Note 49 — THE SUFFOLK WITCHES[49]

Witchcraft, always an ecclesiastical offence, was first made a statutory crime by 33 Hen. viii. (1541), which Hutchinson suggests was intended as 'a hank upon the reformers,' by reason of the part which mentioned the pulling down of crosses. This act was repealed on the accession of Edward vi., but was revived by 5 Eliz. c. 16 in a slightly different form. Hutchinson mentions five convictions under this statute between 1560 and 1597. A new act was passed in 1603, the first year of the reign of James i. Under it seventeen persons were condemned to death in Lancashire in 1634 on the evidence of one witness, who afterwards admitted his imposture. Their lives were saved by the judge who tried the case. In the eastern counties about fifty persons were executed in 1644 and 1645. Various other cases were tried throughout the seventeenth century, of which a list is given by Hutchinson, and the last conviction took place in 1712, at Hertford, but the prisoner was pardoned. The act of James was repealed in 1736, when it was enacted that no more prosecutions for witchcraft should take place, but that pretending to exercise witchcraft, and so forth, should be offences punishable on the same scale as other acts of petty cheating. Further information on the subject may be found in Hutchinson's Essay on Witchcraft; and an account of the very curious outburst of prosecutions for witchcraft in New England about the time of this trial, and, it is said, partly in consequence of it, may be found in Howell's State Trials, vol vi. pp. 647-686. In those parts of the British Empire where there is a large population of negroes, it has been found necessary to make stringent laws against witchcraft, which are regarded by the persons most affected by them as something much more than a protection against mere cheats.