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'A battle,' said the other; 'yes there has been a battle, and I am sure the king is beaten. But, if ever I strike a
stroke for Cromwel again, may I perish eternally! For I am sure he has made a league with the devil, and the
devil will have him in due time.' Then, desiring his protection from Cromwel's inquisitors, he went in, and
related to him the story in all its circumstances. It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader, that Cromwel
died on that day seven years, September the third, 1658.
Echard adds, to prove his impartiality as an historian, How far Lindsey is to be believed, and how far the
story is to be accounted incredible, is left to the reader's faith and judgment, and not to any determination of
our own.
DOROTHY MATELEY.
I find a story dated about this period, which, though it does not strictly belong to the subject of necromancy or
dealings with the devil, seems well to deserve to be inserted in this work. The topic of which I treat is properly
of human credulity; and this infirmity of our nature can scarcely be more forcibly illustrated than in the
following example. It is recorded by the well-known John Bunyan, in a fugitive tract of his, entitled the Life
and Death of Mr. Badman, but which has since been inserted in the works of the author in two volumes folio.
In minuteness of particularity and detail it may vie with almost any story which human industry has collected,
and human simplicity has ever placed upon record.
There was, says my author, a poor woman, by name Dorothy Mateley, who lived at a small village, called
Ashover, in the county of Derby. The way in which she earned her subsistence, was by washing the rubbish
that came from the lead-mines in that neighbourhood through a sieve, which labour she performed till the
earth had passed the sieve, and what remained was particles and small portions of genuine ore. This woman
was of exceedingly low and coarse habits, and was noted to be a profane swearer, curser, liar and thief; and
her usual way of asserting things was with an imprecation, as, 'I would I might sink into the earth, if it be not
so,' or, 'I would that God would make the earth open and swallow me up, if I tell an untruth.'
Now it happened on the 23rd of March, 1660, [according to our computation 1661], that she was washing ore
DOROTHY MATELEY. 137
Lives of the Necromancers
on the top of a steep hill about a quarter of a mile from Ashover, when a lad who was working on the spot
missed two-pence out of his pocket, and immediately bethought himself of charging Dorothy with the theft.
He had thrown off his breeches, and was working in his drawers. Dorothy with much seeming indignation
denied the charge, and added, as was usual with her, that she wished the ground might open and swallow her
up, if she had the boy's money.
One George Hopkinson, a man of good report in Ashover, happened to pass at no great distance at the time.
He stood a while to talk to the woman. There stood also near the tub a little child, who was called to by her
elder sister to come away. Hopkinson therefore took the little girl by the hand to lead her to her that called her.
But he had not gone ten yards from Dorothy, when he heard her crying out for help, and turning back, to his
great astonishment he saw the woman, with her tub and her sieve, twirling round and round, and sinking at the
same time in the earth. She sunk about three yards, and then stopped, at the same time calling lustily for
assistance. But at that very moment a great stone fell upon her head, and broke her skull, and the earth fell in
and covered her. She was afterwards digged up, and found about four yards under ground, and the boy's two
pennies were discovered on her person, but the tub and the sieve had altogether disappeared.
WITCHES HANGED BY SIR MATTHEW HALE.
One of the most remarkable trials that occur in the history of criminal jurisprudence, was that of Amy Duny
and Rose Cullender at Bury St. Edmund's in the year 1664. Not for the circumstances that occasioned it; for
they were of the coarsest and most vulgar materials. The victims were two poor, solitary women of the town
of Lowestoft in Suffolk, who had by temper and demeanour rendered themselves particularly obnoxious to
their whole neighbourhood. Whenever they were offended with any one, and this frequently happened, they
vented their wrath in curses and ill language, muttered between their teeth, and the sense of which could
scarcely be collected; and ever and anon they proceeded to utter dark predictions of evil, which should happen
in revenge for the ill treatment they received. The fishermen would not sell them fish; and the boys in the
street were taught to fly from them with horror, or to pursue them with hootings and scurrilous abuse. The
principal charges against them were, that the children of two families were many times seized with fits, in
which they exclaimed that they saw Amy Duny and Rose Cullender coming to torment them. They vomited,
and in their vomit were often found pins, and once or twice a two-penny nail. One or two of the children died;
for the accusations spread over a period of eight years, from 1656 to the time of the trial. To back these
allegations, a waggoner appeared, whose waggon had been twice overturned in one morning, in consequence
of the curses of one of the witches, the waggon having first run against her hovel, and materially injured it.
Another time the waggon stuck fast in a gate-way, though the posts on neither side came in contact with the
wheels; and, one of the posts being cut down, the waggon passed easily along.
This trial, as I have said, was no way memorable for the circumstances that occasioned it, but for the
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