs setled upon her lappe, and setling his fiery eyes upon her eyes, spake and pronounced unto her these woords following, namelye: Joan Prentice give me thy soule.

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Joan asked the ferret ‘what his name was’ and was told ‘Bidd’. We might notice how visually detailed is the scene-setting: the place, time, the shape and colour of the spirit, its eyes, the examinate’s being alone, seated, and on what, and what she was doing. The repetition in ‘his fiery eyes upon her eyes’ creates a striking symmetry. We can also visualise exactly what position the ferret was in, and finally the drama of the encounter: he fixed his eyes upon hers, and we are over-prepared for his speech, waiting to hear while we read ‘he…spake and pronounced’, then ‘these woordes following’, then ‘namelye…’ Suspense is built up for the deliberate, resounding command: ‘Joan Prentice give me thy soule’. Apparently within, and not beyond, the context of the legal purpose of the document, the author seems (extraordinarily) to be managing the prose for effect. The writer continues the dialogue between witch and ferret, and this meeting leads to another a month later, again as Joan was going to bed. The ferret arrived and ‘saide: Joan wilt thou goe to bed’. The sudden suggestiveness of this question suggests also another unexpected element of the examination. The phrase would not escape its audience even if they were not aware—as the author may have been—of Continental ideology constructing Satan as the lover of witches.110 We remember that the ferret is imagined as male, and can thus imagine erotic contexts for the next stage of the relationship: presently the Ferret leapt up upon her lap, and from thence to her bosome, and laying his former feete upon her lefte shoulder, sucked blood out of her lefte cheeke, and then he saide unto her, Joan if thou will have me doo anything for thee, I am and wilbe alwaies ready at thy commaundement. This cumulative physical intimacy, suggestively concentrating on the lap and bosom, leads to a chivalric, almost Petrarchan, avowal of service. The devil might be imagined in demonological discourse as tempting witches in such language, but this is also the literary narrative pattern of a love story, or a seduction. Noticeably stylised ‘literary’ features of the representation are the dramatic dialogues, the careful creation of suspense, scenery and emotional depth, and the carefully enhanced intensity of this vividly imagined relationship. Eventually witch and ferret quarrel (as we have seen in an earlier section) and part, and he ‘never came to her sithence’. This seems to be a sustained and developed example of another discourse, another literary genre, running through a perfectly prosaic legal representation of witchcraft.111 This is as if, for example, Joan Cunny’s official examination had been remoulded as a lewd tale by ‘gossipy voice’, creating a hybrid kind of representation of witchcraft. Behind this issue of discourse is one of source. Joan might have read romances or, since she was probably old and certainly poor (she lived in the almshouse), she may have had them read to her. Or the JP or clerk who recorded her words might have had a taste for sonnets or romances. Or the pamphleteer might have written romances, and allowed his works to seep into one another in rewriting a legal document. There is an example of this interpenetration of other literary discourses into the representation of witchcraft in the Examination (1566), where in an introductory poem the suggested author, John Phillips, writes about witchcraft in the kind of tone he would have used for his more usual output, funerary poems:

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The gredy gulfs of grysly griefe, so gripe my restles harte: Yt my pore pen can scantly shewe, the passions of my smarte… The heapes of griefe so hugie are, that sobbes must nedes abounde: Yea shrilly shrickes to passe the skies, your voyces shall redounde.112 Because of the careful legalisms in Joan Prentice’s examination, with which the literary model is fully integrated, I suggest that the pamphleteer probably received this document unchanged from the pre-trial hearings and did not alter it. This examination is thus unique in appearing to be both a legal representation of a witch and a literary one. Obviously this cannot be read unproblematically as fact. It can, however, be analysed to suggest surprising flexibility in even serious and functional representations of witchcraft, certainly in witchcraft pamphlets generally. Writing about witchcraft is worthy of more study in itself. Witchcraft pamphlets are capable of containing all kinds of literary genres, as will be shown, and all of them create different representations of what witches and witchcraft meant for Elizabethan and Jacobean people. It would be useful to find out more about whose representations they might be. It might be hard, for example, to imagine the clerk in Joan Prentice’s examination creating such a story without some input from the witch. This would refer back to my previous point: What does witchcraft mean to witches? Joan Prentice might be representing herself as a witch using a fantasy of a Petrarchan lover, as Roper’s German witches (under torture) portray themselves as the devil’s lovers. But there are plenty of examples of the writer blotting out the voice of the witch: First, the sayd Anne Whittle, alias Chattox, sayth, that about fourteene yeares past she entered, through the wicked perswasions and counsell of Elizabeth Southerns, alias Demdike, and was seduced to condescent & agree to become subject unto that divelish abhominable profession of Witchcraft…’113 We can be almost certain that Anne Chattox, as an 80-year-old woman from the Forest of Pendle, did not possess such vocabulary, and in most of the pamphlets there is similar phraseology, both in condemning the witches’ practices and/or in using long words and elegant syntax to do it. Joan Cunny’s description of ‘the most detestable Arte of Witchecraft’ are typical, as are Elizabeth Stile’s ‘hainous and vilanous practises, such as by them, or any of them before had bin devised, or determined’, while Elizabeth Sawyer’s persistent description (to a minister) of her victims as ‘Christians’ is equally obviously determined by her recorder (who is both clerk and pamphleteer).114 And the pamphleteer may in his turn blot out the voice of the clerk by creative recording—by paraphrasing or completely rewriting the representation of witchcraft as he recorded it.

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Stephen Greenblatt once said of his own researches that ‘I began with the desire to speak with the dead’. He, and we, soon realised that this was textually impossible, but it is still important to keep reading the words of the dead—especially those who were in their own time misread. Witches are ghost-writers of their own stories in a very poignant sense, and they, their questioners and recorders cannot tell the late twentieth-century reader anything unless we are willing to read their words as creatively as they spoke them, elicited them and recorded them. Perhaps we have things to learn. We may see ourselves as far removed from such processes of questioning, inventiveness and injustice. But anyone who has been aware of the operation of the modern system of criminal justice, from the formulaic police statement or ‘information’ through the elicited ‘examination’ onwards, will recognise dangerous similarities between the textual invention of witches and the creation of modern myths around the occasional innocent astray in the legal system. Looked at in these terms it suddenly begins to seem important that we can see in witchcraft examinations how the exact boundary between recording, creating and reading is obscured to create a miscarriage of justice. The suggestion that all writing is rewriting gains a cutting edge of relevance.115 Like good crime reporters, our authors may be anthologists and adaptors, creating a useful composite representation of Elizabethan and Jacobean constructions of witchcraft from the fragments available to them. But it is actually very important to analyse in detail which author is responsible for each idea, because we can learn far more about witches and witchcraft, and about the creation of such myths, if we can go beyond the idea of the composite/composition as ‘fact’ and see it as a mosaic of stories.

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2 Witchcraft trials and a methodology for reading them

How do witchcraft pamphlets represent the legal process against witches from the moment that the examinations, and informations against the witches, discussed in Chapter 1, are finalised and sent to the assizes? This chapter looks at what witchcraft pamphlets can tell us about how witches were tried, and shows how stories of witchcraft were used both at the trials and by the pamphleteers who reported them in print. Problems of multivocal and edited accounts impede our understanding as they do in the legal documents printed in the pamphlets. This has led legal historians to distrust pamphlet accounts of the legal process. Cockburn wavers between rejection, with phrases such as ‘invariably sensational…deliberately but inconsistently overdrawn…factual inaccuracies frequently emerge…reliability of the pamphlets is heavily qualified’, and optimism: ‘[pamphlets] include details which considerably expand the cryptic version [of trial procedures] preserved in the court records, and…in some instances, appear to throw valuable light on criminal trial at assizes’. He concludes that ‘some of the pamphlet evidence is persuasive…on the other hand, doubt about the reliability of the pamphlet evidence persists’.1 This book is the first to consider in such detail whether pamphlets can fairly be dismissed as totally unreliable, or may legitimately be used as evidence in debates about the working of the courts, in this case against witches. Witchcraft pamphlets must be rigorously vetted, analysed structurally like the legal documents of Chapter 1, to determine their various sources, authors and aims, and their ‘accuracy’, defined in this case as compatibility with other more general accounts of the legal process. Pamphlets can then be used in legal-historical debate, or in discussing how witches specifically were tried, but only usually to confirm detail established by the general accounts. Although they sometimes misrepresent events and contradict one another, in this respect witchcraft pamphlets are actually no worse than other accounts of the legal system. The greatest problem is that there is no ‘accurate’ representation of Elizabethan and Jacobean proceedings against witches (or other felons) against which the pamphlets’ ‘reliability’ can be measured. But an accumulation of records, and commentators’ agreement on them, are more likely accurately to reflect real events than are nineteen witchcraft pamphlets which have aims other than providing a detailed account of court procedures. Thus I base my picture of the treatment of witches by the legal system on Cockburn’s account and his sources, and have found that, where pamphlets differ from this consensus, they are often demonstrably muddled. Yet some details of witch trials will remain unverifiable even where a direct comparison can be

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made. For example, both the pamphleteers of Examination (1566) and Sir Thomas Smith, author of De Republica Anglorum, attended the assizes at Chelmsford on 26 July 1566, where witches were tried. Whose account of the legal process is more trustworthy: the pamphleteers’ apparent ignorance or Smith’s possible idealisation? This chapter also argues that distortions are as interesting as the facts misrepresented. Even legal expertise and close acquaintance of pamphleteers with real events do not, for example, always produce an accurate representation. Thomas Potts, Associate Clerk on the Northern Circuit, used legal documents in Wonderfull Discoverie (1612) as a substitute for what was said at a witch trial, omitted many details of procedure and added distorting comment. This is obviously misrepresentation. But, provided that it is recognised and allowed for, it is still interesting to legal and witchcraft historians. Potts’ account is apparently honestly meant and meticulous. Like Wonderfull Discoverie, most of those pamphlets which deal in detail with the trial of witches do so apparently honestly, with some worrying exceptions and notable errors.2 Thus this chapter, like Chapter 1, argues that witchcraft pamphlets’ sources, and their use of these in representing witchcraft, must be better understood in discussing them, but that the need to be aware of them as representation and not fact does not make them unusable by scholars. It is as important to investigate how pamphleteers represented the trial of witches, and indeed how they represent any event, as it is to know how the witches were in fact tried. This chapter, dense and difficult due to the complexity of its subject, attempts to explore both these issues. The chapter is based on a descriptive chronological movement through a witch trial, but also analyses the representations of each stage of procedure in each witchcraft pamphlet, their ‘accuracy’, sources and the motivations behind each account. This is an attempt to circumvent and make usable the ignorance, bias and inaccuracy of witchcraft pamphlets in reporting witch trials, and prepare the ground for more informed consideration of how witches and witnesses were heard, their evidence tested and the alleged crimes judged. Preparing for trial Few pamphleteers produced long court reports. Most were satisfied with pre-trial material and a brief situation of it in the context of eventual conviction.3 Some barely mention the trial.4 Their priorities were not factually exhaustive accounts of the lives, trials and deaths of witches, but selective reports of what the witches had done to others to deserve this fate. This leaves four accounts as substantial: the Examination (1566), Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) dealing with the Warboys case, Potts’ Wonderfull Discoverie (1612), and Goodcole’s The wonderfull discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer (1621). No pamphlet describes fully all the stages leading to the trial, most accounts of trials being simply reports of what happened in the courtroom. This suggests most pamphleteers were inexpert in legal matters. But Thomas Potts, associate clerk, wrote Wonderfull Discoverie (1612) from a position of expertise. Potts was possibly the Clerk of Arraigns on the Northern Circuit in summer 1612, judging from the judges’ description of him as ‘a Clerke at that time in Court imploied in the Arraignement and Triall of them [the witches]’. If so, he would have been involved with drafting indictments and producing

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examinations and informations at appropriate moments.5 He recreates the legal process for his readers, in ‘a Particular Declaration of the proceedings of Justice in those partes… Here shall you behold the Justice of this Land, truely administered’ he says proudly, making us wary that he will idealise his account.6 Potts begins his trial account by describing the JP Roger Nowell preparing evidence, committing the witches for trial at Lancaster and sending some examinations to the assizes at York.7 In preparing for such a trial, the magistrate, having taken examinations of the suspects, informations of the witnesses and recognizances (documents binding them all to appear), would carry the documents to the assizes or send them with his clerk or others if he was unable to attend.8 JPs were supposed to ‘certify’ or authenticate documents to the court but Cockburn has found that, as the majority of JPs failed to attend assizes (Home Circuit absenteeism running at 52 per cent), this was usually not done and was not regarded as obligatory.9 But in Nowell’s case the pamphlet reports that the examinations he had taken were ‘certified’10 at York assizes (though this information is given in discussing the JP Thomas Heyber) and at the very beginning of Anne Chattox’s trial at Lancaster, M.Nowell, being the best instructed of any man, of all the particular poyntes of Evidence against her, and her fellowes, having taken great paynes in the proceedinges against her and her fellowes. Humbly prayed, her owne voluntary Confession and Examination taken before him, when she was apprehended and committed to the Castle of Lancaster for Witchcraft; might openly be published against her.11 The clerk of assize would number and organise all documents for the prosecution.12 He worked with the associate clerks, here Potts, organising the cases. Because the two judges divided to hear Crown (criminal) and civil cases separately, the clerks were also empowered to act as one of the ‘judges’, as two were theoretically required in each type of trial.13 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) describes Edward Fenner as ‘for that time…Judge alone’, a representation of common practice as if it were exceptional, because it was not legally defensible.14 Justice is always represented as infallible in pamphlets. As soon as they arrived in the assize town from the last place on the circuit, the judges were given the gaol calendar (list of persons in gaol) and the clerks drew up indictments.15 Potts relates: The Circuite of the North partes being now almost ended. The 16. of August. Upon Sunday in the afternoone, my honorable Lords the Judges of Assise, came from Kendall to Lancaster. Whereupon M.Covell [the gaoler at Lancaster Castle] presented unto their Lordships a Calender, conteyning the Names of the Prisoners committed to his charge, which were to receive their Tryall at the Assises; Out of which, we are onely to deale with the proceedings against Witches, which were as followeth.16

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This is presented almost like an official document, headed and dated, and Potts also includes, equally formally laid out, a list of the witches like the gaol calendar. He apparently intends to represent for us visually the orderliness and official rectitude which he perceived in events. The printer displays the documents with flair, wasting pages of space, apparently for visual effect of authority and recorded truth. But, while Potts’ Darcey-like concern for clarity and thoroughness is complemented by a sense of the grandeur of justice and the authority and aura of any official document, he misrepresents these in his concern for ‘reproducing’ them. This list is probably only an excerpt from the gaol calendar, not necessarily corresponding to any existing separate record of witches. One of Potts’ favourite reminders to the reader is that these matters ‘are upon Record’, and ‘amongst the Recordes of the Crowne at Lancaster’, but we have to treat his reassurances with care.17 Walter Benjamin would argue that in mechanically reproducing these documents (appropriately, for the political education of a mass audience) Potts has destroyed their ‘aura’, but the original readers may have responded simply, believing these ‘reproductions’ were proof of the truth of the account, and infused with the authority of the original.18 The way Potts, the publisher (William Stansby) and printer (John Barnes) exhibit them suggests they hoped for this effect. We must not mistake representation for reality in the same way, because Potts seems to want us to read in awe of the justice of the legal system and the truth of its records and his account. To some extent, Master Covell presents the gaol calendar to us too: we are the judges, sitting through the trial forming opinions based on the evidence represented to us. For example, on signature M, Potts speaks to the reader to ‘commend to your examination and judgement’ his interpretation of Grace Sowerbutts’ evidence. But we are not judges of the fact, only of Potts’ representation—which must be carefully examined for misrepresentation or confusion. To return to the pre-trial events: we find indications of representational unclarity in the pamphlets in an account of the use of examinations and informations. J.H.Langbein argues, partly from an assertion in The Wonderful Discoverie (1619), based on the Lincolnshire and Leicestershire case, that the judges, having arrived in the assize town, considered this evidence before allowing clerks to draw up indictments.19 The pamphlet says: These Examinations and some others were taken and charily preserved for the contriving of sufficient evidences against them, and when the Judges of Assise came downe to Lincolne about the first weeke of March, being Sr. Henry Hobert, Lord chiefe Justice of the Common Pleas, and Sr. Ed: Bromley one of the Barons of the Exchequer, they were presented unto them.20 But it is rather unclear whether this refers to the trial or its preparation, as Langbein says, although certainly the trial itself is mentioned briefly, and separately, on G2. There is a similar problem with the vagueness or confusion of the pamphlets’ representations in Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593). Again it concerns the drawing up of indictments. The pamphleteer muddles the trial dates, stating that the indictments were drawn up on a Thursday (N4v) but that Jane Throckmorton, witness against the witches, was before the

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court on 4 April (O), which we are told was a Wednesday (N3). The indictments cannot have been drawn up after the witches’ trial began. There is no obvious reason to fudge this account, so probably the pamphleteer was unclear about the judicial process. Ignorant pamphleteers may be as dangerous to pamphlets’ veracity as any intent to misrepresent, but both lead to the same errors, of which we should be aware. Indictment Potts is a different matter: he blinds us with ceremony, and silently edits out sections of procedure against the Lancashire witches. He mimics on paper the pomp of the opening of the assizes, impressing us by heading his account in Latin: ‘PLACITA CORONAE, Apud Lancasterium. Deliberatio Gaole Domini Regis Castri sui Lancastrii…’, and he recreates for us Judge Bromley’s entry into the hall and the issuing of his proclamation that all Justices of Peace that had taken any Recognisaunces, or Examinations of Prisoners, should make returne of them: And all such as were bound to prosecute Indictmentes, and give Evidence against Witches, shoulde proceede, and give attendance: for hee now intended to proceed with the Arraignement and Tryall of Witches.21 But then he misses out several stages in procedure, evidence of selectivity common to all pamphleteers. He does not tell us that indictments were next submitted to the grand jury, chosen in court from a panel selected by the sheriff earlier, and sworn.22 They examined indictments, to decide whether the Crown had a prima facie case23 (in which case they endorsed the indictment ‘billa vera’), and to do this they heard oral evidence from the victim and witnesses, and read the suspect’s examination.24 In Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) the process is clearer, if not fully described: The inditements being delivered to the grand Jury, the evidence was given them privatly by master Dorington Doctor of Divinitie, and parson of the towne of Warboyse aforesayd, by Gilbert Pickering of Tichmersh in the Countie of Northampton Esquire, by Robert Throckmorton Esquire, father of the sayd children, by Robert Throckmorton of Brampton in the said Countie of Huntingdon Esquire, by John Pickering and Henry Pickering Gentlemen, and by Thomas Nut, master of Arte, and Vicar of Ellington.25 These are all prosecution witnesses. The adjective ‘privatly’ is not sinister, for the grand jury always met apart from the courtroom.26 It can be seen how important to the witch’s fate were the representations made by, and of, him or her in the examinations printed in the pamphlets: they were read by grand jurors, and any confessions in them would probably determine that the case was continued to arraignment and trial.27 Some pamphleteers erroneously tell us that the grand jury actually finds suspects ‘guiltie’ but they only find indictments billa vera or ignoramus.28 Potts would know better, but omits the whole procedure, one of the most important parts of any felony trial.

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Grand jurors were also supposed to find any discrepancies between indictment and examination or informations. Performing this role as an historian, Cockburn finds in Elizabeth Fraunces’ 1579 case an unnoticed error, but attributes this to the pamphleteer. I disagree with him here, and in this disagreement can be seen all the difficulty of verifying facts and sources in witchcraft pamphlets. Cockburn argues: The indictment upon which Elizabeth Francis was convicted at Chelmsford Assizes in April 1579 charged that Alice Poole, her victim, had died on 1st November 1578. But the author of the pamphlet in describing after the assizes the events leading up to the trial, told how ‘Poole’s wife was grievously pained in her head not long after, and remaineth very sore pained still, for on Saturday past this examinate talked with her’.29 Believing Elizabeth’s examination—printed in Detection (1579)—to be a transcription, I do not blame the pamphleteer for this discrepancy, unless it is a mistranscription (which cannot be discovered, since the originals are lost). If it is not, the legal document contains the error. It is even possible that, when the clerk or author wrote the document, the information was not discrepant, for if the examination is genuine it was not written ‘after the assizes’ but well before them, whenever Elizabeth was apprehended and committed. Alice Poole might still have been alive when it was taken. We know that the case went to the assizes via Chelmsford Quarter Sessions on 8 January 1578/9, so Elizabeth had been apprehended before then, and this examination taken.30 She was accused of bewitching Alice on 26 June 1578, and may perhaps have been accused and examined on the charge of simply making her ill. We cannot know. Arguments against this unprovable case are that it would be irregular for a suspect to be committed for one offence and then tried for another, and that if Elizabeth was committed before 1 November why was she not tried at the Michaelmas Quarter Sessions?31 These were held in the first week after Michaelmas. Alice Poole’s death date may be wrongly recorded, altering all the arguments, but if so the grand jury should have discovered it. However, Cockburn cites several examples of obvious errors in documents, missed by the grand jurors.32 Since obvious errors are equally made by pamphleteers, it can be seen that the verification of facts in pamphlets, particularly in the complex area of legal proceedings, is extremely difficult, especially as legal practice was often different from statutory requirement, and rules of evidence and procedure were bent. Potts omits all these stages of grand jury procedure from his account, saying ‘Heere you may not expect the exact order of the Assises, with the Proclamations, and other solemnities belonging to so great a Court of Justice’.33 He may omit them due to lack of space, but seems to regard them equally as sacred mysteries which are no concern of the readers. Such is his pamphlet’s dangerous reverence for due legal process that he presents even this incomplete version as unquestionably infallible. As soon as the grand jury ‘found’ the first batch of indictments, the prisoners were brought in and Potts returns to his detailed account, presenting it suspensefully in saying: ‘Whereupon, the first of all these, Anne Whittle, alias Chattox, was brought to the Barre: against whom wee are now

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ready to proceed’.34 Potts’ account convinces readers by its immediacy but we shall see that this is often illusory. Arraignment and plea Potts reports accurately the procedure for the arraignment of each prisoner, giving the text of the indictment translated. The accused had the translated indictment read to him or her and, if they pleaded not guilty, was asked how they wished to be tried, replying formally, as Potts reports, that they put themselves on God and their country (D2v). Other prisoners were arraigned until there were enough for a jury to try. But Potts’ representation of trial alters this in appearance, showing each person’s arraignment with the records of his or her trial, giving an impression of individual attention to witches (and other felons) which was far from the truth. Presumably this was done for narrative coherence, case by case, a representational consideration which in my view warps many witchcraft pamphlets away from accuracy. In fact, the courts were so overworked that juries had to assess too many prisoners to remember the facts of each case. Potts shows most batches of prisoners as being only three or four, although in one case there are six, but he is only reporting the witches’ cases—other prisoners might have been mixed with them.35 In Essex seven to eight arraignments per jury was the average number in the 1580s and 1590s. Cockburn shows that most Home Circuit cases took fifteen to twenty minutes, including time for the jury to deliberate or at least decide a verdict.36 But in Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) it is reported that the case of three witches took from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m., which ‘was 5 houres, without intermission or interruption, untill both the Judge, Justices, and Jury said openly that the cause was most apparant’. As this is reported as unusual, done ‘with the great patience of the Judge’, it was probably exceptional and is probably true. We have seen how Fenner took an interest in the case, and the victims were well-connected gentry, keen to explore the difficulty of ‘proving’ witchcraft in court, so that their case was probably accorded extra time.37 Nevertheless, this is astonishingly long. Cockburn suggests witchcraft trials were longer than normal trials because they were of great interest to judges, the public and ‘reporters’, and any cutting of corners would be noticed.38 This makes pamphlet accounts more likely to reflect best practice than everyday haste. Some prisoners saved the court time by pleading guilty.39 This meant they were set aside and not tried by the jury.40 Potts’ account of Alizon Device shows her doing this on R3, but adds that Bromley still wished to hear the evidence against her (R4). Pleas made, a petty jury was impanelled, which Potts again omits.41 The examination was read, again showing its importance in defining the view of witchcraft that prevailed. A doubtful representation of the use of examinations in court is the supposed ‘second examination’ of Agnes Waterhouse and her daughter ‘upon her arainment’ in Examination (1566), which seems to be a recycling of material from the supposed ‘first’ examinations run together, since there are numerous verbal echoes but no new facts in it. However, the pamphleteer knew Agnes had pleaded guilty and the report of witness evidence does suggest he was at the trial.42 Here the writer may be simply be using too imaginatively what he has; although, as we shall see with Potts’ account, dependence on pre-trial documentary sources does not always indicate that a trial report

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is a fiction. Then prosecution witnesses were heard, with the victim first,43 although Apprehension (1589) suggests that the witches’ grandchildren and children were heard first as prosecution witnesses.44 The correct order of events is not satisfactorily established, even by legal historians. Reporting evidence—documents and oral testimony The court was now given as much evidence as was thought necessary to prove the felony. With astonishing mimetic zeal, Potts chose that the trial of the Lancashire witches should be represented by a reconstruction of this process. Or perhaps his patrons (the judges Bromley and Altham and his dedicatees Thomas and Elizabeth Knyvet) chose for him. Potts even went so far as to reconstruct before opening the trial the way the documents and the testimony they represented would have been used to try Elizabeth Demdike, who had died in prison. Proof of the thoroughness and correctness of justice seems so important in the pamphlet that Potts not only gives us documentary evidence in vast quantities, but also, in a belt-and-braces approach, frames events by commenting on the witches’ characters in each case before he introduces their trial, with phrases such as ‘a dangerous Witch of very long continuance’ or ‘this wicked and miserable Wretch’.45 But in doing so he shows the danger of taking his proofs as facts, revealing a persuasive intent. It is also debatable how accurate his representation is of the trial itself. This debate is centred on the issue of how much of the testimony given was oral and how much was given by pre-trial documents being read out in court. Although in printing indictments (translated and paraphrased) and reporting pleas and other set phrases, Potts is reflecting what happened, he is not writing a verbatim court report of what everyone really said. He is using those documents which he has, in a way which suggests one witness after another orally giving evidence. But in fact we are reading what they said well before the trial, probably even in those cases where Potts says that the witness gave the evidence orally. For example, Jennet Device, he says, gave evidence ‘against Elizabeth Device her Mother, Prisoner at the Barre upon her Arraignement and Triall’.46 This implies it was given orally on 18 August 1612. All Jennet’s evidence is reported like this. But her testimony (like that of James and Elizabeth Device) consists mostly of repetitions of her story of a ‘sabbath’ at Pendle. Each time the evidence of these three is used, it is slightly altered—the same basic description of the sabbath, plus that part of the testimony concerning the witch presently on trial. For example, The said Jennet Device saith, That upon Good Friday last there was about twentie persons (whereof onely two were men, to this Examinates remembrance) at her said Grandmothers house, called Malking-Tower aforesaid, about twelve of the clocke: all which persons this Examinates said mother told her, were Witches, and that they came to give a name to Alizon Device Spirit, or Familiar, sister to this Examinate, and now prisoner at Lancaster. And also this Examinate saith, That the persons aforesaid had to their dinners Beefe, Bacon, and roasted Mutton; which Mutton (as this Examinates said brother said) was of a Wether of Christopher Swyers

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of Barley: which Wether was brought in the night before into this Examinates mothers house by the said James Device, this Examinates said brother: and in this Examinates sight killed and eaten, as foresaid. And she further saith, That shee knoweth the names of sixe of the said Witches, viz. the wife of Hugh Hargraves under Pendle, Christopher Howgate of Pendle, unckle to this Examinate, and Elizabeth his wife, and Dick Miles his wife of the Rough-Lee; Christopher Jackes of Thorny-holme, and his wife: and the names of the residue shee this Examinate doth not know, saving that this Examinates mother and brother were both there. And lastly, she this Examinate confesseth and saith, That her mother hath taught her two prayers: the one to cure the bewitched, and the other to get drinke; both of which particularly appeare.47 Shee saith, that upon Good-Friday last there was about twentie persons, whereof only two were men, to this Examinates remembrance, at her said Grandmothers house, called Malking-Tower aforesaid, about twelve of the clock: all which persons this Examinates said Mother told her were Witches, and that they came to give a name to Alizon Device Spirit or Familiar, Sister to this Examinate, and now Prisoner, in the Castle of Lancaster: And also this Examinate saith, that the persons aforesaid had to their Dinners, Beefe, Bacon, and rosted [sic] Mutton, which Mutton, as this Examinates said brother said, was of a Weather of Robinsons of Barley: which Weather was brought in the night before into this Examinates mothers house, by the said James Device this Examinates said brother, and in this Examinates sight killed, and eaten, as aforesaid: And she further saith, that shee knoweth the names of sixe of the said Witches, viz. the wife of the said Hugh Hargreives, under Pendle: Christopher Howget, of Pendle, Uncle to this Examinate: and Dick Miles wife, of the Rough-Lee: Christopher Jacks, of Thorne-holme, and his Wife: and the names of the residue shee this Examinate doth not know, saving that this Examinates Mother and Brother were both there.48 This highly formal (‘the said…this Examinates said brother…as aforesaid’), almost word-for-word repetition is clearly based on documents, not near-flawlessly repeated oral testimony. Potts says on P2 that the evidence of the three Devices was ‘read’ against Alice Nutter, presumably because it had to be so often repeated, but this seems exceptional. In similar confusion, Grace Sowerbutts’ evidence is apparently oral, with Potts reporting she ‘said as followeth’, but in fact is dated in April (L). Alizon Device’s confession, when ‘shee humbly upon her knees at the Barre with weeping teares, prayed the court to hear her’ and Bromley encouraged her (R3) is actually partly composed from her examinationcum-information against her grandmother (C). Potts acknowledges this, saying it ‘agreeth verbatim with her owne examination taken at Reade…the thirtieth day of March’ (R4).49 In pursuit of narrative coherence, Potts has also clearly fragmented informations: Jennet Device’s prayers do appear elsewhere as promised in the first extract above (Kv-K2), but the sentence describing them is missing from the repeated version, among other omissions.50 It might be that the information was actually written out many times with just the relevant evidence included for each arraignment. Or the editing may be subsequent. But it is all textual, not oral, and even this text is not reliable, because

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fragmented by the pamphleteer. This is not immediately obvious, but it is vitally important because it alters the order and context of witch and witness evidence in examinations and informations. We have no idea what is missing, what was confessed first, how the informant’s story was originally structured. Again, the ‘data’ has been interfered with at several levels, and the representation of what was said in court is no more certainly accurate than the much-altered representation of what was said to the magistrate. There are two points to be considered in discussing Potts’ misrepresentative use of documents as if they were oral testimony. First, there is a potential confusion surrounding examinations. Smith tells us suspects’ examinations were read out and not spoken as witnesses’ information was, so in these cases Potts is giving us exactly what was read out in court. Examinations which were evidence for the Crown (i.e. only those which incriminated the examinate) would be read, so that the readings described by Potts probably reflect the real events and words of the trial.51 For example, Nowell asked that Anne Chattox’s (D3) and James Device’s (H2) examination should be read, and Elizabeth Device had ‘openly read, and given in evidence against her, for the Kings Majestie, her owne voluntarie Confession and Examination’ (F4). Interestingly, Potts omits examinations of Anne Redferne, Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewyt, the Bulcocks, Margaret Pearson and Isabel Robey. This may be because they had refused to confess in their examinations, which were thus no use to the court and not read out. While it is said that the Bulcocks confessed at the bar, they then swore they had not attended the sabbath, while Anne Redferne is recorded as unrepentant, as is Alice Nutter.52 Thus Potts, where he says examinations were read, represents procedure surrounding them apparently accurately, according to the representation agreed by eyewitness and scholarly consensus, which his pamphlet thus supports. He is reliable also where he reports other documents as read: Grace Sowerbutts’ recantation and the subsequent explanations of the Salmesbury witches are delivered to the court by the JPs who obtained them (N-N2v) and Elizabeth Demdike’s evidence was only available on paper, as she had died. It is only where he presents examinations as spoken, giving us only the written text, that he is wrong. Second, there is a confusion about informations. Given the discrepancy between Potts’ representation of informations as spoken and his use of the written version of that evidence, is he trying to deceive us into believing we are reading a verbatim account of the trial, or is he simply making the best use of available material in the absence of a transcript? And does misrepresentation of informations affect our view of the witch trial? Potts does not seem (at least not consistently) to be trying to deceive us into thinking that the informations we read are transcripts of oral testimony. He knows witnesses give evidence ‘viva voce’ (I2, O2, T), and his report that Abraham Law’s information was ‘read in Court’ highlights by this situating comment an exception to the usual orality of witness testimony. He records that, though Law (from Halifax) was present in court, his testimony was read out and ‘justified to be true’ by him, ‘upon his oath’.53 Yet while Potts may not be wilfully deceptive, his text misrepresents events. First, because witnesses gave oral evidence on oath, it might be discrepant from the unoathed information held by the JP.54 Potts can only print the information, not what the court heard. Except for the oft-repeated Device evidence, and Law’s, we can assume that we are not reading what the

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court heard. An accurate record of oral evidence would produce the kind of paraphrased informations which I described in pamphlets such as Detection (1579),55 Apprehension (1589) (the boy’s evidence on A4) or The Triall of Maist. Dorrell (1599) (trial of Anne Kerke). In the Windsor Rehearsall (1579), two information-like stories on Bv-2v are described as ‘given in evidence, viva voce’. These informations are followed by a description of what the witch looked like in court, suggesting that they were reported from the trial. These examples contrast with Potts’ use of written evidence to represent, possibly substantially different, oral evidence. Second, Sir Thomas Smith reports courtroom altercations between defendant and accuser, and Cockburn sees the defendant possibly being allowed to question witnesses.56 We hear none of this in Potts, except in the collapse of Grace Sowerbutts’ evidence, where ‘the witnesses being behinde, began to quarrell and accuse one another’ after the defendants have petitioned the judge to question Grace about her allegations.57 This, however, is a very decorous representation, omitting any specific exchanges and channelling all through the judge. Third, Cockburn describes the judge questioning witnesses and commenting on their evidence,58 which we only hear in Potts in the case of Jennet Device, where Potts describes Bromley’s testing of her evidence by making her pick out suspects in identity parades.59 Thus while Potts is flaunting the truth, authority and immediacy of his representation, we must remember we are reading texts within his text, not listening directly to the trial itself. We are reading multilayered representations, not hearing facts (not—unfortunately—speaking with the dead, in Stephen Greenblatt’s phrase).60 Potts and other pamphleteers have a different understanding of truthful reporting from modern scholars, perhaps more Sidneyan, subjugating what really happened to what ought to have happened.61 Whatever Potts’ philosophy of truthful reporting, if he had one, his attempt to represent as spoken verbatim those of the above texts which are clearly examinations is inaccurate, because, according to the consensus, they would have been read. Also, more complexly, his reporting of the evidence of witnesses and conduct of the courtroom examinations, while accurately reported as spoken, is in practice limited only to what was documented, with the exception of reports of a few striking moments such as the collapse of the Salmesbury case and the testing of Jennet Device. However, Potts’ care and fundamental regard for accurate detail is suggested by his use of the documents as the basis for his pamphlet, because he believes the documents contain the most truthful account of events, as ‘matters upon Record’. He did not attempt to write a narrative account, as all other witchcraft pamphleteers were doing by 1612. Potts knows his material and procedures well, and seems to give a generally trustworthy, though not a comprehensive, account of an assize witchcraft trial, provided that the reader is constantly aw are of his use of written material instead of verbatim reports—use which variably reflects actual practice, and is situated by Potts with varying degrees of clarity or honesty. His account, in other words, is reasonably accurate, but his methodology of representation, where documents represent speech, is extremely suspect. We can trust him—but only as far as we can check his methodology, and only provided that we accept the distance between his text and what really happened: ‘it is often impossible to decide what evidence given in Potts’ book is that read from statements, what was given verbally in court, and what he copied from documents available to him’.62 It is impossible

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to know how much he idealised. Thus it is difficult to comment authoritatively on issues of interest to witchcraft scholars, such as the atmosphere of the witchcraft trial, the justness of procedure, or lack of it, and the attitude to proof in witchcraft trials. Potts gives us a detailed representation, but no more. If read with the same methodological caution, most other witchcraft pamphlets seem equally trustworthy, and equally flawed, in reporting what went on, although they are less expert. They use documents far less, although curiously, in the account of the trial of Jennet Preston at York, added to Potts’ Discoverie (1612), there is an attempt to make oral witness testimony look (visually) like examinations or informations. But it is clearly stated that it is oral testimony given in court.63 The Warboys pamphlet is rather vague about the status of the material it uses, but seems accurate: we hear that the gentlemen gave evidence (presumably orally?), but also that ‘many of these proofes, presumptions, circumstances, & reasons contained in this booke, was at large delivered’, an equivocal description which might indicate reading out of the long accounts of the victims’ fits, later printed in the pamphlet.64 Alice Samuel’s confession before the Bishop of Lincoln (seemingly a church court examination, since the questions are recorded) and before him and two magistrates (a secular committal examination) were ‘read and delivered to the Jury’, because they incriminated her.65 But her daughter’s and husband’s examinations are not mentioned, perhaps because they, being always more resistant than Mother Samuel, refused to confess, and thus their examinations would not be used in court. The Warboys pamphleteers seem ignorant of court procedure (they are the ones who believe that grand juries find guilty and petty juries billa vera) and thus paradoxically might be less likely than the expert but idealistic Potts wilfully to misrepresent the legal process as perfect. Their vocabulary suggests a plain man’s innocence about legal forms, uncomplicatedly mentioning the orality of the witnesses’ testimony as: they ‘spake some things of their owne knowledge’. This is reminiscent of the gossipy voice in the Apprehension (1589), who reports witnesses as ‘having saide what they could’.66 Perhaps as a result of this innocent accuracy, the Warboys pamphlet’s representation of trial is closer to Sir Thomas Smith’s more confrontational, less ideally smooth, model of procedure. Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) is, being a possession case, a representation which stresses drama and, while presumably believing that justice is immaculate, it even shows the judge persuading a recalcitrant suspect to speak by threatening ‘that if he would not speake the wordes of the charme, the court would hold him guiltie of the crimes whereof he was accused’.67 Smith’s ‘altercation’ is here between judge and accused rather than accused and victim. In the Examination (1566) the judge’s dialogue with Joan and Agnes Waterhouse is another altercation, equally going against the grain of pamphlet approval of the conviction of witches, since it reports fully the judge’s tricky question to Agnes: ‘when dyd thye Cat suck of thy bloud…when dydde he sucke of thy bloud laste’ (my italics), which traps her into stating a time and incriminating herself.68 But can we believe these vivid representations? Pamphlets may lie for sensational effect as well as misrepresent. In The most cruell and bloody murther (1606), the final story told of Joan Harrison is so vividly told, and so unlikely, that its introduction as ‘a homely tale, for that it made al the Bench to laugh’ does not in my view validate it.69 On the whole, pamphlet representations flatten out the confusion, complex interchange, dialogue

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and confrontation of the courts, as described by Cockburn, Smith, and strikingly by Cynthia Herrup as a ‘freewheeling Socratic exercise’.70 Wherethey do not, suspicion grows because of their very vividness. How was such detail recorded, one wonders, and was it not embellished? This book tries to unpick some of the seams which do exist. Again, pamphlets reporting witch trials must be treated with caution, for, while increased knowledge of the legal process increases rather than decreases respect for their attempts at accuracy, it also creates unexpected problems. Reporting evidence is, as we have seen, the area of most distrust. Reporting evidence—vivid accounts In the Examination (1566), legal knowledge presents a problem of pamphlet sources and reliability, suggesting that one of the most vivid and oft-quoted accounts of a witch trial is a fabrication. J.S.Cockburn says: The pamphlet version of the trial of Agnes Waterhouse at Chelmsford Assizes in July 1566 includes an extended account of dramatic examination by the presiding judge. At the conclusion of that, the pamphlet records, ‘the jury went together for that matter’. But the assize file reveals that Agnes in fact confessed. She was not arraigned before a jury, and there was almost certainly no protracted examination.71 The pamphlet reports this ‘going together’ at the end of the courtroom testimony of Agnes Browne, described as oral, and vividly recreated. Agnes, a child of about 12, said of a dog which had spoken to her and threatened her: ‘then I asked of hym who was his dame, and then he nodded + wagged his head to your house mother Waterhouse’.72 This suggests Agnes Waterhouse had been in court all the time. The Queen’s Attorney (Gilbert Gerard) asked of the sayde Agnes Waterhouse what she saide to it, then she demanded what maner knife that it was, and Agnes Browne said it was a daggar knife, there thou liest saide Agnes Waterhouse, why quod the quenes atturney, mary my lord (quod she) she saith it is a daggar knif, and I have none suche in my house, but a great knyfe, and therein she lieth, yea yea, my lorde, quoth Jone Waterhouse she lieth in that she saith that it hadde a face like an ape, for this that came to mee was like a dogge, well sayde the quenes attourney well, can you make it come before us nowe, if ye can we will dyspatche you out of pryson by and by, no faith said Agnes Waterhouse I can not, for in faith if I had let hym go as my daughter did I could make hym come by and by, but now I have no more power over him, then said the quenes atturneye, Agnes Waterhouse when dyd thye Cat suck of thy bloud never saide she, no saide hee, let me se, and then the jayler lifted up her kercher on her heade and there was diverse spottes in her face + one on her nose, then sayde the quenes atturney, in good faith Agnes when dydde he sucke of thy bloud laste, by

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my fayth my lorde sayde she, not this fortnyght, and so the jurye went together for that matter.73 Agnes Browne was the victim of Joan Waterhouse, the daughter, as Joan’s indictment shows. She was said to have bewitched Browne on 17 July 1566 at Hatfield Peverel so that she became decrepit in her right arm and leg.74 Agnes Waterhouse was not accused of harming her and therefore it is probable that Agnes Browne was a witness in Joan’s trial. This potentially solves the problem of the jury ‘going together’ about the matter: they are likely to be judging Joan. In recapitulating Agnes’s examination the pamphlet describes it as given ‘uppon the evidence geven agaynst her daughter Jone’.75 However, why is Agnes Waterhouse in court at all? Prisoners pleading guilty were returned to the custody of the gaoler, and probably taken out of the overcrowded courtroom to a ‘holding area’ or cells, Cockburn suggests.76 Agnes might have been an exception, or recalled to settle this interesting point about the knife, for the gaoler is said to be present with her. Was she being used, possibly unwillingly, as a witness against Joan? Cockburn is interested by the possibility that as Agnes had confessed she might have been regarded as convicted, and thus her evidence would be powerful against Joan, but he suspects that this is not the case, because she would be unlikely to cooperate.77 It might also be argued that this supposed questioning of Agnes was a waste of court time, as she was already known to be guilty. Possibly the judge was sceptical of the child Browne’s evidence and wished to check it. Perhaps supporting this view is the fact that Joan was acquitted.78 But why should Gerard also wish to reopen Agnes Waterhouse’s evidence? The facts are as usual unknowable and, while it is possible to make out a case, however ingenious, for the pamphlet being somewhat more reliable than Cockburn believes, scholars must again consider the possibility he discusses that what we read in accounts of witchcraft is merely a representation with little basis in fact. There is a huge temptation to believe vivid accounts of witchcraft, which can be appealingly direct, plausible, apparently supported by those records which do exist. The pamphleteer of Examination (1566) reports a question by the judge to Joan Waterhouse and her answer, which exchange suggests exactly the kind of sympathy that might have led to her recorded acquittal, despite her admission that she had given her soul to the devil. Gerard asked: ‘Howe wylt thou do before god. O my lord, I trust god wyll have mercy upon mee, and then he saide, thou saiste well.’79 Do we believe this? How would we select what was credible? As with witches’ examinations, a statement which did not serve any discernible legal purpose might be a record of the everyday haphazardness of reality. The 1566 pamphleteer, for instance, reports a peculiar incident when Agnes Browne says the dog which haunted her ‘came againe with a beane pod in his mouth and then the quenes attourney asked what that was, and so the other Justices declared.80 Why would anyone make this up? And yet its folksy, anecdotal appeal almost forces us believe it, sufficient grounds for suspicion in itself. Similarly, the childish style of Agnes Browne’s testimony is either a convincing recreation, or almost suspiciously vivid. Agnes innocently said ‘she thoughte she was xii. yeres old’ for example, had a convincingly childish knockabout dialogue with the dog, who ‘satte on the toppe of a nettle, and then

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I asked hym what he wolde have, and he saide he woulde have butter, and I said I had none for him and then he saide he wolde have some…and I sayde he should have none, and he sayde he wolde have some…’ and Rosen was infuriated by the convincingness of her prattle, seeing a real, historical ‘born liar…centre stage with a halo every time’ in her ‘breathless, wide-eyed glibness’.81 The writer is either a superb reporter or a superb artist. Narrative trial accounts are more problematic than actual documents, since they can obscure their origins, concealing either verification or deceit, and this, the first ever English witchcraft pamphlet, is particularly inscrutable. Verdict and sentence When all the requisite evidence had been heard, the judge need not sum up, as he had already commented as statements were made.82 He told the jury that they had heard the evidence against the prisoner and what he or she could say for themselves, and must reach a verdict remembering God, their consciences and what had been said. None of this appears in pamphlets, which rush to the verdict. Potts describes how in the 1612 case the prisoners’ examinations were given to the jury, by the judge’s direction, ‘for the better satisfaction of their consciences’, while Cockburn (doubtfully), Smith and T.W. say the jury were given the indictments.83 ‘After due consideration’, says Potts, the jury delivered up their verdict.84 On Qv and S2v he says the jury, ‘having spent the most part of the day in due consideration of their offences, returned into the Court’ to do so. Cockburn suspects that most juries did not in fact retire to consider their verdict.85 Does Potts’ description include time spent listening in court, or are witch trials as a class, or Northern Circuit trials, different from Cockburn’s Home Circuit findings of fifteen minutes spent on each case? Or is Potts idealising again? He does record the verdicts as they would have been returned, in batches, officially presenting them under the heading ‘The verdict of life and death’.86 Most other pamphlets simply record the verdicts in the text. Judges were not obliged to accept verdicts and sometimes imprisoned the acquitted if he thought them guilty.87 In Wonderfull Discoverie (1612) we see the judge telling the acquitted that ‘without question there are amongst you, that are as deepe in this Action, as any of them that are condemned to the for their offences’ and ordering them to appear at the next assizes and be of good behaviour, forsaking the devil. Only those he had himself found to be victims of a Catholic plot were truly ‘delivered’.88 One would expect pamphleteers to get at least the sentence right, because of their interest in crime and just punishment, but the St Osyth pamphleteer makes several mistakes in his reports of sentencing, while apparently not knowing some verdicts and failing to record reprieves.89 Potts reports that the Bulcocks were acquitted when they were condemned, but the printer blames himself for this mistake in the 1613 corrigenda.90 This reminds us that serious and uncheckable mistakes may be made at any level of the representation, even down to a misreading or compositor’s error. Before sentence, prisoners who were to be condemned were asked whether there were any circumstances preventing sentence of death being passed. There are no records in the pamphlets of male witches pleading benefit of clergy because it was forbidden in witchcraft cases, and it was not available to women,91 but Joan Cunny’s daughter, Avis,

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pleaded pregnancy in 1589. The pamphleteer does not report this, as he does not mention her specifically. This only delayed execution until the child’s birth.92 In Most strange and admirable discov erie (1593) it is reported that Alice Samuel pleaded pregnancy: the Judge asked olde mother Samuel what she had to say for her selfe, to stay Judgement: Whereat she aunswered, that shee was with childe: whiche set all the company on a great laughing, and shee her selfe more than any other, because as she thought, there should (for that cause) no judgement have beene given. Her age was neere fourescore, therefore the Judge moved her to leave that answere: but in no case she would be driven from it, till at length, a Jury of women were empaneled, and sworne to search her: who gave up their verdite, that she was not with childe, unlesse (as some saide) it was with the divell.93 Her daughter Agnes Samuel refused to plead pregnancy, as another prisoner recommended to her, saying ‘it shall never be sayd, that I was both a Witch and a whore’. This is a suspicious piece of noble eloquence perhaps, but it is not in the interests of the pamphleteer since it presents the witch sympathetically, and thus it may be true.94 Sentences of death were accordingly passed. Most of the pamphlets record these briefly, whether they contain a trial report or not. All sentences were passed on the last day of the assizes, something which most pamphlets gloss over or misrepresent.95 Potts is the only pamphleteer to record at length a sentence of pillory and imprisonment.96 And he prints long speeches by the judge to the convicted and the acquitted as part of his sentencing. These may be later accounts, possibly written by Bromley (who supervised the pamphlet), as it is unlikely that Potts took them down verbatim in court even if they were uttered at such length and so elegantly. The final part of the speech to the condemned is the traditional form of the death sentence, and must have been spoken, but the rest may be simply an ideal speech, given Potts’ tendencies to stress the grandeur and solemnity of justice.97 Again he represents the trial of witches as decorous, just, painstaking, perfect. The condemned were then returned to the gaol, and many of the pamphlets contain an account of the executions, as being of far more intelligible significance than the court proceedings. Reporting evidence—a case study of The Witches of Northamptonshire and a related manuscript The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) and a related MS, BL Sloane 972, f.7, are two good examples of narrative reports from and related to the trial which both discuss, where the reports appear to have diverse sources. Both are so heavily concealed in narrative that it is difficult to classify them as gossip, paraphrased informations or trial reports. It is important to illustrate the complexity of such accounts, since only a complex understanding of pamphlets can redeem them from condemnation as fictions or misuse as facts. Like Apprehension (1589), The Witches of Northamptonshire and the MS exemplify the range of evidences which pamphlets use, and the difficulties of studying them. This discussion will be confined to analysis of the use of material describing the witches’ trial.

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First, can we discover if the pamphleteer was at the trial? This affects our reliance on any account. This pamphleteer knows the outline of the indictment against the witches Agnes Browne and Joan Vaughan, but admits ‘the true relation whereof came not to my hands’ (B4v), suggesting dependence on secondary sources for his trial account. Yet he describes the reaction of Arthur Bill to his sentence (visually and aurally) on C4v, and that of Hellen Jenkenson (D2). His reports also contain information-like accounts (Mistress Moulsho’s story D-D2), and probable gossip (the swimming of the Bill family as witches, a suicide C2-C3, a story of the witches on pigback C). The only consistent factor in the report of each witch is a knowledge of the committing magistrate, place of residence and committal date: an unusual amount of detail in a generally inspecific account, which might have been obtained from the gaol calendar.98 The calendar, or this collection of information, could only have been found at the assizes. So it seems that the pamphleteer or his sources attended at least some of the witch trials, but not others. Conversely, the MS seems closely based on legal proceedings. It is titled ‘A Brief abstract of the Arraignment of nine Witches at Northampton: July 21th [sic] 1612’, calls its contents ‘evidences’, and begins ‘there were two bills of Inditement’, all suggesting an origin in court, although it is clearly a fair copy and not notes from the courtroom. The MS states that the indictments were ‘for torturing Eliz. Belcher wife to Dabrisecourt Belcher Esquier, and Wil. Avery her own Brother, for wch inchantments were six accused’, all of whom are fully named in a numbered list, and ‘for killing two porkets, & one Cow & for bewitching a Mare’. The name of the victim (owner) is not given, but again the witches are named and numbered and their relationships are given. The MS, like the pamphlet, knows that Joan Vaughan, whom it surnames Brown, is Agnes Browne’s daughter. It lists ten ‘Evidences’ (there seem to be two labelled number 1) of Mrs Belcher’s illness, the attempt of her brother to cure it, and his own fits and visions thereafter. If we want a case study of our ability to discriminate between accounts of witch trials, we might ask: Is the MS a more ‘reliable’ trial account because of these characteristics? At first it appears so. The MS’s account is more factual in tone, and detailed in content,99 reporting the Christian names of the victims of the witches Browne and Vaughan, Elizabeth Belcher and William Avery, and saying that Elizabeth was the wife of Dabriscourt Belcher, while the pamphlet mentions none of this.100 But both are selective, indicating what different accounts may emerge from the same proceedings, possibly because of differential access and sources. The MS deals with two cases—the Browne/Vaughan one with four other witches, Lucas, Harrys, Gardiner and Abbott, and one concerning three women named Wilson—while the pamphlet deals with five condemned witches, leaving out the last seven from the MS and adding three others, Bill, Jenkenson and Barber. The pamphlet mentions Gardiner and Lucas in passing, but the Browne/Vaughan case is less comprehensively reported than in the MS. So we have confusion over the number of witches tried, and different levels of information about them: both the accounts are partial representations. Perhaps the witches were tried by different juries or on different days and the pamphleteer (or his sources) and MS author each missed several trials. The style and comprehensiveness of the information in pamphlet and MS, regardless of other evidence of the pamphleteer’s probable non-attendance of the trial, also suggests

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that their origins are different. For example, both pamphlet and MS begin by telling the same story in different styles. The MS says: Mrs Belcher…persisted to accuse Jone Brown, & being in her fits seemed still to see her tormenting her and would presently recover out of her fits, if she could touch her or draw blood of her. Mr. Avery her Brother moved to revenge went toward Agnes Browns house to beat her & her daughter, but by the way was so confounded that he could not goe forward, but went back very well, then hee assaied again, and coming to the same place had no power to goe forth, but returned. The pamphlet embroiders: Hee often heard her cry out against Joane Vaughan alias Varnham, and her mother, and heard by report of the neighbours that which before had happened betwixt his Sister, and the said Joane: in so much as having confirmed his suspition that it was nothing else but Witchcraft that thus tormented his Sister, following Rage rather then Reason, ranne sodainly towards the house of the said Agnes Browne with purpose to draw both the mother and the daughter to his Sister for her to draw bloud on: But still as hee came neere the house, he was sodainely stopped, and could not enter, whether it was an astonishment thorough his feare, or that the Spirits had that power to stay him I cannot judge, but hee reported at his comming backe that hee was forcibly staied, and could not for his life goe any further forward, and they report in the Country that hee is a Gentleman of a stoute courage: Hee tried twice or thrice after to goe to the house, but in the same place where hee was staied at first, hee was still staied: Belike the devill stood there Centinell, kept his station well.101 The facts are much the same, except for Avery’s different motive for going to the house. But the pamphlet offers opinions, saying ‘I cannot judge’, and tries to give background and depth to Avery’s character by reporting his ‘suspition’ and setting up a rhetorical antithesis between his rage and reason. It offers a grim literary image of the devil as a sentinel keeping his station. It is a carefully crafted narration, yet gives the impression of imprecision (‘Hee tried twice or thrice’, ‘I cannot judge’), and dubious sources (‘they report in the Country’). The sources sound extralegal, gossip and report leaving the author with no fixed version of the truth. Conversely, the MS seems sure of its facts, and reports them in a bald, commentless fashion reminiscent of legal documents. Yet flatness does not guarantee truthfulness or a legal source. The MS contains more comprehensive information about Master Avery than the pamphlet does, but is it from a legal source? For example, the pamphlet merely reports that Avery was ‘sodenly & grievously tormented in the like kind & with the like fits of his sister’, while the MS dates it precisely (‘within 2 daies after April 6th’).102 The MS gives details of his visions, only one of which (with an echo of another) appears in the pamphlet. But is this a report of evidence from the trial, or a document added to observations made

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in court? The section on visions does not contain any circumstances suggesting that it is a note of evidence given in court, and it cannot be an information, since some of its contents postdate the witches’ arrest, item 5 describing the witches as in prison. Perhaps it is Avery’s own account, since he is the hero of it, as Richard Galis is of his Brief Treatise (1579). So the MS is not purely or certainly a trial report. It is probably not even entirely based on one source, since there is a definite break of subject and method after the listing of Avery’s visions and anecdotes, in retelling evidence against Lucas and Harrys, reporting in passing how Alce Abbot was swum and would not sink, and saying that the women were searched by a jury of matrons (‘women sworn’ but not certainly at the assizes). It is still probably true that the writer was in court because he describes the behaviour of Master Avery there: Mr Avery having bene all night grievously tormented & very sore in his body was sent for to the bench; but when hee alighted out of the coch at castle gate, hee fell into his fit & so was brought in that case to the bench, where all the witches were brought to touch him, yet hee recovered not but was carried forth & at last came to his perfect understanding, & so being brought to barr spake very discreetly, christianly & charitably to every point. The MS writer appears to have been in court because of the detail of his account, visual and judgemental, describing how Avery spoke. He also describes Mrs Belcher’s appearance: Mrs Belcher being in the castle yard amongst the people before the arraignment began fell into a strange fit, & desired to have Jone Brown brought to her, wch the Judg [sic] granted, & so touching her did partly recover, yet was not able to deliver her mind fully at barr, but made signs for pen and inck & wrote these words (Jone Brown) & so being brought before her shee started back shrikt wept & presently came to her perfect senses & shee then spake very modestly & would accuse none but Jone Brown, whom in her conscience shee thought had bene the instrument to afflict her in that strange fashion. This suggests that the writer saw and heard Mrs Belcher giving her evidence at the assizes, but from where his other comments come we cannot be sure. In the case of the Wilsons, the second ‘Inditement’, the MS evidence seems to come from Mr Harrison, vicar of the witches’ parish (unnamed). It might be an account by him or from evidence given in court, but it is hard to come to any conclusion. Finally, the MS has no record of the outcomes of any of the trials and ends abruptly. Why the writer, if he was present at the court, or had a source who was, should not choose to report the full proceedings, especially the verdicts, is a mystery. The pamphlet, more usually, represents conviction as the most certain and important part of a witchcraft narration, the end of each report being the proven guilt of the witch.

