The belief in witchcraft was universal, but the persecution was not; in London, though there is no reason to doubt the belief, there are few cases on record of the actual persecution of witches. One case is that of Sarah Mordyke, who was apprehended at Paul’s Wharf, charged with bewitching one Richard Hetheway, near the Falcon Stairs in Southwark. She was taken before certain learned Justices in Bow Lane. The victim swore that he had lost his appetite, voided pins, etc., but recovered when he had scratched and brought blood from Sarah Mordyke, the witch.
Another case is that of Sarah Griffith. She lived in Rosemary Lane. She had long been considered a bad woman, but nothing could be proved against her, though it was suspicious that her neighbours’ children were affected with strange distempers, and were affrighted with apparitions of cats. One day, however, she was buying soap in a shop when the apprentice laughed at the scales not being right, and said they must be bewitched. Whereupon the old woman thought he was laughing at her and vowed vengeance. Sure enough, in the night everything in the shop was turned topsy-turvy.
Two or three days after, the apprentice, with two or three friends, was walking towards New River Head when they met Sarah Griffith. It was a favourable opportunity to try her, so they tossed her into the canal. Instead of drowning she swam like a cork—a sure sign of her guilt. When they let her come out she smote the young man on the arm, making a mark as black as a coal, and told him he should pay dear for what he had done. So he went home in a great fright and died. After this his master took a constable and brought her before the Justices, charging her with compassing the death of his apprentice by witchcraft. She was accordingly committed to the Clerkenwell Bridewell, and I know not what became of her afterwards.
I have before me a short pamphlet on the tragic history of a young gentleman of Stepney who sold himself to the Devil.
When one remembers Defoe’s mystification about Mrs. Veal one suspects that this story is also an invention, devised for the purpose of inspiring godly fear, and based upon popular superstition rather than a narrative put together on hearsay, exaggerated as it passed from lip to lip. The story is quite in Defoe’s circumstantial manner. A young gentleman named Watts, son of Mr. William Watts of Stepney and of Anne, daughter of Squire Wilson of Brentwood, was the only survivor of four children. He was therefore treated with the greatest indulgence and tenderness. After five years at St. John’s College, Oxford, he returned home and began to keep evil company, being already ripe in wickedness. His parents remonstrated with him, but in vain. Finally, his father refused to give him any more money for the support of his extravagances. The son, in a great rage, swore that he would be revenged upon his parents even to the hazard of his soul. He took a lodging at some distance from his father’s house, and fell to devising how he might get the estate into his own hands.