Woman, Church & State

The victims were mostly aged women who having reared a family, spending their youth and beauty in this self-denying work, had lived until time threading their hair with silver had also robbed cheek and lip of their rosy hue, dimmed the brilliancy of the eye and left wrinkles in place of youthful dimples. Such victims were left for hours, until the malignity of their persecutors was satisfied, or until death after long torture released them from a world where under the laws of both Church and State they found their sex to be a crime. Old women for no other reason than that they were old, were held to be the most susceptible to the assaults of the devil, and the persons most especially endowed with supernatural powers for evil. Blackstone refers to this persecution of aged women in his reference to a statute of the Eight Henry.392 We discover a reason for this intense hatred of old women in the fact that woman has chiefly been looked upon from a sensual view by christian men, the church teaching that she was created solely for man’s sensual use. Thus when by reason of declining years she no longer attracted the sensual admiration of man, he regarded her as having forfeited all right to life. England’s most learned judge, Sir Mathew Hale, declared his belief in the agency of the devil in producing diseases through the aid of old women. The prosecution against this class raged with unusual violence in Scotland under the covenanters.

To deny the existence of especially evil supernatural powers, in old women, was held as an evidence of skepticism exposing the doubting person to like suspicion. Great numbers of women were put to death at a time; so common indeed was the sight as to cause but little comment. A Scotch traveler casually mentioned having seen nine women burning together at Bath in 1664. Knox himself suffered a woman to be burned at St. Andrews whom one word from him would have saved. Father Tanner speaks of “the multitude” of witches who were daily brought under the torture that was constantly practiced by the church.

The reformers were more cruel than those from whose superstitious teachings they professed to have escaped. All the tortures of the old church were repeated and an unusual number of new and diabolical ones invented to induce confession. Nor were these tortures applied to the suspected witch alone; her young and tender children against whom no accusation had been brought, were sometimes tortured in her presence in order to wring confession from the mother. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, a woman accused of witchcraft endured the most intense torture, constantly asserting her innocence. Failing to secure confession, her husband, her son, and finally her young daughter of seven short years were tortured in her presence, the latter being subjected to a species of thumb-screw called “the pinniwinkies” which brought blood from under the finger nails with a pain terribly severe. When these were applied to the baby hands, to spare her innocent child, the mother confessed herself a witch; but after enduring all the agonies of torture upon herself and all she was made to suffer in the persons of her innocent family, confession having been obtained through this diabolical means, she was still condemned to the flames, undergoing death at the stake a blazing torch of fire, and died calling upon God for that mercy she could not find at the hands of Christian men.393 In protestant Scotland as in catholic countries, witchcraft was under control of the clergy. When a woman fell under suspicion of being a witch, the minister denounced her from the pulpit, forbade any one to harbor or shelter her and exhorted his parishioners to give evidence against her.394 She was under ban similar to the excommunicate of the catholic church, a being outside of human help or sympathy. In protestant as in catholic countries the woman accused was virtually dead. She was excommunicated from humanity; designated and denounced as one whom all must shun, to whom no one must give food or lodging or speech or shelter; life was not worth the living. To afford such a one aid was to hazard accusation as a confederate. The first complaint was made to the clergy and Kirk Sessions.395

