A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718Notestein, Wallace
History
A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718
Notestein, Wallace
Witchcraft -- England -- History
But there was no one to detect the fraud, as at Woodstock. Tedworth
became a Mecca for those interested in the supernatural. One of the
visitors was Joseph Glanvill, at this time a young man of twenty-seven,
later to become a member of the Royal Society and chaplain in ordinary
to the king. The spirits were less noisy; they were always somewhat
restrained before visitors, but scratched on bed sheets and panted in
dog fashion, till Glanvill was thoroughly taken in. For the rest of his
life this psychic experimenter fought a literary war over this case with
those who made fun of it. While we cannot prove it, we may guess with
some confidence that this episode was the beginning of the special
interest in the supernatural upon Glanvill's part which was later to
make him the arch-defender of the witchcraft superstition in his
generation.
How wide an interest the matter evoked may be judged from the warm
discussions upon it at Cambridge, and from the royal interest in it
which induced Charles to send down a committee of investigation.
Curiously enough, the spirits were singularly and most extraordinarily
quiet when the royal investigators were at work, a fact to which
delighted skeptics pointed with satisfaction.
One wonders that the drummer, who must have known that his name would be
connected with the affair, failed to realize the risk he was running
from the witch hunters. He was indicted on minor felonies of another
sort, but the charges which Mompesson brought against him seem to have
been passed over. The man was condemned for stealing and was
transported. With his departure the troubles at Tedworth ceased. But the
drummer, in some way, escaped and returned to England. The angry
Mompesson now brought him to the assizes as a felon on the strength of
the statute of James I. Unhappily we have no details of this trial, nor
do we know even the name of the judge; but we do know that the jury gave
a verdict of acquittal.
In 1671 Cornwall was stirred up over a witch whose crimes were said to
be directed against the state. She had hindered the English fleet in
their war against the Dutch, she had caused a bull to kill one of the
enemies in Parliament of the Non-Conformists, she had been responsible
for the barrenness of the queen. And for all these political crimes the
chief evidence was that some cats had been seen playing ("dancing") near
her house. She was committed, along with several other women who were
accused. Although at the assizes they were all proved to have had cats
and rats about them, they went free.[30]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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