France or England, went to war, he summoned all his crown vassals to attend him, with the number of armed men corresponding to his Fief, as it was called, that is, the territory which had been granted to each of them. The prince, duke, or earl, in order to obey the summons, called upon all the gentlemen to whom he had given estates, to attend his standard with their followers in arms. The gentlemen, in their turn, called on the franklins, a lower order of gentry, and upon the peasants; and thus the whole force of the kingdom was assembled in one array. This system of holding lands for military service, that is, for fighting for the sovereign when called upon, was called the Feudal System. It was general throughout all Europe for a great many ages.

But as many of these great crown vassals, as, for example, the dukes of Normandy, became extremely powerful, they were in the custom of making peace and war at their own hand, without the knowledge or consent of the king of France, their sovereign. In the same manner, the vassals of those great dukes and princes frequently made war on each other, for war was the business of every one; while the poor bondsman, who cultivated the ground, was subjected to the greatest hardships, and plundered and ill-treated by whichever side had the better. The nobles and gentlemen fought on horseback, arrayed in armour of steel, richly ornamented with gold and silver, and were called knights or squires. They used long lances, with which they rode fiercely against each other, and heavy swords, or clubs or maces, to fight hand to hand, when the lance was broken. Inferior persons fought on foot, and were armed with bows and arrows, which, according to their form, were called long-bows, or cross-bows, and served to kill men at a distance, instead of guns and cannon, which were not then invented. The poor husbandmen were obliged to come

to the field of battle with such arms as they had; and it was no uncommon thing to see a few of these knights and squires ride over and put to flight many hundreds of them; for the gentry were clothed in complete armour, so that they could receive little hurt, and the poor peasants had scarce clothes sufficient to cover them.' You may see coats of the ancient armour preserved in the Tower of London and elsewhere, as matters of curiosity." Our illustrations on pages 133 and 134 give us a view of some of these men in armour, and it must be confessed they look rather strange beings.

Fighting was not merely the chief employment of those dark times-it was also the chief amusement. Our other illustration accompanying this article is that of a tournament. We borrow the following interesting and half-comical account of one of these fighting games from Sir Walter Scott:

"The English and Scottish knights and nobles, when there was any truce between the countries, supplied the place of the wars in which they were commonly engaged, with tournaments and games of chivalry. These were meetings, not for the express purpose of fighting, but for that of trying which was the best man-at-arms. But instead of wrestling,, leaping, or running races on foot or horse, the fashion then was that the gentlemen tilted together, that is, rode against each other in armour with their long lances, and tried which could bear the other out of the saddle, and throw him to the ground. Sometimes they fought on foot with swords and axes; and although all was meant in courtesy and fair play, yet lives were often lost in this idle manner, as much as if the contest had been carried on with the purpose of armed and deadly hatred. In later days they fought with swords purposely blunted on the edge, and with lances which had no steel point; but in the times we speak of at present, they used in tilts and tournaments the

war.

A very noted entertainment of this kind was given to both Scottish and English champions by Henry of Lancaster, then called Earl of Derby, and afterwards King Henry IV. of England. He invited the Knight of Liddesdale, the Good Sir Alexander Ramsay, and about twenty other distinguished distinguished Scottish knights, to a tilting match, which was to take place near Berwick. After receiving and entertaining his Scottish guests. nobly, the Earl of Derby began to inquire of Ramsay in what manner of armour the knights should tilt together.

With shields of plate,' said Ramsay; 'such as men use in tournaments.'

This may be supposed a peculiarly weighty and strong kind of armour, intended merely for this species of en

counter.

'Nay,' said the Earl of Derby, 'we shall gain little praise if we tilt in such safety; let us rather use the lighter armour which we wear in battle.'

'Content are we,' answered Sir Alexander Ramsay, 'to fight in our silk doublets, if such be your lordship's pleasure.'

The Knight of Liddesdale was wounded on the wrist by the splinter of a spear, and was obliged to desist from the exercise. A Scottish knight called Sir Patrick Grahame, tilted with a warlike English baron named Talbot, whose life was saved by his wearing two breastplates. The Scottish lance pierced through both, and sunk an inch into the breast. Had he been only armed as according to agreement, Talbot had been a dead man. Another English knight challenged the Grahame at supper-time, to run three courses with him the next day.

'Dost thou ask to tilt with me?' said the Grahame; 'rise early in the morning, confess your sins, and make your peace with God, for you shall sup in Paradise. Accordingly, on the ensuing

body with his lance, and he died on the spot. Another English knight was also slain, and one of the Scots mortally wounded. William Ramsay was borne through the helmet with a lance, the splinter of the broken spear remaining in his skull, and nailing his helmet to his head. As he was expected to die on the spot, a priest was sent for, who heard him confess his sins, without the helmet being removed.

