These were their commonest
pranks, but they every day played a hundred others, of which none
were less objectionable, and many were much more so, being improper
besides; the result was that vengeance was denounced against all
old women, with whom even the king himself had no sympathy (as he
certainly ought to have had), for with his own most Gracious hand
he penned a most Gracious consignment of them to everlasting wrath,
and devised most Gracious means for their confusion and slaughter,
in virtue whereof scarcely a day passed but one witch at the least
was most graciously hanged, drowned, or roasted in some part of his
dominions. Still the press teemed with strange and terrible news
from the North or the South, or the East or the West, relative to
witches and their unhappy victims in some corner of the country,
and the Public's hair stood on end to that degree that it lifted
its hat off its head, and made its face pale with terror.
You may believe that the little town of Windsor did not escape the
general contagion. The inhabitants boiled a witch on the king's
birthday and sent a bottle of the broth to court, with a dutiful
address expressive of their loyalty.
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