The Magical Adventures of Mary Parish: The Occult World of Seventeenth-Century London 9780271091310

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The Magical Adventures of Mary Parish

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Habent sua fata libelli

Early Modern Studies Series General Editor Michael Wolfe

Queens College, CUNY

Editorial Board of Early Modern Studies Elaine Beilin

Raymond A. Mentzer

Framingham State College

University of Iowa

Christopher Celenza

Robert V. Schnucker

Johns Hopkins University

Truman State University, Emeritus

Barbara B. Diefendorf

Nicholas Terpstra

Boston University

University of Toronto

Paula Findlen

Margo Todd

Stanford University

University of Pennsylvania

Scott H. Hendrix

James Tracy

Princeton Theological Seminary

University of Minnesota

Jane Campbell Hutchison

Merry Wiesner-Hanks

University of Wisconsin–Madison

University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

Mary B. McKinley University of Virginia

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Copyright © 2016 Truman State University Press, Kirksville, Missouri, 63501 All rights reserved tsup.truman.edu No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any format by any means without written permission from the publisher. Cover art: Gordon Napier, Alchemy woodcut. Used with permission. Cover design: Theresa Wheeler

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Timbers, Frances. The magical adventures of Mary Parish : the occult world of seventeenth-century London / by Frances Timbers. pages cm. -- (Early modern studies ; 17) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-61248-143-2 (library binding : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-61248-144-9 (e-book) 1. Parish, Mary Tomson Boucher Lawrence. 2. Wharton, Goodwin, 1653-1704. 3. Women mediums—England—Biography. 4. Spiritualism—England—History—17th century. 5. Occultism—England—History—17th century. I. Title. BF1283.P376T56 2016 130.92--dc23 [B] 2015031164 The paper in this publication meets or exceeds the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992.

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This one is for Estuary, whose unflagging faith in the “Mary project” helped to magically manifest this book.

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Contents Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Prologue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Chapter 1: Down the Rabbit Hole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Chapter 2: A Cunning Woman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Chapter 3: The Queen of the Fairies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Chapter 4: Finding a Familiar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Chapter 5: Matters of Marriage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Chapter 6: Sex and Succession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Chapter 7: The Pleasures of Venus and the Pains of Eve. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Chapter 8: The Traumas of Treasure Hunting . . . . . . . 118 Chapter 9: Heavenly Hosts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 Chapter 10: Mary’s Crucible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Chapter 11: Plots and Piety. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 Epilogue: April 1703 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Appendix: A Timeline of Mary’s Life. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 About the Author. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

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Illustrations 1. The village of Turville, nestled in the Chiltern hills (photo by author).. . . . . 13 2. Seventeenth-­century timber-­framed cottage in the village of Turville (photo by author).. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 3. “A Table to Know what Planet Rules any Hour of Day or Night throughout the Year,” adapted from BL Sloane 3850, fol. 163v. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 4. “Sedan Chair, ca. 1720,” from William Hogarth, The Rake’s Progress (London: J. Chettwood, 1735), plate IV.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 5. “London, as Rebuilt after the Fire,” from Besant, The History of London, 193. . . 26 6. Parishes of Turville and Wooburn in the Three Hundreds of Chiltern, Buckinghamshire, from The Victoria History of the County of Buckingham, Vol. 3, ed. W. Page (London: St. Catherine Press, 1925), 32. Accessed via www. british-­history.ac.uk. Image courtesy of Victoria County History, British History Online, and the Institute of Historical Research.. . . . . . . . . . . . 31 7. Illustration from the trade card of John Keeling of Blackfriars (1670s), showing his fire engine in use. Inscription reads “These Engins (which are the best) to quinch great fires, are . . .” with the subtitle “John Keeling Fecit” [John Keeling made it]. From display in Museum of London, copy from Pepys Library in Magdalene College, Cambridge.. . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 8. The road from London through Old Brantford and Hounslow to Longford, from “The Road from London to the city of Bristol,” in John Ogilby, Britannia. London 1675 (Facsimile reprint, Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1970), Plate #11 between pp. 20 and 21. Image courtesy of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, Rare Book F-­10 00695. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 9. King and Queen of Fairies, from R. S., A description of the king and queene of fayries (London, 1635). Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, Shelfmark Arch. A f.83 (3).. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 10. Lud Gate, from a seventeenth-­century map of London, originally started by Wenceslaus Hollar, ca. 1690.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 11. Tyburn Tree, detail from William Hogarth, The Idle ’Prentice Executed at Tyburn, engraving, 1747, plate 11 of his Industry and Idleness series. . . . . . 62 ix

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12. A plaque at the site of Tyburn (photo by author). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 13. St. Mary’s Church, Turville (photo by author).. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 14. Stillroom, frontispiece from Hannah Woolley, The Accomplish’d Lady’s Delight in Preserving, Physick, Beautifying, and Cookery, 4th ed. (London, 1684). Image courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University, Hollis number 003910462.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 15. An Alchemical Laboratory, frontispiece from M. M. Pattison Muir, The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1913). Originally published in Michael Maier’s Tripus Aureus, hoc est, Tres Tractatus Chymici Selectissimi, nempe (Frankfurt a. M.: Lucas Jennis, 1618). Released by Project Gutenberg, eBook #14218, November 30, 2004.. . . . . . . . . . . . 151 16. Halley’s Diving Bell, from William Hooper, Rational Recreations . . . (London, 1774). Wellcome Images.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 17. Seventeenth-­century map of London, originally started by Wenceslaus Hollar, ca. 1690.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184–85

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Acknowledgments The greatest debt I owe is to Mary Tomson Boucher Lawrence Parish, whose story inspired me to push past many obstacles to present her life to the world. Her determination and creativity are truly inspiring! The story of Mary’s life presented in the following pages is an outgrowth of my dissertation work on gender and ceremonial magic at the University of Toronto, from which I received a great deal of support over the years. I can never repay the friendship and scholarly input of the “Norns,” in the form of Barbara Todd and Ariel Beaujot, who invested many hours of their time in discussion, debate, and beer drinking during the birthing of “the Mary project.” A very special thanks to my student Calin Wallace for his insightful analysis of one of the earlier versions of the manuscript. Thanks to the participants in the workshop held at the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women in June 2008 for their feedback on my presentation of Mary’s life as biography. The helpful comments from the two anonymous TSUP readers were also much appreciated. I am very grateful for the academic and financial support from the History Department at Trent University and CUPE Local 3908-­1, during the years of bringing this project to fruition. Special mention to Truman State University Press’s Early Modern Studies series editor Michael Wolfe for his enthusiastic reception of the original manuscript, and to Barbara Smith-­Mandell for her ongoing support and direction during the publishing process. And much love to my small but fierce inner circle of family and friends, who never fail to support me, even when they think I am as crazy as Mary! Samhain 2015

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In order to enter into Mary’s world, the reader may sometimes need to temporarily suspend disbelief. Mary’s story is akin to Alice’s journey through the looking glass, in which the real world is mirrored for both her and us. The following narrative invites the reader to pass through the looking glass and enter a liminal world between fantasy and reality, as Mary leads us through the streets of London and down the rabbit hole.

1

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Prologue

April 18, 1703 The sweet, cinnamon scent of juniper hung in the air. A fire crackled in the grate against the damp chill of an English spring. Wax candles burned brightly all around the room, creating a warm glow despite the morose occasion. Green velvet curtains were tied back at each of the round pillars of a richly c­ arved oak bedstead and a fringed valance framed the elaborate headboard. A silk quilt lay folded at the foot of the bed.1 Several women and one desolate man stood around the bed gazing on the peaceful face of the just-­deceased woman. Mary Tomson Boucher Lawrence Parish had outlived her parents, her uncle, her three husbands, and most of her children, and was estranged from any remaining blood relatives. For the past week, her female friends had taken turns holding vigil around her bed. Throughout her illness, her companions had supported her both physically and spiritually, offering words of consolation and encouragement while they fussed and chatted. For the eight days that she had lain in the bed, she had refused any sustenance, only drinking a little water when coaxed. A few hours before her death, an Anglican priest had offered her last communion. She had barely had the strength to swallow the consecrated bread. Now there was nothing left to do but quietly escort her life partner, Goodwin Wharton, out of the room. The weeping man was distraught, but he could be comforted 1. After Goodwin’s death, an inventory was taken of his house on Denmark Street. Mary and Goodwin would have maintained separate bedrooms for the sake of appearances. I like to think that one of the rooms up two pair of stairs was Mary’s. It contained “One bedstead w’th a Sett of green Cloath Curtains & Vallance,” as well as pillows and quilts, including two of silk. TNA, PROB 32/46/3, Inventory of the Goods & Chattells of the Hou’ble Col. Goodwin Wharton . . . dated November 21 and 22, 1704.

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to know that Mary had died a “good death,” surrounded by family and friends, while she graciously surrendered her life to God. After Goodwin left, the women removed Mary’s nightclothes, unfolding her body out of the fetal position that she had maintained throughout her final days. They sponged her body with warm water scented with sprigs of rosemary to protect against evil and dressed her in a simple shift of clean linen. When they finished, Mary’s corpse lay in serene state, her head propped up on feather pillows and her arms crossed over her chest. After the women finished their duties, Goodwin was allowed to re-­ enter the room. The grief for his companion of twenty years was held at bay only by the fear that the women might have noticed Mary’s condition as they washed and prepared her body for burial. The nurse, whom Goodwin had hired to attend her during her illness, reported that the body was “clean,” meaning that there were no signs of the small pustules that signaled smallpox. Of course, the woman would not have suspected that Mary could be pregnant at her age and would not have actively looked for any evidence to that effect. But what if their child was still alive and had moved in the womb while the women attended to Mary’s body? Goodwin pulled back the bed linens and tentatively lifted her shift, laying his hands tenderly on her abdomen.2 As he palpated her belly, he could swear that he heard her groan. Was it possible that she was speaking to him from beyond the grave as she had promised? No, it was just his imagination, or perhaps it was his longing to hear her voice one more time. But there was no need to worry. Mary must have starved the child in her womb so that she could take their secret to the grave. Goodwin believed that Mary had maintained a fetal position “least the child should come out & discover us: from which posture I would not let her be moved and so continued till the boy died in her belly.”3 As Goodwin stared at the body of this woman he loved, he was reminded of their first meeting. Goodwin had approached Mary in order to obtain a “play piece,” a lucky charm that would bring him luck in gambling and help him out of his financial straits. Little did he suspect that his desire for luck at gambling would lead to a lifelong association with this remarkable woman.

2. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:181. 3. Ibid.

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Chapter 1

Down the Rabbit Hole In a Wonderland they lie, Dreaming as the days go by, Dreaming as the summers die: Ever drifting down the stream—­ Lingering in the golden gleam—­ Life, what is it but a dream? —­Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Goodwin had good reason to consider Mary remarkable, although her contemporaries might not have found her as extraordinary as you, no doubt, will. On many levels, Mary was a typical woman living in seventeenth-­ century London: she was married and widowed three times, she gave birth to many children, and she skillfully employed a variety of strategies to survive in a harsh, patriarchal world. On one level, Mary’s story illuminates the early modern ideologies and practices surrounding education, marriage, childbirth, and women’s work. Her narrative also provides insight on contemporary politics and popular religious beliefs. While Mary lived with one foot on terra firma, she used her powerful imagination to construct an alternate world, which granted her the ability to transform not only her own life, but also the life of Goodwin Wharton. By modern standards, Mary might be seen as a con artist who attempted to use a member of the aristocracy for personal gain. But rather than condemning Mary as a scam artist, consider the more fruitful notion that she was an extremely resourceful woman who engaged Goodwin in an alternative world that established new points of reference in both their lives. In order to do so, 5

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she drew on contemporary religious and political issues, as well as her past and present life experiences and emotions. The narrative of Mary’s life requires a different understanding of truth. A comprehensive historical biography of Mary would require extensive archival evidence such as legal records, wills, letters, and personal journals. But like thousands of the middling sort, Mary left few traces of her life in the archives. Her story is known almost exclusively through the narrative she told later in her life to her partner, Goodwin Wharton, who recorded it in a tediously detailed, five-­hundred-­page journal.1 There is very little other documentation to verify the details of Goodwin’s journal or his opinion of Mary’s activities. During the course of their relationship, Mary and Goodwin co-­ constructed the story of Mary’s life. The telling and retelling of various incidents that occurred both before and after they met reflected both their past and current concerns. However, the details of Mary’s personal history are questionable for several reasons. First, Mary was more than fifty years old when she unraveled her life to Goodwin, making her story subject to forgetfulness and the fabrication of memory. Secondly, Mary’s version of events was constructed for Goodwin’s benefit, so only certain aspects of her life were featured. Thirdly, Mary’s past was filtered by Goodwin; we do not have Mary’s voice. To further complicate things, Goodwin did not start his journal until 1685, two years after they met. We don’t always know how much time elapsed between Mary’s recounting and Goodwin’s recording. Mary’s story is subject to Goodwin’s misunderstanding and muddling of details. And Goodwin was not writing for his own personal documentation. He started the journal for Peregrine, the first surviving son he had with Mary, “resolving (with God’s assistance to continue so to do) to leave it you as the greatest and best of the earthly legacies I can bequeath.”2 A father might elaborate on a mother’s successes and downplay her failures, but Goodwin tended to be as open about Mary’s shortcomings as he was about her accomplishments. In addition, the historian ultimately decides what is important and what should be included or excluded. In any case, no personal narrative can be taken as complete or unbiased truth. Histori-

1. Although Goodwin starts by writing his autobiography to date, the manuscript continues as a daily journal. Quotations from his journal (BL Add. MS 20006 and 20007, 2 vols.) are from my own transcriptions and I cite page numbers that were added by Goodwin rather than folio numbers. 2. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:1.

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Down the Rabbit Hole

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ans such as Natalie Zemon Davis support the value of the study of narratives, without judgment as to whether they are fact or fiction. Davis argues that the narratives that a person constructs about her life experiences give the person’s life meaning.3 In a discussion of cultural history versus social history, she points out that “all accounts are shaped into stories,” including the historian’s. For the most part, I am accepting Mary’s account of her life, as recorded through the lens of Goodwin, as an extension of her magical activities. Her story was, no doubt, embroidered. But her narrative provides insight into the social norms, belief systems, and attitudes toward magic in seventeenth-­century England. The scenarios associated with Mary’s life challenge twenty-­first-­ century sensibilities because they lie outside the normal parameters of modern experience. For this reason, Mary has been accused by modern historians of being an “unscrupulous medium” and “a fraud” who purposely tricked Goodwin.4 But there is no reason to assume that Goodwin was particularly gullible in accepting Mary’s adventures as truth. After all, Mary did not fabricate the existence of the spirit realm she explored; it was integral to early modern culture. The existence of a spirit realm was generally accepted in a ubiquitously Christian society. Mary was just struggling to understand how it might operate. A society’s beliefs reflect what the majority accepts as truth, which enables the society’s ideologies. Keep in mind that the belief in God and angels is still prevalent in the twenty-­ first century. Empirical evidence does not come into play in the arena of belief systems.5 Mary’s life provides an example of the early modern magical worldview, which included the possibility of interaction with an alternative realm of spirits. In the mid-­twentieth century, anthropologists and other scholars challenged previous definitions of magic that were expressed in relation to religion and science. Based on their studies of “primitive” cultures, they suggested that magic was a worldview rather than a practice. They argued that the cultures they studied—­which existed outside of the Western Judeo-­Christian world—­were connected

3. Davis, Fiction in the Archives, 4, 29, 43. 4. See Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, 189, 237, 611; Porter, “Wharton, Goodwin (1653–­ 1704),” DNB (Dictionary of National Biography). Owen Davies’s opinion of Mary is notable by her absence from his monograph on English cunning folk: Cunning-­Folk. 5. Reynolds, Becoming Criminal, 7–­8.

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socially and emotionally to a wider spiritual world.6 In the 1970s, historians started to adopt anthropological methodologies, along with anthropological definitions. Keith Thomas was one of the first to recognize that early modern culture viewed the world as an expression of spirits and forces. This “enchanted” worldview accepted the reality of such supernatural phenomena as miracles, witchcraft, and heavenly portents. The world was supposedly “disenchanted” by the scientific revolution and the age of enlightenment.7 Part of the magical worldview was a belief in the power of the imagination, which was linked to the power of the will. The concept of the will was grounded in ancient philosophies that were reinvigorated during the Renaissance and further developed by Christian Neoplatonists such as Marsilio Ficino and his student Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.8 To the early modern mind, the power of the human will was seen as the driving force of magic. Although the definition of magic is a subject of debate, it is generally accepted that early modern people understood magic as the ability to control spiritual and/or supernatural forces to achieve a predetermined end—­good or evil. What separated magic from religion was that spirits could be coerced and manipulated by humans; God could not. Control of supernatural forces was, in part, linked to the power of the imagination. The treatise that became the foundation of Renaissance Neoplatonism, the Corpus Hermeticum, states, “for imagination is nothing but begetting,” that is, manifesting.9 Pico echoed this philosophy of the will to alter reality, “Thou mayest fashion thyself in whatever shape thou shalt prefer.”10 Connected to the practice of magic was the practice of spiritual alchemy. Mary practiced the pseudoscientific aspect of alchemy, which was the transmutation of metals. But from the earliest foundations of alchemy,

6. Wax and Wax, “Magical World View.” 7. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic; Friedman, “Battle of the Frogs and Fairford’s Flies”; Scribner, “Reformation, Popular Magic, and the ‘Disenchantment of the World.’” 8. Hutton,“Introduction to the Renaissance”; Shapin, Scientific Revolution, 54. 9. The Corpus Hermeticum was predominantly a theological treatise, concerned with the origins and nature of the divine and man’s path to salvation, rather than a “technical” hermetical guide to magic, alchemy, or astrology. See Corpus Hermeticum, bk. 5.1, in The Way of Hermes, trans. Salaman, 34. 10. From Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, “Oration on the Dignity of Man,” in Renaissance Philosophy of Man, ed. Cassirer, 225. For a discussion of early modern imagination in relation to magic, see Timbers, Magic and Masculinity, 25–­31. Eventually, the power of the will became the basis of the modern understanding of magic for twentieth-­century Wiccan and neo-­pagan practitioners: “The art of changing consciousness at will.” See Starhawk, Spiral Dance, 123.

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there had been a philosophical or meditative aspect to the practice, the goal of which was to gain direct knowledge of God.11 The mythological symbolism and enigmatic terminology used in alchemical instructions not only served to cloud the meaning to uninformed readers, but also reflected the language of religious regeneration. By the seventeenth century, groups such as the Behmenists and Rosicrucians were interpreting the alchemical instructions for purely spiritual purposes.12 There is no evidence in Goodwin’s journal that Mary was consciously employing the precepts of spiritual alchemy, but the results were similar. Mary used living metaphors, cloaked in the language of angels and fairies, to transmute Goodwin. He was altered from an inept younger son who quaked before his aristocratic father to a man who took control over his fate and regained his rightful place in the sociopolitical world. When considering the ramifications of both the power of the imagination and the practice of spiritual alchemy, the historian can benefit from the insights provided by modern psychoanalysis. Mary used the power of imagination, both hers and Goodwin’s, to construct a different version of reality that suggested new resolutions to everyday problems.13 Mary’s skills of imagination and storytelling promoted self-­awareness and contributed to the meaning of her and Goodwin’s lives. Mary used her perceptive intuition to destabilize reality and thereby create new ways of relating to the world, thereby controlling her life and

11. Sheppard, “Alchemy: Origin or Origins?” 37. 12. During the Interregnum, Jacob Boehme’s synthesis of mystical theology and Paracelsian natural philosophy was embraced by several radical sects; Mendelsohn, “Alchemy and Politics in England 1649–­1665,” 34. For a discussion of Behmenism, see Thune, Behmenists and the Philadelphians; Walsh, Mysticism of Innerworldly Fulfillment; Gibbons, Gender in Mystical and Occult Thought. 13. The founding father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, developed the idea that the artist “moulds his phantasies into a new kind of reality.” His ideas were further developed by the Polish-­born psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Hanna Segal, who maintained that artists’ works were reflective of their “unconscious phantasies”; Abella, “Contemporary Art and Hanna Segal’s Thinking on Aesthetics,” 166–­68. Normally, the artist recognizes a separation between the visual art object, the literary work, or the performance created, and the self. But as Segal pointed out, the source of artistic creativity is the shadowy, unconscious area of the mind, which is also the source of delusions; “Delusions and Artistic Creativity,” 135–­39. The artistic fantasies created through imagination can become delusional, if there is a loss of awareness that the self is engaging in play or performance. As part of a broader discussion of the role of imagination and creativity in the illness of delusion, Lois Oppenheim, a professor of modern language and literature, as well as a psychoanalyst, discusses the “relationship of imagination to the self as agent [italics in original].” Oppenheim maintains that imagination promotes self-­awareness and contributes to the production of meaning in one’s life; Imagination from Fantasy to Delusion, xi–­xii, 48, 52, 134–­41. This line of thinking is built on the work of the French psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva, who emphasized the role of the imaginary realm in a person’s construction of self-­identity. This resonates with the ideas concerning the construction of narratives as explored by Natalie Zemon Davis.

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possibly changing her circumstances. Facts were irrelevant to the process. Mary combined aspects of her own personality with elements from her rich cultural and political environs. The enactment of her alternate world made the melodrama come to life. Rather than remaining in a private, mental stage, these manifestations were expressed on a semipublic, social stage. Mary would ultimately construct an alternative reality by which she was able to direct Goodwin’s life in a loving and positive way. Mary played multiple roles in this drama. She was the Uplander who acted as liaison between Goodwin and the spirit realm, but keep your eyes open for aspects of Mary reflected in some of the Lowlander characters, as she projects herself into the spirit realm. Goodwin’s account of Mary’s narrative can also be viewed as literature. In the twentieth century, magical realism became a literary genre that mixes everyday occurrences with the fantastic, using a realist tone that forces the reader to accept the improbable as unsurprising.14 This style of presentation is also evident in premodern texts such as Boccaccio’s Decameron and Cervantes’s Don Quixote. This type of literature explores the boundaries between the real and the imaginary, as well as other dichotomies, such as mind/body, male/female, and life/death. Generally speaking, this genre is subversive and has the potential to reconstruct a history that was previously erased or overlooked.15 In the case of Mary’s narrative, the role of women in the occult world is recovered and the importance of women in male-­dominated politics is highlighted. Her story also sheds light on the ongoing importance of a magical worldview at the end of the seventeenth century, in the age of the so-­called scientific revolution. Literary scholar Diane Purkiss encourages historians, particularly feminist historians, to find “ways to uncover the alterity of woman’s imagination at work within what might otherwise present themselves as unremittingly patriarchal discourses.”16 Mary has opened a window into one such world of female imagination. Nonetheless, the question remains: Was Mary operating in good faith with a valued partner or was she purposely leading a client down a dead-­end path? From the very beginning of their relationship, every undertaking was riddled with minor and major delays. Were the constant

14. Bowers, Magic(al) Realism, 3–­4. 15. Zamora and Faris, “Introduction: Daiquiri Birds and Flaubertian Parrot(ie)s,” 2–­9. 16. Purkiss, The Witch in History, 53.

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impediments bad luck or good management? Were the delays a result of caution on her part? Was she engaged in a long con before she even knew who the mark was? It seems likely that Mary’s initial caution was mixed with desperation, and that she modified her approach as companionship developed and trust built. Regardless of Mary’s motives, her interpretation and presentation of the spirit world provided Goodwin with the encouragement and direction he needed to take his proper place in society. Her magical world transformed Goodwin’s reality and granted him honor, self-­esteem, and, not least of all, love. By any definition, Mary was a magician par excellence.

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Chapter 2

A Cunning Woman [Mary] knelt down just upon the place where the treasure lay; and laid her head to the ground and bid the spirit that own’d the treasure speak to her, which he did, and she made signs for [Goodwin] to stop a little back, but not so far but that [he] heard him speak, with a great hollow voice: and by & by [he] saw her hood pull’d about & she call’d out for help: when immediately running in, [he] catch’d her up: and after asking the reason, she said the spirit had told her she could have [the treasure] no day but of a Monday at 6 o’clock. . . .1

Mary’s magical adventures began long before she met Goodwin Wharton, and his account of her life demonstrates that whether she was treasure hunting, discoursing with the spirit world, communing with the fairy realm, or turning base metals into silver, she did so with energy and imagination. Mary had humble beginnings in the county of Buckinghamshire, but over the years, she fashioned herself into a London gentlewoman. Like most seventeenth-­century women, Mary’s life included marriage and motherhood. But unlike many of her peers, Mary cultivated a work identity that was stronger than her identity as a wife and mother. Her skills as a cunning woman, which she honed from an early age, gave her power to act in a male-­dominated world. Mary was born in 1630 in the sleepy parish of Turville, which was isolated from the rest of the county of Buckinghamshire by the grass-­

1. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:91.

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Figure 1. The village of Turville, nestled in the Chiltern hills (photo by author).

Figure 2. Seventeenth-­century timber-­framed cottage in the village of Turville (photo by author).

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covered cliffs of the Chiltern escarpment. She described her father, Mr. Tomson, as “a handsome gentleman, tall and well shaped,” who had traveled to Buckinghamshire from the county of Lincolnshire in the north to wed Mary’s mother.2 Goodwin’s account often fails to include first names of people in Mary’s life, but parish records indicate that her mother was the firstborn daughter of a local farmer, John Cox, and his wife, Mary Butler.3 When Mary was eight or nine years old, she was sent to live with her father’s brother, John Tomson, a wealthy bachelor who lived near Chelmsford, in the county of Essex. Children at this time were commonly entrusted to a relative, in a sort of apprentice-­guardian relationship. Her parents hoped that Tomson would make Mary his heir, which would have improved her chances of making a good marriage. The source of John Tomson’s wealth is unclear, but Mary described him as a sort of cunning man, who told people “such things as greatly concerned them to know” and practiced physic (medicine).4 Under his tutelage, Mary’s interest in the occult was fueled, and the groundwork was laid for her future endeavors as a cunning woman. Most of the population used home remedies for their medical needs, with occasional recourse to cunning folk, sometimes called charmers or conjurers. These traditional healers were usually male.5 In addition to healing the sick, they provided a variety of other services, including divination, love magic, the identification of witches, the discovery of lost and stolen property, and treasure hunting. Some of their techniques drew on traditional knowledge concerning herbs and astrology, while others were more occult. The line between magic and natural philosophy, which was the forerunner to modern science, was not clear, even to people practicing or accessing it. However, neither the practitioners nor their clientele viewed cunning craft as witchcraft or dealing with the devil. Indeed, a good deal of the art was built on Christian precepts. Nevertheless, many modern readers would understand the practices more in terms of superstition than religion.

2. Ibid., 1:20. 3. John Cox married Mary Butler April 24, 1583. Mary Parish’s mother was born March 30, 1584. Her siblings included John, born October 29, 1588; Kathrin, born May 25, 1595; and William, born July 1, 1599. Turville Parish Records, Buckinghamshire Record Office, Aylesbury. 4. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:22. 5. For a discussion of cunning-­folk, see Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic; Davies, Cunning-­Folk; Wilby, Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits.

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Goodwin gave many examples of Mary’s experiences as a cunning woman. She treated many people for agues and fevers using a charm that consisted of a prayer that Jesus had given to his disciples. The passage was not found in the Bible but was supposedly passed down from person to person for centuries. When the charm was worn or carried, the verse would cure the afflicted. Faith was a major component of early modern healing. The incidents Mary described are evidence of her familiarity with medical knowledge of the day. At a time when modesty was highly valued, female patients must have been especially grateful for a woman to attend them. In one case, Mary stepped in after male physicians at Lock Hospital in Southwark had resolved that a woman’s sore breast was incurable.6 The only remedy proposed was to cut off the offending part. Instead, Mary offered a decoction that miraculously drained the corruption from the woman’s body. She maintained that it was equally effective on old running sores and on ulcers in the womb, which physicians thought impossible to heal. Some of her patients were even able to conceive children after such a treatment. Mary was not unique in employing these types of recipes, which were readily available to literate members of the population through many medical tracts. Even nonliterate people would have been aware of some treatments by word of mouth. Paracelsus, the father of modern homeopathy, had published his chemical treatments relating to medicine a century before Mary’s time. By the seventeenth century, his ideas and treatments were widely known and used. He purportedly “cured a woman that for thirty years had a canker in her breast, by giving her Essentia Mercurialis, with the water of Plantain.” For hard abcesses of the breast, he used “the oil of Turpentine mixed with Mistletoe of the Oak in form of a[n] unguent.”7 Mary also had a concoction that cured convulsions, which was known as “the falling sickness.” Seizures could be interpreted as a form of mental illness, epilepsy, or a sign of possession by the devil. For seizures, as for many other conditions, physicians frequently recommended a combination of vomits, purges, and bleeding, basing their treatment on the theories of the second-­century Greek physician Galen.8 Classical Galenic

6. The Lock Hospital, under the administration of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, took its name from the loques, or rag bandages, used to wrap the sores of the lepers it once housed. This institution should not be confused with the London Lock Hospital near Hyde Park Corner, which was built in 1746 purposely to treat venereal disease. 7. Paracelsus, A Hundred and Fouretene Experiments, 4, 9. 8. For a discussion of Galenic medicine, see Temkin, Galenism; Laqueur, Making Sex.

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medicine related the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water to four fluids in the human body: blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. These four humors had physical qualities of cold, heat, dryness, and moisture, as well as what we might call emotional characteristics. The element of fire (hot and dry) was associated with yellow bile and a choleric or irritable disposition. Earth (dry and cold) related to black bile and melancholy. Water (cold and wet) corresponded to phlegm and a tranquil character. And air (wet and warm) was associated with blood and a cheerfully optimistic sanguinity. According to this medical system, disease resulted when the humors were out of balance. Bleeding was especially favored as a remedy to draw away impurities of the humors and return the body to equilibrium. Special draughts were also used. The “animal spirit,” which contributed to the wild nature of convulsions, could also be purified with a draught of black cherry water mixed with a dram of powdered peony root.9 Mary told Goodwin about a certain Mr. Oliver who came to see her about his daughter. The girl was raving mad, foaming at the mouth, and roaring like an animal. Her swollen abdomen and the violent beating of her head against the ground were the presumed signs of epilepsy. The girl’s fits were so violent that she had to be held down to prevent her from doing injury to herself. Mary managed to force some of her medicinal formula through the girl’s tightly clenched jaw and gradually she stopped writhing on the ground and recovered her senses. Cures like this gained Mary the reputation of a skilled cunning person. Mary knew that there were various causes for this type of distemper: corporal causes from an imbalance of the humors, astral causes from the influence of the planets, or diabolical causes due to possession by evil spirits. Medical theories of the day maintained the ancient Greek idea that when the uterus remained unsatisfied for a long time, it became discontented and angry and wandered through the body, obstructing respiration and driving women to hysteria, or the “fit of the mother,” as it was called. A common cure was to insert a fragrant pessary into a girl’s vagina to attract her womb back to its proper place. One recipe involved a wad of cotton or wool soaked in a mixture of musk, amber, wood of aloes, ash-­ keys, saffron, and hare’s rennet.10

9. Willis, London Practice of Physick, 238–­42. 10. The word “hysteria” is derived from the ancient Greek word “hystera,” which was a euphemism for the lower parts. Unmarried women were particularly prone to infirmities since it was believed

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In another case that Mary related to Goodwin, a laborer from the shipyards at Wapping, by the name of Partridge, approached Mary about his daughter. The young girl had been thrown to the ground by some invisible force and had such strength that several men could not hold her down. Her parents had taken her to Christ’s Hospital where the doctors assumed a humoral cause, but they were unable to affect a cure.11 Rather than an imbalance of the humors, Mary suspected that the girl was suffering from demonic possession because she also exhibited one of the well-­known indicators—­vomiting up pins, nails, frogs, and toads. These particular indicators of possession had been made well-­known in a pamphlet published in 1593, The most strange and admirable discoverie of the three witches of Warboys, which detailed a witchcraft case that took place in 1589 involving a woman known as Mother Samuel.12 Mary agreed to attend the girl at the Partridge house. The afflicted child was brought in where many friends and neighbors had crowded in, anticipating a performance of one sort or another. They were not disappointed, for as the girl sat in the middle of the floor, the evil spirit accosted her. Demoniacs were often treated by banishing the evil spirits. Banishing was a sort of exorcism, which had ceased to be an acceptable practice in England according to sixteenth-­century Anglican doctrine. According to the Church of England, “Ministers [were] not to appoint publick or private Fasts or Prophecies, or to exorcise, but by Authority.”13 Protestants argued that Catholic exorcism was simply a tool for gaining papist adherents. By the seventeenth century, the efficacy of the procedure was still being debated in the pamphlet literature of the day. Some Protestants continued to believe in the effectiveness of exorcising demons.14 Mary had no formal theological training that would have taught her the ritual of exorcism, but she could draw on her knowledge of banishing spirits from

that the womb was hungry for sexual intercourse. The womb might also emit vapors that could pass through the arteries to affect the brain. For a contemporary discussion, see Jorden, Brief Discourse . . . Suffocation of the Mother. 11. Christ’s Hospital, close by St. Paul’s Cathedral, was never a hospital in the modern sense of the word. During the reign of Henry VIII, the land was granted to the city of London for the relief of the poor. Inmates were street children, foundlings, vagabonds, the sick, and older men and women who required charity. The institution included a sick ward for inmates and children whose parents were too poor to pay for treatment. Maitland, History of London, 662. 12. The pattern had been repeated many times in English witchcraft accusations, including the case of Anne Gunter. See Sharpe, Bewitching of Anne Gunter. 13. Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical, #72. 14. Taylor, Devil Turn’d Casuist; Anon., Boy of Bilson.

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the world of magic. She stood quietly at the side of the girl and prayed fervently for the devil to be cast out: “O thou evil spirit! I command thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost to come out of her!”15 Mary reported that the spirit visibly emerged from the girl’s body, which immediately fell limp as a rag. The demon ran up a nearby post where it sat on a crossbeam spewing a string of blasphemous words at her and calling her a base woman and a tormentor. Although the demon threatened to tear her to pieces, Mary stood her ground and commanded him to be gone. The demon vanished and the parents carried the girl home to recover. Moments later, as Mary prepared to leave, the demon almost got his wish that she be torn to pieces. Several people claimed that she must be a witch who dealt with the devil herself. Cunning folk rarely got caught up in witchcraft accusations in England, but there was a fine line between being considered a respected cunning person and being accused of witchcraft. The distinction was largely a matter of arbitrary opinion and a cunning woman could easily find herself on the wrong side of the fence. Anne Bodenham had operated for many years as a cunning woman and healer, but in 1653, the eighty-­year-­old woman was accused and executed as a witch. Apparently, her work was so impressive that one observer said she must be “either a witch or a woman of God,” which demonstrates that the line between the two extremes was not clear cut.16 In this instance, some of Mary’s acquaintances protected her from the angry crowd and got her safely away. One could argue that Mary constructed these narratives based on folktales and pamphlets that circulated concerning the spirit world. They speak to the anxieties of the society at the time and the faith it had in practitioners of this sort. Stories like this often originated from incidents involving cunning folk such as Mary. They were believable to a seventeenth-­ century audience, and most importantly, to Goodwin. One of the secrets to Mary’s success as a cunning woman was a book of magic techniques and recipes that she obtained while still a young girl living with her Uncle John. One day an old German gentleman came for an extended visit. The man took quite a fancy to Mary. Although she was not overly fond of the rotund little man, he dogged her day and night while

15. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:40. 16. See Bower, Doctor Lamb Revived.

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she carried out her household duties. Playing on her insatiable inquisitiveness, he began to teach her several recipes for healing, as well as other curiosities. After much wheedling, he convinced her to run away from her uncle’s and go secretly with him to Germany, where he promised to teach her all she wanted to know. (No doubt he planned to increase her carnal knowledge as well.) The plans were made and the date set. In preparation for their departure, he entrusted to her care a large, old book. But the night before they were to leave, Mary had second thoughts about running away, and she confessed the whole scheme to Uncle John. He surreptitiously sent her to her father’s house in Turville early the next morning. When she did not show up at the appointed meeting place, the old German returned to Uncle John’s and pretended that nothing was amiss. But by the third day, he could not stand it any longer, and he inquired as to the whereabouts of Mistress Mary. Her uncle then revealed that he knew about the clandestine plan. The gentleman was forced to quietly pack himself off to Germany to save what dignity he had left. Mary supposed that he did not dare tell her uncle that she still had his precious grimoire. Even as a young girl, Mary understood how valuable the volume was, and she cleverly wrapped it up in her clothes before she fled to Turville. She never did reveal her secret to her uncle. The old man’s book proved very useful. A grimoire was originally a handwritten manuscript that gave instructions for various types of magical operations. Volumes of this sort had been in circulation in the monastic and university communities throughout the Middle Ages.17 Magical instructions were usually written in Latin, with an occasional recipe inserted in English, French, or Hebrew. However, the overall increase in printing, which blossomed from the mid-­fifteenth century onward, made occult information more widely disseminated. Several printed volumes on the occult were readily available in English. The secrecy surrounding ritual magic makes it impossible to know how many volumes existed or how easily accessible they were. Innumerable treatises on astrology existed, especially as a result of the loss of control of the printing of almanacs and popular literature by the Company of Stationers during the Interregnum.18 As grimoires were circulated and copied, each magician compiled his own unique and eclectic collection of magical instructions, including

17. Davies, Grimoires. 18. Tomlin, Divinity for All Persuasions, 38.

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fragments of published texts. Material from authoritative authors was supplemented with charms and spells, instructions for making talismans and amulets, and medical recipes. Astrological correspondences were usually scattered throughout. Mary probably pored over the intricate illustrations of magic circles, drawn with red ink with esoteric symbols around their perimeters. Although she could read, she would not have been able to read the Latin instructions. After Mary was widowed from her first husband, she actively pursued the cunning craft. She had the means at that time to have selected passages translated for her by a scholar who was temporarily down on his luck. She sat by his side while he wrote, taking the book away with her for safekeeping at the end of each session. For a crown a day plus food and drink, he eventually deciphered more than a third of the book.19 One set of instructions taught Mary how to gather fern seed, which had magical properties associated with the king of Fayrie. According to legend, an angel foretold that John the Baptist would be born “at that very instant, in which the Ferneseede, at other times invisible, did fall.”20 Mary told Goodwin that at midnight one Midsummer’s Eve (the only day of the year that the seed blows), she cast a magic circle around the fern to collect the tiny seeds, which were no larger than fleas, while the devil, appearing as a man in black, roared outside the protective circle. In addition to practicing physic, Mary fashioned gambling charms. Gambling—­or gaming, as it was called in the seventeenth century—­was a very widespread pastime among men and women from all social levels. In addition to playing cards, throwing dice, spinning roulette, tossing coins (known as hat farthing), shooting billiards, and buying lottery tickets, people bet on cockfighting, dogfighting, bull-­ and bearbaiting, horse racing, and bowling. At the highest level of society, the monarch employed an official in the royal household, the groom-­porter, whose duties included furnishing the king’s lodging with cards and dice and arbitrating disputes among players. Elite men and women could play games in the groom-­ porter’s lodgings at Whitehall as well as in the privy chamber. Lower-status gamblers played in gaming houses, common taverns, or wherever it was

19. A crown was worth five shillings. A shilling was equal to twelve pence. There were sixty-­two shillings in a sterling pound. 20. Jackson, Treatise Containing the Originall of Vnbeliefe, Misbeliefe, or Misperswasions, 178–­79. For the many magical beliefs concerning ferns, see May, “Economic Uses and Associated Folklore of Ferns and Fern Allies.”

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convenient. The area around Covent Garden was particularly popular for gaming in London.21 Sons of aristocrats who were waiting to inherit estates and surviving on a meager allowance from their fathers were particularly prone to such pastimes. In an age of financial instability, there was great demand for a talisman that players could carry to help them win at the gaming table. In seventeenth-­century terms, a talisman was an image or figure that was made under certain constellations. The word could also refer to the magical characters inscribed on an object carried or worn as a charm.22 The preparation of a talisman required astrological knowledge concerning which stars and planets ruled which earthly elements. The study of the heavens was part of natural philosophy, and the belief that the heavenly realm was organically linked to the earthly world via correspondences supported the efficacy of the talisman. Classical doctrines concerning the relationship between the macrocosm and the microcosm had been reinvigorated during the Renaissance revival of Greek philosophy. According to Renaissance magic, adepts could channel divine power into material objects by manipulating the properties of the natural world.23 Therefore, the construction of an effective talisman was considered a respected art, not witchcraft or scamming. Mary’s skill in cunning craft had continued to grow from the time she started her practice as a young widow until she met Goodwin some thirty years later. Her prowess in making gambling charms was how she met Goodwin Wharton in February of 1683. At the time Goodwin met Mary, she was living in a “sorry little lodging in a poor beggarly alley & a very ill house” close to Long Acre.24 Long Acre was a broad street that served as the main east-­west road through Covent Garden, running from the northeast at Drury Lane to the southwest at St. Martin’s Lane. It was home to tradesmen and others of means, but the many narrow, blind alleys that ran off of the street were packed with ramshackle, two-­room cottages.25 The area was full of brothels, and according to Goodwin, many

21. Anon., Whole Art and Mystery of Modern Gaming, 104–­5; Ashton, History of Gambling in England, 43–­48; Tosney, “Gaming in England, c.1540–­1760”; Bailey and Hentschell, Masculinity and the Metropolis of Vice, 1550–­1650; Tosney, “Playing Card Trade in Early Modern England,” 637–­56. 22. Blount, Glossographia, s.v. “talismans.” 23. Timbers, Magic and Masculinity, 18–­22. 24. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:64. 25. Stow, Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, 649; Thornbury, Old and New London, 238–­55.

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whores frequented the tavern that occupied the ground floor below Mary’s miserable room.26 Ned Ward, a satirist who reported on the conditions of London’s underworld, described a typical tavern: “The Ceiling [was] Beautified, like a Soldiers Garret, or a Counter Chamber, with Smutty Names and Bawdy Shadows, Sketch’d by unskilful hands with Candle-­flame and Charcoal.”27 In what Goodwin described as “scurvy” surroundings, men smoked pipes and played at cards, while women of less than reputable character awaited opportunities to make a few pence through sex or stealing.28 When a slight young man approached Mary, dressed in “an old greatcoat” with a wide-­brimmed hat pulled down low to hide his face, she wondered what he had to hide or, more likely, if he “had a mind to screw something out of her.” She had had her fill of this “sort of quack or poor projector,” who tried to take advantage of her good nature. Little did she know that Goodwin was equally uncomfortable, given the “meanness of the place” and the “ill looks of all” he saw in the tavern. As the interview progressed, the awkwardness was intensified, because Goodwin “did not immediately give faith to all [he] heard.”29 He occasionally expressed doubts concerning Mary’s previous accomplishments. But as it turned out, they shared many interests in common. Goodwin was also quite knowledgeable in physic and astrology and had experimented with alchemical trials. After much discourse, Mary agreed to furnish her mystery client with a talisman, or lucky charm, to win at gambling. Goodwin had attempted several means in the past, including “taking a mole in a mercurial hour.”30 The German magician Agrippa suggested that if a person swallowed the heart of a mole while it was still palpitating, the person would be able to foretell the future.31 But this grisly method of divination had proven futile. Mary suggested the more pleasant means of harvesting a particular variety of periwinkle. The plant grew nearby in gardens on the south and west side of the Earl of Leicester’s house. The front courtyard was occupied with shops and taverns, but local parishioners gathered herbs from

26. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:64. 27. Ward, London Spy, 3. 28. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:65. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid. 31. Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, 69.

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Figure 3. “A Table to Know what Planet Rules any Hour of Day or Night throughout the Year,” adapted from BL Sloane 3850, fol. 163v.

Leicester Fields. According to astrological correspondences, the trailing vine was ruled by the planet Venus, so it was best harvested at one o’clock in the afternoon on a Friday.32 So the next Friday, Mary braved the English winter weather to gather some of the waxy leaves for her new client. At that point, Mary had not been out of her lodging in weeks. In addition to financial misfortunes, she had recently suffered a broken leg.33 Even a simple broken bone was a serious matter in the seventeenth century; complications could lead to death. Fractured bones were normally treated by a chirurgeon or barber surgeon rather than a physician. These men, and occasionally women, were not university-­trained physicians.34

32. The seven days of the week are ruled by the seven planets from which they take their names. Friday (Vendredi in French, die Veneris in Latin) is ruled by Venus; Lilly, Christian Astrology, 482. In turn, the planet that rules the day is the ruler of the first hour of each day. 33. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:64. 34. Occasionally, widows of barber surgeons were licensed to perform surgery, but more often women practiced without a license, sometimes combining their skills with midwifery. For more information

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More often, they got firsthand experience by traveling with an army where they treated wounds, set fractures, and performed amputations. The barber surgeon was both more accessible and more affordable to the general public than a physician, who seldom dealt with hands-­on medical matters. Nonetheless, they still expected payment. In Mary’s case, the surgeon refused to touch her until she paid him. Her destitute state forced her to send a neighbor out to pawn her cloak. When relating the incident to Goodwin, Mary did not elaborate on how the barber surgeon treated her leg, but the customary treatment of a simple fracture was to set it in place and then wrap it three or four times with a piece of soft linen cloth that had been dipped into raw egg whites to stiffen it. To strengthen the binding, another cloth was applied on top. This “cerecloth” was dipped in wax that had been melted in oil of roses.35 After the wax solidified, the wrapping acted like a plaster cast. Movement was further restricted by a series of splints individually wrapped in wool and placed all around the leg, about the breadth of one finger apart. After two weeks, these splints were removed, which allowed the patient to hobble around with just a soft wrapping on the leg.36 This had not been Mary’s first experience with a broken leg. A few years earlier, she had slipped in the frost going down a steep hill and her leg “broke in short in two.” The ride home in a hackney coach over the potholed streets of London had “put all the bones & slivers into such great disorder as cannot be imagin’d.”37 On that occasion, Mary could not rise for a full ten weeks after the surgeon swathed the bones. Even then she should not have attempted it, but the man was so confident of his workmanship that he insisted she put weight on the leg. No sooner had she set her foot on the ground than the leg snapped like a twig beneath her. The same surgeon set it again, but he did a terrible job. After another period of recuperation, Mary realized that her leg was not set straight but was bowed like the hull of a ship. Since at that time she had the financial means to remedy the situation, she sought out a blind man at Lambeth whose reputation in such

on female physicians and surgeons, see Evenden, Popular Medicine in Seventeenth-­Century England, 55–­56. 35. “Oyl of Roses is not only used by it self to coole any hot Swellings or Inflamations, and to bind and stay Fluxes of Humors unto Sores, but is also put into Oyntments and Plaisters that are cooling and binding”; Culpeper, English physitian (1652), 206. 36. The technique outlined here is taken from Moulton, Compleat Bone-­Setter, 6–­11. 37. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:56.

