Discover the Truth Behind Witchcraft Stories. William Godwin

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Discover the Truth Behind Witchcraft Stories - William Godwin


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crime; and the histories of the Duchess of Gloucester and of Jane Shore are immortalised by Shakspeare. In 1417, Joan, second wife of Henry IV., had been sentenced to prison, suspected of seeking the king's death by sorcery; a certain Friar Randolf being her accomplice and agent. The Duchess of Gloucester, wife of Humphry and daughter of Lord Cobham, was an accomplice in the witchcraft of a priest and an old woman. Her associates were Sir Roger Bolingbroke, priest; Margery Jordan or Guidemar, of Eye, in Suffolk; Thomas Southwell, and Roger Only. It was asserted 'there was found in their possession a waxen image of the king, which they melted in a magical manner before a slow fire, with the intention of making Henry's force and vigour waste away by like insensible degrees.' The duchess was sentenced to do penance and to perpetual imprisonment; Margery was burnt for a witch in Smithfield; the priest was hanged, declaring his employers had only desired to know of him how long the king would live; Thomas Southwell died the night before his execution; Roger Only was hanged, having first written a book to prove his own innocence, and against the opinion of the vulgar.69 Jane Shore (whose story is familiar to all), the mistress of Edward IV., was sacrificed to the policy of Richard Duke of Gloucester, more than to any general suspicion of her guilt. Both the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Ely were involved with the citizen's wife in demoniacal dealings, and imprisoned in the Tower. As for the 'harlot, strumpet Shore,' not being convicted, or at least condemned, for the worse crime, she was found guilty of adultery, and sentenced (a milder fate) to do penance in a white sheet before the assembled populace at St. Paul's.70

      Meanwhile the inquisitor, Jacques Dubois, doctor in theology, dean of Nôtre Dame at Arras, ordered the arrest of Levite the artist, and made him confess he had attended the 'Vauldine;' that he had seen there many people, men and women, burghers, ecclesiastics, whose names were specified. The bishops' vicars, overwhelmed by the number and quality of the involved, began to dread the consequence, and wished to stop the proceedings. But this did not satisfy the projects of two of the most active promoters, Jacques Dubois and the Bishop of Bayrut, who urged the Comte d'Estampes to use his authority with the vicars to proceed energetically against the prisoners. Soon afterwards the matter was brought to a crisis; the fate of the tortured convicts was decided, and amidst thousands of spectators from all parts, they were brought out, each with a mitre on his head, on which was painted the devil in the form in which he appeared at the general assemblies, and burned.


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