Part 7

As, 1st, That we heard twice. And, 2dly, Three of us did so think. 3dly, That I was in courage, and so my judgment not jumbled by any fearful apprehensions. 4thly, That the accent and way of her discourse, and in what we did understand of it, was not after the manner how one regrets a thing to himself, but of one conferring with another. 5thly, That the other voice was to my certain hearing of a different accent from her’s, so hollow and ghostly, that it was as easy for me to put a difference between them in the mean time, as between the voice of a man and the voice of a child. 6thly, That to my best remembrance the uncouth voice began before she ended, so that two voices were to be heard at once. Lastly, A. Simpson understood their language, and afterward did depone the words judicially.——It is good (1) For folk to hold on in doing of duty, though they forsee unsuperable difficulties before they come to the end of it. Let a man go on till he come to the difficulty, and ere he come that far on, God will remove it. (2) ’Tis good in asking mercies to engage the heart to some duties of thankfulness, upon the granting them. (3) How zealous is the devil to get souls damned, that though he be of an excellent substance, of great natural parts, long experience, deep understanding, yet he will so far enslave himself to poor miscreant bodies as to be ready at their call, to discourse and keep company with them, that at the last he may get them. How serviceable and trusty soever the devil seems to be unto witches, yet he cares not to ensnare them at the last; for he could not but know that we were waiting on to hear him and her; so that he had on purpose entered into discourse with her, that she might be taken in the grin.

I come to some other remarkable passages concerning Elizabeth Graham before her death, giving evidence that she was most guilty of witchcraft, though she died obstinate, and would not confess. Upon Saturday night, November 13, she seemed to incline to a confession, and promised to William Watt, to tell me to-morrow after sermon all that was in her heart. At which time, I had none with me but William Watt. When I spoke with her, she regretted her mispent time, but especially her malice towards myself, which she affirmed the devil tempted her to. All which time she spake with a very low voice, that although I desired her to speak out, we could scarce hear her. Whereupon I inquired the reason why she was not able to speak louder? She replied, “That when she set herself to speak any thing that was for her soul’s good, she dought not get spoken.” These were her words. “But if she would scold and flyte as she used to do, the devil would give her strength enough to speak as loud as ever she did.” Within a little I posed her if she was guilty of witchcraft: She stared with her eyes by me, first to the one side, and then to the other; at which time, I certainly think that she saw the devil; for immediately after, she began to rail upon me, although she had confessed her malice at me was partly the cause of her greatest grief, and still as she went on in railing, her voice became stronger and stronger, till at last she spoke as loud as ever she did.

Upon Monday before noon, she was most bitter in her language. I posed her what grounds of confidence she had, if it would be well with her soul? She answered, “She had no grounds yet; for she had lived a wicked woman, and had not yet repented; but she hoped she would get heaven, and get repentance, and a change would be wrought in her; and though she was to live but a short while, she was sure of it, and that I would soon see it.” I thought in the mean time, she had spoken that in her rage. But after I perceived the devil and she had a further design in it, as appears by what follows. That same day afternoon, they came and told me, that she had fallen to pray, and had many gracious words, expressing her own vileness, and the sense she had of God’s mercy, and with tears: In which strain she continued till after supper. I came then to see her, at which time she was continuing still as before, aggravating her sin and guilt, and shewing her hopes of salvation, and desire to die. And all along, she had such pithy expressions, and Scripture so often, and plentifully cited, that I was put to wonder, considering that I ever had found her altogether ignorant of the grounds of religion, both before, and after she was put into prison.

After I had wondered at it a while, without speaking to her, considering what she had foretold so confidently before noon, I concluded in my mind, that it was a draught between the devil and her, to feign repentance in such an odd way, that we might be deceived; being made to think that she was not a witch, else she would confess it, seeing God had given her repentance.—Whereupon, seriously considering the matter, I posed her of guiltiness; she confessed all the particulars of the process, which did not certainly conclude her to be a witch; but the rest of the particulars she denied, as also the crime of witchcraft itself. However, she said, “She knew she would die, and desired not to live; and she thought we would be free before God of her blood, because that, however she was free, yet there were so many things deponed against her, that though it was hard for us to think otherwise of her than we did, yet she knew well enough her own innocence.” Thus I have written all those particulars, as I found them in the authentic record, written by the minister’s own hand. She was soon after executed, and died without any acknowledgment of witchcraft.

XVI.—_Anent the Apparition of Sir George Villiers._

Some few days before the Duke of Buckingham went to Portsmouth, where he was stabbed by Felton, the ghost of his father Sir George Villiers appeared to one Parker, a religious and sober man, who had been a servant to the said Sir George, but now to the Duke his son. He appeared to him, I say, in his morning chamber-gown, and charged him to tell his son, that he should decline that employment and design he was going upon, or else he would certainly be murdered. Parker promised to the apparition to do it. The Duke making preparation for his expedition, the apparition came again to Parker, taxing him very severely for his breach of promise, and required him not to delay the acquainting his son of the danger he was in. Then Parker the next day tells the Duke, “That his father’s ghost had twice appeared to him, and had commanded him, without any farther delay, to give him that warning.” The Duke slighted it, and told him, “That he was an old doting fool.” That night the apparition came to Parker a third time saying, “Parker thou hast done well in warning my son of his danger, but though he will not believe thee, go to him once more, however, and tell him from me by such a token, (naming a private token) which nobody knows but only he and I, that if he will not decline this voyage, such a knife as this is, (pulling a long knife out from under his gown) will be his death.” This message Parker also delivered the next day to the Duke, who, when he heard the private token, believed he had it from his father’s ghost. Yet, said he, that his honour was now at stake, and he could not go come back from what he had undertaken, come life come death. This message Parker, after the Duke’s murder, communicated to his fellow-servant Henry Celey, who told it to a reverend divine a neighbour of mine, (says my author) from whose mouth I have it. This Henry Celey has not been dead above twenty years; and his habitation for several years before his death, was at North Currie, but three miles from this place. My friend, the divine aforesaid, was an intimate acquaintance of this Henry Celey’s, and assures me he was a person of known truth and integrity.

XVII.—_Anent Hattaraick, an old Warlock._

This man’s name was Sandie Hunter, who called himself Sandie Hamilton; and it seems was called Hattaraick by the devil, and so by others, as a nick-name. He was first a nolt-herd in East Lothian to a gentleman there. He was much given to charming and curing of men and beasts by words and spells. His charms sometimes succeeded, sometimes not. On a day herding his kine upon a hill-side in the summer-time, the devil came to him in the form of a mediciner, and said, “Sandie, you have too long followed my trade, and never acknowledged me for your master; you must now take on with me, and be my servant, and I will make you more perfect in your calling.” Whereupon the man gave up himself to the devil, and received his mark, with this new name. After this he grew very famous through the country, for his charming and curing of diseases in men and beasts, and turned a vagrant fellow, like a jockie, gaining meal and flesh, and money by his charms; such was the ignorance of many at that time. Whatever house he came to, none durst refuse Hattaraick an alms, rather for his ill than his good. One day he came to the yait of Samuelston, when some friends after dinner were going to horse. A young gentleman, brother to the lady, seeing him, switched him about the ears, saying, “You warlock carle, what have you to do here?” Whereupon the fellow goes away grumbling, and was overheard say, “You shall dear buy this ere it be long.” This was _damnum minatum_. The young gentleman conveyed his friends a far way off, and came home that way again, where he supped. After supper, taking his horse, and crossing Tyne water to go home, he rides through a shadow piece of a haugh, commonly called Allers, and the evening being somewhat dark, he met with some persons there that begat a dreadful consternation in him, which, for the most part, he would never reveal. This was _malum secutum_. When he came home, the servants observed terror and fear in his countenance. The next day he became distracted, and was bound for several days. His sister the Lady Samuelston hearing of it, was heard say, “Surely that knave Hattaraick is the cause of this trouble, call for him in all haste.” When he had come to her, “Sandie,” says she, “what is this you have done to my brother William?” “I told him,” says he, “I should make him repent his striking of me at the yait lately.” She giving the rogue fair words, and promising him his pock full of meal, with beef and cheese, persuaded the fellow to cure him again. He understood the business, “But I must first,” says he, “have one of his sarks.” Which was soon gotten. What pranks he played with it cannot be known. But within a short while the gentleman recovered his health. When Hattaraick came to receive his wages, he told the Lady, “Your brother William shall quickly go off the country, but shall never return.” She knowing the fellow’s prophecies to hold true, caused her brother to make a disposition to her of all his patrimony, to the defrauding of his young brother George. After that this warlock had abused the country for a long time, he was at last apprehended at Dunbar, and brought into Edinburgh, and burnt upon the Castle hill.——I have inserted this story, which I had from the gentleman’s own brother, a thing well known at that time through the country, not so much for any matter in it, as that it may be an occasion to me to speak a little of charms. The word charm or incantation comes from the Latin word _carmen_, signifying a verse, because the Roman soothsayers gave their charms in verse. It is only a strange composure of words to blind the understanding of people, pretending, by virtue of words, great matters may be brought to pass. But words of themselves, either spoken or written, (as these charms) have no force to bring any thing to pass. It is only the power of the almighty God. Charming is much practised by the Pope and the Romish church. Their whole forms of religion, both in private and in public, consisting of charms of all sorts. Pope Leo had a charm, which he said he had from an angel, who taught him, that whosoever carried that charm in write about him, and said every day three Pater Nosters, three Aves, and one Creed, shall not that day be conquered of his enemies, nor be in other danger, ghostly or bodily, but shall be protected by these holy names of Jesus Christ, written with the four Evangelists, and crosses between them, as † Jesus, † Christus, † Messias, † Sotar, † Emmanuel, &c. It is still a common practice among the Papists to carry charms about them to make them shot-free when they go to war; as also hath been found by experience in the late Irish wars, many of the idolatrous Irish being found with charms in their pockets, composed by the Popish clergy. They make their holy water by a charm or conjuration, thus: “I conjure thee, thou creator of water, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that thou drive the devil out of every corner of this church and altar, so that he remain not within our precincts, which are just and holy.” This is used in the dedication of their churches. Thus, by holy water, they not only conjure the devil from their churches, but from dwelling houses, from meat and drink, from salt upon the table. They dedicate their bells in steeples, which have power to clear the air from devils. It is likewise a sort of charm which many witches have, namely, to cut the rowan tree between the two Beltan days. If any man or woman, horse, or cow, shall have a piece thereof upon them, no devils or fairy shall have power to meddle with them. An old woman whom I read of, used this charm when she went to bed,

