others attempted to stop the proceedings; in fact they assisted with a red-hot poker in making her take medicine before she was carried to the fire. The poor husband be lieved that she had been keeping company with fairies and was not really his wife, but a fairy. The judge showed his views by giving the husband twenty years and his accomplices from five to six months each. In England, before the conquest, witch craft, conjuration, sorcery and inchantment were severely punished, sometimes by exile, sometimes by death. These offences were first made felonies by a statute of 33, Henry VIII. This act was soon re pealed and changed; but another was passed in the first year of James I, which continued in force until 1736. Let me quote my Lord Coke: In the third part of his "Institutes he thus describes these sinners: "A conjurer is he that by the holy & powerful names of Almighty God invokes & conjures the devil to consult with him or to do some act. "A witch is a person that has conference with the devil, to consult with him or to do some act. "An inchanter, ineantator, is he or she qui carminibus, aut cantiunculis dacmonem adjtwat. They were of ancient times called carmina, because in those days their charms were in verse. "Carminibns Circe socios mutavit Ulvssis. "By charms in rhyme (O cruel fates,) Circe transform'd Ulvsses mates. "A sorcerer, sortílegas, quia utitur sortibns in cantationabtis dcmonis. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Non est augnrinm in Jacob, ant divinatio in Israel. . . . It appeareth by our ancient books that these horrible and devilish offenders, which left the everlasting God & sacrificed to the devil, & thereby committed idolatry, in seeking advice & aid of him, were punished by death." And Coke then quotes the Mirror, and Britton and Fleta to prove this. James I was an expert and specialist in
the matter of witchcraft. His act was to this effect: If any person or persons shall use, practice or exercise any invocation or con juration of any evil or wicked spirit, or shall consult, covenant with, entertain, employ, feed or reward any evil or wicked spirit, to or for any intent or purpose; or take up any dead man, woman or child out of his or her or their grave, or any other place where the dead body resteth, or the skin, bone or any part of a dead person, to be employed or used in any manner of witchcraft, sorcery, charm or enchantment; or shall use, exercise or practice any witchcraft, inchantment, charm or sorcery whereby any person shall be killed, destroyed, wasted, consumed, pined or lamed in his or her body or any part thereof; that then every such offender or offenders, their aiders, abettors and coun selors, being of any of said offences duly and lawfully convicted and attained, shall suffer pains of death as a felon or felons, and shall lose the privilege of clergy- and sanctuary. If any person or persons take i' pon him or them by witchcraft, charm or sorcery, to tell or declare in what place any treasure of gold or silver should or might be found, or had in the earth or other secret places; or where goods or oth:r things, lost or stolen, should be found or become; or to the intent to provoke any person to un lawful love, or whereby any cattle or goods of any person shall be destroyed; or to hurt or destroy any person in his or her body, although the same be not effected or done; being therefor lawfully convicted shall for the said offence suffer imprisonment for a whole year without bail or mainprize, and once in every quarter of said year he shall stand in the pillory upon some market day or fair day, and there confess his or her error and offence. For the second offence it was death. The act in force in Scotland at this time was one passed in 1563 under Mary Stuart. and it enacted that any person using anymanner of witchcrafts, sorcery or necromancy or abusing anyone by pretending to have such
