sposed to go the length of so high an authority as Selden, who
pronounces (in his "Table-Talk") that if a man heartily believed that he
could take the life of another by waving his hat three times and crying
Buzz! and should, under this fixed opinion, wave his hat and cry Buzz!
accordingly, he ought to be executed as a murderer. But a false prophecy
of the King's death is not to be dealt with exactly on the usual
principle; because, however idle in itself, the promulgation of such a
prediction has, in times such as we are speaking of, a strong tendency
to work its completion.

Many persons, and some of great celebrity, suffered for the charge of
trafficking with witches, to the prejudice of those in authority. We
have already mentioned the instance of the Duchess of Gloucester, in
Henry the Sixth's reign, and that of the Queen Dowager's kinsmen, in the
Protectorate of Richard, afterwards the Third. In 1521, the Duke of
Buckingham was beheaded, owing much to his having listened to the
predictions of one Friar Hopkins. In the same reign, the Maid of Kent,
who had been esteemed a prophetess, was put to death as a cheat. She
suffered with seven persons who had managed her fits for the support of
the Catholic religion, and confessed her fraud upon the scaffold. About
seven years after this, Lord Hungerford was beheaded for consulting
certain soothsayers concerning the length of Henry the Eighth's life.
But these cases rather relate to the purpose for which the sorcery was
employed, than to the fact of using it.

Two remarkable statutes were passed in the year 1541; one against false
prophecies, the other against the act of conjuration, witchcraft, and
sorcery, and at the same time against breaking and destroying crosses.
The former enactment was certainly made to ease the suspicious and
wayward fears of the tetchy King Henry. The prohibition against
witchcraft might be also dictated by the king's jealous doubts of hazard
to the succession. The enactment against breaking crosses was obviously
designed to check the ravages of the Reformers, who in England as well
as elsewhere desired to sweep away Popery with the besom of destruction.
This latter statute was abrogated in the first year of Edward VI.,
perhaps as placing an undue restraint on the zeal of good Protestants
against idolatry.

At length, in 1562, a formal statute against sorcery, as penal in
itself, was actually passed; but as the penalty was limited to the
pillo