In consequence of the strong conviction James entertained on the
subject, the English parliament was induced, in the first year of
his reign, to supersede the milder proceedings of Elizabeth, and to
enact that "if any person shall use, practice, or exercise any
invocation or conjuration of any evil and wicked spirit, or shall
consult, covenant with, entertain, employ, feed or reward any evil
and wicked spirit, to or for any intent and purpose; or take up any
dead man, woman, or child out of their grave, or the skin, bone, or
any part of any dead person, to be used in any manner of witchcraft,
sorcery or enchantment, or shall use any witchcraft, sorcery or
enchantment, whereby any person shall be killed, destroyed, wasted,
consumed, pined or lamed in his or her body, or any part thereof;
that then every such offender, their aiders, abettors and counsellors
shall suffer the pains of death." And upon this statute great numbers
were condemned and executed.