Satan's Invisible World Discovered /

In the year 1661, about the middle of March, a gentleman named Mr. Mompesson, in the county of Wilts, being at a neighbouring town, called Ludgarshal, and hearing a drum beat there, he enquired of the bailie of the town, at whose house he then was, what it meant. The bailie told him, That they had been for some days troubled with an idle drummer, who demanded money of the constable, by virtue of a pretended pass, which he thought was counterfeit. Upon this Mr. Mompesson sent for the fellow, and asked him by what authority he went up and down the country with his drum? The drummer answered, He had good authority, and produced his pass, with a warrant under the hands of Sir William Cowley, and Col. Ayliff of Creetenham. Mr. Mompesson knowing these gentlemen’s hands, discovered that the pass and warrant were counterfeit, and thereupon commanded the vagrant to put off his drum, and charged the constable to carry him before the next justice of the peace to be further examined, and punished. The fellow confessed the cheat, and begged only to have his drum. Mr. Mompesson told him, That if he understood from Colonel Ayliff, whose drummer he said he was, that he had been an honest man, he should have it again; but in the mean time he would secure it. So he left the drum with the bailie, and the drummer in the constable’s hands, who, it seems, was prevailed on by the fellow’s intreaties to let him go.——About the midst of April following, when Mr. Mompesson was preparing for a journey to London, the bailie sent the drum to his house. When he returned from that journey, his wife told him that they had been much affrighted in the night by thieves, and that the house had been like to have been broken up; and he had not been at home above three nights, when the same noise was heard, that had disturbed his family in his absence. It was a very great din and knocking at his doors, and the outside of his house. Hereupon he got up, and went about the house with a brace of pistols in his hands. He opened the door where the great knocking was, and then he heard the noise at another door. He opened that also, and went out round his house, but could discover nothing, only he heard a strange noise, as a thumping and drumming on the top of his house, which continued a great space, and then by degrees went off into the air. After this the noise of thumping and drumming was very frequent, usually five nights together, and then it would intermit three. It was on the out sides of the house, which is most of it of board. It came constantly as they were going to sleep, whether early or late. After a month’s disturbance without, it came into the room where the drum lay, four or five nights in seven, within half an hour after they were in bed, continuing almost two hours. The sign of it just before it came was, they still heard an hurling in the air over the house; and at its going off the beating of a drum, like that at the breaking up of a guard. It continued in the room for the space of two months, which time Mr. Mompesson lay there to observe it. In the fore-part of the night, it used to be very troublesome, but after two hours all would be quiet.——Mrs. Mompesson being brought to bed, there was but little noise that night she was in travel, nor any for three weeks after, till she had recovered strength. But after this civil cessation it returned in a ruder manner than before, and followed and vext the youngest children, beating their bedsteads with that violence, that all present expected when they would fall in pieces. In laying hands on them, one should feel no blows, but might perceive them to shake exceedingly. For an hour together it would beat on the drum, roundheads and cuckolds, and tat-too, and several other points of war, as well as any drummer could. After this they would hear a scraping under the children’s bed, as by something that had iron talons. It would lift the children up in their beds, follow them from one room to another, and for a while haunt none particularly but them. There was a cock-loft in the house, which had not been observed to have been troubled, thither they removed the children, putting them to bed, while it was fair day, where they were no sooner laid, but their troubler was with them as before.—On the 1st of November 1662, it kept a mighty noise; and a servant observing two boards in the children’s room seeming to move, he bid it give him one of them; upon which the board came (nothing moving it that he saw) within a yard of him. The man added, “Nay, let me have it in my hand;” upon which it was shut quite home to him; he thrust it back, and it was driven to him again, and so up and down, to and fro, at least twenty times together, till Mr. Mompesson forbad his servant’s such familiarities. This was in the day time, and seen by a whole roomful of people: that morning it left a sulphureous smell behind it, which was very offensive. At night the minister, one Mr. Craig and divers of the neighbours, came to the house on a visit. The minister went to prayer with them, kneeling at the children’s bed-side; during prayer-time, it withdrew into the cock-loft, but returned as soon as prayer was ended; and then, in sight of the company, the chairs walked about the room of themselves; the children’s shoes were hurled over their head, and every loose thing moved about the chamber. At the same time a bed-staff was thrown at the minister, which hit him on the leg, but so favourably, that some wool could not have fallen more softly; and it was observed, that it stopt just where it lighted, without rolling or stirring from that place. Mr. Mompesson perceiving that it so much persecuted the young children, he lodged them out at a neighbour’s house, taking his eldest daughter, who was about ten years of age, into his own chamber, where it had not been a month before. As soon as she was in bed, the disturbance began there again, continuing drumming and making noises; and it was observed, that it would exactly answer in drumming any thing that was beaten or called for. After this, the house where the children were lodging in, happening to be full of strangers, they were taken home, and no disturbance having been known in the parlour, they were lodged there, where also their persecutor found them; but then only plucked them by the hair and night clothes, without any other disturbance.

