Maybe you have already guessed what I was gearing up to, with two shrines in quick succession… Well, the post title says it all: With the horrible war and the successive refugee crisis going on in Ukraine, I wondered how I could help (beyond my own donation a couple of weeks ago). The obvious answer is to sell some of my crafty stuff and donate the proceeds to refugee relief. I had already jumped…
Five witches are loaded into the cart bound for Gallows Hill: George Burroughs, Martha Carrier, George Jacobs, John Proctor, and John Willard. While in prison, Elizabeth Proctor had announced that she was pregnant, and local midwives confirm it before her execution. She is allowed to carry the child to term before being hanged.
It is likely that John Proctor made an impassioned speech to the crowd before his execution, but whatever he said is overshadowed by Reverend Burroughs.
After being lead up the ladder, Burroughs is asked one last time if he wishes to make a confession. Instead, he gazes serenely at the crowd and asks them to pray with him. The bewitched girls mutter that the Black Man is speaking through him, but they are shushed. As his accusers stand in stunned silence, Burroughs preaches his last sermon. Over the next several minutes, he proclaims his innocence and his forgiveness of the accusers, and concludes with a flawless recitation of the most fundamental Puritan prayer, the Lord’s Prayer.
Failure to remember basic prayer is a cornerstone of witchcraft accusation; by Cotton Mather’s own teachings, this is proof that Burroughs is not a witch. The crowd, shouting and moved to tears, begins to beg the executioner to let Burroughs down. Unfortunately, Mather himself has come up from Boston to witness the hanging and quiets the crowd to save his reputation. Mather shouts above the noise that Burroughs’s preaching in meaningless, as he has never been formally ordained. Also, he reminds them, “the devil has often been transformed into an angel of light”.
Burroughs, followed by the others, are hanged and the bodies are thrown into the crevice of the hill. As a final injustice, Burroughs’s clothes are considered too fine to waste, and he is stripped and put into second hand breeches before being hastily disposed of.
George Jacobs’s family later removes his body and buries in by his home.
The most anticipated trials are held for the spectators of Salem Village: outspoken husband and wife team Elizabeth and John Proctor and Satanic minister George Burroughs are brought before the jury.
Several petitions have been sent to the court in defense of the Proctors, including mention of the girl who had falsely cried out Goody Proctor’s specter in the tavern before her examination, but these are overshadowed by spectral evidence, physical evidence in the form of poppets, and documented servant-beating.
Mary Warren and many of the other bewitched girls recount spectral beatings by the couple while contorting themselves during the proceedings. The specters of the couple tormented the girls during the original examinations, the jury is reminded, and they continue to do so now. Warren leads the group in screeching about pinches, pricks, bites, and burns. Other witnesses have seen these specters at work as well.
More damaging is John Proctor’s insistence in the insanity of his fellow Villagers. Several times he has been heard badmouthing the afflicted girls, calling them spoiled and in need of a beating. His skepticism goes beyond the immediate proceedings, as questioning the girls’ motives can be seen as questioning religious doctrine, as well as the credibility of influential officials who have believed the case from day one.
Despite his prestigious background, Burroughs is thought by many to be the “head actor at some of their hellish rendezvous, and one who had the promise of being a king in Satan’s kingdom”. Like the other men, Burroughs has a long history of domestic violence and surprising strength, in addition to damning testimony by the ghosts of his dead wives and the many accused witches of his being in charge of black Sabbaths with red wine and bread.
Burroughs’s ministerial background haunts him as witnesses come forward to warp Biblical texts in his name, such as Mercy Lewis, who testifies that, like Satan to Jesus, Burroughs had taken her to a high place and offered her all the kingdoms of the world. She would not yield, she said, even if thrown on a thousand pitchforks. Ann Putnam Jr., likewise, writhes on the floor and cries that the “little black man” is shoving his demonic book at her. Burroughs already has a history of living among, if not fraternizing with the Indians, and Putnam has already accused him of bewitching soldiers fighting them.
As the accused tell their stories, they frequently fall into fits and are unable to speak. When confronted about this, Burroughs acknowledges that the devil may be hindering them, but seems confused as to why.
