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The Last Witches
of England

i
ii
 The Last Witches
of England
A Tragedy of Sorcery and
Superstition

John Callow

iii
 BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland

BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks

of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published in Great Britain 2022

Copyright © John Callow, 2022

John Callow has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as Author of this work.

For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xiv constitute an extension of this

copyright page.

Cover design by Dani Leigh

Cover photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

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Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-
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responsibility for any such changes.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Callow, John, Ph. D., author.
Title: The last witches of England : a tragedy of sorcery and superstition / John Callow.
Description: London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. | Includes bibliographical
references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2021012892 (print) | LCCN 2021012893 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781788314398 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350196148 (epub) |
ISBN 9781350196131 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Trials (Witchcraft)–England–Devon–History–17th century. | Bideford
(England)–History–17th century. | Lloyd, Temperance, –1682–Trials, litigation, etc. | Trembles,
Mary, –1682–Trials, litigation, etc. | Edwards, Susanna, –1682–Trials, litigation, etc.
Classification: LCC KD371.W56 C35 2021 (print) |
LCC KD371.W56 (ebook) | DDC 364.1/88—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021012892
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021012893

ISBN: HB: 978-1-7883-1439-8

ePDF: 978-1-3501-9613-1
eBook: 978-1-3501-9614-8

Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

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and sign up for our newsletters.
iv
 ‘Nobody paid good money to hear reason’

The old Fortune-Teller’s advice to Laura (from Gordon Williams’

screenplay, The Duelists, 1977)

v
vi
 Contents

List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements xiv
A Note on Dating and Terminology xvi

Prologue: The magpie at the window 1

1 Fortune my Foe 9

2 England’s Golden Bay 35

3 An underground religion 67

4 The cat, the pig and the poppet 83

5 Blood and curses 115

6 A fine gentleman dressed all in black 131

7 The discourse of the sleepy chimney 153

8 The politics of death 183

9 Disenchantment 217

10 At the house of the White Witch 247

Coda: Where are the witches? 261

Notes 277
Bibliography 317
Index 329

vii
viii
 Illustrations

1 Temperance Lloyd, an imaginative portrait from the title page of

The Life and Conversation of . . . Three Eminent Witches, published
in London in 1682 (Chris Horsfall). 2
2 The Long Bridge, Bideford (Author’s Collection). This Victorian
postcard gives a good idea of Bideford’s topography, the wide tidal
span of the River Torridge and the silhouette of a town that had
barely outgrown its seventeenth-century boundaries. 16
3 The Font in St Mary’s, Bideford (Author’s Collection). This is the one
physical link that we have to the Bideford Witches. Susanna Edwards
was baptized here, in December 1612. By the time that Temperance
Lloyd was married, in October 1648, it had been thrown into the
street and repurposed as a feed trough for the town’s swine. 18
4 The Deserving Poor (later engraving after a painting by Gillis van
Tillborch, 1670) (Author’s Collection). Although the setting of the
Tichbourne Dole was rural as opposed to urban, and reflected
traditional Catholic rather Calvinist modes of charity, this is one
of the few images from the Restoration showing the poor and needy.
It is a scene that would have been familiar to those, like the Bideford
Witches, who were in receipt of the Andrew Dole. 23
5 Companions in Misfortune: The entries in the Andrew Dole Book
for 1681 show the sixpences given to Susanna Edwards and
Temperance Lloyd as outdoor relief (by kind permission of Chris
Fulford and the Andrew Dole Charity, Bideford). Though they lined
up together to receive the dole, they begged and lived separately.
Temperance begged alone, while Susanna operated within a shifting
group of women. 28

ix
x Illustrations

6 Bideford in the mid-seventeenth century (by kind permission

of the Burton Museum & Art Gallery, Bideford). A detail from
the portrait of John Strange showing the busy port, with its
warehouses, town hall and Long Bridge. Curiously, given Strange’s
Puritanism, the parish church does not feature in the panorama.
However, the former chantry chapel that had been converted into
the town jail, and where the witches were held in July 1682, can be
clearly seen. 36
7 Bideford from John Ogilby’s Britannia, 1675 (Author’s Collection).
The map gives a good impression of the layout of the town as the
witches would have known it. However, the road network was not
as important for its prosperity as the sea lanes that connected it to
North America, South Wales and Ireland. 37
8 John Strange (1590–1646) by an unknown artist c.1640 (Burton
Museum & Art Gallery, Bideford). His life is told in the form of a
pictogram recounting the stages of God’s providence, from
garnering mercantile wealth to preservation from accident and
common assault. 47
9 ‘Welcome All!’: the painted decoration, commissioned in 1686,
for an alehouse that stood overlooking Bideford’s marketplace
(Author’s Photograph). 55
10 The Absentee Landlord: John Grenville, Earl of Bath
(Wikicommons). This plasterwork from the Earl’s house on the
quayside at Bideford was the work of John Abbot of Frithelstock
and gives some idea of the vision of taste, wealth and innovation
that the king’s friend intended to project. 62
11 The Conventicle (British Library). This satirical engraving by
Marcellus Laroon the elder was published in 1686 and formed the
basis for William Hogarth’s later, and better-known, attack on
witch-belief. A generation earlier, Laroon’s original work showed
that religious dissent and hypocrisy could be made analogous to
sexual licence, disorder and devilry. 71
12 The King in Waiting? James, Duke of Monmouth, c.1682–5, from
an engraving produced in Germany and smuggled into England,
 Illustrations xi

through ports like Bideford, for the popular market that celebrated
the ‘Protestant Prince’ (Author’s Collection). 74
13 Memento Mori: the angels looking down from Abraham
Heiman’s monument would have been newly carved and painted
when Temperance Lloyd was brought to St Mary’s Church and
forced to recite the Lord’s Prayer (Author’s Photograph, by kind
permission of the Rector & Parish Council, St Mary’s Church,
Bideford). 84
14 The Witches’ Cottage, Bideford, by Charles de Neuville, 1894
(Author’s Collection). By the Victorian age, this range of buildings in
Old Town had become associated with all three witches and was a
tourist attraction. However, there is nothing to suggest that the
women lived together or to associate them with such a substantial
habitation. 102
15 Gunstone Lane, Bideford (by kind permission of Peter Christie). It
was here, on this steep street, that Temperance Lloyd struggled to
carry a bundle of broom and where the Devil, supposedly, offered to
take the weight of her load. Save for the uniform whitewash of the
cottages, she would have had little difficulty recognizing the scene
two centuries later. 132
16 Sir Matthew Hale delivering a judgement during a lightning strike,
1666 (Author’s Collection). The intent of this Victorian print was
to emphasize the judge’s rationality and stoicism. However, his
treatment of witches was harsh and based upon a willingness to
accept spectral evidence. 159
17 Sir Francis North (1637–85) is one of the major sources for the trial
of the Bideford Witches (Author’s Collection). However, his account
is far from impartial and is coloured by cynicism and the calculation
of political, and personal, gain. 198
18 The Hanging Judge: Sir Thomas Raymond (1626/7–83) (oil on
canvas, possibly by John Riley, c. early 1670s, by kind permission of
Gray’s Inn). Cultured and conscientious, he was blamed by the North
brothers for bowing to the will of the mob and permitting the
execution of the witches at the Exeter Assizes. 199
xii Illustrations

19 The Devil is in the Detail: the bowdlerized version of John

Goodfellow used to illustrate the ballad of the Bideford Witches in
Witchcraft Discovered and Punished (Author’s Collection). The faerie
child has been reconfigured as the embodiment of the Devil, while
the erect phallus which caused offence on the publication of a 1628
pamphlet has been erased. 221
20 Sir John Holt from his funerary monument, St Mary’s Church,
Redgrave, Suffolk, 1710 (photograph by Michael Garlick, Creative
Commons). Flanked by the embodiment of Justice, the statue of the
judge was based upon a portrait by Richard van Bleeck which was
destroyed in the Blitz of 1940. An opponent of cruelty, political
absolutism and militarism, Holt was instrumental in ending
witchcraft prosecutions in England. 232
21 John Abbott of Frithelstock, master craftsman, c.1685–90 (oil on
canvas by an anonymous artist, by kind permission of Exeter
Museum). Though separated by a gulf of wealth, social connections
and personal talent from the Bideford Witches, Abbott would have
known the women by sight. The worldly celebration of his individual
artistry stands in contrast to John Strange’s stark cosmology. As
such, it marks a watershed in European thought that, after 1660,
increasingly separated the Early Modern from the Modern. 243
22 Mary Ann Voaden and the tumbled-down cottage of the ‘White
Witch’, Bratton Lane, Devon, c.1890 (Author’s Collection). Rural
poverty was a continuing feature of Victorian society, but the witch
figure was increasingly being removed from the community and
consigned to the workhouse. 250
23 Three Poor Women of Bideford: pottery jug by Harry Juniper, 2018
(Collection of Gill Clayton). One of a series of splendid jugs made
by the renowned Bideford potter that began with a prize-winning
entry to a local design competition held at Exeter Museum, in 1966.
The witches were now firmly established as being persecuted rather
than persecutor, objects of pity rather than of hatred. 262
24 The Last English Witches: memorial plaque to Temperance Lloyd,
Susanna Edwards, Mary Trembles and Alice Molland, in Rougemont
 Illustrations xiii

Gardens, Exeter, November 2019 (Author’s Photograph). There can

be few more remarkable changes to historical reputation, and the
emphasis on particular societal groups, than that evidenced by this
commemoration. 269
25 The Bideford Witches huddle around a cauldron in Andrew
Alleyway’s mural of 1996, depicting the pageant of Exeter’s history
(Author’s Photograph). Though the depiction of the women as
stereotypical, storybook witches divided opinion, this colourful
example of figurative public art sits comfortably with the
surrounding maze of alleys, characterized by New Age shops selling
crystals, Tarot cards and even broomsticks. 270
26 The Last Witches? A mother and daughter at the ‘Grand Witches’
Tea Party’, Rougemont Gardens, August 2014 (photograph by Jim
Bachelier-Moore). If the lives of the Bideford Witches were
uniformly miserable, degraded and hopeless, then their legacy has
been anything but. Their names have been reclaimed through
celebration, creativity and activism, entertaining and engaging a new
generation for whom witchcraft has positive connotations. 273
 Acknowledgements

A wise old owl at the University of Bristol once told me that some books
were, by their very nature, ‘happy’ ones. He did not mean that they
necessarily came together more easily or quickly than others, but that the
journey taken by the author in writing them was fortuitous in terms of the
events, experiences and the new friends made along the way. By such standards,
The Last Witches has been, and I hope will remain, a ‘happy book’.
Though any mistakes or oversights contained within these pages remain
very much the preserve and the responsibility of the author, my thanks are due
to a large number of institutions and individuals who have given generously of
their help and expertise. In spite of the swinging cuts of the last decade, the
local records offices and network of county archives remain treasure houses of
people’s history: and my own especial thanks, in this regard, go to the staff at
the Devon Heritage Centre, in Exeter, and the North Devon Records Office, in
Barnstaple Public Library. Alison Mills at Barnstaple Museum and Julian
Vayne at the Burton Art Gallery and Museum, Bideford, were unfailingly
helpful in sourcing images and opening up new avenues of information.
Likewise, Simon Costin and Fergus Moffat at the Museum of Witchcraft,
Boscastle, combine a passion for – and unfailing interest in – their subject,
with a mission to preserve and extend their world-class collections.
In Bideford itself, Harry and Sue Juniper provided – in the form of their
magnificent studio on the Ropework – a tangible link with the master potters
of the seventeenth century and were unfailingly helpful with my questions, as
were Gill Clayton (as the proud owner of one of Harry Juniper’s splendid pots)
and Peter Christie, who combines true generosity of spirit with an encyclopaedic
knowledge of the town’s history and development. Lorna Dorrington very
kindly took the time and trouble to open up the parish church on a Saturday
morning, while Chris Fulford and Judy Bliss, of the Andrew Dole Charity,
xiv
 Acknowledgements xv

maintain another extremely important source of continuity with the past and
were, in the present, incredibly generous in supplying copies of the materials
relating to the operation of poor relief in Bideford.
Though approaching the subject from subtly different angles, Judith Noble,
Jackie Juno, and Ben Bradshaw MP were kind enough to share their time, thoughts
and expertise in discussing the manner in which three women of Bideford have
been commemorated and posthumously recreated over recent years. Likewise,
Jim Bachelier-Moore was able to revisit his photographs of the witches’ gatherings
at Rougemont Gardens, at short notice, and showed great generosity of spirit in
making them available to me. Anna Milon took time out from her own researches
to seek out a source for me in the Library of the University of Exeter, while Prof.
Mark Stoyle, of the University of Southampton, shared his expertise regarding the
siting of the Exeter gallows and the execution of the witches.
Books do not, of course, simply happen by themselves and my thanks go out
to Emily Drewe, my editor at Bloomsbury, and to Abigail Lane, Editorial
Assistant at Bloomsbury, for their help and professional insight in readying
The Last Witches for publication. My thanks are also due to Jo Godfrey, who
was part of the original editorial team, and to Alex Wright, a great friend and
support who thought that a tale of West Country witches and rebellion,
combining sea-salt, saltpetre, and sulphur, might appeal to a new readership.
On a personal level, we are nothing without our friends and, therefore, I am
truly fortunate in having friendships measured in years and counted in
constancy with Christina Harrington, Louise Carter, Sean O’Brogain, and
Harvey Osborne. To Fred Valetta I owe a debt of thanks for an important set of
references and for kindly words, that were much appreciated, on the field by
Cropredy Bridge. To Phil and Freddy le Pinnet – companions to myself and Kit
on so many of our adventures – let’s hope that there are many more in store for
us all. Bev and Del Richardson offered the hospitality of their hearth and home,
and a vision of what our isle once was and might yet be.
Lastly, this book is for Angus MacLeod (1920–96): a Manxman not by birth
but by love and volition, not least because he would have understood the reasons
behind it: and in the hopes that his shade and that of ‘Ivan’, his faithful Labrador,
may yet be found chasing the breakers out on the rocks at Scarlett Point.
John Callow, Candlemas 2021
 A Note on Dating
and Terminology

A lthough many European nations had adopted the Gregorian Calendar

over the course of the seventeenth century, the British and Irish remained
stubbornly loyal to the Julian Calendar until 1752. The result was that their
calendars lagged some ten days behind that which was generally used on the
Continent. By 1700, this difference had further increased to eleven days.
The dating given in this work reflects that of the Julian (Old Style) Calendar
acknowledged by the people of Bideford in the 1670s–80s, but with two
exceptions. For events that took place after the changeover of 1752, the
Gregorian (New Style) Calendar is used, while for the sake of clarity the new
year is taken as beginning on 1 January and not on 25 March, as had been the
case under the old Julian system.

xvi
 Prologue: The magpie at
the window

On the morning of Thursday 29 June 1682, a magpie came rasping, rapping

and tapping at the window of the house of Thomas Eastchurch. The busy
quayside, well-stocked shops, and the patchwork of walled gardens and little
orchards that backed onto many of the major properties in Bideford usually
offered rich pickings for scavengers with a quick beak, a sharp eye and a fast
wing. Yet that morning was different.
It was not food that had brought the bird to the family home above their
shop. Rather, it was something that lay within the upstairs chamber: something
bright, something that sparkled, catching and reflecting the bright summer
sun through the glass panes. It was this which had grabbed hold of the magpie’s
attention, emboldened his spirit and caused him to explore the open window.
Fluttering up from the street, he perched on the sill before pushing his head
through the opening, intent on securing the wonderful prize that lay within.
Like the poor who gleaned the spilled tobacco and foodstuffs from the jetties
and alleyways, scavenging was a way of life for the bird, a means to continued
existence. However, on this occasion, the choice to abandon necessity in favour
of single-minded greed almost became his undoing and threatened to make
his latest raid his last. So bright was the prize that the magpie had not stopped
to check whether he was being observed, upon his entry, or if the chamber was
still occupied. As a result, the presence of humans, the sudden burst of noise
and movement, and the swirl of the sheets that threatened to engulf and
ensnare him came as a complete surprise.
1
2 The Last Witches of England

Figure 1 Temperance Lloyd, an imaginative portrait from the title page of The Life
and Conversation of . . . Three Eminent Witches, published in London in 1682
(Chris Horsfall).

