DARRELL. 119 have been entreated, and to have cast out Satan, for which they blessed his holy name. Tbis was in the year 1597.. In a few days after this event, the mayor and several of the aldermen began to suspect that Somers was an impostor; and, to make him confess, they took him from his parents, and committedhim to prison ; where, by the threatenings of his keeper, he was led to acknowledge, that he had dis- sembled and counterfeited what he had done. Upon this confession, being carried before a commission appointed to examine him, he at first owned himself to be a counter- feit, then presently denied it ; but being so exceedingly frightened, he fell into fits before the commissioners, which put an end to his examination. After, some time, being still kept in custody, and further pressed by his keeper, he returned to his confessing, charging Mr. Darrell with having trained him up in the art for several years. Mr. Darrell was then summoned to appear before the commissioners, when sufficient witnesses were produced to prove that Somers had declared, in a most solemnmanner, that he had not dissembled; upon which he was dismissed, and the commission was dissolved. This affair becoming the subject of much conversation in the country, Mr. Darrell, in 1598, was cited before Archbishop Whitgift, and other high commissioners, at Lambeth. Upon his appearance, after a long examination, be was deprived of his ministry, and committed close prisoner to the , Gatehouse, where he continued many years. Mr. George Moore, another puritan minister, for his connexion with him, was, at the same time, committed close prisoner to the Clink. The crime with which Mr. Darrell was charged, and for which he received the heavy sentence, was " his having been accessary to a vile im- posture. Indeed, Bishop Maddox highly commends the conduct of these ecclesiastical judges, in this unchristian censure. * Dr. Heylin, contemptuously speaking of Mr. Darrell's pretensions, observes, " that whenever the conformable ministers visited these demo. niacs, and used the form of prayer according to the established liturgy, the devil was as quiet as a lamb, there being nothing in those prayers to disturb his peace. But when Mr. Darrell and his nonconformist brethren approached, who used to fall upon him with whole volleys of raw and undigested pra3ers of their own devising ' then were the wicked spirits ro extremely t ubled and perplexed ; so that the puritans, lest the papists should in any thing have the start of them, had also a kind of holy water, with which to frighten away the devil."-lleglin's Miami. Tracts, p. 156. + strype's Whitgift, p. 492-494.
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