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Figure 4. “Sedan Chair, ca. 1720,” from William Hogarth, The Rake’s Progress (London: J. Chettwood, 1735), plate IV.

matters was renowned. She could not easily climb in and out of a carriage, so she hired one of the many sedan chairs that carried affluent citizens through the muddy streets of London. Through the glass-­paned windows of the litter, she watched the two burly chairmen adroitly maneuver the chair through the narrow streets. They safely delivered her to one of the several public landing stages on the bank of the Thames, from where she could travel to Lambeth. The gray waters of the tidal river acted as a freeway in premodern London. In addition to merchant ships and private vessels, hundreds of wherries shuttled passengers up, down, and across the bustling river. For as little as eight pence, Mary could be transported from Blackfriars upriver to Lambeth, on the south side of the Thames. The watermen would have had to manhandle Mary across the overhanging bow of the vessel, which was designed to allow more mobile passengers to board without stepping

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Figure 5. “London, as Rebuilt after the Fire,” from Besant, The History of London, 193.

in the muddy riverbank. In addition to silt, the banks were commonly strewn with garbage from the outgoing tide, creating a stench of refuse in varying stages of decomposition. With Mary perched uncomfortably under the tilt, the long, narrow water taxi would have pushed out into the crowded waterway. On the south shore, she would have been deposited at the stairs adjacent to Lambeth Palace.38 In the barber surgeon’s cottage, a “great kettle of oats” was boiling over an open fire. For nearly three hours, Mary waited apprehensively, listening to the crackling of the flames and the soft bubbling of the oatmeal. At last, the chirurgeon laid bags filled with the freshly boiled oats all around her leg from top to bottom. For the next two hours, “she roar’d & cry’d” as steaming bags replaced the cooled ones. When all the bags were finally removed, her leg was “as soft as a pap.”39 The man deftly set the bones in order with his clever fingers and then swathed the leg tightly once again. This ordeal was a high price to pay for vanity, especially when long skirts concealed a woman’s legs from public view. But Mary was constructing herself as a gentlewoman, and physical blemishes were associated with lower social status. Mary offered many anecdotes like these to Goodwin over the years. Some of her stories contributed to Goodwin’s opinion of her as a strong-­ willed woman who had overcome many obstacles in her life. And some contributed to constructing an image of a competent and successful cunning woman. Others explained why she had fallen to the low social and financial position she was in at the time she met Goodwin.

38. “Thames Watermen.” 39. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:56.

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Returning to February 1683—Mary hobbled on her second broken leg to the gardens at Leicester House. When she reached the spot where the small, violet periwinkle flowers usually grew, she discovered that the whole plant had been recently pulled up. She would have to wait until the next Friday to try a different location. The only other place she knew of was in a garden near Old Street, north of the city walls, which was almost two miles from Long Acre. But Mary’s leg was still not strong enough to walk that far. When Goodwin offered to go himself, Mary objected on the grounds that there were particular words of prayer that must be said while gathering the plant. Goodwin asked what the words were; Mary refused to tell him. When Goodwin argued that she ought to tell him since she had promised to obtain the periwinkle for him, Mary told him to go to hell and stormed away. This was Goodwin’s first lesson in her high temperament (and, regrettably, would not be his last). But after a few days, Mary’s anger melted and the pair made their peace. So on the third Friday, Goodwin went to the garden near Old Street armed with the appropriate prayer. But to his frustration, he could not find the spot by the directions Mary had given him. Finally, by the following Friday, the day after Goodwin’s thirtieth birthday (he was born 8 March 1653), Mary’s leg was feeling stronger and she resolved to go with him to Old Street. Together they harvested the periwinkle. However, Goodwin’s elation was soon destroyed when he (yet again) lost at the gaming table. When he confronted Mary with his recent losses, she protested that she had given the leaf to several others who had great success at gaming, naming particular people whom he knew. Goodwin had little choice but to accept the temporary setback, and the pair explored other options. Mary had successfully made six or seven more complicated play pieces in the past. Using the porous internal shell of the cuttlefish as a mold, precious metals were cast at a particular astrological time and inscribed with astrological characters. She told Goodwin that the person needed only to carry the special game piece in his pocket, and he would infallibly win at whatever game he chose. Mary told him she had owned one herself, but had managed it very poorly. She won so fast at the gaming tables that she raised suspicions and had been prohibited from attending. In the end, she lost the talisman. Goodwin “got a cuttle shell according to her direction” and obtained “clean gold and silver.” He followed her instructions, but he did not have the necessary experience in working with metals, so he was unsuccessful. Mary could not assist him because he was

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using someone else’s laboratory, and “she could not have been with [him] in so public a place.”40 Mary was determined not to lose her new client because of these setbacks. She recalled that a former client, Henry Glover, a gentleman who had lived solely by his gambling skills, had died from a rapier wound during a duel with James Lashley a few months earlier.41 She hoped that the charm she had made for Glover was still in the possession of Mrs. Wall, the woman Glover was to have married. Within a few days, Mary tracked her down, but Mrs. Wall informed her that she had given the talisman to Mr. Glover’s serving man as a reward for his employment, thinking it no more than a trinket. Further investigation revealed that the servant had subsequently pawned the piece, valuing it only for its gold and silver content. Mrs. Wall agreed to get it out of pawn, but she said she would not part with the thing unless she knew what its true value was. When Mary explained its power, Mrs. Wall said, “Say you so! I don’t believe that. Come, do you take it and I’ll play with you.” But when Mary played, she lost every game. “Now,” said Mrs. Wall, “let me have it and try if I can win.”42 Which she did. But Mrs. Wall was suspicious of how the charm worked, fearing it might be empowered by the devil, and happily parted with it. Mary confidently presented the play piece to her new client and instructed him not to remove it from its silk wrapping for nine days. But when the time was up and Goodwin used it, he again lost his money. After all these delays, he was very discontented with his results and demanded an explanation. Then Mary remembered that the charm had originally been consecrated by a priest upon the altar, and she realized that it was only good for the person for whom it had been specifically blessed. She concluded that it worked for Mrs. Wall because the woman was to have married Mr. Glover and become one flesh. In order for it to work for Goodwin, the piece needed to be reconsecrated for his use. However, it was increasingly difficult to find a Catholic priest in London in light of the anti-­papist sentiment of the 1680s, when Charles II’s court was identified with Catholicism.43 It was even more difficult to find a priest who was willing to dabble in magic. In the past, Mary had employed a priest

40. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:68. 41. Middlesex County Records (Old Series), Vol. 4, 1667–­89, ed. Jeafferson, 188. 42. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:72. 43. Miller, After the Civil Wars, 121.

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from the Catholic chapel of the Spanish ambassador, who leased part of the thirty-­three-­room London mansion known as Weld House, situated on present-­day Wild Street just west of Lincoln’s Inn Fields.44 In the eyes of Protestants, Catholic priests were often considered conjurers because of the controversy surrounding transubstantiation. Indeed, it had been Catholic monks who had kept ritual magic alive throughout the Middle Ages by copying magic manuals and experimenting with the spirit realm. The intertwining of magic and popery continued to be a common notion. After these initial setbacks, Mary decided that if she was going to go to any more trouble, she wanted to know her mystery client’s name. Goodwin had continued to conceal his identity from Mary for the first few weeks of their relationship as he did not want to be seen in the seedy part of the city where she lived. She was very pleased to discover that the young gentleman was Goodwin Wharton, son of Philip, fourth Baron Wharton. The Wharton estate of Wooburn Manor was just six miles from Mary’s childhood home in Turville. Wooburn Manor had been part of the baron’s marriage settlement when he moved to Buckinghamshire from the north to wed Goodwin’s mother, Lady Jane Goodwin.45 Not only was Mary well aware of the Wharton family as local aristocracy, but also Philip was particularly prominent in the county because of his controversial political life. He had been one of the more radical Protestants who had supported the puritan Oliver Cromwell against King Charles I during the civil wars in the 1640s. Although Wharton had favored the parliamentarian faction during the civil war, he was alarmed at the extent of religious nonconformity that developed following the death of Charles I. After Cromwell’s death, Philip Wharton supported the Restoration monarchy of Charles II; however, he continued to support the anti-­Anglican faction of Parliament.46

44. The chapel was destined to be gutted in 1688 by a London mob fired up about James II’s Catholicism. Cunningham, Handbook for London, s.v. “Wild House,” 554. 45. Jane Goodwin (1618–­58) was the only daughter and heir of Colonel Arthur Goodwin and his wife Jane, daughter of Richard Wenman, Viscount Wenman of Tuam; Joan A. Dils “Goodwin, Arthur (d. 1643), politician,” in DNB. 46. Philip Wharton (1613–­96) was the son of Sir Thomas Wharton of Easby, Yorkshire, and his wife Philadelphia, daughter of Robert Carey, first Earl of Monmouth. Since his father died before Philip reached manhood, the title of baron was passed down from his grandfather. At the tender age of twelve years old, he inherited vast estates in Westmorland, Cumberland, and Yorkshire in the north. His first marriage, to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Rowland Wandesford of Pickhill, Yorkshire, was childless. In 1637 he married his second wife, Lady Jane. They had three surviving sons (Thomas, Goodwin, and Henry) and four daughters (Anne, Margaret, Mary, and Philadelphia). For more information on Wharton’s political intrigues, see Jones, Saw-­Pit Wharton.

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Goodwin’s father was a well-­known political actor and aristocrat, which meant that Goodwin was a highly visible member of society, even though he was a second son. The elder Wharton’s religious and political opinions meant that Goodwin was well versed in nonconformist religious doctrine, which was outside the views of the orthodox Church of England, as well as the Roman Catholic one. Goodwin’s beliefs would later be challenged by Mary’s religious views, which were colored by Catholic influences. So not only were Mary and Goodwin separated by social status, but they also came from opposite ends of the religious spectrum. Despite these differences, they were united in their common interest in magic. By the time Mary met Goodwin, she was fifty-­three years old and an independent, experienced woman, but she was also in financial trouble. At first glance, Goodwin—­himself desperate for magical help—­might have appeared to be an easy mark, but if Mary had any designs on the Wharton riches, her hopes would soon have been destroyed. Goodwin explained that his father’s large estate did him little good as the second and least favorite son. “Gooding,” as he was known to his family, had always been overshadowed by his elder brother, Tom. The boys should have had a close relationship: They were tutored at home and then traveled to France together to complete their schooling. But the young Gooding could not compete for attention with the extroverted Tom, who remained his father’s favorite despite his reputation as a notorious rake. He was well known for racing horses, chasing women, gambling, brawling, and dueling. Lord Wharton’s favoritism was evident in his handling of the Wooburn estate, which his wife had brought to the marriage. Goodwin’s mother, Lady Jane, had instructed her husband to bequeath Wooburn House to her second-­born son, reasoning that her elder son did not need the additional estate, but it would provide well for their second son.47 The baron did not honor his dead wife’s wishes; he gave the estate to Tom. When push came to shove, Goodwin was pressured into yielding to his father’s wishes and signing away his claim to the property in exchange for a promise of a meager and inadequate income of two hundred pounds a

47. Wooburn Manor had been granted to William Lord Compton by Henry VIII. During the reign of Elizabeth I, Compton granted the lands to Robert Spencer and Robert Atkinson. It came into the possession of the Goodwin family via the marriage of Anne, daughter of Sir William Spencer, to Sir John Goodwin. Part of the original manor, known as Bishops Wooburn, was included by Sir Francis Goodwin in the marriage settlement of his son Arthur in 1618. This subsequently became part of the marriage contract between Philip Wharton and Jane Goodwin.

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Figure 6. Parishes of Turville and Wooburn in the Three Hundreds of Chiltern, Buckinghamshire, from The Victoria History of the County of Buckingham, Vol. 3, ed. W. Page (London: St. Catherine Press, 1925), 32. Accessed via www.british-­history.ac.uk. Image courtesy of Victoria County History, British History Online, and the Institute of Historical Research.

year. For Goodwin, it was a no-­win situation, as his initial reluctance and bitter complaints about his treatment were viewed as filial defiance. By the time he met Mary, Goodwin’s relationship with his father was such that he had to periodically appease his father in order to secure the promised allowance. Lord Wharton’s attitude toward his eldest son was not uncommon among the elite. Primogeniture dictated that the eldest surviving son inherited the title and the family estate. Like many younger sons, Goodwin was forced to find alternate sources of income. Many young men in the same

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position went to university to prepare for a legal or ecclesiastical career. Goodwin fancied himself something of an inventor and hoped his projects would eventually afford him some income. His most promising endeavor had been a partnership in acquiring the rights to a new design for a fire engine in 1676, but Goodwin’s attempts to get a patent for the machine were contested and the whole business came to nothing.48 Goodwin lamented that he was caught in a vicious cycle of elite poverty. His purse was almost always empty and his credit was in ruins, which meant he had very little standing in aristocratic society. By his own admission, he was weighed down by a burdensome and tedious life from which he could see no immediate escape. Like many of the seventeenth-­ century elite, he was facing downward mobility. His luck at gambling was as miserable as his fortune in other adventures, and he was constantly at risk of being apprehended on the street for his debts. At the time he met Mary, Goodwin was subletting a room at the Middle Temple, one of the four Inns of Court in London. Originally, the Inns of Court were dormitories for law students and practicing barristers, but by the end of the seventeenth century, they had been transformed into convenient lodgings for country gentlemen who came to London for business and pleasure. These gentlemen frequently sublet their rooms when they were not in residence.49 Living at the Middle Temple at least maintained Goodwin’s façade of being a respectable country gentleman. Goodwin’s story stirred Mary’s empathy, since she had experienced similar misfortunes. Goodwin reported that “(God inclin[ed] her heart to it) more freely to me than in all her life time she had ever done to any person whatsoever before.” She was “willing to trust [him] in every thing whatever and make [him] master of all [she] have, desiring nothing for [her] self when [he was] rich but to live quietly & serve God, being now almost distracted with [her] troubles.”50 Regardless of Goodwin’s poor financial circumstances, Mary had more to gain than lose from his friendship, since she had hit rock bottom herself. A partnership between them seemed to hold a world of promises for both parties. However, there was one small problem: like most London residents, Mary rented her lodgings, which were in an

48. A fourteen-­year patent was granted to Goodwin Wharton and Bernard Strode “at the nomination” of (i.e., with the support of) the designer, Theodore Lattenhower, for a fire engine with leather pipes; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, Charles II, [vol. 18], 1676–1677, 145, entry #796, June 5, 1676. 49. Lemmings, Gentlemen and Barristers, 32, 42; Orlin, “Temporary Lives in London Lodgings,” 229. 50. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:67.

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Figure 7. Illustration from the trade card of John Keeling of Blackfriars (1670s), showing his fire engine in use. Inscription reads “These Engins, (which are the best) to quinch great Fires, are . . .” with the subtitle “John Keeling Fecit” [John Keeling made it]. From display in Museum of London, copy from Pepys Library in Magdalene College, Cambridge.

undesirable part of the suburbs, outside the walls of the city. Influenced by the lower sort who frequented her neighborhood, she had developed the custom of drinking brandy with them. As a result, she had missed several appointments with Goodwin. He did not appreciate having to wait two or three hours for her. Even when he found her at home, they were constantly interrupted by one or another of her friends popping their heads into her room unannounced. So at the beginning of April 1683, Goodwin paid off Mary’s landlady and moved her few belongings to a house in Shire Lane, just south of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. She was not only removed from her cronies, but she was also more convenient to Goodwin’s lodgings at the Middle Temple. He could have her more to himself, and she could turn over a new leaf. Both parties were very optimistic about their future.

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The Queen of the Fairies In April 1683, a little more than a month into their magical partnership, Mary and Goodwin were at an impasse. The gambling charm Mary made for Goodwin didn’t work, and they could not find a priest to reconsecrate the charm she had made for Mr. Glover so it would work for Goodwin. But Mary was not easily defeated. She revealed to Goodwin another potential source of riches—­Mary had previous contact with the fairy realm. Mary told Goodwin that she had firsthand experience of the fairy realm. One evening at dusk when she was not yet eight years old, she “saw a great many of them altogether, & looked a great while, mightily pleased upon them.” She called to her family, but “as soon as ever they came they were all vanished, though they heard the music first as well as she.” After that, Mary often went to the fairy rings in the hills nearby to try to see them. She danced and called to the fairies to come out and join her, but they never appeared. Nonetheless, Goodwin interpreted this as a sign that from an early age “God had placed something in her or intended her for something not common to others.”1 The belief in fairies as part of the larger spirit world was very prevalent in the seventeenth century.2 Toward the end of the century, there may have even been a resurgence of fairy beliefs in the name of scientific inquiry. Leading men of the day—­including some involved with the Royal Society, the flagship of the scientific revolution—­actively pursued inquiry into the supernatural, thus perpetuating the belief in the fairy realm. For

1. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:21. 2. For a general discussion on early modern fairy beliefs, see Latham, Elizabethan Fairies; Briggs, Anatomy of Puck; Purkiss, At the Bottom of the Garden.

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the most part, those who wrote about fairies were recording the popular beliefs of the time. A great deal of ambivalence existed concerning the nature of fairies both in popular culture and in learned discourse. Descriptions of fairies in printed literature reflect this ambiguity. In a discussion concerning second sight, part of which was published as Miscellanies in 1696, the antiquarian and Royal Society member John Aubrey wrote that he was not certain whether fairies were demons or ghostlike spirits.3 The seventeenth-­ century nonconformist minister Richard Baxter acknowledged the possibility that fairies were intermediary beings that resided halfway between heaven and hell: “We are not fully certain whether these Aerial Regions have not a third sort of Wights, that are neither Angels, (Good or Fallen,) nor Souls of Men, but such as have been there placed as Fishes in the Sea, and Men on Earth: And whether those called Fairies and Goblins are not such.”4 He did not say whether “wights” were considered demonic. In The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), the scholar Robert Burton expressed that he felt more strongly that fairies were terrestrial devils (commonly seen by old women and children) that danced on the heath and lived under the hills.5 Other authors believed that such beings could be profitable for mankind. The astrologer William Lilly stated that “Those glorious Creatures, if well commanded, and well observed, do teach the Master anything he desires . . . [they] love the Southern Side of Hills, Mountains, Groves.—­Neatness and Cleanliness in Apparel, a strict Diet, an upright Life, fervent Prayers unto God.”6 James VI of Scotland (later James I of England) also noted that some people believed that the Scottish fairies called “brownies” were benevolent spirits that took “turnes vp and down the house,” helping with the housework. However, in his treatise on witchcraft, he opined they were really evil spirits.7 As the concern with witchcraft grew in the sixteenth century, the authorities who recorded witchcraft accounts often included fairies in the demonic realm. Goodwin’s conception of fairies had come from reading “part of Paracelsus,” who depicted them as “almost a sort of devil.”8 The

3. Aubrey, Miscellanies, 76, 156. 4. Baxter, Certainty of the Worlds of Spirits, 4. 5. Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, 65. 6. Lilly, Mr. Lilly’s History of His Life and Times, 103. 7. James VI, Daemonologie, 65. 8. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:69.

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Swiss Renaissance physician Paracelsus described several types of elemental spirits commonly considered under the umbrella term of fairies. Sylphs lived in high places like mountaintops and traveled on the wind; although composed of air, they could appear in human form and live for hundreds of years. Pygmies or gnomes were earthly elementals that lived below the surface of the earth where they guarded hidden treasure; these beings loved to deceive humans and could be dangerous. And elves and brownies lived in communities in the forest.9 This communal aspect of the fairy realm was also expressed by the Gaelic scholar and Episcopalian minister Robert Kirk, who described fairies as “subterranean inhabitants” who lived in houses, dressed like humans, and had humanlike disputes. Mary’s presentation of the fairy kingdom was reminiscent of Kirk’s portrayal, particularly in reference to their disputes. Mary would not have been familiar with Kirk’s work because it was not published until the nineteenth century, but Kirk composed The Secret Commonwealth at the end of the seventeenth century, so it reflects the common folklore of the time.10 Some of the tales that Mary told Goodwin reflect the ideas circulating in oral culture. She related the story about “one wench [who] was taken by them & because she would not dance with them was taken up into the air & let fall in a pond.”11 Mary’s childhood method of calling the fairies was common to women, who tended to invite spirits to appear rather than commanding them to do so.12 According to the beliefs of the time, there were several methods available for communicating with fairies. Male magicians usually used formal invocations. One set of instructions advised the magician to soak a crystal in the blood of a white hen and bury specially prepared hazel sticks in a place that fairies haunt, then invoke the fairies at an astrologically propitious time. Any spirit that appeared would be bound to the crystal so it would be at the magician’s beck and call. Once so bound, the fairy was obligated to satisfy all the magician’s commands, without deceit,

9. Paracelsus’s ideas were originally published in “Liber de nymphis . . .” in Philosophia Magna (1567). Goodwin could have read the English version translated by Robert Turner; Paracelsus, Of the Supreme mysteries of Nature, 51–­59. 10. Kirk was responding to an inquiry by Bishop Edward Stillingfleet, a seventh son who also had seven sons, concerning the belief that the seventh son of a seventh son was prone to having the sight. Kirk, Secret Commonwealth, ed. Lang, 5. 11. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:21. 12. For a more in-­depth discussion of the gendered differences of magic, see Timbers, Magic and Masculinity.

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or face everlasting damnation.13 A less formal method to have conference with a fairy was to stand under an elder tree and say “Magram Magrano” three times. If the summoner was lucky, a yellow flower would spring from the ground and a fair woman would appear, and she would grant the magician’s every wish.14 But sometimes fairies simply appeared to a person, unexpectedly and of their own volition, as they did in Mary’s case. After Mary’s brief encounter with the fairies as a child, she never saw them again until she was estranged from her third husband. Sometime in the 1670s, a poor woman from the village of Longford, sixteen miles west of London, asked Mary to visit her house to deal with some spirits that were disturbing her. Mary entreated her landlord, Mr. Blow, as well as a couple of men she could trust, to accompany her to the woman’s home. The first leg of the journey was on a well-­traveled and relatively safe road, since it was one of six routes used by the English post office. It was not safe, however, for anyone, let alone a woman, to ride alone through the barren heaths of Hounslow, which had a notorious reputation for being plagued by highwaymen. The rotting corpses of criminals, hanging on gibbets along the way, served as a grisly reminder of the dangers of the open road.15 Like many women of the middling sort, Mary was an accomplished rider, and at that time in her life, she had her own horse. On this occasion, however, she rode double with Mr. Blow. Some women, even elite women, rode astride like a man, but since Mary was constructing herself as a gentlewoman, she probably sat sideways on a pillion tied behind the saddle. Riding double was a common practice among all levels of society.16 The party would have followed the Strand past St. James’s Park and out to Knightsbridge. The straight but narrow road had originally been built by the Romans to access coal from Bristol and to travel to Bath to take the comfort of the hot spring waters. A little beyond the town of Old Brantford, where the road met the northern bank of the Thames, the riders would have ridden through open, uncultivated land. Beyond the village of Hounslow, the town of Longford spread out along both sides of the road for half a mile.

13. Bod. Ashmole 1406, fols. 50–­53. 14. BL Sloane 3851, fol. 129. 15. History of the County of Middlesex, 3:96. 16. Edwards, Horse and Man in Early Modern England, 76–­77.

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Figure 8. The road from London through Old Brantford and Hounslow to Longford, from “The Road from London to the city of Bristol,” in John Ogilby, Britannia. London 1675 (Facsimile reprint, Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1970), Plate #11 between pp. 20 and 21. Image courtesy of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, Rare Book F-­10 00695.

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At the house in Longford, Mary quickly determined that the spirits troubling the woman were guarding a small treasure consisting of some money and a couple of silver cups. Her traveling companions immediately started the return trip, but Mary’s departure was delayed. For some unstated reason, she wanted to take a coach back to London, but the regular coaches were full for the next two days. The old woman entreated her to pass the time by walking abroad with her to see King John’s “castle,” a thatched manor house that the current king used as a hunting lodge.17 King John had reportedly stayed there on his way to sign the Magna Carta in 1215, so the house was considered a historic landmark. The house was situated a few hundred yards from the River Colne. Mary’s hostess suggested that while they were in the area, they should visit a place nearby on the third heath of Hounslow, which the locals considered fairy ground.18 They walked out onto the heath, but Mary could not discern any evidence of the fairy rings she knew so well in Turville. Since it was commonly believed that fairies lived underground in hills, she stamped two or three times and called for the fairies to come out. But none materialized. The day after visiting the fairy site at Hounslow Heath, Mary finally returned to London. A few nights later, she felt something lie down at her back, and a soft voice mumbled something in her ear. She was filled with fear because she had experienced this sort of thing before. Years earlier, Mary had been acquainted with a Mrs. Nurse, who told people’s fortunes. One day Mary had a falling out with the woman, who threatened to tear her to pieces. Mrs. Nurse said, “Madam, I’ll send the devil to you!”—­a threat that could be interpreted as a witch’s curse. Mary got out of the woman’s company as quickly as possible, and assumed that her rude humor was due to drunkenness. But the next morning, in the shadowy light of first dawn, Mary heard something in her chamber “go patt patt, like a cat” walking across the floor.19 Before she could sit up in bed to see what it was, she felt something jump up and lie upon her chest. The weight was so heavy that she could not stir a hand or foot, and she was scarcely able to breathe. She prayed to God to deliver her. With all her strength,

17. The manor house now known as King John’s Palace is situated on Park Street, Colnbrook. Classified as a Grade II historical building by the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England, it was built circa 1600, presumably on the site of the original hunting lodge; Robbins, New Survey of England: Middlesex, 169. 18. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:50–­51. 19. Ibid. 1:37.

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she managed to extricate her right arm from the bedclothes and lay a hand on the strange burden. Although the weight on her chest was almost unbearable, what she lifted up was as light as a feather. She could not see it clearly, but it felt about the size of a cat and was as soft as goose down. By this point, her panic had turned to rage. She was just about to hurl the creature across the room when, to her amazement, it spoke to her in a scratchy imitation of Mrs. Nurse’s voice: “If thou throwest me down upon the ground Mary, I will pull thy hand off.” Shocked by this turn of events, Mary gently lowered her arm and deposited the strange beast on the floor. Once she was fully awake, she began to suspect the source of the apparition. She quickly dressed and ran the short distance to Mrs. Nurse’s house. Rather than denying any part of it, the woman said, “Why, did I not tell you I would send the devil to you? I was but as good as my word.”20 Mary bid her, at the utmost peril, to take care about coming near her again. After that, Mary was not troubled by the woman and she had no more night visitors. In the end, Mrs. Nurse became a miserable, debauched drunk and next door to an idiot. She was thrown in prison where, Mary heard, the devil abandoned her. Victims of witchcraft frequently described the nightmare experience of a heavy weight on the chest.21 The sensation was variously interpreted as the presence of the devil, a witch’s familiar, or the shape-­shifted witch herself.22 In the premodern period, a nightmare was not simply an unpleasant dream. The “mare,” or demon of the night, was believed to be a female spirit or nocturnal animal that could suffocate a person in her or his sleep.23 A modern person might interpret the images seen in such a state as a dream that occurred in the altered state between deep sleep and full waking. But the seventeenth-­century world was populated with supernatural beings and people did not require a psychoanalytical explanation.24 Mary’s anecdote highlighted the difference between herself, as a respected cunning woman, and Mrs. Nurse, a suspected witch. In this case, Nurse

20. Ibid., 1:38. 21. Francis Bacon (1561–­1625) maintained that the nightmare dream of a weight on the stomach was caused by indigestion rather than any supernatural cause; Weidhorn, Dreams in Seventeenth-­Century English Literature, 34. 22. On the witch’s familiar, see chapter 4. 23. See OED, s.v. “nightmare.” On dreams in general, see Weidhorn, Dreams in Seventeenth-­Century English Literature, 16–­19. 24. Bynum takes this approach in her discussion of religious women who experienced visions; Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 8.

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was not accused or put on trial for witchcraft, but Mary’s story confirmed the dangers of dealing with the devil. Mary’s inability to control the witch firmly situated her on the opposite side of evil. From Goodwin’s point of view, her story emphasized her separation from the world of demons. So when Mary returned from Longford and felt this presence at her back in the night, she lay in such a fright that she could not understand the low, gentle voice that spoke to her. The following evening, just in case the presence returned, she left a candle burning in her chamber. Nothing unusual happened for the next two nights, but on the third, she heard soft footsteps in the room, although she could not see anyone. Then a delicate little creature, not more than a yard tall, materialized from the shadows and moments later, the handsome, well-­dressed woman hopped up and seated herself on the edge of the bed. “Mrs. Parish,” she said softly, “I come to tell you that you must not lie idly here, but that you must get up and prepare yourself, for there is a design against your life or happiness by the Prince.”25 Mary was uncertain which was more startling: the message or the messenger. She set aside the mysterious content of the message for the moment and concentrated on the ethereal messenger. Mary thanked her for her kindness. Before the creature could dissipate into thin air like the fairies of her childhood, Mary quickly reached out and caught the woman’s small hand in both of her larger ones. Mary was surprised to discover that she was grasping flesh and bone that felt as real as her own. But she did not wish to hold the woman against her will, so she allowed the dainty hand to be drawn back. Blushing, the woman told her not to be afraid. She told Mary that others like herself would come soon, especially the visitor’s father, who would give her good counsel. And she told Mary that the queen of the fairies wanted her to come to court the next day at the place the old woman in Longford had shown her. Then she took her leave and faded from sight. The next morning, Mary slipped away to the stable as early as she could. She had the wits to stop along the way and bring along Mr. Stretwell, a tapster from a neighboring tavern, a simple man she could trust to be discreet. They rode hard the whole way to Hounslow Heath. When she came within a short distance of the place, she dismounted and instructed her companion to wait for her. As she walked across the heather-­

25. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:51.

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covered meadow, she heard the delicate ringing of bells. Her senses were enveloped by beautiful music that seemed to be coming from a knoll. She surveyed the knoll, but no one was in sight. Then she noticed a golden plate filled with sweetmeats, a golden spoon and fork, and a bottle of wine with a glass goblet. A disembodied voice welcomed her and invited her to eat and drink. Mary did not want to insult her invisible hosts, but she had heard that eating fairy food could cause her to be suspended in the fairy realm. She excused herself as politely as possible, and the mysterious voice told her to return the next day, when she would be able to see the fairies and go among them. They also told her to take the golden plate and utensils as a gift. Two days later she repeated the journey. Once again, she left her horse and her traveling companion some distance away. As she approached the place, she could see a sort of little door in the side of the hill. The voice bid her enter and she did without any hesitation. Once she stepped through the doorway, she was immediately in the company of two or three diminutive creatures similar to the woman who had visited her chamber. They led her down a path that seemed to be always going downhill and constantly in a round. In a short time, they came to level ground and entered a stately palace, more beautiful than Whitehall or Somerset House. The creatures led Mary through a number of courtyards, many paved with marble. After passing through several great rooms, they entered a most splendid chamber where two little persons sat at dinner under a canopy. The couple invited her to sit at another little table that was set close by and laden with food, but again Mary had little appetite for the food of this enchanted place. While the couple ate and drank, they spoke with her and asked her many questions. They urged her not to be afraid of them or what they offered her, explaining that they were a people who also served God and did not mean her any harm. After they talked for more than half an hour, the king and queen (for that is who they were) presented her with presents of delicately wrought rings and jewels. When Mary thanked them for it, they replied “Thank not us, thank God.”26 The same little creatures led her back through the palace and up the winding path to the heath. This portion of Mary’s fairy narrative is very reminiscent of James VI’s commentary on the superstitions concerning fairies. He explained how people

26. Ibid., 1:52.

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claimed that they had been “transported with the Phairie to such a hill, which opening, they went in” and saw “a King and Queene of Phairie, of such a iolly court & train.”27 A couple of evenings later, as Mary lay in her bed in London, the little king and queen appeared in her chamber with half a score of attendants. They walked around the room and tried to persuade her not to fear them. They told her to visit them at Hounslow whenever she wished. All she needed to do was to call at the place, and she would be let in. Almost every night after that she had visitors: sometimes the king and queen together with their retinue and sometimes just one of them. Most of the company looked very young, scarcely over the age of twenty years. One little old gentleman, who appeared to be above sixty years of age, was the father of the young creature who had first appeared to Mary. They called him Father Fryar. He was dressed somewhat like a Catholic friar in a cowl and a rough-­spun woollen tunic tied at the waist with a rope belt. What distinguished him from a regular friar was a hat with a great brim, which flopped over his face and hid his eyes. It is tempting to think that Mary’s description of the fairy realm was influenced by a woodcut that appeared on the cover of a pamphlet published before she was born, in which a tonsured monk follows a regally dressed couple. Even if Mary never saw the image, it reflects a conception of the fairy realm that circulated in the early modern period. These creatures, which humans commonly called fairies, referred to themselves as Lowlanders and referred to people like Mary as Uplanders. Mary did not know what to make of all this. She was not easily persuaded to set aside her fears. She thought it might be a sin to eat and drink with them. What if they were some form of demons? But Mary soon discovered that the Lowlanders were a very religious people, practicing a form of Christianity similar to Roman Catholicism. They had their own pope, who resided in England, thereby conveniently avoiding the political issues associated with a foreign papacy. (Henry VIII would have approved.) But having descended from the Jews, they differed from the papists in that they also strictly observed Judaic practices dating back to the time of Moses. They even circumcised their male babies. Mary was not the first person to associate fairies with Catholicism. James VI of Scotland had noted

27. James VI, Daemonologie, 74.

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Figure 9. King and Queen of Fairies, from R. S., A description of the king and queene of fayries (London, 1635). Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, Shelfmark Arch. A f.83 (3).

that fairies first “appeared in time of Papistrie and blindnesse.”28 In his poem “The Fairie Temple” (ca. 1626–­38), Robert Herrick portrayed the fairies employing “mumbling Masse-­priests” and using the paraphernalia of the Roman Catholic church, including beads, bells, fumigations, and 28. Ibid., 65.

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indulgences.29 Following the Reformation, magic and Catholicism were frequently linked as the Church of England struggled to eliminate both popery and what they considered superstition among its parishioners.30 Mary’s construction of a Catholic fairy realm probably represented her desire for the old religion. She told Goodwin that, although her father was a Protestant, she had been raised as a Catholic by her mother. Perhaps her mother educated her at home about the traditional ways or perhaps the local school was operated by Catholic families. Mary may have learned to read and write by studying the Catholic catechisms. Mary had attended a primary school in the village of Watlington, five miles west of Turville in the bordering county of Oxfordshire. This was probably the closest school to Turville; not every parish supported a school and education was not a national or even a parochial institution. Girls were not admitted to grammar schools where young boys studied Latin and classical literature to prepare for university. But some girls, usually between the ages of six and nine years old, attended privately operated elementary schools where they learned to read and possibly write, skills that were taught separately.31 Despite the Protestant position of the Tudor and Stuart monarchies, the Roman Catholic religion had openly survived in England. Catholics were tolerated as long as they paid the required fines for recusing themselves from attendance at Anglican Church services. In the isolation of the Chiltern Hills, there were several prominent Catholic families, including the Stonor family. The Stonors were staunchly Catholic and paid heavy recusancy fines.32 In 1632, William Stonor built a large house in the parklands of Christmas Commons, on the edge of the village of Watlington where Mary went to school. The family may have had an interest in education born out of a religious agenda. Although it was many years after Mary attended school, William Stonor’s third-­born son, Thomas, built and sponsored a boy’s grammar school upstairs in the new town hall.33 Regardless of where Mary obtained her information, she

29. Herrick, Poetical Works, ed. Martin, 90–­93. 30. Purkiss, At the Bottom of the Garden, 105–­6. 31. Jewell, Education in Early Modern England, 11–­12, 92–­93. 32. Recusants were citizens who refused to attend services of the Church of England. According to the Elizabethan Act against Popish Recusants of 1592, recusants had to pay heavy fines for the privilege of continuing their Catholic faith. For an overview of Catholicism in early modern England, see Bossy, English Catholic Community, 1570–­1850; Haigh, “From Monopoly to Minority.” 33. History of the County of Oxford, 8:213; Christine Carpenter, “Stonor [Stonore] family (per. c.1315–­c.1500), gentry,” DNB.

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was certainly knowledgeable about Catholic practices. She incorporated Catholic theology and ritual into her interpretation of the fairy realm. The Lowlanders often invited Mary to stay the night at their court, but she always politely declined, still worried they might turn out to be some sort of evil creatures. Her distrust was not altogether unjustified. One night when the king, along with a train of followers, was visiting her in her chamber, he said, “Madam, I understand you have been a woman that hath bore many children; I, for my part, have nought by my wife but if you will let me lie with you, and I have a child by you, I would make you the greatest woman in England.”34 The king’s proposition bears an interesting resemblance to the behavior of King Charles II, who had no children by his queen but acknowledged twelve bastards by seven different mistresses.35 Mary was outraged at the king’s brazen suggestion, but before she could cry out and wake the household, the king assured her that he would not force her to do anything against her will, then quickly took his leave. After Mary’s refusal to bear a child for the king, he grew more reserved with her and seldom visited her in her chamber. The queen, however, often came twice a week, and Mary continued to make visits to Hounslow. Mary’s association with the Lowlanders continued for several years and she seldom left their kingdom without some present of money or jewels. This would be her downfall. She grew so confident of their generosity that she began to brag. When anyone asked her how she managed to live so high, she flippantly replied that “she could but make a journey to the fairies and she could have what she would.”36 Father Fryar chastised her on more than one occasion about this indiscretion, but she foolishly took no heed. Worse yet, she continued to take along company to Hounslow, sometimes inviting three or four men. Her party rode so often through Brantford that she was the subject of public speculation. She often stopped at inns on the way back and talked brazenly about her adventures. This behavior earned her the title of conjurer, which infuriated her. The people of the parish of Hounslow were so alarmed by her constant visits that they cut down a great old tree that grew near the entry to the fairy

34. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:53. 35. Charles II’s queen, Catherine of Braganza, did not have any surviving children, but his several mistresses produced at least twelve bastards. The most famous was the son of Lucy Walter, whom Charles appointed to the peerage as the Duke of Monmouth. 36. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:53.

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realm, which had served as a landmark in the middle of the common. But still she persisted. When she finally became aware of public opinion, she started to avoid the road through Brantford and took the road through Acton, just before reaching Hammersmith. Although Mary had offended most of the fairy court with her indiscretions, the queen still favored her. But then there came a time when none of the Lowlanders visited her for several days. This was rare, so she rode out to see why. When she arrived at the place, there was no longer any visible entrance. She called and knocked and stamped, but no matter what she did, there was not the least response. The next day, she tried again but again she got no satisfaction. When the third day yielded no better results, she gave up, concluding that she had been banished from the fairy realm. She later learned the reason: the queen had died and the king, who was angry with Mary, forbade anyone to visit her or admit her to the court. And so Mary lost the great privilege of being a guest of the Lowlanders. After hearing Mary’s account of her experiences with the fairy realm, Goodwin was eager to renew contact with the Lowlanders. Mary employed the services of her friend George (about whom we will learn much more presently) to renegotiate her friendship. It turned out that since Mary’s banishment eight or nine years earlier, the king had married a new queen, Penelope La Gard, who was sister to the Lowlander king of Portugal. (Perhaps coincidentally, the English queen at the time, Charles II’s consort Catherine of Braganza, was sister to the Uplander King Afonso VI of Portugal.) Penelope was an intelligent and understanding woman, who was admired not only in her own kingdom but throughout the world of the Lowlanders. The king both loved her for her exceptional beauty and respected her for her wisdom. As he had grown old and somewhat doting (and had never been considered the best head of state anyway), he willingly left the management of the realm to her, while he pursued his love of hunting and other diversions. Queen Penelope cheerfully embraced the proposition of renewing contact with Mary. So after almost a decade, Mary was reconciled with the Lowlanders. Father Fryar was the first to come to her chamber. He was elated to revive their friendship and caught her up on all the gossip of the court. Father Fryar told Mary that the king and queen had resolved to visit Goodwin at night in his chamber at the Middle Temple. He bid her tell Goodwin not to be afraid of them. Mary instructed Goodwin to buy new candlesticks with pure wax candles and to place fresh herbs

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and flowers in the room in anticipation of their arrival. Goodwin dressed himself meticulously for the occasion. He sat patiently in a chair “having 4 candles burning all the night, and a good charcoal fire, & [his] bible to read in” and “past the night sometimes also praying to God to prosper [him] in [his] design.”37 But no one came. In the morning, Mary learned that the queen had suddenly taken sick, but she and the king planned to come the next night. Goodwin repeated the performance the next night, but again, no one came. In the morning, he again went to Mary’s lodging to learn what had happened. This time he learned that it was the king who had suddenly taken ill and frightened all the court. But they assured him that they would come in a couple of days when the king had rested and recovered. Later in the day, the queen sent word that she did not want Goodwin to wear himself out by sitting up all night but rather he should wait for them in the comfort of his bed. She also said that she was mightily disappointed by not yet meeting him and had taken an oath that she would be the first of her people that he would see: an oath that was to cause many complications in the future. So the third appointed night came and, according to the queen’s request, Goodwin sat up in bed with only a candle for reading. He remained awake, anticipating the fairies’ arrival, until the clock struck one, two, three, and then four in the morning. Finally, against his will, he fell into a sound sleep. When he awoke at the crack of dawn, he rushed to Mary’s lodging to inquire why he had had no visitors. Mary told him that the king and queen, accompanied by a royal entourage, had indeed been at his chamber at five o’clock, but that he was so blissfully asleep that they thought it a shame to wake him. Since their initial plan to visit Goodwin in his chamber seemed doomed to failure, the king and queen invited Mary and Goodwin to visit them on April 23 at their annual St. George’s Day festivities. St. George had been the patron saint of England since the Crusades of the thirteenth century, but celebrations in his honor had gradually gone out of fashion after the Reformation, as Protestants discouraged the veneration of saints.38 The Lowlanders, however, followed Catholic traditions and still came out to celebrate the saint’s day on the heath, riding their

37. Ibid., 1:71. 38. St. George’s cross was used on the English flag since the sixteenth century. Hutton, Stations of the Sun, 214–­17; McClendon, “A Moveable Feast.”

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small, delicate horses, no bigger than mastiff dogs. Again, Mary’s description echoes James VI’s description of the fairies, who “naturallie rode and went, eate and drank, and did all other actiones like naturall men and women.”39 While Goodwin was being deterred from meeting the queen, Mary was getting reacquainted with the Lowlanders. She had many discussions with Father Fryar and his daughter, a talkative little creature who prattled on about life at court. Mary took these opportunities of private conversation to learn the answers to her many questions about the fairies. One day when Father Fryar was with her in her chamber, she wanted to get something off a high shelf that she could not reach without a chair. Although Father Fryar did not appear to be more than four feet high, he easily reached the shelf without rising from the ground. Lady Fryar explained that they could be bigger when they willed, which explained why fairies were commonly described as small creatures yet were believed to have intercourse with humans. The other problem that vexed Mary was how they were able to materialize out of thin air in a locked room and disappear again as easily. She learned that they used an herb called moonwort, which could open even a locked door without the least noise when touched on any iron in the doorframe. Contemporary herbalist Nicholas Culpeper agreed that the herb could open locks and even unshoe horses. Indeed, there was a legend that the herb had been used to pull thirty horseshoes from horses of the parliamentarian troops of Robert Devereux, third Earl of Essex, during his campaign near Tiverton, Devonshire, during the civil war.40 The fairies’ invisibility was another matter. Mary learned that they used a certain pea that was specially grown and prepared; when a person held the pea in the mouth, it rendered the person invisible. Acquiring such a pea became Mary and Goodwin’s next project. With great trouble, and not less physical pain, Goodwin managed to catch three “black bone catt[s].” He carried the wretched beasts in two “bootes tyed down” to the

39. James VI, Daemonologie, 74. 40. Moonwort (Botrychium lunaria) is a small fern that favors the tall grass of heaths in April and May. One dark green, thick leaf puts forth a small, slender stalk four or five inches high, which has leaves resembling half-­moons. Another stalk rises above this branch, which is covered with seeds. In accordance with the doctrine of correspondences, moonwort is ruled by the moon. Culpeper, English Physician Enlarged (1725), 218–­19.

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place where he used (or rather abused) them.41 A few days later, Mary managed to also obtain a hedgehog, which she maintained was equally effective. At the appropriate astrological time, they killed the animals, removed the hearts, and inserted a pea into each heart. The fresh hearts were then planted when the moon was waxing. Mary’s instructions to Goodwin were very similar to a recipe on how “to be invisible” that appeared in a grimoire from the period. Take a black cat and kill her in March, and take out the heart of her and cut it and set a bean in the midst of it and set it in the ground in March, the Moon increasing, and the said bean will grow and become five pods and in time they will be ripe, then gather them and shell them and put them in the mouth one by one, and when thou hast the [correct] bean thou shalt not see thy face in the glass and then thou art invisible.42

The peas that were planted in the cats’ hearts did not come up, but the pea from the hedgehog’s heart, which was planted in another place, came up and flourished. By November, three or four peas were ready to harvest. But when Goodwin placed the peas one at a time in his mouth, nothing happened. At that point, Mary remembered that the peas had to be consecrated, which was the same problem they had with the gambling charm. Before Goodwin could engage a priest to consecrate the peas, the queen of the Lowlanders suggested that Father Fryar perform the ceremony. Like most of their projects, there were inevitable delays. The priest did not come to perform the necessary ritual until almost a year later, in August 1684. To prepare for the occasion, Goodwin spread a table with a clean cloth and placed a folded linen napkin on it. Father Fryar laid the pea on the far side of the napkin and came every day to perform certain prayers. Each day the pea moved a short distance across the napkin, leaving a dent in the cloth that, Goodwin reported, remained for months until the linen was washed. Unfortunately, just when the pea had almost reached the opposite edge of the napkin and dropped off, which would denote completion of the process, Father Fryar fell ill and died at the ripe old age of more than 1,700 years. Lowlanders live much longer than Uplanders, and Father Fryar was the world’s oldest Lowlander at the time of his death. In the years that

41. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:70. 42. BL Add. MS 36674, fols. 104–­8.

