GENERAL NOTINGS ON SCOT’S TEXT.
For words not given here see Glossary.
[P. 2]. “Ring bells.” Still done in Switzerland, and, I think, elsewhere.
[P. 10]. “As Merlin.” Cf. p. 72.
[P. 14]. “That cause ... taken away.” The mediæval Latin saying, “ablata causa tollitur effectus”. Repeated p. 319.
[P. 17]. “W. W. 1582.” [In his preface.] A proof that witches were not then burnt in England; but it shows how the question of witchcraft was then exercising the people that Ade Davie, the wife of a husbandman, pp. 55–7, thought that she was to be burnt. W. W. says also that Mr. Justice Darcie, persuading Eliz. Bennett to confess, said: “As thou wilt have favour confesse the truth. For so it is, there is a man of great learning and knowledge come over lately into our Queenes Majestie, which hath advertised her what a companie and numbers of Witches be within Englande: whereupon I and other of her Justices have received Commission for the apprehending of as many as are within these limites, and they which doe confesse the truth of their doeings, they shall have much favour: but the other they shall be burnt and hanged” (B. 6). She and others that confessed had the favour of being hanged like the rest; possibly they had the additional favour of being hanged first. The first notice that I have yet come across of burning is that of Mother Lakeman at Ipswich, 1645. W. W., in his Dedication, speaks of these witches as “rygorously punished. Rygorously, sayd I? Why it is too milde and gentle a tearme for such a mercilesse generation. I should rather have sayd most cruelly [? civilly] executed: for that no punishment can be thought upon, be it never so high a degree of tormēt, which may be deemed sufficient for such a divelishe & dānable practise”; and again, “the magistrates of forren landes ... burning them with fire, whome the common lawe of Englande (with more mercie then is to be wished) strangleth with a rope.” The burning was, I presume, inflicted under the ecclesiastical law, De hæret. comburendo.
But burning was not at first universally adopted (a proof that it was not imposed by the common law), for at the Assizes at Maidstone, 1652, they were hanged, but “Some ... wished rather they might be burnt to Ashes: alledging that it was a received opinion amongst many [for in some cases it was held as proof against a witch that her mother had been burnt for the same crime] that the body of a witch being burnt, her blood is prevented thereby from becomming hereditary to the Progeny in the same evill, which by hanging is not.”
[P. 19]. “Excommunicat persons.” Evidence of Scot’s haste, and of his trusting to his memory. Wishing to find the Latin for “runnawaie”, I looked into M. M. and found: “Nota quod excommunicati, item participes & socii criminis, item infames, et criminosi nec servi contra dominos admittentur ad agendum, & testificandum in causa fidei quacunque.” It will be observed that he remembered “infames” as “infants”, and, as there might have been a misprint in his copy, I have consulted all—not a short list—in the British Museum. Possibly he was influenced by W. W.’s book, which had taken a strong hold on him, if it were not one of the causes of his writing, for there, children from 6¾ to 9 years (infants in law) were taken as witnesses against their mothers, while one woman’s proof was that her infant in arms pointed to the house!