utations."

[78] _The most true and wonderfull Narration of two women bewitched in
Yorkshire; ..._ (1658).

[79] "Relation of a Memorable Piece of Witchcraft at Welton near
Daventry," in Glanvill, _Sadducismus Triumphatus_ (London, 1681), pt.
ii, 263-268.

[80] See above, pp. 179-180, for an expression about the persecution in
1645.

[81] _Mercurius Democritus_, February 8-15, 1654.

[82] 1648. This must be distinguished from _The Divels Delusion ..._,
1649, (see above, ch. IX, note 8), which deals with two witches executed
at St. Alban's.

[83] The truth is that the newspapers, pamphlets, etc., were full of
such stories. And they were believed by many intelligent men. He who
runs through Whitelocke's _Memorials_ may read that the man was
exceeding superstitious. Whether it be the report of the horseman seen
in the air or the stories of witches at Berwick, Whitelocke was equally
interested. While he was merely recording the reports of others, there
is not a sign of skepticism.

[84] See above, pp. 152-157.

[85] See above, pp. 160-162.

CHAPTER XI.

WITCHCRAFT UNDER CHARLES II AND JAMES II.

No period of English history saw a wider interest in both the theory and
the practice of witchcraft than the years that followed the Restoration.
Throughout the course of the twenty-eight years that spanned the second
rule of the Stuarts, the Devil manifested himself in many forms and with
unusual frequency. Especially within the first half of that regime his
appearances were so thrilling in character that the enemies of the new
king might very well have said that the Evil One, like Charles, had come
to his own again. All over the realm the witches were popping up. If the
total number of trials and of executions did not foot up to the figures
of James I's reign or to those of the Civil War, the alarm was
nevertheless more widely distributed than ever before. In no less than
twenty counties of England witches were discovered and fetched to court.
Up to this time, so far at any rate as the printed records show, the
southwestern counties had been but little troubled. Now Somerset, Devon,
and Cornwall were the storm centre of the panic. In the north Yorkshire
began to win for itself the reputation as a centre of activity that had
long been held by Lancashire. Not that the witch was a new criminal in
Yorkshire courts. During the Civil Wars and the troubled years that
followed the discoverers had been active. But wi