Book III, chapters 9–14: Melancholy, and the confessions of witches confuted

CHAP. IX. How melancholy abuseth old women, and of the effects thereof by sundry examples.

IF any man advisedly mark their words, actions, cogitations, and gestures, he shall perceive that melancholy abounding in their head, and occupying their brain, hath deprived, or rather depraved their judgements and all their senses: I mean not of cousening Witches, but of poor melancholick women; which are themselves deceived. For you shall understand, that the force which melancholy hath; and the effects that it worketh in the body of a man, or rather of a woman, are almost incredible. For as some of these melancholick persons imagine, they are Witches, and by Witchcraft can work wonders, and do what they list: so do others troubled with this disease, imagine many strange, incredible, and impossible things: Some, that they are Monarchs and Princes, and that all other men are their subject: some, that they are brute beasts: some, that they be urinals or earthen pots, greatly fearing to be broken: some, that very one that meeteth them, will convey them to the gallowes; and yet in the end hang themselves. One thought that Atlas whom the Poets feign to hold up heaven with his shoulders, would be weary, and let the skie fall upon him: another would spend a whole day upon a stage, imagining that he both heard and saw interludes, and therewith made himself great sport. One Theophilus a Physician, otherwise sound enough of mind (as it is said) imagined that he heard and saw musicians continually playing on instruments, in a certain place of his house. One Bessus, that had killed his father, was notably detected, by imagining that a Swallow upbraided him therewith: so as he himself thereby revealed the murther.

But the notablest example hereof is, of one that was in great perplexity; imagining that his nose was as big as a house; insomuch as no friend nor Physician could deliver him from this conceipt, nor yet either ease his grief, or satisfie his fancy in that behalf: till at the last, a Physician more expert in this humour than the rest, used this devise following. First, when he was to come in at the chamber door being wide open, he suddenly stayed and withdrew himself; so as he would not in any wise approach nearer then the door. The melancholick person musing her eat, asked him the cause why he so demeaned himself? Who answered him in this manner: Sir, your nose is so great, that I can hardly enter into your chamber but I shall touch it, and consequently hurt it. Lo (quoth he) this is the man that must do me good; the residue of my friends flatter me, and would hide my infirmity from me. Well (said the Physician) I will cure you, but you must be content to indure a little pain in the dressing: which he promised patiently to sustain, and conceived certain hope of recovery. Then entred the Physician into the chamber, creeping close by the walls, seeming to fear the touching and hurting of his nose. Then did he blind-fold him, which being done, he caught him by the nose with a pair of pincers, and threw down into a tub, which he had placed before his patient, a great quantity of bloud, with many pieces of bullocks livers, which he had conveyed into the chamber, whilest the others eyes were bound up, and then gave him liberty to see and behold the same. He having done thus again two or three times, the melancholick humour was so qualified, that the mans mind being satisfied, his grief was eased, and his disease cured.

Thrasibulus, otherwise called Thrasillus, being sore oppressed with this melancholick humour, imagined, that all the ships which arrived at port Pyraeus, were his: insomuch as he would number them, and command the mariners to lanch, &c. triumphing at their safe returns, and mourning for their misfortunes. The Italian whom we called here in England, the Monarch, was possessed with the like spirit or conceit. Danaeus himself reporteth, that he saw one that affirmeth constantly that he was a cock; and saith that through melancholly, such were alienated from themselves.

Now, if the fansie of a melancholick person may be occupied in causes which are both false and impossible; why should an old Witch be thought free from such fantasies, who (as the learned Philosophers and Physicians say) upon the stopping of their monethly melancholick flux or issue of bloud, in their age must needs increase therein, as (through their weakness both of body and brain) the aptest persons do meet with such melancholick imaginations: with whom their imaginations remain, even when their senses are gone. Which Bodin laboureth to disprove, therein shewing himself as good a Physician, as elsewhere a Divine.

