Although she is included in the
story of the Lancashire witches, Jennet Preston was, strictly speaking, a
Yorkshire witch. She lived at Gisburn, now in Lancashire, but in the
seventeenth century Gisburne-in-Craven was part of Yorkshire. The Register of Gisburn
Parish Church records the marriage of Jennet Balderston to William Preston on
May 10th 1587, so we may assume she would be in her mid-forties when
the events took place some twenty-five years later. Potts is once more our
primary source; he includes his account at the end of his Wonderfull
Discoverie, although the events he describes took place before the
Lancaster trials. Jennet Preston of Gisburn was made welcome in the home Thomas
Lister of Westby Hall, where she had ‘free access, kind respect and entertainment’
– “Which of you that dwelleth neare them in Crauen but can and will witnesse
it?” writes Potts.
Following the death of Mr Lister, in 1608, his son, also
called Thomas, continued to extend kindness towards Jennet. Early in 1612,
Jennet was brought before the Lent assizes at York, charged with causing the
death by witchcraft of one ‘Dodg-sonne’s child’. The parish register of
Bolton-by-Bowland (lying next to Gisburn) records a Thomas Dodgson being
baptised on September 10th 1610, and a Thomas Dodgsonne buried on
April 19th 1611, which may well be the same child. Jennet was tried
before Judge Bromley and “by the fauour and mercifull consideration” of
the jury was acquitted of the crime.
Four days later, Jennet was at the Good
Friday meeting at Malkin Tower, where, we are told, she was seeking assistance
in bewitching to death Thomas Lister (the younger). On the evidence of the
other witnesses, she was returned to York for the August assizes, charged
“…that shee felloniously had practised, vsed, and exercised diuerse wicked and deuillish Arts, called Witchcrafts, Inchauntments, Charmes, and Sorceries, in and vpon one Thomas Lister of Westby in Crauen.”
She was said to have
caused harm to Lister’s goods and cattle, and then evidence was brought that four
years previously she had murdered Thomas Lister senior by witchcraft. Why this
was never mentioned at the Lent assizes is a mystery. Why was she charged with
the death of Dodg-sonne’s child but not the death of Mr Lister? If she was
guilty now, why not then? Nevertheless, Anne Robinson ‘and others’ provided
evidence in court that when Mr Lister was on his death-bed, he cried out in
distress, saying, “Iennet Preston lyes heauie vpon me, Preston’s wife lies
heauie vpon me; helpe me, helpe me,” whereupon he died. He was wrapped in a
winding-sheet, and Jennet Preston was brought to his body and made to touch it,
and before all present who saw, it bled fresh blood. This was proof to all that
she was the murderer.
Sir Kenelm Digby (him again), wrote of,
“… the strange effect which is frequently seen in England, when, at the approach of the Murderer, the slain body suddenly bleedeth afresh,”
and King James, in his Daemonologie,
also wrote,
“…for as in a secret murther, if the deade carcase be at any time thereafter handled by the murtherer, it wil gush out of bloud, as if the blud wer crying to the heauen for reuenge of the murtherer, God hauing appoynted that secret super-naturall signe, for tryall of that secrete vnnaturall crime.”
John Webster of Clitheroe, usually level-headed, writes,
“… that such bleeding is absolutely true de facto, and also that there is something more than ordinary in it.”
Extract from The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft - John Webster - 1677 |
Michael Dalton’s The Countrey
Justice (1643) – a handbook for magistrates – lists “The Bleeding of the
dead Body in his Presence,” as a cause for bringing a suspected murderer to
trial.
Extract from The Countrey Justice - Michael Dalton - 1643 |
Jennet Preston’s fate was sealed, for this was proof enough for a
seventeenth century jury. She was hanged at York for a witch, protesting her
innocence to the last, on Wednesday July 29th 1612.
Jonathan Lumby puts forward an interesting
theory in his excellent The Lancashire Witch Craze (1995). Thomas Lister
senior did not die at Gisburn, as we may expect, but in nearby Bracewell,
where, it seems, he was attending the wedding of his son, also Thomas, then
aged sixteen. Lister senior was about thirty-eight, roughly the same age as
Jennet Preston at the time, and Lumby suggests that there was more their
relationship. If Lister was calling out for his lover on his death-bed, this
puts things in a different light. Hours before, young Lister was a bridegroom
and heir; hours later, he was master of the Westby estate. His dead father had
called not for his wife, but his mistress. Obviously, there would be suspicion,
glances and whispers. Jennet was still in the household, but would have been
treated differently now. Thomas’s widow, Jane, would have treated her
differently too. Resentment, suspicion, jealousy and guilt. All feeding and
festering away in rural Gisburn. How long before thoughts of ill-will, revenge
and blame were born?
Young Lister wanted rid of Jennet, but he needed an
excuse, as he didn’t want the truth about his father’s relationship with her to
come out in open court. Hence, the convenient case of Dodg-sonne’s child. But
that hadn’t worked, as the jury had been inconveniently merciful, so a second
case was necessary, with the evidence massaged to fit his purpose. Witnesses
had heard his father cry out Jennet’s name, but if the context were altered, a
different interpretation could be read into this. And the bleeding corpse –
well, Jennet would doubtless have wanted to see her dead lover one last time,
so just add a little more detail. A little detail like the corpse bleeding.
Your word against her’s. Job done.
And who would know that if a corpse bled, it
was because the murderer was present, and that this was evidence enough for a
conviction?
Why, a magistrate of course. Young Lister had gone to Bracewell to
marry. His new bride, called Jane, like his mother, was the daughter of Thomas
Heber. Thomas Heber was a magistrate. He was also the presiding prosecution
magistrate at the trial of Jennet Preston at the August assizes at York.
Job,
as they say, very well done indeed.
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