there must have been others--but because their
names are linked with significant decisions. Without doubt Chief Justice
Holt did more than any other man in English history to end the
prosecution of witches. Justice Powell was not so brave a man, but he
happened to preside over one of the most bitterly contested of all
trials, and his verdict served to reaffirm the precedents set by Holt.
It was Justice Parker's fortune to try the last case of witchcraft in
England.

Holt became chief justice of the king's bench on the accession of
William and Mary. Not one of the great names in English judicial rolls,
his decided stand against superstition makes him great in the history of
witchcraft. Where and when he had acquired his skeptical attitude we do
not know. The time was past when such an attitude was unusual. In any
case, from the moment he assumed the chief justiceship he set himself
directly against the punishment of witchcraft. As premier of the English
judiciary his example meant quite as much as his own rulings. And their
cumulative effect was not slight. We know of no less than eleven trials
where as presiding officer he was instrumental in securing a verdict of
acquittal. In London, at Ipswich, at Bury, at Exeter, in Cornwall, and
in other parts of the realm, these verdicts were rendered, and they
could not fail to influence opinion and to affect the decisions of other
judges. Three of the trials we shall go over briefly--those at Bury,
Exeter, and Southwark.

In 1694 he tried Mother Munnings at Bury St. Edmunds,[19] where his
great predecessor Hale had condemned two women. Mother Munnings had
declared that a landlord should lie nose upward in the church-yard
before the next Saturday, and, sure enough, her prophecy had come true.
Nevertheless, in spite of this and other testimony, she was acquitted.
Two years later Holt tried Elizabeth Horner at Exeter, where Raymond had
condemned three women in 1682. Bishop Trelawny of Exeter had sent his
sub-dean, Launcelot Blackburne (later to be Archbishop of York), to look
into the case, and his report adds something to the account which
Hutchinson has given us.[20] Elizabeth was seen "three nights together
upon a large down in the same place, as if rising out of the ground." It
was certified against her by a witness that she had driven a red-hot
nail "into the witche's left foot-step, upon which she went lame, and,
being search'd, her leg and foot appear'd to be red and fiery