The Politics of Pandaemonium

Abstract

Historians of witchcraft have often cited the letter sent by Sir Francis North to Secretary of State Sir Leoline Jenkins (dated 19 August 1682) from the Exeter assizes concerning the trial of the three ‘Bideford witches’, a trial which also generated several accounts in pamphlets and ballads and widespread contemporary comment. North, one of the two circuit judges (though not the one trying this particular case), wrote, ‘Here have been three old women condemned for witchcraft. … I find the country so fully possessed against them that, though some of the virtuosi may think these things the effects of confederacy, melancholy or delusion, and that young folkes are altogether as quick-sighted as they who are old and infirme; yet we cannot reprieve them without appearing to denye the very being of witches, which, as it is contrary to law, so I think it would be ill for his Majestie’s service, for it may give the faction occasion to set afoot the old trade of witch-finding that may cost many innocent persons their lives, which this justice will prevent’.¹ By the faction, North meant the Whig party, which was very strong in the south-west. In the life of Francis North written by his brother, Roger, these witchcraft cases are discussed immediately after a discussion of how the judge had to act very carefully when watched and tested by the factious.