Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/473

 LADY ALICE KYTELER. 457 ing them to leave their property to her and to her eldest son, "William Outlaw. Bishop Ledrede proceeded vigorously to make inquisition, but Lady Alice and William .were allied to the lead- ing officials in Ireland, who threw every difficulty in the way, and, as the canons against heresy were unknown in the island, he had an arduous task, being himself at one time arrested and thrown into prison. A less indomitable spirit would have succumbed, but he triumphed at last, though Lady Alice herself escaped his clutches and was conveyed to England. The trials of her assumed accomplices would seem to have been conducted without much respect to form, but with ample energy. Torture being unknown in English law, the bishop might have failed in eliciting confession had he not found an effective, if illegal, substitute in the whip. Petronilla, for instance, one of Lady Alice's women, after being scourged six times could endure no longer the endless increase of agony, and confessed all that was wanted of her. She admitted that she was a skilful sorceress, but inferior to her mistress, who was equal to any in England, or any in the world. She told how, at Lady Alice's command, she had sacrificed cocks in the cross- roads to a demon named Robert Artisson, her mistress's incubus or lover, and how they made from the brains of an unbaptized child, with herbs and worms, in the skull of a robber who had been beheaded, powders and charms to afflict the bodies of the faithful, to excite love and hatred, and to make the faces of certain women appear horned in the eyes of particular individuals. She had been the intermediary between her mistress and the demon ; on one occasion he had come to Lady Alice's chamber with two others, black as Ethiopians, when followed love-scenes of which the dis- gusting details may be spared. The case is interesting as devel- oping a transition state of belief between the earlier magic and the later witchcraft ; and it illustrates one of the most important points in the criminal jurisprudence of the succeeding centuries, which explains the unquestioning belief universally entertained as to the marvels of sorcery. Torture administered with unlimited repetition not only brought the patient into a condition in which he would confess whatever was required of him, but the impres- sion produced was such that he would not risk its renewal by retraction even at the last. It was so with this poor creature, who persisted to the end with this tissue of absurdities, and