But if they may imagine, that they can transform their own bodies, which nevertheless remain in the former shape: how much more credible is it, that they may falsly suppose they can hurt and infeeble other mens bodies; or which is less, hinder the coming of butter? &c. But what is it that they will not imagine, and consequently confess that they can do? especially being so earnestly perswaded thereunto, so sorely tormented, so craftily examined, with such promises of favour, as whereby they imagine, that they shall ever after live in great credit and wealth, &c.

If you read the executions done upon Witches, either in times past in other countreys, or lately in this land; you shall see such impossibilities confessed, as none, having his right wits, will believe. Among other like false confessions, we read that there was a Witch confessed at the time of her death or execution, that she had raised all the tempests, and procured all the frosts and hard weather that hapned in the Winter 1565. and that many grave and wise men believed her.

CHAP. X. That voluntary confessions may be untruly made, to the undoing of the confessors, and of the strange operation of melancholy, proved by a familiar and late example.

BUt that it may appear, that even voluntary confession (in this case may be untruly made, though it tend to the destruction of the confessor; and that melancholy may move imaginations to that effect: I will cite a notable instance concerning this matter, the parties themselves being yet alive, and dwelling in the parish or Sellenge in Kent, and the matter not long sithence in this sort performed.

One Ade Davie, the wife of Simon Davie husband-man; being reputed a right honest body, and being of good parentage, grew suddenly (as her husband informed me, and as it is well known in these parts) to be somewhat pensive and more sad than in times past. Which thing though it grieved him; yet he was loth to make it so appear, as either his wife might be troubled or discontented therewith, or his neighbours informed thereof; lest ill husbandry should be laid to his charge (which in these quarters is much abhorred. But when she grew from pensiveness, to some perturbation of mind; so as her accustomed rest began in the night season to be withdrawn from her, through sighing and secret lamentation; and that, not without tears, he could not but demand the cause of her conceit and extraordinary mourning; But although at that time she covered the same, acknowledging nothing to be amiss with her: soon after notwithstanding she fell down before him on her knees, desiring him to forgive her, for she had grievously offended (as she said) both God and him. Her poor husband being abashed at this her behaviour, comforted her, as he could; asking her the cause of her trouble and grief: who told him, that she had, contrary to Gods Law, and to the offence of all good Christians, to the injury of him, and specially to the loss of her own soul, bargained and given her soul to the Devil, to be delivered unto him within short space. Whereunto her husband answered, saying Wife, be of good cheer, this thy bargain is void and of none effect: for thou hast sold that which is none of thine to sell; sith it belongeth to Christ, who hath bought it, and deerly paid for it, even with his bloud which he shed upon the Cross; so as the Devil hath no interest in thee. After this, with like submission, tears, and penitence, she said unto him; Oh husband, I have yet committed another fault, and done you more injury: for I have bewitched you and your children. Be content (quoth he) by the grace of God, Jesus Christ shall unwitch us: for none evil can happen to them that fear God.

And (as truly as the Lord liveth) this was the tenor of his words unto me, which I know is true, as proceeding from unfained lips, and from one that feareth God. Now when the time approached that the Devil should come, and take possession of the woman, according to his bargain, he watched and prayed earnestly, and caused his wife to read Psalms and Prayers for mercy at Gods hands: and suddenly about mid-night, there was a great rumbling below under his chamber-window, which amazed them exceedingly: For they conceived, that the Devil was below, though he had no power to come up, because of their fervent Prayer.

