Witch-persecutions (which needed not any legal enactment) sprung up in different parts of the country; but they were not carried out with either the frequency or the ferocity of the next age, or as in Scotland, under the superintendence of James VI. A number of pamphlets unnecessarily enforced the obligatory duty of unwearied zeal in the work of discovery and extermination.[98] Among the executions under Elizabeth's Government are specially noticed that of a woman hanged at Barking in 1575; of four at Abingdon; three at Chelmsford; two at Cambridge, 1579; of a number condemned at St. Osythes; of several in Derbyshire and Staffordshire. One of the best known is the case at Warboys, in Huntingdonshire, 1593. [98] One of these productions, printed in London, bore the sensational title, 'A very Wonderful and Strange Miracle of God, shewed upon a Dutchman, of the age of 23 years, who was possessed of ten devils, and was, by God's Mighty Providence, dispossessed of them again the 27 January last past, 1572.' Another, dedicated to Lord Darcy, by W. W., 1582, sets forth that all those tortures in common use 'are far too light, and their rigour too mild; and in this respect he (the pamphleteer) impudently exclaimeth against our magistrates who suffer them to be but hanged, when _murtherers and such malefactors be so used, which deserve not the hundredth part of their punishment_.' The author of the 'Discoverie' relates a fact that came under his personal observation: it is a fair example of the trivial origin and of the facility of this sort of charges. 'At the assizes holden at Rochester, anno 1581, one Margaret Simons, wife of John Simons, of Brenchly in Kent, was arraigned for witchcraft, at the instigation and complaint of divers fond and malicious persons, and especially by the means of one John Farral, vicar of that parish, with whom I talked about the matter, and found him both fondly assotted in the cause and enviously bent towards her: and, which is worse, as unable to make a good account of his faith as she whom he accused. That which he laid to the poor woman's charge was this. His son, being an ungracious boy, and 'prentice to one Robert Scotchford, clothier, dwelling in that parish of Brenchly, passed on a day by her house; at whom, by chance, her little dog barked, which thing the boy taking in evil part, drew his knife and pursued him therewith even to her door, whom she rebuked with such words as the boy disdained, and yet nevertheless would not be persuaded to depart in a long time. At the last he returned to his master's house, and within five or six days fell sick. Then was called to mind the fray betwixt the dog and the boy: insomuch as the vicar (who thought himself so privileged as he little mistrusted that God would visit his children with sickness) did so calculate as he found, partly through his own judgment and partly (as he himself told me) by