[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
same purpose as the boy s having seen one of these haps sitting half-way up his father s
chimney, and some such goodly matter. But it ended in near a score of persons being com-
mitted to prison; and the consequence was that young Robinson was carried from church to
church in the neighbourhood, that he might recognise the faces of any persons he had seen
at the rendezvous of witches. Old Robinson, who had been an evidence against the former
witches in 1613, went along with his son, and knew, doubtless, how to make his journey prof-
itable; and his son probably took care to recognise none who might make a handsome con-
sideration. This boy, says Webster, was brought into the church at Kildwick, a parish
church, where I, being then curate there, was preaching at the time, to look about him, which
made some little disturbance for the time. After prayers Mr. Webster sought and found the
boy, and two very unlikely persons, who, says he, did conduct him and manage the business.
I did desire some discourse with the boy in private, but that they utterly denied. In the pres-
ence of a great many many people I took the boy near me and said, Good boy, tell me truly
and in earnest, didst thou hear and see such strange things of the motions of the witches as
many do report that thou didst relate, or did not some person teach thee to say such things of
thyself? But the two men did pluck the boy from me, and said he had been examined by two
able justices of peace, and they never asked him such a question. To whom I replied, The
persons accused had the more wrong. The boy afterwards acknowledged, in his more
advanced years, that he was instructed and suborned to swear these things against the
accused persons by his father and others, and was heard often to confess that on the day
which be pretended to see the said witches at the house or barn, he was gathering plums in
a neighbour s orchard.
There was now approaching a time when the law against witchcraft, sufficiently bloody in
itself, was to be pushed to more violent extremities than the quiet scepticism of the Church of
England clergy gave way to. The great Civil War had been preceded and anticipated by the
fierce disputes of the ecclesiastical parties. The rash and ill-judged attempt to enforce upon
the Scottish a compliance with the government and ceremonies of the High Church divines,
and the severe prosecutions in the Star Chamber and Prerogative Courts, had given the
Presbyterian system, for a season a great degree of popularity in England; and as the King s
party declined during the Civil War, and the state of church-government was altered, the influ-
ence of the Calvinistic divines increased. With much strict morality and pure practice of reli-
gion, it is to be regretted these were still marked by unhesitating belief in the existence of sor-
cery, and a keen desire to extend and enforce the legal penalties against it. Wier has consid-
ered the clergy of every sect as being too eager in this species of persecution: Ad gravem
hanc impietatem, connivent theologi plerique omnes. But it is not to be denied that the
Presbyterian ecclesiastics who, in Scotland, were often appointed by the Privy Council
Commissioners for the trial of witchcraft, evinced a very extraordinary degree of credulity in
such cases, and that the temporary superiority of the same sect in England was marked by
enormous cruelties of this kind. To this general error must impute the misfortune that good
men, such as Calamy and Baxter, should have countenanced or defended such proceedings
as those of the impudent and cruel wretch called Matthew Hopkins, who, in those unsettled
times, when men did what seemed good in their own eyes, assumed the title of Witchfinder
General, and, travelling through the counties of Essex, Sussex, Norfolk, and Huntingdon, pre-
tended to discover witches, superintending their examination by the most unheard-of tortures,
and compelling forlorn and miserable wretches to admit and confess matters equally absurd
Page 104
and impossible; the issue of which was the forfeiture of their lives. Before examining these
cases more minutely, I will quote Baxter s own words; for no one can have less desire to
wrong a devout and conscientious man, such as that divine most unquestionably was, though
borne aside on this occasion by prejudice and credulity.
The hanging of a great number of witches in 1645 and 1646 is famously known. Mr. Calamy
went along with the judges on the circuit to hear their confessions, and see there was no
fraud or wrong done them. I spoke with many understanding, pious, learned, and credible
persons that lived in the counties, and some that went to them in the prisons, and heard their
sad confessions. Among the rest an old reading parson, named Lowis, not far from
.
Framlingham, was one that was hanged, who confessed that he had two imps, and that one
of them was always putting him upon doing mischief; and he, being near the sea, as he saw
a ship under sail, it moved him to send it to sink the ship; and he consented, and saw the
ship sink before them. Mr. Baxter passes on to another story of a mother who gave her child
an imp like a mole, and told her to keep it in a can near the fire, and she would never want;
and more such stuff as nursery-maids tell children to keep them quiet.
It is remarkable that in this passage Baxter names the Witchfinder General rather slightly as
one Hopkins, and without doing him the justice due to one who had discovered more than
one hundred witches, and brought them to confessions, which that good man received as
indubitable. Perhaps the learned divine was one of those who believed that the Witchfinder
General had cheated the devil out of a certain memorandum-book, in which Satan, for the
benefit of his memory certainly, had entered all the witches names in England, and that
Hopkins availed himself of this record.
