For killing by maleficium of a mule belonging to Robert Taylor of Manningtree, valued at £1, and causing by maleficium Goodwife Hart of Manningtree to miscarry of a son, Elizabeth Godwin is sentenced to death by hanging.
For the killing by maleficium of Elizabeth Kirk of Manningtree, Anne Leech and Margaret Moone are sentenced to death by hanging. And then up comes the Beldam West, the one who sank an entire hoy and drowned every man aboard for no other reason than she felt like it. She wished to. It entertained her. She peers around the courthouse, into each and every jeering face, with a look that says, this entertains me, too.
And there is a dignity to her villainy. She stands at the bar, gorging on the wails of the multitude as happy as Lilith might, ramrod straight as time unspools around her along with the sweaty curls of the gentry women gazing nervously down from the courthouse balcony at this thing, this worst-of-all, this Hecate. She does not answer a single question put to her, which agitates the crowd. But she does not hear their bawling. She hears instead the sound of waves, of breakers on a beach. She thinks of her daughter. Her daughter will be carried over waves, away.
For the wrecking by maleficium of the Oliver, carrying cargo valued at £35, and the drowning of all souls aboard, the Beldam Anne West is sentenced to death by hanging.
When Master Edes mounts the witness box I see that, to begin with, he dare not look up from his hands for fear of seeing me. Then he does look up, but he does not see me, by a door at the back behind the blinking scribes. I had almost forgotten what he looks like. I am not fond of his short hair. It makes him look older, and meaner, and more like other men do. I suppose it is fortunate the sight of him precipitates no great rush of love within me. It was not meant for me. He was not.
He speaks coldly. I cannot hear most of what he says above the noise of the crowd, but can piece together an ugly enough story from the scraps I glean: familiarity, Devil, gave entertainment, seven year, one Thomas Hart of Lawford, whose wife being with child. She conceived the Devil could do as God. He is accusing me of blasphemy. A slow nod, a thumbing of his cuff, the thoughtful consideration of a question posed by the Baronet: “He lay with her as a man,” he says.
Yes, Master Edes, I think, you did. I watch his mouth alone, moving, slandering me, and think how strange that it has also touched my skin, and fitted itself kindly round my name. I realise he believes what he says. He has traded places in his mind with the Devil. It is easier for him that way. It is easier for him to believe his own untruths. Man and woman, we have each only one body. Very often we wish to forget where it has been, and what it has done, and who it loved. I do.
The Information of John Edes, Clarke, taken upon oath before the said Justices, 1645
This informant saith, that Rebecca West confessed unto him, that about seven years since, she began to have familiarity with the Devil, by the instigation of her mother Anne West; who hath appeared unto the said Rebecca at several times, in diverse shapes: at one time in the likeness of a proper young man, who desired of her, that he might have the same familiarity with her, that others that appeared unto her before had had: promising that if she would, he would then do for the said Rebecca what she desired, and avenge her on her enemies; but required further, that she would deny God, and rely upon him.
28
Execution
THE SKY HAS CRAMMED FULL WITH LOW CLOUD overnight, and yet the weather remains torrid and hot. A closeness and stickiness oppresses the throng that moves slowly through the streets, from courthouse to scaffold. Cheering and drums. Women hawking hot buns, stingo and oysters, flies everywhere thicking the warm, wet air. The kind of day that wants to be shaken open by a storm. I hope it is. I want them frightened by lightning and thunder, this gap-wit multitude. I see their jaunty faces and wish I could spit in every one. I see that a good many have brought their children. Children on their shoulders, clinging to their skirts. For the righteous shall rejoice in the workings of the Lord.
How often does the Devil put a curse in your head? When I stop to take account of my thoughts, I sometimes find I am full up with cruelty, ungodliness, with the wish to wrong those by whom I have been wronged. I hate their faces and their grins and the loudness of their voices. The hate catches like a fire, and spreads to bystanders, who have not wronged me yet but who might, if they were given the chance. Their bodies disgust me. Their grievances are childish. My head like a closet of clean, sweetened linens that dirty grey mice have nosed their way all about. Today the fire has caught and I hate everyone, man and woman and child. And yet there I stand behind Mister Hopkins at the base of the scaffold, hands meekly folded, blessed by God’s forgiveness, apparently, and Parliament’s reprieve. A free woman, except that there is no such thing. I peer over my shoulder and see the faces of those closest to us bent towards me, their hands raised to hide whispering mouths. I suppose a confessed witch must make herself used to whispers.
