terms; it savors of madness. Now, before we can do any kind of justice to our forefathers,—a matter, be it remembered, of no moment to them, for they have gone to their reward, but, I take it, of considerable importance to us,we must empty our heads of all such rationalistic ideas. To the contemporaries of William Stoughton and Samuel Sewall the existence of this crime was not merely an historical phenomenon, it was a fact of contemporary experience. Whoever denied the occurrence of witchcraft in the past, was an atheist; whoever refused to admit its actual possibility in the present, was either stubbornly incredulous, or destitute of the ability to draw an inference. Throughout the seventeenth century, very few persons could be found— not merely in New England, but in the whole world-who would have ventured to take so radical a position. That there had been witches and sorcerers in antiquity was beyond cavil. That there were, or might be, witches and sorcerers in the present was almost equally certain. The crime was recognized by the Bible, by all branches of the Church, by philosophy, by natural science, by the medical faculty, by the law of England. I do not offer these postulates as novelties. They are commonplaces. They will not be attacked by anybody who has even a slight acquaintance with the mass of testimony that might be adduced to establish them.

It is a common practice to ascribe the tenets of the New Englanders in the matter of witchcraft to something peculiar about their religious opinions,-to what is loosely called their Puritan theology. This is a very serious error. The doctrines of our forefathers differed, in this regard, from the doctrines of the Roman and the Anglican Church in no essential,—one may safely add, in no particular. Lord Bacon was not a Puritan,—yet he has left his belief in sorcery recorded in a dozen places. James I. was not a Puritan,3 but

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.

his Dæmonologie (1597) is a classic treatise, his zeal in prosecuting sorcerers is notorious, and his statute of 16034 was the act under which Matthew Hopkins, in the time of the Commonwealth, sent two hundred witches to the gallows in two years, nearly ten times as many as perished in Massachusetts from the first settlement to the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Matthew Hopkins, the Witch-Finder General, apparently was a Puritan. Indeed, it is his career, more than anything that ever happened in New England, which has led to the reiterated statement that Puritanism was especially favorable, by its temper and its tenets, to prosecution for witchcraft. For his activity falls in the time of the Commonwealth, and the Parliament granted a Special Commission of Oyer and Terminer, in 1645, to try some of the witches that he had detected, and Edmund Calamy was associated with the Commission. But, on the other hand, it must be noted that John Gaule, who opposed Hopkins and is usually credited with most influence in putting an end to his performances, was also a Puritan,-and a minister likewise, and a believer in witches as well. The Hopkins outbreak, as we shall see, must be laid to the disturbed condition of the country rather than to the prevalence of any particular system of theology.5 Under Cromwell's government, witch trials languished, not because the belief in witchcraft changed, but because there was order once more. So in Scotland,

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.

the conquest by Cromwell checked one of the fiercest prosecutions ever known. The Restoration was followed, both in England and in Scotland, by a marked recrudescence of prosecution.

In the דיי

But we must return to Matthew Hopkins. Let us see how his discoveries affected James Howell. In 1647 Howell writes to Endymion Porter: "We have likewise multitudes of Witches among us, for in Essex and Suffolk there were above two hundred indicted within these two years, and above the one half of them executed: More, I may well say, than ever this Island bred since the Creation, I speak it with horror. God guard us from the Devil, for I think he was never so busy upon any part of the Earth that was enlightned with the beams of Christianity; nor do I wonder at it, for there's never a Cross left to fright him away." following year, Howell writes to Sir Edward Spencer an elaborate defence of the current tenets in witchcraft and demonology. One striking passage demands quotation:"Since the beginning of these unnatural Wars, there may be a cloud of Witnesses produc'd for the proof of this black Tenet: For within the compass of two years, near upon three hundred Witches were arraign'd, and the major part executed in Essex and Suffolk only. Scotland swarms with them now more than ever, and Persons of good Quality executed daily.” It is confidently submitted that nobody will accuse Howell of Puritanism. The letters from which our extracts are taken were written while he was a prisoner in the Fleet

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).

'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.

under suspicion of being a Royalist spy. His mention of the disappearance of crosses throughout England will not be overlooked by the discriminating reader. It will be noted also that he seems to have perceived a connection-a real one, as we shall see later-10 between the increase in witchcraft and the turmoil of the Civil War.

