ABSTRACT
This octavo pamphlet has lost its title page and is thus known by the heading on the first page of its narrative. There is only one known copy of this pamphlet, in the College of Wooster Library, Ohio. Other accounts of Harkett, such as An Account of Margaret Hackett, a notorious Witch, who consumed a young man to death, rotted his Bowells and backbone asunder, who was executed at Tiborn 19 February 1585 are presumably lost – although this may be the original title of this work and thus the same pamphlet. It has no entry in the Stationers’ Register, but is attributed by the STC1 to John Charlewood. He was a bookseller from the 1550s to 1570s and a printer thereafter. There are no surviving trial records of the case, but the account of Harkett’s committal to Newgate and her trial suggests that she was treated as was usual for Middlesex felons. London and Middlesex were linked administratively and had no ‘assize’ system. The sessions of gaol delivery were a near equivalent and, as a prisoner from Middlesex, Harkett would have been sent to London for the gaol delivery of Newgate held at the Old Bailey.
