WITCHCRAFT
In 1686 Penzance was the scene of an extraordinary instance of alleged witchcraft, the circumstances of which were testified by the Mayor and justice, Peter Jenken and John Grosse, and published in pamphlet form. The narrative is somewhat repulsive, but extracts follow to illustrate an aspect of social conditions at this time, and especially the depths of credulity to which responsible public figures could then descend:
One John Tonken of Penzance ... being about 15 or 16 years of age ... was in April last strangely taken with sudden fits; and on 4 May 1686 as he lay in bed, there appeared to him a woman in a blue jerkin and red petticoat, with yellow and green patches, and told him that he would not be well before he had brought up nutshells, pins and nails ... and after several fits he brought up three pins and half a walnut shell, and in few days after he brought up three walnut shells and several pins. The woman very often appeared to him sometimes in the shape as before, at other times like a cat; whereupon the boy would shriek ... and say "She is putting things into my mouth . . ." At another time he said that the woman told him he had straws in his belly, and a short time afterwards he brought up four or five straws, as also an ear of rye . . . rushes ... a piece of dry bramble, and several pieces of flat sticks, which put together made the form of a beeting needle, such as the fishermen make their nets with. Some persons ... put their fingers into his mouth to search if he had any pins or rushes, thinking he might pull a trick on them, but found none, though some came every day from him. On 10 May was his violent fit ... and being asked what the woman had said to him, replied she told him she would kill him if it were in her power, but he said he hoped God would not permit her. In one of his staring fits, a person of note observing his eyes to be fixed in the thatch of the house, thrust his sword into the thatch twice; then the boy cried, "She is gone into the Corner like a mouse !" . . . The last time there appeared unto him three women, whereat he cried out, "What a Confederacy ! What you old witch more Confederates !" And then she bade him farewell, and said she would trouble him no more; and two days after, the boy was pretty well again, and goes abroad with crutches ... There are sent to Launceston Gaol for witchcraft two old women, Jane Noal alias Nickless, and Elizabeth or Betty Seeze. We live in hopes they will be found out at the next Assizes, and so receive a reward due to their merits.
The Borough Accounts contain a reference to the charge against Elizabeth Seese, but there is no record of the result of the case, and one can only hope that the two unfortunate old women met with a more enlightened judge and jury at the Assizes.

Source: The History of the Town & Borough of Penzance, by P.A.S. Pool.