these Irons: I did once live in good fashion."

The case was turned over by the justices of the peace to the assizes at
Salisbury, where Chief Baron John Wylde of the exchequer presided.[14]
The testimony of the maid was brought in, as well as the other
proofs.[15] All we know of the trial is that Anne was condemned, and
that Judge Wylde was so well satisfied with his work that he urged
Edmund Bower, who had begun an account of the case, but had hesitated to
expose himself to "this Censorious Age," to go on with his booklet. That
detestable individual had followed the case closely. After the
condemnation he labored with the woman to make her confess. But no
acknowledgment of guilt could be wrung from the high-spirited Mistress
Bodenham, even when the would-be father confessor held out to her the
false hope of mercy. She made a will giving gifts to thirty people,
declared she had been robbed by her maids in prison, lamented over her
husband's sorrow, and requested that she be buried under the gallows.
Like the McPherson who danced so wantonly and rantingly beneath the
gallows tree, she remained brave-hearted to the end. When the officer
told her she must go with him to the place of execution, she replied,
"Be you ready, I am ready." The narrator closes the account with some
moral reflections. We may close with the observation that there is no
finer instance of womanly courage in the annals of witchcraft than that
of Anne Bodenham. Doubtless she had used charms, and experimented with
glasses; it had been done by those of higher rank than she.

As for the maid, she had got herself well out of trouble. When Mistress
Bodenham had been hanged, the fits ceased, and she professed great
thankfulness to God and a desire to serve him.

The case of Joan Peterson, who was tried at the Old Bailey in 1652, is
another instance of the struggle of a spirited woman against too great
odds. Joan, like Mistress Bodenham, kept various kinds of powders and
prescribed physic for ailing neighbors.[16] It was, however, if we may
believe her defender, not on account of her prescriptions, but rather on
account of her refusal to swear falsely, that her downfall came. One
would be glad to know the name of the vigorous defender who after her
execution issued _A Declaration in Answer to severall lying Pamphlets
concerning the Witch of Wapping_. His narrative of the plot against the
accused woman offers a plausible explanation of the affair and is not