Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:51:37.917Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Religion and Magic in Elizabethan Wales: Robert Holland's Dialogue on Witchcraft

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Stuart Clark  and
P. T. J. Morgan
Stuart Clark
Affiliation:
Lecturers in History, University College of Swansea
P. T. J. Morgan
Affiliation:
Lecturers in History, University College of Swansea
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Not much is known about Robert Holland, the only Renaissance demonologist to venture into print in the Welsh language. He was born in 1557 at Conway, the third son of a gentleman, and went eventually to Cambridge and into the Church of England. He took his B.A. at Magdalene in 1577–8, was ordained at Ely two years later and spent the 1580s preaching and schoolmastering in East Anglia. In 1591 he became rector of a crown living at Prendergast, near Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, and he was subsequently presented to Walwyn's Castle and Robeston West in the same county. As a result of the patronage of John Philipps of Picton, he was also incumbent of the Carmarthenshire parish of Llanddowror from at least 1594 until 1608. He is presumed to have died before the end of James I's reign, probably in 1622.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , January 1976 , pp. 31 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

We are indebted to Mr Keith Thomas for comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this article.

page 31 note 1 Dictionary of National Biography; Dictionary of Welsh Biography (and see the revised entry in Y Bywgraffiadur Cymreig, 1941–50, London 1970, 104)Google Scholar; , J. and Venn, J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Pt. 1 ii, Cambridge 1922, 394Google Scholar; Holland, Thomas Erskine, The Hollands of Conway, London 1893–1899, repr. with additions, 1915, 26–39.Google Scholar

page 31 note 2 Title-page and Dedication.

page 31 note 3 Darmerth, neu Arlwy Gweddi, Oxford 1600. No original copy exists and the work is known only in Williams, Moses, Cofrestr o'r holl Lyfrau Printjedig (‘A Register of All Printed Books’), London 1717Google Scholar, sig.. A6v For details see Rev. Rowlands, William, Cambrian Bibliography (Llyfryddiaeth y Cymry), ed. and enlarged Rev. Evans, D. Silvan, Llanidloes 1869, 7–3, 314.Google Scholar

page 32 note 1 Known only in the reissue by Stephen Hughes, Catechism Mr. Perkins, London 1672. For details see Davies, W. Ll., ‘Short-tide list of Welsh books 1546–1700, Part II,’ Journal of the Welsh Bibliographical Society, ii (1916–1923), 223.Google Scholar There was another Welsh translation of this catechism Dy Evan Roberts, printed in 1649 as Sail Crefydd Gristnogawl.

page 32 note 2 Agoriad byrr or Weddi'r Arglwydd, entered in the Stationers’ Registers on 25 June 1599 as ‘A booke in Welshe being Parkins uppon the Lordes Praier’ but known only in Stephen Hughes, Cyfarwydd-deb i'r Anghyfarwydd, London 1677. See Davies, W. Ll., ‘Welsh books entered in the Stationers' Registers 1554–1708, Part I,’ Journal of the Welsh Bibliographical Society, ii (1916–1923), 170Google Scholar; Rowlands, Cambrian Bibliography, 209–12. For Holland's translations of Perkins see Davies, W. Ll., ‘Robert Holland and William Perkins,’ Journal of the Welsh Bibliographical Society, ii (1916–1923), 273–4.Google Scholar

page 32 note 3 Details of the literary connexions between George Owen Harry and Robert Holland are in a Bibliographical Note by John Ballinger to Basilikon Doron by King James I: Fragment of a Welsh Translation by Robert Holland, 1604, Cardiff, 1931. The translation extended to Book I and approximately one sixth of Book II of the Basilikon Doron.Google Scholar

page 32 note 4 Greenleaf, W. H., Order, Empiricism and Politics: Two Traditions of English Political Thought 1500–1700, London 1964, 83–4Google Scholar, 115–17; Kendrick, T. D., British Antiquity, London 1950, passim.Google Scholar

