"THE EXAMINATION OF EDMUND ROBINSON,

"Son of _Edm. Robinson_, of _Pendle_ forest, mason,[41] taken at
_Padiham_ before _Richard Shuttleworth_[42] and _John Starkie_,[43]
Esqs. two of his majesty's justices of the peace, within the county of
_Lancaster_, 10th of February, A.D. 1633.

[Footnote 41: "The informer was one Edmund Robinson (yet living at the
writing hereof, and commonly known by the name of Ned of Roughs) whose
Father was by trade a Waller, and but a poor Man, and they finding
that they were believed and had incouragement by the adjoyning
Magistrates, and the persons being committed to prison or bound over
to the next Assizes, the boy, his Father and some others besides did
make a practice to go from Church to Church that the Boy might reveal
and discover Witches, pretending that there was a great number at the
pretended meeting whose faces he could know, and by that means they
got a good living, that in a short space the Father bought a Cow or
two, when he had none before. And it came to pass that this said Boy
was brought into the Church of Kildwick a large parish Church, where I
(being then Curate there) was preaching in the afternoon, and was set
upon a stall (he being but about ten or eleven years old) to look
about him, which moved some little disturbance in the Congregation for
a while. And after prayers I inquiring what the matter was, the people
told me that it was the Boy that discovered Witches, upon which I went
to the house where he was to stay all night, where I found him, and
two very unlikely persons that did conduct him, and manage the
business; I desired to have some discourse with the Boy in private,
but that they utterly refused; then in the presence of a great many
people, I took the Boy near me, and said: Good Boy tell me truly, and