ABSTRACT
With the trial over, and the North Moreton women acquitted, the story of Anne Gunter's bewitchment should have ended. Animosities would have continued in the village (we can only imagine what it must have been like for an accused witch to go back to her community and attempt to reconstruct her life after such a trial), and Brian Gunter would doubtless have continued to feel aggrieved. But the tale of Anne's sufferings did not end with the trial, for both the symptoms of possession and her allegations against her tormentors persist-ed. A month or two after the trial officialdom acted. A number of those cases of possession and bewitchment that apparently flourished around 1600 were marked by the involvement of the local ecclesiastical authorities. As Anne continued to demonstrate her symptoms, the bishop of Salisbury, Henry Cotton, within whose diocese North Moreton lay, decided to intervene. Anne's sufferings, quite apart from causing a witch-trial, had attracted considerable local attention and involved a number of clergy both from the parishes around North Moreton and from Oxford. News of the case must have come to the bishop, and the failure of the trial at Abingdon to end matters must have led him to initiate his own investigations. Accordingly, around Whitsun 1605 Anne was taken from her parents and lodged in Cotton's residence at Salisbury.
