I. Introduction
In his 1600 treatise, A True Narration of the Strange and Grevovs Vexation by the Devil, the Puritan exorcist John Darrell outlined his “Doctrin of Possession and Dispossession of Demoniakes Ovt of the Word of God.” Reflecting on his successful and highly controversial exorcism ministry, he declared that this “extraordinarie worke of God [demonic possession] . . . calleth for an extraodinarie vse,” establishing that it was a “double sinne to faile therein.”Footnote 1 He declared that God ordained demonic possession and thereby called upon Christians to act. During this period—the height of European demonological interest—Calvinist clergymen such as Darrell were particularly concerned with what providential meaning this spiritual affliction offered, what action God was compelling them to carry out, and, more importantly, what profit they could gain in fulfilling their godly duties.
England experienced a series of possession cases in the latter half of the sixteenth and the opening years of the seventeenth centuries, reported across sensationalist pamphlets and learned demonological treatises, that attracted substantial attention from the wider populace.Footnote 2 Demonic possession in this historical context, as Richard Raiswell explains, was understood to be a “temporally and spatially circumscribed intervention by the Devil with the consent of the creator intended to be read and glossed by the faithful.”Footnote 3 This was a condition that was largely socially constructed with its meaning intrinsically tied to the religious identity of the community wherein it manifested.Footnote 4 Demonic possession in early modern England thus functioned as a providential and revelatory phenomenon, offering individuals a chance for spiritual reflection while also guiding them toward a desired conclusion: “By this rare worke of him, and serious meditation thereof,” a man may “be brought to that faith the end whereof will be the saluation of his soule.”Footnote 5 The succession of demonic possession cases in this period was thus brought into alignment with the Calvinist doctrine of predestination as theologians, demonologists, and learned clergymen framed this spiritual affliction within a providential paradigm. This article hence argues that demonic possession was fashioned as a providential and soteriological phenomenon in the early modern English Calvinist spiritual tradition. It illustrates how individuals and communities accommodated inexplicable phenomena such as demonic possession into their lived spiritual experiences with the intention of achieving assurance in their predestined fates.Footnote 6 Through examining the intellectual construction of spirit possession and exorcism within an aligned Calvinist providential and eschatological framework, this article further historicizes the multifaceted role that this spiritual experience played in early modern England.
However, the correlation between predestination and demonic possession in early modern English Protestantism is one that has received insufficient attention in the scholarship.Footnote 7 Scholars have certainly recognized the providential mechanism that demonic possession fulfilled in Calvinist theology, yet have not considered how this spiritual affliction engaged with the most pressing question of this period: one's fate after death. In his groundbreaking Thinking with Demons, Stuart Clark established that demonic possession was primarily interpreted as an eschatological marker in which the demoniac functioned as an allegory for the condition of human society as it moved into its final stage.Footnote 8 Through the lens of Calvinist providential thinking, this functionality was broadened to provide profound soteriological meaning. Providence heavily informed all aspects of spiritual life and, within this providential schema, demons were believed to play an active role in earthly affairs; understanding their explicit function could possibly reveal key aspects of the divine plan to a culture anxiously seeking signs of salvation.Footnote 9 Accordingly, this article addresses how demonic possession, and also its remedy, were interpreted by some Calvinist communities as providential markers revealing their eternal fates. To demonstrate this, I examine the sermons, treatises, pamphlets, and accounts of possession most influential in perpetuating this reading of demonic activity. Printed works were integral to the proliferation of this providential paradigm, as it was contemporary cases that individuals looked to when experiencing or confronting demonic possession. This article thus examines four possession narratives from this period: Robert Brigges in 1574, Thomas Darling in 1596, William Sommers and Mary Cowper in 1597–1598, and Mary Glover in 1602. These cases exemplify many of the prevailing interpretations of spirit possession in the early modern English context and illustrate how dispossession was conceptualized as a form of spiritual warfare within a providential schema.
In mounting this argument, it must be noted that the available dataset is rather limited. Demonic possession was a rare experience in Calvinist territories, and the number of cases during this period pales in comparison to that of Catholic countries.Footnote 10 England is no exception to this trend. In 1600 there were only twenty-five recorded demoniacs (out of a population of 4 million people) that lived in communities where Calvinism flourished.Footnote 11 Furthermore, many of these possession cases unfolded over a relatively short space of time—the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries—and are centered on one reoccurring figure: John Darrell. Because of this, there are only a handful of texts that can be examined. It also must be acknowledged that these texts obscure the “true” possession experience and do not necessarily represent the voice of the demoniacs (who were generally young and in varying states of vulnerability).Footnote 12 Rather, such accounts relied on generic traditions and were constructed with a specific didactic objective in mind by the learned and authoritative figures that oversaw the ordeal.Footnote 13 These figures thereby configured the afflictions of the demoniac to reflect their spiritual convictions and, in negotiation with the prevailing socio-political dynamics of the community in which the possession manifested, determined the appropriate response. All of this, however, only serves to strengthen the central thesis of this article. This dataset presents a reading of demonic possession that is entirely unique to the Calvinist context, as it is with such cases that this condition was represented in print as a providential and soteriological experience.
Many of these cases thus involved communities of Puritans, as these groups fervently subscribed to this providential reading of demonic possession, and it is in these communities that many of these cases unfolded. This article defines Puritans, or the “Godly” as they termed their selves, in the Collinson mold and uses the descriptive markers provided by Michael P. Winship. Puritans were the “hotter sort of Protestants”: individuals who were the staunchest defenders of England's fledging Protestantism, the most determined seekers of salvation, the most concerned with God's providence, and the most committed activists for moral and spiritual reform.Footnote 14 This is an apt description for Darrell, who embodied a form of moderate Puritanism, albeit expressed with the utmost enthusiasm. He received ongoing support from leading Godly figures with his exorcism ministry sanctioning fundamental Puritan practices and dogmas.Footnote 15 The influential Puritan congregation at Ashby-de-la-Zouch (East Midlands), where he resided for many years, never questioned his probity and only took issue with his zeal in particular instances.Footnote 16 This Puritan community was by no means separatist, nor totally conforming, and was evidently far more ingrained in the broader spiritual culture than its seventeenth-century counterparts.Footnote 17 Here, Darrell's talents were nurtured as the Ashby leadership clearly recognized the proselytizing potential of his dispossessions. Darrell, his allies, and those that sympathized with his exorcism ministry account for a substantial number of possession texts published in late sixteenth and early seventeenth century England. Thus, it is with these polemical texts that this article turns to in establishing the relationship between providence, predestination, and demonic possession in early modern Reformed English Protestant demonology.