page 32 note 5 Lloyd, H. A., The Gentry of South-West Wales, 1540–1640, Cardiff 1968, 204Google Scholar; Davies, J. Conway, ‘Letters of admission to the Rectory of Whitechurch’, National Library of Wales Journal, iv (1945–1946), 85–6.Google Scholar

page 33 note 1 Trevor-Roper, H. R., Religion, the Reformation and Social Change, 2nd ed., London 1972, 142.Google Scholar

page 33 note 2 Edwards, Charles, Hones y Ffydd Ddiffuant (‘History of the Unfeigned Faith’) (facsimile of 3rd ed. of 1677, ed. Williams, G.J, Cardiff 1936), 204–5.Google Scholar The dialogue was reprinted by the Welsh publisher and educationist Stephen Hughes of Swansea as an appendix to his 1681 edition of the Vicar Pritchard, Cannwyll y Cymru (‘The Welshmen's Candle’), 457–68, and appeared again in the subsequent editions of 1725, c. 1730, c. 1735, c. 1745, c. 1750, c. 1755, and 1766. The quotations given in this article are all translated from the 1681 edition. Hughes's own title for the dialogue might be rendered as ‘Two Welshmen Tarrying Far From Their Country’ but the title Tudor and Gronow (Tvdyr ag Ronw) comes from a manuscript copy of the text which appears to be earlier than 1681 in National Library of Wales, CwrtmawrMS.114B, fols. 243–65. The dialogue is subtitled ‘An argument between Tudor and Gronow, Tudor asking Gronow what meant it to cast a cat unto the devil, and he answering in various ways, question for question, reason for reason’. There is a modern edition of the text in Welsh in a collection of prose texts, edited by Jones, Thomas, Rhyddiaith Gymraeg, 1547–1618, Cardiff 1956, 161–73.Google Scholar For a fuller bibliographical treatment see Grufrydd, Robert Geraint, ‘Religious Prose in Welsh from the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth to the Restoration’ (unpublished D.Phil, thesis, University of Oxford, 1952). 374 n. 96.Google Scholar

page 34 note 1 The Biblical texts cited are as follows: Exod. vii, xxii, 18; Levit. xix. 31, xx. 6, 27; Deut. xviii. 10–12; I Sam. xxviii. 3–7; II Kings xxiii. 24; I Chron. x. 13–14; Acts v. 36, xiii. 6; Gal. v. 20–1; James iv. 7; Rev. xxi. 8. There is also a reference to the historian Eusebius.

page 34 note 2 Johann Wier, De praestigiis daemonum, et incantationibus ac veneficiis, Basle, 1563, Book II, Chap. I; Lambert Daneau, A dialogue of witches, trans. T. Twyne, London 1575, Part I.

page 34 note 3 Jean Bodin, De la démonomanie des sorciers, Paris 1580, ‘Refutation des opinions de Jean Wier,’ 220–5v.

page 35 note 1 Discoverie of witchcraft, London 1584, 111–13, 139–50, 508–9.

page 35 note 2 It appears in William Salesbury, Oll Synnwyr pen Kembero ygyd (dated 1546–53 by J. Gwenogvryn Evans in his facsimile edition, London 1902), xv; John Davies, Antiquae linguae Britannicae, el linguae Latinae, dictionarium duplex, London 1632, unpaginated Appendix of Welsh Proverbs; and James Howell, Lexicon tetraglotton, London 1660, Appendix ‘Diharebion Cymraeg wedi ei cyfieithu i'r Saesoneg,’ (‘Welsh proverbs translated into English’), 8 (trans, as ‘The devil take the curs'd cat’). The exact significance of the saying is obscure and was so in the seventeenth century; in an anonymous MS. collection of Welsh proverbs of 1663 it is entered with the comment ‘rationem proverbi non intelligo’; National Library of Wales, Peniarth MS. 255, fol. 7.

