ABSTRACT
In 1649 as she travelled from Düsseldorf to Antwerp, a Carmelite nun named Lucy of St Ignatius (Catherine Bedingfield: 1614–50) broke her journey at the convent in Lierre, a small town in the Spanish Netherlands. There she witnessed dramatic events:
… The first night she lay in our convent she was much frightened by this wicked spirit … All night she heard the spirit lament and walk round the room, trailing his chains which made a hideous noise … But, alas, this was but the beginning of his malice in vexing the religious, though none was so furiously tormented with his continual onsets as [Sister Margaret]: it seemed all hell was loose and made it their business to afflict her in all kinds. We could often perceive by the marks on her body that she had been beaten and thrown downstairs; and when she was in the garret or other places alone the doors all of a sudden would be locked, and the places filled with a black cloud … He frightened her with his horrid shapes; sometimes … like a furious horse coming so fierily towards her it was as if he would run over her – which, indeed, he did sometimes, leaving the print of his feet on her legs. It was also very common for many others to hear him stamp about the dormitory … And then he would fall a whinnying so that it was impossible for one to take any rest. But that which gave her … most horror was when he would lift her up in the air and threaten to let her fall or carry her away … ( L3.29 , 69–70; see p. 112)
These were just some of the signs of a ‘double diabolical witchcraft’ that for several years afflicted two nuns – Margaret of Jesus (Margaret Mostyn: 1625–79) and Ursula of All Saints (Elizabeth Mostyn: 1626–1700). The acute and prolonged effects of this affliction led to their exorcism by their Confessor, Edmund Bedingfield (1615–80), in April 1651, when they were freed from the possession of some 300 demons.