his particular
time so drastic a measure was passed and put into operation? Fortunately
part of the evidence exists upon which to frame an answer. The English
churchmen who had been driven out of England during the Marian
persecution had many of them sojourned in Zurich and Geneva, where the
extirpation of witches was in full progress, and had talked over the
matter with eminent Continental theologians. With the accession of
Elizabeth these men returned to England in force and became prominent in
church and state, many of them receiving bishoprics. It is not possible
to show that they all were influential in putting through the statute of
the fifth year of Elizabeth. It is clear that one of them spoke out
plainly on the subject. It can hardly be doubted that he represented the
opinions of many other ecclesiastics who had come under the same
influences during their exile.[21] John Jewel was an Anglican of
Calvinistic sympathies who on his return to England at Elizabeth's
accession had been appointed Bishop of Salisbury. Within a short time he
came to occupy a prominent position in the court. He preached before the
Queen and accompanied her on a visit to Oxford. It was in the course of
one of his first sermons--somewhere between November of 1559 and March
of 1560[22]--that he laid before her his convictions on witchcraft. It
is, he tells her, "the horrible using of your poor subjects," that
forces him to speak. "This kind of people (I mean witches and sorcerers)
within these few last years are marvellously increased within this your
grace's realm. These eyes have seen most evident and manifest marks of
their wickedness. Your grace's subjects pine away even unto death, their
colour fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, their
senses are bereft. Wherefore, your poor subjects' most humble petition
unto your highness is, that the laws touching such malefactors may be
put in due execution."

The church historian, Strype, conjectures that this sermon was the cause
of the law passed in the fifth year of Elizabeth's reign, by which
witchcraft was again made a felony, as it had been in the reign of Henry
VIII.[23] Whatever weight we may attach to Strype's suggestion, we have
every right to believe that Jewel introduced foreign opinion on
witchcraft. Very probably there were many returned exiles as well as
others who brought back word of the crusade on the Continent; but
Jewel's words put the matter formally before