John Darrell

John Darrell (born 1562 in or near Mansfield) was an Anglican clergyman noted for his Puritan views and practice as an exorcist.

Darrell was a sizar of Queens' College, Cambridge. In 1586 he exorcised a girl in Derbyshire, and published an account of his work. In 1596–7 he conducted further exorcisms, mainly at St. Mary's Church, Nottingham, where he was appointed curate by Robert Aldridge, but also in Lancashire and Staffordshire. Many were sceptical of these, especially when Darrell claimed that he knew of thirteen witches in the town.

Because of the intense public interest and the fierce arguments in Nottingham, John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, ordered an investigation. As a result, Darrell was accused of fraudulent exorcism. The prosecutor was Samuel Harsnett, who was to end his career as Archbishop of York. Harsnet's views about Darrell were published in A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures in 1603. Shakespeare read it, and King Lear contains the names of devils, like Flibbertigibbet and Smulkin, from the book. Darrell always maintained that there was no fraud in his activities. What he wanted to prove was that Puritans were as capable as Roman Catholics in the matter of dispossessing evil spirits.

Darrell was deprived of holy orders and sent to prison, but released in 1599.

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