description of a Gentlewoman,
about sixe yeares past, cured of divers kinds of convulsions, ... After
she was almost cured, ... but the cure not fully accomplished, it was by
a reputed Wisard whispered ... that the Gentlewoman was meerely
bewitched, supposed Witches were accused and after executed.... In this
last past seventh yeare ... fits are critically again returned." Cotta
says six years ago and the Northampton trials were in 1612, four years
before. It is quite possible, however, that Mistress Belcher began to be
afflicted in 1610.

[14] One of these was Sir Gilbert Pickering of Tichmarsh, almost
certainly the Gilbert Pickering mentioned as an uncle of the
Throckmorton children at Warboys. See above, pp. 47-48. His hatred of
witches had no doubt been increased by that affair.

[15] See what is said of spectral evidence in chapter V, above.

[16] At least there is no evidence that Alice Abbott, Catherine
Gardiner, and Alice Harris, whom he accused, were punished in any way.

[17] It seems, however, that Arthur Bill, while he sturdily denied
guilt, had been before trapped into some sort of an admission. He had
"unawares confest that he had certaine spirits at command." But this may
mean nothing more than that something he had said had been grossly
misinterpreted.

[18] Three women of Leicestershire, Anne Baker, Joan Willimot, and Ellen
Greene, who in their confessions implicated the Flowers (they belonged
to parishes neighbor to that of Belvoir, which lies on the shire border)
and whose testimony against them figured in their trials, were at the
same time (Feb.-March, 1618/19) under examination in that county.
Whether these women were authors or victims of the Belvoir suspicions we
do not know. As we have their damning confessions, there is small doubt
as to their fate.

[19] The women were tried in March, 1618/19. Henry, the elder son of the
earl, was buried at Bottesford, September 26, 1613. John Nichols,
_History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester_ (London,
1795-1815), II, pt. i, 49, note 10. Francis, the second, lingered till
early in 1620. His sister, Lady Katherine, whose delicate health had
also been ascribed to the witches, was now the heiress, and became in
that year the bride of Buckingham, the king's favorite. There is one
aspect of this affair that must not be overlooked. The accusation
against the Flowers cannot have been unknown to the king, who was a
frequent visitor at the seat of th