‘But here,’ continues Potts, ‘as his lordship’s care and pains was great to discover the practices of those odious witches of the Forest of Pendle, and other places, now upon their tribunal before him; so was he desirous to discover this damnable practice to accuse these poor women and bring their lives in danger, and thereby to deliver the innocent.
‘And as he openly delivered it upon the bench, in the hearing of a great audience: That if a Priest or Jesuit had a hand in one end of it, there would appear to be knavery and practice in the other end of it. And that it might better appear to the whole world, examined Thomas Sowerbutts what [the] Master taught his daughter: in general terms, he denied all.
‘The wench had nothing to say, but her Master told her nothing of this. In the end, some that were present told his lordship the truth, and the prisoners informed him how she went to learn with one Thompson, a Seminary Priest, who had instructed and taught her this accusation against them, because they were once obstinate Papists, and now came to Church. Here is the discovery of this Priest, and of his whole practice. Still this fire increased more and more, and one witness accusing another, all things were laid open at large.
‘In the end his lordship took away the girl from her father, and committed her to Mr. Leigh, a very religious preacher, and Mr. Chisnal, two Justices of the Peace, to be carefully examined.’
The examination was as follows:
‘Being demanded whether the accusation she laid upon her grandmother, Jennet Bierley, Ellen Bierley, and Jane Southworth, of witchcraft, namely, of the killing of the child of Thomas Walshman with a nail in the navel, the boiling, eating, and oiling, thereby to transform themselves into divers shapes, was true; she doth utterly deny the same: or that ever she saw any such practices done by them.
‘She further saith, that one Master Thompson, which she taketh to be Master Christopher Southworth, to whom she was sent to learn her prayers, did persuade, counsel, and advise her, to deal as formerly hath been said against her said Grandmother, Aunt, and Southworth’s wife.
‘And further she confesseth and saith, that she never did know, or saw any Devils, nor any other Visions, as formerly by her hath been alleged and informed.
‘Also she confesseth and saith, that she was not thrown or cast upon the hen-ruff and hay-mow in the barn, but that she went up upon the Mow herself by the wall-side.
‘Being further demanded whether she ever was at the Church, she saith, she was not, but promised hereafter to go to the Church, and that very willingly.’