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Whether or not the MS is primarily produced from legal sources, the pamphleteer and the MS’s author seem to have a wholly different understanding of the same events, with the MS sounding more reliable. The story common to both accounts is told thus in MS: [Master Avery] said if they did not take him out of the coch, hee should break his neck at such a place in the high way, and that such a mans mare fell dead in the same place at that very instant wch was two miles of and as they rode on, the man met them wth saddle & bridle on his back, & affirmed so much of the strange & soudain death of his mare: whereat Mr Avery being come out of his fit, stept forth and on his knees gave god thanks for his delivery. The pamphlet story is quite different, with the same pattern of God’s wonderful deliverance of victims, but seems confused: Ryding both [Avery and Mrs Belcher] homewards in one Coach, there appeared to their view a man and a woman ryding both upon a blacke horse, M.Avery having spyed them a farre off, and noting many strange gestures from them, sodainely spake to them that were by, and (as it were Prophetically) cryed out in these words, That either they or their Horses should presently miscarry, And immediatly the horses fell downe dead. Whereupon Maister Avery rose up praysing ye grace and mercies of God, that he had so powerfully delivered them, and had not suffered the foule spirits to worke the uttermost of their mischiefe upon men made after his image, but had turned their fury against Beasts.103 Whose horses fell dead? If it was Avery’s, then the point of the story is much the same: the godly victim is saved by God. But if it was the horse or horses of the other riders, the pamphlet is confused as to their number and loses the point of the tale. And why should the other riders be introduced if they are not the victims—are they believed to be the spirits? Why, broadly, does the author report so unclearly? The pamphlet account seems unsure of its precise structure and purpose, while the MS again adds information: the man’s wife in its story also began to have fits and was put in a chair, which danced about unnaturally, and she is still ‘bewitched’. The MS’s story seems far more coherent, and, while narrative coherence is not an argument for the truth, or closeness to original source, of an account, taken with the nine other stories about Avery it would seem that the author of the manuscript has a more comprehensive and structured account, possibly reflecting a more reliable source, while the pamphleteer is relying on ill-organised snippets, possibly even gossip. But, referring back to the first investigation, this does not prove conclusively that the pamphleteer had no source at the trial while the MS writer is basing his account on court evidence. Both accounts, after all, describe the trial. But the pamphleteer introduces it with ‘I had almost forgotten to tell you before…’ a deeply unconvincing reason for a story from the margins of the trial being tacked on at the end. There would be no reason to introduce it ‘before’. This suspiciously suggests fragments of gossip again. He says that

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M.Avery was by the Judges themselves in ye Castle yard of Northampton, seene in the middest of his fits, and that he strangely continuad [sic] in them untill this Joane Vaughan was brought unto him.104 MS has a fuller account (above), while the pamphleteer is obviously patching together what he knows, describing Browne and Vaughan as being ‘brought to their Arraignement’ and indighted for that they had bewitched the bodies of Master Avery and his sister Mistris Belcher in manner and forme aforesayd, Together with the body of a young Child to the death (the true relation whereof came not to my hands) To all which they pleaded not guilty, and putting themselves upon the couutrey [sic] were found guilty. And when they were asked what they could say for themselves, why ye sentence of death should not be pronounced against them, they stood stiffely upon their Innocence. Whereupon Judgement being given, they were carried backe unto the Gaole…105 The admission that he relies on ‘relations’ coming to his hands suggests strongly that he was not at the trial, and is basing his work on reports. Yet no conclusion is final. The pamphleteer’s final story introduces other arraigned witches, his source quite clear here, but the MS begins to be confusing. The pamphlet begins: ‘It was credibly reported that…’ and is clearly gossip, one of Master Avery’s visions in an altered form, taken as reality. Avery imagined Alce Abbot, Catherine Gardiner and Alce Harrys riding on one Walker’s sow, says the MS. The pamphleteer says: some fortnight before their apprehension, this Agnes Browne, one Ratherine [sic] Gardiner, and one Joane Lucas, all birds of a winge, and all abyding in the Towne of Gilsborough did ride one night to a place (not above a mile off) called Ravenstrop, all upon a Sowes backe, to see one mother Rhoades, an old Witch that dwelt there.106 The pamphlet has no more knowledge of Lucas and doesn’t mention Harrys at all. This is understandable, since his source is gossip. But the MS reports that Lucas was accused with Browne and Vaughan, Gardiner, Harrys and Abbot of bewitching Mrs Belcher and Avery, yet does not report this section of their trial.107 Why not? If all were arraigned together for the same crime, why does the MS writer, who was probably at the trial, report so little detail in four of the cases, in common with the pamphlet? Were the others perhaps acquitted, or tried separately, despite the MS’s assertion that there were ‘two bills of Inditement’? Given the extra evidence it reports against Lucas, Harrys and Abbot, there may well have been more than two indictments to contain so many different charges against the six women. Although joint indictment was quite usual, this kind of complexity would be hard to accommodate. The MS now looks unreliable, perhaps misunderstanding events, or only partially reporting them from the courtroom.

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It is possible to draw various conclusions about the sources of pamphlets’ trial accounts from internal evidence, but such conclusions are often debatable and sometimes self-confirming. I can offer no more than suggestions towards a methodology of reading accounts of witchcraft in the courts. These are particularly tentative where it is unclear if a pamphleteer attended the trial. Potts certainly attended the Lancaster trial as an official, and in Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593), already discussed, the author of this part of the pamphlet was certainly at the trial, describing details of Jane Throckmorton’s behaviour, the words of the judge, the indictments, length of the trial and such visual observations of procedure such as ‘the Judge caused olde Samuel to be brought from amongst the other prisoners to the upper barre, neere unto the place where the Clerkes sate: where also stoode the saide Jane’.108 But most accounts are far less clear-cut and this dissection of the Northamptonshire case illustrates the unclearness perfectly. London and Middlesex—Goodcole The only other substantial account of a trial is Henry Goodcole’s The wonderfull discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer (1621). This trial was of a Middlesex witch, and was held accordingly at the Old Bailey and organised differently from trials on provincial circuits. There are three Middlesex cases in the pamphlets, and prisoners from here were all sent to London to be tried. A Most Wicked worke of a wretched Witch (1592), a story from Pinner, has no account of a trial at all and is extremely vague about the witch. The severall factes of Witch-crafte (1585) describing Margaret Harkett (from Stanmore) contains only a brief mention of the trial. Actual records of all three cases are lost, although many others survive. Records of the case of the only London witch in the pamphlets, Anne Kerke in The Triall of Maist. Dorrell (1599), are also lost.109 The paucity of survival of London and Middlesex records of witchcraft also described in pamphlets is irritating, since these regions had an interestingly idiosyncratic criminal justice system. London and Middlesex were unlike the provinces in having no ‘Quarter Sessions’ and no ‘Assizes’. Sessions of the Peace were, however, held twice a year, and sent examinations and indictments to the Gaol Delivery (‘Assizes’). There were also Sessions of Inquiry, additional ‘Quarter Sessions’ which performed the same functions as, and were increasingly known as, Sessions of Peace. As Barbara Singleton shows, Middlesex witches could be tried in three different legal settings—the Sessions of the Peace for Middlesex or Westminster, and the Sessions of Gaol Delivery of prisoners from Newgate, held at the Old Bailey.110 This latter option was the relevant one for both Margaret Harkett and Elizabeth Sawyer. These witches in the surviving pamphlets are not followed through every detail of a complex system. Margaret Harkett is described as being ‘apprehended and brought before the Justice, by whome she was examined, and by him committed to the Gaole of Newgate’. In Newgate, ‘she remained untill the Sessions, helde for Gaole deliverie of London and Middlesex’ says the pamphleteer.111 Margaret’s case would have to have been scrutinised by a grand jury, but technically the Sessions of Gaol Delivery had no indicting procedures and no grand jury, because, as John Baker explains, they had no regular power to charge grand juries to find indictments.112 In practice, Bowler and John Beattie concur

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that the Sessions of Gaol Delivery used the grand jury from the City of London Sessions of the Peace, which were adjourned when the Gaol Delivery began because the City magistrates were named in the Gaol Delivery Commission.113 If Harkett remained in gaol from her arrest until the Gaol Delivery, missing any regular Sessions of the Peace, she might have gone through this system. Elizabeth Sawyer’s case is traced in more detail: ‘Mr. Arthur Robinson, a worthy Justice of Peace, who dweleth at Totnam neere to [the witch]’ had long suspected her114 and ‘had often and divers times, upon the complaints of the neighbours against this Elizabeth Sawyer, laboriously and carefully examined her’.115 ‘An information was given unto him by some of her Neighbours, that this Elizabeth Sawyer had a private and strange marke on her body’.116 Goodcole, who must have attended the trial, does not mention hearing Sawyer’s examination, but he begins his trial account with her indictments. On Saturday, being the fourteenth day of Aprill, Anno Dom 1621 this Elizabeth Sawyer late of Edmonton, in the County of Middlesex Spinster, was arraigned, and indited three severall times at Justice Hall in the Old Baily in London, in the Parish of Saint Sepulchers, in the ward of Farrington without: which Inditements were, viz. That shee the said Elizabeth Sawyer, not having the feare of God before her eyes, but moved and seduced by the Divell, by Diabolicall helpe, did out of her malicious heart, (because her neighbours where she dwelt, would not buy Broomes of her) would therefore thus revenge herselfe on them in this manner, namely, witch to death their Nurse Children and Cattell. But for brevities sake I here omit formes of Law and Informations.117 It can be seen that Goodcole is paraphrasing this indictment (the syntax collapses after the parentheses), but also that, as chaplain at Newgate and author of numerous crime pamphlets including some written before 1621, he knew the forms of justice well.118 Goodcole correctly sites the Sessions of Gaol Delivery in Justice Hall.119 There are other indictments, which Goodcole merges into a story about Elizabeth’s quarrel with the victim Agnes Ratcleife (on B2). He reports how ‘Oath whereof, was by this Agnes Ratcleifes Husband, given to the Court’. He knows details of the evidence, the time and type of the victim’s sickness, and her suspicions of Sawyer. He was almost certainly in court. Elizabeth Sawyer pleaded not guilty (‘to prove her innocency, she put herselfe to the triall of God and the Countrey’), and Goodcole describes the care of ‘the honorable Bench and Jury’. In Old Bailey cases, the bench was composed of the aldermen of the City of London, the recorder and the mayor, who were members of the Commission of Gaol Delivery and thus empowered to act as judges in felony trials.120 Goodcole shows the jury as hearing the evidence, which ‘made some impression in their mindes, and caused due and mature deliberation’, but being unsure what to decide ‘not trusting their owne judgements, what to doe’. He reports ‘the Foreman of the Jury asked of Master Heneage Finch Recorder, his direction, and advice, to whom hee Christianlike thus replyed, namely, Doe in it as God shall put in your hearts’.121 Finch was asked because he, as Recorder, was the presiding judge.122 Arthur Robinson, who might appear to be the committing magistrate, would also appear to have acted as a prosecutor, although

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Singleton suggests that he appeared at the trial ‘not in his capacity as a Justice but as one of her accusers’ because he is not named as one of the Commission.123 Whatever his role, he is described equivocally as ‘sitting in the Court at that time of her triall’, and is said to have told the bench about the information he had received that Sawyer had a mark upon her. He asked that a jury of women should search her ‘before the Jury did goe forth to bring in the verdict’ (which suggests that the jury’s question came before their actual deliberations).124 Officers fetched in three women, one known to Goodcole as Margaret Weaver, keeper of the Sessions House, and the other two from the street. They were sworn and searched her, finding a mark, which she denied possessing. ‘This view of theirs…gave some insight to the Jury of her’ and they found her guilty, though acquitting her of two of the indictments. Goodcole’s account is detailed enough to make it almost certain that he saw the trial, and his background makes it likely since, as chaplain, he then confessed Elizabeth in prison and wrote an account of her execution. Like Potts, Goodcole is a knowledgeable reporter, giving firsthand information from a witchcraft trial. But, although his report is detailed, it is extremely selective. Goodcole gives extra details, literally as marginal notes, of evidence heard in the trial, incomplete and scattered, woven into his gaol examination of the witch, and his aim is to show the justice of the proceedings.125 We can see again that an account of a witch trial can be reliable and distorting at the same time. Conclusions The casual omission and insertion of evidence is probably characteristic of trial accounts and in many ways my account of them confirms legal historians’ worst fears. It cannot be claimed that witchcraft pamphlets are either objective or consistently accurate or honest in their reports of witchcraft trials. But, putting aside the search for facts, it is still important to discuss witchcraft pamphlets’ representation of witchcraft in the legal system and their use of documents generated by it. Witchcraft pamphlets can add information to debates about the trial of witchcraft, and about the legal system and the perception of its processes and functions, if they are properly understood as fragmentary and biased stories rather than unified factual reports. They will not necessarily tell us what happened, but they show us what those involved believed had happened, or wanted us to believe, and they make us question why such accounts were published. Why should the first witchcraft-trial account, Examination (1566), have published such a detailed and vivid account of the legal process against witches? A narrative of their activities, with brief reference to their conviction, would have done equally well, and did so in other cases, but the pamphleteers obtained examinations, a court report which may or may not be a fabrication, or embroidered, and also took the trouble to describe the execution. What they said, and how accurately it reflects real events, is less important when we consider why they wanted to say it. How does the pamphlet present the justice system and its response to witchcraft? Who supplied the legal documents, and why? Would their publication have been disapproved of or praised by judges? What did the pamphlet intend primarily to show us? In Examination (1566) we get a sense of the drama of witchcraft trials as perceived by pamphleteers, a feeling of stripping away deceit and secrecy to bring

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the truth about crime and magic to public understanding. There is no discernible understanding of the process, as Cockburn’s dissection of the pamphlet shows. But the legal system appears in an excellent light: direct truth-telling by witnesses, incisive truthseeking judges, courtroom drama with attorney Gerard brilliantly but nastily tricking ignorant and poor Agnes Waterhouse into self-accusation. The reporters give no sense of the possible disorganisation and randomness of justice, which ought to have been apparent to them had they either understood procedure or wished to represent it fully. The system appears infallible because inscrutable to readers. But is this the point of the representation? Is it about the infallibility of justice, or did the pamphleteers merely chance to acquire legal documents and attend the trial rather than producing a gossip-based account? The latter seems more likely, with the legal system simply a source for truthful sensational material about witches. But in later pamphlets there appears to be a more urgent concern with the defence of the legal system. In Chapter 5 I shall examine the Warboys pamphleteers’ reasons for publication, which include controversy over the witches’ guilt and the victims’ innocence, and a desire to promote the justice of the court and the care Justice Fenner took to discover the truth. Likewise, Thomas Potts’ Wonderfull Discoverie (1612) is the clearest example of an account obviously published to display the shining efficiency and justice of the legal system. Potts, quite unlike the 1566 pamphleteers, wants us to understand and reverence its processes: Here shall you behold the Justice of this Land, truely administered, Proemium & Poenam, Mercie and Judgement, freely and indifferently bestowed and inflicted; And above all thinges to bee remembered, the excellent care of these Judges in the Triall of offendors.126 This is a general point about legal purity and fairness, not specific to witchcraft at all. The pamphlet’s readership are being offered, in both Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) and Potts’ Wonderfull Discoverie (1612), a far more sophisticated view of the legal system than in Examination (1566), and a more self-referential one where one of the points of the pamphlet is to validate the truths of witchcraft and conspiracy (and even potentially treason in Potts’ case) by an appeal to legal authority and a complementary defence of the court’s judgement. The pamphleteer of the Jennet Preston case makes this explicit: GOD graunt us the long and prosperous continuance of these Honorable and Reverend Judges, under whose Government we live in these North parts: for we may say, that GOD Almightie hath singled them out, and set them on his Seat, for the defence of Justice.127 This increase in concern about the legal system, and especially its judgement of witches, does not seem to be developing chronologically, since The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) and Goodcole’s 1621 pamphlet (The Wonderfull Discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer) do not share it. But it is worth noting in each pamphlet how interest in justice mingles with

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interest in witchcraft, since judicial credibility appears to be bound up with belief in, and scepticism of, witchcraft in some cases. The reporting of vivid courtroom drama or judicial arcana is not merely a matter of fact, but of intention and propaganda. King James had made the point that only ‘lawfull Magistrates’, including himself, could defeat witchcraft, so that witchcraft in the courts was more important symbolically or representationally than an objective reporting of the facts of legal history.128 In summary, while we cannot easily use witchcraft pamphlets as direct historical evidence about witchcraft in the legal system, we can use them to contextualise it, provided that we acknowledge the related questions of their authorship, possible propaganda value and the number of selective and confused persons between ourselves and real events. A methodological checklist for establishing the trustworthiness of each aspect of an account of a witchcraft trial would be based on finding answers to the following interlinked questions: • Who wrote the account? (which might be investigated by reference to tone, access to documents, legal knowledge) • Are the tone and the diagnostic levels of access and knowledge constant? Is there more than one author? • Was he/were they at the trial? (description of courtroom scenes, procedure) • Where do specific pieces of information come from? (names, committing magistrate’s name, dates, plea, evidence, anecdotes, verdict, sentence) • Are the sources written or oral? (tone, date) • Did the author(s) have access to pre-trial documents? Why, and who from? (speculate freely!) • Did the author(s) understand the minute detail of the legal process, or make obvious mistakes? • Does each author report what he does understand of the legal process accurately? If not, why not? • What is the author’s potential propagandist viewpoint?

3 Deconstructing generic stories

The experience of the witch, and how and why he or she confessed or resisted incrimination is the area of most emotive interest in witchcraft studies—probably because it is easy to imagine oneself in the Kafkaesque position of an innocent caught up in a prosecution well beyond one’s control, and the reader is naturally concerned to know how each witch responded and how the process was presented to the public. But before the witch was questioned and his or her nightmare began came the story told by the accuser. It is now time to return to the beginning of a witchcraft case and look at these other participants in the creation of a witchcraft story. Chapter 3 returns to consideration of a point made in Chapter 1—that just as stories told by witches can be seen generically (narratives resisting confession or cooperating with a questioner to produce it), so accusers’ stories were also generic and produced in cooperation with a questioner, although more willingly. Accusers are co-authors, in this sense, of the witchcraft narrative, and they might be seen as originators contributing the idea for a story which is then reworked by all the other participants in events. The whole process begins to sound like the production of a theatrical event or a movie—ghost-written fiction of the least reliable but most interestingly complex kind. We know that examinations are a kind of fiction in that they do not uncomplicatedly represent realities, but we might also, therefore, question how ‘accurate’ informations are. How reflective of real events are the stories of accusers that initiate the whole process of the prosecution of witchcraft? This chapter looks at definitions of acceptable accusatory stories both by sceptical sixteenth-century demonologists and modern scholars to identify recurrent story shapes and patterns of production. The accusatory story has often been seen as being as generically predictable as a Mills and Boon novel, but it becomes obvious that the dominant genre of stories changed over time, and we shall look at why this might be. It is clearly important to look at the patterns of narration without judging their content, and to think about the processes of creation instead of the plausibility of each tale, as we did with examinations. If accusatory stories are fiction rather than reportage, if they reflect patterns of storytelling rather than realities, then how can we rely on their contents as data? Jeanne Favret-Saada’s conversations with Jean and Josephine Babin show how total doubt about accusatory data might be. Favret-Saada is an ethnographer whose research concerned small communities’ witchcraft beliefs in contemporary France. Two of her contacts, the Babins, accused a fellow villager of attacking them with witchcraft—a

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conventional enough pattern in sixteenth-century England. Favret-Saada, however, investigated the story more sensitively than most early modern magistrates and reconstructed the Babins’ experiences as follows: in 1959 Jean Babin had been accused of witchcraft by an unwitcher helping Babin’s supposed victim. Babin fell ill, apparently bewitched by the unwitcher’s attempt to retaliate for his supposed attack on the victim, Nouet. But, reluctant to admit that he himself was suspected of witchcraft, he refused to accuse the unwitcher of harming him, probably because that would lead to awkward questions. In good faith, he settled instead on the accusation of Chicot, the man believed to be the real bewitcher of Nouet, and an equally plausible enemy of Jean. Unwitchers helped remove Chicot’s ‘power’, but then, Jean Babin’s illnesses continuing, he and his wife accused another witch, Ribault, unconnected with the first two suspects. The Babins did not tell their latest unwitcher whom they had first suspected and why, thus obliterating all trace of the origin of the problem, and all former accusations, including that of Jean himself. If either of the two latter stories were to appear as an information, among stories told to the magistrate in a witchcraft pamphlet, neither would fully reveal the complex relationships involved. All the stories are equally valid as describing meanings of witchcraft, but none can be seen as ‘true’, or as a full representation of real community relations, a fixed meaning for an act of witchcraft. As Favret-Saada summarises: ‘any information on the subject [of witchcraft] is not informative, but only moments in a strategy’. As part of this (more or less subconscious) strategy, each story which an accuser tells is plausible because it is typical and always tailored to its hearer, but it is not ‘the truth’ nor even any stable version of it as perceived by the victims.1 The factual foundation of witchcraft prosecution, which directly triggered confessions, trials, records, pamphlets and most of our information about witchcraft, is the accusation, and it is extremely shaky. Any reliance on such stories as containing facts must recognise their provisional nature, the infinite capacity for convenient omissions, readjustments and self-delusion involved in them, and the way that victims may have cast around over several years for a set of otherwise meaningless circumstances which could be transformed into a narrative sequence.2 Shape is everything in such a story, and the content, the real relationships, circumstances and events which began the affair must be made to fit the story shape even if that involves unconscious distortion. In sixteenth-century English cases, that might mean that, for instance, a victim would in good faith accuse a plausible suspect rather than the real one, whom they could not face, or might accuse several people serially. Any suspect, if the accuser thought it over, might be inferred to have been angry over some nowremembered and recreated incident and the story might be taken to a JP, in the obedient hope that someone would make a decision, and somehow the harm could be undone. This supports Thomas’ ‘functionalist’ economic explanation of accusation but also questions it. Certain people—for example, the poor—are more likely suspects than others, but in each individual case suspicion might have been transferred between suspects. This could even go on after the trial, and the accusatory story told verbally at the trial might differ considerably from the one recorded months ago in the information, as I suggested in Chapter 2. The story was recorded at the moment of first contact with the legal system, when the magistrate became the authority resorted to with the agreed

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story. In the same way, the Babins believed that Favret-Saada was the powerful unwitcher they had been waiting for for ten years, and told their latest (but probably not last) story to her. In each case the learned person is called in as part of the ongoing process; and a plausible, almost by definition typical, story—the latest version—must be prepared for the learned person, who will expect certain features, ask searching questions, then act. This suggests that witness depositions are not as ‘unadulterated’ by their hearers as we might hope—the metaphor of unsullied purity is Robin Briggs’.3 The magistrate may not even have to comment much to influence the story told to him—his supposed expectations could have determined it well in advance. It seems likely, therefore, that the typical informant’s story is not necessarily an account of factual events (an old woman begging, refusal, quarrel, suspicion) but a version produced for unconsciously strategic reasons, for a particular hearer.4 In the cases examined here, the story would have to be useful as legal evidence, presenting accuser and suspect in certain ways. The selection of suspect is still important but may be more of a representation based on carefully chosen perceptions than dictated by actual circumstances. Even more complicatedly, it may also depend on the type of accuser, an idea explored later in this chapter. The typicality of accusers’ stories was first noticed by sixteenth-century observers, and caused or fuelled their doubts about the reliable reporting of witchcraft, as when in 1584 Reginald Scot identified a stereotypical witch and a generic story about her. The typicality of the representation of witches was suspect: One sort of such as are said to bee witches, are women which be commonly old, lame, bleare-eied, pale, fowle, and full of wrinkles; poore, sullen, superstitious and papists…These go from house to house, and from doore to doore for a pot full of milke, yest, drinke, pottage, or some such releefe; without the which they could hardlie live…It falleth out many times, that neither their necessities, nor their expectation is answered or served [my italics].5 and Scot tells the typical story of informations as part of his case against accusers: May it please you to waie what accusations and crimes they laie to their charge, namelie: She was at my house of late, she would have had a pot of milke, she departed in a chafe bicause she had it not, she railed, she curssed, she mumbled and whispered, and finallie she said she would be even with me: and soone after my child, my cow, my sow, or my pullet died, or was strangelie taken.6 As Scot believed this story to be a false representation of reality, so recent scholarship has attacked even the elements in it which Scot thought were true—witches’ outcast and vulnerable status. Barry remarks that witches may really have been vulnerable people, or ‘perhaps presented as such in the stereotyped indictments or trial tracts’.7 Gabor Klaniczay explains: ‘tales of one’s bewitching are shaped by a kind of unconscious conforming of one’s own misfortune to one of the narrative and mythological stereotypes current in the community’ so that any conflict described ‘might be a real one, or might

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just be a projection of hostility onto somebody who can be a good imaginary substitute for the real enemy and who…can be easily victimised’.8 The whole narrative has thus been deconstructed as a stereotype, a representation either masking the truth, or more subtly being only one version of it. The acceptance, anthropological investigation, and development by Keith Thomas and Alan Macfarlane of the stereotypical witch and her story of conflict over charity is thus seen by some as both a functionalist explanation of witchcraft accusation and based on an unstable story which is not representative of all the interactions that make up witchcraft and its prosecution.9 Historians examining other types of records have constructed other models for accusation stories, notably the model of factional conflict.10 This model, although drawn from recorded representations, is less likely to be an equally flattened, shaped version of reality if constructed from many unrelated documentary sources spaced over time, but it is an alternative rather than definitive truth. More relevantly here, Malcolm Gaskill has tried to separate ‘the stereotype of the witch’ from ‘the stereotype of the accusation’ concluding that ‘contemporaries often thought in terms of a stereotype when describing witches and their activities’.11 This potentially illuminates the debate about what witchcraft and accusations of witchcraft consisted of and who witches really were, by asking about patterns of stereotype and representation rather than about reality. Just as with examinations, and the literary aspects of pamphlets’ accounts, we should ask of the initiating informations ‘where does fact end and the stereotyping dynamic of narration take over?’ Some stories are very easily categorisable as stereotypes. This does not make them untrue, but forces us to consider their structuring. Distinctions of stereotyped structure can be seen most readily in the inferred motive of the witch: stories choose between denial of charity, revenge or motiveless malignity. This leaves a group where no motive is mentioned, and it cannot be claimed that identifying a motive around which to base a story was the sole concern of accusers, or pamphleteers subsequently constructing a story. Nevertheless, a narrative pattern stressing motive satisfies the demands of the accuser, the legal system, and the pamphleteer and his reader. Both the accuser who, presumably freely, offered the story, and the legal system, which shaped it by questioning, needed a story which would be readily understood in examinations and informations by a jury, as showing a possible motive for the crime and thus a possible proof that it had occurred. This would secure conviction. The listener or reader, from illiterate Elizabethan to modern scholar, is similarly eager to judge ‘what really happened’ from the offered representation, being presented with an apparently coherent sequence of events. Thus the reader learns something about witchcraft, as moral instruction, news or history. There are few accounts where this satisfying pattern is absent and no motive is given (as opposed to legitimating motives explicitly being denied, which will be explored later). The ubiquity and legal context of this pattern is worrying: is it really an expression of specific events and individual perceptions, or a narrative pattern through which these are reinterpreted to the point where they are merely stereotypical? Representations are not, however, always constructed to illustrate motive, suggesting some freedom from this representational strait-jacket. Sometimes motives are completely omitted. Apparently motiveless crimes, of which no previous or later elucidation is

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provided, but which are otherwise discussed in some detail,12 are attributed to, or confessed by, Elizabeth Lorde, Mother Osborne, Elizabeth Stile and her colleagues, Elizabeth Bennet, Ales Hunt, Annis Glascock, Margaret Grevell, Joan Robinson, Joan Cunny, Joan Upney, Anne Kerke, Alizon Device, Anne Chattox, Margaret Pearson, Anne Baker and Ellen Greene.13 The illustration of motive might not be an inescapable shaper of narrative accounts of witchcraft in informations, despite the probable demands of the courts, but it is absent in only a small proportion of the total number of extant stories, and in exceptional cases. In the Salmesbury case the witches are attributed no motives for their crimes, but, because of the false witness involved, their accusations are not normal, and accuser Thomas Walshman is even reluctant to attribute blame, saying that he does not know how his child died.14 More confusingly, motive can be omitted from the printed document although it becomes clear to the reader in other ways. John Tendering’s evidence in A true and just Recorde (1582) names no suspect and no motive.15 But later we discover that the suspect must have been Elizabeth Bennet, who had ample and alreadyestablished motive to attack the victim named by Tendering, William Byet. Also in St Osyth Ales Baxter, Joan and Robert Smith all give accounts of being attacked by the Henry and Cysley Celles for no stated reason. But once it is appreciated that Robert Smith and Ales Baxter are both employees of Richard Rosse, who had both denied charity to and quarrelled with the Celles, and that Joan is Robert Smith’s wife, we can suggest an interpretation of the witches’ motive, malice towards Rosse, which might have been clear to the examiner, that was omitted only in transition to written documents.16 Why were these usefully suspicious motives omitted from the information narratives of Byet’s and Rosse’s supporting witnesses? Perhaps in Rosse’s case, given Joan Smith’s remark that ‘her conscience wil not serve her, to charge the said Cysley or her husband to be the causers of any suche matter [her child’s death], but prayeth God to forgive them if they have dealt in any such sort +c,’17 the witnesses were actually unwilling to articulate the usual suspicious story against Cysley Celles. Joan is sharply cut off by the recorder with ‘+c’, as Leuschner pointed out.18 But the witness speaking for the dead Byet apparently has no such context of possibly unwilling compulsion to testify. This group of stories is thus interesting, in that it was felt unnecessary to confess or extract a motive, but they can only be classified negatively (no motive given) in this system. Nevertheless, the exploration of attributed motive is a suitable basis for exploration of representational genres because its other three motive-based groups are so very strongly identifiable. This chapter will discuss them as discrete generic stories, while question—ing this construction of them and looking at their development and interaction over time. The first generic story of witchcraft is the denial narrative as told by Scot and explored by Keith Thomas, to whom my analysis owes its origin and categories.19 The second is the witch’s revenge narrative, also explored by Thomas but not classified by him as such.20 This model can also accommodate feud stories. The third representation is a narrative of explicitly ‘motiveless malignity’ on the part of the witch, the opposite of Thomas’s ‘justifiable grudge’ of the witch against the victim, and rejected by Thomas as a category.21 Defining narratives as belonging to a single category is sometimes impossible, and undesirably restricting. There are fruitful ambiguities especially surrounding the third

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group. Who defines motivelessness or legitimates a grudge? In what context are certain stories told? The context of stories in their printed form is also explored. The use of different types of story in different types of pamphlet is important in the process of identifying and, possibly, spreading a stereotype. In fact, the first identification of a pattern, Scot’s model story, may come from his reading of pamphlets, Rehearsall (1579), Richard Galis’ 1579 pamphlet, and A true and just Recorde (1582).22 How can we uncover the meanings of witchcraft from under so many layers of representation: the factual circumstances, the victim’s reconstruction of events for his or her own satisfaction, the mutual tailoring of the story by victim and magistrate, the recording by the clerk, the putting of the agreed accusation to the suspect, the response, the recording, the printing and finally Scot’s parodic story based on the pamphlet? It is, however, clear that the shapes of accusers’ stories must be examined in as much detail as the structures of stories told by witches. They might determine witches’ stories and be determined themselves by pre-existing stereotypes, and the questioning process of giving an information. These stereotypes might prevent us from seeing more complex and interesting views of witchcraft hidden inside the conventional patterns, and might determine the understanding of witchcraft which we have from examinations and trial, as discussed in Chapters 1 and 2. Denial narratives—Scot and Gifford The denial narrative was first recognised as an accusatory generic stereotype rather than a reflection of reality by sceptical or semi-sceptical demonologists such as Reginald Scot and George Gifford, who enumerated its contents, and noted its cause-and-effect shape based on motive.23 Possibly their recognition of it as a created miscategorisation of events was based on their (varying degrees of) scepticism: if witches did not exist as popularly imagined, then stories about them were easily noticeable as constructions. The semi-sceptical Gifford believed that stories told about witches lacked the proper cause and effect, attributing all to the witch and none to God or the devil, and reconstructed a better causality. Scot denied that any magical effect had occurred, concentrating on the causation of other effects, namely anger in the witch and guilty credulity in the supposed victim. The narrative of denial told by Scot was a perfect construction for his purposes, allowing him to claim that ‘it is naturall to unnaturall people, and peculiar unto witchmongers, to pursue the poore, to accuse the simple, and to kill the innocent’.24 His denial narrative was a pulpy and melodramatic tear jerker, superb anti-witchmonger propaganda. But believers in witchcraft continued to perpetuate the story, recognising its shape but perceiving it as the truth of witchcraft. Like Scot, but convinced that he is describing the typicality of reality not narration, Richard Galis comments generalisingly that one witch ‘was a poore woman, and used to go about begging of the almes of her honest neighbours, which if they did once deny her request, mischief alwayes ensued to them or their cattell’.25 For him, detail is unnecessary in such a common story. It is the commonest in pamphlets over the period by a small margin.26 The importance of the denial narrative is shown by the number of stories such as those told about Margery Staunton, who first

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came on a tyme to the house of one Richard Saunder of Brokewalden, and beeyng denied Yeest, whiche she required of his wife, she went her waie murmuryng, as offended with her answere, and after her departure, her yonge child in the Cradle was taken vehemently sicke, in a merveilous strange maner.27 Here are all the elements of a model story like Scot’s: named refuser, request, denial of a particular commodity, murmuring, anger, ‘result’. This pattern can be repeated, more or less comprehensively, each time carrying more conviction because of the increasing recognition of typicality. Robart Petie’s wife refused Staunton ‘diverse thynges, whiche she demaunded at once’, accused her of stealing a knife, and when the witch ‘wente her waie in greate anger’ her child fell ill. Demanding ‘certaine thynges’ of William Torner’s wife, she was ‘denied’, and although she showed no anger and asked how many children the Torners had, a child fell ill.28 Robart Cornell’s wife ‘denied’ her milk which she ‘craved’, twice, whereupon she squatted down, ‘made a Circle uppon the grounde with a knife…digged it full of holes with in the compasse’ and said ‘that she made a shityng house for her self’ and departed. The wife fell ill. From John Hopwood she ‘had continually her requestes’ but ‘at the laste beyng denied of a Leathern thong, she went her waie offended’ and his horse died.29 John Cornell ‘denied her demaunde, she tooke offence’ and his cattle’s milk turned to blood. The wife of the vicar of Wimbish ‘denied her errande’, and though she showed no anger his child fell ill. Robart Lathburie, ‘dislikyng her dealyng, sent her home emptie’ and his hogs died.30 Her story is exactly like Scot’s stereotype, as Thomas implied, and its almost rhythmic reiteration of the same elements establishes the story as an archetype in the reader’s mind and thus as true.31 Both Gifford and Scot recognised that this ubiquity meant that the denial narrative had to be exposed in order to destroy ignorant belief in witches. Their concentration on it emphasises its centrality. Since Gifford addressed a wide audience, stating that his book is made easy ‘for the capacity of the simpler sort’, his concern with deconstructing the denial narrative may confirm that the story was widely accepted in the community outside the legal system and thus did represent a popular belief or myth, pre-existing magisterial desire for good evidence.32 Yet he, through his more learned character Daniel, is addressing characters representing jurymen as well as farmers, school-teachers and ignorant women, and both his book and Scot’s are dedicated to the judicial classes, judges, magistrates and churchmen.33 The debate about the denial narrative is a debate about legal evidence as well as popular belief—jurors are seen as just as ignorant as the informants whose stories they credit. Gifford’s character Samuel says: I was of a Jurie not many yeares past, when there was an old woman arrained for a witch. There came in eight or ten which gave evidence against her. I doe not remember every particular: but the chiefe for some thinges were of small value. One woman came in and testified uppon her oath that her husband upon his death bed, tooke it upon his death, that he was bewitched, for he pined a long time. And he sayd further, he was sure that woman had bewitched him. He tooke her to be naught, and thought she was angry with him, because she would have borrowed five shillinges of him, and he denyed to lend it her…Then followed a man, and he

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sayde he could not tell, but he thought she was once angry with him because she came to begge a few pothearbes, and he denied her: and presently after he heard a thing as he thought to whisper in his eare, thou shalt be bewitched. The next day he had such a paine in his back, that he could not sit upright…We found her giltie, for what could we doe lesse.34 These witnesses are fictional informants. As with Scot’s fictional denial narrative, their stories are a long way from any real events, as to a lesser extent are real informants’ stories. Gifford shows us this himself: distancing himself from their story by subtly damaging phrases such as ‘he was sure’, ‘he tooke her to be’, ‘thought she was’, ‘he could not tell’. He helps his readers rise above the simplicity of the informants in the story by discussing the worth of the story itself. Samuel says, ‘we went according to the evidence of such as were sworne…’, but Daniel replies, ‘Might not both you and they be deceived in your thinking?’35 Gifford may simply mean that popular belief is wrong: witchcraft does not happen in this way. But he may also suggest a createdness about legal narratives of witchcraft which should trouble us. We don’t accept the magic in informations (or examinations) as fact, but we do tend to assume that the material details in them are true. Gifford undermines this by suggesting that the stories are created in the imagination, by devilish illusions, as witches’ confessions are. If a man falls ill, ‘the devill will delude him, and make him beleeve that the witch standeth by him’, while if he is soon to receive some harm is hee [Satan] not cunning to make the party which shall receive the harme, to fall out with some that hee may suspect, and so the harme may seeme to come from that partie?…I speak of where he hath no witch to deale by, but pursueth the innocent with suspition upon suspition…it is taken (as they say) to be dead sure that the party is a witch, if sundry such shewes of matters do concurre.36 Gifford’s denial narrative has a sense of someone pulling the strings. Scot finds mental and medical, naturalistic, explanations for stories about witchcraft. Gifford looks for satanic authorial intention, narrative strategies, representational ‘shewes’. Scot cannot deny that witches exist, although he leaves no credible alternatives, and thus can offer no replacement for the denial narrative because of his contempt for the ignorance, credulity or trickery he sees as producing it. Gifford is more cunning, reading the denial narrative for its subtext, deconstructing it as I am, neither accepting or dismissing it. He gives his reader alternative stories to tell: providential versions, stressing the cunning of the devil in implicating a witch by circumstantial evidence. So the denial narrative for Gifford is a story written by the devil, to deceive the foolish. For him its pattern is too clear, its story too simple to reflect the real causes of witchcraft. Yet it does reflect some version of reality. His cautious acceptance should inform our critical awareness. The tentativeness of his informants in telling their stories, while constructed to serve his purpose of discrediting their story, should again alert us to the negotiation involved in creating such narratives, and we should also build on Gifford’s awareness of accusers’ retrospective reconstruction of events, the status of the events described in their stories as

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performances, or ‘shewes’, and the stretching of stories into a set form for the purposes of court testimony. Both Scot and Gifford, then, retold the denial narrative to destroy it, skewing it to win sympathy for the semi-sceptical cause, and sympathy for the poor. Their identification of a story told about witches which was neither true nor wholly false is the starting point for a similar discussion here of the origins of accusatory representations of witchcraft, on which confessions, trials, pamphlets and most of our ‘data’ depend. As with examinations, the first discussion must be about the process of eliciting the statement. Questions and answers Informations usually contain the name of the victim, the request made, anger at the refusal, and possibly the words spoken. Scot’s parodic denial narrative accurately reflects his probable pamphlet sources in giving most usual details. As revealed in analysing examinations, these elements as described by the victim might result from specific strings of questions. But here it is less clear how the questioner might begin. Usually the first statement will contain the witch’s name, but inferences are not easy because the victim had come to tell a story and might do so with little prompting.37 If the questioner created the motive-based narrative, he might ask ‘Why has the suspect attacked you?’ or ‘Why do you think he or she has attacked you?’, producing the usual opening remarks about offending the witch. But the story would tend to take its own shape inside the cause-andeffect pattern, and it seems likely that the motive might be provided unprompted by the victim, as in Thomas’s model, where the victim’s guilt at refusing help prompts the accusation because it seems to provide a motive for attack. It would be interesting to speculate that questioners asked such leading questions as ‘What has befallen you?… How did you offend the suspect?…How did he or she react?…And then what happened?’— questions producing the statements recognised by Scot—but, as with examinations, there is no proof of any prescriptive interrogation.38 Denial narratives are always, however, the same basic shape: offence given and taken, therefore crime committed, though with more or less of the usual details, and with variations of inner structure. Why? Is the finding of motive a social or a psychological need in the victim, or a legal need in victim or JP, or is it a narrative need, born out of the questioning process and the finding of coherency and pattern? Within the issue of why informants want to identify motive is another issue: that of the degree of manipulation of their stories by witnesses. Just as witches may cooperate or exculpate themselves strategically in their examinations, so informants may also negotiate the level of guilt which they accept in giving the witch a motive to attack. We shall see that some kinds of victim actively deny giving the witch a motive, just as Gifford promoted the idea of witches attacking for no known reason, either as punishment or as part of a trial of the victim by God.39 But the protestations of victims who deny that they gave the witch reason to attack them are often unconvincing, and most informants seem unable to conceive of motiveless attack. Thomas suggests that the finding of a motive in the denial narrative results from a social/psychological need, to articulate the victim’s guilt about uncharity, and this seems the most convincing explanation to date, although it has been criticised as ‘patronising’ the victim.40

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This discussion will look at stories for evidence of differing levels and constructions of victim guilt as well as for different stereotypical motives attributed to their attackers. There seems general agreement in these narratives that witchcraft has a cause, and that the victim is partly to blame for provoking attack. Examinations and informations tell remarkably similar stories here. This is as true of narratives of witches’ revenges for quarrels or feud as it is of revenge for a specific denial of help. But narratives of motiveless malignity deliberately define themselves against this agreed version of witchcraft, and here witches’ examinations may differ from victims’ accounts. We ought at least to consider the dialogical creation of such stories in informations and court settings before concluding that we know whose psychology we are examining, or that the story’s shape represents accurately either fact or fixed beliefs. Simple denial Like the mother-in-law joke, the narrative of denying charity (often to a similarly old, bad-tempered and unpleasantly powerful woman) was a cultural commonplace, readily understood even when stripped down to an undetailed sketch. In the baldest kind of denial narrative the shape of the story from motive to ‘result’ is apparently more important than detail. These stories consist of an unelaborated denial and attack. Informations do not seem to differ as a genre from examinations. Agnes Waterhouse, a witch, flatly explains: ‘beyng denyed butter of an other [a nameless victim], she caused her to lose the curdes 2 or 3 dayes after’.41 Jane Wilkinson, as an informant, gives a slightly fuller account: ‘Isabel Robey asked her milke, and shee denied to give her any: And afterwards shee met the same Isabel, whereupon this Examinate waxed afraid of her, and was then presently sick’.42 Inaccounts giving more detail of the witch’s response, Elizabeth Fraunces, the witch, says she was denied yeast by Poole’s wife and ‘cursed’ her ‘and badde a mischief to light uppon her’,43 as Ales Newman was reported by a witness to have been denied meat and ‘went away mourmuring’.44 What the witch said is often recorded, as in Scot’s simple denial narrative, perhaps to represent to the JP and court added proof of malice. One cannot infer much from these simple structures except possible victim guilt behind the structure itself, in identifying a motive. Some denials are, however, represented more complexly and better illustrate the narrative strategies used by victims. More complex denial These denial narratives have gradations of complexity in illustrating the motivation and balance of guilt between victim and witch. First, the denial of charity can be shown as aggravated, with circumstances elaborated on by the victim apparently to the victim’s disadvantage. Second, the denial can be presented as blameless. Third, it can record doubt as to whether the witch was denied or not, or show that he or she was not, like the story of Alizon Device (retold in the Introduction). This last group of stories comes nearest to showing the denial narrative as a handy construction not necessarily reflecting real events accurately. The story stands out more clearly as a stereotype than it does in the first two categories, because it defines motive weakly in a narrative format designed to give motive

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prominence. Again examinations and informations are alike: favourable and unfavourable accounts of victims are present in both. In some contexts, the shape and tone of the story seem inevitable. A story of aggravated denial might be expected from witches, gaining them sympathy at the expense of their victim. The witch Elizabeth Demdike described how she revenged herself on Richard Baldwin after he refused her alms, and cried, ‘get out of my ground Whores and witches, I will burne the one of you, and hang the other’, despite her daughter having helped at his mill.45 Elizabeth Bennet dilates upon the cruelty of Byet, her victim.46 But it is more surprising from a legal point of view when victims dwell on their provocation of the witch; although, if Thomas is right and guilt prompts their accusation, they might be expected to do so for psychological reasons. Sometimes it is impossible to tell whether the informant’s aggravation of the denial of charity would be seen as reprehensible or laudable in its context. Richard Harrison, parson of Beaumont, not only said he refused the witch Annis Herd plums but that he accused her of witchcraft and harlotry.47 Is this a confession to relieve suppressed guilt, or an assertion of the righteousness of pastoral admonition? In a similar moment of confused significance, if the evidence against Margery Staunton is an information, her accuser Thomas Prat appears cruel, possibly by his own account, for attacking the witch with a needle.48 But he may be trying to draw her blood and cure himself—it is left unclear. More clear-cut, in The severall factes of Witch-crafte (1585) the narrator carefully explains that the servants of William Goodwinne refused Margaret Harkett yeast, ‘deny[ing] there was any in the house: not with-standinge, the Stande was newe filled, and the servauntes were lothe to take of the yeast’.49 Another man refused to lend her a horse, she ‘knowinge him to have foure very good indifferent Geldinges’—the reader is given this knowledge, too, and left to draw a conclusion about the victim’s refusal to share his high-quality resources.50 But, like Prat’s case, these are apparently paraphrased informations and not verbatim witness testimony. The writer of these accounts seems deliberately, though temporarily, to create understanding of the witch’s response, a very complex representation of denial of help to a witch and one whose origin and motivation need consideration even if elucidation is difficult. How do we imagine the victims telling these stories? One wonders also if any contemporary readers, or judges and jurors, reacted (against the grain?) to the sheer number of these stories by blaming the victims for refusing help, as Scot or Gifford would. Cockburn suggests that when Margery Staunton’s indictment was thrown out of court as insufficient it might have been rejected and not redrafted because of just such judicial sympathy.51 It would thus not be in the interests of the legal system for informants to record and produce in court any material damaging their character and creating sympathy for the witch. Then perhaps here we do have evidence of victim guilt spilling out to shape their stories. But, as ever, it is unclear what part questioning and selective recording play in shaping these accounts. Written up to two days after the meeting of informant and JP, are they the outpouring of the victim, the considered incriminatory construct of the victim and JP, or a selection of ‘so much…as shalbe materiall to prove the felony’, as with examinations?52 Which factors have most shaped the representation of witchcraft which we read? These questions are impossible to answer objectively, but need to be asked.

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Denial narratives can be aggravated (as above) but, second, they can be modified so as to excuse uncharity. This swings sympathy back to the refuser, and moves the stories towards seeing the witch’s attack as more motiveless, thus altering how we perceive what witchcraft is. Extenuating circumstances may be mentioned by informants or, surprisingly, witches, again making no distinction. The witch Elizabeth Stile is recorded as saying that she was refused milk ‘for that the maide was then Milkyng’,53 and similarly Joan Cunny was ‘discontented’ by Harry Finch’s wife’s refusal to give her drink because she was ‘busie and a brewing, [and] tolde her she had no leysure to give her any’.54 Cunny is being described by a reporter, however, suggesting a desire to make her attack look unreasonable. But, apparently freely, Joan Prentice said she was refused alms by Master Glascok’s maid who said he was out, so she sent her ferret to nip his child.55 Among the victims, Nicholas Strickland said he refused meat to Margaret Grevell because it was not ready for cutting, and his butter-making failed.56 Joan Cheston refused Ales Manfield curds because ‘there was none’ and her husband died.57 The murder by witchcraft of Johnson, the collector for the poor in St Osyth occurred, we are shown, despite his articulate excuses. Elizabeth Bennet (‘greatly beholding’ to him) acts as informant on his behalf. She heard the said mother Newman to desire Johnson to give her xii d, saying: her husbande lay sicke, whereunto shee heard him answere that hee woulde gladly helpe her husbande, but hee had laide out a greate deale more then he had received, saying, he was a pore man, and hee, his wife and familie, might not want for the helping of her husbande, saying that hee coulde not helpe her with any, untill he had collected more money, whereupon shee departed, and used some harde speeches unto him, and seemed to be much angrie.58 The reader cannot help sympathising with Johnson, whose voice we are intended to hear indirectly, and Bennet seems to wish to vindicate the collector of her much-needed charity. She might also want to portray Newman as blameworthy because, although she says she does not know if Newman killed Johnson, she herself is suspected of causing Johnson’s death.59 And her questioner, Brian Darcey, who is later revealed as a donor of some of the charity which has now dried up, also has an interest in showing the poor as unreasonably grasping. Here the detail of the story is being multiply manipulated by teller and questioner within the usual denial genre, with the effect of enhancing the heinousness of witchcraft. The third pattern of complex denial narrative is a significant modification of the denial stereotype, further exculpating the victim in stories which show that he or she partly granted the request, or record disputes as to whether it was granted or not. This focuses all the attention once again on the witch and makes witchcraft seem more wicked because motiveless.60 But destroying the appearance of motive also makes the story less effective as proof: it is the usual shape but empties out much of the motive in a story designed to make motive primary. We have to consider these stories carefully because, although they are a stereotypical shape, in fact their stories are not stereotypical in their individual detail. They are not really about denial of charity, but more complex

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relationships. G.B. shows Mother Atkins as unreasonable in attacking Gregory Coulson ‘because he did not straight waie leave al and accomplish’ her ‘petition’ (my italics).61 Ales Hunt said Joan Pechey was angry with Johnson the collector because the bread he gave her ‘was to [sic ] hard baked for her’.62 In Rehearsall (1579) an ostler (probably Savoye Harvy, according to Galis) said that he had often given Mother Stile relief on his master’s behalf, but one day there was little left to be given her, for that she came somewhat late, yet he givyng her also some what at that tyme, she therewith not contented went her waies in some anger, and as it semed offended with the saied Ostler for that she had no better Almes.63 These stories are shaped like denial narratives but are emptied-out versions. The witch looks ungrateful, but also has less motive to attack since charity has been given, however meagrely or belatedly. Some stories are even about charity given as requested and still dangerous. Margaret Harkett was offered some of the peas Joan Frynde said she had stolen, but rejected them and instead cursed the field, reports her pamphlet.64 Such stories are so lacking in clear motivation that they can get lost in details. For example, Bennet Lane gave Annis Herd a pint of milk ‘and also lent her a dishe to beare it home’. When it was not returned, she told Annis’ daughter, ‘I gave thy mother milk to make her a posset, I gave her not my dish’, and back it came. But Bennet was now unable to spin. She also lent Annis two pence, and ‘beeing a poore woman was constrained to aske her the two pence’ back later. Annis repaid it, but Bennet’s milk and cream began to be troublesome.65 Similarly, the Osborne family had lent Annis three pence, but when they tried to reclaim it Annis was ‘very short’ and made them wait. Their brewing failed.66 The transactions detailed stray so little from the neighbourly ideal that either Annis Herd’s victims were unusually sensitive people, or else they may have been urged into accusation by magisterial acceptance of other accusations in the long-running St Osyth case of which they form the tail end.67 Annis’ other ‘victims’ included Thomas Cartwrite, who quite unwittingly took away a piece of wood she had laid as a bridge and feared her because of it,68 and John Wade, who was alarmed because, although he gave her advice about her appearance in the church court, he did not actually help her.69 These, despite their denial narrative pattern, are stories of negotiation, suspicion, counter-magic, and about matters which would seem small to wealthy judges—thus weak evidence. Herd was indicted for a non-capital offence and acquitted, perhaps as a result of these complex, slightly unconvincing, non-clear-cut stories.70 But, again, witches are shown as telling the same story, exculpating their accusers. Joan Waterhouse initially said that Agnes Browne refused to give her bread and cheese, but a second version of her story modifies her complaint to ‘at the least not as muche as wolde satisfie her’.71 It might serve her interests to provide no clear motive for attacking her victim, but this seems a simplistic reading of a statement which might have any number of meanings between fact and narrative stereotyping. These stories of interrelationships, rather than simple asker-denier charitable dependency, are not about denial and become more like barter or trade narratives, as

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Purkiss saw.72 Sometimes the two are comparable and present completely different views of what witchcraft is. As we saw in the Introduction, Alizon Device said that she had attacked a pedlar because she had ‘demanded of the said Pedler to buy some pinnes of him; but the said Pedler sturdily answered this Examinate that he would not loose his Packe’.73 But the pedlar’s son said that she had ‘had no money to pay for them withall; but as this Examinates father told this Examinate, he gave her some pinnes’.74 The man himself says, in a conventional denial narrative, she ‘was very earnest with him for pinnes, but he would give her none’.75 Compare again the different effect of each story. In the first the pedlar is needlessly uncooperative and the witch presents herself as less to blame for her anger, possibly affecting the jury’s and reader’s response to her. The word ‘sturdily’ might suggest an honest, stolid practicality or curmudgeonly aggression. Similarly affecting the tone is the situation: the transaction is simply a social and financial one, so the witch is not a victim but an equal. In the second version, told by the victim’s son, the pedlar is blamelessly charitable, the account blackening the witch whose unprovoked malice might shock and scare the jury and reader. By his own (the third) account, he is guiltily uncharitable, providing good evidence of a clear motive for the witch to attack. He might be assumed to have damaged his character with jury and reader, but Potts’ sympathetic account suggests this was not so.76 This sense of guilty context may have led him to accuse the witch, as Thomas would suggest. Yet all the stories take the same basic form. They cannot all be true, and this suggests that witchcraft stories are unreliable. It also shows how the same basic story may have multiple significances inside the simple generic label ‘denial narrative’. The perception of other genres within the denial narrative reflects historians’ revised view of Thomas’s theory that refusal of charity is the major factor in witchcraft cases. Equality between the accuser and accused, complexity in their relationship, the depth of witches’ poverty and the social superiority of some witches, are being explored.77 Again, the denial narrative’s shape gets in the way of a more complex understanding: because of its catch-all nature. Accounts of trade, for instance, are made harder to interpret because representations of haggling over prices may imply poverty and exploitation or alternatively suggest equality, but because they are in the recognised mould of the denial narrative it is easy to assume poverty. Richard Rosse says he refused to let Cysley Celles buy his malt at three shillings for two bushels, holding out for ten groats. She quarrelled with his wife over the price of one and a half bushels also. The result, said Rosse, was the death of his horses.78 The economic status of the participants is not obvious from this representation of events, but would have to be checked with other records. Nor is Rosse’s motivation clear, although legal records suggest that through his repeated accusations Henry Celles was pursued for a year until he died in prison, as did his wife. Their son Robert was also imprisoned and tried with his parents for offences against Rosse, the legal account thus almost suggesting a feud story rather than an economic one.79 The stereotype unhelpfully conceals specificity here,80 although some complex relations are carefully described: the victim Grace Thorlowe, a servant herself, employs the witch Ursley Kempe as a cunning woman, although she had refused to employ her as a nurse, and then refuses to pay her.81 Again, witches’ motives and victims’ guilt are not the crude absolutes of the conventional denial

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narrative. Perhaps the most complex story is told by Andrew West. The witch Annis Herd was dependent upon, but also a customer of, and an employee of, the West family. Annis came to their house and Andrew ‘knowing her neede’ gave her bread. But she wanted to buy a pig from him, though ‘if a poore body should have of them and bestow cost, & that then if they should the it would halfe undoe them’. If her landlord would let her, she would buy one. But she did not return to West in time, and when she did the pigs had all been sold. Subsequently West’s own pigs behaved strangely. Annis also spun wool for Anne West and said to the boy that brought it, ‘can she not have her weeders to spin the same: and…your Aunt might as well give me one of her pigges, as to Penly’.82 Andrew West’s reason for suspecting Herd is clear, and his story set in the usual mould, but his articulation of it is far from the expected simple representation of denial of charity or even denial of trade. Denial narratives need to be dissected to see exactly what they are saying before we conclude that they are all alike, and contain a simple meaning of witchcraft. Refusal to trade, though superficially like a denial narrative, is actually at the other extreme of denial and culpability in that the victim forgoes benefit as much as the witch. In the last St Osyth case all the accusers except Edward Upcher say they are involved in bargaining with Joan Robinson, and it is refusal to lend or trade that they represent as causing her attacks or their fears—refusals which sometimes damage them more than her. Joan and her husband are actually shown as offering money to some of her victims: they wanted to ‘hyre a pasture for a Cowe’ from Margery Carter’s husband. He refused, ‘for feare hee might want for his owne beastes’, two of whom immediately died. Unwisely, Robinson’s husband went back to Carter and said, ‘God restore you your losse, nowe you may pastor [pasture] me a cowe’.83 Robinson’s husband also wanted to buy a house and an acre of ground from Carter, and was denied, after which Carter’s horse died. There are four stories of people refusing to sell pigs to Joan, and Allen Ducke would not let her ‘bye a Cheese of his wife’. Joan Robinson is clearly not poor: John Brasyer’s wife ‘went unto the sayde Joan Robinson, to pay her money shee ought unto her for wares which shee had beeing due upon scores: and for that she his wife would not pay her her owne reckoning, shee fell out with his wife’,84 while Ales Miles went to Joan’s house for a pound of soap and we are told that Joan has a maid, Joan Hewer.85 Perhaps trading with a witch was dangerous: Alice Walter said she would lend the suspected Joan Robinson a pig, but not sell her one,86 just as in Henry Goodcole’s pamphlet Elizabeth Sawyer’s neighbours refused to buy the brooms which she made.87 There are a few conventional denial stories told against Joan Robinson: Thomas Rice’s wife refused to lend a hayer to Robinson, as did Margery Carter, after which their animals were attacked.88 But no matter what the economic relationship involved, even with poorer persons accusing richer, all these stories are in the usual form of the denial narrative: named victim, request, denial, anger (or not), result. But they are more like quarrels among perversely uncooperative equals than they are like denial narratives, and have a different tone accordingly, tending towards representing a feud. The witch has less injury, thus less motive, and the victim less guilt. This begins to make the categorisation of accusations of witchcraft seem more difficult, less productive of real insights into reality, even in individual cases considered specifically. We always return to the stereotype, unable to say how the victim really