'Ah, it is a goodly sight,' quoth the good Earl of Derby, much edified by this spectacle, 'to see a knight make his shrift (that is, confession of his sins) in his helmet. God send me such an ending!'

But when the shrift was over, Alexander Lindsay, to whom the wounded. knight was brother, or kinsman, made him lie down at full length, and with surgery as rough as their pastime, held his friend's head down with his foot, while, by main strength, he pulled the fragment of the spear out of the helmet, and out of the wound. Then William Ramsay started up, and said, that he should do well enough.'

'Lo! what stout hearts men may bear!' said the Earl of Derby, as much admiring the surgical treatment as he had done the religious. Whether the patient lived or died, does not appear.

In fixing the prizes, it was settled that the English knights should decide which of the Scots had done best, and the Scots should, in like manner, judge the valour of the English. Much equity was shown in the decision on both sides, and the Earl of Derby was munificent in distribution of gifts and prizes."

As our readers will no doubt remember, there is a very graphic account of a tournament in the famous romance of "Ivanhoe." Very interesting such narratives are to read; but for us we confess the description is enough, and we much. prefer this comfortable age of ours, to the gloomy if picturesque grandeur of the feudal times.

OTHING shows in a better manner the great change for the better that has taken place in the manners

and thoughts of the inhabitants of these islands than the almost complete extinction of the belief in witchcraft, and the quite complete suppression of the cruel laws by which this supposed action of the evil one, as exhibited in human beings, was put down.

"Scripture refers more than once to the existence of witches; and though divines have doubted concerning their nature and character, yet most European nations have, during the darker periods of their history, retained in their statutes laws founded upon the text of Exodus, 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' The Reformers, although rejecting the miracles of the Catholic Church, retained with tenacity the belief of the existence of such sorceresses, and zealously enforced the penalties against all unfortunate creatures whom they believed to fall under the description of witches, wizards, or the like. The increase of general information and common sense has, at a later period, occasioned the annulling of those cruel laws in most countries of Europe. It has been judiciously thought, that, since the Almighty has ceased to manifest His own power, by direct and miraculous suspension of the ordinary laws of nature, it is inconsistent to suppose that evil spirits should be left at liberty in the present day to form a league with miserable mortals, and impart to them supernatural powers of injuring or tormenting others. But in the seventeenth century everybody believed in

witchcraft. James VI. wrote a treatise against it, and trials for it were lamentably common.

It was fatal for an aged person of the lower ranks, if, as was frequently the case, she conceived herself to possess any peculiar receipt or charm for curing diseases, either by the application of medicines, of which she had acquired the secret, or by repeating words, or using spells and charms, which the superstition of the time supposed to have the power of relieving maladies that were beyond the skill of medical practitioners.

Such a person was accounted a white witch; one, that is, who employed her skill for the benefit, not the harm, of her fellow-creatures. But still she was a

sorceress, and, as such, was liable to be brought to the stake. A doctress of this kind was equally exposed to a like charge, whether her patient died or recovered; and she was, according to circumstances, condemned for using sorcery, whether to cure or kill. Her allegation that she had received the secret from family tradition, or from any other source, was not admitted as a defence; and she was doomed to death with as little hesitation for having attempted to cure by mysterious and unlawful means, as if she had been charged, as in the instance already given, with having assisted to commit murder.

The following example of such a case is worthy of notice. It rests on tradition, but is very likely to be true. An eminent English judge was travelling the circuit, when an old woman was brought before him for using a spell to cure dimness of sight, by hanging a clew of yarn round the neck of the patient. Marvellous things were told by the witnesses, of the cures which this spell had performed on

So.

patients far beyond the reach of ordinary medicine. The poor woman made no other defence than by protesting, that if there was any witchcraft in the ball of yarn, she knew nothing of it. It had been given her, she said, thirty years before, by a young Oxford student, for the cure of one of her own family, who having used it with advantage, for a disorder in her eyes, she had seen no harm in lending it for the relief of others who laboured under similar infirmity, or in accepting a small gratuity for doing. Her defence was little attended to by the jury; but the judge was much agitated. He asked the woman where she resided when she obtained possession of this valuable relic. She gave the name of a village, in which she had in former times kept a petty alehouse. He then looked at the clew very earnestly, and at length addressed the jury. 'Gentlemen,' he said, we are on the point of committing a great injustice to this poor old woman; and to prevent it, I must publicly confess a piece of early folly, which does me no honour. At the time this poor creature speaks of, I was at college, leading an idle and careless life, which, had I not been given grace to correct it, must have made it highly improbable that ever I should have attained my present situation. I chanced to remain for a day and night in this woman's alehouse, without having money to discharge my reckoning. Not knowing what to do, and seeing her much occupied with a child who had weak eyes, I had the meanness to pretend that I could write out a spell that would mend her daughter's sight, if she would accept it instead of her bill. The ignorant woman readily agreed; and I scrawled some figures on a piece of parchment, and added two lines of nonsensical doggrel, in ridicule of her credulity, and caused her to make it up in that clew which has so nearly cost her her life. To prove the truth of this, let the yarn be unwound, and you may judge of the

efficacy of the spell.' The clew was unwound accordingly; and the following pithy couplet was found on the enclosed bit of parchment :—

The devil scratch out both thine eyes, And spit into the holes likewise.'