II. To Trie and Prooue His People
In chapters sixteen to eighteen of his seminal Institutes of the Christian Religion, Jean Calvin outlines the doctrine of providence.Footnote 18 Here, providence is described as God's control over human history within the broader schema of creation, designating that his will is behind every single inexplicable and wondrous occurrenceFootnote 19:
But faith ought to perce deper, that is to say, whom it hath lerned to be the creatour of al things, by and by to gather that the same is the perpetual gouernor & preseruer of them: and that, not by stirryng with an vniuersall motion as wel the whole frame of the worlde, as all the partes therof, but by susteynyng, cherishing & caring for, with singular prouidence euery one of those thinges ye he hath created eue[n] to ye least sparow.Footnote 20
Extraordinary phenomena, such as natural disasters, comets, strange births, famine, and demonic possession, were signs that God was constantly remaking the world by realigning its spiritual and elemental properties. However, as Calvin explains, the meaning of God's providence is often hidden from plain sight and unable to be fully grasped by the human mind. God's plan is not always clear, in that “sometyme it woorketh by meanes, somtyme without meanes, and somtyme agaynst all meanes.”Footnote 21 God provides glimpses as he cares for each and every human soul, yet all that his servants can do is profess their unyeilding faith in the divine plan. Christians were thereby directed toward scripture, as this is where providence is revealed. Passages such as Romans 1:20 thereby function as a guide: “For the inuisible things of him, that is, his eternal power and Godhead, are seene by ye creation of the worlde, being considered in his workes, to the intent that they should be without excuse.”Footnote 22 Armed with such wisdom and a faithful disposition, they were then encouraged to examine the world around them for divine meaning. Every providential occurrence, therefore, is a direct message from God: intended to elicit the “proper” response from the faithful. Acts of providence are to be “read” and responded to with more extraordinary events offering profound meaning. To this effect, manifestations of demonic incursion require particularly close inspection, as it is through the bewildering physical and spiritual torments of the demoniac that God reveals his judgments to humanity.Footnote 23
Calvin's theorization of providence thereby established a theodicean paradigm that emphasized the total sovereignty of God.Footnote 24 Through this the Devil and his minions were fashioned as instruments of God, implemented for a divine purpose. This conception of diabolic instrumentality became a central theme in Calvinist demonological works of the successive period. William Perkins, a prominent Puritan theologian, and the most frequently reprinted English author between 1590 and 1620, explains in his (posthumous) 1610 A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft that God “doth oftentimes vse Satan as his instrument, for the effecting of his intended workes, and the executing of his iudgements vpon men.”Footnote 25 As Perkins puts forth, the instrumentality of the Devil was but a means of conveying God's unbridled power. In the “Doctrin of Possession and Dispossession” section of his 1600 treatise A True Narration, Darrell outlines five divine attributes that possession reveals:
1. the justice of god in punnishing or correcting sinne
2. the omnipotencie and power of God in the powere and strength of the deuil which God permietteth him to exercise against sinners
3. the mercye of God is to be seene in this worke in deliuering them
4. the wisdom & incountabilitie of God as being the same who neuer changeth
5. the faithfulness of God in the performance of his promyse offeth. . .[to] deliuer the partie from beinge any further vexed be Satan.Footnote 26
Theologians of Darrell's ilk were adamant in illuminating the divine presence behind demonic agency, encouraging those that experienced it to take comfort in God's power. There were two primary reasons for the manifestation of demonic possession that emerged in Calvinist spirituality. In his 1597 Daemonologie, the Scottish Calvinist King James VI labels the Devil as “Gods hang-man,” the instrument through which the Lord punishes “the wicked for their horrible sinnes” and tested “even some of the best, [so] that their patience may bee tryed before the world.” James proceeds to explain that the faithful are “tempted or troubled” by the Devil to “waken them vp the faster” to their internal “sinnes and infirmities.”Footnote 27 The Devil's instrumentality thus carried powerful soteriological implications. How an individual responded to demonic assault, be it a punishment or trial, was indicative of his or her eternal fate. Calvin summarizes that “Nowe that the ministery of Sathan is vsed to pricke forward the reprobate, so oft as the Lorde by his prouidence appointeth them to this or to that, may sufficiently be proued, though it were but by one place only.”Footnote 28 This is drawn from Paul's lines in 2 Thessalonians 2:11–12: “And therefore God shall send them strong delusion, that they should beleeue lies, That all they might be damned which beleeued not the trueth, but had pleasure in vnrighteousnes.”Footnote 29 Conversely, as God's will was being communicated through every demonic manifestation, an individual could obtain some assurance of his or her election if this experience was deciphered correctly and acted upon. Perkins echoes this point. The Lord ordains demonic phenomenon “to trie and prooue his people, whether they will cleaue to him and his word, or seeke vnto Satan and wicked spirits.”Footnote 30 Possession was hence emblematic in a myriad of ways: punishing the wicked, testing the faithful, and evaluating how individuals reacted in the face of this demonic affliction.
Predestination was a related yet distinct concept from providence in that it addressed matters of individual salvation or damnation within the broader schema of creation. The Calvinist doctrine of Predestination (Double Predestination) decreed that God had designated both the elect and the reprobate at the time of creation. However, this doctrine developed into an enduring fault line in the early modern English Church: Article Seventeen (Of Predestination and Election) of the 1571 Thirty-Nine Articles was the subject of fierce debate, as it could be read as implying that God was the “author of sin.”Footnote 31 The greatest adherents of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination were Puritans. Puritanism was the most active carrier of the “predestinarian virus strain” in that its adherents incorporated this doctrine most thoroughly into their spiritual narratives.Footnote 32 This doctrine bred self-scrutiny and an intense fascination with salvation, consuming the life of the Puritan with the pursuit for signs of election or reprobation. The extraordinary proliferation of demonic possession in England during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries thus developed into a primary focus of this predestinarian belief. Darrell, like many of his contemporaries, was convinced that the increasing number of demons being set loose on the world signaled the coming of Judgement Day.Footnote 33 The faithful were being prepared for this final battle, and every skirmish with the Devil, enacted through demoniacs, functioned as a type of trial or sanctification that brought them closer to God. Embedded in this eschatological paradigm was the established concept of spiritual warfare—perpetual battle against the Devil's temptations—and it is through this lens that the providential implications of demonic possession were conveyed.Footnote 34 Spiritual warfare was fully embraced by, and became a defining characteristic of, Puritan piety; it provided the framework in which to conceptualize individual and collective conflict with the Devil.Footnote 35 Such a framework was required, as the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity decreed that every individual was compromised and thus vulnerable to demonic assault.Footnote 36 Even the most pious Christian was deserving of demonic torment, and this complicated the matter of the demoniac's moral culpability. It was thus expected that every person would be subjected to some form of demonic assault during his or her lifetime with the more extraordinary incursions (possession) carrying significant providential implications. In defiance of this ineviatibiity, diabolic assault could be fashioned as a sign of an individual's piety, as demons would not waste time on those who were already damned. Indeed, the Puritans’ sense of election indicated that the Devil's malice would naturally be concentrated on the most devout Christians, as it was their duty to endure and overcome such assaults.Footnote 37 Achieving victory over the Devil thereby offered insight into the divine plan and the role of the individuals wherein, preparing their souls for the approaching end times.Footnote 38
Examining the providential reading of demonic possession in the English Calvinist context highlights that this condition had no fixed thelogical definition. There was no single model of demonic possession in early modern Europe but rather a large repertory of signs that could appear in different combinations.Footnote 39 Possession, by its very nature, was emblematic with its precise meaning constructed by the community in which it took place. This condition was thereby highly unstable and only became more so in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England as theologians began to emphasize the Devil's scriptural role as a tempter. The image of a spiritual Devil who invaded minds with temptations to entice individuals into committing sin and forfeiting their soul was thus conflated with the physical Devil who subjected his victims to unbearable bodily torments, perpetuating an image of unrelenting demonic assault across all fronts.Footnote 40 The prevalence of bewitchment in English demonic cases also further muddled these demonological boundaries and made it increasingly difficult to distinguish between different forms of demonic assault.Footnote 41 This was a shift away from a strict systematic typography of demonic assault to an all-encompassing one centered on perpetual conflict with the Devil. One notable attempt to demarcate different types of demonic assault is with the formal introduction of “demonic obsession” into English spiritual discourse by Puritan ministers John Deacon and John Walker with their 1601 treatise Dialogicall Discourses of Spirits and Divels.Footnote 42 Responding to Darrell's controversial exorcism ministry, Deacon and Walker conceptualized demonic obsession as an entirely external form of demonic assault on the mind, soul, or body established as the “true” interpretation of scriptural possession episodes.Footnote 43 They define obsession as either “an outward assaulting and vexing: or in an inward suggesting and tempting,” resulting in such afflictions as “ungodly motions, affections, lustes . . . and carnall practices.”Footnote 44 The pair sensationally denied the possibility of demonic occupation altogether and argued that all possessions were, in fact, obsessions. Demonic obsession quickly developed into an established demonological category in seventeenth-century England, but Deacon and Walker's definition was by no means universally accepted. Many clergymen subsequently recognized obsession as an external form of diabolic assault, usually analogous with demonic temptation, while also maintaining a belief in demonic occupation. The introduction of this category of demonic assault thus did little to establish distinct theoretical boundaries in English Protestant demonology.
