Today in Salem: Governor Phips is locked in his office, avoiding the judges, recalling the desperate letter he’d written to the King. But of course he hasn’t heard back yet. Phips had sent his plea less than three weeks ago. The King would have had to write back immediately for his response to cross the Atlantic in time. Still, Phips had hoped.
“My enemies are seeking to turn it all upon me,” he’d written. “I depend upon your friendship, and desire you will please to give a true understanding of the matter if any thing of this kind be urged or made to use of against me.”
If the King would only tell him what to do, then Phips wouldn’t have to decide himself. But now he’s run out of time, and as dreadful as it feels, he knows what the right thing is to do.
When he finally emerges from his office, an assistant judge is waiting for him, and once again poses the question. Will the Court sit in three days?
The Governor looks up and takes a breath before speaking.
“It must fall,” he says.
“What does it mean, though?” The assistant judge has relayed the news to the Chief Justice, who is still angry after yesterday’s cold and stormy journey. “How do we proceed?” the assistant asks. “There are still so many in jail, waiting for trials, some even condemned already.”
But the Chief Justice doesn’t know. Neither do the jail keepers, the prisoners, the ministers, or the citizens. No one knows what will happen next. They know only one thing.
Today in Salem: A naked judge stands before the fire, shivering and damp, wrapped in a rough woolen blanket and hoping for something warm to eat. He is the second most powerful man in the colony, the Chief Justice and next in command to the Governor. In this moment, though, he is in a borrowed bedroom with a borrowed blanket, cold and wet and without clothing, powerless over what has brought him here.
Bound for Boston, he’d left home in the early morning, riding into a rainstorm that quickly became a downpour and then a gusting deluge. The journey had been challenging from the start, but it’s become impossible to continue. So he’s sent his servant back to retrieve some dry clothes, and now has little to do but wait and think.
He is certain of one thing: The Devil is threatening the Church throughout all of New England, and is using witchcraft to do it. And he, the Chief Justice, has been fierce in the fight against it. He’s led 24 trials and authorized 24 executions. Nearly 100 other accused witches are in jail waiting for trials, with more accusations every day. Clearly there is much work to be done, and he will not stop until every witch in New England has been found and destroyed.
The Governor seems less committed, though. He’s spent much of the last few months in Maine, fighting the frontier wars. He hasn’t attended a single hanging. Reprieves are given and taken away impatiently, depending only on who he speaks with that day. He seems bored, anxious, and indecisive.
In four days the Court is scheduled to begin its next session, with several trials already scheduled. But rumors abound that the Governor will stop the Court from sitting. The Chief Justice has asked him several times whether the rumors are true, but the Governor has been evasive, changing the subject or avoiding him entirely.
Still shivering, the Chief Justice decides to confront the Governor forcefully, as soon as he gets to Boston. It’s a simple question: Yes or no? Will the witchcraft trials continue?
Today in Salem: It’s the Sabbath, and the Rev Samuel Parris is preaching from the Song of Solomon about the love between friends, made even sweeter when they reconcile after their differences. The analogy is not lost on his congregation, but the wounds of the last few months are too deep to heal so easily.
In jail, the pregnant Elizabeth Proctor feels her baby roll and twist. Like his father, she thinks. Always moving. She imagines him as a diligent child, a strong young man, then a godly husband and father. She grieves profoundly, though. She will not live to see him as anything more than a days-old infant. How many times will she put the baby to breast before she faces the noose?
In the State House, Governor Phips is avoiding the judges, all of whom are peppering him with questions. Court is due to resume in ten days, but the judges have sniffed out his ambivalence. If he allows the Court to proceed unchecked, then he will have defied the ministers and many influential citizens. Reining in the Court, though, defies the judges. It’s simply not possible to please everyone, and whatever he does will be held against him. And so he dithers.
Today in Salem: After several weeks away, Governor Phips had returned two days ago astonished to find that his wife has been named as a witch. She has always been a kind and merciful woman, but now she has gone too far, and it’s counting against her. While the Governor was gone, and without any authority, she’d signed a warrant to release a specific woman from prison. Now the woman has disappeared, and the jailer must be fired. Her accusers say it’s obvious: His wife must be a witch, in league with one that she’s set free. What else could explain it?
