Saducismus Triumphatus: Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions

...concealed it until St. Thomas's Eve before Christmas, when, soon after sunset as he was walking in his garden, she appeared again. Then she so threatened and frightened him that he faithfully promised to reveal it the next morning.

In the morning, he went to a magistrate and made the whole matter known with all the circumstances. Upon a diligent search being made, the body was found in a coal pit with five wounds in the head; the pick, shoes, and stockings were still bloody, exactly as the apparition had described to the miller. Consequently, Walker and Mark Sharp were both apprehended, but they would confess nothing.

At the Assizes original: "Assizes," periodic courts held in English counties for civil and criminal cases following—I think it was at Durham—they were arraigned, found guilty, condemned, and executed; however, I never heard that they confessed to the crime. There were some who reported that the apparition appeared to the judge, or the foreman of the jury (who was alive in Chester-le-Street original: "Chester in the Street" about ten years ago, as I have been credibly informed), but I have no certainty of that. There are many persons still alive who can remember this strange murder and its discovery; for it was, and sometimes still is, discussed as much in the North Country as almost anything that has ever been heard of, and the account was printed, though it is now unavailable.

I relate this with the greater confidence (though I may fail in some of the specific details) because I saw and read the letter that was sent to Sergeant Hutton Sir Richard Hutton (1560–1639), a prominent judge, who then lived at Goldsborough in Yorkshire, from the judge before whom Walker and Mark Sharp were tried and by whom they were condemned. I had a copy of it until about the year 1658, when it and many other books and papers were taken from me. I confess this to be one of the most convincing stories of undoubted truth that I ever read, heard, or knew of; it carries with it the most evident force to satisfy the most incredulous spirit that there are really, sometimes, such things as apparitions.

Thus far his account. This story is so significant that I make mention of it in my Scholia original: "Scholia," explanatory notes or commentaries on a text on my Immortality of the Soul, in my Philosophical Volume original: "Volumen Philosophicum", Volume 2 original: "Tom. 2". When I acquainted a friend of mine—a prudent, intelligent person, Dr. J. D.—with this, he offered of his own accord (it being a thing of such consequence) to send to a friend of his in the North for greater assurance of the truth of the narrative, a motion which I willingly embraced.

The answer to this letter from his friend Mr. Shepherdson is as follows:

"I have done what I can to inform myself of the incident of Sharp and Walker. I could meet very few men who were adults at that time or present at the trial, except for these two in the..."