hidden, and was
sure of the philosopher's stone; nay, he would "chebard" (jeopard) his
life but that he could make gold as he listed, and offered to remain in
prison till he had accomplished it, "twelve months on silver and twelve
and a half on gold." In this same reign, too, was arrested William
Stapleton for sorcery. William[96] was a monk of St. Benet in the Holm,
Norfolk, and William loved not his monkish life; so he got out, seeking
money to buy his dispensation. And not having the money at hand himself,
nor knowing how to get it, he took to treasure-seeking as the easiest
manner open to him of making a fortune. But his conjurations and his magic
staff only led him to some Roman remains, and nothing more; so he borrowed
of a friend instead, then settled in Norfolk, and turned to
treasure-seeking again, uselessly; got into intrigues that did him no
good; and had three spirits, Andrea Malchus, Inchubus, and Oberion--the
last a dumb devil who would not speak, being in the service of my Lord
Cardinal.

In 1521 the Duke of Buckingham died on the scaffold, led into some
imprudent actions by the predictions of his familiar magician, one friar
Hopkins; and Hopkins, to make amends, died broken-hearted shortly after.
And there was the Maid of Kent (1534), Elizabeth Barton, who had trances
and gave revelations, and was on intimate terms with Mary Magdalen and the
Virgin, and who was probably a "sensitive" made use of by the Catholics to
try and frighten the King from his marriage with the "gospel eyes;" but
poor Elizabeth Barton came to a sad pass with her revelations and trances;
and Mary Magdalen, who had given her a letter written in heaven and all of
gold, forgot to forewarn or shield her from her cruel and shameful end at
Tyburn that cloudy fitful day of April, with the gallows standing out
against the flecked sky, and the poor raving nun, half-enthusiast
half-impostor, praying bareheaded at its foot--she and her accomplices
waiting for the moment to die.

In 1541 we find a nobler name on the scaffold--Lord Hungerford--"beheaded
for procuring certain persons to conspire that they might know how long
Henry VIII. would live;" and that same year an Act was passed against
false prophecies, and another against conjurations, witchcraft, and
sorcery, making it felony without benefit of clergy. But six years later
Edward VI. abrogated that statute; not for any tenderness to witches, but
because with it was bound up a prohibiti