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, The bed be blest that I lie on.

And another old woman taught her neighbour this charm, when the butter would not churn,

Come butter, come, Come butter, come: Peter stands at the gate Waiting for a butter’d cake, Come butter, come.

XVIII.—_The Ghost of Mrs. Breton._

Dr. Breton, late rector of Ludgate, at Deptford, lived formerly in Herefordshire, and married the daughter of Dr. Santer. This gentlewoman was a person of extraordinary piety, which she expressed, as in her life, so at her death. She had a maid that she had a great kindness for; who was married to a near neighbour, whose name, as I remember, was Alice. Not long after her death, as Alice was rocking her child in the evening, she was called from the craddle by one knocking at the door, which being opened, she was surprised at the sight of a gentlewoman, not to be distinguished from her late mistress, neither in person or in habit. She was in a morning gown, the same in appearance with that she had often seen her mistress wear. At first sight she expressed very great amazement, and said, “Were not my mistress dead, I should not question but you are she.” She replied, “I am the same that was your mistress;” and took her by the hand, which Alice affirmed was cold as stone.

She added, “That she had business of great importance to employ her in, and that she must go immediately a little way with her.” Alice trembled and beseeched her to excuse her, and entreated her very importunately to go to her master, who must needs be more fit to be employed. She answered, “That he who was her husband, was not at all concerned; but yet she had a desire rather to make use of him, and in order thereunto had several times been in his chamber, but he was still asleep; nor had she power to do more than once uncover his feet towards the awakening of him.” And the doctor said, “That he did hear a walking in his chamber in the night, which till now, he could give no account of.” Alice next objected, “That her husband was gone a journey, and she had no one to look to her child; that it was very apt to cry vehemently, and she feared if it awakened before her return, it would cry itself to death, or do itself mischief.” The apparition replied, “The child shall sleep till you return.”

