We have gone into some detail about the Dugdale affair because of its importance in its time, and because it was so essentially characteristic of the last era of the struggle over the power of the Devil. There were cases of possession not only in Lancashire but in Somersetshire and in and around London. Not without a struggle was His Satanic Majesty surrendering his hold. We turn from this controversy to follow the decisions of those eminent judges who were nullifying the statute against witches. We have already mentioned three names, those of Holt, Powell, and Parker. This is not because they were the only jurists who were giving verdicts of acquittal--we know that there must have been others--but because their names are linked with significant decisions. Without doubt Chief Justice Holt did more than any other man in English history to end the prosecution of witches. Justice Powell was not so brave a man, but he happened to preside over one of the most bitterly contested of all trials, and his verdict served to reaffirm the precedents set by Holt. It was Justice Parker's fortune to try the last case of witchcraft in England. Holt became chief justice of the king's bench on the accession of William and Mary. Not one of the great names in English judicial rolls, his decided stand against superstition makes him great in the history of witchcraft. Where and when he had acquired his skeptical attitude we do not know. The time was past when such an attitude was unusual. In any case, from the moment he assumed the chief justiceship he set himself directly against the punishment of witchcraft. As premier of the English judiciary his example meant quite as much as his own rulings. And their cumulative effect was not slight. We know of no less than eleven trials where as presiding officer he was instrumental in securing a verdict of acquittal. In London, at Ipswich, at Bury, at Exeter, in Cornwall, and in other parts of the realm, these verdicts were rendered, and they could not fail to influence opinion and to affect the decisions of other judges. Three of the trials we shall go over briefly--those at Bury, Exeter, and Southwark.