Burroughs has a final retort, however: when asked to defend himself before the jury, he produces a written speech, in which he states that having heard the accusations against him, he is now convinced that “there neither are, nor ever were, witches, [and} that having made a compact with the devil, can send a devil to torment other people at a distance.” With this simple sentence, Burroughs shatters Puritan theology: not only does he deny spectral evidence, but witchcraft itself. If witches do not exist, neither does the devil. If the devil does not exist, neither does God.
Another arrest warrant goes out for Mary Coulson’s daughter Elizabeth, who has still managed to escape capture. One of the local men sent by the constable to initially arrest her makes a statement to the court describing the event and the need to search further; when Elizabeth had run away from him, a black cat had suddenly appeared and attacked him.
Two other Salem women, Hannah Carroll and Sarah Cole, are also ordered to be arrested.
Meanwhile, the grand jury throws out a second case: that of Rebecca Jacobs for “covenanting” with the devil. Her mother has petitioned the court, saying that her daughter is “distracted in the mind”, rendering her confession invalid. The jury agrees, but as Jacobs is also charged with afflicting Elizabeth Hubbard, her witchcraft trial is set to continue on those grounds.
Abigail Hobbs is also indicted with covenanting, and in this case the jury has no qualms about sending the case forward to trial. Hobbs has been known to brag about having “sold herself body and soul to the old boy” several times, and is a confessed witch before the court already.
This marks an abrupt turn in the trials - up to this point, there is an implicit plea bargain being offered to the accused by the magistrates: if you confess to witchcraft, we will keep you alive and use you to find and accuse other witches. If you refuse to confess, we will throw you into the dungeon and you will be hanged. According to John Proctor, the accused have also been tortured in various ways to elicit confessions, resulting in dozens of confessions and accusations. Now that bargain is being broken and a confessed witch is set for trial, her elaborate, attention-seeking confession being used against her.
Martha Corey’s trial begins as her husband Giles awaits his own in jail.
Corey is one of several accused witches who, in the spring, had multiple witnesses to her spectral activity. Not only had she attacked Elizabeth Hubbard and Mercy Lewis, who she is officially charged with bewitching, but also several unrelated, independent witnesses, such as Benjamin Gould, who saw the identifiable forms of the Coreys standing at his bedside in the middle of the night. Her husband, before his arrest, had been affected as well, being paranoid and unable to pray and convinced that he was under an evil hand.
Evidence of the controversy surrounding her initial arrest is also brought before the court: Corey’s visiting the Putnams and supposedly bewitching them in person, her defiant attitude when confronted with her accusers, and, most damning, her asking the town officials if they came to see what clothing she wore, something she should not have been expecting. She is well known to have been self-righteous and dismissive of the bewitched girls, calling them “distracted children” and criticizing the witch hunt in general - therefore criticizing Puritan theology.
Outside testimony from other neighbors, such as in the other trials, has not survived, but is likely admitted as well, despite not being legally related to the specific crimes she is charged with.
Corey is pronounced guilty.
While the trials are occurring, the Grand Jury has been working separately to collect and hear evidence, determining the validity of cases for trial. In the midst of the seemingly all-powerful hysteria gripping the community, the jury members do show some signs of attempting to abide by the law. Two indictments against John and Elizabeth Proctor’s son William are dismissed as “ignoramus” - there is not enough evidence, they say, to bring Proctor to trial. He is still held on other charges of witchcraft, however, and will have to remain in prison until they are decided as well.
Meanwhile, more Andover witches are being questioned, and some are still confessing. Deliverance Dane and Mary Osgood both admit to consorting with the Devil, with Osgood telling of her demonic baptism in Five Mile Pond, as had so many others, and describing flying to witch’s Sabbaths on a pole with three others. Most importantly, she claims that she allowed the Devil to afflict others, for he could not do so without her consent. She also claims, however, that Goody Dane, a minister’s wife, had conjured a specter in the shape of her husband to make others believe that Reverend Dane was the real witch, and Goody Dane agrees.