Anne Wakely and Honor Hooper had been busy airing the chamber, after
another long and sleepless night. The house was labouring under a canker of
sickness and fear. In February 1681, the master’s young and unmarried sister-
in-law, Grace Thomas had taken to her bed, muttering of witchcraft, ‘with great
Pains in her Head and all her Limbs’.1 Such respite as there was came only in
the evenings and was cruelly brief. As the months wore through and the year
turned again, the tortured and tormented woman still did not venture far from
her bed, the shooting pains returned and her stomach distended. The learned
physicians that Thomas Eastchurch had called, and paid for, could offer neither
a diagnosis nor a cure ‘arising from a natural cause’ and ventured that ‘Grace
could never receive any benefit prescribed by them’.2 The absence of an
explanation for the ‘Distemper’, the strain that the long-term care of the invalid
placed upon his business and household, and what seemed to be no less than
 Prologue 3

the withdrawal of the Almighty’s favour left Eastchurch at a loss what to do for
the best or how to account for the unexpected misfortune that threatened to
turn all that he had built up through graft, industry and acumen to dust. He
had been married for barely two years at the time of his sister-in-law’s first
descent into illness and his household had only been recently established.
While he might aspire to the title of ‘Gentleman’, transcending his origins as a
shopkeeper and merchant, his marriage into the Thomas family had brought
him far more than he could ever have bargained for.3 Furthermore, if he had
ever envisaged himself as the respectable patriarch, at the head of a seemly and
orderly family, then events were rapidly revealing him to be otherwise.
In his distraction, female friends and neighbours of his wife and sister-
in-law had rallied around, helping to right and run the stricken household and
to nurse the invalid, hoping to alleviate the worst of her ailments and to soothe
her thoughts. Alongside Honor Hooper, the family servant, who seems to have
increasingly attended to Grace’s needs (over and above those of her own
mistress and master), Anne Wakely, a friend and neighbour of the Eastchurches,
volunteered to care for the sick woman and seems to have enjoyed a wider role
in both the community and the management of the Eastchurches’ domestic
affairs during the time of crisis. A married woman of means and a little older
than all the members of the Eastchurch household, it is unclear whether she
received any form of remuneration for her services.4 However, what is clear is
that she was the social superior of Honor Hooper, at least the equal of Grace
Thomas, and equal in status and wealth to Thomas and Elizabeth Eastchurch.
It seems fair to suggest that she represented a form of stability during a period
of chaos and a sisterly, or perhaps even a maternal, figure to Grace and
Elizabeth. Alongside her, there appear to have been a number of other women,
drawn from among friends and neighbours, who also spent days and nights
watching over Grace in her chamber. As a consequence, it is reasonable to
suggest that the Eastchurches’ extended family benefitted from a wide network
of personal and professional contacts, and from a well-developed sense of
mutuality and sisterhood among its womenfolk that enabled Grace Thomas to
be supported and well cared for throughout her long-term illness, which had
rendered her incapacitated and, according to her own testimony, on the verge
of death on more than one occasion.5
4 The Last Witches of England

However, that very same network that was designed to protect and nurture
also served to facilitate the circulation of news, gossip and speculation. After
all, time was the one thing that the developing circle had on their hands and it
was only natural that the women should seek to discuss, define and attempt to
remedy the source of Grace’s afflictions. Talk of one misfortune seemed to
beget another and accounts of storms at sea, the deaths of infants, the wasting
away of the daughter of a local gentleman and the deathbed accusations of a
neighbour combined with half-remembered tales of words spoken in anger, of
hasty curses, the proffering of poisoned fruit and the exchange of unwelcome,
covetous glances. Worse still, the home and the hearth no longer appeared
sacrosanct. It felt as though there was always something trying to get in: that
there was an eavesdropper lurking in the shadows; the taint of the wild, with
its animal stench and depredations threatening domestic order and seemliness
with scrabbling feet or claws drumming at the wainscoting; the unwelcome
visitor soliciting for work or relief at the door. Where there was no privacy, no
retreat from the world, there could be no relief. Uncertainty hung in the air and
the nights offered no relief, as prying eyes peeked in at the windows, envious
hands tried the locks and rattled the shutters, and unseen creatures prowled
high up in the rafters or scuttled beneath the floorboards, intent upon harm.
So it was that Grace Thomas passed another troubled night that was rent with
her cries of pain and torment, peppered with unfamiliar curses and, all the
time, with the assertion that Bideford was a town abandoned by God, where
familiar spirits chattered and spat filth in the darkness, changing their form at
will, and where devils walked abroad tempting mortal souls and hatching
murderous plots.
The morning saw Grace rise and wash, while Anne Wakely and Honor
Hooper changed the linen and threw open the windows. They were so
preoccupied with their own duties and cares that they failed to notice the
presence of the magpie until he started up at them, all feathers and fury, still
determined to seize his heart’s desire. Their shrieks and sudden movement
fuelled the bird’s own panic. The swirling sheets threatened to become his
shroud as he now attempted to fend off their blows and to find an avenue of
escape, all thoughts of the valuable trinket abandoned. Fear fed fear, as the
women cried out and stampeded towards the door, while the magpie began to
 Prologue 5

flap about the window, croaking in terror and beating his wings in a frenzy
against the fine glass panes. Then, in an instant, he was gone. Finally, he had
found the open gap and flew out, away over the rooftops the way he had come.
Frightened, sweating and flushed, Anne Wakely and Honor Hooper tried to
gather themselves together as best they could, straightening the chamber
which had become a tangle of chairs, bedding and curtains in the course of the
brief struggle, and trying for all their might to work out what manner of ill
they had just experienced. A winged creature of some sort had been in the
chamber with them, trying to get into the heart of the merchant’s home, to
breach the safety of its walls and to work its mischief. Later, they recalled its
hard, cold gaze, its dark, sleek form and birdlike shape. It was, they considered,
‘something in the shape of a Magpie’, but they could not be sure what that
‘something’ was, and whether it was actually a bird or not.6 In the midst of what
they knew to be difficult, emotionally charged and very disturbing times, the
whole event profoundly unsettled both women.
Thomas Eastchurch seems to have taken their upset, and the bird’s intrusion,
to heart. Thundering around the house, he closed all possible points of entry.
However, as family and friends moved to secure the front door of the house
another form started up from the street: a dark bundle of rags and tatters that
Anne Wakely recognized, at once, as Temperance Lloyd, a local beggar woman.
Even though it lasted no more than a few seconds, both parties appear to have
been startled by this second, unexpected and unwelcome encounter. Wakely
shooed Lloyd away from the doorstep and returned, inside, to tell Eastchurch
of the figure that she had found poised upon his threshold. It seemed to her to
have been more than a chance meeting: the old woman had no reason to be
there at that, or at any time, and had seemed to be loitering, in expectation of
some act or discovery, when her presence was revealed. The trouble was that in
surprising her, in interrupting her activities and in chasing her away before any
questions could be asked, there was now no way of knowing what business
Temperance Lloyd had been about. That uncertainty grew into something
different as the day progressed and, as the events were revisited and retold by
Wakely, Hooper and the Eastchurches, the events of that morning assumed a
new shape and significance as both disturbances began to be conflated and
conjoined as part of the same ‘assault’. Now, the appearance of the corvid
6 The Last Witches of England

seemed to manifest the nature of the curse that lay upon Grace Thomas and
the house of Thomas Eastchurch, as the bird took on the form of a familiar
spirit: an agent of the Devil, intent upon seeking not just the death of their
stricken friend but also the destruction of themselves, alongside every other
Christian soul in the Devon seaport. However, it did not act alone but, rather,
performed the bidding of its mistress, the beggar woman, Temperance Lloyd
who directed its attacks, selected the victims and hid her own malefic powers
away under the cloak of night and the guise of poverty.
Suddenly, through their discussions, Thomas and Elizabeth Eastchurch,
Grace Thomas, Anne Wakely and Honor Hooper felt that they had arrived at
the reason that lay behind all their misfortunes. Thomas determined to scour
Bideford, at first light, for the beggar woman, to run her to ground, to confront
her with the knowledge of her crimes and to force her, whether through
persuasion or threat of force, to confess her pact with the Devil and the nature
of her career in his service, with all its grim litany of unnatural despoliations
and death. On this, all of his household and friends agreed without dissent, and
the worsening of Grace Thomas’ condition over the night of 29–30 June 1682,
and her own express cries linking her increased sufferings to being tormented
by a curse, can only have served to harden their resolve. However, to modern
eyes, the persistence of belief in harmful magic (or maleficia) in Bideford,
during a period more readily associated with the nascent Scientific Revolution,
as evidenced through the works of Descartes, Boyle and Newton and the
foundation of the Royal Society, appears strangely anomalous. Rather than
viewing the Restoration comedies, the growth of commerce and the
establishment of coffee shops as symbolizing the spirit of the age, Bideford,
during the reign of King Charles II, seems to exude a spirit of disorder and
faction, characterized by suspicion, fear and the rule of the lynch mob. This
sense is enhanced when we consider that on a number of different levels, the
case that was being formed against Temperance Lloyd does not easily fit with
many of our contemporary assumptions about the nature of superstition,
magic and persecution during the Early Modern period. The charges came
remarkably late in the century, defying an increasing pattern towards refusing
to prosecute or seeking a legal acquittal; they originated, primarily, in the
grievances of one set of women against another, were enacted in an urban as
 Prologue 7

opposed to a rural setting, and were generated and promoted by individuals

who (like the extended Eastchurch family) were far from unlettered, ignorant
or consumed by worries about failures of the harvest and food supply. Rather,
this belief in the efficacy of ill-wishing and harmful magic was rooted in, and
sustained by, a community that was increasingly affluent, articulate, mobile
and acquisitive, and where individual desires were supplanting the collective.
Thus, the Bideford of the 1670s–80s reflects more closely the values of our
own age as opposed to the mythopoeic ‘other’ of the late Mediaeval or ‘burning
times’. 7 As a result, the terror of – and rage against – elderly and impoverished
women appears all the more inexplicable and unsettling. The simple and often
unpalatable fact was that, in deciding that curses, spells and the operation of
demonic magic were responsible for sickness and misfortune, the Eastchurch
and the Wakely families – operating within the wider context of the belief
patterns of the late seventeenth century and the specific religious and political
culture of their home town – were expressing ideas that were not extraordinary,
delusional or intrinsically irrational.
For Bideford, it was said, had long been a place of witches.
8
 1
Fortune my Foe

The voices of the poor and the dispossessed are rarely listened to in any age.
They are too rough, too uncomfortable, too raw and too discordant to sit
comfortably within the confines of learned discourse, or to be accommodated
within the binary, dog-eat-dog logic of the marketplace. Their day-to-day
realities of empty bellies, chilled bones, broken sleep patterns and dependency
upon the will and charity of others are hardly the stuff of historical romance,
or the reassuring teleology of post-modern theory by which individuals are
held to self-create, outside the boundaries of host culture, economics and
social circumstance. Over the course of the seventeenth century, we encounter
them, more often than not, in court records, when those at the margins of
society had broken a law or transgressed an established code of conduct. Even
then, their words were often interpreted, filtered and shaped by legal procedures
and by the prevailing notions of what constituted suitable evidence, the rules
regarding cross-examination and the extraction of a confession. On occasion,
the accused might even be unaware that such conventions existed. Within this
context, Temperance Lloyd, Susanna Edwards and Mary Trembles – the three
poor women who came to be known as the ‘Bideford Witches’ – were marginal
in every sense of the word: in terms of their age, gender, economic and marital
status, and even through their lack of physical and geographical mobility.
Unsuccessful and unwanted, they not only lacked the sympathy of others but
aroused feelings of either fear or condescension among their contemporaries.
As a consequence, the judge’s brother soon came to forget their number and
their respective fates; the pamphleteers in London conflated their names and
gave one of them a face that was not her own; and a Secretary of State brushed

