The Superstitions of Witchcraft Part 6

In 1541 two Acts of Parliament were pa.s.sed in England--the first interference of Parliament in this kingdom--against false prophecies, conjurations, witchcraft, sorcery, pulling down crosses; crimes made felony without benefit of clergy. Both the last article in the list and the period (a few years after the separation from the Catholic world) appear to indicate the causes in operation. Lord Hungerford had recently been beheaded by the suspicious tyranny of Henry VIII., for consulting his death by conjuration. The preamble to the statute has these words: 'The persons that had done these things, had dug up and pulled down an infinite number of crosses.'[96] The new head of the English Church, if he found his interest in a.s.suming himself the spiritual supremacy, was, like a true despot, averse to any further revolution than was necessary to his purposes. Some superst.i.tious regrets too for the old establishment which, by a fortunate caprice, he abandoned and afterwards plundered, may have urged the tyrant, who persecuted the Catholics for questioning his supremacy, to burn the enemies of transubstantiation. Shortly before this enactment, eight persons had been hanged at Tyburn, not so much for sorcery as for a disagreeable prophecy. Elizabeth Barton, the princ.i.p.al, had been instigated to p.r.o.nounce as revelation, that if the king went on in the divorce and married another wife, he should not be king a month longer, and in the estimation of Almighty G.o.d not one hour longer, but should die a villain's death. The Maid of Kent, with her accomplices--Richard Martin, parson of the parish of Aldington; Dr. Bocking, canon of Christ Church, Canterbury; Deering; Henry Gold, a parson in London; Hugh Rich, a friar, and others--was brought before the Star Chamber, and adjudged to stand in St. Paul's during sermon-time; the majority being afterwards executed. In Cranmer's 'Articles of Visitation,' 1549, an injunction is addressed to his clergy, that 'you shall inquire whether you know of any that use charms, sorcery, enchantments, witchcrafts, soothsaying, or any like craft, invented by the devil.'

[96] Hutchison's _Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft_.

The author, chaplain in ordinary to George I., published his book in 1718. It is worth while to note the colder scepticism of the Hanoverian chaplain as compared with the undoubting faith of his predecessor, Dr. Glanvil.

During the brief reigns of Edward VI. and Mary I. in England, no conspicuous trials occur. As for the latter monarch, the queen and her bishops were too absorbed in the pressing business of burning for the real offence of heresy to be much concerned in discovering the concomitant crimes of devil-wors.h.i.+p.[97] An impartial judgment may decide that superst.i.tion, whether engaged in vindicating the dogmas of Catholicism or those of witchcraft, is alike contemptible and pernicious.

[97] Agreeably to that common prejudice which selects certain historical personages for popular and peculiar esteem or execration, and attributes to them, as if they were eccentricities rather than examples of the age, every exceptional virtue or vice, the 'b.l.o.o.d.y Queen' has been stigmatised, and is still regarded, as an _extraordinary_ monster, capable of every inhuman crime--a prejudice more popular than philosophical, since experience has taught that despots, unchecked by fear, by reason, or conscience, are but examples, in an eminent degree, of the character, and personifications of the worst vices (if not of the best virtues) of their time. Considered in this view, Mary I.

will but appear the example and personification of the religious intolerance of Catholicism and of the age, just as Cromwell was of the patriotic and Puritanic sentiment of the first half, or Charles II. of the unblus.h.i.+ng licentiousness of the last half, of the seventeenth century.

In the year of Elizabeth's accession, 1558, Strype ('Annals of the Reformation,' i. 8, and ii. 545) tells that Bishop Jewell, preaching before the queen, animadverted upon the dangerous and direful results of witchcraft. 'It may please your Grace,'

proclaims publicly the courtly Anglican prelate, 'to understand that witches and sorcerers, within these last few years, are marvellously increased within your Grace's realm. Your Grace's subjects pine away even to the death, their colour fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is benumbed, their senses are bereft.

I pray G.o.d they never practise further than upon the subject.'

