Today in Salem: The doubting judge has made a decision, and nothing will change his mind. He spent much of last night swimming in rum, but even dizzy with drink he was thinking more clearly than any of the other judges. And now their astonishing inability to question the church, the government, or even the defendant has sent the unruly Bridget Bishop to die.
Despite a wretched hangover and a ferociously hot day, the doubting judge has marched purposefully to Chief Justice Stoughton’s office, and declines to sit, launching into the speech he’d laid awake composing.
“Perhaps Bridget Bishop is guilty, and her hanging is just,” he says. ”But if it’s her specter that’s doing evil, does that mean that she herself, in corporeal form, has committed a crime?”
Stoughton leans back in his chair and sets his jaw.
“And is it her specter at all? Could it be the Devil, pretending to be her?” Stoughton begins to speak, but the doubting judge presses on, dangerously disrespectful. “Could Bridget Bishop be innocent? Are we about to hang an innocent person?”
Stoughton raises his right hand and stands up.
“If the Devil is using her specter, it’s with her permission,” he says, his deep voice booming. “The Court has spoken, and the jury has decided: She is guilty. I would advise you to be careful with your questions.”
The doubting judge takes a sharp breath and reaches into his coat pocket, then hands a letter to the Chief Justice. If the court is going to use spectral evidence, then he wants no part of it. After less than two weeks on the Court, he resigns.
WHO was the doubting judge?
Nathaniel Saltonstall was 53, and was considered to be one of the most principled men of his time. He’d been a judge for 30 years when he took his seat in the witchcraft trials, but he resigned in protest just before the first hanging. He remained throughout the Trials, “very much dissatisfied with the proceedings.”
He was also known, discreetly, as having a drinking problem. His friend and colleague once said he was grieved when he “heard and saw that you had drunk to excess; so that your head and hand were rendered less useful than at other times … Let me intreat you, Sir, to break off this practice (so tis rumored to be) not as the river ; but obstinately and perpetually to refuse the yoke … I write not of prejudice, but kindness; and out of a sense of duty as indeed I do. Take it in good part from him who desires your everlasting welfare.”
Tomorrow in Salem: WARRANT: for the execution of Bridget Bishop