the sea and roaring of the storm.

CHAPTER LXIII.

Neither Police nor Medical Men much required in Olden
Times--Instruments of Torture--Torture declared
Illegal--Case of John Felton--Berkly Witch--Attempt on
the Life of Edward II.--Master John of
Nottingham--Escape of Coventry Necromancers from
Justice--Ursley Kempe _alias_ Gray--Annis Herd's
Imps--Paying Blackmail to Witches--The Rutland Family
bewitched--Witchcraft of a Mother and her two
Daughters--A Pendle Witch--Strange Narrative--Essex
Witches--Witches of Northamptonshire--Bullet-proof
Witch--Drawing Blood above the Temples--Anne Bodenham
foretelling how a Law-plea would be decided--Strange
Proceedings--Discovering Concealed Poison--Performing
Spirits--Ride to London through the Air--Anne Bodenham
dying Impenitent.

Our forefathers did not so much require a detective police force nor
medical men as we do. If thefts were committed, or persons became
sick, cunning men or uncanny women were sent for. As rule, the
offences or diseases were traced to witches or other missionaries of
Satan. A suspected person received neither justice nor mercy at the
hands of judges and juries. Instruments of torture were applied to
wring out false self-accusations against the unhappy individual under
trial. Thumbkins, or thumb-screws, were tightened on the hands; boots
with wedges were put on the feet; and the flesh was torn with red-hot
pincers. These and other instruments were used to make persons speak;
and again, when one spoke too much, or said what became unpleasant, a
gag secured silence. In addition to the torture inflicted by such
articles as we have enumerated, suspected criminals were not
unfrequently put in the stocks and jugs, whipped at a "cart tail,"
made to stand bare-headed and bare-footed before the public, or
exposed in sackcloth at a church door or the market cross, to be gazed
at, laughed at, and sometimes to be pelted by onlookers, rendered
cruel and superstitious by their rulers and spiritual advisers.

All things have an end. Examinations by torture were declared illegal
in this country in 1628, yet, notwithstanding such a declaration,
examinations under torment were resorted to in 1640. As an instance of
the danger of torturing a criminal, not to speak of its inhumanity, we
notice the case of John Felton, accused of assaulting the Duke of
Buckingham in the y