Notwithstanding two hundred years of such experience, when by an act of parliament in 1784, the burning and hanging of witches was abolished, the General Assembly of the Calvinistic church of Scotland “confessed” this act “as a great national sin.” Not only were the courts and the church alert for the detection of alleged witches, but the populace persecuted many to death.396 Deserted by her friends, the suspected witch was beaten, worried by dogs, denied food and prevented from sleeping.397 Contrary to equity and the principles of modern law, the church sought in every way to entrap victims into giving evidence against themselves. Once a person was accused, no effort was spared to induce confession. Holding control over the soul as well as the body, enquiry into these crimes was pushed by every method that human ingenuity could devise. The kirk became the stronghold of superstition; both rewards and punishments were used as inducements towards ferreting out witches. All ties of natural affection were ignored, the kirk preaching it to be a matter of greater duty to inform against one’s nearest relatives than against strangers. Unlike the theory of Roman civil law which held the accused innocent until proven guilty, ecclesiastical law everywhere produced a condition under which the accused was held guilty from the moment of accusation. During the witchcraft period the minds of people were trained in a single direction. The chief lesson of the church that betrayal of friends was necessary to one’s own salvation, created an intense selfishness. All humanitarian feeling was lost in the effort to secure heaven at the expense of others, even those most closely bound by ties of nature and affection. Mercy, tenderness, compassion were all obliterated. Truthfulness escaped from the Christian world; fear, sorrow and cruelty reigned pre-eminent. All regard that existed for others grew up outside of church teaching and was shown at the hazard of life. Contempt and hatred of woman was inculcated with greater intensity; love of power and treachery were parts of the selfish lessons of the church. All reverence for length of years was lost. The sorrows and sufferings of a long life appealed to no sympathetic cord in the heart. Instead of the tenderness and care due to aged women, they were so frequently accused of witchcraft that for years it was an unusual thing for an old woman in the north of Europe to die in her bed. Besides the thousands of accused who committed suicide in order to escape the horrors incident upon trial, many others tired of life amid so much humiliation and suffering, falsely accused themselves, preferring a death by the torture of fire to a life of endless isolation and persecution. An English woman on her way to the stake, with a greatness of soul born of despair, freed her judges from responsibility, by saying to the people, “Do not blame my judges. I wished to put an end to my own self. My parents keep aloof from me; my own husband has denied me. I could not live on without disgrace. I longed for death and so I told a lie.” The most eminent legal minds became incompetent to form correct judgment. Having received the church as of divine origin, and its priesthood as the representatives of the divinity, they were no longer capable of justice. Old and ignorant women upon the most frivolous testimony of young children were condemned to death. One of the most notable examples of the power of superstitious belief to darken the understanding, is that of Sir Matthew Hale, living in the seventeenth century. He was spoken of by his contemporaries as one of the most eminent jurists of the world, whose integrity, learning and knowledge of law were scarcely to be paralleled in any age, and yet he became so entirely convinced of the diabolism of two women as to condemn them to death while sitting at Bury St. Edmunds, without even summing up the evidence. The learned and famous Sir Thomas Browne, who was present, coincided in the justice of this decision, although but a short time previously he had published a work against superstition. The testimony upon which these women were condemned was of the most petty and worthless character, yet among all the persons present at the trial, but one or two seemed inclined to doubt the sufficiency of the evidence.

The records of this remarkable trial were preserved to the world by a gentleman who privately took a report for his own use, which was published in pamphlet form a number of years afterwards. This extremely rare book is not to be found even in the Congressional Library at Washington, but the Supreme Court Library owns a copy from which this report is taken:

Trial March 10, 1664 by Sir Matthew Hale, Knight, Lord Chief Baron of his Majesty’s Court of Exchequer held before a judge who for his integrity, learning and wisdom hardly any age before or since could parallel; he not only took a great deal of pains and spent much time in this trial himself, but had the assistance and opinion of several other very eminent and learned persons; so that this was the most perfect narrative of anything of this nature hitherto extant.