9
10 The Last Witches of England

aside their case and decided that three women from Bideford were not even
worthy of his comment, let alone his consideration.1 Once the printers and
booksellers had made their profits, the last of their stocks in Exeter and London
had been sold or pulped, and new strange and exciting stories came along to
grip the public imagination, there seemed to be little need to remember their
dark tale, or to hum the ballad written about their murderous and diabolical
careers to the melody of a purloined, second-hand tune.2 Only the hatred of
their neighbours endured.
Ironically, it was precisely this extraordinary intense level of animosity that
permitted something of their stories, characters and words to be preserved
through the judicial procedures conducted against them in 1671, 1679 and
1682, and through the pages of the three main popular, printed accounts of
their trials produced in the autumn of 1682.3 Though their long lives are
telescoped for us, through the lens of the court proceedings, largely into the
space of just two months, when evidence was taken against them first at the
makeshift court house at Bideford, and then at the subsequent Exeter Assizes,
it is still possible to go in search of the pattern of their lives in the records of
the parish, local government and private charities with which they came into
contact. While these sources will not necessarily tell us those biographical
details that we, now, might wish to know – such as whom they loved, what they
valued and truly believed, what shaped them and condemned them to a life of
unremitting poverty, and how they attempted to make sense of the two terrible
visitations of civil war and of plague that swept over their home town, when
they were already approaching middle age – they do reveal something of the
contours of their existence that we need to know in order to contextualize
them within their own culture and society, within both Devon and Early
Modern England.
According to all the contemporary accounts, Temperance Lloyd was the
prime focus of attention: the dominant figure in the dramas that unfolded on
the streets of Bideford and in the legal proceedings at Exeter Castle and
Heavitree.4 She was a ‘grand Witch’, ‘the most notorious of these Three’,
‘Audacious’ and ‘perfectly Resolute’ in pursuit of her murderous designs.5 She
was also held to be the oldest, the most lascivious and the cruellest. And it was
she who had been ‘the Introducer of their Misery’ through leading the others
 Fortune My Foe 11

into making pacts with the Devil and instructing them for the space of ‘Five
Years, to learn the Art and Mystery of Hellish, Damnable, Accursed, and most
to be Lamented Witch Craft’.6 Yet, before the troubles that assailed her at the
beginning of February 1671, she had left few imprints upon either the records
of Bideford or elsewhere in the land. Though Temperance, alongside other
such Puritan names as Prudence and Patience, was relatively common in
Bideford, the name of Temperance Lloyd does not appear in any of the parish
registers. Nor do the ages and marriage records of the other women christened
Temperance fit with what we know of her.7 It is, therefore, reasonable to suggest
that she was an immigrant who arrived in the port by sea, as opposed to road.
As a major hub of Atlantic trade, seventeenth-century Bideford was a
cosmopolitan place, where many different ethnicities and nationalities rubbed
shoulders on the quayside and transacted business. However, while the arrival
of trading vessels might greatly increase the port’s population for short periods,
sailors from further afield than Devon appear to have been there to work, trade
and to enjoy their shore leave, rather than necessarily to put down roots. The
registered population of migrants, though increased during the 1680s by an
influx of Huguenots fleeing religious persecution in France, does not appear to
have been particularly large.8 In this manner, the recording of the death of an
unfortunate ‘French man being a Traveller’, taken sick at the port in January
1650 and buried ashore, and the baptism of John, the son of Edward Carsh, ‘a
Irishman’ on 3 July 1642 were rendered noteworthy for the clerk of the parish
on account that they were rare occurrences and, in both cases, reflected events
that overtook members of a transitory population rather than the domiciled
townsfolk.9 The exceptions to these patterns lie in the settling in the port of the
Anglo-Irish mercantile family of John Strange, who had been made rich by the
trade with Ulster, at the beginning of the century, and by the migration of a
number of fresh Welsh families to Bideford, concentrated within the period
from 1639 to 1653.
Prior to the Civil War, besides the seemingly well-established Thomas
family, from whom Grace and Elizabeth descended, there was no clear imprint
of Welsh settlement in the parish. However, with the arrival of what seem to be
the extended families of the Edwards, Morgans, Joneses, Philipses, Williamses
and Lloyds in Bideford, the parish clerks suddenly found themselves having to
12 The Last Witches of England

struggle with the recording of unfamiliar Welsh Christian names and surnames,
making best guesses and spelling them phonetically in the registers.10 In this
way, Jones was rendered as ‘Joons’ or ‘Joones’, Lloyd became ‘Floyd’ and Rhys (a
common name among these familial groups) became ‘Rice’.11
John Lloyd, his wife, Cissily, and their young children were settled in
Bideford, by the early 1640s, together with Rhys Lloyd who was of roughly the
same age as John and was, in all probability, his brother or close kinsman.12 At
roughly the same time, the extended Jones family also settled in the town,
comprising a William Jones ‘the elder’, his son, William ‘the younger’, and his
own growing family, together with Phillemon (or ‘Philemon’) Jones and his
sister, Temperance. It may well be that William ‘the elder’ was father to all three
young adults, but given the partial recordings of Welsh names and familial
groupings in the Bideford parish register we have no way of knowing for sure.
What does seem evident is that the naming of Phillemon and Temperance
stemmed from a Puritan impulse that sought to recall the early days of the
Christian church and to celebrate, respectively, the sufferings of one of St Paul’s
followers and a specific female virtue. It is suggestive not only of a particular
set of aspirations on the part of parents for their children but also of a strong
engagement with scripture that was fuelled by the written word of God. It is,
therefore, possible that the elder generation of Jones were literate or, at the
very least, semi-literate, and certain that they considered themselves to be part
of the ‘godly’ people of the nation. Temperance Jones is recorded as having
married Rhys Lloyd, in St Mary’s Church, on 29 October 1648, while Phillemon
Jones married Johan (or Joanna), a young woman whose surname went
unrecorded, in the same church, on 8 August 1649.13 Thus, Temperance Lloyd
first appears in the public record not as a harridan or a pauper but as a member
of the ‘godly’ elect, married by the Independent minister, William Bartlett, to a
working man. This also raises a question over the traditional assumptions
made about her great age and infirmity. Two of the three pamphlet writers
agree that she was ‘the eldest of the three’ women accused of witchcraft in 1682,
and one claimed that she was then ‘70 years old’.14 However, if Temperance
Lloyd was the woman married in October 1648, who was of childbearing age,
we are looking at someone who was much younger than previously thought
and the junior of Susanna Edwards by a considerable margin. If she followed
 Fortune My Foe 13

conventional marriage patterns for her gender and class, then it is not
unreasonable to suggest that she was somewhere between twenty-six and
twenty-eight at the time of her wedding, and that, therefore, she was born
somewhere around 1620–2. This places her in her early twenties at the time of
her family’s crossing of the Bristol Channel and settling in Bideford; she would
have been in her late forties or early fifties at the time when the initial allegations
of witchcraft were brought against her, and in her early sixties when she was
tried before Judge Raymond in Exeter. Her haggard appearance, mental
confusion and decrepitude that were noted in the summer of 1682 would,
therefore, appear to be the product of her growing poverty, her arduous labours
in pursuit of a meagre living and an inadequate diet, rather than being the
simple product of the ageing process. Life had dealt her a succession of hard
blows with which she was ill-equipped to deal, and which had rendered her
prematurely weary and worn. From the first, there is a suggestion of an element
of marginality in her family’s societal and cultural position in Bideford,
inasmuch as her sister-in-law’s surname went unrecorded at her wedding. The
local authorities did not bother to inquire about people whose ethnicity, gender
and lack of resources did not interest them and seemed to be of no great
import.
This said, the mid- to late 1640s appear to have been something of a boom
time for the new Welsh immigrants to the town and there is no reason to think
that the Joneses and Lloyds did not share in an element of this new-found
prosperity. Through intermarriage within the fledgling Welsh community in
the town, both families had sought to consolidate their position, put down
roots and establish networks of mutual support, while still retaining something
of their cultural distinctiveness and links to South Wales. Their arrival in
Bideford coincided with the employment of Welsh colliers, recruited from the
south of the principality, in order to mine the local seam of culm (or anthracite)
that fuelled the town’s pottery kilns, for firing slipware, and the furnaces, for
casting metals associated with munitions and shipbuilding. Consequently, the
industries that supported and furthered Bideford’s maritime trade required
surplus labour and additional expertise to that available in North Devon and
looked to the nearest available coalfields in order to supply them both. This
accounts for the pattern of short-range migration from the late 1630s to the
14 The Last Witches of England

mid-1650s, and explains the influx of young people, of marriageable age, as

young, strong men were ideally suited for such arduous physical work. It also
provides valuable evidence that despite the dislocation of trade caused by the
Civil War and the rapid militarization of the town, occasioned first by its
garrisoning by Parliamentary forces and then through its brief occupation by
Royalist troops, local society continued to function and to find new and
inventive means by which it could not only survive but prosper. Indeed, it may
well be that the spiralling demand for munitions occasioned by the war served
as a stimulus for the foundries producing ball, chain and shot which were to be
found in Bideford’s Gunstone Lane and which, in turn, placed greater demands
for productivity and labour upon the town’s anthracite pits. The construction
of the three great earthwork artillery forts that covered the town and controlled
the passage of vessels along the river Torridge necessitated skilled labour of
precisely the sort provided by the Welsh miners.15 If they were not quite an
aristocracy of labour during this period, then there is no reason to think that
they were drawn to Bideford, and chose to remain for over a decade, by
anything other than the promise of ample remuneration.
Yet, the sword of war was double-edged. On the one side, it had generated the
spectacular demand for coal that had drawn the Welsh to Bideford but, on the
other, following the tramp of armies across the West Country, the plague had
descended like a vengeful angel upon a people beleaguered, half-starved and often
impoverished by years of war. Most Devonshire towns were infected as, over the
summer of 1646, the plague struck right across England.16 It reached Barnstaple in
late April, claiming hundreds of lives and collapsing the normal running of town
government. A month later, the plague arrived in Bideford, carried – so it was said
– by a ship bearing a cargo of wool from Spain. According to local tradition, three
children who had played on the quayside among the wool sacks – the sons of
Henry Ravening the town surgeon – were the first to be struck down.17 Between
June 1646 and January 1647 at least 229 townsfolk perished in the visitation. It
is likely that the total was somewhat higher than this as the recording of
mortality appears to have broken down entirely after October 1646 with ‘a
blank page and a third’ being ‘left as though some further entries were to be
written’ in at a later date when events were not so pressing.18 The churchyard
soon overflowed, unable to accommodate the growing numbers of the dead,
 Fortune My Foe 15

while townsfolk occupying the surrounding, tightly packed closes that

overlooked St Mary’s were fearful of contagion caused by the mounting pile of
corpses and the daily reopening of the ground. It was reported that local
government shuddered to a halt with many office holders simply fleeing the
stricken port. In the midst of the crisis, John Strange, the prominent Bideford
merchant and former mayor, filled the vacuum by taking over the duties of
magistrate, instituting measures in order to ensure that the plague did not
spread further and seeing to it that ‘the sick, particularly the poor [were]
properly taken care of, [and] the dead decently buried’ in a field away from the
centre of town at Tynes Lane.19
Part acquisitive man of business, part religious visionary, Strange’s bravery
during the plague was motivated, in part, by his firm Calvinist beliefs and
exceptionally strong sense of a providential calling. At every turn in his life, and
with every misfortune experienced, Strange discerned the working of the hand of
God. Thus, his preservation from a series of accidents and assaults – beginning
with a boyhood fall from a cliff while out birds-nesting, and continuing through
an attack by a robber, who threw him from the parapet of Bideford bridge, to
being struck on the skull by an arrow, in what appears to have been another
attempt at murder – appeared not as a dreadful catalogue of violence and sheer
bad luck, but as a wondrous testament to his survival through the evidence and
operation of divine favour. In accepting his view of God’s visitation of the plague
upon Bideford as a trial, the townsfolk were encouraged to externalize their losses
and their grief as part of a shared teleology, and to work and to suffer together in
a common and avowedly godly cause. Unwittingly, this approach – and the moral
authority of John Strange, which lay behind it – encouraged a sense of social
cohesiveness within this Puritan stronghold, which seems to have dispensed with
the need for scapegoating. Even the story of the arrival of the plague with a
Spanish ship may have been calculated as a convenient fiction to downplay the
various sources of cross-contamination that existed much nearer to home.
Barnstaple, not quite ten miles further north along the River Torridge had been
afflicted by the plague for almost a month before the outbreak in Bideford, and
provided both a source of infection that was much closer to home and an example
of how a different interpretation of divine will, within a similar bastion of
Puritanism, could serve to split a community apart.
16 The Last Witches of England

Figure 2 The Long Bridge, Bideford (Author’s Collection). This Victorian postcard
gives a good idea of Bideford’s topography, the wide tidal span of the River Torridge
and the silhouette of a town that had barely outgrown its seventeenth-century
boundaries.