For himself, the bishop declares, 'these eyes have seen most evident and manifest marks of their wickedness.' The annalist adds that this, no doubt, was the occasion of bringing in a bill the next Parliament, for making enchantments and witchcraft felony; and, under year 1578, we are informed that, whether it were the effect of magic, or proceeded from some natural cause, the queen was in some part of this year under excessive anguish _by pains of her teeth_, insomuch that she took no rest for divers nights, and endured very great torment night and day. The statute of 1562 includes 'fond and fantastic prophecies' (a very common sort of political offences in that age) in the category of forbidden arts. With unaccustomed lenity it punished a first conviction with the pillory only.

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 Derbys.h.i.+re and Staffords.h.i.+re. One of the best known is the case at Warboys, in Huntingdons.h.i.+re, 1593.

[98] One of these productions, printed in London, bore the sensational t.i.tle, 'A very Wonderful and Strange Miracle of G.o.d, shewed upon a Dutchman, of the age of 23 years, who was possessed of ten devils, and was, by G.o.d'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 a.s.sizes 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 a.s.sotted 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, pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d 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 the relation of other witches, that his said son was by her bewitched. Yea, he told me that his son being, as it were, past all cure, received perfect health at the hands of another witch.'

Not satisfied with this accusation, the vicar 'proceeded yet further against her, affirming that always in his parish church, when he desired to read most plainly his voice so failed him that he could scant be heard at all: which he could impute, he said, to nothing else but to her enchantment. When I advertised the poor woman thereof, as being desirous to hear what she could say for herself, she told me that in very deed his voice did fail him, specially when he strained himself to speak loudest.

Howbeit, she said, that at all times his voice was hoa.r.s.e and low; which thing I perceived to be true. But sir, said she, you shall understand that this our vicar is diseased with such a kind of hoa.r.s.eness as divers of our neighbours in this parish not long ago doubted ... and in that respect utterly refused to communicate with him until such time as (being thereunto enjoined by the ordinary) he had brought from London a certificate under the hands of two physicians that his hoa.r.s.eness proceeded from a disease of the lungs; which certificate he published in the church, in the presence of the whole congregation: and by this means he was cured, or rather excused of the shame of the disease. And this,' certifies the narrator, 'I know to be true, by the relation of divers honest men of that parish. And truly if one of the jury had not been wiser than the others, she had been condemned thereupon, and upon other as ridiculous matters as this. For the name of witch is so odious, and her power so feared among the common people, that if the honestest body living chanced to be arraigned thereupon, she shall hardly escape condemnation.'

CHAPTER III.

The 'Discoverie of Witchcraft,' published 1584--Wier's 'De Praestigiis Daemonum, &c.'--Naude--Jean Bodin--His 'De la Demonomanie des Sorciers,' published at Paris, 1580--His authority--Nider--Witch-case at Warboys--Evidence adduced at the Trial--Remarkable as being the origin of the inst.i.tution of an Annual Sermon at Huntingdon.

Three years after this affair, Dr. Reginald Scot published his 'Discoverie of Witchcraft, proving that common opinions of witches contracting with devils, spirits, or their familiars, and their power to kill, torment, and consume the bodies of men, women, and children, or other creatures, by disease, or otherwise, their flying in the air, &c., to be but imaginary, erroneous conceptions and novelties: wherein also the lewd, unchristian, practices of witchmongers upon aged, melancholy, ignorant, and superst.i.tious people, in extorting confessions by inhuman terrors and tortures, is notably detected.'[99]

[99] The edition referred to is that of 1654. The author is commemorated by Hallam in terms of high praise--'A solid and learned person, beyond almost all the English of that age.'--_Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries._

This work is divided into sixteen books, with a treatise affixed upon devils and spirits, in thirty-four chapters. It contains an infinity of quotations from or references to the writings of those whom the author terms _witch-mongers_; and several chapters are devoted to a descriptive catalogue of the charms in repute and diabolical rites of the most extravagant sort. On the accession of James I., whose 'Demonologie' was in direct opposition to the 'Discoverie,' it was condemned as monstrously heretical; as many copies as could be collected being solemnly committed to the flames. This meritorious and curious production is therefore now scarce.

