Page:A brief history of witchcraft - with especial reference to the witches of Northamptonshire (IA b3056721x).pdf/14

 we cannot say; but in 1616, Dr. John Cotta, an eminent physician of Northampton, published a thoughtful work, decidedly in advance of his age, entitled "The Trial of Witchcraft." Our account of this work must be mainly derived from Mr. Wright's "History of Sorcery." "Cotta did not dispute the existence of witches, but he objected to the evidence which was received against them; and the arguments he used to support his suspicions would, if followed out, have led him much further than he would venture then to go. Cotta requires that the evidence against persons accused of witchcraft should be of a direct and practical description. He recommended that, in all cases of supposed witchcraft or possession, skilful physicians should be employed to ascertain if the patient might not be suffering from a natural malady, and he pointed out the fallacy which attended the doctrine of witches' marks. He showed how little faith could generally be placed in the confessions of the witches, both from the manner in which they were obtained and the characters of the individuals who made them. He exposed, in the same rational manner, the uncertainty of such objectionable modes of trying witches as swimming them in the waters, scratching, beating, pinching, or drawing blood from them. He objected also to taking the supernatural revelations in those who were bewitched as evidence against those who were accused of bewitching them." This was not the first book written in the same rational strain, for in 1584 Reginald Scot issued his "Discoverie of Witchcraft," which assails the popular superstition with merciless vigour. Dr. Cotta's work, however, was much too early to produce any appreciable effect upon the multitude, who still howled and yelled round a newly-found sorceress, and offered up their thanksgivings at the bloody shrine where she was sacrificed.

Under the Commonwealth the persecution took its most violent form, while it first began to decline under the Protectorate. Matthew Hopkins, the celebrated witch-finder, commenced his career in 1645; and, in a defence of his conduct published three years afterwards, he boasted that he had been part agent in convicting about two hundred witches in Suffolk, Northamptonshire, Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, and the Isle of Ely. Unfortunately for the cause, he was so successful as to inspire disgust; and the Independents shortly afterwards coming to influence in the State, the witches, however abundant and mischievous, began to meet with more lenient treatment. One of Hopkins's peculiar practices deserves mentioning. As an improvement on any of the tests hitherto adopted, he resorted to the system of keeping the accused person fasting and in a state of sleeplessness for four-and-twenty hours, sitting too during the whole time in an uneasy posture, in a room set apart for the purpose. A hole having been made in the door of the chamber, the victim was carefully watched, to see if she was approached by any of her imps. At the end of the time, when she would be exhausted and confused from want of rest, an attempt was often made to extort confession, and any rambling statement she might make was caught up as sufficient for the purpose of conviction.

Glanvil has a queer tale about a bewitched family, living at Welton, near Daventry. The prodigies narrated in connection with them are said to have been veritably seen in the year 1658. A certain Widow Stiff had two daughters, the younger of whom one day began vomiting water, and continued doing so till she had brought up three gallons, "to the great admiration" of the spectators. Then she diverged to the dry goods line, and vomited a vast quantity of stones and coals. Some of them weighed a quarter of a pound, and were so big that she could hardly get them out of her mouth. This process lasted about a fortnight; and, while it continued, the articles of furniture in the house exhibited lively propensities. Flax would not burn on the fire; the bed-clothes sprang off the beds of their own accord; a sack of wheat could not be persuaded to stand upright after the door, of the room had been shut upon it; the goods in the hall would spin about when no one was