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
1. Robert Nutter, of Greenhead, in Pendle.
2. Richard Assheton, son of Richard Assheton, of Downham, Esquire.
3. Child of Richard Baldwin, of Wheethead, within the forest of Pendle.
4. John Device, or Davies, of Pendle.
5. Anne Nutter, daughter of Anthony Nutter, of Pendle.
6. Child of John Moore, of Higham.
7. Hugh Moore, of Pendle.
8. John Robinson, _alias_ Swyer.
9. James Robinson.
10. Henry Mytton, of the Rough Lee.
11. Anne Townley, wife of Henry Townley, of the Carr, gentleman.
12. John Duckworth.
13. John Hargraves, of Goldshaw Booth.
14. Blaze Hargraves, of Higham.
15. Christopher Nutter.
16. Anne Folds, of Colne.
Sixteen persons reported dead of this common epidemic, besides a
countless number with pains and "starkness in their limbs," and "a
great warch in their bones!" No wonder that Doctors Bromley and Potts
thought active treatment necessary, with a decided preference for
hemp, as the leading specific.
T 3 _b_. "_With great warch in his bones._"] Warch is a word well
known and still used in this sense, _i.e._, pain, in Lancashire.
T 4 _b_ 1. "_The said Peter was now satisfied that the said Isabel
Robey was no Witch, by sending to one Halseworths, which they call a
wiseman._"] I honour the memory of this Halsworth, or Houldsworth, as
I suppose it should be spelled, for he was indeed a wise man in days
when wisdom was an extremely scarce commodity.
T 4 _b_ 2. "_To abide vpon it._"] _i.e._, my abiding opinion is.
X _a_. "_Elizabeth Astley, John Ramsden, Alice Gray, Isabel
Sidegraues, Lawrence Hay._"] The specific charges against these
persons, with the exception of Alice Gray, do not appear, nor is it
said where their places of residence were. Alice Gray was reputed to
have been at the meeting of witches at Malkin's Tower, and to her the
judge refers, perhaps, in particular, when he says, "Without question,
there are amongst you that are as deepe in this action as any of them
that are condemned to die for their offences."
X _b_. "_The Execution of the Witches._"] We could have dispensed with
many of the flowers of rhetoric with which the pages of this discovery
are strewed, if Master Potts would have favoured us with a plain,
unvarnished account of what occurred at this execution. It is here, in
the most interesting point of all, that his narrative, in other
respects so full and abundant, stops short, and seems curtailed of its
just proportions. The "learned and worthy preacher," to whom the
prisoners were commended by the judge, was probably Mr. William Leigh,
of Standish, before mentioned. Amongst his papers or correspondence,
if they should happen to have been preserved, some account may
eventually be found of the sad closing scene of these melancholy
victims of superstition.
X 2 _a_. "_Neither can I paint in extraordinarie tearmes._"] The
worthy clerk is too modest. He is a great painter, the Tintoretto of
witchcraft.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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