At the Bury St Edmunds witch trial of 1662, charges of witchcraft were brought against Amy Denny and Rose Cullender, two elderly residents of Lowestoft, Suffolk, England.
The trial acquired lasting significance (chiefly due to the involvement of Matthew Hale, "one of the greatest legal figures" of the 17th century),[4] and became an important precedent for the admissibility of spectral evidence.
[9] According to the report:[10] Mr. Serjeant Keeling seemed much unsatisfied with it [the evidence], and thought it not sufficient to Convict the Prisoners: for admitting that the Children were in Truth Bewitched, yet said he, it can never be applyed to the Prisoners, upon the Imagination only of the Parties Afflicted; For if that might be allowed, no person whatsoever can be in safety, for perhaps they might fancy another person, who might altogether be innocent in such matters.The judge, Hale, may have taken this point into consideration when he remarked to the jury that they had two questions to consider: "First, Whether or no these Children were Bewitched?
She claimed to have been coerced by the devil into hurting the children; she had also been threatened by a tall man in black clothes, who made her sign her name in a book.
It was often said that apparitions of the suspected witches had tried to compel their victims to write their names in a book,[20] and both the man in black and the yellow bird were seen in the company of several of the accused, including Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, and Sarah Cloyce.
In a letter to magistrate John Richards, Mather advised the court not to place too much stress upon spectral evidence, because "it is very certain that the devils have sometimes represented the shapes of persons not only innocent, but also very virtuous".
Contrary to Mather's advice, spectral evidence had played a large part in securing Bishop's conviction, and this raised questions about the methods of the court.
Robert Calef, a contemporary critic of the trials, called the document "perfectly ambidexter, giving as great or greater encouragement to proceed in those dark methods, than cautions against them".
It is true, they may strongly fancye, or have things represented to their imagination, when their eyes are shutt; and I think this is all which ought to be allowed to these blind, nonsensical girls.It was around this time, on September 29, 1692, that the governor of the province, William Phips, who had been absent during the trials, returned to Massachusetts from Maine.
[39] Cotton Mather defended the court's methods in his book, The Wonders of the Invisible World (which began circulating in manuscript form in October, but was not published until the following year).
Cotton's father, Increase Mather, took the opposite approach in his own work, Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits Personating Men.
He argued that the Devil could indeed appear in the shape of an innocent person, and cited numerous authorities to that effect, including the Biblical story of the Witch of Endor.
[42][43] He concluded that "to take away the Life of any one, meerly because a Spectre or Devil, in a bewitched or possessed person does accuse them, will bring a Guilt of innocent Blood on the Land, where such a thing shall be done".
He recommended Cotton's account of the trials, and hoped that "the thinking part of Mankind will be satisfied, that there was more than that which is called Spectre Evidence for the Conviction of the Persons condemned".