Ward & Lock's descriptive and pictorial guide to the Isle of Man ...

—From Douglas to Peel. 113on St. Patrick's Islo. Eleanor, tlie wife of " the good Duk-oHumphrey" of Gloucester—who, as Eleanor Cobham, hadpreviously been his mistress—was accused of treason, "forthat she, by sorcery and enchantment, intended to destroythe king (tlie youthful Henry the Sixth), to the intent toadvance and to promote her husljand to the crown." Thechaplain of her husband the Duke was one Roger Bolingbroke,a man addicted to the study of the sciences of the time, inwhich astrology was conspicuous. A man who watched thestars and cast nativities w"as, of course, according to the ideasthen, and long afterwards, prevalent, a wizard ; and it isalleged that the Duchess, with this Bolingbroke, two priests,named Southwell and Hum (or Hume), and a woman namedMargery Jourdain, but better known as the witch of Eye,practised magical arts for the purpose of bringing about thedeath of the King. When the Duchess was put upon hertrial, it was proved that she had sought to obtain lovephiltersto secure the constancy of her husband, who, withall his virtues, was guilty of occasional wanderings from thestrict path of rectitude, as his Duchess well knew. It wasalso charged against her, on much weaker grounds, but withquite enough evidence to satisfy her judges, who probablywould have found her guilty with or without evidence, thatshe had been guilty of a far worse act ; for, it Avas alleged," she kept by her a wax figure made by cunning necromancers,and endowed with the remarkable quality that in proportionas it was sweated and melted before a fire it would, bymagical sympathy, cause the flesh and substance of the kingto wither and melt away, and his marrow to be dried upin his bones." In the ,Second Fart of King Henry VI.,Shakspeare, it will be remembered, introduces a scene inwhich the Duchess beholds and listens to the spirit Asmathsummoned by magical arts ;and afterwards we have thesentence of a dreadful death passed by the king on the witc!>Jourdain and her three associates, and of banishmeufc ou tlieDuchess :" You, Madam, for you are more nobly bora.Despoiled of your houoiir in your life.Shall, after three days' open penance done,Live in your country here, in banishmentWith Sir John Stanley, in the Isle of ilau."Shakspeare took his history as he found it ; but, perhaps,believed less in the guilt of the Duchess as a practiser ofmagical arts than in her arrogance and ambition whicharoused the jealousy of another woman as strong-minded asherself, who had few scruples about the means of getting the8