It was noted, that when the noise was loudest, no dog about the house would move, though the knocking was oft so boisterous and rude, that it had been heard a considerable distance in the fields, and awakened the neighbours in the village, none of which live very near the house. The servants sometimes were lift up with their beds, and then let gently down again without hurt; at other times it would lie like a great weight upon their feet.

About the latter end of December 1662, the drummings were less frequent; and then they heard a noise like the gingling of money, occasioned, as it was thought, by somewhat Mr. Mompesson’s mother had spoke the day before to a neighbour, who talked of fairies leaving money, viz. That she would like it well, if it would leave some money to make amends for their trouble. The night after the speaking of which, there was a great gingling of money over all the house. After this, it desisted from ruder noises, and employed itself in little apish, and less troublesome tricks. On Christmas even, a little before day, one of the boys arising out of his bed, was hit on a sore place on his heel, with the latch of the door; the pin that it was fastened with, was so small that it was a difficult matter to pick it out. The night after Christmas day, it threw the old gentlewoman’s clothes about the room, and hid her bible among the ashes. In such silly tricks it was frequent. After this it was very troublesome to a servant of Mr. Mompesson’s, who was a stout fellow, and of a sober conversation. This man lay within during the greatest disturbance; and for several nights, something would endeavour to pluck his clothes off the bed, so that he was lain to tug hard to keep them on, and sometimes were plucked from him by force, and his shoes thrown at his head. And now and then he should find himself forcibly held, as if he were bound hand and foot; but whenever he could make use of his sword, and struck with it, the spirit quitted its hold. A little after these contests, a son of Sir Thomas Bennet, whose workman the drummer had sometimes been, came to the house, and told Mr. Mompesson some words that he had spoken, which it seems were not well taken. For when they were in bed, the drum was beat up very violently and loudly; the gentleman arose, and called his man to him, who lay with Mr. Mompesson’s servant, just now spoken of, whose name was John.——When Mr. Bennet’s man was gone, John heard a ruffing noise in his chamber, and something came to his bed side, as if it had been one in silk. The man presently reached after his sword, which he found held from him; and it was with difficulty and much tugging that he got it in his power: which as soon as he had done the spirit left him; and it was always observed that it still avoided a sword. About the beginning of Jan. 1663, they were wont to hear a singing in the chimney, before it came down.——One night about this time, lights were seen in the house. One of them came into Mr. Mompesson’s chamber, which seemed blue and glimmering, and caused stiffness in the eyes of those who saw it. After this something was heard coming up the stair as it had been one without shoes. The light was seen four or five times in the children’s chamber; and the maids confidently affirm, the doors were at least ten times opened and shut in their sight; and when they were opened they heard a noise as if half a dozen had entered together. After which, some were heard to walk about the room, and one ruffled as if it had been in silk. The like Mr. Mompesson himself once heard.—During the time of the knocking, when many were present, a gentleman of the company said, “Satan, if the drummer set thee to work, give three knocks and no more;” which it did very distinctly, and stopt. Then the gentleman knocked, to see if it would answer him, as it was wont, but it did not. For further trial, he bid it, for confirmation, “If it were the drummer, to give five knocks and no more that night;” which it did, and left the house quiet all that night. This was done in the presence of Sir Thomas, Chamberlain of Oxfordshire, and divers others.——On Saturday morning an hour before day, January 10, a drum was heard beat upon the out sides of Mr. Mompesson’s chamber, from whence it went to the other end of the house, where some gentlemen strangers lay, playing at their door, and without, four or five several tunes, and so went off into the air.——The next night, a smith in the village lying with John the man, they heard a noise in the room as if one had been shoeing of an horse; and somewhat came, as it were with a pair of pinchers, snipping at the smith’s nose most part of the night.—One morning, Mr. Mompesson rising early to go a journey, heard a great noise below, where the children lay; and, running down with a pistol in his hand, he heard a voice crying, A witch, a witch, as they had also heard it once before; at his entrance all was quiet.—Having one night played some little tricks at Mr. Mompesson’s bed-foot, it went into another bed where one of his daughters lay; there it passed from side to side, lifting her up as it passed under. At that time, there were three kinds of noises in the bed. They endeavoured to thrust at it with a sword, but it still shifted, and carefully avoided the thrust, still getting under the child when they offered at it. The night after, it came panting like a dog out of breath; upon which one took a bed-staff to knock, which was caught out of her hand and thrown away: and company coming up, the room was presently filled with a bloomy noisome smell, and was very hot, though without fire, in a very sharp severe winter night. It continued in the bed panting and scratching an hour and a half, and then went into the next chamber, where it knocked a little, and seemed to rattle a chain. This it did for two or three nights together.