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viewed events and how his or her interview with the JP modified this, and having to accept Scot and Gifford’s not-entirely-objective view of witchcraft as based on poverty, guilt and economic transactions. There are multiple models, but all seem equally bound by narrative convention, by the victim’s acceptance of or resistance to guilt, as with witches’ stories. Witch’s revenge—Thomas Potts and King James The second main type of narrative about witchcraft is the story of the witch revenging an injury, a key alternative to the economically motivated denial narrative. Thomas simply described this as a witch attack provoked by ‘other kinds of uncalled for behaviour’, a category of story which could contain anything which was not denial of charity.89 But stories of witch’s revenge are actually a strong presence in their own right in witchcraft pamphlets. Interestingly, the witch’s revenge story occurs more frequently in some pamphlets than in others, as does the denial narrative (see note 26). The idea of revenge is more common after about 1590. This kind of selective distribution might suggest patterning by narration rather than necessarily a change in reality, or it might suggest different constructions of witchcraft in different cases or places. The St Osyth pamphlet is almost entirely based on denial and trade narratives. Witchcraft in St Osyth was represented as being about economic transactions and poverty. Malice was represented almost entirely as a function of deprivation, and conflict came about over commodities. The same is true of The severall factes of Witch-crafte (1585). In the other cases a higher proportion of the malice is represented as arising out of personal relationships, hatred or abuse. The reader is affected differently by each type of narrative: revenge for its own sake seems more malicious than a desire to get even with an uncharitable neighbour, despite the fact that this too is a revenge attack. The idea of a discrete, non-economic, narrative of ‘witch’s revenge’ is suggested by Thomas Potts. Again we see contemporaries of the witches keen to generalise stories of witchcraft, and classify them for their own ends. But Potts, believing in witchcraft, does not see them as representations but as reality, and he identifies two motives for witches, an economic one and a revengeful one: The two degrees of persons which chiefly practise Witch-craft, are such, as are in great miserie and povertie, for such the Devill allures to follow him, by promising great riches, and worldly commoditie; Others, though rich, yet burne in a desperate desire of Revenge; He allures them by promises, to get their turne satisfied to their hearts contentment.90 Potts’ categories are probably based on King James’s in Daemonologie 1.2 and 2.3.91 Potts validates the categories by citing the evidence of Anne Chattox and Elizabeth Demdike and her children, for he says, ‘there was not one of them, but have declared the like, when the Devill first assaulted them’. But if Potts has given us all the information he had about the witches, then this is inaccurate. James Device is poor, yet he is promised revenge on his enemies, not wealth,92 while his sister Alizon was out begging when

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promised power to do anything she would—not money.93 Elizabeth Demdike was promised ‘anything she would request’,94 whichmight be interpreted as commodity, but Elizabeth in fact uses her spirit for pure ‘revenge’.95 Only Anne Chattox fits Potts’ first category, being promised ‘thou shalt want nothing; and be revenged of whom thou list’ (my italics)96 and in her gaol examination ‘that she should have Gould, Silver, and worldly Wealth, at her will’.97 Potts bases his distinctions on the two stories told most frequently by victims, but insists on a rigid theoretical separation between them, centred on the idea that poor witches attack because they are greedy and rich witches do so because they are vindictive. This is clearly not a true reflection of the stories told: most of Potts’ witches want revenge, regardless of their financial status, and some say so overtly.98 It is an especially shaky demarcation of narratives in the light of doubt about Potts’ construction of Alice Nutter’s status. He describes her as ‘a rich woman; had a great estate…yet…drawne to fall to this wicked course of life’ (O3v). Her revengefulness, as a rich witch, thus ‘proves’ King James’s theory correct. But local historians using other sources have shown that she was not rich, and have exposed Potts as again constructing witchcraft according to ideology and not observation.99 The idea of rich and poor witches attacking for different, equally sinful, reasons is clearly a moral gloss put on Potts’ categories of motive in obedience to King James’s understanding of witchcraft, and this part of Potts’ classification of narratives has to be jettisoned, leaving us to work with his basic perception of two types of narrative of witchcraft: the economic narrative and the narrative of witch’s revenge. Like the informants, Potts wants to represent witchcraft in terms of clear-cut motive—unsurprisingly, as he came from the legal establishment. But for him, and other establishment figures (King James, for instance), the genesis of a witch’s motive was not in the provocative behaviour of the victim but in the temptation of the witch by the devil. Potts’ construction of motive based on inner malice and an excess of vindictiveness moves the story of a witch’s revenge towards the idea of ‘motiveless malignity’. This construction, in which the reader sees the witch as a person of faulty temperament and morality rather than as a person treated uncharitably, absolves the victim and moves towards a construction of witchcraft that comes primarily from the upper classes, in whose circles Potts moved. Such people did not wish to admit the possibility of inviting witch attack by improper behaviour, as we shall see later in this chapter. Yet it is clear that victims of witch’s revenge are still represented as deserving the attack that is shown being inflicted on them—the malignity of the witch is not motiveless, but is founded in a genuine injury, even though that is then seen to trigger the already high, and, Potts would argue, devil-inspired, levels of vindictiveness within the injured witch. Thus the narrative of witch’s revenge has a different feel than the narrative of the denial of charity, but is still based on Keith Thomas’s notion of guilt on the part of both participants in the witch attack—witch and victim. It is important, therefore, to examine revenge narratives in detail, as we did narratives of denial; to look at the representation of the balance of guilt, the favourite constructions of revenge stories, and their potential for stereotyping actual events into a prescribed pattern of narration. It is clear that there is not simply one stereotype of the narrative of revenge—there are sub-stereotypes within the genre. Some stories deal with injuries and insults, some with

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quarrels, some with jealousies of other kinds, and the following section will look at examples of all of these. But there can be massive variation in the treatment of each story, even when its content is stereotypically the same as other examples of the story. This is often because the same story shape is being used in completely different types of pamphlet, which illustrates the durability and flexibility of the revenge motif. It can be used in legal evidence, narrated as a moral tale, retold as comedy and, as we know, it is often incorporated into fairytale—for example, the jealous wicked queen in Snow White, the bad fairy in The Sleeping Beauty who revenged herself when not invited to a christening. As Clive Holmes says, the story of angering the witch is ‘a formulaic convention of a substantial literary genre’.100 The revenge narrative is more glamorous than the story of charity denied, and gives opportunity, as we shall see, for the description of more interesting types of interpersonal conflict, emotional rather than financial—conflicts in which Renaissance culture seems to have been particularly interested, as evidenced by the abundance of revenge tragedies in the period. But the revenge narrative is still, despite this potential for individual tailoring to fit very personal accounts of grudges, usually stereotyped into one of only a few channels. Reporting revenge—stereotypes and specifics The main elements of the basic revenge story and its familiar tendency towards stereotyping are illustrated in the following story of a revenge taken for unpleasant behaviour. Richard Galis, author of a pamphlet published in 1579, retells perhaps the most detailed story of cruelty in any published pamphlet and turns it into a flat stereotype. The story is probably based on a trial report of an information given in a pamphlet published earlier the same year, A Rehearsall both straung and true, which deals with cases related to the one which Galis reports. We know that Galis read the earlier pamphlet. Here is the original version: on a tyme a mannes Soonne of Windsor, commyng to fetche water at a welle which was by the doore of the saied Mother Stile, and by chance hurlyng a stone uppon her house, she was there withall muche greeved and saied, she would bee even with hym, and tooke his Pitcher whiche he had brought from hym: the boye goyng homewardes, happened to meete with his father, and tolde hym how that Mother Stile had taken awaye his Pitcher from hym, well saied his Father, you have doen her some unhappines, come on with me, and I will goe speake with her. And so the boye goyng with his Father towardes her house, did sodainely crie out: O my hande my hande, his father therewithall lookyng backe, and seeing his Soonnes hande to tourne, and wende backwardes, laied holde thereupon, but he was not able to staye the tournyng thereof besides a neighbour of his beeyng in his companie at that tyme, did also laye holde thereon, and notwithstandyng bothe their strengthes, the childes hande did tourne backwardes, and the palmes thereof did stande, where the backe did, to the greevous torment of the saied childe, and vexation of his Father: the which hande was tourned againe to his right place, either by the saied father Rosimond, or the saied Mother Devell.101

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Compare its retelling by Galis: Item shee saith that on a time a Childe (beeing a mans Sonne in Windesore) hurled a stone on her house wherwith beeing mooved to anger shee tooke his pot from him, threatned to be even with him, wherewithall the Child went homewardes, and in the way meeting his Father he tolde him what had happened. To whome his Father said: ye hast doon some unhappinesse to her, come with mee and I will speak with her, and as they went togither towards her house, the Childe sudainely began to cry out Oh my hand my hand, and his Father mervailing what hee ailed looking upon his hand and beholding it turned cleane out of course and that otherwise then Nature had framed it: tooke it in his hand and assayed to have turned it right again, but hee + another man a neighbour of his (being with him at that present) could not doo it, the which was holpen afterwardes by Mother Dutton.102 The story was presumably a written information, told in court, rewritten, printed, read and then rewritten again. Its important representational elements were selected and reconstructed by Richard Galis, showing us how a contemporary read the narrative.103 He describes the injury done to the witch, her anger, her threat, the relationship between child and father, the direct speech, the unnatural affliction of the victim, the response of the beholders, and the magical cure. He feels it unnecessary to explain what the victim was doing, the context and logic of the encounter, or describe the injury as carefully as the victim’s father did. This is the usually unseen selectivity that makes representations of witchcraft, in legal documents or pamphlet narrations, unreliable if treated as data. Galis even puts the story in the mouth of the witch, although it is clearly told from the victim’s viewpoint, and reverses the action of taking away the pitcher and the threat. In the original story Mother Stile has carried out her threat to be even by taking the pitcher—here the threat hangs in the air until fulfilled by the child’s illness. All this makes the story shorter, punchier, more coherent, more archetypal, defining what a witch’s revenge narrative should contain. It removes it from a specific context (a witness in court, a boy fetching water) and makes it general, but keeps its meaning, the careful proof of cause and effect, the construction of witchcraft, as a revenge stereotype commanding recognition and assent. As with the stereotypical denial narrative, Galis needed only basic details of the motivating offence, the anger of the witch, the result. Shape is more important than absolutely accurate content, though specifics can give verisimilitude. Writers often put striking direct speech in quarrel narratives, as above, or when Mother Samuel threatened Lady Cromwell with ‘Madame why doe you use me thus? I never did you any harme as yet’.104 As the pamphleteer adds, such ‘words were afterwards remembred’, and recorded, as strong proofs. Elizabeth Bennet’s words to and with Byet, who beat her and her pigs, and killed one with a pitchfork, are recorded verbatim in her examination: One William Byet dwelt in the next house unto her three yeres, [she] saying yt the first yeere they did agree reasonably well, but ere the seconde yeere passed, they fell

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out sundry and oftentimes, both with this examinat and her husbande, Byet calling her oftentimes olde trot and olde witche, and did banne and curse this examinat and her cattell, to the which this examinat saith; that shee called him knave saying winde it up Byet, for it wil light upon your selfe.105 Such accounts recall records of church court defamation suits, where verbal abuse was carefully recorded. Gifford more colourfully reflects such accounts when Samuel’s wife refers to a witch as ‘the olde filth’ and ‘olde queane’.106 But in legal documents insults of witches are usually flatly described as the victim having ‘chidden and becalled’ the witch107 or ‘in wordes did misuse her greatly’108 and insults are usually commonplace, ‘whore’ and ‘witch’ occurring more than once.109 These representations are meant as ‘factual’ summaries, not vivid blow-by-blow commentaries, but we must be aware of their selectivity and their flattening, stereotyping tendency where specifics are less important than the pattern of events represented. In one case, abuse is lovingly recorded. However it becomes clear almost immediately that this detail is clearly fabrication in a story which uses the recognised shape of the witch’s revenge narrative to validate itself. But it is a jest-book, or farcical, rendering of the story of a witch’s revenge for insult. A drunkard insults Joan Harrison. She is called ‘witch’ and ‘ill face’, and the drunkard adds, ‘I cannot abide a nose of that fashion…turne your face ye wrong side outward, it may look like raw flesh for flyes to blow maggots in’, and offers her some of his drink only as urine: ‘I throwd it in above, + it shall come out beneath, + then thou shalt have some of it, if thou wilt, because I am in hope it will poyson thee’.110 Themansoon after finds a lump on his ‘nose’ when he draws out his ‘Gentleman Usher’ to urinate. The knockabout vulgarity of the account, its detail, comic structuring and obvious gusto suggest that it is a pure fiction, but Thomas, quoting Ewen, believes it, the most notable instance of taking representation as data, describing ‘the drunkard in Royston alehouse who persistently abused Mother Stokes’ as representative of ‘all those persons who had offensively taunted old women with being witches, only to find themselves struck down as a result’.111 The story is more comparable with Gifford’s story of the man who said that a witch was once angry with him, [and] he had a dun cow which was tyed up in a house, for it was in winter, he feared that some evill would follow, and for his life he could not come in where she was, but he must needes take up her tayle and kisse under it.112 The two comic uses of the story set out to prove different points, Gifford arguing that the shocking and laughable outcome is simply a foolish imagination and ungodly fantasy, and the 1606 pamphleteer that it is the result of witchcraft. Comedy might be used to undermine credulity, or to reinforce it with a friendly, comforting tale. However, humour was conventionally used (by Scot and Gifford, for example) to undermine conventional representations of witchcraft because of their very typicality, and given this ancestry of the use of humour in witchcraft stories it is surprising that the pamphleteer of The most cruell and bloody murther (1606) attempted to use it in a serious account. Possibly he was uninterested in credibility, since it is only as an afterthought that he records the witch’s

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execution. But he reminds us that the generic shape, especially in such a common story, is no guarantee of truth. Generic stories, however, were readily accepted as truth in legal circumstances. At times it appears that merely sketching out a generic story is evidence enough, since the instantly recognisable witch’s revenge genre is more important than detailed content.113 This ready acceptance undermines Thomas’s belief that ‘it [the cause of attack and accusation] was not just that victim and witch had quarrelled’.114 Undetailed quarrel narratives (thus of unknown or no motivation) include Agnes Waterhouse’s, who was ‘offended with Father Kersey’, and had a ‘fallying out with one widdow Gooday’, Thomas Prat and Mother Staunton exchanging ‘certaine Woordes of anger’, and Margaret Cunny, who ‘did fall out with Father Hurrill, and gave him cucsed [sic] speeches’.115 For no apparent reason, some witches, witnesses and pamphleteers combine to produce sketchy, skeletal narratives which appear just as effective as the full accounts given by others. Fuller accounts stress varied motives. Elleine Smithe’s quarrel was motivated by money: her mother was executed for witchcraft and her stepfather demaunded certaine money of her, whiche she had received of her mother his wife, by meanes of whiche money thei fell out, and in fallying out the saied Elleine in greate rage saied unto hym, that it had been better for hym, he had never fallen out with her.116 Elizabeth Frauncis and Agnes Waterhouse said they harmed their husbands because they lived ‘unquietly’,117 Elizabeth explains that ‘when [Andrew Byles] had abused her he would not mary her, wherefore she willed Sathan to waste his goodes’ and eventually kill him.118 Mother Nokes ‘saied that her housbande laie with one Tailers wife of Lamberd Ende, and with reprochfull words reviled her’, while one Arnold’s wife (magically?) threw stones into the house where he and Annis Glascock lodged, out of jealousy.119 Detailed and vague stories both seem acceptable and witches accused in both ways are convicted. Professional revenges We have seen that providing some kind of motivation was important for establishing witches’ guilt, but witches can also be represented as being motivated by other people’s desire for revenge. A motive of inner malice for the witch is thus not compulsory, despite Potts’ view, in this apparently personal revenge genre, and neither is victim guilt or a personal relationship with the witch. A witch acting for a client is merely exercising her stereotypical skill on behalf of a customer. The story is the same shape but the content is quite different, as is the effect on the reader. Witch Elizabeth Stile confessed that one George Whittyng, servaunte to matthewe Glover of Eaton, had one Picture of her self for one Foster, for that the saied George and Foster fell out at variaunce, and the Picture was made in mother Duttens house, and that mother Dutten, Mother Devell, and her self were at the makyng, and that Mother Devell did saie

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too her Bunne, or evill Spirite, Plague hym, and spare hym not, and she did thruste a Hauthorne pricke against the harte of hym, and so he laye at the point of death a long tyme, but Mother Dutten recovered hym againe.120 Similarly Anne Chattox relates: Elizabeth Nutter, wife to old Robert Nutter, did request this Examinate, and Loomeshaws wife of Burley, and one Jane Boothman…to get young Robert Nutter his death, if they could;…to that end, that if Robert were dead, then the Women their Coosens might have the Land…And this Examinate sayth, that shee thinketh the sayd Loomeshaws wife, and Jane Boothman, did what they could to kill the sayd Robert Nutter, as well as this Examinate did.121 Witchcraft is a community service here, with Chattox describing the honest efforts of her group to do their clients’ bidding. Chattox also wanted to kill Nutter for making advances to her daughter and threatening to evict her son-in-law when repulsed, more of a feud narrative than a conventional revenge; but, as we have seen, documents and pamphlets do not shrink from representing motivation as mixed or confused. The fluidity of stories of witchcraft, both as definitions of the crime and as representations of real events, must be appreciated. The shapes of stories often appear to matter far more than their content, even to the people who had most to gain from exploding the generic narrative of witchcraft. ‘Witch’ Alse Gooderige said that she had caused Thomas Darling to be possessed, but, while he said it was for breaking wind near her, she said both that the bewitchment was a mistake and she had meant to bewitch another boy for breaking her eggs, and that she had bewitched Darling for calling her a witch.122 In other words, she constantly invented new versions of specific events to fill out the generic accusatory story. People seem to need stereotypes to illustrate their thinking, often negotiating them, adjusting their details within the same pattern of story, showing how little actual facts matter. Yet they also mix stereotypes in a way that makes them seem less constricting, but still all-pervading. From witch’s revenge to motiveless malignity Two accusations based on dismissal of servants bring the problem of the choosing a stereotyped story, based on identification of motive, to a head. Accuser Robert Sannever says: about xv yeeres past, ther dwelt with him the daughter of Elizabeth Ewstace, and that for some lewde dealynges, and behaviour by her doone, hee saieth, hee used some threatning speeches unto her, beeing his servaunt: And that shortlye after shee wente home to her sayde mother, and telled her of her maysters using of her: and the nexte daye hee saieth, as hee was a sitting by his fire side, his mouth was drawne awrye…whereuppon…hee sent presently to one of skill to come unto him, who…tooke a lynnen cloath, and covered his eyes, and stroake him on the

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same side with a strong blowe, and then his mouth came into the right course: and hee sayeth that hee willed this Examinate to put awaye his servaunt, and that out of hand: the which he saieth he did…iii yeres sithence his brother Crosse was taken very sickly, and…tolde him that Margaret Ewstace had bewitched him…his wife had a most straunge sicknes, and was delivered of childe, which within short time after dyed…his beasts did give downe blood in steede of milke…his hogges did skippe and leape aboute the yarde in a straunge sorte: And some of them dyed.123 This is a conventional witch’s revenge narrative. Sannever explains how he injured the witches, and the result. He could have lessened the offence committed against his maid but instead he elaborates it, describing ‘threatning’ and dismissal ‘out of hand [immediately]’. Thus her motivation is clearly represented and she is shown to have some justification for anger. But compare the story with the dismissal or demotion (the account is unclear) of Margaret Flower. In some ways the comparison is between unlike accounts, since Sannever’s story in A true and just Recorde (1582) is an information, while The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) is a narrative of the events and one would expect the greater contextualisation found in it. But the similarities are strong and highlight a real contrast: the differential acceptance of blame by the victim for provoking the witch’s attack and the way the representation of this alters the victim’s and our view of what witchcraft is. Thomas describes witchcraft accusations as growing out of the accuser’s feeling not merely that the witch bore a grudge against him, but that the grudge was a justifiable one. The witch, in other words, was not thought to be acting out of mere vindictiveness; she was avenging a definite injury…The important point is that, paradoxically, it tended to be the witch who was morally in the right and the victim who was in the wrong.124 Sannever does not say he was wrong to dismiss Margaret Ewstace—but he and/or the writer dwell more on his actions than on her ‘lewde dealynges’ which precipitated them. This is Thomas’ model. Thomas rejects the ‘motiveless malignity’ model, saying ‘contemporaries…never denied that [the witch] had some genuine reason for wishing ill upon her victim’.125 But the pamphleteer of The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) does deny any guilt on the victim’s behalf and portrays him instead as the perfect feudal patriarch: After the Right Honourable Sr. Francis Manners succeeded his Brother in the Earledome of Rutland:126 and so not onely tooke possession of Beaver [Belvoir] Castle, but of all other his demeanes, Lordships, Townes, Mannors, Lands, and Revenues appropriate to the same Earledome: hee proceeded so honourably in the course of his life, as neither displacing Tenants, discharging servants, denying the accesse of the poore, welcoming of strangers, and performing all the duties of a noble Lord, that hee fastened as it were unto himselfe the love and good opinion of the Countrey…his honourable Countesse127 marched arme in arme with him in the same race; so that Beaver Castle was a continuall Pallace of entertainment, and a

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daily receptacle for all sorts both rich and poore, especially such auncient people as neighboured the same; amongst whom one Joan Flower, with her Daughters Margaret and Phillip were not onely relieved at the first from thence, but quickly entertained as Chair-women, and Margaret admitted as a continuall dweller in the Castle, looking both to the poultrey abroad and the wash-house within dores: In which life they continued with equall correspondency, till something was discovered to the noble Lady, which concerned the misdemeanour of these women. And although such honourable persons shall not want of all sorts of people, either to bring them newes, tales, reports, or to serve their turne in all offices…yet in this matter, neither were they busie-bodies, flatterers, malicious politicians, underminers, nor supplanters one of anothers good fortune; but went simply to worke, as regarding the honor of the Earle and his Lady, and so by degrees gave light to their understanding to apprehend their complaints. First, that Joane Flower the Mother was a monstrous malicious woman, full of oathes, curses, and imprecations irreligious…a plaine Atheist…gave great suspition that she was a notorious Witch…Concerning Margaret, that shee often resorted from the Castle to her Mother, bringing such provision as they thought was unbefitting for a servant to purloyne, and comming at such unseasonable houres, that they could not but conjecture some mischiefe between them, and that their extraordinary ryot & expences, tended both to rob the Lady, & to maintaine certaine deboist [debauched] and base company which frequented this Joane Flowers house the mother, & especially her youngest Daughter. Concerning Phillip, that she was lewdly transported with the love of one Th. Simpson, who presumed to say, that shee had bewitched him…all things were carried away in the smooth Channell of liking and good entertainment on every side, untill the Earle by degrees conceived some mislike against her;…untill the Countesse misconceiveing of her daughter Margaret, and discovering some undecencies both in her life and neglect of her businesse, discharged her from lying any more in the Castle, yet gave her 40s a bolster, & a mattresse of wooll: commanding her to go home, untill the slacknesse of her repayring to the Castle, as shee was wont, did turne her love and liking toward this honourable Earle and his family into hate and rancor.128 It is explicitly denied that the Earl discharged servants, yet Margaret’s at least partial dismissal is the cause of her malice towards her victim. She describes it as ‘turning her out of service’, while her sister Phillip says ‘that her mother and her sister maliced the Earle of Rutland, his Countesse, and their Children, because her Sister Margaret, was put out of the Ladies service of Laundry, and exempted from other services about the house’.129 Margaret describes her motive in the usual witch’s revenge narrative: she was told to ‘lye at home, and come no more to dwell at the Castle; which she not onely tooke in ill part, but grudged at it exceedingly, swearing in her heart to be revenged’.130 Thomas, as an historian, sees the reality of the injury done to the witch behind the account, but it remains true that contemporaries did deny that the witch had genuine reason for attack, even if subconsciously or privately recognising guilt. In public print, motive was highlighted only to be annihilated, and thus there is a version of witchcraft, at least at a representational

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level, where attack is motiveless. The Earl and Countess are protected by the narrative from any blame for creating the circumstances leading to attack. First, the Earl is seen as dutiful, ‘noble’ and ‘honourable’, an ideal figure fulfilling his obligations in a home such as Jonson’s ‘To Penshurst’ praises, everything ‘appropriate’ and decorous.131 Second, even his informers are acting out of excellent motives. Third, the witches are vicious and immoral, with the implication being that they are thieving from the castle, keeping some kind of brothel, and a menace to the neighbourhood. And, last, the dismissal of Margaret was only partial, wholly proper, amply compensated, and was repaid by ‘slacknesse’ and malice. This removes as much justifying motive as possible from the witch’s revenge narrative, leaving the reader with an impression of witchcraft proceeding from ingratitude, related to Potts and King James’ devil-inspired inner malice, rather than injury. While the witches’ examinations represent their witchcraft in a revenge narrative, to the pamphleteer it is motiveless malignity. It is the same story with two totally different representations of witchcraft in the same framework. Why so different? Motiveless malignity Motiveless malignity narratives are usually connected with gentle or noble victims. Such people are not constructed by narrators as blameworthy but rather as totally innocent victims. This may be a function of narration itself, as such accounts are never represented using the victims’ informations but always as third person narratives. But noble victims are perhaps particularly unlikely to construct themselves as blameworthy. Francis Manners is the noblest victim of them all: a wealthy and powerful Earl of Rutland, Cambridge-educated, the acquaintance of emperors and princes, heaped with offices by James I, who visited his home many times, and made a privy councillor in 1617.132 The pamphlet may be written by a dependant or partisan of his, since it praises so extravagantly the ‘unparalleled magnanimity, wisedome, and patience of this generous Nobleman’.133 Stories concerning such victims that are clearly witch’s revenges are reshaped, and, as Willis suggested, authorial class shapes the representation of witches.134 It is important to notice this manipulation, and how it is done. Linguistic minimisation of the injury done to the witch is one adjustment, as in The Wonderful Discoverie (1619). Similarly, in The severall factes of Witch-crafte (1585) a bailiff of the gentleman Master Mashe’s gives the witch ‘two or three small blowes over the Backe not hurtinge her’ (and later falls into frenzy).135 The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) fits this pattern. Joane Vaughan, being in company with the gentlewoman Mistress Belcher, whether of purpose to give occasion of anger to the said Mistris Belcher, or but to continue her vilde, and ordinary custome of behaviour, committed something either in speech, or gesture, so unfitting, and unseeming the nature of woman hood, that it displeased the most that were there present: But especially it touched the modesty of this Gentlewoman, who was so much mooved with her bold, and impudent demeanor, that she could not containe her selfe, but sodainely rose up and strooke her, howbeit hurt her not.136

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Although Mistress Belcher is the aggressor, the incident is represented as the witch’s fault because of her unacceptable unwomanliness. Mistress Belcher did not hurt her, reassures the pamphleteer, who cannot know this. Thus, when Mistress Belcher is afflicted by the witch the reader must pity her, the victim. Abuse is heaped on the witch, who is ‘a maide (or at least unmaried)’ and a ‘trull’, and on her mother Agnes Browne, who was ‘of poore parentage and poorer education’, had ‘an ill nature and wicked disposition, spightfull and malitious’, and was ‘hated, and feared among her neighbours’, ‘both of them as farre from grace as Heaven from hell’.137 The Flower family were described in the same terms as ‘envious’, ‘lewd’, ‘Atheist’, ‘monstrous malicious’, keeping ‘deboist and base’ company, and themselves ‘base and poore Creatures, whom nobody loved but the Earles household’.138 The high status of the victims, and their blamelessness, are contrasted with and enhanced by the low birth, education and morals of the witches in these motiveless malignity narratives, deliberate shaping of readers’ perceptions of what witchcraft is. This representational tinkering highlights the fact that the symbiotic relationship of guilt and motive between witches and victims is intensely unstable, especially so in motiveless malignity narratives. Whilst the pamphleteers anxiously shape their narratives to accentuate victims’ innocence and witches’ guilt, and make explicit contrasts between victim and witch, the content, even to the choice of words, sometimes shows similarity. Willis remarks that it is ‘striking how much the witch had in common with her female accuser’, especially in verbal violence.139 The victims’ attempt to evade blame for what subsequently befell them can also become overstated, so detailed that the reader is able to contradict the account of blamelessness given from information contained in it. For example, Mistress Belcher’s violent response to Joan Vaughan’s unwomanliness could be defined as equally unwomanly. Her inability to ‘contain herself’ is as full of ‘rage and revenge’ as the witches are, and when ‘possessed’ Master Avery her brother follows ‘Rage rather then Reason’.140 The ‘extraordinary ryot and expences’ of the Flower family is an uncomfortable echo of the statement that ‘Beaver Castle was a continuall Pallace of entertainment’, for the Manners family lived consistently beyond their means.141 Thesesmall resemblancesin equal and alike guiltiness in victim and witch are insignificant beside the eerie likeness of the possessed Throckmorton family and the Samuel family of witches who afflicted them in Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593). Paralleled in an attempt to avoid blame by idealising the victim, guiltiness and malice are distributed with striking (though apparently unconscious) evenness between victims and witches. John Samuel is criticised for mistreating his wife (E, F, H), forswearing himself (F, F3-F3v), using bad language (E4v, F3), as do his wife (F4) and daughter (E4v). He will not obey his betters and abuses them (E4v, F3, L2), as do his wife (E) and daughter (E4v, G4). Both husband and wife speak too loudly (L2, E), and he tyrannises over her to the extent that she may not speak to others without his permission (E). Mother Samuel is upbraided for ‘her negligent comming to Church, and slackenesse in Gods service’ (F4). The Throckmorton children berate Mother Samuel for ‘her lewde bringing up of her Daughter, in suffering her to be her dame, both in controuling of her, and beating of her…’ (F4). Yet Rosen noticed that these girls are ruling over their own household in a tyranny of screaming, trances and wilful deafness: ‘it is almost as though they were punishing themselves in this other disobedient and uncontrollable daughter’,142 repeating to Agnes,

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‘thou art a wicked child…thou wicked child’ (L). In fact their other actions are equally like the Samuels’. They refuse to hear corrections (to their reading C3), laugh loudly and immodestly (C), speak loudly (L) and uninterruptibly for hours at a time (L2), as Mother Samuel is ‘very lowde in her answers and impatient, not suffering any to speake but herselfe’, and refuses to ‘keepe the womans vertue, and be more silent’. They shriek during prayers or religious instruction (B3v, B4), and Elizabeth throws godly books from her (C2, C3). They scratch Agnes Samuel with the cruelty and violence Samuel uses on his wife in cudgelling her (K2-K2v, K4-K4v, L4-L4v, N, etc.) and they too persecute Mother Samuel, inverting usual relations with their elder as her own daughter does by preaching at her (F4) and scratching her (B2-B2v). Clearly they are sometimes lying like John Samuel, playing games with invisible spirits (H4-K3v, etc.). They refuse to acknowledge the presence of adults and so do not show filial, hierarchical respect (B3, Ev, E3) and in fact the return of this order, dignity and respect signals the end of Jane’s possession, when in court she kneels to her father, asks his blessing and does ‘reverence to’ her uncles (Ov). The Throckmortons when possessed are just like the Samuels: a disordered family with inverted familial power relations, chaotic lives, violent, godless, unseemly and rebellious behaviour. No amount of crafting by the pamphleteer has concealed this and in fact his unusual interest in the marital discord of the Samuels (G3v), and what goes on inside their house in private (E2, G3v, E4v-F, F3) highlights it. Thomas says rightly that no one in this case could think of a motive for the witch to attack, but this demonstrates powerfully the deliberate construction of the very motiveless malignity which he sees as unlikely.143 In this case all motives lie with the victims, and the representation betrays this by the very insistence of its denial of it. Much of the text’s energy goes into controlling and shaping this narrative. This interchangeability of witch and victim is not confined to motiveless malignity narratives, but it is strongest here perhaps because these narratives, if produced for or by wealthy victims, are among the longest and most literary. The more detail we have, the more complex and unmanageable the narrative shape becomes, as we saw with ‘weak motive’ narratives like Bennet Lane’s or Andrew West’s. It has been argued here that in some denial and witch’s revenge narratives the witch is a victim and the victim is the persecutor. But in this motiveless malignity narrative the Throckmorton girls behave like witches in far more detailed ways. They foretell and gather information by spirits (M2v) like Ursley Kempe, and Joan almost appropriates familiars from Mother Samuel by telling her ‘your divels…will no longer be at your commaundement’ (I). Joan is tempted by one spirit who fights off the others for her, ‘to win her favour’ (as Elizabeth Bennet’s spirit did144), and tries to help her, offering ‘very faire promises to her that he would doe any thing for her, if she would love him’ (I4, like Joan Prentice’s chivalric spirit145). Joan and the spirit Smack become a team, with Smack as something of a devilish suitor, defied with Petrarchan iciness: ‘I care not a rush for you’ (I4). This persistent likeness of witch and victim is confined to possession or obsession cases, but the instability of the roles of witch and victim, accused and accuser, is simply an expansion of concerns in other narratives about apportioning and stereotypically representing blame for events, and the roles of victim and aggressor. A similar relationship of victim and witches occurs in Edward Fairfax’s unpublished ‘Daemonologia’ (1621), where Helen Fairfax sees the devil

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as ‘a young gentleman…[who] told her he came to be a suitor unto her’ (38), and added that ‘thy father is naught’ (39). She and Maud Jeffrays behaved as violently and unnaturally as the witches, kicking them, and refused to speak to or hear anyone else (77). Helen confronted her similarity to the witches, when she said (speaking to a vision of a witch) that she knew one of the witches talked with black things at Timble Gill (86). The vision said, ‘Thou art a witch if thou can tell that’, but Helen replied, ‘I am not a witch, God bless me’.146 Helen also saw a kind of sabbath, where people danced and kicked her picture, yet temptingly asking her to dance with them (59), and Grace Sowerbutts actually did dance with, and had sex with, a black thing at a witches’ meeting, and went with the witches to kill a child and boil its bones for ointment.147 This similarity with the witches caused Potts to doubt her story, because he saw that where the roles of victim and witch were confused the stereotype was unravelling itself: ‘This of all the rest is impossible, to make her of their counsell, to doe murther, whome so cruelly and barbarously they pursue from day to day, and torment her’.148 The reflection of accusation on to the victim demonstrates the dangerous flexibility of motiveless malignity narratives and the astonishing fluidity of roles in them. Grace, instead of the witches, is cast as the deceitful, perjured conspirator. This instability is most obvious in narratives which do not just minimise an injury done to the witch, like the Belcher or Rutland cases, but deny any injury at all. This happens in the three narratives considered above. In fact it can be seen in each case to provoke scepticism in contemporaries. Whilst Helen Fairfax asked ‘Why didst thou bewitch me, who never did offend thee, nor knew thee’ (70) Fairfax failed in his attempt to get the witches convicted and bitterly lamented accusations of counterfeiting, adding ‘upon myself was put an aspersion, not of dishonesty, but of simplicity’.149 Similarly, Grace Sowerbutts gave no reason for the witches to attack her, and was eventually accused of lying. This also happens in Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593), where, although the Throckmortons are represented as blameless, opposition to their prosecution of the witches is recorded. Trouble is repeatedly taken to establish their innocence: they could not imagine for what cause [witchcraft] should be wrought upon them or their children…for they were but newly come to the towne to inhabite, which was but at Michaelmas before, neither had they given any occasion (to their knowledge) either to her [Mother Samuel] or to any other, to practise any such malice against them.150 The witch accepts this line ‘so that shee did confesse to all that came to her, that shee was mervailous well used of Master Throckmorton, and thought herselfe greatly bound to him’.151 When she confesses being ‘the cause of all this trouble’, Master Throckmorton asks the crucial question for the kind of motiveless malignity narrative he and others are later to construct: ‘why so? What cause did I ever give you thus to use me and my children? None at all said she. Then said master Throckmorton, you have done mee the more wrong’.152 Similarly Joan asks of another family victim: ‘Alas good Aunt Pickering…what harme have you done to any of them that they should use you in this sorte’.153 Yet detractors are reported by Robert Throckmorton as suggesting that the

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accusations are ‘some device’, and it was said ‘by some in the countrey, and those that thought themselves wise, that this mother Samuel…was an olde simple woman, and that one might make her by fayre words confesse what they would’.154 Similarly, although the family of Master Lister, killed by Jennet Preston in 1612, denyed that he had ever injured her, as does the narrator of the last section of Potts’ Wonderfull Discoverie (1612) who tells his story, her family alleged that she had been maliciously prosecuted. A lack of motive for attack leads to suspicion of the victim. The narrator stresses the victim’s innocence: the witch ‘was for many yeares well thought of and esteemed by Master Lister who afterwards died for it. Had free accesse to his house, kind respect and entertainment; nothing denied her that she stood in need of’ but his context is an angry rebuttal of her family’s accusations to the contrary.155 Again, the gentlemanly Richard Galis explains how he was afflicted, tried to arrest a witch, charitably gave the witches a penny each, and was ungratefully attacked by them, though ‘being of mee no other wise intreated or used then you have heard’.156 Yet, providing no motive, he is himself flung into prison and his attempts to charge the witches are frustrated. Suppressing, or neglecting to provide, a motive for revenge, such as cruelty by the victim, insult or denial, leaves contemporaries searching the representation for imperfections in the idealised victim, logical reasons for witch attack, and gaps in their story. Scot went so far as to suggest (quite plausibly) that Richard Galis was ‘a madman’.157 Some motiveless malignity narratives are successful in concealing any real motive, but they are few. Ursley Kempe tells a motiveless malignity narrative against Ales Newman, saying that she attacked ‘a noble man, of whome we (meaning the poore) had all reliefe: The which she saith she tooke to be the said Lord Darcey’.158 Again, the noble victim’s charity is abused, but this time we cannot discover an alternative story or hear objections from any contemporaries. Similarly we must accept that Mother Sutton attacked ‘an honest and worshipfull Gentleman Master Enger, from whom she had oftentimes both foode and cloathing’ and ‘damnified [him] by her meanes to the value of two hundreth pounds in lesse then two yeares’.159 This reminds us that there are exceptional stories in every narrative genre, and no pattern is universally applicable. Victims of witches’ ingratitude need not even always be well born. Richard Burt, a thresher deliberately portrayed in the text as humble and simple, wished Mother Atkins good day, but was ignored and then afflicted. But he had previously set his dog on her when she was in the shape of a hare, which might be mentioned by G.B. to provide motive for her attack, and would make the story one of witch’s revenge.160 Motiveless malignity narratives demonstrate most clearly the constructedness of accusatory stories, the motivations victims may have for warping events from fact into acceptable stereotype, the instability of generic classifications of accusatory stories, and the instability and stereotypicality perceived in them by contemporaries, Scot, Gifford, Potts, King James, and the sceptics of Warboys and Knaresborough. When we look really closely at the accusatory narrative of witchcraft, it appears that it might bear about as much relation to real events as a Mills and Boon novel does to the equally intangible process of falling in love.

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In conclusion, Clifford Geertz’s comments sum up the attempt made in the first three chapters of this book to problematise the interpretation and use of representations of witchcraft found in both pamphlets and in legal documents: ‘what we call our data are really our own constructions of other people’s constructions’ and ‘the line between representation and substantive content is as undrawable in cultural analysis as it is in painting’.161

Part II Pamphlets

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Part II considers the pamphlets themselves where Part I dealt primarily with records in pamphlets. This change of emphasis echoes a change within the pamphlet genre itself, from legal-documentary to narrative pamphlets. Part II discusses subjects more applicable to narrative accounts than to documentary pamphlets: style, arguments, language, rhetoric. But before we look at narrative-based pamphlets, and at the literary aspects of those based on legal documents, it is important to trace the change from documentary to narrative pamphlets, which has already become partially visible in Part I. Genre and subgenre: change in 1590 Part II of this book is based on the recognition of witchcraft pamphlets as a distinct genre, which developed subgenres over the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. The most important development is in later Elizabethan pamphlets; Barbara Rosen specified the date in Witchcraft (republished as Witchcraft in England 1558–1618) in 1969. Almost exactly in 1590, there is a marked change in the prose literature of English witchcraft which may reflect a change in the type of author as much as a change in the temper of the times. Reporters of straight news had already begun to drift to those forms which foreshadow the first real newspapers…Witchcraft reporting fell into the hands of amateurs, or professionals writing reports on commission. Ministers justify their beliefs; rich families protect their local reputations by ‘authentic versions’ of events; doctors defend their professional competency; judges display their own models of procedure.1 Rosen’s focus is wider than mine and she goes on to discuss George Gifford’s Dialogue (1593), probably also referring here to the Darrell controversy (ministers as authors), to Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) (rich families), to John Cotta’s works and Edward Jorden’s A briefe Discourse of a disease called the suffocation of the Mother (1603) (doctors) and to Potts’ Wonderfull Discoverie (1612) (judges). But even with a more specialised sample it is clear that Rosen rightly perceived the change in witchcraft pamphlets in about 1590. Her suggestion that this is because of a change in the type of author as well as in ‘the temper of the times’ must be based partly on internal evidence,

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because too many of the authors are anonymous to prove factually any change of status, but one could add, on internal evidence, the idea that a reduction of multiple authors to a single narrator changed witchcraft pamphlets. Rosen’s rationalisation of the perceived change is based on authorial intention: rich families protecting their reputations, judges displaying procedure. While I would agree with this approach, I shall concentrate on more immediately verifiable indicators of change, which Rosen did not explore. These are sources, narrative structures and authorial style. Change in sources The change in sources in 1590 is simply from reproduction of documents produced by the participants in witchcraft prosecutions, to narrative recreation of events. Early witchcraft pamphlets are unique amongst popular crime literature in their use of documentary proof. Other crime pamphlets seldom used documents, consistently preferring narrative both in Elizabethan and Jacobean times.2 But in witchcraft pamphlets this was unusual until 1590. Either G.B.’s A Most Wicked worke (1592) or Newes from Scotland (1591/2) is the first witchcraft pamphlet to be presented as a narrative after that date. Newes contains elements of documentary evidence, given by Agnes Sampson and ‘Agnes Tompson’, though they are confused and scanty.3 G.B. would thus be the first author of an English witchcraft pamphlet to produce a wholly narrative account after 1590. However, Richard Galis pre-empted him by thirteen years. Galis did use material from legal documents, but we know that he derived it from A Rehearsall both straung and true (1579) because he can be seen rewriting that pamphlet in his account. Therefore his book is his own wholly narrative creation. Rosen had not read Galis’s pamphlet, not knowing it had survived, but it goes against the trend of her theory of change in 1590 (and mine, based on hers). However, our perception remains intact because Galis is a solitary example of pre-1590 narrative reporting.4 I would modify her theory simply by saying that there are two types of witchcraft pamphlet: before 1590, a type using almost wholly documentary sources, with a documentary approach to truth and proof, was dominant. These pamphlets were Examination (1566), Examination of John Walsh (1566), Detection (1579), Rehearsall both straung and true (1579), A true and just Recorde (1582), The severall factes of Witch-crafte (1585), and Apprehension (1589). After 1590 the dominant form of pamphlet adopted a narrative approach: A Most Wicked worke (1592), Newes (1591/2), Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593), The most wonder full and true storie (1597), Triall of Maist. Dorrell (1599), The most cruell and bloody murther (1606), The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612), Witches Apprehended (1613), Roberts’ Treatise of Witchcraft (1616), and The Wonderful Discoverie (1619). The only two exceptions to this dominance of narrative over documentary pamphlets were Potts (1612) and Goodcole (1621), who both used documentary evidence. Goodcole’s documents, however, are wholly produced by himself and so his pamphlet too veers towards narrative and comment. The other borderline post-1590 case, the witchcraft episode in A World of Wonders (1595), is a hybrid: probably rewriting a 1574 pamphlet, it is a narrative almost certainly based on documents, plus other material.5 Thus the line dividing types of pamphlet is not a rigid one—nor should any discussion of it be overly interested in categorisation. It is the basic pattern, rather than the specifics,

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which is interesting. Distinguishing between these two types of pamphlet is vital to an understanding of the sources of our understanding of witchcraft. We need to know how reports of particular beliefs and events were generated, and reported, so as to analyse their sources, any determining factors in their creation or representation, built-in bias, distorting authorial strategies. Change in authorship Where authors are known, the two types of pamphlet correspond with Rosen’s theory of changing authorship, although again the 1590 change is less marked once Galis is included. Rosen said that ‘witchcraft reporting fell into the hands of amateurs or professionals writing reports on commission’. Authorial status, where known, suggests an important presence of professionals and gentlemen after 1590. Before 1590, Richard Galis was a gentlemanly amateur, but post-1590, G.B. was an MA, The most wonderfull and true storie (1597) was edited by a minister, John Denison (but originally written by a saddler and others), and Alexander Roberts and Henry Goodcole were ministers. Rosen might also legitimately infer from the vocabulary, gentle and noble connections, restrained or elevated style of the later pamphleteers, that they were amateurs rather than publishers’ hack writers, or that they were writing for gentlemen. The earnest restraint of the Warboys pamphleteers, the minor demonology of the author of The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612), and the close connection to the Earl of Rutland of the author of The Wonderful Discoverie (1619), might suggest such status as writers on commission, or as interested amateurs. Writers like Potts were certainly on commission, as we have seen, as the Warboys pamphleteers may have been commissioned by Edward Fenner, the judge in the case. But, against the trend, A Most Wicked worke (1592), the witchcraft section of Triall of Maist. Dorrell (1599), and The most cruell and bloody murther (1606), are not at all elevated in tone—the former entertaining, even sensational; the latter, scurrilous. These seem likely to be traditionally hack-written. Thus we see again that no generalisation completely covers the diversity of the pamphlets. Change in intention Rosen’s verbs describing the motives of post-1590 authors are ‘justify, protect, defend, display’. Certainly most gentlemanly authors have reasons for writing. Pre-1590 Richard Galis displayed his godliness and lobbied for magisterial reform, while post-1590 Newes (?1591/2) promoted King James, Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) defended the Throckmortons’ reputation, The most wonderfull and true storie (1597) began the Darrell controversy, Triall of Maist . Dorrell (1599) continued it, The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) praised the Earl of Rutland, while Roberts and Goodcole expounded ideas of witchcraft or preached godliness. But there is similar axe-grinding in the documentary-type pamphlet: in Potts’ Wonderfull Discoverie (1612), in the anti-Catholicism of Examination of John Walsh (1566), and the magisterially inspired advocacy of the burning of witches in A true and just Recorde (1582), although the latter cases are confined to the prefaces. And the narrative pamphlets, G.B.’s A Most Wicked worke (1592), The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612), and

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the witchcraft section of Triall of Maist . Dorrell (1599), seem to have no clear agenda. Again the impression is of a dominant feature in a subgenre of post-1590 narrative pamphlets. The likelihood seems to be that gentlemanly authors will write narrative accounts of witchcraft for a propaganda purpose and there is an equal likelihood that documentary pamphlets will not have such an agenda, a minority of pamphlets being an exception to this rule. But we should be aware that all pamphlets are published for reasons, often inaccessible to us but which affect their usefulness, and their representations of witchcraft. Chapter 4 will consider this issue in depth. Changes which redefine witchcraft An example of the way authorship, form and purpose of publication can completely alter the understanding of witchcraft in pamphlets is seen in the change from the representation of witchcraft as a matter of denial or revenge, to the perception of it as a crime of motiveless malignity. Authors of the second type of pamphlet (predominantly post-1590, possibly higher status, writing narrative accounts) use a higher number of motiveless malignity narratives than do authors of documentary pamphlets. This is not necessarily the choice of the authors of the earlier type of pamphlet, who in many cases simply print whatever stories they have from legal documents. But these are overwhelmingly narratives of denial or witch’s revenge. Interestingly, just as stories concerning gentlefolk and the nobility tend to stress the blamelessness of the victims when ‘motivelessly’ attacked by the witch, so the pamphlet type identified by Rosen as being produced or inspired by higher-status authors or patrons has more motiveless malignity narratives. These are Richard Galis’ pamphlet Briefe Treatise, A Most Wicked worke (1592), Newes (? 1591/2), Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593), The most cruell and bloody murther (1606), The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612), Witches Apprehended (1613) and The Wonderful Discoverie (1619). There seems to be a correlation between higher-status victims and narratives which refuse to accept blame for provoking a witch, as we have seen, and this may be linked to the way the stories are told, often as narrative, seldom by documentary means. Possibly the urge to tell an affecting story meant that the witch’s motive was edited out. This would leave a correlation between lower-status victims, narratives accepting blame, and documentary presentation of those narratives unaltered. Such a clear indication of the importance of the source and representation of witchcraft events and beliefs should amply justify further inquiry into pamphlets as problematic literary forms rather than transparent data sources. The definition of witchcraft is the most problematic area of any such investigation. Rosen says that in witchcraft writings from 1590 ‘witchcraft itself begins to disappear behind a haze of social and theological considerations, so that Jacobean records often seem less convincing, more difficult to decipher that the early Elizabethan pamphlets’.6 While it seems true that the detailed reporting of witchcraft in the traditional well-documented way waned in late Elizabethan and Jacobean pamphlets, this could be seen as an uncovering of other aspects of witchcraft rather than as its disappearance. The meaning of ‘witchcraft’ is problematised by the lack of any universally accepted definition of it—any unambiguous referent for the signifier ‘witchcraft’.7

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In different ways this was probably as true for Renaissance English people as it is for modern scholars. I argue in Chapters 4 and 5 that witchcraft is equally fully represented in both the factual, historical reporting of perceived events and in all tendentious accounts of them: humorous, religious, propagandist, sensational. All interpretation produces understanding of the construction being made by the interpreter so that if Jacobean writers choose to construct witchcraft as ‘social and theological considerations’, or even humour, this must be accepted as an aspect of ‘witchcraft’. There is no stable thing called ‘witchcraft’ which lies hidden beneath its various constructions. All are equally valid and, while being historically and really hanged for witchcraft has a superior claim to experiential validity than mere theorising, in retrospect all experience of and discussion of witchcraft is important. This is borne out by the depressing realisation that we can never know what witchcraft meant to a witch because there are no unmediated accounts of it, so that ‘witchcraft itself’ in that sense no longer exists, and never did exist in writing. It exists in a less mediated form in ‘early Elizabethan pamphlets’, as Rosen says, in that the witch’s words are recorded, but I showed in Part I how problematic analysis of these supposedly unmediated words in legal documents can be. In Part II we will move from looking at such documents to exploring the various frames made for them in witchcraft pamphlets, and the way in which the storytelling of the documents, by witches, magistrates, witnesses and clerks, was replaced by storytelling by pamphleteers.

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4 ‘Necessary’ and ‘triviall’ pamphlets

As witchcraft pamphlets moved from one genre to another, there is evidence that pamphleteers were becoming increasingly aware of themselves as authors operating within a particular genre. That this genre was, in their eyes, split between serious, truthful works and frivolous dross was signalled strikingly by the authors of Most strange and admirable discoverie of the three Witches of Warboys. In 1593 they identified very clearly a competitor with their own subgenre of pamphlets which offended them so much that they informed their dedicatee, the judge Edward Fenner, that it should be banned.1 In these times (Right Worshipful) wherein every idle wit seeks to blaze abroade their vainenesse, there ought to be no smal care for the restraining of triviall Pamphlets, aswell to exercise the Readers in matters necessary, as to cut off the writing of thinges needles.2 They were not the first to notice that pamphlets—perhaps particularly pamphlets about witchcraft—attracted exhibitionism and outrageous falsehoods: the prefacer of A Detection of damnable driftes (1579) was making a similar point when he asserted self-righteously that ‘no trifles…worthy to be contemned, nor pernicious fantazies deservyng to bee condemned’ were in his pamphlet.3 But the 1593 preface strongly implies a distinction between this type of pamphlet and an opposing category of pamphlets which are not ‘triviall’ but contain ‘matters necessary’. The Warboys pamphlet is clearly, they imply, one of these. The Warboys pamphleteers stress the care with which they assembled their worthy account, and they stress its absolute reliability. It was long deferd, aswell that nothing might escape untoucht which they had done, as that every thing might bee throughly sifted, least it should passe any way corruptly.4 The authors claim they are more concerned with truth than topicality or entertaining wit. Because the pamphlet is appearing after a long process of ‘sifting’, ‘cares having perfected the worke’, it is presented as giving true information to the reader, and to be used ‘to others example’, a clear statement of the authors’ informational and propagandist purpose.5 The claim of truthful reporting is, significantly, based on genre, style and tone as much as on specific verifiable accuracies, or reliable sources. This pamphlet is to be

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taken seriously in part because it has been contrasted with wittier and more entertaining types of writing—a clever rhetorical strategy of self-justification at this introductory point in the text. The pamphleteers recognise here that the presentation of the genre, the purpose of the work and the manner of reporting all affect the readers’ understanding of the apparent reliability of the account. Whether the authors are referring specifically to other witchcraft pamphlets in their attack on more trivial pamphlets is unclear, but their criticism highlights elements of other witchcraft pamphlets which contrast with Most strange and admirable discoverie very effectively. These two types of witchcraft pamphlet are the subject of this chapter. The distinction made by the pamphleteers of Most strange and admirable discov erie is not, however, a perfect one for the purposes of our discussion. Some pamphlets fit neither the definition of necessary (i.e. serious) or trivial, and the distinction is too binary to reflect accurately the complexity of most pamphlets—for example, The Apprehension and confession of three notorious Witches (1589), with its careful use of legal documents contrasting with the scurrilous chat of its ‘gossipy voice’. The Warboys pamphleteers’ categorisation of pamphlets also consists of a judgemental distinction between subgenres rather than an interested identification of two alternative modes of representation. Yet this restrictive response is a useful reminder that modern readers, too, often unconsciously judge an account’s trustworthiness on its apparent ‘seriousness’. This chapter sets out to explore the strengths and problems of serious and trivial pamphlets in a way that challenges this reading. Serious pamphlets can, in fact, be just as unreliable as trivial pamphlets, because they sometimes have propaganda purposes which may distort their view of witchcraft. Trivial pamphlets can be unreliable because they appear to privilege genre or style above factual reporting and produce a version of witchcraft which may be heavily influenced by the form of its narration. Recognising these elements of bias makes the pamphlets more usable by questioning assumptions that pamphlets are homogeneous in intent or (in) accuracy, alerting us to interpretative difficulty and suggesting limited methodological means of coping with it by considering genre, authorship, purpose, sources and strategies in the texts before accepting or rejecting their contents. The first section of this chapter considers the intersection between the serious content of ‘necessary’ pamphlets, and pamphlet format. Both narrative and documentary-based pamphlets may equally be earnest and informative in purpose, but they can be equally fragmented and biased in their reporting. Neither should be accepted at face value as purely factual, or coherent, representations of witchcraft, since they are very carefully crafted. The second section considers the purposes of this crafting, the constructions of witchcraft ideologies which prompt the attempt to inform and are articulated with or within the information given. The chapter then moves on to look at ‘triviall’ pamphlets, their form and style, and the effect of their rewriting of witchcraft episodes on their usefulness as sources. The familiar conclusion is that witchcraft pamphlets as a whole are as fragmentary, contextually determined and complex as the documentary parts of them considered in Part I, and just as difficult to interpret, but that there are certain patterns and rules of thumb which will help us to read them as effectively as possible.