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followed, further attempts were made to bring the pea to perfection, but eventually Goodwin discovered that his efforts were pointless. The queen had put a curse on the pea so that it would not work until he had seen her. Cultivating the pea of invisibility was one of many projects Mary and Goodwin engaged in while waiting for their appointment with the king and queen on St. George’s Day. On April 23, at five o’clock in the morning, Mary and Goodwin were informed that the queen had fallen sick again and the celebrations were canceled. The queen assured them, through a messenger, that she would be well enough by May Day, which they also kept as a holy day, and she asked them to be patient for another eight days. So on May 1, 1683, Goodwin, anticipating that he would finally meet the queen of the Lowlanders, decided to splurge. Taking what little funds he had on hand, he hired “a coach & four horses” to carry them to the town of Hounslow in style.43 But their plans were foiled yet again. Apparently, the queen had fallen “ill,” meaning that she was menstruating. Lowlander women, following the custom of Mosaic Law that women be “put apart seven days” during their monthly flow (Lev. 15:19 KJV), were confined while they bled, plus an additional eight days thereafter for purification. During that time, the queen was attended by her ladies-­in-­ waiting, but she was not allowed to be in the presence of any man, even the king or the pope. This delay was disheartening, but Mary took a proactive approach. She sent Goodwin to the physic garden at Westminster to fetch some stinking arrach (Vulvaria).44 Also known as stinking motherwort, this plant was recommended by the seventeenth-­century herbalist Nicholas Culpeper as an excellent medicine for female ailments, since it was under the influence of Venus.45 When Goodwin returned with the plant, Mary bruised the dusky, round leaves in a mortar and pestle and infused them in Frontignac, a strong, muscat-­style white wine. The next day she sent this potion via Lady Fryar to the queen, with the hopes that it would shorten her time of confinement. Meanwhile, the meeting was rescheduled for Holy Thursday, which fell on May 17.46 But when the day came and Mary and Goodwin were

43. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:74. 44. John Evelyn records visiting a medical garden at Westminster that was under the care of Edward Morgan, a botanist; Diary, ed. de Beer, 3:217. In 1676, the Society of Apothecaries started moving plants from the Westminster site to the Chelsea physic garden, which is still in operation. 45. Culpeper, English Physician Enlarged (1725), 18. 46. To the modern reader, this seems to be too late for Easter, but in 1683 England was still on

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again preparing to leave for Hounslow, they learned that the king and queen had fallen out to such a degree that the gates to the kingdom were closed. The king had drunk a little too much the night before (as was frequently his custom) and made a fuss about Goodwin being admitted to the court. The queen insisted that it was a matter of conscience to keep their promise. They disputed all night until the queen was at risk of falling ill from her passion. Finally, when the king’s head cleared of the wine, he became quiet as a mouse, yielding as usual to the queen’s higher wisdom in these matters. But they needed time to mend the rift between them after such strong words had been thrown about during their argument. By the end of May, the queen arranged to ride out with the court to meet Mary and Goodwin at Brantford, which was four miles from the Lowlanders’ gateway on Hounslow Heath. Since Goodwin’s funds were running low, he and Mary decided to travel by water rather than coach this time. They hired one of the light and swift wherries to row them up the Thames to the landing at Old Brantford. As they refreshed themselves at a tavern, they received news that the queen had thought better of their original plan. The Lowlanders were traveling with a large company of horses and passing through the town of Hounslow would draw a great deal of attention. Therefore, she suggested that Mary and Goodwin meet them on the first heath. After making some inquiries, they discovered a gentleman’s coach that was going in their direction. On the way, the coach was pelted with heavy rains, and by the time they reached the town of Hounslow, night was closing in. Their meeting could not take place until the next morning. The rain continued vehemently all through the night and flooded the flats on the third heath, where the Lowlanders accessed their realm. The terrain dipped into a bit of a hollow where a stream ran through, and the rains had swelled the brook until it overflowed the heath. The Lowlanders could not open the door without the water rushing in upon them. Floods commonly blocked the roads in the area once or twice a year, but it was hard luck for Mary and Goodwin that the heath should flood at that particular moment. It continued to rain all day and into the next, so

the Julian calendar. Because of miscalculations in the ancient Roman calendar, the date for Easter had gradually gotten out of sync with spring equinox, on which it is based. The Gregorian calendar, based on the mathematical models of Nicholas Copernicus, was implemented by a papal bull in 1582, but only a handful of Catholic countries adopted the new calendar. Protestant countries ignored the reform for many years. England did not switch to the Gregorian calendar until September of 1752.

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there was not much hope of the flood abating. On Saturday morning, with ceaseless rain still obscuring the horizon, Mary and Goodwin resolved to return to London.

*** Goodwin’s acceptance of these constant excuses and delays is a testament to his faith in Mary and his belief in the spirit world. His desperate financial situation, no doubt, fueled his desire to continue his attempts to meet the queen of the fairies. But what was Mary thinking during this time? If we accept that the fairy realm was a construction or manifestation on Mary’s part—­whether consciously or not—­what does it tell us about her perceptions of her world? Queen Penelope managed the kingdom of the Lowlanders, which could be interpreted as a challenge to patriarchy. But Queen Elizabeth I had ruled England by herself (that is, without a consort) in the not-­so-­distant past. Perhaps Mary related to the image of a strong female ruler. After all, she was in complete control of the negotiations between Goodwin and the fairy queen. Other aspects of the fairy realm reflect the limited amount of power that a woman could have in the seventeenth century: confinement during menstruation speaks to issues of male power over females. Is Mary inadvertently commenting on the ambiguous position of women in the Uplander realm? As the driving force behind the co-­constructed narrative, Mary reveals her own deepest desires and fears as she faces life’s daily challenges. In the following chapters, we will see how events in the fairy realm mirrored contemporary historical events and echoed Mary’s personal life history. As in a fairy tale, Goodwin was the hero of the story. In typical folklore tradition, he entered into a quest to meet the queen of the fairies for personal gain and glory. As we shall discover, his quest became a journey of self-­discovery.

*** In addition to the disappointment of not meeting the queen, Goodwin barely had enough money to settle their account at the inn in Hounslow, a reflection of his serious financial straits. By the time he and Mary reached London, he was in a very bad state of mind, not knowing how they were to continue on a daily basis, let alone pursue meeting the queen. His credit

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was so bad that he could no longer borrow money from either friends or family. Out of desperation, Goodwin was forced to pawn some of his clothes to buy the daily necessities and give the couple a little pocket money until one of their projects came to fruition. Movable goods were often used as a sort of safety net against hard times. Clothing was a common pawn item, because textiles were highly valued and secondhand clothes were an important part of the English economy. By the end of the seventeenth century, there were many pawnbrokers on the streets of London, especially outside the city walls along Houndsditch.47 Resource to pawning was not limited to the lowest members of society. The banker Robert Clayton also accepted jewels and lands as security for loans from the gentry and aristocracy. On one occasion, George Villiers, the second Duke of Buckingham, used his wife’s jewels to secure two hundred gold pieces so he could gamble with the king, and Sir Robert Howard pawned jewels as security on a loan to pay the interest on his mortgaged estate.48 Goodwin could not expect Mary to contribute financially. Her broken leg was still mending and Goodwin had taken her out of her old neighborhood and insisted that she give up her practice in physic and astrology. Although she had fallen out of circulation after she moved to the house in Shire Lane in early April, many of her former friends and clients continued to drop in on her or coerce her to go out to her old haunts. Goodwin was concerned about keeping their activities secret, especially since the buildings in Shire Lane were in very close proximity and the walls were very thin. So by the end of April 1683, Goodwin moved Mary to lodgings that had recently been built on the land where Arundell House used to stand, between Somerset House and the Temple, south of the Strand. Her rooms there were more private and much more convenient to Goodwin’s lodging. Mary had to leave a few of her belongings at Shire Lane as collateral, because neither Mary nor Goodwin was able to pay the landlady all she was due. At this point in their partnership, Mary couldn’t possibly have had any illusions that Goodwin was her knight in shining armor.

47. Lemire, “Consumerism in Preindustrial and Early Industrial England”; Lemire, “Theft of Clothes and Popular Consumerism in Early Modern England,” 270. 48. Melton, Sir Robert Clayton and the Origins of English Deposit Banking, 47, 100.

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Finding a Familiar Not surprisingly, the Lowlanders were not the only supernatural characters in Mary’s world. Her culture provided a wide range of spirits to draw from: angels, demons, ghosts, fairies, and familiars. No clear definitions existed concerning the origin or nature of these various entities. In the case of a familiar, popular culture and philosophical opinion often differed. According to demonological literature, a familiar was a demonic spirit that did the witch’s bidding in return for a drop of blood or milk from a special witch’s teat, frequently located in the genitals.1 In England, the familiar commonly took the shape of a small animal, such as a cat, a dog, or a toad. A witch might inherit a familiar from another witch or be given one by the devil. The familiar represented a pact between the witch and the devil, thereby making the accused woman a heretic. A creature described as a fairy by a cunning person was frequently transformed into a familiar spirit by the authorities who were prosecuting her. At the learned level, the necromantic magician invoked his familiar to assist him in finding treasure or discovering a thief. The conjured spirit could then be bound to a crystal, to be at the beck and call of the magician. Doctor Faustus’s Mephistopheles was this sort of familiar. Another variation of a familiar spirit was the spirit of a deceased person. The idea that a person’s spirit could manifest itself after death was ancient, as seen in the biblical story of the witch of Endor (I Sam. 28:3–­25 KJV). The Catholic belief in purgatory allowed that a person’s

1. For a discussion on familiars, see Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness, 71–­73; Purkiss, At the Bottom of the Garden, 152–­55; Wilby, “The Witch’s Familiar and the Fairy in Early Modern England and Scotland”; Wilby, Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits.

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spirit might return to earth for some specific purpose. The official Protestant opinion, which dismissed the concept of purgatory, maintained that ghosts, or “souls of men,” went directly to heaven or hell and could not return to earth.2 The seventeenth-­century nonconformist minister Richard Baxter argued that ghost stories were popish propaganda: “And though many are said to have begged of the Living for Mastes [masses] and Prayers, it is liker to prove a Diabolical Cheat, to promote Superstition, than that there is a Purgatory-­State of Hope.”3 Nevertheless, at the popular level, there was still a firm belief that the deceased could haunt the earth. In 1665, in the face of imminent death, the young John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, made an agreement with a shipmate that the first man to die would appear to the other and give an account of the “future State” of the afterworld. Rochester was disappointed when his companion, who died by cannon shot, did not appear to him. Rochester attributed this to his own corrupt nature rather than taking it as proof that the phenomenon was not possible.4 Sometimes, ghosts were even linked to the location of treasure. You have heard of spirits for to walk, though many be, you He’r did see, And with some men do seem to talk about their hidden treasurie.5

The method of procuring a familiar spirit was made readily accessible by Reginald Scot, who published a treatise in the sixteenth century on alleged magical practices, in the hope of exposing them as ludicrous. However, Scot’s plan backfired, and The Discoverie of Witchcraft became a magic manual for generations to come. The aspiring magician was advised to approach a person who was condemned to be hanged and request the felon’s oath that he would return in spirit after death.6 The success of the experiment rested on the courage of the deceased party and the faith of the living. Mary got such an opportunity while she was incarcerated in debtors’ prison for the debts of her first husband, Mr. Boucher.

2. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, 587–­95. 3. Baxter, Certainty of the Worlds of Spirits, 8. 4. Burnet, Some Passages of the Life and Death of the Right Honourable John Earl of Rochester, 16–­18. 5. Anon., Strange and Wonderful News from Northampton-­Shire, 1 sheet. 6. Scot, Discoverie of Witchcraft, ed. Summers, bk. 15, chap. 8, p. 232.

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Figure 10. Lud Gate, from a seventeenth-­century map of London, originally started by Wenceslaus Hollar, ca. 1690.

There were several prisons in London for various purposes, some better than others. Ludgate Prison was generally considered the least terrible of the debtors’ prisons, which were under the jurisdiction of the city. The prison had been constructed above Lud Gate, the original western gate into the ancient Roman city of Londinium. At the time of Mary’s incarceration, it stood beside the medieval St. Martin Ludgate Church, down the street from St. Paul’s Cathedral.7 Mary would have entered the 7. When the original gate was rebuilt in 1586, there was a statue mounted on the east side to honor

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prison through a large door in the southern entrance. The young widow’s heart must have sunk as the heavy door thudded closed behind her. She would have been escorted to the women’s quarters on the uppermost floor. Five beds occupied the tiny room; inmates frequently had to share a bed with one of the other women, which was a common practice at the time. More unfortunate prisoners slept on the floor in makeshift bedding. This rough accommodation cost three pence per night, plus a further eighteen pence for the use of a pair of sheets. Seventeenth-­century prisoners were expected to pay the expenses for their own incarceration. Fourteen pence bought them the privilege of having their names entered into the official register of prisoners. Sixteen pence was required by the steward of the house for table money, which covered the cost of food. And residents in a chamber might demand further payment from a newcomer for the coals and candles already in use. In total, the initial incarceration process could cost more than five shillings. Prisoners were often in more debt at the end of six months than they were when they entered.8 Nothing but the water and the misery were free in Ludgate. Nonetheless, Ludgate Prison was for debtors, not for felons. Inmates could play at ninepins, a type of bowling game, on the flat, lead roof that was covered with oak planks. They could also socialize in the cellar with friends and family, where ale was available at tuppence a quart. Twice a day, bells called the prisoners to prayer in the chapel. Mary would have taken her place in the separate women’s gallery to listen to the prayers and psalms read by male prisoners. There were stocks for punishing uncooperative inmates, but a prisoner could eventually gain the privilege of going abroad during the day for the fee of eighteen pence each time.9 Before Mary gained the privilege of leaving Ludgate during the day, she had the assistance of George Whitmore. George was “a very handsome man, well-­shaped man and delicate hair,” who instantly took a shine to Mary. He couldn’t do enough for the young widow. As he already had the liberty of going abroad, he delivered instructions to the men at her tailor’s shop and reported back on her children’s welfare. He insisted

the gate’s namesake King Lud and a statue of Queen Elizabeth on the west side fronting onto Fleet Street. When Ludgate was demolished in 1760, these statues were incorporated into St. Dunstan’s Church in Fleet Street where they can still be seen today, 8. For a contemporary overview on the prison, see Johnson, Ludgate; E. S., Companion for Debtors and Prisoners; Philopolites, Present State of the Prison of Ludgate. 9. Johnson, Ludgate, 16–­17, 30–­31, 65–­67, 73.

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she borrow money from him whenever she was in need and showed her more consideration than any man she had ever known before. On top of his kindness, generosity, and wit, he pledged his everlasting devotion to her. Besides feeling obligated to him for his assistance, she came “to have wrought in her some sort of kindness” for him as well, although she told Goodwin that she never returned his romantic passion.10 Then one day, George did not return to Ludgate in the evening. He sent word to Mary that he was in Newgate Prison, where suspected felons such as murderers and highwaymen were held.11 Newgate, as the name indicates, was a later addition to the original city walls. In the twelfth century, Henry I had it built to facilitate traffic on the north side of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The upper stories of the structure had been used as a prison since at least the reign of King John in the early thirteenth century. The original building was demolished in the fifteenth century and rebuilt as a five-­story structure. The thick stone walls ensured that the prison was cold and damp in all seasons. The corruption of the gaolers and turnkeys contributed to the institution’s reputation as “that infamous Castle of Misery.”12 A prisoner of means could pay for a small private room with a real bed, blankets, a table, and even a window, albeit barred. But poor and notorious inmates found themselves in the deep and dark dungeons known as the Hole, where the keepers were free to administer inhumane treatment. By the time that George was incarcerated in Newgate, Mary was free to leave Ludgate during the day. When she first saw George “fast in irons,” she was so startled “that she was not at first able to speak to him, or ask him the cause of it.” How could this be the same man who had been so kind to her when she had no other friend in the world? He patiently started to explain his fate: how he had been driven from one misfortune to another until he had fallen from living well in the world to utter destitution. Not having Mary’s moral fortitude to weather such storms, he “at last betook himself to the worst of employments, which was to robbing,” which was a felony and punishable by death. He explained to Mary that he could not make peace with his Maker until he had made peace with her. He said he

10. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:29. 11. Anon., Petition of the rebells in Nevv-­Gate; Ashton, Old Bailey and Newgate, 1–­2; Rumbelow, Triple Tree, 15–­18. 12. England and Wales, Court of Wards and Liveries, Parliaments censure to the Iesuites and fryers, A2.

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was ashamed of having deceived her and abused her good nature, and pleaded with her to pardon his sins against her. He said that if she was in charity with him, he would have no trouble to accept his fate and leave this world. “Judge yourself what effect this discourse must have upon a tender woman who in her innocence could not but have conceived a kindness for this miserable man.”13 She found him as kind in his dying as he had been in his living. She freely gave her pardon for whatever wrongs he felt he might have done her and offered whatever assistance she could in payment of his previous generosity. She agreed to send a Catholic priest to him (as he was also Catholic) and provide such things as he might need in his final hours. After she returned to Ludgate, she considered what she should do. She had developed quite a kindness for him during their brief friendship. Clemency was sometimes granted to convicted felons based on petitions from family or friends.14 But “to beg his life would be an eternal infamy upon herself and her family.”15 She decided to submit to the will of God and meanwhile do whatever service she could for him before his death. There was little hope of a reprieve. After the sessions clerk submitted an indictment, the grand jury declared a “true bill” at the General Sessions of the Peace. Within a few days, the case was tried by judge and jury at the Sessions House, known as the Old Bailey. Trials typically lasted from five to twenty minutes. George was condemned to death by hanging.16 Early Friday morning, George would have listened to prayers in the chapel and taken his last communion before setting out on the longest—­and last—­two and a half miles he would ever travel. Even though it signified the beginning of the procession to Tyburn, it must have been a relief to emerge from the oppression of Newgate and have the irons struck off his hands and feet. The noose placed around his neck was a solemn reminder of what was to come. Nevertheless, he mounted “the cart with a smiling countenance and manly behaviour.” An observer would have thought that he was on his way “to another’s wedding [rather] than his own funeral.”17 As the tolling of church bells permeated the city, a procession of sheriffs, undersheriffs, city sergeants, high constables, and deputies armed with pikes accompa-

13. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:29–­30. 14. Sharpe, Crime in Early Modern England, 69; Beattie, Crime and the Courts in England, 432–­44. 15. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:30. 16. A certain George Whitmore is listed in the Newgate Gaol Delivery Records for August 28, 1661, LMA [X71/22]. Unfortunately, there are no details concerning the case. 17. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:31.

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nied the condemned men up Snow Hill unto High Holborn toward St. Giles-­in-­the-­Fields Church.18 Mary had hired a coach to transport her from Ludgate to St. Giles-­in-­the-­Fields Church, between present-­day High Holborn and Oxford Street. There she found a high place to stand as she watched George go by one last time. When processions went to Tyburn, a boisterous crowd usually lined the roads. Every thief, pickpocket, prostitute, and ballad seller in the city took advantage of such occasions. The authorities had to elbow their way through the angry mob to protect the prisoners from assault. But in the confusion, George managed to find the face he loved in the crowd. Even though his hands were tied in front of him, he managed to “pull at his hat” to acknowledge that he had not lost his resolve, nor was he “daunted at death.”19 From St. Giles’s the cart would have rumbled down Tyburn Road. The procession usually took more than an hour to arrive at the triangular gallows, known as the Triple Tree, at the entrance to Hyde Park. Spectators leaned out of the windows of nearby houses to obtain a better view of the eighteen-­foot-­high structure, which could accommodate several people being hanged at a time. Stands were erected around the permanent structure for curious spectators to better view the bodies as they swung from the three beams. Typically, condemned men had fifteen minutes to confer with the prison chaplain one last time. George “made the people an exhortation to the service of God and the avoiding of sin,” and asked for the prayers of all good people present.20 It was customary to place a few coins in the hand of the hangman before a handkerchief was placed over the man’s eyes. The noose already in place around George’s neck would have been securely tied to the crossbar of the gallows. When the cart drove away, George would have slowly strangled to death. The quick drop that broke the windpipe was a later innovation to the technique of hanging. Sometimes relatives of the condemned would pull on the person’s legs in order to hurry the slow death by strangulation.21 Mary had made funeral arrangements well in advance. She did not want to risk George’s body being stolen and sold. Each year a few corpses of executed murderers were given to the College of Physicians

18. The details of a regular execution at Tyburn are drawn from Houlbrooke, “Age of Decency,” 180–­ 85; Gittings, “Sacred and Secular,” 149–­57; and McKenzie, Tyburn’s Martyrs, 1–­20. 19. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:31. 20. Ibid. 21. McKenzie, Tyburn’s Martyrs, 19.

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Figure 11. Tyburn Tree, detail from William Hogarth, The Idle ’Prentice Executed at Tyburn, engraving, 1747, plate 11 of his Industry and Idleness series.

Figure 12. A plaque at the site of Tyburn (photo by author).

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for dissection. But since this was not enough to satisfy the demand for cadavers, there was a considerable trade in body snatching and grave robbing.22 The grisly corpses hung for an hour before they were cut down. George’s clothes would have been given to the hangman as part of his fee, the naked body then shrouded in a winding sheet. Mary had arranged for a coach to bring a very good coffin to Tyburn to convey George’s body to a house near St. Giles-­without-­Cripplegate, where he was to be buried later that evening. Four pence could hire a gravedigger and a few shillings could provide a brief ceremony. Mary may have hired a bellman to ring one stroke for each year of George’s life. But the details of George’s burial were the least of Mary’s concerns. In the brief period between George’s death sentence and his execution, Mary had contemplated a magical procedure that she knew about. She was certain that George possessed the love and kindness toward her that was necessary for him to return to her as a familiar spirit after death. She carefully explained to him that he could return to her in spirit without trouble to himself or injury to his soul. “Ah madam,” he said, I ask but one thing of you and you give me a thousand. I asked only to die in your charity and with your pardon for having offended you and justly deserved your anger. And you give me the power of perpetual happiness. For next to serving God, which this will no ways hinder me of, there is nothing can please my thoughts but the liberty of coming to you again when I am dead, and telling you how much I loved you whilst alive; and how since then still continue to do it. And also by the services I shall then do you, hear you repeat again your having forgiven me what I did whilst living, and that I have made you some requital after atonement for them. And for all the rest, you have enlightened me more than enough. I am methinks all eyes and all understanding already, and I wonder that the blackish, foolish world should never know this already other than by old women’s stories to fright children to bed, since the reason of it is as plain to me now, as why I now speak to you loaded with chains. I ever took you indeed for a person beyond all that I had ever seen in the world; I wondered and stood amazed when I heard you talk, but that your wisdom went ever out of the world I never dreamt of nor

22. Gittings, “Sacred and Secular,” 149.

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could imagine. But I do assure you I will be sure to follow your instructions; I will be sure to do it. And as soon as ever my soul hath left this body of mine I will wait upon you and meet you wherever you please to appoint me, and give you thanks a thousand one after another for this favour you have thought me worthy of and this knowledge you have imparted to me.23

This was the reason he had gone to his death like a man who was going to his wedding rather than his funeral. After Mary saw George’s body safely delivered to the church, she proceeded to Moorfields on the north side of the city walls at three o’clock in the afternoon. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the swampy ground of Moorfields had been drained and avenues of trees and walks had been laid out in the orderly, geometric French style made popular during the Renaissance. However, prior to the Great Fire of London in 1666, the fields were mostly occupied by laundresses bleaching their linens, occasional wrestlers competing, and leisurely strollers.24 In this place of solitude, Mary’s grief and anticipation must have been a heady mixture of emotions. Imagine her hopes and fears as she closed her eyes and pictured George as he was in life, “well spoken and witty,” who had told her that “he loved her above all the women in the world.”25 When she opened her eyes, her imagination was personified: George’s figure appeared in front of her, saluting her in his familiar manner. The apparition smiled and in a faint and scratchy voice told her that he was feeling very weak and would meet her again on the morrow. The next day she returned to Moorfields and he appeared again, and the next, until he had regained his strength and she could hear him speak in a low voice.

*** Mary’s emotions were running high. Quite likely she would have married George if the tides had not turned against him. And she had just witnessed his grisly execution. She was basically all alone in the world, a young widow estranged from her birth family. So is it surprising that Mary’s imagination and belief manifested the spirit of George from the depths of her grief ?

23. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:31. 24. Thornbury, Old and New London, 2:196–­97. 25. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:29.

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The sixteenth-­century magus Agrippa advised magicians to “vehemently, imagine, hope, and believe strongly” to attain positive results when practicing magic.26 Even if Mary was not familiar with the intellectual discourse on the subject of the imagination, she shared the ubiquitous belief in the spirit world of the seventeenth century. There was a widespread belief in the power of the imagination and fantasy to physically manifest things. People believed that a fetus could be negatively affected by a pregnant woman’s fright or by the sight of a deformed person.27 Mary’s contemporary Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle (1623–­73), poetically proposed that “every human creature can create an immaterial world fully inhabited by immaterial creatures . . . whatsoever his fancy leads him to.”28 And Mary fancied George.

*** Following George’s execution, Mary stayed in Ludgate for another twelve months until one of the solicitors who hung around the prison doors looking for prospective clients asked her why she had been incarcerated so long. When he investigated the charges against her, he found that the creditors’ suits were now null and void for want of process, so she was free to return to her tailoring shop and her young family. George was not only a great comfort to Mary in the days ahead, but he was an invaluable source of information as well. Because of her reputation in physic, people sought her out for her advice and counsel. However, she got exceedingly angry when they approached her to tell their fortunes. This indicates the cultural distinction that existed between a common fortune-­teller, who was frequently a gypsy, and a cunning person, who was generally respected by the community (if not always by the law). On one occasion, an apprentice approached Mary to tell his fortune. She replied, “Sir, you are a thief and a murderer.” The young man stared at her in amazement. “How so?” says he. She answered, “Because you have murdered a Jackanapes and stolen away his face!”29 The poor fellow slunk away like a fool while his master roared with laughter. 26. Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, ed. Tyson, trans. Freake, bk. 1, chap. 66, p. 206. 27. Rublack, “Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Female Body in Early Modern Germany,” 96. 28. Cavendish, Blazing World and Other Writings, ed. Lilley, 123. 29. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:35.

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Whenever Mary agreed to give her opinion concerning some loss or grievance, she pretended it was by the science of astrology, of which she had a very good understanding. Astrology was a male-­dominated practice; however, Sarah Ginnor, who also practiced physic, was knowledgeable enough to write The Woman’s Almanack in 1659, which was aimed at other females. George provided an even more reliable source of information than predictive astrology. When Mary was pressed for her advice, she told the person that the next time she saw them she would give her opinion. Then she asked George to look into the matter for her. On one such occasion, she gained a valuable friendship. The scrivener Robert Clayton, who was later knighted and became the director of the Bank of England, lost a great diamond ring worth several hundred pounds. He thought that he had taken it off while washing his hands in the kitchen. Mary was summoned to his shop at the sign of the Flying Horse, in the parish of St. Michael’s Cornhill. After meeting with Clayton briefly, she sent George to locate the ring. In a few minutes she was able to tell Clayton that he need not worry, for his ring was in his closet among his papers. It had not been stolen by his servants, as he suspected. Clayton returned the favor on several occasions. One evening when Mary was socializing in an inn with some friends, a city sergeant by the name of Mr. Howard was among the company. In jest, she said that if he met her the next morning, she would marry him. Unfortunately, the poor fellow took her seriously. When Mary stood him up, he believed himself to be the butt of a joke and held a grievance against her for years afterward. Whenever she came within the bounds of the city, he arrested her, taking pleasure in pulling her about and abusing her. On these occasions, Clayton came to her aid and bailed her out. Part of his banking practice was to grant loans based on the value of goods that were proffered as security—­basically, a sophisticated pawning business. Perhaps he paid Mary’s bail based on her personal credit and reputation. In any case, Mary had much to thank George Whitmore for during both his life and death. But as we shall see, Mary suffered from bad luck and worse management in the following years. Eventually, she found herself all alone in the world. In addition to her cunning craft, she resumed her former occupation as a textile broker, buying and selling lace and cloth. However, luck was against her even in this. On one occasion, she had taken possession of almost a hundred pounds’ worth of lace on credit, which she was to sell on behalf of another person. When another woman

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took advantage of her good nature and ran off with the lace, Mary was indebted for the hundred pounds. As if that were not devastating enough, she was robbed by a simple maid she employed at the time. The wench bided her time until she knew that Mary was abroad and would not soon be home. With the help of accomplices, she cleaned out the house, leaving Mary with little more than the clothes on her back. Mary quickly sent George to discover the maid’s whereabouts and was able to apprehend the girl. As she was carrying the maid to the justice of the peace, the girl’s rogue accomplices attacked her. Mary was beaten and the girl got away. This insult, on top of the loss of her possessions, put her in a mighty passion. She immediately got angry with George for not forewarning her of these events. He explained that the robbery and attack were both done on the spur of the moment; he had no way of knowing ahead of time or of preventing them if he had. “Besides,” he said, “his business was chiefly to serve God, contenting himself at any time to tell her what she asked him.”30 This response made her all the more angry. Mary’s high temperament had often been her downfall, and this was no exception. She flew into a fiery rage and dismissed George, never intending to recall him again. After she sent George away, Mary fell even lower. For a mere five pounds, she pawned her precious grimoire when she had no other resources. She was weary of the world and broken from all her misfortunes. Everything she touched failed. She had neither the spirit nor the will to continue. Brandy and the merry company of the many whores in her neighborhood temporarily took away her cares. At three pence, a quartern of brandy was cheaper than good meat, so sometimes she substituted alcohol for food for two or three days at a time. When she sobered up, there was “a gnawing at her stomach” until she drank more.31 By the winter of 1682/83, Mary’s broken leg had served to further reduce her meager source of income. And it was in this state of affairs that she met Goodwin. Of course, Goodwin was very anxious for Mary to recall George. Alone in her small chamber, Mary softly spoke George’s name and beseeched him to come to her as he had in the past. There was no response. Mary’s relationship with George had always been personal and informal.

30. Ibid., 1:64. 31. Ibid.

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But perhaps she used a more formal invocation for calling spirits. One entitled “An experiment of the dead” was readily accessible in Scot’s The Discoverie of Witchcraft: I conjure thee spirit of [George Whitmore] by the living God, the true God, and by the holy God, and by their virtues and powers which have created both thee and me, and all the world. I conjure thee [George Whitmore] by these holy names of God, Tetragrammaton, Adonay, Algramay, Saday, Sabaoth, Planaboth, Panthon, Craton, Neupmaton, Deus, Homo, Omnipotens, Sempiturnus, Ysus, Terra, Unigenitus, Salvator, Via, Vita, Manus, Fons, Origo, Filius. And by their virtues and powers, and by all their names, by the which God gave power to man, both to speak or think; so by their virtues and powers I conjure thee to immediately appear before me without any tarrying or deceit. Fiat, fiat, fiat: Amen.32

Whatever words Mary used, within a couple of hours George’s familiar figure once again materialized. Goodwin was pleased that George had been recalled, but he was not satisfied to have knowledge of him secondhand. George was only visible and audible to Mary. He badgered Mary to transfer her relationship with George over to him. If she did so, she would lose the power to call George or converse directly with him herself. Reluctantly, she made the proposal to George, who argued that it was not part of their initial agreement. Mary was past fifty years old (according to Mary, she shared her birthday with King Charles II on May 29, 1630) and might not live much longer, but Goodwin was only thirty and might live another fifty years. George had agreed to serve Mary out of his deep affection for her, but his true vocation was to serve God. He told her that if she persisted with this request, he would vex and trouble her. Mary disliked being told what she could and couldn’t do; she stubbornly continued to plague him about it. In return, he often woke her in the night and pulled her about and constantly chided her. At length they came to this reconciliation: he would agree to come to Goodwin but only for as long as Mary lived. A time was set for the transfer. Mary and Goodwin sat in her lodging awaiting George’s arrival. Suddenly, a chill wind passed between them.

32. Scot, Discoverie of Witchcraft, ed. Summers, bk. 15, chap. 8, pp. 232–­33.

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George had come and stepped on Mary’s toes to let her know he wished to speak to her privately. Goodwin went out the door into the hall, but he could hear George speaking to Mary in a low voice. George told Mary that he objected to coming to Goodwin, because Goodwin had not yet prayed for him. When Goodwin heard this, he argued that he had not willfully omitted praying for him, but that it was not fit for Protestants to pray for the dead, especially in the nonconformist version of Protestantism under which Goodwin had been raised. Masses and prayers for the dead were considered popish practices, which had long since been excised from the Church of England. But Goodwin agreed to pray for George in a manner he felt would be acceptable to his faith as well as to George’s. A few days later, the three arranged to meet in Moorfields at the same hour, day, and place where George had first appeared to Mary after his execution. It was a dreary April day, with drizzly showers. The spot where George had first appeared to her was still identifiable. Close to the path was “a round spot above a yard over whereon the grass had never since grown,” which appeared russet like grass after a drought. As they approached the spot, Mary hurried over to George. Goodwin, of course, could not see him. George told her in a low voice that he could not appear to Goodwin at that time because of the rain, which was “very injurious” to his airy form.33 He would try to muster his strength to appear again in two hours. But when they returned, it was raining even harder. They knew they could not expect George’s appearance that day. The transfer of George was further complicated by the queen of the Lowlanders, who demanded that Goodwin stop attempting to have George as his own personal spirit. At first Goodwin was a little resistant, but the queen insisted that if he would not willingly show her this preference, he should never see any of the Lowlanders. She wanted to be his number-­one contact with the spirit world. Goodwin had little choice but to agree to her terms. As a consolation, George agreed to answer any questions directed to him as long as Goodwin turned his back and did not look directly where George stood. However, Goodwin could not understand the spirit very clearly, as he spoke in a low, soft voice close to Mary’s ear. So throughout their relationship, Goodwin relied on Mary to communicate with George.

33. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:69.

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Goodwin was also keen to retrieve the lost grimoire. The pawnbroker had since moved, but luck would have it that Mary met him in the street one day. She only had twenty shillings about her so she could not redeem the book at that very moment, but for ten shillings she got one of the little translations she had previously commissioned. She told him that she would return in a few days to retrieve the rest. But the broker, suspicious of the true value of the book, told her that it would cost more than she had originally pawned it for. This led to a falling-­out—­he being a very cross fellow and she flying easily into a passion. Furthermore, he had apparently opened the book and now swore that it was a conjuring book (which, of course, it was), and he would have her before a justice of the peace. A constable was called for, and Mary and her book were carried before Justice Parry. Fortunately, the justice knew Mary’s third husband, from whom she was estranged at the time. The judge ordered the pawnbroker to relinquish the book to its rightful owner for the original price. Since Mary did not have five pounds with her, Mrs. Seymour, an acquaintance who had somehow gotten caught up in the dispute, paid the fee and carried away the book for safekeeping. So far, so good. But by the time Mary gathered together the money, Mrs. Seymour had moved her lodging. It took Mary a few days to discover her new location, by which time the woman had gone to Bedford to visit her sick child, who was in the care of a wet nurse. Mary followed her out to the country where Mrs. Seymour promised that she would return in a few days and restore the book to its proper owner. But the woman had debts of her own that she was avoiding in the city. In the end, the retrieval of the book turned out to be impossible.

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Matters of Marriage George proved very useful in communicating with the Lowlanders. He flitted back and forth between them and Mary. In June 1683, Mary and Goodwin patiently waited for the floods on Hounslow Heath to recede. Spring blossomed into summer and another meeting with the queen was arranged. The couple once again traveled to the village of Hounslow the evening before. They rose early the next morning at the inn and awaited word from George. Time ticked slowly on. Eleven o’clock. Twelve o’clock. One o’clock. Two o’clock. Finally, a little before four o’clock, George arrived to tell them that before the flood, the king and queen had been entertaining a group of Portuguese lords and ladies who were friends and relatives of the queen. The visitors had also been detained by the bad weather and were anxious to be on their way home at the earliest possibility. So early that morning, the king and queen, with a great entourage from the court, had ridden out with their guests to see them on their way. The queen had planned to be back at Hounslow by two or three o’clock at the latest. But when the party had ridden for fourteen or fifteen miles, the king resolved that they would have dinner together. The party fell to drinking pretty hard, encouraged by the king, and one of the Portuguese dukes requested that the king and queen continue with their retinue to the place where they planned to stay the night. The king quickly consented before the queen could make excuses. George returned with the disappointing news that their appointment would be delayed until the next day. The following day, George brought worse news. In his drunken state, the king had told his guests that he would continue with them all the way to the port of Rye in East Sussex, to see them boarded on their ship. The queen could not appear unhappy with this decision since the Portuguese 71

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were her relatives, as well as being royal guests. A further delay arose when the king insisted that he would not leave until he saw his guests set sail. So the whole party was staying at Rye awaiting a favorable wind. Mary and Goodwin sent word that they would wait a day or two at Hounslow in hopes that the wind would soon be fair. While Mary and Goodwin waited for the Lowlanders to return from Rye, they attempted another magical undertaking. Mary was never at a loss for some project or other. This time it was a love charm, using a green frog captured at a particular astrological hour. These sorts of charms were widely known thanks to critics of magic such as Reginald Scot and the German magician Agrippa.1 The charm engendered extreme passions: the left-­side bone was for love, and the right-­side bone was for hate. Just as Mary was about to throw the offal out the window, Goodwin called to her to stop. He was concerned that frog guts outside the window of the inn might raise suspicions. Mary, in her stubborn manner, took offense at being ordered about and made all the more haste to dispose of the remains. When Goodwin caught hold of her arm to stop her, she flew into a rage; after the abuse she had suffered at the hands of her husbands, she imagined that Goodwin intended to strike her. Mary had experienced marriage very early in her life. When she was twelve or thirteen years old, she was living with her Uncle John in Chelmsford. At this point in her life, she had secretly obtained the grimoire that would aid in her future work as a cunning woman. But her uncle wanted her to polish her skills as a future wife. He sent her to one of the private boarding schools for girls in Hackney parish, northeast of London. She had already learned basic reading and writing skills in the elementary school in Watlington. Mockingly nicknamed the Ladies’ Universities of Female Arts, these schools were a recent development at the time. These new schools were staffed by a generous supply of French schoolmasters who came to England as Huguenot exiles. At one time, French Calvinist Protestants were protected by the French monarchy. But in the seventeenth century, they were no longer welcome in officially Catholic France, and many took refuge in Protestant countries. Mary did not name the particular school she attended, but there were several to choose from in the early 1640s. Annual fees could be

1. Scot, Discoverie of Witchcraft, ed. Summers, bk. 6, chap. 8, p. 71; Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, ed. Tyson, trans. Freake, bk. 1, chap. 42, p. 125.

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upward to twelve pounds, which included instruction as well as lodging, meat and drink, fuel, candlelight, and laundry services.2 At the Hackney school, Mary honed her housewifery skills and also learned how to keep accounts—­skills that proved useful in the years to follow. Fine embroidery, calligraphy, and handicrafts in silver, straw, and glass were also considered necessary elements of a young woman’s education. The music, singing, dancing, and French lessons caused more conservative citizens to condemn the Hackney schools as immoral and frivolous.3 However, these skills primed young gentlewomen for travel abroad, life at court, or a good marriage into a gentry family. In Mary’s case, the school granted her the opportunity of traveling with Lady Dorothy Osborne, wife of the royalist Sir Peter Osborne, to St. Malo in Brittany when the civil war broke out. Young girls were often invited to serve as companions and maids to elite women.4 The Hackney schools were renowned for their attractive residents. The well-­known womanizer Samuel Pepys confessed that he visited Hackney “chiefly to see . . . the young ladies of the schools, whereof there is great store, very pretty.”5 And later in the century, the author Daniel Defoe wrote that he thought it should be a “Felony . . . to solicit any Woman, though it were to marry, while she was in the House,” indicating the popularity of such practices.6 This may have been why Mr. Boucher, Mary’s future

2. The City of London patronized an institution operated by one Mrs. Winch. Mrs. Salmon ran a large school that the well-­known poet Katherine Philips attended as a girl. Several smaller, less prestigious schools were favored by the merchant class. History of the County of Middlesex, vol. 1, ed. Cockburn; Gardiner, English Girlhood at School. The fee of twelve pounds was recorded in the journal of Giles Moore, 1669. Gardiner mentions a sum of eleven pounds paid in 1638 but does not provide a source. 3. The antiquarian John Aubrey criticized the schools in Hackney as places where girls learned pride and wantonness; Vincent, State and School Education, 220. 4. Lady Osborne’s daughter Dorothy, the future Lady Temple, was three years older than Mary. Mary recounted that Mrs. Osborne was accompanied by her brother, who was later made Earl of Danby. It is true that Lady Osborne’s older brother, Henry Danvers, was the first Earl of Danby, but he had held that title since 1626. In the 1640s his health was not good, and it is unlikely that he accompanied his sister to France. It is more likely that Mary was referring to Sir Thomas Osborne, who was awarded with the resurrected title of Earl of Danby in 1674 by Charles II. Thomas was the great nephew of Lady Osborne through his grandmother, Lady Osborne’s sister. Mary might have misremembered the ten-­year-­old Thomas as a brother of the younger Dorothy Osborne rather than a cousin. This theory is difficult to either support or refute because it is unknown where Sir Thomas lived between 1639 and 1644. Browning, Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby and Duke of Leeds, 14; Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, 4:48–­49, 7:507. The accuracy of Mary’s story is significant because Goodwin’s biographer uses this anecdote to cast doubt on Mary’s story about the Hackney school and her general credibility; Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 333n6. 5. Samuel Pepys as quoted in Vincent, State and School Education, 214. 6. Daniel Defoe, An Essay upon Projects (1697), 282, as quoted in Vincent, State and School Education, 223.

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husband, went to Hackney. Perhaps he was intentionally searching for a wife, or, more accurately, a housekeeper and bookkeeper. In any event, the thirteen-­year-­old Mary was taken in by the tailor who was “very well shaped and dressing well; and wearing a periwig, which at that time was a strange thing and thought very becoming.”7 The couple probably got married at one of the Middlesex parish churches outside the walls of London. Select churches had the right to perform marriages without the delay of obtaining a license or waiting for banns to be read for three Sundays in a row.8 There are no surviving registers of marriages in these churches before 1665, so Mary’s wedding still remains a mystery. After the secret ceremony, Mary returned to her boarding school. She sat listlessly at the supper table with her spoon in her hand, unable to eat a bite. When the school mistress inquired about her apparent melancholy, a friend who had accompanied her to the church disclosed the whole affair, to the horror of everyone. As a result of the clandestine marriage, Mary was forced to return to her father’s house in Turville. Her father could have easily taken Mr. Boucher to the ecclestiastical courts to have the marriage dissolved, as it had not been consummated. Goodwin commented that the marriage was “a knavish trick and no way binding by equity or justices & for which [Boucher] rather deserv’d to be punished.”9 But instead, Mary’s father chastised her with all the hard words one can imagine. Her mother was dead, and she had no one to take her side. To make matters worse, her younger brothers and sisters mocked her and called her husband “pricklouse” (pronounced “prick-­less”), a derisive term for a tailor. Even the servants ridiculed her, and her father did nothing to interfere. Regrettably, Mary had inherited the passionate Tomson spirit and, being too young to understand the folly of her ways (or more likely, too stubborn to admit them), she resolved to face her fate with her new husband in London. Mary’s willful nature would prove to be the destruction of her relationship with her father. After she went to London, he would not take any

7. A periwig was a very stylized wig, which remained in use by the judicial profession. Periwigs did not come into fashion until the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. However, the antiquarian Anthony Wood recorded the purchase of a periwig as early as 1656. Unfortunately, immediately after the wedding vows, Mr. Boucher’s “great ornament” came off, and Mary found him extremely “deformed” without it; Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:23. 8. After 1642, there were several churches that performed such quick and secret marriages, including All Hallows London Wall, St. James Duke’s Place, St. Katherine by the Tower, and Holy Trinity, Minories (now part of St. Botolph’s Aldgate); Benton, Irregular Marriage in London before 1754, 10–­24. 9. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:24.

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Figure 13. St. Mary’s Church, Turville (photo by author).

notice of her or abide so much as to hear her name. Over the years, she tried many times to reconcile with him: most of all, she wanted his blessing on her new life. But he would answer “that if she came down to him he would send her away in a cart to the next parish as a vagabond.”10 The thought of her father’s everlasting hatred and perpetual scorn eventually motivated her to ride down to Turville and surprise him at Sunday service. (Mary maintained that she was raised Catholic, and she never attempted to explain the fact that her father attended Anglican services. Perhaps he converted to Protestantism later in life. Or perhaps only Mary’s mother was Catholic. Or perhaps the family secretly clung to the old religion but publicly practiced Anglicanism.) Mary hesitantly entered the parish church of St. Mary the Virgin. No sooner had she put her foot inside the door than her father stormed out, leaving her in a swoon on the cold, stone floor. Later, “her father sent her so positive a denial to come near him and persisted in it so strongly to the last” that she never saw him again. In his will, he left her only forty shillings, which was a child’s portion, and requested that she renounce any claim to his estate.11

10. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:25. 11. Ibid., 1:26.

