Abstract
One of the most obvious questions that can be asked of the Witchcraft Act of 1604 is this: what actual differences were made to legal and cultural practice by the alteration of the definitions of, and penalties for, witchcraft introduced in the new Act of 1604? What, if anything, changed? This chapter in addressing the specific part of the question - relating to changes in legal practice - presents an examination of contemporary accounts of witchcraft trials before and after 1604. In 1582, Brian Darcy, a Justice of the Peace from Essex, collected a large quantity of evidence against around twenty people accused of witchcraft in St. Osyth, Clacton, Little Oakley and Essex other villages. In 1612 several communities in Northamptonshire were troubled by accusations. If there was good usable evidence of covenant in Lancashire in 1612, then there was even better evidence of the newly-delineated offence of grave-robbing for the purposes of necromancy. Keywords: Essex; Lancashire; Northamptonshire; Witchcraft Act of 1604
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