author
Alexander Roberts
d. 1620
A little-known early 17th-century English clergyman, he is remembered for a vivid and unsettling book on witchcraft published in 1616. His surviving work offers a direct window into the fears, religious arguments, and legal thinking of Jacobean England.
1 Audiobook
A Treatise of Witchcraft
by Alexander Roberts
About the author
Alexander Roberts was an English divine who died in 1620. The surviving records found here identify him as a Bachelor of Divinity and a preacher at King's Lynn in Norfolk.
He is known for A Treatise of Witchcraft (1616), a short but influential work that argues firmly for the reality and danger of witchcraft. The book combines religious warning with discussion of contemporary beliefs and includes material connected to a reported witch trial, which is one reason it still attracts historians and general readers today.
Although not much more about his life could be confirmed from the sources reviewed, his work has lasted because it captures the tone of an age deeply concerned with sin, punishment, and the supernatural. For listeners interested in early modern England, Roberts stands as a revealing voice from that world.