At the Nottingham assizes, however, things went differently. Summoned to court and encouraged by the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Edmund Anderson,[63] to tell the truth the wretched young man made a clean breast of all his tricks. The case against Alice Freeman, the accused, was dismissed, and Sir Edmund, shocked at the frauds, wrote a weighty letter to Whitgift, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Darrel and More were cited to the Court of High Commission, where Bancroft, Bishop of London, two of the Lord Chief Justices, the Master of Requests, and other high officials heard the case. It is obvious that Bancroft really controlled the examination from first to last, and that he combined the rôles of prosecutor and judge. Somers now told the Court how he had been in constant communication with Darrel, how they had met secretly when Darrel taught him “to doe all those trickes which Katherine Wright did” and later sent him to see and learn of the boy of Burton. In fact Darrel made him go through a whole series of antics again and again in his presence, and it was after all these preliminaries and practice that the lad posed as a possessed person at Nottingham and was prayed over and exhibited. The vulpine Puritan was fairly caught. No doubt the Bishop of London may have been a trifle arbitrary, but after all he was dealing with a rank impostor. Darrel and More were deposed from the ministry, and committed to close prison. The whole of this case is reported by Samuel Harsnett, chaplain to Bancroft, in a book of three hundred and twenty-four pages, _A Discovery of the Fraudulent Practises of John Darrel, Bacheler of Artes_.... London, 1599, and a perfect rain of pamphlets followed. Both Darrel and More answered Harsnett, drawing meantime a number of other persons into the paper fray. We have such works as _An Apologie, or defence of the possession of William Sommers, a young man of the towne of Nottingham.... By John Darrell, Minister of Christ Jesus_ ... a black letter brochure which is undated but may be safely assigned to 1599; _The Triall of Maist. Dorrel, or A Collection of Defences against Allegations_ ... 1599;[64] and Darrel’s abusive _A Detection of that sinnful, shamful, lying, and ridiculous discours of Samuel Harshnet_, 1600. There are several allusions in contemporary dramatists to the scandal, and Jonson in _The Divell is an Asse_, acted in 1616, V, 3, has: It is the easiest thing, Sir, to be done. As plaine as fizzling: roule but wi’ your eyes, And foame at th’ mouth. A little castle-soape Will do’t, to rub your lips: And then a nutshell, With toe and touchwood in it to spit fire, Did you ner’e read, Sir, little _Darrel’s_ tricks, With the boy o’ _Burton_, and the 7 in _Lancashire_, Sommers at _Nottingham_? All these do teach it. And wee’l give out, Sir, that your wife ha’s bewitch’d you.