Alice seeing there was no avoiding it, sorely against her will, followed her over a stile into a large field, who then said to her, “Observe how much of this field I measure with my feet.” And when she had taken a good large and leisurely compass, she said, “All this belongs to the poor, it being gotten from them by wrongful means,” and charged her to go and tell her brother, whose it was at that time, that he should give it up to the poor again, forthwith, as he loved her and his deceased mother. This brother was not the person who did this unjust act, but his father. She added, “That she was the more concerned, because her name was made use of at some writing that related to this land.” Alice asked her, how she should satisfy her brother that this was no cheat or delusion of her fancy. She replied, “Tell him this secret which he knows, that only himself and I are privy to, and he will believe you.” Alice having promised to her to go on this errand, she proceeded to give her good advice, and entertained her all the rest of the night with heavenly and divine discourse. When the twilight appeared, they heard the noise of horse-bells, whereupon the apparition said, “Alice, I must be seen by none but yourself;” and so she disappeared.—Immediately Alice in all haste runs home, being thoughtful for her child, but found it, as the apparition had said, asleep as she left it. When she had dressed it, and committed it to the care of a neighbour, away she went to her master the doctor, who amused at the account she gave him, sent her to his brother-in-law. He at first hearing her story and message, laughed at it heartily. But she had no sooner told him the secret, but he changed his countenance, and told her, he would give the poor their own, and accordingly he did it, and they now enjoy it.—This with more circumstances, many times has been related by Dr. Breton himself, who was well known to be a person of great goodness and sincerity. He gave a large narrative of this apparition of his wife to two of my friends, saith my author. First, to one Mrs. Nedham, and afterwards, a little before his death, to Dr. Witchcot.

XIX.—_Touching an Apothecary’s Servant that returned to the Shop after he had been dead._

This is a known passage, which happened in the year 1669, at Crossen in Silesia; that is a part in Germany, which long since was under the Polonians, but is now subject to the crown of Bohemia; the chief magistrate of that town at the time, was the princess Elizabeth Chalotta, a person famous in her generation. In the spring of the aforesaid year, one Christopher Monig, a native of Serbell, a town belonging to the princess of Anhalt, servant to an apothecary, died and was buried with the usual ceremonies of the Lutheran Church. A few days after his decease, a shape exactly like him in face, clothes, stature, mien, &c. appeared in the apothecary’s shop, where he would set himself down, and walk sometimes, and take boxes, pots, and glasses from the shelves, and set them again in other places, and sometimes try and examine the goodness of the medicines, weigh them in a pair of scales, pound the drugs with a mighty noise in the mortar: nay, serve the people that came with their bills to the shop, take their money, and lay it safe up in the counter; in a word, do all things that a journey-man in such cases used to do. He looked very ghostly upon these that had been his fellow servants, who were afraid to say any thing to him; and his master being sick at that time of the gout, he was often very troublesome to him, would take the bills that were brought to him out of his hand, snatch away the candle sometimes, and put it behind the stove. At last, he took a cloak that hung in the shop, put it on, and walked abroad, but minding no body on the streets; he entered into some of the citizens houses, and thrust himself into their company, especially of such as he had formerly known, yet saluted no body, nor spoke to any one, but to a maid servant whom he met with hard by the church-yard, and desired her to go home to his master’s house and dig in a ground chamber, where she would find inestimable treasure; but the maid, amazed at the sight of him, swooned; whereupon he lift her up, but left such a mark upon her flesh with lifting her, that it was to be seen for some time after; the maid having recovered herself, went home, but fell desperately sick upon it, and in her sickness, discovered what Monig had said to her, and accordingly they digged in the place she had named, but found nothing but one old decayed pot with an Hemarites, or blood-stone, in it. The princess hereupon caused the young man’s body to be digged up, which they found putrified, with purulent matter flowing from it: and the master being advised to remove the young man’s goods, linens, clothes, and things he left behind him when he died, out of the house, the spirit thereupon left the house, and was seen no more. And this some people now living will give their oath upon, who very well remember they saw him after his decease; and the thing being so notorious, there was instituted a public disputation about it in the academy of Leipsic, by Henry Couradus, who disputed for his doctor’s degree in the university. And this puts me in mind of an apothecary at Reichenback in Silesia, about fifteen years ago, who after his death, appeared to divers of his acquaintance, and cried out, That in his life time he had poisoned several men with his drugs; whereupon the magistrates of the town took up his body and burnt it; which being done, the spirit disappeared, and was seen no more.

XX.—_A wonderful Story of one Robert Churchman, inveigled in_ Quakerism, _written by_ Dr. John Templar.

Sir, your desiring to be acquainted with some passages concerning the Quakers in this town of Balsham, obligeth me to give you the following account: At my first settlement here in the ministry, I found them very busy in enticing my people to a compliance with their persuasions in religion; this design they did attempt to accomplish by dispersing their papers among them. Two of my parishioners I had a particular eye upon, namely, Robert Churchman and his wife, they being persons of a very good life, and a pleasant estate, I was under a fear, that their departure from the church might be a means to induce others to the same practice. The first in my discourses I had with him, did manifest a very strong inclination to the principles of the Quakers. The second was so far engaged, (meaning the said Robert’s wife) that the Quakers did commonly report, that a principle was begun in her.