I turn back to the scaffold. How will it work, the execution? There is nobody for me to ask. One by one they are brought up onto the platform, women unknown to me in drab prison gowns with dirty hair. Old Mother Clarke is the last of them. She must be helped up the stairs to the scaffold by a guard, who holds her by her shoulders before the noose as the others arrange themselves. The women are speaking quietly to one another, reaching out to join hands, and speaking to the executioner as well, as though they are all old friends—but the band are still playing, and I cannot hear what they say over the trilling of the pipes. Perhaps offering him their forgiveness, or coin for a clean drop. One yellow-haired woman with a pock-marked face staggers into position as though drunk, which she may be, for the damned are given ale to soothe their spirits. Their calmness surprises me. But I suppose it would not do to panic. At least not before time. But for their poor apparel and their filthiness they could be eight women milling in the market square, so composed they seem. It is when the music stops and the warrant for death is read—as a Minister comes forward to shrive them—that their faces ossify into looks of fright, or slacken with bewilderment. The executioner starts with the left-most. He asks her something, but she shakes her grey head, and peers out over the crowd as if she is searching for someone. The executioner comes with a hood, and she cries out, “Glory be to God!” before he puts it over her face. There are jeers, some amens as well. Then the noose is put over the hood, tightened at the back of her neck. Then he guides her the three steps up on to the ladder, then the squeal of rope as he kicks the ladder out from under—I do here in the name of Christ Jesus and His Church deliver you up to Sathan and his power and his working. I do not want to watch her twitching. I look to Mother Clarke, who stands with her eyes closed, the guard propping her on her one good foot, and I hope she has no proper understanding of where she is, of what is happening. Away, away, on the faded meadow. Please God.
The executioner moves down to the next in line. Some of those on the scaffold are maids who must never have seen a hanging. Others are old country women, who might have seen one but can scarce remember what it was like. If you are on the right end of the scaffold, do you watch those to the left of you twist, do you watch them die attentively, so as to better understand what is to happen to you? Or is it best not to? It was nearly me—so nearly. This second woman I remember from the courthouse—Goody Wyatt, a Minister’s wife, and she yowls like a cat and her face is swollen and wet with tears from the blubbering that began when the pipes died. She must be held by the executioner, she fights hood and noose, stick-like arms flailing, but eventually—she wails, forgive me God, forgive me—and then comes the I do here in the name of Christ Jesus and His Church deliver you up to Sathan and his power and his working. Altogether a graceless performance, for all it matters what I think.
I would have one shout out her hate, drop her vengeance into the gawking multitude like a meteor. Scatter their limbs and drive them screaming from the square. My mother would. My mother will. But my mother is not here today. My mother is to be hung in our hometown, in Manningtree
, to serve as an example.
Everything dirty and hideous, the low grey of the sky near-suffocating. I watch a fat gleaming fly pick his way across Hopkins’ shoulder. I think, kill him, a thought directed nowhere and at no one in particular, just there and baby-kicking at the back of my heart. On Mister Hopkins’ shoulder, by the fly, there are tiny flecking raindrops now, the beginning of a mizzen like the letters of a secret inscription, and a few of the least reverent in the crowd sigh in their banal way that it is going to rain, that they came all this way and it is going to rain and their sport will be spoiled thereby, and the alehouses will be too busy and besides the staff cannot be found these days—what a world, I think, and how do any of us face up to the fact of our living in it? Glory be to God my strength, shouts the next as she is kicked from her ladder, a mere girl, the noose biting at the slenderness of her neck. I do here in the name of Christ Jesus and His Church deliver you up to Sathan and his power and his working. In the distance, beyond the trembling rope, there is the cathedral tower. On the fourth of the eight already, a man says, and the first not yet dead—and his neighbour comments, with an expert air, that it is because the women are half starved, too thin, and have not the bulk to them proper for the use of such long ropes. A very poor showing indeed, Mister Witboro, he says, and asks if this Mister Witboro will be going to the cockfight later—
Hopkins coughs. It seems to pain him, the cough. He cringes his face into his kerchief. I see him draw the cloth from his mouth and look furtively at the pink stain there before he stuffs it away again in his right breast pocket. There is nothing in his face but casual discomfort. The rain has brought a chill and the executioner moves to the last-but-one, the last-but-Mother-Clarke, I must be ready, creak thump twist—I do here in the name of Christ Jesus and His Church deliver you up to Sathan and his power and his working. Water is dripping from their skirts, piss, like rotten fruits they hang there voided, a true hag-tree. Old Mother Clarke nods and they lift her to the ladder. By now some in the crowd are wincing, and have resolved not to watch. She is the smallest and most frail of all of them, and it will be a long choking. Not right, is it, whate’er she might have did, says the man behind, not Mister Witboro, be she a Minister of Sathan or—
Now. I do what I know I must. I wonder what Mother Clarke hears and feels in this moment—I hope it is nothing—I wonder if she hears Hopkins call my name, hears Rebecca shouted in reproof, and my bonnet perhaps flashing whitely through the guards’ crossed pikes through the dimness of her cataracts, a bother and commotion I am causing, this is the work of mercy worked. There is a gasp of legitimate astonishment going up from the crowd, the stalled beating of a drum and a shout, another shout, as I have passed Hopkins too fast and am there at the scaffold, and I move to leap up and grasp at her. I wrap my arms around her body at the ankle at first, but it is not enough so then at the hips, and I can smell her more than I can feel her, so slight she is, like catching up at an angel in the ascent, there is that little of her, my cheek pushed to the sagging flesh of her belly. I add my weight to her nothing and pull down, down—feel a warmth against my head and my cap is pushed aside, the front of my gown wet—she is dead, saying no words and making no sounds, neck broken and leg hanging limp, the light of thy countenance leaves her.
