[49] Witchcraft, always an ecclesiastical offence, was first made a
statutory crime by 33 Hen. VIII. (1541), which Hutchinson suggests was
intended as 'a hank upon the reformers,' by reason of the part which
mentioned the pulling down of crosses. This act was repealed on the
accession of Edward VI., but was revived by 5 Eliz. c. 16 in a slightly
different form. Hutchinson mentions five convictions under this statute
between 1560 and 1597. A new act was passed in 1603, the first year of
the reign of James I. Under it seventeen persons were condemned to death
in Lancashire in 1634 on the evidence of one witness, who afterwards
admitted his imposture. Their lives were saved by the judge who tried
the case. In the eastern counties about fifty persons were executed in
1644 and 1645. Various other cases were tried throughout the seventeenth
century, of which a list is given by Hutchinson, and the last conviction
took place in 1712, at Hertford, but the prisoner was pardoned. The act
of James was repealed in 1736, when it was enacted that no more
prosecutions for witchcraft should take place, but that pretending to
exercise witchcraft, and so forth, should be offences punishable on the
same scale as other acts of petty cheating. Further information on the
subject may be found in Hutchinson's _Essay on Witchcraft_; and an
account of the very curious outburst of prosecutions for witchcraft in
New England about the time of this trial, and, it is said, partly in
consequence of it, may be found in Howell's _State Trials_, vol vi. pp.
647-686. In those parts of the British Empire where there is a large
population of negroes, it has been found necessary to make stringent
laws against witchcraft, which are regarded by the persons most affected
by them as something much more than a protection against mere cheats.
[50] Sir Matthew Hale (1609-1676) was the grandson of a Gloucestershire
weaver. He was educated as a Puritan and entered Magdalen Hall, Oxford,
in 1626. He here suddenly dropped his Puritan habits, and would have
become a soldier in the Low Countries, but that, having to consult the
learned Glanville as to legal proceedings taken against him which
endangered his patrimony, he was persuaded to become a law student. He
again resumed a quiet method of life, and owing to the slovenliness of
his dress narrowly escaped being shipped to the West Indies by a
press-gang. He was called in 1637, and already enjoying a considerable
reputation at once acquired a lucrative practice. He devilled for Noy,
but according to Campbell refused to follow him when he joined the Court
party. He kept clear of politics at the beginning of the Long
Parliament, though courted by both sides. He is said to have taken part
in Strafford's defence; he certainly defended Laud. He took the Covenant
in 1644, and sat in the Westminster Assembly of Divines. He procured
honourable terms for the garrison of Oxford on the capture of that town.
He took the engagement to be true to the Commonwealth in 1649, and
continued to practise, often appearing for the defence in State
prosecutions; particularly for the Duke of Hamilton after the battle of
Worcester. He took a prominent part in the Commission appointed to
reform the laws, which abolished feudal tenures and caused all legal
proceedings to be conducted in English. He became a Justice of the
Common Pleas in 1654, when he was occasionally brought into opposition
to the government. At last he refused to try criminal causes;
particularly that of Colonel Penruddock (see _post_, p. 59). He
supported Cromwell against the sectaries. He was summoned to act as
assessor to Cromwell's House of Lords; but refused to act as a judge
under Richard Cromwell, though he sat in his Parliament. He sat for
Gloucestershire in the Convention Parliament, and took an active part in
the Restoration. He sat at the trial of the Regicides, though not at
Vane's. On Bridgman becoming Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas in 1660,
Hale succeeded him as Chief-Baron, his appointment being due, it is
said, to Clarendon's scheme for having the Comprehension Bill, which he
had drafted, defeated. He became Lord Chief-Justice in 1671, in
succession to Kelyng. He has the reputation of being one of the greatest
judges in English history. He settled satisfactorily all claims arising
out of the rebuilding of London after the great fire; he found himself
unable to help Bunyan, whom he considered to have been unjustly
imprisoned, thereby, according to Campbell, being entitled to some of
the credit attaching to the production of _The Pilgrim's Progress_. On
the failure of his health he retired from the bench in 1676. It may be
of interest to quote Campbell's opinion of his conduct of the present
trial. 'I wish to God,' says that author, 'I could as successfully' (as
he has done in Bunyan's case) 'defend the conduct of Sir Matthew Hale in
a case to which I most reluctantly refer, but which I dare not, like
Bishop Burnet, pass over unnoticed--I mean the famous trial before him,
at Bury St. Edmunds, for witchcraft. I fostered a hope that I should
have been able, by strict inquiry, to contradict, or mitigate, the
hallucination under which he is generally supposed to have then
laboured, and which has clouded his fame--even in some degree impairing
the usefulness of that bright example of Christian piety which he has
left for the edification of mankind. But I am much concerned to say,
that a careful perusal of the proceedings and of the evidence shows that
upon this occasion he was not only under the influence of the most
vulgar credulity, but that he violated the plainest rules of justice,
and that he really was the murderer of two innocent women.... Had the
miserable wretches, indicted for witchcraft before Sir Matthew Hale,
pleaded guilty, or specifically confessed the acts of supernatural
agency imputed to them, or if there had been witnesses who had given
evidence, however improbable it might be, to substantiate the offence, I
should hardly have regarded the Judge with less reverence because he
pronounced sentence of death upon the unhappy victims of superstition,
and sent them to the stake, or the gibbet. But they resolutely persisted
in asserting their innocence, and there was not only no evidence against
them which ought to have weighed in the mind of any reasonable man who
believed in witchcraft, but during the trial the imposture practised by
the prosecutors was detected and exposed.' 'Hale's motives were most
laudable; but he furnishes a memorable instance of the mischiefs
originating from superstition. He was afraid of an acquittal or of a
pardon, lest countenance should be given to a disbelief in witchcraft,
which he considered tantamount to a disbelief in Christianity. The
following Sunday he wrote a "Meditation concerning the mercy of God in
preserving us from the malice and power of Evil Angels," in which he
refers, with extreme complacency, to the trial over which he had
presided at Bury St. Edmunds.'
[51] See _ante_, p. 127.
[52] Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) was the well-known author of _Religio
Medici_, published in 1642; _Vulgar Errors_, published in 1646; and
numerous other mystic, pseudo-scientific and philosophical works. Mr.
Leslie Stephen (_Hours in a Library_, vol. ii. p. 11) writes of him:
'Obviously we shall find in Sir Thomas Browne no inexorably severe guide
to truth; he will not too sternly reject the amusing because it happens
to be slightly improbable, or doubt an authority because he sometimes
sanctions a mass of absurd fables.' So he more or less believed in the
griffin, the phoenix, and the dragon: he knew that the elephant had no
joints, and was caught by cutting down the tree against which he leant
in sleep; that the pelican pierced its breast for the good of its young;
that storks refused to live except in republics or free states; and that
men were struck dumb, literally dumb, by the sight of a wolf: he
discusses what would have happened had Adam eaten the apple of the Tree
of Life before that of the Tree of Knowledge; he discovers error in
every recorded speech but one delivered before the Flood; he admits that
the phoenix is mentioned in holy writers, and alluded to in Job and
the Psalms, but nevertheless adduces eight reasons for not believing in
his existence, of which one is that no one has seen one, another that in
the Scriptures the word translated phoenix also means a palm-tree,
another that he could neither enter the ark in a pair, nor increase and
multiply. At the same time, he probably possessed a considerable
knowledge of physical science, and holds a high, though peculiar,
position in English literature. Evidently he was not a suitable witness
in the present case, and his appearance as recorded above is far the
most unamiable thing known of him; but it is possible that his
neighbours did not take him more seriously as a trustworthy authority
than do his modern critics.