mentes and
sorceries to the distruccion of their neighbours persones and goodes." A
description was given of the methods practised, and it was enacted that
the use of any invocation or conjuration of spirits, witchcrafts,
enchantments, or sorceries should be considered felony.[16] It will be
observed that the law made no graduation of offences. Everything was
listed as felony. No later piece of legislation on the subject was so
sweeping in its severity.

The law remained on the statute-book only six years. In the early part
of the reign of Edward VI, when the protector Somerset was in power, a
policy of great leniency in respect to felonies was proposed. In
December of 1547 a bill was introduced into Parliament to repeal certain
statutes for treason and felony. "This bill being a matter of great
concern to every subject, a committee was appointed, consisting of the
Archbishop of Canterbury, the lord chancellor, the lord chamberlain, the
Marquis of Dorset, the Earls of Shrewsbury and Southampton, the Bishops
of Ely, Lincoln, and Worcester, the Lords Cobham, Clinton, and
Wentworth, with certain of the king's learned council; all which
noblemen were appointed to meet a committee of the Commons ... in order
to treat and commune on the purport of the said bill."[17] The Commons,
it seems, had already prepared a bill of their own, but this they were
willing to drop and the Lords' measure with some amendments was finally
passed. It was under this wide repeal of felonies that chapter VIII of
33 Henry VIII was finally annulled. Whether the question of witchcraft
came up for special consideration or not, we are not informed. We do
know that the Bishops of London, Durham, Ely, Hereford, and Chichester,
took exception to some amendments that were inserted in the act of
repeal,[18] and it is not impossible that they were opposed to repealing
the act against witchcraft. Certainly there is no reason to suppose that
the church was resisting the encroachment of the state in the subject.

As a matter of fact it is probable that, in the general question of
repeal of felonies, the question of witchcraft received scant
attention. There is indeed an interesting story that seems to point in
that direction and that deserves repeating also as an illustration of
the protector's attitude towards the question. Edward Underhill gives
the narrative in his autobiography: "When we hade dyned, the maior sentt
to [two] off his offycers with me to seke