ives of Sorcery and Magic._ The facts are
taken from Dr. Soldan's _Geschichte der Hexenprocesse_,
whose materials are to be found in Horst's _Zauber
Bibliothek_ and Hauber's _Bibliotheca Magica_.

Nine appears to have been the greatest number, and sometimes only
two were sent to execution at once. Five are specially recorded
as having been burned alive. The victims are of all professions
and trades--vicars, canons, goldsmiths, butchers, &c. Besides the
twenty-nine conflagrations recorded, many others were lighted
about the same time: the names of whose prey are not written in
the Book of Death. Frederick Spee, a Jesuit, formerly a violent
enemy of the witches, but who had himself been incriminated by
their extorted confessions at these holocausts, was converted to
the opposite side, and wrote the 'Cautio Criminalis,' in which
the necessity of caution in receiving evidence is insisted
upon--a caution, without doubt, 'very necessary at that time for
the magistracy throughout Germany.' All over Germany executions,
if not everywhere so indiscriminately destructive as those in
Franconia and at Wuerzburg, were incessant: and it is hardly the
language of hyperbole to say that no province, no city, no
village was without its condemned.

CHAPTER VII.

Scotland one of the most Superstitious Countries in
Europe--Scott's Relation of the Barbarities perpetrated in
the Witch-trials under the auspices of James VI.--The Fate
of Agnes Sampson, Euphane MacCalzean, &c.--Irrational
Conduct of the Courts of Justice--Causes of voluntary
Witch-confessions--Testimony of Sir G. Mackenzie, &c.--Trial
and Execution of Margaret Barclay--Computation of the number
of Witches who suffered death in England and Scotland in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--Witches burned alive at
Edinburgh in 1608--The Lancashire Witches--Sir Thomas
Overbury and Dr. Forman--Margaret Flower and Lord Rosse.

Scotland, by the physical features of the country and by the
character and habits of the people, is eminently apt for the
reception of the magical and supernatural of any kind;[131] and
during the century from 1563 it was almost entirely subject to
the dominion of Satan. Sir Walter Scott has narrated some of the
most prominent cases and trials in the northern part of the
island. The series may be said to commence from the confederated
conspiracy of hell to prevent the union of James VI