case is a baffling one. We can be quite sure that the pamphlet
account is incomplete. One would like to know more about the substance
of fact behind this evidence. Did the parties that were said to have
been killed by witchcraft really die at the times specified? Either the
facts of their deaths were well known in the community and were fitted
with great cleverness into the story Mother Waterhouse told, or the
jurors and the judges neglected the first principles of common sense and
failed to inquire about the facts.[6] The questions asked by the queen's
attorney reveal hardly more than an unintelligent curiosity to know the
rest of the story. He shows just one saving glint of skepticism. He
offered to release Mother Waterhouse if she would materialize her
spirit.

Mother Waterhouse was her own worst enemy. Her own testimony was the
principal evidence presented against her, and yet she denied guilt on
one particular upon which the attorney-general had interrogated her.
This might lead one to suppose that her answers were the haphazard
replies of a half-witted woman. But the supposition is by no means
consistent with the very definite and clear-cut nature of her testimony.
It is useless to try to unravel the tangles of the case. It is possible
that under some sort of duress--although there is no evidence of
this--she had deliberately concocted a story to fit those of Elizabeth
Francis and Agnes Brown, and that her daughter, hearing her mother's
narrative in court--a very possible thing in that day--had fitted hers
into it. It is conceivable too that Mother Waterhouse had yielded merely
to the wish to amaze her listeners. It is a more probable supposition
that the questions asked of her by the judge were based upon the
accusations already made by Agnes Brown and that they suggested to her
the main outlines of her narrative.

Elizabeth Francis, who had been the first accused and who had accused
Mother Waterhouse, escaped. Whether it was because she had turned
state's evidence or because she had influential friends in the
community, we do not know. It is possible that the judges recognized
that her confession was unsupported by the testimony of other witnesses.
Such a supposition, however, credits the court with keener
discrimination than seems ever to have been exhibited in such cases in
the sixteenth century.[7]

But, though Elizabeth Francis had escaped, her reputation as a dangerous
woman in the community was fixed.