‘Item. there may alwaies be promised impunitie and fauour to witches that confesse and detect others; and for the contrairie, there may be threatnings and violence practised and used.
‘Item. the little children of witches, which will not confesse, must be attached; who (if they be craftilie handled saith Bodin) will confesse against their owne mothers.
‘Item. witches must be examined as suddenlie, and as unawares as is possible; the which will so amaze them, that they will confesse anything, supposing the diuell hath forsaken them; whereas, if they should first be committed to prison, the diuell would tamper with them, and informe them what to doo.
‘Item. the inquisitor, iudge, or examiner, must begin with small matters first.
‘Item. they must be examined whether their parents were witches or no; for witches (as these Doctors suppose) came by propagation. And Bodin setteth downe this principle in witchcraft, to wit, Si saga sit mater, sic etiam est filia: howbeit the lawe forbiddeth it Ob sanguinis reuerentiam.
‘Item. the examiner must looke stedfastlie upon their eies: for they cannot looke directlie upon a man’s face, (as Bodin affirmeth in one place, although in another he saith, that they kill and destroie both men and beasts by their lookes).
‘Item. she must be examined of all accusations, presumptions and faults, at one instant: least sathan should afterwards dissuade hir from confession.
‘Item. a witch may not be put in prison alone, least the diuell dissuade her from confession, through promises of her indemnitie. For (saith Bodin) some that haue been in the gaole haue proued to flie awaie, as they were woont to doo when they met with Diana and Minerua &c., and so brake their owne necks against the stone walles.
‘Item. if anie denie hir owne confession made without torture, she is neuerthelesse by that confession to be condemned, as in anie other crime.
‘Item, the iudges must seeme to put on a pittifull countenance and to moue them; saieing that It was not they, but the diuell that committed the murther, and that he compelled them to doo it; and must make them beleeue that they think them to be innocents.