. with the
Princess Anne of Denmark. An overwhelming tempest at sea during
the voyage of these anti-papal, anti-diabolic royal personages
was the appointed means of their destruction.

[131] A late philosophic writer has ventured to institute a
comparison in point of superstition and religious
intolerance between Spain and Scotland. The latter country,
however, has denied to political what it conceded to
priestly government: hence its superior material progress
and prosperity.--Buckle's _History of Civilisation in
England_.

The human agents were Agnes Sampson, the wise wife of Keith (one
of the better sort, who cured diseases, &c.); Dame Euphane
MacCalzean, widow of a senator of the College of Justice, and a
Catholic; Dr. John Fian or Cunninghame, a man of some learning,
and of much skill in poison as well as in magic; Barbara Napier
or Douglas; Geillis Duncan; with about thirty other women of the
lowest condition. 'When the monarch of Scotland sprung this
strong covey of his favourite game, they afforded the Privy
Council and himself sport for the greatest part of the remaining
winter. He attended on the examinations himself.... Agnes
Sampson, after being an hour tortured by the twisting of a cord
around her head according to the custom of the buccaneers,
confessed that she had consulted with one Richard Grahame
concerning the probable length of the king's life and the means
of shortening it. But Satan, to whom at length they resorted for
advice, told them in French respecting King James, _Il est un
homme de Dieu_. The poor woman also acknowledged that she had
held a meeting with those of her sisterhood, who had charmed a
cat by certain spells, having four joints of men knit to its
feet, which they threw into the sea to excite a tempest: they
embarked in sieves with much mirth and jollity, the fiend rolling
himself before them upon the waves dimly seen, and resembling a
huge haystack in size and appearance. They went on board of a
foreign ship richly laden with wines, where, invisible to the
crew, they feasted till the sport grew tiresome; and then Satan
sunk the vessel and all on board. Fian or Cunninghame was also
visited by the sharpest tortures, ordinary and extraordinary. The
nails were torn from his fingers with smiths' pincers; pins were
driven into the places which the nails usually defended; his
knees were crushed in the _boots_; his finger-bones were
splintered in the _pilniewincks_. At l