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‘Necessary’ pamphlets—deconstructing earnestness Perhaps the most officiously ‘necessary’ of all the pamphlets, Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) concerns the possession and curing of five of the children of Robert and Elizabeth Throckmorton of Warboys. The account is presented as a near-seamless third-person narrative, and the reader watches as the children, all girls, have their fits and accuse the witches. We are shown how the witches respond and we see a good deal of the children’s uncles, Pickerings and Doringtons, who appear to be taking the leading, heroic, roles in prosecuting the witches to free their nieces from their affliction. The account is earnest in tone—excited by the events, yet concerned that right shall triumph and that evil shall be punished. The authors of this pamphlet accordingly show us by example what characteristics a necessary, non-trivial pamphlet should have. Their account can also be deconstructed to show the weaknesses of this genre as historical evidence. The impression of a serious witchcraft pamphlet which is given to the reader—both contemporary and modern—is a reassuring one. Here, we might assume, is good evidence about witchcraft. The impression given is of extreme thoroughness, both in length (111 pages) and in controlled, unelaborated, pedantic tone. In telling of events over a period of three to four years, the pamphlet almost always proceeds chronologically, and where there is a flashback it is carefully marked and explained.6 By this the pamphleteers suggest complete transparency: the reader apparently experiences events as they did, sequentially, and there is a minimum of comment, suggesting both that the accounts of witchcraft given are so numerous and objective as to prove without authorial pressure the occurrence of witchcraft, and that they are presented without ideological slant, unchanged, as firsthand information. Almost seamlessly deploying an array of differently authored documents, the pamphleteers weld together an apparently coherent eyewitness account. This appears to be an ideally unmediated, ‘necessary’ representation of the truth of witchcraft, acquainting the reader with the serious matters which it describes, and interpretable with some confidence provided one acknowledges a basic moral or religious authorial intention. But the structure of such a pamphlet can be revealingly examined to suggest conflicting authorial purposes which shape the accounts of witchcraft given, and editorial strategies for persuading and educating the reader. Leuschner gives a good account of the pamphlet’s continual assurances to readers of the truth of its report, and its clever rhetorical use of explanations of silences and gaps in information to make that which is printed seem more authoritative. The pamphleteers say: And this by the way, as a generall note throughout the Booke, where there is one of these strange things set down…there are tenne ommited, which may as well be put in, and in the judgement of them that heare of them are no lesse straunge than these, and, Leuschner comments, ‘here the omission of information is presented as being advantageous; the reader should value each thing reported at ten times its worth’.7 But she assumes that the pamphleteer is a single author, and that the text is a unity.8

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D.P.Walker suggests ‘uncle Gilbert’ is the author.9 In Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) we are more likely to be reading accounts by, or connected with, Gilbert Pickering, Henry Pickering, Robert Throckmorton and Francis Dorington, as Moira Tatem noticed, as well as two examinations before the Bishop of Lincoln, one apparently secular, and extra material from the trial and after.10 The trial judge, Edward Fenner, also helped to create the pamphlet, taking ‘extraordinary paines in perfecting this work for the printing’11 we are told, as well as initiating the account, written at his ‘request’, and being ‘one of the Patrons hereof’.12 He sent a note to the Stationers testifying to the account’s truth, but the extent and motivation of his contribution is concealed.13 There is probably also an editor, or editors. These corporate authors of the documents have differing perspectives and axes to grind and, despite the editorial coagulation of their accounts, their viewpoints emerge with analysis. The authors, or one of them, may be the pamphleteers-editors themselves, or they may have handed their material to a secretaryeditor for synthesis and publication, but the pamphlet is a joint, consensual account.14 It must have required time, consultation and effort to coordinate, despite the pamphleteers’ conventionally modest disclaimer. They say that the work was ‘set downe upon the sodaine, and as it commeth to present memorie’, which is clearly nonsense, given its length and complexity, and its careful deployment of evidence from varied sources.15 This sprezzatura, the pretence of easy composition, is the first warning of the artificiality, fragmented nature and possible misrepresentation of the ‘transparent’ account. The beginning of the pamphlet is the clearest example of the pamphleteers’ deceptive skill in welding together diverse available materials. The Throckmorton family16 did not initially suspect witchcraft when their children began to have fits in November 1589 and to accuse a neighbour, Alice Samuel, of bewitching them, and they do not appear to have begun taking notes.17 Therefore descriptions of the children’s initial fits are brief and written with hindsight: Mother Samuel looked ‘rufully’ when first accused ‘as afterwards was remembred by them that sawe her’.18 In another gap in the reporting, the pamphleteer admits that ‘there was nothing noted all that time’.19 The pamphleteers later confirm their dependence on written sources, saying that because some events ‘were not particularly committed to writing, they are therefore here omitted’.20 But on Friday 13 February (1589/90) the children’s uncle Gilbert Pickering arrived in the house and the account immediately becomes more detailed, and personal to Pickering.21 It is described how it ‘seemed to the said Master Pickering’ that Mother Samuel would not come to visit the children, and so he went to her house and forced her, her daughter and another woman to come with him. As they were going to the sayd Master Throckmorton’s house, M.Whittle, Mistris Andley and others going before Mother Samuel; Agnes Samuel, and the sayd Cicely Burder in the middle parte, and the saide M.Pickering behinde them, the said master Pickering perceiving that olde mother Samuel would have willingly talked with her daughter Agnes, but the saide Master Pickering followed so neere behinde them, that they could not conferre, and when they came at the doore of Master Throckmortons house, mother Samuel used curtesie to the sayd M.Pickering, offering him to goe into the house before her, which he refused…the said mother

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Samuel did thrust her head as neere as she could to her daughters head, and said these words. I charge thee do not confesse anything: which the said M.Pickering being behinde them perceiving, thrust his head as neere as he could between their heads whilst the words were spoken, and hearing them, presently replied to old mother Samuel, thou naughty woman, doest thou charge thy daughter not to confesse anything: nay saith she, I said not so, but I charged her to hasten her self home to get her Father his dinner. In ye mean time whilst these words were in speaking, M.Whittle, mistris Andley and others went into the house…22 This leaves Pickering as the source of the information, But did he write it? I suggest he did, but it has been revised to fit the scheme of the pamphlet. Pickering seems a likely author, as opposed to merely informant, because when he is later reported as taking his niece home and commencing experiments on her they are partly recorded in the present tense, in the first-person plural: Sometimes being taken in her fitte, she is but deafe onely when she can speake, or rather (as we thinke) the spirit in her, but very vainely; and she can see also but with a small glimmering, when if you looke upon her, ye would deeme her to have no sight at all…23 Here the editing has been less well done and we can see Pickering as the ‘I’ of the text. Pickering is represented as more active against witchcraft than his brother-in-law— Robert Throckmorton forbade further experimental ‘proofe’ of witchcraft on B3 and Pickering is clearly straining at this leash. It would be logical, therefore, that Pickering should begin to note down evidence of witchcraft to convince not only the wider world but his close family of the truth of witchcraft in this case.24 He is producing this part of the pamphlet as a zealous attempt to understand and document events. There is no comparable account of the other sisters’ afflictions and the pamphleteer is forced to ask us to ‘imagine’ it, ‘of whom if it should particularly be observed, as is done in her, as strange wonders…befell every one of them’.25 Clearly it was not particularly observed or written down, and Pickering is our only source at this point. The patchiness of the account thus suggests that some of the pamphlet is by, or from an account by, Gilbert Pickering, inserted and edited by pamphleteers who have little other information from 1589–90. For Pickering, witchcraft is a matter of medical or scientific inquiry: observation, objective investigation and proof, followed by recording. There are accounts of events from February to September, all in his house, like a diary of experiments. His ‘scientific’ view of witchcraft comes across strongly in his way of reporting it. Henry Pickering’s involvement occasions another detailed account, and the representation of witchcraft surrounding him is based on a religious viewpoint. On his arrival at Christmas 1590, it is reported that he ‘was desirous to speake with mother Samuel’ and asked two fellow Cambridge scholars to come with him.26 They argued with the witch, questioning her about ‘her service of God, + profession of her faith’. They suspected her for saying ‘my God will do this and that for me’, asking ‘if she had a God alone, or if she did not serve ye same God that others did?’27 This suspicion of witchcraft

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as the worship of an alternative (satanic?) deity suggests the influence of demonologists. In a further reference to the Continental notion of witchcraft as heresy, Henry Pickering threatened to burn the witch ‘and he himself would bring fire and wood, + the children should blow the coales’. Since they were by a pond, Mother Samuel retorted ‘I had rather (said she) see you dowsed over head and eares in this pond’. The detail of this account suggests that Henry, the only family member present, and clearly learned, religious and suspicious, kept a record or gave a full verbal account, heavily stressing the idea that witchcraft was a sin against God. When he met Robert Throckmorton, Throckmorton revealed that his daughter had seen all these events in a vision, and her words and the conversation of Robert with Henry are also recorded, on signature Ev. It is also significant that Henry Pickering is said to be present at the fully recorded, religiously charged, moment when Mother Samuel’s chin bled after she had called on God to send a sign of her guilt. Henry Pickering may contribute a Cambridge demonologists’ view of witchcraft, contrasting with his brother’s (religiously controversial) experimental interest in scratching and other traditional proofs of witchcraft. We can see how apparently different authorship produces a different representation of witchcraft in each case. Robert Throckmorton’s involvement is more difficult to see. He, apparently still not taking notes, dispersed his children to friends’ and relatives’ houses for a year and a half, during which time there is a gap in the narration, though the pamphleteers say there was much ‘worth the noting’.28 There is an account of one child’s fit at a family gathering of ‘Uncles and Aunts’, doubtless including the Pickerings, who may be the authors here.29 Robert Throckmorton may also begin to take notes at this time, since accounts of the fits of the children left at home and of his contacts with the witches become fuller. His position seems to alter from ‘still thinking the spirits might lye’ in accusing Mother Samuel (E4v) to agreeing (it is reported, perhaps by Henry) with Henry Pickering that ‘they alway [sic] vehemently suspected her guiltines’ (F2). Analysing his contribution is made harder because it is impossible to know who is in each house at any given time, possibly writing accounts. The pamphlet gives a sense of a shifting population, brothers and sisters and their children treating each others’ houses as second homes. Apart from probable author-relatives, we hear of John Pickering and his wife, of Ellington,30 Robert Throckmorton of Brampton,31 John Dorington of London,32 and the child who brings news of Mother Samuel’s bleeding chin is a Lawrence, a distant cousin of the children since ‘Lawrence’ was the maiden name of Robert Throckmorton’s mother Emma.33 Robert Throckmorton’s first contribution to the pamphlet may be on F3. Here he visits the witch’s family, entering John Samuel’s house, and the account given seems personal to him, recording his perceptions as well as merely events. He heard a noise in the house, suspected the daughter Agnes Samuel was hiding herself, and finally went in through the back door to find John Samuel in bed. Their conversation is recorded and Throckmorton’s attempts to find her are described as if by himself. But there are still a ‘company’ of others present as possible sources. The same is true of his threats to Mother Samuel at his own dinner table.34 But it seems likely that Throckmorton is now writing reports of his troubles, for example an intimate and detailed account of Mother Samuel’s activities in the night, which only he and his wife observed at first hand. Mother Samuel

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disturbed and awakened both Master Throckmorton and his wife, that lay by her: saith Master Throckmorton, In Gods name Mother Samuel, what ayleth you, and why doe you grone so? Said shee, I have a marvellous great paine in my belly… Why said he, what is the matter with your belly? Shee answered, that there was something in it, which as shee thought stirred, and it was as big as a penny loafe: and put her to marveilous paine: whereupon Mistress Throckmorton arose out of her bed, and went and felt upon her belly, and there was indeed a marveilous swelling to the quantitie before likened, but shee felt it not stirre, not staying long with her, the weather was so cold…35 Robert Throckmorton, as the patriarch of the afflicted family, might be likely to produce such accounts stressing the intimacy of the relationships involved, the sanctity of his house being violated, the tendency of the witchcraft to produce unfamilial behaviour, the disorder of the witch’s own household. While this, like Henry Pickering’s contributions, might be an oral account given to a pamphleteer, it, and the others, seem too numerous and specific to be mere recollections, in some cases probably a year or (here) about six months later. The pamphleteers thus probably now have three authors’ accounts to weave into a coherent narrative. Each suggested author seems to have a different view of the meaning of witchcraft, which would colour their perceptions of it. But their positions are alike in having a religious, familial and moral basis. Although they diverge in emphasis, sometimes they could be interchangeable: the demonologically sound account of Mother Samuel’s confession, for example, might be Henry Pickering’s, with its verbatim quote ‘I have forsaken my maker, and given my soule to the divell (these were her very wordes),’36 but it seems likely to be Throckmorton’s, as does her retraction, in which Throckmorton is described as ‘smiling to himself, marveiling what she could make of it’, something only he could report.37 Gilbert Pickering seems the likely source of an account attacking ‘the Popes paltrie’ which we might otherwise assume to be Henry’s.38 The pamphlet can be seen as a coherent view of witchcraft as recorded by a particular family, or class of men, but there are individual and conflicting positions within this representation which can best be explored by fragmenting the pamphlet, asking about authorship, and considering the intention and shaping of each part of the account. The pamphleteers’ thoroughness, and yet the fragmentary nature of their work, can be seen in the other materials gathered by them. The pamphlet identifies a fourth author for us in ‘The report of Master Doctor Dorington of that which happened at Warboys, on Tuesday which was the Sessions day at Huntington, the ninth of Januarie’.39 This, like Pickering’s account, concentrates on observing symptoms, and despite Dorington’s rectorship eschews religious comment. It may have been written as evidence for the now inevitable assize trial, since it is headed as a ‘report’. And as the affair became more public, the pamphleteers collected the witch’s examinations, taken before the Bishop of Lincoln. In the pamphlet these appear to be official documents transcribed.40 The first examination, probably a church court document with recorded questions, concentrates on the witch’s familiars. The second, before the bishop and the two committing magistrates, one of them Francis Cromwell, begins by establishing whether the witch ‘did hurt to any’, as a criminal investigation well might, and then uncovers the source of her familiars, an

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‘upright man’, and his whereabouts, as often in examinations.41 There is also an affirmation that the spirits cannot hurt if God opposes them, perhaps prompted by the bishop’s presence.42 Here again the producers of the account and their context may shape the view of witchcraft given to the reader. Obscurity of source is frustrating: the origins of the trial account are indeterminate, since most of the authors, and the pamphleteers, if they are separable, attended the trial. There is also material from Mother Samuel’s gaol confession, elicited in part by John Dorington (O3), words she said to Henry Pickering in court, coming as close as any English account of this period to a confession of sex with the devil (O2v-O3), an account of a dream the victim Lady Cromwell had, coming perhaps from the Cromwell family, via Mistress Oliver Cromwell with whom she slept, and a confession made at the execution to Dr Chamberlin (O3).43 Finally, and in a less elevated tone than the rest of the work, the pamphlet contains an account of searching the dead witches’ bodies for teats, with a record of the exact words of the gaoler, who gives the same ‘report unto all that require of him’ (O3v-O4). Whose sensational account is this? This varied authorship, with its different preoccupations—investigative, religious, familial, legal, sensational—makes the pamphlet a fragmented, multi-vocal account of witchcraft just like The Apprehension and confession of three notorious Witches (1589) or The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612). We need to be aware of the possible sources of each ‘factual’ detail or anecdote, and that the pamphlet does not contain a coherent view of witchcraft but several aspects of a developing consensual view, produced over several years. Narrative coherence is created only by the editing, its linking passages, comments, and its alteration of apparently personal accounts, especially clearly Gilbert Pickering’s, into third-person reports. On E2v the pamphleteer omits material (he says) on the grounds that more would ‘aske a long discourse, + longer then is thought meete’. This ‘word limit’ suggests an overall editorial policy, whose creators may be any one or more of the authors, or patrons like Fenner. The claim that all this disparate material was ‘set downe upon the sodaine’ is clearly untrue and it is puzzling that pamphleteers so concerned that their account should not appear ‘triviall’ cannot escape from the humanist modesty that disclaims their earnestness. Yet humanist commonplace itself suggests learnedness, and in (falsely) implying coherence for the account, presents it for respectful reading as the authoritative product of one gentlemanly mind. The same, more honestly, is claimed for Richard Galis’ Brief Treatise (1579) which he describes as ‘this handful of scribled and barren papers’.44 ‘Necessary’ pamphleteers often present their works as at once laboriously compiled, ‘throughly sifted’, true and complete, but also as unplanned gentlemanly forays into literature under the protection of powerful patrons or dedicatees. It is implied that the works are authoritative for both reasons. This is true even of generically rather different pamphlets, such as A true and just Recorde (1582) and Potts’ Wonderfull Discoverie (1612). Like Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) or Brief Treatise (1579), A true and just Recorde and Potts’ pamphlet are presented as ‘necessary’, being written for the public good. Potts’ patrons thought it necessarie & profitable, to publish to the whole world [the witches’] most barbarous and damnable practises, with the direct proceedinges of the Court

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against them…it is necessary for men to know and understand the meanes whereby they worke their mischiefe.45 Both pamphlets are non-narrative works, full of documents, belonging thus to a different genre in their form. But they are the same ‘necessary’ genre of pamphlet in their purpose, stating a similar informative aim. The prefacer of A true and just Recorde (1582) makes the same claim as Most strange and admirable discoverie, to ‘exercise the Readers in matters necessary’ by a mixture of sprezzatura and emphasised diligence: This I speake (Right Honorable) upon a late viewe of tryall, taken against certaine Witches in the countie of Essex; the orderly processe in whose examinations, together with other accidents, I dilygently observing and considering their trecheries to be notable: undertooke briefly to knit up in a fewe leaves of paper, their manifolde abuses: and obtaining the meanes to have them published in print, for that a number of memorable matters are here touched, to present the same unto your Lordship…46 As with Potts’ work, a patron, Lord Darcey, authorises the ‘necessary’, ‘notable’ and ‘memorable’ truths. The prefacer of A true and just Recorde (1582) dedicates his pamphlet to him because ‘going abrode under cover of your honorable name, the discourse maye seeme the more credible’.47 Believability is clearly one of the most important concerns of pamphlets which aim to instruct their readers, and having a patron or powerful dedicatee validates ‘truths’ which might otherwise be doubted. In further pursuit of credibility Darcey (or his collaborators—clerks, prefacer) seem to have tried, like the Warboys pamphleteers, to give a more or less chronological account of what had occurred, with a sense of firsthand experience for the reader. There is the same length, 102 pages, and equal detail, with even wider scope—fourteen witches, nearly eighty alleged offences, up to forty witnesses, thirty-four spirits, five villages. But A true and just Recorde tells a far less intelligible story than Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593), because it is based on documents, unlinked by comment and full of confusing detail. Here the incoherency of representations of witchcraft is self-defeatingly obvious. Thomas Potts, repeating Darcey’s format, overcame that problem by more aggressive editing than Darcey appears to have used, and by frequent authorial intervention, more like Most strange and admirable discoverie. His careful organising of his material is particularly evident in his anxious valediction to the readers: in the end give mee leave to intreate some favour that have been afraid to speake until my worke were finished. If I have omitted any thing materiall, or published any thing imperfect, excuse me for that I have done: It was a worke imposed upon me by the Judges in respect I was so wel instructed in every particular. In hast I have undertaken to finish it in a busie Tearme amongst my other imploiments. My charge was to publish the proceedings of Justice, and matter of Fact, wherein I wanted libertie to write what I would, and am limited to set forth nothing against them, but matter upon Record, even in their owne Countrie

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tearmes, which may seeme strange. And this I hope will give good satisfaction to such as understand how to judge of a businesse of this nature. Such as have no other imploiment but to question other mens Actions, I leave them to censure what they please, It is no part of my profession to publish anything in print, neither can I paint in extraordinarie tearmes. But if this discoverie may serve for your instruction, I shall thinke my selfe very happie in this Service.48 Like the others, Potts sees himself as both a modest gentleman author, dedicating his work to Lord and Lady Knyvet, and a laborious compiler of facts for the education of those who can judge. Clearly too he considered the form of his work carefully. This cri de coeur implies questions such as: What should he omit? Should he add anything except matter upon record? Should he leave the documents in their unlearned dialect? What style should he aim for, being unable to ‘paint’ his work? He concludes that the purpose of The Wonderfull Discoverie is ‘instruction’, linking his ‘service’ in this respect with his ‘Service of my Countrie’, as the work was ‘publish[ed]…for the benefit of my Countrie’.49 For Potts, production of a pamphlet was a labour. Even the printer, Stansby, was anxious over the construction of the work: Gentle Reader, although the care of this Gentleman the Author, was great to examine and publish his worke perfect according to the Honorable testimonie of the Judges, yet some faults are committed by me in the Printing, and yet not many, being a worke done in such great haste, at the end of a Tearme, which I pray you, with your favour to excuse.50 ‘Necessary’ or informational pamphlets are seen to be anxiously crafted, tightly controlled both structurally and ideologically, the two being inseparable to some extent. The text is managed so as to tap two sources of authority for its truth: gentlemanliness and professionalism. Texts are made up of approvals by the great and passages of gentlemanly sprezzatura, but also documents, long and detailed accounts, facts amassed by visible sheer grind. The message in this structure is one of truth, proof, objectivity and integrity. But we must not accept this without question. The appearance of objective truth and factuality is carefully created and conceals its own creation, its fragmentary nature and the propagandist purposes which ride on the contested facts of witchcraft. We read a representation only. We have examined its creators and deconstructed it, but for what purposes might it be created and so earnestly constructed? ‘Necessary’ pamphlets—why is it important to be earnest? Earnest pamphlets do strive to define a ‘true’ version of events, as Leuschner said, hence the care of their construction. Leuschner, in her introduction, sees them, and witchcraft plays, as trying to exercise social control of speech and enforce official attitudes, while being undermined by the conflicts of truth, morals and authority within them. In the light of my emphasis on analysing the specificity of context, structure, genre and differences within the pamphlets, this interpretation is perhaps too homogenising. All pamphlets have

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an axe to grind, but, I suggest, many different axes, different uses for the public exploration of witchcraft. Those discussed here might be summarised as: self-justification by victims, promotion of the justice of the legal system or exposure of its inadequacies, and the promotion of a religious view, or an ideology of witchcraft. There are probably other purposes in publishing witchcraft pamphlets: Willis remarks that pamphlets ‘may be biased according to ideological agendas not evident to the modern reader’.51 But even those few ‘agendas’ which I have identified redefine what witchcraft pamphlets are about, and problematise representations of witchcraft in them. Once an author has defined witchcraft for himself, for what reasons might he publish an account of it? What strategies would he use to promote his version of events or ideology? Do pamphleteers even have coherent aims and do they achieve them? This chapter explores these issues, which affect how we read pamphlets and how we see the witchcraft in them. Authorial intentions are not easily identified. The Warboys pamphlet, for example, gives a confusing account of the reasons for its publication. It is ‘to others example’, detailing ‘matter…admirable’ (therefore something which will surprise and cause wonder in the reader) and it is also countering other pamphlets which would have recounted ‘the matter partly or confusedly’.52 These stated aims are all taken from two prefaces and we begin to see here what will become clearer in Chapter 5, that prefaces conflict with, and are often unrepresentative of, the texts they introduce. What example does the pamphlet promote? A warning to witches, or a manual of godly response for victims? Neither is wholly convincing, as there is no comment on either issue in the text. The pamphlet certainly attempts to show that ‘admirable’ witchcraft occurred, but why? Davies sees the pamphlet as spreading ‘Continental’ beliefs,53 while Walker argues tentatively that the pamphlet has ‘no propaganda at all except perhaps in favour of witch-hunting’.54 But he was expecting possession controversy, whereas the strongest propaganda seems more personal than ideological. The last claim of the prefacers, that of countering other versions of the truth, does find an echo in the text, as the pamphlet seems partly addressed to incredulous enemies of the afflicted family. These unbelievers are presumably also enemies of witchmongering, but they are located especially among the ‘worser sort’, the lower classes or less godly elements. This suggests class conflict between witches and victims and their supporters, maybe even factionalism in the locality. Local research might tell us more about the parties’ relative status and reasons why the Throckmortons might fear enemies in their area.55 The pamphlet addresses the matter of local tensions directly, reporting Robert Throckmorton as saying, when Mother Samuel retracts her confession, that: ‘he would not suffer this matter thus to the in his hand, least the worser sort of the people should imagine that this was but some devise of theirs, to bring the olde woman into further danger’.56 ‘Some devise of theirs’ must refer to the Throckmorton-PickeringDorington family, and suggests dislike and suspicion of them by people looking for an excuse to fault their probity. John Samuel promotes the idea that the Throckmortons are manipulating the justice system by malicious prosecution when he accuses Elizabeth Throckmorton of having ‘been taught her lessons [in accusing him] well enough’.57 The pamphlet thus might be seen primarily as justifying the family’s position, although the section centring on Gilbert Pickering is more concerned with proof that witchcraft exists, and Henry Pickering’s part with religious opinion. The pamphleteers add:

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These circumstances about her confession are therefore the more expressly set downe, although they be not so pertinent to the matter, neither indeed should have bin declared at all, had it not bin reported by some in the countrey, + those that thought themselves wise, that this mother Samuel, now in question, was an olde simple woman, and that one might make her by fayre words to confesse what they would.58 Is this a defence of the truth of witchcraft, or of the Throckmortons? This 1593 pamphlet prefigures the possession pamphlets of the later 1590s, which state that they were published to counteract disbelief and aspersions cast on alleged victims. But while its detail and multivoiced nature preclude the fixing of any particular reason for publication, such as the debate about possession, or local politics, as being a more significant factor than the others, family status and reputation seem important elements. There is a similarly confusing paragraph, suggesting familial and political ulterior motives for publishing an account of witchcraft, in an added part of Potts’ Wonderfull Discoverie (1612). This additional material, tacked on at the end, tells the story of a Yorkshire witch, Jennet Preston. The writer seems torn between several objectives. He attacks the family of Jennet Preston for their belief that she was maliciously prosecuted, thus trying to defend the victims from accusations of falsity, but also seems to intend political propaganda on behalf of the legal system.59 He speaks brutally directly in his Introduction: You that were husband to this Jennet Preston; her friendes and kinsfolkes, who have not beene sparing to devise so scandalous a slander out of the malice of your hearts, as that shee was maliciously prosecuted by Master Lister and others; Her life unjustly taken away by practise; and that…she died an Innocent woman…You I say may not hold it strange, though at this time, being not only moved in conscience, but directed, for example sake, with that which I have to report of her, I suffer you not to wander any further; but with this short discourse oppose your idle conceipts able to seduce others.60 The potential for seducing others begins to sound political, even Catholic/magical.61 The writer accuses the Preston family of ‘Charmes of Imputations and slander, laid upon the Justice of the Land’, and sets out to defend it, apostrophising local people: ‘Which of you that dwelleth neare them in Craven but can and will witnesse it?’ and ‘you that were witnesses, present at the Arraignement and Triall of her’.62 Using some examinations, and parts of examinations, which Potts omitted and some that he used, plus an anecdote also told by Potts, the author concludes:63 I heartilie desire you, my loving Friends and Countrie-men, for whose particular instructions this is added to the former of the wonderfull discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster: And for whose particular satisfaction this is published; Awake in time, and suffer not your selves to be thus assaulted…let not your connivence, or rather foolish pittie, spare such as these, to exequute farther mischiefe.64

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He has returned abruptly to the theme of witchcraft as an issue of proof and punishment, skating away from the local political undercurrents at which he hinted earlier. Again the word ‘instruction’ occurs, but what is the main instructive purpose of this account? This ‘necessary’ pamphlet sets out in part to educate local people, and, later, future jurors, and ends with the authoritarian confirmation of judicial and political fairness which opponents question: ‘GOD graunt us the long and prosperous continuance of these Honorable and Reverend Judges, under whose Government we live in these North parts’.65 But it is also about both the need to prosecute witches and prove witchcraft, and about the integrity of the Listers, who prosecuted Jennet Preston. If Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) and the second part of Wonderfull Discoverie (1612) appear in some ways as self-defence, Brian Darcey’s project A true and just Recorde (1582) has a self-promotional aim according to Rosen: ‘the whole work is planned to display his superlative cleverness and efficiency’.66 Certainly Darcey’s detailed recreation of his questioning techniques seems meant for exhibition. In confronting the accused with victims, bullying examinates, promising favour for confessing and threatening hanging and burning for resistance, he is always careful to record the method used, and the effect. For him, weeping and kneeling is a sign that he has reached the truth, and is to be recorded and publicised. He appears to be evangelising his methods, including the entirely deceitful promising of favour in return for confession, at times: Note it is to be considered, that the saide Ursley Kempe in this her confession hath uttered many thinges well approved and confessed to be most true and that shee was brought thereunto by hope of favour.67 The preface, however, has another, related aim, which we might see either as at odds with the main pamphlet text or indirectly expressed through it. The prefacer, whose advocacy is of the rigorous punishment of witches by burning, may be another author, or he may be Darcey in disguise. He alleges that he observed and viewed the witches being examined, but the documents printed are not notes taken by an observer; they are instead the original examinations and informations.68 It is also debatable whether an observer would follow Darcey for a month (19 February-25 March) around five villages, unless perhaps he was employed in the legal process, perhaps a clerk of Darcey’s. Darcey may thus have delegated the authorship of the pamphlet and preface to others involved in events, or to someone who may have concocted this connection with events, but alternatively the prefacer’s deliberate distancing from Darcey, by creating a spurious observer status, may seem suspicious, and Darcey may be his own prefacer. He certainly identifies himself closely with his prefacer in his threat of hanging and burning to Elizabeth Bennet.69 Rosen links the two in saying ‘he [Darcey] threatens the punishment he would like to see inflicted, as well as the one in force’ and it is clear that the prefacer’s desire to see witches burnt is Darcey’s too.70 The two are also joined in a knowledge and admiration of the ideas of Bodin, and in quoting directly from De la Demonomanie des Sorciers (1587) the prefacer links himself to Darcey’s probable reference to Bodin as: ‘a man of great cunning and knowledge, come over lately unto our Queenes Majestie, which

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hath advertised her what a companie and number of Witches be within Englande’.71 The prefacer says: If there had bin at any time (Right Honorable) any meanes used, to appease the wrath of God, to obteine his blessing, to terrifie secrete offenders by open transgressors punishments, to withdraw honest natures from the corruption of evill company, to diminish the great multitude of wicked people, to increase the small number of virtuous persons, and to reforme all the detestable abuses, which the perverse witte and will of man doth dayly devise, this doubtlesse is no lesse necessarye then the best, that Sorcerers, Wizzardes, or rather Dizzardes [fools], Witches, Wisewomen (for so they will be named) are rygorously punished. Rygorously, say I? Why it is too milde and gentle a tearme for such a mercilesse generation: I should rather have said most cruelly executed.72 Bodin says: Or s’il y eut oncques moyen d’appaiser l’ire de Dieu, d’obtenir sa benediction, d’estonner les uns par le punition des autres, de conserver les uns de l’infection des autres, de diminuer le nombre des meschans, d’asseurer la vie des bons, & de punir les meschancetez les plus detestables que l’esprit humain peut imaginer, c’est de chastier a toute rigeur les Sorciers: combien que le mot de Rigeur est mal pris, attendu que il n’y a peine si cruelle qui peust suffire a punir les meschancetez des Sorciers, d’autant que toutes leurs meschancetez, blasphemes, & tous leurs desseings se dressent contre la Majest de Dieu, pour le despiter & offenser par mille moyens.73 The prefacer’s quotation is clearly more than a literal translation: it attempts to translate Bodin’s thought into English demonological thought with careful additions such as wisewomen, and the additional suggestion that witches should be burnt, which Bodin, as a Frenchman, did not need to make. Darcey’s threat to Elizabeth Bennet is expressed in the preface in terms that suggest that he is very aware of the comparison between French and English punishments: the magistrates of forren landes noted [witches’ blasphemy and idolatry] so precisely, that weighing the qualitie of the cryme, they kept a due analogie and proportion of punishment, burning them with fire, whome the common law of England (with more measure of mercie then is to be wished) strangleth with a rope.74 A marginal note identifies ‘Bodinus’ as the source of a section attacking fellow demonologist Wier for his arguments in De praestigiis daemonum, but there are echoes of him throughout the preface.75 While a prefacer might be writing under Darcey’s close supervision, his detailed knowledge of Bodin, and admiration for him, suggest Darcey’s being his own prefacer.

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However, Barbara Rosen suggests plausibly that William Lowth may have been Darcey’s prefacer.76 Lowth is known to have written prefaces and to have been fluent in at least one foreign language, and he prefaced Bartholomew Batty’s The Christian Man’s Closet (1581), which he translated, with a dedication to the Darceys. He clearly sympathised with Darcey, and his style in The Christian Mans Closet preface is like that of the prefacer in A true and just Recorde (1582): lists of clauses, a direct but humble tone, the request for protection of his ‘simple paynes’. In The Christian Mans Closet Lowth describes the Darcey’s ‘manifolde curtesies…[and] unfeigned friendshippes’, strays into euphuism with ‘bawling Barkers, curious Cavillors, sawsie Sycophants and Momus his mates’ yet describes his pamphlet as ‘good, wholsome and durable’. He describes himself as living in Essex and was at Maldon when he wrote his ‘Epistle’.77 He is a strong possibility for the prefacing, and possibly the authorship of the whole of A true and just Recorde (1582) but Darcey’s influence would clearly be great. Perhaps Lowth was given Darcey’s copy of Bodin with instructions to translate and quote exactly the section which would best please his patron. Whoever the prefacer was, we should ask if his purposes in writing the preface as a piece of necessary education for his readers are consistent with the rest of the work. Is the main pamphlet text divergent from his aims, stated here? Is there a discernible and coherent authorial strategy? How would that affect our reading of the evidence of witchcraft which is presented in the text’s main body? The clear setting of an ideological agenda taken from a controversial author by the preface tends to suggest that the rest of the work, apart from promoting Darcey, is a demonstration of the practical aspects of that ideology by Darcey. But the demonstration —if it is one—is rather sketchily executed. Certainly Darcey identified ‘a companie and number of witches’ such as he imagined Bodin describing to the queen, using Bodin’s methods of questioning, to which he drew attention. But he did not make Bodin’s demonological assumptions in practice, for although the prefacer accepts that witches are idolaters, it appears that child-killing and devil worship could not be transferred to a real-life English legal setting by the producer(s) of the main text. The methods of treating suspected witches could, however, and they are shown to be effective, which suggests that Darcey’s mind could be behind the whole work. He would be setting out an argument more overtly than Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593), although an argument impossible to complete by using only unaltered legal documents as the main text. This makes A true and just Recorde (1582) another pamphlet concerned to ‘exercise the Readers in matters necessary’—demonological theory, the questioning and (in the preface) punishment of witches. As the title page says, A true and just Recorde is a work ‘Wherein all men may see what a pestilent people Witches are, and how unworthy to lyve in a Christian Commonwealth’. This aim is broadly achieved, but the specifics of the intended message are lost. While we can imagine a shadowy purpose behind the text, there is so little comment appended to the transcriptions of examinations and informations which make up the pamphlet that Darcey and his prefacer’s propaganda is drowned out. We hear instead a stream of voices relentlessly describing maleficium, cunning-magic, familiars, and other commonplaces irrelevant to the pamphlet’s propagandising about idolatry and blasphemy. A comparison A Treatise of Witchcraft (1616), by the East Anglian minister Alexander Roberts, shows how demonology could

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be more effectively promoted by (apparently) edited documents with copious comment. Roberts interjects continually into his account, and includes a list of seven propositions clearly setting out his demonological points (that witches really exist, that they are devil worshippers, etc.) before even beginning to present the specifics of his account of a witch. We can only speculate why Darcey’s pamphlet does not do either of these things, and indeed why it sedulously documents its dissonances, but it does show an encouraging lack of contamination of apparently untouched documentary evidence by authorial concerns, and a complex and possibly multiple authorial intent. The only pamphlet showing comparable documentary detail along with an equally strong authorial message is Thomas Potts’ Wonderfull Discoverie (1612). Potts shows what Darcey could have done, although he does not go as far as the zealous Roberts in expounding and peddling an understanding of witchcraft. He is less scrupulous than Darcey, however, in his use of evidence, and his aim is more clearly stated and coherently carried out. In some ways his pamphlet is the most successful attempt to meet both the demands of propaganda: for coherency and comment, and for plentiful factual proofs and anecdotes within that unifying commentary. As we have seen, Potts’ definition of witchcraft is exploded by the records he prints, and his hyperbole and anti-Catholicism are additions too obvious to be cleverly convincing. But his untrustworthy success is in representing the perfection of the legal system, an aim clearly stated and achieved: ‘Here shall you behold the Justice of this Land, truely administered, Proemium & Poenam, mercie and Judgement, freely and indifferently bestowed and inflicted’.78 Judges commissioned the pamphlet, presumably in order to display exactly what Potts says here. Trial judge Bromley oversaw the work, as he said in his preface, After he [Potts] had taken great paines to finish it, I tooke upon mee to revise and correct it, that nothing might passe but matter of Fact, apparant against them by record. It is very little that he hath inserted, and that necessarie, to shew what their offences were, what people, and of what condition…79 These insertions are the key to the coherence of Potts’ account, his propagandist success relative to Darcey’s failure. He appears, like Darcey, to be concerned for transparent truth, preferring documents without insertions. But the insertions are long and their tone is sometimes far from the objective factuality Bromley implies. Potts’ description of Elizabeth Demdike is typical in blending perceived fact and comment: She was a very old woman, about the age of Foure-score yeares, and had been a Witch for fiftie yeares. Shee dwelt in the Forrest of Pendle, a vaste place, fitte for her profession; What shee committed in her time, no man knowes. Thus lived shee securely for many yeares, brought up her owne Children, instructed her Graund-children, and tooke great care and paines to bring them to be Witches. Shee was a generall agent for the Devill in all these partes: no man escaped her, or her Furies, that ever gave them any occasion of offence, or denyed them any thing they stood need of…80

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This sweeping assertiveness puts a heavy gloss on the ‘facts’ while remaining just within Bromley’s definition of necessary insertion. Potts describes Demdike as a ‘Sincke of villanie and mischiefe’, and a ‘wicked firebrand of mischiefe’, and apostrophises Elizabeth Device ‘O Barberous and inhumane Monster’, straying into hyperbole.81 While we can see that these insertions are additions to documents, and separated from them, Potts’ version of events prevails because he admits no dissonant voices and, unlike Darcey, offers comments like these frequently. He omits any examinations which were not usable as prosecution evidence, and he edited the ones we have. He allows us to doubt with the judge, then shows Jennet Device passing tests of her evidence easily. The complexities of the legal system would escape most readers, and his idealisations and sleight of hand with evidence thus go unremarked. Potts smooths out the process and boldly inserts guides to our reading. Justice may not have been done, but it is seen to be done. Potts, probably unconsciously devious, surpasses A true and just Recorde (1582), which states an aim and then more or less fails to fulfil it, and the unfocused Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593), which has a number of stated aims and some apparently unstated ones, and wavers uneasily between them. Potts’ is the most focused ‘necessary’ pamphlet in respect of his legal knowledge and determination to display ‘Justice’ to the reader. Yet even this pamphlet has an unbalancing unstated aim. Potts’ attack on the perjury in Grace Sowerbutts’ evidence in the Salmesbury case shows most effectively his tendency of combining detailed evidence with hectoring, but exposes at once the anti-Catholicism of the pamphlet. It turns from report into rant almost in the style of Scot or Samuel Harsnett. Although the court concluded her story was concocted by a priest, and thus was worthy of condemnation, Potts answers ‘The particular points of the Evidence of Grace Sowerbutts’ with condemnation so strong that it degenerates into unintelligible sarcasm: Evidence: That for the space of some yeares she hath been haunted and vexed with some women, who have used to come to her. The Jesuite forgot to instruct his Scholler how long it is since she was tormented: it seemes it is long since he read the old Badge of a Lyer, Oportet mendacem esse memorem [liars need good memories]. He knowes not how long it is since they came to church, after which time they began to practice Witchcraft. It is a likely thing the Torment and Panges of Witchcraft can be forgotten, and therefore no time can be set downe.82 This is so unrelated to any facts we have been told that it is at first confusing. Gradually Potts reveals that the accused women said that since they had converted from Catholicism and gone to the established church, the priest had intrigued against them—but this rationalisation is rather too late for the reader. However we understand perfectly that Potts intends to demolish ‘the Jesuite’. His other replies to the witness are equally vicious and like the other anti-Catholic, anti-witchmonger polemicists, he wants to make his attack funny. When Grace alleges that one woman became a dog, Potts retorts ‘Uno & eodem tempore [At one and the same time], shee transformed her selfe into a Dogge. I would know by what meanes any Priest can maintaine this point of Evidence’. In commenting on a fall she had, he finds a parallel absurdity: ‘this is as likely to be true as

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the rest, to throw a child downe from the toppe of a House, and never hurt her great toe’, and when she describes how the witches murdered a child by drinking its blood, yet it did not cry, he remarks that ‘the Child was of an extraordinarie patience’.83 These comments, allowed to pass by Bromley, although clearly contravening his supposed doctrine of minimal insertion, show that the pamphlet has other concerns more important than truth and should alert us to its less obvious unreliabilities. Potts rails against ‘the Seminarie’ and ‘the Legend of Lyes’. ‘Here is the Religious act of a Priest…’, he snarls, losing his syntax in his anger. How well this project, to take away the lives of three innocent poore creatures by practise and villanie; to induce a young Scholler to commit perjurie, to accuse her owne Grand-mother, Aunt, & c. Agrees either with the Title of a Jesuite, or the dutie of a Religious Priest, who should rather professe Sincerity and Innocencie, then practise Trecherie: But this was lawfull; for they are Heretikes accursed, to leave the companie of Priests; to frequent Churches, heare the word of GOD preached, and professe Religion sincerely.84 Anti-Catholicism has eaten up any attempt at the ‘objective’ reporting of the Salmesbury witchcraft case. Potts’ story of the Pendle witches is more covertly laced with anti-Catholicism. The pamphlet is dedicated to Potts’ patron Thomas Knyvet, Baron Escrick, who had helped to arrest the gunpowder plotters in 1605, and the parallels between their plot and the sabbath at Pendle, where the witches agreed to blow up Lancaster Castle and kill the gaoler, are strong.85 Potts parallels them himself: I may justly say of them, as a reverend and learned Judge of this Kingdome speaketh of the greatest Treason that ever was in this Kingdome,, Quis haec posteris sic narrare poterit, ut facta non ficta esse videantur? That when these things shall be related to Posteritie, they will be reputed matters fained, not done.86 Bromley’s account of Potts’ editing seems increasingly deceitful. Potts says that ‘in the course of Times and accidents, wise men observe, that very seldome hath any mischievous attempt beene under-taken without the direction and assistance of a Jesuit, or Seminarie Priest’.87 Conclusions such as this are not ‘necessarie, to shew what their [the witches’] offences were, what people, and of what condition’. Potts’ anti-Catholic agenda is obvious to modern readers and thus his aim less well achieved than his defence of the legal system. But his framing and editing of legal evidence in other ways is more difficult to allow for, in deciding how confidently to consider his pamphlet as a representation of the meaning of witchcraft free from deliberate authorial bias. The pamphlet with the most complex and confusing authorial intentions, and most obscure relationship with real events, is Richard Galis’ Brief Treatise (1579). Galis concludes his pamphlet in similar vein to A true and just Recorde’s 1582 title, hoping that

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all Sorcerers, Witches and Charmerers [sic] may utterly be weeded out from the face of the earth to the commoditie of a commonwelth and to the honor & glorie of God, to whome be all praise, laude, dominion and power for ever and ever Amen.88 This seems conventional but in fact Galis has an anti-establishment agenda as his ‘necessary’ propaganda. He was deeply dissatisfied with magistrates, and this is the main point of his ‘Conclusion to the Reader’. Galis had been turned away by the magistrates of Windsor when he tried to have a witch apprehended, he had been imprisoned for no reason (as he saw it), and the witches had been released even when questioned by the JPs: Thus hast thou heard heere moste looving Reader how much the foolish pittie and slacknes of the Magistrates of Windesore in executing their office, hath given occasion to these wicked Imps the Daughters of the Devill, to persist in their follye.89 He describes the evils done since Mother Dutten was released by Richard Redforth, the mayor of Windsor, including the supposed murder of Galis’ father, and wishes the matter ‘had been as thorowely sifted out as it was but wincked at’. He hopes his pamphlet may reform magistrates: I beseech the heavenly Father who is the giver of all goodnes that this ensample past and now to all men most apparaunt, may be so printed and rooted in the harts of all Magistrates appointed for the execution of true and upright Justice to the maintenaunce of the good and pulling down of the wicked, that from hence foorth not only all poore mens causes may be pitied, their complaints accepted and their wrongs redressed: but also that by their carefull industry and diligence employed, all Sorcerers, Witches and Charmerers may utterly be weeded out…90 And so his pious, conventional-sounding conclusion in fact is an overt plea for radical change, addressed to the reader like a manifesto, which he hopes will gain support. Writing in 1579, Galis was the first witchcraft pamphleteer to use his work as a platform for views about witchcraft genuinely drawn from his story, and to believe that these were important enough to make it necessary for the public to be informed of them. But his pamphlet was disbelieved by Scot as ‘lies and forgeries…follie and frensie’.91 This is because Galis’ text is very unusual, in being apparently the product of a number of interesting delusions, based around witchcraft but incorporating fears and aggression in other areas of the author’s life. Authority in his text is thus very unstable, and he wavers through many public propagandist and apparently private literary genres, undermining his message with bizarre personal details. Galis is really trying to do too many things with his ‘necessary’ pamphlet. Alongside his carefully argued, and otherwise convincing, attack on magistrates is a detailed spiritual autobiography and it is this which damages the credibility of his propaganda so greatly. Conventionally enough, it describes his prayers, psalm-singing, visions, and Job-like endurance of persecution. But it also dwells on his hatred of the town authorities, the

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witches and initially his family to an extent that makes the reader question his sanity. The self-revealing detail of the pamphlet undermines Galis’ earnest religiosity and legal-reforming zeal as he lists his physical attacks on the witches with cudgels, daggers and fire, finally and explicitly intending murder.92 Scot called him ‘a mad man… frantike’.93 Like A true and just Recorde (1582) his pamphlet may be classed as selfpromotional, but again it undermines itself by filling in too much detail of self, allowing the meaning of witchcraft and the genre and purpose of the account of it to become confused. Galis’s text admits no other voices directly, as Darcey’s documents do, but indirectly we hear much of Galis’ enemies and critics, far more so than in Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593). Galis shoots himself in the foot as he rampages through Windsor and through his own text, pursuing witches with gunpowder and magistrates with pained invective. It seems that even a first-person narration cannot define and promote a single version of witchcraft for a clearly recognisable purpose. Document-based pamphlets are even less able to do so. The prefacer of the documentary Rehearsall both straung and true (1579) argued a point related to Galis’, about ‘under officers’ negligence, but like Darcey’s prefacer he did not base it on material in his pamphlet, nor expand upon it as Galis does, so it is forgotten in the interest of the document he reproduces.94 If he is also the prefacer of the documentary Detection (1579),95 he saw his pamphlets as a garden where ‘holsome hearbes of admonitions for the unwarie’ might ‘be gathered’ and people awakened to the ‘ambushementes’ of Satan if they would ‘peruse it with discretion, and hedefulnesse’, an earnest aim but again not reflected in the content of the pamphlet.96 It seems that, no matter what their form, fragmented meanings of witchcraft spill out of pamphlets rather than their creating a monolithic and easily discernible authorial position deliberately recorded in print. ‘Necessary’ witchcraft pamphlets can thus be seen to be published for very various purposes—promoting authors and opinions, proffering official ideology or personal defences, even mounting subversive attacks. But their concerns are wide and various enough within individual works to suggest multiple intentions beyond crude propaganda and make interpretation based on inferred authorial intention difficult. They lack the more discernible authorial intent of many posses sion pamphlets, which are locked into a number of identifiable controversies and, while some of the pamphlets already discussed have propaganda running concurrently with their other functions, as we have seen in Galis’ Brief Treatise (1579), Potts’ Wonderfull Discoverie (1612), and Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593), the real concentration is on a multiplicity of facts, stories and opinions.97 We should not read pamphlets as if they were without context or authorship, but equally we cannot rely on identifying clearly the origin and bias of pamphlets and interpreting their representations of witchcraft on that basis. One can sense negotiation between propagandist authorial intentions, available sources, generic limitations and, ultimately, with what witchcraft means and what the reporting of witchcraft is for. ‘Necessary’ pamphlets are united in thinking that witchcraft is a serious matter which needs to be brought to public attention—although they do this in many different ways. But there is a subgenre of pamphlets, as the Warboys pamphleteers pointed out, which do not seem to take witchcraft seriously at all.

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‘Sincere and studied triviality’: ‘triviall’ pamphlets The Warboys pamphleteers made their distinction between pamphlets concerned with substantive matters and those hawking around empty, garish fictions. Their concentration on the tone of the work, and its surface features, is interesting—they make no attempt to analyse types of evidence or to distinguish between narrated accounts and the use of genuine legal documents as sources. Form does not interest them, and perhaps this is because ‘triviall’ pamphlets are very like some ‘necessary’ pamphlets in their form. Works that trivialise witchcraft are almost by definition precluded from the careful reproduction of legal material—although they sometimes rewrite legal texts, or throw in the odd anecdote which clearly has its origins in the legal system—and so they tend to be narrative accounts. This would have been a useful point for the pamphleteers to make against their trivialising rivals, had they wished to do so. But they would have to have done so carefully, for a lack of legal documents means that in form ‘triviall’ pamphlets are not much different from Most strange and admirable discoverie itself. It seems that it is only by their tone that we shall know them. However, once this is recognised, the Warboys pamphleteers’ categorisation thus begins to deconstruct itself as it becomes clear that a literary or entertaining tone does not automatically preclude ‘truthfulness’ and authorial earnestness, although it may make us question both qualities. This section looks at pamphlets whose tone is suspect in the terms set down by the pamphleteers of 1593 and finds that sometimes their condemnation of wittiness and vanity is apt, but that sometimes a light-hearted or stylish presentation may conceal valuable material. We should also ask whether it is necessarily a bad thing to ‘trivialise’ witchcraft, or even if such an elusive construct is capable of being trivialised by any account of it. Unlike ‘necessary’ pamphlets, ‘triviall’ pamphlets sometimes look unconcerned with reporting or teaching: some sections lack altogether the ‘heavy moral undertone’ which J.A.Sharpe perceived generally, and seem instead to purpose entertainment and display.98 But this does not make them unusable as meaningful representations of witchcraft; rather, we should again question our definition of a true representation of witchcraft. Need it be earnest? Are comic depictions of witchcraft less valid and, if so, in what senses? Certainly they may look unreliable as historical data, but they tell us that witchcraft was not seen by all as a criminal, terrifying threat.99 Some pamphleteers even see the truthful reporting of witchcraft events as secondary to narrative pleasure, entertainment and the exercise of authorial skills. While this has often been recognised, it is usually labelled ‘sensationalism’ and seen negatively, as a reason not to read and trust witchcraft pamphlets. In contrast, this section argues that we should read these accounts just as carefully as ‘necessary’ pamphlets, to explore the idea that witchcraft is not just irreligious and frightening maleficium, crime, or sin, not exceptional, not part of a single, exclusive discourse. In certain apparently non-sceptical contexts it is even a joke, and our perception of it is always shaped by the form and style of its representation. That the representation is an entertaining one does not mean that it is bad historical evidence about witchcraft. Trivial pamphlets are no more and no less important than legal documents or necessary pamphlets as sources of information about witchcraft: they are simply different representations of the same events, a difference which must be appreciated before they

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are used as evidence in any debate about witchcraft. We may conclude that they warp events more than documents and apparently conscientious reports, but these, as I have demonstrated, both have built-in subjectivities or biases towards particular ways of defining witchcraft and publicising it. Narrative and authorial factors also warp these kinds of accounts. ‘Triviall’ pamphlets warp witchcraft in a more obvious, different, but equally interesting way—detail may be unreliable, anecdotes may be untrue in that they are distantly related to any verifiable event, but ‘triviall’ pamphlets often contain elements of reportage, and their overall impression is very important to our understanding of witchcraft. Witchcraft, it seems, may legitimately be trivialised as a matter of peripheral importance and amusing chit-chat. To judge ‘triviall’ pamphlets as less historically valuable than ‘necessary’ ones is to discount views of witchcraft that challenge our view of it as a serious legal/religious ‘problem’. This simply mimics the view of the prefacers of Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) in defining these pamphlets as unrelievedly ‘triviall’—in itself a dismissively reductive term. The prefacers attacked ‘triviall pamphlets’ not only because, unlike Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593), they failed to ‘exercise the Readers in matters necessary’ but because they allowed ‘every idle wit…to blaze abroade their vainenesse’ in ‘writing…thinges needles[s]’.100 Thisisa criticism of the positive content of trivial pamphlets, not just of what they omit. It attacks style as well as content, puritanical in its earnest rejection of ‘needles’ superfluity, and so by implication disliking wit, blaze and empty stylishness in themselves, as idle, vain and unnecessary—an attitude reminiscent of George Herbert’s puritan-inspired criticism of ‘quaint words and trim invention… Decking the sense, as if it were to sell’.101 These serious pamphleteers were, like Herbert, interested in sense and substance rather than in art for art’s sake. They were primarily concerned with suppressing pamphlets that were ‘respecting either the matter partly or confusedly’, a concern with truth and fact, but their criticism of other pamphleteers in stylistic terms highlights the fact that their own pamphlet is remarkably plain in style, so that where they do slip into similes it is immediately noticeable. In Gilbert Pickering’s section, the children in their fits are described as ‘like a quick Pickerel newly taken out of the water’, ‘as though they had been tumblers’, and with bellies heaving up ‘bigger…then any woman with child’ and ‘as hard as though there had been…a great loafe in the same’.102 Uncle Gilbert seems to have had more literary flair than the drier writers who framed his narration. Similarly, in The severall factes of Witch-crafte (1585) the writer twice says a victim was ‘consumed and parched lyke a greene leafe that had beene hanged to drye in a Chimney’ or ‘like a parched or wethered leafe, hanged up in the smoke of a Chimney’, a moment of vivid simile in an otherwise unadorned narration. Plainness of tone may result from an articulated ideology as in Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593), or from an unrefined reporting of perceived fact, as in The severall factes of Witch-crafte (1585).103 But it may be no more objectively truthful than more elaborately narrated reporting. The two may even be mixed in some pamphlets, which fall into neither category.

