bsurdest ever used
against even a witch, but the jury brought in a verdict of guilty. It is
not unpleasant to know that Justice Archer met with a good deal of
criticism for his part in the affair.

In the following year occurred the trials at Bury St. Edmunds, which
derive their interest and importance largely from the position of the
presiding judge, Sir Matthew Hale, who was at this time chief baron of
the exchequer, and was later to be chief justice of the king's bench. He
was allowed, according to the admission of one none too friendly to him,
"on all hands to be the most profound lawyer of his time."[12] Hale had
been a Puritan from his youth, though not of the rigid or theologically
minded sort. In the Civil Wars and the events that followed he had
remained non-partisan. He accepted office from Cromwell, though without
doubt mildly sympathizing with the king. One of those who had assisted
in recalling Charles II, he rose shortly to be chief baron of the
exchequer. Famous for his careful and reasoned interpretation of law, he
was to leave behind him a high reputation for his justice and for the
exceptional precision of his judgments. It is not too much to say that
he was one of the greatest legal figures of his century and that his
decisions served in no small degree to fix the law.

We should like to know how far he had been brought into contact with the
subject of witchcraft, but we can do no more than guess. His early
career had been moulded in no small degree by Selden, who, as has been
noted in an earlier chapter, believed in the punishment of those who
claimed to be witches. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the
Puritans with whom he had been thrown were all of them ready to quote
Scripture against the minions of Satan. We know that he had read some of
the works of Henry More,[13] and, whether or not familiar with his
chapters on witchcraft, would have deduced from that writer's general
philosophy of spirits the particular application.

The trial concerned two women of Lowestoft, Amy Duny and Rose Cullender.
The first had been reputed a witch and a "person of very evil
behaviour." She was in all probability related to some of those women
who had suffered at the hands of Hopkins, and to that connection owed
her ill name. Some six or seven years before the date of the trial she
had got herself into trouble while taking care of the child of a
tradesman in Lowestoft. It would seem that, contrary to the ord