as eagerly received. No
objection indeed was made to the testimony of a neighbor who professed
to have overheard what he deemed an incriminating statement. As a matter
of fact the remark, if made, was harmless enough.[17] Expert evidence
was introduced in a roundabout way by the statement offered in court
that a physician had suspected that a certain case was witchcraft.
Nothing was excluded. The garrulous women had been give free rein to
pile up their silly accusations against one another. Not until the trial
was nearing its end does it seem to have occurred to Brian Darcy to warn
a woman against making false charges.

It will be recalled that in the Chelmsford trials Mother Waterhouse had
been found to have upon her certain marks, yet little emphasis had been
laid upon them. In the trials of 1582 the proof drawn from these marks
was deemed of the first importance and the judge appointed juries of
women to make examination. No artist has yet dared to paint the picture
of the gloating female inquisitors grouped around their naked and
trembling victim, a scene that was to be enacted in many a witch trial.
And it is well, for the scene would be too repellent and brutal for
reproduction. In the use of these specially instituted juries there was
no care to get unbiassed decisions. One of the inquisitors appointed to
examine Cystley Celles had already served as witness against her.

It is hard to refrain from an indictment of the hopelessly prejudiced
justice who gathered the evidence.[18] To entrap the defendants seems to
have been his end. In the account which he wrote[19] he seems to have
feared lest the public should fail to understand how his cleverness
ministered to the conviction of the women.[20]

"There is a man," he wrote, "of great cunning and knowledge come over
lately unto our Queenes Maiestie, which hath advertised her what a
companie and number of witches be within Englande: whereupon I and other
of her Justices have received commission for the apprehending of as many
as are within these limites." No doubt he hoped to attract royal notice
and win favor by his zeal.

The Chelmsford affairs and that at St. Oses were the three remarkable
trials of their kind in the first part of Elizabeth's reign. They
furnish some evidence of the progress of superstition. The procedure in
1582 reveals considerable advance over that of 1566. The theory of
diabolic agency had been elaborated. The testimony offered was gaining