absence of stories of threats at beggars and of quarrels between
bad-tempered and loose-lived women, stories that fill so many dreary
pages of witchcraft records. Nor is there any mention of the practice of
pretended magic.

In previous chapters we have had occasion to observe the continuity of
superstition in certain localities. It is obvious that Lancashire offers
one of the best illustrations of that principle. The connection between
the alarms of 1612 and 1633-1634 is not a matter of theory, but can be
established by definite proof. It is perhaps not out of order to
inquire, then, why Lancashire should have been so infested with
witches. It is the more necessary when we consider that there were other
witch cases in the country. Nicholas Starchie's children gave rise to
the first of the scares. It seems likely that a certain Utley was hanged
at Lancaster in 1630 for bewitching a gentleman's child.[29] During
Commonwealth days, as we shall find, there was an alarm at Lancaster
that probably cost two witches their lives. No county in England except
Essex had a similar record. No explanation can be offered for the
records of these two counties save that both had been early infected
with a hatred of witches, and that the witches came to be connected, in
tradition, with certain localities within the counties and with certain
families living there. This is, indeed, an explanation that does not
explain. It all comes back to the continuity of superstition.

We have already referred to the widespread interest in the Lancashire
witches. There are two good illustrations of this interest. When Sir
William Brereton was travelling in Holland in June of 1634, a little
while before the four women had been brought to London, he met King
Charles's sister, the Queen of Bohemia, and at once, apparently, they
began to talk about the great Lancashire discovery.[30] The other
instance of comment on the case was in England. It is one which shows
that playwrights were quite as eager then as now to be abreast of
current topics. Before final judgment had been given on the Lancashire
women, Thomas Heywood and Richard Brome, well known dramatists, had
written a play on the subject which was at once published and "acted at
the Globe on the Bankside by His Majesty's Actors." By some it has been
supposed that this play was an older play founded on the Lancashire
affair of 1612 and warmed over in 1634; but the main incidents and the
characters of t