After all this, the old gentlewoman’s bible was found in the ashes, the paper side being downwards. Mr. Mompesson took it up, and observed that it lay open at the third chapter of Mark, where there is mention of unclean spirits falling down before our Saviour, and of his giving power to the twelve to cast out devils, and of the scribes opinion that he cast them out through Beelzebub. The next night they strewed ashes over the chamber to see what impressions it would leave. In the morning they found in one place the resemblance of a great claw, in another of a lesser, some letters in another, which they could make nothing of, besides many circles in the ashes.—About this time (says my author,) I went to the house, on purpose to inquire the truth of those passages of which there was so loud a report. It had ceased from its drumming and ruder noises before I came hither: but most of the more remarkable circumstances before related were confirmed to me by several of the neighbours together, who had been present at them. At this time it used to haunt the children as soon as they were laid. They went to bed that night I was there about eight o’clock, when a maid servant coming down, told us it was come. The neighbours that were there, and two ministers, who had seen and heard it divers times, went away: but Mr. Mompesson and I, and a gentleman that came with me, went up; I heard a scratching, which was very strange, as I went up the stairs; and when we came into the room, I perceived it was just behind the bolster of the childrens’ bed, and seemed to be against the tyking. It was as loud a scratching as one with long nails could make upon a bolster. There were two little modest girls in the bed, between seven and eleven years of age, as I guessed; I saw their hands without the clothes, so that they could not contribute to the noise that was behind their heads; they had been used to it, and had always somebody or other in the chamber with them; and therefore seemed not to be much affrighted; I, standing at the bed’s head, thrust my hand behind the bolster, directing it to the place whence the noise seemed to come; whereupon the noise ceased there, and was heard in another part of the bed; but when I had taken out my hand, it returned and was heard in the same place as before. I had been told that it would imitate noises, and made trial, by scratching several times upon the sheets, as five, seven, and ten, which it followed, and still stopt at any number. I searched under and behind the bed, turned up the clothes to the bed cords, grasped the bolster, sounded the wall behind, and made all search that I possibly could, to find if there were any trick, contrivance, or common cause of it; the like did my friend, but we could discover nothing. So that I was then verily persuaded, and am so still, that the noise was made by some dæmon or spirit. After we had searched about half an hour or more, it went into the midst of the bed, under the children, and there seemed to pant like a dog out of breath very loudly: I put my hand upon the place, and felt the bed bearing up against it, as if something within had thrust it up; I grasped the feathers to feel if any living thing were in them; I looked under, and every where about, to see if there were any dog or cat, or any other creature in the room, and so we all did, but found nothing. The motion it caused by this panting was so strong, that it shook the room and windows very sensibly; it continued this more than half an hour, while my friend and I staid in the room, and as long after, as we were told. During the panting, I chanced to see, as it were something (which I thought was a rat or a mouse) moving in a linen bag that hung up against another bed that was in the room; I stept and caught it up by the upper end with one hand, with which I held it, and drew it quite through the other, but found nothing at all in it. There was nobody near to shake the bag, or if there had, no one could have made such motion, which seemed to be from within, as if some living creature had moved in it. My friend and I lay in the chamber where the first and chief disturbance had been; we all slept well all night, but early before day in the morning I was awakened (and I awakened my bedfellow) by a great knocking just without our chamber door; I asked who was there several times, but the knocking still continued without answer. At last I said, “In the name of God, who is it, and what would you have?” to which a voice answered, “Nothing with you.” We thinking it had been some servant of the house, went to sleep again; but speaking of it to Mr. Mompesson, when we came down, he assured us, “That no one of the house lay that way, or had business thereabout, and that his servants were not up till he called them, which was after it was day.” Which they confirmed and protested, that the noise was not made by them. Mr. Mompesson had told us before, “That it would be gone in the middle of the night, and come again divers times early in the morning about four o’clock;” and this I suppose was about that same time. There came one morning a light into the children’s chamber, and a voice crying “A witch, a witch,” for at least an hundred times together. Mr. Mompesson at another time (being in the day) seeing some wood move there, as of itself, discharged a pistol into it, after which they found several drops of blood on the hearth, and in divers places of the stair: for two or three nights after the discharge of the pistol, there was a calm in the house; but then it came again, applying itself to a little child, newly taken from the nurse, which it so persecuted, that it would not let the poor infant rest for two nights together, nor suffer a candle in the room, but carry them away lighted up through the chimney, or cast them under the bed. It so scared this child by leaping upon it, that for some hours it could not be recovered out of the fright; so that they were forced again to put the children out of the house. The next night after, something about midnight came up the stairs, and knocked at Mr. Mompesson’s door, but he lying still, it went up another pair of stairs to his man’s chamber, to whom it appeared standing at his bed foot. The exact shape and proportion he could not discover; but he saith “He saw a great body, with two red glowring or glaring eyes, which for some time were fixed steadily upon him, and at length disappeared.” Another night, strangers being present, it purred in the children’s bed like a cat; at which time the clothes and children were lifted up from the bed, and six men could not keep them down. Hereupon they removed the children, intending to have ripped the bed; they were no sooner laid in another, but the second bed was more troubled than the first; it continued thus four hours, and beat the children’s legs against the bed-posts, that they were forced to rise and sit up all night; after this it would empty chamber-pots into their beds, and strew them with ashes from the hearth, though they were never so carefully watched. It put a long picked iron in Mr. Mompesson’s bed, and into his mother’s a naked knife upright. It would fill porrengers with ashes, throw every thing about the room, and make a noise all day.

