were
completed; and, shaking the dust off their feet, and devoting Woodstock
and all its inhabitants to the infernal gods, they finally took their
departure.[43]

[43] Dr. H. More's _Continuation of Glanvil's Collection of
Relations in proof of Witchcraft_.

Many years elapsed before the true cause of these disturbances was
discovered. It was ascertained at the Restoration, that the whole was the
work of Giles Sharp, the trusty clerk of the commissioners. This man,
whose real name was Joseph Collins, was a concealed royalist, and had
passed his early life within the bowers of Woodstock; so that he knew
every hole and corner of the place, and the numerous trap-doors and secret
passages that abounded in the building. The commissioners, never
suspecting the true state of his opinions, but believing him to be
revolutionary to the back-bone, placed the utmost reliance upon him; a
confidence which he abused in the manner above detailed, to his own great
amusement and that of the few cavaliers whom he let into the secret.

Quite as extraordinary and as cleverly managed was the trick played off at
Tedworth, in 1661, at the house of Mr. Mompesson, and which is so
circumstantially narrated by the Rev. Joseph Glanvil, under the title of
_The Demon of Tedworth_, and appended, among other proofs of witchcraft,
to his noted work called _Sadducismus Triumphatus_. About the middle of
April, in the year above mentioned, Mr. Mompesson, having returned to his
house at Tedworth from a journey he had taken to London, was informed by
his wife, that during his absence they had been troubled with the most
extraordinary noises. Three nights afterwards he heard the noise himself;
and it appeared to him to be that of "a great knocking at his doors, and
on the outside of his walls." He immediately arose, dressed himself, took
down a pair of pistols, and walked valiantly forth to discover the
disturber, under the impression that it must be a robber; but, as he went,
the noise seemed to travel before or behind him; and when he arrived at
the door from which he thought it proceeded, he saw nothing, but still
heard "a strange hollow sound." He puzzled his brains for a long time, and
searched every corner of the house; but discovering nothing, he went to
bed again. He was no sooner snug under the clothes than the noise began
again more furiously than ever, sounding very much like a "thumping and
drumming on the top of his house, and then