Unlike Bideford, where Strange’s hold on town governance was backed by the
radical religious impulse of its preaching minister, William Bartlett, Barnstaple’s
victorious Parliamentarians were now bitterly divided between the Presbyterian
and the Independent factions. The former wanted a more centralized, Calvinist
form of worship, while the latter believed in a more decentralized, personal and
non-prescriptive relationship with a Protestant god. As a consequence, both
sides sought to attribute the coming of the plague as the result of the sins and
derelictions of the other. The Presbyterians raised a mob against the Independents,
stoned them and their houses, and attempted to drive them forcibly from the
town, claiming that once they were gone, the plague would vanish. However, a
letter sent from one of Barnstaple’s Independents to a sympathetic
Parliamentarian officer, who had recently been stationed nearby with the Exeter
garrison, argued that God’s will was being made manifest in very different ways.
It was claimed that upon returning home, those who had joined the mob:

immediately fell sick of the Plague, and they and all their families dyed of
the Plague within one weeke, which causeth most of the people of the
Towne, to speake well of the honest [ie. Independent] partie, and to take
notice of the hand of God on the other . . . which is to be observed, [as] not
one family of those railed against had not, neither hath as yet, had any
 Fortune My Foe 17

sicknesse amongst them, though it hath been on each hand next dore to
them.20

Just like a biblical plague, appearing as a punishment upon an erring or unjust

people, those who were preserved seemed to be sifted by God like the winnow
from the chaff.
In an age dominated by religious belief, where signs, providences and
portents were eagerly sought and interpreted, Bideford – even amidst its
misfortune – was lucky in possessing both John Strange and William Bartlett,
who emphasized collective action and refrained from apportioning blame.
Within the context of what happened in Bideford a generation later, this was
extremely significant. A cohesive town government, led by two charismatic
individuals, was confident enough in itself and its citizens to preserve public
order and to pursue policies that did not descend to populism, factionalism or
the need to scapegoat. Presbyterian and Independent were united in the
struggle for survival, and no one looked twice at Temperance Lloyd, or felt the
need to seek the presence of devils or to cry: ‘Witch!’
Yet, the plague in Bideford was no respecter of persons. It cut through rich
and poor, and the ranks of the garrison and townsfolk, alike, slaying whole
families and wiping out a whole generation of the town’s children.21 John
Strange died at the end of July, while Temperance Lloyd’s family was also hit
hard, with William Jones ‘the younger’ and his wife (whose name is not
recorded) being buried on 12 and 14 October 1646, respectively.22 Her future
husband’s family was also ripped apart with John Lloyd ‘the elder’, Cissily, his
wife, and John, his son, all succumbing to the plague within days of each other
and being buried between 7 and 11 August 1646.23 Unlike the other branch of
their family, Temperance and Phillemon Jones escaped the ravages of the
visitation and possessed sufficient means to marry and to think of raising
families of their own in its wake. Temperance Lloyd, as she had now become,
bore her husband three children between 1649 and 1655. A daughter, Johan or
Johanna (who was presumably named in honour of Temperance’s sister-
in-law) was baptized at St Marys’ Church on 14 October 1649, with a son,
William (who might have been named after her father or brother), following,
who was baptized on 4 June 1651. A second son, Thomas, was born on 13 May
18 The Last Witches of England

1655 and baptized a little more than a month later.24 The unusual delay in
Thomas’ baptism is intriguing, as the interval of a fortnight was the maximum
upper limit noted for the parish during the period and, conceivably, might
point towards an unsettled or shifting family. This creeping sense of marginality
had been reinforced, in November 1652, by the death of William Jones ‘the
elder’ and by the fact that, post-war, the little Welsh community appeared to
have far fewer economic opportunities within the town.25 Put simply, the
achievement of peace had reduced the demand for the production of munitions
while, at the same time, the town’s reserves of anthracite were being worked out
and increasingly replaced by imports of coal from elsewhere in North Devon.
The cluster of Welsh names, including those of the extended Lloyd and Jones
families, vanish from the records after the early 1650s just as quickly as they

Figure 3 The Font in St Mary’s, Bideford (Author’s Collection). This is the one
physical link that we have to the Bideford Witches. Susanna Edwards was baptized
here, in December 1612. By the time that Temperance Lloyd was married, in October
1648, it had been thrown into the street and repurposed as a feed trough for the town’s
swine.
 Fortune My Foe 19

arrived. This would seem to fit with what we know of the peaks and troughs of
anthracite mining in Bideford. The seam was opened up in 1629 and inaugurated
a boom time which reached its height in the late 1640s and early 1650s, when
William Bartlett was taking an annual profit of around £100 from the workings
on parsonage land. However, the main mine (which had given its name to the
town’s Pitt Lane) was exhausted by 1655, and the few remaining stocks in
Bideford produced only diminishing returns during the years of the Restoration,
as imports from South Wales increasingly replaced the shortfall. By the 1670s,
the local industry had completely collapsed and the ‘coalpit’, or ‘culme work’,
was abandoned as little more than a water-logged hole ten years later.26
As a result, it seems fair to suggest that the families who had migrated to
Bideford from the South Wales coalfield specifically in order to mine the
anthracite seam moved on, once again, in search of fresh work as soon as the
last high-grade deposits of coal had been exhausted. There are no records for
the deaths of Phillemon Jones, his wife, or their children in the Bideford parish
records. It would, therefore, seem likely that at some point after May 1655
(when the main pit had closed) they left the busy port town as quickly and as
quietly as they had come. Rhys Lloyd seems to have lingered for a little longer,
was well-known in the town and was easily recognizable, in a way that his wife
was not. By the autumn of 1660, he too had left Bideford together with any of
his surviving children. In what appears to be a case of abandonment and
familial breakdown, his wife was left behind and, for the first time, fell back
upon the parish and private charity for poor relief. She appears in the accounts
of the John Andrew Charity, audited on 7 September 1660, as simply ‘Ryce
Floyd’s wife’ who was awarded a tuppence dole together with two other paupers,
Elizabeth George and Phillip Gamond, who received the same sum.27 She
appears, again, as ‘Rice Floyd’s wife’ (this time receiving the increased sum of
threepence in relief from the trustees of the charity) in the accounts audited on
16 July 1661. Though she missed further payments in February and August
1662, she was well enough known by them to be registered as ‘Temperance
Flood’ in January 1663 and to be thought in need of a further increment of her
dole, bringing her to fourpence.28 This mirrors the treatment of another Welsh
woman, Mary Morgan – who may have been the wife of Evens (or Evans)
Morgan – who came before the trustees for assistance at the same time.29
20 The Last Witches of England

Likewise, she was not initially accorded a Christian name – being recorded as
simply the ‘Widdow Morgan’ – in July 1661 and February 1662, but by January
1663 she was sufficiently well-known to be entered into the Dole Book as ‘Mary
Morgan’, as she thereafter appeared. This suggests that both John Wadland and
George Middleton, the trustees of the charity, were initially unfamiliar with the
town’s Welsh community and that they sought to differentiate between widowed
and married, or otherwise unattached, women.30 Indeed, widows are consistently
distinguished from other recipients of aid, in the same way as those who had
suddenly fallen sick and were incapable of work, throughout the book.
The pamphlet accounts of Temperance Lloyd’s trial are at variance upon the
matter of her marital status, preferring to comment upon what they considered
to be her general licentiousness, rather than supplying any hard biographical
fact. We may choose to accept or reject the anonymous slurs as we think
fit. One guess is as good as another. However, they do suggest what her
contemporaries thought of, or projected onto, her personality and lifestyle.
There is certainly the suggestion that she prostituted herself, which given
Bideford’s status as a port town and her lack of other methods of earning a
living, is not beyond the bounds of possibility for a highly vulnerable woman
in her late thirties and early forties. Significantly, unlike Mary Morgan, or for
that matter Susanna Edwards, Temperance Lloyd was never referred to as a
widow, which further reinforces the sense of her abandonment around the
time of the Restoration of the Monarchy in May 1660. She was left as the
remaining member of her family, quite literally stranded upon the shores of
Devon, without resources or a visible means of support. Thereafter, she appears
in the account book as being in receipt of the dole payment for each year –
excepting 1662 and 1678 when no doles were paid – until 1682.
Unfortunately, the decayed state of the Bideford Hearth Tax Returns for
1674, with a lost page and many names obscured or unreadable, makes it
difficult to assess the nature of poverty in the town and to reconstruct the
identities of all those whose maintenance was held chargeable to the parish.31
Temperance Lloyd’s name is not among those whose names have survived in
the records. However, the survival of the John Andrew Dole Book does permit
a reconstruction of Bideford’s underclass and the variations in the numbers
seeking charitable assistance. It notes the rates at which they were paid and
 Fortune My Foe 21

gives some idea of the fluctuating levels of poverty in the town. The year
1667–8 seems to have been a particularly hard one with the numbers of the
poor in Bideford swollen far beyond their normal numbers. Although poverty
appears to have been concentrated among a few familial groups – the Kingsland,
Davy, Coaden and Galsworthy families stand out – the majority of those
seeking assistance were single women and men, without familial support or
kinship networks, and the elderly. Thus, we find: ‘The old woman Dyre, Widow’,
who was in periodic receipt of relief from the late 1650s onwards and was
granted a total of ninepence in two separate payments spanning late 1663 and
early 1664, or ‘old lady Row’ who was granted sixpence at Christmas 1676, and
‘Old [Robert] Webber’ an elderly man granted a shilling – at a time when other
doles were being slashed – in the financial year ending February 1679.32 There
was a kernel of poor, in receipt of charity, year in, year out, that was hardly
altered – save by death, as in the case of Mary Umbles – over the decades that
stretched from the 1660s to the 1680s.33 Alongside Temperance Lloyd, Mary
and Jane Kingsland, Justinian Prance, Mary Umbles and Susan Winslade were
all long-term recipients of the dole. Mary Bartlett, perhaps a less fortunate
relative of the family of dissenting clergymen, was a staple recipient of the dole
over the period and when, in the winter of 1679–80, she became increasingly
frail, the trustees chose to alter her entry to ‘Old Bartlett’.34 At times, the poor
from outside the parish – shifting and unknown – were also helped, with ‘two
people whom we Conceive needy’ being awarded two shillings in September
1660, ‘severall poor people’ given a shilling and sixpence between them in
February 1662, ‘three poor people’ given sixpence between them in the January
1671 accounts, and two lots of ‘Two poor women’ awarded threepence each in
January 1676.35 A doorkeeper was employed in order to marshal the queues of
the poor appealing for relief and he doubled as a ‘crier’ about the town, calling
out when the awards – which seem to have made a real difference in alleviating
absolute poverty and starvation in the town – were to be made.36
From 1664–5 onwards, Temperance Lloyd received an annual payment of
sixpence, which often coincided with the Yule festivities, and which appears as
the standard dole afforded to a single person, known to the trustees, and without
dependants. However, in 1678 the dole went unpaid and when the charity’s
accounts were signed off on 27 February 1679, for the previous financial year,
22 The Last Witches of England

the numbers of poor in receipt of the dole were drastically reduced and the
sums that they received were – almost uniformly – halved, with Temperance
Lloyd receiving just threepence’s worth of cheer.37 It seems that there was
difficulty in collecting the expected rents upon which the charity depended and
though the levels of payment returned to their previous amounts, in January
1680, there were far fewer poor being paid.38 As it seems unlikely that rising
living standards could have so suddenly lifted approximately a third to a half of
recipients out of poverty, in the period after 1680, it is fair to suggest that
restricted funds and a change in trustees, in 1682–3, accounted for a more
proscriptive approach to the granting of the dole, with only those well-known to
the trustees or considered ‘deserving’ increasingly winnowing away the numbers
of successful applicants for financial relief.39 It is tempting to speculate that
changing attitudes towards poverty and the absence or reducing of payments in
the period 1678–82 – which might have been mirrored in the parish poor rate
– could have added a desperate edge to the begging of Temperance Lloyd,
Susanna Edwards and Mary Trembles in the months immediately prior to their
arrests. It was certainly the case that, with the exception of Jane Kingsland who
had worked her way back onto the list of recipients by January 1684, the
identities and numbers of those in receipt of the John Andrew Dole in Bideford
were remarkably different after the watershed years of 1678–83 than they had
been over the previous twenty-five years.40 In part, this might have been through
natural wastage through death, but the clear break that occurred after the
non-payment of the dole in 1678 does suggest a reordering of personnel and
priorities that boded Temperance Lloyd and her sisters no good at all.
If Temperance Lloyd was in perennial need of poor relief, then this was not
the case with Susanna Edwards, whose early life – though no more fortunate
– is far clearer and easier to reconstruct. Due to her lifelong residence in
Bideford, we know somewhat more about her than we do about the other
women involved in the case. Susanna was baptized, at St Mary’s Church,
Bideford, as Susan, the illegitimate daughter of Rachel Winslade, on 2 December
1612.41 Her uncle, John Winslade, had two legitimate daughters, Mary and
Ellinor, born in 1613 and 1618, respectively, but there was something that
struck contemporaries as being unseemly, disorderly and far from respectable
in his household.42 It was observed that ‘A strange woman’s childe that came
 Fortune My Foe 23

Figure 4 The Deserving Poor (later engraving after a painting by Gillis van Tillborch,
1670) (Author’s Collection). Although the setting of the Tichbourne Dole was rural
as opposed to urban, and reflected traditional Catholic rather Calvinist modes of
charity, this is one of the few images from the Restoration showing the poor and
needy. It is a scene that would have been familiar to those, like the Bideford Witches,
who were in receipt of the Andrew Dole.

hither [to Bideford] and had [a] childe at John Wynslads house was baptized
the last of November 1630’.43 The suspicion was either that the child was his, or
that the unknown woman, fleeing from a neighbouring locality, had come to
his own to hide out during the latter stages of her pregnancy and access the
unofficial services of someone attached to John Winslade’s household skilled
in midwifery. Another possible interpretation, given Bideford’s constantly
24 The Last Witches of England

shifting population of mariners, paid off after voyages, with no ties to the place,
but with money to spare and urges to satisfy, was that the Winslades were in
the business of keeping a brothel. Whatever the case, they were unusual figures
within local society. Despite Bideford being a port town there are relatively
few illegitimate births highlighted in its parish registers. Of these, we find
Christopher ‘son of a walkinge woman’, who had taken to the highway to avoid
the opprobrium of her own parish, who was baptized on 10 January 1625, the
baptism on 12 May 1633 of Ferdinando, the son of Ferdinando Squier, ‘a base’
or bastard child, and the baptisms of a Peter and a Margaret baptized on
29 and 30 September 1652, respectively, without any parents’ name being
given.44 Thus, the association of illegitimate births around the Winslade
household – with tales of mysterious young women arriving at the door during
the late stages of their pregnancy, and the disgrace of Rachel known to all in
the town – must have marked the family out within a close-knit and cohesive
society, dominated by Puritan values, as disorderly and dangerous.
The stigma of illegitimacy impacted upon both mother and child on a
number of different levels. The unmarried mother might have conceived
through consensual sex or through rape. She might have embarked upon a
sexual relationship on the promise of marriage or have enjoyed sex for its own
sake. Whatever the case, the preoccupation of Early Modern society was to
circumvent the need for formal intervention by the Justices of the Peace, and
the responsibility of the parish to pick up the maintenance costs of an
illegitimate child, by urging the marriage of the respective parents. Indeed, it
has been estimated that as many as a third of marriages during the first half of
the seventeenth century were contracted, or fast-tracked, as the result of
an unplanned pregnancy. Only when this option failed were increasingly
draconian public measures used in order to either persuade the mother-to-be
to name the father (thus permitting the levying of a maintenance grant upon
him that would relieve the parish of its financial obligations to the child) or to
shame and punish her as a deterrent to others. In theory, an unmarried mother
might face being stripped to the waist, tethered to the back of a cart and flogged
through the town, or village, in which she lived. She might also face the
humiliation of the pillory or, in the case of a second offence, be sentenced to
hard labour in a house of correction. This said, cases of corporal punishment
 Fortune My Foe 25