It may be noticed that times of misrule and violence seem to create individuals fatted to take [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl fopke.keep.pl
same purpose as the boy s having seen one of these haps sitting half-way up his father s
chimney, and some such goodly matter. But it ended in near a score of persons being com-
mitted to prison; and the consequence was that young Robinson was carried from church to
church in the neighbourhood, that he might recognise the faces of any persons he had seen
at the rendezvous of witches. Old Robinson, who had been an evidence against the former
witches in 1613, went along with his son, and knew, doubtless, how to make his journey prof-
itable; and his son probably took care to recognise none who might make a handsome con-
sideration. This boy, says Webster, was brought into the church at Kildwick, a parish
church, where I, being then curate there, was preaching at the time, to look about him, which
made some little disturbance for the time. After prayers Mr. Webster sought and found the
boy, and two very unlikely persons, who, says he, did conduct him and manage the business.
I did desire some discourse with the boy in private, but that they utterly denied. In the pres-
ence of a great many many people I took the boy near me and said, Good boy, tell me truly
and in earnest, didst thou hear and see such strange things of the motions of the witches as
many do report that thou didst relate, or did not some person teach thee to say such things of
thyself? But the two men did pluck the boy from me, and said he had been examined by two
able justices of peace, and they never asked him such a question. To whom I replied, The
persons accused had the more wrong. The boy afterwards acknowledged, in his more
advanced years, that he was instructed and suborned to swear these things against the
accused persons by his father and others, and was heard often to confess that on the day
which be pretended to see the said witches at the house or barn, he was gathering plums in
a neighbour s orchard.
There was now approaching a time when the law against witchcraft, sufficiently bloody in
itself, was to be pushed to more violent extremities than the quiet scepticism of the Church of
England clergy gave way to. The great Civil War had been preceded and anticipated by the
fierce disputes of the ecclesiastical parties. The rash and ill-judged attempt to enforce upon
the Scottish a compliance with the government and ceremonies of the High Church divines,
and the severe prosecutions in the Star Chamber and Prerogative Courts, had given the
Presbyterian system, for a season a great degree of popularity in England; and as the King s
party declined during the Civil War, and the state of church-government was altered, the influ-
ence of the Calvinistic divines increased. With much strict morality and pure practice of reli-
gion, it is to be regretted these were still marked by unhesitating belief in the existence of sor-
cery, and a keen desire to extend and enforce the legal penalties against it. Wier has consid-
ered the clergy of every sect as being too eager in this species of persecution: Ad gravem
hanc impietatem, connivent theologi plerique omnes. But it is not to be denied that the
Presbyterian ecclesiastics who, in Scotland, were often appointed by the Privy Council
Commissioners for the trial of witchcraft, evinced a very extraordinary degree of credulity in
such cases, and that the temporary superiority of the same sect in England was marked by
enormous cruelties of this kind. To this general error must impute the misfortune that good
men, such as Calamy and Baxter, should have countenanced or defended such proceedings
as those of the impudent and cruel wretch called Matthew Hopkins, who, in those unsettled
times, when men did what seemed good in their own eyes, assumed the title of Witchfinder
General, and, travelling through the counties of Essex, Sussex, Norfolk, and Huntingdon, pre-
tended to discover witches, superintending their examination by the most unheard-of tortures,
and compelling forlorn and miserable wretches to admit and confess matters equally absurd
Page 104
and impossible; the issue of which was the forfeiture of their lives. Before examining these
cases more minutely, I will quote Baxter s own words; for no one can have less desire to
wrong a devout and conscientious man, such as that divine most unquestionably was, though
borne aside on this occasion by prejudice and credulity.
The hanging of a great number of witches in 1645 and 1646 is famously known. Mr. Calamy
went along with the judges on the circuit to hear their confessions, and see there was no
fraud or wrong done them. I spoke with many understanding, pious, learned, and credible
persons that lived in the counties, and some that went to them in the prisons, and heard their
sad confessions. Among the rest an old reading parson, named Lowis, not far from
.
Framlingham, was one that was hanged, who confessed that he had two imps, and that one
of them was always putting him upon doing mischief; and he, being near the sea, as he saw
a ship under sail, it moved him to send it to sink the ship; and he consented, and saw the
ship sink before them. Mr. Baxter passes on to another story of a mother who gave her child
an imp like a mole, and told her to keep it in a can near the fire, and she would never want;
and more such stuff as nursery-maids tell children to keep them quiet.
It is remarkable that in this passage Baxter names the Witchfinder General rather slightly as
one Hopkins, and without doing him the justice due to one who had discovered more than
one hundred witches, and brought them to confessions, which that good man received as
indubitable. Perhaps the learned divine was one of those who believed that the Witchfinder
General had cheated the devil out of a certain memorandum-book, in which Satan, for the
benefit of his memory certainly, had entered all the witches names in England, and that
Hopkins availed himself of this record.
It may be noticed that times of misrule and violence seem to create individuals fatted to take [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]