Demonic temptation neatly encapsulated this notion of all-encompassing demonic assault and was thus elevated into the single most important aspect of satanic activity in Calvinist spirituality. It also became intrinsically intertwined with the possession experience, as the grotesque physical symptoms produced by demonic occupation were cast as the external manifestation of the internal conflict with demonic temptation.Footnote 45 One 1597 possession pamphlet explains that demonic assault “is not to be understood onely [by] the temptations of the Diuel, but euen [by] Sathans verie person.”Footnote 46 This struggle against demonic temptation further imbued Calvinist possession narratives with providential and soteriological meaning. The late sixteenth-century Puritan preacher George Gifford, invoking James 1:12, illustrates this confluence in his 1593 A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcraft: “As if thou feare God, and Satan afflict thee, stand fast in faith and patience, and waite vpon God for thy deliuerance. If thou endure temptation, thou art blessed, and shalt be crowned.”Footnote 47 The boundaries between these different forms of demonic assault were thus porous in Calvinist thelogy, compounded by the descriptive language employed throughout demonological literature. Notably, the term “possession”—denoting demonic occupation—was often presented as interchangeable with “temptation” or “vexation.” A contextualist reading, informed by knowledge of generic conventions, is thus required. The 1574 Brigges possession manuscript, for example, never even uses the term possession or any variant of it and instead designates him as “tempted” or “vexed.”Footnote 48 However, Brigges's symptoms—including intense physical pain, fits, trances, harrowing visions, falling senseless, and suicidal ideation—clearly infer the presence of a demonic spirit. The 1593 Witches of Warboys pamphlet adopts a similar approach in how it labels the demoniacs of the Throckmorton household.Footnote 49 Darrell too demonstrates this linguistic fluidity, as his demonological treatises describe demoniacs as “vexed with euill spirits” and profess that witches could afflict individuals with demons.Footnote 50 Godly individuals were evidently more concerned with the overwhelming threat that the Devil posed to their souls rather than the exact nature of his assaults, and thereby turned their attention to the providential meaning that could be glimpsed from such experiences.
Consequently, it is largely in Puritan communities that possession manifested and was documented during this period. This correlation, however, led to conflict as tensions between different factions within the Church of England reached a flashpoint during the closing years of the sixteeenth century. Contemporary cases of demonic possession came under fierce scrunity by the ecclesiastical authorities during this period, typified by the John Darrell Exorcism Controversy.Footnote 51 Darrell's rise as a Puritan exorcist, culminating in the dispossession of William Sommers in Nottingham over 1597–1598, brought him to the attention of the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift; the Bishop of London, Richard Bancroft; and his chaplain, Samuel Harsnett. These individuals were decidedly anti-Puritan and displayed a general skepticism toward post-apostolic demonic possession. Using the excessive legislative powers of the High Commission, the ecclesiastical authorities brought Darrell to trial and stripped him of his ministry in 1599. The High Commission decreed that Darrell had “taught 4. [people] to counterfeite” demonic possession over a ten-year period, fashioning himself into a miracle worker for the purposes of furthering his fame and proselytizing the masses.Footnote 52 Darrell's High Commission hearings were fiercely contested by his Puritan allies, and in this space a whole host of demonological works emerged. At the center of this is the textual exchange between Darrell and Harsnett.Footnote 53 Many demonic possession pamphlets and treatises from this period, including those analyzed later in this article, are thus predicated on proselytizing Puritan spirituality and combatting polemical attacks against demonic possession. Furthermore, because of the contested nature of demonic possession texts, the ecclesiastical authorities introduced censorship measures that prevented the proliferation (at least through the legal channels) of these works following Darrell's conviction at the High Commission. Alongside this, Canon 72 of the Church of England was legislated in 1604, which decreed that all ministers seeking to perform a dispossession required espicopcal permission. Dispossessions were seldom, if ever, approved in England from this point onward.Footnote 54 Demonic possession pamphlets based on contemporary cases thus declined after this period, leaving behind a limited but well-defined dataset. Indeed, based on the controversy surrounding Darrell's exoricsm ministry, such works were immensely popular in this period. In advocating the providential implications of this spiritual condition, the authors of the demonological works featured in this article were highlighting the significance that demonic possession held for all that bore witness to and struggled against it.
III. God Hath Set Forth This Image Before Their Eyes
Within the Calvinist paradigm of divine providence, demonic possession was conceived as a condition to be interpreted and responded to by those that witnessed it. The Lord, according to Darrell, instructs individuals “not onelie by his worde, but also by his worke (which sometimes prevaileth a litel with man when his worde will not).”Footnote 55 Possession was an experience that encapsulated the dire stakes of spiritual warfare and brought the constant inner battle with demonic temptation to the surface in an overtly dramatic fashion for others to witness and participate in. By this, the bodies of demoniacs were sites of eschatological conflict—the battleground between demonic forces and the divine—where the possession was enacted and then (possibly) resolved for all the world to see.Footnote 56 In his 1561 The Worlde Possessed by Deuils (later translated to English in 1583), the Swiss Calvinist Pierre Viret exclaims: “Because men can not well perceive how the Deuil hurteth their soules by meanes of sinne, God hath set forth this Image before their eyes in the persones of the possessed.”Footnote 57 The signs of demonic possession were well-established through biblical descriptions and contemporary accounts, yet discerning the providential purpose of this condition necessitated examining the moral culpability of the demoniac. Calvinist theology set two primary justifications for the proliferation of possession: to punish and correct the sin of the demoniac, along with the broader community, or as a test of faith. The sin of the demoniac did not necessarily compromise his or her salvation as every individual was already in a depraved state. Perkins provides some justification on this front, writing that the elect may for a time “be holden in the snares of Satan, yet at length in mercie he [God] reclaimes them.”Footnote 58 Demonic possession, by its very nature, was a revelatory phenomenon and not intended to act as a final judgment on the soul. The good Christian, Calvin writes, “wyll not doute that the singular Prouidence of God doeth watche for his preseruation, whiche Prouidence will suffer nothyng to happen, but that whiche shall tourne to his good and saluation.”Footnote 59 As long as the individual remains faithful and understands that their torments are by design, then they could direct their attention to the broader implications of this condition.
