e children
fell ill again. The perplexed parent now went to a physician of
Manchester. But the physician "sawe no signe of sicknes." Dr. Dee, the
famous astrologer and friend of Elizabeth, was summoned. He advised the
help of "godlie preachers."[14]

Meantime the situation in the afflicted family took a more serious turn.
Besides Mr. Starchie's children, three young wards of his, a servant,
and a visitor, were all taken with the mysterious illness. The modern
reader might suspect that some contagious disease had gripped the
family, but the irregular and intermittent character of the disease
precludes that hypothesis. Darrel in his own pamphlet on the matter
declares that when the parents on one occasion went to a play the
children were quiet, but that when they were engaged in godly exercise
they were tormented, a statement that raises a suspicion that the
disease, like that of the Throckmorton children, was largely imaginary.

But the divines were at work. They had questioned the conjurer, and had
found that he fumbled "verie ill favouredlie" in the repetition of the
Lord's Prayer. He was haled before a justice of the peace, who began
gathering evidence against him and turned him over to the assizes. There
it came out that he had been wont to kiss the Starchie children, and had
even attempted, although without success, to kiss a maid servant. In
this way he had presumably communicated the evil spirit--a new notion.
The court could find no law, however, upon which to hang him. He had
bewitched the children, but he had bewitched none of them to death, and
therefore had not incurred the death penalty. But the father leaped into
the gap. He remembered that he had seen the conjurer draw a magic circle
and divide it into four parts and that he had bidden the witness step
into the quarters one after another. Making such circles was definitely
mentioned in the law as felony. Hartley denied the charge, but to no
purpose. He was convicted of felony[15]--so far as we can judge, on this
unsupported afterthought of a single witness--and was hanged. Sympathy,
however, would be inappropriate. In the whole history of witchcraft
there were few victims who came so near to deserving their fate.

This was the story up to the time of Darrel's arrival. With Darrel came
his assistant, George More, pastor of a church in Derbyshire. The two at
once recognized the supernatural character of the case they were to
treat and began religious servi