[9] Edward Fairfax, _A Discourse of Witchcraft As it was acted in the Family of Mr. Edward Fairfax ... in the year 1621_ (Philobiblon Soc., _Miscellanies_, V, ed. R. Monckton Milnes, London, 1858-1859), "Preface to the Reader," 26, explains the king's motive: His "Majesty found a defect in the statutes, ... by which none died for Witchcraft but they only who by that means killed, so that such were executed rather as murderers than as Witches." [10] _Journals of the House of Lords_, II, 269; Wm. Cobbett, _Parliamentary History_, I, 1017, 1018. [11] _Lords' Journal_, II, 271, 316; _Commons' Journal_, I, 203-204. [12] _Cal. St. P., Dom., 1603-1610_, 117. [13] It had passed the third reading in the Commons on June 7; _Commons' Journal_, I, 234. [14] It can hardly be doubted that the change in the wording of the law was dictated not only by the desire to simplify the matter of proof but by a wish to satisfy those theologians who urged that any use of witchcraft was a "covenant with death" and "an agreement with hell" (Isaiah xxviii, 18). [15] See Southworth case in Thomas Potts, _The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the countie of Lancaster ..._ (London, 1613; reprinted, Chetham Soc., 1845), L 2 verso. Cited hereafter as Potts. [16] See, below, appendix B. It should be added that six others who had been condemned by the judges for bewitching a boy were released at James's command. [17] _The Witches of Northamptonshire ..._ C 2 verso. The writer of this pamphlet, who does not tell the story of the ordeal so fully as the author of the MS. account, "A briefe abstract of the arraignment of nine witches at Northampton, July 21, 1612" (Brit. Mus., Sloane, 972), gives, however, proof of the influence of James in the matter. He says that the two ways of testing witches are by the marks and "the trying of the insensiblenesse thereof," and by "their fleeting on the water," which is an exact quotation from James, although not so indicated. [18] The mother and father were apparently not sent to the assize court. [19] The female jury was used at Northampton ("women sworn"), also at Bedford, but by a private party. [20] It was used in 1621 on Elizabeth Sawyer of Edmonton. In this case it was done clearly at the command of the judge who tried her at the Old Bailey. [21] Elizabeth Device, however, confessed that the "said Devill did get blood under her left arme," which raises a suspicion that this confession was the result of accusations against her on that score. [22] See account in next chapter of the trial at Lancaster. [23] This case must be used with hesitation; see below, appendix A, § 3.