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So at the tender age of fourteen, Mary Tomson of Turville became Mrs. Boucher of the city of London. Although twelve was the legal age for females to marry, the more common age for a young woman to become a wife in England was her mid-­twenties. But Mary’s youth was only half of the equation. Upon arriving in London, Mary discovered that her new husband was almost old enough to be her grandfather. Such a difference in ages was considered an anomaly even at that time. Mary only referred to her elderly husband as Mr. Boucher, which makes it difficult to identify him in the archives (although his first name might not be much more helpful). There is a slight possibility that a man by the name of James Bowghker (an alternate spelling of Boucher) could have been Mary’s husband. James Bowghker, listed in the Merchant Taylors Company, was apprenticed to William Greene, and became a freeman of the Company by finishing his apprenticeship on June 30, 1595. If this Boucher was approximately twenty-­one years old in 1595 (the common age to complete an apprenticeship), he would have been sixty-­nine years old in 1643.12 However, not every tailor in London was in the Merchant Taylors Company. The livery companies, which regulated the trades in London, had little control outside the civic boundaries defined by the walls of London. Mary’s husband Mr. Boucher could have been one of the many non-­freemen operating a craft outside the jurisdiction of the livery companies.13 Alternately, he could have been a freeman in one of the many other livery companies. By the middle of the seventeenth century, any freeman of any London company could practice any trade. Mary was quite the catch for an old, widowed tailor, even if she came without her father’s blessing or the customary dowry payment. The bride’s father, or the bride herself, usually offered a dowry in the form of money, goods, or lands to help the new couple get established. The husband had use and control of this property during the marriage. This was not as important in a marriage between two well-­established people, or in this case, between an older, established man and a younger woman. As a young woman, Mary’s “skin was soft and white,” and a man “might have span’d her in the waist.” Her thick, black hair “hung upon the ground

12. Guild Hall, London, Merchant Taylors Company Membership Guide (1997). There are no records of Freedom Lists for the Corporation of London prior to 1668. 13. Davies, “Governors and Governed,” 74–­77. The medieval guild system had deteriorated; Earle, Making of the English Middle Class, 251.

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a foot, from top to bottom full of ring[lets].” In addition to her physical beauty, she was accomplished in singing, dancing, and playing the guitar. Like most young women her age, she had developed competent housewifery skills and was well ­trained by the Hackney school in the keeping of accounts. Eventually, Mary learned to love her husband in “a kind and dutiful” manner. She told Goodwin that she never overtly expressed any “affection or fondness” for him, despite the “excessive wedding joys” the old man displayed at the beginning.14 While Mr. Boucher was alive, Mary managed both the household and the workmen. She also supplemented the family income by trafficking in various merchandise, including cloth. Tailors often sold leftover materials, so Mary would have found this a natural extension to her husband’s trade.15 Technically, all traders were supposed to be licensed by the city of London, but many part-­time and petty traders evaded the system, and it is quite likely that Mary traded in just such an informal manner. By buying and selling from the brokers, she claimed that she could sometimes make four or five pounds in a morning. There is always the possibility that some of the goods were stolen, as there was a flourishing trade in illicit textiles during this period.16 Even though Mary was a good and faithful wife, Mr. Boucher started to neglect her. Nevertheless, he did not neglect her quite enough: she was almost continually with child. In less than seven years, she gave birth to seven daughters. Although Mary knew that her husband had spent a lot of time drinking at the local tavern, she was not aware of how badly he had neglected his business until after he died. Between his drinking and the mismanagement of his affairs, “there was not one farthing of money in the house” when he died.17 Even worse, they were in serious debt. Mary had to borrow money just to give him a decent burial. A married woman could not make legal contracts, so her earnings belonged to her husband, but a widow could sometimes continue her husband’s trade. After Boucher died, Mary used what credit she could get to maintain the tailor’s business and was able to keep as many as ten men at a time employed in the workshop. In addition to maintaining the tailoring workshop, Mary began “to own

14. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:24–­25. 15. Davies, “Governors and Governed,” 77. 16. Lemire, “Theft of Clothes and Popular Consumerism in Early Modern England,” 257. 17. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:26.

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her self to have skill both in physick and chirurgery: which she had not long done.” She had learned much of the practical skills from her Uncle John and had “perused her beloved book many times when alone, waiting for her late husband’s coming in.” She gained a certain amount of fame for her knowledge of the art.18 For almost six years, Mary thrived, keeping her children very comfortably and building respect and admiration from her peers. But despite her good business sense, she was too young and inexperienced to seek advice on legal matters regarding her husband’s debts. Whenever a creditor came to her, she readily paid his debts as far as she could, but she made no effort to collect outstanding debts that were owed to her husband. Just before the six-­year statute of limitations for pursuing debt ran out, her husband’s creditors joined together and laid an action against her.19 Any person who was owed more than two pounds could issue a writ to have the debtor arrested; the system was often used as a way to exert pressure on the debtor to pay up.20 This was how she had ended up in Ludgate Prison where she met George. About six months after George was executed, which was approximately one year after Mary’s initial incarceration in Ludgate, a handsome gentleman presented himself with the express purpose of courting her. A certain Mr. Lawrence (again we are not informed of a first name) approached her, based on her virtuous reputation and their family connections. The two were related somehow through family in Berkshire, where he owned an estate, and apparently there had been discussion of their marrying when they were children. When they met, one of Lawrence’s legs was lame from a musket shot that he had received while serving as a soldier. Mary consulted George (in his spirit form) about the matter, but he “gave her no great encouragement to it, but bid her take heed.”21 In spite of George’s caution, Lawrence made a good impression on Mary. And his infirmity did not prevent him from the active and adventurous life of a seaman. At this point, one might wonder if Mary had a desperate need to remarry. According to her own account, she had enjoyed a great deal of

18. Ibid., 1:27. 19. 21 Jac. I. c. 16 (1623–­24), “An acte for lymytac~on of Acc~ons, and for avoyding of Suite in Lawe.” Statutes of the Realm, vol. 4, pt. 2, [1586–1624], 1222. 20. Earle, Making of the English Middle Class, 125. 21. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:32.

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autonomy since Mr. Boucher’s death, at least until her incarceration for his debts. A widow was in a better legal position than a wife, who was subservient to her husband in all matters. As the widow of a craftsman with a successful workshop, it is surprising that she had not been asked to remarry before this. Widows were often seen as opportunities for career advancement. But Mr. Lawrence did not seem very interested in Mary’s business skills as a tailor or as a cunning woman. He preferred to continue his vocation at sea. Perhaps he was looking for a stepmother for his three children from a previous marriage. Given Mary’s financial circumstances, he was risking becoming responsible for her debts. Maybe Mary was the active partner in promoting the match. She would have had much to gain from Lawrence’s Berkshire estate and his seaman’s salary. Regardless of who pursued whom, the courtship resulted in her falling in love—­in fact, she maintained that Mr. Lawrence was the only husband she ever truly loved.22 Because the couple were afraid that Mary’s creditors might go after Lawrence as her new husband, they arranged to marry secretly. Trinity Chapel, which had been recently rebuilt on the south side of Hyde Park, was frequently used by couples who wished to keep their marriages private.23 Mary arrived on the main street that ran through Knightsbridge a little before the groom and began to fret over her decision (perhaps demonstrating her attachment to her independence). By the time Mr. Lawrence and his friends entered the chapel, she had slipped out the back door and hastily retreated to London while the groom and his guests “looked upon one another like fools.”24 Eventually, the party returned to Mr. Lawrence’s city house to enjoy the wedding dinner minus the bride. Not to be defeated, Lawrence set a new date. This time he met her at the prison and escorted her to the ceremony, giving her no chance of escaping the second time around. Mary joined her new husband a few months later when she finally gained her freedom from Ludgate. Rather than finding support from Lawrence, Mary became his meal ticket. Within the first few months of their

22. There is no one by the name of Lawrence listed in the Allegations for Marriage Licences issued by the Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury for the period in question. However, the death of one Vincent Lawrence is registered in the St. Sepulchre parish records for 1668, which is in accordance with Mary’s statement that she married her third husband less than a year after Lawrence’s death. 23. Trinity Chapel was a chapel of ease under the authority of Westminster Abbey. Many of the marriages performed there were marked as “private” or “secrecy”; Walford, Old and New London, 5:22–­23. 24. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:32.

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marriage, Mary learned that the estate in Berkshire was mortgaged to the hilt, and the money had been spent on whoring and debauchery. At first she tried to resign herself to his lies and base behavior. But when he would return from sea and spend his whole pay before he even reached her door, she would resolve never to see him again. However, “he would fawn upon her, like a spaniel, protest his sorrow and humble himself like a slave.”25 On one occasion, a few days after Lawrence’s return from a sea voyage, an extremely ugly washerwoman showed up at their door. Mary was on her way out to run an errand and instructed the woman to wait in her chamber with Mr. Lawrence until she returned. Mary went about her business and returned in the company of a friend. As the women entered the room, Mr. Lawrence climbed out of the four-­poster bed, carefully drawing the bed curtains closed behind him. Mary took no notice, and her friend sat down at the table. After some time, Mary’s acquaintance took her leave. Then, to Mary’s surprise, the unseemly washerwoman emerged from the bed, complaining that Mary was “so impudent to make [her] lie so long here, when [her] husband threw [her] upon the bed whether [she] would or no.” Mary “wondering at her impudence & that [Mr. Lawrence] would suffer it . . . grew upon it very ill and sick.”26 The next morning Mr. Lawrence went abroad and did not return all day. Mary waited up for him until one o’clock in the morning. She suspected where he might be. She marched straight over to the washerwoman’s lodging, where she discovered her wayward husband slithering into the woman’s bed. Mary called her an impudent slut; the woman responded by commanding Lawrence to kick his wife down the stairs. In response, he stood ominously at the top of the staircase; Mary left in tears. But by the time he returned home the following morning at ten o’clock, Mary’s humiliation had turned to indignation. When he demanded his dinner, Mary advised him to get it where he had gotten his supper and breakfast. Before the argument could escalate, the washerwoman arrived on the scene. Mary went to the top of the stairs and told her that she would not make a bawdy house of her home again and threatened to kick her down the steps. The words were barely out of her mouth when Lawrence came from behind and pushed Mary head first down the staircase. She was so battered and bruised that people shunned her: they thought she was a

25. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:33. 26. Ibid.

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plague victim because of the many plasters she wore where the skin was scraped off her face. This was just one example of Mary’s stormy relationship with her second husband. Mr. Lawrence died sometime in 1668 after two years of being sick with “a distemper.” Perhaps it was some sort of venereal disease.27 After these experiences, Mary had good reason to be cautious about Goodwin’s intentions when he grabbed her arm during their disagreement in the room at Hounslow. She stormed out, cursing his name and swearing she would never see him again. Tempers on both sides were wearing thin with the constant setbacks. Once out of Goodwin’s sight, Mary’s fiery passion quickly subsided. By the time Goodwin found her, she was walking calmly in the garden. Incidents like this might have made Mary question the benefits of their partnership, but, more importantly, they made Goodwin fearful that Mary would desert him in the face of their continual hardships. Before Mr. Lawrence’s death, Mary had continued her cunning craft. Her husband was not supportive of her vocation and sometimes did her “the infamous injury of calling her a conjurer and saying she dealt with the devil.” However, “her name quickly began on this account to be famous.” She gave people advice under the cloak of astrology and engaged in finding hidden treasure. At some point, she discontinued her practices of “trading, doctoring, [and] obliging of people by resolving their doubts” and made her living with the practice of alchemy.28 But after her husband’s death, she lost her household in the Great Fire, and Prince Rupert harassed her concerning her alchemical work, so she gave it up. It was at that time that Thomas Parish proposed. Mary had a rough time from her third husband as well. Thomas Parish had known Mary since she was the young wife of Mr. Boucher. He respected her many talents and virtues, but he tried to corrupt the very virtue he admired by offering to give her a considerable income if she would be his mistress. Mary’s continual refusals had just fueled his desire, and after the death of Mr. Lawrence, the older man was determined to have her as his wife. He made it clear that, as a widower from Suffolk with an estate worth £1,200 per annum, he did not need any dowry or portion. Instead, he offered to settle a modest jointure of £80 a year on Mary, which would

27. Ibid., 1:35. 28. Ibid., 1:33, 35, 41.

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come into effect upon his death. A jointure provided an income to a wife in the event of widowhood. In the form of a legal contract, it usually related to profits from land or an annuity. Like a modern-­day prenuptial contract, a jointure avoided lengthy litigation upon the death of the husband. For a wealthy woman or an independent widow, it also served as an incentive to marry. Mary did not offer the details of her jointure, but perhaps Parish arranged for a guaranteed annuity for his future widow.29 So in 1669, less than a year after the death of her second husband, Mr. Lawrence, the forty-­year-­old Mary agreed to marry Mr. Parish.30 She told Goodwin that it was not for love or money. At the appointed time, Mary and a few friends met her future spouse at Bromley St. Leonard’s church, just outside the city walls east of the Tower. Thomas Parish arrived from his home, six or seven miles farther east in the forest. After a brief ceremony in the medieval church, the party returned to Parish’s house for the nuptial feast. As Mr. Parish led his new bride through the door, his housekeeper, Mrs. Bottom, appeared, saying “What! Have you brought your whore with you?” This put an immediate damper on the celebrations. Even those acquaintances of Mr. Parish who were not overly fond of Mary were offended at such rudeness. Mary looked to her new husband, but all he could offer was “Prithee, hold thy tongue!”31 Mary thought that the servant should have been ordered from the room at the very least, but Mr. Parish did not have the decency to even counterfeit being aggravated with Bottom. Mary could barely keep from weeping at the supper table and ate nothing. She realized that she had sold herself to a man who did not respect her. Just when Mary thought that the situation could not get any worse, the “brazen fat housewife” came in again and, in front of all the guests, announced that her master might go to bed when he pleased with his new wife, but he should lie in the same sheets he had before, for she would not lay clean ones for them to consummate the match. As housekeeper, Mrs. Bottom was the only person who held a key to the linen cupboard. Again, Mr. Parish’s response was apathetic: “Prithee, Bottom, let’s

29. Stretton, Women Waging Law in Elizabethan England, 27. 30. According to the parish register for Bromley St. Leonard, Thomas Parish of St. Paul Covent Garden married Mary Lawrence of St. Sepulchre on June 17, 1669; LMA, Records for St. Mary, Bromley St. Leonard [Microfilm X040/006B]. 31. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:47.

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have clean sheets and don’t be so cross.”32 At this, Mary flew into a passion and resolved to return to London immediately. While Parish tried to cajole his difficult housekeeper into providing clean sheets, Mary’s friends tried to convince her to be content with going to bed on foul sheets for the sake of the jointure, which she would not enjoy if the marriage was not consummated. They argued that leaving would be a scandal and everyone would blame her for running out on her new husband, not taking into consideration the extenuating circumstances. At length, they persuaded her to stay. Mr. Parish had less success with Mrs. Bottom, so they went to the marriage bed in dirty sheets. Needless to say, the “marital debt” was not paid with interest. Under the circumstances, it is unlikely that there were any of the common bedding practices of the time, such as singing lewd songs outside the bedroom door or entering the bridal chamber to kiss the bride.33 The next morning, Mary was still resolved to leave, but now her friends argued that it would be a scandal to leave after having bedded the man. They convinced her that in time a strong-­willed woman like herself would get the upper hand and evict the troublesome housekeeper. They suggested that the old man was weak and apt to be sickly, and would probably not live very long. So she put “her neck into the yoke” of despair and resolved to bear the burden.34 Yet another testament to her perseverance and patience. Mary soon discovered that Mrs. Bottom had been merely a poor washerwoman, but had slowly inveigled her way into a position of authority in the Parish household. According to rumor, she had granted sexual favors to one of Mr. Parish’s nephews in addition to the elder Parish. The other servants thought she hoped to marry the master of the house herself. So now the “revengeful imperious illbred whore”35 was determined to make the new Mrs. Parish’s life as miserable as possible. Mary was doubly frustrated, having sacrificed her freedom for this impossible state of affairs. As a widow, she could have enjoyed a comfortable life practicing physic and cunning craft. Although it was against her usually optimistic and cheerful disposition, Mary soon fell into a melancholic state. At first she begged her

32. Ibid. 33. Gillis, For Better, for Worse, 69. 34. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:48. 35. Ibid.

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husband to relinquish his housekeeper, but he said he had promised Mrs. Bottom that she would govern his household. Mary found the situation deplorable; Parish would not even “keep [Mrs. Bottom] within the bounds of civility.” Every day the situation grew worse, until Mary “was in a little time brought to the pass as to set above in her chamber shut up, whilst his whore (besides twenty more rovers I name not seldom a week without some or other) set with him at table and [Mrs. Parish] should have sent up to her what the governess whore thought fit, with a jeer perhaps for the laugh. But all this being always insufferable, it being better to have been sold a slave in Turkey.”36 Finally, after almost twelve months, Mary left her husband to his lamentable lover and returned to London. She realized that she risked condemnation for abandoning her husband, but she could not tolerate the situation any longer. She began to set up her practice in physic, which she had established while married to Boucher. She also requested that her husband provide her with an allowance. Parish flatly refused, stating that she had a perfectly good home, if she chose to return to it. Mary was wise enough not to sever all communication with her husband. She remained amicable, and whenever it was convenient, she took a coach out to visit him at his country house. He was a well-­bred gentleman and not particularly prone to high passions, so there were no obvious differences between them aside from the conflict over Mrs. Bottom. Mary suspected that Bottom and Parish’s nephews were conniving to set Mr. Parish at odds with his new wife because Mary was not beyond childbearing years and might well conceive, if their relationship was more cordial. If she did not give him an heir, his estate would fall to one of his nephews. To counter any designs on her opponents’ side, Mary kept in favor with the old man and sometimes met him in London. In anticipation of one meeting, she prepared a special liquor that she told him was for the benefit of his health. The potion boosted his carnal desires as well as his procreative faculty. She also augmented his emotional faculty for love with a frog bone charm, similar to the one she later fabricated with Goodwin. She discreetly touched the bone to her husband’s hand and then drew her hand toward herself in a gesture intended to harness his love and affection. She also counterfeited resistance to his amorous advances, a trick she knew would increase his passion. Her plan worked, and she soon proved to be

36. Ibid.

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with child. At first she kept the knowledge to herself, but she thought it best to tell her husband sooner rather than later. Of course, he was overjoyed about the possibility of an heir. When the nephews and Mrs. Bottom found out about the pregnancy, they contrived to make Parish jealous and, more crucially, to cast doubt on the paternity of the child. One of the nephews lurked around Covent Garden watching for an opportunity to “accidentally” run into Mary on the street. When at length he did, he appeared overjoyed at their chance meeting and invited her to join him for a glass of wine at the Cross Keys tavern on the north side of Bedford Street where it meets Henrietta. He professed that he had something to tell her. She was eager to remain friendly with the family, especially considering her pregnancy, and agreed to accompany him to the tavern. He hired a private room upstairs, where he said they could talk undisturbed. She went ahead while he ordered the wine. Unknown to her, he pulled aside the tapster and instructed him not to come upstairs regardless of what he heard. After the tapster had brought the wine, the nephew shut the door ominously. Out of the blue, the young man launched into an amorous speech about how he was in love with Mary “above all the women in the world.” Although he was the kinder of the two nephews, Mary never had any reason to suspect he loved her. She calmly explained that it was vain to tempt her to be dishonest to her husband. Even though they did not cohabit, she was still his wife in the eyes of God, as well as in the eyes of the law. Despite her refusal, he told her “plainly he must and would lie with her, upon which beginning to struggle with her, she begins to stamp & howl and cry out, but all to no purpose, for nobody came up: which she perceiving, & having no other remedy, she takes the pots and bottles upon the table and what came next to hand and threw them through the glass windows, all which together with the glass made such a rattling, that the master of the house (not engag’d in the plot) in a great rage ran up.”37 The nephew promised to pay for the damages and the innkeeper was pacified. The young man begged Mary not to tell his uncle, who was his bread and butter. Mary had always been too quick to forgive and agreed never to speak of the incident to her husband on the condition that it would not be repeated. This pardon turned out to be a mistake. Although the nephew

37. Ibid, 1:49.

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had not been successful in raping her, he had managed to damage her reputation, which was, of course, the purpose of his actions. The story was distorted to cast doubt on her honesty—­what occasion did she have to be alone with the nephew in a tavern? Mr. Parish was so overwhelmed with this and other tales that he declared that he would not recognize the child as his own blood. As the time grew near for Mary’s lying-­in, Mr. Parish came to her and declared that the only way he would accept paternity was if she were brought to bed at the very day and hour that he reckoned she was due. She argued that no woman in the world ever kept to the very day and hour, but he would not listen to reason. When the pangs of childbirth began, she sent news to her husband. As soon as the message was delivered, he pulled out his almanac and checked the dates. According to his calculations, the time was correct to the very hour, and he accepted the child as his own. Mary attributed this small miracle to God’s answer to her prayers, another testament of her positive relationship with the divine. When the midwife announced the arrival of a boy child, Parish went to the Old Exchange by St. Paul’s Cathedral and bought up as much linen and other provisions as if he were outfitting a prince. By mutual consent, the boy, who was christened Thomas after his father, was sent to a wet nurse until he was strong enough for a long journey. The infant (and possibly his wet nurse) were conveyed to Paris to be raised by another uncle of Mary. This was preferable to having the boy raised by Mrs. Bottom. After the birth of her son, Mary continued to live on her own. She offered to return to her husband’s house on many occasions, on the condition that Bottom was not held above her. She made it clear that she did not care how many other women her husband dealt with, including Bottom, but that she did not want them in the house or in her sight. But Parish preferred to uphold his promise to let Mrs. Bottom govern the household rather than honor his legal or moral obligations to his wife. And as long as Mary lived separate from him, he would not provide her with so much as a farthing for her upkeep. This constant frustration prompted her to pursue the matter legally. The Church of England did not allow divorce, but several lawyers advised her that she had the right to sue for separate maintenance. As Mary had sufficient funds for a lawyer, she began a civil suit for alimony, which was becoming increasingly common by the mid-­seventeenth century. But she would have to prove that Bottom was more than a housekeeper. So she paid a visit to Parish’s house and was very civil to one and all as she waited

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for her chance to be alone. Mrs. Bottom had her bed in the same chamber as Mr. Parish, on the pretense that he was old and infirm and might need assistance in the night. Mary suspected that Bottom never lay in her own bed, so she took a great pair of silver candlesticks from the dining room and hid them in the bedding on Mrs. Bottom’s bed. Since Bottom held the keys for the linen cupboard, none of the other servants had reason to meddle with her bed, which made Bottom confident no one would realize that she never slept there. But it was also the reason Mary knew her trick would not be discovered. The candlesticks were missed immediately, but the household suspected that Mary had taken them away to pawn them. She had done this on a previous occasion, when she was in dire need of funds, but had eventually redeemed them and returned them to her husband. Since the alimony suit was already in progress, Mr. Parish did not make a fuss, thinking he could use this act as evidence against his wife’s character. At length the case was heard. The seventeenth-­century legal system was very complex and jurisdictions frequently overlapped. Mary does not offer details about which court judged her case. Consistory courts were ecclesiastical courts that generally heard complaints from couples who were in dispute over the details of marital breakdowns. However, settlement disputes involving couples who had previously obtained a separation of “bed and board” from the ecclesiastical courts were commonly heard in the equity court of Chancery, a secular court concerned with disputes over such things as inheritance, trusts, and marriage settlements.38 Alternatively, some magistrates negotiated separation agreements outside the courts, passing judgment from their private chambers in Doctors’ Commons, near St. Paul’s Cathedral.39 Mary stated that the presiding judge in her case was Sir Thomas Twisden, who acted as justice of the King’s Bench at that time.40 Although the King’s Bench had jurisdiction over civil cases under the “Plea Side,” it was better known for its role in criminal cases. Twisden, however, was sometimes commissioned to judge cases heard in the Sheriff ’s and Mayor’s Courts of London as well. Whatever the venue, Mary’s counsel argued that Mr. Parish lived scandalously with his housekeeper and that the situation was unbearable

38. Lemmings, “Women’s Property, Popular Cultures, and the Consistory Court of London,” 68. 39. Stretton, “Marriage, Separation and the Common Law in England,” 21, 23, 29, 30. 40. In 1660 Twisden was knighted and appointed as a justice of the King’s Bench. He ceased active service as a judge in 1678. Paul D. Halliday, “Sir Thomas Twisden (1602–­1683),” DNB.

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to his wife. The counsel for Mr. Parish argued that his wife refused to live with him, and also laid the charge against her of the theft of the candlesticks. As Mary had anticipated, Mr. Parish denied that Mrs. Bottom was his mistress but admitted that they lay in the same chamber because of his infirmities. Mary then played what she thought was her trump card. She requested that the court go to Parish’s house and examine Bottom’s bed. At this, the crowd in the courtroom fell to laughing. Mr. Parish and his counsel were dumbfounded, and the judges sat in silence. But while the crowd jeered, Mr. Parish had time to collect his wits. At that point, he admitted that the candlesticks were there, but said that Mrs. Bottom removed them every night before going to bed and replaced them in the morning. Old Judge Twisden, being no different from most men of his time, had no sympathy for the plight of women. “Aye,” he said, “this is a very fine thing indeed that we old cuckolds must allow our wives alimony, and yet they go away from us.”41 And so the case went against her. Mary was so enraged that she once again used the frog bone. This time she touched Parish with the right-­side bone, pushing her hand away in a gesture of refusal, which caused Parish to develop an aversion against her that lasted until his death in June of 1683.42 So by the time she met Goodwin in February 1683, Mary had been a wife three times and a mother many times over. At thirteen or fourteen years old, she married Mr. Boucher, with whom she had seven daughters; while in debtor’s prison for Boucher’s debts, she married Mr. Lawrence, with whom she had fourteen more girl babies; and she gave birth to one son with her last husband Thomas Parish. When Goodwin met Mary, only two of her daughters and her one son were still alive. One daughter (presumably one of Boucher’s) was married to a gentleman in Cornwall, and another girl and the boy were in the guardianship of her father’s younger brother, John Tompson. Mary’s claim of birthing twenty-­ two children is questionable. Granted, it was not uncommon for women from the upper levels of society to be pregnant for most of their fertile years. Elizabeth Clinton, the Countess of Lincoln, who wrote a treatise urging women to breast-­feed their own children (although she hadn’t), claimed that she had eighteen live

41. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:56. 42. There is no burial record for Thomas Parish in LMA, Parish Records for St. Mary, Bromley St. Leonard, in 1683.

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births.43 And Frances Crockford of Minehead, Somerset, bore eighteen children in twenty-­six years, which included only one set of twins.44 So the birth of twenty-­two children is not unheard of, especially considering that Mary was married so young. Did Mary have several sets of twins? Does “having children” mean delivering a full-­term baby? Or was she pregnant twenty-­two times, resulting in some live births, some stillbirths, and some miscarriages? Did Mary perhaps include Lawrence’s children from his first marriage in this count? Mary’s claim to have had twenty-­two children may be an example of her embellishing the story of her earlier life. But to what purpose? To demonstrate her fertility? To garner sympathy? Or was she preparing her audience for the rampant fertility yet to come? And what became of all these children? According to Mary, fourteen of her children had died during the last outbreak of the plague to hit London.45 At that time, Mary was married to Mr. Lawrence, who was away at sea. The symptoms of raging fever, shuddering cold, frequent vomiting, and dizziness were first reported in the squalid parish of St. Giles-­in-­the-­Fields. Black buboes appeared on the lymph nodes in the thighs and armpits before the victims died a painful death. Public fires were lit on every street in an attempt to purify the poisonous air. More than two thousand bodies were dumped in “plague-­holes” every night. In most cases, no one even bothered to record the names in the parish records. This would explain why there is no record of the burial of Mary’s children in St. Sepulchre-­without-­ Newgate parish. While Mary was still reeling from the loss of her daughters, London was assaulted by fire.46 The year of 1666 had been a time of drought, and the crowded wooden buildings were tinder-­dry. The fire started in a bakery just east of London Bridge and quickly spread west along the riverfront, prohibiting access to the water from the Thames. Survivors reported that the sun rose that morning as red as blood. Mary may have lived in the parish of St. Sepulchre at the time, just west of Newgate. She probably packed a few belongings and took her family to the nearest safe house. Eventually

43. Clinton, Countesse of Lincolnes Nurserie, 18; Betty S. Travitsky, “Clinton [née Knevitt], Elizabeth, countess of Lincoln (1574?–­1630?),” DNB. 44. McLaren, “Nature’s Contraceptive,” 429. 45. Details of the plague epidemic are drawn from Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family in England; Moote and Moote, Great Plague. 46. Details of the fire are drawn from Bedford, London’s Burning; Tinniswood, By Permission of Heaven.

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thousands of homeless victims camped in Moorfields, north of the city wall. Over thirty thousand homes were reduced to charred debris. Mary told Goodwin that she lost almost everything. More losses were yet to come. Not long after the fire, Mary’s Uncle John took one of her surviving daughters from her marriage to Lawrence, while the child was still with a wet nurse. Mary made it plain that she would have gladly delivered the child to him to raise (as she had been), if only he had asked. He replied that he did not care how he got the child, but he would keep her, no matter what she thought. In the end, she resigned herself to the situation. By the time Mary met Goodwin, the daughter in question was a grown woman and married to Sir William Pen, “a gentleman of good estate.”47 She had several children of her own and felt that she was above her mother’s station. Uncle John also managed to get ahold of her son. When Parish was on his deathbed in June 1683, he sent for both Mary and their son, Thomas. At first the boy did not know his mother. He had been raised in France, and mother and son were unable to communicate. When he perceived the truth, he laid his hand on her head and cried “Ah, pauvre femme!”48 The next morning, Mary returned with a man who spoke French, who explained to the boy the circumstances of his birth. The young man seemed very pleased and complained that in the past he had been told either that Mrs. Bottom was his mother or that his mother was dead.49 But Mary did not enjoy her son’s company for long. Uncle John soon arrived on the scene and insisted that he become the boy’s legal guardian. No doubt he had an eye on Thomas Parish’s estate, to which the boy would be sole heir. Since Mary was in no position to act as guardian to Thomas, even if her son wanted to live with her, the boy went into the country, where he disappeared from Mary’s narrative. The fate of her remaining children is just one more of many mysteries concerning Mary’s life.

47. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:70. 48. Ibid. 49. This is one of many situations in Mary’s life that are left unexplained. Mary told Goodwin that her son was sent to Paris to be raised by a rich uncle of hers. But the boy makes it sound as if it was his father’s relatives that did not want him to know who his true mother was. Why would Mary’s uncle not tell the child the truth?

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Sex and Succession In June of 1683, Mary’s husband, Thomas Parish, came to her in spirit while she slept and “looked a pretty while upon her.”1 In the morning, she got confirmation that he was dead, and she was once again a widow. Perhaps not coincidentally, the king of the Lowlanders died a month later, on July 24. In June, when Mary and Goodwin were trying to arrange a meeting with the Lowlanders, the king and queen had been at Rye, saying goodbye to the queen’s relatives. When the Lowlanders finally arrived home, the king was exhausted from his excessive drinking and debilitating bouts of vomiting. By mid-­July he had grown worse, and twelve of his best physicians could not relieve his fever. Even Mary and Goodwin’s efforts at physic were not effective. As you can imagine, the Lowlander court was in chaos. For someone of his importance, Mosaic law required thirty days of mourning (Deut. 34:8). Then the king’s body was to be taken to Cornwall for burial with his ancestors. In the meantime, the queen refused to entertain any Uplanders until the kingdom was settled once again. This unfortunate turn of events caused Goodwin great vexation. Whenever the couple visited Hounslow to meet with the Lowlanders, they frequented the same little inn, east of the parish church where the Red Lion Hotel now stands.2 They rented the quietest room available, which was furnished with two beds. They had agreed that in a place where there were many people about, it would be more convenient to lodge together. Not only would they be able to converse freely, but if George came to

1. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:85. 2. Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 336.

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Mary in the night, she could awaken Goodwin without wandering through the halls at unseemly hours. Because of the great difference in their ages—­ Mary was fifty-­three and Goodwin was thirty—­in addition to their perfectly innocent thoughts, they did not fear any scandal. After learning of the king’s death, Goodwin “walked up and down the room without [his] clothes.” This probably does not mean that he was naked. It could mean that he was wearing a bed shirt, but since they were traveling, it more likely refers to the voluminous linen shirt and breeches that men typically wore as undergarments beneath their day clothes. Mary was already in her bed, probably the typical four-­sided box bed of the era, enclosed with floor-­length curtains hanging from a tester, which could be drawn for warmth and privacy. She urged Goodwin to stop his fretting and go to his bed, but he refused. To pacify him (so that she could get some sleep), she said, “You will certainly catch your death. If you must talk, rather than set up, thus cover yourself with this rug.”3 She held up the top bed covering, and Goodwin lay down beside her. Goodwin had never shown any previous signs of sexual attraction to Mary, so the intimacy of the situation did not concern her. Given Mary’s age, her recent broken leg, and her constant brandy drinking, it is unlikely that she was the portrait of a fair, young maiden. Nevertheless, Mary consistently constructed herself as a gentlewoman and, despite the couple’s financial difficulties, she no doubt dressed respectably. When the couple was resident in London, she employed a maid, and she kept a small lapdog like the fashionable gentry women of the day. And there must have been sufficient evidence of her beauty as a young woman for Goodwin to accept that aspect of her story. Mary was probably oblivious to the fact that her constant companionship impeded Goodwin from having sexual relations with other women. But when he threw back the bedclothes and proceeded to initiate intercourse, she was forced to rethink the situation. Granted, she was now a widow and free from any marital obligations . . . and physical intimacy might make Goodwin more loyal to their partnership . . . and he was a young, handsome man of good breeding. On the other hand, she was old enough to be his mother . . . the difference in their social status would prohibit a marriage . . . and her reputation as a virtuous woman had never been corrupted by sexual

3. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:89.

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misadventures outside the institution of matrimony (at least that’s the story she told Goodwin). By the time she pondered all of these considerations, she was dangerously close to being “absolutely in [his] power.”4 She asked him to stop, and being a gentleman, he did. In the light of morning, Mary felt she needed a second opinion on this new development in their relationship. She summoned the elderly Father Fryar, who probably represented a sort of father figure for her in the absence of her own father. He could also offer advice grounded in Catholic doctrine. The friar believed that Mary and Goodwin had done violence to Nature by denying their passion. He assured Mary that if they kept true to each other, their intimate relationship would not offend God. So that night, Mary once again invited Goodwin into her bed. And the night after that. Mary’s alternate realm allowed her to circumvent the constraints of her society. Although marriages between older widows and younger men were not unheard of, they were relatively rare. Sometimes a widow was viewed as a profitable marriage partner, as Mary was when she was the widow of tailor Boucher. But a widow had an ambiguous reputation, on account of her previous sexual experience, combined with the independence of living unsupervised by a man. The anxieties surrounding widows’ sexualities were widely expressed in ballads and broadsheets.5 But in Mary and Goodwin’s case, the inequality in their social status was probably more of a concern than marital status or age difference. A greater worry was that whenever Goodwin was “concerned” with Mary (as he delicately phrased it), he experienced a great pain and weakness in his back, which was unusual for a strong, young man. His sore back had originated with his heroic effort to catch Mary when she toppled from a horse while they were looking for hazel wands. But instead of improving over time, the injury was deteriorating. Mary suspected that Goodwin’s discomfort was on account of sexual interference from the spirit realm. What if one of the Lowlander women was visiting Goodwin at night like a succubus? A succubus was a demon in the form of a woman, which seduced or raped a man in his sleep. The male version was called an incubus. The concept of female fairies as succubi who “tryst with men” was part of the

4. Ibid. 5. Gowing, Domestic Dangers, 68, 158, 214.

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demonization of the fairy realm, which took place during the witchcraft prosecution era (1550–­1660).6 In popular culture, the idea of the lustful fairy queen who desired sexual liaisons with human men was well developed. Shakespeare humorously exploited this trope in Midsummer Night’s Dream (1594–­96). The character Bottom, after metamorphosing into an ass, became the object of affection for Titania, the queen of the fairies. The element of human greed, which could turn this concept into an opportunity for a scam, was made famous in Ben Jonson’s satire The Alchemist (1610). The character Dapper, who, like Goodwin, initially approached a cunning person for help in gambling, was promised the favor of the fairy queen. The literary scholar C. J. Sisson suggests that the character of Dapper was based on an actual incident recorded in the Chancery archives, Rogers v. Rogers (1609–­10), in which Thomas Rogers of Hinton was promised to be married to the fairy queen in return for five or six pounds of gold.7 Goodwin’s bad back is an example of how a situation that could easily be taken at face value was often interpreted in light of the couple’s involvement with the spirit realm. As in the case of the many witchcraft accusations of the previous century, the obsession with the supernatural distorted people’s perceptions. Simple mischance was construed as a purposeful event orchestrated by outside forces.8 On one occasion, smoke filled the couple’s lodgings. The landlady’s kitchen was immediately below the room, and the smoke had “a sweet odiferous smell.”9 However, rather than understanding the cloud of smoke as a dangerous kitchen fire, Goodwin and Mary preferred to view it as a great miracle and a sign from God. On another occasion, Goodwin was sitting in a tavern drinking a glass of wine when it suddenly slipped from his hand and broke. This commonplace mishap was understood as an attack by an evil spirit, which had wrenched the glass from his hand out of malice. In the case of Goodwin’s back pain, the Lowlanders were the suspected culprits. The sexual nature of the Lowlanders had already been established in Mary’s anecdote about the king desiring to have a child with her. George soon confirmed that it was the queen herself who was coming to Goodwin’s bed. Apparently, she had fallen in love with Goodwin the

6. Kirk, Secret Commonwealth of Elves, 25. 7. Sisson, “A Topical Reference in The Alchemist,” 740–­41; TNA, C 3/288/39, Rogers v. Rogers. 8. Demos, Entertaining Satan, 191. 9. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:176.

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first moment she had seen him sleeping in his room at the Temple. She had started her sexual indiscretions in June after the floodwaters had abated at Hounslow, even before the death of the king (and before Mary’s intimacy with Goodwin). Her lust for him was so excessive that on the last occasion she had drawn up her breath at the very moment of their mutual climax, which had extracted Goodwin’s vital energy from his marrow.10 The idea of vital energy being associated with the marrow can be traced back to ancient authors such as Plato. They viewed sperm as a special type of marrow that descended from the brain down the spine to the genitals. The marrow was linked spiritually to the brain and heart. This idea continued in medieval medical treatises. Pleasure arose from the marrow as a wind that entered the testicles and inflated the penis, thereby fueling desire in the blood.11 Mary was not surprised by this turn of events. The queen had told her, while the king still lived, that she had a great desire to have a child. Because the Lowlanders lived underground in a colder, damper climate, they were of a colder nature, which, according to contemporary medical theories, made conception more difficult. Lowlanders had few children among themselves and often sought out sexual partners from among the Uplanders, who were of a hotter nature and therefore more fertile.12 The queen confided in Mary that she had previously conducted a secret affair with an Uplander in hopes of producing an heir, but had been unsuccessful. Goodwin was outraged by the queen’s advances, which he considered “the worse sort of ravishing.”13 In the end he forgave her, knowing that a woman’s passion was not easily contained. Goodwin’s male ego was, no doubt, assuaged by the fact that the queen told Mary that she had found herself all in a rapture and could not get enough satisfaction with Goodwin, something which she had never experienced during her previous sexual encounters. The king was old and decayed (like Mary’s first husband, the old tailor Boucher), and the queen reported that the Uplander, Mr. Gifford, had pulled her about roughly (reminiscent of Mary’s second husband,

10. Curiously, a similar understanding exists in Eastern medicine based on energy meridians. A web of meridians connects the vital organs and acts as energy sources for the body. Sexual energy moves from the crown of the head to the genitals through a series of seven chakras. See Anand, Art of Sexual Magic, 201. 11. Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages, 14, 84–­86. 12. Refer to the discussion on humoral theory in chapter 2. 13. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:322.

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the abusive Mr. Lawrence), which she had endured for the sake of a child. On one occasion, the queen had even “continued lying with [Goodwin], 3 times without ever quitting [him],” which was a testament to his sexual stamina.14 Goodwin accepted the queen’s assurances that it wouldn’t happen again and contented himself with a treatment of yarrow, milk, and sugar taken every morning for nine days to address the back pain. More importantly, all could be forgiven now that the queen was a widow and was free to marry Goodwin. She promised to bring him into her kingdom as king of the Lowlanders. The queen’s association with Goodwin mirrored Mary’s relationship with him, shifting into a romantic liaison. Not surprisingly, other Lowlander women were also taking a sexual interest in Goodwin. Father Fryar’s daughter had ravished him on a hundred occasions. And, more importantly, the queen’s younger sister, Princess Ursula La Gard, had fallen in love with him from the moment she saw him playing the recorder in his room. The princess had come over from Italy when the king first fell ill in July. According to Mary, Ursula was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, wearing so many jewels that Mary could hardly look upon her for the sparkling reflection. The queen had always been jealous of her younger sister, on account of Ursula’s youth and beauty. The princess cautioned Mary that the queen’s jealousy would soon extend to Mary as well. She astutely forewarned Mary that the queen was a very cunning woman, full of tricks and bad humors, who would not deal justly with the couple. As a solution, the princess offered to marry Goodwin immediately and teach him all of the Lowlanders’ arts (just as Mary was teaching Goodwin magical arts?). She pointed out that she was young for a Lowlander, being but fifty years old (approximately the same age as Mary), and could bear him a child, whereas her sister was almost three hundred years old and past the normal age of reproduction. Although Goodwin was flattered by this generous offer, he did not wish to disoblige the queen, whom he had promised to meet before he saw any other Lowlander. This romantic affaire de coeur would be the beginning of a long rivalry for Goodwin’s affections. For a long time, it served to distract Goodwin from any other female Uplander relationships, which were more threatening to Mary. Near the end of September, the queen was returning from an outing to a Lowlander colony situated below Shirburn Castle near Watlington,

14. Ibid., 1:96.

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Oxford. On the way home, her coach overturned while going down a steep hill between Henley and Maidenhead. The queen, quite “frighted, & very sick, was flown away straight home.” She immediately fell “exceedingly ill” from her fright.15 But this time it was not her monthly period: the queen, in violent pain and misery, miscarried a boy child—­Goodwin’s son. After the birth, she continued to suffer from violent pains in her head and a great deal of pain in her lower back. In mid-­October she miscarried the barely formed fetus of a second boy child, which was delivered to Mary and Goodwin in a basin of warm water. (One must pause and wonder at Mary’s resourcefulness.) After the second miscarriage, the queen continued in severe pain and a raging fever. She swore that if she died, the keys to the kingdom at Hounslow were to be given to Goodwin. With the aid of physic from Mary and Goodwin, the queen was fully recovered by the end of November. A further thirty-­three days of purification, in accordance with Mosaic law (Lev. 12:1–­4), stole away all of December 1683. The excuse of menstruation and postpartum bleeding not only prohibited Goodwin from meeting and marrying the queen, but also inadvertently interfered with his potential relationship with the princess. The queen’s meeting with Goodwin had been delayed for so long that in January of 1684 she was determined to see him despite being “ill.” But the princess somehow discovered the queen’s plan, which was in defiance of their Mosaic laws. Since it was a matter of religion, the princess told the Lowlander pope, who confronted the queen. When the queen denied the accusation, the pope sent for an Uplander midwife to examine her, supposedly because she would be impartial. But by the time the midwife arrived, the queen’s courses had stopped; the fright from the pope’s verbal attack had caused her blood to be diverted to her heart. This turn of events shifted accusations from the queen to the princess, who was placed under house arrest for making false allegations. The queen was determined that the princess should remain confined in her own apartment until after Goodwin had visited the court. She was destined to remain imprisoned for the next two years. Goodwin’s triumphal entry into the realm of the Lowlanders to take his place as king was further delayed in the first months of 1685, as Mary and Goodwin turned their attention to other matters. In July of 1685, the

15. Ibid., 1:101.

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queen promised to come to Goodwin at his lodgings in London, which, by this time, he shared with Mary. The couple maintained separate sleeping chambers for appearance’s sake, but Goodwin spent most nights in Mary’s bed. On the night of the planned visit, Mary and Goodwin had quarreled over their constant trials and tribulations. Goodwin decided to go to Mary’s bed to cajole her out of her ill humor and then return to his own bed before the queen arrived. But, as luck would have it, he fell asleep at Mary’s side. The queen, finding them together, became enraged. The queen’s jealousy continued to escalate during the subsequent months. She demanded that Goodwin promise never to be “concerned” with Mary any more, as she could not suffer the sight of her. Mary unselfishly offered to stop having sexual relations with Goodwin if it would appease the queen and further Goodwin’s interests. She protested that it was ridiculous for someone like Goodwin, who was destined to such greatness, to have an old woman like her for a partner. But in spite of these selfless propositions, Mary was jealous of the queen. By talking in her sleep, Mary revealed that even though she was the one brokering the marriage between Goodwin and the queen, she was sick at heart at the thought of seeing him in her arms. The jealousy that played out between Mary and the queen became the fulcrum point for a shift in attention from the queen to the princess. By March of 1686, Mary expressed her preference for Goodwin to marry the princess. Other entities from the spirit world also confirmed that Goodwin should come into the Lowlander realm via the princess rather than the queen. In June 1686, the queen died of a “heart sickness,” but not before proclaiming that Goodwin was the rightful heir to the throne as her lawful husband (even though they hadn’t been lawfully married). She also made him sole heir of all her riches. The princess, who succeeded as the new queen, heartily agreed to marry Goodwin and bring him into his rightful realm. Interestingly, the succession of the Lowlander monarchy was prescient to the situation in England following the death of the childless King William and Queen Mary. Mary’s younger sister Anne came to the throne in 1702. Not surprisingly, the same pattern of delays emerged concerning meeting the princess as had existed with the queen. First, there was mourning for the queen and later the pope, who also died; then there were ongoing issues with menstruation; and throughout, there was a tangled and tedious web of Lowlander court politics. There were even concerns

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expressed about consanguinity, since Goodwin had been allegedly married to the princess’s sister, which echoes issues concerning Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, his brother’s widow. Within a month of the queen’s death, Goodwin was dreading the thought of being tied to the princess, whose temperament was even more fickle and vicious than her sister’s had been. He soon came to understand that the princess was largely to blame for the former delays in meeting the queen. And the worst of his suspicions were confirmed when he discovered that the princess had visited him in the dead of night, “effecting carnal copulation” with him while he slept.16 Eventually, the princess retreated to Italy to avoid political problems in her realm at Hounslow. In the fall of 1686, she grew ill and died the following June. After four years of constant delays and frustrations, Goodwin had not met a single Lowlander. But it would take more than a few minor setbacks to deter Goodwin from entering into his rightful kingdom. In the absence of both the queen and the princess, the Duchess of Plymouth came forward to support his claim as monarch. A backache was once again the clue to the Lowlander’s interest in Goodwin. The duchess had lain with him the night before, and she had become impregnated by him on a previous occasion. Goodwin, as usual, was alarmed by this behavior and performed some sort of love magic involving herbs to bind the duchess from engaging in any more nighttime excursions. When she attempted once again to have her way with him, Goodwin caught hold of her in his sleep and pulled her under him, with the intention of having intercourse. Apparently, it wasn’t the sex that was offensive, but his lack of control in the act. But she requested a moment to catch her breath and took the opportunity to roll out from under him “like a roll of cloak.”17 A couple of days later, the duchess returned to Goodwin’s chamber and allowed him to have a glimpse of her; in his half slumber, Goodwin mistook her for Mary. One can see how the belief in the spirit world, combined with the power of suggestion, was a heady brew. And harnessing the imagination was an integral part of magic, at which Mary was particularly adept.

