Part 8 (2/2)

[2] This is all based upon the contemporary accounts mentioned above.

[3] _Register of the Privy Council of Scotland_, IV (Edinburgh, 1881), 644-645, note.

[4] A fresh edition was brought out at London in 1603. In 1616 it appeared again as a part of the handsome collection of his _Workes_ compiled by the Bishop of Winchester.

[5] This story is to be found in the apocryphal book of Bel and the Dragon. It played a great part in the discussions of the writers on witchcraft.

[6] H. C. Lea, _Superst.i.tion and Force_ (4th ed., Philadelphia, 1892), 325 ff., gives some facts about the water ordeal on the Continent. A sharp dispute over its use in witch cases was just at this time going on there.

[7] He recommended torture in finding out the guilty: ”And further experience daily proves how loth they are to confesse without torture, which witnesseth their guiltinesse,” _Daemonologie_, bk. ii, ch. i.

[8] Wright, _Narratives of Sorcery and Magic_, I, 197.

[9] Edward Fairfax, _A Discourse of Witchcraft As it was acted in the Family of Mr. Edward Fairfax ... in the year 1621_ (Philobiblon Soc., _Miscellanies_, V, ed. R. Monckton Milnes, London, 1858-1859), ”Preface to the Reader,” 26, explains the king's motive: His ”Majesty found a defect in the statutes, ... by which none died for Witchcraft but they only who by that means killed, so that such were executed rather as murderers than as Witches.”

[10] _Journals of the House of Lords_, II, 269; Wm. Cobbett, _Parliamentary History_, I, 1017, 1018.

[11] _Lords' Journal_, II, 271, 316; _Commons' Journal_, I, 203-204.

[12] _Cal. St. P., Dom., 1603-1610_, 117.

[13] It had pa.s.sed the third reading in the Commons on June 7; _Commons'

Journal_, I, 234.

[14] It can hardly be doubted that the change in the wording of the law was dictated not only by the desire to simplify the matter of proof but by a wish to satisfy those theologians who urged that any use of witchcraft was a ”covenant with death” and ”an agreement with h.e.l.l”

(Isaiah xxviii, 18).

[15] See Southworth case in Thomas Potts, _The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the countie of Lancaster ..._ (London, 1613; reprinted, Chetham Soc., 1845), L 2 verso. Cited hereafter as Potts.

[16] See, below, appendix B. It should be added that six others who had been condemned by the judges for bewitching a boy were released at James's command.

[17] _The Witches of Northamptons.h.i.+re ..._ C 2 verso. The writer of this pamphlet, who does not tell the story of the ordeal so fully as the author of the MS. account, ”A briefe abstract of the arraignment of nine witches at Northampton, July 21, 1612” (Brit. Mus., Sloane, 972), gives, however, proof of the influence of James in the matter. He says that the two ways of testing witches are by the marks and ”the trying of the insensiblenesse thereof,” and by ”their fleeting on the water,” which is an exact quotation from James, although not so indicated.

[18] The mother and father were apparently not sent to the a.s.size court.

[19] The female jury was used at Northampton (”women sworn”), also at Bedford, but by a private party.

[20] It was used in 1621 on Elizabeth Sawyer of Edmonton. In this case it was done clearly at the command of the judge who tried her at the Old Bailey.

[21] Elizabeth Device, however, confessed that the ”said Devill did get blood under her left arme,” which raises a suspicion that this confession was the result of accusations against her on that score.

[22] See account in next chapter of the trial at Lancaster.

[23] This case must be used with hesitation; see below, appendix A, -- 3.

[24] At Warboys the Samuels had been required to repeat: ”If I be a witch and consenting to the death” of such and such a one. Alice Wilson, at Northampton in 1612, was threatened by the justice with execution, if she would not say after the minister ”I forsake the Devil.” She is said to have averred that she could not say this. See MS. account of the witches of Northampton.

[25] Well known is the practice ascribed to witches of making a waxen image, which was then p.r.i.c.ked or melted before the fire, in the belief that the torments inflicted upon it would be suffered by the individual it represented.

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