wered negatively,
much to the satisfaction of everybody, and especially of the righteous
Mr. Potts.[35]

This is all we know directly about any tendency to question evidence at
Lancaster in 1612, but a good deal more may be inferred from what is not
there. A comparison of that trial with other contemporary trials will
convince any one that Justices Altham and Bromley must have ruled out
certain forms of evidence. There were no experiments made of any sort
nor any female juries set inspecting.[36] This, indeed, is not to say
that all silly testimony was excluded. There is enough and more of sheer
nonsense in the testimony to prove the contrary.

We turn now from the question of evidence to a brief consideration of
several less prominent features of Jacobean witchcraft. We shall note
the character of the sentences, the distribution of the trials, the
personnel and position in life of the accused, and lastly the question
of jurisdiction.

We have in another connection indicated the approximate number of
executions of which we have record in James's reign. That number, we
saw, was certainly over forty and probably approached fifty. It
represented, however, not quite half the total number of cases of
accusation recorded. In consequence the other verdicts and sentences
have significance. Especially is this true of the acquittals. They
amounted to thirty, perhaps to forty. When we add the trials of which we
do not know the outcome, we can guess that the number was close to the
sum total of executions. Legally only one other outcome of a trial was
possible, a year's imprisonment with quarterly appearances in the
pillory. There were three or four instances of this penalty as well as
one case where bond of good behavior was perhaps substituted for
imprisonment.[37] Five pardons were issued,[38] three of them by the
authorities at London, two of them by local powers apparently under
compulsion.[39]

We come now to consider the personnel, sex, occupations, and positions
in life of the accused. On certain of these matters it is possible to
give statistical conclusions, but such conclusions must be accepted with
great caution. By a count as careful as the insufficient evidence
permits it would seem that about six times as many women were indicted
as men. This was to be expected. It is perhaps less in accord with
tradition that twice as many married women as spinsters seem to have
figured in the witch trials of the Jacobean era.