Prefixed is a dedicatory epistle, addressed to the Right Wors.h.i.+pful, his loving friend, Mr. Dr. Coldwell, Dean of Rochester, and Mr. Dr. Readman, Archdeacon of Canterbury, in which the author appealingly expostulates, 'O Master Archdeacon, is it not pity that that which is said to be done with the almighty power of the Most High G.o.d, and by our Saviour his only Son Jesus Christ our Lord, should be referred to a baggage old woman's nod or wish? Good sir, is it not one manifest kind of idolatry for them that labour and are laden to come unto witches to be refreshed? If witches could help whom they are said to have made sick, I see no reason but remedy might as well be required at their hands as a purse demanded of him that hath stolen it.

But truly it is manifest idolatry to ask that of a creature which none can give but the Creator. The papist hath some colour of Scripture to maintain his idol of bread, but no Jesuitical distinction can cover the witchmongers' idolatry in this behalf.

Alas! I am ashamed and sorry to see how many die that, being said to be bewitched, only seek for magical cures whom wholesome diet and good medicine would have recovered.'[100] An utterance of courage and common sense equally rare and useless. Reginald Scot, perhaps the boldest of the early impugners of witchcraft, was yet convinced apparently of the reality of ghostly apparitions.

[100] Writing in an age when the _magical_ powers of steam and electricity were yet undiscovered, it might be a forcible argument to put--'Good Mr. Dean, is it possible for a man to break his fast with you at Rochester, and to dine that day in Durham with Master Dr. Matthew?'

Johannes Wierus, physician to the Duke of Cleves, and a disciple of the well-known Cornelius Agrippa (himself accused of devotion to the black art), in 1563 created considerable sensation by an attack upon the common opinions, without questioning however the principles, of the superst.i.tion in his 'De Praestigiis Daemonum Incantationibus et Veneficiis.' His common sense is not so clear as that of the Englishman. Another name, memorable among the advocates of Reason and Humanity, is Gabriel Naude. He was born at Paris in 1600; he practised as a physician of great reputation, and was librarian successively to Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, and to Queen Christina of Sweden. His book 'Apologie pour les Grands Hommes accuses de Magie,' published in Paris in 1625, was received with great indignation by the Church. Some others, both on the Continent and in England, at intervals by their protests served to prove that a few sparks of reason, hard to be discovered in the thick darkness of superst.i.tion, remained unextinguished; but they availed not to stem the torrent of increasing violence and volume.

A more copious list can be given of the champions of orthodoxy and demonolatry; of whom it is sufficient to enumerate the more notorious names--Sprenger, Nider, Bodin, Del Rio, James VI., Glanvil, who compiled or composed elaborate treatises on the subject; besides whom a cloud of witnesses expressly or incidentally proclaimed the undoubted genuineness of all the acts, phenomena, and circ.u.mstances of the diabolic wors.h.i.+p; loudly and fiercely denouncing the 'd.a.m.nable infidelity' of the dissenters--a proof in itself of their own complicity. Jean Bodin, a French lawyer, and author of the esteemed treatise 'De la Republique,' was one of the greatest authorities on the orthodox side. His publication 'De la Demonomanie des Sorciers'

appeared in Paris in the year 1580: an undertaking prompted by his having witnessed some of the daily occurring trials. Instead of being convinced of their folly, he was or affected to be, certain of their truth, setting himself gravely to the task of publis.h.i.+ng to the world his own observations and convictions.