One of the earliest recorded possession cases in Protestant England to illustrate the providential meaning of this spiritual affliction is the manuscript Master Brigges Temptation (1574).Footnote 60 This text outlines the demonic torments of aspiring barrister Robert Brigges in London, culminating in his triumph over temptation with the clerical mediation of famed clergyman John Foxe. The Brigges case was predicated on Calvinist soteriological themes: the young man's prolonged dialogues with the Devil centering on his eternal fate. After attending a theological lecture in London by the Dutch Calvinist Lassilers Villers about blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, Brigges became convinced that he was wretched and had left his soul exposed to demonic incursion. Fearing that “he was a reprobate and therefore prayed in vayne,” the young man succumbed to despair.Footnote 61 He began to act erratically, oscillating between trances and terrible fits that left him “destitude of his perfect memory . . . hearing, syghte, and felinge.”Footnote 62 With his speech intact, he entered into lengthy dialogues with an unseen and inaudible force that tempted him with riches in return for his soul. The bystanders quickly realized that he was speaking to the Devil and that God had “layed then uppon him a new visitaton beyonde the works of nature or manes wisdome.”Footnote 63 Raised in a Catholic family, Brigges came to acknowledge that his demonic vexation was an explicit sign that he needed to completely embrace Calvinism and abandon the erroneous opinions of “certayne old writars.”Footnote 64 His struggle against the Devil's temptations therefore served both as a punishment for his Catholic superstitio and as a spiritual awakening. Kathleen Sands writes that this type of conversion was “essential to salvation, constituting a sinner's necessary transition from the state of nature into which he had been born into a state of grace.”Footnote 65 Conversions of this nature were quite common in the literature of this period, owning to the large recusant population, yet the stakes are far greater in this account. The extraordinary phenomenon of demonic possession greatly expanded the scope and consequences of this conversion narrative, illustrating the different means through which God's providence was enacted.
This conversion narrative not only outlines Brigges's successful refutation of the Devil's advances but his gradual embrace of Calvinism. Brigges's dialogues with Satan, as recorded in Master Brigges Temptation, were erudite in nature and served to justify the theological foundations of Calvinism. Through this, the demoniac was fashioned as the Lord's mouthpiece while also providing a vivid example of Calvinist doctrine in practice. This is evident with the text's treatment of predestination. During one exchange the Devil attempts to convince Brigges that he is damned, forwarding the standard theological attack against Calvinist predestination. Satan remarks that Brigges “is predestinate & therefore maye do what he liste” as his behavior has no bearing on the Lord's designation. To this, Brigges counters that refraining from sin is a mark of the elect and he will not run that course: “No, no, I will not tempte my Lord my God soe.”Footnote 66 Brigges also further rejects Catholicism by specifically denying the doctrine of assurance of salvation through good works (albeit in the author's interpretation of this). Calvinism decreed that salvation could only be obtained by faith alone, and Brigges reiterates this point in his godly speeches. “Must I show thee my faith by my good works?”Footnote 67 Fundamental to Calvinist possessions was the power of faith, as this was cited as the only means through which God would grant deliverance. Brigges's demonic torments encapsulate this point and provoke his enemy to commit even greater sacrilege. Most disturbing of all, the Devil then attests that everything occurs “by course of nature,” in that events follow some blind, random pattern of natural law rather than through God's providence.Footnote 68 This amounted to a denial of God altogether. Brigges vehemently refutes such blasphemy and redoubles his resistance. By faith alone he knew that God reigned in heaven and was guiding him through this ordeal to a blessed conclusion. Overall, this possession case set a precedent in England, as it came to shape succeeding demonic narratives. It circulated widely as a manuscript and was known to many of the figures involved in the succession of late-sixteenth-century demonic possession cases. This reason lies in its exceptionality. For one, the demoniac was represented as an articulate and insightful individual, who was able to precisely encapsulate the Calvinist themes that characterized his demonic conflict. Second, his struggle against the Devil exemplified the sanctification dimension of Calvinist possessions. Brigges's sanctification, however, is somewhat unique in comparison to later English demoniacs, as this possession experience was predicated on conversion during a period in which recusancy was still prevalent. His journey toward salvation was only just beginning, and many struggles lay on the road ahead. In facing down the Devil and resisting his temptations, Brigges could find solace that God's blessing was upon him.
Conversely, the 1596 possession of Thomas Darling in the Midlands was predicated on illustrating the faith of the demoniac and the Puritan community of Burton-upon-Trent. The demoniac's extraordinary conflict with the Devil, at once a chastisement and a blessing, was undoubtedly an indication to the Burton Godly that they were religiously favored.Footnote 69 Darling's possession begins with a rather generic witch encounter in the woods, prompting the townsfolk to seek spiritual guidance from the Puritan congregation at nearby Ashby. The Ashby leadership sent John Darrell and his spiritual confidant Arthur Hildersham—one of the leading Godly ministers of this period—to assist. Darling was a pious young man, and his speeches “were such as might well haue beseemed one of riper years; wherein he shewed the fruites of his education, which were religious and godly.”Footnote 70 He had been designated by the Lord for a special task, and his resistance against Satan was a trial that the Burton Godly eagerly undertook. This entire narrative of subsequent events was published in the 1597 pamphlet The Most Wonderfull and True Storie, of a Certaine Witch Named Alse Gooderige of Stapenhill written by prominent members of the Burton community. It is important to note that this text was a didactic construction—drawing many elements from the Master Brigges Temptation manuscript—intended to herald the victory that Darling and the Burton community had achieved over the Devil.Footnote 71 More so, this pamphlet highlights Darrell's use of prayer and fasting as the most effective means of dispossession. Darling was fashioned in The Most Wonderfull and True Storie as a pious Christian bravely enduring Satan's assaults, and this is a role that he performed admirably. The preacher John Denison, one of the contributors to the Darling possession narrative, established that the boy's spiritual struggle against demonic incursion was a sign that John's prophecy in Revelation was coming to fruition: “The Deuil (saith he) hath great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time.”Footnote 72 In this light, the possession and exorcism of Darling was constructed as a dramatic conflict between the forces of good and evil, with the fate of this one boy mirroring the increasingly unstable state of the world as it approached the final days.Footnote 73 This treatise thus exemplifies “the outrageous fury that Satan vseth in raising persecution against Gods Saints” and the means by which to combat such attacks. All of this, according to Denison, is by the design of God: “The Holie ghost hath left such conflicts for the spiritual warfare of his children, so hath he not left them without weapons.”Footnote 74 Publications such as The Most Wonderfull and True Storie thereby offer a powerful example of the Lord's providence at work while also providing insight into the expressive purpose that spirit possession served for early modern Puritan communities.
Young, well-educated, highly religious, and articulate, Darling plays a far more active role in shaping this possession narrative than other Calvinist demoniacs. He was evidently well versed in the cultural and spiritual theatrics of possession, fashioning himself not as a crazed instrument of demonic intrusion, but as an agent of godly authority.Footnote 75 Throughout this possession, Darling invokes rhetoric and gestures aimed at conveying his piety:
As I know at this present for a certainty, that I have the spirit of God within mee: so do I with the like certaintie believe, that in my dialogues with Sathan, when I alleadged sundry places of scripture, to withstand the temptations he assaulted me with: I had the spirit of God in me, and by that spirit resisted Sathan at those times, alleadging the scriptures to confound him.Footnote 76
As this passage reveals, Calvinist demoniacs could be presented as vessels of piety or possibly even martyrs, bravely battling the Devil (and their own innate sinfulness) with their possession constructed as a trial of faith. Darling, for example, refers to his “brother” Job throughout his visions, invoking the all-too-familiar theodicean implications of this parable. By this, Darling fashions his resistance to the Devil's advances as a form of sanctification with God blessing his efforts: “Dost thou say my sinnes are great, Satan? The Lamb of God hath taken them awaie.”Footnote 77 This concern with the conquest of sin and demonic temptation explains why the authors of possession narratives celebrated deliverance from the Devil as a spiritual victory that brought them closer to God.Footnote 78 To this effect, Darling exclaims his elect status during his demonic torments, using this spiritual trial as confirmation of his fate in the next life: “Ayoude sathan, I have vpon my head the helmet of saluation, and I am girded about with trueth.”Footnote 79 This is a reference to “spiritual armour” or the “whole armour of God” from Ephesians 6:13–17, a passage that was frequently cited in resisting demonic temptation.Footnote 80 Imagery of this nature was employed all throughout this possession narrative: “in all manner of temptations of Sathan, they [demoniacs] haue the whole armor of God, yea and those weapons that are able to overthrow the Deuil's strongest holdes.”Footnote 81 As the Suffolk preacher Thomas Carew wrote in his 1603 Ceryaine godly and necessarie sermons, donning the armor of God was “what every man doth if he be a Christian” with this as an integral part of the sanctification process.Footnote 82 Within the dramatic and theological framework of demonic possession narratives, the paradigm of spiritual warfare was thus elevated from a rhetorical device to a tangible exemplar that individuals could readily grasp and enact. Not only were the stakes of this battle clearly established, but the rewards as well. Puritan communities such as Burton were thus eager to engage in spiritual warfare, as they were all too aware of the glory that victory would bring them.
