At night the beds of Giles Sharpe and two other servants were lifted up, and let down violently, so as to throw them out; again, on the nineteenth, when in bed, the candles were blown out, with a sulphureous smell, and the trenchers of wood hurled about the room. On the twentieth the commissioners themselves, when in bed, were attacked with cruel blows, and the curtains drawn to and fro with great violence. This sort of attack upon the peace and safety of the commissioners was repeated almost every night. They were also assaulted from without, for a vast number of stones and horses’ bones were thrown through the windows, to the great risk of those within. A servant, who was rash enough to draw his sword, perceived that an invisible hand had hold of it too, which, pulling it from him, struck him a violent blow on the head with the pommel of it. Dr. Plot concludes his relation of this affair with observing, that “many of the circumstances related are not reconcilable to juggling,” and he adds, “all which being put together, perhaps may easily persuade some man, otherwise inclined, to believe that immaterial beings might be concerned in this business, provided the speculative theist be not after all a practical atheist.” “The Secret History of the good Devil of Woodstock,” a pamphlet published not long after these events, unravelled these mysteries. It appears that one Joe Collins, commonly called “Funny Joe,” was that very devil. He hired himself as a servant to the commissioners, under the name of Giles Sharpe, and by the help of two friends, an unknown trap-door in the ceiling of the bedchamber, and a pound of gunpowder, played all these amazing tricks. The sudden extinguishing of the candles was contrived by inserting gunpowder into the lower part of each candle, destined to explode at a certain time. The great dog was no other than one that had whelped in that room shortly before, and which made all that disturbance in seeking her puppies, and which, when she had served his purpose, Giles Sharpe let out, and then pretended to search for. The circumstance that had most effect in driving the commissioners from Woodstock was this:--they had formed a reserve of a part of the premises to themselves, and having entered into a private agreement among themselves, they hid the writing in the earth, under the roots of an orange-tree, which grew in a tub in the corner of the room. In the midst of dinner one day this earth took fire, and burned violently with a blue flame, filling the room with a strong sulphureous stench; the explanation of which phenomenon may be found in modern books of experimental chemistry, under the head of “receipt to make an earthquake.” This last attack so completely terrified the commissioners, that, fearing the very devils from hell were rising against them, they speedily took to flight.