We are now at the end of the witch trials. In another chapter we shall trace the history of opinion through this last period. With the dismissal of the Norton women at Leicester, the courts were through with witch trials.
[1] See below, pp. 342-343.
[2] We are assuming that the cases at Northampton in 1705 and at Huntingdon in 1716 have no basis of fact. At Northampton two women, according to the pamphlet account, had been hanged and burnt; at Huntingdon, according to another account, a woman and her daughter. It is possible that these pamphlets deal with historical events; but the probabilities are all against that supposition. For a discussion of the matter in detail see below, appendix A, § 10.
[3] For his early history see The Surey Demoniack, ... or, an Account of Satan's ... Actings, In and about the Body of Richard Dugdale.... (London, 1697).
[4] The Catholics do not seem, so far as the account goes, to have said anything about witchcraft.
[5] The Surey Demoniack, 49; Zachary Taylor, The Surey Impostor, being an answer to a ... Pamphlet, Entituled The Surey Demoniack (London, 1697), 21-22.
[6] "N. N.," The Lancashire Levite Rebuked, or a Vindication of the Dissenters from Popery.... (London, 1698), 3-4; see also the preface of The Surey Demoniack.
[7] Ibid.
[8] The Wonders of the Invisible World: being an Account of the Tryals of ... Witches ... in New England (London, 1693), by Cotton Mather, and A Further Account of the Tryals of the New-England Witches (London, 1693), by Increase Mather. See preface to The Surey Demoniack.