One of the most surprising facts in the whole history of witchcraft is the insensibility or indifference of even men of science, and therefore observation, to the obvious origin of the greatest part of the confessions elicited; confession of such a kind as could be the product only of torture, madness, or some other equally obvious cause. Bodin himself, however, sufficiently explains the fact and exposes the secret. 'The trial of this offence,' he enunciates, 'must not be conducted like other crimes. Whoever adheres to the ordinary course of justice perverts the spirit of the law both divine and human. He who is accused of sorcery should _never_ be acquitted unless the malice of the prosecutor be clearer than the sun; for it is so difficult to bring full proof of this secret crime, that out of a million of witches _not one would be convicted if the usual course were followed_.'[101] He speaks of an old woman sentenced to the stake after confessing to having been transported to the sabbath in a state of insensibility. Her judges, anxious to know how this was effected, released her from her fetters, when she rubbed herself on the different parts of her body with a prepared unguent and soon became insensible, stiff, and apparently dead. Having remained in that condition for five hours, the witch as suddenly revived, relating to the trembling inquisitors a number of extraordinary things proving she must have been _spiritually_ transported to distant places.[102] An earlier advocate of the orthodox cause was a Swiss friar, Nider, who wrote a work ent.i.tled 'Formicarium' (_Ant-Hill_) on the various sins against religion. One section is employed in the consideration of sorcery. Nider was one of the inquisitors who distinguished themselves by their successful zeal in the beginning of the century.

[101] Yet the lawyer who enunciated such a maxim as this has been celebrated for an unusual liberality of sentiment in religious and political matters, as well as for his learning. Dugald Stewart commends 'the liberal and moderate views of this philosophical politician,' as shown in the treatise _De la Republique_, and states that he knows of 'no political writer of the same date whose extensive, and various, and discriminating reading appears to me to have contributed more to facilitate and to guide the researches of his successors, or whose references to ancient learning have been more frequently transcribed without acknowledgment.'--Bayle considered him 'one of the ablest men that appeared in France during the sixteenth century.'--_Dissertation First_ in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_. Hallam (_Introduction to the Literature of Europe_) occupies several of his pages in the review of Bodin's writings. Jean Bodin, however, on the authority of his friend De Thou, did not escape suspicion himself of being heretical.

[102] In witchcraft (as in the sacramental mystery) it was a subject for much doubt and dispute whether there might not be simply a _spiritual_ (without a _real corporeal_) presence at the sabbath. Each one decided according to the degree of his orthodoxy.

The Swiss witches, like the old Italian larvae and most of the sisterhood, display extraordinary affection for the blood of new-born unbaptized infants; and it is a great desideratum to kill them before the preventive rite has been irrevocably administered; for the bodies of unbaptized children were almost indispensable in the witches' preparations. Soon as buried their corpses are dug out of their graves and carried away to the place of a.s.sembly, where they are boiled down for the fat for making the ointments.[103] The liquid in which they are boiled is carefully preserved; and the person who tastes it is immediately initiated into all the mysteries of sorcery. A witch, judicially examined by the papal commission which compiled the 'Malleus,'

gives evidence of the prevalence of this practice: 'We lie in wait for children. These are often found dead by their parents; and the simple people believe that they have themselves overlain them, or that they died from natural causes; but it is we who have destroyed them. We steal them out of the grave, and boil them with lime till all the flesh is loosed from the bones and is reduced to one ma.s.s. We make of the firm part an ointment, and fill a bottle with the fluid; and whoever drinks with due ceremonies of this belongs to our league, and is already capable of bewitching.' 'Finger of birth-strangled babe' is one of the ingredients of that widely-collected composition of the Macbeth witches.

[103] A practice not entirely out of repute at the present day if we may credit a statement in the _Courrier du Havre_ (as quoted in _The Times_ newspaper, Nov. 7, 1864), that recently the corpse of an old woman was dug up for the purpose of obtaining the fat, &c., as a preventive charm against witchcraft, by a person living in the neighbourhood of Havre.

The case at Warboys, which, connected with a family of some distinction, occasioned unusual interest, was tried in the year 1593. The village of Warboys, or Warbois, is situated in the neighbourhood of Huntingdon. One of the most influential of the inhabitants was a gentleman of respectability, Robert Throgmorton, who was on friendly terms with the Cromwells of Hitchinbrook, and the lord of the manor, Sir Henry Cromwell.

