were still
districts in the southwest of England where it could be done, with few
to say nay. Anne Bodenham,[13] of Fisherton Anger in Wiltshire, had not
the social position of Dorothy Swinow, but she was the wife of a
clothier who had lived "in good fashion," and in her old age she taught
children to read. She had, it seems, been in earlier life an apt pupil
of Dr. Lambe, and had learned from him the practice of magic lore. She
drew magic circles, saw visions of people in a glass, possessed numerous
charms and incantations, and, above all, kept a wonderful magic book.
She attempted to find lost money, to tell the future, and to cure
disease; indeed, she had a varied repertoire of occult performances.

Now, Mistress Bodenham did all these things for money and roused no
antagonism in her community until she was unfortunate enough to have
dealings with a maid-servant in a Wiltshire family. It is impossible to
get behind the few hints given us by the cautious writer. The members of
the family, evidently one of some standing in Wiltshire, became involved
in a quarrel among themselves. It was believed, indeed, by neighbors
that there had been a conspiracy on the part of some of the family to
poison the mother-in-law. At all events, a maid in the family was
imprisoned for participation in such a plot. It was then that Anne
Bodenham first came into the story. The maid, to judge from the few data
we have, in order to distract attention from her own doings, made a
confession that she had signed a book of the Devil's with her own blood,
all at the instigation of Anne Bodenham. Moreover, Anne, she said, had
offered to send her to London in two hours. This was communicated to a
justice of the peace, who promptly took the accused woman into custody.
The maid-servant, successful thus far, began to simulate fits and to lay
the blame for them on Mistress Anne. Questioned as to what she conceived
her condition, she replied, "Oh very damnable, very wretched." She could
see the Devil, she said, on the housetop looking at her. These fancies
passed as facts, and the accused woman was put to the usual
humiliations. She was searched, examined, and urged to confess. The
narrator of the story made effort after effort to wring from her an
admission of her guilt, but she slipped out of all his traps. Against
her accuser she was very bitter. "She hath undone me ... that am an
honest woman, 'twill break my Husband's heart, he grieves to see me in