e of
Execution." The Worcester pamphlet uses the phrase "with other amazing
Particulars"; the Northamptonshire pamphlet the phrase "the particulars
of their amazing Pranks." The Huntingdon pamphlet has in this case no
similar phrase but the Huntingdon and Northamptonshire pamphlets have
another phrase in common. The Northamptonshire pamphlet says: "the like
never before heard of"; the Huntingdon pamphlet says: "the like never
heard before."

These resemblances are in the titles. The Northampton and the fabricated
Worcester pamphlets show other similarities in their accounts. The
Northampton women were so "hardened in their Wickedness that they
Publickly boasted that their Master (meaning the Devil) would not suffer
them to be Executed but they found him a Lyer." The Worcester writer
speaks of the "Devil who told them to the Last that he would secure them
from Publick Punishment, but now too late they found him a Lyer as he
was from the beginning of the World." In concluding their narratives the
Northamptonshire and Worcestershire pamphleteers show an interesting
similarity of treatment. The Northampton witches made a "howling and
lamentable noise" on receiving their sentences, the Worcester women made
a "yelling and howling at their executions."

These resemblances may be fairly characterized as striking. If it be
asked whether the phrases quoted are not conventional in witch
pamphlets, the answer must be in the negative. So far as the writer
knows, these phrases occur in no other of the fifty or more witch
pamphlets. The word "notorious," which occurs in the titles of the
Worcester and Northampton pamphlets, is a common one and would signify
nothing. The other phrases mentioned are characteristic and distinctive.
This similarity suggests that the three pamphlets were written by the
same hand. Since we know that one of the three is a fabrication, we are
led to suspect the credibility of the other two.

There are, indeed, other reasons for doubting the historicity of these
two. A close scrutiny of the Northampton pamphlet shows that the
witchcrafts there described have the peculiar characteristics of the
witchcrafts in the palmy days of Matthew Hopkins and that the wording of
the descriptions is much the same. The Northampton pamphlet tells of a
"tall black man," who appeared to the two women. A tall black man had
appeared to Rebecca West at Chelmsford in 1645. A much more important
point is that the prisoners at Nort