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She angrily said a rhyming charm that ended with the words, "I wil goe to heaven, and thou shalt goe to hell," and stooped to the ground. The story produced a sensation. Those who heard it declared at once that the woman must have been Elizabeth Wright, or her daughter Alse Gooderidge, women long suspected of witchcraft. Alse was fetched to the boy.
Perhaps the most curious of all Elizabethan witch pamphlets is entitled The most wonderfull and true Storie of a certaine Witch named Alse Gooderidge of Stapenhill, who was arraigned and convicted at Darbie, at the Assizes there.
No doubt the poor woman was taking this method of alleviating her distress; but her devotion was interpreted as worship of the Devil. So Darrel says. The pamphleteer Denison, who put together the story of Alse Gooderidge, wrote "she should have been executed but that her spirit killed her in prison."
"I have seene her begging at our doore," he declared, "as for her name I know it not." Harsnett, Discovery, 41, 265, deals briefly with the Darling case and Alse Gooderidge. See also John Darrel, A Detection of that sinnful, shamful, lying, and ridiculous discours of Samuel Harshnet , 38-40. But the fullest account is a pamphlet at the Lambeth Palace library.
As for Alse Gooderidge, she was tried at the assizes, convicted by the jury, and sentenced by Lord Chief-Justice Anderson to imprisonment. She died soon after. This affair undoubtedly widened Darrel's reputation. Not long after, a notable case of possession in Lancashire afforded him a new opportunity to attract notice.
Denison is quoted as to certain insertions made in his manuscript after it left his hands, insertions which are to be found, he says, on pages 15 and 39. The insertions complained of by Denison are indeed to be found on the pages indicated of The most wonderfull and true Storie of ... Alse Gooderidge, thus establishing his authorship of the pamphlet.
The account by Bee, of which this is an abstract, I have not seen. Alse Gooderidge was put through many examinations and finally died in prison. "She should have been executed, but that her spirit killed her in prison." John Darrel was one of those who sought to help the boy who had been bewitched by Alice. Darrel, however, receives only passing mention from the author of this pamphlet.
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