Three criminals--old Samuel, his wife, and Agnes Samuel their daughter, were tried and condemned by Mr. Justice Fenner for bewitching Mr. Throgmorton's five children, seven servants, the Lady Cromwell, and others. The father and daughter maintained their innocence to the last; the old woman confessed. A fact which makes this affair more remarkable is, that with the forty pounds escheated to him, as lord of the manor, out of the property of the convicts, Sir Samuel Cromwell founded an annual sermon or lecture upon the sin of witchcraft, to be preached at their town every Lady-day, by a Doctor or Bachelor of Divinity of Queen's College, Cambridge; the sum of forty pounds being entrusted to the Mayor and Aldermen of Huntingdon, for a rent-charge of forty s.h.i.+llings yearly to be paid to the select preacher. This lecture, says Dr. Francis Hutchison, is continued to this day--1718.

Four years previously to this important trial, Jane Throgmorton, a girl ten years of age, was first suddenly attacked with strange convulsive fits, which continued daily, and even several times in the day, without intermission. One day, soon after the first seizure, Mother Samuel coming into the Throgmortons' house, seated herself as customary in a chimney-corner near the child, who was just recovering from one of her fits. The girl no sooner noticed her than she began to cry out, pointing to the old woman, 'Did you ever see one more like a witch than she is? Take off her black-thumbed cap, for I cannot abide to look at her.' The illness becoming worse, they sent to Cambridge to consult Dr.

Barrow, an experienced physician in that town; but he could discover no natural disease. A month later, the other children were similarly seized, and persuaded of Mother Samuel's guilt.

The parents' increasing suspicions, entertained by the doctors, were confirmed when the servants were also attacked. About the middle of March, 1590, Lady Cromwell arrived on a visit to the Throgmortons; and being much affected at the sufferings of the patients, sent for the suspected person, whom she charged with being the malicious cause. Finding all entreaty of no avail in extorting an admission of guilt, Lady Cromwell suddenly and unexpectedly cut off a lock of the witch's hair (a powerful counter-charm), at the same time secretly placing it in Mrs.

Throgmorton's hands, desiring her to burn it. Indignant, the accused addressed the lady, 'Madam, why do you use me thus? I never did you any harm _as yet_'--words afterwards recollected.

'That night,' says the narrative, 'my lady Cromwell was suddenly troubled in her sleep by a cat which Mother S. had sent her, which offered to pluck the skin and flesh off her bones and arms.

The struggle betwixt the cat and the lady was so great in her bed that night, and she made so terrible a noise, that she waked her bedfellow Mrs. C.' Whether, 'as some sager' might think, it was a nightmare (a sort of incubus which terrified the disordered imagination of the ancients), or some more substantial object that disturbed the rest of the lady, it is not important to decide; but next day Lady Cromwell was laid up with an incurable illness. Holding out obstinately against all threats and promises, the reputed witch was at length induced to p.r.o.nounce an exorcism, when the afflicted were immediately for the time dispossessed. 'Next day being Christmas-eve and the Sabbath, Dr.

Donington [vicar of the parish] chose his text of repentance out of the _Psalms_, and communicating her confession to the a.s.sembly, directed his discourse chiefly to that purpose to comfort a penitent heart that it might affect her. All sermon-time Mother S. wept and lamented, and was frequently so loud in her pa.s.sions, that she drew the eyes of the congregation upon her.' On the morrow, greatly to the disappointment of the neighbours, she contradicted her former confession, declaring it was extracted by surprise at finding her exorcism had relieved the child, unconscious of what she was saying.

The case was afterwards carried before the Bishop of Lincoln. Now greatly alarmed, the old woman made a fresh announcement that she was really a witch; that she owned several spirits (of the nine may be enumerated the fantastic names of Pluck, Hardname, Catch, Smack, Blew), one of whom was used to appear in the shape of a chicken, and suck her chin. The mother and daughters were, upon this voluntary admission, committed to Huntingdon gaol. Of the possessed Jane Throgmorton seems to have been most familiar with the demons.[104]

[104] The following ravings of epilepsy, or of whatever was the disorder of the girl, are part of the evidence of Dr.

