[14] A Tryal of Witches, at the Assizes held at Bury St.
Edmonds ... 1664 (London, 1682), pp. 55-56. This report is
reprinted in Howell’s State Trials, VI, 647 ff., and (in
part) in H. L. Stephen’s State Trials Political and Social
(1899), I, 209 ff. See also Hutchinson, An Historical
Essay concerning Witchcraft, chap. viii. (1718, pp. 109
ff.; 2d ed., 1720, pp. 139 ff.); Thomas Wright, Narratives
of Sorcery and Witchcraft, II., 261 ff. Hale’s opinion
was regarded as settling the law beyond peradventure.
It is quoted, in A True and Impartial Relation of the
Informations against Three Witches ... Assizes holden
for the County of Devon at the Castle of Exon, Aug. 14,
1682 (London, 1682), Address to the Reader. For Roger
North’s comments on the Exeter case, see p. 192, below.
A Collection of Modern Relations of Matters of Fact,
concerning Witches & Witchcraft, Part I (London, 1693),
contains “A Discourse concerning the great Mercy of God, in
preserving us from the Power and Malice of _Evil Angels_.
_Written by Sir_ Matt. Hale _at Cambridge_ 26 Mar. 1661.
_Upon occasion of a Tryal of certain Witches before him
the Week before at St._ Edmund’s Bury.” The date is wrong
(1661 should be 1664), but the trial is identified with
that which we are considering by the anonymous compiler of
the Collection in the following words: “There is a Relation
of it in print, written by his Marshal, which I suppose
is very true, though to the best of my Memory, not so
compleat, as to some observable Circumstances, as what he
related to me at his return from that Circuit.” The date of
the trial is given as “the Tenth day of March, 1664” on the
title-page of the report (A Tryal of Witches) and on page
1 as “the Tenth day of March, in the Sixteenth Year of the
Reign of ... Charles II.” On page 57 the year is misprinted
“1662.” Howell’s State Trials, VI, 647, 687, makes it 1665,
but 16 Charles II. corresponds to Jan. 30, 1664--Jan. 29,
1665: hence 1664 is right. The (unfinished) Discourse just
mentioned must not be confused with Hale’s Motives to
Watchfulness, in reference to the Good and Evil Angels,
which may be found in his Contemplations Moral and Divine,
London, 1682 (licensed 1675-6), Part II, pp. 67 ff.
[15] Roger North, Life of the Lord Keeper Guilford, ed.
1826, I, 121.
[16] Wonders of the Invisible World (London, 1693), p.
55. Mather also reproduces the substance of the report
above referred to (note 14) in the same work. Bragge,
too, reproduces it, in the main, in his tract, Witchcraft
Farther Display’d, 1712, in support of the accusation
against Jane Wenham.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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