The Lancaster Witches: re-examination of Edmund Robinson the younger

Translation

[Page one]

The re-examination of Edmund Robinson the younger,

taken the xvj [16] day of July 1634 before George Long

esquire one of his majesty’s Justices of Peace of the county of Middlesex.

Being examined touching his accusation of Frances, the wife of John

Dickenson, Jennet Hargraves the wife of Henry Hargraves, Jennet

Devys, William Devys, her half brother, and Beawser to be

witches, and that they were at a witch feast at Horestones in Pendle

Forest in the County of Lancaster, he says that he had had divers [many] &

several times heard the neighbours talk amongst themselves as they

sat together, of a witch feast that was kept at a place called

Mocking Tower in Pendle Forest in the County of Lancaster about

20 years since, to which feast divers witches came, and many of them

were apprehended and executed at Lancaster for witchcraft.

And thereupon he framed those tales of his concerning the persons aforesaid,

because he had heard divers of the neighbours repute them for witches.

Therefore he named them to be some of those whom he had seen at

And namely he hath heard one Edmund Stevenson

say that he was much troubled with the said Dickenson his wife in the

time of his sickness, and that he suspected her, and he heard Robert

Smith, another neighbour, say that his wife, lying upon her death bed

did accuse Jennet Hargraves to be the cause of her death. And he

had heard William Nutter his wife say that Jennet Devys and William Devys

had bewitched her; and it was so reported by those neighbours that watched

with her in her sickness. And it was generally spoken that Beawse his

wife, who went a-begging, was commonly taken for a witch, and he

had heard Sharpee Smith say that the wife of John Loynd

had laid her hand upon a cow of his, after which she never rose.

And having heard the story of the meeting of the witches at Mocking

Tower, it came in his head to make the like tale of a meeting at

Horestones in the forest aforesaid, at which place he had been formerly

with his father at such time as he built it for Thomas Robinson to dwell in.

[Page two]

And he sayeth that nobody was ever acquainted with any part of this his

fiction or intention, neither durst [did] he ever let anybody be acquainted

with it less they should tell. Neither did anybody ever advise or

counsel him to do or say anything, but it merely proceeded

out of his own brain and out of that those discourses that he

heard folk speak of Mocking Tower and the Witch Feast

that was there. He says he invented it at several times and

sometimes added one thing to it all and sometimes another.

And he utterly denies that he said unto the Kings Majesty or to any

other person that he was set on animated or advised to make the said

declarations touching the said witches.

He says that at the first he framed these tales to avoid his mother’s correction

and punishing of him for not bringing home her [kin?]. But afterwards

perceiving that many folks gave care unto him and believed him, in

that he spoke he grew confident in it more and more. And now

he sayeth he is very sorry for that he hath said and wishes heartily

that it were to speak for he would never say it.

The mark of

Edmond Robinson the Younger