No More Learning

The first English Act against witchcraft after the Norman Conquest was
passed in 1541 (33 Hen. VIII. c. 8). This Act, which was of a general
nature, and directed against various kinds of sorceries, was followed
by another in 1562 (5 Eliz. c. 16). At the accession of James I. in
1603 was passed 1 Jac. I. c. 12, which continued law for more than a
century.

During this entire period charges of witchcraft were frequent. In
Scotland they were especially numerous, upwards of fifty being recorded
during the years 1596-7. [84] The trial of Anne Turner in 1615, in
which charges of witchcraft were joined with those of poisoning,
especially attracted the attention of Jonson.
In 1593 occurred the
trial of the 'three Witches of Warboys', in 1606 that of Mary Smith,
in 1612 that of the earlier Lancashire Witches, and of the later
in 1633. These are only a few of the more famous cases. Of no less
importance in this connection is the attitude of the King himself.
In the famous _Demonology_[85] he allied himself unhesitatingly with
the cause of superstition. Witchcraft was of course not without
its opponents, but these were for the most part obscure men and of
little personal influence. While Bacon and Raleigh were inclining
to a belief in witchcraft, and Sir Thomas Browne was offering his
support to persecution, the cause of reason was intrusted to such
champions as Reginald Scot, the author of the famous _Discovery of
Witchcraft_, 1584, a work which fearlessly exposes the prevailing
follies and crimes. It is on this side that Jonson places himself. That
he should make a categorical statement as to his belief or disbelief
in witchcraft is not to be expected. It is enough that he presents
a picture of the pretended demoniac, that he makes it as sordid and
hateful as possible, that he draws for us in the person of Justice
Eitherside the portrait of the bigoted, unreasonable, and unjust judge,
and that he openly ridicules the series of cases which he used as the
source of his witch scenes (cf. Act. 5. Sc. 3).

To form an adequate conception of the poet's satirical purpose in
this play one should compare the methods used here with the treatment
followed in Jonson's other dramas where the witch motive occurs.
In _The Masque of Queens_, 1609, and in _The Sad Shepherd_, Jonson
employed the lore of witchcraft more freely, but in a quite different
way. Here, instead of hard realism with all its hideous details, the
more picturesque beliefs and traditions are used for purely imaginative
and poetical purposes.