s confined in London.[24] A series of cases
in the reign of Charles I had shown that it was next to impossible to
recover damages for being slandered as a witch, though in the time of
the Commonwealth one woman had come out of a suit with five shillings to
her credit. Of course, when a man of distinction was slandered,
circumstances were altered. At some time very close to the trial of
Hathaway, Elizabeth Hole of Derbyshire was summoned to the assizes for
accusing Sir Henry Hemloke, a well known baronet, of witchcraft.[25]
Such a charge against a man of position was a serious matter. But the
Moordike-Hathaway case was on a plane entirely different from any of
these cases. Sarah Morduck was not a woman of position, yet her accuser
was punished, probably by a long imprisonment. It was a precedent that
would be a greater safeguard to supposed witches than many acquittals.

Justice Powell was not to wield the authority of Holt: yet he made one
decision the effects of which were far-reaching. It was in the trial of
Jane Wenham at Hertford in 1712. The trial of this woman was in a sense
her own doing. She was a widow who had done washing by the day. For a
long time she had been suspected of witchcraft by a neighboring farmer,
so much so that, when a servant of his began to act queerly, he at once
laid the blame on the widow. Jane applied to Sir Henry Chauncy, justice
of the peace, for a warrant against her accuser. He was let off with a
fine of a shilling, and she was instructed by Mr. Gardiner, the
clergyman, to live more peaceably.[26] So ended the first act. In the
next scene of this dramatic case a female servant of the Reverend Mr.
Gardiner's, a maid just getting well of a broken knee, was discovered
alone in a room undressed "to her shift" and holding a bundle of sticks.
When asked to account for her condition by Mrs. Gardiner, she had a
curious story to tell. "When she was left alone she found a strange
Roaming in her head, ... her Mind ran upon Jane Wenham and she thought
she must run some whither ... she climbed over a Five-Bar-Gate, and ran
along the Highway up a Hill ... as far as a Place called Hackney-Lane,
where she look'd behind her, and saw a little Old Woman Muffled in a
Riding-hood." This dame had asked whither she was going, had told her to
pluck some sticks from an oak tree, had bade her bundle them in her
gown, and, last and most wonderful, had given her a large crooked
pin.[27] Mrs. Gardiner, so the accou