[39] Then of Lichfield.
[40] Baddeley, who was Bishop Morton's secretary and who prepared the narrative of the affair for the printer, says that the woman was freed by the inquest; Ryc. Baddeley, The Boy of Bilson ... (London, 1622), 61. Arthur Wilson, who tells us that he heard the story "from the Bishop's own mouth almost thirty years before it was inserted here," says that the woman was found guilty and condemned to die; Arthur Wilson, Life and Reign of James I (London, 1653), 107. It is evident that Baddeley's story is the more trustworthy. It is of course possible, although not probable, that there were two trials, and that Baddeley ignored the second one, the outcome of which would have been less creditable to the bishop.
[41] Webster, Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft, 275.
[42] See Fairfax, A Discourse of Witchcraft (Philobiblon Soc.): "and those whose impostures our wise King so lately laid open." See also an interesting letter from James himself in J. O. Halliwell, Letters of the Kings of England (London, 1846), II, 124-125.
[43] Fuller, Church History of Britain, V, 452 (ch. X, sect. 4). It is worthy of note that Peter Heylyn, who, in his Examen Historicum (London, 1659), sought to pick Fuller to pieces, does not mention this point.
[44] See Francis Osborne, Miscellany, 4-9. Lucy Aikin, Memoirs of the Court of King James the First (London, 1823), II, 398-399, gives about the same story as Fuller and Osborne, and, while the wording is slightly different, it is probable that they were her sources.
[45] Arthur Wilson, op. cit., 111, tells us: "The King took delight by the line of his reason to sound the depth of such brutish impostors, and he discovered many." A writer to the Gentleman's Magazine (LIV, pt. I, 246-247), in 1784, says that he has somewhere read that King James on his death-bed acknowledged that he had been deceived in his opinion respecting witchcraft and expressed his concern that so many innocent persons had suffered on that account. But, as he has forgotten where he read it, his evidence is of course of small value.
[46] The college where an annual sermon was preached on the subject of witchcraft since the Warboys affair.
[47] Osborne's statement should perhaps be discounted a little on account of his skepticism. On the other hand he was not such an admirer of James I as to have given him undue credit. Fuller's opinion was divided.
[48] James still believed in witchcraft in 1613, when the malodorous divorce trial of Lady Essex took place. A careful reading of his words at that time, however, leaves the impression that he was not nearly so certain about the possibilities of witchcraft as he had been when he wrote his book. His position was clearly defensive. It must be remembered that James in 1613 had a point to be gained and would not have allowed a possible doubt as to witchcraft to interfere with his wish for the divorce. See Howell, State Trials, II, 806.