by Hilda Lewis
THE WITCH AND THE PRIEST
Hilda Lewis was born in London in 1896. She began writing at an early age, editing her school and college magazines, then worked as a teacher in London. She married in the early 1920s and moved to Nottingham, where her husband was appointed to the old University College as a lecturer in education. They had one son, Humphrey. Thereafter, she devoted herself full-time to writing. She published more than thirty books, including both adult and children’s fiction, and much of her writing was in the genre of historical fiction. Her children’s novel The Ship That Flew (1939) remains in print with Oxford University Press and has become recognized as a classic of children’s literature. Her novel The Day is Ours (1947) was filmed as Mandy (1952), with a screenplay by Nigel Balchin. The Witch and the Priest (1956), Lewis’s own favourite among her novels, was republished several times through the 1970s, when it was included in the ‘Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult’ series and reissued in America to coincide with the popularity of films such as The Exorcist (1973). Several of Lewis’s best historical novels have recently been reprinted by The History Press. Hilda Lewis died in 1974.
Alison Weir is an author of history books and historical novels and is the best-selling female historian in the United Kingdom, having sold more than 2.3 million books. She has long been an admirer of the works of Hilda Lewis and has been instrumental in getting several of them republished. Her newest book, a biography of Elizabeth of York, will be published in November 2013.
Cover: The cover of this edition is a reproduction of the jacket art of the first edition of 1956, with art by Evelyn Gibbs, who knew Lewis and designed covers for several of her books. Gibbs (1905-1991) was a printmaker, draughtsman, painter and teacher, born in Liverpool. Her work is held by the Arts Council, the Tate Gallery, the Ashmolean Museum and other public collections.
By Hilda Lewis
Pegasus Yoked (1933)
Madam Gold (1933)
Full Circle (1935)
Pelican Inn (1937)
Because I Must (1938)
The Ship that Flew (1939)
Said Dr. Spendlove (1940)
Penny Lace (1942)
Imogen Under Glass (1943)
Strange Story (1945)
Gone to the Pictures (1946)
The Day is Ours (1947)
More Glass Than Wall (1950)
No Mate, No Comrade (1951)
Enter a Player (1952)
The Gentle Falcon (1952)
Wife to Henry V (1954)
The Witch and the Priest (1956)
I, Jacqueline (1957)
Wife to Great Buckingham (1959)
Here Comes Harry (1960)
Call Lady Purbeck (1961)
A Mortal Malice (1963)
Wife to Charles II (1965)
Wife to the Bastard (1966)
Harold Was My King (1968)
Harlot Queen (1970)
I Am Mary Tudor (1971)
Mary the Queen (1973)
Bloody Mary (1974)
Rose of England (1977)
Heart of a Rose (1978)
THE WITCH AND THE PRIEST
by
HILDA LEWIS
With a new introduction by
ALISON WEIR
Kansas City:
VALANCOURT BOOKS
2013
The Witch and the Priest by Hilda Lewis
First published London: Jarrolds, 1956
Copyright © 1956 by Hilda Lewis
Introduction © 2013 by Alison Weir
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the kind permission of the Estate of Evelyn Gibbs to reproduce her original cover design and Mark Terry of Facsimile Dust Jackets, LLC, for providing the cover image used for this edition.
Published by Valancourt Books, Kansas City, Missouri
Publisher & Editor: James D. Jenkins
20th Century Series Editor: Simon Stern, University of Toronto
http://www.valancourtbooks.com
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without prior written consent of the publisher, constitutes an infringement of the copyright law.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lewis, Hilda, 1896-1974.
The witch and the priest / by Hilda Lewis; with a new introduction by Alison Weir.
pages cm. – (20th Century Series)
ISBN 978-1-939140-28-9 (acid free paper)
1. Flower, Margaret, d. 1618–Fiction. 2. Flower, Philippa, d. 1618–Fiction. 3. Trials (Witchcraft)–England–Fiction. 4. Women–England–History–17th century–Fiction. 5. Witches–Fiction. 6. Priests–Fiction. 7. Biographical fiction. 8. Historical fiction. I. Weir, Alison. II. Title.
PR6023.E955W58 2013
823’.912–dc23
2013007840
All Valancourt Books publications are printed on acid free paper that meets all ANSI standards for archival quality paper.
Set in Dante MT 11/13.2
INTRODUCTION
I feel very privileged to have been asked to write this introduction, as I have been an admirer of Hilda Lewis’s books for nearly fifty years. They were an inspiration to me when I first discovered a love of history, and they remain so now, informing my work as a historical novelist.
Hilda Winifred Lewis was born in 1896 in London. She began writing at an early age, editing her school and college magazines, then worked as a teacher in London. She married in the early 1920s and moved to Nottingham, where her husband was appointed to the old University College as a lecturer, and later professor, in education. They had one son, Humphrey. Thereafter she devoted herself full-time to writing, enjoying a peaceful existence in the beautiful precincts of the University.
