Protestant in those days, as running down a fox to a thorough sportsman;—a plot had been discovered which might have made Lancaster Castle "to topple on its warders" and "slope its head to its foundations," and Master Cowell, who had held so many inquests, to vanish without leaving anything in his own person whereon an inquest could be holden;—a pestilent nest of incorrigible witches had been dug out and rooted up, and Pendle Hill placed under sanatory regulations;—and last, and not least, as affording matter of pride and exultation to every loyal subject, a commentary had at last been collected for two texts, which had long called for some such support without finding it, King James's Demonology, and his statute against witchcraft. When the Discoverie of Master Potts, with its rich treasury of illustrative evidence, came to hand, would not the monarch be the happiest man in his dominions!

Twenty years after the publication of the tract now reprinted, Pendle Forest again became the scene of pretended witchcrafts; and from various circumstances, the trial which took place then (in 1633) has acquired even greater notoriety than the one which preceded it, though no Master Potts could be found to transmit a report of the proceedings in the second case, a deficiency which is greatly to be lamented. The particulars are substantially comprised in the following examination, which is given from the copy in Whitaker's Whalley, p. 213, which, on comparison, is unquestionably more accurate than the other two versions, in Webster, p. 347, and Baines's Lancashire, vol. i. p. 604:[40]—

"The Examination of Edmund Robinson,

"Son of Edm. Robinson, of Pendle forest, mason,[41] taken at Padiham before Richard Shuttleworth[42] and John Starkie,[43] Esqs. two of his majesty's justices of the peace, within the county of Lancaster, 10th of February, A.D. 1633.