The persons tried were Ann Durant, or Drury, Susan Chandler, Elizabeth Pacy. The celebrated Dr. Brown of Norwich who had written a work against witchcraft, was present and after hearing the evidence expressed himself as clearly of the opinion the persons were bewitched, and said in Denmark lately there had been a great discovery of witches who used the same way of afflicting persons by the agency of pins. This trial took place in the sixteenth year of Charles II. The witnesses were two children of eleven and nine years who fell into fits, vomiting pins and nails. Sargeant Keeling asserted deception on part of the witnesses. The Court appointed Lord Cornwallis, Sir Edmund Bacon and Sargeant Keeling as committee to examine the girl alone, when they became fully satisfied of her imposture but without convincing the learned judge who contrary to all justice and law did not sum up the evidence, but gave the great weight of his opinion in favor of their guilt saying: “That there are such creatures as witches, I have not doubt at all. For First, Scripture has offered so much. Second, the wisdom of all nations has propounded laws against such persons, which is an argument of their confidence of such a crime. And such has been the judgment of this kingdom as appears by that Act of Parliament which hath provided punishments proportionate to the guilt of this offense, and desired them strictly to observe the evidence; and desired the great God of Heaven to direct their hearts in the weighty things they had so heard. For to condemn the innocent and to let the guilty go free, were both an abomination to the Lord. Within half an hour the jury returned a verdict of guilty on thirteen counts. The judge and all the court were fully satisfied with the verdict and therefore gave judgment against the witches that they should be hanged.

The evidence was of the most paltry character; as when out of door a little thing like a bee flew upon the witness face, putting a ten penny nail with a broad head into her mouth. Lath nails and pins said to have been vomited by the children were produced in court. When arraigned the accused pleaded not guilty nor did they ever change this plea. Great pressure was upon them to induce confession, but they could not be prevailed upon to thus criminate themselves and were executed the seventeenth of March, just one week after trial, confessing nothing.

This trial is the more remarkable that confessions usually deemed the best of evidence, were not obtained, these poor illiterate, persecuted women braving all the learning of the great judge and power of the kingdom in maintaining to the last the assertion of their innocence. The minutes of this trial were taken by a gentleman in attendance upon the court and were not published until 1716 when the record fell into the hands of a person who saw its value “so that,” he says, “being the most complete minutes of anything of this nature hitherto extant, made me unwilling to deprive the world of it; which is the sole motive that induced me to publish it.”

Not alone the clergy and the legal fraternity wrought in unison, but the medical as well, gave the weight of their authority in favor of witchcraft; and many persons needing the wisest medical appliance for their relief from disease were executed as witches. Half-witted and insane persons met with the same persecution as old women. It was an era of the strong against the weak, the powerful against the helpless. Even Sir Thomas Browne, himself a physician, regarded the fainting fits to which one of the accused women had long been subject as fuller evidence of her guilt. In his character of medical examiner he asserted that the devil had taken opportunity of her natural fits, to operate with her malice.

An almost equally notable trial as that of Bury St. Edmunds before Sir Matthew Hale, was known as the Sommers Trial, or that of the “Lancashire Witches,” in 1612. Among the accused were two extremely aged women decrepit and nearly blind, tottering into second childhood, incapable of understanding whereof they were accused, or the evidence against them which, as in the case argued before Sir Matthew Hale, was of the most worthless character. One needs but refer to the records in order to learn the extreme age, ignorance and many infirmities of these women. But as was the case in Scotland, these weaknesses were used as evidences of guilt. The feeble mental and physical condition of “the Lancashire witches,” their great age and failing power were used as evidence for their condemnation. From published accounts of this trial, we learn that:

This Annie Whittle, alias Chattox, was a very old withered and decrepit creature, her sight almost gone, a dangerous witch of very long continuance, her lips ever chattering and walking (talking)? but no one knew what. She was next in order to that wicked, fierce bird of mischief, old Demdike.

This poor old creature “confessed” that Robert Nutter had offered insult to her married daughter; and the court decreed this was a fair proof of her having bewitched him to his death. No condemnation of the man who had thus insulted her daughter, but death for the aged mother who had resented this insult. Designated as “Old Demdike, a fierce bird of mischief” this woman of four score years of age, had not only brought up a large family of her own, but her grand children had fallen to her care. She had lived a blameless life of over eighty years, much of it devoted to the care of children and children’s children. But when decrepit and almost blind she fell under suspicion of a crime held by Church and State as of the most baleful character, her blameless and industrious life proved of no avail against this accusation. She seems to have originally been a woman of great force of character and executive ability, but frightened at an accusation she could not understand and overpowered by all the dread majesty of the law into whose merciless power she had fallen, she “confessed” to communion with a demon spirit which appeared to her in the form of a brown dog.398 From a work entitled The Sommers Trials, the form of indictment is learned.399