page 35 note 3 Pitcairn, R., Ancient Criminal Trials in Scotland, Edinburgh, Maidand Club, 1829–1833, i. 211–12Google Scholar, 236–7; Newes from Scotland declaring the damnable life and death of Doctor Fian, a notable sorcerer (London, 1591?)Google Scholar, repr. The Gentleman's Magazine, xlix (1779), 449.Google Scholar

page 35 note 4 See the examples given by Thomas, Keith, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Penguin, ed. 1973, 41.Google Scholar

page 36 note 1 Kittredge, G. L., Witchcraft in Old and New England (reissued New York. 1958), 96Google Scholar and see 93–7, 148 on animal magic generally; The Journal of Sir Roger Wilbraham, 1593–1616, ed. Scott, H. S., Camden Miscellany, x, London 1902, 69.Google Scholar

page 36 note 2 Owen, William (-Pughe), The Heroic Elegies and other Pieces of Llywarç Hen, London 1792, xxxiGoogle Scholar; Pughe misreads ‘caeth’ (captive) instead of ‘cath’ (cat) and thus mistranslates the proverb. For modern accounts see Sir Rhys, John, Celtic Folklore Welsh and Manx, Oxford 1901, 304–9Google Scholar; Owen, T. M., Welsh Folk Customs, Cardiff 1959, 98Google Scholar; Owen, D. Edmondes, ‘Pre-Reformation survivals in Radnorshire’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1910–1911, 103–4.Google Scholar

page 36 note 3 Notestein, W., A History of Witchraft in England from 1558 to 1718, New York 1911, repr. 1965, 160–2.Google Scholar For many English examples of the use of familiars see Kittredge, 174–84; Thomas, 530–1; Ewen, C. L'Estrange, Witchcraft and Demonianism, London 1933, 70–6 and passim.Google Scholar

page 37 note 1 For examples see Witchcraft, ed. Rosen, BarbaraLondon 1969, 115, 182–9.Google Scholar

page 37 note 2 Discourse of the damned art of witchcraft, Cambridge 1610, 174–8, 153–6, 255–6.

page 37 note 3 A treatise against witchcraft, Cambridge 1590, sig. Dlv–D2r, F4r–G2v.

page 38 note 1 Dialogue concerning witchces and witchcraftes, London 1603, see esp. sig. D3r–H2r; Gifford expressed the same views in his A discourse of the subtill practises of devilles by witches and sorcerers, London 1587, see esp. sig. Glr, Hlr–H4r. For Puritanism and witchcraft in England see Teall, J. L., “Witchcraft and Calvinism in Elizabethan England: Divine power and human agency’, Journal of the History of Ideas, xxiii (1962), 21–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 38 note 2 Macfarlane, A., Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England, London 1970, Chap. 8, ‘Cunning folk and witchcraft prosecutions’. Gifford wrote of one wise woman who had forty customers a week; Dialogue, sig. Hlr; Henry Holland thought that clients travelled up to thirty or forty miles for a consultation; A treatise, sig. Blr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 39 note 1 Thomas, passim, but see esp. 27–57, 87–9, 131–2, 209–332, 761–6; Gifford, Dialogue, sig. H3v; Henry Holland, A treatise, sig. H2v–H4r.

page 40 note 1 Williams, Glanmor, Welsh Reformation Essays, Cardiff 1967, 148Google Scholar; Kennedy, W. P. M., Parish Life Under Queen Elizabeth, London 1914, 36.Google Scholar

page 40 note 2 Penry, John, Three Treatises concerning Wales, ed. Williams, David, Cardiff 1960, 36, 62.Google Scholar George Owen did accuse Penry of exaggeration, however, in Description of Penbrokeshire, ed. Owen, Henry, Cardiff 1906, iii. 98–9.Google Scholar Owen believed that ‘free chapels’ caused the hopelessly disordered state of the Church in Pembrokeshire c. 1603; see Charles, B. G., ‘The second book of George Owen's Description of Penbrokeshire’, National Library of Wales Journal, v (1947–1948), 280–1.Google Scholar

page 41 note 1 Hill, Christopher, ‘Puritans and “the dark corners of the land”’, in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., xiii (1963), 82–4Google Scholar; Richards, T., History of the Puritan Movement in Wales, 1639–1653, London 1920, 11.Google Scholar

