using their
bakeries for her dough.[23] She threw down the glove to her accusers by
demanding that they should be brought by warrant to accuse her. No doubt
she realized that she had good support in her community, and that her
challenge was not likely to be accepted. But a woman near Land's End in
Cornwall seems to have overestimated the support upon which she could
count. She had procured a warrant against her accusers to call the case
before the mayor. The court sided with the accusers and the woman was
brought to trial. Caught herself, she proceeded to ensnare others. As a
result, eight persons were sent to Launceston,[24] and some probably
suffered death.[25]

We have already seen what a tangled web Mrs. Muschamp wove when she set
out to imprison a colonel's wife. It would be easy to cite cases to show
the same reluctance to follow up prosecution. Four women at Leicester
searched Ann Chettle and found no evidence of guilt.[26] In Durham a
case came up before Justice Henry Tempest.[27] Mary Sykes was accused.
Sara Rodes, a child, awakening from sleep in a fright, had declared to
her mother that "Sikes' wife" had come in "att a hole att the bedd
feete" and taken her by the throat. Of course Sara Rodes fell ill.
Moreover, the witch had been seen riding at midnight on the back of a
cow and at another time flying out of a "mistall windowe." But the
woman, in spite of the unfavorable opinion of the women searchers, went
free. There were cases that seem to have ended the same way at York, at
Leeds, and at Scarborough. They were hints of what we have already
noticed, that the northern counties were changing their attitude.[28]
But a case in Derbyshire deserves more attention because the justice,
Gervase Bennett, was one of the members of Cromwell's council. The case
itself was not in any way unusual. A beggar woman, who had been
liberally supported by those who feared her, was on trial for
witchcraft. Because of Bennett's close relation to the government, we
should be glad to know what he did with the case, but the fact that the
woman's conviction is not among the records makes it probable that she
was not bound over to the assizes.[29]

We come now to examine the second of the sub-periods into which we have
divided the Interregnum. We have been dealing with the interval between
the war and the establishment of the Protectorate, a time that shaded
off from the dark shadows of internecine struggle towards the high light
o