He that noteth this womans first and second confession, freely and voluntarily made, how every thing concurred that might serve to add credit thereunto, and yield matter for her condemnation, would not think, but that if Bodin were fore-man of her Inquest, he would cry; Guilty: and would hasten execution upon her, who would have said as much before any Judge in the World, if she had been examined: and have confessed no less, if she had been arraigned thereupon. But God knoweth, she was innocent of any of these crimes: howbeit she was brought low and pressed down with the weight of this humor, so as both her rest and sleep were taken away from her; and her fansies troubled and disquieted with despair, and such other cogitations as grew by occasion thereof. And yet I believe, if any mishap had insued to her husband, or his children, few Witchmongers would have judged otherwise, but that she had bewitched them. And she (for her part) so constantly perswaded her self to be a Witch, that she judged her self worthy of death, insomuch as being retained in her chamber, she saw not any one carrying a faggot to the fire, but she would say it was to make a fire to burn her for Witchery. But God knoweth she had bewitched none, neither insued there any hurt unto any by her imagination, but unto her self.

And as for the rumbling, it was by occasion of a sheep, which was flayed, and hung by the wals, so as a Dog came and devoured it; whereby grew the noise which I before mentioned: and she being now recovered, remaineth a right honest woman, far from such impiety, and ashamed of her imaginations, which she perceiveth to have grown through melancholy.

CHAP. XI. The strange and divers effects of Melancholy, and how the same humor abounding in Witches, or rather old women; filleth them full of marvellous imaginatians, and that their confessions are not to be credited.

BUt in truth, this Melancholick humor (as the best Physitians affirm) is the cause of all their strange, impossible and incredible confessions: which are so fond, that I wonder how any men can be abused thereby. Howbeit these affections, though they appear in the mind of man, yet are they bred in the body, and proceed from this humor, which is the very dregs of bloud, nourishing and feeding those places, from whence proceed fears, cogitations, superons, fastings, labours, and such like:

This maketh sufferance of torments, and (as some say) fore sight of things to come, and preserveth health, as being cold and dry; it maketh men subject to leanneses, and to the Quartane Ague. They that are vexed therewith are destroyers of themselves, stout to suffer injuries, fearful to offer violence; except the humor be hot. They learn strange tongues with small industry (as Aristotle, and others affirm.)

If our Witches phantasies were not corrupted, nor their wills confounded with this humor, they would not so voluntarily and readily confess that which calleth their life in question; whereof they could never otherwise be convicted. J. Bodin with his Lawyers Physick reasoneth contrarily; as though melancholy were furthest of all from those old women, whom we call Witches; deriding the most famous and noble Physitian John Wier for his opinion in that behalf. But because I am no Physitian, I will set a Physitian to him; namely, Erastus, who hath these words, that these Witches, through their corrupt phantasie abounding with melancholick humors, by reason of their old age, do dream and imagine they hurt those things which they neither could nor do hurt; and so think they know an Art, which they neither have learned nor yet understand.

But why should there be more credit given to Witches, when they say they have made a real bargain with the Devil, killed a Cow, bewitched Butter, infeebled a Child, fore-spoken her neighbour, &c. than when she confesseth that she transubstantiateth her self, maketh it rain or hail, flyeth in the air, goeth invisible, transferreth Corn in the Grass from one field to another? &c. If you think that in the one their confessions be sound, why should you say that they are corrupt in the other; the confession of all these things being made at one instant, and affirmed with like constancy, or rather audacity? But you see the one to be impossible, and therefore you think thereby, that their confessions are vain and false: The other you think may be done, and see them confess it, and therefore you conclude, Aposse ad esse; as being perswaded it is so, because you think it may be so. But I say, both with the Divines, and Philosophers, that that which is imagined of Witchcraft, hath no truth of action, or being, besides their imagination; the Witch (for the most part) is occupied in false causes: For whosoever desireth to bring to pass an impossible thing, hath a vain, and idle, and childish perswasion, bred by an unsound mind; for Sanae mentis voluntas, voluntas rei possibilis est; The will of a sound mind, is the desire of a possible thing.

CHAP. XII. A Confutation of Witches Confessions, especially concerning their League.