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‘Necessary’ nature, ‘triviall’ style? Richard Galis’ Brief Treatise (1579) and the related A Rehearsall both straung and true (1579) are examples of this confused identity. Galis wrote a many-genred pamphlet, heavily stylised yet apparently intended as a ‘true edition’ of events partly and confusedly reported in the Rehearsall, whose text Galis even edits, augments and corrects for us.104 Wehave looked at his pamphlet as ‘necessary’, with its stated aim of promoting magisterial reform and its concern with truthful reporting and religious fervour, but it is ‘triviall’ in the sense that its rhetorical flourishes certainly make original events inaccessible behind fine words and stagy rhetoric. Galis’ love of fine language can be seen in his borrowings of striking phrases from the Rehearsall, his source for part of his story. A Rehearsall both straung and true is basically a ‘necessary’ account. But its prefacer comes up with one memorable phrase: the witch is to ‘receive the guerdon due for her demerits’, an elegantly sarcastic locution which Galis borrowed like a magpie.105 His pamphlet and the Brief Treatise also share enjoyment of rhetorical superfluity in finding up to six different ways of saying the witches killed a victim: thei all purposed and agreed…to dispatche privilie one Lanckforde a Fermour… they murdered hym accordinglie… Thei also…killed one Maister Gallis… The like thei practized againste one of the saied Lanckfordes maides, whom by the mischievous meanes above expressed thei bereft of life… Likewise a Butcher named Switcher, escaped not their treacherie, but was by their Witchcrafte brought to his grave… Another Butcher named Mastlyn, was by them handeled in suche sorte, that he consumed awaie.106 Galis, reworking the list, apparently with diabolically humorous intent, described Switcher the butcher as ‘served of the same sauce’.107 We might see such levity as damaging the truthfulness of his account, its usefulness as data, or our belief in it, but jokes might equally be an insight into a satirical view of witchcraft, reminiscent of humorous representations of witches on the stage in, for example, Middleton’s The Witch or Heywood’s The Wise Woman of Hogsdon.108 Galis’ language is certainly the antithesis of Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593). His dedication to Robert Handley effervesces: to thentent I might not be touched with that odible vice of Ingratitude (a vice of all men moste to be detested) I imagined many times with my self which way I might best frame myne habilitie, by using some parte of remuneration for your manifolde curtesies…to avoid the same.109 ‘Remuneration’ with ‘guerdon’ (both on A2) were words mocked by Shakespeare in Love’s Labours Lost, showing what high style they were, or had been in 1579: ‘Remuneration—O, that’s the Latin word for three farthings…Guerdon! O sweet

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guerdon!—better than remuneration, elevenpence-farthing better…Guerdonremuneration’.110 Galis also uses ‘gratulate’, ‘odible’ (odious), ‘cogitations’. He becomes ‘incensed with the naturall instinct of your gentle disposition’, and hopes to see Handley ‘sociated’ and ‘comined’ (commingled) with heavenly souls. So extreme is his self-abasement that he describes his work as ‘this handfull of colde water’ offered to Handley, and so much does he desire to exhibit his gentlemanly learning that this is a reference to ‘the moste renowmed [sic] Persian King Artaxerxes’ from Plutarch.111 ‘Atrapos’ [sic], ‘Aeolus puffing blasts’, ‘Neptunes swelling Seaes’ and ‘Aurora[s]…cristall cleernes’ all appear in the preface and story.112 The use of Latin tags is not uncommon, even in earnest pamphlets, but references to classical myths are unusual outside prefaces—especially such romantic references. Most astonishing of all is Galis’ presentation of himself in ‘To the Reader’: if from my hands thou expect for my philed phrase or lerned stile being but misled up in a homely cuntrie Cabbin where the practise of the flayle and whip more riper is then lernings lore, thou shalt greatly be deceived. But if a plain Shepherds tale neither prophane or fained, oftner occupied in the tarbox and sheephook, Instruments more fit for me then either pen or inck may serve thy turn: receive thy desire.113 The lines the practise of the flayle and whip More riper is then lernings lore make a perfect sixteener. Nothing else in the pamphlets is so highly rhetorical, so literary, in style or content. In terms of content, Galis presents himself as an Arcadian shepherd, not a reporter but almost a Sidneyan poet. The only other hint of such unlikely romanticism of journalism is in Detection (1579), where the prefacer likens his prosaic pamphlet to a ‘pretie plot’ where ‘soote flowers to recreate the wearied senses’ may ‘be gathered’.114 But Galis is far more extreme, at the height of fashion in 1579 with this Spenserian, Sidneyan courtier/poet/ shepherd rhetoric. Living in Windsor he may perhaps have met courtiers and read works from that circle. His style is euphuistic and Lyly’s Euphues: The Anatomy of Wyt was published in the same year. Euphuism is a formal, elegant, heady, sentimental style, but emotionally and intellectually its dense linguistic patterning can be empty, too self-admiring. Like Galis, Lyly loved alliteration: ‘mirth without measure’, ‘wyse yet too wanton’, and overlong lists divided by the antithetical ‘either…or’. Lyly plays with rhetorical figures, delighting in balanced labyrinthine phrases such as ‘of more wit than wealth, and yet of more wealth than wisedome’ and in wallowing in rhythmic poetic prose: ‘the freshest colours soonest fade’.115 Galis does all this in the brief paragraph above. He is, further, like Lyly in hoarding fine phrases, as with the extract from A Rehearsall both straung and true. Galis’ use of alliteration (‘lernings lore’), rhyme and assonance (‘prophane or fained’) and measured rhetorical

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structure (‘if…But if’) in ‘To the Reader’ make his conventional pastoral sprezzatura about the humble artisanship of the author an unparalleled instance of literary refinement in some sixty years of witchcraft and possession pamphlets. Does this make his work unusable as historical evidence? Galis certainly tells stereotypical stories about witchcraft in his pamphlet—but then so do legal documents. He also obsessively traces the built-in patterns of euphuist stories, which are cleverly worked into his witchcraft subject matter—but in this he is doing no more than Henry Pickering with his search for religious symbolism in events, or Thomas Potts looking to shape his records to confirm King James’ view of witches as revengeful. The Warboys pamphleteers’ binary definition of pamphlets breaks down faced with multivoiced Galis. He is both reporter of the facts as he sees them, and high stylist, and his construction of witchcraft is as illuminating and important as any pedantically noted ‘data’, or any more usual victim’s story. The best way of reading his text is to take it as seriously as any document, or ‘necessary’ pamphlet, but to be very aware of Galis’ rhetorical strategies and stylistic or generic influences. Most obvious evidence that Galis’ euphuism shapes his view of and representation of witchcraft is his Lyly-esque obsession with ‘freend’ship. One of Galis’ unusual constructions of witchcraft is that the witches caused ‘my Freends whome Nature lincked in the league of loove and Freendship utterly to detest mee, shamefully to use mee and that which greeved mee moste maliciously to envie mee’.116 Galis addresses Handley as his ‘good Freend’, and mentions both his friends and Handley’s in his dedication.117 He describes the sick Handley, saying: good R.Galis, if any spark of Freendship hath ever been kindled betwixt us: I pray: thee to fetch mee a Witch, at whose sight, hope perswadeth mee I shall finde ease. At which woordes being indeed greatly mooved: inwardly (as one who looved his intire Freend) bewailing my Freends troubles more then my owne, I went forth without any word speaking, and amongst the crue of these helhoundes I gat mee and within one half houre after God being my help: I brought foure before him…118 The moral dilemma, Galis’ melodramatic speechless exit, his generosity, and love of his friend are pure Lyly: his Euphues and Philautus bear just such ‘entyre love’ to one another.119 Galis’ reader too is constructed as ‘freendly’.120 The loss of Galis’ friends echoes Lyly’s story of the betrayal of Philautus by his friend Euphues. They had an ‘inviolable league of friendship…as neyther time by peecemeale should impaire, neither fancie utterly dissolve, nor any suspition infringe’.121 But Euphues’ ‘falshood in felowship… fraud in friendship’ leads to bitter recriminations with his friends and family, as with Galis.122 In another echo, when Euphues and Philautus’ quarrel is made up, Euphues, repentant, leaves his country to become a philosopher. He advises a fellow exile, ‘accused without colour and exiled without cause’, to gain ‘credite in sustaining wrong’ while his ‘enemies in committing injurie’ gain only ‘shame’ by their ‘mallyce’.123 Galis sees himself as an exile both in Windsor, and when he genuinely goes abroad or to London, ‘thus living there in exile…hated of all without cause’.124 His work resembles Euphues in its

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shape, too, being the story of the formative experiences of a young man who rebels against paternal authority, as Euphues does against Eubulus, whom he calls ‘Father and friend’. The young man in both stories sins because of his youth and vanity (Galis has something ‘which gnawed my conscience’ and must ask his father pardon for ‘former follies’125). He is then afflicted (though not by witches in Lyly) and repents in genuine godliness. Galis’ chapter headings are further evidence of a euphuistic desire to hone. adorn and stage his story: they read like the headings in a picaresque novel: ‘How by the helpe of Syr Henry Nevell Knight, Maister Richard Warde Esquier, and other Gentlemen of worship, the author gat leave to passe the seas into Flaunders, where for a time he served under Captaine Morgaine’.126 Narrative autobiographical devices move the story on, and expected types of witchcraft story take second place to this euphuistic structure. Galis’ self-fashioning stylistic palette extends to constructing himself as the persecuted psalmist, especially Psalm 41, which he mentions specifically on B3 (verses 4, 5, 7 and 9 are especially relevant), Job, the prodigal son, and St Peter in prison. He is basing his style here on the Bible, with God as his ‘helper, buckler and defence’ (reminiscent of Ephesians 6), as when he fights the devil with a sword, saying ‘Sathan avoyde, and in the name of God I charge thee to avoyde, thou hast nought to do with mee’ (reminiscent of Mark 5.7 or Luke 8.28).127 It can be seen how dependent Galis is on literary stereotypes of content and style unconnected with traditional witchcraft discourse. This may make us question his facts, which we might have accepted from a simpler stylist. But we cannot dismiss Galis’ pamphlet, in the Warboys pamphleteers’ phrases, as ‘idle wit’, blazing vainness or ‘thinges needles’ both because his purpose is earnest (although he may well be ‘respecting the matters partly or confusedly’, as the Warboys pamphleteers put it, and of which Scot accused him) and because, although stylish narration may preclude the kind of ‘truth’ the Warboys writers and data-hungry scholars want, it is simply one construction of witchcraft masking another, not a trivialising suppression of facts. Galis’ construction of witchcraft is the historically much-prized, supposedly uncontaminated and primary one of the victim and, although different, it is as truthful as any of the stereotyped constructions of their stories given by villager victims like Grace Thorlowe or Thomas Cartwrite (in A true and just Recorde, 1582). They did not distort their versions of events with euphuism, but with legalese, with story structures created for the courts, with unsound causal connections, stereotyping and physical impossibilities, partly in response to the requirements of giving an information. An account in ‘trivial’, ‘sensational’ style is simply another version of the disputed truth about witchcraft. Increasing complexity—serious silliness in witchcraft reporting Other pamphlets better fit the several facets of the Warboys pamphleteers’ definition of triviality. They are less complex than Galis’ in their authorial strategies, but more complex in the range of their responses to witchcraft. Galis knew precisely what he thought about witchcraft. His response to it was highly individual but carefully articulated in two different ways—one earnest and pious, the other florid and contrived. But later ‘triviall’ pamphleteers, while sharing his concern for narrative form and language, seem

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far vaguer about their understanding of what witchcraft is, and far more flexible. Anything goes, it appears in some cases. Whether or not the view of witchcraft given is convincing or consistent as a whole seems irrelevant. Perhaps instead of treating this directionlessness as ill-informed silliness we might see it as an interesting insight into Elizabethan and Jacobean views of witchcraft. As a parallel instance, most people now would probably say that they are in at least two minds about some of the frequently discussed issues of the twentieth century: medical ethics, political issues, sexual morality, the paranormal, the best ways of tackling crime. We not only live happily with our inability or refusal to pick a viewpoint, but we also treat these important subjects with a mixture of earnestness and triviality, and with frequent resort to jokes. Since we know how our own minds work in relation to such matters, then why should we discuss witchcraft as if we assumed that people in the past were less confused and more focused than ourselves, and took witchcraft with intense and petrified seriousness? We don’t really assume this, but our hostile reaction to pamphlets which don’t take witchcraft seriously suggests that we have yet to overcome the desire for tangible evidence and trustworthy tone articulated so irritably by the pamphleteers of the incident at Warboys. This section of Chapter 4 suggests that even the most unfocused, trivialising, ill-informed pamphlets, which are not consumed with the supposed ‘necessity’ of getting across a particular message to their readers, might in fact be good sources for understanding the flux of interpretations of witchcraft. In them, we can see evidence of an openness, superficiality and curiosity in the popular and the reasonably learned mind on the subject which we cannot find in more propagandist accounts, whether narrative or documentary. A relatively basic discussion of these pamphlets suggests several unexplored ways of looking at witchcraft: as satire, comedy, gossip and entertainment of various kinds. This indifference to truth, the offhand tone of some of the pamphlets and the deliberate subversiveness of others provide a background to the usual views of witchcraft we might want to take into account when thinking about witchcraft as a matter of (no?) importance in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. If we are going to read the most ‘triviall’ pamphlets in this way we need to develop a high tolerance of bluster, and of accounts based on next to nothing in the way of data. On the whole, ‘triviall’ pamphleteers are far more detached from the events they report than are ‘necessary’ pamphleteers, and they have a corresponding lack of anything which could reasonably be called ‘facts’. Thus they are without one of the expected staples of witchcraft pamphlets, a substantial collection of some kind of sourced data, and the material which they use to plug this gap has usually led to accusations of uselessness. In The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) what Rosen calls ‘unpleasant rhetoric’ replaces factual content in a way exactly corresponding to fears about a lack of hard reliable data.128 The account of Mary Barber, for example, is all rhetoric except for three facts: place of residence, committal date, committing magistrate. It begins: This Mary Barber of Stanwicke in the said County of Northampton was one in whom the licentiousnesse of her passions grew to bee the Master of her Reason, and did so conquer in her strength and power of all vertue, that shee fell to the Apostasy of goodnesse, and became diverted, and abased unto most vilde actions,

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cloathing her desperate soule, in the most ugly habiliments, that either Malice, Envy, or Cruelty could produce from the blindnesse of her degenerate, and devilish desires.129 No details are given of Mary’s crimes except that she killed ‘a man’ and did ‘much hurt and harme to divers sorts of cattle’. The author’s bombast covers this with conventional symbolism: reason versus passion, passion versus virtue, the clothing of the soul, the blindness of desire. The author describes the witch as ‘rude, violent and without any hope of proportion, more then only in the square of viciousness’, adding that out of the oblyvion and blindnesse of her seduced senses, shee gave way to all the passionate and earthly faculties of the flesh, and followed all the Fantasmas vanities, and Chimeras of her polluted and unreasonable delights, forsaking the Society of Grace… Sermonic tone and form replace any attempt at truthful reporting. The writer seizes on Mary’s committal to prison to turn her experience into a simile: prison put her not in mind of her grave, nor the grates and lockes put her in remembrance of hel, which deprived her of the joy of liberty, which she saw others possesse: The jangling of irons did not put her in minde of the chaines where with she should bee bound in eternall torments, unlesse heavens mercy unloosed them, nor of the howling terrors and gnashing of teeth, which in hel every soule shal receive for the particular offences committed in this life…130 This ‘needles’ display of interpretative and didactic abilities is certainly anti-factual. It tells us nothing about the witch that we can feel is uncontaminated by prejudice, and it bores us with commonplaces expressed in unsympathetic language. However, if accepted on its own terms, as a representation of witchcraft that does not intend any information to be given, this pamphlet can be read more positively. It doesn’t give us what we want, or have been conditioned to demand, so how does it construct witchcraft? In fact it is a surprisingly general and empty comment on the subject. It discusses witchcraft in a way which suggests that witchcraft is nothing special. There is no concern with proof of the crimen exceptum, or exceptional crime of witchcraft, no specific juicy details of quarrels and revenges, no contextualisation about begging and denial, victim guilt or blamelessness. Witchcraft here is not a crime rooted in society, the urgent responsibility of the authorities or of concerned individuals, and no attempt is made to understand it, document it or problematise it. Instead the pamphlet comments interestingly, if predictably, on women as witches, less predictably on witchcraft and sex, and finally on sin and ungodliness. There is no mention of fear of maleficium, nor any magical element. Witchcraft is just another sin, as with several of the prefaces dealt with in the next chapter. We are not used to viewing it in this way. But if we want to read witchcraft pamphlets as a way of understanding what constructions were made of it, we cannot easily select some interpretive comment as meaningful and dismiss other types as unimportant

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padding. Here we see the ordinariness of witchcraft—it is to be condemned in all the stock ways, and then dismissed from the mind. This lack of engagement with witchcraft by some pamphleteers is well illustrated by Witches Apprehended (1613). Similarly noncommittal, it alternates between a chillily elegant, now outdated euphuistic style, long-winded moral comments, and humorous anecdote. Thus it is not simply indifferent to the specifics of its subject, but is detached from them in three distinct ways. This does not seem to be accidental. The introductory remarks indicate the coming complexity with an unusually balanced account of the witches’ circumstances. Mother Sutton was a hog herd ‘not without commendations for her dutifull care had therein’, but she kept her daughter Mary at home not ‘as was thought by the neighbours…as a stay and comfort to her age’ but ‘nay indeed to make her a scholler to the Divell himselfe’.131 The witches sound like rounded people, if only momentarily, rather than caricatures of evil like Mary Barber. This measured narratorial approach extends also to the witches’ crimes: an account of the horrible death of some pigs, who ‘would sodainely fall madde, and violently fall to tearing out the guts, and bowels of their fellowes…[or] run headlong into the mill dammes, and drowne themselves’ is passed over without horror or comment, despite its Gadarene resonances, which another writer would surely have used. This writer seems uninvolved, and seems to be trying out a variety of responses to his subject. For example, while he remarks with disgust that ‘it is to bee noted, that although [Mary Sutton] was never married, yet she had three bastards’, his account of the quarrel between the witch’s child and the victim is finicking, stylised, cool: the bastard son of Mary Sutton…comming to play himselfe about the Mill damme, fell to throwing in of stones, dirt, and filth, with other such unhappinesse incident to children: Of which having beene often forewarned by an ancient servant of Master Engers, who was then about the Milles, and finding the boy notwithstanding his admonishment rather to persever then to desist from his knaverie, he came to him, and giving him a little blow or two on the eare, the boy went home crying, and the ancient fellow went back to his labour.132 The elegant balance of ‘rather to persever then to desist’, the choice of elevated words, ‘ancient’ not old, ‘admonishment’, ‘unhappinesse incident’, and the unnecessary symmetrical disposal of the protagonists at the end of the anecdote suggest the writer’s concern with style, and the care with which he has written. He does not say that oxen fell sick, but that they were ‘perplexed’, and Master Enger does not sell his goods but sends them ‘for the furnishing of the Market’.133 The writer is exercising a control over his subject that denies us meaty facts but offers instead an unexpectedly calm view of supposedly terrible events. The account’s stylistic features become more pronounced as the usual witchcraft events occur. Moral comment is introduced as part of the elegant diction. When Enger’s old servant falls ill, the accounts turns into rhythmic rhetoric:

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As a thiefe, when hee entereth into a house to robbe, first putteth out the lights, according to that, Qui male agit, odit lucem, He that doth evill, hateth light, so these Impes that live in the gunshot of divellish assaults, goe about to darken and disgrace the light of such as are toward, and vertuous, and make the night the instrument to contrive their wicked purposes.134 The old man was so ill that his friends were as desirous to see death ridde him from his extremitie, as a woman great with childe is ever musing upon the time of her deliverie: For where distresse is deepe, and the conscience cleare, Mors expectatur absque formidine, exoptatur cum dulcedine, excipitur cum devotione. Death is looked for without feare, desired with delight, and accepted with devotion.135 This heartless figurative language and its learned display bypasses the victim’s sufferings to draw elegantly expressed conclusions. The morals are clear, but one feels more sympathy in the plain accounts of illness and death in A true and just Recorde (1582) or The severall factes of Witch-crafte (1585). The account of the death of Master Enger’s child is really concerned with formal devices: The Gentleman did not so much grieve for the losse and hinderance hee had in his cattell, (which was much) nor for the miserable distresse that his servant had endured (which was more) as that the hopefull daies of his young sonne were so untimely cut off; (which touched his heart most of all). Yet did his discretion temper his passions with such patience, that he referred the remembrance of his wrongs to that heavenly power, that permits not such iniquitie to passe unrevealed, or unrevenged.136 Here is the old euphuistic concern with the management of passion by (alliterative) patience. At last As hee was thus wrapt in a Sea of woes, there came a Gentleman a friend of his forth of the North, that travelling towards London sojourned with him all night. Hee perceiving Master Enger to be full of griefe, was desirous to know the cause thereof, and hee was as unwilling by the discourse of his misfortunes to renewe his many sorrowes, till at last his friends urgent importunacie perswaded him not to passe it over with silence.137 The ‘Gentleman a friend of his’ (my italics), the final euphuistic flourish, advises Enger to swim the witch. Thus the delicate crafting of the rhetoric is uneasily welded to blunt accounts of beating the witches, and to an instructive description of how to swim a witch, which was so useful as a manual that it was described on the title page as ‘a strange and most true triall how to know whether a woman be a witch or not’, and occurs again in the second edition of The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) as ‘the Triall of a witch’.138 These

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interestingly pick-and-mix representations of witchcraft don’t seem to replace facts as the Warboys writers feared, for we are still getting a very clear picture of particular constructions of witchcraft. We might question whether Enger’s friend is a literary device, however. Does his residence in the north mean that swimming witches was more common there than in the south, or is it an imaginative flourish? Even apparent facts are not trustworthy, but the framing of them is vitally important. Here it is done in such a variety of ways that we need to notice the range and ask why it is so wide. The final fact-framing genre of Witches Apprehended (1613) perhaps suggests the simple answer—the desire to entertain. Part of the pamphlet is given over to a humorous anecdote in stark contrast to the frigidity of the rest of the prose. But both produce pleasure, though of different kinds. Witches Apprehended gives its reader the pleasure of rhetoric, the pleasure of moral righteousness with a spice of ‘learned’ Latin, and finally a good laugh. Abandoning his laborious elegance, the writer describes Master Enger’s servants going to market: Being on their way at Milton Townes end they espied a goodly faire blacke Sow grazing, who as they drave their Teame still kept pace with them till they came within a mile of Bedford. Where on a sodaine they perceived her to turne twice or thrice about as readily as a Windmill sayle at worke: And as sodainely their horses fell to starting and drawing some one way, some another: At last the strongest prevailing, they drewe away the Cart, and corne, and left the Wheeles, and Axeltree, behinde them. The horses they ran away with their loade, as if they had beene madde, and the two fellowes after the horses, the horses being affrighted halfe out of their strength, and the fellowes as much madde to see them, downe went one sacke on this side the Cart, and another on that: The horses they ranne as if they would have swelted themselves, and the fellowes after them breathlesse, and sweating to make the wilde Jades stay. All which till the Divell and the Witch had plaide their partes would not serve turne. At last this Tragicke Comedie drawing to an end, they made a stand…139 The pace of this story mimics the horses starting and running, there are few long words, and the comic repetitions of ‘the horses…the fellowes’ build up a picture of conflict and chaos, breathless chase and one disaster after another. The writer imagines the sow as like a windmill sail, a vivid and arresting image, and sees what he is writing as performance, a ‘tragicke comedie’. He is aware of his own artifice and funniness, therefore, deliberately discussing witchcraft as enjoyable gossip, public entertainment. He is not alone in seeing a witchcraft anecdote or a whole pamphlet as a play. The more narrative types of pamphlet often do this, whether in a brief self-conscious reference in Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) to ‘these severall tragedies as they may be tearmed’,140 or, in A Most Wicked worke (1592), to ‘Richard Burts future tragedie’,141 or a heartless conceit of the witch’s death as being ‘the last act of her tragedy’.142 But the author of Witches Apprehended (1613) is the only writer to refer to witchcraft as a ‘Comedie’ and this seems both significant and suggestive of a reassessment of what we think witchcraft was.143 Witchcraft, far from being shocking crimen exceptum, seems the sort of material which can

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be adapted to any context, chosen to be black comedy as well as tense tragedy or earnest debate. This is not a purely Jacobean phenomenon. Richard Galis, who as we have seen takes witchcraft and his pursuit of it extremely seriously, slips at times into what appears to be fierce humour: Consumed with these infinite paines both in body and purse eche night assayled with a newe grief, lothing anie longer to live, seeing that in foure yeeres past, no reformation might bee had for all my complaintes. Leaving my careful bedde, the witnes of my griefe and of my inwarde sorrowe: I made me ready and girding my Skeane [Irish dagger] about my middle with a good cudgill in my hande, I gate me to Farneham to the house of father Roseman, whom furiously pulling out of his house by head and shoulders I charged (not using any daliaunce with me) to tell me my griefes. Who beeing agast at my dealinges, and fearing least that beeing not able to governe mee in my fury, I would strike of his head: Said, O maister you are bewitched, you are bewitched, wherefore looke to your selfe…you have many wicked women in Windsore…Then I bad him tell mee what they were, who aunswered, that their names were Elizabeth Stile, Mother Dutton, and Mother Devell, at which wordes leaving him (not altogether recovered of the feare hee conceived by mee)…144 This account of the forcible consultation of a cunning man has an animated and imaginative relish about it: the entering into the cunning man’s worst fears, the recreation of his hasty and compliant repetition, and the bracketed, pleased reiteration of the gratifying terror inspired. Yet the context is one of self-pitying high tragedy. The 1593 story of 80-year-old Mother Samuel’s attempt to save her life by pleading pregnancy is similarly unreflective about its surroundings, recording how the condemned woman laughed with all the court, mistaking their incredulity for acceptance.145 The pamphleteers seem to expect us to laugh too. Potts’ savagery against Grace Sowerbutts is similarly inviting, and some pamphlets use humour quite comfortably in serious accounts. We cannot always see a joke as destabilising the reliability of an account—sometimes it seems to be used to validate the account, to push home a point by pandering to the prejudices of the reader. In other pamphlets, as we have seen, it is part of a strategy to ingratiate itself with its audience, to reassure and amuse without any need for serious thought. This type of moment shows witchcraft pamphlets genuinely trying to be popular literature, and perhaps it reflects a far more popular view of witchcraft than any of the doughy seriousness with which it has traditionally been associated. The joke which ends The most cruell and bloody murther (1606) is clearly illustrative of witchcraft as the lightest kind of crowd-pleasing humour and entertainment. The confused response to it indicates how problematic we find discourses of witchcraft which are not in the usual vein—this is perhaps the most extreme. Keith Thomas quoted it as factual truth whilst Kristin Jeanne Leuschner condemns it as ‘more appropriate in tone to a jestbook than a trial account’, and sees it as dehumanising the witch.146 It looks unrelated to reality, but fascinating. However there could be a grain of a genuine event in

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it, since the author of the story tacked his joke on the end of whatever facts he had acquired about the crimes of ‘Joan Harrison’ (or Stokes), tried at Hertford in 1606.147 His final anecdote is ‘onely one more’ story ‘among the rest’ about her, he alleges, though but a homely tale, for that it made al the Bench to laugh, Ile record of her, + conclude. How the Witch served a Fellow in an Alehouse. There was an honest Fellow, and as boone a companion dwelling in Royston, one that loved the pot with the long necke almost aswell as his prayers; for (quoth he) as I know one is medicinable for the soule, I am sure the other’s phisick for ye bodie. It was this Fuddle caps chance with 3 or 4 as good Malt-wormes as himselfe, and as sure, where the best lay was to be found, together as 4 Knaves in a payre of cards, to be drinking, where this Witch came in, + stood gloting upon them. Now this Good-fellow (not enduring to looke upon a bad face, but his owne, especially when he is Cupshot) called aloude to her, Doe you heare Witch, looke tother waies, I cannot abide a nose of that fashion, or else turne your face ye wrong side outward, it may look like raw flesh for flyes to blow maggots in.148 This ugly, obvious string of stereotyped characterisation (‘the Witch—a Fellow’), nicknames (‘Fuddle cap’, ‘Malt-wormes’), and insults, creates a low comic intimacy with the reader totally unlike the restrained tone of the earlier part of this pamphlet (which is a conventional list of various attacks), or that of most witchcraft pamphlets. The gossipy voice in Apprehension (1589) is the nearest equivalent, but he does not attempt to be funny. The author here revels in repeating the ‘fellow’s ‘scurvy Jests’, getting more repellently explicit, swearing, ‘God damn him: she would starve ere she should have a drop [of his drink]’, nudging and winking: the end of all drunkards, is either to ming [urinate] or to sleepe. So out goes this fellow, + drawing his Gentleman Usher against a pale side, finds me a top of his nose a red lump as big as a cherry, + in his belly felt such a rumbling, as if the Tower of Babell had falne about his eares: oh the sight thereof drave his harte to an ague, + his tongue to an alarum and out he cries, the Witch, the Witch, I am undone, I am undone: O God, women of Royston, helpe, helpe, the Witch, the Witch, I am a man spoyld, helpe, I am undone. At that word help, the Witch, in comes one of his fellowes runs in hast, + asked him what they should help the Witch? Oh (quoth he) to the gallowes…149 The exotic euphemisms, the vivid outcry, the straight-faced inquiry by the stooge (‘what should they help the Witch?’) are accumulated, so as to reduce the reader to hysteria. This is the best example of the ‘trivia’ about witchcraft which was reprobated by the Warboys pamphleteers in their strictures on ‘every idle wit seek[ing] to blaze abroade their vainenesse’. Here, witchcraft has become another good ‘tale’ among many, blasphemous, joky, and sexually suggestive hack-writing, a good joke to be stretched in length and taste to fit any audience. There is no religious context, no earnest concern for

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truth, no factual responsibility of any kind. But it seems pointless to bewail the fact that yet another injustice is being done to the history of witches. Witchcraft pamphlets can set themselves free from any attempt to reflect realities if their authors choose. The broad range of interesting lies about witchcraft found in trivial pamphlets tells us as much as any other fiction about the society that produced them, and the views of witchcraft it held. It is, however, important to be very precise in trying to define where we think fictions about witchcraft begin. It is perhaps good to accept ‘triviall’ writings about witchcraft as well as ‘necessary’ ones as valid representations of witchcraft, but the dividing line between the two is usually very unclear. We have seen how writers like Richard Galis blur the line, and Witches Apprehended is another good example of a pamphlet where historical events may be the basis of a suspiciously well-crafted narration—or they may not be. One would have to inquire after the Enger family in this case, and equally into the generic inspirations of the euphuist author. Such localised inquiries are a natural development from this discussion. In some cases it is possible to distinguish some of the fact (whatever that may mean when one is dealing with witchcraft) from some of the fiction, and a dissection of A Most Wicked worke (1592) is a useful case study. A case study of A Most Wicked worke of a wretched Witch The author of A Most Wicked worke (1592), G.B. Master of Arts, is a fascinating meeting point of ‘necessary’ and ‘triviall’ discourse about witchcraft. He reports a perfectly plausible witchcraft fantasy conjured up by a Middlesex farmhand, Richard Burt. But he laces his supposed report with untroubled borrowings from a play by Robert Greene. In A Most Wicked worke Richard Burt is presented as a tragic hero—but of a very comic tragedy. He was working in his master’s barn when he saw a monstrous cat being agast [he] start up with his applepie in his hand (for it had byn pittie a poore hungrie thresher should have lost so good a repast) suddenly hearing a voice that commanded him, come away: Away quod he, whither shall I come? The spirit answering againe, sayde: Come and leave thy vittels behind thee and thy knife also. Poore simplicity keeping his applepy stil in his hand came to the barn dore where suddenly he was hoised [sic] up into the aire, and carried over many fields.150 Compare Robert Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay: Enter a woman with a shoulder of mutton on a spit, and a devil… HOSTESS BACON HOSTESS BACON HOSTESS

Oh, where am I, or what’s become of me? What art thou? Hostess at Henley, mistress of the Bell. How camest thou here? As I was in the kitchen ‘mongst the maids, Spitting the meat against supper for my guess, A motion moved me to look forth of door.

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No sooner had I pried into the yard, But straight a whirlwind hoisted me from thence, And mounted me aloft unto the clouds.151 There is the same need to look out of the door, the same immediate result, the same verb ‘hoisted’. Both victims are of low status, simple and comic, and both are occupied with food and memorably bring it with them. The play was performed at the Rose Theatre on 19 February and 25 March 1591/2, while A Most Wicked worke was entered in the Stationers’ Register on 7 April 1591/2, so G.B. may have seen it shortly before writing, or possibly read it in manuscript.152 He imports the humour directly into a supposedly factual and serious account, turning supposedly real people into characters in a drama (just as Greene did, in fact) and labelling Richard almost allegorically as ‘poore simplicity’. His later comedy is even more indebted to Greene. Richard says that: So farre he absolutelie remembreth, but being haled further he was taken (as he seemeth) into a place which was all fire, where was heard such lamentable howling and dolefull crieng, as if all damned fiends of hell had been tortured, and tormenten [sic] in that Limbo.153 Clearly this is Hell, with its fire, howling and torture. Richard saw nothing except the fire, which caused ‘such an unquenchable drouth in his stomache…’ that ‘presentlie minding a pennie he had in his purse: [he] looked round for an Alehouse where he might spend it’.154 At the end of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Miles, Bacon’s scholar (like Richard a comically simple-minded servant), is similarly taken to Hell, and has the same foolish hope: MILES But I pray you, sir, do you come lately from hell? DEVIL Ay, marry; how then? MILES Faith, ’tis a place I have desired long to see. Have you not good tippling houses there? May not a man have a lusty fire there, a pot of good ale… DEVIL All this you may have there. MILES You are for me, friend, and I am for you. But I pray you, may I not have an office there? DEVIL Yes, a thousand. What wouldst thou be? MILES By my troth, sir, in a place where I may profit myself. I know hell is a hot place, and men are marvelous dry, and much drink is spent there. I would be a tapster. DEVIL Thou shalt…155

Miles exits happily to Hell. As Miles asks for an office, so Richard, thinking voices speak to him, answers ‘heer is no worke for me to doo’.156 The Warboys pamphleteers would anathematise any supposedly factual account whose source was in fact a play.157 Stephen Greenblatt has pointed out how useful comparisons of pamphlet accounts of exorcisms

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with plays could be to those who wished to discredit the veracity of exorcists.158 But here the relationship with a stage drama is willingly sought by the pamphleteer who seems, like some of the other ‘triviall’ pamphleteers, completely uninterested in veracity. However, in a final blow to the idea that there is any such thing as a completely ‘triviall’ pamphlet about witchcraft, the story of Richard Burt’s flight is not all fiction—however one defines fiction in a story about flying and a visit to hell. Richard Burt’s employer, Master Edlin of Woodhall, was a real Middlesex landowner. He was Richard Edlin, the lessee of Woodhall, a subsidiary manor near Pinner, from 1553 and again in 1609–10.159 This discovery adds further spin to the perception that in such accounts we are dealing with competing distorted truths rather than a straight split between reality and lies. Barbara Rosen’s attempts to discriminate strike the right tone of balance even though she did not know about the real Richard Edlin or about Greene’s play as a source for A Most Wicked worke: There is no record to confirm this case, and one may feel that the extreme circumstantiality of the title protests a little too much…The introduction to the London edition of Newes from Scotland (1591 or 1592) mentions many false rumours connected with that case, among them one of a pedlar aerially transported by witches from Scotland to France; and Johannes Spies’ Faustbuch, with its aerial voyages, was translated into English and published in 1592. Since witches have not hitherto been accused of this form of transportation in England, this pamphlet seems likely to have been derived from the forementioned sources rather than from fact. However, it is not impossible that Richard, rather than G.B., was influenced by them…it is possible that we have an account in good faith of country gossip concerning a farm-hand’s four-day absence, and his explanation of it. A notable drinking spree, or an epileptic fit with hallucinations could have produced both absence and the disorder in which Richard returned.160 Barbara Singleton was similarly perceptive in being honestly torn between two readings of A Most Wicked worke. On the one hand, as she says, it is ‘superficially…a piece of opportunistic fiction, a story that combined traditional witchcraft myths with hellfire and mischievous devils, all superimposed on a local tale of a farm worker’, but yet, if taken seriously, ‘this pamphlet then becomes a good illustration of how local witchcraft fears were taken up and used in conjunction with personal misfortune’.161 Her confusion is ours. How can we deal with this wonderfully rich text which refuses to be partitioned between history and literature? The discovery of a stage source for A Most Wicked worke (1592) reflects back doubt on to other ‘triviall’ pamphlets and makes it impossible to use as data from them without multiple caveats. But it reveals a fascinating and unselfconscious blending of documented realities and deliberately constructed entertainment in ‘triviall’ pamphlets, which seems a paradigm for many concerns about treating witchcraft pamphlets neither as unreliable fictions nor as factually transparent records. Both these facets tell us about witchcraft— both have their problems as data sources. All this suggests that, despite the initial usefulness of the Warboys pamphleteers’ categorisation of witchcraft pamphlets,

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‘necessary’ and ‘triviall’ pamphlets are not in fact distinct categories of writing about witchcraft and we should try not to think in such terms in future. The very obvious interweaving of seriousness, propaganda, joke and good story in works like A Most Wicked worke, and our ability to unpick them, should suggest that the more open-minded, sophisticated and specific we can be in accepting and analysing the stories which supposedly trivialising pamphlets tell, the more we will learn about both individual cases and the understanding of witchcraft in Elizabethan and Jacobean England.

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5 Prefaces

If witchcraft pamphlets are the diverse and patchworked texts we have examined in the course of this book, then it seems logical to turn finally to the most obvious patch of all, and look at the prefaces of witchcraft pamphlets and the seam between them and the texts they introduce. In ending with the beginning of witchcraft pamphlets, we gain a better perspective on prefatory texts, which are often skimmed over in order to get to the juicier ‘evidence’ for which they prepare us. The prefaces of witchcraft pamphlets are in fact fascinating texts in their own right, and have a unique role to play in our understanding of witchcraft—both in the pamphlets they introduce and more generally. Yet they have seldom been considered individually by scholars. This chapter will look at them as agents which are outside the main texts of witchcraft pamphlets yet which are attempting to shape the perception of witchcraft among pamphlet readers. We have seen what kinds of significance witchcraft had for some pamphleteers and some prefacers (the 1582 prefacer of A true and just Recorde, for example) in Chapter 4. But what did witchcraft mean to prefacers more generally, and how do they use their prefaces to frame the texts of pamphlets? Should we regard these framing prefaces as genuinely helpful in interpreting the texts they introduce, or should we separate them from their main texts as potentially misleading and problematic? First, it is important to note that the prefaces of witchcraft pamphlets are as generically diverse as pamphlets themselves: ‘sermons’, poetry, displays of rhetorical skill, minidemonologies. They range from scholarly discussions of, and practical advice on, witchcraft to inspecific moral exhortations. Religious and moral correctness is perhaps the underpinning concern of most early Elizabethan prefaces, but, far from being boring and predictable, this throws an unexpected light on witchcraft as a sin very like any other—although witchcraft is also discussed in prefaces in this period, perhaps more expectedly, as maleficium or satanic collaboration. Even the blandest generalisations are, however, dangerous. Marianne Hester suggests reasonably that the ‘introductory sections’ of the Essex pamphlets show that they were ‘written as statements against witchcraft’, while Clive Holmes says that the ‘editor emphasises the satanic origin of witchcraft’.1 But the prefaces’ diversity, varied authorship and their relationships with their pamphlets are in fact rather more complex than these brief summaries suggest and there are important developments in them over the period. Second, therefore, there often appears to be no overall ‘editor’ and, although witchcraft pamphlets should certainly be read initially as wholes, it is impossible always to make the connection implied by some writers between a

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pamphlet’s preface and its main text’s content. Alexander Roberts is perhaps the prefacer who is most careful to link his preface with its main text—he was exceptional in using marginal references to tie his introductory ‘Propositions’ to the pamphlet’s story of the witch Mary Smith.2 Far more typical are the prefaces discussed in Chapter 4, whose overt propaganda made almost no impact on their main texts. Another good example would be John Awdeley’s preface to The Exami nation of John Walsh (1566), which spends several pages of venom on popery—a subject which makes only a brief and oblique appearance in the main text. This type of preface might just as well be a completely separate work for all the editorial connection it has with its main text. The prefaces of witchcraft pamphlets, then, usually have a distinctive vision of the crime, but sometimes this does not accord with the view of witchcraft given in the main part of the pamphlet. There are usually several versions of witchcraft in each work. But an apparent lack of unity between preface and pamphlet text should not lead us to dismiss prefaces as irrelevant. Deborah Willis’ description of pamphlet prefaces as a ‘frame story’ is a useful one, implying connection yet separation between preface and main text.3 Prefaces are usually both a valid view of witchcraft and sometimes one genuinely drawn from prefacers’ reading of the texts. Third, then, prefaces and main texts may be intimately linked. This is true of some Elizabethan pamphlets but even more true of Jacobean pamphlets, where pamphleteers have resolved the disunity between prefaces and main text by simply integrating the two. This could be done because the main texts of most Jacobean pamphlets are narrative and not documentary, and they often seem to be by the same authors as their prefaces, being alike in content and style. Thus integration was natural, and pamphlets like The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612), Witches Apprehended (1613), and The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) contain material similar to their own prefaces. Among the details of witchcraft in their main texts appear a discussion, partly from King James’ Daemonologie, of ‘fleeting on the water’, a pious exemplum of the witch’s victim as a ship, and a list of instructive conclusions about God and the devil in witchcraft—the kind of thing also found in their prefaces.4 Jacobean prefaces are undifferentiated from the pamphlets themselves in these three examples, sharing their reflective nature. This eventual merger between preface and the witchcraft material in the main text ought to suggest to us that more often than not prefaces are neither tedious nor irrelevant, but are as important as the main texts of witchcraft pamphlets themselves. This chapter will thus consider prefaces as separable from their pamphlets, but not always separate, and look at their style, form, religious, moral and demonological content in its own right, and see how it interacts with the main pamphlet text. The first section discusses predominantly Elizabethan prefaces, considering their response to the texts they preface and the representations of witchcraft with which they frame them. Some seem unrelated to their texts and also seem not to be about witchcraft. Why? And how should we respond to these? The second part of the chapter looks at four Jacobean prefaces, their different style, genre and role, and how the debate about witchcraft, and its representation, has changed and is still changing.

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Prefaces about witchcraft? Sin, vice and verse Most Elizabethan prefaces look ill-connected to the texts they claim to introduce, but some seem hardly to be about witchcraft at all and could be used to preface any pamphlet about crime or sin. This is, however, a rather negative’ way of perceiving them: perhaps again we have too narrow a view of what witchcraft is supposed to be, and which discourses are appropriate to its discussion. The first preface which introduces witchcraft in a surprising way is the Epistle to the Reader prefacing Examination (1566). It is a kind of sermon, pastorally phrased, vividly illustrated but gentle, with simple vocabulary and theology. A sermonic style might be expected in addressing readers about a matter of godly concern, but the text seems unrelated to witchcraft, a vagueness paralleled in a wandering syntax which Rosen, rather unkindly, described as ‘impenetrable prose’:5 GOD whych of hys singuler goodnesse (as the sage philosopher Hermes hath plainly discribed) to each of his creatures hath added a reasonable soule, which is the chiefe and most excellent treasure that any man can be indued withall: Let us then consider gods inexplycable benefits alwaies of his owne free wyll (and not of our desertes) geven and bestowed upon us, and sith that the soule of man is of great estimation in his fatherly presence, let us endevour our selves to walke, that by continuall exercise of vertuous and holesome documents, I meane not onely by hearing of the sincere veritie: neither yet by much talkyng of the same to heare, and not to hear alwaye is altogether frivolous…6 The writer seems to be working towards a statement that to babble and prate much of Christ and hys gospell…+ to wante the chefest thing, I meane the frutes of well governed conversacion, and to be cleane voyde of integrite, and cleanesse of lyfe, in my judgement and as the sacred scripture verifieth, is nothynge but folly. This is hardly specific to witchcraft. A sermonic exemplum, even labelled as such, follows, adding no relevance but further illuminating the pastoral context of such writing: (example) A tree that is altogether barren, and at the required time destytute of fruyte having a trim shewe of leaves, deserveth to be hewed downe and made meete for the fier: so we wantinge fruites required, but having plenty of leaves be of lyke effect, and for all the outwarde shewe that we have, we shall in the like case be cut downe + throwen into the fyer prepared for the devill and his aungelles, from which (gentle reader) God defende us all.7 In fact the Epistle contains no mention of witchcraft, only hoping that ‘by thadmonition [sic] of this littel boke [we] learne in such sorte to keepe our soules, by fixed and assured faith in Christ, from the stinking puddle of filthy pollution’.8 The preface’s first word is ‘God’, the last is ‘Amen’ and the theology is inspecific, conventional and comforting.

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This preface seems out of place as the introduction to a witchcraft pamphlet. In reading it, should we redefine our view of what witchcraft was, to conclude that witchcraft is representable as a sin like any other, neither crimen exceptum, specially alarming maleficium, nor the worst sin against God? Or should we dismiss the preface as prefabricated hack prose tacked on to the pamphlet because a respectable introduction was required? Both possibilities are equally interesting. What is this witchcraft pamphlet telling us? Equally confusing are the accompanying poems by John Phillips. They might be confusing partly because they are poetry—for, to twentieth-century readers accustomed to factual journalistic prose, poetry seems an indirect and artificial response to news. But Phillips’ poems are more genuinely odd because, like the Epistle above, they are similarly ‘not about’ witchcraft. We need to consider not only what pamphlets think witchcraft is, but what kinds of discourse we consider appropriate to it. Poetry may seem unhelpful as a data source, and bad, highly inspecific poetry particularly so. At first sight, Phillips’ stylistic inappropriateness is thus a symptom of his lack of engagement with the pamphlet’s main text, and witchcraft. Rosen remarks that he lays serious claim to consideration as the worst poet of the entire Elizabethan era, and few would quarrel with his assertion that The dolour nowe so doubtfull is, that skante my warbling penne: Can forth expresse the sence thereof, unto the sonnes of men9 Certainly, Phillips strives gracelessly for a high style. He may also have used irrelevant material from funerary poems, his speciality, to swell his general lament about witchcraft: Drawe nere you patrones with your babes, come viewe this haples happe: In flushing fluddes of fominge teares your tender bewtyes lappe10 Phillips overuses alliteration in such phrases as ‘gredy gulfes of grysly griefe’ and ‘flushing fluddes of fominge teares’, particularly in ‘The Preface’,11 warps his metre with long words (‘Periphrases’12), and scatters ‘learned’ abstracts such as ‘Nimphes’, ‘Belial’ and ‘Dame sorrows seat’13 among tautologies—‘feminine dames’, ‘skilfull skyll’.14 Factual reporting is absent to make way for ridiculously flowery rhetoric. But poetry does not have to report news in this way. For example, in a pamphlet of 1573, prefacer Jude Smith, writing of John Kynnestar’s murder of his wife, uses a simpler vocabulary and a direct style, exhorting us unpretentiously to learn from the events reported:

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Tis better that thou live alone, in peace and so to rest: Then for to greeve thee with thy wife, or yet thy self molest. If this unrighteous persone here, had followed this advise: To slaie his wife from out his bedde, he would not seme to rise.15 The prefacing poet of A Most Wicked worke (1592) also writes directly, and educatively, with a hint of demonological learning in his work, and a demonstrable relevance to the main text of his pamphlet: Of wrathfull witches this same pa[m]phlet tels, How most of all on simple folke they worke. What woonders to they may atchive by spels, God weede them out in every cell they lurke, God weeds them out, but satan stil doth hatch, Fresh Impes whereby of al sorte he may catch.16 The poet generalises about the subject, certainly, but his references to ‘simple folke’ and ‘woonders’ fit perfectly the pamphlet’s story of the magical flight of Richard Burt, a farm worker, unlike Phillips’ elegiac ‘dompes’.17 But despite apparent irrelevancies, all these poems comment on their texts. The two latter do so obviously, but Phillips tells us just as much about witchcraft by not referring to it as he would by producing the hexasticon of A Most Wicked worke. To deny the importance of his unexpected, highly literary, ‘irrelevant’ writing is to look again for data in witchcraft pamphlets, instead of representation, and is rather like criticising Macbeth for unhelpfully oblique comment on maleficium. John Phillips is clearly not Shakespeare, but neither is he Keith Thomas, and instead of noting irritably that he gives us little anthropological data, we should look at what Phillips does have to say about witchcraft. One could argue that Phillips’ work might be as irrelevant as it appears, if it was clear that he had not read the pamphlet. But he had. At the end of the ‘Preface’ he becomes specific: Of late in Chenceforde towne deare friendes, before the noble route. Of Judges just plast in that seate, by our moste famous Queene… The Sessions there by order kepte, offenders to correct Thre feminine dames attached were,

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whom Sathan had infect. With Belials sprite whose sorcery did, the simple so molest: That when they woulde with present death, they were full sore opprest. Phillips’ writing is thus a direct response to the stories told in the Examination. Witchcraft is mythologised as a cruel attack on the simple, changed from an individual story into a categorised event of oppression. It is exactly the same message as that given by the prefacer of A Most Wicked worke (1592)—that witches prey, despicably, on the simple. Their arrest and execution thus appears as a merciful necessity, a public-spirited service performed on behalf of the poor and ignorant by patriarchal magistrates. This is the exact opposite of the traditional view of the prosecution of witches, passionately expressed by Scot, that ‘it is naturall to unnaturall people, and peculiar unto witchmongers, to pursue the poore, to accuse the simple, and to kill the innocent’.18 For Scot the witches are the simple people oppressed by demonic witchmongers—for the two prefacers it is the witches who are the oppressors, with the literal help of the devil, and the simple innocents are their victims. It was very clear to Elizabethan people that someone was being diabolically ill-treated—but whom? In this period it is clearly not the witches, and the issue is laid out in clear emotive language, right versus wrong, black versus white. With this interpretation neatly stated and taken for granted, Phillips promises specific reports on the individual case: ‘Hereafter shall suceede the actes that they themselves have wrought: as they themselves confessed have, to judgement being brought’.19 But in fact this refers to the main text of the pamphlet: Phillips himself is not interested in his poetry in the individuals involved. Totally unlike Scot or Gifford, he hardly notices them. This is partly why his preface seems so irrelevant to its main text: the witches’ social setting is of no interest, not even sensationalism can tempt the poet to discuss and amplify detail to scare or interest his readers, and the tone is a gentle, sorrowful, indignant remonstrance to sinners. Phillips doesn’t see witchcraft as news, crime or problematic factual reality as the documents in his pamphlet, and as other (later) pamphleteers and prefacers do—he sees it spiritually. His lack of interest in detail seems to spring from this viewpoint—he is concerned with spiritual symbolism, not individual circumstances. The ‘Exhortacion’ restates religious truths in a simple, highly memorable way: Behold these acts + scan them well, behold their pervers way: these left ye lord these did his truth which shold have ben their stay. In them such power Sathan had, that Christ they did refuse: his precious blud shed them to save to much they did abuse…

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What tender harte woulde god renounce, who woulde his gospell leave: What godly one would hate his lorde, and unto Sathan cleave. What wight would gods good benefites, so lightly nowe esteme: Which sent his Christ into the worlde, from hell us to redeme. Who by his might did vanquishe sinne, and layed Sathan waste: By whose dere death eternall lyfe, his flocke shall surely taste… Then shall Gods armes be opened wide, us wretches to embrace: And with his sainctes in his kingdome, he will us surely place. To whych kingdome for Christes sake, vouchsafe thy flocke to bringe: That we as thy electes deare God, to thee may prayses sing.20 Here the repetitive form expresses well an outraged simplicity and the obviousness of godly truths. Phillips ends traditionally on a note of hope, as comment merges into prayer, which could be adapted to any pamphlet story. But this ‘irrelevance’ to witchcraft and the main text is actually illuminating. Witchcraft is seen as a sin (and an unexceptional one) probably partly because, in 1566, only three years after Elizabeth’s witchcraft statute, it is not seen as primarily a secular offence.21 This kind of sermonic remonstrance is reminiscent of a church court sentencing a witch to penance. There is no concern with proving a crime, and no engagement with the alleged ‘facts’ of any individual case. Witchcraft is thus, for Phillips, an occurrence requiring no specific analysis. Like John Awdeley and the anti-Catholicism in his preface of the same year, Phillips can make a general point in his preface without the need to investigate, and without fear of contradiction. It was perhaps not until doubts about the reality of witchcraft began to be publicised in later decades that Scot, Gifford and other writers began to focus writing about witchcraft away from sermonic commonplaces, and witchcraft as sin, and instead to look in detail at reported events, at individual stories, and to redefine the nature of events and the roles of the simple victim and the evil oppressor. Comfortable spiritual uplift was thus replaced by the restless analysis of data which we now tend to expect, and the lack of which seems to us to be an indication of careless hack writing. Once it is clear that Phillips’ commonplaces about witchcraft are in fact a carefully considered response, we can see that the ‘irrelevant’ preface-poem, undetailed, uninterested in crimes or individuals, in fact intends to shape our reading of the pamphlet’s examinations in acculturative detail. Like the more obvious propaganda of the

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prefacer of A true and just Recorde (1582) and John Awdeley in Examination of John Walsh (1566), this shaping fails, mostly through lack of integration with the pamphlet’s main text, but it is still important. Phillips represents witchcraft as a paradigm and focus for all other sins, arguing that ‘by witchcraft witches use all evils to sequest’.22 Thus he asks: What matrones harte would hyde the skyll of nature that meke dame: And toyle by such ungodly artes, to extinguishe cleane the same. I meane if God shoulde send encrease, and multiply her sede: Would she frequent it to destroy, by wicked meanes in dede.23 This is linked with the pamphlet’s main text because it prefigures Elizabeth Frauncis’ consultation with Satan about an abortion. However, the link is not made explicit at all. Phillips had clearly read the pamphlet attentively, since Elizabeth’s view of her actions forms that of this poem: she apparently confesses the offence, unrelated to witchcraft except by satanic temptation, because she is being questioned about wrongdoing and adds this to the list of her sins. Phillips fills out the cultural context of the abortion issue, Dame Nature, and the woman’s seed from Genesis 3.15, representing Elizabeth as unwomanly and unnatural, drawing out the subtext of her examination in a way that should be (but isn’t) edifying when we read it. He removes every event from its specific historical and personal context—that context which is now what we find most interesting—and reworks it as a timeless violation of God’s laws, which was what interested him. Witchcraft is just one of those sins. Phillips’ interest in sin per se is demonstrated again in his gloss of the murder of her husband by the next witch, Agnes Waterhouse. Like Elizabeth Frauncis’ case, it is generalised into an exemplary representation: no spoused wife I thinke, her husbande dere would kyll.24 The specifics disappear again. In the legal terms of the rest of the pamphlet, Agnes’ confession of petty treason in her examination is unimportant. We know from legal records that Agnes was not prosecuted for it, possibly because there may have been no other accusations, no witnesses and no evidence in such a private magical matter. But, religiously and culturally, petty treason was of enormous significance, as was infanticide, and Phillips highlights these with simplifying, impersonal couplets: I thinke no tender harte could finde, an infants bloude to spill.25

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Elizabeth Frauncis confessed to killing her own child, but again no indictment resulted. Phillips thus has a source for his moral examples but he is selective in what he uses from that source. For example, he is uninterested in minor malefi cium such as making people ill, which, unlike some of the matters he chooses to highlight, did result in indictments and is usually fascinating to later writers about witchcraft. Artistic filtration of the historical events omits crimes which are not as resonant as others in the moral context Phillips has chosen. Other reported events are distorted to fit the pattern: Phillips turns Elizabeth Frauncis’ confessed fornication into ‘whoredome’ generally and her troubled marriage, which led to mutual ‘swearinge and cursinge’ into:26 Sith this arte doth such yll conteyne, as swearinges manifolde: Let faithfull hartes forsake the same, and fixe on Christ their holde.27 Even witchcraft, supposedly the pamphlet’s main subject, is warped to fit the moral scheme. Phillips represents it only generally as ‘slaughter’ (Agnes Waterhouse was indicted for killing a man) and as something like devil worship, both appropriate to his religious emphasis: Sith Christ the rocke of lasting life, must cleane removed be: And Sathan as the governour, must have the dignitie.28 Witches ‘Christ their guide refuse, And study still the devilles minde’ (A5) whom they ‘serve’. This builds on the satanic references in the pamphlet but distorts them considerably. Finally, Phillips abandons the pamphlet as a source altogether and moralises freely: Let filthy swynishe dronkardes nowe, abhorred in Gods sight: leave of their quaffing in excesse, in modesty delight.29 There is no drunkenness in the pamphlet. Phillips reveals clearly by this addition how he wants to shape our view of the examinations of the witches so that readers notice moral and spiritual failings and draw conclusions from them, which can include a lesson for everybody. Would his readers be left with the impression that witchcraft was a matter for the courts (as in the pamphlet) or the pulpit (as in the prefaces)? Would they understand it as maleficium, sin or devil worship? Phillips’ reading of the witchcraft in the text which he prefaces, a reading which perhaps seems perverse to us, raises questions about how he and his contemporaries saw witchcraft. We usually see individual lives, social malaise, detailed interaction between

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people, and conflict in reading the same examinations, where Phillips saw (or at least which he used to illustrate) only the broad sinfulness of mankind, and especially the sinfulness of women. He found it possible to reduce witchcraft to commonplaces where we examine it as exceptional. Christina Larner called this need for ‘special explanation’ of things we no longer understand a ‘distorting mirror…contemporocentrism’.30 This is a problem of reading for modern scholars: witchcraft must have had a set of associations in contemporary minds now inaccessible to us. Larner says that ‘we cannot see past systems of thought as connected wholes’.31 How can we tell what Elizabethans thought witchcraft was ‘about’ and what discourses referred to it? If poetry is as good as prose and witchcraft is sin as much as crime, perhaps we need to try and understand the ordinariness, unexceptionalness, even dullness, of witchcraft to people and writers like Phillips. Paradoxically, for them it might have been an epiphenomenon, to use Stuart Clark’s term: witchcraft really was ‘about’ something else, part of many other discourses—here, morality and sin.32 This seems to be particularly an early Elizabethan reading of witchcraft, perhaps because it had just emerged from the church courts into the harder light of the secular courts. Witchcraft was still a sin, soft-edged against a background of eternal truths, rather fuzzily defined. Only later does it seem to emerge from this and firm up as a (problematic) subject in its own right. We can watch this process in the next two surviving witchcraft pamphlets with prefaces, both from 1579. The pamphlets, A Rehearsall both straung and true and A Detection of damnable driftes, were both produced for Edward White by John Kingston, and they were entered in the Stationers’ Register on 24 March (Rehearsall) and 15 April (Detection). This closeness of connection suggests that the prefaces could both be written by the same person, perhaps an employee of White, if so.33 Their attitude to witchcraft has changed completely since the prefaces of 1566, and therefore they better suit their main texts because they discuss witchcraft as maleficium and confine their religious discussion to practical advice on what to do about witches, firmly, vividly and directly exhorting the populace to avoid and prosecute them. For example, the Detection says to its addressee: And if in tyme past he hath escaped their Sorceries, let hym not the lesse feare the harmes that maie hereafter ensue…Some with much adoe can be awaked out of their drousie dreames, though thei bee tolde that their neighbours house is on fire. But when their owne walles are invaded with like flames, thei shall finde that it had bin better to have come an hower too soone, to quenche those forrein fires, then to have risen one minute too late to extinguishe the same, creepyng into their owne chambers. If therefore thou be assured that thy neighbour, either in bodie, familie, or goodes is impaired by damnable witchcrafte, or perceivest by information, or other wise ought of suche devises, intended to be practized, or likely presumption of suche Devilishe deedes contrived, for Charitie to thy Christian brother, and tender regarde of thine own state, prevente or stop the mischief by all possible meanes. As for thyne owne parte with praier, and assured faithe in the merites of Christ Jesus shield thy self, so shal neither the Devell nor his Angelles have power, over thee, or thine. Farewell.34

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Their simple vocabulary, direct pastoral tone and readable syntax match the ordinary, worldly setting of the village maleficium described in their texts. These prefaces are far from irrelevant—they seem to spring from the same world as their main texts and, using the same kind of language, try to interpret that world to us. The writer of the Rehearsall, for example, adopts a homely explanatory tone to wash down the providentialism which, for him, explains witchcraft: Among the punishementes whiche the Lorde GOD hath laied uppon us, for the manifest impietie and carelesse contempt of his woorde, aboundyng in these our desperate daies, the swarmes of witches and Inchanters are not the laste nor the leaste…For that old Serpent Sathan, suffred to be the scourge for our sinns, hath of late yeares, greately multiplyed the broode of them, and muche encreased their malice. Both prefacers thus have a firm grasp of providential theory: the Detection comments that the devil works ‘by the sufferaunce of almightie God’.35 Their theories are expressed in punchy, confident sentences, without hesitation or hedging, defining witchcraft clearly as a special subject for the first time in a witchcraft pamphlet preface. Witchcraft is a thing set apart, it has a clear underpinning of demonological theory and it is no longer a simply an ordinary sin. This new understanding of witchcraft prefigures one of the first English demonologies, George Gifford’s A Dialogue concerning Witches and Witchcraftes (1593), strikingly. The first English demonologist is, properly speaking, Reginald Scot (1584) and Scot has the same general ideas as the prefacers about the devil being subordinate to God, but his scepticism would see to it that he rejected with scorn most of their assertions. However, George Gifford is very similar to them in tone, style and thought—the prefacers are somewhere between sermon and demonology, Gifford’s territory. Gifford says: It falleth out in many places even of a suddaine, as it seemeth to me, and no doubt by the heavy judgement of God, that the Divels as it were let loose, doe more prevail, than ever I have heard of. For as men have set so light by the hearing of Gods voice to be instructed by him, they are justly given over to be taught by the Divels…36 The Rehearsall prefacer has Gifford’s clarity, memorable phrases and accessibility on the subject of witches, and even Gifford’s obsession, cunning people. He remarks that by sick people who seek cunning people to cure them, ‘wholesome remedies, provided for the curing of such cankers are never a whit, or not rightly applied’37 and that instead the fondnes and ignorance of many is such that they succour those Devilishe Impes, have recorse to them for the health of them selves or others and for thinges loste, callyng them by the honorable name of wise women. Wherein they know not what honour they doe to the devil.38

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In fact, he concludes, ‘The Witche beareth the name, but the devil dispatcheth the deedes, without hym the Witch can contrive no mischief: He without the Witche can worke treason to muche, to ofte, and to soone’.39 Gifford could not have done better than this pithy summary, either in sophisticated understanding or memorable rhetoric: the balanced rhythm of the opening clauses, the alliteration (‘devil dispatcheth the deedes’), the paralleled contrasts of the last two clauses, with their final wise and sorrowful list. Gifford’s theories can be see here to be in circulation a decade before his definitive expression of them. But Gifford has refined the prefacer’s ideas by his unifying theme of the devil replacing God as teacher and deity. The prefacer is less concerned with the abstract, again appropriately for his role in introducing real case histories. His role has changed completely since 1566, when his kind were abstract moralisers or the authors of religious commonplaces, and instead he has become the rational and incisive analyst of the newly defined subject of witchcraft, and the forerunner of a new breed—the demonologist. The 1579 Rehearsall prefacer has a different motivation from a major demonological writer like Gifford, however: the point of his preface is primarily secular, and not religious. For instance, in one place the prefacer argues, like Richard Galis in his preface and pamphlet of the same year, for stronger law enforcement. Unlike Galis he does not blame magistrates: For albeit the Justicer bee severe in executyng of the Lawes in that behalfe yet suche is the foolishe pittie, or slackenes, or both of the multitude and under officers that thei most commonly are winked at, and so escape unpunished to the dishonor of God and imminente daunger of hir Majesties leige people…If then by the lawe of the Lord of life, Witches, and Inchaunters, are accompted unworthy to live If by the lawe of this Lande, they are to be done to death, as Traitors to their Prince,40 and felons in respect of her highnes Subjectes, whosoever thou be, beware of ayding them. Goe not with Saule the reprobate to aske counsaile of them, neither for Christianitie sake, seeme to be more slack in a good purpose, then Cicero the Ethnique, who plainely adviseth that Witches, poysoners, +c are to be rather shutte up in prison, and tied with fetters, then moved to amende with counsaile, and perswasions, only afterwardes suffered to escape whereby thei may renew their malitious and treasonable driftes.41 Galis borrowed the phrase ‘foolish pittie and slacknes’ from him to describe JPs.42 This skilful peroration, a direct and personal appeal to the reader, combines pulpit exhortation to virtuous living with Ciceronian strategy, working in a classical reference that ingeniously upbraids Christians for comparative turpitude. Its last word recurs in the title of the other work, A Detection of damnable driftes, clearly suggesting a link between the two.43 Both these prefaces directly address the practical problems of witchcraft and, although they have little specific link with the texts they introduce in that they do not discuss individual details in the anthropological way we might desire, they belong to very much the same world of witches, neighbours, under-officers and justices as the legal-documentary-based texts they preface.

