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
In 1694 he tried Mother Munnings at Bury St. Edmunds,[19] where his
great predecessor Hale had condemned two women. Mother Munnings had
declared that a landlord should lie nose upward in the church-yard
before the next Saturday, and, sure enough, her prophecy had come true.
Nevertheless, in spite of this and other testimony, she was acquitted.
Two years later Holt tried Elizabeth Horner at Exeter, where Raymond had
condemned three women in 1682. Bishop Trelawny of Exeter had sent his
sub-dean, Launcelot Blackburne (later to be Archbishop of York), to look
into the case, and his report adds something to the account which
Hutchinson has given us.[20] Elizabeth was seen "three nights together
upon a large down in the same place, as if rising out of the ground." It
was certified against her by a witness that she had driven a red-hot
nail "into the witche's left foot-step, upon which she went lame, and,
being search'd, her leg and foot appear'd to be red and fiery." These
testimonies were the "most material against her," as well as the
evidence of the mother of some possessed children, who declared that her
daughter had walked up a wall nine feet high four or five times
backwards and forwards, her face and the fore part of her body parallel
to the ceiling, saying that Betty Horner carried her up. In closing the
narrative the archdeacon wrote without comment: "My Lord Chief Justice
by his questions and manner of hemming up the evidence seem'd to me to
believe nothing of witchery at all, and to disbelieve the fact of
walking up the wall which was sworn by the mother." He added, "the jury
brought her in not guilty."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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