Darling's possession ordeal was lengthy, featuring interactions with individual demonic spirits, the infernal prince Beelzebub, and Satan who presented him with a series of offerings in exchange for his soul.Footnote 83 He was tempted to renounce God and devote himself to Satan in exchange for women, riches, a grand palace, a crown, and a great kingdom to rule. Darling resists such offerings with much fervor, exclaiming: “My faith is so strong, that I will worship none but the living God.”Footnote 84 The Devil's tactics in this instance, according to Darrell, were how “he delt with these possessed persons . . . and after this manner he dealeth with vs all in the temptatio[n]s wherwith he continually assalteth vs: somtimes yea vsually settinge before our eyes the pleasure of the sinne he intiseth us unto.”Footnote 85 Yet, these demonic assaults were not constant. The struggle ebbed and flowed, with the demoniac's faith enabling him to momentarily come to the fore before retracting back inside to resume battle against the Devil. This was an indication that the demoniac was successfully fighting off this demonic incursion. It was consequently vital for those suffering Satan's torments to realize that this was all part of God's providence. Individuals were not powerless against evil, as God never subjected Christians to demonic assaults that they could not overcome.Footnote 86 Darling, aware of this, proclaims during one particularly fierce assault: “Away Sathan, thou canst not enter into me, except the Lorde give thee leave.”Footnote 87 Pious demoniacs could consequently expect some form of divine intervention during their possession. For instance, a “mild-white dove” appeared before Darling during his possession as a sign from God that Satan was powerless against his devotion.Footnote 88 As Christ had died for the collective sins of humanity, his protection was available to those who believed and by this the demoniac could successfully refute the Devil's advance and achieve sanctification.
The other primary justification for the manifestation of demonic possession in the Calvinist spiritual tradition was to punish and correct sin. Demoniacs, as instruments of God's providence, were portrayed as spiritual barometers of sorts, signaling the state of sin in a community or broader society. Throughout the 1597–1598 possession of William Sommers and his sister-in-law Mary Cowper, Darrell declares that Sommers was “not punished so much for his owne sinnes, or for the sinnes of his parents, as for the sinnes that raigned in Nottingham.”Footnote 89 The pair were believed to be bewitched with demonic spirits, as the depraved nature of the townsfolk allowed evil forces to prosper in the region. Sommers's possession was thus predicated on communicating the deep-rooted sinfulness that consumed Nottingham. One of his first acts, after securing an audience, was performing a pantomime of various sins representing “brauling, quarriling, fighting, swaring, robbing by the high wayes, picking and cutting of purses, burgularie, whoredom, prid both in men and women . . . drunckennes, glotinye.”Footnote 90 The Devil, speaking through Sommers, rejoices that “Nottingham and Lenton [a nearby agricultural village] are jolie townes for me,” justifying the need for the Godly's presence.Footnote 91 During his time in Nottingham, Darrell came into conflict with Robert Aldridge, preacher at St. Mary's Church. Darrell criticized Aldridge of being neglectful of his parish, failing to reprimand the townspeople for their sinful ways: “His people . . . haue hearde his voice oft times but once in a monneth, sometimes sildome.”Footnote 92 Aldridge (as reported through Harsnett) argues that he had provided proper spiritual guidance to the townspeople on this matter; it is just that they had not heeded this advice and therefore must suffer the consequences: “Affirming that forasmuch as they in Nottingham, notwithstanding the admonitions of many godly Preachers, did still continue in their sinnes: God hath sent the Deuill to reproue them, and to make them ashamed of their former obstinacie.”Footnote 93 While the town was in a state of sin, those involved in resolving the vexation of an afflicted individual could demonstrate their piety. Demonic possession provided a means to demarcate these individuals from the rest of the reprobate that made up the general populace. Sommers himself would later be marked by Darrell and his Puritan allies as an unrepentant sinner after he provided “false” testimony while under duress that he was simulating his condition. However, this did not challenge Darrell's spiritual objective, as the providential purpose of Sommers's possession had indeed been fulfilled. By this “the Lord teacheth us to take heed of sinning against him, lest either the same or a worse euil come to us.”Footnote 94 In this case it was the townsfolk of Nottingham, with the Puritan community at the center, who were the intended recipients of God's providential message.
However, even after Darrell performed a successful dispossession, the Lord was not done with this young man. Sommers was repossessed after a few weeks, this time joined by his kin Mary Cowper. While in the throes of possession, the demoniacs made the extraordinary claim of being able to discern the identities of nearby witches. As spirit possession was a divinely ordained phenomenon with significant providential implications, prophetic proclamations such as this were not without precedent in possession narratives.Footnote 95 The claims of demoniacs were always treated with caution, yet the identification of witches was one of the few instances in which ecclesiastical authorities were willing to accept such testimony.Footnote 96 Sommers and Cowper consequently became witch-finders. The witches named were summoned before the demoniacs, and those who elicited reactions from the pair were taken into custody. Darrell understood this development as a providential message—a commandment from the Lord to root out the transgressions responsible for incurring his wrath. Harsnett writes that one of Darrell's allies “maketh this discouery of witches, to be one of the worthie fruites of that admirable worke of dispossessing of Somers: telling vs, that witches are the Lordes chiefest enemies: that God would not have them suffered to live.”Footnote 97 A witch hunt of sorts was underway in Nottingham, resulting in the arrest of thirteen individuals and the interrogation of many more. It appears that the demoniacs were left untreated during this time; their witch-sensing powers were deemed more important than any sort of spiritual remedy. This decision exemplifies that the Godly were eager to purify the world around them, thereby strengthening themselves against demonic intrusion and demonstrating their righteousness.Footnote 98 The implications of using the pair as witch-finders extended even beyond the confines of the town. Darrell, in the words of Harsnett, was adamant that he could “detect all the witches in England,” and it was with this mentality that he carried out this crusade against evil in Nottingham.Footnote 99 Despite Harsnett labelling Darrell as a fraud with this remark, the prosecution of witches was a fundamental aspect of Darrell's exorcism ministry. It functioned as a divinely ordained duty, albeit with less theological clarity owing to the thorny nature of human agency. Perkins explains that the Lord “for iust causes, permiteh the Arts of Magicke & Witchcraft . . . in his prouidence, either for the triall of his children, or for the punishment of the wicked.”Footnote 100 Sommers and Cowper were employed in this purpose with their witch-finding abilities presented in print as a providential development. As this illustrates, possession in the English Calvinist tradition could serve explicit purposes, configuring the demoniac as a vessel through which the divine will was enacted.