Donington, clergyman in the town, and were narrated and could be received as grave evidence in a court of justice.

They will serve as a specimen of the rest. The girl and the spirit known as _Catch_ are engaged in the little by-play.

'After supper, as soon as her parents were risen, she fell into the same fit again as before, and then became senseless, and in a little time, opening her mouth, she said, "Will this hold for ever? I hope it will be better one day. From whence come you now, Catch, limping? I hope you have met with your match." Catch answered that Smack and he had been fighting, and that Smack had broken his leg. Said she, "That Smack is a shrewd fellow; methinks I would I could see him. Pluck came last night with his head broke, and now you have broken your leg. I hope he will break both your necks before he hath done with you." Catch answered that he would be even with him before he had done. Then, said she, "Put forth your other leg, and let me see if I can break that," having a stick in her hand. The spirit told her she could not hit him. "Can I not hit you?" said she; "let me try." Then the spirit put forth his leg, and she lifted up the stick easily, and suddenly struck the ground.... So she seemed divers times to strike at the spirit; but he leaped over the stick, as she said, like a Jackanapes. So after many such tricks the spirit went away, and she came out of her fit, continuing all that night and the next day very sick and full of pain in her legs.'

The sessions at Huntingdon began April 4, 1593, when the three Samuels were arraigned; and the above charges, with much more of the same sort, were repeated: the indictments specifying the particular offences against the children and servants of the Throgmortons, and the 'bewitching unto death' of the lady Cromwell. The grand jury found a true bill immediately, and they were put upon their trial in court. After a ma.s.s of nonsense had been gone through, 'the judge, justices, and jury said the case was apparent, and their consciences were well satisfied that the said witches were guilty, and deserved death.' When sentence of death was p.r.o.nounced, the old woman, sixty years of age, pleaded, in arrest of judgment, that she was with child--a pleading which produced only a derisive shout of laughter in court. Husband and daughter a.s.serted their innocence to the last. All three were hanged. From the moment of execution, we are a.s.sured, Robert Throgmorton's children were permanently freed from all their sufferings. Such, briefly, are the circ.u.mstances of a witch case that resulted in the sending to the gallows three harmless wretches, and in the founding an annual sermon which perpetuated the memory of an iniquitous act and of an impossible crime. The sermon, it may be presumed, like other similar surviving inst.i.tutions, was preserved in the eighteenth century more for the benefit of the select preacher than for that of the people.

CHAPTER IV.

Astrology in Antiquity--Modern Astrology and Alchymy--Torralvo--Adventures of Dr. Dee and Edward Kelly--Prospero and Comus Types respectively of the Theurgic and Goetic Arts--Magicians on the Stage in the 16th century--Occult Science in Southern Europe--Causes of the inevitable mistakes of the pre-Scientific Ages.

The n.o.bler arts of magic, astrology, alchymy, necromancy, &c., were equally in vogue in this age with that of the infernal art proper. But they were more respected. Professors of those arts were habitually sought for with great eagerness by the highest personages, and often munificently rewarded. In antiquity astrology had been peculiarly Oriental in its origin and practice. The Egyptians, and especially the Chaldaeans, introduced the foreign art to the West among the Greeks and Italians; the Arabs revived it in Western Europe in the Middle Age. Under the early Roman Empire the Chaldaic art exercised and enjoyed considerable influence and reputation, if it was often subject to sudden persecutions. Augustus was a.s.sisted to the throne, and Severus selected his wife, by its means. After it had once firmly established itself in the West,[105] the Oriental astrology was soon developed and reduced to a more regular system; and in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Dee and Lilly enjoyed a greater reputation than even Figulus or Thrasyllus had obtained in the first century. Queen Elizabeth and Catherine di Medici (two of the astutest persons of their age) patronised them. Dr. Dee in England, and Nostradamus in France, were of this cla.s.s. Dr. Caius, third founder of a college still bearing his name in the university of Cambridge, Kelly, Ashmole, and Lilly, are well-known names in the astrological history of this period. Torralvo, whose fame as an aerial voyager is immortalised by Cervantes in 'Don Quixote,' was as great a magician in Spain and Italy as Dee in England, although not so familiar to English readers as their countryman, the protege of Elizabeth. Neither was his magical faculty so well rewarded. Dr.