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However, the preface to the Detection (1579) has a poetical streak beyond the practical, as well as demonological leanings. It is the first pamphlet to refer to itself as such, and elaborates a surprising conceit, suggesting the literary respectability a prefacer might claim, in literally flowery language: Accept this pamphlet (Christian Reader) view, and peruse it with discretion, and hedefulnesse. No trifles are ther-in conteined worthy to be contemned, nor pernicious fantazies deservyng to bee condemned. But contrariwise in this pretie plot may holsome hearbes of admonitions for the unwarie, and carelesse, a soote flowers to recreate the wearied senses, be gathered. For on thone side the cleare sight maie espie the ambushementes, which Sathan the secret woorkemaister of wicked driftes, hath placed in moste partes of this realme, either by craftie conveighaunces, to creepe into the conceiptes of the simple, or by apparaunt treacherie to undermine and spoile the states of suche as God permitteth him to have power over. And on the other side the eye that is wimpled, may hereby be advertised of the darkenesse, wherewith his understandyng is overcast, and puttyng of the veile of vanitie, maie reclaime his concept, and esteeme of the impietie of the offendours and vilanie of their actes, accordyng to the woorde of God, and waightinesse of the case.44 This, while retaining the tight sentence structure and clear argument of the Rehearsall, contains more literary devices, like Galis’ work: alliteration and word patterning (for example, with ‘contemned’ meaning ‘despise or reject’ and ‘condemned’ meaning ‘to pronounce guilty or morally wrong’) and the extended garden metaphor which slips into one of an open and a closed eye. The metaphor gets tangled, since while the flower-gatherers might be connected to the clear eye which simply needs sharpening, or ‘recreating’ in its ‘wearied senses’, and the herbs gathered might cure the ‘wimpled’ eye, the connection is not explicit. This kind of imaginative exemplum refers the preface back to the oratorical, sermonic genre of Examination (1566), suggesting echoes of the earlier reading of witchcraft. Here, however, we have a preface whose version of witchcraft will comfortably encompass sin and crime, spiritual and practical contexts, and is relevant to its context in a pamphlet preface, addressing the same kind of reader as the main texts. The continuance of the earliest reading of witchcraft in later writing is, however, interesting. Seeing witchcraft as a sin, and writing prefaces ‘inappropriate’ to pamphlets setting it in a legal context, is not a purely early Elizabethan phenomenon. But these later readings of witchcraft, however similar they may appear, are different in their emphasis from the earliest ones examined here. For example, the 1589 preface of Apprehension appears, like Phillips’ prefaces, to be a generalising sermon tacked on to an examination-based pamphlet. But in fact it refers more directly to witchcraft—although the language is sometimes so obscure as to make this a matter of conjecture—and it has a different reading of the subject. It seems to be a preface about sin, as hectoring and puritanical in tone as Examination (1566) was gentle and theologically woolly, and it begins with the same appeal to gratitude:

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If we would call to remembrance the manifolde mercies and innumerable benefites which the Almighty hath and daily bestoweth upon us, in consideration therof, we are bound to with-draw our filthy affections and naughty dispositions, from the use of such detestable dealinges, as both are detested of God, whose almighty commaundements forbiddeth them, and unto man, whose lawes are constituted to punish them as odious before the sight of God…45 The prefacer refers to crime as well as sin, but he continues in religious vein to denounce ‘the blindenes of our estate, the naughtines of our affections, and the desire of our divelish appetites’. We ‘yeeld…our selves serviles unto sathan for a little worldly wealth, or hatred we have to our neighbours’. This sounds like a reference to witchcraft, but is not explicit, and refers to ‘we’, implying both readers and prefacer, not, as in a later reference to ‘devilish practises and abhominations’, ‘their’ (witches’) sins or crimes. The reader’s sinfulness, that of all humanity, merges into what sounds like witchcraft gradually and obscurely, the sin being described as caused by ‘illusions of Sathan’, ‘secretly concealed and used’. But we are distanced from it at last by the statement that the hart of any faithfull Christian [will not] conceale the secrets thereof: which for example I have heere published unto you the discourse of such divelish practises as have beene used by notorious Witches, whose names and actions I have severally touched in the treatise following.46 The treatise or main text, despite the claim by the prefacer to have written it, does not rise to this high moral tone, and seems to have no connection with any of the strictures in the preface. So here there is again the traditional confusion between preface and text about what witchcraft is—any connection is actually far less clear than with Phillips’ prefaces. The view of witchcraft as sin is the same in this work from 1589 as in Phillips’ prefaces. But the 1589 work can also be seen moving towards a different definition of witchcraft within the traditional context. Witchcraft is now seen as a crime (a matter which should not be concealed but reported), and as a special, worse, kind of personal temptation by a much more threatening Satan. Witchcraft theory has moved on from the times when it was seen as one sin among many, and has elevated the act into a crime and a special form of wickedness. The definition increasingly includes legal elements, and personal ones. We seem to be warming up for the writing of new demonologies, and for the possession controversy that began in the 1580s and 1590s. However, in this crucial period, there is a long gap in the writing of prefaces about witchcraft, and when they return they do so with some radically different forms, and a response to witchcraft that is at first clearer but finally becomes more confused. Witchcraft in four Jacobean prefaces: demonology and doubt Jacobean prefaces begin late with The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612), which exemplifies the general change in pamphlet prefaces since Elizabethan times.47 In The

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Witches of Northamptonshire the prefatory discussion of witchcraft has become more like a demonology than ever. But instead of pursuing the religious demonological line it has taken the path towards the secular and scientific. The form is that of a gentlemanly debate about natural science rather than a sermon, and it seems that the demonological genre of prefaces has triumphed over the sermonic. Such prefaces suggest an actual change in the perception of witchcraft—it is no longer seen in simple terms as a sin, but its study is a science. Jacobean prefaces were not, of course, the first to discuss demonology, seeing witchcraft as a suitable subject for detailed consideration. We have already looked at the Detection (1579) and Rehearsall (1579), and writers like the prefacer of A true and just Recorde (1582), while seeing witchcraft as a sin, indeed as apostasy, also discussed in detail its significance and punishment. But their demonology was sketched briefly rather than pursued at length. In Jacobean prefaces, themes are drawn out and points made in careful succession, and the reader cannot help wondering about the direct or indirect influence of the demonological debates which had taken place since the last witchcraft pamphlet preface was written—debates in which 200 or 300 pages would commonly be devoted by each author (John Darrell, Samuel Harsnett) to a discussion of possession. The sermonic impulse has not died out completely among Jacobean prefacers, however—in fact it seems reborn in a more interesting way. But the balance of power has shifted fundamentally since Elizabethan times—religious prefacers are fewer, and sound oldfashioned, while demonological prefacers are, at least initially, free to speculate, illustrate and argue in an informed and a scholarly way utterly unlike the tone of meek pastoral bromide adopted by the earliest prefacers. The other major change is that pamphleteers now seem to be writing their own prefaces—or at least printing prefaces which are fully integrated with their main texts. This gives the writer far more scope to draw conclusions from his material, but also to distort it by using narrative rather than documentary means to represent the case he discusses. Writers can insert their own opinions wherever they see fit, and their prefaces leak into the main texts in a way which is unhelpful to data-seekers but fascinating in terms of the development of a popular demonology. Readers who could not afford, or did not have access to, the demonological greats could pay a few pence to read the theory and digest the examples of the writer of The Witches of Northamptonshire. His work is thus important in considering how pamphlet readers could be shaped in their understanding of witchcraft by a new and more assertive type of prefacer. Ronald Sawyer believed the pamphlet and its preface were by Arthur Johnson, its publisher, but I have found no evidence of this.48 The prefacer seems almost certain to be the author of the rest of the pamphlet as well, however. ‘Both’ writers are aware of demonological debate, talking their way through arguments with an imaginary opponent. The prefacer incorporates his opponents’ points of view into a scholarly demonological dialogue, of the kind used by King James, or Deacon and Walker in Dialogicall Discourses of spirits and divels (1601), challenging himself: ‘some will say, what hurt can grow from this opinion?’ The pamphleteer similarly punctuates his argument with ‘some man will say, what reason is there…’ and ‘Wee may not (I say)…’49 Both pamphleteer and prefacer of The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) write in a direct, inquiring, educated, gentlemanly style, concerned with scientific proofs of borrowed demonological theories, explanations

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for the phenomena of witchcraft, and moral judgements to be drawn therefrom. The pamphleteer writes (quotations from King James’s Daemonologie are in italics): And hereby the way, it is a speciall thing worthy generall noting and observation, that there are two signes or tokens which are tokens as more certaine, then others, to detect and find out Witches by. The one is the marke where the Spirits sucke, and by the trying of the insensibleness thereof. The other is their fleeting on the water. Concerning which though I dare affirme nothing for certainty, there beeing (for ought I know) neither evident proofe in nature, nor revelation from heaven to assure us thereof: Yet mee thinkes I may say the like of this, as is held of the bleeding of a slaine body in the presence of the mu[r]therer. For as in a secret murther, if the dead Carkase bee at my time either seene or handled by the murtherer, it doth streitway gush out of blood, as if the blood should by issuing forth in such strange manner cry unto heaven for revenge for the murthere, God having as it may seeme appointed, that secret supernaturall signe for triall of that secret unnaturall crime, that the blood left in the body should thus appeere and as it were challenge the murtherer, for that blood which hee before had felloniously stollen from the body: so it may bee, that God hath appointed (for a supernaturall signe of the monstrous impiety of Witches) that the Element of water should refuse to receive them in her bosome, that have shaken from them the sacred water of Baptisme, and wilfully refused the benefit thereof by making that breach and fall from God in participating thus vildly with the spirits of Beliall: By whom and in the exercise of which sinne, their hearts are so hardened, that not so much as their eyes are able to shead teares, threaten or torture them as you please: God not permitting them as may bee thought to dissemble their obstinacy in so horrible a crime: No not the women, though that sex bee ready to shead teares upon every light occasion: But to returne to our matter…50 His prefacer writes in the same style (quotations from George Gifford’s A Discourse of the Subtill Practises of Devilles by Witches and Sorcerers (1587) are in italics): To know things aright and perfectly, is to know the causes thereof. A Definition 51 doth consist of those causes which give the whole Essence, and containe the perfect nature of the thing defined: where that is therefore found out, there appeares the very cleere light. If it be perfect, it is much the greater, though it be not fully perfect, yet it giveth some good light. For which respect though I dare not say, I can give a perfect Definition in this matter, which is hard to doe even in knowne things, because the Essential forme is hard to be found, yet I doe give a Definition, which may at the least give notice, and make knowne what manner of Persons they be, of whome I am to speake. A Witch is one that worketh by the Devill, or by some Devillish or Curious Art, either hurting or healing, revealing things secret, or foretelling things to come, which the Devill hath devised to entangle, and snare mens soules withall unto damnation. 52

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They seem almost certain to be the same man.53 The prefacer writes a separate section from his alter ego, representing himself in the new way: as a minor demonologist, investigating witchcraft privately as a scholar rather than preaching the truth from a pulpit. This alters the perception of what a witchcraft pamphlet is for and what witchcraft is. This one accommodates divergent opinions, and shows an author wrestling with the problems of understanding witchcraft, which, for example, Darcey’s prefacer of 1582 did not—it teaches, but also debates with its readership, and presents witchcraft as a complex issue, not suitable for mere condemnation. Witchcraft has become a fully fledged subject in its own right—a sin, a crime, a science. The prefacer goes far beyond the hints of demonology in Elizabethan prefaces, exploring difficult issues in detail, and he strays into ‘scientific’ methodology, considering rational proofs more than scriptural exegetical ones. The passage quoted above has hints of humanism, neo-Platonic seeking for perfection and light, but no God, although it ends with a quote from Gifford. It becomes even more demonological as the writer discusses types of witch and witchcraft, but again the Bible is replaced by human knowledge and commonsense ‘Every man knowes’: The Conjurer, the Enchaunter, the Sorcerer, the Deviner, and whatsoever other sort there is, are indeed compassed within this circle. The Devill doth (no doubt) after divers sorts, and divers formes deale in these: But no man is able to shew an Essential difference in each of them from the rest. I hold it no wise-dome, or labour well spent to travell much therein…Every Man will confesse that the father of lies is not to be trusted. Every man knowes that all his dooings are hidden under coulourable shewes.54 The prefacer, again newly controversial, engages with ‘Oppositors’ who ‘being (I suppose) more precise than wise, standing rather upon the singularity of their owne opinions, then the certainty of Reason or Judgement…remaine yet in doubt whether there be any Witches, or no, or any such spirits, who offer their service unto them, or rather who by fained service doe tyrannize over them’.55 Again it is human authority, not divine, to which he appeals against them: Yet mee thinkes that the common experience, which our learned and Reverend Judges of the Land, finde daily in their yeerely Circuites by the convictions of such offendors, and the plaine and manifest Evidences brought against them, who being in this kinde dangerously infected, have from time to time stood foorth upon their Arraignement…might put it out of question, that some such there be abroad in the world, who by the damnable practise of Witch-craft have sold themselves to the Devils servies.56 Oppositors must doe palpable wrong and open Injurie to the discretions, or consciences of our learned Judges, and the power and vertue of our Lawes, in the execution of

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Justice, making that hated, and unheard off Tyranny, which is done by the lawfull power and vertue both of the Soveraigne, and Subordinate authority.57 If this prefacer is the pamphleteer, then he recorded the witch Arthur Bill’s opinion of the authorities when convicted: ‘he cried out, that he had now found the Law to have a Power above Justice, for that it had condemned an Innocent’.58 Fundamentally authoritarian, the prefacer fears that if witchcraft sceptics are right, then the ‘our learned Judges…the power and vertue of our lawes…the lawfull power and vertue both of the Soveraigne, and Subordinate authority’ will be questioned and maybe overthrown as ‘hated, and unheard of Tyranny’. This prescient fear of collapse and anarchy, and the eventual destruction of traditional wisdom, swirls powerfully in the preface, resulting in eventual resort beyond human authority. While the prefacer argues That holy Wrytte therefore (which makes the Man of God perfect and perfectly instructed unto every good worke) must judge and decide the controversie in this case. Let us then sticke unto the same for testimony and proofe59 in a promise to return the preface to the secure Elizabethan sermon format, he can never return to the safe didacticism of the Examination (1566) or the Detection (1579) because again he refers to the ability of ‘Man’ to attain perfection in perfect instruction, and turns back to intellectual strife. It can be seen how different his preface is from any previous one, and how witchcraft has become a matter of scientific and political concern rather than being easily contained by conventional religion. This preface and pamphlet are newly united in discussion of authority and proof. Even so, given the prefacer’s gesture to holy writ, one would expect him to turn to copious biblical quotation, in the traditional prefatory fashion. In fact his ‘What a Witch is, and the Antiquity of Witchcraft’ contains none, though it does refer to biblical material, in an imaginative historical way. On A3v he did not try to defeat the oppositors by the evidence of the Bible, but by ‘art, and…experience’. This leads me to see him as an experimenter, like Gilbert Pickering in Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593).60 The pamphleteer/prefacer of The Witches of Northamptonshire in fact reports the nowknighted Pickering’s 1612 activities with approval. To ‘trie the said Arthur [Bill] by an experiment’, he was swum with his parents by ‘the Justices and other officers’ before committal. These three, the Father, Mother and Sonne, beeing thus seene floating upon the water, the suspition that was before not well grounded, was now confirmed: Whereupon the said Arthur Bill…was apprehended and sent to Northampton gaole the nine and twentith day of May last by Sir Gilbert Pickering of Tichmash alias Tichmase in the same county Knight.61 This is the same method discussed earnestly by the pamphleteer with quotations from King James’s Daemonologie. The writer and Pickering have a common approach, intellectual more than godly. Pickering, experimenting in 1593 with the victims

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scratching the witch, ‘was of that opinion, that scratching was meerely unlawful, yet the said Master Pickering put his own hand to the childs hand…’62 Scratching was unlawful, as Gifford said, because it was not taught by God, and therefore was a ‘trumpery’ taught and operated by the devil.63 Yet Pickering undertook it because ‘the occasion [was] thus offered by the childe, or rather by the spirit in the child, to disclose some secret’.64 This empirical curiosity wavers towards rejecting divine authority in favour of deductive observation, though rigidly based on given beliefs and hardly ‘inductive’.65 The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) prefacer and pamphleteer are following the same route, suggesting an engaged and independent mind, as does the genuinely modest-sounding admission that expounding the prefacer’s view of witchcraft ‘would aske a greater labour, and perhaps more art, and better experience then I intend, or happily can shew’.66 Prefaces are beginning to get too small for the volume of debate needed for demonological controversy. The preface suggests a gentleman-scholar, expanding the traditional concerns of a witchcraft pamphlet in intellectual scope well beyond the confines of the Elizabethan preface, or its descendants such as the preface of Witches Apprehended (1613). This direct, thoughtful, engaged struggle with the main-pamphlet text is far from the earlier prefaces, which gesture inarticulately to religious convention. It is also sometimes possible that, while these prefaces offer views on witchcraft we should take seriously, they may be there partly because of the necessity for a preface—this preface, however, has a number of definite messages for the reader and intends to educate them very specifically before they can look at the main text. There are, however, exceptions to the trend of expansion and deepening of pamphlet prefaces in demonological directions. The preface to Witches Apprehended (1613) is no more about witchcraft as crime or science than the first ever preface of 1566. The 1613 preface begins: Plinie writes of some kinde of Serpentes that dare not approach the wild Ashtree, nay the sight of it is so terrible to them, that they flie from it, and will not draw neer the shadowe thereof, but if they be walled round with fire, they will rather runne through to the confusion of themselves then endure it.67 From this the preface wanders into religious commonplace like the Epistle of the Examination (1566). The pamphleteer, or possibly the edition of Pliny which he used, seems to misunderstand his anecdote, however, for Pliny says that he has seen serpents and a fire both walled round by ash leaves, who would rather throw themselves into the fire than face the leaves. But here the story is adapted remarkably perversely, with apparently subtextual biblical logic, saying that those who profess themselves Christians should be ‘more provident…then’ (wiser than?68) serpents, seeing sinne like a wild Ashtree grow in the world, and that to lurke under the shadow thereof is a whippe to their conscience, when to feed on the sappe is damnation to their soules, in this onely like Serpents avoid it for the reliefe if their mindes, though with the painefull dissolution of their bodies.

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Usually one would expect Christians to be adjured to flee the fire (hell), and the writer also seems uncomfortable in advising them to be like serpents (‘in this onely’) given the resonances of serpents as subtly satanic, especially when combined with prohibited trees. Yet Christians are deaf (like adders?69) so that ‘neither treasons, murthers, witchcraftes, fires, flouds’ can prepare them for the ‘day of summons’. Like the Epistle of the Examination (1566), this preface would do equally well for a pamphlet about any of these criminal or natural omens. However, despite the old-fashioned content (and the oldfashioned euphuism of its delivery), there is still the other radical difference from Elizabethan prefaces in that this preface is completely integrated with its pamphlet. The pamphlet is a narrative one and contains similar exempla and moral commentary so that preface and main text are alike. The final sentence ‘As shall appeare by this following discourse’ is an unconvincing link with the theme of the main text, but the connection is far stronger than the other witchcraft-as-sin prefaces discussed. Again we must consider the lack of interest in witchcraft as we often define it, and note that this continues even while some pamphleteers are developing sophisticated new responses to witchcraft, but also remember that the form of its discussion has moved on and become fuller, more relevant to the main text, more learned and better expressed. Witchcraft pamphlets seem to be moving upmarket in terms of their tone and style, the expected level of literacy in their readers and the presumption that readers want lengthy introductions and interpretive commentaries with material which once they would have been left to digest in its raw state after the appropriate moral gestures. Readers are trusted less, and they are expected to want guidance in the orthodoxies of a newly complicated field of knowledge —whether that guidance be religious or, more challengingly, scientific. The next preface to discuss witchcraft, The Wonderful Discoverie (1619), tries to combine these approaches. But something has changed. The renaissance of the pamphlet prefacer as demonologist does not seem to last long or produce more than a few examples before it is overtaken by difficulty again. This time the first note of confusion is sounded when the prefacer keenly establishes his credentials in venturing into the complexities of the subject, by listing the reference works about witchcraft he has consulted. Previous writers from both the 1570s and the 1600s had no qualms about echoing the theory of their time and plagiarising sections of major demonologies without attribution. This prefacer is curiously nervous about such presumption. His preface takes a new position on demonology—that it is overly contentious…even dangerous: My meaning is not to make any contentious Arguments about the discourses, distinction or definition of Witchcraft, the power of Divells, the nature of Spirits, the force of Charmes, the secrets of Incantation, and such like; because the Scriptures are full of prohibitions to this purpose, and proclaimes death to the presumptuous attempters of the same.70 The prefacer does not mean to prohibit demonology, listing all the traditional taxonomy (‘Pythonisse…Magi…Chaldei…Genethliaci…Venefici’). He only wishes to suppress demonological dissent:

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both princes (yea our owne learned and most judicious King) Philosophers, Poets, Chronologers, Historiographers, and many worthy Writers, have concurred and concluded in this; that divers impious and facinorous [atrocious, criminal] mischiefes have beene effectuated through the instruments of the Divell, by permission of God, so that the actors of the same have carried away the opinion of the world, to doe that which they did by Witchcraft, for bringing such and such things to passe…71 But there is dissent in his own mind. This confusing sentence is based on a confusing multiplicity of explanations for witchcraft, which the writer tries smoothly to synthesise. A sermonic style would seem to be the natural refuge of the prefacer, if he were worried about the difficulties of the subject. But the traditional simplistic kind of sermon-preface simply cannot answer all the questions involved in the subject, and such are the fascinations and conceptual problems of demonology that the preface in discussing it falls into its own trap and becomes a mini-demonology itself. The prefacer does not know how to discuss demonology safely in the limited space and in the limited context available to him—he is not even sure that the subject should be discussed, since it appears almost blasphemous. But he cannot stop himself doing so, and in entangling himself in this debate he shows the point which prefaces have now reached. Such a prefacer feels obliged to say something about witchcraft, but he is torn between the commonplaces of the old kind of preface and the contentious science of the new. Neither really fits his main text, and the latter demands skill, learning and column inches which he does not, apparently, possess. The writer tries for a middle way and the preface becomes an extraordinary example of a pamphleteer desperately running away from demonology but unable to resist its lure. The pamphleteer’s confused trepidation is probably partly based on the fact that he is writing as a source close to the Earl of Rutland, with whose experience of witchcraft the pamphlet deals. Such a position would mean that the writer had a patron to please, or at least a powerful man to propitiate lest he offend. An inappropriate opinion might thus mean trouble—but failure to discuss the issue in sufficient depth could perhaps be equally dangerous. We cannot know, but we can see that the preface turns into a defensively referenced statement of the prefacer’s position in the current demonological debate, relative to recognisable authorities. First, the writer believes that as for the conceit of wise-men or wise woemen, that they are all meerely coseners and deceivers; so that if they make you beleeve that by their meanes you shall heare of things lost or stolne, it is either done by Confederacy, or put off by protraction to deceive you of your money.72 This is Scot’s opinion, and is preceded by an echo of Discoverie (5.9) in the prefacer’s remark that ‘however the professors aforesaid practise murther and mischiefe, yet many times they Pretend cures and preservation; with many others, carrying the shew of great learning and admired knowledge; yet have they all but one familier tearme with us in English called Witches’. Scot similarly said ‘it is indifferent to saie in the English toong; she is a witch; or she is a wise woman’. The prefacer does not identify his source, possibly

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because of official disapproval of Scot based on King James’s censure.73 The writer has also taken from Weyer and Scot the belief that witches are melancholics, but altered it: there bee certaine men and women growne in yeares, and over-growne with Melancholly and Atheisme, who out of a malicious disposition against their betters, or others thriving by them; but most times from a heart-burning desire of revenge, having entertained some impression of displeasure, and unkindnesse, study nothing but mischiefe and exoticke practises of loathsome Artes and Sciences.74 This second strand of his representation of witches then wanders back into the first, that witches are tricksters, who have a ‘fained reputation of wisedome, cunning’ and are ‘reputed a dangerous and skilfull person’. But in saying that this fained reputation prevails with many, the writer seems to refer also to the witches’ power of deluding themselves, a third idea. He says that these ‘speciall persons are transported with an opinion of their owne worth, and prevailing in this kinde’.75 Their reputation hath so prevailed with divers, that they have taken upon them indeed to know more then God ever afforded any creature, & to performe no lesse then the Creator both of Heaven and earth; making you beleeve with Medea, that they can raise tempests, turne the Sunne into blood, pull the Moone out of her Spheare, and saile over the Sea in a cockleshell, according to the Poet. Flectere si nequeam Superos, Acheronta movebo. If Art doe faile to move the Gods consent unto my minde: I will the Divells raise, to doe what they can in their kinde 76 This quotation from Vergil (with the correct nequeo) was used by Gifford in his 1593 Dialogue (F2v), and the distinction between creature and creator is also reminiscent of his main argument against witches’ magical abilities.77 The prefacer sees the devil as a deceiver as well as the witches, a Giffordian idea (see below) that would resolve his contradiction between real maleficium and false cosenage. Moving to another authority, he says of Mary Smith, whose story he read in Alexander Roberts’ 1616 Treatise of Witchcraft., that she made ‘a vocall contracte betweene the Divell and her selfe, in sollemne tearmes, and such like imposturing filthinesse’.78 But he is unclear: does this imply that Mary or Satan was an impostor? While the writer stresses the ‘monstrous subtilty of the Divell’ in getting witches ‘to give away their soules to bee revenged of their adversaries bodies’, he seems to see witches, and not merely the devil, as able to effect malefi cium: ‘by lamentable experience we know too well, what monstrous effects have bene produced, even to the horror of the hearers, and damnation of their owne soules by such kinde of people’.79 The prefacer, like the Witches of Northamptonshire prefacer, is straying into complex theory, giving an impression of scholarly and gentlemanly erudition rather than pastoral

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authority. He is thus typical of the new kind of prefacer. However, there is for the first time the sense that he is on dangerous ground. All printed theories of witchcraft cannot be true, and synthesising them is curiously unconvincing. But what else can the prefacer do, given that he lacks the natural, untroubled flair of the prefacer of The Witches of Northamptonshire? The prefacer’s reliance on other people’s demonology leads to some new features in the setting of an English pamphlet preface. In describing how the devil facilitates witchcraft the writer incorporates apparently continental demonological sources, in representing the devil as the witch’s lover: no sooner shall such motives poyson the inward conceite or apprehension of such damnable caitiffes: but then steppeth forth the Divell, and not onely sheweth them the way, but prescribeth the manner of effecting the same, with facility and easinesse, assuring that hee himselfe will attend them in some familiar shape of Rat, cat, Toad, Bird, Cricket, &c: yea effectuate whatsoever they shall demaund or desire, and for their better assurance and corroboration of their credulity, they shall have palpable and forcible touches of sucking, pinching, kissing, closing, colling and such like.80 This, unique in prefaces, prompts a further ‘classical’ reference, as much to voluptuousness as to atheism: Ede, bibe, lude, post mortem nulla voluptas. Eat, drink, sport, play and take thy pleasures rest: For after death, who knowes what shall be best 81 The context of ‘that Atheisticall position of Epicurus’ is that witches have no ‘feare of God or Man, knowledge of Christ, hope of redemption, confidence of mercy, or true beleefe that there is any other thing to bee looked after but this present World’. So finally the prefacer returns to half-articulated providentialism with his belief that God will ‘laugh them to scorne, and will by no meanes suffer them to abuse his holy name nor deceive others by their prophane lives any longer’.82 Yet even this contains a suggestion that witches do abuse God, and may not be as tightly controlled by him as Gifford believes. The prefacer seems to aim for an authoritative representation of witches such as those given by acknowledged authorities, but reveals that he is unable to control the implications of such difficult theories, possibly due to the constraints of the preface form on length and complexity. The preface form is getting out of its depth now that prefacers want to make a profound contribution to their readers’ understanding of witchcraft. Prefaces were once spaces set apart from their texts for reflection, more or less connected to the representation of witchcraft in the main text. They could even be skipped as ‘irrelevant’. But now the two are engaged with one another to the extent that the desire to frame the main text has made it all frame and no unmediated picture. Documentary accounts of witchcraft can no longer be allowed to speak for themselves, but prefacers are grappling

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with the contemporary equivalent of nuclear physics when they try to interpret for the reader the stories they tell. Finally, therefore, striving for authority, the prefacer of 1619 gives us a reading list as ‘witnesse’ for his views: that learned Discourse of Daemonologie, composed in forme of a Dialogue, by the High and mighty prince, JAMES by the grace of God, king of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, &c and printed (as I take it) according to the coppy of Edenburgh, 1603.83…a Treatise of Witch-craft made by that learned Mr. Alexander Roberts Preacher at Kings-Line in Norfolke, 1615…a certaine discovery 1611 made by John Cotta Doctor of Phisicke in Northampton of Empericks, woemen about sicke persons; Quacksalvers, and fugitives, whiche seeme to worke juggling wonders84…a Dialogue concerning Witches and Witchcraft [sic], composed by George Gifford, Minister of Gods word in Maldon, 160385…also an ancient discourse of the fearefull practises of foure notorious French Witches, with the manner of their strange execution86…the severall and damnable practises of Mother Sutton of Milton Miles [sic] in the County of Bedford, and Mary Sutton her Daughter who were arraigned, condemned and executed for the same87…1612 the wonderfull discovery of Witches in Lancashire, being 19 in number, notorious for many infamed actions, and convicted before Sr. James Altham, and S.Edward Bromley, Barons of the Exchequer, together with the arraignment and triall of Jennet Preston, at Yorke, with her fearefull execution for the murthering of Mr. Lisker [sic] by Witch-craft.88 For once, we know what a pamphleteer has been reading, and his desire to tell us shows how much prefaces and pamphlets have changed since 1566. The discussion of witchcraft has become a science with an approved bibliography. No more sermonic circumlocution, no more poetry. While many of the writer’s descriptions of his books come from the title pages of the works (the same information and phrases), the comments suggest knowledge of the contents. Gifford’s argument for example is summarised as ‘wherein the cunning of the Divell is discovered, both concerning the deceiving of witches, and seducing of others into many great errors’. Is the prefacer typical in his reading? It is impossible to say; but, if he is, he would only be typical of Jacobean pamphleteers because Elizabethan prefacers are consistently far less complex in their arguments and far less specific in their references to witchcraft. This is a unique acknowledgement of intertextuality, of the new complexity of the representation of witchcraft and of the textual spreading of ideas of witchcraft. It suggests as many problems as it does opportunities for pamphleteers. The nature of prefaces, perhaps also the status of pamphleteers, has apparently changed permanently, but the change is not total. It is more of a negotiation between different forms of writing about witchcraft, and the impression given is of an attempt to reconcile violently dissimilar contraries. Controversy is the most important new aspect of witchcraft pamphlets, with the prefacer of The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) writing against ‘oppositors’, and here the unnamed opposition sounding like Scot, with:

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condemnation of the particular opinion of some men, who suppose there bee none [no witches] at all, or at least that they doe not personally or truely effect such things as are imputed unto them, and which out of some dangerous impression of melancholy, vaineglory, or some other diseased operation, they assume to themselves by reason of a former contract with the Divell89 and an assertion that the prefacer has published his account to counter opinions that ‘woemen confessed these things by extreamity of torture’. The prefacer also attacks those who ‘bring in question the integrity of Justice’ rather than ‘such horrible offendors’.90 At last, the prefacer takes a line of less resistance, but which is completely incompatible with most of what he has just said. He returns to the safe sermonic providentialism of his predecessors. He urges readers to ‘take heede how thou doest either despise the power of God in his Creatures, or vilipend [despise, vilify] the subtilty and fury of the Divell, as Gods instrument of vengeance’.91 He tries to close debate in a conclusion, the only one of the Elizabethan and Jacobean pamphlets to do so: What now remaines (gentle Reader) but for thee to make use of so wonderfull a Story, and remarkable an accident, out of which, to draw to a conclusion, thou maist collect these particulars. First, that God is the supreame commander of all things, and permitteth wonderfull actions in the World, for the tryall of the godly, the punishment of the wicked, and his owne glory: of which man shall never attaine to know the reason or occasion. Secondly, that the Divell is the meere servant and agent of God, to prosecute what-soever hee shall command rather then give leave unto…Thirdly, that God hath punishments, ad correctionem, that is to say chasticements of the godly…Fourthly, that this Divell, though he bee Gods Instrument, yet worketh altogether by deceit…Fiftly, that the wicked (however they may thrive and prosper for a time) yet in the end are sure to be payed home…Sixtly, that Man in his frailty must not presume of prosperity; but prepare a kinde of stooping under the hand of God, when it pleaseth him to strike or punish us. Seaventhly, that there is no murmuring nor repining against God…Eightly, that the punishments of the wicked are so many warnings to all irregular sinners to amend their lives…Ninthly, that though man could bee content to passe over blasphemies and offences against the Statutes of Princes, yet God will overtake them in their owne walks, and pull them backe by the sleeve into a slaughterhouse, as here you know the evidences against these people tooke life and power from their owne Confessions. Tenthly, and last of all, that private opinion cannot prevaile against publique censures…Therefore though it were so, that neither Witch nor Divell could doe these things, yet Let not a Witch live, saith God, and Let them dye (saith the Law of England) that have conversation with spirits, and presume to blaspheme the name of God with spels and incantation. O then, you sonnes of men, take warning by these examples…92 But most of these conclusions are not collected out of the story or the earlier argument, but tacked unconvincingly on to it. This is the kind of statement made in early prefaces, a

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view of witchcraft complementing but not intersecting with the pamphlet contents. But prefaces are now sites of controversy, tailing off into loose ends and the hardly distinguished main text rather than satisfyingly definite perorations. A conclusion is needed to tidy up after this troubling text, rather than a clear statement being made before it and then being comfortably forgotten. This 1619 preface and that of The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) indicate more clearly than any demonology how complex a subject the study of witchcraft was and is, and how eclectic, confused and sometimes self-contradictory might be the understanding of it among even literate men and competent pamphleteers. What do pamphleteers believe about witchcraft? Providentialism seems almost universally accepted among prefacers as a safe position to take up in print. But biblical quotation or religious commonplace seem to have become inadequate in debating witchcraft even at this supposedly popular level. They offered no fixed meaning for propagandist or debating purposes, as the Darrell controversy, as well as Scot, had amply illustrated.93 The Jacobean prefacers discussed here seem to have abandoned accepted religiosity for genuine intellectual engagement with the witchcraft debate, citing empirical experiments, secular treatises, historical knowledge of witches and classical (pagan) poets. Individually some of these things are not new. Indeed, as we have seen, earlier prefaces such as the Rehearsall (1579) and the Detection (1579) are flexible, direct and concerned with far more than just religion, but together they are strikingly different in tone from the earlier prefaces. The meaning of witchcraft seems to be widening in pamphlet prefaces—to be up for grabs in some ways in a new non-religious discourse— and the new tone is one of dissatisfied questioning. This divergence of the witchcraft debate among pamphleteers from the safely holy into intellectual controversy is pointed to by the last prefacer who seriously discusses witchcraft, because his aim is again to avoid such ‘meddling’. Henry Goodcole writes his 1621 preface with apparently genuine trepidation ‘knowing the diversitie of opinions concerning things of this nature, and that not among the ignorant, but among some of the learned’.94 For this reason he states unequivocally: ‘It is none of my intent here to discusse, or dispute of Witches or Witchcraft, but desire most therin to be dispensed withall’. In Goodcole the protestation made by the prefacer of The Wonderful Discoverie (1619), in saying he had no intention of arguing contentiously about witchcraft, is fulfilled. The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) prefacer in fact plunged readily into debate. Goodcole’s 1621 Wonderfull Discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer humbly remarks that pamphlets are not the place for such contentious and serious issues, since ‘in such a little Treatise as this is, no matter that can be effectuall therein [in discussing witchcraft] can pe [sic] comprised, especially, in so short a time of deliberation, as three or foure dayes’.95 This modesty is surprising, given the high aims of the two previous prefacers. Does it suggest a fear of debate? I think it does—a fear which will be discussed further in my Conclusion. Goodcole commits himself instead to reporting ‘matter of fact’ to ‘Christian Readers’, which he imagines hopefully is separable from demonological theory.96 Given his defensive tone, his projected audience might include people with strong opinions to the contrary, and indeed his pamphlet is full of hotly debated material: burning the witch’s thatch, her relationship with the devil, her Latin prayers. But he presents himself

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as a blameless reporter, attacking instead the obvious lies of ‘base and false Ballets’ and ‘lewde Balletmongers’, a genre (he probably hopes) self-evidently even less suitable for the complexities of demonological debate than his pamphlet, and which will draw any attack away from him and his chosen form.97 He returns anxiously to the sermonic form of preface, situating himself in a religious discourse from the title page onward by describing himself as ‘Minister of the Word of God’, heading his preface ‘The Authors Apologie to the Christian Readers, who wisheth to them all health and happinesse’, and signing it as ‘your well-wisher in the Lord Jesus’.98 He has made the preface’s piety the tone of the whole pamphlet, as Jacobean pamphlets always unify their prefaces with their main texts. Thus his pamphlet constantly refers back to witchcraft’s satanic origin: the witch’s spirit is always called ‘the Divell’, her victims described as ‘Christians’.99 The pamphlet’s purpose is to moralise the issue of swearing and blasphemy, as the witch was ‘cursing, swearing, blaspheming, and imprecating’, which ‘was the occasioning cause, of the Divels accesse unto her’,100 and Goodcole remarks a wonderfull warning to many whose tongues are too frequent in these abhominable sinnes; I pray God, that this her terrible example may deter them, to leave and distaste them, to put their tongues to a more holy language, then the accursed language of hell. The tongue of man is the glory of man, and it was ordained to glorifie God…101 There is also a marginal note here identifying the key word as ‘blaspheming’, and the ‘conclusion’ is devoted entirely to an exhortation against ‘oathes…imprecations… abhominable wordes’.102 This pamphlet and its preface deliberately eschew controversy and return to the safe format of the past, daring to draw no conclusion about witchcraft. The idea of the witchcraft pamphlet preface seems in a way to have come full circle: from bland sermon, through increasingly practical investigation, to demonology, a recognition of its dangers, and back to the safety and silence of the religious and moral commonplace. Yet a great deal has also changed: Goodcole is the author of the entire pamphlet and each section thus sings the same tune about witchcraft. Gone are the documents of the early pamphlets, and here Goodcole is manufacturing his own report of witchcraft with appropriate marginalia and coercive commentary. The uncertainties of method and tone in the later prefaces suggest that prefacers were getting out of their depth in a debate with increasing complexity and significance. Early prefaces avoided this by referring safely to witchcraft as sin, or as God’s providence, or as maleficium. Whether they reflected the view of witchcraft in their main texts was not particularly important. But by Jacobean times it was necessary for the prefacer to edit his main text himself. Why this should be remains a mystery. Were documents no longer leaking from the legal system into print except in highly controlled circumstances such as the 1612 Lancashire case? Was witchcraft too controversial a subject to be set out in print unfiltered? Did pamphleteers become more gentlemanly; rather authors or journalists than mere compiling hacks? Whatever has changed, the last prefacers discussed all felt compelled to create a detailed personal representation of what witchcraft meant, Goodcole highlighting this compulsion by attempting miserably to evade the complexities

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of the new way chosen by the other two. The result is accounts where prefacer has become pamphleteer and the representation of witchcraft has changed from clear and unambiguous statements about sin or maleficium to demonological investigation, or severe reaction against it. Witchcraft has become a serious study rather than a simple presentation of documented truth. Prefaces are part of this development in the way in which witchcraft was seen and presented, and when witchcraft pamphlets suddenly cease production in the 1620s it is partly because of the problems created by their need to initiate or respond to the changing view of witchcraft in print. Now that we have looked at all the components that make up the witchcraft pamphlet, and we have watched it develop from a collection of documents with a brief ‘thought for the day’ attached, into a demonological narrative form, it is time to look at its decline. What happened, why, and what effect did this have on the way in which witchcraft was represented as the demonologist King James’s reign drew to its close?

An Open Conclusion, or ‘Where do we go from here?’ 1

The decline of the witchcraft pamphlet This book has asked questions about how we should read witchcraft pamphlets and records, and has answered some of them. We have looked at all the known surviving Elizabethan and Jacobean witchcraft pamphlets, the last in 1621. However, after 1621 few pamphlets were produced until the Civil War. Some earlier works were reprinted, some Continental cases reported, Richard Bernard wrote his Guide to Grand Jury Men and Dr Lambe’s case received attention.2 But from 1621 to 1643 no new English witchcraft pamphlet appeared. Accounts such as Edward Fairfax’s account of the possession of his daughters (1621) and the Lancashire case of 1634 were not printed. Why did witchcraft pamphlets cease being produced in the 1620s/1630s? J.A.Sharpe suggests that prosecutions were at a very low level by 1620 and witchcraft was ‘a dying subject’ because it was no longer taken seriously by the authorities or educated people.3 He says that ‘England may well have been ready to join those other Western European countries where witchcraft was at best of little more than peripheral concern both to the learned elite and to the criminal justice system’.4 But in researching this book a striking pattern emerged which may add to our understanding of the dip in interest in the 1620s by focusing on the almost complete cessation of publications on the subject. This is the relationship between possession and witchcraft pamphlets. Sharpe noted that scepticism grew in the 1620s/1630s and because of mass trials witch hunters were distrusted as ‘enthusiasts’ by the 1660s,5 while Walker believes that earlier possession cases damaged belief in witchcraft in the same way.6 In fact the relationship between well-publicised possession cases in pamphlets and the decline of witchcraft pamphlets is clearly visible, very precise, and backs up Sharpe’s and Walker’s perceptions in that interest in printing works on witchcraft falters when it becomes controversial. Once the subject was no longer discussed in print in the traditional, home-grown way by English theorists and based on cases in English villages and towns, it was, first, no longer available to a wide audience and, second, such works could not be cited as validating continued belief in witches as they often were in Jacobean pamphlets and demonologies.7 Accounts from Loudun and Prague, especially alleging the murder by Bohemian witches of eighteen and nineteen spouses, respectively, would not carry the same conviction as a case from St Osyth or Exeter.8 Thus a decline in publication could be the cause as well as the effect

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of the growing scepticism described by Sharpe, and this cause is directly linked to the publication of possession pamphlets. The suppression of and disbelief in possession pamphlets also may have cut off the ‘oxygen of publicity’ for witchcraft. If there are no witches in a possession pamphlet, or their role is hardly discussed, the genre ‘possession pamphlet’ is separable from the genre ‘witchcraft pamphlet’. Some possession pamphlets, however, are also witchcraft pamphlets: Galis’ Brief Treatise (1579), Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) and The most wonderfull and true storie (1597). Here I have considered all pamphlets where the symptoms of possession (fits, visions, trances, convulsions, hearing or voicing of spirits) occur, as ‘possession pamphlets’, including obsessions and pseudo-possessions (where no spirit is identified but the disease is considered unnatural beyond the usual results of maleficium, and devil-/witch-inflicted). Within witchcraft pamphlets, the increasing interest in stories of possession is another strand in the development from predominantly documentary to predominantly narrative accounts. Possession cases are almost always told exclusively as narratives. The earliest recorded published possession is in The Copy of a Letter Describing the wonderful woorke of God in delivering a Mayden within the City of Chester, from an horrible kinde of torment and sicknes (1564) by John Fisher. This letter tells the story of Anne Mylner, who for no apparent reason was cast into fits and trances, with heaving belly, mysterious swellings in the chest and throat, unnatural strength and inability to eat or walk. She was cured by God working through a preacher, John Lane, who believed her to be possessed, although the pamphlet takes care to distance him from the girl’s neighbours, who suggest that she is ‘possessed wyth spirits as in times past’ and who may be ‘of that religion, as in these dayes seeke myracles to confirme Gods woorde’.9 The story is told chronologically, as a narrative, and possession pamphlets from Edward Nyndge’s A booke declaringe the fearefull vexasion of one Alexander Nyndge (?1573) onwards adopt the same format. Stories of pseudo-possession and witchcraft accordingly fit the narrative—rather than the documentary-based pattern of pamphlets: Galis (1579), Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) and The most wonderfull and true storie (1597). The growth in the number of possession pamphlets from 1593, which Rosen dates as ‘the beginning of the tendentious, deadly serious literature of possession which swamps the market for years to come’, seems likely to have affected the style and content of witchcraft pamphlets too. If it had, one would expect it to lead to more use of narrative in witchcraft pamphlets (which we have already seen); more controversial themes for witchcraft pamphlets (which we have seen10), since Rosen says of possession literature that ‘most of it is propagandist in intent’; and a higher class of author (which we may have seen). Rosen also says of post-1590 pamphlets ‘attention shifts from the witch’s actions, and the witch’s trial to concern with the behaviour of those about her; the reader is now expected to feel himself involved with the sufferers’.11 This in fact applies also to all possession pamphlets, pre- and post-1590, and suggests to me that the concentration on victims in witchcraft pamphlets post-1590 may have its roots in possession pamphlets. The more the writer wishes to elaborate on the victim’s sufferings, the more a narrative approach is necessary. Legal documents are not full or long enough and are uninterested in repeating details. Controversial opinion also demands lengthy argument or very full narrative proofs, and the demands made by the subject as well as the high status of victims might lead to a better-educated author class.

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Thus growing debate about possession may affect witchcraft pamphlets after possession pamphlets have been stamped out. The first suppression of possession pamphlets occurred in 1602–3. During the possession-and-publishing frenzy lasting from the publication of The most wonder full and true storie (1597) to Samuel Harsnett’s unanswered last word on possession A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures (1603), no witchcraft pamphlets were published. The only reference to witchcraft came in the stories of Doll Barthram and Anne Kerke appended to the Triall of Maist. Dorrell (1599), and in passing in the cases of Thomas Darling, William Somers, and Darrell’s other patients, and Mary Glover.12 And witchcraft pamphlets did not re-emerge until 1612, except for the material inserted into The most cruell and bloody murther (1606). When witchcraft pamphlets returned, they did so with elements of possession still in them. The case of Mrs Belcher and Master Avery in The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) is implicitly a possession case, but apparently dares not be identified as such. Even John Cotta, whose discussion of the case of a gentlewoman in his Triall of Witchcraft (67) is supposed to refer to Mrs Belcher, does not speak of it as possession. But the convulsive fits and visions experienced by the victims are a kind of possession (revealed even more clearly in the MS dealing with the case). The affliction of the old servant of Master Enger’s in Witches Apprehended (1613) is like possession in that he is struck down, tempted in a vision, tried and cured by God. But witchcraft pamphlets no longer discuss possession. It was not until nine years after the end of the possession fracas that witchcraft pamphlets began to be produced in the sort of numbers they had been published in before possession ‘swamped the market’ (as Rosen said). It is as if possession invaded the limited space devoted in pamphlets to discussing witchcraft and the supernatural, merged with the witchcraft pamphlet and, making its subject controversial, temporarily destroyed it. The (narrative) form of the possession pamphlet remained the form of the witchcraft pamphlet when it re-emerged, almost wholly separated from the possession pamphlet, as a safe and readable discourse again. Potts’ Wonderfull Discoverie (1612) is the only exception, harking back to the days of documentary, not argumentative, proof, and enabling us to hear the less mediated voices of witches once again. Goodcole’s The wonderfull discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer (1621) plays a similar but more problematic role. But possession pamphlets returned in 1622 with The Boy of Bilson, an officially sanctioned rebuttal of Catholic exorcism containing the mutilated text of an account prepared (the pamphleteer, Richard Baddeley, alleges) for manuscript distribution by the exorcists.13 This is a controversialist pamphlet, containing examinations of the victim, and of a recusant gentleman who was asked to help distribute the account (thus, some documents), and twenty-three ‘Advertisements’ attacking Catholicism and exorcism. At the same time, Edward Fairfax wrote his unpublished and self-justificatory account of the reality of possession in 1621. From this bout of controversy it is noticeable the witchcraft pamphlet did not return. Is this timing coincidence? The last surviving Jacobean witchcraft pamphlet,14 and the last new one for twenty-two years,15 was Henry Goodcole’s The wonderfull discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer (1621). It may explain for itself why witchcraft pamphlets died out in the 1620s. Goodcole stresses his reluctance to write, which is not unusual with him,16 but there is a note of panic in his voice:

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The Publication of this subject whereof now I write, hath bin by importunitie extorted from me, who would have beene content to have concealed it, knowing the diversitie of opinions concerning things of this nature, and that not among the ignorant, but among some of the learned. For my part I meddle here with nothing but matter of fact, and to that end produce the testimony of the living and the dead, which I hope shall be Authenticall for the confirmation of this Narration, and free mee from all censorious mindes and mouthes. It is none of my intent here to discusse, or dispute of Witches or Witchcraft, but desire most therin to be dispensed with all.17 There is more than conventional modesty in this disclaimer of intent. It takes up the whole of the first page of the pamphlet. Goodcole sees the discussion of witchcraft as ‘meddling’, leading to censure. He wants to be ‘free’ from this, ‘to be dispensed’ with it, and to ‘conceal’ anything that might bring about controversy among those with a ‘diversitie of opinions concerning things of this nature’. This phrase must include matters magical, and in this period that must include possession. We recall also the penultimate witchcraft pamphlet, The Wonderful Discoverie (1619), saying, on his first page, as his first line: My meaning is not to make any contentious Arguments about the discourses, distinction or definition of Witchcraft, the power of Divells, the nature of Spirits, the force of Charmes, the secrets of Incantation, and such like; because the scriptures are full of prohibitions to this purpose, and proclaimes death to the presumptuous attempters.18 The first thing late Jacobean witchcraft pamphleteers think of is the absolute necessity of not being ‘contentious’. This one even fears death as the result in an illogical and convoluted way. He discusses many previous writers on witchcraft (King James, Gifford, Cotta) with approval, yet fears demonology. He is anxious not to add to their number and almost seems to include them within the ranks of the ‘presumptuous attempters’. In a similar move to elude the demonological, witchcraft pamphlet genre, Goodcole’s pamphlet should perhaps be seen in the context of his string of morality, crime and religion pamphlets, hiding witchcraft among other crimes and other debates. Witchcraft is no longer a matter which can stand alone in a pamphlet, although whether this is for commercial, ideological or political reasons, or related to the development of news, is unclear. Interest in witchcraft had waned, as Sharpe shows, but from the evidence of possession and witchcraft pamphlets this loss of interest may have been, paradoxically, a result of too much interest in controversial forms of witchcraft, and forbidden forms of writing about it. Earlier writers began by discussing God, Pliny or their patron, secure in the knowledge that their genre was mainstream, safe, approved of. By the later Jacobean period this assurance has disappeared, and witchcraft pamphlets disappear with it.

AN OPEN CONDUSION 183

Some final questions Witchcraft pamphlets from 1566 (the first) to 1621 (the last of our period) are, then, a very rich and complex source of information about witchcraft, the ways in which it was constructed by Elizabethan and Jacobean people, and the ways in which they recorded it. The abrupt disappearance of witchcraft pamphletes only adds to the air of fascination and frustration that surrounds our reading of them. It is time to sum up the ways this book has suggested we should approach this difficult source. In view of the suggestive rather than prescriptive nature of the book, this is perhaps best done as a list of questions: Trial accounts • Who wrote the account? (tone, access to documents, legal knowledge) • Are the tone and the diagnostic levels of access to events and knowledge constant? Is there more than one author? • Was he/were they at the trial? (description of courtroom scenes, procedure) • Where do specific pieces of information come from? (names, committing magistrate’s name, dates, plea, evidence, anecdotes, verdict, sentence) • Are the sources written or oral? (tone, date) • Did the author(s) have access to pre-trial documents? Why, and who from? • Did the author(s) understand the minute detail of the legal process, or make obvious mistakes? • Does each author report what he does understand of the legal process accurately? If not, why not? • What is the author’s potential propagandist viewpoint? Pre-trial documents Whose version of events are we reading? (witch, magistrate, victim, clerk…) How many mediating interpreters are between the reader and the words of the witness or witch or other narrator? (reporter, editor, printer…) How might the context in which the account was produced affect its content?

Generic questions In what genre is the pamphlet? Is this constant? If not, why not? What effects do the genre, tone and style have on the way the reader views witchcraft? What function does the preface have? What is the prefacer’s view of witchcraft?

184

AN OPEN CONCLUSION

If these questions were asked of every account of witchcraft from the early modern period, our understanding of witchcraft would be much more complex and fluid than at present. In some ways this would be unhelpful, trapping witchcraft scholars even more tightly in the web of sometimes unanswerable questions and endlessly unravelling conclusions, which already constitutes the study of witchcraft. But the more specific our knowledge of our sources, the better we will be able to judge what we read about witchcraft.

Appendix 1 sources for patterns of questioning

Only the earliest examinations were used to trace questioning, since subsequent examinations might be gaol examinations, or produced under different circumstances with questions exploring earlier findings. The examinations used are: Frauncis 1566, A.Waterhouse, J.Waterhouse (Examination 1566), Fraunces 1579 (Detection 1579), Kempe, Newman, Bennet, Glascock, Hunt, Sammon, Pechey, H.Celles, C.Celles, Manfield, Grevell, Ewstace, Heard, Robinson (A true and just Recorde 1582), Cunny, Upney, Prentice (Apprehension 1589), Demdike, Chattox, A.Device, J.Device, E.Device (Potts 1612), Baker, Willimot, Green (The Wonderful Discoverie 1619). I have excluded examinations of M. and P.Flower—probably gaol examinations, since they were arrested at Christmas and the examinations are in January and February (The Wonderful Discoverie 1619 D2v and F3-Gv). The Devices’ examinations were fragmented in printing (see Chapter 2), and are unreliable. The other excluded examinations are gaol ones of E.Stile (Rehearsall 1579), and E.Sawyer (Goodcole 1621), while church court examinations are of J.Walsh (Examination of John Walsh 1566) and A.Samuel (although one is a hybrid secular document: The most strange and admirable discoverie 1593), and informal or informally reported examinations are of four Windsor witches (Galis 1579), C.Arnold (A World of Wonders 1595), A.Gooderige and E.Wright (The most wonderfull and true storie 1597), M.Smith (Roberts, Treatise of Witchcraft 1616).

186

Appendix 2 A Rehearsall both straung and true, the Windsor witches and the Privy Council

There are several discrepancies in the account of events given in the Rehearsall (1579), which in effect disguise Privy Council involvement. The Privy Council letter is dated 16 January 1578/9, while Elizabeth Stile’s gaol examination is dated 28 January. It is described as being taken ‘immediately after hir apprehension’ (A4). But this seems unlikely: the Privy Council letter mentions that the Council have already considered elements of some witches’ examinations before 16 January, and any witches dangerous enough to be reported to the Council would hardly have been left at large afterwards. Besides, it is said that she was brought before a JP and ‘thereupon committed’ (A4), as usual with felony suspects, not bailed. The letter is addressed to Sir Henry Nevell, who examined Stile and committed her (A4), suggesting that it was his preliminary examination of her that the Privy Council had seen. Nevell had been aware of her supposed activities with the same group of witches for years (see Galis 1579) for an account of their contacts), and even if the pamphlet is wrong in stating that the other witches were apprehended on Stile’s evidence in the 28 January examination (B2v—but the council had considered the examinations of other ‘wiches’ by the 16th) it seems likely that Stile would have been in gaol before 28 January, as one of a known group of suspects. This is confusing, but it suggests that the document printed in Rehearsall (1579) is not a preliminary examination but a gaol examination, that it may have been prompted by the Privy Council letter, and that political involvement was concealed—possibly by reordering events, but certainly by silence. See Rosen 83 and Acts of the Privy Council of England, ed. J.R.Dasent. New Series. 32 vols. 1890–1907 (1895; Nendeln/Liechtenstein: Kraus, 1974), vol. 11 22.

188

Appendix 3 Murder pamphlets

This observation is based on a reading of a selection of murder pamphlets from the 1570s to the 1630s in which I found no legal documents, though several supposedly verbatim confessions: A true reporte (1573), A briefe discourse of the late murther of master George Saunders a worshipfull citizen of London (London, 1573), Arthur Golding, A true report of the late horrible murther committed by William Sherwood, Prisoner…(London, 1581), A Briefe discourse of two most cruell and bloudie murthers, committed both in Worcestershire…(London, 1583), The Most horrible and tragicall Murther of the right honorable, the vertuous, and valerous Gentleman, John Lord Bourgh… (London, 1591), The manner of the death and execution of Arnold Cosbie…(London, 1591), The trueth of the most wicked and secret murthering of John Brewen, Goldsmith of London, committed by his owne wife…(London, 1592), The Examination, confession and condemnation of Henry Robson, Fisherman of Rye, who poysoned his wife…(London, 1598), The Manner of the Cruell Outragious Murther of William Storre, Mast. of Art, Minister… (Oxford, 1603), Two most unnatural and bloodie Murthers. The one by Maister caverley, a Yorkshire Gentleman…the other by Mistris Browne and her servant Peter… (London, 1605), A True Relation of the cruell Murthering of a young Boy, not fully three yeares olde, whose Sister likewise had her tongue cut out…by a woman called Mother Dell… (London, 1606), The Apprehension, Arraignement and execution of Elizabeth Abbot, alias Cebrooke, for a cruell and horrible murther… (London, 1608), The crying Murther: Contayning the cruell and most horrible Butcher of Mr. TRAT, Curate…(London, 1624), Goodcole Heavens Speedie Hue and Cry (1635), Londons Cry (1619), Adultresses Funerall Day (1635), Natures Cruell Step-Dames (1637). Sandra Clark agrees murder pamphleteers are interested in tale-telling not facts 106. See also Peter Lake, ‘Deeds against Nature: Cheap Print, Protestantism and Murder in Early SeventeenthCentury England’, Culture and Politics in Early Stuart England, eds. Kevin Sharpe and Peter Lake (Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1994) 257–83.