Jeremy Taylor was surely no Puritan; but he believed in witchcraft. It is a sin, he tells us, that is "infallibly desperate," and in his Holy Living (1650) he has even given the weight of his authority to the reality of sexual relations between witches and the devil.12

It was not in Puritan times, but in 1664, four years after the Restoration, that Sir Matthew Hale, then Chief Baron of the Exchequer, pronounced from the bench the following opinion in the Bury St. Edmunds case:-"That there were such Creatures as Witches he made no doubt at all; For First, the Scriptures had affirmed so much. Secondly, The wisdom of all Nations had provided Laws against such Persons, which is an Argument of their confidence of such a crime. And such hath been the judgment of this Kingdom, as appears by that Act of Parliament13 which hath provided Punishments proportionable to the quality of the Offence. And desired them [the jury], strictly to observe their Evidence; and desired the great God of Heaven to direct their Hearts in this weighty thing they had in hand: For to Condemn the Innocent, and to let the Guilty go free, were both an Abomination to the Lord."14 Hale's words were

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).

13 Whole Works, III, 57; cf. Sermon vii (Works, IV, 412).

13

See p. 7, above, note 4.

14

A Tryal of Witches, at the Assizes held at Bury St. Edmonds.

1664 (London,

1682), pp. 55-56. This report is reprinted in Howell's State Trials, VI, 647 ff., and (in part) in H. L. Stephen's State Trials Political and Social (1899), I, 209 ff. See

fraught with momentous consequences, for he was “allowed on all hands to be the most profound lawyer of his time, "15 and the Bury case became a precedent of great weight. “It was," writes Cotton Mather, "a Tryal much considered by the Judges of New England. "16

Hale's conduct on this occasion has of course subjected him to severe criticism. Lord Campbell, for example, goes so far as to declare that he "murdered" the old women,—a dictum which shows but slight comprehension of the temper of the seventeenth century. More creditable to Campbell's historical sense is the following passage:-"Although, at the present day, we regard this trial as a most lamentable exhibition of credulity and inhumanity, I do not know that it at all lowered Hale in public estimation in his own life."17 Bishop Burnet, as is well-known, makes no mention

also Hutchinson, An Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft, chap. viii (1718, pp. 109 ff.; 2d ed., 1720, pp. 139 ff.); Thomas Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Witchcraft, II., 261 ff. Hale's opinion was regarded as settling the law beyond peradventure. It is quoted, in A True and Impartial Relation of the Informations against Three Witches. Assizes holden for the County of Devon at the Castle of Exon, Aug. 14, 1682 (London, 1682), Address to the Reader. For Roger North's comments on the Exeter case, see p. 192, below. A Collection of Modern Relations of Matters of Fact, concerning Witches & Witchcraft, Part I (London. 1693), contains "A Discourse concerning the great Mercy of God, in preserving us from the Power and Malice of Evil Angels. Written by Sir Matt. Hale at Cambridge 26 Mar. 1661. Upon occasion of a Tryal of certain Witches before him the Week before at St. Edmund's Bury." The date is wrong (1661 should be 1664) but the trial is identified with that which we are considering by the anonymous compiler of the Collection in the following words: "There is a Relation of it in print, written by his Marshal, which I suppose is very true, though to the best of my Memory, not so compleat, as to some observable Circumstances, as what he related to me at his return from that Circuit." The date of the trial is given as "the Tenth day of March, 1664" on the title-page of the report (A Tryal of Witches) and on page 1 as "the Tenth day of March, in the Sixteenth Year of the Reign of Charles II." On page 57 the year is misprinted "1662." Howell's State Trials, VI, 647, 687, makes it 1665, but 16 Charles II. corresponds to Jan. 30, 1664 -Jan. 29, 1665: hence 1664 is right. The (unfinished) Discourse just mentioned must not be confused with Hale's Motives to Watchfulness, in reference to the Good and Evil Angels, which may be found in his Contemplations Moral and Divine, London, 1682 (licensed 1675-6), Part II, pp. 67 ff.

15 Roger North, Life of the Lord Keeper Guilford, ed. 1826, I, 121.

16 Wonders of the Invisible World (London, 1693), p. 55. Mather also reproduces the substance of the report above referred to (note 14) in the same work. Bragge, too, reproduces it, in the main, in his tract, Witchcraft Farther Display'd, 1712, in support of the accusation against Jane Wenham.

17 Lives of the Chief Justices, 1849, I, 561 ff., Chapter xvii. See also the criticism of Hale in a letter of George Onslow's, 1770, 14th Report of the Historical MSS. Commission, Appendix, Part IX, p. 480.