The difference between England and the Continent in the development of the witchcraft idea and in the history of prosecution is recognised by Hansen (p. 34, note 1). President White, like Professor Burr, has his eye primarily on the Continent (Warfare of Science with Theology, 1896, I, 350 ff.). His treatment of demoniacal possession, however, is much to our purpose (II, 97 ff., 135 ff.).
[3] King James’s connection with the history of witchcraft almost deserves a monograph for it has never been adequately discussed, and various misconceptions on the subject are afloat. Thus Mr. H. M. Doughty, in an interesting but one-sided essay on Witchcraft and Christianity (Blackwood’s Magazine, March, 1898, CLXIII, 388), remarks that “the new King James had long lived in abject fear of witches”—an assertion that he would find it impossible to prove, even if it were true, as it seems not to be.
[4] The act of 5 Eliz. c. 16 (after reciting that 33 Henr. VIII. c. 8 had been repealed by 1 Edw. VI. c. 12) prescribes the penalty of death for witchcraft which destroys life, imprisonment for that which causes bodily injury (death for the second offence); in certain harmless kinds of sorcery (such as accompanied the search for treasure or stolen goods) the second offence is punished by imprisonment for life. 1 Jac. I. c. 12 follows 5 Eliz. c. 16 in the main. Its chief differences are,—greater detail in defining witchcraft; the insertion of a passage about digging up dead bodies for purposes of sorcery; death for the first offence in cases of witchcraft which causes bodily injury; death for the second offence in treasure-seeking sorcery and the like. Before one pronounces the new statute much severer than the old, it would be well to examine the practical operation of the two. In particular, one ought to determine how many witches were executed under the law of James I. who would not have been subject to the death penalty under the law of Elizabeth. This is not the place for such an examination. On treasure-seeking sorcery see the learned and entertaining essay of Dr. Augustus Jessopp, Hill-Digging and Magic (in his Random Roaming and Other Papers, 1893).
[5] See p. 64 below. Strictly speaking, the Commonwealth did not begin until 1649, but this point need not be pressed.
[6] See F. Legge, Witchcraft in Scotland (Scottish Review, XVIII, 267); Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Witchcraft, Chap. xxv. Whitelocke, under date of Oct. 4, 1652, notes “Letters that sixty Persons Men and Women were accused before the Commissioners for Administration of Justice in Scotland at the last Circuit for Witches; but they found so much Malice and so little Proof against them that none were condemned” (Memorials, 1732, p. 545). Cf. also his very important entry on the same subject under Oct. 29, 1652 (pp. 547-548).
[7] Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ, Familiar Letters, edited by Joseph Jacobs, 1890, book ii, letter 76, p. 506: “To my Honourable Friend, Mr. E. P., at Paris” (cf. Jacobs’s notes pp. 783-784). The letter is dated “Fleet, 3 Feb. 1646.” This is certainly Old Style. Howell is a queer dater, but a reference in this letter to the departure of the Scottish army (p. 505) proves that the letter was written after Dec. 21, 1646. There is a similar passage about witches in book iii, letter 2, p. 515 (also to Porter), dated “Fleet, 20 Feb. 1646.”
[8] Letters, as above, book iii, no. 23, pp. 547 ff., dated “Fleet, 20 Feb. 1647,” i. e. doubtless 1648.
[9] See Jacobs’s Introduction, pp. xlii-xliii. The question whether Howell’s letters were actually sent to the persons to whom they are addressed or whether they are to be regarded merely as literary exercises composed during his imprisonment (see Jacobs, pp. lxxi ff.) does not affect, for our purposes, the value of the quotations here made, since the letters to which we now refer actually purport to have been written in the Fleet, and since they were first published in the second edition (1650) in the additional third volume and from the nature of things could not have appeared in the first edition (1645). They must, at all events, have been composed before 1650, and are doubtless dated correctly enough.
[10] See p. 64, below.
[11] Sermon xvii (Whole Works, ed. Heber and Eden, 1861, IV, 546).