her husband to look after her the next day, which was Wednesday in Easter week, Upon this, Lofthouse recollecting what Barwick had told him of his carrying his wife to his uncle at Selby, repaired to Harrison beforementioned, but found all that Barwick had said to be false; for that Harrison had neither heard of Barwick, nor his wife, neither did he know anything of them.  Which notable circumstance, together with that other of the apparition, encreased his suspicions to that degree, that now concluding his wife’s sister was murdered, he went to the Lord Mayor of York; and having obtained his warrant, got Barwick apprehended, who was no sooner brought before the Lord Mayor, but his own conscience then accusing him, he acknowledged the whole matter, as it has been already related, as it appears by his examination and confession herewith printed:  to which are also annexed the informations of Lofthouse, in like manner taken before the Lord Mayor of York, for a further testimony and confirmation of what is here set down.

On Wednesday the sixteenth of September, 1690, the criminal, William Barwick, was brought to his trial, before the Honourable Sir John Powel, Knight, one of the judges of the northern circuit, at the assizes holden at York, where the prisoner pleaded not guilty to his indictment:  but upon the evidence of Thomas Lofthouse, and his wife, and a third person, that the woman was found buried in her cloaths in the Close by the pond side, agreeable to the prisoner’s confession, and that she had several bruises on her head, occasioned by the blows the murderer had given her, to keep her under water:  and upon reading the prisoner’s confession before the Lord Mayor of York, attested by the clerk, who wrote the confession, and who swore the prisoner’s owning and signing it for truth, he was found guilty, and sentenced to death, and afterwards ordered to be hanged in chains.

All the defence which the prisoner made, was only this, that he was threatened into the confession that he had made, and was in such a consternation, that he did not know what he said or did.  But then it was sworn by two witnesses, that there was no such thing as any threatening made use of; but that he made a free and voluntary confession, only with this addition at first; that he told the Lord Mayor, he had sold his wife for five shillings; but not being able to name either the person or the place where she might be produced, that was looked upon as too frivolous to outweigh circumstances, that were proofs to apparent.

**The information of Thomas Lofthouse, of Ruforth, taken upon oath the twenty-fourth day of April, 1690,

Who sayeth and deposeth, that one William Barwick, who lately married this informant’s wife’s sister,came to this informant’s house, about the fourteenth instant, and told this informant, he had carried his wife to one Richard Harrison’s house in Selby, who was uncle to him, and would take care of her; and this informant hearing nothing of the said Barwick’s wife, his said sister-in-law, imagined he had done her some mischief, did yesterday go to the said Harrison’s house in Selby, where he said he had carried her to; and the said Harrison told this informant, he knew nothing of the said Barwick, or his wife, and this informant doth verily believe the said Barwick to have murdered her.