Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands | Page 8

5 Elizabeth,
1562, and 1 James I. 1603. The 73rd Canon of the Church, 1603,

prohibits the Clergy from casting out devils. Barrington estimates the
judicial murders for witchcraft in England, during two hundred years,
at 30,000; Matthew Hopkins, the "witch-finder," caused the judicial
murder of about one hundred persons in Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk,
1645-7; Sir Matthew Hale burnt two persons for witchcraft in 1664;
about 1676 seventeen or eighteen persons were burnt as witches at St.
Osyths, in Essex; in 1705 two pretended witches were executed at
Northampton, and five others seven years afterwards; in 1716, a Mrs.
Hicks, and her daughter, 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
_Dæmonologie_, 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, ouïes, 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