Last, this article turns to the 1602 possession of the young Puritan woman Mary Glover, granddaughter to the Protestant martyr Robert Glover. This possession served two primary functions: sanctifying Glover through her struggles with the Devil and defending the providential nature of demonic agency in the face of mounting skepticism. Unfolding over a few months in their home on the bustling Thames Street (London), this ordeal was the first high-profile demonic possession event in the wake of Darrell's High Commission. Despite the fiercely contested nature of demonic possession in this period, London's Puritan community embraced Darrell's providential reading of demonic possession. The series of possessions that plagued England at this time, as stated in the published account A True and Briefe Report of Mary Glouers Vexation and of Her Deliuerance by the Meanes of Fastinge and Prayer, is clear evidence of God's divine will: “The strange works of God in these our dayes, who hath of late raysed vp in diuers quarters & coasts of the land (yea, and brought them home to our doors) a great many of examples as prints of his presence.”Footnote 101 Puritan minister John Swan, author of A True and Briefe Report, subsequently performed a dispossession with a coalition of Godly ministers, employing Christ's “ordinance of prayer and fasting” in the manner that Darrell established.Footnote 102 This text was a didactic construction of Puritan spirituality, written in response to the English episcopacy's campaign against exorcism and Darrell's High Commission.Footnote 103 In his preface, dedicated to the newly crowned King James VI and I, Swan even argues that the continued manifestation of demonic possession in England stems from the ongoing controversy over this subject: “Thus, while these, and other more weightie controversies continewe vndecided amongst vs, God hath ben provoked at last to begin a controversie with vs, by sending a contagious sicknes, that hath turned our triumphs into dayes of heavines: the which, when and where it will cease, he onely knoweth.”Footnote 104 Swan was adamant in refuting the skepticism of clergymen like Whitgift, Bancroft, and Harsnett, regarding their blatant dismissal of God's divine providence as a sin unto itself. In failing to take heed of his divine message, these fools were incurring God's wrath and leading the populace away from the truth.
A True and Briefe Report shares many similarities with The Most Wonderfull and True Storie, particularly as Glover's afflictions invoked Darling's pious demonstration of resistance to the Devil's assaults. Glover's ordeal was presented as an act of providence that communicated the notion of spiritual cleansing through enduring and overcoming Satan's torments. The theme of martyrdom also underlines much of this narrative. Glover's possession was modeled in the tradition of earlier Protestant martyrs—such as her grandfather Robert Glover—and this spiritual experience was a means in which to shape this martyrdom.Footnote 105 Warfare imagery therefore permeates the text with Glover deploying this rhetoric in her godly speeches. During one episode she prays to God for the strength to “confound his malice, distroye his worke, and darken the power of Satan. . .and lett him bee trodden under feete as dyrte.”Footnote 106 In her torments, Glover became the vessel through which God conveyed the potential for spiritual redemption: “But the instrument that hath ben (by that serpent) abused, o Lord haue mercie upon her, and forgive her all her sinnes.”Footnote 107 Glover is heralded by her dispossessors as both an inspiration to the Godly and a warning to the sinful, a pious young woman who was cleansed of her sins and reborn into the Christian covenant through overcoming demonic temptation.Footnote 108 The ministers present prayed that God “make perfect the good worke which he had most gratiously begune, that with comfort we might depart in the end, every man to his home.”Footnote 109 They acknowledged “the Justice of God, in punishing the world with bodely and sperituall chastisments” and performed their clerical duties for “the glorie of his owne name, the profite & comfort of vs all ther assembled, and the afflicted partie.”Footnote 110 Ultimately, this was “for the comfort of all distressed soules, who hearinge of God his goodnes to his children, should see that it is not in vayne to goe vnto him, in trouble, and to cast our cared vppon him.”Footnote 111 This sentiment encapsulates the dual purpose of demoniacs: illustrating the wrath of God while also demonstrating his capacity for mercy. Demoniacs in the English Calvinist tradition were thus fashioned as vessels through which God enacted his judgments. Demonic possession was set before the eyes of humans as a revelatory phenomenon, prompting individuals to act. “As in a glass,” Darrell writes, the demoniac exemplifies the “justice of God” to all that hear of and behold their torments.Footnote 112 Arthur Hildersham frames possession as “but a temporall correction, & such as whereby both the glorie of God and the saluation of the partie may be furthered.”Footnote 113 Both the righteous and the wicked, according to one preacher involved in Mary Glover's dispossession, are plagued by God yet “the troubles of the one and of the other, doe greatly differ”: “For the one proceede from a Iudge, the other from a father: the one are light and momentarie, the other durable and the begininges of greater woe, the one to correct, to purge, and refine, the other to confound, to make more obstinate and in excusable.”Footnote 114 Calvinist preachers emphasized the didactic function of possession, convincing their audiences to reflect on what divine meaning this phenomenon offered. In addition to the five primary aspects of God that demonic possession reveals, Darrell outlines that there are “seuerall vses concerning man, and the profite he otherwise is to make hereof”:
1. This great and wonderful worke of the lord serueth to conuince and stope the mouths of the papistes, who as they are always boastinge of their miracles . . . (as they terme it) of casting out of diuils.
2. To informe our judgement in the discerning of the possessed.
3. To learne what to do in case we seen possessed what counsell & aduise to giue when and such thing shal fall out.
4. The baites Satan ordinarily vseth to catch men with are here to be obserued by the way: which eyther are some fare promises, or fearful threat.
5. Here is shadowed out vnto us the greate diligence Satan vseth to recouer such as be once deliuered out of his power.
6. Hereby we may perceiue whervnto they diuels are naturally giuen: or caried by the instinct of their nature now corrupted, euen to blasphemie against God.
7. It serueth excellently to confound our atheists, whoe say not only with the foole in their hart, that there is no god.Footnote 115
Hence, Darrell presents a reading of demonic possession that emphasizes its providential and soteriological implications. Calvinist theologians such as Darrell could not simply accept that tragedies befall humankind without divine consent and actively reframed demonic encounters as a revelatory phenomenon. Darrell's exorcism ministry, while predicated on healing those afflicted by the Devil, was also focused on bringing individuals closer to God. For in these dark times, when one stood on the precipice looking down into the face of their damnation, so too did the shining light of salvation appear on the horizon.
