ing at the hands of
her children the same treatment she had given her own mother Demdike.
The Chattox family held together better. Mistress Redfearne had been
carefully shielded in the testimony of her mother Chattox, but she fell
a victim to the accusations of the opposing family. The course of her
trial was remarkable. Denying her guilt with great emphasis, she had by
some wonder been acquitted. But this verdict displeased the people in
attendance upon the trial. Induced by the cries of the people, the court
was persuaded to try her again. The charge against her was exactly the
same, that eighteen years before she had participated in killing
Christopher Nutter with a clay figure. "Old Demdike" had seen her in the
act of making the image, and there was offered also the testimony of
the sister and brother of the dead man, who recalled that Robert Nutter
on his death-bed had accused Anne of his bewitchment.[10] It does not
seem to have occurred to the court that the principle that a person
could not twice be put in jeopardy for the same offence was already an
old principle in English law.[11] The judges were more concerned with
appeasing the people than with recalling old precedents, and sent the
woman to the gallows.

The Pendle cases were interrupted on the third day by the trial of three
women from Salmesbury, who pleaded not guilty and put themselves "upon
God and their Countrey." The case against them rested upon the testimony
of a single young woman, Grace Sowerbutts, who declared that for the
three years past she had been vexed by the women in question, who "did
violently draw her by the haire of the head, and layd her on the toppe
of a Hay-mowe." This delightfully absurd charge was coupled with some
testimony about the appearances of the accused in animal form. Three men
attempted to bolster up the story; but no "matter of witchcraft" was
proved, says the for once incredulous Mr. Potts. The women seized the
decisive moment. They kneeled before the judge and requested him to
examine Grace Sowerbutts as to who set her on. The judge--who had
seemingly not thought of this before--followed the suggestion. The girl
changed countenance and acknowledged that she had been taught her story.
At the order of the judge she was questioned by a clergyman and two
justices of the peace, who found that she had been coached to tell her
story by a Master Thompson, alias Southworth, a "seminarie priest." So
ended the charges against