Controversy
Within a few years the witchcraft debate became heated. Gabriel Harvey in his Pierce's Supererogation’ 1593 wrote:
- "Scotte's discoovery of Witchcraft dismasketh sundry egregious impostures, and in certaine principall chapters, and speciall passages, hitteth the nayle on the head with a witnesse; howsoever I could have wished he had either dealt somewhat more curteously with Monsieur Bondine, or confuted him somewhat more effectually."
Many writers, particularly Protestant clergy, then defended the contemporary beliefs on witches. After George Gifford in works published in 1587 and 1593, Henry Holland in Treatise of Witchcraft (1590), and William Perkins, had sought to refute Scot, James VI of Scotland repeated the attempt in his Dæmonologie (1597), where he described the opinions of Weyer and Scot as "damnable". On his accession to the English throne James went a step further, and ordered all copies of Scot's Discoverie to be burnt. John Rainolds in Censura Librorum Apocryphoru (1611), Richard Bernard in Guide to Grand Jurymen (1627), Joseph Glanvill in Philosophical Considerations touching Witches and Witchcraft (1666), and Meric Casaubon in Credulity and Uncredulity (1668) continued the attack on Scot's position, which was defended by Thomas Ady in Candle in the Dark: Or, A Treatise concerning the Nature of Witches and Witchcraft (1656), and by John Webster in The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft (1677).
Keith Thomas considers that Scot's statement of the sceptical position remained authoritative for this debate. It was employed by others, such as Samuel Harsnet and the astrologer-physician John Harvey, in their own writings; and was known to typical lay sceptics such as Henry Oxinden. On the other hand, the sceptics were a minority over the period when the controversy raged, and they were outnumbered in the professions, and within those of some education generally, where belief in witchcraft was still entrenched.
Read more about this topic: Discoverie Of Witchcraft
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