doubt with regard to this execution, for Hutchinson spared no pains to arrive at facts. So far as possible, he made a personal investigation and instituted searching inquiries concerning all cases of witchcraft that had come under the knowledge of any persons then living. His interest in these matters had been awakened as early as 1700, and since when he was writing his book he was Vicar of St. James’s at Bury St. Edmunds, it is not at all improbable that he had spoken with those whose fathers or relatives had often described to them the famous trial and execution which took place at Ipswich, not so very many miles away, some five and fifty years before.
From the reign of Henry VI to that of Henry VIII many important cases might be brought forward in which charges of sorcery were essentially conjoined with charges of high treason. For example, in 1483 “King Richard, being of the House of York, attainted for sorcery several that supported the Line of Lancaster. As the Countess of Richmond, Mother of Henry the 7th; Dr. Morton, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury; Dr. Lewis, William Knevit, and Thomas Nandyck of Cambridge, called Conjurer: Nandyck was taken, and condemned, but saved by the Parliament.” Common gossip even whispered that the influence of Cardinal Wolsey over Henry VIII was due to magic; and it is well known that as soon as this tyrant King had grown tired of Arne Bullen he was at pains to spread the report that he had “made this marriage seduced by witchcraft.” When the Duke of Buckingham was condemned, in 1521, on a charge of high treason, one of the gravest accusations deposed that he had consulted a monk of the Charter House at Hinton in Somer-
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