bout witchcraft. Probably by
this time he had come to disbelieve it. One can but wonder if Charles,
already probably aware of Harvey's views, had not intended from his
first step in the Lancashire case to give his physician a chance to
assert his opinion. In any case his report and that of his subordinates
was entirely in favor of the women, except that in the case of Margaret
Johnson (who had confessed) they had found a mark, but one to which they
attached little significance.[21] The women seem to have been carried
before the king himself.[22] We do not know, however, that he expressed
any opinion on the matter.

The whole affair has one aspect that has been entirely overlooked.
Whatever the verdict of the privy council and of the king may have
been--and it was evidently one of caution--they gave authorization from
the highest quarters for the use of the test of marks on the body. That
proof of witchcraft had been long known in England and had slowly won
its way into judicial procedure until now it was recognized by the
highest powers in the kingdom. To be sure, it was probably their purpose
to annul the reckless convictions in Lancashire, and to break down the
evidence of the female juries; but in doing so they furnished a
precedent for the witch procedure of the civil-war period.

In the mean time, while the surgeons and midwives were busy over these
four women, the Robinsons, father and son, had come to London at the
summons of the privy council.[23] There the boy was separated from his
father. To a Middlesex justice of the peace appointed by Secretary
Windebank to take his statements he confessed that his entire story was
an invention and had no basis of fact whatever.[24] Both father and son
were imprisoned and proceedings seem to have been instituted against
them by one of the now repentant jurymen who had tried the case.[25] How
long they were kept in prison we do not know.

One would naturally suppose that the women would be released on their
return to Lancaster, but the sheriff's records show that two years later
there were still nine witches in gaol.[26] Three of them bore the same
names as those whom Robinson pretended to have seen at Hoarstones. At
least one other of the nine had been convicted in 1634, probably more.
Margaret Johnson, the single one to confess, so far as we know, was not
there. She had probably died in prison in the mean time. We have no clue
as to why the women were not released. Perha