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
Some notion of the first step in the Elizabethan procedure against a
witch may be gathered from the specimens of "indictments" given in the
old formula book of William West, _Simboleography_ (pt. ii, first
printed in 1594). Three specimens are given; two are of indictments "For
killing a man by witchcraft upon the statute of Anno 5. of the Queene,"
the third is "For bewitching a Horse, whereby he wasted and became
worse." As the documents in such bodies of models are usually genuine
papers with only a suppression of the names, it is probable that the
dates assigned to the indictments noted--the 34th and 35th years of
Elizabeth--are the true ones, and that the initials given, "S. B. de C.
in comit. H. vidua," "Marg' L. de A. in com' E. Spinster," and "Sara B.
de C. in comitatu Eb. vidua," are those of the actual culprits and of
their residences. Yorkshire is clearly one of the counties meant. It
was, moreover, West's own county.
§ 2.--The Exorcists (see ch. IV).
The account of Elizabethan exorcism which we have given is necessarily
one-sided. It deals only with the Puritan movement--if Darrel's work may
be so called--and does not treat the Catholic exorcists. We have omitted
the performances of Father Weston and his coadjutors because they had
little or no relation to the subject of witchcraft. Those who wish to
follow up this subject can find a readable discussion of it by T. G. Law
in the _Nineteenth Century_ for March, 1894, "Devil Hunting in
Elizabethan England."
It is a rather curious fact that the Puritan exorcist has never, except
for a few pages by S. R. Maitland, in his _Puritan Thaumaturgy_ (London,
1842), been made a study. Without doubt he, his supporters, and his
enemies were able between them to make a noise in their own time. To be
convinced of that one need only read the early seventeenth-century
dramatists. It may possibly be that Darrel was not the mere impostor his
enemies pictured him. Despite his trickery it may be that he had really
a certain hypnotic control over William Somers and perhaps over
Katherine Wright.
Whatever else Darrel may have been, he was a ready pamphleteer. His
career may easily be traced in the various brochures put forth, most of
them from his own pen. Fortunately we have the other side presented by
Samuel Harsnett, and by two obscure clergymen, John Deacon and John
Walker. The following is a tentative list of the printed pamphlets
dealing with the subject:
_A Breife Narration of the possession, dispossession, and repossession
of William Sommers: and of some proceedings against Mr. John Dorrel
preacher, with aunsweres to such objections.... Together with certaine
depositions taken at Nottingham ..., 1598._ Black letter. This was
written either by Darrel or at his instigation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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