About the beginning of April 1663, a gentleman that lay in the house, had all his money turned black in his pocket. And Mr. Mompesson coming one morning into his stable, found his horse he was wont to ride on, lying on the ground, having one of his hinder legs in his mouth, and so fastened, that it was difficult for several men to get it out with a lever. After this there were some other remarkable things, but my account goes no farther; only Mr. Mompesson wrote me word, “That afterwards the house was several nights beset with seven or eight, in the shape of men, who, as soon as a gun was discharged, would shuffle away together into an arbour.”

The drummer was tried at the assize at Salisbury upon this occasion; he was committed first to Gloucester gaol for stealing; and a Wiltshire man coming to see him, he asked, What news in Wiltshire? The man answered, “He knew of none.” “No,” saith the drummer, “did you not hear of the drumming at a gentleman’s house at Tedworth?” “That I do enough,” said the other. “Ay,” quoth the drummer, “I have plagued him, and he shall never be quiet till he hath made me satisfaction for taking away my drum.” Upon information of this, the fellow was tried for a warlock at Sarum, and all the main circumstances which I have related were sworn at the assizes by the minister of the parish, and divers others of the most intelligent and substantial inhabitants, who had been eye and ear witnesses of them, time after time, for divers years together.—The fellow was condemned for transportation, and accordingly sent away; but I know not how (it is said by raising storms, and affrighting the seamen) he made a shift to come back again. And it is observable, That during all the time of his restraint and absence, the house was quiet; but as soon as ever he came back at liberty, the disturbance returned.—He had been a soldier under Cromwell, and used to talk much of gallant books, which he had of an odd fellow who was counted a wizzard. Upon this occasion I shall here add a passage, which I had (saith my author) from Mr. Mompesson, but yet relates to the main purpose.

The gentleman who was with me at the house, Mr. Hill, being in company with one Compton of Somersetshire, practised physic, and pretends to strange matters, related to him this story of Mr. Mompesson’s disturbance. The physician told him, “He was sure it was nothing but a rendezvous of witches, and that for an hundred pounds, he would undertake to rid the house of all disturbance.” In pursuit of this discourse he talked of many things; and having drawn my friend into another room apart from the company, said, “He could make him sensible he could do something more than ordinary,” and asked him whom he desired to see? Mr. Hill had no great confidence in his talk, whose wife was then many miles distant from them at her home. Upon this Compton took up a looking-glass that was in the room, and setting it down again, bid my friend look into it, which he did, and there, as he most solemnly and seriously protested, he saw the exact image of his wife, in that habit which she then wore, and working at her needle in such a part of the room (there represented also) in which, or about which time she really was, as he found upon enquiry when he came to his own house.—The gentleman averred this to me, and he is a very sober, intelligent, and creditable person. Compton had no knowledge of him before, and was an utter stranger to the person of his wife. Thus I have written the sum of Mr. Mompesson’s disturbances, which (saith my author) I had partly from his own mouth related before divers, who had been witnesses of all, and confirmed his relation, and partly from his own letters, from which the order and series of things is taken. The same particulars he wrote also to Dr. Creed, then Doctor of the chair in Oxford.