he Puritans took root this dread
increased, and, of course, brought persecution in its train. The Church
of England has claimed, and is entitled to the merit, of having been
less influenced in these matters than any other sect of Christians; but
still they were tainted with the superstition of the age. One of the
most flagrant instances of cruelty and delusion upon record was
consummated under the authority of the Church, and commemorated till a
very late period by an annual lecture at the University of Cambridge.

This is the celebrated case of the Witches of Warbois, who were
executed about thirty-two years after the passing of the statute of
Elizabeth. Although in the interval but few trials are recorded, there
is, unfortunately, but too much evidence to show the extreme length to
which the popular prejudice was carried. Many women lost their lives in
every part of England without being brought to trial at all, from the
injuries received at the hands of the people. The number of these can
never be ascertained.

The case of the Witches of Warbois merits to be detailed at length, not
only from the importance attached to it for so many years by the
learned of the University, but from the singular absurdity of the
evidence upon which men, sensible in all other respects, could condemn
their fellow-creatures to the scaffold.

The principal actors in this strange drama were the families of Sir
Samuel Cromwell and a Mr. Throgmorton, both gentlemen of landed
property near Warbois, in the county of Huntingdon. Mr. Throgmorton had
several daughters, the eldest of whom, Mistress Joan, was an
imaginative and melancholy girl, whose head was filled with stories of
ghosts and witches. Upon one occasion she chanced to pass the cottage
of one Mrs. or, as she was called, Mother Samuel, a very aged, a very
poor, and a very ugly woman. Mother Samuel was sitting at her door
knitting, with a black cap upon her head, when this silly young lady
passed, and taking her eyes from her work she looked steadfastly at
her. Mistress Joan immediately fancied that she felt sudden pains in
all her limbs, and from that day forth, never ceased to tell her
sisters, and everybody about her, that Mother Samuel had bewitched her.
The other children took up the cry, and actually frightened themselves
into fits whenever they passed within sight of this terrible old woman.

Mr. and Mrs. Throgmorton, not a whir wiser than their children,
believed all the abs