Beautiful Star and Other Stories
Page 18
At home, my parents simply refused to talk about it. My accounts of being attacked and abused were met with no more than ‘Ignore them, Emily. It’ll pass.’
Some of the pamphlets and news sheets used passages from the Bible, including the one from Exodus that Mr Strutt had quoted, to prove that witches existed, and set out a quantity of theological arguments. The most popular of them suggested that God’s twin purposes in allowing witches was to test our faith and to punish sinners. And, as Mr Strutt had claimed, the existence of witches proved the existence of the devil and therefore the existence of God himself. This I found very odd. Why would God need witches to prove his existence to us and why would he permit them to carry out foul acts on innocent people? Or were their victims all sinners?
Others dismissed the notion of witchcraft as no more than a relic of heathen beliefs. Much of the blame for them was laid at the feet of the Danes, who had brought with them stories of witches and wizards being sent by their gods to wreak havoc on earth. Papal inquisitors and ill-informed translators of the Bible also came in for criticism.
One pamphlet from London spoke of the foolishness of believing in witchcraft. It described those who did as ‘vulgar country folk’; I wondered what Mr Strutt and Sir Henry Chauncy might make of that. It pointed out that women accused of being a witch were always ‘old hags, with wrinkled faces, hairy lips, gobber teeth and squint eyes’. It claimed that there were no beautiful witches and asked why. It also asked how it was that women accused of being witches did not immediately use their powers to silence their accusers, fly off on their broomsticks or make themselves invisible. I put a copy of the pamphlet on Alice’s doorstep.
Both sides unearthed cases of witchcraft from old records and recounted them in support of their arguments. It was nearly seventy years since Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne had travelled the countryside searching out women accused of being witches and subjecting them to trial by pricking or by ducking in water, but we had all heard of them. Hopkins was known to have denied suspects sleep for several days and nights in order to help them confess and he and Stearne were thought to have been responsible for over two hundred executions for witchcraft. Angry mothers were still known to threaten a misbehaving child with a ‘visit from Mr Hopkins’.
We read of the case of Mary Hall of Little Gadsden who was said to be possessed by two devils and spoke in strange voices and made the sounds of animals; of Jane Stretton of Ware who was seized by fits after her husband had been rude to a ‘cunning man’; and of three sisters in Tring whose possession by the devil led them to suffer great pain, fits and visions of strange apparitions. All three girls were eventually cured by prayer meetings in their house. Some commentators took this to be proof of the existence of the devil and of his handmaidens, the witches, others explained the sisters’ misfortunes as illnesses which ran their course and disappeared naturally.
Three women had been found guilty of being witches in Exeter about thirty years earlier, but since then most witches must have flown away because incidents of suspected witchcraft had become very rare. Strange happenings which might previously have been put down to magic were now explained in more worldly ways.
Yet some still held to their old beliefs. There were certainly those of my grandmother’s age who took witchcraft for granted and others, including my parents, who had not abandoned the idea. If my mother could entertain the possibility of her mother being found guilty and hanged for the crime, its existence was real enough. Whatever I thought was unlikely to make much difference.
My grandmother was made to appear in front of Sir Henry Chauncy. Before a large crowd of onlookers, Sir Henry heard evidence from Mr and Mrs Gardiner, from their servant Anne Thorn and from his own son, Arthur Chauncy.
Anne Thorn claimed to have seen cats with Jane Wenham’s face which instructed her to do away with herself and Arthur Chauncy said that he had seen no blood when he stuck the pin into her arm.
When she was asked to recite the Lord’s Prayer, she could not do so. Most damning of all, the two vicars, Mr Gardiner and Mr Strutt, reported that in front of a relative of hers, a Mr Archer, Jane Wenham had admitted to having been a witch for sixteen years.
Despite the absence of the devil’s marks on her body – two women had searched in vain for four hours – Sir Henry sent Jane Wenham to Hertford to stand trial at the Assizes. My grandmother had been right. If they wanted her to stand trial, she would. And if they wanted her to hang, she would.
While she was in Hertford gaol awaiting trial, more old incidents were suddenly remembered. There had been cats with her face, cattle belonging to the farmer from whom she had stolen turnips dying of the staggers, a child dying after being touched by her and a poor girl named Ann Street, who suffered convulsions and ran about collecting twigs, much like the servant girl, Anne Thorn. All this added weight to the evidence against her.
One news sheet offered advice on remedies for witchcraft. It recommended burning thatch from the witch’s roof, or a bunch of her hair, drawing blood from her, or making a cake of her victim’s urine mixed with grain and burning that. It also urged us to be wary of ‘the Sabbat’, the day on which witches met the devil, danced naked and ate children. Someone, probably Alice Brewer or Mary Lott, left a copy on our doorstep, underneath a dead cat and a pile of twigs. My mother got rid of them.
And there was talk of legal matters. One concerned the charge. Jane Wenham had been charged with ‘conversing familiarly with the devil in the shape of a cat’. She had not been charged, as was expected, with bewitching Anne Thorn. I could see no difference. If found guilty on either charge, she would hang. Another matter concerned the appointment of a judge. There was much speculation about this. The names of Sir Matthew Hale and Sir John Holt were mentioned. One had always convicted witches, the other had always acquitted them. I remember thinking that judges, of all people, ought to agree with each other.
