“THE WORD BEWITCHING SEEMS TO SIGNIFY SOMETHING STILL GREATER, PERHAPS HURTING EVEN TO DEATH”: TWO 1712 PAMPHLETS ABOUT THE GUILT OF JANE WENHAM, THE LAST WOMAN IN ENGLAND TO BE CONDEMNED FOR WITCHCRAFT

(WENHAM, Jane) (BRAGGE, Francis). Witchcraft Farther Display’d, Containing An Account of the Witchcraft practis’d by Jane Wenham of Walkerne, in Hertfordshire… An Answer to the most general Objections against the Being and Power of Witches… The Tryals of Florence Newton, a Famous Irish Witch. WITH: A Full and Impartial Account of the Discovery of Sorcery and Witchcraft, Practis’d by Jane Wenham… Also her Tryal at the Assize. London: E. Curll, 1712. Octavo pamphlet, disbound, pp. 39, 36. Housed in a custom red straight-grain morocco-gilt pull-off box.

First editions of these two pamphlets by the Reverend Francis Bragge, proclaiming the guilt of Jane Wenham, the last woman condemned for witchcraft in England.

Wenham was the last woman condemned for witchcraft in England. She was tried in March 1712, when “16 witnesses, three of whom were clergymen, appeared against the prisoner. The lawyers refused to draw up the indictment for any other charge than that of conversing with the devil in the form of a cat. Upon this indictment, in despite of the leading of the judge (who, when it was alleged that the prisoner could fly, remarked that there was no law against flying), the jury found her guilty, and she was sentenced to death” (DNB). In his 1841 opus Memoirs of Popular Delusions, Charles Mackay noted that “the jury persisted in a verdict of guilty, though the evidence was of the usual absurd and contradictory character, and the enlightened judge did all in his power to bring them to a right conclusion. The accused person was one Jane Wenham, better known as the Witch of Walkerne? The prisoner, in her defense, said nothing, but that ‘she was a clear woman.’ The learned judge then summed up, leaving it to the jury to determine whether such evidence as they had heard was sufficient to take away the prisoner’s life upon the indictment. After a long deliberation they brought in their verdict, that she was guilty upon the evidence. The Judge then asked them whether they found her guilty upon the indictment of conversing with the devil in the shape of a cat? The sapient foreman very gravely answered, ‘We find her guilty of that.’ The learned judge then very reluctantly proceeded to pass sentence of death; but, by his persevering exertions, a pardon was at last obtained, and the wretched old woman was set at liberty.” Her subsequent pardon by Queen Anne led to a pamphlet war examining the events of the trial and the grounds of the controversy. The statute against witchcraft was repealed in 1736.

The Reverend Francis Bragge, the anonymous author of three such pamphlets (including the two offered here), appeared as a witness against Wenham, describing for the court strange ‘cakes’ of bewitched feathers taken from a victim’s pillow. “The judge interrupted the witness at this stage, and said, he should very much like to see an enchanted feather, and seemed to wonder when he was told that none of these strange cakes had been preserved. His Lordship asked the witness why he did not keep one or two of them, and was informed that they had all been burnt, in order to relieve the bewitched person of the pains she suffered, which could not be so well effected by any other means” (Mackay).

Pamphlets disbound, as usual. Light toning to preliminary and concluding leaves. Near-fine condition.