BUt it is objected, that Witches confess they renounce the faith, and as their confession must be true, or else they would not make it, so must their fault be worthy of death, or else they should not be executed. Whereunto I answer as before; that their confessions are extorted, or else proceed from an unsound mind. Yea, I say further, that we our selves, which are sound of mind, and yet seek any other way of salvation than Christ Jesus, or break his Commandements, or walk not in his steps with a lively faith, &c. do not only renounce the faith, but God himself: and therefore they, in confessing that they forsake God, and imbrace Satan, do that which we all should do. As touching that horrible part of their confession, in the league which tendeth to the killing of their own and others children, the seething of them, and the making of their potion or pottage, and the effects thereof; their good fridayes meeting, being the day of their deliverance, their incests, their return at the end of nine moneths, when commonly women be neither able to go that journey, nor to return, &c. it is so horrible, unnatural, unlikely, and unpossible; that if I should behold such things with mine eyes, I should rather think my self dreaming, drunken, or some way deprived of my senses; than give credit to so horrible and filthy matters.

How hath the Oyl or Pottage of a sodden child such vertue, as that a staffe anointed therewith, can carry folk in the air? Their potable liquor, which, they say, maketh Masters of that faculty, Is it not ridiculous? And is it not, by the opinion of all Philosophers, Physitians, and Divines, void of such vertue, as is imputed thereunto?

Their not fasting on fridayes, and their fasting on sundays, their spitting at the time of elevation, their refusal of Holy-water, their despising of superstitious Crosses, &c. which are all good steps to true Christianity, help me to confute the residue of their confessions.

CHAP. XIII. A Confutation of Witches Confessions, concerning making of Tempests and Rain: of the natural cause of Rain, and that Witches or Devils have no power to do such things.

ANd to speak more generally of all the impossible actions referred unto them, as also of their false Confessions; I say, that there is none which acknowledgeth God to be only Omnipotent, and the only worker of all Miracles, nor any other indued with mean sense, but will deny that the Elements are obedient to Witches, and at their Commandement; or that they may at their pleasure send Rain, Hail, Tempests, Thunder, Lightning; when she being but an old doting woman, casteth a flint-stone over her left shoulder, towards the West, or hurleth a little Sea-sand up into the Element, or wetteth a Broom-sprig in water, and sprinkleth the same in the air; or diggeth a pit in the earth, and putting water therein, stirreth it about with her finger; or boileth Hogs bristles, or layeth sticks across upon a bank, where never a drop of water is; or buryeth Sage till it be rotten; all which things are confessed by Witches, and affirmed by writers to be the means that Witches use to move extraordinary Tempests and Rain, &c.

We read in M. Maleficarum, that a little Girl walking abroad with her Father in his land, heard him complain of drought, wishing for rain, &c. Why Father, quoth the child, I can make it rain or hail, when and where I list? He asked where she learned it: She said, of her Mother, who forbad her to tell any body thereof: He asked her how her Mother taught her? She answered, that her Mother committed her to a Master, who would at any time do any thing for her: Why then, said he, make it rain but only in my field: And so she went to the stream, and threw up water in her Masters name, and made it rain presently: And proceeding further with her father, she made it hail in another field, at her fathers request: Hereupon he accused his wife, and caused her to be burned; and then he new christened his child again: which circumstance is common among Papists, and Witch-mongers: And howsoever the first part hereof was proved, there is no doubt, but the latter part was throughly executed. If they could indeed bring these things to pass at their pleasure, then might they also be impediments unto the course of all other natural things, and Ordinances appointed by God: as, to cause it to hold up, when it should rain; and to make midnight, of high noon; and by those means, I say, the Divine power should become servile to the will of a Witch, so as we could neither eat nor drink, but by their permission.

Me thinks Seneca might satisfie these credulous or rather idolatrous people, that run a whore-hunting, either in body or phansie, after these Witches; believing all that is attributed unto them, to the derogation of Gods glory. He saith, that the rude people, and our ignorant predecessors did believe, that rain and showers might be procured and stayed by Witches charms and inchantments: of which kind of things, that there can nothing be wrought, it is so manifest, that we need not go to any Philosophers School, to learn the confutation thereof.