were far rarer in the south west of England than in the north and, as the
seventeenth century progressed, the concern of local government focused
more heavily upon avoiding paying child maintenance out of the public purse
than upon enforcing particular moral codes or exacting a form of revenge
upon transgressors.45 In the case of Rachel Winslade, it is notable that she was
unwilling or unable to marry the father of her child and then, despite undoubted
pressure from the authorities – including perhaps even from the midwives,
who were often employed by Justices of the Peace to gather information – to
disclose his identity. Consequently, Susanna was born with the odds stacked
against her: with the stigma of illegitimacy and without property rights.46 She
did, however, have some form of familial support, possibly due to the presence
of her uncle, John Winslade, and there is no evidence to suggest that her
upbringing was regulated and financed through the parish.
What is clear is that in spite of her disadvantaged background, and the taint
of her birth, she was able to contract a conventional, respectable and seemingly
advantageous marriage with David, or Davy, Edwards. The couple were married
in Bideford on 9 October 1639.47 Davy was the eldest of three brothers, again
of Welsh extraction, and his younger siblings, William and Rhys, also settled in
the town, took local wives and raised large families. With trades to pursue and
skills to practise, they had means and do not seem to have been accustomed to
want or to have troubled the authorities. Susanna and Davy had three sons
and, possibly, three daughters born to them between 1645 and 1657.48 In
contrast to the Lloyds, they appear to have been a settled family group tied by
choice, sentiment and their livings to Bideford. There were no delays in the
christening of their children.49
Yet, something was not quite right. Another Susan, Winslade appears as
an individual charged to the parish and in constant need of the support of
the John Andrew Dole between August 1658 and January 1680. Initially,
she was awarded threepence, but this rose to sixpence in the 1660s before
increasing to a shilling – the highest monetary award granted by the charity –
from 1672 to 1677. Her dole was halved in the lean year of 1679 but rose
back to its previous level in 1680 before she disappears completely from
the records.50 From 1665 to 1680, she appears at – or very near – the top of the
lists detailing parish relief and the payments of the discretionary dole,
26 The Last Witches of England

indicating that she was judged to be particularly needy.51 Furthermore, the

granting of a shilling as a dole payment was almost invariably only given to
those with dependants to support. The trouble is that neither this Susan
Winslade, nor any of her possible children – including Sarah Winslade who
received a small dole in 1668–9 – appear in the parish register.52 While it is
entirely possible that she might have come from a collateral branch of the
family, the naming of Susanna, her approximate age as a woman capable of
childbearing in the early 1670s and her unmarried status all suggest that she
might have been the illegitimate daughter of Susanna Edwards (nèe Winslade)
and that she, too, had a series of illegitimate children by unnamed fathers. Her
sudden disappearance from the records, in 1680, whether through death or
migration, would again reinforce what we know about Susanna Edwards’ own
sense of increasing abandonment.
There is no doubt that fortune’s wheel began to turn back against Susanna
Edwards, picking up speed and severity as age withered her and her misfortunes
mounted. The plague struck at her family, too, and she lost a young or newborn
child to the visitation as the burial of ‘Susan Edwards childe’ was registered by
the parish clerk on 1 October 1646.53 Yet it was not until her late forties and
early fifties that she began her inexorable slide down the social scale as death
prised her closest family members from her. She lost Elizabeth Winslade
(possibly an unmarried aunt or even another natural daughter) in June 1661,
while her youngest child, Richard, died in September 1661 at just four years
old.54 Worse was to come as she was widowed in September 1662 and lost her
uncle, John Winslade, in May 1668, who may well have been her last and surest
means of support.55 We do not know what became of her other children, though
it is possible that John Edwards, the child buried on 1 March 1679, was the
illegitimate child of her daughter Katheryn, who would then have been twenty-
five years old.56 If this is so, then Katheryn would seem to have been following
in an unenviable family tradition that reached back three generations. With 50
per cent of the recorded illegitimate births recorded in Bideford during our
period being located within the extended Winslade-Edwards family, it is more
than likely that the idea that the Bideford Witches ‘had been lewd Livers many
a day’ – bawdy, sluttenly and lascivious – as well as slovenly and cruel had its
roots in the stories surrounding this group.57 As we have already seen, it might
 Fortune My Foe 27

have been reinforced by the reputed behaviour of Temperance Lloyd. Again, it

is possible that the Winslade-Edwards women practised prostitution or that
they were part of that sub-strata of Early Modern society that Lawrence Stone
memorably described as being part of that ‘small segment of the population, at
the lowest social level, which failed to conform to the prevalent norms from
generation to generation: a bastardy prone minority group’.58
Furthermore, it appears that Susanna Edwards’ household was in dire
financial straits even before the death of her husband. She was granted the
Andrew Dole at a rate of fourpence in August 1658, was given sixpence in
August 1662, and took threepence from a halved share together with Alice
Web in the payment that covered the last part of 1662 and January 1663.59 She
does not appear again in the Dole Book until February 1679, when as the
‘Widow Edwards’ she shared a shilling with two other bereaved women.60 In
the accounts that were settled on 2 January 1680, she is listed as having been
given sixpence, while in those listed on 2 January 1682, she is recorded as
sharing sixpence with another poor woman, Joan Conden.61 This last entry is
particularly tantalizing, as her name and that of her friend are immediately
above that of Temperance Lloyd. It does not take much in the way of historical
imagination to picture the women queuing up in a line next to one another
and with Temperance Lloyd being ushered into the trustees’ room immediately
after Susanna Edwards had left it, with the three pennies clasped tight in her
hand.62 There is nothing else in the administrative records – as opposed to the
pamphlet literature – to connect the lives of the two women before the summer
of 1682. Furthermore, while Temperance Lloyd always begged and petitioned
alone, both Susanna Edwards and Susan tended to act as part of a group
of women. Susanna Edwards was given charity, as we have already noted, in
conjunction with other women on three out of the five known occasions; she
was also accustomed to begging together with Mary Trembles. Similarly, until
her money was increased to a shilling (presumably to cover her dependent
children) Susanna Winslade frequently received a shared dole with one or
more women. She shared the gift of a sixpence with Mary Willis in July 1661,
and seems to have been on good terms with the impoverished Kingsland
family, having shared a sixpence with Mary Kingsland in November 1659, and
taken a threepence share of a shilling along with Mary and Jane Kingsland, and
28 The Last Witches of England

Grace Rowlands in September 1660.63 In 1664 and 1665, she shared eight and
ten pence, respectively, with Meg Rork, an Irishwoman who was another
unfortunate who intermittently relied upon the dole from the early 1660s until
the late 1670s.64 The picture seems to have been one of rough and ready
alliances formed in the face of want and adversity, that pitched small groups of
women together in mutual support that promised a greater chance of survival.
Susanna Edwards and Susan appear to have been social beings, capable of
forming alliances; by way of contrast, Temperance Lloyd was certainly not
and seems to have been entirely dependent upon her own meagre resources
and counsel. Moreover, Susanna Edward’s widowhood also served to lend her
an identity and a protective status that Temperance Lloyd had lacked. She
appears as the ‘Widow Edwards’ in the Dole Book accounts at midsummer
1663 and again from 1679 to 1681, and with it held the potential for being

Figure 5 Companions in Misfortune: The entries in the Andrew Dole Book for 1681
show the sixpences given to Susanna Edwards and Temperance Lloyd as outdoor
relief (by kind permission of Chris Fulford and the Andrew Dole Charity, Bideford).
Though they lined up together to receive the dole, they begged and lived separately.
Temperance begged alone, while Susanna operated within a shifting group of women.
 Fortune My Foe 29

viewed as one of the ‘deserving’ poor, alongside the likes of ‘Symon Jeffrey’s
Widdow’ and the ‘Widdow Dyer’.65
Yet, mud sticks and the sense that the Winslade women and Temperance
Lloyd were not objects of pity on account of their poverty, but figures of
contempt on account of their promiscuity gained ground among Bideford’s
gossips, primarily due to the long memories in the town of the behaviour of
Rachel Winslade, Susanna Edwards and Katheryn Edwards that stretched
across seven decades. Worse still, by the early 1680s, Katheryn Edwards
together with Susanna’s other surviving children had quietly faded out of the
historical records and they were neither willing nor able to speak up for
Susanna Edwards when she needed them, and were in no position to offer her
any manner of financial support. It is possible that Katheryn had left the town
and its scandals behind her and taken passage from the port in the hopes of
beginning a new life, somewhere she would not have been known. There is
nothing to suggest that Susanna’s other children, Roger, Robert and Elizabeth,
who would have been in their thirties, had predeceased her and it is more
likely that they, too, had taken advantage of the high levels of mobility offered
by the maritime trade that operated out of Bideford and had chosen to seek
their fortunes elsewhere. Susan remains something of an enigma but her own
disappearance from the records in 1680 – whatever her relationship to Susanna
Edwards – would seem to be further evidence of the increasing isolation of the
latter woman. Of the Bideford Witches, Susanna Edwards was, therefore,
the one who seems to have fallen the furthest and to have lost the most. By the
time she was in her late sixties, she was alone in the world, thrown back upon
her own meagre resources and forced, through the irregularity and partiality
of parish poor relief and charity, to scratch a living on the streets through
begging and striking up chance acquaintances.
This brings us to Mary Trembles. Both at the time and ever since, she is the
least known and regarded of the three women and often appears almost as an
accessory to events, sidelined, overlooked or entirely forgotten. Roger North,
who had sat through her trial at Exeter Castle, was able to forget about her
identity entirely, so transient and ineffectual was her presence in the court
room.66 She left no imprint upon the records – other than in the allotments of
the John Andrew Dole – until her arrest, and (in contrast to what we know
30 The Last Witches of England

about Susanna Edwards and Temperance Lloyd) she is unequivocally described

as being a ‘single woman’ in the accounts of her trial, as opposed to a widow or
an abandoned woman.67 A ‘Trudging Trembles’ appears for the first time in the
John Andrew Dole Book accounts for 1667–8, when he received sixpence from
John Wadland and George Middleton, the trustees.68 It would seem that
Trudging (or ‘Trojan’) Trembles was the husband of Honora Trembles, and the
father of Mary. It is conceivable that the family were Anglo-Irish Protestant
immigrants, recently arrived from Ireland, and worth noting that among the
indigent poor, scraping a life at subsistence levels, it was not uncommon for
parents to specifically choose grand-sounding names for their offspring in the
hopes that they might seem more considerable in a harsh and class-conscious
world. Thus, Trojan Trembles would not have seemed out of place in appealing
for the dole and poor law relief in Bideford alongside Justinian Prance, one of
the town’s long-term recipients of charity.69 A further sixpence was awarded to
Trojan in 1667–8, but his dole was raised in the accounts audited on 6 January
1669 to a shilling and this sum was maintained in the awards for the following
year.70 As we have already noted, this was the maximum amount awarded for a
dole in our period and, with the possible exception of the case of ‘Old Webber’,
it was only granted to those with dependants. This suggests that the condition
of the Trembles family was worsening as age gripped Trojan, reducing his
ability to toil and even debasing his identity, in the eyes of the charity trustees,
to the descriptive epithet ‘Trudging’.
By 1669, the whole family were thrown back upon the support of the parish
and, when Trojan died in May 1671, his widow received the customary shilling,
in his place, for the upkeep of herself and her daughter.71 However, this rate was
not maintained for the last year of Honora’s life, with her share of the dole falling
to fourpence in 1672.72 It might have been the case that she was expecting
another award, to help carry her through the winter of 1672–3, but her death in
November 1672 prevented that from being made. Once again, her identity is
wrapped in her widowhood and she is described as the ‘Widow Trembles’ in all
the extant documents, including the note of her burial in St Mary’s churchyard
on 21 November 1672.73 Her daughter, Mary, incapable of either work or finding
a marriage partner, was accorded no such recourse to respectability. She appears
in the accounts of the Dole Book for 1673–4 as a dependant: the ‘daughter’ of
 Fortune My Foe 31

Trudging Trembles. The sense of her vulnerability, and of her mental and
physical dependency upon others, not the least of whom being Susanna Edwards,
is the only sure sense we have of her in both official records and the trial
literature.74 Then and thereafter, until the year of the dole’s temporary stoppage
in 1678, she received the standard gift of sixpence for an adult woman but was
never accorded her own identity: she was always the daughter of ‘Trudging’ or
‘Trojan’ Trembles.75 She was missed off the list of reduced payments for 1679 but
reappears – for the first and only time – as ‘Mary Trembles’ in 1680, when she
took a tuppence dole as her part of a shared allocation with two other women.76
Again, there is a sense that some poor women were banding together for mutual
support in Bideford and that if she was to be found begging alongside Susanna
Edwards in 1682, then she was also begging with the ‘Widdow Germmin’ two
years earlier. Whatever the case, she – unlike Temperance Lloyd, Susanna
Edwards and Joan Conden – missed the allocation of the dole for 1681–2 or was
judged as being unworthy of receiving it.77 On these grounds, it is possible to
suggest that by 1682, Mary Trembles was an unmarried woman, whose family
had predeceased her, and who had settled within the confines of Bideford at
some point not later than 1667, when she was already a grown woman. We have
no way of gauging her exact age, though it is reasonable to guess that she was a
middle-aged dependant of elderly parents by 1669. As in the case of Temperance
Lloyd, her age therefore appears to have been exaggerated in the trial pamphlets,
and by the North brothers. She could have been no more than seventy at the
time of her arrest in the summer of 1682. Quite probably, she was in her early
sixties and misfortune, want and uncertainty had worked to undermine her
health, wits and appearance. If this decay united her with Temperance Lloyd,
then there is nothing else to draw the lives of these two women together in
advance of their joint trial. They neither lived nor begged together, and even
their names on the lists of the dole allocations are separated by a distance, with
Lloyd appearing increasingly towards the top of the pages and Trembles
appearing at the bottom. In terms of her utter lack of agency, or separate identity,
hers is a somewhat different biography to those of her fellow accused and Mary
Trembles is, in some respects, the ‘odd woman out’ among the three.
At this point, from what we have been able to reconstruct of their various
backgrounds, one common thread that runs through the women’s lives is their
32 The Last Witches of England