16. Ibid., 1:305. 17. Ibid., 2:72.

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The Pleasures of Venus and the Pains of Eve In addition to causing jealousy with the Lowlander women and more surprising than the difference in their ages and social status, Mary and Goodwin’s new sexual relationship had another consequence: Mary conceived a child from their union. During the first few months following their initial meeting in March of 1683, Mary had slowly recovered from her broken leg and started eating regularly. Goodwin reported that she grew “fat & heavy.”1 Luckily, this enabled her to hide her illicit pregnancy. As an experienced mother, Mary claimed that she knew immediately when she was pregnant. How did she know? According to the seventeenth-­century physician Helkiah Crooke, a woman conceived during coitus if “there runneth a chilnesse or light horror through her whole body; or if she perceiue her womb to contract it selfe; if she receiue the seede of man with delight and it yssue not from her againe.”2 So every sexual encounter ending in orgasm resulted in conception! Aside from knowing immediately that she was pregnant, there was the issue of Mary’s age. At fifty-­three, Mary should have been past the time of childbearing. There were varying opinions in the seventeenth century concerning the normal age of menopause and, no doubt, individual variances. Contemporary midwife Jane Sharp stated that menstruation usually ceased at age fifty, but she admitted that a strong woman could

1. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:83. 2. Crooke, Mikrokosmographia, question 22, p. 314.

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still produce enough good blood to menstruate until almost sixty years old.3 The fictional character Moll Flanders stated that the age of forty-­ eight was the “time for me to leave bearing children.”4 Presumably, Defoe based this statement on general opinion of the time. The seventeenth-­ century physician Helkiah Crooke argued that “women at sixtie years old haue no surplusage of blood and therefore their courses faile; yet they continue to procreate seede euen to their extreme age, which also in coition they auoyde, which though at that age it be not fit for generation, yet is it sufficient to prouoke pleasure.”5 Indeed, Elizabeth Greenhill (mother of the surgeon and author Thomas Greenhill) allegedly gave birth to thirty-­ nine children (only one set of which were twins), which would indicate an advanced age during her last few pregnancies.6 But Mary’s age was the least of it. As if proving fertile at the age of fifty-­three weren’t astonishing enough, Mary conceived a second child three days later. The modern reader might see this as another example of Goodwin’s gullibility, but according to early modern medical understanding, a process called “superfetation” explained how a woman could conceive again several days or even a month after an initial conception.7 Here again, sexual satisfaction was at the heart of the issue. The medical profession generally accepted that “the Womb be usually exactly shut and close, when a Woman has Conceived,” but contemporary authors agreed that “the pleasures of Venus will open the womb at any time” . . . “especially when a Woman is much delighted in the act of Copulation,” allowing for subsequent conceptions. Not surprisingly, this “inordinate lust” was associated with Eve.8 In such a case, the bottom of the womb was “dilated and opened by the impetuous Endeavours of the Seed, agitated and over-­ heated more than ordinary.”9 A woman could even miscarry one of the children and still carry the other one to full term. Suspected cases of superfetation were reported as late as the twentieth century.10 3. Sharp, Midwives Book, bk. 2, chap. 1, p. 84. 4. Defoe, Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, 207. 5. Crooke, Mikrokosmographia, 314. 6. Bannerman, Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, vol. 5, 3rd ser.; L. A. F. Davidson, “Thomas Greenhill (fl. 1698–­1732),” DNB. 7. Sharp, Midwives Book, 70–­72; McMath, Expert Midwife, 11; Eccles, Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Tudor and Stuart England, 40; Moncrief and McPherson, Performing Maternity in Early Modern England, 45–­58. 8. Pechey, General Treatise of the Diseases of Maids . . . , 78–­79; Sharp, Midwives Book, 59–­60. See Genesis 4:2 concerning the birth of Cain and Abel, which is sometimes interpreted as superfetation. 9. Mauriceau, Diseases of Women with Child, bk. 1, chap. 8, p. 42. 10. Long, “Case of Superfetation with Complications.”

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What purpose did a narrative of multiple pregnancies serve? Later, we will discover that the state of pregnancy facilitated Mary’s ability to communicate with the angels. But a single fetus would have sufficed for that purpose. And besides, the angel with whom she communicated the most came to her when she was not pregnant. Based on contemporary medical theories, multiple conceptions demonstrated Mary’s intense passion for Goodwin (interpreted as love and dedication) and must have reinforced Goodwin’s self-­image as an ardent lover. In any case, Goodwin was too overjoyed at the prospect of two sons (George confirmed the sex of the children) to question the gynecological details. In the spring of 1684, as Mary’s lying-­in time drew near, she and Goodwin planned how she could deliver the babies without raising suspicions. Not only was she pregnant out of wedlock, which was socially shameful, but they were trying to keep the nature of their relationship secret from Goodwin’s family. At this time, Mary was living in the same busy lodging as Goodwin, but in a separate room. Although illicit relations were common in such rooming houses, Goodwin kept up the façade of propriety by sneaking up the stairs every evening to Mary’s room with his pillow in hand and returning to his own room early in the morning. To avoid prying eyes, Goodwin rented another lodging in the Covent Garden area where Mary was supposed to join him just before her time. But, as luck would have it, Mary went into labor a few days ahead of schedule. Goodwin was at the new location in Covent Garden and Mary was in their usual lodging. Goodwin had left some money in the desk drawer of Mary’s room, but it was locked and she couldn’t break it open. So she gathered together some linens and pawned them for six shillings, which would cover the typical fee for a midwife in London, which was normally between five and ten shillings.11 She also paid a visit to a man on Old Fish Street, who owed her fifteen shillings. Then she proceeded to a midwife in Long Lane where she was delivered of two boys in less than an hour. One of the babies was sickly, and a minister was called in to christen him Charles before he died. Although baby Charles was buried with “all things whatever fitting,” the Lowlander queen thought that a child of Goodwin’s deserved better.12

11. Fees could range from a few pennies for very poor women up to four to eight pounds for wealthier clients; Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death, 73; Evenden, Midwives of Seventeenth-­Century London, 125–­26; Wilson, “Ceremony of Childbirth and Its Interpretation,” 73. 12. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:129.

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So she sent Father Fryar to exhume the infant in the night and take the body to be embalmed and placed in the royal sepulchres. The other boy was christened Peregrine, meaning “foreign” (since he was a stranger to Goodwin), and was delivered to a wet-­nurse, who happened to be at the midwife’s house at the time. Since Mary did not have enough money to provide for a lying-­in at the midwife’s house, she took a coach back to her lodging and crawled up the two pair of stairs where she found Goodwin anxiously awaiting her. For the next few days, she kept to her bed, and Goodwin removed the soiled linens. This was certainly not the usual childbirth experience. Normally, an expectant mother would invite her female “gossips” to attend her birth, along with the midwife. The woman’s bedroom would be converted into a lying-­in chamber, with heavy curtains on the windows to keep out any poisonous miasma. After the birth, the new mother would remain in this darkened space for up to a month, attended by a lying-­in maid. She would not even get out of bed for the first week.13 However, Mary did not have a proper home in which to establish a lying-­in chamber. In cases like this, sometimes the local parish would pay for the services of a midwife and provide room and board for the mother at an approved parish home. These private homes for lying-­in were typically in the east end of London, particularly the riverside parishes of Stepney and Whitechapel.14 But Mary was delivering bastard children, which raised additional concerns. In such cases, midwives generally avoided performing deliveries in their own homes, for fear of being accused of performing abortions.15 Guest houses and alehouses in the London suburbs would accommodate a woman in trouble for a fee.16 Daniel Defoe describes an illicit birth in The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders (1722). Moll was directed to a midwife “at the sign of the Cradle,” who provided her own house for women to deliver their children. In addition to her midwifery skills, the woman furnished the necessary childbed linens and a maidservant for the lying-­in period. She also made arrangements for a minister to christen the newborn.17 Mary, however, did not have the requisite four or five pounds

13. Wilson, “Ceremony of Childbirth and Its Interpretation,” 75–­92. 14. Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death, 77; Evenden, Midwives of Seventeenth-­Century London, 80–­86. 15. Evenden, Midwives of Seventeenth-­Century London, 86. 16. Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death, 77. 17. Defoe, Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, 176–­94.

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that such an arrangement would have required. Moll’s midwife also kept the parish authorities from pursuing her. Unwed mothers and their illegitimate children were a particular concern to the parish where they were born. The parish was responsible for all children born within its boundaries, even if the parents’ home was elsewhere. The mother and child could become a burden on the parish poor rate. As a result, the mother could be imprisoned in a house of correction. Keeping the birth secret also protected the father of the child. If a bastard birth was reported to the local justice of the peace, he could investigate and the father could be held financially responsible.18 As for sending little Peregrine to a wet nurse, this was still a relatively common practice. Nursing one’s own child was believed to be degrading for elite women. The practice of putting a child out to nurse had long been imitated by the middling sort.19 And Mary required much more than a temporary wet nurse. Again, Defoe sheds light on the method of dealing with unwanted or “inconvenient” children. Moll’s midwife arranged for a poor cottager’s wife to raise Moll’s son for an initial fee of £10 and an annual allowance of £5. Moll was allowed to see the child whenever she wished, but she remained anonymous.20 Mary must have made a similar arrangement for her surviving babies. After the exertions of giving birth, common sense would dictate physical and sexual restraint until the body had recovered. Seventeenth-­ century midwifery manuals recommended abstinence from any sexual activity until at least the end of the six-­week lying-­in period. But Goodwin reported that four days after delivering two babies, Mary conceived another boy child. As if it weren’t astonishing enough that she was having intercourse four days after childbirth, during postpartum bleeding, she conceived again one week later. She was pregnant with a third child later in the month. This is a pattern that would repeat itself many times during the couple’s relationship. A month after the third conception of a boy, Mary conceived a daughter. Goodwin explained in his journal that this was because he was lying on the opposite side of the bed than he usually occupied. The sixteenth-­century physician Thomas Reynalde acknowledged that classical

18. Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death, 74–­75. 19. McLaren, “Nature’s Contraceptive,” 426–­27. 20. Defoe, Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, 191–­94.

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authors believed that the womb had seven cells: boy children were conceived if the seed fell in any of the three right cells. By 1560, Reynalde had discarded this idea as a fallacy.21 A century later, when the midwife Jane Sharp wrote her manual, she was giving the credit (or blame) for the sex of the child to the man. According to her, the right “stone” was hotter and therefore produced stronger seed, which resulted in male children.22 By 1724, the physician Thomas Maubray had combined the two concepts: “if the Seed has flown into the Right Side of the Womb, from the Right Rein of the Man, a Male will be conceiv’d; if into the Left, from the Left Rein, a Female; by reason of the Frigidity and Humidity of that Place. Which Notion may seem probable; considering, that tho’ the Womb has but one Cavity, yet it has two Sinuses for conceiving the Two different Sexes.”23 The anonymous author who penned Aristotle’s Master-­piece (1694) gave credit to “the force of Imagination” (Mary’s forte) in determining the sex of the child. He also suggested that the woman should keep warm, lie very still on the right side, and drink “a little Spirit of Saffron, and Iuice of Hysop, in a Glass of Mallaga o Aligant” for a week. A little astrological knowledge was also helpful, as the best time for conceiving male children was “when the Sun is in Leo, and Moon’s Signs is Virtigo [sic], Scorpia, or Sagitarius.”24 Similar advice was offered to beget a girl child. Mary’s insight into these matters was firmly rooted in the medicine and natural philosophy of the day. Another anomaly that was not outside the parameters of contemporary medicine was a term of pregnancy longer than nine months. The physician Crooke stated that “the birth at nine moneths is most legitmate and to Nature most familiar. In the tenth month trauell is not so vncouth” but “the eleauenth moneth is the last time and vtmost limit, which whosoeuer exceedeth, is deceiued in the time of her conception, and the Cat we say hath eaten her marke.”25 Mary stretched the limits of these parameters. The babies that Mary conceived in May 1684 should have been born around February 1685. But in December 1684, Mary conceived a fifth child. The spirits told her that it would stay in her womb when she delivered the other four children. It was not until April 1685, almost a year after

21. Reynalde, Birth of Mankind, ed. Hobby, 35. 22. Sharp, Midwives Book, bk. 1, chap. 4, p. 19. 23. Maubray, Female Physician, chap. 6, p. 55. 24. Pseud. Aristotle, Aristotle’s Master-­Piece, 8–­10. 25. Crooke, Mikrokosmographia, 147–­48.

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the first conception, that Mary felt “a certain sort of opening and working in her womb as if it were by a hand that did it” while at a tavern.26 By this time, the couple openly shared accommodations in a lodging on Long Acre (although they still maintained separate bedrooms). Once again, Mary needed to go to a midwife to be delivered. At eight o’clock at night, she made her way down to the waterfront to Mrs. Martin, a midwife located at the lower end of the York Buildings, built in the late seventeenth century on the site of York House. Two hours later, she returned in a sedan chair to where St. Martin’s Lane meets Long Acre. Although she was extremely weak from having delivered all five babies, she managed to walk the remaining distance home. Unfortunately, the children lived just long enough to be christened and were allegedly buried at St. Martin-­in-­ the-­Fields. (No records are extant to support this claim.) Again, Goodwin dutifully put Mary to bed and acted as her lying-­in maid. Two days later, she was recovered enough that she “shifted herself,” meaning she got out of bed and changed her linens.27 True to form, Mary conceived again seven days after the delivery of the five children, and again two days later, and again a week after that. For the most part, Mary bore her pregnancies stoically, never complaining or neglecting her duties to the spirit world. But this time, she was destined to experience some losses, and the blame was clearly put on Goodwin. One day when she was in a passion, he pulled her to make her stay and, as a result, she miscarried one of the fetuses. On another occasion, Goodwin was arrested for a small debt, which upset Mary to such an extent that she lost her most recent conception. The multiple pregnancies and subsequent miscarriages acted as a sort of control mechanism in their relationship. On one occasion, Mary’s pregnancy afforded Goodwin the opportunity to come to her rescue while also demonstrating his faith in God. In August of 1684, just a few months into her first pregnancy, Mary experienced pain and vomiting while the couple was at a treasure site. She feared that she might miscarry right there in the woods. To get back to the path, they had to climb “a most terrible steep long craggy hill.”28 Goodwin and another male companion barely managed to tug and pull Mary up inch by inch to the top of the cliff, until all three were exhausted. Mary confided to

26. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:207. 27. Ibid., 1:208. 28. Ibid., 1:144.

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Goodwin that she could feel blood run from her “like a tap,”29 but Goodwin persisted in his prayers with such fervor that the bleeding stopped and she didn’t miscarry on that occasion. In this case, Mary’s pregnancy acted as a tool to bolster Goodwin’s faith in his own agency. The cycle of conceptions and miscarriages continued throughout the remainder of 1685, until Mary was only carrying two children by the time Goodwin left to join his father on the Continent in April 1686. Mary reported that the delivery, in Goodwin’s absence, had been very difficult, just as it had been with the birth of her twenty-­one children born in wedlock. The children had not survived, and Mary was confined to bed for eight or ten days. When Goodwin returned from Europe in July 1686, Mary was so exhausted from childbirth that she avoided his bed for fear of more children. Mary may have used pregnancy as an excuse to terminate the sexual aspect of their relationship. She offered the excuse that the strain of conceiving children was killing her. She argued that this would sidestep any jealousy with the princess of the Lowlanders, with whom he was attempting to build a relationship at the time, so that he could come into his kingdom. But Goodwin insisted that neither Mary nor he could ignore their conjugal debt (they considered themselves married in the eyes of God). So within a few days of Goodwin’s return, Mary conceived another son, who was to be named Hezekiah. A month later, Mary conceived a daughter, to be named Susanna. But 1686 was a difficult year for Mary, and there were no multiple conceptions. This may mean that the couple were not as sexually active or that Mary was not enjoying their sexual encounters enough to yield conceptions. It may have also been difficult for Mary to hide multiple pregnancies. Throughout 1686, she had struggled with depression and a drinking problem, and was frequently weak and sickly. She often came home wet and weary from her endeavors with the spirit world, she was struggling with a chronic bad cough, and she was so oppressed with grief and sorrow that she sometimes prayed for death. On top of all this, the couple had no money, and from lack of funds Mary had “fallen away to nothing.”30 Hezekiah and Susanna were delivered in a more timely fashion, after only eight months. While Goodwin was at his father’s home in Wooburn, Mary traveled by water to a midwife out of town, where she

29. Ibid., 1:145. 30. Ibid., 2:2.

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delivered within the hour without much pain. The babies were very small but healthy and beautiful. They were put out to two separate wet nurses and Mary returned to London five days later. Unfortunately, Susanna died a month later by being “overlayd” by the nurse, a common danger when infants slept in the same bed as adults. Hezekiah continued to thrive and eventually Goodwin legitimized him as his heir. The spring and summer of 1687 was a very fertile time for the couple. Between March and June, Mary conceived a dozen fetuses, not counting some miscarriages, but she lost them all at the end of June. In July, there was another round of conceptions, sometimes twice a day, resulting in nine fetuses. They were all miscarried while Goodwin was away in Bath attempting to reestablish his standing in the royal court of the Uplanders. In the first few months following Goodwin’s return from Bath in October 1687, “conceiving” became almost a daily occurrence, perhaps reflecting how much the couple had missed one another during Goodwin’s long absence. However, Mary was not always enthusiastic about their coupling. On at least one occasion, she resisted Goodwin’s advances; he persisted “almost entirely against her will.” When she thought that Goodwin was asleep, she crawled out of his bed and returned to her own. The next morning, Goodwin was worried that she would think ill of his behavior (and so he should), but Mary was the one to apologize for her noncooperation. The angels had told her that she “must not fall out with her husband.”31 Either Mary took her conjugal debt very seriously, or she thought that the sexual component of their relationship was vital to Goodwin’s loyalty to her. And so the conceptions continued apace. By January 1688, Mary was almost as big with child as she was when she delivered Hezekiah and Susanna. By March, she was carrying forty fetuses! A multiple pregnancy on even a grander scale had become legendary since the thirteen century. Margaret, the Countess of Henneberg, allegedly gave birth to 365 infants in one delivery. The babies were the size of mice but perfect in their parts. The legend had spread all over Europe during the Middle Ages and was published in the seventeenth century in several volumes.32 Both Mary and Goodwin were probably aware of this story. Mary’s lesser imitation of the legend would have placed her in

31. Ibid., 2:60. 32. Le Petit, Generall historie of the Netherlands, 52; Fullwood, Church-­history of Britain, 28; Wanley, Wonders of the little world, 40–­41.

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the category of the miraculous. But the summer was an anxious time for Mary, as she struggled with jealousy over Goodwin’s affairs (with Uplander women this time) and attempted to direct Goodwin’s attention to a rich widow. She often miscarried several fetuses at a time, out of grief over their many troubles. Finally in September, while Goodwin was at sea working on a deep-­sea diving project, Mary delivered two daughters: a second Susanna and Sarah. But Susanna was very small and weak and died a couple of months later. September 1688 was the beginning of a new round of conceptions that resulted in seven fetuses. But after almost two years of pregnancy, the children, who had apparently been long dead, started to abort in a peacemeal fashion in July 1690. At this point, the twenty-­first-­century reader will find Mary’s story unbelievable and, perhaps, look for a psychological explanation. But it is not useful to label Mary as either delusional or a liar. People, both in the seventeenth century and now, employ additional elements that help them make sense of their world. Mary may have drawn on medical knowledge of the day, unconscious fantasies, or her own imagination to explain actual physical phenomena. In Mary’s case, she was engaged in producing meaning not only for herself but also for Goodwin. One wonders if Mary was suffering from some form of fibroid tumors, endometriosis, or other uterine disorder, which could have caused large clots of blood and tissue to be expelled.33 She could have easily interpreted these medical conditions as spontaneous abortions. To put Mary’s reports of multiple conceptions and spontaneous abortions in perspective, consider the story of Mary Toft.34 Although Toft’s tale developed more than two decades after Mary Parish died, it illustrates the mind-set of the medical profession, as well as the general population. Mary Toft was a peasant woman from Surrey who had a strange birth experience. She became pregnant in 1726, and alleged that while working in the field during her pregnancy, she saw a rabbit. She attempted to catch it but couldn’t. After that, she longed for rabbit to the point of obsession.

33. Mary’s description suggests gestational trophoblastic disease, including a hydatidiform mole, which is an abnormal growth of tissue in the uterus as a result of fertilization of an enucleated ovum. The unviable tissue is usually aborted naturally; Hui, Gestational Trophoblastic Disease, 1–­14. 34. The following narrative is drawn from Ahlers, Some observations concerning the woman of Godlyman in Surrey; St. André, Short narrative of an extraordinary delivery of rabbets; Bondeson, Cabinet of Medical Curiosities, 122–­41; Cody, Birthing the Nation, 121–­30; Philip K. Wilson, “Toft [née Denyer], Mary (bap. 1703, d. 1763), the rabbit-­breeder,” DNB.

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Four months later, she started to abort pieces of flesh that looked suspiciously like animal parts. A male midwife was called in, and he delivered Toft of more than a dozen dead rabbits, or rabbit parts, over the course of the next days and weeks. Apparently, the power of the maternal imagination had caused the transformation of her child in the womb into a warren of rabbits. Her case garnered countrywide attention, including the curiosity of the king. Investigation eventually revealed that rabbit parts were being smuggled into Toft’s bedchamber and unceremoniously stuffed into her reproductive organs. Her motivation was supposedly fame and fortune, neither of which came to fruition. After confessing her deceit, Toft was committed to the Tothill-­Fields Bridewell, a house of correction, as a fraud. A spate of pamphlets satirized the whole affair. This incident reflects the belief in the power of the imagination and the unorthodox medical beliefs of the time, as well as the willingness of the general population to entertain the bizarre. Considering the incident of Mary Toft, Goodwin was not particularly gullible in his acceptance of Mary’s pregnancies. Mary’s construction of serial conceptions may pertain to maternal longings for her lost children. Or phantom pregnancies might have justified the moral concerns of illicit sexual activity.35 In any case, for the next decade, Mary continued to conceive one child at a time, although at a much slower rate and with longer than normal gestation periods. Some fetuses were miscarried while others were born alive but died shortly thereafter. Goodwin’s journal gets very sporadic by the end of the 1690s and all we know is that Mary was supposedly pregnant with a boy child on her deathbed in 1703, at the age of seventy-­two. At the very least, this tells us that Mary and Goodwin, who was fifty years old at the time of her death, were sexually active until the end of Mary’s life.

*** Mary was not Goodwin’s only sexual conquest during their twenty-­year relationship. As a woman who lived for a time at the Restoration court of Charles II, Mary would have been familiar with the immoral behavior of the aristocrats of the day. Seventeenth-­century “court wits” such as the Earl of Rochester and the Duke of Buckingham performed a version of

35. Jones, Fairy Tale, 74.

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masculinity that was punctuated with raunchy exploits. This elite libertinism was satirized by writers such as Ned Ward in The Rambling Rakes, who quipped, “Night, Wine, and Love, no Moderation bear; / Night knows no Shame, or Love and Wine no Fear.”36 Promiscuous behavior in the Wharton family should not have come as a surprise to Mary. Goodwin’s brothers, Tom and Henry, were well known for their sexual dalliances and outrageous behavior.37 Goodwin readily admitted that monogamy was difficult for him. He constantly had to “resist those passions which nature would often suggest, & Satan encourage the more to vex [him].”38 Even though he was living and sleeping with Mary on a daily basis, he was tempted by every pretty young woman who crossed his path. He claimed that if he didn’t have intercourse with a woman for three or four days, he produced “an unimaginable quantity of seed,” which he believed was responsible for his high fertility with Mary. At one point, the Lord bluntly told him to “Fuck (every week) where you us’d to doe” (meaning with Mary) and “Throw water on your self ” to manage his lust.39 However, this had not stopped Goodwin from initiating an affair with one Mrs. Wilder. Mary had befriended this niece of an Irish gentlewoman in March 1685. Mrs. Wilder had been seduced by a man of quality in Ireland, who had promised to marry her. Based on this traditional method of betrothal, Mrs. Wilder had been persuaded to lie with the rogue and subsequently found herself pregnant, abandoned, and banished from her family’s home. Not an uncommon story for the time. Goodwin grew fond of the woman, and one day when Mary and the maid were out, he found Mrs. Wilder amenable to his desires. But a couple of days later, he suspected that he might have contracted some form of venereal disease from her. After dining with her at a local public house, Goodwin confronted her with this delicate problem. When Mrs. Wilder protested her innocence, Goodwin lay with her again. He intended to explain that he only desired to have a child by her, but was “prevented from any long discourse by Mrs. Parish’s coming up the stairs.”40

36. Ward, Rambling Rakes, 9. For a more general discussion of libertinism, see Hopkins, Constant Delights. 37. For Tom and Henry Wharton’s behavior, see Turner, Libertines and Radicals in Early Modern London, x–­xi, 165–­66, 231. 38. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 2:26. 39. Ibid., 1:306. 40. Ibid., 1:197.

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Goodwin’s initial suspicions were confirmed a day or two later when he was struck with full symptoms of “the pox,” or what the English called the “French disease.” Seventeenth-­century people did not differentiate between the various types of sexually transmitted diseases. A diagnosis of the pox applied to a wide range of symptoms, including a burning sensation during urination, genital discharge, and genital ulcers, which could have been signs of syphilis, gonorrhea, or some other form of venereal disorder. Later stages of the pox manifested as oozing sores and bodily pains.41 Women were usually blamed as the carriers of the disease. Goodwin paid a visit to Mrs. Wilder’s lodgings, intending to break off the affair. The double standard of the day concerning sexual morality caused him to denounce her for her base behavior. His part in the affair, on the other hand, was not the problem. He was surprised to find Mary sitting at the woman’s bedside, aware of the situation. Mary flew into one of her violent passions, threatening to never see or speak to Goodwin again on account of his sexual indiscretions. The next day, she returned home “oppressed with grief and disquietness” and threw herself on the bed in despair. Goodwin surreptitiously applied the frog bone charm to win back her affections. The love charm, combined with kind words and a lot of groveling, fostered the beginnings of her forgiveness. She refused to play cards with him that evening, which they often did as a diversion to their melancholic state. The venereal disease was less forgiving. Goodwin was “almost raked away to nothing” by his distemper, despite several purges and Mary’s best physic. There is no mention of mercury treatments, which were often used in later stages of the disease to rid the patient of the poison. To add injury to insult, Mary also suffered “a little pain and sharpness of urine.”42 In all fairness, Goodwin had reason to believe that Mary would not object to any extracurricular activities. She had been quite tolerant when it came to Goodwin’s affairs with the Lowlander women. Although she had expressed jealousy of Queen Penelope, she had been willing to bury her own feelings for his benefit. And on more than one occasion, Mary had protested that she was too old for him anyway. Mary and the angels had even encouraged Goodwin to seek out a rich wife so that he could have a fortune settled on him. However,

41. Siena, Venereal Disease, Hospitals and the Urban Poor, 15–­22. 42. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:198, 199, 201.

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in contrast to the affair with Mrs. Wilder, this potential relationship was under Mary’s careful management, as were the Lowlander relationships. After Goodwin returned from his trip to the Continent with his father in July 1686, Mary’s familiar spirit, George, was contacted by the spirit of a man who was the cousin of a Spanish Uplander princess by the name of Anne Gartwrott. The young woman, not yet of legal age, had seen Goodwin in Europe and had instantly become enamored with him. This was after the Lowlander queen had died and the situation with her sister Princess Ursula had deteriorated. For Mary to construct this scenario, she must have been fairly certain that Goodwin would have flirted with women while he was away. Sure enough, when Goodwin heard this news, he reported that he had exchanged glances with a strange, beautiful maiden at Aix-­la-­Chapelle, although he had not learned her name. Goodwin had accompanied his father to Aix-­la-­Chapelle, or Aachen, which was a popular spa town with hot sulphur springs, located in the western principality of the Holy Roman Empire. Mary transformed this unknown woman into Princess Gartwrott. But this romance was doomed to failure on account of close supervision by her relatives and a bout of smallpox that led to blindness. Eventually, the princess returned to France in the fall of 1687 where she grew very ill and died. This diversion was probably designed to occupy Goodwin’s time and give him hope of an advantageous match. Ironically, this was the very purpose for which Goodwin used it with his father. Mary’s creation of Princess Gartwrott may have been influenced by the story of a notorious Englishwoman, Mary Carleton, who fashioned herself as a German princess, Maria de Wolway.43 However, unlike Carleton, Mary Parish created a completely independent character from herself, in the same way that the queen of the Lowlanders was a separate entity. There were many pamphlets about Carleton after her trial for bigamy at the Old Bailey in 1663. She even starred briefly as herself in a play written about her misadventures. Another spate of pamphlets was issued after her public hanging in 1673. She had returned illegally from Jamaica where she had been transported for theft in 1671. Born as Mary Moders near Canterbury (1642?), Carleton self-­constructed herself as a gentlewoman. She played multiple roles during her brief life, apparently having a talent

43. The following narrative is constructed from Carleton, Arraignment, tryal and examination of Mary Moders; Lilley, “Mary Carleton’s False Additions”; Suzuki, “Case of Mary Carleton”; Janet Todd, “Carleton [née Moders], Mary [nicknamed the German Princess] (1634x42–­1673), impostor,” DNB.

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for passing as a wronged gentlewoman. The German princess role resulted in her marrying an eighteen-­year-­old law clerk who posed as a rich gentleman. Both parties were trying to get the other’s alleged wealth. However, in the subsequent bigamy trial, Carleton managed to convince the court that she was “a stranger, and a forreigner,” rather than the woman they were indicting.44 Without sufficient evidence of a previous marriage, she was acquitted. Although Mary Parish did not present herself as a foreign aristocrat, there are similarities between her and Mary Carleton. Both women presented themselves as victims who were alienated from their rightful positions and possessions. Both displayed transgressive behavior in order to cross social and gender lines. At the treasure-hunting expedition involving Prince Rupert, Mary Parish had “disguise[d] herself in man’s clothes.”45 Kate Lilley describes Carleton’s actions as “masculinised agency,” which could be equally applied to Mary’s ability to take control of a situation. In both cases, the women’s “actress-­like conduct” demonstrated how performative and tenuous social status was.46 Curiously, both women were also Catholic. Mary also encouraged Goodwin to pursue a relationship with a real flesh and blood woman. A financially and socially substantial wife would have increased Goodwin’s social status and helped his political career. The woman in question was Theodosia Ivy, the wealthy widow of a London merchant, Thomas Ivy. Lady Ivy was a very handsome sixty-­year-­old widow, who apparently looked twenty years younger than her age. She had amassed a vast fortune in copper mines and had invested in patents for the making of white paper. She was also “very knowing in most secrets of learning” and was famous for curing sore eyes.47 The angels assured Mary that Goodwin should marry her and conceive a child, by which he would gain access to her estate, and then Lady Ivy would die shortly thereafter. Mary met face to face with Lady Ivy to help broker the marriage contract. In private meetings, Lady Ivy assured her that she had great plans to provide for Goodwin. Goodwin entered into an informal and clandestine marriage with Lady Ivy by their fourth meeting in November 1687.

44. Carleton, Arraignment, tryal and examination of Mary Moders, 14. 45. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:42. 46. Lilley, “Mary Carleton’s False Additions,” 83. 47. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 2:55.

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The couple joined hands and pledged everlasting devotion to each other. However, Goodwin had considerable difficulty consummating the union, being deterred by Lady Ivy’s “monthly distemper,” her pressing legal concerns, and her ill health. Nevertheless, the Lord encouraged Goodwin to visit the widow and ingratiate himself with her, which he did for the rest of 1688. In February 1689, Goodwin attempted twice to have intercourse with Lady Ivy but found her unwilling and, worse yet, he found himself impotent toward her. When he finally announced that he was no longer going to pursue a sexual relationship with Ivy, Mary admitted that, even though she had desired it for Goodwin’s sake, she had found the thought unbearable. In spite of the failed romance, Lady Ivy eventually became a valuable financial partner in the couple’s diving projects. She also acted as an intermediary between Goodwin and James II. She introduced Goodwin to the Quaker William Penn, who was in the king’s good graces. Goodwin also pursued some romantic interests on his own. In the fall of 1687, he went to Bath in an attempt to secure a position at court. The Romans had built a spa and temple at the natural hot springs in Bath in the first century. After falling into disrepair during the Middle Ages, the site was rebuilt and revived in the Elizabethan period. By James II’s reign, Bath was attracting the aristocracy and was a popular retreat for members of the court. For Goodwin, the attraction was Queen Mary Beatrice, consort to James II. Not only did she hope that the spa’s healing properties would help her to get pregnant, but she was doing her part in a publicity campaign to charm the English people into supporting James’s unpopular reign. While the queen and her ladies enjoyed the hot springs, spectators looked down on them from a gallery. Goodwin had his eye on the queen as a potential romance, which would culminate in their illegitimate son being the next heir to the throne. Goodwin did not have any success with the queen, but he did become intimate with his landlady while he was in Bath. According to Goodwin, she was “a very good natured pretty woman,” who was married.48 Goodwin wrote that the pair had intercourse while standing in an entry, and she had supposedly conceived two children by him. After his return from Bath, in February of 1688, Mary noticed a spot on her shoulder, which she

48. Ibid., 2:35.

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suspected was a sign of the pox. She also noted that Goodwin had been “hotter” than usual, whatever that might mean. In her intuitive way, she nosed around until she discovered the affair with the landlady. Mary maintained that Goodwin had not been granted permission from the spirits in this matter, or she would have gladly agreed to the match. In addition to reprimands from Mary, Goodwin was rebuked directly by the spirit world. A few days later, Mary told him that she had resolved to marry some other (unnamed) “sober rich man” who was courting her, and leave him to his other women.49 She would not tolerate Goodwin pursuing every skirt he passed. But Goodwin did not want to accept the end of their relationship, which would have also ended his intercourse with the spirit realm. After several hours of wrangling, they came to the agreement that Mary would come to Goodwin’s bed whenever it pleased her without any pressure from him, and she was even free to marry (if God allowed it). In return, she agreed not to be jealous of Goodwin’s affairs or trouble herself about them. Nevertheless, at the end of May 1688, Mary became suspicious about a stain on Goodwin’s shirt. Goodwin had met another young gentlewoman at a ball in Bath. Cecilia Gay, the stepdaughter of the alderman of Bath, Edward Bushell, was not yet twenty years old.50 Goodwin described her as “very pretty & a good fortune.” However, he had not had the opportunity to close the deal while in Bath. In the winter of 1687/88, Mrs. Gay (as Goodwin called her) arrived in London. Goodwin accompanied her publicly to the theatre, which he never would have done with Mary. Little quarrels and delays kept him from touching her until late in May. At the time, “her flowers were upon her,” which led Goodwin to believe that she was a virgin. After Mary found out about this latest dalliance, the archangel Michael informed Goodwin that Mrs. Gay had slept with more than twenty men, which, of course, was scandalous. The Lord made it clear that he should have “no Harlots but only a wife.”51 A few days later, the Lord reaffirmed that he never gave a harlot to Goodwin and that he must desist from his concerns with women below his station. This became a recurring theme in the Lord’s proclamations (discussed in more detail in chapter 9). Goodwin was reminded more than once about the “trouble &

49. Ibid., 2:74. 50. Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 350. 51. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 2:41, 89, 87.

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misery” his adultery had caused to one who was “true & faithful” to him. The Lord constantly reminded Goodwin of Mary’s worth: Goodwin Wharton, thy woman I did give to thee hath proved young & faithful & honest unto thee and many a fine children thou hast had by she but in small time she will not care much for thee then thou shalt see what will become of thee.52

The audible voice of the Lord told him that he should not part with Mary as she was his true wife.

52. Ibid., 2:76, 88.

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Chapter 8

The Traumas of Treasure Hunting Around the time that Mary first got pregnant, she and Goodwin started looking for buried treasure. Treasure hunting was a popular activity in the seventeenth century and not without good reason. The institution of banking was still in its developmental stages and the concept of depositing wealth for safekeeping was not yet in practice. People regularly buried riches in the form of coins, jewels, and silver plate. Treasure seekers were also occasionally rewarded with ancient caches of Roman or medieval coins and other artifacts.1 Barrows and wayside crosses were particularly popular locations. The connection between treasure hunting and the occult had been acknowledged in the first statute against conjurations, witchcraft, and sorcery, which was enacted during the reign of Henry VIII. The statute specifically forbade anyone to “dig up or pull down any Crosse or Crosses” for money or treasure.2 The marginalized members of society were not the only people who looked for treasure. The well-­respected Elizabethan astrologer and mathematician John Dee consulted with the angel Uriel to determine the location of treasure left behind by the Danes before they were driven out of England in the Middle Ages.3 And even elites were frequent participants. In 1546, Henry Neville, fifth Earl of Westmorland, engaged in occult

1. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, 235. 2. 33 Hen. VIII, c.8. (1542), in Statutes of the Realm, vol. 3, [1509–1545], 837. 3. Fenton, Diaries of John Dee, 66–­73.

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activities to pay off heavy gambling debts.4 According to the physician and cunning man Simon Forman, Neville had £5,000 hidden in a cellar at Eridge in Sussex before he died.5 Sometimes these expeditions were a form of entertainment. The magician and astrologer William Lilly joined David Ramsey, Charles I’s groom of the bedchamber, to search for buried treasure at Westminster Abbey in 1632. They were accompanied by an entourage of more than thirty men and an unnamed magician from Pudding Lane.6 Theoretically, anyone with a spade could dig for treasure, but it was common to enlist the help of a cunning person to locate the stash.7 For example, Simon Forman often used astrological figures on behalf of his clients to “know what [treasure] is hid there, how deep it is, whether it may be found or no, of what value, whether newly hid, whole or diminished.”8 The other role of the cunning person was to subdue any guardian spirits. At Westminster Abbey, William Lilly was called upon to exercise his occult knowledge to banish spirits that arose in the form of a fierce, blustering wind. As a cunning woman, Mary had previous experience in looking for treasure. Shortly after the death of her second husband, Mr. Lawrence, she had been asked to assist in a treasure-­hunting expedition at a house in Islington, a suburb north of London. A doctor of divinity by the name of Wallbank had discovered treasure at a certain great house that stood empty. But whenever he got close to what he thought was the treasure, it seemingly sank lower, a commonly reported phenomenon in treasure stories. When the searchers got too close, the guardian spirits removed it from their grasp. So Wallbank approached Mary, who had a reputation for dealing with spirits, and made great promises to her of a share in the treasure if she would assist. She was initially wary, as she had been abused in these types of ventures before, but at length she agreed to help. Much to Mary’s surprise, after they had been digging for some time, the spirit of the former archbishop of Canterbury William Laud appeared in front of her. The archbishop is perhaps best remembered for his attempt to enforce the Anglican Book of Prayer on the Church of Scotland, and the subsequent civil wars that led to the regicide of Charles I. Laud told

4. Keith Dockray, “Henry Neville, fifth earl of Westmorland (1524/5–­1564),” DNB. 5. Rowse, Case Books of Simon Forman, 218. 6. Lilly, Last of the Astrologers, 32. 7. Davies, Cunning-­Folk, 93–­96. 8. Simon Forman, as reproduced in Rowse, Case Books of Simon Forman, 100.

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Mary that the treasure they were seeking had been placed there by Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, along with several noblemen, for the promotion of the Roman Catholic cause. He confessed to Mary that the reason his spirit was restless was that he had pretended to the world to be a devout member of the Church of England, but in his heart he had died a Roman Catholic. Indeed, accusations of popery had followed Laud from his student days at Oxford until his death.9 Mary claimed that Laud was her godfather. The archbishop requested that she arrange five or six masses for him at the Catholic chapel that Catherine of Braganza, Charles II’s queen, maintained at Somerset House.10 After the requiem masses were said, Mary never saw Laud’s spirit again. Goodwin must have been impressed with Mary’s elite connections, even if he didn’t agree with the archbishop’s religious views. There were other spirits that opposed the treasure hunters at every turn. The dirt that the treasure seekers removed during the day was all thrown back into the hole during the night. After several days of this frustration, they began to work only at night and set watchers during the day. This proved somewhat more successful, until they actually discovered some coins. When they reached down to pick them up, there was such a hideous cacophony that no one but Mary would dare to attempt to reach them. But even when she could get the money in her hands, it mysteriously slipped out again. Sometimes the coins were made so hot by the spirits that she had to use tongs to retrieve them, but the very tips of the tongs melted. At other times, she was pulled about by invisible hands, until she had no choice but to leave off her efforts. Constantly, the spirits chided and railed against her, which just made her more determined to proceed. By this time, the expedition had attracted several unnamed men of high status who were curious to see the spirits. Several of these men agreed to meet Prince Rupert, King Charles II’s nephew, at the Islington house. The prince was the son of Charles’s sister Elizabeth, who had been married off to the German prince Frederick V, Elector Palatine. Rupert had a reputation of involvement with the occult. During the civil wars, he was commander of the Royalist cavalry. A member of the parliamentarian faction published a satirical pamphlet about his white poodle, Boy, which was suspected of being a witch’s familiar. The dog allegedly helped his master

9. Anthony Milton, “William Laud (1573–­1645),” DNB. 10. Caroline M. Hibbard, “Henrietta Maria (1609–­1669),” DNB.

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find “Concealed goods” at Oxford University for the Royalist cause.11 The last to arrive at the Islington house was one Mr. Garroll, a gentleman in service to the prince, who reported that Rupert had been detained due to some urgent matter. The group resolved to set about the business by midnight. But Garroll was not a patient man. When it was almost twelve o’clock, he stood up in a huffy, boasting manner, and exclaimed, “God damn this devil! He doth not come. I will go see if I can see him.”12 He went outside and looked through the window into the room where the treasure lay. The spirit of an old man with a pair of spectacles rose up. Garroll was so terrified that he ran back into the other room and fainted. After being carried to the prince’s house in Spring Gardens, at the entrance to Whitehall, he recovered enough to tell his tale. But the fright was so great that he died within three days. This incident put an end to the whole affair. The price Mary would pay for challenging the spirits would come later in the form of Prince Rupert’s revenge for the loss of his beloved servant, which is what the Lowlanders had come to warn her about on their first visit to her room. Mary learned two lessons from her experience at Islington. First of all, discretion was of the utmost importance in these matters. Second, the cooperation of the guardian spirits was advisable. So in June of 1683, when the couple discovered treasure at Hounslow Heath, they sent George to investigate. Mary and Goodwin were staying at their favorite inn at Hounslow while they patiently waited for the king and queen to return from Rye. They spent their leisure time roaming the heath to the west of the village, where the local peasants pastured their livestock and hunted small game. The English countryside was dotted with many barrows or ancient burial sites. One day, the couple noticed a mound of earth surrounded by four great elm trees in the center of the commons. The arrangement of the trees and the precise configuration of the mound suggested that it had once had a particular purpose. George reported that a vast treasure had been concealed there during the reign of King John, whose hunting lodge Mary had visited years before with the woman from Longford. The treasure was guarded by the spirits, or ghosts, of the thirteen men and women who had hidden it. Five of the spirits, including a

11. T. B., Observations vpon Prince Rupert’s vvhite dog, called Boy, A1v; Anon., Parliaments vnspotted-­bitch in answer to Prince Roberts dog called Boy and his malignant she-­monkey. 12. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:44.