Privately, the Governor can only hope that his wife hasn’t mentioned the horoscope. Many years ago an astrologer had given it to him unasked for. Then last winter the Governor’s wife had found it and destroyed it, thinking that its predictions were a little too accurate. Would owning a horoscope reflect badly on either of them? Does it matter that he didn’t ask for it? Or that she’d destroyed it as soon as she found it?
Meanwhile, a notable man has brought his sick child all the way from Boston to ask the afflicted girls if a specter is causing the illness. For the first time, though, when the girls formally accuse a specific woman, the judges refuse to arrest her. Then, when the prominent minister Increase Mather hears about it, he confronts the child’s father. Why didn’t he seek help from God in Boston rather than the Devil in Salem?
Today in Salem: The beggar Sarah Good is pleading with the pregnant Elizabeth Proctor for help. Sarah has always been an angry beggar, as likely to throw a stone as she is to say thank you. But today is different. She will be hanged in five days, leaving behind her four-year-old daughter Dorcas, who is also in jail. Will Elizabeth care for the little girl after Sarah is taken away? Make sure she eats? sleeps? says her prayers?
Sarah has chosen Elizabeth carefully. Being pregnant, Elizabeth is unlikely to be hanged soon. And, unlike most of the women there, she still has young children, and will know the needs of a four-year-old.
Still, Elizabeth hesitates. Dorcas hasn’t once left her mother’s side, hissing and scratching at anyone who draws near. A bite of bread, a wink, a scrap of string – nothing quiets or tempts her. What else can Elizabeth do, though? She gives a small nod. The girl will eat when she’s hungry and sleep when she’s tired. Prayers are unimaginable except on the little girl’s behalf, but Elizabeth can at least do that.
Meanwhile, a few doors down, the Governor is inhaling the aromas of roast fowl and boiled turnips, drumming his fingers on the table and bouncing his knee. He’s still giddy from yesterday’s military displays, impatient and eager to go north to fight the enemies on the frontier.
A feast extends from the head of the table, where he’s sitting, and ends at the other end, where the ponderous Chief Justice Stoughton sits, as still as the Governor is fidgety. Raucous men line each side, guffawing and drunk on rum. It’s a public thanksgiving, declared by the Governor, with gratitude to God for his recent safe return from London, recent victories over the war-mongering French and Indians, and so many other personal blessings in his life.
Today in Salem: Governor William Phips is looking down from a small hill in Boston Common, bouncing on his toes, gleeful with anticipation. Eight companies of militia — hundreds of men — are performing military drills below, preparing to fight the French and their Indian allies. He closes his eyes and listens, feels his heart beating in time with their march. Left, right, left, right.
The witchcraft trials and hangings are little more than a mosquito buzzing, an occasional distraction that the Governor has little time and patience for. While men from Salem have been nattering on about someone – Rebecca? Hannah? — the Governor has been attending to the far more enjoyable task of organizing a war expedition to Maine, one he will lead himself.
He’s appointed committees to arrange for food and supplies, and will set sail as soon as the warships are ready. He’ll stay in Maine for as long as it takes to defeat the enemy, trusting his second in command, Chief Justice Stoughton, to deal with smaller problems like Salem.
Today in Salem: 15 men crowd around the lifeless body of Roger Toothaker, lying in the corner of the men’s cell. The coroner has summoned them as a jury, and after interviewing the other eight men who are in prison, they decide Toothaker died of natural causes.
Toothaker called himself a doctor, counter-magician, and folk-healer, and even bragged that he could find and kill witches. He’d failed to save himself, though, from accusation, jail, and now death. Unfortunately his jail bill of four weeks hasn’t been paid, so he will stay where he is for today. If his bill isn’t paid tomorrow (unlikely, since his wife is also in jail), he’ll be buried with a shovelful of lime in a pauper’s unmarked grave.