early link to people and places outside Bideford, and what seems to be a shared
familial connection to the Celtic peripheries, whether Wales – in the case of
Lloyd by both blood and marriage, and by marriage as in the case of Edwards –
or Ireland, as in the possible case of Trembles. Therefore, it is reasonable to ask
whether an element of xenophobia was responsible for actuating the charges of
witchcraft against all three women and whether differences of language, dialect
and culture were the decisive factors in setting them apart from their neighbours
and in turning all hands against them. It is certainly the case that the women,
individually and collectively, suffered from the adverse – and frequently savage
– judgements of their neighbours on the grounds of a range of issues including
their pursuit of sensuality, their gender, age, lack of wealth and resources,
infirmity and helplessness that, today, we might think of as being profoundly
discriminatory. Differences were certainly noted, as we have already seen,
through the careful recording of the origins of travellers who died, or mothers
who gave birth, while in transit through the port. However, Bideford society in
the late seventeenth century was far from parochial and its people do not seem
to have been unreceptive to, or unduly critical of, settlers from different lands
and other parts of the British and Irish archipelagos. As a major Atlantic port,
the importance of Bideford’s position on the sea lanes brought trade and
people from Ireland, South Wales and Northern England into far more regular
proximity and contact than with the folk of the remoter Devon parishes, who
remained isolated from them despite their geographical proximity by the poor
state of the road network. Anglo-Irish, Welsh and a number of Huguenots
(even before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685) were, by the middle
of the seventeenth century, no strangers to one another, or to the people of
North Devon, as they worked and traded together in Bideford.78
While it is conceivable that a different accent or dialect may have set
Temperance Lloyd, and possibly Mary Trembles, further apart from mainstream
society, there is nothing in the records, or the pamphlet literature, to suggest
that this was the crucial factor in their literal demonization by their fellow
townsfolk. Though they were accused of many things – from licentiousness
and violence to filth, theft and greed – no pamphleteer or ballad-writer
attempted to mention the strangeness of their speech patterns, or to claim that
a Welsh or an Irish background had served to ally them more closely to
 Fortune My Foe 33

preternatural forces, made them more susceptible to the advances and flattery
of the Devil, or caused their neighbours to suspect and to shun them. In
this – had ethnicity been a major issue – then the pamphleteers who sought to
excoriate the memories of Temperance Lloyd and Mary Trembles were
certainly missing a trick. The Irish and Welsh women scratched, savaged and
murdered when the Royalist baggage train was overrun at the battle of Naseby
had been traduced as screeching witches and harridans by London
pamphleteers in an attempt to excuse the blood lust and frenzy of Parliament’s
victorious soldiers.79 Had Mary Trembles been an Irish Catholic and a Gaelic
speaker, as opposed to an Anglo-Irish Protestant, who knew no language save
English, she, again, might have been easy prey for such slander. Yet, in this one
area – just like the young Temperance Lloyd – she had some form of protection
and fitted at least some of the paradigms associated with good and godly
citizenship by the host society. Furthermore, one might advance a contrary –
though equally unprovable – proposition, in that as several of their accusers,
such as Grace Thomas, Elizabeth Eastchurch, Joane Jones, William Herbert
and William Edwards had some form of Welsh ancestry, the ill-feeling that
assailed Susanna Edwards and Temperance Lloyd may well have come about
not as the result of English prejudice but as the result of a simmering internal
feud within Bideford’s expatriate Welsh community. Given that nothing was
ever said, either by their accusers or their judges, it seems safe to suggest that
the fault lines that lay between Celtic and English cultures were not the primary
factors that isolated Temperance Lloyd, Susanna Edwards and Mary Trembles
from their neighbours. What really did set them apart from others and drew
them together – both then and in the eyes of posterity – was quite simply their
poverty in the midst of plenty.
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
wonder of those who venture amongst its almost impervious and
unfrequented woods to worship. As I could not go myself, I
dispatched the Guru to hunt for inscriptions and bring me an
account of it.
Dābhi, February 20, eleven miles; thermometer 48°.—
Reascended the third steppe of our miniature Alp, at the Nasera pass
(ghat), the foot of which was exactly five miles from Bhainsror, and
three and a half furlongs more carried us to its summit, which is of
easy ascent, though the pathway was rugged, lying between high
peaks on either side. This alone will give a tolerable idea of the
height of the Patar above the level of the river. Majestic trees cover
the hill from the base to its summit, through [659] which we could
never have found a passage for the baggage without the axe.
Besides some noble tamarind (imli) trees, there was the lofty semal,
or cotton-tree; the gnarled sakhu, which looks like a leper amongst
its healthy brethren; the tendu, or ebony-tree, now in full fruit, and
the useful dhao, besides many others of less magnitude.[14]—The
landscape from the summit was grand: we looked down upon the
Charmanvati (vulg. Chambal) and the castle of Raghunath; while the
eye commanded a long sweep of the black Bamani gliding through
the vale of Antri to its termination at the tombs of the Saktawats.
The road to Dabhi was very fair for such a tract, and when within
four miles of our tents, we crossed a stream said to have its fountain
at Menal, which must consequently be one of the highest points of
Uparmal. This rill afforded another means of estimating the height of
our position, for besides the general fall to the brink of the chasm, it
precipitates itself in a fine cascade of three hundred feet. Neither
time nor place admitted of our following this rill to its termination,
about six miles distant, through a rugged woody tract. From the
summit of the pass of Nasera, we had a peep at the tomb of a
Muslim saint, whence the ground gradually shelved to the end of our
journey at Kotah.
Monuments to Warriors.—Dabhi is the line of demarcation
between Mewar and Bundi, being itself in the latter State, in the
district of Loecha,—dreary enough! It produces, however, rice and
makkai, or Indian corn, and some good patches of wheat. We
passed the cairns, composed of loose stones, of several Rajputs slain
in defending their cattle against the Minas of the Kairar. I was
particularly struck with that of a Charan bard, to whose memory
they have set up a paliya, or tombstone,[15] on which is his effigy, his
lance at rest, and shield extended, who most likely fell defending his
tanda. This tract was grievously oppressed by the banditti who dwell
amidst the ravines of the Banas, on the western declivity of the
plateau. “Who durst,” said my guide, as we stopped at these tumuli,
“have passed the Patar eighteen months ago? they (the Minas)
would have killed you for the cakes you had about you; now you
may carry gold. These green fields would have been shared, perhaps
reaped altogether, by them; but now, though there is no superfluity,
there is ‘play for the teeth,’ and we can put our turban under our
heads at night without the fear of missing it in the morning. Atal Raj!
may your sovereignty last for ever!” This is the universal language of
men who have never known peaceful days, who have been nurtured
amidst the elements of discord and rapine, and who, consequently,
can appreciate the change, albeit they were not mere spectators.
“We must retaliate,” said a sturdy [660] Chauhan, one of Morji’s
vassals, who, with five besides himself, insisted on conducting me to
Bhainsror, and would only leave me when I would not let them go
beyond the frontier. I was much amused with the reply of one of
them whom I stopped with the argumentum ad verecundiam, as he
began a long harangue about five buffaloes carried off by the Thakur
of Nimri, and begged my aid for their recovery. I said it was too far
back; and added, laughing, “Come, Thakur, confess; did you never
balance the account elsewhere?”—“Oh, Maharaja, I have lost many,
and taken many, but Ramdohai! if I have touched a blade of grass
since your raj, I am no Rajput.” I found he was a Hara, and
complimented him on his affinity with Alu, the lord of Bumbaoda,
which tickled his vanity not a little. In vain I begged them to return,
after escorting me so many miles. To all my solicitations the
Chauhan replied, “You have brought us comfort, and this is man ki
chakari, 'service of the heart.'” I accepted it as such, and we “whiled
the gait” with sketches of the times gone by. Each foot of the
country was familiar to them. At one of the cairns, in the midst of
the wood, they all paused for a second; it was raised over the
brother of the Bhatti Thakur, and each, as he passed, added a stone
to this monumental heap. I watched, to discern whether the same
feeling was produced in them which the act created in me; but if it
existed, it was not betrayed. They were too familiar with the reality
to feel the romance of the scene; yet it was one altogether not ill-
suited to the painter.
Karipur, February 21, 9½ miles.—Encamped in the glen of
Karipura, confined and wild. Thermometer 51°, but a fine, clear,
bracing atmosphere. Our route lay through a tremendous jungle.
Half-way, crossed the ridge, the altitude of which made up for the
descent to Dabhi, but from whence we again descended to Karipura.
There were many hamlets in this almost impervious forest; but all
were desolate, and the only trace of population was in the altars of
those who had defended to the death their dreary abodes against
the ruthless Mina of the Kairar, which we shall visit on our return.
Sontra.—About a mile after we had commenced our march this
morning, we observed the township of Sontra on our right, which is
always conjoined to Dabhi, to designate the tappa of Dabhi-Sontra, a
subdivision of Loecha. Being informed by a scout that it contained
inscriptions, I requested my Guru and one of my Brahmans to go
there. The search afforded a new proof of the universality of the
Pramar sway, and of the conquests of another “Lord of the world
and the faith,” Alau-d-din, the second [661] Alexander. The Yati
found several altars having inscriptions, and many paliyas, from
three of which, placed in juxtaposition, he copied the following
inscriptions:
“Samvat 1422 (A.D. 1366). Pardi, Teja, and his son, Deola Pardi,
from the fear of shame, for the gods, Brahmans, their cattle, and
their wives, sold their lives.”
“S. 1446 (A.D. 1390). In the month of Asarh (badi yakam):
Monday, in the castle of Sontra (Sutrawan durg), the Pramar Uda,
Kala, Bhuna, for their kine, wives, Brahmans, along with the putra
Chonda, sold their existence.”
 “S. 1466 (A.D. 1410), the 1st Asarh, and Monday, at Sontragram,
Rugha, the Chaora, in defence of the gods, his wife, and the
Brahmans, sold his life.”
The following was copied from a kund, or fountain, excavated in
the rock:
“S. 1370 (A.D. 1314), the 16th of Asarh (sudi yakam), he, whose
renown is unequalled, the king, the lord of men, Maharaja Adiraj, Sri
Alau-d-din, with his army of three thousand elephants, ten lakhs of
horse, war-chariots and foot without number, conquering from
Sambhar in the north, Malwa, Karnat, Kanor, Jalor, Jaisalmer, Deogir,
Tailang, even to the shores of the ocean, and Chandrapuri in the
east; victorious over all the kings of the earth, and by whom
Sutrawan Durg, with its twelve townships, have been wrested from
the Pramar Mansi; by whose son, Bilaji, whose birthplace (utpatti) is
Sri Dhar, this fountain was excavated. Written and also engraved by
Sahideva the stone-cutter (sutradhar).”
Beneath the surface of the fountain was another inscription, but
there was no time to bale out the water, which some future traveller
over the Patar may accomplish. Sontra, or as classically written,
Satrudurg, ‘the inaccessible to the foe,’ was one of the castles of the
Pramar, no doubt dependent on Chitor when under the Mori dynasty;
and this was only one of the subdivisions of Central India, which was
all under Pramar dominion, from the Nerbudda to the Jumna—an
assertion proved by inscriptions and traditions. We shall hear more
of this at Menal and Bijoli on our return over Uparmal, which I
resolve to be thoroughly acquainted with.
Kotah, February 22, eleven miles to the banks of the Chambal.—
Although not a cloud was to be seen, the sun was invisible till more
than spear-high, owing to a thick vapoury mist, accompanied by a
cold piercing wind from the north-west. The descent was gradual all
the way to the river, but the angle may be estimated from the fact
that the pinnacle (kalas) of the palace, though one hundred and
twenty feet above the level of the Chambal, was not visible until
within five miles of the bank. The barren [662] tract we passed over
is all in Bundi, until we approach Kotah, where the lands of Nanta
intervene, the personal domain of the regent Zalim Singh, and the
only territory belonging to Kotah west of the Chambal. Karipura, as
well as all this region, is inhabited by Bhils, of which race a very
intelligent individual acted this morning as our guide. He says it is
called by them Baba ka nund, and that they were the sovereigns of
it until dispossessed by the Rajputs. We may credit them, for it is
only fit for Bhils or their brethren of the forest, the wildbeasts. But I
rejoiced at having seen it, though I have no wish to retrace my steps
over this part of my journey. Half-way, we passed a roofless shed of
loose stones, containing the divinity of the Bhils; it is in the midst of
a grove of thorny tangled brushwood, whose boughs were here and
there decorated with shreds of various coloured cloth, offerings of
the traveller to the forest divinity for protection against evil spirits,
by which I suppose the Bhils themselves are meant.[16]
Maypoles.—We must not omit (though we have quitted the
Patar) to notice the ‘Maypoles’ erected at the entrance of every
village in the happy basant or spring, whose concluding festival, the
Holi or Saturnalia, is just over. This year the season has been most
ungenial, and has produced sorrow rather than gladness. Every pole
has a bundle of hay or straw tied at the top, and some have a cross
stick like arms and a flag flying; but in many parts of the Patar, the
more symbolic plough was substituted, dedicated to the goddess of
fruition, and served the double purpose of a Spring-pole, and
frightening the deer from nibbling the young corn.
Kotah City.—The appearance of Kotah is very imposing, and
impresses the mind with a more lively notion of wealth and activity
than most cities in India. A strong wall with bastions runs parallel to,
and at no great distance from, the river, at the southern extremity of
which is the palace (placed within a castle separated from the town),
whose cupolas and slender minarets give to it an air of light
elegance. The scene is crowded with objects animate and inanimate.
Between the river and the city are masses of people plying various
trades; but the eye dwells upon the terminating bastion to the north,
which is a little fort of itself, and commands the country on both
banks. But we shall have more to say regarding this during our halt,
which is likely to be of some continuance [663].

1. [About 120 miles E.N.E. from Udaipur city.]

2. See Vol. I. p. 241.

3. [Rāwat, Rājaputra, ‘King’s son.’]

4. [In the Indore State, 9 miles S.W. of Mhow cantonment (IGI, x.

134).]

5. [By another tradition, Bhainsa Sāh was a merchant, servant of

the Chauhān kings of Sāmbhar and Ajmer (Erskine ii. A. 96).]

6. [The “cradle of the Rāthors,” now in Mallāni.]

7. [The ‘cleft or fissure of the Rāni.’]

8. [The feudal levy.]

9. [About 70 miles N.E. of Udaipur city.]

10. [A criminal tribe, known in the Panjāb as Bāwaria, and as

Moghias in Mārwār (Census Report, Mārwār, 1891, ii. 190 f.).]