By then, the case of Jane Wenham of Walkern was one upon which everyone held an opinion. Everyone, that is, but me. I did not know if witches existed and, if they did, whether my grandmother was one of them or whether the idea was simply nonsense – no more than a way of explaining odd things and of disposing of unwanted old women. What I did know was that my grandmother, old, sharp-tongued and difficult as she was, was in Hertford gaol with every chance of being found guilty and hanged. Witch or not, she was my grandmother and she had brought me a cake on my birthday. I wanted to be at her trial.
Towards the end of February, we heard that the trial had been set for the fourth of March. All of Hertfordshire and a good deal of London were awaiting the day with an eagerness normally reserved for Christmas and Easter. Yet more pamphlets, some demanding the execution of Jane Wenham, others calling for her immediate release, were by then appearing daily and I heard someone observe that, even if war were declared on China, that would not arouse more public interest than the trial of the Witch of Walkern.
Even if I had had the fare, I could not have travelled on any of the coaches going to Hertford for the trial. They would be full of people who knew me, most of whom had already found my grandmother guilty. It was too far to walk there and back in a day and I had neither a horse nor a broomstick. I had all but given up hope of attending.
On its eve, however, my father took me to one side and said quietly, ‘Your mother will not thank me for this so best she doesn’t know until she has to, but there’s a cart travelling from the farm to Hertford tomorrow to collect barrels and tools. It’ll leave first thing and come back in the evening. There’s room for us, if you want to go.’
I was astonished. Not a word had been said about the trial in our house and I had no idea that Father knew I wanted to go. He must have guessed. ‘It’s only a thought, Emily,’ he went on, ‘if you want to go, that is.’
I reached up and kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you, Father,’ I said. ‘I want to go. She’ll have few enough supporters.’
‘That’s what I thought. I daresay she’s guilty of what
they say but if you want to be there, I’ll take you. We should be at the farm by six. The trial will start at nine. I’ll tell your mother before we leave.’
A complete stranger would have had no difficulty in finding his way from Ardeley to Hertford that morning. The road was one long line of coaches and carriages. For us, it was an uncomfortable twelve miles, the cart having been designed to carry farm tools rather than passengers. I sat between my father and the driver, huddled up against the chill of the morning and wishing I had thought to bring a cushion to sit on. After more than two hours of bumping over the hard road, I was cold and sore. It made me think of my grandmother stealing a turnip. The driver, who had barely opened his mouth the whole way except to spit or swear at the horses, dropped us in the centre of the town and said he would collect us there at four o’clock.
‘It shouldn’t take them any longer than that,’ he said. ‘If it does, you’ll have to leave them to it. We must be back by nightfall.’
Men and women of every description had converged on the town for the event and, from their mood, were looking forward to a most entertaining day. Coaches had come not only from neighbouring villages but also from Cambridge and London. Spotting an opportunity for easy money, traders had set up their stalls along the streets. They offered food and drink, models of witches, broomsticks, pointed hats and false noses. There were magic potions and feather cakes, cats with human faces and bundles of twigs. There was even a man taking wagers on the outcome of the trial. He was expecting Jane Wenham to be hanged.
I held on to my father’s hand as we made our way through the crowds to the Assize Court. There was a queue at the entrance and I thought we might not be allowed in. When we reached the front of the queue, however, my father spoke to the court officer and gave him a coin. We were among the last to get in. Most people were left milling about in the town and having to wait outside for news. I doubted if they cared. They were having a day out.
I am not sure what I had been expecting, having never before been in a court, but it certainly was not what I found. We squeezed into seats at the end of the first row in the public gallery and looked around. The courtroom was small – no larger than my old schoolroom – with dark oak panelling on the walls, a high ceiling and wooden benches for the jury and officials. It was not at all grand. Father said that the benches to our left were for the jury, the desk on a raised platform in front of us for the judge and the seats below for the lawyers and clerks. My grandmother would have to stand in the dock, which looked very sturdy, perhaps to prevent prisoners leaping up and attacking the judge. I wondered if it had occurred to anyone that if she were a witch Jane Wenham would have no difficulty in flying over the dock or turning herself into a cat and jumping over it.
The first to enter the court were a number of lawyers and clerks in their gowns and wigs, followed by the twelve jurymen and then the judge. The jurymen were ordinary-looking fellows, not working men and certainly not gentry, but somewhere in between. Their expressions betrayed nothing of what they were thinking.
I rather liked the look of the judge in his long wig and flowing gown. He had creases around his eyes as if he smiled a lot, and a twinkle in his eye. By the time he entered the courtroom, it was bursting at the seams and we were so squashed up that I was almost sitting on my father’s lap. Everyone was talking at once and taking no notice of anyone else. A court officer shouted for silence and the judge took his seat.
The prisoner, Jane Wenham, was brought into the courtroom and told to stand in the dock. Two more officers stood on either side of her. She had been cleaned up and given new clothes, but looked very small and very frightened, resting her hands on the dock for support. She did not look up to the gallery and did not see my smile or my wave.