While the Coroner’s Jury is at their unpleasant task, Governor Phips is mopping up the foamy puddle of beer he’s just spilled, quickly sliding the document he’s reading out of the way. It had arrived yesterday, and he’d started reading it then, but it’s long and dense, and his attention keeps wandering to the frontier wars in Maine.
Days ago he and his Council had asked the area’s most prominent ministers for their advice. Now they’d responded, and their message was mixed. They disagreed with using spectral evidence and the “touch test,” when an accused person was forced to touch an afflicted girl, who invariably and instantly recovered from her fits. Couldn’t the Devil be behind both of those phenomena?
Today in Salem: It’s a miserably hot day, as humid as it is hot, and the women in Boston Jail are fanning themselves with their caps while the grieving Sarah Good seems not to notice. 300 feet away, the Governor and his council of advisors are at the Town House, building the Court that will hang the guilty witches.
More than 50 people are crowded into the rank jails of Salem, Boston, Ipswich, and Cambridge. Some have been there for months, shackled and chained, and as more people are arrested and jailed, it’s only getting more crowded, rank, and impossible. One person has already died from the conditions, and more are sick.
The only one way out is through a trial, which, given the judges’ assumption of guilt, will probably end badly. But even that exit is blocked, because trials can’t happen without a court. There hasn’t been a court in eight years, not since the King revoked the last Charter. Now, though, now the Charter is back, with a new governor who is wasting no time setting up a government.
After meeting with his Councilors, the royally appointed Governor Phips announces the formation of a new court: the Court of Oyer and Terminer (meaning “to hear and determine”). Its sole purpose is to clear the backlog in the jails, using strict English law rather than the more flexible colony laws. He puts the conservative, tough-minded William Stoughton in charge as Chief Justice, leading eight other judges.
WHY is this important?
Four big wheels were set in motion today, which together made a straight and slippery path from jail to the hangman’s noose.
1 – Witchcraft was now officially a capital offense, according to English law. There was no more room to question a death sentence or debate shades of gray.
2 – The court of Oyer and Terminer wasn’t restricted to a recurring schedule. Judges could hold court whenever and as often as they wanted to.
3 – Appointing William Stoughton as Chief Justice was almost like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. It wasn’t obvious at first that he would be so ruthless. But, as a conservative Puritan with no legal background, he was zealous in finding and eliminating witches, and often deviated from normal courtroom procedure. In addition to admitting questionable spectral evidence, he allowed accusers and judges to talk privately, let spectators interrupt trials, wouldn’t allow the accused to have lawyers defend them, and let judges interrogate witnesses and otherwise play the role of prosecutors.
4 – Governor Phips was now free to attend to what he really cared about: the Wars in Maine. Later he would write that when he’d returned from London he’d found the province “miserably harrassed with a most Horrible witchcraft or Possession of Devills.” But during the fateful summer of 1692, he didn’t attend a single trial or execution. Instead he spent the summer recruiting troops and gathering supplies to build a fort in Maine, and left Massachusetts entirely for about two months. It wasn’t until his own wife was accused that he turned his attention fully to Salem.
WHO were the Judges and Officials of Oyer and Terminer?
William Stoughton (Chief Justice) – age 61; the only bachelor on the court. He’d studied for the ministry at Harvard and Oxford, and had preached successfully both in England and in Massachusetts. He left the pulpit without being ordained to enter a life of politics, and, despite lacking any legal training, became the Chief Justice of Massachusetts. Served as a justice under an immensely unpopular Governor .
Nathaniel Saltonstall – age 53; a militia leader who resigned from the court in protest after the first hanging. He was replaced by Jonathan Corwin, age 52, a merchant and magistrate at the early examinations in Salem.
Wait-Still Winthrop – age 50; a militia leader and trained physician who attended Harvard for one year.
Peter Sergeant – age 45; a merchant and former constable.
John Richards – age 40; a military officer, businessman, and merchant who’d worked his way up from a position as a servant.
Samuel Sewall – age 40; educated for the ministry at Harvard, but entered business. His diaries are among the most important documents that show us life through Puritan eyes. He would be the only judge to apologize for his role in the Trials.
