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Updated: May 8, 2025
Three men attempted to bolster up the story; but no "matter of witchcraft" was proved, says the for once incredulous Mr. Potts. The women seized the decisive moment. They kneeled before the judge and requested him to examine Grace Sowerbutts as to who set her on. The judge who had seemingly not thought of this before followed the suggestion.
The case against them rested upon the testimony of a single young woman, Grace Sowerbutts, who declared that for the three years past she had been vexed by the women in question, who "did violently draw her by the haire of the head, and layd her on the toppe of a Hay-mowe." This delightfully absurd charge was coupled with some testimony about the appearances of the accused in animal form.
A girl at Windsor, another in Hertfordshire, were possessed by the Devil, two maids at Westminster were "in raptures from the Virgin Mary and Michael the Archangel," a priest of Leicestershire was "possessed of the Blessed Trinity." Such cases not to mention the Grace Sowerbutts confessions at Lancaster that were like to end so tragically were the excrescences of an intensely religious age.
Three instances of exposure of imposture were most notable, those of Grace Sowerbutts, the boy at Leicester, and the "Boy of Bilston." The first of these has already been sufficiently discussed in connection with the Lancashire trials. The second had nothing remarkable about it.
Webster, writing later, said that seventeen were found guilty. It is possible that even a larger number were acquitted. Certainly some were acquitted. A distinction of some sort was made in the evidence. This makes it all the harder to understand why the truth of Robinson's stories was not tested in the same way in which those of Grace Sowerbutts had been tested in 1612.
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