190

Notes

Introduction 1 Original spelling of names, and in quotations, is used throughout, but place names have been modernised. 2 Thomas Potts, The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster (London, 1612) R4. 3 See Chapter 2 for a full exploration of this case. 4 Potts (1612) R4v. 5 Ibid. R3v. 6 Ibid. S. 7 But see Chapters 1 and 3 for other influences on examinations and informations. 8 See Chapter 3. 9 Potts (1612) R3, Sv-S2. 10 See Jonathan Barry, ‘Introduction: Keith Thomas and the Problem of Witchcraft’ in Barry et al. eds. Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) 9, 43–4. 11 Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971; Harmondsworth: Peregrine, 1978) 660–7; Reginald Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, ed. Brinsley Nicholson (1584; London, 1886) especially the Epistle to Sir Thomas Scot and 1.3; George Gifford, A Dialogue concerning Witches and Witchcraftes, ed. Beatrice White (1593; London: Oxford University Press, 1931) C4, D4v-Ev, I4v, etc. 12 For instance, Annabel Gregory, ‘Witchcraft, Politics and Good Neighbourhood in Early Seventeenth Century Rye’, Past and Present 133 (1991): 31–66 (trade, politics); Malcolm Gaskill, ‘Witchcraft in Early Modern Kent: Stereotypes and the Background to Accusations’ in Barry et al. eds. 257–87, and ‘Witchcraft and Power in Early Modern England: the Case of Margaret Moore’ in Jenny Kermode and Garthine Walker, eds. Women, Crime and the Courts (London: University College London, 1994) 125–45 (trade, gender); J.A.Sharpe, ‘Witchcraft and Women in Seventeenth Century England: Some Northern Evidence’, Continuity and Change 6.2 (1991):179–99 (gender). 13 Alan Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England (1970; Prospect Heights, III.: Waveland Press, 1991) 85–6. Macfarlane finds pamphlets ‘accurate…reliable’ and deduces much from them: Malcolm Gaskill, in ‘Witchcraft in Early Modern Kent’ 261, and J.S.Cockburn, ‘Early Modern Assize Records as Historical Evidence’, Journal of the Society of Archivists 5 (1975):215–31, criticise this. For Thomas, see ‘Introduction’ in Barry et al. eds.

192

14 15 16 17

18 19

20 21

22 23

24 25 26 27 28

NOTES

43, where Barry says that Thomas trusted pamphlet stories as ‘statements of fact or feeling, not as examples of rhetoric or storytelling’. See also the excellent J.A.Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England 1550–1750 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1996) and Clive Holmes, ‘Women, Witnesses and Witches’, Past and Present 140 (1993):45–78 and ‘Popular Culture? Witches, Magistrates and Divines in Early Modern England’ in S.L.Kaplan, ed. Understanding Popular Culture (Berlin: Mouton, 1984) 85–111. Diane Purkiss, The Witch in History (London and New York: Routledge, 1996) 4. For discussion of agency versus labelling, see Purkiss, The Witch in History part II, especially 145–6. Malcolm Gaskill, ‘Reporting Murder: Fiction in the Archives in Early Modern England’, Social History 23 (January 1998):12. The best theorisation of this is Jeanne Favret-Saada, Deadly Words: Witchcraft in the Bocage, trans. Catherine Cullen (Cambridge and Paris: Cambridge University Press and Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1980). See later chapters for fuller discussion. See Clifford Geertz, ‘Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture’, The Interpretation of Cultures (London: Hutchinson, 1975) 3–30. There is further useful theoretical discussion of truth and the interpretation of representations in Jean-Noel Kapferer, Rumors: Uses, Interpretations and Images, trans. Bruce Fink (1987; New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1990); Stanley Fish, Doing What Comes Naturally: Change, Rhetoric and the Practice of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989); Natalie Zemon Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales and their Tellers in Sixteenth Century France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987). Michel Foucault, ‘Nietzsche, Genealogy, History’ in Paul Rabinow, ed. The Foucault Reader (London: Penguin 1984) 82. The Mary Glover material is all in Michael Macdonald, Witchcraft and Hysteria in Elizabethan London (London and New York: Tavistock Routledge, 1991). For some complementary bibliographies, see J.H.Marshburn, Murder and Witchcraft in England 1550–1640 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,1971); Montague Summers, History of Witchcraft and Demonology (London: Kegan Paul, 1926); Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic footnotes, and note 23 below. Gaskill, ‘Witchcraft in Early Modern Kent’, 257–8 and ‘Reporting Murder’, 1–30. Barbara Rosen, Witchcraft in England 1558–1618 (1969; Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991). For other accounts of witchcraft stories as literature see Kristin Jeanne Leuschner, ‘Creating the “Known True Story”: Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Murder and Witchcraft Pamphlets and Plays’, thesis, University of California, 1992; Frances Dolan, Dangerous Familiars: Representations of Domestic Crime in England 1550–1700 (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1994); Deborah Willis, Malevolent Nurture: WitchHunting and Maternal Power in Early Modern England (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1995), all concerned with ‘representational strategies’ (Willis 13); and Sandra Clark, The Elizabethan Pamphleteers: Popular Moralistic Pamphlets 1580–1640 (London: Athlone Press, 1983). For example, Rosen 103, 213. Bernard Rosenthal, Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) 27. Barry, ‘Introduction’ in Barry et al. eds. 43–4. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic 642. E.E.Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande, 1937, ed. and abridged by Eva Gillies (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976) 18, 31, 34.

NOTES 193

29 Clark, The Elizabethan Pamphleteers 109. 30 All concerned with ‘representational strategies’ (Willis 13); Diane Purkiss, ‘Women’s Stories of Witchcraft in Early Modern England: The House, the Body, the Child’, Gender and History 7 (1995):408–32, now in Purkiss, The Witch in History, where 61–2 and 73–6 explain her concerns. 31 Gaskill, ‘Witchcraft in Early Modern Kent’. 32 Kapferer 26–7. 33 Barry, ‘Introduction’ in Barry et al. eds. 9. 34 Cockburn, Calendar of Assize Records. Home Circuit Indictments, Elizabeth I and James I. Introduction (London: HMSO, 1985) 98. 35 For example, Gaskill, ‘Witchcraft and Power in Early Modern England: Crime and the Historian’ 127; Edgar Peel and Pat Southern, The Trials of the Lancashire Witches (1969; Nelson: Hendon, 1994) 53; G.R.Elton, ‘Introduction: Crime and the Historian: A Critical Biography’, in J.S.Cockburn Crime in England 1550–1800, ed. J.S.Cockburn (London: Methuen, 1977) 10; Geoffrey Scarre, Witchcraft and Magic in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Europe (Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1987) 19. 36 Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 98. Other estimates of reliability include ‘incomplete’ but trustworthy, ‘a certain literary flavour…need not weigh against [them]’ (Wallace Notestein, A History of Witchcraft in England (1911. New York: Apollo, 1968) 37, 356), ‘sketchy… popular’ (L.A.Knafla, ‘Crime and Criminal Justice: A Critical Bibliography’ in Cockburn, ed. Crime in England 284). 37 Gaskill, ‘Witchcraft in Early Modern Kent’ 261; Cockburn, ‘Early Modern Assize Records as Historical Evidence’ shows inaccuracy as endemic; Dolan 3. 38 Cockburn, ‘Early Modern Assize Records as Historical Evidence’ 231. 39 Ginzburg, ‘The Inquisitor as Anthropologist’, Myths, Emblems and Clues, trans. J. and A.Tedeschi (London: Hutchinson Radius, 1986) 156; Diane Purkiss’s The Witch in History and Lyndal Roper’s Oedipus and the Devil (London and New York: Routledge, 1994) are good examples of how this might be done, but the most sensitive account of the context and form of witchcraft stories is Favret-Saada.

1 Ghost-writers—dialogue, interrogation and the production of records of witchcraft 1 For similar discussions in other contexts, see Roper; Ginzburg, The Night Battles, trans. J. and A.Tedeschi (1966; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), ‘The Inquisitor as Anthropologist’, and Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath, trans. Raymond Rosenthal (London: Hutchinson Radius, 1990). 2 This discussion is based on the examinations of twenty-nine witches, some examined several times, which are printed in six different pamphlets from 1566 to 1619. See Appendix 1. 3 Inferring questions from ‘answers’ is an insecure method of exploring statement patterns, but patterns require explanation and questions were asked. They are infrequently recorded. Where they are, in church court examinations of J.Walsh and A.Samuel, or the gaol examination by Goodcole, they produce similar statements, recorded in similar form, to those which I suggest result from questions here. There are no directly comparable questions and answers in pamphlets. Extensive examination of church court records might discover usable comparisons.

194

NOTES

4 The Examination and Confession of certaine Wytches at Chensforde in the Countie of Essex, before the Quenes majesties Judges…(London, 1566) A6-A6v. 5 As permitted by statute (1 and 2 Philip and Mary c.13 (1554/5), 2 and 3 Philip and Mary c.10 (1555)); see William Lambarde, Eirenarcha or the Office of Justices of Peace (1581/2; London: Professional Books, 1972) 251 and Michael Dalton, The Countrey Justice (1619; London: Professional Books, 1973) 269, 274. The JP was required to record only ‘so much…as shalbe materiall to prove the felony’. ‘Prove’ may mean ‘try’, or carry its modern sense, but both imply selectivity. 6 Purkiss, ‘Women’s Stories’ 409, The Witch in History 61. Elizabeth Cohen discusses the clerks’ role, ‘Court Testimony from the Past: Self and Culture in the Making of Text’ in Marlene Kadar, ed. Essays on Life Writing: From Genre to Critical Practice (Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press, 1992) 88–9. 7 See Chapter 2 and Barry’s ‘Introduction’ to Barry et al. eds. 8 Evans-Pritchard 4, 24; Favret-Saada chapter 12; Dialogue (1593) A2, B2, etc. 9 Daemonologie, ed. G.B.Harrison (Oxford: Bodley Head, 1924) book 2, chapter 2. Robert Rowland suggests concern about power mechanisms is the inquisitor’s: ‘Fantasticall and Devilishe Persons: European Witch-Beliefs in Comparative Perspective’, Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Henningsen, eds. Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993) 188–9. 10 Continental interrogations show prescriptive questions in (dissimilar) secular and Inquisitorial contexts, e.g. Roper 238, Ginzburg, The Night Battles, Appendix. On various European court procedures, see: Norman Cohn, Europe’s Inner Demons, revised edition (1975; London: Pimlico, 1993); John Tedeschi, ‘Inquisitorial Law and the Witch’ 83–118; Henningsen ‘The Ladies from Outside: An Archaic Pattern of the Witches’ Sabbath’ 191–215, and Francisco Bethencourt, ‘Portugal: A Scrupulous Inquisition’, 403–22—all in Ankarloo and Henningsen, eds. 11 Those who begin by naming a teacher but are not mentioned below are: Alizon Device in Potts (1612) C, and Joan Waterhouse in Examination (1566) B3. 12 The Apprehension and confession of three notorious Witches. Arraigned and by Justice condemned and executed at Chelmsforde in the Countye of Essex, the 5. day of Julye, last past (London, 1589) A4v. 13 Examination (1566) A8v. As this statement follows on from Elizabeth Frauncis’s account of giving the cat to this examinate, Agnes Waterhouse, such an opening question might have been dictated by events rather than deliberately chosen. It shows how the ‘usual’ last question leads to the ‘usual’ first question being asked of the next suspect (see below). 14 The wonderfull discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer, a Witch, late of Edmonton, her conviction and condemnation and death (London, 1621) C. Those who say they met the devil are Elizabeth Demdike, James Device (where the matter may not be mentioned first and who therefore is not counted as one of the ten apparently reliable instances) and Anne Chattox in Potts (1612) B2v, H3 and D3, and Joan Prentice in Apprehension (1589) B-Bv. On Goodcole and Sawyer, see Leuschner 301–5. 15 Apprehension (1589) A3. 16 The Wonderful Discoverie of the Witchcraftes of Margaret and Phillip Flower…(London, 1619) Fv. 17 We can see a church court examiner’s logic moving in a similar direction in The Examination of John Walsh… (London, 1566) in exploring Walsh’s medical learning A4vA6. 18 Apprehension (1589) B2v. 19 Ibid. A3v-A4, B. These three do not seem to have been tried but Whale was bailed; J.S.Cockburn Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I records 2030 and 2031, part of Cockburn’s

NOTES 195

20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

34 35 36 37

38 39 40 41 42

Calendar of Assize Records. Home Circuit Indictments. Elizabeth I and James I, 10 vols. (London: HMSO, 1975–85). A true and just Recorde (London, 1582) C4. Rosen 156 n.45 (she says 1583) and see also Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I record 1432. The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) Fv. Elizabeth Frauncis/Fraunces appears in two pamphlets. I have followed the different spelling of her name in each pamphlet because, although she is probably the same woman, it is uncertain. Regularising her name would create problems such as the double identity of Anne Heard (Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England 173 and possibly 291) and Agnes Herd (Rosen 146–53 passim). These people are both Annis Heard/Herd; A true and just Recorde (1582) E6v-F5v passim, A Detection of damnable driftes (London, 1579) A4v-A5v. Potts (1612) B4v. See Rosen 357 n.2. See Appendix 2. See note 1 and Ginzburg, Ecstasies 2. Cohn xi, 233. Purkiss, The Witch in History 166. Rosenthal 15, 47, 159 discusses how Salem justices began examinations. Cohen 89. J.M.Beattie, Crime and the Courts in England 1660–1800 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986) 271. Goodcole (1621) C3v, C4, C4v, Cv. Favret-Saada 25, 149, Kapferer 5. Gaskill, ‘Witchcraft and Power’ 135–7. Clive Holmes believes Brian Darcey wrote the preface: ‘Women, Witnesses and Witches’ 45–78. Rosen points out that the preface’s ideology has little effect on the main text, 104. Although Holmes believes that ‘local beliefs hinted at in the earliest depositions were quickly swamped by a plethora of importations from the current theology of witchcraft’, he does not substantiate this view, referring obscurely to ‘satanic practises’ confessed by Kempe and a ‘coven’: ‘Women, Witnesses and Witches’ 53–4. Cohen 88. A true and just Recorde (1582) B5v. Favret-Saada superbly illustrates this negotiability in her account of the Babins, 97–193 (summarised 189–91). A true and just Recorde (1582) A5. Rosen 111 n.11. A true and just Recorde (1582) C5v. Pechey was discharged (Rosen 156 n.45) but sadly died in prison (inquest date 11 November 1582). Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 146. Detection (1579) A5. Apprehension (1589) A4v. Kapferer shows how a communally agreed story is assented to even by those who know it is false (80). Leuschner 5. A true and just Recorde (1582) A6, C3v, F4—F5v. Information 3 March, examination 1 March, responding to the child’s report of imps, ibid . D and D3v. Hunt and Heard were acquitted, as Rosen reports, 156 n.45, but the Celles parents died in gaol after Cysley was convicted and imprisoned and Henry detained to face charges of arson, (inquest dates 31 January 1582/3 and 8 March 1582/3), Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 146. St Osyth is the only pamphlet where, paradoxically due to Darcey’s and his collaborators’ thoroughness, such clear reconstruction of events can be detected, but in

196

43

44

45 46

47 48 49

50 51

52

53 54

55 56 57

58 59

60

NOTES

Potts (1612) the dates of the child witness Jennet Device’s informations are left unclear throughout by being dated as evidence given at the trial. Cohen 88. Purkiss, The Witch in History 145–76, 145, 166, 169. Gaskill’s Margaret Moore does the same, ‘Witchcraft and Power’ 134–7. Of course this also applies to male witches: Purkiss cites John Walsh as an example of this (159). Roper 19–20, 205. Lyndal Roper suggested to me in a letter (13 September 1995) that she would prefer to talk about ‘limited collusion’ because it was not conscious on the part of the witch, adding: ‘I wanted to get away from the idea that [witches] are just victims, or that their confessions are produced by the interrogators alone.’ Robin Briggs, ‘Many Reasons Why: Witchcraft and the Problem of Multiple Explanation’, Barry et al. eds. 50. For example, Appolonia Mayr in Introduction 1–34, Anna Ebeler in ‘Witchcraft and Fantasy in Early Modern Germany’ 199–225, and Regina Bartholome in ‘Oedipus and the Devil’ 226–48, all in Roper, Oedipus and the Devil. Examination (1566) A7-A8. Rosen 75.n.4. Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I, record 273. Examination (1566) A6. Macfarlane Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart Engliand names Cole as Archdeacon of Essex (73, 79 n.20), while Notestein identifies him only as Rector of Stanford Rivers (34). But both give confused accounts of his role in events in Examination (1566). See also note 87. Jim Sharpe believes the examination was an ecclesiastical one but its format seems secular; Instruments of Darkness 96. See The Might Battles. Writers on popular culture explore this in discussing which elements of belief expressed in examinations and informations are ‘popular’, which are ‘elite’, or if there is no clear distinction (e.g. Clive Holmes’ thought-provoking ‘Popular Culture? Witches, Magistrates and Divines in Early Modern England’), but belief (or social function) is not the only meaning of witchcraft, and this book considers witchcraft as part of discourses other than religion, gender, politics and economics, such as literary, legal and oral narrative conventions. Examination of John Walsh (1566), and The Wonderful Discoverie (1619), especially E2v-E3. Purkiss, The Witch in History 167. A true and just Recorde (1582) A7, C2. Annis was convicted despite resistance, and died in prison (inquest date 11 November 1582), Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 146. Purkiss comments on these stories, The Witch in History 160–1, 166–8. See note 36. A true and just Recorde (1582) B6v. As an example of the complexity and lack of transparency of these accounts, she was supposedly arrested on the information of Ursley Kempe who had already confessed (B6), but in fact her arrest predates any recorded mention by Ursley. A true and just Recorde (1582) B7-B7v. Examination (1566) sig. A of the second part, A5-A5v second part. A true and just Recorde (1582) B7v. For example, the deliverance by God of Master Kitchin, minister of Stisted, and George Coe, attacked by Joan Cunny’s spirits in Apprehension (1589) A3v. A true and just Recorde (1582) B8. Examination (1566) A6v second part, Most strange and admirable discoverie of the three Witches of Warboys…(London, 1593) M4v and ‘A Report Contayning a brief Narration of certain divellish and wicked witcheries, practized by Oliffe Barthram…’ appended to Triall of Maist. Dorrell (London, 1599) 92–3. A true and just Recorde (1582) B8, Cv.

NOTES 197

61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

70 71 72 73 74

75 76

77 78 79

80

81 82 83

84 85 86

Ibid. B8v. Ibid. C. Favret-Saada 192. Carlo Ginzburg, ‘Witchcraft and Popular Piety’, Myths, Emblems, Clues 15 (also 7, 9). Apprehension (1589) B2. Like Bennet, Prentice was disbelieved and convicted, Cockburn Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth records 1316 and 1998. Purkiss, The Witch in History 168–9. Apprehension (1589) A4v-B. Detection (1579) A4-A4v and The most wonderful and true storie of a certaine witch named Alse Gooderige, ed. John Denison (London, 1597) D3v. A true and just Recorde (1582) D5v. Potts (1612) D3v, Ev (both may be second examinations, and are presented as court reports, but they are probably continuations of preliminary examinations fragmented by Potts). Peel and Southern 32. Roper 20. Rosenthal 21–4 explores this issue. Ginzburg, ‘Witchcraft and Popular Piety’, Myths, Emblems, Clues 7. A true and just Recorde (1582) C4-C5. Margery was not tried until 1584 (Rosen 156 n.45 suggests she fled). Her indictments were for murder by witchcraft (postdating her 1582 examination), and keeping three spirits intending to bewitch men and beasts, Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I record 1432. Hers is the first such indictment (Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness 118). ‘Finland: the Male Domination’ (with Timo Kervinen), Ankarloo and Henningsen, eds. 329–30. A true and just Recorde (1582); Kempe F5v, D5, C8, Manfield D5v-D8, D7v. Manfield was never charged with witchcraft (see Cockburn Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth record 1302), perhaps because her readiness to confess made Darcey suspicious and he cautioned her against lying and incriminating the innocent (D8). A true and just Recorde (1582) Bv. Ibid. (1582) A7v (first examination) and B2-B2v. Ursley was hanged and Ales Newman reprieved and imprisoned, until pardoned in 1588, while Ales Manfield was lucky to be acquitted (of arson): Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth records 1300 and 1302, and Calendar…Introduction 199. Potts does not give the examinations of half of his witches, but Darcey (A true and just Recorde (1582)) examined fourteen witches from 20 February (1581/2) to 25 March. Of these, nine would confess nothing, though some told alternative stories (e.g. Glascock, Grevell). Of the last eight witches to be questioned only 1 (Manfield) confessed crimes, but of the first six, four confessed. Is this coincidence, or based in part on outside factors (for example, later witches are from other villages), or is there some loss of impetus in confessing for reasons integral to the case? (B5-B5v and E5-E5v). Goodcole (1621) G2v, C4. A true and just Recorde (1582) C6. Favret-Saada 25. Just as David Harley described historians as ‘demonologists’ for accepting the myth of the midwife-witch, in ‘Historians as Demonologists: The Myth of the Midwife-Witch’, Social History of Medicine 3.1 (1990):1–26. Although in one known case the JP may have written some of the material: in A true and just Recorde (1582) 2nd sig. A, the JP is referred to as ‘me Brian Darcey’. Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 95. Examination (1566) A6.

198

NOTES

87 For Cole see note 49. Henry Fortescue is named in the nomina ministrorum, unlike Notestein’s candidate for Master Foscue, Sir John Fortescue (Cockburn, Calendar…Essex… Elizabeth I record 249 and Notestein 34). Henry Fortescue died in 1576 and his will is in F.G.Emmison, ed. Elizabethan Life: Wills of Essex Gentry and Merchants (Chelmsford: Essex County Council, 1978) 84–5. Notestein 34–5 and C.R. Unsworth, ‘Witchcraft Beliefs and Criminal Procedure in Early Modern England’, Legal Record and Historical Reality, ed. Thomas G.Watkin (London: Hambledon, 1989) 94. For corrections, see Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 93, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I record 247, 248 and John H.Baker, ‘Criminal Courts and Procedure at Common Law 1550–1800’ in Cockburn, ed. Crime in England 16. The documents are called ‘verbatum’ on Examination (1566) A6, and Macfarlane believes documents in pamphlets are ‘verbatim transcripts of depositions and examinations in the courts’, ‘Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart Essex’ in Cockburn, ed. Crime in England 78. 88 A true and just Recorde (1582) title page, A4, B5v. Compare Darcey’s bullying of Elizabeth Bennet (B6-B6v). 89 Detection (1579) A5v, A4-A4v, A6. 90 Ibid. A6. Smithe’s case is in Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I record 1044. Rosen 97. 91 Detection (1579) A7. Staunton was actually not convicted because her indictment was insufficient (Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I record 1063 and Calendar… Introduction 85). For status of documents, see Marianne Hester, Lewd Women and Wicked Witches (London and New York: Routledge, 1992) 174 and Cockburn, Calendar…Intro duction 107. Lambarde says that informations may be given by word of mouth or as a ‘Bill’ (Eirenarcha 404), while Edward Fairfax shows a certificate of the witch’s innocence being given to the trial judge in his 1621 Daemonologia, ed. William Grainge (Harrogate, 1882) 127. George Nichols (of Walden) is named in the nomina ministrorum (Cockburn, Calendar…Essex… Elizabeth I record 1018). He attended assizes diligently from 1559 to 1600 when he was nearly 80. 92 The severall factes of Witch-crafte approoved and laid to the charge of Margaret Harkett (1585) A3v, A4v. 93 Samuel Harsnett, A Discovery of the Fraudulent practises of John Darrell (London, 1599) 266–7. He adds that John Darrell and Arthur Hildersham re-edited parts of the account (268–9). 94 Triall of Maist. Dorrell (1599) 100. Cockburn, Calendar…Hertfordshire…James I records 161–3, part of Cockburn’s Calendar of Assize Records. The names of the witnesses are given in the records, but, as the stories in the pamphlet name no victims, it is impossible to connect them. See also C.L’Estrange Ewen, Witch Hunting and Witch Trials (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1929) 197. 95 The Examination and Confession of a notorious Witch named Mother Arnold, alias Whitecote, alias Glastonbury at the Assize of Burntwood in July, 1574; who was hanged for Witchcraft at Barking (see Rosen 125 n.31) and A World of Wonders (1595) E2v-E4 (see Marshburn, Murder and Witchcraft, entry for 1595). Marshburn did not realise that the 1595 pamphlet reworked older material. For Cecilia Glasenberye’s trial, see Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I record 724, and Marion Gibson, ‘Mother Arnold: A Lost Witchcraft Pamphlet Rediscovered’, Notes and Queries (September 1998): 296–300. 96 See Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I record 1992 (nomina ministrorum), similar records of recent and subsequent assizes, and Cockburn’s index. Anthony Mildmay does not appear on 1585 and 1601 lists of Essex justices either; C.F.D.Sperling Justices of the Peace for Essex 1585’. The East Anglian. New Series 3 (1889–90) 314–16 and Essex RO T/A 153/2.

NOTES 199

97 Apprehension (1589) A3v. Richard Kitchin was rector of Stisted—see Patrick Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (London: Jonathan Cape, 1967) 37. 98 Apprehension (1589) A3-v. 99 Joan Cunny is the grandmother and her daughters are the children’s mothers. Rosen noticed the mistake in the opening sentence of this narrative section and corrected it, though Hester accepts that Joan is the children’s mother and concludes that one of the other witches is Joan Cunny’s mother (Hester 186). However, the witch lives some distance from Stisted, and her supposed daughter, Cunny, is said to be 80 (Apprehension (1589) A3), and therefore unlikely to be the mother of a 10- or 12-year-old child (A4-A4v). 100 Ibid. A4v. Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I (record 1991) shows him as returning the judges’ precept as Sheriff, ordering him to organise the assizes, to which he replied by naming a panel of grand jurors, and sending lists of county officers and of suspects—the Assize Calendar (Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 17, 30). Ibid. 32–3. 101 Rosen 182. Gray is Sir Henry junior, of Havering near Dagenham, with a poor record of attendance at assizes because of official service: Cockburn, Calendar…Essex… Elizabeth I (this absence, record 1992), and for discussion of JPs absence from trials, Calendar…Introduction 31–2, 101. 102 Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I records 1997–8 (Prentice), 2006 and 2009 (Cunny), and 2015 and 2022 (Upney). 103 Willis 88. 104 Leuschner 277, 279. 105 Hester 125. P.Rushton, ‘Women, Witchcraft and Slander in Early Modern England’, Northern History 18 (1982):116–32; Sharpe, ‘Witchcraft and Women’ 179–99. Holmes, ‘Women, Witnesses and Witches’ 54. Upcher’s wife went with him to consult Kempe, so was not dead. 106 A true and just Recorde (1582) E6-E6v and F5v. 107 Holmes, ‘Women, Witnesses and Witches’ 54 n.21. Hester 124–5. 108 Detection (1579) Bv. Alice Nokes’ trial is in Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I record 1047. 109 Willis discusses the status of evidence against Nokes, 49 n.40. 110 For example, Twelfth Night, where Olivia’s innocent use of the same double entendre leads Malvolio to assent joyfully, ‘Ay, sweetheart, and I’ll come to thee’ (3.4.27–8). All Shakespeare references are to William Shakespeare, The Complete Works, ed. Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988). 111 Apprehension (1589) B2v, B-B2v. 112 Examination (1566) A3. Phillips is the ‘suggested author’ because, although he wrote the second poem in the Examination, he did not sign the first, from which this quotation comes. They are, however, alike. For his elegies, see A.W.Pollard and G.R. Redgrave, eds. Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland and Ireland…1475–1640 (hereafter abbreviated as STC), 2nd edition, 3 vols. (London: Bibliographical Society, 1986–91). 113 Potts (1612) B4. 114 Apprehension (1589) A3, A Rehearsall both straung and true, of hainous and horrible actes committed by Elizabeth Stile, Alias Rockingham, Mother Dutten, Mother Devell, Mother Margaret, Fower notorious witches…(London, 1579) A6v; Goodcole (1621) Cv, C2, etc. 115 Stephen Greenblatt, Shakespearean Negotiations (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988) 1. Geertz discusses the difficulties of writing in The Interpretation of Cultures 15–16.

200

NOTES

2 Witchcraft trials and a methodology for reading them 1 Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 97–8, 14, 97. 2 For example, The most cruell and bloody murther (1606). 3 Rehearsall, Galis A Brief Treatise conteyning the most strange and horrible crueltye of Elizabeth Stile alias Bockingham and hir confederates executed at Abington upon Richard Galis (London, 1579), The severall factes of Witch-crafte (1585), Apprehension (1589), The most cruell and bloody murther (1606), The Witches of Northamptonshire (London, 1612), Witches Apprehended, Examined and executed, for notable villanies by them committed by Land and Water (London, 1613). 4 Detection (1579), A true and just Recorde (1582), A Most Wicked worke of a wretched Witch (London, 1592), The most wonderfull and true storie (1597), Triall of Maist. Dorrell (1599), The Wonderful Discoverie (1619). 5 Potts (1612) A2v. Cockburn’s description of the work of the Clerk of Arraigns fits Potts’ selection of documents for his pamphlet, which he was ordered to produce by the judges (Sir James Altham and Sir Edward Bromley). He was ideally situated to understand and have access to the ‘gaol book’ or calendar of prisoners, pleas and case records, the ‘hanging book’ of verdicts, and the order book and recognizances; J.S.Cockburn, A History of English Assizes 1558–1714 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972) 82–3, and Calendar… Introduction 5–8. 6 Potts’ fifth page (no sig. 3—seventh page is sig. A). I have used the edition of 1613, which is the same as the 1612 edition except for corrigenda. 7 Potts (1612) C2v-C3v. 8 Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 95, 96, 102. 9 Ibid. 101–2. This conflicts with Langbein’s view in Prosecuting Crime (see note 11). 10 Potts (1612) Y2. 11 Ibid. D3. This is one of two pieces of evidence in accounts of witch trials to confirm J.H.Langbein’s suggestion in Prosecuting Crime in the Renaissance (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974) that magistrates presented the prosecution case in court, using examinations and informations like a policeman’s notebook (31, 35). The other is Goodcole (1621) (B3), the only example mentioned by Langbein (30). Cockburn finds this persuasive in theory (Calendar…Introduction 100–1), perhaps as the intent of the committal statute, but argues that practice differed (see note 9 on absenteeism, and J.S.Cockburn, review of Prosecuting Crime in Revue D’Histoire du Droit (Legal History Review) 43 (1975):347– 9). 12 Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 102–3. 13 Ibid. 20. 14 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) N3v. 15 Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 33. 16 Potts (1612) C3v. 17 Ibid. B2, D2v, G2v, N4, S2v, etc. 18 W.Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, Illuminations (1936; London: Fontana, 1992) 211–44. 19 Langbein 37 n.33 and Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 104. 20 The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) Gv. 21 Potts (1612) C4v.

NOTES 201

22 Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 44–5, 47, 52 and The Office of the Clerk of Assize (London, 1682) 19, 34. 23 Only indictments drawn up at the Quarter Sessions, and already considered by a grand jury there, escaped their scrutiny. Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 73. Examples of this related to the pamphlets are: Alice Chaundeler (mother of Elleine Smithe) Cockburn, Calendar… Essex…Elizabeth I record 669, Elizabeth Fraunces, record 1024, and Margery Stanton, record 1063 and 1055, all from Detection (1579). 24 Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 52, 103–4. Testimonials of neighbours’ suspicions, possibly like that prepared by Thomas Prat in Detection (1579) A7, could also be considered. 25 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) N4v-O. 26 The children’s uncle, uncle, father, father’s cousin, two more uncles, and then the vicar of the parish where both the Throckmortons and Pickerings had land and lived. See Chapter 4. 27 Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 104. They were also read out in court, as Smith’s 1565 De Republica Anglorum, ed. Mary Dewar (1583; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) 113) shows, and witchcraft pamphlets confirm (for example, Apprehension (1589) B2v, and I shall discuss other examples later). However, Langbein’s (largely unprovable) view is that they were ‘seldom employed as evidence, serving only a slight function for assize judges, used mostly by JPs as reminders for oral testimony’ (31). 28 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) O. This pamphleteer confusedly states that the ‘jury of life and death’ (petty jury) find indictments billa vera (O2v). 29 Calendar…Introduction 98. 30 Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I record 1024. 31 J.S.Cockburn, letter to the author, 11 November 1995. This case requires more investigation to decide where the error is: the exact date of the Michaelmas Quarter Sessions, verification if possible of Alice Poole’s death date in parish records, etc. 32 Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 79–85. 33 Potts (1612) D. 34 Ibid.. 35 Ibid. Qv. 36 Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 64–5 and 110–11. 37 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) O. 38 J.S.Cockburn, letter to the author, 25 February 1996. 39 For example, Elizabeth Frauncis (Examination 1566) and Elizabeth Bennet (A true and just Recorde 1582) both did so: Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I records 273 and 1316. 40 Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 65, Clerk of Assize 40. 41 Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 105. Potts (1612) shows the sheriff preparing the petty jury (C4v). 42 Examination (1566) A2 (plea) and all of the second part. See below. 43 Cockburn is not specific about the timing of the reading of the examination, Calendar… Introduction 106; Smith 113. 44 Apprehension (1589) B2v-B3. 45 Potts (1612) D2, Hv. 46 Ibid. F4v. 47 Ibid. G3v-G4. Repeated against Alice Nutter (Pv, up to ‘the names of the residue, she this examinate doth not know’); against Katherine Hewyt (Q, up to ‘shee knoweth the names of sixe of the said Witches’); against the Bulcocks (R, as with Hewyt). Similar repetitions of evidence against James Device (H4v, Iv) (introductory piece repeated, followed by two

202

48

49 50

51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

NOTES

different stories). James’s own examinations are repeated—some, like all of Jennet’s, are dated as if given on the trial day, others dated 27 April. Ibid. I3v-I4. The wether is now ‘Robinson’s’, which James said on 27 April (I2v). I have shown the documents in their original spelling and fonts: even here there are minor discrepancies. The accounts are the same, but different, illustrative of the problems of reading documents in witchcraft pamphlets as factual. In fact the examination was said (C) to have been taken on 13 March, Peel and Southern 92. A mistake? Or is Potts referring to a document now lost? Ibid. 67, 90. We cannot tell what legal documents or fragments Potts has left out of his account. Nothing is heard of some of the witches named on the list of those who attended the sabbath (Rv-R2), though it is shown some of them were acquitted (X). Potts includes material not used at the trial, however: an accusation against Alizon Device which is ‘upon Record’, though ‘shee were never indicted for this’ (S2-S2v). His selection of material, or his lack of access to some of it, is puzzling. J.S.Cockburn, letter to the author, 25 February 1996. Langbein discusses this 22, 24, 27, 31–4 and (informations) 29. Potts (1612) Q3, O2, P2v. Ibid. S-Sv. Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 106; Smith 113–14. Especially Mother Nokes. Elleine Smithe’s and Margery Staunton’s sections might be paraphrased from read or acquired documents—they seem much fuller. Smith 114, Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 106–8. Potts (1612) M3v. Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 109. Potts (1612) P2, Q-Qv, R, etc. Greenblatt 1. Philip Sidney, An Apology for Poetry (1595; Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1973) 100, 109–12. Peel and Southern 58. Potts (1612) Y2v-Y3. I am unsure whether this account is by Potts—see below. Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) O. Ibid. Ov-O2. Anne Reiber de Windt argues plausibly that the bishop was serving as a JP not an ecclesiastical official (‘Witchcraft and Conflicting Visions of the Ideal Village Community’, Journal of British Studies 34 (1995):449 n.76), but the two examinations are different and the first may have originated as a church court document. Apprehension (1589) B3. Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) O-Ov. Examination (1566) A7v of the second part. Also in Triall of Maist. Dorrell (1599) (100) we hear Lord Anderson questioning a victim. The most cruell and bloody murther C4. C.Herrup, The Common Peace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) 142. Calendar…Introduction 98 and Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I record 274. Examination (1566) A6v of the second part. Ibid. A6v-A8 of the second part. Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I record 263 and Ewen, Witch Hunting and Witch Trials 120. Examination (1566) A2 of the second part. J.S.Cockburn, letter to the author, 11 November 1995.

NOTES 203

77 Ibid.. 78 Cockburn, stressing passivity of overstretched juries, says the judge had great power to determine verdicts by direction and comment (Calendar…Introduction 86, 132). In Margery Stanton’s case (Detection 1579), he suggests judicial sympathy in the disallowing of her indictment (86). Possibly Joan, only 18, was similarly pitied (Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England 166 n.36). 79 Examination (1566) A3v of the second part. 80 Ibid. A5v-A6 of the second part. 81 Ibid. A4 of the second part, A4v-A5 of the second part, and Rosen 72. 82 Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 109; Smith 114. 83 Calendar…Introduction 110; Smith 114; Clerk of Assize 48. 84 Potts (1612) K2v. 85 Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 110. 86 Potts (1612) K2v, Qv, etc. 87 Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 115. 88 Potts (1612) X, Xv. 89 A true and just Recorde (1582). For example, Ales Manfield was acquitted (D5v), as was Margaret Grevell (E2v), there is no record in the pamphlet of Annis Glascocke’s sentence (Cv), and Cysley Celles was reprieved (D3v). 90 Potts (1612) A4. 91 Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 114. 92 Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I record 2029. 93 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) O2v. 94 Ibid. O3. 95 Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 117. 96 Potts (1612) V4v. 97 Ibid. V4. 98 Cockburn, Calendar…Introduction 34; Clerk of Assize 22. 99 MS Sloane 972, f.7, British Library, London. The MS is modernised, slightly edited, and printed in C.L’Estrange Ewen, Witchcraft and Demonianism (London: Heath Cranton, 1933) 209–12. 100 Belcher was a Cambridge- and Oxford-educated gentleman and writer, author/translator from the Dutch of Hans Beer Pot (London, 1618) ‘for the learned, and juditious sort’ (B), who settled in Utrecht in the early 1600s, presumably without his wife (Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, eds. Dictionary of National Biography, 22 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1921–2; hereafter abbreivated as ZWB)) J.Venn and J.A.Venn, eds. Alumni Cantabrigiensis, 4 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1927). Elizabeth Belcher was a patient of Richard Napier (Michael Macdonald, Mystical Bedlam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981) 212), and John Cotta is thought to refer to the case (The Triall of Witchcraft (London, 1616) 67). 101 The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) B3-B3v. 102 Ibid. B3v. 103 Ibid. B4-B4v. 104 Ibid. B4v. 105 Ibid.. 106 Ibid. C. 107 The MS is not consistent or full, except in comparison with the pamphlet. Nevertheless it appears truthful if incomplete, saying that ‘there were others who accused some of those

204

NOTES

108 109 110

111 112

113 114 115 116 117 118

119 120 121 122

123 124 125 126 127 128

witches’, possibly reflecting a confused selection of evidence against six people jointly accused. Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) O. Jeaffreson, Middlesex County Records (1886; London: Greater London Council, 1972). On page L of vol. 1, Jeaffreson explains that he has transcribed all witchcraft indictments. Barbara Singleton, ‘Witchcraft in Middlesex 1563–1736’, MPhil, University of Reading, 1996 33–4 and 34 n.8. Jeaffreson provides a different account which has now been superseded xxii-xxiv. See also J.M.Beattie, ‘London Juries in the 1690s’ in J.S.Cockburn and T.A.Green, eds. Twelve Good Men and True: The Criminal Trial Jury in England 1200–1800 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988) 222; Hugh Bowler, ed. London Sessions Records l605–85 (London: Catholic Record Society, 1934). The severall factes of Witch-crafte (1585) A6v. J.H.Baker, letter to the author, 3 November 1995. He says: ‘The justices of Gaol Delivery at Newgate had no power as such to charge grand juries to find indictments, though it could be done (at any rate in the seventeenth century) under the concurrent commission of oyer and terminer, which included a power of “inquiry” as to suspects not already in gaol. The commission of the peace also included an “inquiry” clause, so that indictments could be found before the justices of the peace’. Baker includes Sessions of Inquiry (about whose existence or form he too is unsure) under the same ‘inquiry’ clause. Bowler xxxii; Beattie, letter to the author, 2 November 1995. Goodcole (1621) A4. Ibid. B2v. Ibid. B3. Ibid. Bv. Nevertheless, his Londons Cry: Ascended to God, and entred into the hearts, and eares of men for Revenge of Bloodshedders, Burglaiers and Vagabonds…(London, 1619) contains a flawed and controversial account of a similar Sessions of Gaol Delivery. Jeaffreson xxiv. Percy Harris, London and its Government (London and Toronto: Dent, 1931) 18 and F.F.Foster, The Politics of Stability (London: Royal Historical Society, 1977) 186. Goodcole (1621) B2v. Finch had been recorder since February 1620/1 (Analytical Index to the…Remembrancia (London, 1878) 295) and was the City’s chief legal officer, liaising with the royal court (Harris, London and its Government 18; Foster 77, 86, 141). He had been an MP and was later Speaker of the House (DNB). Bowler suggests that recorders usually tried less serious cases (ix). Singleton 69. Goodcole (1621) B3. Ibid. C4. Potts (1612) no sig. 3–3v. Ibid. Z3v. James I and VI Daemonologie 2.6.

3 Deconstructing generic stories 1 Favret-Saada part 3, ‘Telling it all’, summarised 189–91, 25.

NOTES 205

2 Robert Rowland, ‘Fantasticall and Devilishe Persons’ 180. 3 Robin Briggs, ‘Witchcraft and Popular Mentality in Lorraine 1580–1630’ in Brian Vickers, ed. Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) 337. 4 Purkiss, ‘Women’s Stories’ notes strategy in accusation, 409. 5 Scot 1.3. 6 Ibid. Epistle to Sir Thomas Scot. 7 Barry ‘Introduction’ in Barry et al., eds. 14. 8 G.Klaniczay, ‘Hungary: The Accusations and the Universe of Popular Magic’, Ankarloo and Henningsen, eds. 237. 9 Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic 604, 659–63; Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England 170–6, 205–6. It should be noted that Thomas argues that, while ‘the overwhelming majority of fully documented witch cases fall into this simple pattern’ (citing Thomas Ady, A Candle in the Dark (London, 1656) 114 and Scot) he himself suggests other models which I shall discuss later. See Christina Larner, ‘Crimen Exceptum?’ Witchcraft and Religion, ed. Alan Macfarlane (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984) 50, and Gaskill, ‘Witchcraft in Early Modern Kent’ for critiques of ‘functionalist anthropology’. 10 Gregory, ‘Witchcraft, Politics and Good Neighbourhood’. 11 Gaskill, ‘Witchcraft in Early Modern Kent: Stereotypes and the Background to Accusations’, 262, 259, an excellent summary of the debate about stereotypes. 12 This excludes some of the indictments in Potts (1612) where the stories which prompted them are not documented at all. 13 Detection (1579) A4v-A5, Rehearsall (1579) A6v-A7, A true and just Recorde (1582) B3v-B4, B5v-B6, D6v, D8 and F5v, Apprehension (1589) A3v-A4v, A4v-B, Triall of Maist. Dorrell (1599) 101, Potts (1612) C2, Ev and S4v, The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) E and F2. 14 Potts (1612) K4v and L4. 15 A true and just Recorde (1582) A5-A5v. 16 Ibid. C8-D, D2v-D3, D4-D4v. 17 Ibid. D3. 18 Leuschner 286. She suggests that this is because Joan will not ‘affirm the voice of the majority’. 19 For a critique of Thomas and Macfarlane’s use of Scot and Gifford’s theories see Purkiss, The Witch in History 66–7. 20 Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic 659–63. 21 Both are Thomas’s phrases, ibid. 658–9. 22 Scot 1.4 (marginalia), 1.8 (marginalia and text), 2.3 (marginalia), 3.7 (two marginal notes). 23 See Sydney Anglo, ‘Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft’ and Alan Macfarlane, A Tudor Anthropologist’ in Anglo, ed. The Damned Art (London, Henley and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977) 106–39 and 140–55. 24 Scot, Dedication to Manwood. 25 Galis (1579) D2. 26 This is a very subjective assessment. I counted all stories in pamphlets 1566–1621, including the same story told by different people, legal documents and reports, and found around sixty to sixty-five that seem focused on material denial, of a particular object or service, or refusal to trade (see section on complex denial below), and fifty-five to sixty that seem to be generalised revenge, for quarrels or cruelty etc. Naturally some stories are borderline cases, there are many inspecific or repeated stories, and the sample is not objective. There are more witch’s revenge stories and fewer of denial after 1590.

206

27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45 46 47

48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

NOTES

Detection (1579) A7v. Ibid. A8. Ibid. A8v. Ibid. B. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic 662–3. Dialogue (1593) A3. Ady recognises this (A3). Dialogue (1593) L3-L3v. Ibid. L3v. Ibid. K4-K4v; also H4-H4v, Kv and K2v-K3. Apparently unaltered informations are found in Detection (1579) (problematically), Rehearsall (1579) (problematically), A true and just Recorde (1582), The severall factes of Witch-crafte (1585) (problematically), Potts (1612), the ‘problematic’ texts being possibly paraphrased, or trial reports, or gossip as with witness material in Examination (1566), Apprehension (1589), A Most Wicked worke (1592), Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593), Triall of Maist. Dorrell (1599), The most cruell and bloody murther (1606) and The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612). See again Ginzburg, The Night Battles 147–71 for examples of prescriptive inquisitions. Dialogue (1593) D2-D2v. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: 662–3; Purkiss, The Witch in History 66. Examination (1566) Bv. Given that the commodity refused is here connected with the process bewitched, the puzzling previous ‘Item, shee confessed that because she could have no rest (which she required) she caused sathan to destroye the brewing at that tyme’ might refer to ‘yest’ (yeast) denied by an unspecified victim. If this is true, then again there is a pattern in narration, noted by Keith Thomas, ‘The Relevance of Social Anthropology to the Historical Study of English Witchcraft’ in Mary Douglas, ed. Witchcraft Confessions and Accusations (London: Tavistock, 1970) 62. Potts (1612) T4. For some other basic denial narratives see Detection (1579) A6 (alms) and A true and just Recorde (1582) Cv (milk). Detection (l579) A4. A true and just Recorde (1582) B4v. Potts (1612) B3. A true and just Recorde (1582) B6v-B7. Ibid. F3-F3v. The ‘harlotry’ might be reflected in the table in A true and just Recorde, which shows that she was thought to have killed two wives of William Dowsing, her base daughter being called Annis Dowsing. Detection (1579) A7-A7v. The severall factes of Witch-crafte (1585) A4v. Ibid. A5 The above is not an exhaustive list but demonstrates all kinds of denials, and their representation. Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I record 1063 and Calendar…Introduction 85. 1 and 2 Philip and Mary c.13 (1554–5), the bail statute. Rehearsall (l579) A8v. Apprehension (1589) A4. Ibid. B2v. See also A true and just Recorde (1582) E2v, where Lynd’s wife had no milk to spare. A true and just Recorde (1582) E3-E3v. Ibid. E2. Ibid. A7.

NOTES 207

59 60 61 62

63 64 65

66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90

Ibid. A6v. Leuschner 271. A Most Wicked worke (1592) A4v. A true and just Recorde (1582) 2nd sig. A4v. My initial response, ‘perhaps she had no teeth?’, shows how easy it is to take representation for fact. This is a story told about Pechey, by a witness, herself accused of witchcraft, questioned by Brian Darcey, reportedly the donor of the bread, recorded and published under Darcey’s guidance, four stages of removal from objectivity, with added complications of motivation of Ales and Darcey. Rehearsall (l579) Bv. The severall factes of Witch-crafte (1585) A3v. A true and just Recorde (1582) E7v-E8. Willis (42) discusses this episode as lacking the denialguilt elements. Her substituted stereotypical conflict is often one between a victim and a mother figure: 29, 43. Purkiss notes the exchange element in the episode and sees witch and accuser as competing housewives and mothers: ‘Women’s Stories’ 412–13. A true and just Recorde (1582) F2. Holmes, ‘Women, Witnesses and Witches’ 54. A true and just Recorde (1582) E7. Ibid. E6v. See, possibly, also Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England, 291. Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I record 1312. Examination (1566) B3v. It is unclear what status this second examination has. See note 65. Potts (1612) R3v. Ibid. S. Ibid. R4v. Alizon Device confessed at the trial and so was found guilty automatically (Ibid. R3v-R4 and S3). See Joyce Gibson, Hanged for Witchcraft: Elizabeth Lowys and her Successors (Canberra: Tudor, 1988); Gaskill, ‘Witchcraft in Early Modern Kent’. A true and just Recorde (1582) C8v. Rosse was comparatively wealthy, with several fields (D4), at least two servants (D4, D4v), and eight or nine cattle (D4), a barn full of corn (C8v-D) and a granary worth 100 marks (Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I record 1302). Henry Celles is a ‘labourer’ (record 1302) or ‘husbandman’ (record 1343) and may be employed by Rosse, since he like Robert Smith ‘wrought with’ Rosse, and Smith then calls Rosse his ‘master’ (A true and just Recorde (1582) C8, D4v). See Cockburn, Calendar…Essex…Elizabeth I records 1302, 1327, 1334, 1342, 1343 and Calendar…Introduction 146. Willis 42. A true and just Recorde (1582) 2nd sig. A-A2v. Ibid. E8v-F. Ibid.. Ibid. F6v-F8. Ibid. F5v. Ibid. F6v-F7. Goodcole (1621) Bv. Ibid. F6-F6v. ‘Hayer’ is not in the Oxford English Dictionary, except as meaning ‘hair-shirt’—an unlikely item to be in demand. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic 664. Potts (1612) O3.

208

NOTES

91 Potts mentions it on T2-T2v: ‘What hath the Kings Majestie written and published in his Daemonologie, by way of premonition and prevention, which hath not here by the first or last beene executed, put in practise or discovered?’ (even if one assumes Potts to be interpreting the Pendle case as pro-Catholic, treasonous and based around an anti-Christian sabbath, his belief in James’s comprehensiveness is flattering); Peel and Southern note Potts’ uses of Daemonologie 64, 81, 88. James’ categories are not intrinsically unusual: see Lambert Daneau, A Dialogue of Witches (London, 1575) E2, or Roberts, Treatise of Witchcraft A2v for comparable, less specific, constructions of witches’ motives. See also Stuart Clark, ‘King James’ Daemonologie: Witchraft and Kingship’, in Anglo, ed. 156–81. 92 Potts (1612) H3-H3v. 93 Ibid. R3v. 94 Ibid. B2v. 95 Ibid. B3. 96 Ibid. D3. 97 Ibid. B4v. 98 See Elizabeth Demdike (Potts (1612) B3) urging her spirit ‘Revenge thee eyther of him or his’, and Anne Chattox’ (D3v) desire to ‘revenge her of the sayd Robert Nutter’. 99 J.M.Furphy, ‘An Anthropological Account of Witchcraft in Early Seventeenth Century England’ MA. dissertation, University of Manchester, 1991 (71–2), examines confusion over the wealth of Alice Nutter, basing his account on Gladys Whittaker, Roughlee Hall: Fact and Fiction (Nelson: Marsden Antiquarians, 1980). 100 Holmes, ‘Women, Witnesses and Witches’ 60. 101 Rehearsall (1579) B2-B2v. 102 Galis (1579) D2v. 103 We know that Galis had read the earlier pamphlet because he mentions it (ibid. A3), and rewrites it at the end of his own pamphlet (Dv-D3v). 104 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) D4. 105 A true and just Recorde (1582) B6v. 106 Dialogue (1593) B2v. 107 Potts (1612) F4v. 108 A true and just Recorde (1582) E5. 109 Ibid. A8, B-B2, C, and Apprehension (1589) A4v, The most wonderfull and true storie (1597) D3D3v and Potts (1612) B3. 110 The most cruell and bloody murther (1606) C4-C4v. 111 Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic 664. 112 Dialogue (1593) L4v. 113 A true and just Recorde (1582) D3v (Celles and Rosse), D6, E6 (Grevell and Cheston). 114 Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic 659. 115 Examination (1566) B, Bv, Detection (1579) A7, Apprehension (1589) A3v-A4. Hester reads ‘cucsed’ as ‘cucled’ and glosses it ‘called him a cuckold’, but this is based on a misreading, as are ‘Durrill’ (‘Hurrill’), and ‘Justain’ (‘Fustian’) Kirtle in the same pamphlet A3v, A4v (Hester, 185–6) and ‘killed’ (‘kissed’) in A true and just Recorde (1582) B5v (Hester, 181–2). Rosen (185) prints ‘cursed’, which seems a more likely reading. 116 Detection (1579) A5v. 117 Examination (1566) A7v-A8, Bv-B2. 118 Ibid. A7. Seeking male-female sexual conflict Hester glosses ‘goodes’ as meaning that Elizabeth made him impotent (presumably ‘waste his cods’?) (Hester 167), but I prefer the more obvious reading.

NOTES 209

119 A true and just Recorde (1582) C2. As Rosen noted, this may be the witch of the lost 1574 pamphlet The Examination and Confession of a notorious Witch named Mother Arnold (Rosen, 125 n.31), rewritten in A World of Wonders (1595) E2v-E4. 120 Rehearsall (l579) A8. 121 Potts (1612) D3v-D4. 122 The most wonderfull and true storie (1597) A4v, B2, D3-D3v. 123 A true and just Recorde (1582) C7-C7v. 124 Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic 659. 125 Ibid. This section does not reject the guilt-reversal model, as G.R.Quaife does (Godly Zeal and Furious Rage (London and Sydney: Croom Helm, 1987) 190) but adds to its complexity. 126 In 1612 (Pollard and Redgrave, eds.). 127 Lady Cicely Hungerford, a widow when she became his second wife in 1608 (Ibid.). 128 The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) C2-C4v. 129 Ibid. Gv, F3. 130 Ibid. F4. Rosen suggests that Margaret was forbidden to sleep at the Castle and given ‘unusually large severance pay’ because she ‘may have become a little too popular with the male members of the household’ (Rosen, 372 n.4)—a supposition demonstrating the paucity of information about the victim’s aggressive actions by trying to fill them out. 131 Ben Jonson, Complete Poems (London: Penguin, 1988) 95–8. 132 Pollard and Redgrave, eds., Venn and Venn, eds. 133 The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) G2. 134 Willis 13. 135 The severall factes of Witch-crafte (1585) A4v. 136 The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) B2v. 137 Ibid. B2-B2v. 138 The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) C3-C4. 139 Willis 77, 102. 140 The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) B3-B3v. 141 Pollard and Redgrave, eds., which pays Francis Manners the back-handed compliment that he was ‘less extravagant than most of his family’. 142 Rosen 286 n.36. 143 Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic 659. 144 A true and just Recorde (1582) C. 145 Apprehension (1589) B2. 146 Edward Fairfax, ‘Daemonologia’ ed. William Grainge (1621; first published Harrogate, 1882). 147 Potts (1612) Lv-L2v. 148 Ibid. M2v. 149 Fairfax 124. He discusses accusations of fraud or delusion on 36, 69, 71, 81, 98 etc. and in his trial account 122–8. His mysterious feud with the Gravers and Robinsons, sceptics and those held to sympathise with the witches, suggest suppressed motives in this case, denied at length. 150 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) A4. 151 Ibid. F4v. 152 Ibid. G3. 153 Ibid. M. 154 Ibid. G4, H. See Chapter 4. 155 Potts (1612) X4v-Y.

210

NOTES

156 157 158 159 160 161

Galis (1579) B2v-B3. Discoverie 1.8. A true and just Recorde (1582) C8. Witches Apprehended (1613) A4v. A Most Wicked worke (1592) A2v-A3. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures 9 and 16.

Introduction to Part II 1 Rosen 213. 2 See Appendix 3. 3 Gareth Roberts believes that Tompson is Agnes Sampson; see Roberts and Lawrence Normand, Witch Hunting in Early Modern Scotland: Daemonologie and the North Berwick Witches (Exeter: Exeter University Press, forthcoming). Because Newes deals with a Scottish case, it is not one of the pamphlets I consider as central in this thesis. The Scottish legal system is entirely different, with different documentation and procedure; the use of torture, together with ‘Continental’ ideology, makes witches’ confessions un-English. However, structurally the pamphlet fits the developmental model proposed for English accounts (Larner called it ‘a classic sixteenth-century English pamphlet’, Enemies of God (London: Chatto and Windus, 1981) 31) and Rosen might have added to her list of post-1590 authors, with their aims, ‘Kings legitimate their rule’. If James Carmichael is the author as Pollard and Redgrave’s STC suggests, his ministerial status also fits Rosen’s theory (see Roberts and Normand). 4 Probably because his work is a kind of possession pamphlet. 5 If the 1574 pamphlet The Examination and Confession of a notorious Witch named Mother Arnold contained as much narrative as its descendant, it would be the earliest example of its kind, though still documentary-based. 6 Rosen 213. 7 Roberts, ‘The Descendants of Circe’ in Barry et al., eds. 185; Elliot Rose, A Razor for a Goat: A Discussion of Certain problems in the History of Witchcraft and Diabolism (1962; Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press, 1989) 3. Heikkinen refers problematically to ‘witchcraft proper’ (Ankarloo and Henningsen, eds. 326), opposing it to ‘demonic magic’ just as G.L.Kittredge in Witchcraft in Old and New England (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1929) equates witchcraft with maleficium (4). Fragmenting these categories by defining witchcraft as multiple is beginning; like Brian P.Levack, seeking a ‘multi-causal approach’ (The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (1987; London and New York: Longman, 2nd edition 1995) x), Robin Briggs points out that ‘witchcraft was not an objective reality but a set of interpretations’ (Witches and Neighbours (London: HarperCollins, 1996) 9–10).

