Lancashire was a sparsely populated county at the time of the Reformation and remained a stronghold of Catholicism throughout the Elizabethan reign.
[4] Their surviving children, Ann aged about ten, and John, two years older began having fits.
[6] Starkie suspected that Hartley was by then part of the problem and consulted John Dee, warden of the Collegiate Church in Manchester.
Hartley followed Margaret Byrom to her home in Salford where he was found by preachers,[6] and unable to recite the Lord's Prayer was accused of witchcraft.
At his trial in March 1597, Starkie said that the previous autumn while in the woods at Huntroyde, Hartley had drawn a circle " with many crosses and partitions".