1

is true, witnesses averred that they had seen this or that old
woman flying on a broomstick; and a poor creature was actually
hanged at Oxford (this was one of Matthew Hopkins's victims), on
the accusation of her own little child, a girl of seven years old,
who asserted that she had seen the performance !

The other difficulty is even greater. In many cases where
a person was charged with having attended these Satanic orgies
-the statement resting on the authority of another under torture
-it was proved by ocular evidence that he or she had been fast asleep
all the time at home. One would have thought an incontestable
proof such as this would have led to immediate acquittal. But a
way was found out of it. So great was the Devil's power, so
mighty the magic charms used, that he could insure the presence
elsewhere of what seemed to be the body of his votary, while the
real self was participating in his "Sabbath.'

Thus the poor
wretch had no escape. It was useless to prove an alibi, for he
could not disprove that his spiritual part had left for a time its
bodily integument. Such was the explanation given on the
occasion of a terrible witch panic at Mohra, in Sweden, A.D. 1669.
Some little children (as children will) had invented a story of
having been to a witches' meeting at an imaginary place
called Blockula. Others were persuaded by them to say the
One accused another, until at length several hundred children
were believed to be implicated. As a result of encouraging false-
hoods instead of punishing the authors, as many as seventy
witches and sorcerers were seized in Mohra alone, twenty-three of
whom confessed their crimes, and most of them were executed.
Fifteen children were also put to death, while others were scourged
weekly at the church door. But when some of the parents of
children accused testified that they had been at home all the
time in a sound sleep, it was alleged that this proved nothing,
for the visit might have been paid in the spirit and not in the
body.

De Castro's mode of meeting the difficulty is very inconclusive.
"Some tell us,' he says, quoting the Council of Ancyra, 'that the
whole is a matter of dreams and imagination, and that demons
could not carry human bodies through the air. But how,' he asks
triumphantly, are we then to account for what we read of our
Lord's temptation, and of the story of Habaccuc and Daniel ?
Besides,' he adds, 'we have positive proofs of such occurrences.'
And he proceeds to relate two stories on the authority of Paulus

same.

a

Grillandus in 1524, who had inquired officially into the circumstances. One of them is really too good to lose :

'There was a certain woman of the Diocese of Sabinum who was suspected by her husband of being a witch. This she stoutly denied. The husband, however, contrived to see her one night anointing herself with the witches' unguent, after which she disappeared "like a bird." Following her downstairs, he discovered that the house-door was locked and barred. The wife, questioned by him next day, professed ignorance; but the husband then told her plainly what he had seen, and gave her a good cudgelling (fustibus illam percutit graviter), threatening worse treatment if she denied, and promising forgiveness if she would confess. She chose the latter and asked his pardon, which he granted on condition that she would take him with her to a witches' Sabbath. He was taken accordingly, and was a witness of the games, the dancing, and what not. At last they all sat down to supper. But the man, finding his food somewhat insipid, asked for the salt again and again fruitlessly. At length, when he had been kept waiting a long time, the salt-cellar was brought to him. "Thank God!" exclaimed the man, "here's the salt!" No sooner had he uttered these words than the lights were extinguished, the devils all disappeared, and the man found himself in the early morning lying on the ground naked. Some shepherds coming up, he asked them where he was, and found he was near Beneventum, in the kingdom of Naples, a hundred miles from his home. On his return, having made his way back by begging, he immediately accused his wife of witchcraft [surely this was too bad!], and related the whole occurrence to the judges. These examined the case and found the story true, which was confirmed by the woman's confession.'

The most numerous witch-trials in England took place, as has been said, during the time when Calvinism had the upper hand. Sir Walter Scott, in his 'Demonology and Witchcraft,' ascribes the comparative freedom of the English Church from complicity in the barbarous persecution of witches to the greater cultivation of the clergy and their influence over the laity. Certainly, both in Scotland and in the time of the Puritan ascendency in Parliament, we find a savage panic of intolerance fostered by the Presbyterian and Independent ministers. There is a piteous story told by Sinclair, on the authority of the 'godly minister' who relates it, concerning one Bessie Graham in 1649. She had used

6

dalal en he ha

ht to the

threatening words against another woman, with whom she had had a quarrel. Ten days after the woman died. On this, Bessie was imprisoned 'in the steeple’ for thirteen weeks as a suspected witch; 'all which time I, the minister, repaired to her, but found her still more and more obdured. I could get no advantage by her words, but sometimes she made me think that she was an innocent woman, so that I was grieved' (says the godly minister), ' for her hard usage, if it could have been helped, and had my own secret wishes she had never been meddled with. Yea, if she could have made an escape, I being innocent of it, I could have been glad.' (He was, we see, not only a 'godly' but, in his way, a tender-hearted minister.) 'At this nick of time, one Alexander Bogs, skilled in searching the mark, came, and finds the mark in the middle of her back, wherein he thrust a great brass pin, of which she was not sensible, neither did any blood follow when the pin was drawn out.' (There is reason to suspect that professional witch-finders, often paid by the case, pretended to insert a pin in the 'witches' mark,' or had one with a hollow socket.) 'This put me to many thoughts and prayers, wherein I did engage myself to God that if He would find me out a way for giving me and the assize full clearness, either by her own confession or otherwise, I should remark it as a singular favour and a special mercy.' The