11. [The ‘annual knot.’ The custom still prevails among Indian
Muhammadans, and the mother of the Mughal Emperor used to
keep a string in the harem, and added a knot, probably as a magical
protective, for every year of her son’s life. The custom of using in
this way a thread of red or yellow silk was adopted by the Rājputs
(Āīn, i. 267; Jaffur Shurreef, Qanoon-e-Islam, 26; Manucci ii. 346).]

12. [The usual form is: Bher bakrī ek ghāt pītē hain, ‘The wolf and
the goat drink at the same river steps.’]
 13. [This is the reading by Dr. Tessitori, who remarks: “The above,
of course, is Sanskrit.”]

14. [Imli, Tamarindus indica; semal, Bombax heptaphyllum; sākhu

or sagwān, the teak, Tectona grandis; tendu, Diospyrus
embryopteris; dhao, Anogeissus latifolia.]

15. [Pāliya, ‘a protective, guardian,’ or ‘home of the guardian

spirit’; often erected to Rājputs or others dying on the field of battle.
At the Kāli Chaudas festival, 14th dark half of Āsho, these stones are
daubed with red lead, and coco-nuts are offered (Enthoven, Folklore
Notes, Gujarāt, 90; BG, ix. Part I. 218, 363 f.; Forbes, Rāsmāla,
691).]

16. The same practice is described by Park as existing in Africa.

[Such trees are known in Gujarāt as ‘Rag Uncle’ (Forbes, Rāsmāla,
452). On rag-trees see E. S. Hartland, Legend of Perseus, ii. 175 ff.;
W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folklore of N. India, 2nd ed. i. 161
ff.]

CHAPTER 7

Unhealthiness of Kotah. Nanta, September 10, 1820.—A day

of deliverance, which had been looked forward to by all of us as a
new era in our existence. The last four months of our residence at
Kotah was a continued struggle against cholera and deadly fever:
never in the memory of man was such a season known. This is not a
state of mind or body fit for recording passing events; and although
the period of the last six months—from my arrival at Kotah in
February last, to my leaving it this morning—has been one of the
most eventful of my life, it has left fewer traces of these events upon
my mind for notice in my journal than if I had been less occupied.
The reader may be referred, for an abstract of these occurrences, to
Chapter 6, which will make him sufficiently acquainted with the
people amongst whom we have been living. To try back for the less
important events which furnish the thread of the Personal Narrative,
would be vain, suffering, whilst this journal is written, under fever
and ague, and all my friends and servants in a similar plight. Though
we more than once changed our ground of encampment, sickness
still followed us. We got through the hot winds tolerably until the
dog-days of June; but, although I had experienced every vicissitude
of temperature in every part of India, I never felt anything to be
compared with the few days of June at Kotah.
It was shortly after we had shifted the camp from the low paddy-
fields to the embankment of the Kishor sagar, or ‘lake,’ immediately
east of the city, the sky became of that transparent blue which
dazzles the eye to look at. Throughout the day and night, there was
not a zephyr even to stir a leaf, but the repose and stillness of death.
The thermometer was 104° in the tent, and the agitation of the
punkah produced [664] only a more suffocating air, from which I
have fled, with a sensation bordering on madness, to the gardens at
the base of the embankment of the lake. But the shade even of the
tamarind or cool plantain was still less supportable. The feathered
tribe, with their beaks opened, their wings flapping or hanging
listlessly down, and panting for breath, like ourselves, sought in vain
a cool retreat. The horses stood with heads drooping before their
untasted provender. Amidst this universal stagnation of life, the only
sound which broke upon the horrid stillness, was the note of the
cuckoo; it was the first time I had ever heard it in India, and its
cheerful sound, together with the associations it awakened,
produced a delightful relief from torments which could not long be
endured. We invariably remarked that the bird opened his note at
the period of greatest heat, about two o’clock in the day, and
continued during intervals for about an hour, when he changed his
quarters and quitted us. I afterwards became more familiar with this
bird, and every day in the hot weather at Udaipur, when I resided in
one of the villas in the valley, I not only heard but frequently saw it.
[1]

The reader can easily conceive the scene of our encampment; it

was at the north-eastern angle of the lake, having in front that little
fairy islet with its light Saracenic summer abode (p. 1521). Gardens
fringed the base of the embankment, which was bordered with lofty
trees; the extended and gigantic circumvallation, over the parapets
of which peeped the spires and domes of temples or mosques,
breaking the uniformity, and occasionally even showing the distant
and elevated land beyond the Chambal. We had also close to us a
spot sacred to the manes of the many heroes of this noble family. I
frequented the cenotaphs of the Haras, which, if less magnificent
than those of Marwar or Mewar, or even of the head of their line of
Bundi, may vie with them all in the recollections they conjure up of
patriotism and fealty, and of the deadly rancour attendant on civil
strife. This cluster of monuments approaches near to the city wall,
but is immediately under the dam of the lake, and being enveloped
in foliage, almost escapes observation. I was rejoiced to see the
good order in which they were maintained, which was another of the
anomalies in the regent’s character: for what can so much keep alive
the proud spirit of the Haras as these trophies of their sires? But
whatever the motive of the act, it is a tribute to virtue; nor could I
resist an exclamation of respect to the veteran regent, who is raising
a monument to the last prince, which, if it survive to distant times,
will afford room to some future [665] traveller to say, that, with
Maharao Ummed Singh, Kotah appears to have attained the summit
of its power. Nor should I deny myself the praise of having
something to do with this harmless piece of vanity; for I procured for
the regent free permission from the Rana of Mewar to take from the
marble quarry at Kankroli[2] whatever suited his purpose, without
price or duty: a request he was too proud to make himself since
their ancient quarrel. We had also the range of Madho Singh’s
magnificent gardens, of many acres in extent, abounding in exotic
flowers and fruits, with parterres of rose-trees, each of many roods
of land. But what were all these luxuries conjoined with cholera
morbus, and tap tijari, ‘tertian fever,’ and every other fever, around
us? But even these physical ills were nothing compared to the moral
evils which it was my duty to find remedies for or to mitigate; and
they were never adverted to in the many despatches addressed,
during our residence in this petit enfer, to supreme authority.
The enthusiast may imagine how delightful travelling must be
amongst such interesting races; to visit the ruins of ancient
greatness, and to read their history in their monuments; to march
along the margin of such streams as the Chambal or the Bamani; to
be escorted by these gallant men, to be the object of their courtesy
and friendship, and to benefit the condition of the dependant class;
but the price of this enjoyment was so high that few would
voluntarily pay it, namely, a perpetuity of ill-health. Fortunately,
however, for ourselves and our country, if these offices are neither
sinecures nor beds of roses, we do not make them beds of thorns;
there is a heart-stirring excitation amidst such scenes, which keeps
the powers of mind and body alert: a feeling which is fortunately
more contagious than cholera, and communicable to all around. How
admirably was this feeling exemplified this morning! Could my reader
but have beheld the soldiers of my escort and other establishments,
as they were ferried over the Chambal, he would have taken them
for ghosts making the trajet of the Styx; there was not one of them
who had not been in the gripe of pestilential fever or ague. Some of
them had had cholera, and half of them had enlarged spleens. Yet,
although their muskets were too heavy for them, there were neither
splenetic looks nor peevish expressions. It was as delightful as it was
wonderful to see the alacrity, even of the bedridden, to leave their
ills behind them east of the Chambal.
Scarcely any place can be more unhealthy than Kotah during the
monsoon. With the rise of the Chambal, whose waters filtrate
through the fissures of the rock, the [666] wells are filled with
mineral poison and the essence of decomposed vegetation.[3] All
those in the low ground at our first encampment were overflowed
from this cause; and the surface of each was covered with an oily
pellicle of metallic lustre, whose colours were prismatic, varying,
with position or reflection, from shades of a pigeon’s breast (which it
most resembled), to every tint of blue blending with gold. It is the
same at Udaipur during the periodical rains, and with similar results,
intermittent and tertian fevers, from which, as I said, not a man,
European or native, escaped. They are very obstinate, and though
not often fatal, are difficult to extirpate, yielding only to calomel,
which perhaps generates a train of ills.
Meeting with Zālim Singh.—The last few days of our stay were
passed in the ceremonials of leave-taking. On the 5th, in company
with the regent, I paid my last visit to the Maharao, who with his
brothers returned my farewell visit the day following; and on the 8th
and 9th the same formalities were observed with the regent. The
man who had passed through such scenes as the reader has
perused, now at the very verge of existence, could not repress his
sorrow. His orbless eyes were filled with tears, and as I pressed his
palsied hands which were extended over me, the power of utterance
entirely deserted him. I would expunge this, if I did not know that
vanity has no share in relating what I consider to be a virtue in the
regent. I have endeavoured to paint his character, and could not
omit this trait. I felt he had a regard for me, from a multitude of kind
expressions, but of their full value was always doubtful till this day.
A Restive Elephant.—I did not get down to the point of
embarkation for some hours after my suite, having been detained by
the irresistible hold of ague and fever, though I started before the
hot-fit had left me. The regent had prepared the grand barge, which
soon landed me on the opposite bank; but Fateh Bahadur, my
elephant, seemed to prefer his present quarters to Udaipur; after his
howdah, pad, and other gear had been taken off and put into the
boat, he plunged into the Chambal with delight, diving in the
deepest water, and making a water-spout of his proboscis. He had
got a third of the way across, when a new female elephant, less
accustomed to these crossings, turned back, and Fateh Bahadur,
regardless of his master, was so gallant as to go after her. In vain
the mahout (driver) used his pharsi,[4] digging it into his head behind
the ear; this only exasperated the animal, and he made one or two
desperate efforts to shake off his pigmy driver. Fortunately (being
too weak to mount a horse), I found a baggage-elephant just
beginning to be loaded: I put my howdah upon her, and the
“victorious warrior” suffered the indignity of carrying a load.
We passed the town of Kanari, belonging to Raj Gulab Singh,
Jhala, a relation of [667] the regent, and one of the Omras of Kotah.
It is a thriving comfortable place, and the pinnacled mahall of the
Raj gave to it an air of dignity as well as of the picturesque. Our
route to Nanta[5] was over a rich and highly cultivated plain, studded
with mango-groves; which do not surprise us, since we know it is
the family estate of the regent. The patrimonial abode is, therefore,
much cherished, and is the frequent residence of his son Madho
Singh, by whom I was met half-way between Kanari, and conducted
to the family dwelling.
Nānta. Rājput Music.—Nanta is a fine specimen of a Rajput
baronial residence. We entered through a gateway, at the top of
which was the Naubat-khana, or saloon for the band, into an
extensive court having colonnaded piazzas all round, in which the
vassals were ranged. In the centre of this area was a pavilion, apart
from the palace, surrounded by orangeries and odoriferous flowers,
with a jet-d’eau in the middle, whence little canals conducted the
water and kept up a perpetual verdure. Under the arcade of this
pavilion, amidst a thousand welcomes, thundering of cannon,
trumpets, and all sorts of sounds, we took our seats; and scarcely
had congratulations passed and the area was cleared of our escorts,
when, to the sound of the tabor and sarangi, the sweet notes of a
Panjabi tappa saluted our ears. There is a plaintive simplicity in this
music, which denotes originality, and even without a knowledge of
the language, conveys a sentiment to the most fastidious, when
warbled in the impassioned manner which some of these syrens
possess. While the Mahratta delights in the dissonant dhurpad,[6]
which requires a rapidity of utterance quite surprising, the Rajput
reposes in his tappa, which, conjoined with his opium, creates a
paradise. Here we sat, amidst the orange-groves of Nanta, the jet-
d’eau throwing a mist between us and the group, whose dark
tresses, antelope-eyes, and syren-notes, were all thrown away upon
the Frank, for my teeth were beating time from the ague-fit.
It was in this very area, now filled with the youth and beauty of
Kotah, that the regent exhibited his wrestlers; and it was from the
very seat I occupied, that Sriji of Bundi challenged these ruffians to
the encounter related in the annals.[7] Having sat a quarter of an
hour, in obedience to the laws of etiquette, and in courtesy to the
son of the Regent, who had come thus far to escort me, we took
leave and hastened to get a cup of tea.
Talera,[8] September 11.—Two miles north-west of Nanta we
passed the boundary of the regent’s estate and the Bundi territory.
The roads were good, over a well-cultivated and well-wooded plain,
the cotton particularly thriving. Talera is a large [668] village on the
margin of a fine clear stream, its banks delightfully wooded,
abounding in fish, which even tempted my invalid friends to try their
luck. Talera is in the jagir of the wakil who attends me on the part of
the Bundi Raja, but is still a heap of ruins, and being on the high
road, is open to parties of troops.
Nawagāon, September 12.—The road very fair, though a little
winding, to avoid some deep ravines. The land rich, well-watered,
and too much wooded; but man is wanting to cultivate the fertile
waste. The encamping ground afforded not a single tree to screen
us from a scorching sun. We passed two cenotaphs, where Rajputs
had fallen; but there was no inscription, and no one could reveal
their history.
 PALACE AND FORTRESS OF BŪNDI.
To face page 1710.

