In the 17th century and beyond, women were often disenfranchised and vulnerable within wider society, along with the disabled and mentally ill. They were easy targets and that’s what we’ve seen in the iconography of witchcraft ever since: the witch with a walking stick is really a vulnerable old woman. The women accused by Fairfax were tried twice, but, despite his best efforts, they were acquitted each time. His daughters eventually admitted that they had invented their dreams in which the witches were performing dangerous acts and trying to kill Anne. It was possibly no surprise that, in
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