Europe's inner demons

Equally relevant is the charge brought by Joan Baddaford against Alice Trevisard. In the course of some petty squabble Alice had told Joan’s husband, John Baddaford, to “go to Pursever Wood and gather up his wits” — doubtless a way of calling him dim-witted. Unfortunately, said Joan, “within three weeks after the said John Baddaford made a voyage to Rochelle, in the Hope of Dittsham, and returned home again out of his wits, and so continued by the space of two years, tearing and renting his clothes, in such sort as four or five men were hardly able to bind him and keep him in order”.⁽³⁸⁾

Moreover, Joan complained, Alice Trevisard had threatened that within seven years she should lose all her property; and this too had come to pass. And these events were only the culmination of a long history of disputes. Already three years earlier Joan had demanded a penny from Alice Trevisard for washing some clothes; Alice paid, but with the comment that the penny should do Joan “little good”. And sure enough, when Joan spent the penny on drink “she had no power to drink thereof, but the same night fell sick, and continued so by the space of seven weeks following”. The explanation must have seemed obvious: it has always been regarded as dangerous to receive anything, whether as a gift or as payment, from a witch.

So it came about that Joan Baddaford went, with several of her neighbours, to Sir Thomas Ridgeway’s home to lay a complaint against Alice Trevisard. On the way back they happened to meet Alice herself and began to rail at her. Probably they threatened her with burning, for although witches were not in fact burned in England, the common people were not always aware of this. At any rate, Alice said to Joan, “Thou and thine may be burned before long be!” A few days later her child, sitting on the hearth, was burned on the neck (or so it seemed to her) even though the fire was not kindled; and within three weeks it wasted away and died.

Another complainant was William Tompson, a sailor, who had had a nocturnal dispute with Alice in the streets of Dartmouth. In the end he struck her with a musket-rod; whereupon she uttered the threat, “Thou shalt be better thou hadst never met with me!” William Tompson had scarcely returned to sea when his ship caught fire and foundered; he himself was picked up by a Portuguese vessel and carried to Spain, where he was imprisoned for a year. When at last he returned to Dartmouth Alice Trevisard, meeting his wife, expressed her vexation and added, “He shall be there again within this twelve months.” And so it came to pass. William was captured by the Spaniards and kept in prison, this time for twenty-five months.

Christian Webbar, a widow, let a tenement in Hardness to Michael Trevisard, who failed to pay the rent. When Christian demanded the arrears, Alice Trevisard cursed her, “It shall be worse for you.” Alice threw water on Christian’s stairs; but a neighbour saw her and warned Christian to avoid those stairs. Alice herself carelessly used the stairs and at once fell under the influence of her own sorcery: “within one hour after, the said Alice.... fell grievously sick, and part of the hands, fingers, and toes of the said Alice rotted and consumed away, as yet appears by her”; while Christian too fell sick.

There were many others at Hardness who had grievances against the Trevisards. George Davye had a quarrel with Michael Trevisard; within a week his child leapt from his mother’s arms into the fire and was badly burned. When Trevisard heard of this he boasted that he could heal the child if he wished, but he would never do anything to help John Davye or his family. And the following week Davye himself, who was away at sea, was badly hurt in an accident. Henry Oldreve was another who suffered after a dispute with Trevisard: he lost twenty fat wethers in one week and then himself fell sick and died. William Cozen also quarrelled with Trevisard, and within a quarter of a year his daughter-in-law was crippled: “her neck shrunk down between her two shoulders, and her chin touched her breast, and so remaineth still in a very strange manner”.