What
immediately springs to mind at the words “Lancashire” and
“Witches” are the infamous Pendle witch trials of 1612. There
were, however, several later cases in the same area: one such
occurred in 1634 when ten year old Edmund Robinson related a
fantastical story regarding his experience with local witches.
He had,
he insisted, witnessed dogs turning into people and all manner of
strange goings on, and on 10th February young Edmund
described before two magistrates in great detail the witches' sabbat
he had seen, consisting of around 60 or so people, both men and
women. He identified 19 of them, several of whom were already
rumoured in the local area to be witches. The boy in fact became
something of a celebrity: going from church to church he was pressed
to identify those who were guilty of witchcraft, pointing the finger
at many as he went. In total, around 30 people were arrested, with 17
to attend trial at the Lent Assizes in Lancaster. All apart from one
were adamant that they had done nothing wrong, denying utterly that
they were witches.
Amongst
the accused was 20 year old Mary Spencer from nearby Burnley; too
young to remember the events of the Pendle trials, she could not have
failed to have heard of Old Demdike and Old Chattox and the fate of
their supposed confederates, and the fate that could likewise await
her.
The
daughter of John Spencer and Mary Mitchell, there is no record of
Mary's birth; from her age given at her trial we can infer that Mary
was born around 1614. There is a record of a female child baptised
16th December, 1610, daughter of John Spencer, who may or
may not be Mary, depending if she was precise with her age.
St Peter's Church, Burnley
Copyright Alexander P Kapp
John and
Mary Spencer had been accused and arrested for witchcraft along with
their daughter: between them, they were charged with wasting and
impairing the body of John Leigh, killing Henry Roberts of Clevinger,
impairing the body of Sarah, wife of George Frost, and killing one
horse and several other beasts and cattle belonging to Nicholas
Cunliffe. Her mother also had a “pap” or suspicion mark on her
hip, further evidence that she was guilty.
The
accusations against Mary herself were spurious to say the least. She
was accused of bewitching a collock (a one handled
bucket or pail) and was charged with:
“...causing a pale or collock to come to her full of water 14 yards up a hill from a well.”
She also
had two paps or marks in her “secrets.”
Although
the accusations were initiated by Edmund Robinson, it seems that the
Spencer involvement in the sorry tale was due to the malice of the
previously mentioned Nicholas Cunliffe. According to Mary, Cunliffe
had been against her parents for the last five years or so, and was
instrumental in their having been arrested at the previous assizes.
He had got his revenge; both her parents were dead by the time Mary
was brought before the Bishop of Chester on 13th June to
give her version of events.
Lancaster Castle, 1778
She was
not a witch, Mary vowed, far from it. On the contrary, she regularly
attended church, and not only that, she used to take home what she
had heard there to pass on to her parents. In fact it was recorded
that she “utterly denies that she knows any witchcraft, or ever did
hurt to anybody thereby.” (The implication that John and Mary
Spencer did not attend church themselves is an interesting one;
perhaps illness or old age prevented them from doing so, or they
might have been at odds over religious differences which might have
in turn contributed to the accusations against them.) Furthermore,
Mary proved that she could recite the Creed and the Lord's Prayer,
demonstrating her religious inclinations. She defied the devil,
refusing to throw in her lot with him, and hoped that Jesus would
save her from the perilous situation in which she found herself.
But what
of the bucket? She would, Mary insisted, have cleared up the whole
matter at the hearing itself, only conditions had not been conducive
to her doing so. The wind had been howling, and the noise of the
crowds who had come to witness the spectacle was so loud she had not
been able to hear when she was told of the accusations against her.
The answer was simple:
“When she was a young girl and went to the well for water, she used to tumble or trundle the collock or pea, down the hill, and she would run along after it to over take it, and did overhie it sometimes, and then might call it to come to her.”
There was
nothing magical or bewitched in that, simply the usual behaviour of a
bucket rolling down a hill. She could not, Mary was adamant, make it
come to her in any other way. Her final affirmation was that she was
not afraid of death: sure of her innocence, she would find heaven
through it.
After the
Bishop heard from the remaining surviving suspects, doubts still
remained regarding Robinson's testimony. The case was passed to the
Privy Council, a move which resulted in four of the accused,
including Mary, being transferred to London in an attempt to clear up
the matter. On arriving in London the suspected witches were taken to
the prestigious Ship Tavern.
During
their stay in the capital, the suspected witches were again
physically examined. Contrary to the evidence against them from
Lancaster, after examination by a team of seven surgeons and ten
midwives under the direction of the renowned Dr Harvey on July 2nd
at Surgeon's Hall, Mugwell Street, London, it was declared that there
was found:
“on the bodies of Janet Hargreaves, Frances Dicconson, and Mary Spencer nothing unnatural nor anything like a teat or mark.”
Slowly,
the case was starting to unravel. Nothing could be found to support
the accusations against the women, their initially impressive
lodgings now exchanged for the less salubrious Fleet Prison where the
curious could pay a fee to visit and gawk at the imprisoned witches.
And then, 16th July, when examined again, Edmund Robinson
finally came clean. He admitted that he had concocted his stories of
the witches and their meeting from a combination of tales of the
Pendle witches of 1612 and rumours about the local women he had
accused. There was no other truth in what he had come up with, and no
one had put him up to it.
The fact
that Edmund and his father were also imprisoned during their stay in
London no doubt played a large part in the boy deciding to fess up.
His father had lodged a complaint a short while before regarding
their treatment and his ignorance of the reason they were being
locked up. Events after this become somewhat hazy, and although it
was said that the suspected witches were seen by King Charles and his
council and pardoned, there is no official record of this. What is
known is that, after Robinson's confession, the surviving accused
were taken back to Lancaster, Mary among them. Whether pardoned or
not it made little difference, as they returned not as free women,
but prisoners. Indeed, Mary was still imprisoned at Lancaster Castle
on 22nd August, 1636, when she was listed in a Calendar of
Prisoners there. Her ultimate fate is unknown.
No comments:
Post a Comment