"One caution, however, I must in fairness give you before we proceed further. It lies upon the face of the story that the Reformers imperfectly understood toleration; but you must keep before you the spirit and temper of the men with whom they had to deal. For themselves, when the movement began, they aimed at nothing but liberty to think and speak their own way. They never dreamed of interfering with others, although they were quite aware that others, when they could, were likely to interfere with them. Lord Macaulay might have remembered that Cranmer was working all his life with the prospect of being burnt alive as his reward; and, as we all know, he actually was burnt alive.
            When the Protestant teaching began first to spread in the Netherlands, before one single Catholic had been ill-treated there, before a symptom of a mutinous disposition had shown itself among the people, an edict was issued by the authorities for the suppression of the new opinions.
            The terms of this edict I will briefly describe to you.
            The inhabitants of the United Provinces were informed that they were to hold and believe the doctrines of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. "Men and women," says the edict, "who disobey this command shall be punished as disturbers of the public order. Women who have fallen into heresy shall be buried alive. Men, if they recant, shall lose their heads. If they continue obstinate, they shall be burnt at the state."
            "If man or woman be suspected of heresy, no one shall shelter or protect him or her; and no stranger shall be admitted to lodge in any inn or dwelling-house unless he bring with him a testimonial of orthodoxy from the priest of his parish."
            "The Inquisition shall inquire into the private opinions of every person, of whatever degree; and all officers of all kinds shall assist the Inquisition at their peril. Those who know where heretics are concealed shall denounce them, or they shall suffer as heretic themselves. Heretics" (observe the malignity of this paragraph), -- "heretics who will give up other heretics to justice, shall themselves be pardoned if they promise to conform for the future."
            Under this edict, in the Netherlands alone, more than fifty thousand human beings, first and last, were deliberately murdered. And, gentlemen, I must say that proceedings of this kind explain and go far to excuse the subsequent intolerance of Protestants.¹"
            James Anthony Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905] pp. 45-46

"It is well that we should look this matter in the face; and as particular stories leave more impression than general statements, I will mention one, perfectly well authenticated, which I take from the official report of the proceedings: -- Towards the end of 1593 there was trouble in the family of the Earl of Orkney. His brother lead a plot to murder him, and was said to have sought the help of a "notorious witch" called Alison Balfour. When Alison Balfour's life was looked into, no evidence could be found connecting her either with the particular offense or with witchcraft in general; but it was enough in these matters to be accused. She swore she was innocent; but her guilt was only held to be aggravated by perjury. She was tortured again and again. Her legs were put in the caschilaws, -- an iron frame which was gradually heated till it burned into the flesh, -- but no confession could be wrung from her. The caschilaws failed utterly, and something else had to be tried. She had a husband, a son, and a daughter, a child seven years old. As her own sufferings did not work upon her, she might be touched, perhaps, by the sufferings of those who were dear to her. They were brought into court, and placed at her side; and the husband first was placed in the "lang irons" -- some accursed instrument; I know not what. Still the devil did not yield. She bore this; and her son was next operated on. The boy's legs were set in "the boot," -- the iron boot you may have heard of. The wedges were driven in, which, when forced home, crushed the very bone and marrow. Fifty-seven mallet strokes were delivered upon the wedges. Yet this, too, failed. There was no confession yet. So, last of all, the little daughter was taken. There was a machine called the piniwinkies -- a kind of thumbscrew, which brought blood from under the finger-nails, with a pain successfully terrible. These things were applied to the poor child's hands, and the mother's constancy broke down, and she said she would admit to any thing they wished. She confessed to witchcraft, -- so tired, she would have confessed to the seven deadly sins, -- and then she was burned, recalling her confession, and with her last breath protesting her innocence²."
            James Anthony Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905] pp. 152-153

            From the preceding review of the primary events of the Reformation and the Counterreformation, we see that neither Catholic nor Protestant spared fire or sword in Europe's religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. If anything, the torture of innocents was even worse during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries than it had been in earlier times. Certainly torture was more widespread during this time.

            When Inquisition was reinstituted in 1542, the old, time-tested techniques of fire and sword were refurbished and the second phase of the Inquisition began in earnest. As previously noted, the Inquisition was already active against conversos and morescoes in Spain and the Spanish dominions. The Spanish inquisitors turned their attention to those who adopted the Protestant ideals or spread pro-Protestant literature. The Inquisition would remain a fixture in Europe until the Papal Estates ceased to exist in the 1870s during the unification of Italy. Some authorities claim it still exists today in a less virulent form in the Congregation for the Faith, awaiting a time when the Roman Catholic church once again attains sufficient to power to exercise its traditional policies.

            For the two centuries preceding the Protestant Reformation, witchcraft persecutions, as a form of heresy, had been increasing, primarily in northern Europe. The reinstituted Catholic Inquisition dealt primarily with heresy; in the areas controlled by papal forces there were relatively few witchcraft trials.

            The Reformers had a problem theologically justifying religious intolerance. Most Protestants believed that one's religious beliefs were a private matter between himself and God and that each person would stand alone before God on the day of judgment to answer for his sins. Nonetheless, possibly because of the political climate of the age, possibly to avoid complete religious anarchy in an age when fire and sword would be used to win even limited religious freedom, possibly fearing the formation of "Fifth Columnists," reformers preached that each sovereign had the right to choose the religion for all the people in his domain and that loyal subjects would abide by the decision of their sovereign. Protestant intolerance was directed not only toward those of the Roman Catholic faith, but toward Protestant dissenters of the dominant denomination.

            So, perhaps, it is not surprising that the dominant reason for sending someone to the stake in Protestant lands was witchcraft: treason, not to an earthly representative of God, but to God himself. But there were several reasons why persecution for witchcraft had widespread support: belief in witchcraft was widespread; the devil was as much a part of life as God. To be against persecution for witchcraft was to be "in league with the devil" or in today's language, "soft on sin." In other cases, opportunists used the witchcraft trials to eliminate one's opponents, to silence critics, to extort money from potential victims, to strip dissenters of their lands and other possessions, to force women into unwanted sexual liaisons, to rid the community of old, frail, sick, or otherwise economically unproductive women, to enable a man to rid himself of an unwanted wife in an age when very, very few people could attain a divorce, and to acquire political power. In a sense, then, the witchtrials in northern Europe served the same function as the Inquisition for heresy in other parts of Europe and were used by both the Catholic and Protestant churches.

            Consequently, the great witch trials took place in northern European lands during the Protestant Reformation. As the wars for religious freedom came to an end in the mid-seventeenth century, belief that the state had a role to play in suppressing witchcraft, indeed, belief in witchcraft itself, died away.

End Notes

1. Froude, pp. 45-46
   
2. Froude, pp. 152-153

References

            James Anthony Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905]