Red Petticoat with Yellow and
Green patches," who was quickly identified and put in hold.[34]
Sometimes the spectres were more material. Jane Milburne of Newcastle
testified that Dorothy Stranger, in the form of a cat, had leaped upon
her and held her to the ground for a quarter of an hour.[35] A "Barber's
boy" in Cambridge had escaped from a spectral woman in the isle of Ely,
but she followed him to Cambridge and killed him with a blow. "He had
the exact mark in his forehead, being dead, where the Spiritual Woman
did hit him alive."[36] It is unnecessary to multiply cases. The
_Collection of Modern Relations_ is full of the same sort of evidence.

It has been seen that in nearly every epoch of witch history the
voluntary and involuntary confessions of the accused had greatly
simplified the difficulties of prosecution. The witches whom Matthew
Hopkins discovered were too ready to confess to enormous and unnatural
crimes. In this respect there is a marked change in the period of the
later Stuarts. Elizabeth Style of Somerset in 1663 and the three
Devonshire witches of 1682 were the only ones who made confessions.
Elizabeth Style[37] had probably been "watched," in spite of Glanvill's
statement to the contrary, perhaps somewhat in the same torturing way as
the Suffolk witches whom Hopkins "discovered," and her wild confession
showed the effect. The Devonshire women were half-witted creatures, of
the type that had always been most voluble in confession; but such were
now exceptions.

This means one of two things. Either the witches of the Restoration were
by some chance a more intelligent set, or they were showing more spirit
than ever before because they had more supporters and fairer treatment
in court. It is quite possible that both suppositions have in them some
elements of truth. As the belief in the powers of witches developed in
form and theory, it came to draw within its radius more groups of
people. In its earlier stages the attack upon the witch had been in part
the community's way of ridding itself of a disreputable member. By the
time that the process of attack had been developed for a century, it had
become less impersonal. Personal hatreds were now more often the
occasion of accusation. Individual malice was playing a larger role. In
consequence those who were accused were more often those who were
capable of fighting for themselves or who had friends to back them. And
those friends were more numerous and ze