y true after he took the throne of
England. The dicta that emanated from the executive of the English
nation could not fail to find a wide audience, and especially in England
itself. His work offered a text-book to officials. It was a key to the
character and methods of the new ruler, and those who hoped for
promotion were quick to avail themselves of it. To prosecute witches was
to win the sovereign's approval. The judges were prompted to greater
activity. Moreover, the sanction of royalty gave to popular outbreaks
against suspicious women greater consideration at the hands of the
gentry. And it was in the last analysis the gentry, in the persons of
the justices of the peace, who decided whether or no neighborhood
whispering and rumors should be followed up.

But the king's most direct influence was in the passing of a new law.
His first Parliament had been in session but eight days when steps were
taken by the House of Lords towards strengthening the statute against
witchcraft. The law in force, passed in the fifth year of Elizabeth's
reign, imposed the death penalty for killing by witchcraft, and a year's
imprisonment for injuring by witchcraft or by allied means. James would
naturally feel that this law was merely one version of the statute
against murder and did not touch the horrible crime of contract with the
Devil and the keeping of imps.[9] Here was a sin beside which the taking
of life was a light offence. It was needful that those who were guilty
of it should suffer the severest penalty of the law, even if they had
not caused the loss of a single life. It was to remedy this defect in
the criminal code that a new statute was introduced.

It is not worth while to trace the progress of that bill from day to
day. It can be followed in the journals of the Lords and Commons. The
bill went to a large committee that included six earls and twelve
bishops.[10] Perhaps the presence of the bishops was an evidence that
witchcraft was still looked upon as a sin rather than as a crime. It was
a matter upon which the opinion of the church had been received before
and might well be accepted again. It was further arranged that the Lord
Chief-Justice of the common pleas, Sir Edmund Anderson, and the
attorney-general, the later so famous Sir Edward Coke, along with other
eminent jurists, were to act with the committee. Anderson, it will be
recalled, had presided over numerous trials and had both condemned and
released witches.