The following text is a broadside ballad of 1682, and tells in its own terms the fate of the penultimate victims of the witch persecution in England. Only Alice Molland, in 1685 (also in Devon) was a later victim.

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Witchcraft discovered and punished. Or, the tryals and condemnation of three notorious witches, who were Tryed at the last Assizes, holden at the Castle of Exeter in the County of Devon: wherby they received Sentance for Death, for bewitching several Persons, destroying Ships at Sea, and Cattel by Land, etc.

To the tune of Doctor Faustus or Fortune my Foe

Now listen to my Song, good People all,

And I shall tell what lately did befall

At Exeter a place in Devonshire,

The like whereof of late you nere did hear.

~

At the last Assizes at Exeter,

Three aged Women that Imprisoned were

For Witches, and that many had destroy'd;

Were thither brought in order to be tryd

~

For Witchcraft, that Old Wicked Sin,

Which they for long time had continued in;

And joyn'd with Satan, to destroy the good

Sweet Innocents, and shed their harmless blood.

~

But now it most apparent does appear,

That they will now for such their deeds pay dear:

For Satan, having lull'd their Souls asleep,

Refuses Company with them to keep.

~

A known deceiver he long time has been,

To help poor Mortals into dangerous Sin;

Thereby to cut them off, that so they may

Be plung'd in Hell, and there be made his Prey.

~

So these Malicious Women at the last,

Having done mischiefs, were by Justice cast;

For it appear'd they Children had destroy'd,

Lamed Cattel, and the Aged much annoy'd,

~

Having Familiars always at their Beck,

Their Wicked Rage on Mortals for to wreck:

It being proved they used Wicked Charms,

To murther Men, and bring about sad harms.

~

And that they had about their Bodys strange

And Proper Tokens of their Wicked Change:

As Pledges that, to have their cruel will,

Their Souls they gave unto the Prince of Hell.

~

The Country round where they did live came in,

And all at once their sad complaints begin;

One lost a Child, the other lost a Kine,

This his brave Horses, that his hopeful Swine.

~

One had his Wife bewitch'd, the other his Friend,

Because in some things they the Witch offend:

For which they labour under cruel pain,

In vain seek remedy, but none can gain.

~

But Roar in cruel sort, and loudly cry

'Destroy the Witch and end our misery'

Some used Charms by Mountabanks set down,

Those cheating Quacks, that swarm in every Town.

~

But all's in vain, no rest at all they find,

For why? all Witches are to cruelty enclin'd;

And do delight to hear sad dying groans,

And such laments as wou'd pierce marble Stones.

~

But now the hand of heaven has found them out,

And they to Justice must pay Lives, past doubt;

One of these Wicked Wretches did confess,

She Four Score Years of Age was, and no less.

~

And that she had deserved long before,

To be sent packing to the Stigian shore

For the great mischiefs she so oft had done,

And wondered that her life so long had run.

~

She said the Devil came with her along,

Through Crouds of People, & bid her be strong

And she no harm should have, but like a Lyer,

At the Prison Door he fled, and nere came nigh her.

~

The rest aloud, crav'd Mercy for their Sins,

Or else the great deceiver her Soul gains;

For they had been lewd Livers many a day,

And therefore did desire that all would pray

~

To God, to Pardon them, while thus they lie

Condemned for their Wicked Deeds to Die:

Which may each Christian do, that they may find

Rest for their Souls, though Wicked once inclin'd.

The accused here were Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles and Susanna Edwards. Temperance Lloyd had been tried for witchcraft in 1671 without being convicted, Susan Edwards had been twice arraigned. Two of the accused were utterly destitute beggars. Lloyd confessed to carnal intercourse with the devil nine nights in a row, to letting him suck from her 'witch's teat', that she had been a witch for 20 years, and that she had sunk ships at sea. She went to the gallows in the usual cart: "all the way eating, and seemingly unconcerned".

Sir Thomas Raymond, presiding over the trial, judged the women to be "overwhelmed with melancholy and waking Dreames". In his charge to the Jury he gave his opinion (as he recounted it in a later pamphlet) that "these three poor women were weary of their lives, and that he thought it proper for them to be carried to the Parish from whence they came, and that the Parish should be charged with their Maintenance; for he thought their oppressing poverty had constrained them to wish for death". An outcry by their indignant neighbours swayed the Jury, nevertheless, to convict.

Comment was made by the Lord Chief Justice to central government about the trial and its outcome: "The evidence against them was very full and fanciful, but their own confessions exceeded it. They appeared not only weary of their lives, but to have a great deal of skill to convict themselves. their descriptions of the sucking devils with saucer-eyes were so natural that the jury could not choose but believe them. Sir, I find the country so fully possessed against them that, though some virtuosi may think these things the effects of confederacy, melancholy, or delusion, and that the young folks are altogether as quicksighted, as they who are old and infirm, yet we cannot reprieve them without appearing to deny the very being of witches, which, as it is contrary to law, so I think it would be ill for his Majesty's service, for it may give the faction occasion to set afoot the old trade of witch finding that may cost many innocent persons their lives, which this justice will prevent."

It seems, then, that this penultimate group of well-documented victims died against the instincts of the legal officers involved, partly because they were making deliberately suicidal confessions, and partly because their parish was determined to have them die rather than live on charity. The Lord Chief Justice rationalises the injustice done as a desperate piece of legal triage: the reaction locally to any acquittal might lead to a re-appearnace of witch hunting by 'the faction'. Here, the reference may either be to those locals convinced of witchcraft, though perhaps more likely, it refers to Puritans: the Lord Chief Justice doesn't want a reappearance of a Hopkins and Stearne episode of witchfinding.