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of the placards preserved in Buchanan's Detection, accuses of Darnley's murder "the Erle Bothwell, Mr James Balfour, the persoun of Fliske Mr David Chalmers, blak Mr John Spens, wha was principal deviser of the murder; and the Quene, assenting thairto, throw the persuasioun of the Erle Bothwell, and the witchcraft of the Lady Buckcleuch."
In Padua, far beyond the sea.—St. XI. p. 16.
Padua was long supposed by the Scottish peasants to be the principal school of necromancy. The Earl of Gowrie, slain at Perth in 1600, pretended, during his studies in Italy, to have acquired some knowledge of the cabala, by which he said he could charm snakes, and work other miracles; and, in particular, could produce children without the intercourse of the sexes. See the examination of Wemyss of Bogie before the Privy Council, concerning Gowrie's conspiracy.
Upon the sunny wall!—St. XI. p. 16.
The shadow of a necromancer is independant of the sun. Glyeas informs us, that Simon Magus caused his shadow to go before him, making people believe it was an attendant spirit. Heywoon's Hierarchie, p. 475.—The vulgar conceive, that when a class of students have made a certain progress in their mystic studies, they are obliged to run through a subterraneous hall, where the devil literally catches the hindmost in the race, unless he crosses the hall so speedily, that the arch enemy can
