Strange News from Westmoreland is a broadside ballad, first printed in 1663, about a man called Gabriel Harding who killed his wife while drunk. This led to an angel appearing and calling Satan to kill him. The fact that the story was presented in verse and set to a tune suggests that the anonymous author was reaching out to a broad, potentially illiterate audience. However, the account is still framed as a ‘true Relation’ of moral import. The angel’s appearance was allegedly described by eyewitnesses, and the anonymous author made a bid for credibility by including a list of ‘some of the chiefest men that live in the Parish’.

The source is significant in understanding commonly held beliefs about angels’ power and role in the early modern period. The ballad’s first stanza references ‘Judgement day’, adding ‘I think the time’s not very long’. Early modern Christian theologians commonly held that angels had an important role in heralding the Last Judgement. This idea is further referenced later: the angel warns eyewitnesses that he is 'Judge and jury today'. These warnings hint at the threatening nature of early modern angels, who often functioned as punishers to those who were deemed to be insufficiently virtuous.

Angels also had a protective role, as ‘keepers of humankind’ [1]. In punishing Harding, the angel was avenging his wife, who was a good and virtuous woman. Harding initially denied his guilt, stating 'If I did that wicked deed … Some example I wish be seen by me.’ There immediately followed a knock on the door, as the angel came forth to prove him wrong. The rapidity of his appearance alludes to early modern conceptions - popular even after the Reformation - that angels were omnipresent creatures, always watching people’s behaviour.

The source demonstrates the tension between the early modern and modern ideas about the role of angels and devils. The modern-day perception is that an angel is a pure, good and benevolent creature, while the Devil is its opposite, a creature of pure evil. But the source reveals that the roles of angels and devils are intertwined, with the angel summoning the Devil to punish Harding. God granted the angel control over the Devil because of his superior virtue, but both angels and devils were responsible for enacting justice.

Overall, the source presents a vision of angels as creatures who were ever-present and enacted justice in differing guises. This reflects how early modern angels might be more intimidating figures than their modern-day descendants. It also shows the continued popularity of the concept of angels as moral mentors in Protestant culture.

 

By Tamyla Jawahir

 

[1] Martha McGill, ‘Angels in Early Modern Scotland’, in Julian Goodare and Martha McGill (eds), The Supernatural in Early Modern Scotland (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020), 86-106, at p. 88.

Embroidered cover of a book depicting Jacob wrestling the angel, from an edition of The Whole Booke of Davids Psalms (London,1634).

 

Adam and Eve are sent away from the Garden of Eden by an angel. Engraving by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1860).