Bartholomew Gedney – age 52; a trained physician. Served as a justice under an immensely unpopular Governor. a magistrate, physician, town selectman. merchant and the colonel of the Essex County militia.
John Hathorne – age 51; a merchant and magistrate known to be ruthless and even cruel in his questioning. He was one of the magistrates at the early examinations in Salem.
Clerk of the Court: Stephen Sewall. Samuel Sewall’s brother. It was his family that was caring for Rev Parris’s daughter 9yo Betty, one of the first afflicted girls. Parris had sent her away to protect her from the chaos.
King’s Attorney General: Thomas Newton. Anglican. He’d probably participated in another witchcraft trial several years earlier.
Sheriff: George Corwin. Related to three of the judges. As Sheriff, he replaced the Marshall, who’d arrested several of the suspects.
Today in Salem: It’s the second smallest class of warship in the Royal Navy, built for speed, turning like a horse on a tight rein. 36 guns punctuate the ship like rivets; 18 on each side, ready to attack or defend without warning. Now the Nonsuch is arriving in Boston Harbor, peacefully, with the royally appointed Governor William Phips aboard.
Governor Phips has been sailing for weeks, and now he sways a little on his sea legs as he crosses the dock. In his right hand is the new Royal Charter, and he holds it aloft as he steps onto the shore. Someone else could have carried it; one of the lesser officials perhaps, or the ship’s captain. But the people of Massachusetts have waited eight years for this moment. They’ve had no government, no high court, no military protection, nothing, for eight years. And now it’s back.
The magistrates have been waiting to receive him in the Town House, and now the candles flicker as Phips begins to read his commission to them.
“By these prsents Doe Constitute and appoint you the said Sir William Phipps to be our Captain Generall and Governor in Chief in and over our said Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England and for your better Guidance and Direcc͞o͞n Wee doe hereby require you to doe and Execute all things in due manner that shall belong vnto the Trust Wee have reposed in you.”
There’s more, several pages more, but it’s growing darker. Tomorrow is the Sabbath, and the sun is about to set. There will be time later to read the words of the King and Queen. For now, though, it’s time to begin observing the Holy Day.
Meanwhile, the pace of arrests in Salem continues. Just today the magistrates have issued arrest warrants for nine more people, including three members of George Jacobs Sr.’s family. They also issue a second warrant for John Willard, who’s been in hiding for four days.
WHY was the Charter so important?
A “Charter” is a document that establishes a new colony, details how the government will be formed, and dictates what laws will be followed.
The story of the Charter and why it had such a huge effect on the Puritans can be divided into three stages: getting the first Charter, losing it through disobedience, and earning a new one.
Here are the general highlights.
Stage 1: The King gives the Puritans a Charter
The seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It featured an Indian holding an arrow pointed down in a gesture of peace, with the words “Come over and help us,” emphasizing the missionary and commercial intentions of the original colonists. This seal was used until 1686, shortly after the charter was annulled, and again from 1689-1692.
In 1629, eight years after the Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower, a thriving trade in fish and fur had evolved. So the English formed a Company to manage it. The King gave them a Charter, with permission to move to New England and form their own government, as long as they followed English law.
Many of the Company’s stockholders were Puritans, who’d been wanting to form their own religious commonwealth. They knew an opportunity when they saw one. So they bought out their non-Puritan colleagues and moved to New England by themselves, taking the Charter with them. In the next decade, about 20,000 more Puritans followed.
Stage 2: The Puritans break the rules and the Charter is revoked
Now, far away from the eyes of the King (Charles I), the Puritans began to bend the rules, reinterpret, and even ignore parts of the Charter to suit their own interests. Among many things, they cut England out of lucrative trade deals; started minting their own money (melting down English currency to do it); and bypassed English laws, creating their own (especially against other religions).
This continued for more than 50 years, but England was too busy with other problems to notice: A civil war broke out, the King was beheaded, there was no monarchy at all for ten years, and the Great Plague had decimated London.
