ts pine away even to the death, their colour fadeth, their
flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, their senses are bereft.
I pray God they never practise further than upon the subject.'
For himself, the bishop declares, 'these eyes have seen most
evident and manifest marks of their wickedness.' The annalist
adds that this, no doubt, was the occasion of bringing in a bill
the next Parliament, for making enchantments and witchcraft
felony; and, under year 1578, we are informed that, whether it
were the effect of magic, or proceeded from some natural cause,
the queen was in some part of this year under excessive anguish
_by pains of her teeth_, insomuch that she took no rest for
divers nights, and endured very great torment night and day. The
statute of 1562 includes 'fond and fantastic prophecies' (a very
common sort of political offences in that age) in the category of
forbidden arts. With unaccustomed lenity it punished a first
conviction with the pillory only.

Witch-persecutions (which needed not any legal enactment) sprung
up in different parts of the country; but they were not carried
out with either the frequency or the ferocity of the next age, or
as in Scotland, under the superintendence of James VI. A number
of pamphlets unnecessarily enforced the obligatory duty of
unwearied zeal in the work of discovery and extermination.[98]
Among the executions under Elizabeth's Government are specially
noticed that of a woman hanged at Barking in 1575; of four at
Abingdon; three at Chelmsford; two at Cambridge, 1579; of a
number condemned at St. Osythes; of several in Derbyshire and
Staffordshire. One of the best known is the case at Warboys, in
Huntingdonshire, 1593.

[98] One of these productions, printed in London, bore the
sensational title, 'A very Wonderful and Strange Miracle of
God, shewed upon a Dutchman, of the age of 23 years, who was
possessed of ten devils, and was, by God's Mighty
Providence, dispossessed of them again the 27 January last
past, 1572.' Another, dedicated to Lord Darcy, by W. W.,
1582, sets forth that all those tortures in common use 'are
far too light, and their rigour too mild; and in this
respect he (the pamphleteer) impudently exclaimeth against
our magistrates who suffer them to be but hanged, when
_murtherers and such malefactors be so used, which deserve
not the hundredth part of their punishment_.'

The author of the 'Discoverie' relates a fact that came u