INDICTMENT

This Annie Whittle, alias Chattox, of the Forest of Pendle, in the countie of Lancaster, widow, being indicted for that she feloniously had practiced, used and exercised divers wicked and divelish artes, called witchcraftes, inchantments, charms and sorceries, in and upon one Robert Nutter of Greenhead, in the Forest of Pendle, in the countie of Lanc; and by force of the same witchcraft, feloniously the sayed Robert Nutter had killed, contra pacem, etc. Being at the barre was arraigned. To this indictment, upon her arraignment, she pleaded, not guiltie; and for the tryall of her life put herself upon God and her country.

One of the chief witnesses at this trial was a child of nine years.400 Upon seeing her own daughter arraigned against her, the mother broke into shrieks and lamentations pleading with the girl not to falsify the truth and thus condemn her own mother to death. The judges instead of seeing in this agony a proof of the mother’s innocence looked upon it as an attempt to thwart the ends of justice by demoniac influence, and the child having declared that she could not confess in her mother’s presence, the latter was removed from the room, and as under the Inquisition, the testimony was given in the absence of the accused. The child then said that her mother had been a witch for three or four years, the devil appearing in the form of a brown dog, Bill. These trials taking place in protestant England, two hundred years after the reformation, prove the worthless nature of witchcraft testimony, as well as the superstition, ignorance and entire unfitness for the bench of those men called the highest judicial minds in England. The church having almost entirely destroyed freedom of will and the expression of individual thought, men came to look upon authority and right as synonymous. Works bearing the stamp of the legal fraternity soon appeared. In 1618 a volume entitled, “The County Justice,” by Michael Dalton, Gentleman of Lincoln Inn, was published in London, its chief object to give directions, based upon this trial, for the discovery of witches.

Now against these witches the justice of the peace may not always expect direct evidence, seeing all their works are works of darkness and no witness permitted with them to accuse them, and therefore for their better discovery I thought good here to set down certain observations out of the methods of discovery of the witches that were arraigned at Lancaster, A.D. 1612 before Sir James Altham and Sir Edward Bromley, judges of Assize there.

1. They have ordinarily a familiar or spirit which appeareth to them.

2. The said familiar hath some bigg or place upon their body where he sucketh them.

3. They have often pictures of clay or wax (like a man, etc.) found in their house.

4. If the dead body bleed upon the witches touching it.

5. The testimony of the person hurt upon his death.

6. The examination and confession of the children or servants of the witch.

7. Their own voluntary confession which exceeds all other evidence.

At this period many persons either in hope of a reward401 or because they believed they were thus aiding the cause of justice, kept private notebooks of instruction in the examination of witches, and new varieties were constantly discovered. When witchcraft by Act of Parliament was decreed felony this statute gave the legal fraternity double authority for a belief in its existence. Even Sir George Mackenzie although convinced by his own experience that many persons were wrongfully accused of witchcraft, still declared that its existence could not be doubted, “seeing that our law ordains it to be punished with death.” The most fatal record the world possesses of the plague is that of the fourteenth century, known as the “Black Death,” when whole villages were depopulated and more than half the inhabitants of Europe were destroyed. It will aid in forming our judgment as to the extent of woman’s persecution for witchcraft, to remember it has been estimated that the number of deaths from this cause equalled those of the plague.

