ueen's kinsmen; and yet again was by that
unscrupulous prince directed against Morton, afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury, and other adherents of the Earl of Richmond. The accusation
in both cases was only chosen as a charge easily made and difficult to
be eluded or repelled.

But in the meanwhile, as the accusation of witchcraft thus afforded to
tyranny or policy the ready means of assailing persons whom it might not
have been possible to convict of any other crime, the aspersion itself
was gradually considered with increase of terror as spreading wider and
becoming more contagious. So early as the year 1398 the University of
Paris, in laying down rules for the judicial prosecuting of witches,
express their regret that the crime was growing more frequent than in
any former age. The more severe enquiries and frequent punishments by
which the judges endeavoured to check the progress of this impious
practice seem to have increased the disease, as indeed it has been
always remarked that those morbid affections of mind which depend on the
imagination are sure to become more common in proportion as public
attention is fastened on stories connected with their display.

In the same century schisms arising from different causes greatly
alarmed the Church of Rome. The universal spirit of enquiry which was
now afloat, taking a different direction in different countries, had in
almost all of them stirred up a sceptical dissatisfaction with the
dogmas of the Church--such views being rendered more credible to the
poorer classes through the corruption of manners among the clergy, too
many of whom wealth and ease had caused to neglect that course of
morality which best recommends religious doctrine. In almost every
nation in Europe there lurked in the crowded cities, or the wild
solitude of the country, sects who agreed chiefly in their animosity to
the supremacy of Rome and their desire to cast off her domination. The
Waldenses and Albigenses were parties existing in great numbers through
the south of France. The Romanists became extremely desirous to combine
the doctrine of the heretics with witchcraft, which, according to their
account, abounded especially where the Protestants were most numerous;
and, the bitterness increasing, they scrupled not to throw the charge of
sorcery, as a matter of course, upon those who dissented from the
Catholic standard of faith. The Jesuit Delrio alleges several reasons
for the affinity which he c