When it is done, their bodies are cut down from the scaffold and dragged away for burial in an unmarked trench, all together, piled up. Much as we slept beneath the castle. The rabble crowd in to grab at their hair and tear away handfuls of their shifts, so that they will be buried near-naked. The collar of a witch is worth more than a twin-baby’s caul, to the right buyer, for use in charms.
1647
A woman spoke true of the men in her life.
Cold lies the dew.
She spoke with a truth some mistook for delight.
Cold lies the dew.
AMY KEY & REBECCA PERRY
Insect & Lilac, 2019
29
Foreknowledge
AN AUGUST AFTERNOON IN THE VICTUALLER’S shop. Stacked in crates there are apples green and pink, plums and damsons, gem-hard and ripe and good-looking against clean brown paper. Redcurrants and dark cherries, too, and speckled eggs stuck with soft gluey wisps of down, and warm loaves, and black rhubarb, and pickles and jams. So the worst of the war is over, and the curses of every witch have slid from the rooftops like sun-loosened snow.
Little Ruth Miller in her tidy black frock and pressed apron, standing on her tiptoes. Her mother holds her right hand, and with the left, she reaches out to take an apple gleaming on the very top of Master Taylor’s carefully arranged stack. I see what will happen all in a blink before it does, before the gleaming apple on the very top of the stack teeters and falls, rolls lazy across the boards and comes to rest against my shoe. Pale green apple, little round speck of bruise, black buckled shoe. I bend to pick it up, I offer it out to her. Ruth Miller looks at me warily with her hands pushed together over her apron. A few blonde hairs stick skew under the edge of her laced cap. I smile, and hold the apple out to her. I see it—little hand—I see it happen all in a blink before it does. This is the day I will kill a man.
Ruth Miller is reaching out to take the apple, but Goody Miller grabs a hold of the girl’s shoulders and moves her away from me, and says no, loudly, no, Ruth. Ruth Miller pulls back her hand as though it has been scalded. Goody Miller looks at me with a face full of spite and begins to drive her daughter out of the shop, her repugnance so fulsome she leaves behind her butter, her redcurrants. I am well accustomed to these acrimonious encounters. Master Taylor being out of sight in the back room, I slip the apple into the pocket of my dress, and the redcurrants, too, for good measure. Sin breedeth sin.
My walk back to the Thorn at Mistley takes me over the green. It was here, by the old oak, on an August afternoon a little short of two years ago, that my mother hung. Mother, Liz Godwin, Margaret Moone and Anne Leech, all together, a flock of queer ducks. I could never discover what happened to Helen Clarke, or her baby, that supposed Devil’s spawn. I did not attend the hanging, which occurred during my period of great melancholy, when Mister Hopkins thought it best to confine me to my room. But most of Manningtree did. I suppose it is often spoken of still, among certain circles—our very own gibbet, and of women, as well—though no one has ever been so unkind as to speak of it in front of me. So I do not know how it passed. But this is how I have pictured it.
A glowing afternoon, with a coolness moving in to cover over the heat of the day. I invoke a breeze to ruffle the leaves of the old oak. I give them a low tide, as well, to look at—the kind of day when the river drains out and the mud plains catch the pretty colours in the sky. I have my mother standing on the scaffold looking northward through the noose. She is not looking for my face among the faces of our neighbours. She knows I will not come, that I would not want to see it. Instead, she is looking down the narrow street to the banks of flowers and the shimmering flats, and she is imagining running across that splashing field of fire, then over the rolling hills beyond, and from thence, who can say—to Hell, if it is what she wishes. Perhaps she was a witch, and it is where she would be happiest. I suppose now I will never know, for certain.
I give her a sombre audience, too: respectfully quiet, their hearts bit by doubt as to the rightness of what it is they are about to witness. I sometimes give my mother things to say and do—curses to utter—but I know these are never as good as what she did say, which was exactly nothing to Minister Long who was shriving her, or attempting to, and to Mister Hopkins only that he would choke on his own blood, again. And I have no wish to imagine any further. I do not know where she is buried, either, all together with the Widows Moone and Leech and Liz Godwin. No doubt it is a very noisome sort of grave, and many ugly bright cantankerous flowers will rise up nourished by the bickering of their skulls. I wish I had more or better knowledge of my mother that I could give you. Or knowledge of her that I could hold to myself, secret. She was born in the Port of Clacton in the Year
of Our Lord 1600, she had one daughter, she caused much vexation, she died.
So here I am. The orphan girl Rebecca West, confessed witch, walking along the banks of the Stour, where the loosestrife sways, a stolen apple in my pocket. Before I kill a man I will kill a bird, for supper.
30
Contrition
THE THORN IS NOT SO MUCH AN INN THESE days, as the ghost of one. Who would want to drink beneath the creeping feet of a witch, or the leery eye of her Godly keeper? Poor Matthew, poor Rebecca, washed back up where we started, brittle and insipid as driftwood. The common room is wide and empty, the stoups and pewterware furred with dust.
The Manningtree Witches Page 22