IV. For the Glorie of God and the Benefit of Man
Calvinist theologians such as Darrell thus conceptualized possession as a divine intervention intended to “teacheth all of vs our dutie”: a duty that he fulfilled during his exorcism ministry.Footnote 116 The “extraordarie work” of dispossession serves two primary purposes: magnifying “the glorie of God” and for “the benefit of man, and good he may receiue thereby.”Footnote 117 Darrell preaches that God would not allow possession to manifest without providing the spiritual weapons to “preuaile against Sathan.”Footnote 118 However, not all Puritans were entirely set on the necessity of dispossession. During the Darling possession, Hildersham expressed a contrary providentialist view “that there is a good vse of praier in such a case, and of fasting also” but warned that possession “can not without sinne be absolutely prayed against.”Footnote 119 He was implying that praying against possession may in fact be challenging God's intention, as this affliction could be the full extent of the providential act and designed to resolve on its own accord after the revelatory meaning was communicated. Gifford expresses a similar concern in his A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcrafts.Footnote 120 Conversely, Darrell forwards that possession functioned as a providential catalyst: a call to carry out dispossession that, once fulfilled, brought the entire act to completion. Despite these diverging opinions, Hildersham and the Ashby Godly actively supported Darrell's interpretation throughout the course of his exorcism ministry. Collaboration was a prominent aspect of the dispossession spiritual exercise, exemplified by George More's involvement in the 1597 Lancashire Seven episode. Writing in A True Discourse, More endorses Darrell's approach: “As therefore the good providence of God may be discerned in the disposing of all things, so also it sheweth it selfe most clearelie in the wel ordering of this whole action, if it be well obserued.”Footnote 121 He attests that the efficacy of prayer and fasting was evident in the relief that it afforded the demoniac and the renewed piety they exhibited following their deliverance. However, as Darrell ruminates, the call to perform this duty is not always readily apparent, and only the most faithful individuals—the Godly—can discern the providential intention: “Now when God sendeth any judgement therby he calleth men, and therin secretly commandeth them to fast and praye.”Footnote 122 This is but another indication that the Christians “called & appoynted” to “perform this service” are divinely favored.Footnote 123 More too shares this sentiment, exclaiming that dispossession “is no extraordinarie gifte, peculiar to any one man, but common to all the faithfull.”Footnote 124 Furthermore, Darrell understood this moment in history as the time when God had elected to reveal such spiritual gifts. He contends that “if it be so that the doctrine of possession, and of dispossession, and of the means thereof, etc doe lye in a manner hid & not knowne nor acknowledged almost by any: Is it not high time it were revealed and brought to light? Is it not parte of the counsel of god, to the reuelation of all which wee are debtors?”Footnote 125 Possession and exorcism fulfilled different functions in different historical settings, and Darrell was convinced that clergymen like himself were now needed more than ever.Footnote 126 It is thus in these troubled times, wherein the “antichrist of Rome extremely rageth,” that the Lord has so decreed to unleash demonic possession on the populace while simultaneously arming the faithful to combat this existential threat.Footnote 127
Darrell and his Puritan allies embraced dispossession through prayer and fasting as the only sanctioned means through which humans could cast out demons. The truth of this matter, in their eyes, was present for all to see in scripture. Biblical possession cases, Darrell exclaims, were recorded “to giue a rule and leaue a direction, to his [God's] church, whereby to discerne of possession in the time to come.”Footnote 128 This direction was taken from Christ's proclamation to his disciples in Mark 9:29: “And he saide vnto them, This kinde can by no other meanes come foorth, but by prayer and fasting.”Footnote 129 Prayer and fasting were both effective and innocuous spiritual exercises, each fundamental to the broader Christian traditions of self-reflection and sanctification. Moreover, because Calvinists subscribed to the doctrine of the cessation of miracles, dispossession was established as mirandum (a wonder). Darrell wrote in his polemics against Harsnett that “to cast Sathan forth, is mirandum, non miraculum.”Footnote 130 In this paradigm, demons are only cast out through two means: either “by absolute authority, as by Christ being God: or by an authoritye committed and given of Christ to men.”Footnote 131 Dispossession was consequently established as the work of the Lord, exercised through the agency of humans, as “we see God perfourming his promise: the scripture before our eyes fulfilled.”Footnote 132 This spiritual exercise could only be fulfilled by humbly petitioning God to intervene, as it was presumptuous to believe that the Devil could be driven out by any earthly power.Footnote 133 According to Perkins, if an individual reflected upon their transgressions, displayed genuine devotion, and performed the duty required of them, then their dispossession would be successful:
After this Examination, the same parties must shewe forth their faith, whereby they depend on the free fauour and mercie of God for their deliuerance. How may this be done? by heartie prayer vnto God, joyned with fasting that the same may be more earnest. In which prayer the maine desire of the heart must be absolutely for the pardon of their sinnes, and then for deliuerance from the hurts and torments of diabolicall persons: yet not absolutely, as for the other, but with this condition, so farre forth as it stands with Gods glorie, and their owne good.Footnote 134
Their role was therefore reduced in this process with faith and devotion cited as the primary markers of success. In explaining failures and ineffective attempts at exorcism, exorcists could simply confess to their own lack of faith, the weakness of the demoniac, or acknowledge the outcome as God's will.Footnote 135
Protestant dispossession involved the sufferers overcoming demonic temptation with the support of clerical mediation, culminating in the decisive moment in which they took upon themselves the responsibility for procuring deliverance.Footnote 136 This is very much the case in the Brigges possession. Unfolding before prayer and fasting were established means of deliverance, this case only briefly engages with the application of exorcism. Master Briggs Temptation focuses on the demoniac's struggles against Satan with his deliverance largely earned through his successful refutation of temptation. John Foxe performed an exorcism of sorts, making use of a traditional imperative conjuration associated with Roman Catholic spirituality, yet his principal role was in providing the spiritual tools for the demoniac to endure the demonic torments.Footnote 137 Guided by Foxe, Brigges was able to triumph over the Devil, exclaiming that “my sowle ys nott myne, though I wolde geve it? How can I geve that which is not myne? . . . The Lorde Jhesus hathe bought it.”Footnote 138 Brigges successful refutation of Satan's temptations and his embrace of Calvinism signaled that God's will had been carried out, serving as a very explicit statement of the Protestant doctrine of salvation by grace.Footnote 139 Sommers's dispossession, on the other hand, was handled by a pious minister employing prayer and fasting. Darrell's exorcism of Sommers invokes the biblical encounter between Jesus and the “deaf and dumb boy” with Darrell's lines taken almost verbatim from the scriptures.Footnote 140 A True Narration is not forthcoming with details as the actual dispossession is carried out without issue. Darrell simply writes that “I came vnto him [Sommers], & being ther, carried my selfe in this present an action.”Footnote 141 A second dispossession usually followed as, according to scripture: “When the uncleane spirit is gone out of a man, he sayeth to himselfe, I will returne into myne house from whence I came.”Footnote 142 However, due to the political climate within Nottingham, Darrell was unable to perform another dispossession after the young man again fell under the Devil's influence. Nor did it seem like he attempted to deliver Cowper from her demonic torments. Their spiritual function as witch-finders was being enacted, and a dispossession was not performed in time: Sommers was taken into custody by the Nottingham town council on suspicion of counterfeiting his possession. Because of this, Darrell was unable to carry out his duty. Nottingham thus continued in its sinful ways as “there are such as haue banished the worde of God out of there towne.”Footnote 143 In this case it was Darrell's prevention from carrying out an exorcism that was significant, as it elicited further consequences. God's message had not been heeded and sin continued to proliferate in Nottingham and further abroad.
The possession of Darling and Glover both unfolded in Godly communities, with the victory of these two demoniacs over the Devil signifying the piousness of all involved parties. As is articulated in The Most Wonderful Storie, the faith of the demoniac was integral to his or her dispossession. Darling's deliverance was an irrefutable sign that the Burton Godly had withstood “the fury of their enemies” and “all manner of temptations” to “overthrow the Diuels strongest holdes.”Footnote 144 This community had proven to be quite vocal in advocating its Puritan beliefs and the possession of one of its own emerged as an ideal opportunity to proselytize. It could even be said that throughout the Darling possession the demoniac assumed the role of the exorcist. Darrell was content to provide instructions and not be present for the actual dispossession: “I am perswaded that the faithfull prayers of the parties friends may prevaile with God in this case: though no Preacher be present.”Footnote 145 Darling fashioned himself as an aspiring Puritan saint battling the Devil through his own devotion, rather than as a sinner afflicted with this condition, which was the more conventional archetype.Footnote 146 The boy procured his deliverance twice, and the demonic spirits inhabiting his body were continually met with fierce resistance. The Most Wonderful Storie reports that these spirits, speaking through Darling, cried out in despair that “we cannot prevaile, his faith is so strong, and they fast and pray, and a Preacher prayeth as fast as they.”Footnote 147 Following his first deliverance, Darling ventured into “the towne, that it might appeare what Jesus had done for him, to the praise of his glorie, and admiration of those that had been acquainted with this maruelous visitation.”Footnote 148 This triumph needed to be broadcast, as it is by such dynamic examples that others are inspired to take up arms against the Devil. This was a command from God: “The same Spirite which armed hym with faith and patience in the time of his torments, instructed him how to giue thankes and pray.”Footnote 149 Darling's second deliverance was just as harrowing yet unfolded over a much shorter period. The assembled party was now familiar with Satan's treachery and was able to help the boy cleanse himself of this demonic scourge: “And so (thanks be to God) he hath remained ever since, which the Lord continue to his own glorie, the ioy of the godly, and the childes comforte.”Footnote 150 Darling was now a shining exemplar of God's mercy and power, with the sight of him prospering intended to bring comfort to those afflicted with despair.
