[4] Elizabeth Barton (1506-1534) suffered from a nervous derangement which developed into a religious mania. She was taught by some monks, and then professed to be in communion with the Virgin Mary and performed miracles at stated times. She denounced Henry VIII's divorce and gained wide recognition as a champion of the queen and the Catholic church. She was granted interviews by Archbishop Warham, by Thomas More, and by Wolsey. She was finally induced by Cranmer to make confession, was compelled publicly to repeat her confession in various places, and was then executed; see _Dict. Nat. Biog._ [5] Illegitimate child. [6] That is, very probably, Alice Norrington, the mother of Mildred. [7] _Discoverie of Witchcraft_, 130. [8] _Ibid._, 132. [9] See _The discloysing of a late counterfeyted possession by the devyl in two maydens within the Citie of London_; see also Holinshed, _Chronicles_, ed. of 1807-1808, IV, 325, and John Stow, _Annals ... of England_ (London, 1615), 678. [10] _Discoverie of Witchcraft_, 258, 259. [11] The spot she chose for concealing the token of guilt had been previously searched. [12] For another see _Discoverie of Witchcraft_, 132-133. [13] In his prefatory epistle "to the Readers." [14] An incidental reference to Weyer in "W. W.'s" account of the _Witches taken at St. Oses_ is interesting: "... whom a learned Phisitian is not ashamed to avouche innocent, and the Judges that denounce sentence of death against them no better than hangmen." [15] _E. g., Discoverie of Witchcraft_, 5. [16] _Ibid._, 466-469. [17] _Ibid._, 5-6. [18] _Ibid._, 15: "Howbeit you shall understand that few or none are throughlie persuaded, resolved, or satisfied, that witches can indeed accomplish all these impossibilities; but some one is bewitched in one point, and some is coosened in another, untill in fine, all these impossibilities, and manie mo, are by severall persons affirmed to be true." [19] _Discoverie_, 472. [20] _Ibid._, 7-8. [21] _Ibid._, 8. [22] It was one of the points made by "witchmongers" that the existence of laws against witches proved there were witches. This argument was used by Sir Matthew Hale as late as 1664. Scot says on that point: "Yet I confesse, the customes and lawes almost of all nations doo declare, that all these miraculous works ... were attributed to the power of witches. The which lawes, with the executions and judicials thereupon, and the witches confessions, have beguiled almost the whole world." _Ibid._, 220. [23] _Discoverie_, 471, 472. [24] _Ibid._, 512. [25] _Ibid._, 303.