[6] Ibid.
[7] See John Brand, History and Antiquities of ... Newcastle (London, 1789), II, 478, or the Chronicon Mirabile (London, 1841), 92, for an extract from the parish registers, giving the names. A witch of rural Northumberland was executed with them.
[8] The witches of 1649 were not confined to the north. Two are said to have been executed at St. Albans, a man and a woman; one woman was tried in Worcestershire, one at Gloucester, and two in Middlesex. John Palmer and Elizabeth Knott, who suffered at St. Albans, had gained some notoriety. Palmer had contracted with the Devil and had persuaded his kinswoman to assist him in procuring the death of a woman by the use of clay pictures. Both were probably practitioners in magic. Palmer, even when in prison, claimed the power of transforming men into beasts. The woman seems to have been put to the swimming test. Both were condemned. Palmer, at his execution, gave information about a "whole colledge of witches," most of them, no doubt, practisers like himself, but his random accusations were probably passed over. See The Divels Delusions or A faithfull relation of John Palmer and Elizabeth Knott ... (1649).
[9] Ralph Gardiner, op. cit., 109.
[10] See ibid. At his execution, Gardiner says, he confessed that he had been the death of 220 witches in Scotland and England. Either the man was guilty of unseemly and boastful lying, which is very likely, or Scotland was indeed badly "infested." See above, note 1.
[11] This narrative is contained in Wonderfull News from the North, Or a True Relation of the Sad and Grievous Torments Inflicted upon ... three Children of Mr. George Muschamp ... (London, 1650).
[12] The story of the case was sent down to London and there published, where it soon became a classic among the witch-believing clergy.
[13] See the two pamphlets by Edmond Bower described below in appendix A, § 5, and Henry More, Antidote against Atheisme, bk. III, ch. VII.
[14] Wylde was not well esteemed as a judge. On the institution of the protectorate he was not reappointed by Cromwell.
[15] Aubrey (who had it from an eye-witness) tells us that "the crowd of spectators made such a noise that the judge could not heare the prisoner, nor the prisoner the judge; but the words were handed from one to the other by Mr. R. Chandler and sometimes not truly repeated." John Aubrey, Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme ... (ed. J. Britten, Folk Lore Soc. Publications, IV, 1881), 261.