36 WITCHCRAFT IN DORSET. 



That country folk generally should be imbued with this belief is 

 not astonishing when it is considered that in some form or other a 

 belief in withcraft was indulged in in olden times by all classes, from 

 the king on the throne and the judge on the bench to the humblest 

 peasant who was called to give evidence. Learned treatises have 

 been written on the subject. 



Trials for witchcraft were by no means uncommon, and if search 

 were only made amongst the quarter-sessions records of the 17th 

 century in the custody of the Gustos Rotulorum of this county, and 

 amongst the records of judicial proceedings at the county assizes 

 during that period, numerous presentments by juries, depositions 

 by witnesses, and indictments upon which these trials were held, 

 would no doubt be found to exist. I regret that, owing to the 

 distance, I am at present kept from any means of referring to these 

 records. I am unable to do more than call attention to the 

 probable value of these sources of information to the student of 

 this subject. I would like, however, to refer those of my readers 

 who are interested in the matter to a paper relating to certain pro- 

 ceedings taken upon a trial for sorcery and witchcraft during the 

 period I have mentioned from the pen of our indefatigable President, 

 Mr. Mansel-Pleydell, which is to be found in vol. v. of our Field Club 

 Proceedings ; and also to an account of a trial for witchcraft in this 

 county which appears in Barnes' Ancient Dorset, p. 158. Interest- 

 ing matter upon this and kindred subjects may also be found in 

 Koberts' History of Social Life in the Southern Counties. See also 

 the report of Hathaway's Trial in the State Trials, wherein 

 witchcraft has been accorded the dignity of a State trial. 



Orders were sometimes made by the judges at the assizes direct- 

 ing the magistrates to make enquiries into suspected or notorious 

 cases of witchcraft, and to commit the parties for trial at the assizes 

 if necessary. For the following note of such an order I am 

 indebted to a correspondent in the Somerset and Dorset Notes and 

 Queries, vol. i., p. 225. It was an order to enquire into a case of 

 alleged witchcraft at Sherborne in 1660, made by the judges then 

 on the western circuit at the Dorset Summer Assizes held at 