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martyred nun, were good, but the other eight were evil. The good spirits had no problem parting with the goods, as they were bound to the place until it was delivered to someone. However, the couple could not very well dig for treasure in the middle of a common that was for the use of everyone in the parish, even if they had the blessing of all the spirits. Fortunately, Mary remembered instructions from her grimoire concerning a way to banish evil spirits and open the ground without digging. They just needed “a caracteristicall parchment” and two properly prepared wands, which would temporarily open the ground.13 Hazel wands, or “Mosaical rods” as they were sometimes called, would bend toward the earth at the site of gold or silver, similar to the technique of “witching” for water still practiced by some people today. Magic wands were frequently discussed in magic manuals. In 1584 Reginald Scot described many magical techniques in his book, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, with the intention of debunking such “superstitions.” Ironically, the book went a long way in making occult information readily available to the general public. By 1683, Discoverie had been circulating for a century and had become a virtual grimoire for would-­be magicians. Scot describes a typical operation, which he considered superstitious in a section entitled “The Art and Order to be used in digging for money.” There must be made upon a hazell wand three crosses, and certeine words both blasphemous and impious must be said over it, and hereunto must be added certeine characters & barbarous names. And whilest the treasure is a digging, there must be read the psalmes, De profundis, Missa, Misereatur nostri, Requiem, Pater noster, Ave Maria, Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos à malo, Amen. A porta inferni credo videre bona, &c. Expectate Dominum, Requiem aeternam. And then a certeine praier. And if the time of digging be neglected, the divell will carrie all the treasure awai.14

The popularity of the text is evident in a case involving an alleged fortune-­ teller, Ann Watts. At the time of her arrest, Watts was in possession of Scot’s Discoverie, along with several other occult books.15 Another cunning

13. Ibid., 1:7. 14. Scot, Discouerie of Witchcraft, ed. Summers, bk. 10, chap. 7, p. 102. 15. Watts was arraigned at a petty session in Stratford, Essex, in June 1687. An indication of Ann Watts’s social standing can be gleaned from one of her companions at the time of her arrest. Ann was in the

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woman, Anne Kingsbury of Somerset, claimed that she had learned the art of using divining rods from the well-­known astrologer William Lilly. Kingsbury used “inchaunted rods,” half an ell long (approximately twenty-­ two inches), to locate hidden treasure.16 Other grimoires recommended that the wands be cut with a single stroke at sunrise on the day of Mercury (that is, a Wednesday) from a tree no older than one year. Then they were to be inscribed with appropriate characters on the day and hour of Mercury. After being consecrated and perfumed with sweet incense, such as aloe, nutmeg, gum benjamin, or musk, they were to be put aside in a clean place until needed.17 According to Mary, two different sticks, from different trees, were required. One, the common smooth hazel, which produces hazelnuts, was readily available. But the other, a “she” witch hazel (which is actually a type of elm), was more difficult to find.18 So Mary and Goodwin returned to London to inquire of the herb women and gardeners about where they might locate the witch hazel. Some women thought they might find it in Highgate Woods, an ancient woodland north of the city beyond Hampstead Heath, but they returned with the wrong thing. Another man suggested looking in the garden at Charter House in Smithfields. Goodwin went to the site of the ancient Carthusian monastery, but the yard and gardens had been newly remodeled, and the tree was no longer there. Another lead sent them searching along the verge of Tyburn Road, but even with George’s help, they could not find it. Further inquiries led them to the area around the aqueduct of the New River, which brought fresh water from the River Lee, twenty miles away in Hertfordshire. The meadow around the canal was wet and the hedges along the banks were thick. Their search led them a mile out of the city, and after climbing a steep hill, Mary was so weary and out of breath that she could walk no further.

company of Susanna Kingsman and two other women. Susanna was the wife of Richard Kingsman, a distiller, who had finished his apprenticeship and been admitted as a member of the distiller’s company; London Livery Company Apprenticeship Registers, vol. 11, Distiller’s Company 1659–­1811; Guild Hall, London, Freedom Admission Register 1638–­1708, Guildhall MS 6215, fol. 51. 16. Somerset Record Office, Q/SR 146/25 (June 15, 1680); Trotman, “Seventeenth Century Treasure-­Seeking.” 17. Greater Key of Solomon, ed. De Laurence, bk. 2, chap. 8, p. 101, and bk. 2, chap. 10, p. 105. 18. The shrub known as witch hazel, or Hamamelis Virginiana, is native to North America but was unknown in Europe. The old name of “wych” hazel referred to the wych elm, or Ulmus Glabra, because of the similar leaves. It is a completely different species to hazel; OED, s.v. “witch hazel, wych hazel.”

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Mary’s general health had suffered from her broken leg and poor living conditions before she met Goodwin. But since meeting him, she had gradually recovered and gained a considerable amount of weight. Goodwin had assisted in her recovery by preparing medicines to cleanse her system and balance her humors. In May of 1683, Goodwin had prepared a double batch of a purgative: one half was intended for Mary and the other for someone else. When Mary arrived at Goodwin’s room at the Temple, she saw the concoction on the window sill and, in her impetuous manner, drank the whole thing before Goodwin could stop her. The immediate solution to the incident was to drink a glass of sack, a white wine from Spain, to cause her to vomit it up. But the combination of the wine and the medicine made Mary retch so vigorously and for such a long time that it caused a tear in a small blood vessel in her throat. In between bouts of retching, she directed Goodwin to fetch comfrey and nettle seed, to staunch the bleeding and knit the vein.19 Even the Lowlanders got involved: Father Fryar and the queen advised taking three or four grains or crystals of spermaceti, the wax that was harvested from the head of the sperm whale. They cautioned that if the vein did not knit by midnight, Mary was at risk of bleeding to death. This incident provided Mary an opportunity to demonstrate her growing devotion to Goodwin. She summoned George and made him swear that he would come to Goodwin as soon as she was dead. Her greatest gift was her promise that as soon as she passed into the spirit realm, she would come to Goodwin herself, as his own familiar spirit. In time, the vomiting ceased. But Mary continued to cough from the blood constantly trickling down her throat. Goodwin laid his hands over the throbbing vein to support her neck when she coughed, and, for years to come, Mary attributed her survival to this laying-­on of hands, which has a long history in Judeo-­Christian traditions of curing illness. Although the crisis passed, Mary was subject to fits of vomiting for the next few months. So after the exertion of climbing the hill, Mary feared that the strain from huffing and puffing would rupture the vein in her neck again. There was no hope of getting a coach, as they were not on the main road. But as luck would have it, a man came along who had been carrying corn to the mill and was headed back to London without a load. The horse was only

19. Culpeper, English Physician Enlarged (1725), 97.

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saddled with a pannel, a sort of frameless pad to which the corn had been fastened, but Mary was determined to ride the beast anyway, as Goodwin walked alongside. When they were almost back to London, they encountered a wagon full of hay being pulled by a donkey, on the road ahead of them. Mary, with her usual impatience, desired to pass by. She directed her mount to the narrow space on the left hand side, between the ditch and the cart. The man leading the donkey tried to accommodate her by veering to the right. But from Mary’s perspective, it appeared as if the load of hay was swerving towards her. Afraid that she might be hit by the falling hay, she leaned backward on the horse. Her movement was so quick that she lost her balance. As she toppled from the horse, Goodwin caught her about the knees, and she landed in an unceremonious lump on top of him. So the second repercussion of her ill health was Goodwin’s aching back, which was initially attributed to this heroic gesture and subsequently led to the discovery of the queen’s secret nighttime trysts. These are a couple of examples of how Mary used her physical body as a connecting point to the spiritual realm. Although that particular outing was unsuccessful, the couple eventually found the right “she” witch ­hazel, and George delivered the sticks to Father Fryar to be consecrated. The spirits who guarded the treasure at the four trees in Hounslow Heath had told Mary and Goodwin that the cache could only be delivered at the new moon, at which time the ground would open for only one hour. Their first opportunity was Sunday, August 12, 1683. Father Fryar met them on the commons (invisible, of course, since none of the Lowlanders was allowed to appear to Goodwin until after he met with the queen). He struck the mound between the trees with the newly consecrated wands. The earth opened and he entered. In a short while, he returned in a huff and struck the rods on the earth again. The ground immediately closed. He explained to the befuddled couple that the spirits had refused to give him anything. They said that they had promised the treasure to Mary and Goodwin and would not release it into another’s hands. So the couple had no choice but to wait for the next new moon in September to try again. But on September 10 their landlady at the inn at Hounslow, a meddlesome and nosy woman, asked them if they wanted to walk out with her and her children to the commons to milk her cow. She suggested this under the pretense that Mary and Goodwin must be bored, but, in truth, she was suspicious of their long stay at the inn and their many walks

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abroad. Mary was known to many in the area from her previous visits to the Lowlanders, and the couple were becoming the common talk of the country. The landlady often walked close by the four trees on her way to fetch her cow, and Mary knew that if she saw them kneeling down with their ears to the ground, they would be accused of being common conjurers, an accusation that Mary particularly loathed. So it was safer to be in the woman’s company and then see her on her way home than to be spied upon. But by the time the woman had milked her cow and put it once again to pasture, it was past 5:55 and they had missed their opportunity for that month. The new moon on the 10th of October fell at two o’clock in the morning. In addition to the inconvenient time, George brought them news that a Lowlander priest had made a pact with the evil spirits to attack Mary if she attempted to retrieve the treasure. Once again, Mary and Goodwin’s hopes were dashed. The new moon in November was conveniently at 1:26 in the afternoon of the 8th. Mary and Goodwin laid the hazel wands and the parchment and prayed to God that the ground might open up. As the ground cracked beneath them, a man on a horse came down the road. Afraid of being discovered, Mary panicked and snatched up the parchment and sticks. The window of opportunity, as well as the ground, was again closed. On December 8, the constant rains had caused the composition of the earth to be altered to such a state that the spirits could not deliver any treasure. By January, the frost deterred them. And by February, the heath was a sheet of ice. The treasure at the four trees would have to wait until spring. But in April of 1684 there was too much rain. In May, Father Fryar misplaced the wands; in June, the rains returned; and in July, Goodwin had to attend his father. So in August of 1684, more than a year after they first discovered the treasure site, the couple took another approach and decided to banish the evil spirits. Mary and Goodwin had been advised not to treat human spirits as harshly as demons, since humans still had to face the Lord on the judgment day. So they banished the eight evil spirits of men into Windsor Forest for just six months. The methods of controlling demons described in grimoires were adapted from Catholic exorcism rituals, illustrating how blurry the line was between magic and religion at this time. To be rid of the three demons, Gabetius, Hyadromicon, and Belsacanom (to my knowledge, the names are not listed in any extant grimoires), Goodwin encircled

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the place three times and commanded the devils to depart in the name of God and be banished to hell forever. Goodwin’s description of the event is in keeping with instructions in magic manuals, which recommend excommunicating noncompliant spirits with harsh words: “I excommunicate thee and deprive thee from all thy dignities to the deepest pit in Hell and there shalt thou remain in everlasting chains, in fire and brimstone, where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth forever.”20 One of the demons in the form of a great, black dog threatened to attack Mary, but this only made Goodwin more determined to dispatch him. But as pleased as they were at successfully banishing the evil spirits, their actions did not get them any closer to the treasure. Months stretched into years as Mary and Goodwin attempted to retrieve the treasure at Hounslow Heath. Meanwhile, other treasure-­ hunting opportunities presented themselves. Mary suggested that they try to retrieve riches from a place her grandfather had shown her at Northend, a village close to her hometown of Turville. Grandfather West was the second husband of Mary’s grandmother. One day, while he was searching in the commons for a suitable place to dig a charcoal pit, his spade struck the rim of an iron pot. When he dug it out, he found that it was filled with gold and silver. Bit by bit, he carried the treasure home, not even telling his wife about his discovery. Upon cleaning and polishing the pot, he discovered the words, “Where this pot doth lye: there stands a better by.”21 When Mary was six or seven years old, he showed her the special place, less than a mile from his house. Mary maintained that it was this serendipitous treasure that allowed him to live like a rich country yeoman. The story of buried treasure may have been a way to explain his good fortune, or perhaps he had really stumbled upon one of the many Roman burial sites in the area that contained bronze and copper coins.22 Either way, this mysterious tale kindled a lifetime quest in an impressionable young girl. In August 1683, Mary and Goodwin took the stagecoach as far as Slough in pursuit of this treasure. From there, they hired an old cart horse to travel the remaining sixteen miles to Northend. The last leg of the journey passed through a dense, dark forest, where the light barely penetrated

20. BL Sloane 1727, fol. 8, Secreta Secretorum. 21. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:20. 22. Roman settlements existed around Weston Turville and Fingest from 55 BCE to 409 CE. Burial sites contain glass, bronze, and pottery; Roman copper coins were found in the area in 1772. Reed, History of Buckinghamshire, 27.

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even at high noon. The many crossroads in the path made it difficult to know whether they were continuing forward or heading back. By the time the track finally opened onto a wide common, the night was pitch black. Mary was fit to be tied, having wanted to stop much earlier. She threatened to jump off the horse, on which they rode tandem, and go back through the woods on foot. Eventually, Goodwin persuaded her to continue until they reached a public house. The inn did not have a room for them, but the master of the house could see that Mary was very near exhaustion. He offered her his own bed, a practice that was not uncommon for the time. While Mary slept soundly beside the man’s wife, Goodwin played at a game of push-­pin with the publican until he fell asleep in his chair. The next morning, the couple headed for the place in the commons where Mary’s grandfather had allegedly found the iron pot full of gold and silver. Kneeling down at the spot with her ear to the ground, Mary bid the spirit that guarded the treasure to speak to her, which it did in a deep, hollow voice. The spirit told her that there was also an evil spirit that guarded the treasure, and that the spirit went abroad every Monday at six o’clock in the evening, at which time Mary could gladly have whatever she wished. But Mary could not face the thought of repeating the exhausting journey a week later. Although it was a Tuesday, she told the spirit she would have the treasure then and there; she started to scratch at the surface of the ground with her bare hands. The spirit pulled her about by the hood of her cloak, which provided one of many opportunities for Goodwin to come to her rescue and pull her free of the spirit’s grasp. The next Sunday, they repeated the journey, with plans to reach Marlow by the evening, which was within five miles of the treasure site. For a few days before, Mary had experienced some shooting pains in her head. The couple attributed the problem to those cold winter nights when she had sat up waiting for her first husband, Mr. Boucher, to come home; as a result, she was almost deaf in one ear. But not being one to dwell on her own health, she had not given much thought to her discomfort. However, the motion of the horse increased the shooting pains and about four miles from Slough, she was forced to dismount. She prodded her ear with her finger and, to her surprise, blood trickled out. Goodwin could see that there was an “impostume,” or abscess, in her ear that was ready to break. He suggested they go back to Maidenhead, which they had just passed, and stay the night. But Mary was determined to reach Northend at the appointed time on Monday, even if she had to crawl on her hands and

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knees to do so. Goodwin knew there was no use arguing with her when she was strong-­minded, so they crept on. The sun was making its descent by the time Goodwin led their old rented nag down a steep hill outside Marlow. He became extremely concerned when Mary suddenly dropped from the horse in a swoon. After she gained consciousness, she barely had enough reserve to walk the rest of the way into town. Both Mary and Goodwin were knowledgeable in physic, and they suspected that if the abscess was not pulled away as soon as it ruptured, Mary risked death from the poison entering her brain. Goodwin anxiously kept vigil while she dozed fitfully. In a couple of hours, he heard a crack like a small twig breaking and putrid matter was discharged from Mary’s ear. He carefully removed the ruptured sack. Although the immediate danger had passed, Mary was still weak and could not rise from her bed the next morning. They stayed in Marlow for the next couple of days before returning to Hounslow. In some cases, it appears that Mary is purposely manipulating situations to create delays to keep Goodwin interested until she can procure some future reward. But in many cases, delays were caused by events that were beyond her control. She could hardly have planned to have an abscess in her ear rupture on the way to a treasure site. Or arrange for heavy rains to conveniently flood Hounslow Heath, for that matter. It is highly possible that Mary interpreted such occurrences as divine intervention, just as Goodwin did. Over the course of the next decade, Mary and Goodwin discovered many other places in and around London where they hoped to procure some wealth. There was a charming little house on the edge of Hounslow where the spirits told them an iron pot, buried in the orchard, contained £250, a delicately wrought brass saddle, and a silver cup. In London, there were treasure sites at various locations: a house in Covent Garden; a private garden at Somerset House; and outside in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Leicester Fields, Southampton Square, St. James’s Park near the Pall Mall, and Red Lion Fields. Part of the treasure in Red Lion Fields was at the site of an old monastery, where Goodwin said “some projectors were a-digging for it” and had already uncovered an ivory cross.23 At St. James’s, the spirits told Mary that there was enough treasure for as long as she lived, if she would

23. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:285.

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punctually pick it up every day. For several years, Mary delivered empty bags to one or more of these places on a daily basis. As soon as she laid the bag down on the ground, it immediately disappeared, to be filled by the spirits and later delivered to the closet in Mary and Goodwin’s lodgings. A common route for her to travel in a day was from their rooms at Long Acre to Red Lion Fields, then on to St. Paul’s, the parish church of Covent Garden, then over to St. James’s Park, and back home. Given the damp English weather, she often returned weary, sick, and wet with “her feet so swell’d that she durst not pull off her shoes for fear of not getting them on again.” On these occasions, Goodwin played the role of nursemaid, “taking all the care of her, and giving her all the comfort and encouragement” he could.24 Through their innumerable trials and tribulations, the couple’s relationship moved beyond a business partnership, and even beyond simply being lovers. Of all the treasure sites the couple explored over the course of two decades, two in particular stand out. In March 1686, Mary was instructed by the spirit realm to go to a cellar known as “the cardinal’s cellar” in the general vicinity of Old Fish Street. An anecdote relating to patents for wine indicates that the area may have had a reputation for buried treasure. In a discussion between two entrepreneurs, one of the men claimed that an alderman who kept the Ship tavern behind Old Fish Street became rich from finding hidden treasure in a vault near his cellar called “the cardinal’s cellar.”25 The particular cellar Mary was directed to was located under a tavern called the Queen’s Head. The privy was in the cellar, which offered Mary an excuse to frequent it. In the damp underground cavern, Mary encountered the spirit of the former archbishop of York, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. Mary watched as the cardinal, in his familiar square cap and red gown, performed mass in the cellar with a “very fine altar, & fine ornaments.”26 Wolsey is best known for his failure to procure a divortio for Henry VIII so that the king could marry Anne Boleyn. He initially told Mary that after she visited him five times, she would receive a great treasure, including a Japanese chest full of gold, a triple crown (probably meaning a three-­tiered crown as worn by the pope), and a mitre. During the summer of 1686, Mary returned to the cellar many times without recompense, even

24. Ibid., 1:173. 25. Thornbury, Old and New London, 22. 26. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:264.

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when the cardinal was threatened with banishment to hell or to the Red Sea. At the beginning of the relationship, the cardinal did not like Goodwin and constantly advised Mary to leave him, but eventually he became more kind and even agreed to help them retrieve the treasure in Hounslow. The cardinal was not the only difficult spirit Mary had to deal with. Whenever the guardian spirits of the treasure sites were vexed, they challenged Mary, calling her “bitch” and “whore” and even striking physical blows. On one occasion, the spirits at St. James’s seemingly carried her “into the earth” where they threatened her “with clubs and staves” and “the devil himself pull[ed] her about by the arm.”27 These reports contributed to Goodwin’s appreciation of Mary’s efforts on the couple’s behalf. The worst treatment Mary received was at a certain house in Ratcliff, which she discovered in July of 1686. Ratcliff was a small hamlet on the north side of the Thames, just outside the walls of the City of London, on the east side of the Tower. Mary often traveled there by water, probably taking boat at the pier located at the end of Old Swan Lane running south of Thames Street, just west of London Bridge. As the first landfall for ships entering the Thames, Ratcliff was a seafaring community, peppered with taverns, brothels, gambling houses, and bowling allies.28 Mary was directed to a dark, underground room, where she found urns filled with cremated remains, old medals, and the Philosopher’s Stone, a precious powder used in alchemical works. She was instructed to place her hand in the bin of powder, even though the place appeared to be “full of great monstrous serpents, snakes and toads: which lay warbling and heaving and rolling one amongst another, as if thousands of them were there.” She was told that the snakes would not harm her and that anyone desiring the powder must first go through them. But when she put her hand in, the snakes “swelled and rise up against her, and one of them fastened upon her hand and twisted up all about her arm.”29 Fervent prayer to God garnered her release, but she went away fuming, with her hand and arm numb. The snakes and toads were evil spirits, the chief of which was the ghost of a Lowlander, Thomas Shashbesh, who controlled not only the treasure site at Ratcliff but also several others. At one point, Shashbesh asked for Mary’s hand in marriage, in exchange for making her the richest

27. Ibid., 1:347. 28. Stowe, Survey of London, 3:72, 3:367–­68. 29. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:293.

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woman in the world. In response, Goodwin was forced to banish the evil spirit to St. James’s Park for six weeks, so that Mary would no longer “be troubled with serpents at Ratcliff.” Although Goodwin could not hear it, the spirit made a great grumbling noise upon his departure. Immediately after banishing the spirit, Goodwin and Mary “came home, and this very night she conceiv’d again.”30 Metaphorically, Goodwin had sacrificed the serpent, a common (phallic) symbol of the devil, and usurped the spirit’s sexuality, which was threatening Mary’s virtue (or at the very least, was competition to Goodwin’s role as Mary’s lover). The spirit world provided Goodwin, as the hero of Mary’s narrative, many opportunities to confront his fears and prove his manhood. Mary’s hand and arm eventually healed with the application of a plaster and Goodwin’s prayers, but she continued to be troubled with nightmares of snakes. The next time she went to Ratcliff, she was tormented by howling and shrieking shapes, which lifted her up by her waist and shook her like a leaf. When she was set down on the ground again, forty great toads crawled upon her.

*** Certain elements of Mary’s construction of the spirit world may have been as a result of her actual physical and mental experiences. For instance, the appearance of snakes could have been directly linked to a traumatic experience she had as a young girl, dozing in the grass in the hazy heat of a summer day. A venomous snake (probably the twenty-­to thirty-­inch-­long common adder, Vipera berus) slithered through the long grass and fastened itself onto the back of her hand. An old servant fetched a broom and brushed it off, but not before she was bitten. Mary’s arm swelled up all the way to her shoulder. Her family feared she might die before any medical help could be fetched. Luckily, Mary’s mother was familiar enough with herbal lore to relieve the tenderness and inflammation with decoctions of sage leaves boiled in white wine, which would have satisfied the contemporary botanist Culpeper.31 Mary’s chronic alcoholism may have also colored her adverse experiences with the spirit world. Mary had favored brandy over meat

30. Ibid., 1:294. 31. Culpeper, English Physician Enlarged (1725), 296.

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in the year or so before she met Goodwin, and her health had deteriorated drastically as a result. Goodwin made a start to her recovery by removing her from her old haunts and keeping her from the company of those friends who “over persuaded her” to stay out drinking.32 But two years into their relationship, Mary’s guardian spirits were still reprimanding her for the ill company she kept and were advising her to drink wine rather than brandy, which “flew to her head.” Goodwin attributed her frequent bouts of “disorder” to the innocence and weakness of her temper (being too good-­natured to refuse an invitation from her cronies), combined with the great troubles they continually faced. The episodes of “disorder” continued, and by the spring of 1686, Mary was advised by the spirit world to make a written contract with Goodwin to stop drinking. Apparently, this did not work either. In the summer of 1686, during the same period that she was being tormented by snakes and toads at Ratcliff, she frequently came home “in a great disorder of mind, fury and trouble.” Her long treks on foot from one treasure site to another, often without food or drink, prompted her to stop and “refresh” herself with a little claret or brandy “to keep up her spirits.”33 In fact, the day before the toad episode, she had been in the company of her female friends all day (implying a drunken state). And during a binge of three or four consecutive days of drinking and suffering hangovers, she reported that she was attacked at Ratcliff by a furious goat with one bent horn. Not only did Mary cause Goodwin “a great deal of torment by her passion” when she was drunk, 34 but on at least one occasion, she got involved in fisticuffs with another woman and came home with a bruised face. Delusions or frightening hallucinations, both tactile and visual, can result from long periods of drinking followed by alcohol withdrawal, a condition commonly known as the D.T.’s (delirium tremens). Symptoms are commonly worse in older individuals like Mary who suffer from poor diet, generally poor health, and prolonged use of alcohol. Within three to thirty-­six hours after the last drink, a person can experience visions that frequently involve snakes and spiders.35

32. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:182. 33. Ibid., 1:293. 34. Ibid., 1:347. 35. Sachse, “Emergency: Delirium Tremens.”

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A secondary complication that arises when a person substitutes alcohol for food is vitamin deficiency. Lack of niacin, one of the B vitamins, can result in a disease called pellagra. Pellagra was first diagnosed in the eighteenth century in Asturias, a kingdom on the northern shore of Spain, and was associated with the introduction of maize from the New World. In the twentieth century, pellagra was linked to malnutrition and poverty in the American South, as a result of poor-­quality diets that were dependent on cereals. Symptoms include dementia, dermatitis, and diarrhea. In the later stages, the disease can cause melancholia, depression, delusions of persecution, suicidal tendencies, and other neurological disturbances, all of which Mary suffered.36 Alcoholism and any related medical conditions were entangled with Mary’s frequent bouts of depression and melancholy, which were blamed on the couple’s constant setbacks and desperate financial situation. Goodwin reported that she often wandered around the city when she got distracted by “melancholy musing.” As early as the fall of 1683, Mary was determined “to kill herself with grief.” On one occasion, she attempted to commit suicide by setting a small dagger on the bed and thrusting her body on it. Fortunately, Goodwin arrived in time and struck the weapon away. This method of self-­destruction had been presaged a few months earlier when the imprisoned Lowlander princess stabbed herself in the heart with a gold bodkin in a bid for attention. As a penance, the spirits led Mary on a grueling marathon all over London, tempting her to drown herself in the pond in St. James’s Park or in the Thames. By the time she reached home, she could not move or speak and fell into a fit, grinding her teeth and moaning lamentably. On other occasions, she tore “her hair and head clothes all to pieces like a madwoman” while she was out in the fields.37 When the spirits told her that her life was soon to be snatched away, Mary expressed “an unusual heaviness upon her” and a desire to die.38 Sometimes her mental anguish was accompanied with physical symptoms of alcohol abuse, as when she suffered from loose bowels and vomiting all night followed by “a decay of spirits.”39

36. Roe, Plague of Corn, 1–­7. 37. Ibid., 1:254, 104, 243. 38. Ibid., 1:249. 39. Ibid., 2:18.

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Goodwin got so desperate that he was tempted to administer the drastic cure of drowning an eel in brandy for Mary to drink, a cure recommended by Culpeper: “Eels, being put into wine or beer, and suffered to die in it, he that drinks it will never endure that sort of liquor again.”40 The modern physician Seamus Mac Suibhne suggests that Culpeper’s concoction had a similar effect to a modern chemical that is prescribed as a deterrent for alcoholics.41 All this is not to suggest that Mary’s construction of the spirit realm was simply a product of her alcohol abuse, but when Mary went through the looking glass, she took her physical body with her, which necessarily contributed to how the alternate world manifested itself to her. We can question whether Mary’s melancholy was a genuine exhibition of depression or a clever exercise in reverse psychology. Attempted suicide and expressions of self-­loathing are typical of clinically depressed persons. And a message delivered to a partner via the spirit world would be just as effective as a diary left out in the open as a call for help. Whether sincere or not, these occasions served as opportunities for Mary to not only confess her willingness to die for Goodwin’s sake (and come back as a familiar spirit), but also to chastise him for his behavior toward her. On several occasions, the spirits instructed him to be “kind, true, tender, and free” to her, in the face of her many trials and tribulations.42 These incidents also granted Goodwin an opportunity to demonstrate his concern for Mary. After she tramped from one end of London to the other, he would pull off her shoes and massage her feet. And when she would cry with disappointment, complaining that they would never succeed in their undertakings, Goodwin would comfort her. How could he possibly conceive of her actively impeding their projects? In any case, eventually Goodwin’s prayers were answered, and by the spring of 1688, Mary developed such an aversion to brandy that she could not endure it even for medicinal purposes. Clearheaded, she continued her daily walks to the various treasure sites to deliver the money bags.

40. Culpeper, Complete Herbal, 252. 41. The chemical disulfiram is an ingredient that is used in manufacturing synthetic rubber and also causes a pharmacotherapeutic aversion to alcohol. See Mac Suibhne, “Commentary: Nicholas Culpeper, Eels and Disulfiram.” 42. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:251.

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Heavenly Hosts In Mary’s complex world, her familiar spirit, George, was not the only supernatural entity she interacted with. Treasure hunting had introduced the couple to many spirits of deceased persons and a few hellish demons. Seventeenth-­century England was populated by a vast array of spirits. The term “spirit” covered a wide range of entities in the early modern lexicon, making the word extremely ambiguous. There were ghosts, or “souls of men,” to consider, like George. The official Protestant opinion, which dismissed the idea of purgatory, maintained that souls went directly to heaven or hell and could not return to earth.1 The seventeenth-­century nonconformist minister Richard Baxter argued that ghost stories (like Mary’s story about Laud) were popish propaganda: “And though many are said to have begged of the Living for Mastes [masses] and Prayers, it is liker to prove a Diabolical Cheat, to promote Superstition, than that there is a Purgatory-­ State of Hope.”2 Nevertheless, at the popular level, there was still a firm belief that the deceased could haunt the earth. Sometimes, this was even linked to the location of treasure. You have heard of spirits for to walk, though many be, you He’r did see, And with some men do seem to talk about their hidden treasurie.3

1. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, 587–­95. 2. Baxter, Certainty of the Worlds of Spirits, 8. 3. Anon., Strange and Wonderful News from Northampton-­Shire.

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The spirit world also included innumerable intermediary beings that resided halfway between heaven and hell, similar to the elemental spirits described by Paracelsus. Richard Baxter discussed these sorts of “wights,” which were a sort of fairy creature.4 The spirits conjured up by magicians during formal magic rituals were usually angels or demons. Theologically, demons were fallen angels, but the word was applied to any sort of evil spirit, including malevolent ghosts and witches’ familiars. A year into his partnership with Mary, Goodwin recalled a discussion he had had with a man who claimed to have conversation with a good angel. Goodwin had learned the technique of invocation from his friend and had had some limited success in the matter before he met Mary. Invoking spirits was practiced by a wide range of people, including cunning folk, physicians, divines, and learned men. Invoking the assistance of angels or divine beings was known as “theurgy.” With Christian prayers and petitions, the magician invited the good spirit to appear, for the purpose of increasing his knowledge, including the knowledge of where to find buried treasure. A reflective object such as a crystal ball, a looking glass, or simply a glass of water was often used as a medium to contain the angel for the purpose of conversation. For the most part, theurgy was considered distinctly different from necromancy, which employed elaborate ritual preparations, casting of circles, and conjurations to raise demonic spirits or spirits of the dead, often for the purpose of revenge or love magic. Seventeenth-­century practitioners of theurgy did not see any conflict between their magical practice and their Christian devotion; in fact, in many cases, it was an extension of their religion.5 Of course, angels could also appear to a person unsolicited and of their own volition. This manner of appearance usually had more religious significance than magical. One method of communicating with the spirit world was the art of scrying, or seeing images in a medium. Scrying was traditionally done by a virgin child old enough to take direction but pure enough to be open to divine revelation. Some instruction manuals recommended the employment of a little boy or girl, and other grimoires instructed the magician on how to obtain “angel sight” for a child acting as a scryer.6 But finding and

4. Baxter, Certainty of the Worlds of Spirits, 4. 5. For the development of theurgy in Europe from the Middle Ages to the early modern period, see Fanger, “Introduction: Theurgy, Magic, and Mysticism,” 15–­27. 6. Butler, Ritual Magic, 51; BL Add. MS 36674, fol. 85v.

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employing a child scryer was an inconvenience that could not be overcome easily and on a regular basis. One day it came into Goodwin’s head that perhaps virginity could be obtained by proxy. That is, since children influenced their mothers’ bodies, he reasoned that a pregnant woman would receive “imputative virginity” via her unborn child.7 He immediately tested his theory on Mary, who was in her seventh month of pregnancy at the time. Using a glass of clean water, Goodwin invoked the name of Uriel as he had been taught. A typical invocation would be, Babel, Gabriel, Rachel, Sara, Isaac, Joseph, and Jacob. I charge you by these holy names of God: Elo, Elo, Goby, Goby, Emanuel, Emanuel, Tetragrammaton, Tetragrammaton. As you shall answer before Jesus Christ at the great and dreadful day of Judgment, show me all that I shall ask or demand faithfully and truly within this Glass without any delusion or dissimulation. I charge you and command you and bind you that you come into this Glass and bring all that do belong unto you for to show me anything that I shall ask or desire that I may plainly behold it with my mortal eyes.8

Mary immediately saw a cloud in the water and then the angel appeared in the glass as a beautiful youth. The angel who appeared to Mary was Uriel. At first Uriel could not speak to Mary, but within a few days, he was able to communicate perfectly. He confirmed Goodwin’s theory: Mary was blessed with the purity and virginity of her two unborn sons, which enabled her to see an angel of God. Uriel assured them that in the future they did not require elaborate invocations to summon him but needed only to say “Pray, Uriel, come,” and he would be at their service. Uriel was generally considered to be one of the four archangels who acted as messengers and sometimes soldiers of God. By the Middle Ages, Uriel had made his way from Jewish apocryphal literature, such as the Book of Enoch, to magical texts such as the Testament of Solomon.9 He is not mentioned in the Bible, but is one of the many magical entities to be called up by magicians that are listed in grimoires.

7. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:119. The influence of the unborn child in divination is evident in sixteenth- and seventeenth-­century Hebrew manuscripts, as discussed in Daiches, Babylonian Oil Magic, 23, 38. 8. BL Sloane 3851, fol. 53. 9. Kieckhefer, Forbidden Rites, 161.

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Uriel was one of the several spirits with whom the Elizabethan magus John Dee and his scryer Edward Kelly communicated in the sixteenth century. Dee is a good example of the sort of person who practiced magic. He was not a marginal member of society: he had studied at Cambridge University; by the age of twenty-­four, he had lectured abroad; he had selected the most favorable day for Queen Elizabeth’s coronation; and he was frequently consulted for navigational advice concerning the northwest passage by leading explorers on account of his extensive mathematical and astronomical knowledge.10 Dee had died two decades before Mary was born, but his reputation outlived him. His angel conversations had been made public in 1659 by the Genevan-­born scholar-­turned Anglican divine Méric Casaubon, who published a portion of Dee’s notebook.11 As someone who moved in occult circles, it is highly likely that Mary was aware of Dee and Kelly’s reputations, if not their angel conversations. Over the following years, Mary and Goodwin reenacted some of Dee’s practices, including the idea that the couple would be given “a new peculiar language,” reminiscent of the Enochian language dictated to Kelly in the scrying stone they used.12 Once the portal to the world of angels was opened, Mary soon encountered several more. Within a short time, Uriel brought another angel into the glass of water. Although Uriel had been created as an angel at the beginning of the world, he was an “out-­Angel,” who did not reside continually in heaven. Therefore, his power was limited. The new angel, Ahab, had been an Israelite in Egypt, before Moses led them into the desert. Because he had lived exceedingly well, he had immediately gone to heaven when he died and had become an angel. Unlike Uriel, who required a virgin scryer, Ahab had the ability to appear to Mary even when she was not pregnant, although they would soon discover that her postpartum bleeding would prove to be a deterrent because of traditional Jewish menstrual taboos. The couple kept glasses of water in several places around their lodging, ready for immediate use. They even had a portable “violl bottle” of water for Ahab when they were on the road.13 As per Ahab’s instructions, they added lemon juice to keep the water fresh and sweet.

10. For a full discussion of Dee’s life, see Clulee, John Dee’s Natural Philosophy; French, John Dee; Harkness, John Dee’s Conversations with Angels; Szonyi, John Dee’s Occultism. 11. Dee, True and Faithful Relation . . . , ed. Casaubon. 12. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:318. 13. Ibid., 1:122, 142.

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There is a built-­in paradox concerning scrying. The angel or spirit invoked into the medium by the magician could not necessarily be seen by him. The reason that young women and children were considered particularly suitable for the job of scrying was their supposed qualities of irrationality and vulnerability. But in spite of the perceived inferiority of the scryer, the magus was completely at her or his mercy. Although Goodwin had been the one to invoke Uriel into the glass, he could neither see nor hear him. Goodwin could occasionally hear Ahab speaking softly to Mary, but he could not make out the words. Even when the spirits spoke directly to him, Goodwin could seldom understand the words clearly and relied on Ahab to interpret what was said. The scryer (Mary) ultimately controlled the transmission of information to the magician (Goodwin). Keep in mind that this was, supposedly, all Goodwin’s idea. But Mary wasn’t the only one who contributed to the angel’s messages. Goodwin’s responses to the spirit world shaped future messages as well as subsequent interpretations by the other spirits (via Mary).14 Goodwin kept “a very great globular glass” on his side of the bed, in hopes that the angels would appear to him. Occasionally, he perceived a “little small round light” like a sun in the glass, but he was never able to see the angels. To facilitate vision, Ahab advised Goodwin to try a treatment of eyedrops known as “oculus Christi.”15 Although a great deal of glutinous matter was discharged from his eyes, Goodwin was still unable to see any spirits. Mary also had a recipe for an ointment that facilitated the seeing of spirits, which she had used before she met Goodwin. The oil was concocted from a crested-­headed member of the plover family called a lapwing, which was killed in June at a particular astrological time. By some miraculous and unspecified manner, this bird engendered another bird, which was fattened up and rendered into an oil used to anoint the eyes. Unfortunately, Goodwin was never able to procure the bird at the correct time. By the middle of May, the archangel Gabriel also appeared in the glass. In October of 1684, the Jewish angel Ahab introduced Michael, the chief of the archangels. (Michael and Gabriel are the only angels mentioned by name in the Old Testament.) Shortly thereafter, two cherubim also visited the couple’s lodging. Cherubim belonged to the highest

14. A similar assessment was done concerning the angel conversations of Dee and Kelly. See Harkness, “Shows in the Showstone,” 720, 737. 15. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:167, 122.

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heavenly realm. They guarded God’s throne, as well as the tree of life in the Garden of Eden.16 By May 1685, the couple were honored with visits from the ultimate order of the celestial hierarchy, the seraphim, who surrounded God’s throne. The spirits of St. Paul and St. Luke also made brief appearances, but they were soon overshadowed when the Lord himself started speaking directly to Goodwin on May 19, 1685. It is not made clear whether “the Lord” refers to the Father, the Son, or God as a trinity. But he was presented by Goodwin as the ultimate being. Each of the spirits had a distinctive voice: Michael spoke with “a great manly deep voice”; Gabriel had “a thin high one”; the seraphim had “very shrill” voices;17 the cherubim spoke in rhyme and sometimes sang long psalms; and the Lord usually had a very low voice, often difficult to understand. Sometimes the angels called to Goodwin from his bed, but more often the voices came from the place where Mary was sitting behind him as he prayed, or from behind the door to her room, the dining room, or the hallway, depending on their lodging. On one occasion, Goodwin noted that when Mary was in the room, her lips moved at the same time that the angels spoke. His first inclination was to think that the angels spoke through her as demons speak through a possessed person. But when he dared to suggest that Mary was the one who was speaking, the angels threatened to not reappear for seven years because of his lack of faith. Mary offered the simple explanation that her lips moved because she was praying to herself while the angels were present in the room. Eventually, Goodwin was able to set aside his suspicions so that the angels would continue to visit him. One of the first things the angels did was to instruct the couple to construct an altar in the spacious “closet” in Mary’s room. During this period, “closet” referred to any small room that was used for privacy or private devotion. It was frequently a place where curiosities or valuables were housed.18 On a small table covered with a clean cloth, Goodwin set a portable writing desk to create an elevated area. This escritoire was covered with a cloth and surrounded by four wax candles. The whole affair was decorated with artificial flowers carved from horn, augmented with fresh flowers in season. Glasses of water continually sat on the altar for

16. Gen. 3:22; Exod. 25:18; Ezek. 10:14; Davidson, Dictionary of Angels. 17. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:159, 214. 18. OED, s.v. “closet”; Picard, Restoration London, 37.

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the convenience of the angels. Over the course of several years, Goodwin knelt on a small cushion in front of this homemade altar for many hours each day, while Mary roamed the streets of London delivering her money bags. The altar became the focus of Goodwin’s world and served as his personal chapel. Mary gave Goodwin an alternative, concrete world within the walls of their lowly lodging. Goodwin’s personal chapel kept him off the streets and safe from arrest for his debts while Mary mended his self-­esteem. Over time, the space was elaborately decorated with Catholic regalia, such as pictures painted on vellum of saints, the Trinity, the Virgin Mary, and Mary Magdalene. On the lower part of the altar, the couple placed boxes of unleavened wafers of the type used in Catholic mass, which were occasionally consecrated by the angels and placed on the higher part of the altar. The Catholic nature of the altar was a constant concern to Goodwin, who had been raised in a Protestant nonconformist household. In the case of the wafers, Gabriel assured Goodwin that consecration did not result in transubstantiation, as the Catholics believed. And the numerous paintings were simply reminders of the Lord’s suffering rather than idolatrous icons. When the couple moved to Long Acre in January 1685, they lined the narrow closet with newly painted paper and hung linen curtains over the doorway, so that visitors might think it was just a clothes closet. The absence of a wooden door was also for the convenience of the angels, who regularly brought religious items to the altar. Over the course of the years, hundreds of artifacts were deposited in the closet. The items ranged from simple things, such as a sprig of rosemary, a lump of incense, and a delicate silver medal with the Savior on one side and a crucifix on the other, to more elaborate objects such as a round, white container with the resurrection scene carved on the lid, which contained relics in the form of clots of Christ’s blood preserved at the time of the crucifixion. At the time of delivery, one of the pieces of flesh or dried blood was still wet. Fresh drops of blood also appeared on a delicate gold and silver crucifix and in the bottle of scrying water, and enough blood gushed from a ruby-­red, heart-­shaped locket to soak through two napkins. Aside from the fresh blood, the first thing one notes about these items is their Catholic nature. Protestants considered relics and devotional items of this sort as idolatrous popery. Luther had scorned the idea that grace could be acquired via physical objects or any form of performance,

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allocating relics and icons to the domain of magic.19 Nevertheless, a variety of items like this were still sold in England by wandering petty chapmen, who obtained them from the Continent or from visiting Jesuits. Stationers also sold pictures of saints painted on cloth or paper.20 On one occasion, the angels delivered to Goodwin a large, black-­framed painting of the crucifixion in the style of the Flemish baroque painter Rubens, which was not yet dry. Certainly it was more than coincidence that an artist occupied the ground-­floor shop of the couple’s lodging. Mary explained that there were all sorts of spirits that could perform a wide variety of tasks, including the mundane task of purchasing things in the marketplace. The spirits also brought things not directly related to the altar. Bottles of wine were supplied to take with medicinal drops, and a book of charms gave helpful advice against imprisonment (of which Goodwin was constantly at risk because of his debts). Two uncut diamonds, a long stalk of rubies, a natural uncut sapphire, and an amethyst were given simply for encouragement. And Goodwin received several snuffboxes, because he was very fond of snuff. The New World practice of sniffing ground tobacco had become popular in England by the mid-­seventeenth century. Frequently, the angels also removed things from the altar. As many as nine hundred Eucharist wafers disappeared: Goodwin was instructed to buy more. One wonders if Mary was using the wafers for some magical purpose. The consecrated communion wafer was widely believed to have curative properties. Ever since the Middle Ages, they had been smuggled out of church by laypeople to be used illegitimately.21 Perhaps as a cunning woman raised in Catholicism, Mary had the use of consecrated wafers as part of her repertoire. On the other hand, Goodwin comments on the activity of rats in the closet, who were probably not particular about whether their communion bread was meant for Catholics or Anglicans. But rats don’t explain the removal of at least three quires (a bundle of seventy-­two sheets) of writing paper. A silver medal was also removed to be turned into gold, and “a parcel of fine water gold,” which Goodwin had bought for an alchemical experiment, was redeemed to make a

19. Kolb, Martin Luther, 66. 20. Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 178–­79, 192. 21. See Grendon, “Anglo-­Saxon Charms”; Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, 35. Scot reports how Catholics could allegedly cure a sick man with “a wafer cake”; Discoverie of Witchcraft, ed. Summers, bk. 12, chap. 14, p. 141. William Monter discusses how French shepherds were frequently accused of witchcraft because of their sacrilegious use of the eucharist; “Toads and Eucharists.”

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seraph’s head.22 The angel Gabriel took a gold medal that Philip Wharton had given Goodwin as a token when he went to France. Given Mary’s previous history of buying and selling textiles, we might interpret this as yet another tactic in her makeshift economic strategy, a sort of reserve bank account. In any case, by the end of October 1687, the Lord had declared that these trinkets were merely for amusement, as the true covenant was written in Goodwin’s heart. No more things would be bought, and he was directed to sell some items. Whether the angels were heavenly entities delivering divine wisdom or conscious constructions by Mary, they were understood by Goodwin as a sign of divine favor. The real work of the angels and the altar was to reinforce Goodwin’s role as the chosen one, which, in turn, gave him the confidence to face his father and re-­enter the world of politics. To assist him in conversing with the spirits, he wore a holy breastplate and girdle at all times under his clothes. The breastplate, or lamin, which hung around his neck in a covering of crimson velvet, consisted of a large oval plate (cast by Jesus himself) engraved with the crucifixion scene and the words “Mors mea—vita tua” (Death to me—­life to you). This is reminiscent of the triangular, gold breastplate, inscribed with certain sigils, that the angels had instructed John Dee to make as a talisman against evil.23 In addition to the breastplate, Goodwin wore a holy girdle of delicate crimson cloth, with which the Virgin Mary had swaddled the baby Jesus when they fled into Egypt. In the summer of 1684, Ahab ordained Goodwin as a priest and prophet, which would aid in his curing of diseases and enable him to consecrate items required for the couple’s many projects. Ahab directed him concerning what words to say, and Mary saw Ahab’s hand come out of the glass of water and rest on Goodwin’s head. This brief ceremony was reinforced a couple of months later by another ritual, directed by the angel Gabriel, in which Goodwin was instructed to use the liturgy from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer to consecrate the sacrament. On several occasions, Goodwin was anointed by the angels. This always occurred in the early morning just before he awoke. The “best pure salad oil” sweetened with oil

22. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:214. 23. The breastplate was described in the March 10, 1582, entry of Dee’s diary. See Dee, John Dee’s Actions with Spirits, ed. Whitby, 2:19. The description is not included in the diary excerpts printed by Méric Casaubon. However, an illustration for a lamin to be constructed for a woman afflicted by witchcraft was included. Dee, True and Faithful Relation . . . , ed. Casaubon, pt. 1, p. 5.