In 1684, King #2 (Charles II) punished the independently-minded Puritans and revoked the Charter. They could still live in New England, he said, but they could no longer build their own government. Instead, the King would appoint it, and enforce English law.
The ink was barely dry when the King died.
Enter King #3 (James II), who went much, much further. Without a Charter, Massachusetts didn’t legally exist as its own entity, so it had no government or laws of its own. Instead, the King appointed an extremely unpopular governor who combined many of the colonies into one mega-colony, forced the Puritans to open their churches to Anglicans (the very religion Puritans were rebeling against), seized land from individual landowners, and imposed new taxes, which the furious colonists refused to pay.
Meanwhile, back in England, the King was overthrown. When the people of Boston heard about it, they rioted until the unpopular royal governor was gone. Then they decided to go back to their old way of running things, as if they still had a Charter (which they didn’t).
Now, in 1688, the Puritans had been without a charter for four years, and were subject to their fourth King (and his Queen). To keep things steady, England let them have their old Governor, who’d been in office when the Puritans had a Charter. But he had no real authority to govern.
It was the perfect storm: No Charter, no government, no high courts – and then the Witchcraft Hysteria broke out in Salem. With nothing more than local officials and jails, all they could do was arrest people and wait.
Stage 3: The Puritans are given a more restrictive Charter
Finally, in late 1691, King William III and Queen Mary II gave the Puritans a new Charter that restored their government, but on royal terms. Massachusetts was no longer autonomous: It was a royal colony, and the King would appoint the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, and the Judges. The Puritans were required to tolerate other Protestant denominations. And all male property owners could vote, not just church members.
Not everyone was happy. Many people insisted on getting the original Charter back. That wasn’t possible, though, so their representatives negotiated as well as they could for a second Charter.
Although Massachusetts had lost much of its self-government, at least it had one now. The business of legislating could resume, as could the Court system.
This is the Charter that the royally appointed Governor William Phips carried with him from the King and Queen.
Today in Salem: The governor has been wiping his lips ’til they’re chapped, still feeling the imprint where he’d kissed the King’s metal ring. William Phips bows to no one, no one except the King that is, and even that’s difficult.
With that unpleasant experience behind him, and a six-week sail to Boston before him, Phips has plenty of time to imagine his entrance into the city. The King himself has appointed Phips to be the Royal Governor of Massachusetts, and how glorious it will be to wield that power over the merchants and politicians of Boston. They’ve always been quick to remind Phips of his humble beginnings and lack of education, to snidely dismiss him as undeserving of an opinion never mind success.
It’s true that he is fatherless, from a poor family. It’s true that he had to teach himself to read at age 21, that he’s had to convince people at every turn to support and even fund his ventures. It’s also true that he’s captained large ships, discovered vast wealth, and met with three kings. And now he’s the Royal Governor.
Phips looks out over the bow of the ship, but there’s nothing to see but ocean; a flat expanse of gray that extends all the way to the horizon. No matter. He licks his chapped lips and rubs them again. It’ll be smooth sailing, with nothing but gentle breezes and calm water ahead.
WHO was William Phips?
Age 41. The Royal Governor of Massachusetts. He was a large, compactly built man, with a true rags-to-riches story. With ambition and confidence (even arrogance), he bluffed his way past 3 British kings to rise from a poor childhood in Maine, first working as a shepherd, then as an apprentice to a ship’s carpenter. He moved to Boston and within the next 8 years captained a royal ship, found great fortune through treasure hunting, was knighted by the king, won a major battle against the French, was made a magistrate, and finally was appointed to be the Royal Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.
William Phips
Phips was intelligent and driven, but he was also said to be an ambitious, self-promoter who bluffed his way past 3 kings to find success.
Upon being appointed Royal Governor, Phips returned to Massachusetts from London to find Salem’s witch hysteria well underway. He’s best remembered today as forming the court that would bring many of the accused to trial and execution. His own wife was accused of witchcraft, and within months he disbanded the court and pardoned those still in jail awaiting trial.
Phips never expressed remorse or introspection about the trials. Three years after they ended, he contracted a fever and died. He was 44. Case files: William Phipps
