Note 5. 3. 6 — INTRODUCTION

little Darrels tricks. John Darrel (fl. 1562-1602) was born, it is believed, at Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, about 1562. He graduated at Cambridge, studied law, and then became a preacher at Mansfield. He began to figure as an exorcist in 1586, when he pretended to cast out an evil spirit from Catherine Wright of Ridgway Lane, Derbyshire. In 1596 he exorcised Thomas Darling, a boy of fourteen, of Burton-on-Trent, for bewitching whom Alice Goodrich was tried and convicted at Derby. A history of the case was written by Jesse Bee of Burton (Harsnet, Discovery, p. 2). The boy Darling went to Merton College, and in 1603 was sentenced by the Star-chamber to be whipped, and to lose his ears for libelling the vice-chancellor of Oxford. In March, 1596-7, Darrel was sent for to Clayworth Hall, Shakerly, in Leigh parish, Lancashire, where he exorcised seven persons of the household of Mr. Nicholas Starkie, who accused one Edmund Hartley of bewitching them, and succeeded in getting the latter condemned and executed in 1597. In November, 1597, Darrel was invited to Nottingham to dispossess William Somers, an apprentice, and shortly after his arrival was appointed preacher of St. Mary’s in that town, and his fame drew crowded congregations to listen to his tales of devils and possession. Darrel’s operations having been reported to the Archbishop of York, a commission of inquiry was issued (March 1597-8), and he was prohibited from preaching. Subsequently the case was investigated by Bancroft, bishop of London, and S. Harsnet, his chaplain, when Somers, Catherine Wright, and Mary Cooper confessed that they had been instructed in their simulations by Darrel. He was brought before the commissioners and examined at Lambeth on 26 May 1599, was pronounced an impostor, degraded from the ministry and committed to the Gatehouse. He remained in prison for at least a year, but it is not known what became of him. (Abridged from DNB.)