ue, as you may learn if you will inquire," said the old
woman; "for many of her kin live in Churchtown."

LVII

ELEANOR COBHAM, DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER

GODWIN'S "Lives of the Necromancers"

This was a period in which the ideas of witchcraft had caught fast hold
of the minds of mankind; and those accusations, which by the enlightened
part of the species would now be regarded as worthy only of contempt,
were then considered as charges of the most flagitious nature. While
John, Duke of Bedford, the eldest uncle of King Henry VI., was regent of
France, Humphrey of Gloucester, next brother to Bedford, was Lord
Protector of the realm of England. Though Henry was now nineteen years
of age, yet as he was a prince of slender capacity, Humphrey still
continued to discharge the functions of sovereignty. He was eminently
endowed with popular qualities, and was a favourite with the majority of
the nation. He had, however, many enemies, one of the chief of whom was
Henry Beaufort, great-uncle to the king, and Cardinal of Winchester. One
of the means employed by this prelate to undermine the power of
Humphrey, consisted in a charge of witchcraft brought against Eleanor
Cobham, his wife.

This woman had probably yielded to the delusions which artful persons,
who saw into the weakness of her character, sought to practise upon her.
She was the second wife of Humphrey, and he was suspected to have
indulged in undue familiarity with her before he was a widower. His
present duchess was reported to have had recourse to witchcraft in the
first instance, by way of securing his wayward inclinations. The Duke of
Bedford had died in 1435; and Humphrey now, in addition to the actual
exercise of the powers of sovereignty, was next heir to the crown in
case of the king's decease. This weak and licentious woman, being now
Duchess of Gloucester, and wife to the Lord Protector, directed her
ambition to the higher title and prerogatives of a queen, and, by way of
feeding her evil passions, called to her counsels Margery Jourdain,
commonly called the Witch of Eye, Roger Bolingbroke, an astrologer and
supposed magician, Thomas Southwel, Canon of St Stephen's, and one John
Hume, or Hun, a priest. These persons frequently met the duchess in
secret cabal. They were accused of calling up spirits from the infernal
world; and they made an image of wax, which they slowly consumed before
a fire, expecting that, as the image gradually wasted away, so t