We were told by a clerk with a very loud voice that the case would be heard by the Honourable Sir John Powell and that the defendant was charged with ‘conversing familiarly with the devil in the shape of a cat’, at which the judge’s eyebrows disappeared under his wig and he coughed loudly. Sir John Powell was the judge who had never presided over a successful prosecution for witchcraft and it must have been clear to every person in the court what he thought of the matter. I found my father’s hand and held tight.
In answer to the charge, the defendant said nothing. The first witness called against her was the Reverend Gardiner. He said that his servant, Anne Thorn, had been compelled by the defendant to run off to gather twigs and leaves and had brought them back to his house wrapped in her apron. He described her fits and her great fear of Jane Wenham. Mr Gardiner’s story was then confirmed by his wife and by Mr Strutt, who also reported that the defendant had admitted to having been a witch for sixteen years.
The Reverend Francis Bragge – a pompous little man to whom I took an instant dislike and who I later discovered to be Sir Henry Chauncy’s grandson – told his story of finding the cakes of feathers. When the judge asked to see one of these cakes, Mr Bragge replied that he had thought it best to destroy them.
Anne Thorn gave her version of events, confirming that she had heard Jane Wenham say ‘If I cannot get justice here, I will have it elsewhere’ as she left the house, and that she had been ‘bewitched’ and consequently could not control her actions. Despite her knee, she had run to a place half a mile away where she had met an old woman in a hood who had made her collect the twigs and leaves and who had actually given her a pin for the bundle. No sooner had the bundle, at Mrs Gardiner’s insistence, been thrown on the fire, but Jane Wenham appeared again, claiming to have forgotten to mention some washing that had to be done. As it was well known that a witch would appear if one of her charms was burnt, this was strong evidence of her guilt.
The jury members nodded their heads solemnly and whispered to each other. Some of the spectators around us shook their fists at the defendant and called out for her to be hanged. The judge rapped on his desk again and told them sternly to be quiet. ‘I will have order in my court,’ he thundered, ‘or the gallery will be cleared.’ Despite his twinkle, Sir John Powell could sound very fierce.
The same thing had happened twice more, said Anne Thorn. After seeing Jane Wenham, she had been compelled to run off to collect wigs and leaves, and despite her knee to jump over streams and gates. So disturbed by this was she that she started having fits and tried to drown herself.
Matthew Gilston, a servant of Mr John Chapman, was asked about the events which had caused Jane Wenham to be at the Gardiners’ house. He said that after he had refused her straw to sell to the hatmakers, he had felt compelled to run off to collect some from a dung heap and put it under his shirt.
Then some of his master’s cattle and horses had mysteriously died. Suspecting that it was her doing, he had called her ‘a witch and a bitch’. She had complained about this to Sir Henry Chauncy who had sent them to Mr Gardiner. The jury did some more nodding and the spectators more fist-waving. I was glad my grandmother was not looking at them. Watching the jury, it seemed to me that they were more impressed by the witnesses themselves than by what they had to say. Three churchmen and one churchman’s wife were not to be taken lightly.
More witnesses followed, including Arthur Chauncy who claimed to have witnessed the later instances of Anne Thorn’s odd behaviour. He also described his attempts to draw blood from my grandmother’s arm. I had seen her arm and knew that he must have stuck his pin into it hard and often.
Among the others who gave evidence was Elizabeth Field who claimed that Jane Wenham had killed her child some nine years earlier. When the judge asked her why she had not brought an action at the time, the woman said that she had been too poor to do so. He asked her how she had suddenly become rich enough. He made everyone laugh and he did so again when another witness said that he had seen the defendant flying. ‘There is no law against flying,’ said Sir John.
There were sixteen witnesses in all, each one of whom spoke against my grandmother. Not one spoke for her. She herself said only that she was a ‘clear woman’.
I cannot recall exactly when during the trial I realised that he was right but it was at some point during the witnesses’ statements. It was as if they had all agreed on what they were going to say and had rehearsed their words as actors do. Not one of them expressed any doubts, there were no contradictions and no hesitations. We were asked to believe their accounts of cats with Jane Wenham’s face, bewitchings, dead animals and even dead children, but we were offered no proof of any of these things. The witnesses were not asked any searching questions by the lawyers and the jury was expected to take their good faith for granted. We might as well have been watching a play.
My grandmother, having stood and listened all morning, was taken back to her cell while the court adjourned and the jury considered its verdict.
Outside, the crowd was even larger than it had been when we arrived. The man taking wagers was shouting out the odds he would give against verdicts of guilty and not guilty, the traders were selling their models of witches and broomsticks as fast as they could hand them over and a man with a long beard and dressed all in black stood on an upturned box and railed against the wickedness of the devil and ‘his whores’, the witches.
Father bought pies from one of the traders and we found a quiet spot by the church gate to eat them.
‘What did you make of it?’ he asked me.
‘I thought the witnesses were making up stories.’
‘Even Mr Gardiner and Mr Strutt?’
‘Especially Mr Gardiner and Mr Strutt. Just because they are churchmen doesn’t make them good or honest. They just want people to believe in witches.’