Witchcraft Acts

Religious tensions in England during the 16th and 17th centuries resulted in the introduction of serious penalties for witchcraft. Henry VIII's Witchcraft Act 1541 (33 Hen. 8. c. 8) was the first act to define witchcraft as a felony, a crime punishable by death and the forfeiture of goods and chattels. It was forbidden to: The act also removed the benefit of clergy, a legal device that exempted the accused from the jurisdiction of the King's courts, from those convicted of witchcraft. This statute was repealed by Henry's son, Edward VI, in 1547. == Witchcraft Act 1562 ==

An 1562 == Scottish Witchcraft Act 1563 ==

Under the Scottish Witchcraft Act 1563, enacted effective 4 June 1563, both the practice of witchcraft and consulting with witches were capital offences. == Irish Witchcraft Act 1586 ==

The '''' act (28 Eliz. 1. c. 2 (I), An Act against Witchcraft and Sorcerie'') was largely identical to the English Witchcraft Act 1562. The penalty for causing death by witchcraft was as a felony without benefit of clergy (that is, capital punishment), which was also the penalty for a second offence of causing injury or material loss by witchcraft; for a first such offence, the penalty was one year's imprisonment including six hours in the pillory once per quarter. This was also the penalty for a first offence of using witchcraft to "discover hidden treasure, ... or stolen goods, or to provoke unlawful love"; for a second such offence, it was life imprisonment. The last prosecution under the 1586 act was the 1711 Islandmagee witch trial. Nobody is known for certain to have been executed under the act. Of those accused of causing death by witchcraft, William Sellor was convicted at the Islandmagee trial, but there is no surviving record of his sentence; Marion Fisher's 1655 conviction was overturned by Sir James Barry; and the strangling of a suspected witch in Antrim in 1698 was a lynching. == Witchcraft Act 1603 ==

In 1603, Colonial use The Witchcraft Act 1603 was employed in the British American colonies, e.g., in the trial of Margaret Mattson, a woman accused of witchcraft in the Province of Pennsylvania. (She was acquitted by William Penn after trial in Philadelphia in 1683.) == Scottish Witchcraft Act 1649 ==

by Richard van Bleeck, 1700. Holt greatly influenced the end of prosecutions for witchcraft in England. National Portrait Gallery, London. Through the 1640s the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and the Commission of the Kirk lobbied for the enforcement and extension of the Witchcraft Act 1563, which had been the basis of previous witch trials. The Covenanter regime passed a series of acts to enforce godliness in 1649, which made capital offences of blasphemy, the worship of false gods and for beaters and cursers of their parents. They also passed a new witchcraft act that ratified the existing act of 1563 and extended it to deal with consulters of "Devils and familiar spirits", who would now be punished with death. == Witchcraft Act 1735 ==

The Witchcraft Act 1735 (9 Geo. 2 c. 5) marked a complete reversal in attitudes. Penalties for the practice of witchcraft as traditionally constituted, which by that time was considered by many influential figures to be an impossible crime, were replaced by penalties for the pretence of witchcraft. A person who claimed to have the power to call up spirits, or foretell the future, or cast spells, or discover the whereabouts of stolen goods, was to be punished as a vagrant and a con artist, subject to fines and imprisonment. The Act applied to the whole of Great Britain, repealing both the 1563 Scottish act and the 1604 English act. The Witchcraft Act 1735 remained in force in Britain well into the 20th century, until its eventual repeal with the enactment of the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951 (14 & 15 Geo. 6. c. 33). The Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951 was repealed on 26 May 2008 by new Consumer Protection Regulations following an EU directive targeting unfair sales and marketing practices. == Other related acts ==

• The Witchcraft Suppression Act, 1957 of South Africa, which is still in force, was based on the Witchcraft Act 1735. • An Act, Against Conjuration, Witchcraft, and Dealing with Evil and Wicked Spirits, passed by the Massachusetts Bay Colony General Court, October 1692. == See also ==