Volume 1
History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster / By Edward Baines ... The biographical department by W.R. Whatton.
- Edward Baines
- Date:
- 1836
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: History of the County Palatine and Duchy of Lancaster / By Edward Baines ... The biographical department by W.R. Whatton. Source: Wellcome Collection.
646/672 page 602
![Their execution. Descrip- tion of a vention. 602 Che Pistorp of the lawful magistrate,” says the royal commentator, “ their power is then no greater than before that ever they meddled with these matters.”* This, indeed, is a necessary part of the doctrine, otherwise Elizabeth Device and her associates might as easily and as invisibly have conveyed themselves from the bar of the castle at Lancaster, as from the witch convention at Malkin Tower. At the appointed time, all these poor wretches died by the hands of the public executioner—victims, no doubt, in part, of their own fraudulent arts, resorted to for the purpose of eking out a miserable subsistence—but, much more, sacrifices offered upon the altars of ignorance and superstition. According to Gaule, who is quite an authority upon this subject, eritchveotiyeal tions, on the model of that held at the residence of Old Demdike’ s, at Malkin Tower, and from thence adjourned, at the instance of Jennet Preston, to Romles-moor, were for the solemn initiation of the witches, or for the baptism of their imps. Here the new disciple of Satan was presented by a confederate, or familiar, to the prince of darkness, sittmg on a throne of infernal majesty, appearing in the form of man, but labouring incessantly to hide his cloven feet with his vesture: to whom, after bowing and homage done in kissing his back parts, a petition was presented, praying to be received into his association, and taken under his protection. The initiated was then re-baptized in the devil’s name; and during the ceremony, the infernal president was busy with his long nails scraping and scratching those places of the forehead where the sign of the cross had been made in Christian baptism, or where the chrisme was laid; in the place of which he impressed the mark of the beast, or the devil’s flesh- brand, upon some part of the body. The witch was then taught, by her infernal instructor, to make an oil, or ointment, of live infants stolen out of the cradle, as in the case of Walshman’s child, of Salmesbury, or of dead ones stolen out of their graves, which they were to boil to a jelly, and then drinking one part of the unctuous preparation, and besmearing themselves with the other, they became from that moment endowed with the mystical art. “ Further,’ says Gaule, “ the witch or wizard, for her or his part, vows, either by word of mouth, or peradventure by writing, and that im her or his own blood, to give both body and soul to the devil; to deny and to defy God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; to attend the devil’s nocturnal conventicles, sabbaths, and sacrifices; to take him for her or his god, and to worship, invoke, and obey him; to devote her or his children to him, as did Old Demdike and Old Chattox, and to labour to bring others into the infernal confe- deracy. The devil, on his part, promising to be always present with his disciples, to serve them at their beck; to give them their will upon any body, and to bestow upon them all the riches! honours! and pleasures! that they can desire, (an engagement * King James’s Demonologie, chap. vi. to] Dp <2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33521682_0001_0646.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