godly minister' having gone thereafter “to exhort her to a confession' (he assumes her guilt), continues : After labouring with her in vain, we left her; but when I came to the stairhead, I resolved to halt a little to hear what she would say. Within a very short space she begins to discourse, as if it had been to somebody with her. Her voice was so low that I could not understand what she said except one sentence, whereby I perceived she was speaking of somewhat I had been challenging her of and she had denied. He then heard something like another voice, as if answering her What could this be but the foul fiend's voice'? The 'kirk-officer,' Alexander Simpson, who was with the minister, was so terrified at this that he cried out; but the godly narrator encouraged him, and they got downstairs safely. Bessie, the pious minister now gave her up; and, after assigning twelve reasons for gratitude to God in thus revealing the truth to him, and remarking 'how zealous the Devil was to get souls damned,' and how cunningly he had contrived that Bessie might be taken in the grin,' he left her to her fate. She asserted her innocence to the last.

Vanus nguista

the earliest coming mo ar

Benetea his hope

as too hin

confirma"

As to poor

from 10

Pater calde

Certains ascendeza

6

Lorne are the same which the Duke of Sussex lived in for many years. Here he formed his famous library; here he died in 1843. His widow, the Duchess of Inverness, lived on here till her death, thirty years later.

The apartments under the State rooms to the east are those once occupied by the Duke and Duchess of Kent; and, at the north-eastern corner, there is a large room with three windows down to the floor, looking over the Round Pond. A brass plate on the wall bears the inscription : 'In this room Queen Victoria was born May 24th, 1819.' In another room still stand the doll's house and toy stables with which she played nearly eighty years ago.

At Kensington Palace the Queen received the news of her accession on the morning of June 20, 1837. The story has often been told. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Howley, and the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Conyngham, left Windsor at two in the morning, and reached Kensington Palace at five. They knocked and rang for a considerable time before they could rouse the porter at the gate ; they were again kept waiting in the courtyard, then turned into one of the lower rooms, and seemed forgotten by everybody. After long delays and ringings to inquire the cause, the attendant was summoned, who declared that the Princess was in such a sweet sleep that she could not venture to disturb her. Then they said, “We are

come on business of State to the Queen, and even her sleep must give way to that.' To prove that she did not keep them waiting, in a few minutes she came into the room in a loose white nightgown and shawl, her nightcap thrown off, and her hair falling upon her shoulders, her feet in slippers, tears in her eyes, but perfectly collected and dignified.

The last historic scene at Kensington Palace was on the morning of the 21st, at eleven, when the Queen met her Council in the long, dingy, columned room under the Cupola room.

With the accession of the Queen we must end. Kensington Palace is now grown to be an irregular edifice, patched at by successive owners, until it is a matter of discussion whether any part of Nottingham House remains, though the north-east block is sometimes said to be part of the old house of the Finches. But its Dutch formality is not destroyed, and the building, with all its additions, must ever remain chiefly sacred to the memory of Dutch William, the Whig Revolution, and the glorious principles of 1688.

AN OLD WhiG.

WITCHCRAFT.

6

ONE of the strangest facts in connection with witchcraft in this country is undoubtedly its relation to puritanical views of religion. Sorcery, of course, was not uncommon in the later middle ages, and from time to time we have the record of its punishment. Heretics like the Waldenses and Albigenses were accused of it, the more readily to stir up popular detestation against them, and multitudes perished at the stake in France and Italy, especially after the Bull of Innocent VIII., in 1481, had been extended by Adrian VI. in 1523 to 'sorcerers' by name, as well as 'heretics.' In England, however, witchcraft was neither hunted out nor punished with much severity until close upon the seventeenth century. It is sufficient to compare such statements as that of Bartholomæus de Spina, who reckons that a thousand persons were executed for the crime in one year (1524) in the province of Como, with the fact that when, in Elizabeth's reign, a statute was passed against it, the punishment assigned was nothing more terrible than the pillory. In fact, witchcraft, as distinguished from heresy, has everywhere been the dark shadow of Calvinism ; and Puritanism, reflecting the prejudices of the ignorant, and substituting the Bible in its extreme literalism for the Pope, was carried away by a blind and unreasoning panic to almost inconceivable cruelties. Could anyone have imagined that such a man as Calamy, for instance, would have acted on a commission with Matthew Hopkins, the murderous witchfinder, and that Baxter should have defended his proceedings?

Thus the seventeenth century was the great time for witches both in England and Scotland. Scotland led the way, as was natural, for not only had King James written against witchcraft a book which all good subjects were bound to accept, but he had had a special bout with these servants of the Evil One, some of whom had conspired to raise a tempest and nearly caused the King's shipwreck when he sailed to Denmark for his bride. Moreover, James had been highly, flattered by an artful compliment paid him, Satan having acknowledged, through one of the possessed, that the King was the enemy of whom he stood in most

His Majesty, therefore, was pleased to take a personal