The American Colonies adopted all the unjust previsions of European christianity as parts of their own religion and government. Fleeing from persecution, the Puritans yet brought with them the spirit of persecution in the belief of woman’s inferiority and wickedness, as taught by the church from whence they had fled. The “Ducking Stool” for women who too vigorously protested against their wrongs, and the “Scarlet Letter” of shame for the woman who had transgressed the moral law, her companion in sin going free, or as in England, sitting as juror in the box, or judge upon the bench. With them also came a belief in witchcraft, which soon caused Massachusetts Colony to enact a law ordering suspected women to be stripped naked, their bodies to be carefully examined by a male “witch pricker” to see if there was not the devil’s mark upon them. The public whipping of half naked women at the cart’s tail for the crime of religious free thought soon followed, a union of both religious and judicial punishment; together with banishment of women from the Colony for daring to preach Christ as they understood his doctrines. These customs more barbarous than those of the savages whose home they had invaded, were the pleasing welcome given to the pioneer woman settlers of America by the husbands and fathers, judges and ministers of that period, with which the words “Plymouth Rock,” “May Flower” and “Pilgrim Fathers” are so intimately associated. The same persecution of aged women took place in New England as in old England, while children of even more tender years were used as witnesses against their mothers if accused of witchcraft, or were themselves imprisoned upon like suspicion. The village of Salem, Massachusetts, is indissolubly connected with witchcraft, for there the persecution raged most fiercely, involving its best women in ruin. One of the oldest buildings still extant in the United States is “The Witch House” of that place, erected in 1631, although it was sixty one years later before this persecution reached its height.

A terrible summer for Salem village and its vicinity was that of 1692 – a year of worse than pestilence or famine. Bridget Bishop was hanged in June; Sarah Good, Sarah Wilder, Elizabeth Howe, Susanna Martin and Rebecca Nurse in July; George Burroughs, John Proctor, George Jacobs, John Willard and Martha Carrier in August; Martha Corey, Mary Easty, Alice Parker, Ann Pudeator, Margaret Scott, Wilmit Reed, Samuel Wordwell, and Mary Baker in September; in which last month Giles Corey eighty-one years of age, was pressed to death under a board loaded with heavy stones, not heavy enough however to crush out life until a day or two of lingering torture had intervened. Sarah Good’s daughter Dorcas between three and four years old, orphaned by her mother’s execution, was one of a number of children who with several hundred other persons were imprisoned on suspicion of witchcraft; many of these sufferers remained in a wretched condition, often heavily ironed for months, some upwards of a year; and several dying during this time. A child of seven, Sarah Carrier, was called upon to testify as witness against her mother.

Some of the condemned, especially Rebecca Nurse, Martha Corey, and Mary Easty, were aged women who had led unblemished lives and were conspicuous for their prudence, their charities and all domestic virtues.402

So extended became the persecution for witchcraft that the king was at last aroused to the necessity of putting a stop to such wholesale massacre of his subjects, issued a mandate forbidding the putting of any more persons to death on account of witchcraft.403 A remarkable family gathering took place at Salem, July 18, 1883, of two hundred persons who met to celebrate their descent from Mrs. Rebecca Nurse, who was executed as a witch at that place in 1692. The character and life of Mrs. Nurse were unimpeachable. She was a woman seventy years of age, the mother of eight children, a church member of unsullied reputation and devout habit; but all these considerations did not prevent her accusation, trial, conviction and death, although she solemnly asserted her innocence to the last. A reprieve granted by the governor was withdrawn through the influence of the church, and she was hung by the neck till she was dead. In order to give her body burial, her sons were obliged to steal it away by night, depositing it in a secret place known but to the family. Forty persons at the hazard of their own lives testified to the goodness and piety of Mrs. Nurse. Their names were inscribed upon the monument erected by her descendants, in 1892, to her memory.404 The Rev. Cotton Mather and the Rev. Samuel Parrish are indissolubly connected with this period, as both were extremely active in fomenting a belief in witchcraft. Richard Baxter, known as the “greatest of the Puritans” condemned those who expressed a disbelief in witchcraft as “wicked Sadducees.” Increase Mather, president of Harvard College, was one of the most bitter persecutors of witches in New England. The dangerous spirit of a religious autocracy like the priesthood, was forcibly shown by a paper read by Rev. Dr. George E. Ellis, a few years since, before the Massachusetts Historical Society, in which he excused the act of stripping women naked in order to search for a witch mark, upon the ground of its being a judicial one by commissioned officers and universally practiced in christendom.