Her first book, Pegasus Yoked, was published in 1933. It told the story of a young woman who felt frustrated by her East End origins but won a scholarship to university and took her first step towards freedom. This was followed by Madam Gold (1933), Full Circle (1935) and Pelican Inn (1937). In all, Hilda Lewis wrote twenty-four adult novels, many of them for my own publishers, Hutchinson and Arrow. She became well known in Nottingham, an unforgettable figure in her long, black, flowing clothes and her commanding voice.
Her modern novels—modern, that is, for the period in which they were written—vividly evoke the vanished world of the early and middle twentieth century. Some have dark themes, such as Said Dr. Spendlove (1940), based on the notorious case of Dr. Crippen, and Because I Must (1938), which tells the inevitably grim tale of disturbed Nellie, a girl whose mother was hanged for murder. The Day is Ours (1947), the moving story of a child born deaf and dumb, was made into a highly successful movie, renamed Mandy (1952). Gone to the Pictures (1946) reflects the contemporary fascination for the silver screen. In Imogen Under Glass (1943), a beautiful invalid snares her sister’s lover, and in Strange Story (1945), a disturbing psychological study of twins, the making of a crime is constructed before the reader’s eyes. It was called “an unpleasant story—well done.”
Nottingham publisher Five Leaves has reprinted Lewis’s Penny Lace (1942). It is the gritty tale of Nicholas Penny, who starts off working on the factory floor of a local lace factory, but will stop at nothing to become a master. The consequences of his actions and decisions eventually contribute to the demise of the Nottingham lace trade. The character of Nicholas is thought to have influenced the hero in Alan Sil
litoe’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.
Hilda Lewis had always been interested in writing for children, believing that a children’s book needed as much, if not more, care than an adult novel. She published four children’s books, of which the most famous is The Ship That Flew (1939), which is about Norse mythology and time travel. It was republished in the Oxford Children’s Modern Classics series in 1998. The others were historical novels: Here Comes Harry (1960), about the young Henry VI, Harold Was My King (1968) and The Gentle Falcon (1952), about Richard II’s child bride, Isabella of Valois. One reviewer wrote “The author whose Gentle Falcon was a work of outstanding merit once again shows herself prodigiously equipped to bring to history a view which is both emotionally and intellectually vigorous.”
I myself became acquainted with the work of Hilda Lewis when I came across her stunning and well researched historical novels back in the 1960s. I was riveted by Wife to the Bastard (1966), about Matilda of Flanders, who married William the Conqueror. It is one of the finest examples of historical fiction I have read. Lewis’s trilogy, I Am Mary Tudor (1971), Mary the Queen (1973) and Bloody Mary (1974), is a masterpiece. Her style of writing particularly lent itself to the genre; her language—always a challenge in historical novels—works well for every period and for the modern reader. One feels after reading these books that one has been on a psychological journey. Rarely have historical novels been underpinned by such power and authenticity. The pace, and the depth, are breathtaking. These books set a benchmark for anyone writing historical fiction today.
Harlot Queen (1970) dramatically reconstructs the life of Isabella of France, queen of Edward II, with a wonderful twist to the tale. Wife to Henry V (1954) is the poignant story of Katherine of Valois, I, Jacqueline (1957) the shocking tale of Jacqueline of Hainault, an oppressed medieval princess who endured a terrible existence. This book, The Witch and the Priest (1956), is a compelling account of the witches of Belvoir, a celebrated seventeenth-century Lincolnshire case. Wife to Great Buckingham (1959) and Wife to Charles II (1965) recount the lives of Katherine Manners and Catherine of Braganza, two great ladies of the seventeenth century. A Mortal Malice (1963) (about the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury) and Call Lady Purbeck (1961)—a horrific tale of female oppression—brilliantly explore two great seventeenth-century scandals. Lewis’s last books, Rose of England (1977) and Heart of a Rose (1978), both about Henry VIII’s sister, Mary Tudor, were published posthumously.
Hilda Lewis died in 1974. Sadly, most of her work is now out of print. On my suggestion, The History Press recently reprinted four of her books in Britain, and I commend Valancourt Books for reissuing The Witch and the Priest. Now that the historical novel has come back into fashion and there is a taste for all things retro, it is good to see Hilda Lewis’s books being made available for a new audience, who can now discover the joys, and the integrity, of her writing, and see for themselves why she became one of the best-known and best-loved of all historical novelists.
Alison Weir
March 11, 2013
For
ALFRED T. G. BLACKMORE
FOREWORD
In 1618, Margaret and Philippa Flower were tried at Lincoln for witchcraft. On their own confession they were found guilty and hanged. The Witchcraft Tomb in the church of St. Mary, at Bottesford in Leicestershire, still bears witness to their deeds.
An account of their trial is to be found in a pamphlet entitled:
The wonderful Discoverie of the Witchcrafts of Margaret and Philip Flower, Daughters of Joan Flower, neere Bever Castle; executed at Lincolne, March XI, 1618; who were specially arraigned and condemned before Sir Henry Hobart and Sir Edward Bromley, Judges of Assize, for confessing themselves Actors in the Destruction of Henry lord Rosse with their damnable Practices against others the children of the Right Honourable Francis earle of Rutland. Together with the severall Examinations and Confessions of Anne Baker, Joan Willimott, and Ellen Greene, Witches in Leicestershire.
