King James I
Branded "the wisest fool in Christendom" by France's Henry IV and known for his poor personal hygiene, King James I of England held
much legal influence of the witch-hunts of the late 1500's. He greatly feared the power of witches. He believed wholly that a storm
which threatened to sink his ship and drown both him and his 15-year-old wife, Queen Anne, was summoned by witches. As a result of
this belief, the two women 'responsible' were burned at the stake (one still alive at the time).
Although James believed witches were to be destroyed, he did find some court procedures to be conscientiously objectionable. "He ended
one of the most dubious forms of condemnation, that of denunciation by children at a time when the courts were prepared to accept any
flight of fancy by impressionable children as evidence." This injunction occurred after James took time to investigate two cases
involving children. In the first, nine-year-old Jennet Device testified against her eleven-year-old sister and against her mother who
were both then hanged in 1582. The second case regarded the young John Smith of Leicester. Smith "feigned fits and the vomiting of
pins to frame old women for casting a spell on him. Nine were already hanged on his evidence when James I intervened. At the King's
behest, the boy was dispatched to the care of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Within weeks he broke down and confessed." Denunciation by
children would no longer be accepted in court.
In his later years, James came to realize that many witchcraft accusations were maliciously falsified.
Regardless, it was James I who authorized the translation of the King James Bible. Under his control, the soon to be oft-quoted
Exodus 22:18 was changed from "Thou must not suffer a poisoner to live" to "Thou must not suffer a witch to live." In addition, in
1597 he wrote Daemonologie to counter Discoverie of Witchcraft written by the skeptic Reginald Scot.
Copyright 2007 Todd Frye
|