Torralvo, a physician, had studied medicine and philosophy with extraordinary success, and was high in the confidence of many of the eminent personages of Spain and Italy, for whom he fortunately predicted future success. A confirmed infidel or freethinker, he was denounced to the Inquisition by the treachery of an a.s.sociate as denying or disputing the immortality of the soul, as well as the divinity of Christ. This was in 1529.

Torralvo, put to the torture, admitted that his informing spirit, Zequiel, was a demon by whose a.s.sistance he performed his aerial journeys and all his extraordinary feats, both of prophecy and of actual power. Some part of the severity of the tortures was remitted by the demon's opportune reply to the curiosity of the presiding inquisitors, that Luther and the Reformers were bad and cunning men. Torralvo seems to have avoided the extreme penalty of fire by recanting his heresies, submitting to the superior judgment of his gaolers, and still more by the interest of his powerful employers; and he was liberated not long afterwards.

[105] The diffusion and progress of astrology in the last two centuries before the Empire, in Greece and Italy, was favoured chiefly by the four following causes: its resemblance to the meteorological astrology of the Greeks; the belief in the conversion of the souls of men into stars; the cessation of the oracles; the belief in a tutelary genius.--Sir G. C. Lewis's _Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients_, chap. v.

The life of Dr. Dee, an eminent Cambridge mathematician, and of his a.s.sociate Edward Kelly, forms a curious biography. Dee was born in 1527. He studied at the English and foreign universities with great success and applause; and while the Princess Elizabeth was quite young he acquired her friends.h.i.+p, maintained by frequent correspondence, and on her succession to the throne the queen showed her good will in a conspicuous manner. John Dee left to posterity a diary in which he has inserted a regular account of his conjurations, prophetic intimations, and magical resources. Notwithstanding his mathematical ac.u.men, he was the dupe of his cunning subordinate--more of a knave, probably, than his master. In 1583 a Polish prince, Albert Laski, visiting the English court, frequented the society of the renowned astrologer, by whom he was initiated in the secrets of the art; and predicted to be the future means of an important revolution in Europe. The astrologers wandered over all Germany, at one time favourably received by the credulity, at another time ignominiously ejected by the indignant disappointment, of a patron.[106] Dee returned to England in 1589, and was finally appointed to the wardens.h.i.+p of the college at Manchester. In James's reign he was well received at Court, his reputation as a magician increasing; and in 1604 he is found presenting a pet.i.tion to the king, imploring his good offices in dispelling the injurious imputation of being 'a conjuror, or caller, or invocator of devils.' Lilly, the most celebrated magician of the seventeenth century in England, was in the highest repute during the civil wars: his prophetic services were sought with equal anxiety by royalists and patriots, by king and parliament.[107] Sometimes the professor of the occult science may have been his own dupe: oftener he imposed and speculated upon the credulity of others.

[106] While traversing Bohemia, on a particular occasion, it was revealed to be G.o.d's pleasure that the two friends should have a community of wives; a little episode noted in Dee's journal. 'On Sunday, May 3, 1587, I, John Dee, Edward Kelly, and our two wives, covenanted with G.o.d, and subscribed the same for indissoluble unities, charity, and friends.h.i.+p keeping between us four, and all things between us to be common, as G.o.d by sundry means willed us to do.' A sort of inspiration of frequent occurrence in religious revelations, from the times of the Arabian to those of the American prophet.

[107] William Lilly wrote a History of his own life and times. His adroitness in accommodating his prophecies to the alternating chances of the war does him considerable credit as a prophet.