ple. It was his hostility to the
ecclesiastical and political sympathies of his community that caused his
fall.

The dementia induced by the torture in Lowes's case showed itself in the
case of others, who made confessions of long careers of murder. "These
and all the rest confessed that cruell malice ... was their chiefe
delight." The accused were being forced by cruel torture to lend their
help to a panic which exceeded any before or after in England. From one
hundred and thirty to two hundred people[30] were soon under accusation
and shut up in Bury gaol.

News of this reached a Parliament in London that was very much engrossed
with other matters. We cannot do better than to quote the Puritan
biographer Clarke.[31] "A report was carried to the Parliament ... as
if some busie men had made use of some ill Arts to extort such
confession; ... thereupon a special Commission of Oyer and Terminer was
granted for the trial of these Witches." Care was to be used, in
gathering evidence, that confessions should be voluntary and should be
backed by "many collateral circumstances." There were to be no
convictions except upon proof of express compact with the Devil, or upon
evidence of the use of imps, which implied the same thing. Samuel
Fairclough and Edmund Calamy (the elder), both of them Non-Conformist
clergymen of Suffolk,[32] together with Serjeant John Godbolt and the
justices of the peace, were to compose this special court. The court met
about the end of August, a month after the sessions under Warwick at
Chelmsford, and was opened by two sermons preached by Mr. Fairclough in
Bury church. One of the first things done by the special court, quite
possibly at the instigation of the two clergymen, was to put an end to
the swimming test,[33] which had been used on several of the accused,
doubtless by the authority of the justices of the peace. This was of
course in some sense a blow at Hopkins. Nevertheless a great deal of the
evidence which he had gathered must have been taken into account.
Eighteen persons, including two men,[34] were condemned to be
hanged.[35] On the night before their execution, they were confined in a
barn, where they made an agreement not to confess a word at the gallows
the following day, and sang a psalm in confirmation. Next day they
"dyed ... very desperately."[36] But there were still one hundred and
twenty others in gaol[37] awaiting trial. No doubt many forthwith would
have met the same end, h