page 41 note 2 Strype, J., Annals of the Reformation, iii, I, Oxford 1824, 175; Glanmor Williams, 155–90.Google Scholar

page 41 note 3 Kennedy, , 36; Strype, Life of Grindal, Oxford 1821, 401Google Scholar; Trevor-Roper, H. R., Archbishop Laud, London 1940, 62Google Scholar; Laud, Works, Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, Oxford 1853–1860, v. 335–6Google Scholar; Saunders, E., A View of the State of Religion in the Diocese of St. Davids, London 1721, passim but see esp. 24–5, 35–7, 37–63.Google Scholar

page 41 note 4 Glanmor Williams, 172; Kennedy, W. P. M., Elizabethan Episcopal Administration, London 1925, iii. 139–52Google Scholar; cf. the remarks about popular trust in the occult powers of saints and shrines in bishop Davies's funeral sermon for Walter Devereux, first earl of Essex, Thomas, David R., The Life and Work of Bishop Davies and William Salesbury, Oswestry 1902, 48–9.Google Scholar

page 41 note 5 Penry, Three Treatises concerning Wales, ed. D. Williams, 34, 14–15; Hill, ‘Puritans and “the dark corners of the land”’, Trans, of Royal Historical Soc., 5th series, xiii (1963), 96.Google Scholar

page 42 note 1 Perkins talked of ‘Catholic witchcraft’, in Discourse of the damned art of witchcraft, 25–6, and Henry Holland accused users of charms with being ‘Papistes and rebellious Athistes’, A treatise against witchcraft, sig. Glv. Immorality was another associated phenomenon; when he introduced Penry's treatise to the House of Commons, Edward Dounlee, M.P. for Carmarthen, spoke of the great idolatry begun again in Wales to an idol; of the number of people that resort to it; of the solitary [character] and closeness of the place, amongst bushes, where they abuse other men's wives; of the service … said in neither Welsh nor English tongue; and of the superstition they use to a spring-well, in casting it over their shoulders and head; and what ignorance they live in for lack of learned and honest ministers’: Neale, J. E., Elizabeth I and her Parliaments, 1584–1601, London 1957, 153.Google Scholar

page 42 note 2 Sig. M3v.

page 42 note 3 National Library of Wales, Peniarth MS. 172; the Dictionary of Welsh Biography lists a Richard Jones, stationer and printer of Welsh books in London 1550–80.

page 42 note 4 National Library of Wales, Peniarth MS. 187; Evans did, however, caution that it was not ‘godly for a Christian to be too brightly exact or too searchingly curious’ in wizardry and astrology; see fol. 54.

page 42 note 5 National Library of Wales, Mostyn MS. 110.

page 42 note 6 National Library of Wales, Cwrtmawr MS. 6.

page 42 note 7 Dictionary of Welsh Biography; Rev. Owen, Elias, Welsh Folk-Lore: a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales, Oswestry and Wrexham 1896, 252–3Google Scholar; Thomas, Gwyn, ‘Dau Lwyd o Gynfal,’ (‘The two Llwyds of Cynfal’ i.e. Huw Llwyd and his son or grandson, the Puritan Morgan Llwyd) Ysgrifau Beirniadol (‘Critical Essays’), v, ed. Williams, John Ellis Caerwyn, Denbigh 1970, 71–98; National Library of Wales, Peniarth MS. 123. For other MSS. collections of astrological and medical lore of this period in Wales see National Library of Wales, Cwrtmawr MS. 38, Peniarth MS. 171, Peniarth MS. 204, Peniarth MS. 206, and British Museum, Additional MSS. 14,882, 14,913 and 31,055.Google Scholar

page 43 note 1 Owen, G. Dyfnallt, Elizabethan Wales: the Social Scene, Cardiff 1964, 62–3.Google Scholar

page 43 note 2 C. L'Estrange Ewen, Witchcraft and Demonianism, 422.