Būndi, September 13.—The country and roads, as usual, flat, with

an apparent descent from Talera to the base of the Bundi range,
whose craggy and unequal summits showed it could be no buttress
to the tableland with which it unites. The general direction of the
range is east-north-east, though there are diverging ridges, the
course of which it is impossible to delineate.
As we neared the capital of the Haras, clouds of dust, gradually
obscuring the atmosphere, were the first signal of the Raja’s
approach: soon the sound of drums, the clangour of trumpets, and
tramping of steeds, became audible, and at length the
Sandnisawars, or camel-messengers, announced the Raja’s
presence. He was on horseback. Instantly I dismounted from my
elephant, and although too weak to contend with the fire of my
steed Javadia, it would have been an unpardonable sin against
etiquette to have remained elevated above the prince. All Javadia’s[9]
warlike propensities were awakened at the stir of this splendid
retinue, from which ever and anon some dashing young Hara issued,
“witching the world with noble horsemanship”; and as, in all the
various evolutions of the manège, there was not a steed in Rajwara
could surpass mine, to my vast inconvenience and no small danger,
he determined on this occasion to show them off. In one of his
furious bounds, he had his fore-feet on the broken parapet of a
reservoir, and as I turned him short, he threw up his head, which
came in contact with mine, and made my Chabuk-sawar[10] exclaim,
“Ali madad!” “The help of Ali!” and a few more bounds brought me
in contact with my friend, the Rao Raja, when we dismounted and
embraced. After going through the same ceremony with the principal
chiefs, he again gave me three fraternal hugs to prove the strength
of his friendship, as he said, with blunt sincerity, “This is your home,
which you have come to at last.” With other affectionate welcomes,
he took leave and preceded me. His retinue was striking, but not so
much from tinsel [669] ornament, as from the joyous feeling which
pervaded every part of it. As my friend twirled his lance in the midst
of about eight hundred cavaliers and fifteen hundred foot, I thought
of the deeds his ancestors had performed, when leading such a gol,
to maintain their reputation for fealty. It recalled his words on the
formation of the treaty, when the generosity of Britain again restored
his country to independence. “What can I say, in return for the
restoration of my home? My ancestors were renowned in the time of
the kings, in whose service many lost their lives; and the time may
come when I may evince what I feel, if my services should be
required: for myself, my chiefs, are all yours!” I would pledge my
existence that performance would not have lagged behind his
promise. We allowed a quarter of an hour to elapse, in order to
avoid the clouds of dust which a Rajput alone can breathe without
inconvenience; and accompanied by my worthy and dignified old
friend, the Maharaja Bikramajit, we proceeded to our tents, placed
upon the bank of a tank beyond the town.
The Būndi Palace.—The coup d'œil of the castellated palace of
Bundi, from whichever side you approach it, is perhaps the most
striking in India;[11] but it would require a drawing on a much larger
scale to comprehend either its picturesque beauties or its grandeur.
Throughout Rajwara, which boasts many fine palaces, the Bundi-ka-
mahall is allowed to possess the first rank; for which it is indebted to
situation, not less than to the splendid additions which it has
continually received: for it is an aggregate of palaces, each having
the name of its founder; and yet the whole so well harmonizes, and
the character of the architecture is so uniform, that its breaks or
fantasies appear only to rise from the peculiarity of the position, and
serve to diversify its beauties. The Chhattar-mahall, or that built by
Raja Chhattarsal, is the most extensive and most modern addition. It
has two noble halls, supported by double ranges of columns of
serpentine from his own native quarries, in which the vassals are
ranged, and through whose ranks you must pass before you reach
the state apartments; the view from which is grand. Gardens are
intermingled with palaces raised on gigantic terraces. In one of
these I was received by the Raja, on my visit the next day. Whoever
has seen the palace of Bundi, can easily picture to himself the
hanging-gardens of Semiramis. After winding up the zig-zag road, I
passed by these halls, through a vista of the vassals whose
contented manly looks delighted me, to the inner palace; when,
having conversed on the affairs of his country for some time, the
Raja led the way to one of the terraces, where I was surprised to
find a grand court assembled, under the [670] shade of immense
trees, trellised vines, and a fine marble reservoir of water. The chiefs
and retainers, to the number of at least a hundred, were drawn up
in lines, at the head of which was the throne. The prospect was fine,
both for near and distant views, as it includes the lakes called the
Jeth-Sagar and Prem-Sagar, with the gardens on their margins, and
in the distance the city of Kotah, and both banks of the Chambal;
and beyond these successive terraces and mahalls, to the summit of
the hill, is seen the cupola of the Dhabhai’s tomb, through the deep
foliage, rising above the battlements of Taragarh. This terrace is on a
grand bastion, which commands the south-east gorge of the valley
leading to the city; and yet, such is the immense mass of building,
that from the town one has no idea of its size.
It were vain to attempt a description of Bundi, even were I
inclined. It was the traitor of Karwar who raised the walls of
Taragarh, and it was Raja Budh Singh who surrounded the city with
walls, of which Ummed Singh used to say “they were not required
against an equal foe, and no defence against a superior—and only
retarded reconquest if driven out of Bundi, whose best defence was
its hills.”
Illness of Dr. Duncan, September 21.—Partly by business, partly
by sickness, we were compelled to halt here a week. Our friend the
doctor, who had been ailing for some time, grew gradually worse,
and at length gave himself up. Carey found him destroying his
papers and making his will, and came over deeply affected. I left my
bed to reason with my friend, who refused all nourishment, and was
sinking fast; but as much from depression of spirits as disease. In
vain I used the common arguments to rouse him from his lethargy; I
then tried, as the last resort, to excite his anger, and reviled him for
giving way, telling him to teach by example as well as precept. By
this course, I raised a tinge of blood in my poor friend’s cheek, and
what was better, got a tumbler of warm jelly down his throat; and
appointing the butler, Kali Khan, who was a favourite and had great
influence, to keep rousing and feeding him, I left him. No sooner
was he a little mended, than Carey took to his bed, and nothing
could rouse him. But, as time passed, it was necessary to get on;
and with litters furnished by the Raja we recommenced our journey.
Banks of the Mej River,[12] September 26, distance ten miles.—I
this day quitted my hospitable friend, the Rao Raja. As I left my tent,
I found the Maharaja of Thana, with the Dablana[13] contingent
(zabita), amounting to a hundred horse, appointed to escort me to
the frontier. Our route lay through the Banda-ka-nal, ‘the valley of
Banda,’ whose gorge near the capital is not above four hundred
yards in breadth, but [671] gradually expands until we reach Satur,
about two miles distant. On both sides of this defile are numerous
gardens, and the small temples and cenotaphs which crown the
heights, in many places well wooded, produce a most picturesque
effect. All these cenotaphs are perfectly classical in form, being
simple domes supported by slender columns; that of Suja Bai is
peculiarly graceful. As we reached Satur, the valley closed our last
view of the fairy palace of the Haras, rearing its domes and gilded
spires half-way up the mountain, the kunguras of Taragarh encircling
it as a diadem, whilst the isolated hill of Miraji, at the foot of which
was the old city, terminates the prospect, and makes Bundi appear
as if entirely shut in by rocks. Satur is a sacred spot in the history of
the Haras, and here is enshrined their tutelary divinity, fair Hope
(Asapurna), who has never entirely deserted them, from the sakha
of Asi, Gualkund, and Asir, to the present hour; and though the
enchantress has often exchanged her attributes for those of Kalima,
[14]
the faith of her votaries has survived every metamorphosis. A
high antiquity is ascribed to Satur, which they assert is mentioned in
the sacred books; if so, it is not in connexion with the Haras. The
chief temple is dedicated to Bhavani,[15] of whom Asapurna is an
emanation. There is nothing striking in the structure, but it is
hallowed by the multitude of sacrificial altars to the manes of the
Haras who have “fallen in the faith of the Chhatri.” There were no
inscriptions, but abundance of lazy drones of Brahmans enjoying
their ease under the wide-spreading bar and pipal trees, ready,
when well paid, to prepare their incantations to Bhavani, either for
good or for evil: it is chiefly for the latter purpose that Satur-ki-
Bhavani is celebrated. We continued our journey to Nawagaon, a
tolerable village, but there being no good encamping ground, our
tents were pitched a mile farther on, upon the bank of the Mej,
whose turbid waters were flowing with great velocity from the
accumulated mountain-rills which fall into it during the equinoctial
rains.
Thāna, September 27.—This is the seat of Maharaja Sawant
Singh, the eldest son of my friend Maharaja Bikramajit of Khini. He
affords another instance in which the laws of adoption have given
the son precedence of the father, who, while he receives homage in
one capacity, must pay it in another; for young Sawant was raised
from the junior to the elder branch of Thana. The castle of Sawant
Singh, which guards the western frontier, is small, but of solid
masonry, erected on the crest of a low hill. There are only six
villages besides Thana forming his fief, which is burdened with the
service of twenty-five horse. In Bundi, ‘a knight’s fee,’ or what should
equip one cavalier, is two hundred and fifty rupees of rent. In the
afternoon the Maharaja brought [672] his son and heir to visit me, a
fine little fellow six years of age, who with his sword buckled by his
side and miniature shield on his back, galloped his little steed over
hill and dale, like a true Rajput. I procured several inscriptions, but
none above three hundred years old.
Jahāzpur,[16] September 28.—At daybreak I again found the
Maharaja at the head of his troop, ready to escort me to the frontier.
In vain I urged that he had superabundantly performed all the duties
of hospitality; “Such were his orders, and he must obey them.” I well
know the laws of the Medes were not more peremptory than those
of Bishan Singh; so we jogged on, beguiling the time in conversation
regarding the semi-barbarous race of the tract I was about to enter,
the Minas of Jahazpur and the Karar or fastnesses of the Banas, for
ages the terror of the country, and who had studded the plains with
cenotaphs of the Haras, fallen in defending their goods and chattels
against their inroads. The fortress of Jahazpur was not visible until
we entered the pass, and indeed had nearly cleared it, for it is
erected on a hill detached from the range but on its eastern face,
and completely guards this important point of ingress to Mewar. This
district is termed Chaurasi, or consisting of eighty-four townships, a
favourite territorial subdivision: nor is there any number intermediate
between this and three hundred and sixty. Jahazpur, however,
actually contains above a hundred townships, besides numerous
purwas, or ‘hamlets.’ The population consists entirely of the
indigenous Minas, who could turn out four thousand kamthas, or
‘bowmen,’ whose aid or enmity were not to be despised, as has been
well demonstrated to Zalim Singh, who held the district during
fifteen years. Throughout the whole of this extensive territory, which
consists as much of land on the plains as in the hills, the Mina is the
sole proprietor, nor has the Rana any property but the two tanks of
Budh Lohari, and these were wrested from the Minas by Zalim Singh
during his tenure.[17]
I was met at the frontier by the taiyunnati[18] of Jahazpur, headed
by the old chief of Basai and his grandson Arjun, of whom we have
spoken in the journey to Kotah. It was a very respectable troop of
cavalry, and though their appointments were not [673] equal to my
Hara escort, it was satisfactory to see assembled, merely at one
post, a body which the Rana two years ago could not have collected
round his own person, either for parade or defence: as a beginning,
therefore, it is good. Received also the civil manager, Sobharam, the
nephew of the minister, a very good man, but without the skill to
manage such a tract. He was accompanied by several of the Mina
Naiks, or chiefs. There is much that is interesting here, both as
matter of duty and of history; we shall therefore halt for a few days,
and rest our wearied invalids.

1. In almost every respect like a sparrow-hawk; perhaps a little

more elongated and elegant in form; and the beak, I think, was
straight. [Mr. C. Chubb of the Natural History Museum, South
Kensington, has kindly examined a specimen of Eudynamis honorata
or E. orientalis, the “Brain Fever” bird, and he confirms the Editor’s
recollection that the bill of the bird is rounded, and somewhat
hooked at the tip.]

2. [Thirty-six miles N.E. of Udaipur city.]

3. [The unhealthiness of Kotah is due to the water of the Kishor

Sāgar lake on the east percolating through the soil to the river on
the west (IGI, xv. 425).]

4. [Skt. parusa, an axe-shaped goad: also known as ankus.]

5. [About 10 miles W. of Kotah city.]

6. [“The introductory stanza of a poem or song, which is repeated

as a kind of burden or chorus” (Platts, Urdu Dict. s.v. dhur): “petit
poëme ordinairement composé de cinq hémistiches sur une même
rime” (Garçin de Tassy, Hist. Litt. Hindouie, i. 22). It is said to have
been invented by Rāja Mān of Gwalior (Memoirs of Jahāngīr, trans.
Rogers-Beveridge, 271).]

7. [P. 1618.]

8. [“Touera” in the Author’s map.]

 9. [The name of the steed of the hero Gugga.]

10. [A rough-rider.]

11. [Fergusson (Hist. Indian Architecture, ed. 1910, ii. 175) says
that, though smaller, the palace almost equals that of Udaipur in
architectural effect, while its position is in some respects even more
imposing.]

12. [The Mej Nadi, the principal, almost the only, drainage channel
of the Būndi State, falls into the Chambal.]

13. [Dablāna about 10 miles N. of Būndi city: Thāna in the

Kherwāra District of S. Mewār.]

14. [The creed of Islām.]

15. [Her local title is Rakt Dantika Devi, ‘Devi with the blood-
stained teeth’ (Rājputāna Gazetteer, 1879, i. 240).]

16. [Ten miles S. of Deoli cantonment.]

17. The indigenous Mina affords here an excellent practical

illustration of Manu’s axiom, that “the right in the soil belongs to him
who first cleared and tilled the land” [Laws, ix. 44]. The Rajput
conqueror claims and receives the tribute of the soil, but were he to
attempt to enforce more, he would soon be brought to his senses by
one of their various modes of self-defence—incendiarism, self-
immolation, or abandonment of the lands in a body. We have
mystified a very simple subject by basing our arguments on the
arrangements of the Muhammadan conqueror. If we mean to follow
his example, whose doctrine was the law of the sword, let us do it,
but we must not confound might with right: consult custom and
tradition throughout India, where traces of originality yet exist, and
it will invariably appear that the right in the soil is in the cultivator,
who maintains even in exile the hakk bapota-ka-bhum, in as decided
a manner as any freeholder in England. But Colonel Briggs has
settled this point, to those who are not blinded by prejudice.

18. [A deputation of welcome.]

CHAPTER 8

Attempted Poisoning of the Author. Jahāzpur, October 1.—

My journalizing had nearly terminated yesterday. Duncan and Carey
being still confined to their beds, my relative, Captain Waugh, sat
down with me to dinner; but fever and ague having destroyed all
appetite on my part, I was a mere spectator. I had, however, fancied
a cake of makkai flour, but had not eaten two mouthfuls before I
experienced extraordinary sensations; my head seemed expanding
to an enormous size, as if it alone would have filled the tent; my
tongue and lips felt tight and swollen, and though I underwent no
alarm, nor suffered the slightest loss of sense, I deemed it the
prelude to one of those violent attacks, which have assailed me for
several years past, and brought me to the verge of death. I begged
Captain Waugh to leave me; but he had scarcely gone before a
constriction of the throat came on, and I thought all was over. I rose
up, however, and grasped [674] the tent-pole, when my relative re-
entered with the surgeon. I beckoned them not to disturb my
thoughts, instead of which they thrust some ether and compounds
down my throat, which operated with magical celerity. I vomited
violently; the constriction ceased; I sunk on my pallet, and about
two in the morning I awoke, bathed in perspiration, and without a
remnant of disease. It was difficult to account for this result: the
medical oracle fancied I had been poisoned, but I was loth to admit
it. If the fact were so, the poison must have been contained in the
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