Page:A brief history of witchcraft - with especial reference to the witches of Northamptonshire (IA b3056721x).pdf/7

 whom it was intended to represent was supposed to waste away; or it was pierced with a pin or wire, and in a corresponding part the victim was believed to suffer. The classical reader will remember Horace's allusions to this agency. It belongs rather to the higher and more perfect development of witchcraft than to the later period of its history. To proceed with the story: the exhibition of the image was not deemed by the King sufficient evidence against his mother-in-law, and she, to strengthen her case, enquireed into the circumstances of its manufacture. It turned out (so at least the witness alleges) that a certain John Daunger, parish clerk of Stoke Bruern, had been asked by Squire Wako to say that there were two other images in existence of the Duchess's making, one to represent the King and the other the Queen; but John Daunger could not be persuaded to swear to any such untruths. On the contrary, when he and Mr. Wako were ordered before the Bishop of Carlisle and others for examination, he gave the following testimony:— "That Thomas Wake send unto hym oon Thomas Kymbell, that tyme beyng his bailly, and bad the said John to send hym the ymage of led that he had, and so the said John sent it by the said Thomas Kymbell, att which tyme the same John said that he herd never noo wichecraft of my lady of Bedford. Item, the same John saith, that the said ymage was delyvered unto hym by oon Harry Kyngeston of Stoke; the which Harry fonde it in his owne hous after departyng of sondeours. Item, the same John saith, that the said Thomas Wake, after he cam from London, fro the kyng, send for hym and said that he had excused hymsylf and leyd all the blame to the said John; and therfor he bad the said John say that he durst not kepe the said image, and that he was the cause he send it to the said Thomas Wake. Item, the same John saith, that the said Thomas Wake bad hym say that ther was two othir ymages, oon for the kyng, and anothir for the quene; but the said John denyed to say soo." Wake's statement was that the image had been "left in Stoke with an honest persone, which delyverid it to the clerk of the chirche, and so shewid it to dyvers neighbours;" but, at any rate, his testimony was so vague, or the evidence of the parish clerk so damning, that the Duchess was "clerid and declared of the noises and disclaundres" against her.

The accusation, however, was revived after Edward's death, when Richard of Gloucester was anxious to make a title to the crown by proving the illegitimacy of his brother's children. His very Act of Settlement declares "howe the seid pretensed mariage betwixt the king and Elizabeth Grey [her name after her first marriage] was made of grete presumption, without the knowyng and assent of the lords of this lond, and also by sorcerie and wichecrafte, committed by the said Elizabeth and her moder Jaquett duchesse of Bedford, as the common opinion of the people and the publique voice and fame is thorough all this land." This may be taken as some evidence that the idea was kept alive in the popular mind, or it may be thought the simple offspring of Richard's malice. That he was very ready to make use of the charge of sorcery we have abundance of proof in the celebrated scene between the King and Hastings, when the former raved about those who did

accusing

of having withered an arm which was dried up from his birth, and ordering Hastings' execution on the plea that he was not fierce enough in condemning them.

These occurrences afford us illustrations of the way in which the imputation of familiarity with the black art could be made use of for party purposes, or to gratify individual feelings of vindictiveness. The end of the century gave terrible evidence of its value as an engine for the persecution of heretics. Failing other means of punishment, Pope Innocent VIII. directed a bull, in 1484, against the Waldenses, commanding the inquisitors to summon before them those suspected of commerce with the devil, and giving them power to convict and imprison or otherwise punish them as they thought proper. The effect of this movement was at once to increase the executions of the unfortunate persons who ventured to oppose the Papal authority. In the very next year forty-one women were burnt in a single district on the charge of witchcraft, while a hundred were sacrificed in Piedmont, five hundred in