Discovery of Witches: The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of LancasterPotts, Thomas, active 1612-1618
History
Discovery of Witches: The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster
Potts, Thomas, active 1612-1618
Preston, Jennet, -1612; Witchcraft -- England -- Lancashire
A 3. SECOND IMPRIMATUR: "_Edward Bromley. I took upon mee to reuise
and correct it._"] This revision by the judge who presided at the
trial gives a singular and unique value and authority to the work. We
have no other report of any witch trial which has an equal stamp of
authenticity. How many of the rhetorical flourishes interspersed in
the book are the property of Thomas Potts, Esquier, and how many are
the interpolation of the "excellent care" of the worthy Baron, it is
scarcely worth while to investigate. Certainly never were judge and
clerk more admirably paired. The _Shallow_ on the bench was well
reflected in the _Master Slender_ below.
B _a_. "_The number of them being knowen to exceed all others at any
time heretofore at one time to be indicted, arraigned, and receiue
their tryall._"] Probably this was the case, at least in England; but
a greater number had been convicted before, even in this country, at
one time, than were found guilty on this occasion, as it appears from
Scot, (_Discovery of Witchcraft_, page 543, edition 1584,) that
seventeen or eighteen witches were condemned at once, at St. Osith, in
Essex, in 1576, of whom an account was written by Brian Darcy, with
the names and colours of their spirits.
B _b_. "_She was a very old woman, about the age of fourescore._"] Dr.
Henry More would have styled old Demdike "An eximious example of
Moses, his Mecassephah, the word which he uses in that law,--Thou
shalt not suffer a witch to live." Margaret Agar and Julian Cox, (see
Glanvill's _Collection of Relations_, p. 135, edition 1682,) on whom
he dwells with such delighted interest, were very inferior subjects to
what, in his hands, Elizabeth Sothernes would have made. They had
neither of them the finishing attribute of blindness, so fearful in a
witch, to complete the sketch; nor such a fine foreground for the
painting as the forest of Pendle presented; nor the advantage, for
grouping, of a family of descendants in which witchcraft might be
transmitted to the third generation.
B 2 _a_. "_Roger Nowell, Esquire._"] This busy and mischievous
personage who resided at Read Hall, in the immediate neighbourhood of
Pendle, was sheriff of Lancashire in 1610. He married Katherine,
daughter of John Murton, of Murton, and was buried at Whalley, January
31st, 1623. He was of the same family as Alexander Nowell, the Dean of
St. Paul's, and Lawrence Nowell, the restorer of Saxon literature in
England; and tarnished a name which they had rendered memorable, by
becoming, apparently, an eager and willing instrument in that wicked
persecution which resulted in the present trial. His ill-directed
activity seems to have fanned the dormant embers into a blaze, and to
have given aim and consistency to the whole scheme of oppression. From
this man was descended, in the female line, one whose merits might
atone for a whole generation of Roger Nowells, the truly noble-minded
and evangelical Reginald Heber.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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