[18] Three women of Leicestershire, Anne Baker, Joan Willimot, and Ellen Greene, who in their confessions implicated the Flowers (they belonged to parishes neighbor to that of Belvoir, which lies on the shire border) and whose testimony against them figured in their trials, were at the same time (Feb.-March, 1618/19) under examination in that county. Whether these women were authors or victims of the Belvoir suspicions we do not know. As we have their damning confessions, there is small doubt as to their fate. [19] The women were tried in March, 1618/19. Henry, the elder son of the earl, was buried at Bottesford, September 26, 1613. John Nichols, _History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester_ (London, 1795-1815), II, pt. i, 49, note 10. Francis, the second, lingered till early in 1620. His sister, Lady Katherine, whose delicate health had also been ascribed to the witches, was now the heiress, and became in that year the bride of Buckingham, the king's favorite. There is one aspect of this affair that must not be overlooked. The accusation against the Flowers cannot have been unknown to the king, who was a frequent visitor at the seat of the Rutlands. It is hard to believe that under such circumstances the use of torture, which James had declared essential to bring out the guilt of the accused witches, was not after some fashion resorted to. The weird and uncanny confessions go far towards supporting such an hypothesis. [20] _The Most Cruell and Bloody Murther committed by ... Annis Dell, ... with the severall Witch-crafts ... of one Johane Harrison and her Daughter_, 63. [21] This story must be accepted with hesitation; see below, appendix A, §3. [22] See above, pp. 110-111. [23] The trial of Elizabeth Sawyer at Edmonton in 1621 had to do with similar trivialities. Agnes Ratcliffe was washing one day, when a sow belonging to Elizabeth licked up a bit of her washing soap. She struck it with a "washing beetle." Of course she fell sick, and on her death-bed accused Mistress Elizabeth Sawyer, who was afterwards hanged. [24] See T. Tindall Wildridge, in William Andrews, _Bygone Derbyshire_ (Derby, 1892), 180-184. It has been impossible to locate the sources of this story. J. Charles Cox, who explored the Derby records, seems never to have discovered anything about the affair. [25] See F. Legge, "Witchcraft in Scotland," in the _Scottish Review_, XVIII, 264. [26] See above, ch. IV, especially note 36. [27] On Mary Glover see also appendix A, § 2. On other impostures see Thomas Fuller, _Church History of Britain_ (London, 1655; Oxford, ed. J. S. Brewer, 1845), ed. of 1845, V, 450; letters given by Edmund Lodge, _Illustrations of British History, Biography and Manners ..._ (London, 1791), III, 275, 284, 287-288; also _King James, His Apothegms, by B. A., Gent._ (London, 1643), 8-10. [28] _Cal. St. P., Dom., 1603-1610_, 218. [29] Fuller, _op. cit._, V, 450.