d her cleared of suspicion and ordered that the decision
should be "enacted of record."[12]

The charge of sorcery brought by the protector Richard of Gloucester
against Jane Shore, who had been the mistress of Edward IV, never came
to trial and in consequence illustrates neither ecclesiastical nor
conciliar jurisdiction. It is worthy of note however that the accusation
was preferred by the protector--who was soon to be Richard III--in the
council chamber.[13]

It will be seen that these cases prove very little as to procedure in
the matter of sorcery and witchcraft. They are cases that arose in a
disturbed period and that concerned chiefly people of note. That they
were tried before the bishops or before the privy council does not mean
that all such charges were brought into those courts. There must have
been less important cases that were never brought before the council or
the great ecclesiastical courts. It seems probable--to reason backward
from later practice--that less important trials were conducted almost
exclusively by the minor church courts.[14]

This would at first lead us to suspect that, when the state finally
began to legislate against witchcraft by statute, it was endeavoring to
wrest jurisdiction of the crime out of the hands of the church and to
put it into secular hands. Such a supposition, however, there is nothing
to justify. It seems probable, on the contrary, that the statute enacted
in the reign of Henry VIII was passed rather to support the church in
its struggle against sorcery and witchcraft than to limit its
jurisdiction in the matter. It was to assist in checking these
practitioners that the state stepped in. At another point in this
chapter we shall have occasion to note the great interest in sorcery and
all kindred subjects that was springing up over England, and we shall at
times observe some of the manifestations of this interest as well as
some of the causes for it. Here it is necessary only to urge the
importance of this interest as accounting for the passage of a
statute.[15]

Chapter VIII of 33 Henry VIII states its purpose clearly: "Where,"
reads the preamble, "dyvers and sundrie persones unlawfully have devised
and practised Invocacions and conjuracions of Sprites, pretendyng by
suche meanes to understande and get Knowlege for their owne lucre in
what place treasure of golde and Silver shulde or mought be founde or
had ... and also have used and occupied wichecraftes, inchaunt