page 43 note 3 Jones, J. Gwynfor, ‘“Y Tylwyth Teg” yng Nghymru r Unfed a'r Ail Ganrif ar Bymtheg’, (The fairies in Wales in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’) Llên Cymru, viii (1964–1965), 96–9.Google Scholar

page 43 note 4 Green, Francis, ‘Pembrokeshire in by-gone days’, West Wales Historical Records, ix (1920–1923), 126–7Google Scholar; Bodleian Library, MS. Asnmole 1815, fol. 1 records a similar case in a nearby Pembrokeshire parish from the 1690s (we owe this reference to Dr. Frank Emery of St. Peter's College, Oxford). For other cases of black witchcraft in seventeenth-century Wales, see National Library of Wales, Llanfair and Brynodol Deeds, Bundle 115 (we owe this reference to Dr. D. W. Howell of University College, Swansea); C. L'Estrange Ewen, op. cit., 330–4, 422–4; Davies, D. Leslie, ‘The black arts inWrexham’, Denbighshire Historical Society Transactions, xix (1970), 230–3.Google Scholar

page 44 note 1 John Penry, op. cit., ed. David Williams, 32–3.

page 44 note 2 On children and fire see Deut. xviii. 10; 11 Kings xvii. 17 and 11 Kings xxi. 6.

page 44 note 3 Pritchard, Rhys, Cannwyll y Cymru (‘The Welshmen's Candle’), ed. Rees, Rice, 3rd ed., Wrexham 1867, 197 (stanza cxviii), 288–90 (stanza cci). Compare the poem of complaint ‘against some evil habits of people in Wales’ in S. Hughes and Hary Evans, Cynghorion Tad iw Fab (‘Advice of a Father to his Son’), London 1683, 57–8, complaining of the frequency of worship of die Devil and sorcery.Google Scholar

page 45 note 1 Jones, Edmund, A Relation of Apparitions of Spirits in the Principality of Wales, Trevecka 1780, 68–72Google Scholar, and A History of the Parish ofAberystruth, Trevecka 1779, 68–87Google Scholar; Davies, J. H., Rhai o Hen Ddewiniaid Cymru (‘Some Old Welsh Wizards’), London 1901Google Scholar, passim; Davies, J. C., Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales, Aberystwyth 1911, 230–64Google Scholar; Jones, T. Gwynn, Welsh Folk-Lore, London 1930, 119–44Google Scholar; Rev. Elias Owen, op. cit., 216–62; Sir John Rhys, 349–50; Hamer, E. and Lloyd, H. W., The History of the Parish of Llangurig, London 1875, 110–19.Google Scholar On Harries, see esp. Dictionary of Welsh Biography and E. Jones, ‘A Welsh wizard’, The Carmarthen Antiquary (1945–1946), 47–8.Google Scholar For evidence from modern Wales see Davies, W. Ll., ‘The conjuror in Montgomershire’, Montgomeryshire Collections, xlv (1938), 158–70.Google Scholar

page 45 note 2 The quotation is at p. 50 of The Devil of Mascon which is paginated separately.

page 45 note 3 This work contains the fullest treatment of witchcraft in Welsh in this period.

page 46 note 1 Jenkins, Geraint H., Welsh Books and Religion, 1660–1730, Chap. 8 (unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Wales, 1974).Google Scholar One of the last English works to defend the reality of the occult was Richard Baxter's The certainty of the worlds of spirits (1691). For the correspondence on this subject which Baxter had with two Welsh scholars in the 1650s see Geoffrey Nuttall, F., ‘The correspondence of John Lewis, Glasgrug, with Richard Baxter and with Dr. John Ellis, Dolgelley’, Journal of the Merioneth Historical and Record Society, ii (1953–1956). 120–34.Google Scholar

page 46 note 2 Edwards, Charles, Hanes y Ffydd Ddiffuant (‘History of the Unfeigned Faith’), facsimile of 3rd ed. of 1677, ed. Williams, G. J., Cardiff 1936, 238.Google Scholar

page 46 note 3 Details in Gruffydd, Robert Geraint, ‘Religious Prose in Welsh from the Beginning of the Reign of Elizabeth to the Restoration’, 86–128, 366–78 (unpublished D. Phil, thesis, University of Oxford, 1952).Google Scholar