A True and Breife Report also communicates the faith of everyone involved in Glover's dispossession. Calvinist dispossession did not only necessitate the demoniac humbling his or her soul before the Lord, but also required those attending and performing the dispossession to fulfill their Godly duties. According to one unnamed preacher featured in the text, the dispossession would be successful if those present demonstrate an “earnest humiliation of their soules and bodies before the Lord, that he seeing them (especiallye those that were most interested in the distressed) truley humbled; he might in mercy and goodnes lift them vp, by givinge deliuerance and grantinge comfort in his good time.”Footnote 151 Glover fulfilled these conditions, and her piety was on full display throughout the possession, conveyed through her fleeting periods of lucidity in which she astonished the assembled party with fervent prayer. In these moments she was casting back the Devil and subsequently cleansing herself of sin. During the climax of her deliverance, as she was experiencing divine euphoria, Glover thanked God for “workinge in me sanctification, and newnes of life, to walke worthy so great a mercy, that so glorifyinge thee in this life, I may see and enioye thy glory in the life to come.”Footnote 152 Her faith was so impressive that one preacher remarks: “Let her alone, you shal see shee will doe it her selfe, she will procure her owne deliuerance.”Footnote 153 And thus she did. Glover's resistance was an exemplar in itself as “Sathan is often times overtaken in his craft: for by makinge his match thus to rage in and vppon little onees (as was this poore creature in respect of her sex & age) his foile should be the greater, when such a worme should be inabled to withstand his mallice, and prevaile against his strength, but to returne.”Footnote 154 At the conclusion of this entire ordeal, once she had been successfully delivered from the Devil, Glover had now proved her devotion and affirmed God's blessing. To this effect, Swan interprets her deliverance as a sign that he is divinely favored: “For my parte, I thanke God with all my heart that I was present at this worke, and had an hand, (though very little and simple) in it: For I finde (I prayse God) therein, a labour of his loue towardes me, provoakinge, nay vrginge me the more, thereby to performe a poynt.”Footnote 155 This great trial had been overcome and what follows would be far easier: “If shee should againe be assaulted: feare not. . . the mayne battle is fought, the other will be but a light skirmish (if therebe any at all).”Footnote 156 Glover had now returned to God's covenant, and her healing was heralded as a powerful rebuttal to those that doubted the validity of demonic possession, and therefore God's divine will, in England.
As these possession cases exemplify, exorcism functioned as a form of proselytizing that illuminates God's divine authority as executed through the most faithful of his servants. Dispossession in the Calvinist tradition served as a means of revealing the “true” word of God, bringing individuals back to the spiritual roots of Christianity. Consequently, Darrell presented his exorcism ministry as illustrating the evangelizing potential of this demonic affliction: casting out demons furthered the “glorie of God” and fulfilled the requirements of spiritual warfare.Footnote 157 This was done not “for the best wages that men wold give mee” but for the “saluation of your soules.”Footnote 158 Demonic possession consequently played a central role in Darrell's intellectual construction of Reformed Protestant demonology, not only justifying his exorcism ministry, but also his conception of early modern religious life. Darrell believed that God ordained demons to possess humans for a specific purpose and thereby provided humanity with the spiritual tools (prayer and fasting) to engage in spiritual warfare. Figures like him were therefore motivated to perform dispossessions as a way of affirming their Puritan spirituality—with its fixation on demonic activity—and designating their brethren as religiously favored.Footnote 159 As Michelle Brock states, “In the search for assurance amidst this unknowability, active resistance against Satan was often perceived not only as an inherent duty, but also a metric of one's predetermined election.”Footnote 160 Darrell was adamant that it was actually a sin to not attempt dispossession “because it was a breach of a Commandment, Resist the diuell.”Footnote 161 Every victory over the Devil that Darrell delivered was presented as further evidence that he, and his Godly brethren, were designated as the elect. This was a contributing factor to the controversy surrounding his exorcism ministry, despite Darrell's aspirations of remaining humble in his treatises. Calvinist dispossession can thereby be construed as exercises of self-assurance, with spiritual anxieties concerning salvation motivating individuals to devise processes in which to ascertain their own eternal fates. The Devil's temptations were perceived as a constant threat to Christians, and diabolic affliction was one means by which temptation could be experienced, and refuted, in full.Footnote 162 To Darrell, Christians were required to do everything in their power with the spiritual tools at their disposal to combat the demonic. This was but one means in which the innate depravity of humans could be briefly eclipsed by feelings of divine elevation, perhaps suggesting that there was indeed hope for eternal bliss.
V. Conclusion
The Most Wonderfull and True Storie was submitted to the Stationers’ Register for publication on June 6, 1597, less than a year after Darling's dispossession. Its multiple authors had worked diligently to bring this narrative to light, celebrating their collective victory over the Devil as evidence of their righteousness. Meanwhile, Darling continued to be a mouthpiece of Puritan spirituality, his conquering of demonic temptation granting him a unique spiritual status. Texts such as The Most Wonderfull and True Storie provide profound insights into the nature and function of spirit possession in early modern England. Calvinist spirituality fashioned this phenomenon as a providential process by which one was brought closer to God. Possession was a revelatory experience, communicated through vivid examples, ordained by God with the purpose of being interpreted and responded to. Demoniacs were thereby cast as instruments of God's judgments: exemplifying the torments that the Lord enacted upon the wicked along with the faith required to overcome this condition and achieve sanctification. This was a theological interpretation that reconciled demonic possession with Calvinist providentialism, providing a theodicean and soteriological basis for its manifestation. In turn, this providential paradigm dramatically heightened the scope and stakes of this spiritual condition while offering a potential salve to the vexed nature of Calvinist predestination. This was a sign of God's love and mercy, prompting individuals to take solace that the divine plan was in motion. Consequently, extraordinary acts such as demonic possession were inspected closely, as it could potentially assist and comfort individuals in their pursuit of salvation.
In the textual legacies of early modern theologians such as John Darrell, the providential consequences of possession were explored in detail. Darrell cast exorcism as the definitive form of spiritual warfare, positioning victory over demonic temptation as a sign that God was guiding those involved in the ordeal towards a blessed conclusion. This was the “necessarie dutie” of every Christian when presented with a undeniable token of God's providence.Footnote 163 As Frank Luttmer summarizes, “The very experience of spiritual struggle was a sign of God's saving grace” and through this process “Christians could find comfort and assurance.”Footnote 164 Along with fulfilling an explicit didactic and eschatological role, spirit possession flourished in Puritan communities during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries precisely because it could potentially alleviate spiritual anxieties concerning their eternal fates. Individuals were encouraged to take solace in the face of evil, rather than despair, as this was another opportunity to reflect upon and correct their inadequacies. Spiritual self-reflection and the search for assurance of salvation had developed into a central theological tradition in early modern English Reformed Protestantism as Puritans became increasingly anxious about their eternal fates. The Lord's providence was at work in every single manifestation of demonic possession and, in recognizing this, individuals could find comfort that they played a role in the divine plan. This was another means for these Puritan communities to address the spiritual anxieties that plagued their sinful lives, providing hope that salvation was obtainable.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to associate professor Richard Raiswell for his generous assistance in drafting and revising this article.
