The Effects of the Witch Superstition are to be traced in the Laws of a Kingdom—­Usually punished in England as a Crime connected with Politics—­Attempt at Murder for Witchcraft not in itself Capital—­Trials of Persons of Rank for Witchcraft, connected with State Crimes—­Statutes of Henry VIII—­How Witchcraft was regarded by the three Leading Sects of Religion in the Sixteenth Century; first, by the Catholics; second, by the Calvinists; third, by the Church of England and Lutherans—­Impostures unwarily countenanced by individual Catholic Priests, and also by some Puritanic Clergymen—­Statute of 1562, and some cases upon it—­Case of Dugdale—­Case of the Witches of Warbois, and the execution of the Family of Samuel—­That of Jane Wenham, in which some Church of England Clergymen insisted on the Prosecution—­Hutchison’s Rebuke to them—­James the First’s Opinion of Witchcraft—­His celebrated Statute, 1 Jac.  I.—­Canon passed by the Convocation against Possession—­Case of Mr. Fairfax’s Children—­Lancashire Witches in 1613—­Another Discovery in 1634—­Webster’s Account of the manner in which the Imposture was managed—­Superiority of the Calvinists is followed by a severe Prosecution of Witches—­Executions in Suffolk, &c. to a dreadful extent—­Hopkins, the pretended Witchfinder, the cause of these Cruelties—­His Brutal Practices—­His Letter—­Execution of Mr. Lowis—­Hopkins Punished—­Restoration of Charles—­Trial of Coxe—­Of Dunny and Callendar before Lord Hales—­Royal Society and Progress of Knowledge—­Somersetshire Witches—­Opinions of the Populace—­A Woman Swum for Witchcraft at Oakly—–­ Murder at Tring—­Act against Witchcraft abolished, and the belief in the Crime becomes forgotten—­Witch Trials in New England—­Dame Glover’s Trial—­Affliction of the Parvises, and frightful Increase of the Prosecutions—­Suddenly put a stop to—­The Penitence of those concerned in them.

Our account of Demonology in England must naturally, as in every other country, depend chiefly on the instances which history contains of the laws and prosecutions against witchcraft.  Other superstitions arose and decayed, were dreaded or despised, without greater embarrassment, in the provinces in which they have a temporary currency, than that cowards and children go out more seldom at night, while the reports of ghosts and fairies are peculiarly current.  But when the alarm of witchcraft arises, Superstition dips her hand in the blood of the persons accused, and records in the annals of jurisprudence their trials and the causes alleged in vindication of their execution.  Respecting other fantastic allegations, the proof is necessarily transient and doubtful, depending upon the inaccurate testimony of vague report and of doting tradition.  But in cases of witchcraft we have before us the recorded evidence upon which judge and jury acted, and can form an opinion with some degree of certainty of the grounds, real or fanciful, on which they acquitted or condemned.  It is, therefore, in tracing, this part of Demonology, with its accompanying circumstances, that we have the best chance of obtaining an accurate view of our subject.