4 ‘Necessary’ and ‘triviall’ pamphlets 1 Herbert Norris’s note on the pamphlet dates it mistakenly to 1589, the year the events began: Notes and Queries 12th Series 1 (January—June 1916):283–4. Clive Hurst of the Bodleian Library clarified this for me. Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593)—the writers are described on H2v as ‘the authors of this booke’. 2 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) A2. 3 Detection (1579) A2.

NOTES 211

4 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) A2v. 5 Ibid. A2. 6 For example, the splitting into two parts of the visit of Master Throckmorton of Brampton (12, K—each an account of the fits of a different child ‘to prove Agnes Samuel a Witch’) or the bringing of first Joan’s story and then Jane’s up to the assizes day (M4-N3). 7 Leuschner 297. 8 Ibid. 296–8. 9 D.P.Walker, Unclean Spirits (London: Scolar, 1981) 49–50. 10 Moira Tatem, The Witches of Warboys (Cambridge: Cambridgeshire County Council, 1993) 10–11. 11 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) A2. 12 Ibid. F2v. This list is partly indebted to Barbara Rosen (240 n.2). 13 Edward Arber, ed. A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London 1554–1640, 5 vols. (1875–94; Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1967) vol. 2, 633. 14 For the purposes of reference, ‘authors’ indicates those who probably wrote the original reports, while ‘pamphleteer(s)’ refers to the editorial voice who may have put them into the third person, linking and commenting. 15 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) F2v. 16 Robert Throckmorton, the father, was the son of Gabriel, of Ellington and Warboys, born 1551 (thus 38 when the case began) and educated at Eton and Caius College, Cambridge. He married Elizabeth Pickering, daughter of John, of Titchmarsh, in 1571: Wasey Sterry, ed., The Eton College Register 1441–1698 (Eton: Spottiswoode and Ballantyne, 1943), Venn and Venn, eds. and Henry Ellis, ed., The Visitation of the County of Huntingdon (London: Camden Society, 1849) 123–4). See Reiber de Windt ‘Witchcraft and Conflicting Visions’ for further detail. 17 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) A4. They were ‘free from any such conceit of witchcraft’. 18 Ibid. A3v. 19 Ibid. D4v. 20 Ibid. H4. 21 Gilbert Pickering of Titchmarsh Grove, Northamptonshire, was the eldest brother of the children’s mother Elizabeth Throckmorton née Pickering. He was 36 in 1589 (born 1553) and educated at Clare College, Cambridge (Sterry, and Venn and Venn, eds.). 22 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) B-Bv. 23 Ibid. B3. 24 Rosen agrees (240 n.2). 25 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) D3v. 26 Ibid. D4v. Henry was Gilbert’s brother, the seventh son of John Pickering and at Christ’s College, Cambridge. Born in 1564, he was 26 in 1590 (Venn and Venn, eds.). 27 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) E. 28 Ibid. E2v. 29 Ibid. E3-E3v. 30 Ibid. L4, etc. Fourth Pickering brother (Venn and Venn, eds.). 31 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) Iv-I2, etc. Son of Simon, who was the brother of Gabriel Throckmorton (father of Robert, the afflicted children’s father)—thus Robert’s cousin, as the pamphlet states (Ellis 123–4).

212

NOTES

32 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) M3. Brother of Francis Dorington, discussed later, and thus the Throckmortons’ brother-in-law. MP for Huntingdon in 1584 (Venn and Venn, eds.) and JP (Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) O3). 33 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) F2. Sterry 332 and Ellis 123–4. Emma must be ‘olde mistresse Throcmorton their grandmother’ in Most strange and admirable discov erie (1593) G3. 34 Ibid. F4v-Gv. 35 Ibid. Gv. 36 Ibid. G3. 37 Ibid. G4. 38 Ibid. C2. 39 Ibid. H3. Francis Dorington married Robert Throckmorton’s sister Mary (Ellis 123–4 and Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) M3v), was ordained 1557/8 and was rector of Warboys (since 1565). He was a Fellow of Caius College, Cambridge from 1562 to 1565, though educated at Trinity and St Catharine’s Colleges (Venn and Venn, eds.). 40 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) Hv-H2v. 41 R.Trevor Davies says Francis Cromwell was Sir Henry’s brother (Four Centuries of Witch-Beliefs (London: Methuen, 1947) 36). 42 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) Hv-H2. 43 Lady Cromwell was the step-grandmother of the Protector (born 1599); see D4 for her dream. 44 Galis (1579) A2. 45 Potts (1612) Bv. 46 A true and just Recorde (1582) A4 (there are two sig. As—this is the first). 47 Ibid. A4v (1st sig. A). 48 Potts (1612) Xv-X2. 49 Ibid. no sig. 3v. 50 Ibid. A4. 51 Willis 30. 52 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) A2-A2v. 53 Davies 39. 54 Walker 5. 55 See Reiber de Windt for a discussion of local social conflicts over godliness. 56 Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) G4. 57 Ibid. L2. 58 Ibid. H. 59 Jonathan Lumby, The Lancashire Witch-Craze: Jennet Preston and the Lancashire Witches 1612 imagines a sexual scandal involving Jennet Preston and Master Lister, admitting this is only an assumption (Preston: Carnegie, 1995) 75–8. 60 Potts (1612) X4v. 61 See Gareth Roberts ‘Magic and Witchcraft in English Drama and Poetry 1558–1634’, thesis, University of London, 1976, 145–57, ‘Three Notes on Uses of Circe by Spenser, Marlowe and Milton’ Notes and Queries New Series 25 (1978):433–5 and ‘Descendants of Circe’ 183–206. 62 Potts (1612) Y, Z3v. 63 Ibid. Z3. I suggest that this author is not Potts because he refers to Potts’ Wonderfull Discoverie (1612) on X4, ‘wherein I find such apparant matter…’ as if not the author; because of his more confident style: ‘I thinke it necessarie’ (X4v) not ‘my honourable & worthy Lords…

NOTES 213

64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73

74 75

76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87

thought it necessarie’ (B-Bv); and because of his reference to ‘we’ in living under the government of judges in the north parts (below). Potts lived in London (Chancery Lane, Av) but might be a Yorkshireman. He was Baron Escrick’s protégé, and Escrick is near York. He also held the office of Clerk of the Peace for the East Riding in 1610–11 (Cockburn, History of English Assizes 82). None of these arguments are conclusive therefore, but cumulatively interesting. The ‘second’ author attended both York and Lancaster assizes in 1612 (he gives convincing accounts of happenings in both courtrooms: Z2, Z2v and ‘I saw, and was present in the Court at Lancaster’). Potts would have attended both. But ‘neither’ author has access to Yorkshire documents, neither Preston’s examination or the written informations of Anne Robinson and Thomas Lister Y2v). All documents printed as Yorkshire material come from Lancashire (the informations of the three Devices and Hargreives). Potts (1612) Z3v. Ibid.. Rosen 103–4. A true and just Recorde (1582) B5. Ibid. 1st sig,. A4 A4. Ibid. B6v. Rosen 122 n.26. A true and just Recorde (1582) B6v; Rosen 121 n.24. A true and just Recorde (1582) A3. Jean Bodin De la Demonomanie des Sorciers (1580; Paris, 1587) 216–17. ‘Now if there was ever a way to appease the wrath of God, to obtain his blessing, to frighten some by the punishment of others, to protect some from the contamination of others, to reduce the number of the wicked, to secure the life of the good, and to punish the most dreadful wickednesses that the human spirit can imagine, it is to punish, with utmost rigour, sorcerers: although the word “rigour” is ill chosen, given that there is no punishment cruel enough to suffice to punish the wickednesses of sorcerers, all the more so since all their wickednesses, blasphemies, and all their designs are set up against the majesty of God, in order to defy and offend him in a thousand ways’ (translation by Rebecca Selman and Marion Gibson). A true and just Recorde (1582) A3v. De praestigiis daemonum (1563). Republished in translation as Johann Weyer, Witches, Devils and Doctors in the Renaissance, ed. George Mora, trans. John Shea (Binghampton, NY: np, 1991). Rosen 106 n.4, also Anthony Harris’s edition of the pamphlet (Delmar, NY: Scholars Facsimiles and Reprints, 1981). Batholomeus Batty/Battus, The Christian Man’s Closet, ed. and trans. William Lowth (London, 1581) 1st sig. (pointing hand) 2, 3, 3v. Potts (1612) no sig. 3. Ibid. A3v. Ibid. Bv-B2. Ibid. Bv, D2, F2. Ibid. A4v. Ibid. M2-M2v. Ibid. M2v-M3. Rosen 357 n.2. Potts (1612) F3. Ibid. M3v.

214

88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97

98

99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109

110

111 112 113 114 115

116 117 118 119 120 121 122

NOTES

Galis (1579) D4. Ibid. D3v-D4. Ibid. D4. Scot chapter 33. Galis (1579) C3v-D. Scot 1.8. See Marion Gibson, ‘Richard Galis: Witches, Autobiography and Horror’, a paper given at the Institute of Historical Research, London, 23 May 1996. Rehearsall (1579) A2v. See Chapter 5. Detection (1579) A2. For discussion of (possession) pamphlets within a defined controversy, see F.W. Brownlow, Shakespeare, Harsnett and the Devils of Denham (London and Toronto: Associated University Presses/Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1993) or Corinne Holt Rickert, The Case of John Darrell, Minister and Exorcist (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1962). Murder pamphlets are an example of a genre which does ‘invariably’ have this undertone, but I argue here that it is patchy in witchcraft pamphlets, especially document-based and trivial pamphlets, often confined to a preface; Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness 60. This idea is based on an insight of Gareth Roberts. Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) A2. ‘Jordan II’, The English Poems of George Herbert, ed. C.A.Patrides (London: Dent, 1974) 116. Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) Bv. The severall factes of Witch-crafte (1585) A4, A6. Galis (1579) A3 and Dv-D3v. Rehearsalli (1579) A4v and Galis (1579) A2. Rehearsall (1579) A6v-A7. Galis (1579) D2. See note 143. Ibid. A2. This is very fulsome, but not unlike other dedications: for example, Lowth’s in The Christian Man’s Closet, W.W.’s/Lowth’s/Darcey’s in A true and just Recorde (1582) and Potts’ in Wonderfull Discoverie (1612). Love’s Labours Lost 3.1.133–4 and 165–8. The play mocked the words in the 1590s, suggesting that they were fashionable when Galis delighted in them in 1579, but had become old-fashioned by the 1590s. ‘Life of Artaxerxes’, Plutarch’s Lives, 11 vols., trans. Bernadotte Perrin, Loeb Classics (1914– 20; London: Heinemann/Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1943) vol. 11, 135. Galis (1579) A2v, B4, B. Ibid. A3-A3v. Detection (1579) A2. John Lyly, Euphues: the Anatomy of Wyt in R.Warwick Bond, ed. The Complete Works of John Lyly, 3 vols. (1579; Oxford: Clarendon, 1902) vol. 1, 184. Lyly’s dense patterning is suggested by the fact that all these references come from a single page. Galis (1579) B2. Ibid. A2–A2v. Ibid. B2-B2v. Lyly 196. Galis (1579) A3. Lyly 196–7. Ibid. 215.

NOTES 215

123 124 125 126 127

128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143

144 145 146 147

148 149 150 151 152

153 154

Ibid. 315. Galis (1579) B2. Ibid. B3v, B4v. Ibid. B3v. Ibid. A4v, B4v, B3-B3v. Scot recognised the latter construction: ‘Peters chaines fell off in prison, so did Richard Gallisies fetters at Windsor: marrie the prison doores opened not to Richard, as they did to Peter’ 9.7. See Gibson, ‘Richard Galis: Witches, Autobiography and Horror’. Rosen 354 n.9. The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) D2v. Ibid. D3. Witches Apprehended (1613) A4. Ibid. A4v-B. Ibid. A4v, B. Ibid.B3. Ibid. I cannot find either Latin quotation in any classical Latin author—the quotations may be from Greek, or later Latin writers, or concocted by the prefacer. Ibid. Cv-C2. Ibid. C2. The Wonderful Discoverie (1619), reprinted as Strange and Wonderfull Witchcrafts in 1621 (D3). Witches Apprehended (1613) B-Bv. Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) F2v. A Most Wicked worke (1592) A3. Galis (1579) D. Comic, or partly comic, witchcraft or magic plays which might inspire this view of witchcraft include: The Merry Devil of Edmonton in C.F.Tucker Brooke, ed. The Shakespeare Apocrypha (?1597–1603; Oxford: Clarendon, 1918); Christopher Marlowe, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, The Complete Plays (? 1588–92, printed 1604; London: Penguin, 1969); Robert Greene, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, ed. Daniel Seltzer (?1589–91, printed 1594; London: Edward Arnold, 1964); John Lyly, Mother Bombie in William Tydeman, ed. Four Tudor Comedies (1594; London: Penguin, 1984); and Thomas Heywood, A Critical Edition of The Wisewoman of Hogsdon, ed. Michael Leonard (1604; New York and London: Garland, 1980). Galis (1579) C3v. Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) O2v. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic 664; Leuschner 273. I feel he is probably not the author of the story of Annis Dell, the first part of the pamphlet, and may not have written all of the Harrison section, as the tone changes (from melancholy and factuality to jovial, scurrilous colloquialism) on C3. The most cruell and bloody murther (1606) C4. Ibid. C4v. A Most Wicked worke (1592) A3. Greene 2.116–31. No act divisions. See W.W.Greg, ed. Henslowe’s Diary, 2 vols. (London: Bullen, 1904) part 1 F7–9; Arber vol. 2, 607; Marion Gibson, ‘Greene’s Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay and A Most Wicked worke of a wretched Witch: A Link’, Notes and Queries (March 1997):36–7. A Most Wicked worke (1592) A3v. Ibid.

216

NOTES

155 Greene 15.30–45. 156 A Most Wicked worke (1592) A3v. 157 Possibly the theatricality of the source would particularly offend them because of their godly background. Although (perhaps surprisingly) cards were played by the child Elizabeth in Pickering’s house, they were disapproved of and her rejection and burning of them symbolised her godly resistance of the devil (C-C2). Similarly there is an obscure reference to satan as ‘a ring-leader of new fashions’, and having a’new-fangled nature’ (B4v) and general puzzled distrust of laughter, and children’s play at bowls (‘foolish sport’) (C-Cv). These might be indications that the creators of Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) would disapprove of plays, as they dislike art for art’s sake and amusement generally (‘idle wit…vainenesse’). 158 Greenblatt 94–128. 159 Diane K.Bolton, ‘Harrow Including Pinner’, The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Middlesex, ed. R.B.Pugh, 10 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971) vol. 4, 171, 214. For Edlin’s leases of Woodhall, see MRO Acc 76/222a and b. Edlin was a governor of Harrow School and his family have monumental brasses in Pinner: William Durrant Cooper, ‘The Parish Registers of Harrow on the Hill’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 1 (1860):296 and H.K. Gameron, ‘The Brasses of Middlesex part 24: Northolt, Norwood, Pinner and Ruislip’, Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society 35 (1984):121–2. 160 Rosen 204. 161 Singleton, ‘Witchcraft in Middlesex’ 106, 107.

5 Prefaces 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16

Hester 125, Holmes, ‘Popular Culture?’ 100. Roberts, Treatise of Witchcraft (1616). Willis 86–7. The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) C2-C2v, Witches Apprehended (1613) B3v-B4 and The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) B3v-B4. On the influence of Daemonologie, see Rosen 349 n.5. Ibid. 72. Examination (1566) A2. Ibid. A2-A2v. Ibid. A2v. Rosen 72 (I have demodernised her quotation from the poem). Examination (1566) A3. For Phillips’ other work, see his entry in the STC (Pollard and Redgrave, eds). Examination (1566). Ibid. A3v. Ibid. A3, A3v. Ibid. A3v, A3. A true reporte or description of an horrible, wofull, and most lamentable murther, doen in the citie of Bristowe by one Jhon Kynnestar (London, 1573) A7v. For poetry moralising magic, see Francis Coxe, A Short Treatise declarynge the detestable wickednesse of magicall sciences declarynge the detestable wickednesse of magicall sciences…(London, 1561) Av-A2. A Most Wicked worke (1592) Av.

NOTES 217

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

48 49 50 51 52

53

54

Examination (1566) A3v. Scot, Dedication to Manwood. Ibid. Examination (1566) A4-A5v. 1563, 5. Eliz. c.16. Examination (1566) A4v. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. A7v. Ibid. A4v. Ibid. A4v-A5. Ibid. A5v. Larner, Witchcraft and Religion 99 and n.5. Ibid. 99. ‘Inversion, Misrule and the Meaning of Witchcraft’, Past and Present 87 (1980):98. Pollard and Redgrave, eds.; Arber vol. 2 349, 352. Detection (1579) A3-A3v. Rehearsall (1579) A2; Detection (1579) A3. Dialogue (1593) A2-A2v. Rehearsall (1579) A2-A2v. Ibid. A2v. Ibid. A3. An interesting view, given the suspicions of the Privy Council in this case, as is the reference to the devil’s ‘treason’ (Ibid. A3). Rehearsall (1579) A3-A3v. Galis (1579) D3v. Rosen 86 n.2. Detection (1579) A2-A2v. Apprehension (1589) A2. Ibid. A2v. The first Jacobean pamphlet to deal wholly with witchcraft and not possession, or murder, published a few months before Potts’ Wonderfull Discoverie (1612) (22 July and 7 November; Arber vol. 3, 499, 501). In The most cruell and bloody murther (1606) (Arber vol. 3, 329), the main preface seems genuinely unrelated to the tacked-on witchcraft section of the pamphlet and so is not considered here. R.Sawyer, ‘Strangely Handled in all her Lyms: Witchcraft and Healing in Jacobean England’, Journal of Social History 22.3 (1989):483 n.37; Arber vol. 3 499. The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) A4, C4. Ibid. C2-C2v (see James I and VI Daemonologie (1597) 80–1). Emphasis originally in a Roman font in blackletter text. The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) A4v (see Gifford, A Discourse of the Subtill Practises of Devilles by Witches and Sorcerers (1587; Amsterdam and Norwood: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum and Walter J.Johnson, 1977) B2). An obsession with class is also common to them (see below and B2, Cv, D2v), both stress the detestable lives and desperate deaths of witches (A3v, C, D, D2, D3v) and ideas of taint and corruption (see below and D2v, D3v). The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) A4v-B.

218

55 56 57 58 59 60

61 62 63 64 65

66 67

68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83

NOTES

Ibid. A3v. Ibid. A3v. Ibid. A3v-A4. Ibid. C4v. Ibid. A4. The evolving use of the word ‘experiment’ is discussed in Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols. (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1923– 58) vol. 7 (1958), 69. The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) C2-C2v. Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) B2. Dialogue (1593) G. Most strange and admirable discoverie (1593) B2. Francis Bacon, Great Instauration, ed. J.Weinberger (1620; Wheeling, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1989) 21–3. On demonology and science see Stuart Clark, ‘The Scientific Status of Demonology’ 351–74 and Brian Easlea, Witch Hunting, Magic and the New Philosophy (Brighton: Harvester, 1980). Contemporary negotiations with ‘scientific’ methodologies include Johann Weyer, De praestigiis daemonum (234–5, 314, 422–3 for examples of investigations) and John Cotta’s works, A Short Discoverie of the Unobserved Dangers of severall sorts of ignorant and unconsiderate practisers of physicke in England (London, 1612) (especially 51–7) and The Triall of Witchcraft (1616) (especially 16–17, chapter 3 on reasoning, and 104). Investigation was used to destroy or support witchcraft belief. Most such reasoning is ‘unsystematic’ as Christopher Baxter points out (‘Johann Weyer’s De praestigiis daemonum: Unsystematic Psychopathology’ 53–75), but his abuse of Weyer and other unsystematic thinkers as ‘simple-minded’ (56) is unhelpful. The Witches of Northamptonshire (1612) A3v. Witches Apprehended (1613) A3-A3v. The reference is to Pliny’s Natural History book 16 (chapter 24 in the edition I consulted, The Natural History of Pliny, ed. J.Bostock and H.T.Riley, 6 vols. (London, 1893) vol. 3, 365–6). Matthew 10.16. Psalms 58.4. The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) B. Ibid. Bv. Ibid. B2. James I and VI Daemonologie Preface xi-xii. The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) B2-B2v. Ibid. B3. Ibid. B2v. Vergil (Publius Vergilius Maro), Aeneid book 7. The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) B4. Ibid. B3. Ibid. B3-B3v. I cannot find any such quotation in Epicurus’ works, but this almost-parody of his thinking is typical of a Renaissance Christian reading of his ideas. The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) B3v-B4. First Edinburgh edition was 1597. This edition was printed when he became King of England.

NOTES 219

84 See note 65. Two editions: 1612, titled as in note 65, and 1617 (to which this obviously refers, despite the given date) called A True Discovery of the Empiricke with the fugitive Physition and Quacksalver. 85 Second edition. 86 Probably lost, as I am unable to find it in Pollard and Redgrave’s STC (nor is it in Arber). 87 Witches Apprehended (1613). 88 Potts (1612). Quotation from The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) C. 89 The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) C. 90 Ibid. Cv. 91 Ibid. C2. 92 Ibid. G2-G2v. 93 The possession debate raged over flatly contradictory readings of ‘this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting’ (Matthew 17.21), ‘the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour’ (1 Peter 5.8), ‘this sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God…’ (John 11.4) ‘resist the devil and he will flee from you’ (James 4.7), and satan as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11.14) among others, whilst the witchcraft debate concentrated on ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’ (Exodus 22.18), Pharaoh’s magicians (Exodus 7), ‘the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul…’ (Leviticus 20.6), ‘There shall not be found among you…a witch’ (Deuteronomy 18.10) and 1 Samuel 28’s ‘witch’ of Endor. 94 Goodcole (1621) A3. 95 Ibid. A3v. 96 Ibid. A3. 97 Ibid. A3v. 98 Ibid. A2, A3, A3v. 99 Ibid. Cv. 100 Ibid. A4v-B. 101 Ibid. Cv. 102 Ibid. D3-D3v.

An Open Conclusion, or ‘Where do we go from here?’ 1 An anxious question first raised by H.C.Erik Midelfort in the subtitle of his article ‘Recent Witch-Hunting Research’, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 62 (1968). 2 Strange and Wonderfull Witchcrafts (1635) (Flower case); Cotta, The infallible, true and assured Witch (The Triall of Witchcraft) (1616/1625); A Discourse of Newes from Prague (1622); A Relacion of the Devill Balaams departure out of the bodie of the Mother Prioresse of the Ursuline Nunnes of Loudon (1636)—authors for these are unknown; R.Bernard, Guide to Grand Jury Men (London, 1627); A briefe Description of the notorious Life of John Lambe, otherwise called Doctor Lambe, together with his ignominious Death (London, 1628). 3 Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness 109–10, 146. 4 Ibid. 146. 5 Ibid. 126, 146. 6 Walker 1. 7 See The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) B4-C, Cotta, Triall of Witchcraft (1616) 76, Darrell, A Survey of certaine Dialogicall Discourses written by John Deacon and John Walker concerning the doctrine of Possession and Dispossession of Divels (London, 1602) 54 etc.

220

NOTES

8 A Discourse of Newes from Prague (1622). 9 John Fisher, The Copy of a Letter Describing the wonderful woorke of God in delivering a Mayden within the City of Chester, from an horrible kinde of torment and sicknes (London, 1564); A4v-A5. For Lane, see Venn and Venn, eds. 10 Although we have seen a divergent increase in triviality too. 11 Rosen 213. 12 For Darling, see The most wonderfull and true storie (1597); for Somers, A Breife Narration of the possession, disposition and repossession of William Sommers…(?Amsterdam, 1598), John Darrell, An Apologie, or defence of the possession of William Sommers (Middleburg, ?1599), Darrell, A Brief Apologie proving the possession of William Sommers (?Amsterdam, 1599); for Darrell’s other patients, Samuel Harsnett, A Discovery of the fraudulent practises of John Darrell (London, 1599), Darrell, A True Narration of the strange and grevous vexation by the devil of seven persons in Lancashire and William Somers of Nottingham (np, 1600), Darrell, A Detection of that sinnful, shamful, lying and ridiculous discours of Samuel Harshnet (?English secret press, 1600), George More, A true Discourse concerning the certaine possession and dispossession of 7 persons in one familie in Lancashire (Middleburg, 1600), John Deacon and John Walker, Dialogicall Discourses (1601) and A Summarie Answere to al the material points in any of Master Darel his bookes (London, 1601), Darrell, Survey (1602), Darrell, The Replie of John Darrell to the answere of John Deacon and John Walker (London, 1602), Harsnett, Declaration (1603), reprinted in Brownlow, ed. For Mary Glover, see John Swan, A True and Breife report of Mary Glovers vexation (London, 1603), Jorden, Brief Discourse (1603) and Stephen Bradwell, ‘Marie Glovers late woefull case’. 1603. Sloane MS 831. British Library, London—all in Macdonald, Witchcraft and Hysteria. 13 Although A Miracle of Miracles appeared in 1614 it was a reissue of Margaret Cooper’s case, A True and Most Dreadful Discourse of a Woman possessed with the Devil (London, 1584); R.Baddeley (1622) A3-A3v, H-Iv. 14 The Prague pamphlet of 1622 is lost (entered in the Stationers’ Register 27 August 1622). 15 Until A most certain, strange and true discovery of a witch. Being taken by some of the Parliament forces…(London, 1643). 16 See Goodcole, A True Declaration of the happy Conversion, contrition and Christian preparation of Francis Robinson…(London, 1618), Londons Cry (1619), The Adultresses Funerall Day: In flaming, scorching and consuming fire: Or the burning down to ashes of Alice Clarke late of Uxbridge… for the unnaturall poisoning of Fortune Clarke her husband…(London, 1635), Heavens Speedie Hue and Cry sent after Lust and Murther. Manifested upon the suddaine apprehending of Thomas Shearwood and Elizabeth Evans…(London, 1635) and Natures Cruell Step-Dames: or Matchlesses Monsters of the Female Sex: Elizabeth Barnes and Anne Willis. Who were executed…for the unnaturall murthering of their owne Children…(London, 1637) for Goodcole’s varied, vivid and pious styles. 17 Goodcole (1621) A3. 18 The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) B.

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Index

abortion 157 accusation of witchcraft 13–13, 75–76, 85, 96–2 accusers’ stories 58, 74, 76–1, 82–7, 84–9 alliteration 136, 142, 153–1, 161 Altham, Sir James 14, 55, 174 Anderson, Lord Justice 39 answers of witch: autobiographical 21, 23; co-authorship 21, 23, 24, 29; confession 24–8, 29–2, 33; examination 32; Favret-Saada 20, 33; Ginzburg 21, 28; gossip 22–4; Kapferer 20; Purkiss 23–5, 28, 30–4; scribe 21; spirits 26–9, 28–2; St Osyth 22; victims’ stories 19–2, 22–4, 27–28 anthropology of witchcraft 13–14 anti-Catholicism 109, 128–7, 151 The Apprehension and confession of three notorious Witches: authorship 119; case study 40–9; evidence 64; gossipy voice 60, 113, 145; legal documents 113; paraphrased informations 58; prosecution witnesses 55; preface 163–1 arraignment and plea 54–7 atheism 173 Atkins, Mother 86

authorial intentions 42, 107–15, 120, 122–9, 130–8 authority 51, 166–5 authorship 108; The Apprehension 119; co-authorship 21, 23, 24, 29; commissioned viii–1, 108, 128–5, 159–7; hack writers 108, 145–3; Most strange and admirable discoverie 111, 115–5; A Most Wicked worke 108; multiple 40; The severall factes of Witch-crafte 38; The Witches of Northamptonshire 119 autobiography: spiritual 131; witch 21, 23 Avery, William 65, 65–9, 100, 180 Awdeley, John 151, 156, 157 B., G. (pamphleteer) 86, 103, 107, 108, 109, 145–6; see also A Most Wicked worke of a wretched Witch Babin, Jean and Josephine 25, 74–9, 76, 195n36 Baddeley, Richard 180–9 Baker, J.H. 70, 204n112 Baldwin, Richard 84 Barber, Mary 139–7 Barry, Jonathan 7, 8, 77 barter narratives 87–2, 89 Barthram, Doll 180 Batty, Bartholomew 126–3 Baxter, Ales 78

231

232

INDEX.

Beattie, J.M. 18, 70 Bee, Jesse 38; see also The most wonderfull and true storie Belcher, Dabriscourt 65, 202n100 Belcher, Elizabeth 65, 65, 66, 99, 100, 180 Benjamin, Walter 51 Bennet, Elizabeth: Byet 84, 93; confession 27–28, 78; and Darcey 125, 126; Johnson 86; self-representation 25–8; supernatural 32, 101 Bernard, Richard 178 Bible/common sense as authority 166–5 Bill, Arthur 65, 167 BL Sloane MS 64–69 blame 28–2, 31–4, 85, 109 blasphemy 176 Bodin, Jean 125, 126, 212n73 Bohemian witches 178–7 Bowler, Hugh 70 The Boy of Bilson (Baddeley) 180 Brief Treatise (Galis): authorial intentions 120, 130–8; blameless victims 109; possession 179; rhetoric 134–3 Briggs, Robin 24, 76 Bromley, Edward 174; Jennet Device 59; Potts’ pamphlet 52, 55, 57, 64; prefacer 128 Browne, Agnes (child) 26, 27, 61, 62, 87 Browne, Agnes (witch) 65, 65, 99 burning of witches 109, 117 Burt, Richard 103, 145–5 Byet, William 78, 84, 93 Catholic exorcism 180–9 Celles, Cysley 78, 88 Celles, Henry 78, 88 Celles, Robert 88 charity denied 2, 3, 37, 78, 79–89, 109, 206n41; see also denial narratives Chattox, Anne:

naming witches 17, 95; Potts on 89, 90, 207n98; representation of 46; spirit 29; trial 50, 54, 57 Chaundeler, Alice and Jhon 37 Chelmsford Assizes 61 child killing 102, 158 The Christian Mans Closet (Batty) 126–3 church court examination 25, 60, 193n3 Clark, Sandra 7 Clark, Stuart 159 class 99, 217n53 classical myths 135 clerks 13, 34 co-authorship 21, 23, 24, 29 Cockburn, J.S. 200n31, 202n78; Chelmsford Assizes 61; Examination 72; indictments/examination 53–6; pamphlets’ reliability 8, 47; public interest in witchcraft trials 55; trial procedure 58–1, 63 Cohen, Elizabeth 18, 23 Cohn, Norman 17 Cole, Doctor 35 comedy: see humour common sense 166–5 confession: of accusers 84–9; answers 24–8, 29–2, 33; benefits 30–3; Bennet, Elizabeth 27–28, 78; Favret-Saada 20; Fraunces, Elizabeth 16; Frauncis, Elizabeth 13, 14, 158; Kempe, Ursley 25, 31–4, 125; Purkiss 23–5, 25; questioning 21, 25–7, 28; resisted 29, 32–5; Samuel, Agnes 118, 119; of sin 25; St Osyth witches 31; Stile, Elizabeth 95 controversy 170, 174–2, 176, 181–90 Cornell, Robart 37 Cotta, John 107, 174, 180

INDEX, 233

credibility 8, 47, 113, 121; see also truth crime pamphlets 107 crimes, motiveless 78, 79 criminology 164 culture, illiterate/literate 6 Cunny, Avis 63–6 Cunny, Joan 15, 16, 40, 40, 45, 85, 198n99 Cunny, Margaret 16 ‘Daemonologia’ (Fairfax) 5, 101 Daemonologie (King James) 89, 90, 151, 165–3, 168, 174, 207n91 Darcey, Brian: attacked 103; charity donor 86; informations 42; as magistrate 14; questions 125; Rosen on 125–2; St Osyth witches 25–8, 31, 33; A true and just Recorde 20, 36–9, 125–2 Darrell, John 125 Darrell controversy 5, 109 Davies, R.Trevor 123 De Republica Anglorum (Smith) 49 Deacon, John 165 death sentences 64 A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures (Harsnett) 180 Demdike, Elizabeth: evidence 58, 89; Potts on 128–5, 207n98; revenge 84, 90, 207n98; spirit 29 demonology: as contentious 170; devil’s power 117, 160; pamphlets 127–4; power of witchcraft 14; as science 164–2; A true and just Recorde 127 denial narrative 3, 79–7, 84, 85–86; see also charity denied Denison, John 38, 108 A Detection of damnable driftes: evidence 42;

examination of Elizabeth Fraunces 53; paraphrasing of informations 37, 58; preface 159–7, 162; rhetoric 136; Staunton, Margery 197n91; trial account 39 Devell, Mother 92, 95 Device, Alizon viii–2, 8, 55, 56, 84, 87–2, 90 Device, Elizabeth 56, 57, 128 Device, James 57, 90, 201n47 Device, Jennet 56, 57, 59, 128 devil: as deceiver 172; and God 175; power 117, 160; sex with witch 102, 119, 173; and witches 14, 15, 194n14 Dialogicall Discourses of spirits and divels (Deacon and Walker) 165 A Dialogue concerning Witches and Witchcraftes (Gifford) 14, 107, 160–8, 174 direct speech 43, 93 A Discourse on the Subtill Practises of Devilles by Witches and Sorcerers (Gifford) 166 Discoverie of Witches (Scot) distortion and reliability 71 documents: see legal documents Dolan, Frances 7, 8 Dorington, Francis 115, 119 Dowsing, Annis 23 dramatic representation of witches 135, 214n143 Edlin, Richard 147 Elizabeth I 156 Elizabethan pamphlets: changes 107–14; prefaces 149, 151 entertainment in pamphlets 133, 143, 148 Epistle to the Reader, Examination 152–60, 169 Estwood, John 37 ethnography, witchcraft 74–9 euphemism 145 euphuism 136, 140, 142 Evans-Pritchard, E.E. 7, 13 evidence:

234

INDEX.

The Apprehension 64; Demdike, Elizabeth 58, 89; Detection 42; documents/oral testimony 55–60; framed 40; heard/read 37; pamphleteers 37; reported 61–69; A true and just Recorde 42, 78 Ewstace, Margaret 96, 97 examination 46; answers 32; autobiographical 21; church court 25, 60, 193n3; direct speech 43; Fraunces, Elizabeth 39; Francis, Elizabeth 24–6; Goodcole 15, 19; magistrates 20–2; as pamphlet source 13, 14; Potts 1, 63, 197n80; questions 18, 20–2; Stile, Elizabeth 16, 17, 185; Waterhouse, Agnes 55 The Examination and Confession of a notorious Witch named Mother Arnold 39 The Examination and Confession of certaine Wytches at Chensforde: Browne, Agnes 26, 62; Epistle to the Reader 152–60, 169; Fraunces, Elizabeth 24–6; Phillips poetry 45; preface 163; Rosen 62; sources 35, 49, 61, 72, 73; Waterhouse, Joan and Agnes 60, 61, 62 The Examination of John Walsh 109, 151, 157 exorcism 180–9 fact 3–4, 46, 206n62; see also reality; truth Fairfax, Edward 5, 101, 178, 181 Fairfax, Helen 101–7 fairytales, revenge 91 Favret-Saada, Jeanne: answers 20, 33;

anthropology 13–14; Babins 25, 74–9, 76, 195n36; confession 20; questioner 18, 28, 33; twentieth century witches 20 Fenner, Edward 50, 54–7, 72, 108, 111, 115 ferret spirit 28, 44, 86 feud stories 79, 88, 95 Finch, Heneage (Recorder) 71 Fisher, John 179 Flower, Joane 97–3, 99, 100 Flower, Margaret 96, 97–3, 99, 100, 208n130; see also The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) Flower, Phillip 97–3, 99, 100; see also The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) folktale stories viii–2, 25; see also fairytales Fortescue, Henry 14, 35 Foucault, Michel 5 frame story, preface 151 framing of evidence 40 Fraunces, Elizabeth 194n21; charity denied 84; confession 16; examination 39, 53; indictment 53–6; other witches 17, 22; spirit 28 Frauncis, Elizabeth 194n21; abortion 157; confession 13, 14, 158; examination 24–6; husband 94; spirits 16 French witches 25 funerary poems 45, 153–1 Galis, Richard 79; Brief Treatise 109, 120, 130–8, 134–3, 179; chapter headings 137; dedication 135; humour 143–1; as madman 103; magisterial reform 108–16; narrative recreation 80, 91–8, 107; as psalmist 137–5; Scot on 103, 131;

INDEX, 235

‘To the Reader’ 135–3 gaol calendar 50, 65 Gaol Delivery Sessions 70 Gaskill, Malcolm 4, 6, 7, 20, 77 Geertz, Clifford 103 gendered information 42 genealogy of witchcraft 5 generic questions, checklist 183 generic stories 58, 74, 76–1 genres 44–9 Gerard, Sir Gilbert 35–8, 61, 72 German witches 24, 25, 45 Gifford, George: denial narratives 3, 79–6; A Dialogue concerning Witches and Witchcraftes 14, 107, 160–8, 174; A Discourse on the Subtill Practises of Devilles by Witches and Sorcerers 166; insults to witches 93–9 Ginzburg, Carlo 17, 21, 25–7, 28, 29 Glascock, Annis 25, 95 Glover, Mary 5 God, and devil 175 Goodcole, Henry: blasphemy 176; examination 15, 19; godliness 109; legal system 73; pamphlet sources 107–15; preface 177; trial account 49, 69–4; The wonderfull discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer 176, 180, 181 Gooderige, Alse 28–1, 38, 95–1 gossip 21, 22–4, 65, 68 gossipy voice 40, 41, 42, 45, 60, 113, 145 grand jury 53–6 Gray, Sir Henry 14 Greenblatt, Stephen 46, 59, 147 Greene, Ellen 15, 16 Greene, Robert (playwright) 145 Grevell, Margaret 29, 32, 86 grudges 79 guilty pleas 55 hack writers 108, 145–3 Handley, Robert 135, 136–4

Harkett, Margaret 69, 70, 85, 87; see also The severall factes of Witch-crafte harlotry 85, 93 Harrison, Joan 60, 93, 144–2 Harrison, Johane 39 Harrison, Richard 84–9 Harsnett, Samuel 128, 164, 180 Heard, Anne 194n21 Heard, Annis 23, 194n21 hearsay 22 Heikkinen, Antero 30 Herbert, George 133–1 Herd, Agnes 194n21 Herd, Annis 85, 87, 88–3, 194n21 heresy 117 Herrup, Cynthia 60 Hester, Marianne 38, 42, 149 Hewyt, Katherine 201n47 Heyber, Thomas JP 50 Holmes, Clive 3, 42, 91, 149, 195n33, 196n51 Humfrye, Mother of Maplested 15 humour 93, 94, 143–1 Hunt, Ales 16, 23, 29–2, 86 Hunt, Febey 23 hyperbole 128 ideology 122, 127 imprisonment 64 indictments 50–3, 52–6, 63 infanticide 102, 158 informations 13–13, 14–17; Darcey 42; and denial narratives 82, 84; gendered 42; pamphleteers 37, 38; paraphrased 37, 42, 85, 58; Scot 76–1; written 92 ingratitude of witch 2, 86–1, 103 insults 93 Jacobean witchcraft pamphlets 2, 181–90; prefaces 151, 164–85 James VI and I 108; Daemonologie 89, 165–3, 168, 174, 207n91; defeat of witchcraft 73; revenge 90;

236

INDEX.

swimming trials 151; witch’s contract with devil 14 Jeffrays, Maud 101–7 Jews, persecuted 17 Johnson, Arthur 165 Johnson, murdered 86 Jorden, Edward 107 Jorden, Joane 27 JPs 20–2, 50, 162 judges 14, 50, 58–1, 63, 107 jury, indictment 63 Kapferer, Jean-Noel 7, 20 Kempe, Ursley: confession 25, 31–4, 125; employed as cunning woman 88; and Hunt, Ales 29–2; and Newman, Ales 103; spirits 101 Kerke, Anne 39, 58, 69, 180 Kingston, John 159 Klaniczay, Gabor 77 Knyvet, Elizabeth 55 Knyvet, Thomas 55, 129 Kynnestar, John 154 Lambe, Dr 178 Lancashire witch trial 55–59 Lane, Bennet 87, 101 Lane, John 179 Langbein, J.H. 51, 52 Larner, Christina 159 Latin tags 135 Law, Abraham 1, 2, 58 Law, John (pedlar) viii, 1, 2 law enforcement 161–9 legal documents: The Apprehension 113; authenticated 50; evidence 55–60; and narrative accounts 35–8; as pamphlet sources 6, 8, 35–8, 39–2, 72–6, 107–15; pre-trial 49, 182 legal procedures 41–5, 73, 109, 204n112 Leuschner, Kristin Jeanne 7; joke in pamphlet 144;

legal system 41–5; Smith, Joan 78; truth 23, 114–1, 122 Lincoln, Bishop of 60, 115 Lister family 103, 124, 125 literary genres 44–9 London witch trials 69–4 Lowth, William 126–3 Lucas, Joane 68–2 Lyly, John 137 Macfarlane, Alan 2, 3, 77 magistrates 14; examinations 20–2; reform 108–16, 130; trick questions 36, 60, 72; truth 23; see also JPs maleficium 24, 25, 30, 149, 172 malignity, motiveless 79, 90–6, 96–9, 109 Manfield, Ales 29, 31, 86 Manners, Francis 97–3, 99, 100 marginal notes 40–3, 151 medicinal witchcraft 25–7 Middlesex trials 69–4 Mildmay, Anthony 40 ministers as authors 108 Moore, Margaret 20 morality, prefaces 158 The Most Cruell and Bloody Murther 5, 39, 60, 108, 144–2, 180 The Most strange and admirable discoverie of the three Witches of Warboys 113, 120; authorial intention 122–9; authorship 111, 115–5; Davies on 123; defence of Throckmortons 102, 107, 108–16, 123–30; as narrative 143, 179; Pickering, Gilbert 168; possession 60, 114; Samuel, Alice 63–6; trial accounts 49, 50, 52–5; Walker on 123; witch/victim conflict 123; see also Warboys pamphleteers A Most Wicked worke of a wretched Witch (G., B.):

INDEX, 237

authorial status 108; borrowings from play 145–6; narrative account 107, 109, 143; preface 154, 155; Rosen 147; vagueness about trial/witch 69 The most wonderfull and true storie (Bee) 38, 108, 109, 179 motivation: lacking 78, 79, 90–6, 96–9; legal/psychological need 83, 84; weak 101 motiveless malignity narratives 99–9 Mott, Elizabeth 16 murder pamphlets 6, 187, 213n98 murder 86, 157–5 Mylner, Anne 179 narrative accounts of witchcraft: communal 22–4; and documentation 35; examples 64, 107, 109, 143, 179; humour 93, 94, 143–1; literary 44–8; and questions 19; recreated 80, 91–8, 107; shape 75; stereotypes 7–8; trial accounts 62–5 Newes from Scotland 107, 147 Newman, Ales 31, 32, 84, 86, 103 Nichols, George JP 38 Nokes, Mother 42–6, 94 Notestein, Wallace 35 Nowell, Roger 14, 50, 57 Nutter, Alice 57, 90, 201n47 Nyndge, Edward 179 obsessing spirits 26–9 Oppositors 167 oral history 9 oral testimony 43, 57–58, 59–2 pamphleteers 34–7, 108; detachment 140–9; hearing evidence 37; informations 37, 38;

legal documents 35–8, 39–2; present at trial 64–7, 69; writing prefaces 165; see also Warboys pamphleteers pamphlets 5, 7, 108–16; abridged 38–1; credibility 8, 47, 113, 121; demonology 127–4; as entertainment 133, 143, 148; ideology 122; and manuscript comparisons 64–69; propaganda 113; rhetoric 134–3, 139; self-promotion 125, 131; sensationalism 8, 40–3, 60, 108, 133; similes 134; sources 6, 8, 13, 14, 35, 39, 49, 61, 72–6, 107–15; truth 113, 122, 138 pamphlet types: crime 107; Elizabethan 107–14, 149, 151; Jacobean 2, 151, 164–85, 181–90; murder 6, 187, 213n98; necessary 114–8, 134–5; possession 5, 131–9, 178, 179–8; trivial 132–41; see also witchcraft pamphlets Pechey, Joan 22, 29–2, 33, 86 persecution 17, 155 Phillips, John 45, 153–6, 199n112 Pickering, Gilbert 115–3, 119, 123, 134, 168 Pickering, Henry 115, 117, 118–5, 123 pillory 64 Pinner story 69 plea and arraignment 54–7 poetry 45, 153–1 Poole, Alice 53–6 popular culture 196n51 possession 25, 26, 60, 114, 164, 179–8, 218n93 possession pamphlets 5, 131–9, 178, 179–8 Potts, Thomas: anti-Catholicism 128–7; and Bromley 52, 55, 57, 64; examinations recorded 1, 63, 197n80; guilty pleas 55; humour 144;

238

INDEX.

King James’ Daemonologie 207n91; Lancashire witch trial 55–59; legal expertise 20, 50, 51–4, 59, 199n5; necessary pamphlets 120–7; omissions 52, 53, 54, 57–58; oral/written evidence 57–58, 59; pamphlet sources 107–15; sentences 64; witches’ characters 55; witch’s revenge 89–5, 207n98; see also The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster poverty of witch 88, 89 Prat, Thomas 85 pre-trial documents 49, 182 prefaces 149–9; The Apprehension 163–1; authorship 165; controversy 174–2, 176; A Detection of damnable driftes 159–7, 162; Examination 163; as frame story 151; Goodcole 177; Jacobean 164–85; morality 158; A Most Wicked worke 154, 155; poetic 153–1; A Rehearsall both straung and true 131, 161; rhetoric 154, 161, 162–70; Rosen 152; sermonic style 152; A true and just Recorde 20, 120–7, 125–3, 149; Witches Apprehended 168–7; The Witches of Northamptonshire 151, 164, 165–5; The Wonderful Discoverie (1619) 151, 170– 82, 176; The Wonderfull Discoverie (Potts) 128 pregnancy plea 63–6, 144 Prentice, Joan 16, 28, 41, 42–7, 85–86, 101 Preston, Jennet 59, 73, 103, 124, 125 printers’ errors 63 Privy Council 185 propaganda 73, 80, 113, 151 prosecution witnesses 52–5 providentialism 159, 176 pseudo-possession 179

psychology of witch 24 Purkiss, Diane: answers 23–5, 28, 30–4; confession 23–5, 25; pamphlets 7; spirits blamed 28; trade/barter 87, 206n65; witch as blank screen 4; The Witch in History 17, 23–5 quarrel narratives 93, 94 questions 13–13, 14–17, 184; accusation stories 82–7; from answers 193n3; confession 21, 25–7, 28; Darcey 125; examination 18, 20–2; Favret-Saada 18, 28, 33; generic 183; by judges 58–1; narrative 19; trickery 36, 60, 72 Ratcleiffe, Agnes 71 reality: and representation 3, 51, 77–2; and truth 3–5 recantation 58 A Rehearsall both straung and true 185; authorial intention 42; charity denied 86; commissioned 159–7; informations 58; necesssary/trivial 134–2; preface 131, 161; questions 20; revenge 91–7; Scot 79 reliability 51, 52, 71, 73–7; see also truth reporting evidence 61–5; The Witches of Northamptonshire 64–69 representation: composite 46; dramatic 135, 214n143; and fact 206n62; intertextuality 174;

INDEX, 239

manipulated 99–5; multi-layered 59, 79; printers’ errors 63; and reality 3, 51, 77–2; witch 46, 76, 99; witchcraft pamphlets 60 revenge 84, 89–5, 91–96, 109, 207n98 revenge narratives 79, 89–6 rhetoric: Detection 136; prefaces 154, 161, 162–70; pamphlets 134–3, 139–7; Rosen 139 Roberts, Alexander 5, 38, 108, 109, 127–4, 151, 174 Roberts, Gareth 209n3 Robey, Isabel 84 Robinson, Arthur JP 70, 71 Robinson, Joan 89 Roper, Lyndal 24–6, 30, 45, 195n44 Rosen, Barbara: authorial intention 108; Cornell, Robart 37; Cunny, Joan 198n99; Darcey/prefacer 125–2; Examination 62; Flower, Margaret 208n130; Frauncis, Elizabeth 25; hearsay 22; A Most Wicked worke of a wretched Witch 147; Phillips, John 153; possession pamphlets 179, 180; prefaces 152; rhetoric 139; Samuel family 100; self-promotion in pamphlets 125; Upney, Joan 41; witchcraft defined 109, 110; Witchcraft in England 6, 107–14 Rosenthal, Bernard 7 Rosse, Richard 78, 88 rumour 20 Rutland, Earl of 97–3, 99, 100, 108, 109 Salmesbury witchcraft case 58, 59, 78, 129 Sammon, Margery 16, 22, 29, 30

Samuel, Agnes 64, 93, 100–6, 102, 116, 118, 119, 144 Samuel, Alice 60, 63–6, 115, 117–5, 123 Samuel, John 100 Sannever, Robert 96 Satan 164; see also devil Saunder, Richard 89 Sawyer, Elizabeth 15, 19, 33, 46, 70, 89; see also The wonderfull discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer Sawyer, Ronald 165 scepticism 178–7 Scot, Reginald: charity denied 3, 79–6; as first demonologist 160; on Galis 103, 131; informations 76–1; meaning of witchcraft 79; persecution 155; style 128; witches 171 scribe 20–2 selectivity, witchcraft pamphlets 52, 53 self-promotion through pamphlets 125, 131 self-representation of witches 25–8, 30–3 sensationalism 8, 40–3, 60, 108, 133 sentence 63–6 sermonic style 152, 163 The severall factes of Witch-crafte, Approoved and laid to the charge of Margaret Harkett: authorship 38; charity denied 85; minimisation of injury to witch 99; paraphrased information 42; revenge 89; similes 134; trial account 69 sex between devil and witch 102, 119, 173 Shakespeare, William 135, 199n110 Sharpe, J.A. 3, 132–40, 178, 182 similes in pamphlets 134 sin, confession 25 Singleton, Barbara 70, 71, 147 Sisley, Clement 14 Smith, Joan and Robert 78 Smith, Jude 154 Smith, Mary 151

240

INDEX.

Smith, Sir Thomas 49, 58, 60 Smithe, Elleine 37, 39, 94 social construction, witch viii, 4, 13, 93, 155 Southcote, John 35 Sowerbutts, Grace 57, 58, 102, 128, 144 speaking with the dead 46, 59 Spies, Johannes 147 spirits: answers of witches 26–9, 28–2; blamed 28–2; evil 26; familiar 15, 16–17; ferret 28, 44, 86; obsessing 26–9; Sathan 25; Smack 101; see also possession St Osyth witches: answers 22; Celles 78; confession 31; Darcey 25–8, 31, 33; discrepancies 23, 63; gossip 22; ingratitude 87; poverty/malice 89; questioners 25 Staunton, Margery 37–38, 80, 85, 94, 197n91 stereotypes: narration 7–8; oracles/counter-magic 7; study of 6; witch 2–3 4, 77–2, 145 Stile, Elizabeth: boy of Windsor story 91–7; charity denied 85, 86–1; confession 95; gaol examination 16, 17, 185; representation 46 Stokes, Mother 93 subjectivity, truth 5 supernatural 32, 101; see also spirits Sutton, Mary 103, 140, 141 swimming trial of witches 142, 151, 165–3, 168

Tatem, Moira 115 Tendering, John 78 Thomas, Keith: abuse of witch by drunkard 93, 144; accusations 75–76, 96–2; charity denied 2, 3, 83, 84, 88; Earl of Rutland case 97–3; motiveless malignity 97; revenge narrative 79; stylization of witchcraft stories 7, 77 Thorlowe, Grace 88 Thorndike, Lynn 217n60 Throckmorton, Jane 27, 52, 69 Throckmorton, Robert 115, 117–4, 123, 210n16 Throckmorton family 100, 101, 102–8, 107, 109, 114, 115, 123–30 trading with witch 89 treason 158 A Treatise of Witchcraft (Roberts) 5, 38, 127 trial accounts 182; see also witchcraft trials The Triall of Maist. Dorrell 5 , 39, 58, 69, 108, 109, 180 The Triall of Witchcraft (Cotta) 180 A true and just Recorde 120, 195n42, 196n54; burning of witches 109; Darcey 20, 36–9, 125–2; demonology 127; evidence 42, 78; meanings of witchcraft 79; preface 20, 120–7, 125–3, 149 truth: concealed 23; distortions 147; Leuschner 23, 114–1, 122; magistrates’ investigation 23; pamphlets 113, 122, 138; and reality 3–5; subjectivity 5 Turner, Mother 27 Unsworth, C.R. 35 unwitching 75, 76 Upney, Alice 16 Upney, Joan 16, 22, 28, 41

INDEX, 241

Vaughan, Joan 65, 65 Vaughan, Joane 99, 100 verdict 63–6 victims: answers of witches 19–2, 22–4, 27–28; blamed 85, 109; blameless 97–3, 99–5, 109; Jews 17; noble 99–5; provocation of witch 84–9; suspect 75; of witchcraft 18–19, 20, 27, 123; witches as 17, 19, 26, 101, 123 W., T. 63 W., W. 23 Walker, D.P. 115, 123, 165, 178 Walker, John 165 Walsh, John 5, 25; see also Examination of John Walsh Walshman, Thomas 78 Warboys pamphleteers 49, 59–2, 108, 132, 138, 147; see also The Most strange and admirable discoverie of the three Witches of Warboys Waterhouse, Agnes: and Browne, Agnes 61–4; charity denied 84; examination 55; husband murdered 157–5; quarrels 94; questions/tricks 60, 72; spirits 16 Waterhouse, Joan 60, 61–4, 87 Welsh, John 5 West, Andrew 88–3, 101 West, Anne 89 Weyer, Johann 171–9 Whale, Elizabeth 16 White, Edward 159 Whittle: see Chattox, Anne whore: see harlotry Wilimot, Joan 25 Wilkinson, Jane 84 Willimot, Joan of Goadby 15, 16

Willis, Deborah 7, 41, 99, 100, 122, 151, 206n65 Windsor boy’s story 91–7 Windsor witches 185 witch: abortion 157; answers 19–34; Bohemian 178–7; burning of 109, 117; and devil 14, 15, 194n14; examined 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 21, 24–6, 39, 55, 185; French 25; German 24, 25, 45; ingratitude 2, 86–1, 103; injury minimised in telling 99–5; marks on 165; meetings of 17, 102; melancolic 171–9; persecuted 155; poverty 88, 89; pregnant 63–6, 144; psychology 24; representations 46, 55, 76, 99; revenge 84, 89–6, 95–1, 109, 207n98; self-representation 25–8, 30–3; sex with devil 102, 119, 173; social construction viii, 4, 13, 93, 155; stereotyped 2–3, 4, 77–2, 145; swimming trial 142, 151, 165–3, 168; as victim 17, 19, 26, 101, 123; see also confessions; charity denied; spirits The Witch in History (Purkiss) 17, 23–5 witchcraft: accusation 13–13, 75–76, 85, 96–2; anthropology 13–14; as commonplace 157–6; as community service 95; as crime 164; demonologists 14; dramatic representations 135, 214n143; Elizabethan view 138, 148; explanations for 98, 156–4, 170–8; ethnography 74–9; genealogy 5; Jacobean view 138, 148;

242

INDEX.

medicinal 25–7; murder 86, 157–5; records 34–40; representations 99–5, 174, 214n143; scientific study 117, 164–2, 168, 177; as sin 25, 117, 139–7, 149, 153, 156–4 Witchcraft in England (Rosen) 6, 107–14 witchcraft pamphlets 6, 41–5, 176–4; changes in sources 107–15; controversy 174–2; in decline 178; Elizabethan 107–14, 149, 151; humour 144; inaccuracies 51, 52; Jacobean 2, 151, 164–85, 181–90; legal documents 6; legal process 47–1, 72–6; literary genres 45–9, 107; as oral history 9; as platform for anti-witchcraft views 130–8; pre-trial material 49–2; representation 60; reprinted 178; selectivity 52, 53; serious/trivial 8, 111–19, 131–9 witchcraft statute 156 witchcraft stories 7, 21–3, 77, 79, 145–3 witchcraft trials: analysed 47–1; Chattox, Anne 50, 54, 57; Detection 39; Goodcole 49, 69–4; Lancashire 55–59; London 69–4; Middlesex 69–4; The Most strange and admirable discoverie 49, 50, 52–5; narrative accounts 62–5; Northern/Home Circuits 63; procedure 58–1, 63; trustworthiness of accounts 71, 73–7; verdict and sentence 63–6; The Wonderfull Discoverie (Potts) 49, 50–3; The wonderfull discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer 4, 69, 70–4 Witches Apprehended 140–50, 151, 180, 168–7 The Witches of Northamptonshire:

authorship 119; case study 64–69; demonology 108; legal system 73; minimising injury to witch 99; as narrative 109; possession 180; preface 151, 164, 165–5; rhetoric 139–7 witnesses for prosecution 52–5, 55 The Wonderful Discoverie of the Witchcrafts of Margaret and Phillip Flower (1619); author/patron 108; blameless victim 97–3; minimising injury to witch 99; preface 151, 170–82, 176; Rutland, Earl of 97–3, 108, 109; second edition 142 The wonderfull discoverie of Elizabeth Sawyer (Goodcole): documents 180; legal system 73; modesty 176, 181; trial account 49, 69, 70–4 The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster (Potts) 2–3, 8; addition at end 124–1; commissioned work viii–1, 128–5; documentary proof 180; judge 63, 107; legal system 72–6, 109; preface 128; trial account 49, 50–3 A World of Wonders 5, 39, 108 Wright, Elizabeth 38