‘GLOUCESTER. Then be your eyes the witness of their evil; Look how I am bewitch’d; behold my arm Is, like a blasted sapling, wither’d up: And this is Edward’s wife, that monstrous witch, Consorted with that harlot-strumpet Shore, That, by their witchcraft, thus have markèd me.’ Monarchs in the sixteenth century were especially jealous (for their own sakes) of this trafficking with the foul fiend. According to Hutchinson, in 1541, ‘The Lord _Hungerford_ beheaded for procuring certain Persons to conjure, that they might know how long _Henry_ VIII. would live.’ Another authority, however, states that ‘Lord Hungerford was attainted and executed, for keeping an heretical chaplain.’ Queen Elizabeth in 1562 being suspicious of the Countess of Lenox, had her imprisoned on a trumped-up case of sorcery and witchcraft. But the Devil evidently had a spite against this Protestant Princess, for in the Calendar of State Papers for 1584 we read, ‘The Names of the Confederates against Her Majesty, who have diverse and sundry times conspired her life, and do daily confederate against her.’ Among others we find Lord Paget, Sir Geo. Hastings, Sir Thos. Hamner, ‘Ould Birtles the great devel, Darnally the sorcerer, Maude Twogood enchantresse, the ould witch of Ramsbury, several other olde witches, Gregson the north tale teller, who was one of them 3 that stole awaye the Earle of Northumberlande’s head frome one of the turrettes of York &c.’ We can scarcely wonder at the hatred of James I. of England to witches, seeing how he had been pestered with them in his realm of Scotland, two instances of which are recorded in the Calendars of State Papers. ‘1591. 21 May. Witches have been discovered in Scotland, who practised the King’s death, with the privity of Bothwell.’ ‘1600 16/20 Ap. The Queen of Scotland is said to be a zealous Catholic, and the King inclined thereto, because an _Agnus Dei_ given him by the Queen had miraculously saved him in a tempest at sea, stirred up by witches, as the Witches themselves confess.’ It is a curious fact, well worthy the thinking over, that England and Europe had a comparative immunity from the assaults of the Devil, until after the Reformation, when for a time he became rampagious, troubling even the arch-Reformer Luther himself.