L 4 b 2. “Sir John Southworth.”] In this family the manor of Samlesbury remained for three hundred and fifty years.  This was, probably, the John (for the pedigree contained in Whitaker’s Whalley, p. 430, does not give the clearest light on the subject) who married Jane, daughter of Sir Richard Sherburne, of Stonyhurst, and who took a great lead amongst the Catholics of Lancashire.  What was the degree of relationship between Sir John and the husband of the accused, Jane Southworth, there is nothing in the descent to show.  Family bickering might have a share, as well as superstition, in the opinion he entertained, “that she was an evil woman.”  Of the old hall at Samlesbury, the residence of the Southworths, a most interesting account will be found in Whitaker’s Whalley, p. 431.  He considers the centre of very high antiquity, probably not later than Edward III; and observes, “There is about the house a profusion and bulk of oak that must almost have laid prostrate a forest to erect it.”

M 1 b. “The particular points of the Evidence.”] What a waste of ingenuity Master Potts displays in this recapitulation, where he is merely slaying the slain, and where his wisdom was not needed.  Had he applied it to the service of the Pendle witches, he would have found still grosser contrarieties, and as great absurdity.  But in that case, there was no horror of Popery to sharpen his faculties, or Jesuit in the background to call his humanity into play.

M 2 a. “The wrinkles of an old wiues face is good euidence to the Iurie against a Witch.”] Si sic omnia! For once the worthy clerk in court has a lucid interval, and speaks the language of common sense.

M 2 b. “But old Chattox had Fancie.”] A great truth, though Master Potts might not be aware of the extent of it.

M 4 a. “M.  Leigh, a very religious Preacher.”] Parson of Standish, a man memorable in his day.  He published several pieces, amongst others the two following:  1.  “The Drumme of Devotion,” by W. Leigh, of Standish, 1613.—­2.  “News of a Prodigious Monster in Aldington, in the Parish of Standish, in Lancashire,” 1613, 4to, which show him to have been an adept in the science of title-making.  He was one of the tutors of Prince Henry, and was great-grandfather of Dr. Leigh, author of the History of Lancashire.

N 3 b. “The Arraignment and Triall of Anne Redferne.”] This poor woman seems to have been regularly hunted to death by her prosecutors, who pursued her with all the dogged pertinacity of blood-hounds.  Neither the imploring appeal for mercy, in her case, from her wretched mother, who did not ask for any in her own, nor the want of even the shadow of a ground for the charge, had the slightest effect upon the besotted prejudices of the judge and jury.  Acquitted on one indictment, she is now put on her trial on another; the imputed crime being