in Northamptonshire who had gained the ill will of a woman named
Ann Foster. Thirty of his sheep were found dead with their "Leggs broke
in pieces, and their Bones all shattered in their Skins." A little later
his house and barns were set on fire. Ann Foster was brought to trial
for using witchcraft against him, confessed to it, and was hanged.[40]

The other case was at Brightling in Sussex, not far from London. There a
woman who was suspected as the one who had told a servant that Joseph
Cruther's house would be burned--a prophecy which came true very
shortly--was accused as a witch. She had been accused years before at
the Maidstone assizes, but had gone free. This time she was "watched"
for twenty-four hours and four ministers kept a fast over the
affair.[41]

These cases are worth something as an indication that the charge of
witchcraft was still a method of getting rid of people whom the
community feared.

At the beginning of this chapter the years 1660 to 1688 were marked off
as constituting a single epoch in the history of the superstition. Yet
those years were by no means characterized by the same sort of court
verdicts. The sixties saw a decided increase over the years of the
Commonwealth in the number of trials and in the number of executions.
The seventies witnessed a rapid dropping off in both figures. Even more
so the eighties. By the close of the eighties the accounts of witchcraft
were exceedingly rare. The decisions of the courts in the matter were in
a state of fluctuation. Two things were happening. The justices of the
peace were growing much more reluctant to send accused witches to the
assize courts; and the itinerant judges as a body were, in spite of the
decisions of Hale and Raymond, more careful in witch trials than ever
before, and more likely to withstand public sentiment.

The changes of opinion, as reflected in the literature of the time,
especially in the literature of the subject, will show the same
tendencies. We shall take them up in the next chapter.

[1] See Raine, ed., _York Depositions_ (Surtees Soc.), preface, xxx.

[2] Joseph Hunter, _Life of Heywood_ (London, 1842), 167, and Heywood's
_Diaries_, ed. J. H. Turner (Brighouse, 1881-1885), I, 199; III, 100.
Heywood, who was one of the leading Dissenters of his time, must not be
credited with extreme superstition. In noting the death of a boy whom
his parents believed bewitched, he wrote, "Oh that they saw the lords
hand." _Di