It was evident that those who were cured by such a spell must have been indebted to nature, with some assistance, But the perhaps, from imagination. users of such charms were not always so lucky as to light upon the person who drew them up; and doubtless many innocent and unfortunate creatures were executed, as the poor alewife would have been, had she not lighted upon her former customer in the unexpected character of her judge.

It was often an article of suspicion, that a woman had spun considerably. more thread than her less laborious neighbours chose to think could be accomplished by ordinary industry; and, to crown these absurdities, a yeoman of the town of Malling, in Kent, was accused before a justice of the peace as a sorcerer, because he used more frequently than his companions to hit the mark which he aimed at. This dexterity, and some idle story of the archer's amusing himself with letting a fly hum and buzz around him, convinced the judge that the poor man's skill in his art was owing to the assistance of some imp of Satan. So he punished the marksman severely, to the great encouragement of archery, and as a wise example of all justices of the peace.

Other charges, the most ridiculous and improbable, were brought against those suspected of witchcraft. They were supposed to have power, by going through some absurd and impious ceremony, to summon to their presence the Author of Evil, who appeared in some mean or absurd shape, and, in return for the invokers renouncing their redemption, gave them the power of avenging themselves

on their enemies; which privilege, with that of injuring and teasing their fellowcreatures, was almost all they gained from their new master. Sometimes, indeed, they were said to obtain from him the power of flying through the air on broom-sticks, when the Foul Fiend gave public parties; and the accounts given of the ceremonies practised on such occasions are equally disgusting and vulgar, totally foreign to any idea we can have of a spiritual nature, and only fit to be invented and believed by the most ignorant and brutal of the human species. Another of these absurdities was the belief that the evil spirits would attend if they were invoked with certain profane and blasphemous ceremonies, such as reading the Lord's Prayer backwards, or the like; and would then tell the future fortunes of those who had raised them, as it was called, or inform them what was become of articles which had been lost or stolen. Stories are told of such exploits by grave authors, which are to the full as ridiculous, and indeed more so, than anything that is to be found in fairy tales, invented for the amusement of children. And for all this incredible nonsense, unfortunate creatures were imprisoned, tortured, and finally burnt alive, by the sentence of their judges.

It is strange to find that the persons accused of this imaginary crime in most cases paved the way for their own condemnation, by confessing and admitting the truth of all the monstrous absurdities which were charged against them by their accusers. This may surprise you; but yet it can be accounted for.

Many of these poor creatures were crazy, and infirm in mind as well as body; and, hearing themselves charged with such monstrous enormities by those whom they accounted wise and learned, became half persuaded of their own guilt, and assented to all the nonsensical questions which were put to them. But this was not all. Very many made these

confessions under the influence of torture, which was applied to them with cruel severity.

It is true, the ordinary courts of justice in Scotland had not the power of examining criminals under torture, a privilege which was reserved for the Privy Council. But this was a slight protection; for witches were seldom tried before the ordinary criminal courts, because the judges and lawyers, though they could not deny the existence of a crime for which the law had assigned a punishment, yet showed a degree of incredulity respecting witchcraft, which was supposed frequently to lead to the escape of this unpopular crime, when in the management of professional persons. To avoid the ordinary jurisdiction of the Justiciary, and other regular criminal jurisdictions, the trial of witchcraft in the provinces was usually brought before commissioners appointed by the Privy Council. These commissioners were commonly country gentlemen and clergymen, who, from ignorance on the one side, misdirected learning on the other, and bigotry on both, were as eager in the prosecution as the vulgar could desire. By their commission they had the power of torture, and employed it unscrupulously, usually calling in to their assistance a witch-finder; a fellow, that is, who made money by pretending to discover witches.

It was remarkable that the number of supposed witches seemed to increase in proportion to the increase of punishment. On the 22nd of May, 1650, the Scottish Parliament named a committee for inquiry into the depositions of no less than fifty-four (witches, with power to grant such commissions as we have already described, to proceed with their trial, condemnation, and execution. Supposing these dreaded sorceresses to exist in such numbers, and to possess the powers of injury imputed to them, it was to be expected, as Reginald Scott expresses himself, that there would