Thomas Darling was a passionate Puritan. In February 1603, he was sentenced to lose his ears for having libelled the Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford, John Howson, a vehement opponent of Puritanism. It was the third occasion on which he had come to the attention of the public. In 1600, he had been involved in the trial of the Puritan exorcist John Darrell for fraudulently claiming to have dispossessed Thomas Darling, and a number of other demoniacs. And he had been the leading character in the events which took place in Burton on Trent in 1596 which form the backdrop to this text, and which led, in part, to the trial of John Darrell.

On 17 February, 1596 Thomas Darling began to have a series of fits which were to continue throughout the next five months. Earlier on this day he had come across an old woman in a wood wearing a grey gown with three warts upon her face. As he passed by her, he passed wind, to which she responded, ‘Gyp with a mischief, and fart with a bell. I will go to Heaven, and you will go to Hell.’ Suspicion for having bewitched Thomas fell on the sixty-year-old Alice Gooderidge who, like her mother Elizabeth Wright, had long been suspected of devilish practices. She was arrested and confined in Derby gaol on 14 April.