ce to be
blooded."[46] The "old witch" was also stripped and searched "publickly
before a great number of good women." The most brutal and illegal of all
forms of witch procedure had been revived, as if to celebrate the last
appearance of the Devil. But the rest of the story is pleasanter. When
the case came before the grand jury at the assizes, over which Justice
Parker was presiding, "the bill was not found."

With this the story of English trials comes to an end. The statute of
James I had been practically quashed, and, though it was not to be taken
from the law books for nineteen years, it now meant nothing. It was very
hard for the great common people to realize what had happened. As the
law was breaking down they had shown an increasing tendency to take
justice into their own hands. In the case with which we have just been
dealing we have seen the accusers infringing the personal rights of the
individual, and calling in the constables to help them in their utterly
unlawful performances. This was not new. As early as 1691, if Hutchinson
may be trusted, there were "several tried by swimming in Suffolk, Essex,
Cambridgeshire, and Northamptonshire and some were drowned." It would be
easy to add other and later accounts,[47] but we must be content with
one.[48] The widow Coman, in Essex, had recently lost her husband; and
her pastor, the Reverend Mr. Boys, went to cheer her in her melancholy.
Because he had heard her accounted a witch he questioned her closely and
received a nonchalant admission of relations with the Devil. That
astounded him. When he sought to inquire more closely, he was put off.
"Butter is eight pence a pound and Cheese a groat a pound," murmured the
woman, and the clergyman left in bewilderment. But he came back in the
afternoon, and she raved so wildly that he concluded her confession was
but "a distraction in her head." Two women, however, worried from her
further and more startling confessions. The minister returned, bringing
with him "Mr. Goldsmith and Mr. Grimes," two of the disbelieving "sparks
of the age." The rest of the story may be told as it is given in another
account, a diary of the time. "July 3d, 1699, the widow Coman was put
into the river to see if she would sinke, ... and she did not sinke but
swim, ... and she was tryed again July 19, and then she swam again. July
24 the widow was tryed a third time by putting her into the river and
she swam. December 27. The widow Coman that was