Hutchison's Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft. The author, chaplain in ordinary to George I., published his book in 1718. It is worth while to note the colder scepticism of the Hanoverian chaplain as compared with the undoubting faith of his predecessor, Dr. Glanvil.
97. Agreeably to that common prejudice which selects certain historical personages for popular and peculiar esteem or execration, and attributes to them, as if they were eccentricities rather than examples of the age, every exceptional virtue or vice, the 'Bloody Queen' has been stigmatised, and is still regarded, as an extraordinary monster, capable of every inhuman crime—a prejudice more popular than philosophical, since experience has taught that despots, unchecked by fear, by reason, or conscience, are but examples, in an eminent degree, of the character, and personifications of the worst vices (if not of the best virtues) of their time. Considered in this view, Mary I. will but appear the example and personification of the religious intolerance of Catholicism and of the age, just as Cromwell was of the patriotic and Puritanic sentiment of the first half, or Charles II. of the unblushing licentiousness of the last half, of the seventeenth century.
98. One of these productions, printed in London, bore the sensational title, 'A very Wonderful and Strange Miracle of God, shewed upon a Dutchman, of the age of 23 years, who was possessed of ten devils, and was, by God's Mighty Providence, dispossessed of them again the 27 January last past, 1572.' Another, dedicated to Lord Darcy, by W. W., 1582, sets forth that all those tortures in common use 'are far too light, and their rigour too mild; and in this respect he (the pamphleteer) impudently exclaimeth against our magistrates who suffer them to be but hanged, when murtherers and such malefactors be so used, which deserve not the hundredth part of their punishment.'
Chapter III.
The 'Discoverie of Witchcraft,' published 1584—Wier's 'De Præstigiis Dæmonum, &c.'—Naudé—Jean Bodin—His 'De la Démonomanie des Sorciers,' published at Paris, 1580—His authority—Nider—Witch-case at Warboys—Evidence adduced at the Trial—Remarkable as being the origin of the institution of an Annual Sermon at Huntingdon.
Three years after this affair, Dr. Reginald Scot published his 'Discoverie of Witchcraft, proving that common opinions of witches contracting with devils, spirits, or their familiars, and their power to kill, torment, and consume the bodies of men, women, and children, or other creatures, by disease, or otherwise, their flying in the air, &c., to be but imaginary, erroneous conceptions and novelties: wherein also the lewd, unchristian, practices of witchmongers upon aged, melancholy, ignorant, and superstitious people, in extorting confessions by inhuman terrors and tortures, is notably detected.'99
This work is divided into sixteen books, with a treatise affixed upon devils and spirits, in thirty-four chapters. It contains an infinity of quotations from or references to the writings of those whom the author terms witch-mongers; and several chapters are devoted to a descriptive catalogue of the charms in repute and diabolical rites of the most extravagant sort. On the accession of James I., whose 'Demonologie' was in direct opposition to the 'Discoverie,' it was condemned as monstrously heretical; as many copies as could be collected being solemnly committed to the flames. This meritorious and curious production is therefore now scarce.
Prefixed is a dedicatory epistle, addressed to the Right Worshipful, his loving friend, Mr. Dr. Coldwell, Dean of Rochester, and Mr. Dr. Readman, Archdeacon of Canterbury, in which the author appealingly expostulates, 'O Master Archdeacon, is it not pity that that which is said to be done with the almighty power of the Most High God, and by our Saviour his only Son Jesus Christ our Lord, should be referred to a baggage old woman's nod or wish? Good sir, is it not one manifest kind of idolatry for them that labour and are laden to come unto witches to be refreshed? If witches could help whom they are said to have made sick, I see no reason but remedy might as well be required at their hands as a purse demanded of him that hath stolen it. But truly it is manifest idolatry to ask that of a creature which none can give but the Creator. The papist hath some colour of Scripture to maintain his idol of bread, but no Jesuitical distinction can cover the witchmongers' idolatry in this behalf. Alas! I am ashamed and sorry to see how many die that, being said to be bewitched, only seek for magical cures whom wholesome diet and good medicine would have recovered.'100 An utterance of courage and common sense equally rare and useless. Reginald Scot, perhaps the boldest of the early impugners of witchcraft, was yet convinced apparently of the reality of ghostly apparitions.
Johannes Wierus, physician to the Duke of Cleves, and a disciple of the well-known Cornelius Agrippa (himself accused of devotion to the black art), in 1563 created considerable sensation by an attack upon the common opinions, without questioning however the principles, of the superstition in his 'De Præstigiis Dæmonum Incantationibus et Veneficiis.' His common sense is not so clear as that of the Englishman. Another name, memorable among the advocates of Reason and Humanity, is Gabriel Naudé. He was born at Paris in 1600; he practised as a physician of great reputation, and was librarian successively to Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, and to Queen Christina of Sweden. His book 'Apologie pour les Grands Hommes accusés de Magie,' published in Paris in 1625, was received with great indignation by the Church. Some others, both on the Continent and in England, at intervals by their protests served to prove that a few sparks of reason, hard to be discovered in the thick darkness of superstition, remained unextinguished; but they availed not to stem the torrent of increasing violence and volume.
A more copious list can be given of the champions of orthodoxy and demonolatry; of whom it is sufficient to enumerate the more notorious names—Sprenger, Nider, Bodin, Del Rio, James VI., Glanvil, who compiled or composed elaborate treatises on the subject; besides whom a cloud of witnesses expressly or incidentally proclaimed the undoubted genuineness of all the acts, phenomena, and circumstances of the diabolic worship; loudly and fiercely denouncing the 'damnable infidelity' of the dissenters—a proof in itself of their own complicity. Jean Bodin, a French lawyer, and author of the esteemed treatise 'De la République,' was one of the greatest authorities on the orthodox side. His publication 'De la Démonomanie des Sorciers' appeared in Paris in the year 1580: an undertaking prompted by his having witnessed some of the daily occurring trials. Instead of being convinced of their folly, he was or affected to be, certain of their truth, setting himself gravely to the task of publishing to the world his own observations and convictions.
One of the most surprising facts in the whole history of witchcraft is the insensibility or indifference of even men of science, and therefore observation, to the obvious origin of the greatest part of the confessions elicited; confession of such a kind as could be the product only of torture, madness, or some other equally obvious cause. Bodin himself, however, sufficiently explains the fact and exposes the secret. 'The trial of this offence,' he enunciates, 'must not be conducted like other crimes. Whoever adheres to the ordinary course of justice perverts the spirit of the law both divine and human. He who is accused of sorcery should never be acquitted unless the malice of the prosecutor be clearer than the sun; for it is so difficult to bring full proof of this secret crime, that out of a million of witches not one would be convicted if the usual course were followed.'101 He speaks of an old woman sentenced to the stake after confessing to having been transported to the sabbath in a state of insensibility. Her judges, anxious to know how this was effected, released her from her fetters, when she rubbed herself on the different parts of her body with a prepared unguent and soon became insensible, stiff, and apparently dead. Having remained in that condition for five hours, the witch as suddenly revived, relating to the trembling inquisitors a number of extraordinary things proving she must have been
