The reigns of Philip and Mary and James I. were not sufficiently removed
from the darkness of the middle ages to render enactments like the
following ridiculous, even in the mouths of the legislature:--
“All persons who shall practise invocation or conjuration of wicked
spirits, any witchcraft, enchantment, charm, or sorcery, whereby any
person shall happen to be killed or destroyed, shall, with their aiders
and abettors, he accounted felons, without benefit of clergy; and all
persons practising any witchcraft, &c., whereby any person shall happen
to be wasted, consumed, or lamed in his or her body or members, or
whereby any goods or chattels shall be destroyed, wasted, or impaired,
shall, with their counsellors and aiders, suffer for the first offence
one year’s imprisonment and the pillory, and for the second the
punishment of felony without clergy.”
The like penalties are annexed to declaring by sorcery where any hidden
or stolen treasure or goods may be found.
Again, “if any person shall consult, covenant with, entertain, employ,
feed, or reward any evil or wicked spirit, or take up any dead man,
woman, or child out of his, her, or their grave; or the skin, bone, or
any other part of any dead person to be employed in any manner of
witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment[1],” &c., he shall suffer
death as a felon, without benefit of clergy.
Let us thank God, who has put the means of civilization in our way, that
(in the words of Sir Walter Scott) “the grosser faults of our ancestors
are now out of date; and that whatever follies the present race may be
guilty of, the sense of humanity is too universally spread to permit
them to think of tormenting wretches till they confess what is
impossible, and then burning them for their pains.”
-----
Footnote 1: