In 1521 the Duke of Buckingham died on the scaffold, led into some imprudent actions by the predictions of his familiar magician, one friar Hopkins; and Hopkins, to make amends, died broken-hearted shortly after. And there was the Maid of Kent (1534), Elizabeth Barton, who had trances and gave revelations, and was on intimate terms with Mary Magdalen and the Virgin, and who was probably a "sensitive" made use of by the Catholics to try and frighten the King from his marriage with the "gospel eyes;" but poor Elizabeth Barton came to a sad pass with her revelations and trances; and Mary Magdalen, who had given her a letter written in heaven and all of gold, forgot to forewarn or shield her from her cruel and shameful end at Tyburn that cloudy fitful day of April, with the gallows standing out against the flecked sky, and the poor raving nun, half-enthusiast half-impostor, praying bareheaded at its foot--she and her accomplices waiting for the moment to die. In 1541 we find a nobler name on the scaffold--Lord Hungerford--"beheaded for procuring certain persons to conspire that they might know how long Henry VIII. would live;" and that same year an Act was passed against false prophecies, and another against conjurations, witchcraft, and sorcery, making it felony without benefit of clergy. But six years later Edward VI. abrogated that statute; not for any tenderness to witches, but because with it was bound up a prohibition against pulling down crosses. In 1549 Ket's rebellion was troublesome; its vigour due partly to the old prophecy repeated through the plains of Norfolk-- "Hob, Dic, and Hic, with Clubs and clouted Shoon, Shall fill up Duffin-dale with slaughtered Bodies soon." And then we come to nothing more until 1559, when Elizabeth "renewed the same article of inquiry for sorcerers," but punishing the first conviction only with the pillory. The following year eight men were taken up for conjurations and sorcery, and tried at Westminster, where they had to purge themselves by confession, penitence, and a repudiating oath. In 1562 the Earl and Countess of Lennox, Anthony Pool, Anthony Fortescue, and some others, were condemned for treason and meddling with sorcerers; though, indeed, Elizabeth herself was not free from either the superstition or its practice; for did she not patronize Dr. Dee and his "skryer" John Kelly, with his ranting about Madimi in her gown of "changeable sey," and all the other spirits who came in and out of the "show-stone," and talked just the same kind of rubbish as spirits talk now in modern circles? But the poor "figure-flinger, with his tin pictures," was a sorcerer not to be protected, so got tried and condemned--poor figure-flinger!