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of rosemary, which he had been instructed to place on the altar ahead of time, was poured over his nightcap so that it soaked into his head.24 One morning Goodwin awoke to find that his hairline had receded more than half an inch where the angels had shaved his forehead while he slept. He maintained that the hair never grew back, but a couple of stray hairs that the angels had missed constantly regrew even when he plucked them. The purpose of this procedure was to give him a high forehead “as anciently the great men had.”25 According to contemporary physiognomy, a small, narrow forehead was a sign of stupidity, whereas a high forehead conveyed a “sanguine” personality, which disposed the person to “a good temperature of mind, endows him or her with wisdom, and large fortune, and renders the party a happy course of life.”26 Cunning women advertised that they could make “low Foreheads as high as you please, taking off the hair so that it shall never come again.”27 If Jupiter didn’t grace a person’s horoscope with wisdom, he could at least make the world think it had. All of this attention must have gone a long way in building Goodwin’s self-­confidence. The couple were also sanctified with new spiritual names. On New Year’s Day 1686, the Lord told Goodwin, Thy name is Hesekia and then I thee to honour bring and Earle, a Duke, a Prince, a king Then an Emperor thou shalt be . . . 28

Mary’s spiritual name was Lucretia, which reflected her role as a martyr to Goodwin’s success. According to classical legend, Lucretia was the extremely chaste wife of Collatinus, a principal member of the army of Lucius Tarquinius, an Etruscan king. Sextus Tarquinius, the son of the king, became enamored with Lucretia’s beauty and raped her. After 24. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:165, 185. 25. Ibid., 1:187. 26. Anon., True Fortune-­Teller, chap. 26, p. 125. For the origins and influence of physiognomy, see Porter, Windows of the Soul, 63. 27. BL 551.a.32—­Collection of 231 Advertisements, fol. 24, “The Gentlewoman who lived in Red-­ Lyon-­Court, is now removed to Racket-­Court near Fleet-­bridge, the third Door on the Right-­hand.” The high forehead, which was popular in the Middle Ages, continued to be fashionable during the reign of Elizabeth I. This could be partly attributable to the whitening agents that women applied to their faces, which contained lead and caused permanent hair loss, in addition to other health concerns. 28. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:240.

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Lucretia told her husband and obtained his vow to avenge her honor, she stabbed herself, as her own honor had been irreparably compromised.29 The name “Lucretia, of whose spirit she was” also reflected the recurring theme of attempted rape in Mary’s narrative, by both real-­world and spiritual characters.30 Via the spirit realm, Mary directed Goodwin while she kept him protected from the outside world. He had already been arrested for two debts in September of 1684. His father paid bail for one debt of £100. Goodwin managed to negotiate a temporary settlement for a second charge of £600, which had funded one of his many entrepreneurial projects.31 He was so harassed by bailiffs that he could only go out at night, with his face hidden from public view. For his own safety, the spirits frequently ordered Goodwin to remain indoors. Within this cozy magic circle that Mary had cast, Goodwin was directed to spend hours praying at the closet altar and lying on the bed in anticipation of a divine vision. These prolonged states of ritual forced him to alter his level of consciousness. By living within a perpetual, albeit passive, state of ritual, he was empowered and reconfigured. The theurgic or spiritual aspect of Mary’s magic transformed Goodwin’s relationship with God and manifested enough power for Goodwin to take control of his own destiny.32 Eventually, he obtained by non-­magical means the goals of honor and wealth that he had been seeking by supernatural ones. Goodwin was encouraged to cultivate the ability to have both visions and dreams on his own, without the aid of the spirit realm. Throughout 1686, Goodwin was directed by the spirits to be “perfect in vision, & converse with God & Angels” more directly.33 He was frequently ordered to lie down on his bed in order to facilitate a vision. At first, he was unsuccessful,

29. “Lucretia,” in Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. The story of Lucretia was popular throughout the Middle Ages and early modern period, from Augustine’s The City of God to Shakespeare’s poem, The Rape of Lucrece. Thomas Heywood also wrote a play of the same name. 30. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:242. 31. One of Goodwin’s creditors was Sir Richard Barker. Barker was an anti-­Catholic physician, who became the mentor and patron of Israel Tonge and Titus Oates. Tonge and Oates were instrumental in fabricating the Popish Plot of 1678. Dr. Tonge was one of many elites with an interest in alchemy and Goodwin knew him well enough to try to secure his spirit as a familiar after his death. It is probable that, through Tonge, Barker had invested in one of Goodwin’s alchemical projects. Alan Marshall, “Tonge, Israel (1621–­1680), informer and Church of England clergyman,” and “Oates, Titus (1649–1705), informer,” DNB; Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 337–­38. 32. Kieckhefer, Forbidden Rites, 14–­15. 33. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:245.

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many times falling asleep. Even when he did see something, he needed Ahab to interpret the information. Only Mary could see and hear Ahab, so she was still firmly in control. Gradually, Ahab refused to act as a translator, encouraging Goodwin to be independent in this regard. Long periods of separation from Mary and Ahab caused Goodwin’s abilities to blossom. After his father returned to England in September of 1686, Goodwin started spending more time at his father’s estate in Wooburn than he did in London. By March of 1687, when Goodwin was so frequently away from Mary’s daily counsel, the Lord started to speak as a voice inside Goodwin’s head. The Lord’s instructions became so frequent that every move Goodwin made was directed by God himself, including how to play at the gaming table. Unfortunately, Goodwin’s main concern at this time was impregnating other women, to which end God told him that “he would be [Goodwin’s] pimp.” Goodwin was assured that he would have at least five hundred women, including Queen Mary Beatrice of Modena, consort of King James II. Apparently, the king was willing to step aside and let Goodwin beget a child with her. Of course, none of these many romantic fantasies was successful. Goodwin wrote that he was careful not to reveal any of his desires to Mary, who was “put off with shams.”34 But no doubt Mary, who could read him so well, was suspicious of his intentions. After his return from Bath in the spring of 1688, Goodwin started to hear the Lord’s voice “articulately” from behind the bedroom door as he formerly had.35 The Lord confirmed that an affair with his landlady at Bath was one of Satan’s temptations and a sin. This confirmed Goodwin’s doubts about the authenticity of the Lord’s voice in his head: he had sometimes found it difficult to know whether it was God or Satan that was directing him. This turn of events was devastating to his spiritual confidence. Although he continued to perceive the Lord’s directives in his head after this, he did not act on them until they were confirmed by the angels.

34. Ibid., 2:39, 49. 35. Ibid., 2:84.

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Mary’s Crucible The angels were active in all areas of Mary and Goodwin’s lives, including their experiments in alchemy. As the forerunner of chemistry, alchemy was more scientific than it was magical. The “doctrines of Hermes,”1 as Goodwin called alchemy, originated in Egypt.2 During the Middle Ages, the art had been kept alive in ancient Greece and the Arab world. Beginning in the twelfth century, alchemical texts were introduced into Europe by Muslim scholars and translated into Latin by European intellectuals. A few centuries later, the Renaissance witnessed another resurgence of interest in the topic. By the seventeenth century, alchemy was considered a branch of natural philosophy, which was concerned with the wider investigation into hidden or occult properties of nature. The basic belief underwriting alchemy was that all matter was reducible to one element. If the alchemist could reduce minerals to this state of primal chaos, then new forms could be generated. The most famous claim by alchemists was that a base metal, such as lead or tin, could be transformed into silver or gold by means of a substance known as the Philosopher’s Stone. This mysterious elixir was also credited with the ability to extend human life, perhaps indefinitely. Alchemy moved into the realm of magic when the practitioner combined practical experiments with incantations, rituals, secret symbols, and prayers to angelic and/or demonic powers to enhance the technical processes.

1. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:14. 2. For further information on alchemy, see Patai, Jewish Alchemists; Newman and Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire; Young, “Isaac Newton’s Alchemical Notes in the Royal Society”; Nummedal, Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire; Nummedal, “Words and Works in the History of Alchemy.”

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As a pseudoscience, alchemy was largely empirical and procedural. Complex processes of distillation, sublimation, and precipitation were employed to reduce materials to their basic state. Alchemists struggled to discover the inner virtue of natural things. They believed that metals and minerals could grow and interact sexually in the same way that plants and animals did. The methodology (although unknown) had been established by God at the beginning of the world. We should keep in mind that in the seventeenth century, scientific theories were in a state of flux. Natural philosophers employed an eclectic mix of concepts, including medieval Aristotelian scholasticism, Renaissance hermeticism, and Descartes’s new mechanical philosophy, sometimes in apparent contradiction with each other. None of these theories ran counter to the prevailing Christian beliefs in God. To put things into perspective, consider that the physicist Francis Bacon (1561–­1626), one of the forefathers of modern science, was deeply involved in alchemical experiments. In addition to turning base metals into precious ones, alchemical procedures assisted in making medicines for the benefit of mankind. The preparation of alchemical medicines was associated with cookery and household science. Brewing, distillation, and the manufacture of cleaning products and beauty aids traditionally fell within the domestic sphere. Throughout the premodern period, aristocratic women had taken responsibility for the health of the people on their country estates by growing herbs and preparing medicines.3 The distillation room was an important element of the female world, as indicated by the frontispiece of Hannah Woolley’s The Accomplished Ladies’ Delight in Preserving, Physick, Beautifying and Cookery (first published in 1675), which shows a woman working in her garret with a small still. Many chemicals, such as antimony, were used in both medicinal concoctions such as purgatives and alchemical procedures. For a small circle of aristocratic women, such as Robert Boyle’s sister, Lady Ranelagh, this type of “kitchin-­physick” grew into more leisurely scientific pursuits by the mid-­seventeenth century.4 The alchemical laboratory was an extension of a stillroom. Shelves crammed with jars and flasks of ingredients lined the walls. A hodgepodge of crucibles, funnels, and mortars and pestles intermingled on the tables, along with tongs, long-­ handled forks, and straining ladles. Curiously

3. Hunter, “Women and Domestic Medicine.” 4. Hunter, “Sisters of the Royal Society.”

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Figure 14. Stillroom, frontispiece from Hannah Woolley, The Accomplish’d Lady’s Delight in Preserving, Physick, Beautifying, and Cookery, 4th ed. (London, 1684). Image courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University, Hollis number 003910462.

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Figure 15. An Alchemical Laboratory, frontispiece from M. M. Pattison Muir, The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1913). Originally published in Michael Maier’s Tripus Aureus, hoc est, Tres Tractatus Chymici Selectissimi, nempe (Frankfurt a. M.: Lucas Jennis, 1618). Released by Project Gutenberg, eBook #14218, November 30, 2004.

shaped apparatus such as condensers, matrasses, retorts, and alembics, designed to condense the vapors and collect the distillate, were commonly mounted above large iron and clay pots. The open fire of a brazier might have crackled beside the controlled heat of a brick and mortar furnace. The rafters in such places were usually thick with soot from the fires that burned twenty-­four hours a day.5 Alchemists have often been considered as marginal members of society or as charlatans, as depicted by the seventeenth-­century playwright Ben Jonson in his play The Alchemist (1610).6 However, alchemy was the forerunner of modern chemistry and was practiced by respected members of society, including royalty. The popularity of the practice in England is reflected in the vast number of treatises published between 1650 and 1680. William Cooper’s A Catalogue of Chymicall Books (1675) contains over one

5. Thompson, Lure and Romance of Alchemy, 108–­19; Dickson, Thomas and Rebecca Vaughan’s Aqua Vitae, 50; Newman and Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire, 98–­99; Moran, Distilling Knowledge, 62. 6. Jonson, The Alchemist.

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hundred pages of titles written in or translated into English.7 Information was readily available to the curious literati. The hundreds of people, such as Mary and Goodwin, who dabbled in alchemy were more aptly considered entrepreneurial or artisanal alchemists than natural philosophers. Their interests were more practical than theoretical. Both Mary and Goodwin had previous experience in the art of alchemy. Prior to meeting Mary, Goodwin had conducted several experiments. Unfortunately, his efforts had ended in either a falling out with his partners or a falling down of the furnaces. His worst experience was under the direction of a seemingly well-­bred and charismatic alchemist newly arrived from living abroad in Paris. Goodwin and some of his closest friends invested in setting up five lamps or burners. Goodwin personally tended them for nine or ten months. Just before the experiment should have reached its conclusion, the alleged alchemist “accidentally” set fire to the cupboard where the lamps were hung. Between the dry wood of the cupboard and the lamp oil, the fire was soon out of control. The house almost burned to the ground. Not only did Goodwin lose his investment of several hundred pounds, as well as some valuable legal papers concerning the Wooburn estate, but the alchemist ran off, leaving Goodwin to answer for other funds that he had helped the man obtain. Mary’s alchemical experiments had begun while she was married to her second husband, Mr. Lawrence. She continued her experiments after the loss of her household in the Great Fire of 1666 and after the death of Lawrence. His long absences at sea had afforded her the freedom to set up a laboratory under the pretense of establishing a place fit for her practice of physic. Due to its secretive nature, alchemy was commonly practiced in private, sequestered spaces. In Mary’s case, she had a small workshop in her garret. There she explored the several instructions outlined in her precious grimoire for turning mercury into gold and copper into silver. According to a modern scientific understanding, metals can’t actually transform at the molecular level, but early modern alchemists would have been impressed when tin or pewter was made to resemble silver if it was “often melted and extinguished in a lixivium of fixt nitre,” a process involving wood ash and saltpeter.8 And a good return on investment must have been made by combining four ounces of pure silver with twenty-­nine ounces of “regulus”

7. Cooper, Catalogue of Chymicall Books. 8. Anon., Works of the Highly Experienced and Famous Chymist, John Rudolph Glauber, 180.

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of antimony to produce artificial silver.9 By the time that Mary was digging for treasure at Islington (circa late 1668 or early 1669), she had furnished her household with many items of imitation silver, even the andirons and tongs for her fireplace. The abundance of silver in her house led to the rumor that she had knowledge of the Philosopher’s Stone, meaning, in this case, the secret elixir that would transmute metals. Word of this reached Prince Rupert, who had suffered the loss of his servant Garroll during the treasure-­hunting expedition at Islington. Although the prince was most famous as a cavalry leader and naval commander, he also had an ongoing interest in alchemy. He personally directed metallurgical experiments in his laboratory in the Round Tower of Windsor Castle, of which he was the governor. The “prince’s metal,” an alloy of copper and zinc used in the making of small metal products, gained him an international reputation as a metallurgist. However, his reputation as an irascible, impatient man was equally well known.10 On the premise that he was angry about the death of his servant Garroll, Prince Rupert summoned Mary to his house in Spring Gardens. He accused her of dealing with the devil and being responsible for killing the man. She protested that it was not her fault if the spirits had more mind to speak to her than others. She protested that she had never dealt with the devil. But the prince revealed his true interest when he abruptly changed the subject and told her that he was aware that her whole house was seemingly furnished with silver. He requested that she go to his laboratory and demonstrate her method. But Mary knew her legal rights. She informed him that, according to patent statutes, a person was entitled to make use of an invention for fourteen years without making it public. When the prince couldn’t attain what he wanted by favor, he resorted to force. He sent some of his men to her house to destroy her furnaces and take away her silver utensils. As a single woman without the protection of a man, Mary was afraid to take any legal action against a person of his status, or to continue her work. Providence intervened a few days later when Mr. Parish proposed. But the marriage with Parish did not turn out to be very successful, and

9. Antimony is a chemical that is silvery white in its elemental form; Newman and Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire, 51, 130. 10. Thomson, Warrior Prince, 215; Kitson, Prince Rupert, 149, 299; Ian Roy, “Rupert, prince and count palatine of the Rhine and duke of Cumberland,” DNB.

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Mary once again found it necessary to establish herself as an independent woman. After the birth of her son by Parish, she continued to practice physic. She set up another alchemical curiosity that had almost come to fruition after three and a half years of tending the lamps. Around this time, Mary was approached by a woman she identified as Lady Floyd,11 who requested that Mary attend Dr. Thomas Williams at Whitehall, who was not well. After escorting Mary into Williams’s chambers, Lady Floyd withdrew, leaving her alone with the man, who was dressed in his nightgown. As if this weren’t disconcerting enough, he locked the door behind her, assuring Mary that he only wished to talk in private. As he proceeded to ask her a hundred questions about natural philosophy, she realized that he was more interested in her knowledge in alchemy than in her skill in physic. She made him short answers and got away as quickly as she could, giving him a false address. Thomas Williams was Charles II’s “chemical physician.” He had recently been appointed to the position, possibly because of his previous experience as an assayer.12 King Charles displayed a keen personal interest in all things scientific and was one of the founding members of the Royal Society, the English flagship of the scientific revolution. When Charles returned from exile in 1661, he brought with him a well-­known alchemist whose commission was to reproduce the legendary cordial distilled by Sir Walter Raleigh at the beginning of the seventeenth century, while Raleigh was imprisoned in the Tower.13 In 1672, Charles built a new laboratory

11. Lady Floyd, or Lloyd, may refer to the wife of Sir Godfrey Lloyd (c. 1608–­1671), also known as Captain Lloyd, a military engineer and strong supporter of Charles II before the Restoration. His wife, Catherine Smith, was the widow of Thomas Claypole; Andrew Saunders, “Sir Godfrey Lloyd (b. after 1608, d. 1671?),” DNB; Shaw, Knights of England, 2:225. A less likely possibility is Elizabeth Lloyd, daughter of an apothecary, John Jones, who married the judge Sir Richard Lloyd (1634–­1686); J. M. Rigg and S. J. Skedd, “Lloyd, Sir Nathaniel (1669–­1741),” DNB. 12. In Goodwin’s opinion, Williams was a very low gentleman with an ill education. He only received the degree of M.D. by special request of the king to the vice chancellor of Cambridge University on March 5, 1669. Nevertheless, Williams was created baron on November 17, 1674. Cokayne, Complete Baronetage, vol. 4, 1665–­1707, 66; Shaw, Calendar of Treasury Books, vol. 3, 1669–­1672, 69; Holmes, Sickly Stuarts, 99. According to Bucholz, Williams held the position of chemical physician from 1667 to 1693 at an annual salary of twenty pounds per annum; Bucholz, Office-­Holders in Modern Britain, vol. 11 (rev.), Court Officers, 1660–­1837, 173. But according to Shaw, Williams was not appointed “chimicall phisitian” until May 14, 1669; Shaw, Calendar of Treasury Books, vol. 3, 1669–­1672, 69. Williams had been appointed assay master for all coinages of tin in Devon and Cornwall in November 1668; Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, Charles II, [vol. 9], Oct. 1668–­Dec. 1669, 70, 73. The processes used to determine the validity and purity of precious metals were the same procedures used in alchemical operations: dissolution, sublimation, and cementation; Newman and Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire, 39–­44. 13. Mendelsohn, “Alchemy and Politics in England 1649–­1665,” 30.

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at Whitehall, situated on the ground floor just below the Privy Gallery. The king could easily access the laboratory from his bedchamber via the back stairs, allowing him to oversee chemical experiments for the purpose of producing medicinal cures. His curiosity may have even compromised his health by exposing him to mercury vapor, a highly toxic but odorless by-­product of the process of extracting mercury from cinnabar ore.14 Side effects include seizures, tremors, headaches, fatigue, irritability, and depression.15 Mary displayed some of the same symptoms. Eventually, Williams managed to track Mary down at her house in Ludgate Street. She probably would have resisted his persistent efforts if it had not been for another gentleman who was pursuing her romantically at the time. In an effort to win her affections, her unwanted suitor had secretly slipped her a love potion. When the first dose of the powder did not have any effect, he gave her a second. The combination resulted in “a violent fever, gave her great pains all over her, [and] almost took away her limbs & senses.”16 For the next three or four months, she suffered from a continual drowsiness, during which time Williams ingratiated himself by calling on her once or twice a day, bringing her presents and providing medicines. She couldn’t help but be grateful for his kindness and was therefore civil to him. But her unfortunate circumstances allowed him the opportunity to become very familiar with all her business, which led to the destruction of her three-­year alchemical experiment. One day, while she was replacing a wick in one of the lamps, he interrupted her. He insisted that she accompany him on some urgent matter. In her hurry, she left the wick a little too long, which resulted in the fire being too hot. When she came home, she found the vessels broken and three and a half years of work destroyed. Williams was inadvertently to blame for another alchemical loss as well. Mary had an old acquaintance by the name of Mr. Abab (not to be confused with the angel Ahab). He was a very rich Jewish man who possessed an alchemical treatise written in Hebrew. Mr. Abab knew a way of fixing mercury into gold in less than one hour, using a white powder that speeded the process. Christian alchemists sometimes employed Jewish

14. Dugdale, Whitehall through the Centuries, 78–­80; Hearsay, Bridge, Church and Palace in Old London, 23; Tinniswood, By Permission of Heaven, 33. 15. Holmes, Sickly Stuarts, 98–­106. 16. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:59.

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masters because it was thought they were more closely linked to ancient traditions. The connection between Jews and alchemy was part of the legend constructed around Nicholas Flamel, a fourteenth-­century Parisian alchemist whose story was published in 1612. Flamel had allegedly stumbled across a copy of the original Book of Abraham the Mage, which he interpreted with the help of a Jewish converso from León “who was very skilful in sublime Sciences.”17 How Mary became so influenced by Jewish traditions (Mosaic Lowlander customs, Ahab the angel, and Abab the alchemist) and when that influence began will remain a mystery. The Jewish community in England had been unofficially tolerated and supported during the Interregnum of Oliver Cromwell for economic reasons. A synagogue was established in a house in Creechurch Lane, in the east of London. When Charles II resumed the monarchy, he granted a charter of liberties to the Jewish community and officially naturalized many of them. The dowry of the king’s wife, Catherine of Braganza, was managed by Portuguese Jewish bankers from Amsterdam.18 While Christians and Jews did not usually mix socially, they did have other occasions to interact. In Mary’s case, she and Mr. Abab shared a common interest in alchemy and he promised to teach his method to Mary. While they were conferring over the procedure, Dr. Williams burst into the room, breaking the door open with his foot. Although they quickly covered their work and pretended to be about some other sort of experiment, Mr. Abab would not agree to meet with her again. Eventually, he went into France, where he died. And so the hope of learning this method was lost on account of Williams’s continual plaguing of her. Then Williams took another approach. He invited Mary to live at Whitehall as governess of his household. His wife, Grace Carwardine, preferred to reside at his Welsh estate.19 The doctor hinted that when his sickly wife and Mary’s elderly husband died, he would marry her. In the meantime, he promised to settle an estate on her for the remainder of her life. Mary eventually succumbed to his promises. She arranged to have all

17. Flamel, His Exposition of the Hieroglyphicall Figures . . . , 23. See also Patai, Jewish Alchemists, 11, 218–23; Harkness, Review of Nicolas Flamel, His Exposition of the Hieroglyphicall Figures (1624), ed. Laurinda Dixon. 18. Hyamson, History of the Jews in England, 138–­39, 164, 172–­74; Roth, “Charles II and the Jews”; Sombart, Jews and Modern Capitalism, 55. 19. Williams married his second wife, Grace Carwardine of Madley, Hereford, on December 21, 1666; Cokayne, Complete Baronetage, vol. 4, 1665–­1707, 66.

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her household goods delivered to his apartments at Whitehall. But before she even moved in, she got a taste of his true intentions. One day when she went to oversee the arrangement of her things, she noticed that all of the pewter on display was stamped with his coat of arms. When she asked him where her pewter goods were, he replied that those were hers, newly melted down and remade. When she demanded to know the reason for this, he replied “what is yours is mine & mine yours.”20 Apparently, this concept of ownership extended beyond the pewter. A few days after Mary moved in, she was awakened in the night by someone slipping naked into her bed. Grabbing her dressing gown, she ran for the door to call for the servants, but the intruder blocked her path. She continued to make such a ruckus by yelling and stamping her feet that a maid soon appeared with a candle, which revealed that the interloper was Williams. By this time, Mary was like a madwoman, ranting and raving against the doctor. She was as angry at being restricted as she had been startled at being accosted. She wanted to leave the house then and there, but Williams did all he could to pacify her. When she woke in the morning, her first instinct was to break off her relationship with Williams immediately. But she realized that she would risk losing all her belongings. So she designed to make the best of the situation and get away as soon as she could. The nighttime incident cultivated such an aversion to him that she resisted showing him her alchemical secrets, although she made all the utensils in his house appear silver, as she had in her own household. She also made medicinal waters and spirits, for which she gained the favor of King Charles, whom she would approach later on Goodwin’s behalf. For several years, Williams left all the details of his household to Mary. She often purchased things out of her own pocket. When she presented him with the bills, he would occasionally give her some money, but, all in all, he was more indebted to her than she to him. When she threatened to leave, he counter-­threatened to prohibit the removal of her personal belongings. In the end, she resolved to leave regardless of her losses. George advised her to take money from Dr. Williams’s money chest, for which she held the keys, but Mary’s honor prevented her. And so she forsook Whitehall with only some small cabinets.

20. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:61.

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While she was resident at Whitehall, Mary’s alchemical expertise was also desired by George Villiers. The second Duke of Buckingham (and sometime gentleman of the bedchamber to Charles II), Villiers had a keen interest in scientific inquiry. Like his boyhood companion the king, he was a fellow of the Royal Society. He maintained a laboratory in his summer residence of Wallingford House. He had even set up a makeshift laboratory in the Tower of London when he was sent there in 1677 for contempt.21 The duke had requested Mary to witness a demonstration concerning the secret to the Philosopher’s Stone carried out by a handsome, middle-­aged woman from France. While Mary and Buckingham were at one end of the laboratory, the woman added a mysterious white powder to the alchemical concoction. By the time the mixture cooled, the lead had magically changed into gold. Encouraged by the results, Buckingham ordered huge quantities of lead and a great number of melting pots from Wales. But while melting a hundredweight of lead to be transmuted, the crucible cracked, and the lead ran across the floor in a great sheet. Before a second attempt could be planned, the duke received a letter telling him that the Frenchwoman would not come again. When Goodwin heard the story, he attributed Buckingham’s misfortune to his well-­known debauchery and wicked ways. Because alchemy relied on divine revelation, success was often linked to moral stature.22 In the fall of 1683, the couple combined their alchemical knowledge, with the help of a third financial partner. Mary had never been able to retrieve her childhood grimoire, but she obtained a couple of small pamphlets on mercurial work. Mary even tracked down Mr. Abab’s English mistress, with whom he had left his grimoire written in Hebrew. But before Mary could retrieve the recipe that the Jewish alchemist had written in his broken English, the woman went into hiding from an abusive Irishman with whom she had been having an affair. (Superfluous details such as these often provide information on contemporary issues of gender

21. The duke developed a method of converting flint glass into a high quality glass, which was produced at a workshop in Vauxhall. Coincidentally, one of Buckingham’s clientele was Sir Thomas Osborne, the Earl of Danby, with whom Mary claimed she traveled to St. Malo during the civil war. Another acquaintance of Mary’s, Robert Clayton, was administering Buckingham’s estates and granting the duke an annual allowance of £5,000. During the time Mary was at Whitehall, the duke was back and forth between the mansion he was building at Clivedon and his residence in London. Bruce Yardley, “George Villiers, second duke of Buckingham (1628–­1687),” DNB; Hanrahan, Charles II and the Duke of Buckingham, 160–­67, 75. 22. Patai, Jewish Alchemists, 6.

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and patriarchy.) Mary’s familiar spirit George arranged for the spirit of Mr. Abab to come from France and instruct them. But he was constantly delayed by Jewish holy days and other hindrances imposed by the masters of the synagogue (which raises some interesting questions about the status of Jews in a presumably Christian heaven). The Lowlanders were also happy to assist the couple. Father Fryar provided a particular slate stone and sent a couple of slaves to deliver a hogshead of special vinegar. Unfortunately, the slaves pawned the keg of vinegar for one of brandy at an inn close to the Acton Road. Penelope, who was queen of the Lowlanders by then, agreed to send her head chemist, a Spaniard who spoke very little English, but instead of keeping his appointments, the man also attended the local taverns where he proceeded to drink brandy at an alarming rate. This debauched behavior resulted in a high fever and caused all of his skin to peel away, which resulted in a quick death. (It is interesting that Mary wasn’t the only one with a weakness for brandy.) The expense of establishing an alchemical laboratory could be considerable. Entrepreneurs like Mary and Goodwin frequently had to compromise secrecy to secure funding from a wealthy patron or investor.23 Goodwin’s list of potential investors was slim, as he had borrowed heavily from many men in the past with disastrous results. He suggested that they approach John Wildman, better known as “Major” Wildman, who had been involved in Goodwin’s previous alchemical project. Wildman had made a sizeable fortune as an agent in the land market during the Interregnum. The major also had a strong relationship with the Duke of Buckingham, for whom he had acted as solicitor and trustee of the duke’s estate. Since his financial dealings with the duke were around the same time as Mary was allegedly consulting with Buckingham on his alchemical project, Mary may have been familiar with the major before she knew Goodwin. In any case, neither Mary nor Goodwin was concerned that Wildman had recently been released from the Tower of London for his suspected involvement in the Rye House plot of April 1683.24 Wildman agreed to be their partner in fixing mercury into gold. By August 1684, the trio had

23. Nummedal, Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire, 142. 24. There was insufficient evidence to convict Wildman as a conspirator in the Rye House affair, and he was officially acquitted in February 1684. He was reputedly a man of high temperament and changeable loyalties. Richard Greaves, “Sir John Wildman (1622/3–­1698),” DNB; Ashley, John Wildman, Plotter and Postmaster, 8, 48, 239.

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managed to make one imperfect ingot of metal that “stood the water on the stone” but “would not perfectly stand the water in the lumps.”25 Perhaps a modern-­day alchemist could decipher these enigmatic statements. To add to the constant disappointments, Wildman was impatient with the proceedings and found fault with everything. Wildman’s biographer suggests that the alchemical project, as well as his involvement with Mary and Goodwin’s treasure-seeking expeditions, were attempts to raise funds in anticipation of James II’s ascension to the throne. Wildman was purportedly involved in a plan to install Charles’s eldest illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, as king in James’s place. By June of 1684, Wildman, anticipating that he might have to go into exile at any moment, was pushing for closure in all their projects.26 By February 1685, following Charles II’s death, Wildman became extremely demanding. He started to seriously doubt the cause of their constant disappointments, hinting that they could not proceed from God. In any event, he kept his purse close; any funds “came hard like iron,” so that Mary and Goodwin continued to be in debt, the same as before.27 Wildman’s ability to play both sides of the political divide was exhibited in his relations with Mary and Goodwin as well. When he was with Goodwin, he assured him that he trusted no one but him and did not believe everything that Mary said. But according to Mary, Wildman cautioned her that as soon as Goodwin had concluded his business with the queen of the Lowlanders and come into his realm, Goodwin would let both her and Wildman “sink like a stone to the bottom.”28 Mary also told Goodwin that Wildman tried to convince her to go with him to the Continent where they could do alchemical work together. He promised her that she should never want, and he would settle £200 a year on her. He also attempted to have sexual relations with her, but Mary remained loyal to her spiritual husband. Given Wildman’s fickle and avaricious nature, combined with his obvious belief in the spirit realm, his proposition might be true. However, Mary could have fabricated this narrative to discourage Goodwin from continuing his relationship with Wildman once it was clear

25. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:123. 26. A warrant for Wildman’s arrest was issued in May 1685, but he escaped to Holland in June where Goodwin saw him when he traveled to the Continent to join Philip Wharton. Richard Greaves, “Sir John Wildman (1622/3–­1698),” DNB. 27. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:136. 28. Ibid., 1:242.

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that financial investment was not forthcoming. Mary was always careful to ensure that she was the main influence in Goodwin’s life. Transforming mercury into gold wasn’t the only chemical pursuit of the new partnership. Mary also had a recipe to make malleable glass, which she claimed she had successfully executed in the past. This great curiosity required goat’s blood. Beliefs such as this were beginning to be questioned by the “new science.” In Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1658), the physician Sir Thomas Browne included the belief that glass could be made malleable in his list of superstitions. The inclusion of goat’s blood in the process was probably based on the theory that it could make diamonds soft.29 To this end, Goodwin had purchased a goat, which was stabled with Wildman’s horse. It was Wildman’s responsibility to bleed the goat at the appropriate astrological moment, which he apparently managed to perform on at least one occasion. But before he could repeat the procedure, the goat was either lost or stolen. Wildman refused to hand over the blood he had already procured (if, indeed, he had). But the most fascinating alchemical project of Mary and Goodwin concerned the making of a homunculus. Mary described how an artist who had lived with the Duke of Buckingham produced a living creature from frog spawn. Even more amazing was the engendering of a creature with divine understanding from a man’s sperm. Paracelsus gave instructions concerning this wonder in De Rerum Natura. In order to accomplish it, you must proceed thus. Let the semen of a man putrefy by itself in a sealed cucurbite with the highest putrefaction of the venter equinus [womb or embryo of a horse] for forty days, or until it begins at last to live, move, and be agitated, which can easily be seen. After this time it will be in some degree like a human being, but, nevertheless, transparent and without body. If now, after this, it be every day nourished and fed cautiously and prudently with the arcanum of human blood, and kept for forty weeks in the perpetual and eternal heat of a venter equinus, it becomes, thenceforth a true and living infant, having all the members of a child that is born from a woman, but much smaller.30

29. Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, bk. 2, chap. 5, pp. 64–­66. 30. Paracelsus, Hermetic and Alchemical Writings, ed. Waite, 1:120–­25.

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Mary knew a man who had produced such a creature, and he had promised to bequeath the homunculus to her when he died. When Mary tracked the man down, she discovered that he had recently died and left the creature in the care of a midwife, who thought it was a normal baby. But out of neglect, the female creature lay dying. Mary sent George to request that the creature come to Goodwin in spirit after it died, in the same way that George served Mary. The couple assured it that they would embalm its corpse and lay it to rest among the tombs of the Lowlander kings. Father Fryar was sent to fetch the little body, which lay in a box not eight inches long. Unfortunately, Goodwin never got a chance to see it, as the carcass was already beginning to decompose. On several occasions, the spirit of the creature attempted to speak to Goodwin when they were in Hounslow, close to its burial grounds, but it did not have enough strength. Mary and Goodwin’s alchemical works came to a halt after Wildman fled to Holland for his alleged role in the Monmouth Rebellion. After 1685, references to alchemy in Goodwin’s journals were limited to Mary attempting to get the Philosopher’s Stone from the spirits at Ratcliff. In the cellar where she had been tormented by snakes and toads, she was shown a great many chemists at work in a laboratory. The chief alchemist was a woman who promised to make Mary the greatest philosopher ever. The woman was a young, pretty Lowlander rather than a spirit; she pretended to be very kind to Mary but actually had designs on marrying Goodwin (doesn’t everyone?). She was eager to meet Goodwin, but the meetings were inevitably delayed, at which times the woman would fall into a passion like a madwoman. It turned out that she had surreptitiously ravished Goodwin in his sleep several times in the same manner as had the queen, the princess, the duchess, and Father Fryar’s daughter. In place of alchemy, the couple shifted their attention to deep-­ sea diving. Before Goodwin met Mary, he had invested several hundred pounds in a salvaging operation to recover guns, anchors, brass artillery, armor, and such from sunken galleons. He had also obtained letters patent from King Charles II for an improved diving engine.31 His biggest venture had been an expedition to retrieve salvage from the legendary Tobermory galleon, which had sunk due to an internal explosion while harboring from

31. Goodwin’s partners in the patent were William Perkins and James Innes. See McKee, From Merciless Invaders, 270–­72; Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 6; Clark, Whig’s Progress, 72.

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Figure 16. Halley’s Diving Bell, from William Hooper, Rational Recreations . . . (London, 1774). Wellcome Images.

bad weather at the Isle of Mull, in the Hebrides.32 In 1607, divers had scavenged the upper deck and managed to expose the lower level, but the ship was lodged ten fathoms (sixty feet) deep in a bed of mud, which inhibited operations. In the end, Goodwin’s plans were fouled because the legal owner of the wreck, Archibald Campbell, the ninth Earl of Argyll, had fled the country following charges of treason, and Goodwin, once again, could not raise the necessary funds. Goodwin was not the only Englishman who was obsessed with the idea to “go a-­wrecking.” After the destruction of the Spanish Armada,

32. Contrary to popular belief, the ship sunk at Tobermory was not one of the Spanish Armada galleons but was a cargo ship originating from Ragusa (Dubrovnik) in the Adriatic Sea. It was loaded with soldiers, food, drink, and weapons but no treasure. Earle, Treasure Hunt, 26–­27.

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Queen Elizabeth had appointed commissioners to recover whatever wreckage they could from the Spanish fleet. But before officials could get to the wrecks, the local people had picked clean the bones of any vessel that lay in shallow water or on dry land. As technology improved in the seventeenth century, salvaging Spanish wrecks continued to attract interest. The diving bell was the most promising invention. The most common design, patented in 1632, was simply an open-­ended wine cask, heavily weighted at the open end. The barrel was inverted and lowered into the water, trapping air inside for the divers to refill their lungs. This was improved upon by the astronomer Edmund Halley (of Halley’s comet fame) in 1691, who patented some improvements to the diving bell and diving suit so that a diver could work outside the bell.33 Of course, visibility was often a problem and there was no way to refresh the trapped air, so the divers had to surface frequently, which slowed operations drastically. Some of the slave divers from Madeira could dive naked, but in the waters off the south shore of England, divers usually wore a heavy garment of waxed canvas lined with fur to combat the extreme cold, which further impeded their speed and mobility.34 In December 1687, using funds raised from Lady Ivy and Sir Thomas Travell,35 Goodwin engaged in deep-­sea diving again. Mary, close to her time of delivering two daughters, remained in London, but Goodwin had the help of the spirit world. The angels promised to supply a special faceor headpiece fitted with a unique material as thin as cambric. The headpiece would filter the air out of the water so the diver could breathe and keep the water out. Inevitably, there were delays in delivering the mechanism. When Goodwin secretly used the device at a site near Southampton in July 1688, he was surprised to find that the water ran through it. The angels told Mary that this was because the fabric had been stretched too much. Instead, Goodwin patiently waited for the next full moon when the tide was out, hoping to find treasure in the shallow rocky water. But the ship he had hired was in poor condition, and the crew mutinied. In June and July of 1691, Goodwin engaged in an expedition to the Isle of Man, in the Irish Sea between Ireland and England. In addition

33. Alan Cook, “Halley, Edmond (1656–­1742),” DNB. 34. McKee, From Merciless Invaders, 272; Martin, Full Fathom Five, 57; Earle, Treasure Hunt, xi–­xiii, 23, 101, 109–­11. 35. Sir Thomas was the son of a wealthy London merchant. He was knighted in 1684 and had good connections to the court. Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 205.

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to stormy weather, Goodwin’s small fleet of ships had to fight off the French with the help of Archibald Campbell, ninth Earl of Argyll, and his men-­of-­war frigates.36 Lord Argyll was also trying to recover lost treasure from the Spanish Armada. When the crew finally had a chance “to try [his] long wier [wire?] pipes (made with so much care,” they found them all leaky. Presumably, these were the tubes for the circulation of air to the diver. After mending the pipes and weathering another storm, Goodwin resolved to try the equipment himself, “notwithstanding the cold.” But he discovered that some of the equipment was “maliciously bored with holes.” The problems concerning the circulation of the air could not be remedied out at sea, but had to wait until he returned to London. At one point, the Lord instructed Goodwin to “heat the air,” which he did “by burning brandy in the box [that] the bellows & head of the pipes were in.” In addition to technical problems, Goodwin quarreled with his partner, Sir Thomas, who “grew now by degrees so peevish & humorsome.” The expedition resulted in the retrieval of a dozen guns and some cables, which he presented to King William and Queen Mary. The angels brought a new mouthpiece in January 1692, with instructions that it shouldn’t be opened until he was at sea. While Goodwin was diving off the coast of Scotland in July of 1693, all he found in the package were four sheets of white paper wrapped in a thin gauze. Mary informed him that the angels’ invention had been transformed by the devil.37

*** The concept of providence contributed to Goodwin’s acceptance of this situation. When plans did not work out, Goodwin declared that “nobody can blame or wonder at my concern in so great a point . . . but the inscrutable wisdom & providence of the Lord must be submitted to.”38 Providence, or the belief in divine intervention, had long been an aspect of Roman Catholic belief. Following the Reformation, the theory became

36. The French were harassing the English in the Irish Sea because after James II fled England, he recruited the support of the French monarch, King Louis XIV. This skirmish was part of the Nine Years’ War on the Continent. 37. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:158. 38. Ibid., 2:174.

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the cornerstone of Protestant theology.39 God was constructed as a pilot rather than a watchmaker, directing every inconsequential detail of a person’s life. Nothing happened by chance but only by God’s purpose. God was capable of intervening in unpredictable ways, as well as suspending the natural order of the universe. The outcome of experiences with the spirit world was not bad luck but God’s design, which had a higher purpose hidden to mere mortals. Therefore stoic patience and serene acceptance of one’s fate in the face of adversity was a display of faith in God. Goodwin’s upbringing in the nonconformist Wharton household would have reinforced the strength of this conviction and the acceptance of fate. As Goodwin put it, “it is not wisdom, strength, nor vigilance but God that gives the success; who still wisely hindered all our endeavours against ten thousand probabilities by seeming accidents unimaginable.”40

39. Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England, 8–­20. 40. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:224.

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Plots and Piety In addition to directing treasure hunting, alchemical experiments, and deep-­sea diving, the angelic spirits also influenced Mary and Goodwin’s religious and political lives. Mary and the angels encouraged Goodwin to make peace with his father, which contributed to restoring his status in the world of politics and the royal court. While the spirits were advising Goodwin on how to reestablish himself in English politics, events in the world of the Lowlanders mirrored or reversed the religious and political situation in the realm of the Uplanders, drawing on specific historical events. In seventeenth-­ century England, religion was inextricably intertwined with politics. However, the angels that advised Mary took an ecumenical approach, telling Mary that “all religions were the same.”1 Even Jews could join the realm of angels in Mary’s configuration of heaven. But on at least one occasion, the angels supported Protestantism over Catholicism, a choice that was loaded with political overtones. In May 1684, the angel Gabriel directed Mary to renounce her Catholic practice. This came on the heels of a grueling three-­day penance imposed on Mary by her confessor at the chapel in Wild Street. Mary had been avoiding going to confession because she did not want to admit to her out-­of-­wedlock pregnancy. The priest threatened to excommunicate her and imposed the penance. After the second day of her penance, Gabriel appeared in the glass of water she used for scrying. The archangel told her to tell the priest that she renounced the Catholic faith. She obediently went to speak with her

1. The angels made this pronouncement on several occasions; Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:127, 138, 180.

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confessor; he tried to convince her of the folly of this decision, but she was determined. The priest had little choice but to lead her to the church door and tell the porter that she was considered a heretic and no longer allowed to enter. A couple of days later, she was still doubtful of her decision, and out of habit, began to enter the chapel, when “one as a man” stopped her.2 The angel told her that all Christian religions were good but that Protestantism was better for her. He directed her to start going to the Anglican church of St. Paul’s in Covent Garden. Mary never returned to the Church of Rome. With this change, Mary’s religion came into line with Goodwin’s politics, but the realm of the Lowlanders remained Catholic. The Catholic Lowlanders had concerns that were similar to the Protestant Uplanders. Just as the majority of Uplanders did not want a Catholic monarch, the Catholic Lowlanders did not welcome the thought of a Protestant and alien king in the person of Goodwin. In September of 1684, some of the Lowlanders attempted to prohibit Goodwin’s entrance into the realm. They feared that he would “destroy their customs, their religion, [and] their laws.”3 The Lowlander Duke of Hungary, a foreigner who had designs to usurp the queen’s realm, had laid barrels of gunpowder under each of the four gates to the palace, with the design to kill either the queen as she left or Goodwin as he entered. Being forewarned by Mary and Goodwin (who had been informed by George), the queen’s forces were able to arrest the duke and his co-­conspirators in treason. They dug beneath the gates and surprised the men in the underground vaults. But the man at the main gate, which led to the entrance to the Uplands, was alerted of their approach and detonated the gunpowder. Several Lowlanders were killed and the entrance to the fairy realm was blocked. The vast quantities of earth and rubble were not removed until the end of October 1684. At first glance, the scenario echoes aspects of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. On that occasion, a group of Catholic gentry had attempted to blow up the House of Lords on the first day of Parliament. In addition to assassinating King James I, they would have killed most of the royal family along with the aristocracy and Anglican bishops who normally sat in the House. The explosives expert, Guy Fawkes, was executed along with the other con-

2. Ibid., 1:126–­27. 3. Ibid., 1:156.

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spirators.4 Mary would have been well aware of this moment in English history, as the failure of the plot was officially celebrated every year. In January 1606, Parliament passed an act that mandated a commemoration, with prayers, sermons, and bell ringing in every church in the country.5 The commemoration quickly took on populist elements with bonfires and fireworks, and eventually became a major aspect of Whig (pro-­parliamentarian politicians) propaganda. Guy Fawkes is burned in effigy to the present day.6 The element of gunpowder would have been close to Mary’s consciousness on account of an explosion at a powder mill just east of Hounslow at the end of June 1684. There were a couple of powder mills in the area. A sword mill in the parish of East Bedfont, northwest of Baber Bridge, had been converted to the production of gunpowder during the Interregnum. Another powder mill was built below the bridge. The explosion reported by Goodwin was probably from a powder mill in Isleworth parish.7 Goodwin reported that the blast “shaked our very room as we sat.”8 But Mary did not have to look that far back in history for plots against the monarchy. In 1678, Jesuit priests in England had been accused by a radically anti-­Catholic clergyman, Israel Tonge, of conspiring to assassinate Charles II and place his brother James on the throne.9 The so-­ called Popish Plot was later discovered to be a fiction largely constructed by Titus Oates, a man of questionable character with Jesuit associations who had co-­authored the anti-­Catholic pamphlets with Tonge. The fact that the plot was taken seriously illustrates the rampant anti-­Catholic sentiments in England at the time. The plot raised concerns about a possible Catholic takeover from both within the country and from Catholic powers abroad, similar to the situation with Goodwin and the Lowlanders. The public hysteria surrounding the fictitious conspiracy culminated in a Whig campaign to exclude the Duke of York, the future King James II, from the throne. The Exclusion Bill, proposed by the Whigs in three different parliaments between 1679 and 1681, was deferred because Charles dissolved the Parliament each time.10 4. Sharpe, Remember, Remember. 5. Jac. I. c.1, An Act for a Public Thanksgiving, in Statutes of the Realm, vol. 4, pt. 1, [1586–­1624], 1067–­68. 6. Cressy, Bonfires and Bells. 7. History of the County of Middlesex, ed. Reynolds, 3:112–­14. 8. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:137. 9. Kenyon, Popish Plot. 10. Horwitz, “Protestant Reconciliation in the Exclusion Crisis.”

