[42] Acts P. C., n. s., XI, 292.
[43] Strype, Sir Thomas Smith, 127-129.
[44] A Rehearsall both straung and true of hainous and horrible acts committed by Elizabeth Stile, etc. (for full title see appendix). This pamphlet is in black letter. Its account is confirmed by the reference in Acts P. C., n. s., XI, 22. See also Scot, Discoverie, 51, 543.
[45] An aged widow had been committed to gaol on the testimony of her neighbors that she was "lewde, malitious, and hurtful to the people." An ostler, after he had refused to give her relief, had suffered a pain. So far as the account goes, this was the sum of the evidence against the woman. Unhappily she waited not on the order of her trial but made voluble confession and implicated five others, three of whom were without doubt professional enchanters. She had met, she said, with Mother Dutten, Mother Devell, and Mother Margaret, and "concluded several hainous and vilanous practices." The deaths of five persons whom she named were the outcome of their concerted plans. For the death of a sixth she avowed entire responsibility. This amazing confession may have been suggested to her piece by piece, but it was received at full value. That she included others in her guilt was perhaps because she responded to the evident interest aroused by such additions, or more likely because she had grudges unsatisfied. The women were friendless, three of the four were partially dependent upon alms, there was no one to come to their help, and they were convicted. The man that had been arraigned, a "charmer," seems to have gone free.
[46] Injunctions ... of ... Bishop of Durham, 18, 84, 99; Visitations of Canterbury, in Arch. Cant., XXVI; Hale, Precedents, 1475-1640, 147, etc.
[47] Arch. Cant., XXVI, passim; Hale, op. cit., 147, 148, 163, 185; Mrs. Lynn Linton, Witch Stories (London, 1861; new ed., 1883), 144.
[48] See Hale, op. cit., 148, 157.
[49] Hale, op. cit., 148; Depositions ... from the Court of Durham, 99; Arch. Cant., XXVI, 21.
[50] Hale, op. cit., 148, 185.
[51] Ibid., 157.