Breadth Study Part 1: Dubious Cases

BoB: Boy of Burton. PS: Pendle Swindle

What year was the Boy of Burton case?

1596

What happened to Thomas Darling? (BoB)

• Claimed in 1596 that he was bewitched (fits and hallucinations) by Alice Goodridge and her mother (60 yrs and 80 yrs).

• They were arrested, sleep deprived and admitted to having a familiar (a red and white dog, not what TD had said), and harming TD. Died in prison

• 1599: TD confessed to lying

Who was John Darrell and how was he involved in the BoB case?

• JD was an Anglican priest exorcist who had been involved in the BoB case

• Was found to have acted fraudulently in the BoB case when investigated by the A’s of C and L. Stopped from being a priest in the C of E.

• Samuel Harsnett: A of L’s chaplain who wrote a sceptical work about the case.

Why was the Boy of Burton an important case for the growth of sceptical views?

• Samuel Harsnett’s pamphlet (‘A Discovery of the Fraudulent Practices of John Darrell’)

  • One of the first publications to point to fraud in witchcraft accusations.

Why was the Boy of Burton less important/unimportant for the growth of sceptical views?

• Keith Thomas argued that the Burton case was not so important for the development of sceptical opinion because the case was fundamentally about church factionalism/politics.

What year was Pendle Swindle?

1634

What did Edmund encounter? (PS)

• Shape shifting greyhounds encountered on Edmund Robinson’s way home. Greyhound turned into a local woman who paid him to keep quiet. He refused and she took him to a house where there were witches who feasted. He escaped.

What did Edmund do after his experience?

• Travelled village to village, accusing witches. By Feb 1634, 25 accused, 17 were found guilty (68%, which was a very high percentage for Europe). Jennet Device is one of the accused.

• Eventually cracks and confesses that his story was influenced By the Device family and his father was using him to make monkey via blackmail.

Why was the Pendle Swindle an important case for the growth of sceptical views?

• First sceptical intervention by a monarch (Charles I)

• Application of the scientific method/rationalism to determining whether people are witches. (1st case of ‘forensic science’).

• Personally supervised midwives who examined the women and found no witches marks.

• Vital stepping stone for increasing the burden of proof/quality of evidence needed to convict.

What was the cultural impact of the Pendle Swindle?

Witchcraft could be satirised for the first time. A play was written about it and performed in London for the King. However this was London-centric, for the elite and the intellectual.

Why was the Pendle Swindle less important/unimportant for the growth of sceptical views?

• It could be argued that this case reflected sceptical attitudes, rather than caused them

• In 1616 (following a trial in Leicester where child witnesses were used) James I ordered judicial caution in witchcraft cases, therefore judges were likely to be more sceptical of accusations.

• Presiding judges then immediately wrote to the privy council explaining their decision. They commissioned an investigation by the Bishop of Chester who uncovered fraud.

What year was the Demon Drummer of Tedworth case?

1662

What happened to William Drury and how was John Mompesson involved?

• Drury was an entertainer with a fraudulent pass to raise alms. Mompesson intervened in the case.

• Drury’s drum was sent to Mompesson House where strange occurrences began, including thumping noises, sounds of dogs scratching, bibles found in fireplace hearths, beds lifted into the air, objects thrown around and a sulphurous smell- Brimstone- which was linked to the devil.

• House became a local attraction with reps of Charles II coming to investigate.

• Drury was jailed, and then deported. Disturbances stopped. Escaped, recaptured, deported. Disturbances continued.

Why was the Demon Drummer case important for the growth of sceptical views: publications?

Has an important impact of the writing of two important sceptical cases:

• John Webster’s ‘Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft’ which directly led to Webster arguing that the case was fraudulent (Mompesson made the noises, witchcraft was often fraudulent).

• Mentioned by Balthasar Becker in ‘The World Bewitched’ in which he argued (from a rationalist POV) that it was Mompesson’s servants who made the noise.

What was the impact of the debate between Granville and Webster on the growth of sceptical views?

The debate between Granville (believed that DD was witchcraft in action) and Webster where both submitted papers to the Royal Society led to a sceptical consensus in the scientific community- i.e. the Royal Society accepted Webster’s argument that witch cases were usually fraudulent.

Why was the Demon Drummer case less important for the growth of sceptical views?

• In the short term, there was a very limited impact on belief. Webster’s view was shared only by a small elite. It did nothing to undermine popular belief in witchcraft e.g. Glanville’s evidence came from a significant number of ‘eyewitness’ accounts.

What year was the Jane Wenham case?

1712

What happened to Jane Wenham?

• Long held rep as a witch/wise woman, associated with stories of cursed farmers.

• Anne Thorne (servant of the Gardiner house) was bewitched by Wenham (fits/hallucinations of demons with cat faces, vomiting pins). Employers notice when Thorne ran a mile to find some sticks. When placed on the fire, a figure of Wenham appeared at the door.

• Wenham as a witch was verified by locals. No devils mark found, and Wenham confessed to harmless magic. Accusers only agreed on the charge about the cat/devil. Ointment made of human fat found under Wenham’s pillow, and she stumbled over the Lord’s Prayer.

Who was Powell in the JW case?

• Judge Powell was sceptical of evidence but Jury found her guilty.

• Powell secured a royal pardon to stop the hanging.

• Powell: outside from Gloucester, approached case in a rational/objective way and ignored witnesses’ grudges.

Why was the case of Jane Wenham an important case for the growth of sceptical views?

• The JW case had a significant impact on some leading English sceptics, esp. Francis Hutchinson who wrote extensively about the case in his 1718 book ‘A Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft’.

• The last case in England and it did have an impact on the 1736 repeal of the 1604 act, as it demonstrated that judges didn’t agree with the provisions of the 1604 act.

Why was the Jane Wenham case less important for the growth of the sceptical views?

Demonstrated that popular belief still had magic/witchcraft at it’s heart

• 16 witnesses, found guilty by the jury

Case had all the classic elements of a typical witchcraft case

• Pre-selections, Wenham’s ambiguous place in society, acts of maleficia (e.g. Anne’s symptoms etc)

Jane Wenham’s pardon was the consequence of another factor: judicial scepticism.

• Powell asked for a royal pardon and Jude gets, following Holt’s direction, increasingly required more proof.