But Jeremy. by the Word of God, doth utterly confound all that which may be devised for the maintenance of that foolish opinion, saying: Are there any among the gods of the Gentiles, that send rain, or give showers from Heaven? Art not thou the self same our Lord God? We will trust in thee, for thou doest and maketh all these things. I my therefore with Brentius boldly say, that it is neither in the power of Witches nor Devils, to accomplish that matter; but in God only: For when exhalations are drawn and lifted up from out of the earth, by the power of the Sun, into the middle region of the air, the coldness thereof constraineth and thickeneth those vapours: which being become clouds, are dissolved again by the heat of the Sun; whereby Rain or Hail is ingendred; Rain, if by the way, the drops be not frozen and made hail. These circumstances being considered with the course of the whole Scripture, it can neither be in the power of Witch or Devil to procure rain or fair weather.

And whereas the story of Job in this case is alledged against me (wherein a Witch is not once named) I have particularly answered it else-where: And therefore thus much only I say here; that even there, where it pleased God (as Calvin saith) to set down circumstances for the instruction of our gross capacities, which are not able to conceive of spiritual communication, or heavenly affairs, the Devil desireth God to stretch out his hand, and touch all that Job hath: And though he seemeth to grant Satans desire, yet God himself sent fire from heaven, &c. Whereby it is to be gathered, that although God said, He is in thine hand: it was the Lords hand that punished Job, and not the hand of the Devil, who said not, Give me leave to plague him; but, Lay thine hand upon him. And when Job continued faithful, notwithstanding all his afflictions, in his children, body and goods; the Devil is said to come again to God, and to say, as before, to wit; Now stretch out thine hand and touch his bones and his flesh. Which argueth as well that he could not do it, as that he himself did it not before. And be it here remembred, that M. Mal. and the residue of the Witchmongers deny, that there were any Witches in Jobs time. But see more hereof elsewhere.

CHAP. XIV. What would ensue, if Witches confessions or Witchmongers opinions were true, concerning the effects of Witchcraft, Inchantments, &c.

IF it were true that Witches confess, or that all Writers write, or that Witchmongers report, or that fools believe, we should never have Butter in the chearn, nor Cow in the close, nor Corn in the field, nor fair weather abroad, nor health within doors: Or if that which is contained in M. Mal. Bodin, &c. or in the Pamphlets late set forth in English, of Witches executions, should be true in those things that Witches are said to confess, what creature could live in security? Or what needed such preparation of wars, or such trouble, or charge in that behalf? No Prince should be able to raign or live in the Land. For (as Danaeus saith) that one Martin a Witch killed the Emperour of Germany with witchcraft: so would our Witches (if they could) destroy all our Magistrates. One old Witch might over-throw an Army Royal: and then what needed we any Guns, or wild-fire, or any other Instruments of war? A Witch might supply all wants, and accomplish a Princes will in this behalf, even with out charge or bloud-shed of his people.

If it be objected, that Witches work by the Devil, and Christian Princes are not to deal that way: I answer, that Princes disposed to Battel would not make Conscience therein, specially such as take unjust wars in hand, using other helps, devises, and engines as lawful and devillish as that; in whose Camp there is neither the rule of Religion, or Christian order observed; insomuch as ravishments, murthers, blasphemies and thefts are there most commonly and freely committed: So that the Devil is more feared, and better served in their Camps, than God Almighty.

But admit that souldiers would be scrupulous herein, the Pope hath authority to dispense therewith; as in like case he hath done, by the testimony of his own authors and friends. Admit also, that throughout all Christendom, was were justly maintained, and Religion duly observe in their Camps; yet would the Turk and other Infidels cut our throat, or at least one anothers throats, with the help of their Witches; for they would make no conscience thereof.