Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands | Page 8

a little girl of nine years old, are said to have been hanged as witches at Huntingdon, but of this there seems to be some doubt. The last really authentic trial in England for witchcraft took place in 1712, when the jury convicted an old woman named Jane Wenham, of Walkerne, a little village in the north of Hertfordshire, and she was sentenced to be hanged. The judge, however, quietly procured a reprieve for her, and a kind-hearted gentleman in the neighbourhood gave her a cottage to live in, where she ended her days in peace. With regard to the mobbing of reputed sorcerers, it is recorded that in the year 1628, Dr. Lamb, a so-called wizard, who had been under the protection of the Duke of Buckingham, was torn to pieces by a London mob. While even as late as April 22nd, 1751, a wild and tossing rabble of about 5,000 persons beset and broke into the work-house at Tring, in Hertfordshire, where seizing Luke Osborne and his wife, two inoffensive old people suspected of witchcraft, they ducked them in a pond till the old woman died. After which, her corpse was put to bed to her husband by the mob, of whom only one person--a chimney-sweeper named Colley, who was the ringleader--was brought to trial and hanged for the detestable outrage.
The laws against witchcraft in England had lain dormant for many years, when an ignorant person attempted to revive them by filing a bill against a poor old woman in Surrey, accused as a witch; this led to the repeal of the laws by the statute 10 George II. 1736. Credulity in witchcraft, however, still lingers in some of the country districts of the United Kingdom. On September 4th, 1863, a poor old paralysed Frenchman died in consequence of having been ducked as a wizard at Castle Hedingham, in Essex, and similar cases have since occurred; while on September 17th, 1875,--only ten years ago--an old woman named Ann Turner, was killed as a witch, by a half-insane man, at Long Compton, Warwickshire.
IN SCOTLAND, thousands of persons were burnt for witchcraft within a period of about a hundred years, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Among the victims were persons of the highest rank, while all orders of the state concurred. James I. even caused a whole assize to be prosecuted because of an acquittal; the king published his work on _D?monologie_, in Edinburgh, in 1597; the last sufferer for witchcraft in Scotland was at Dornoch, in 1722.

CONFESSIONS OF WITCHES UNDER TORTURE.
_LE 4 JUILLET 1617._
Devant AMICE DE CARTERET, Ecuyer, Baillif, présents, etc.
SENTENCE DE MORT.
Collette Du Mont, veuve de Jean Becquet, Marie, sa fille, femme de Pierre Massy, Isbel Bequet, femme de Jean Le Moygne, etant par la coutume renommée et bruit des gens de longue main du bruit de damnable art de Sorcellerie, et icelles sur ce saisies et apprehendées par les Officiers de Sa Majesté, apres s'etre volontairement sumis et sur l'enquete generale du pays, et apres avoir été plusieurs fois conduites en Justice, ou?es, examinées et confrontées sur un grand nombre de depositions faites et produites à l'encontre d'elles par les dits Officiers, par lesquels est clair et evident qu'auraient, par longeur d'années, le susdit diabolique art de Sorcellerie, par avoir non seulement jété leur sort sur des choses insensible, mais aussi tenu en langueur par maladies etranges plusieurs personnes et betes, et aussi cruellement meurti grand nombre d'hommes, femmes, et enfans, et fait mourir plusieurs animaux, recordés aux informations sur ce faites, s'ensuit qu'elles sont plainement convaincues et atteintes d'etre Sorcieres. Pour reparation duquel crime a eté dit par la Cour que lesdites femmes seront presentement conduites la halte au col au lieu de supplice accoutumé, et par l'Officier criminel attachées à un poteau, pendues, etranglées, osciées, et brulées, jusqu'à ce que leur chairs et ossements soient reduits en cendres, et leurs cendres eparcées; et sont tous les biens, meubles, et heritages, si aucun en ont acquit, à Sa Majesté. Pour leur faire confesser leurs complices, qu'elles seront mises à la question en Justice avant que d'etre executées.
[TRANSLATION.]
Before AMICE DE CARTERET, Esq., Bailiff, and the Jurats.
_JULY 4th, 1617._
SENTENCE OF DEATH.
Collette du Mont, widow of _Jean Becquet_; Marie, her daughter, wife of _Pierre Massy_; and Isabel Becquet, wife of Jean Le Moygne, being by common rumour and report for a long time past addicted to the damnable art of Witchcraft, and the same being thereupon seized and apprehended by the Officers of His Majesty [James I.], after voluntarily submitting themselves, both upon the general inquest of the country, and after having been several times brought up before the Court, heard, examined, and confronted, upon a great number of depositions made and produced before the Court by the said Officers; from which it is clear and evident that