John Gaule

John Gaule (1603? – 1687) was an English Puritan cleric, now remembered for his partially sceptical views on astrology, witchcraft and hermetic philosophy.

He studied at both Oxford and Cambridge, graduating B.A. at Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1623/4. For a time he appears to have been employed by Robert Bertie, 1st Earl of Lindsey, probably as chaplain. By 1629 he was chaplain to Baptist Hicks, 1st Viscount Campden.

Gaule's one preferment was as vicar of Great Staughton, Huntingdonshire, through Viscountess Campden by 1632, though there is some confusion on the point. He claimed in a petition to Parliament that he had been imprisoned by the Parliamentary army, and had been in danger of being shot by order of Edward Whalley.

Gaule clashed with, and preached against, the self-appointed witch-hunter active in East Anglia, Matthew Hopkins. This took place around 1646, when Hopkins and John Stearne were operating in Huntingdonshire. As a result, and to expose the methods used by Hopkins, he wrote Select Cases of Conscience touching Witches and Witchcraft, London, 1646. The work was dedicated to the Huntingdonshire Member of Parliament, Valentine Wauton.

Gaule himself followed the position of William Perkins on witchcraft. He objected to the "swimming test" for witches, used by Hopkins and Stearne in the first half of 1645. Unusually for the time, Gaule engaged with the question of the imp or familiar spirit thought to accompany a witch. While he was convinced enough that witchcraft existed, he suspected theories about it that connected with popular superstition rather than scriptural sources. He distinguished between the workings of a magician and the spells of a witch, leaving some room for the former to operate in good conscience.

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