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More was Darrel's associate in the Cleworth performances and suffered imprisonment with him. A Detection of that sinnful, shamful, lying, and ridiculous discours of Samuel Harshnet. 1600. This is Darrel's most abusive work. He takes up Harsnett's points one by one and attempts to answer them.
There is a statement by the Reverend John Swan, who wrote in 1603, that Harsnett's book had been put into the hands of King James, presumably after his coming to England; see John Swan, A True and Breife Report of Mary Glover's Vexation, and of her deliverance ... , "Dedication to the King," 3. One could wish for some confirmation of this statement.
It has indeed been suggested by one student of Shakespeare that the great playwright was lending his aid by certain allusions in Twelfth Night to Harsnett's attempts to pour ridicule on Puritan exorcism. It would be hard to say how much there is in this suggestion. About Ben Jonson we can speak more certainly. It is clearly evident that he sneered at Darrel's pretended possessions.
We saw that at the end of the sixteenth century the Anglican church stepped in to put down the exorcizing of spirits, largely perhaps because it had been carried on by Catholics and by a Puritan clergyman. Yet neither Harsnett's book nor Darrel's imprisonment quite availed to end a practice which offered at all times to all comers a path to notoriety.
Harsnett's books were the outcome of this affair and the ensuing exposures of the Catholics, and they were more significant than anything that had gone before. The Church of England had not committed itself very definitely on witchcraft, but its spokesman in the attack upon the Catholic pretenders took no uncertain ground. He was skeptical not only about exorcism but about witchcraft as well.
We have already observed that there were some evidences in the last part of Elizabeth's reign of a reaction against witch superstition. Harsnett's book, while directed primarily against exorcism, is nevertheless another proof of that reaction. Sir George Peckham of Denham near Uxbridge and Lord Vaux of Hackney were two of the most prominent Catholics who opened their homes for these performances.
It is quite clear too that it was written before Harsnett's Discovery of the Fraudulent Practices of John Darrel, for Darrel says that he hears that the Bishop of London is writing a book against him. The Triall of Maist. Dorrel, or A Collection of Defences against Allegations.... 1599. A brief Apologie proving the possession of William Sommers.
Certainly James would not at that time have sympathized with Harsnett's views about witches, but his attitude on several occasions toward those supposed to be possessed by evil spirits would indicate that he may very well have been influenced by a reading of the Discovery. One does not need to read far in Harsnett to understand what he thought.
The Replie of John Darrell, to the Answer of John Deacon, and John Walker concerning the doctrine of the Possession and Dispossession of Demoniakes ..., 1602. Harsnett's second work must not be omitted from our account.
Because his writings deal so largely with dry-as-dust reports of examinations, they have never attained to that position in English literature which parts of them merit. Harsnett's book was the last chapter in the story of Elizabethan witchcraft and exorcism. It is hardly too much to say that it was the first chapter in the literary exploitation of witchcraft.
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