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The Popish Plot was followed a few years later by the Rye House Plot. In June of 1683, the spring after Mary met Goodwin, several conspirators allegedly attempted to murder Charles II and his brother James because of the brothers’ Catholic sympathies.11 This intrigue was organized by Whig conspirators and took its name from a medieval mansion in Hertfordshire that was leased by one of the conspirators. The plan was to ambush the royal brothers as they traveled to London on their way back from the horse races at Newmarket. The brothers’ early return foiled the plan and several high-profile Whigs were implicated in the plot. Not only would Mary be aware of the failed assassination attempt because London was buzzing with the news, but Goodwin was indirectly involved through his multiple connections to the conspirators. Sir Thomas Armstrong, a military officer, was well known to Goodwin. He was a supporter of the Duke of Monmouth, Charles II’s eldest illegitimate son, who was favored by radical Protestants as the heir to the throne instead of James. While he was in self-­appointed exile on the Continent, Armstrong was indicted for high treason, in absentia, at the Old Bailey in July 1683. Nearly a year later, he was later captured on his way to Amsterdam. Following his execution on June 20, 1684, his head was displayed at Westminster Hall and his body was drawn and quartered.12 Goodwin felt intimate enough with Armstrong to attempt to recruit him as a familiar. George went to the prison on Goodwin’s behalf just prior to the man’s execution.13 Another collaborator, Robert West, resided at the Middle Temple where Goodwin kept a room. West, along with several of the other conspirators, was a member of the Green Ribbon Club, a group of approximately 150 radical, anti-­Royalist Whigs named for the green ribbons members wore in their hats. They met regularly at the King’s Head tavern at Chancery Lane End. Goodwin had previously been a member of the club, until he got expelled in January 1679 after he had refused to leave the club room when a non-­member came to speak with him.14 Another suspect in the Rye House episode was John Wildman, with whom Goodwin and Mary were engaged in alchemical experiments in the fall of 1683. Goodwin had been involved with him previously in other alchemical projects. Wildman had

11. Zook, Radical Whigs and Conspiratorial Politics, 103–­9. 12. Richard Greaves, “Sir Thomas Armstrong,” DNB. 13. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:127. 14. Allen, “Political Clubs in Restoration London”; Jones, “Green Ribbon Club.”

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been incarcerated in the Tower in June 1683, for allegedly discussing the assassination plot with other conspirators. Apparently, he had refused to give money to the group to buy weapons for the ambush.15 The political elements of the fairy realm reflect the importance and prevalence of politics in Goodwin’s life. The Wharton family were major political players and strong Whig supporters. In order for Goodwin to reconnect with the world of politics, he needed the support of his father and brothers. In this regard, the greatest gift that Mary and the spirit world gave Goodwin was reconciliation with his family. As early as the fall of 1683, Mary encouraged Goodwin to attend his father more frequently, where on occasion he was given small sums of money. One could be cynical and suggest that Mary was protecting her own best interests by facilitating a reunion between father and son, thereby ensuring that Goodwin did not get disinherited. But how long would she have to wait for the baron to die? Mary was much older than Goodwin. And what guarantee did she have that she could keep Goodwin’s interest for that long? And why would he need her in his life after he came into his inheritance? Perhaps in the beginning, Mary’s goals were short-­term, as she struggled to find a way out of their financial difficulties. By the end of 1684, the angels started giving Goodwin permission to leave his lodging to attend his father, either at his townhouse in St. Giles or at his country home at Wooburn. Goodwin’s mandate was “to dispose his [father’s] mind towards [him] with gentleness” and receive whatever money he could to pay for their basic necessities. Sometimes the Lord instructed Goodwin to write “a submissive letter” to his father, for which the angels provided particular expressions. Because of his prior history within the family, Goodwin approached these meetings “with fear and apprehension,” as he attempted to convince his father that he did not spend his time and money idly and foolishly.16 The occasional visits ultimately mended fences to the point that Goodwin accompanied the baron to the port at Dover when Philip left for the Continent in August 1685, after the Monmouth Rebellion. The following April, Goodwin joined his father in Holland for several months. Goodwin did all he could to please the elder Wharton. For months at a time, he stayed with his father at Wooburn. He would only see Mary when they met at Hounslow for a night, because, of

15. Ashley, John Wildman, Plotter and Postmaster, 8, 48, 239. 16. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:192, 237.

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course, Mary did not accompany him on these family visits. His extended sojourns continued throughout 1687. He presented his adventures with the Lowlander queen and Princess Gartwrott as potential marriage contracts. In spite of many lectures, by October 1687, the baron had softened his attitude to Goodwin enough that he asked God to bless his son, not an insignificant gesture from a highly religious man like the baron. In addition to the spirits’ encouragement in religious and political matters, Mary took a very active role in those aspects of Goodwin’s life as well. Although there is no supporting evidence, she reported that half a dozen times she went to King James II on Goodwin’s behalf. Presumably, she would have met James when Charles II was still king. While she served as Thomas Williams’s housekeeper at Whitehall, she was deep in conversation with Charles about alchemical matters one day when his brother came to the door. In January 1688, Mary took advantage of her previous position at Whitehall to approach James, who was then king, “below stairs” in the servants’ quarters, as he was going abroad. She knelt before him, signaling that she wished to speak with him. When she told him that she desired the privilege of the court, he replied that she had never been denied it. A few days later, he granted her an audience. He requested that she provide a certain plaster she was known to make that prevented miscarriages. His second wife, Mary Beatrice of Modena, was desperately trying to get pregnant so she could provide a male heir to the throne. On a subsequent visit, James questioned her about the white metal she had produced for Williams’s household, but she told him she had forgotten the procedure. He then switched the subject to Goodwin, as it was well known that she kept company with him. The king was concerned about the trouble that Goodwin had caused in the past: Goodwin had delivered a speech against James in Parliament in 1680, during the Exclusion Crisis. But James assured her that he could forget and forgive past transgressions. Even if Mary never actually went anywhere near Whitehall or King James, her story encouraged Goodwin to mend fences and regain a position at court. Mary enabled Goodwin to gain the confidence necessary to further his political career. The spirit world reinforced this hope, instructing Goodwin to walk where the king might see him and win his favor. Obediently, Goodwin went to St. James’s Park, walked the Pall Mall and the galleries of Whitehall, and attended the playhouse, to put himself in the king’s sight. Goodwin was hesitant to approach the king directly, and Lord Wharton refused to act on his son’s behalf. God con-

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stantly encouraged Goodwin to ask his political allies to speak for him. Unfortunately, James’s reign did not last long enough for Goodwin to make peace with the king. The spirit realm continued to support Goodwin’s efforts to secure a position at court even after William and Mary were installed as the new monarchs. The angels were not prejudiced by religious considerations; the Lord himself instructed Goodwin to present himself and kiss their hands. Like Goodwin’s claim to the fairy realm, William III’s claim to the English throne was, at least partially, through his wife. William’s mother had been Charles I’s eldest daughter, Mary, who had been sent to the Low Countries to marry William’s father, William II of Orange. William III’s wife, Mary, was James II’s daughter from his first Protestant wife, Anne Hyde. In other words, the royal couple were first cousins.

Charles’s and James’s Dutch nephew, William of Orange, along with James’s daughter (William’s wife), had claimed the English throne in a bloodless coup during the winter of 1688/89. The military intervention by William III inspired events in the realm of the Lowlanders. Not long after the Glorious Revolution in April 1689, the Lowlander Duchess of Plymouth suggested that Goodwin storm the kingdom at Hounslow with ten or twelve armed men and seize the most recent pretender to the Lowlander throne. But before Goodwin could execute a coup, the self-­proclaimed Lowlander king and other key enemies died. Goodwin’s entrance to his kingdom should have proceeded unhindered. But for the remainder of 1689, further delays occurred: waiting for the return of the Lowlander pope, who was necessary for Goodwin’s coronation; waiting for special horses to arrive from the Continent for the coronation procession; waiting for all the Lowlander heads of state in Europe to unanimously consent to Goodwin’s position; and waiting for elaborate coronation preparations to be made, including the building of three triumphal arches, the creation of

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a garter studded with diamonds, and the preparation of an extravagant banquet complete with marzipan and other rarities. Goodwin was getting very good at waiting. One of the more interesting delays concerned a letter from the Lowlanders that would acknowledge Goodwin’s position as king. Given Goodwin’s political intimacy with key Uplander Whigs, it is possible that Mary was aware of a secret letter that had been issued to William III of Orange in June of 1688. The letter was to serve as proof that William had been invited by the citizens to intervene in English politics.17 In the case of the Lowlanders, they had searched their archives to determine whether there was any precedent for an outsider being king. Then the letter had to pass through the hands of several judges. When lawyers discovered that Goodwin would be the first Uplander king, they had doubts about proceeding. They were afraid to subject themselves to a foreigner, which was, no doubt, a concern for many Uplander Englishmen at the time William arrived from the Low Countries. When the letter was finally signed and sealed, delivery was delayed by a violent storm on the first of January 1690 “that scarce the like hath been seen.”18 Coincidentally, William had also experienced delays the previous October due to storms that had impeded his first attempt at invasion. Spirits informed Mary that the wicked weather interfering with William’s arrival was the result of witchcraft procured by James II, which had resulted in the destruction of men-­of-­war anchored in the harbor. In the end, Goodwin’s planned revolution of the fairy realm did not turn out as gloriously as William and Mary’s. His fate was more similar to James II, who was denied his rightful realm. In February 1690, seven years after George renewed contact with the fairy realm, Goodwin was informed by the spirits that “a Lord thou shalt be of this land, not of the Lowlanders, for that is certain unto thee.”19 This revelation came immediately after his election in January as member of Parliament for Westmorland. His younger brother Henry had previously held that position. Henry’s premature death the previous fall had caused Goodwin’s family to finally support his re-­entry into politics. In the next election of March 1690, Goodwin became member of Parliament

17. Tony Claydon, “William III and II (1650–­1702), king of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and prince of Orange,” DNB. 18. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 2:139. 19. Ibid., 2:141.

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for Malmesbury in Wiltshire, a position that he held until 1695. He was very active in his political role, serving on several committees during his term of office. In 1695, he was elected member of Parliament for Cockermouth in Cumberland, and later for Buckinghamshire, a position he held until his death. In February 1694, he was awarded a position as lieutenant-­ colonel of horse in the second Earl of Macclesfield’s cavalry regiment and was subsequently appointed lord commissioner of the Admiralty. He also served as deputy lieutenant of Buckinghamshire under his brother Tom.20 On February 12, 1696, Philip Wharton was buried at St. Paul’s Church in Wooburn. Goodwin’s older brother, Tom, of course, became the next Lord Wharton and inherited the family estates in Buckinghamshire, Cumberland, and York.21 But Goodwin was not left out of the picture. He had reconciled with his father to the extent that he inherited his father’s townhouse on Denmark Street across from St. Giles-­in-­the-­Fields Church, four other houses in Lloyd’s Court (one block south of Denmark on present-­day Flitcroft Street), manors in Ireland and Yorkshire, tenements in Westmorland, and other holdings.22 Mary and Goodwin moved into the house in St. Giles, with its stables, coach houses, orchards, gardens, and “watercourses.” The three-­story house came complete with all the “household stuff and implements of household,” including silver and gold plate.23 The next year, after Goodwin was appointed lord commissioner of the Admiralty, the couple moved into a country estate north of Colnbrook in Buckinghamshire, which Goodwin leased from the Apsley family.24 After more than a decade, Mary was the (unofficial) partner of a landed gentleman. Mary and Goodwin continued to have contact with the Lowlanders until Mary’s death, but their adventures in the fairy realm were ultimately overshadowed by other escapades above ground. As the hero of Mary’s elaborate story, Goodwin had completed his journey of self-­discovery and slain the metaphorical dragon.

20. Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 261–­63, 299, 314, 318–­19; Roy Porter, “Wharton, Goodwin (1653–­1704), politician and autobiographer,” DNB; Journal of the House of Commons, Vol. 11, 1693–­1697, 17 November 1696, pp. 587–­88; Dalton, English Army Lists and Commission Registers, 1661–­1714, 5:232. 21. Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 4. 22. TNA, PROB 11/430, fols. 181–­82, Will of Philip Wharton; TNA, PROB 11/481, fols. 132–­33, Will of Goodwin Wharton. 23. TNA, PROB 11/430, fols. 181–­82, Will of Philip Wharton. 24. Clark, Goodwin Wharton, 310.

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So was Mary’s magical practice a deceit? Was this the completion of the long con? Was Goodwin really such a good mark? Let’s review the evidence. When Mary first met Goodwin, he must have seemed like a good prospect for a scam: he was the son of a baron, he relieved her immediate difficulties with a little money, and he moved her out of her wretched lodgings into a house in Shire Lane. But within a month, Mary had to move from the Shire Lane lodging, leaving behind some of her belongings because Goodwin could not pay the rent. On one occasion when they stayed at Hounslow, Goodwin could barely pay for the inn, and he was forced to pawn some of his clothes when they returned to London. During the first three years of their relationship, they moved half a dozen times to what Goodwin described as “the basest houses” in London.25 Even then, they often had to pay the rent by pawning. During that first summer of 1683, before the relationship took on a sexual component, Mary must have realized that she had not struck the mother lode. In the early days of their relationship, Goodwin prohibited Mary from continuing her craft as a cunning woman. Right from the beginning, Goodwin wanted Mary’s talents exclusively for himself. Although he “did not fear [he] should let her want,”26 his meager allowance from his father could not support the couple while they waited for the spirit realm to bring their projects to fruition. The credit on which an aristocratic gentleman usually operated was ruined by Goodwin’s past entrepreneurial failures. In addition to Goodwin’s daily shortage of money, he was constantly at risk of arrest for his debts. Most of the time, Lord Wharton was so disgusted with his son’s lifestyle that he wouldn’t relieve his financial straits with more than a few shillings at a time. Granted, there were occasions when Goodwin had some funds from his father, and sometimes when he went to Wooburn, he left five or ten pounds at Mary’s disposal, which was a relatively large amount of money. He maintained that she was careful to keep a precise account of how she spent any of the funds. On other occasions, she refused his offer of money. For instance, when he left to join his father on the Continent, Goodwin

25. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:302. 26. Ibid., 1:71.

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had a great deal of trouble to persuade Mary to take half of his money at hand, even though she was supposedly days away from giving birth. After three years together, did she still feel the need to dissemble, or was she genuinely concerned about his welfare over hers? Eventually, it was necessary for Mary to continue her former calling, resolving “questions of future things” and practicing physic. By the fall of 1685, the couple were dependent on what she could get “up and down among patients,” who, according to Goodwin, “hunted on all occasions after her as after a Goddess.”27 By the end of 1687, Mary was back to her practice of buying and selling goods. On at least one occasion, Goodwin suspected that the textiles she was buying were stolen. The theft and trade of clothing was a very common practice at the time.28 Goodwin’s inner voice assured him that it was all right to make a profit from the goods, and the Lord would deal with the original thief in his own way. The bottom line is that Mary was not along for a free ride and was not enjoying a lifestyle above her status as a single woman of the middling sort. In fact, at many times in their relationship, she was supporting Goodwin. The couple’s romance was not all roses either. In addition to the financial problems, or perhaps because of them, the couple had frequent disputes. Mary’s high temperament was probably not always an act put on to manipulate Goodwin. In October 1683, due to lack of funds, Goodwin was forced to sneak Mary up four flights of stairs to the room he sublet at the Temple. On one particular evening, she sensed that this was a nuisance to him and interpreted this as a sign that he did not appreciate all she did for him as liaison to the Lowlanders, in addition to all the hardships she endured for his sake. She flew into one of her infamous passions and threatened to leave that very instant and send his sons (yet unborn) to him at a later date. In his efforts to pacify her, Goodwin offered to marry her the next morning (Mr. Parish having died the previous June). Eventually, he got her to bed that night. But Mary did not grab that opportunity to secure her future as the wife of an elite gentleman. The next morning, she calmly refused his offer on the grounds that she did not want to injure his reputation in the world. Besides, she already considered him her husband in the eyes of the Lord. Of course, Goodwin would probably have been disinherited if

27. Ibid., 1:195, 239, 71. 28. Lemire, “Theft of Clothes and Popular Consumerism in Early Modern England,” 257.

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he had married a woman so much below his station, which was counter to Mary’s best interests. Whatever was going on in Mary’s head, we know from Goodwin’s comments that he was quite attached to her. In the summer of 1684, when the angel Gabriel ordered Goodwin to wait upon his father at Wooburn, Goodwin lamented their separation: “our kindness was now so true & so real, that such a parting having never been before above so many hours asunder of little more since we knew one another.” And by August 1686, after their long separation while he was in Europe, and when Mary was at risk of dying, Goodwin reported that he couldn’t keep the tears from his eyes whenever he thought of losing her. His loyalty overrode the opinion of his family, who called Mary a whore and a witch and chastised him for his relationship. Goodwin’s commitment to his partnership with Mary is evident in the fact that he turned down the opportunity to marry a desirable, real-­life woman his father suggested as a match, preferring to take his chances with the unions Mary was arranging in the spirit realm—­unions that would have allowed him to continue his relationship with Mary. Goodwin also acknowledged that Mary had saved him from a life of debauchery similar to his brothers. Although the Lord pointed out that he had not been as pure as he could have been, without Mary he would have “run farther into sin.”29 In assessing Mary’s role in Goodwin’s life, it is only fitting to allow Goodwin to have the last word: “for I believe it is unpossible to love one more than she hath me a long time.”30

29. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 1:138, 340, 2:112. 30. Ibid., 2:21.

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Epilogue

April 1703 In January 1703, Mary became desperately ill, and after a brief respite, she died on April 18 at the age of seventy-­two. Goodwin was left alone. As he sat in vigil beside her corpse, he waited. After the brief funeral at St. Giles Church across the street from their townhouse on Denmark Street, he waited. He revisited the spot where George had first appeared to Mary in Moorfields, and he waited. But as the hours turned into days and the days turned into weeks, Goodwin had to accept the reality that Mary was not returning to him in spirit as she had promised. And on top of this devastating disappointment, no angels came to him to offer consolation, and the Lord no longer spoke to him audibly from behind the door, but now Goodwin heard him only in visions. Hoping to see the Lowlanders, Goodwin visited Hounslow Heath, but he could neither hear nor see them. He had lost more than his twenty-­year companion; he had lost his connection to the spirit world. During the last few years of Mary’s life, the spirit world had been delivering bags of gold and riches from Hounslow, Ratcliff, Northend, and the other treasure sites. Goodwin had often heard the angels “hard at work” in the closet.1 The couple had been promised on almost a daily basis that they would be allowed to open the trunks the angels were filling, but they were constantly put off until “tomorrow.” After Mary’s death, with no direction forthcoming from the spirit world, Goodwin finally opened the trunks to find them all empty.

1. Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton, 2:131.

179

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Epilogue

As disappointing as this was, Mary’s death did not change Goodwin’s financial status. The couple had never gotten any treasure from the various sites. But in addition to helping Goodwin reconcile with his family and re-­enter the world of politics, Mary bequeathed to Goodwin something better than chests full of treasure. She gave him an heir. The first few years of Goodwin’s journal were addressed to the couple’s first surviving boy child, Peregrine, who was being raised by a nurse. On several occasions, Goodwin had attempted to see him. Mary told Goodwin that she was afraid that if the nurse saw him, she would instantly know the boy’s parentage because of the striking resemblance between father and son, an obvious stroke to Goodwin’s male ego. On several occasions, Mary was supposed to meet the nurse in a tavern while Goodwin waited in an adjoining room to spy on them. But there was always one excuse or another: the child’s clothes were being washed or he was undressed at the appointed time. Nevertheless, Goodwin was careful to provide for the boy even before he met his own needs. Despite his concern for Peregrine, Goodwin was destined never to see his first son’s face. Eventually, Goodwin stops mentioning Peregrine in his journal. Perhaps the boy died and Goodwin somehow neglected to record it. Hezekiah, on the other hand, was a different story. On March 10, 1687, Mary had delivered twins: Hezekiah and Susanna. Susanna had died at one month old. But Goodwin had had a prophetic vision that said his second surviving son would give him great comfort. At first, there were delays in seeing the child, similar to the case with Peregrine. But when the boy was almost one year old, Mary and Goodwin went together to deliver him to a different nurse. Goodwin reported that “as soon as the child saw me he flew to me, & with all the fondness imaginable would never be out of my arms ’till I was obliged to get away.”2 Hezekiah was presumably fostered by a nurse for his entire childhood. In addition to the secretive nature of Mary and Goodwin’s relationship, Hezekiah was illegitimate in the eyes of the law. For this reason, the boy was raised under the surname Knowles to protect Goodwin from scandal. Knowles may have been the surname of one of the nurses who raised him; Goodwin never addresses this issue in his journal. Eventually, Hezekiah became a part of Goodwin’s life. At some point, probably after Mary’s death, Hezekiah moved into the house

2. Ibid., 1:102.

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April 1703

181

on Denmark Street with Goodwin. During the year following the loss of Mary, the young man, now approximately seventeen years old, “prov’d very mad & very rebellious.”3 In February of 1704, he ran away to sea. Goodwin used his political sway to bring him back to England. After Mary’s death, Goodwin’s health began to deteriorate. He had suffered from weakness for several years, ever since “a fit of Appoplex” in March of 1698.4 For several months before his death on October 26, 1704, he had been bedridden. He was blistered and scarred all over, possibly from being bled in an attempt to cure him. On his deathbed, Goodwin wrote a will dated September 30, 1704. Besides bequeathing his entire estate to Hezekiah, Goodwin declared him as his “lawfully begotten son.”5 He also reconsidered Hezekiah’s career choice in the military and helped to get him a commission as an ensign to Colonel Roger Elliott’s infantry regiment. At the time of Goodwin’s death, Hezekiah was serving as a lieutenant of grenadiers under Colonel Elliott in the garrison of Gibraltar. By this time, he was officially known as Hezekiah Wharton.6 As Goodwin’s heir, Hezekiah probably received word of his father’s death and his inheritance. But unfortunately, he never got to enjoy his newfound wealth. He died sometime in October 1705 in Gibraltar. As he lay sick and dying, Hezekiah wrote a will in which he appointed Talbot Lloyd as his executor and requested that 600 pounds be directed to “Jane Lockhearte, spinster.”7 The designation of spinster was common in legal records when a woman was not a wife or a widow. It did not have the same connotations as it does now, referring to an older, never-­married woman. The will does not hint at the relationship between Lockheart and Hezekiah, but 600 pounds was a very substantial amount of money. It is tempting to think that Jane Lockheart played a motherly role, either real or imagined, in the young boy’s life.

3. Ibid., 2:182. 4. Ibid., 2:179. 5. Ibid; TNA, PROB 11/481, Will of Goodwin Wharton. In Goodwin’s will, he appointed his steward John Harrison as Hezekiah’s guardian for three years. However, Goodwin failed to appoint an executor of his will. After his death, the Wharton family contested the will. They accepted Hezekiah as the legal heir, but did not want John Harrison as the executor. The courts appointed Alexander Hall as both guardian and executor. See TNA, PROB 18/28/34, 18/28/91, and 18/28/96. In retaliation, Harrison convinced Hezekiah to make a will in May 1705 appointing Harrison as executor. 6. Dalton, English Army Lists and Commission Registers, 1661–­1714, 5:176. 7. TNA, PROB 20/2743, Will of Hezekiah Wharton. This will was contested as well. In a decision dated January 1708, the Gibraltar will was judged invalid, but a subsequent ruling dated February 1711 appointed Talbot Lloyd’s widow, Elizabeth Lloyd, as administrator. A note was added to the probate of Goodwin’s will dated December 7, 1711.

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Epilogue

The appearance of Hezekiah as a flesh and blood son raises questions about the issue of reality versus imagination in Mary’s alternate world. Were Peregrine and Hezekiah actually Mary’s children? If not, were they part of a scam on Mary’s part? To what purpose? Were the ongoing pregnancies and surviving children false constructions to create a deeper bond with Goodwin? If she kept the money that was supposedly paid to midwives and the babies’ nurses, what did she do with it? For the first decade of their relationship, she was forced to live in poverty with Goodwin to maintain the illusion. Was she setting aside a nest egg for the future? Or did she use those funds to buy all that paraphernalia for the altar that supposedly came from the angels? Like the many mysteries surrounding Mary’s life, we will never know the answers. All we know for sure is that Mary performed her magic in ways that created a rich tapestry that touched many lives besides hers and Goodwin’s.

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183

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184

Figure 17. Seventeenth-­century map of London, originally started by Wenceslaus Hollar, ca. 1690

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Long Acre (Long Aker) Covent Garden Leicester House (Lester Field) Lambeth Old Street Shire Lane (Sheere Lane)

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7. The Temple 8. Lincoln’s Inn Fields (Lincons in Fields) 9. Lud Gate 10. St. Paul’s Cathedral (St. Paul’s Church)

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185

11. St. Paul’s Church, Covent Garden 12. Snow Hill 13. Newgate 14. Ratcliff 15. The Tower 16. Moorfields

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17. New Bedlam 18. Somerset 19. Whitehall 20. St. James’s Park 21. Pall Mall (Pell Mell) 22. St. Giles-in-the-Field Church

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Appendix

A Timeline of Mary’s Life The nature of Mary’s narrative makes it very difficult to accurately pinpoint the events that she mentions in her life. There is very little archival information to support the details. The timeline below is drawn primarily from Goodwin’s autobiography; other sources are cited in the notes. May 29, 1630 ������������� Born in Turville, Buckinghamshire ca. 1636–­37 ����������������� Grandfather West showed her where he found the pot of money ca. 1637–­38 ����������������� First contact with the fairies (not yet eight years old) ca. 1635–­38 ����������������� Attended a primary school in Watlington, Oxfordshire ca. 1638–­39 ����������������� Went to live with Uncle John Tomson near Chelmsford, Essex ca. 1639 ����������������������� Got grimoire from German man (not above ten years old) ca. 1640–­42 ����������������� Started boarding school at Hackney ca. 1642–­43 ����������������� Went to France with Lady Osborne and her family ca. 1643–­44 ����������������� Married Mr. Boucher, a tailor from London (age thirteen or so, mother was dead by this point) ca. 1644–­45 ����������������� Went to London to live with her husband Boucher (between fourteen and fifteen years old, after more than twelve months in Turville) ca. 1645–­52 ����������������� Gave birth to seven daughters in less than seven years ca. 1651–­52 ����������������� Boucher died March 8, 1653 ������������ Goodwin Wharton born 187

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188

Appendix

ca. 1652–­58 ����������������� Lived as a widow for five or six years; maintained tailoring shop ca. 1658–­61 ����������������� Spent eighteen months in Ludgate prison; met George Whitmore ca. 1659–­61 ����������������� George executed when she was about one year in Ludgate ca. 1659–­61 ����������������� Married Mr. Lawrence of Berkshire, soldier and seaman ca. 1661–­1668 ������������ Gave birth to thirteen more daughters ca. 1664 to 1668 ��������� Practiced alchemy while Lawrence was away at sea ca. 1664–­66 ����������������� Plague hit London; fourteen of Mary’s children died 1666 ����������������������������� London fire; lost everything ca. 1666–­67 ����������������� Uncle John took daughter by Lawrence 1668 ����������������������������� Mr. Lawrence died [October 1668?]1 ca. 1668–­69 ����������������� Dug for treasure at Islington, guarded by Archbishop Laud 1669 ����������������������������� Alchemical furnaces destroyed by Prince Rupert June 17, 1669 ������������� Married Thomas Parish of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, widower2 ca. April–­May 1670 �� Left Parish after almost twelve months ca. 1670 ����������������������� First contact with the fairies at Hounslow Heath ca. 1670 ����������������������� Became pregnant by Parish, when “very near” age forty ca. early 1671 ������������ Son christened Thomas, sent to France to live with an uncle of Mary ca. 1675 ����������������������� Banished from fairy realm ca. 1675 ����������������������� Lawsuit for alimony, after loss of contact with fairies ca. 1675–­77 ����������������� First broken leg ca. 1675–78 ����������������� Alchemical experiment for three and a half years, after alimony suit ca. 1678–­80 ����������������� Lived at Whitehall with Dr. Thomas Williams

1. One Vincent Lawrence was buried October 11, 1668, according to the St. Sepulchre parish register. Unfortunately, the register notes when the deceased is a daughter, son, wife, or servant, but never lists a man as husband of so-­and-­so. 2. LMA, Parish Records for St. Mary, Bromley St. Leonard [Microfilm X040/006B].

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A Timeline of Mary’s Life

189

ca. 1680 ����������������������� Moved out of Whitehall ca. 1680–­82 ����������������� Lived at Long Acre in a house by herself for several years early 1682 ������������������� Dismissed George, pawned grimoire, moved to poor residence close to Long Acre winter of 1682/3 ������ Broke leg for the second time February 1683 ����������� Met Goodwin Wharton (he was thirty years old, she was fifty-­two) beginning of April ���� Moved to Shire Lane end of April 1683 ������ Moved from Shire Lane to Arundell buildings; recalled George, renewed contact with fairies May 1, 1683 ���������������� Hired coach and four to meet fairy queen at Hounslow end of May 1683 ������� Floods on Hounslow Heath June 1683 �������������������� Death of Thomas Parish; Mary, “fat and heavy,” fell from horse June 1683 �������������������� Rye House Plot July 24, 1683 ��������������� Death of fairy king and beginning of sexual relationship with Goodwin spring 1684 ���������������� Established contact with angels May 1684 �������������������� Switched from Catholicism to Protestantism September 1684 �������� Lowlander gunpowder plot 1685 ����������������������������� Goodwin Wharton started his autobiography January 1685 �������������� Moved to Long Acre June 1686 �������������������� Queen Penelope died June 1687 �������������������� Princess Ursula La Gard died December 1687 ��������� Deep-­sea diving projects started March 1690 ���������������� Goodwin became member of Parliament February 12, 1696 ����� Philip Wharton buried April 18, 1703 ������������ Mary Parish died at St. Giles-­in-­the-­Fields3 October 26, 1704 ������ Goodwin Wharton died at St. Giles-­in-­the-­Fields4

3. LMA, X105/022. 4. LMA, X105/022. “The Hon’ble Goodwin Wharton caryd away.”

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Bibliography DNB = Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Online edition: http://www.oxforddnb.com/ OED = Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Online edition: www. oed.com.

Manuscripts BL = British Library, London 551.a.32—Collection of 231 Advertisements Additional MS 20006–20007, Autobiography of Goodwin Wharton Additional MS 36674 Sloane 1727, Secreta Secretorum Sloane 3850 Sloane 3851 Bod. = Bodleian Library, Oxford Ashmole 1406 Buckinghamshire Record Office, Aylesbury Turville Parish Records Guild Hall, London Freedom Admission Register 1638–1708, Guildhall MS 6215 Merchant Taylors Company Membership Guide (1997) St. Giles-in-the-Fields Parish Register LMA = London Metropolitan Archive Parish Records for St. Mary, Bromley St. Leonard Newgate Gaol Delivery Records TNA = The National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey C (Chancery) 3/288/39, Rogers vs Rogers PROB (Probate) 11/430, fols. 181–82, Will of Philip Wharton 191

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Index Bold indicates an illustration or image.

A Abab, Mr., 155–56, 158–59 Agrippa, 22, 65, 72 alchemy, 148–51, 150 Goodwin as alchemist, 152 and Jews, 156 Mary as alchemist, 81, 154–55, 158, 162, 170 and Prince Rupert, 153 spiritual alchemy, 8–9 angels, 35, 108, 114, 137–47 Ahab, 139–40, 144, 147, 155–56 and diving, 164–65 Gabriel, 140–42, 144, 167, 178 and Goodwin, 112, 167, 171, 173, 179 Michael, 116, 140–41 and pregnancy, 102 Uriel, 118, 138–40 Anne (queen of England), 98, 173 Armstrong, Sir Thomas, 170 Arundel Buildings, 54 astrology, 23 and alchemy, 161 and charms, 21–23, 27, 50, 72 and conception, 105 and hidden treasure, 119 and magic, 19–20 and medicine, 14, 140 and prognostication, 54, 66, 81

B Bacon, Francis, 40n21, 149 Baxter, Richard, 35, 56, 136–37

Bodenham, Anne, 18 Bottom, Mrs., 82–88, 90 Boucher, Mr. (1st husband of MP), 56, 72–77, 81, 88, 128

C Campbell, Archibald (9th Earl of Argyll), 163, 165 Carleton, Mary, 113–14 Catherine of Braganza (wife of Charles II), 46n35, 47, 120, 156 Catholicism in England, 17, 28–29, 45, 55, 72, 120, 165, 168–70 and exorcism, 126 and George, 60 and Mary, 30, 45–46, 75, 114, 142–43, 167 and spirit world, 43–45, 48, 93, 168 Cavendish, Margaret (Duchess of Newcastle), 65 Charles I (king of England), 29, 119 Charles II (king of England), 68, 160, 162 and alchemy, 154, 172 and bastards, 46 and Catholicism, 28–29, 169–70 and Jews, 156 charms and astrology, 22, 72 and gambling, 20–22, 28, 50 and healing, 15, 143 and love, 72, 84, 99, 112 See also talismans Clayton, Robert, 54, 66, 158n21 205

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206 Clinton, Elizabeth (Countess of Lincoln), 88 Cox, John, 14 Cox, Mary (née Butler), 14 Crockford, Frances, 89 Crooke, Helkiah, 100–101, 105 Culpeper, Nicholas, 49, 51, 132, 135 cunning craft, 14, 66, 72, 79, 143, 145 and divination, 65, 81 and gambling, 94 and healing, 14–17 and religion, 14–15 and treasure hunting, 119 and witchcraft, 18, 40

D debts and debtor’s prison, 56–58, 77–79, 88 and Goodwin, 32, 106, 142–43, 146, 160, 176 Dee, John, 118, 139, 140n14, 144 Defoe, Daniel on childbearing, 101, 103–4 on Hackney schools for girls, 73 demons, 55, 136–37, 141 and alchemy, 148 and exorcism, 17–18 fairies as, 35–36, 43 as succubi/incubi, 93 and treasure hunting, 126–27 and witchcraft, 40–41 demoniacs, 17–18 Denmark Street, 175, 179, 181 diving projects, Goodwin and, 109, 115, 162–65, 163

E education of girls, 72–74, 77 Elliott, Colonel Roger, 181 Exclusion Crisis, 169, 172 exorcism. See under demons

F

Index Fryar, Father, 43, 46–47, 49, 50, 93, 103, 124–25, 159, 162 Goodwin and, 35–36, 47–48, 51–53, 93–94 invisibility of, 49–51, 125 king of, 42–43, 46–48, 51–52, 71–72, 91, 95–96, 121 LaGard, Penelope (queen), 47, 51–53, 71, 94–98, 102, 112, 159 LaPerle, Ursula (princess), 96–99, 107, 113, 134 Mary and, 34, 37, 39, 41–49, 53 methods for summoning, 36–37 Plymouth, Duchess of, 99, 173 religion of, 43–46, 168 Shashbesh, Thomas, 131 familiars, 40, 55–56, 63, 120, 124, 135–37, 170. See also Whitmore, George Fawkes, Guy, and Gunpowder Plot, 168–69 Ficino, Marsilio, on power of the will, 8 fire engines, 32–33, 33 Flamel, Nicholas, 156 Floyd, Lady, 154 Forman, Simon, 119

G Galenic medicine, 15–16 gambling, 20–21, 30, 32, 34, 94, 119, 131 and charms, 20–22, 28, 50 Garroll, Mr., 121, 153 Gartwrott, Anne, 113, 172 Gay, Cecilia, 116 George (familiar spirit). See Whitmore, George Glorious Revolution, 173 Glover, Henry, 28, 34 Greenhill, Elizabeth, 101 grimoires, 19–20 Mary’s grimoire, 19–20, 67, 70, 72, 78, 122, 152, 158 recipes/instructions in, 20, 50, 122–23, 126–27, 137–38 Gunpowder Plot, 168–69

fairies (Lowlanders), 43, 44 beliefs about, 39, 49

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Index

H Hackney school. See education of girls Harrison, John, 181n5 Henrietta Maria (wife of Charles I), 120 Hounslow Heath, 37, 38, 39, 169, 179 fairy (Lowlander) kingdom at, 41–43, 46–47, 51–52, 97, 99, 129, 162, 173 and treasure hunting, 121–22, 125–27, 131, 179 visits of Mary and Goodwin to, 51–53, 71–72, 81, 91, 171, 176

I imagination, power of, 5, 8–10, 64–65, 99 and conception, 105, 110 Ivy, Lady Theodosia, 114–15, 164

J James I (king of England; James VI of Scotland), 168 on fairies, 35, 42–43 James II (king of England), 115, 147, 160, 169–70, 172–74 Jonson, Ben, 94, 151

K Kingsbury, Anne, 123 Knowles, Hezekiah. See Wharton, Hezekiah

L Laud, William (archbishop of Canterbury), 119–20, 136 Lawrence, Mr. (2nd husband of MP), 78–82, 88–90, 96, 119, 152 Lilly, William, 35, 119, 123 Lloyd, Talbot, 181 Lockheart, Jane, 181 Long Acre, 21, 27, 106, 130, 142, 184 Ludgate Prison, 57, 57–59, 184 Mary in, 56–60, 65, 78–79

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207

M macrocosm/microcosm, 21 magic, 19, 21, 36, 55, 65, 119, 137, 139 and alchemy, 148 charms, 22, 72, 99 circles, 20, 137 and familiars, 56, 63 Mary and, 20, 22, 28, 63, 65, 72, 99, 122, 126, 138, 143, 146, 176, 182 and religion, 8, 14, 18, 28–29, 45–46, 126, 137–38, 143 and scrying, 140 wands, 122 and worldview, 7–8, 10 magical realism, 10 Margaret (Countess of Henneberg), 108 marriage, 79, 87, 114 age of girls at, 76 and Mary, 72–87 and social/economic status, 14, 29–30, 76, 92, 131 and widows, 77, 79, 82–83, 92–93, 23n34 Mary II (queen of England), 98, 165, 173 Mary Beatrice of Modena (consort of James II), 115, 147, 172 Maubray, Thomas, 105 medicine. See physic menstruation, 53, 97–98 age of ceasing, 100–101 customs related to, 51, 139 Monmouth’s Rebellion, 160, 162, 170–71 Moorfields, 64, 69, 90, 179, 185

N natural philosophy, 21, 105, 148, 154 and science, 14 Neville, Henry (5th Earl of Westmorland), 118–19 Newgate Prison, 59–60, 185 Nurse, Mrs., 39–40

O Oates, Titus, 146n31, 169

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208 Oliver, Mr., 16 Osborne, Lady Dorothy, 73, 158n21 Osborne, Thomas (1st Earl of Danby), 73n4

P Paracelsus, 15, 35–36, 137, 161 Parish, Mary as alchemist, 81, 131, 152–62 and business, 67, 77–79 childhood of, 12–14, 37, 132 children of, 88–90, 101–10, 182 as cunning woman, 14–23, 27, 66, 72, 81, 119, 122, 143, 176 encounters with angels, 9, 102, 108, 112, 138–47, 164, 167–68 encounters with demons, 12, 17–18, 40, 126–27, 136, 141 encounters with fairies, 34, 37, 39, 41–49, 53 marriages of, 72–87 practice of physic, 14–16, 51, 54, 65, 78, 84, 91, 97, 112, 129, 154, 177 pregnancies of, 4, 85, 89, 100–110, 138, 182 religion of, 3, 45, 75, 143, 167–68 and spiritual alchemy, 9 Parish, Thomas (3rd husband of MP), 81–88, 91, 177 Parish, Thomas (son of MP), 86, 90 Partridge, Mr., 17 pawning, 24, 28, 54, 66–67, 70, 87, 102, 159, 176 Pepys, Samuel, 73 Philosopher’s Stone, 131, 148, 153, 158, 162 physic, 14–16, 22–24, 97, 149, 150 and fairies, 91, 97 impostume (abcess), 129 Mary’s practice of, 14–16, 51, 54, 78, 83–84, 112, 152, 154, 177 practitioners of, 23, 66 treatments, 15–16, 96, 129, 132, 135 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, on power of the will, 8 Popish Plot, 146n31, 169–70

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Index wprisons Ludgate Prison, 57, 58–59, 65, 184 Newgate Prison, 59–60, 185 Protestantism in England, 17, 29, 45, 48, 69, 72, 136, 142, 166, 170 and magic, 29 and Mary, 45 and the spirit world, 167–68 providence, 153, 165–66

R Raleigh, Walter, 154 Ramsey, David, 119 Ratcliff, 131–33, 162, 179, 185 Reynalde, Thomas, 104–5 Rogers, Thomas, 94 Rupert, Prince, 81, 114, 120–21, 153 Rye House Plot, 159, 170

S St. Giles-in-the-Fields, 61, 89, 175, 185 St. James’s Park, 37, 129–30, 132, 134, 172, 185 Scot, Reginald, 56, 68, 72, 122 scrying, 137–40, 142, 167 Seymour, Mrs., 70 Shakespeare, William fairies in Midsummer Night’s Dream, 94 Sharp, Jane, 100–101, 105 Shirburn Castle, 96 Shire Lane, 33, 54, 176, 184 Stonor family, 45–46 succubus, 93

T talismans, 20–22, 27–28, 144 theurgy, 137 Tobermory, 162–63 Toft, Mary, 109–10 Tomson, John (uncle of MP), 14, 18–19, 72, 78, 88, 90 Tomson, Mr. (father of MP), 14, 73–75 Tonge, Israel, 146n31, 169 Travell, Thomas, 164–65

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Index treasure buried, 36, 118, 129–30, 136–37 sunken, 164–65 treasure hunting, 14, 114, 118–35, 153, 160, 179–80 and cunning people, 14, 39, 55–56, 81 sites of, 129–30 Hounslow Heath, 121–22, 125–27, 131, 179 Ratcliff, 131–33, 162, 179 St. James’s Park, 129–30, 132 Turville, 12, 13, 14, 19, 29, 31, 39, 45, 74–75, 127 Twisden, Sir Thomas, 87–88 Tyburn, 60–63, 62

V Villiers, George (2nd Duke of Buckingham), 54, 110, 158–59, 161

W Wallbank, Mr., 119 wand, 93, 123–26 Watts, Ann, 122 West, Richard, 127 Wharton, Goodwin and alchemy, 152 and debts, 32, 106, 142–43, 146, 160, 176 and diving, 109, 115, 162–65 and fire engines, 32–33 and gambling, 20–22, 28, 32, 34 family background of, 29–31 political career of, 167, 170–71, 174–75, 180 relationship with father, 30–31, 107, 113, 144, 146–47, 167, 171, 178, 180 Wharton, Henry (brother of GW), 111, 174 Wharton, Hezekiah (son of MP and GW), 107–8, 180–82 Wharton, Jane Goodwin (mother of GW), 29–30

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209 Wharton, Peregrine (son of MP and GW), 6, 103–4, 180, 182 Wharton, Philip (4th baron; father of GW), 29–31, 144, 146, 171–72, 175–76 Wharton, Thomas (brother of GW), 30, 111, 175 Whitmore, George, 47, 136, 179 and Goodwin, 67–69, 170 imprisonment and execution of, 59–64 as Mary’s familiar spirit, 58–69, 71, 78, 91, 94, 102, 113, 121, 123–25, 157, 159, 162, 168 Wilder, Mrs., 111–13 Wildman, John, 159–62, 170–71 William III, 98, 165, 173–74 Williams, Thomas, 154–57, 172 Wilmot, John (2nd Earl of Rochester), 56, 110 witch, witches, 14, 18, 39–41, 55, 120, 137 witchcraft, 8, 14, 17–18, 21, 35, 39–41, 94, 118, 174, 178 and Mary, 17–18, 39–41, 178 Wolsey, Cardinal Thomas, 130–31 women and childbirth, 103–4 as cunning women, 14–15, 18, 40, 145 education of, 72–74, 77 marriage of, 74, 76, 79, 83, 93 pregnancy and conception and age of women, 100–101 early modern ideas about, 65, 100–101, 104–5, 109–10 multiple conceptions (superfetation), 101–2, 106–9 widows, 23n34, 77, 79, 82–83, 93 Wooburn Manor, 29–31, 31, 107, 147, 171, 175–76, 178

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About the Author Frances Timbers holds a PhD in British history from the University of Toronto (2008). She has a long-standing relationship with Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, where she is a sessional lecturer. Her dissertation research was published as Magic and Masculinity: Ritual Magic and Gender in the Early Modern Era (I. B. Taurus, 2014). An essay entitled “Mary Squires: A Case Study in Constructing Gypsy Identity in Eighteenth-Century England” was included in Worth and Repute: Valuing Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2011). Timbers also has two peer-reviewed articles: “Witches’ Sect or Prayer Meeting? Matthew Hopkins Revisited” in Women’s History Review (2008), and “Liminal Language: Boundaries of Magic and Honor in Early Modern Essex” in Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft (2007). Timbers’ recent research examines English gypsies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with the help of a two-year postdoctoral fellowship funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. That research will be published in ‘The Damned Fraternitie’: Constructing Gypsy Identity in Early Modern England, 1500–1700 (Ashgate, 2016).

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