Printed at London by G. Eld and J. Barnes, dwelling in the Longe Walke, neere Christ Church. 1619.
The casting of the spells as described in this book follows their confessions; and the celebrations of the Witches’ Sabbath are described in the confessions of witches throughout Christendom. Whether the casting of these spells actually brought about the desired end; whether the witches actually flew or drugs lent them the illusion of flying, does not matter. What matters is that the witches themselves believed in their supernatural powers.
And so the dark tale unfolds according to its own dark laws.
The law against witches does not prove that there be any: but it punishes the malice of those people that use such means to take away men’s lives. If one should profess that by turning his hat thrice and crying out buz he could take away a man’s life, though in truth he could do no such thing, yet this were a just law made by the State that, whoever should turn his hat thrice and cry buz with the intention to take away a man’s life, shall be put to death.
John Selden. 1584-1654.
The Table-Talk.
The land is full of witches. I have hanged five and twenty of them. . . . They have on their bodies divers strange marks at which, as some of them have confessed, the Devil sucks their blood, for they have foresworn God, renounced their baptism and vowed their services to the Devil.
Sir Edmund Anderson.
Lord Chief Justice.
1530-1605.
Chapter One
. . . to my beloved sister, Hester Davenport, widow of this parish; and, upon her death, the sum aforesaid, to be used for the building and maintaining of a hospice for four poor women of this parish . . .
The Reverend Samuel Fleming put down his pen.
Now why had he done that? There were bequests more worthy of his charity—a sum to maintain some poor scholar at Cambridge, his own university; a legacy to some poor parson, heaven knew they were hard put to it, some of them, to keep body and soul together. Learning, piety—were not these more important than the comfort of old women who could always beg a crust or scrape a few vegetables from the ground or find an armful of kindling in the woods?
He moved restless, knowing his answer and not relishing it.
No. There was nothing so pitiful, so utterly helpless as old women—if they were ugly enough or poor enough; nobody in such need of succour. Children threw stones after them; and parents, far from checking their brats, called names after them harder than stones, more death-dealing than stones; calling . . . witch.
Witch. The word had haunted him this twelvemonth, a burden upon his heart, ever since the women had gone to their death. . . .
Hand still upon the paper, he heard the tapping of Hester’s heels along the flagged passage; even before her knock fell upon the door he had thrust the writing into a drawer—Hester fretted sufficiently about his altered looks without a reminder in the shape of a will.
Her head still dark beneath the muslin cap came round the door; brother and sister looked at each other. It was hard to believe there was but a few years between them. But, though his hair had whitened completely this last year, the likeness between them was clear—the good forehead, the eyes kindly yet shrewd repeating the promise of mouth and chin.
“Samuel,” she said, sharp yet tender, too, “your thoughts run on the matter again! Why must you torment yourself? It makes an old man of you before your time.”
“I have passed my threescore years and ten . . .” he reminded her, rueful.
“What of it?” she asked stoutly, pitying his frail looks. “Last year your hair was dark as my own—or almost. And you carried yourself upright as any man. And now . . . now . . . Samuel, they were witches.” She nodded vigorously, “They were witches all three!”
“Joan Flower never confessed,” he reminded her, sombre. “With her dying breath she protested her innocence.”
“What did you expect? Sh
e denied. But God spoke.” She saw how he looked about the pleasant room as though, even now, the quiet air held some imprint of that dreadful day. “As for the daughters,” she said, very firm, “nothing could be clearer; they confessed—who should know that better than you? They confessed everything.”
He sighed, remembering Margaret all tears and terror; remembering Philippa all brag and bravado. Yes, it was true. Joan Flower had been a witch; and she had brought them—the two young girls—to the Devil. She would have gone to the gallows with them, had she not been lucky enough to die first.
What was it, he asked himself for the hundredth time, that brought men and women to the Devil? They lived poor and wretched, blind and diseased often as not; and in the end they died on the gallows.
He raised his troubled head. “What is this power the Devil has so that men and women willingly renounce their part in God? Is it that God’s servants are not so zealous as the Devil’s? It is a question I should ask—indeed, must ask. I am a priest and the women were of my flock. I knew Joan Flower when her goodman was alive and there were no tales either of whoring or of witchcraft. Yes, and I baptized her daughters. A decent woman, so I thought; not-over devout; but coming now and then to church and bringing her girls with her.”
“Yes, she made some show of virtue,” Hester told him. “Whether to shield her daughters from her ugly ways, or to shield herself from their eyes, who can say? When the girls left home she was not ashamed to show herself in her true colours. She came to church when it pleased her—which was seldom enough! It was then the tales began to go about. Oh no, not of witchcraft but of the shocking life she led—of the men she welcomed at all hours; Peate and the others.”