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Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General
Author: Carol Buckley Orders of the day, Volume 31, Issue 5, Sep/Oct 1999 |
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Matthew Hopkins’ reign as self-appointed Witchfinder General in the years 1645-1647 has been compared to the European scale of witch trials and brutality that were common in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Many historians have suggested that the main reason why Hopkins was able to carry out his brutality on such a scale, with hardly any interference, was due to the political and religious struggle that made up the English Civil Wars. It has been estimated that between 1542-1736 1,000 people were executed for witchcraft in England. By comparison Scotland, with a fifth of England’s population, saw 4,000 executions, placing it second only to Germany in such barbarity. A majority of these executions in England took place during the years 1645-1647, when Matthew Hopkins, the self-appointed Witchfinder General, was active in East Anglia, during which time he caused the deaths of approximately 200 women. This figure however has been criticised by Sharpe, who estimates that there were 200 trials and only 100 executions during this period. Even so, the Hopkins episode still represents a large outbreak of witch mania in England similar to many of the Continental examples, but untypical in the history of English witchcraft trials. The English concept of witchcraft during most of this period differed from the Continent, where it was claimed that witches were in league with the devil. The European idea of ‘maleficium’ was closely associated with heresy and was heightened by religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics. Most witches were thought to be female and linked to the supposed sexual excesses of women and intercourse with the devil. The persecution of witches was far less violent than on the Continent; the only tortures used in England were bread-and-water diets, trussing of the limbs and enforced wakefulness, commonly known as ‘watching’. There were none of the brutalities of squassation, thumb screws and ‘Spanish boots’ that were used on the Continent. The start of witchcraft persecutions in England was marked by the statute against witches passed by Henry VIII in 1542, which stated that should anyone ‘use, devise, practise or exercise ... any invocation or conjuration of spirits witchcraft, enchantment or sorceries, to find money or treasure, or to waste, consume or destroy any person in his body, members or goods ... or to dig up or pull down any cross or crosses ... Then all and every such offence and offences ...shall be deemed, accepted and adjudged a felon ... and the offenders contrary to this act ... shall have and suffer such pain of death, loss and forfeiture of their lands, tenants, goods and chattels ... (and) lose privilege of the clergy and sanctuary”. Despite the Statute of 1542 there was increasing legislation against witchcraft in England. This included the Statute of Elizabeth I, which “enacted once more that if any person should use the practice or exercise any invocations or conjuration of evil and wicked spirits to or for any intentional purpose”. There was still no mention of any pact with the devil. This statute resulted in a significant rise in the conviction of witches in late Tudor England. There is a general consensus amongst historians that the rising tide of witchcraft accusations was due to the growing traumas within Tudor society. There was an increase in hostility between neighbourhoods due to demographic changes, rising inflation, enclosures and the commercialisation of agriculture. These conditions resulted in unemployment, poverty, disease and the religious changes that were creating a stress within the traditional fabric of society and which reached their peak during Elizabeth’s reign. Laurance calculates that local tensions, resulting in 90% of accusations in Essex, were against women. These included a high proportion against widows and spinsters without male protection, but a lower percentage of accusations against married women. The most significant piece of legislation against witchcraft was passed in 1604 by James I. This Act brought England in line with the rest of Europe on the definition and prosecution of witchcraft, with the concept of covenants or pacts with the devil, and remained in force until it was repealed in 1736. It resulted in several well-publicised trials for witchcraft in England, notably at Chelmsford and in Lancashire in 1612. During the period of the English Civil Wars (1642-49) the country was in severe political and religious chaos. It was this disruption which enabled the previously unknown Matthew Hopkins to appoint himself as Witchfinder General in 1645. Hopkins was just one of a selection of orthodox sect hunters, such as Thomas Edward, Ephraim Pagitt and others who expressed the alarmist view that sectarianism reflected the devil’s influence. There is little information about Hopkins’ past that can be found before his investigations into the extent of witchcraft in his own village of Manningtree, Essex. He appears to have had some legal training, but held no formal qualifications. Hopkins claimed to have found seven or eight witches living in his home town, who had tried to kill him by letting loose a wild bear. He also made accusations of overhearing a witch speaking to her imp one night, and asking it to fetch other witches to help her. He is thought to have been a petty gentleman and the son of a Suffolk clergyman named James Hopkins living at Manningtree in north east Essex. The first suspect interrogated by Hopkins was an aged one-legged widow named Elizabeth Clarke, who confessed herself guilty of keeping familiars in March 1645. The methods used on Clarke were to set a pattern for what was to follow. Her confession was ‘encouraged’ by the process called ‘watching’ which consisted of sleep deprivation. By the spring of 1645, Hopkins had implicated 36 women; Nineteen had been tried and executed at Chelmsford by 17th July 1645. His achievements were related in Hopkins’ short pamphlet, “The Discovery of Witches”, published in 1647. The pamphlet defined ‘witchcraft’ to the lay public in easy question-and-answer form with experienced and authoritative opinion on the subject of ‘witches teats’. The use of the pamphlet enabled Hopkins to manipulate the Act of 1604 to seek out witches, which became a personal quest. This is shown by the way the pamphlet is worded, as Hopkins argues that experienced searchers, ‘can justify their skill to any ‘critic’ indeed, these skills were fundamental to the discovery of witches. True experts would not be confused by bogus witches’ teats and would be able to show good reasons why such marks are not natural, neither that they happen by such natural cause.” In addition, only the true expert witch searcher could distinguish between “variations and mutations of these marks into several forms”. Hopkins stressed that “despite considerable expertise on the part of a trained searcher, the witch was sometimes able to deceive even the most experienced eye”, and he continued: “if a witch hear a month or two before that the witchfinder (as they call him) is coming, they will, and have, put out their imps to others to suckle them (and) these upon search are found to have dried skins and films only and be close to the flesh”. In case of such an event, Hopkins advised that one should “keep her twenty-four hours with a diligent eye that none of her spirits come in a visible shape to suck her” . Hopkins maintained that disbelievers who rejected the existence of witches, ‘witches’ marks’, and the need for searchers and witchfinders were inevitably proven wrong. He told of an accused witch “who was apprehended and searched by women who had for many years known the devil’s marks, and found to have three teats about her, which honest women have not”. Following Hopkins’ advice, and “upon command from the justice, they were to see her familiars”. Hopkins claims that his suspicions were correct for “on the fourth night she called (them) in by their several names and told them what shapes (to assume) a quarter of an hour before they came in, (with) there being ten of us in the room” . The ‘witch’s mark’ was more commonly known as the ‘devil’s mark’. It was used to identify the contact made with the devil, and so was proof of guilt. A French doctor, Jacques Fontaine, noted in 1611: “Some say that Satan makes these marks under the skin of witches. Others say that the devil marks the witches with his finger, when he appears in human form or as a spirit. If it were done with a hot iron, there would clearly be a scar on the part marked, but the witches testify that they have never seen a scar over the mark ... but it is not necessary to prove this, for the devil, who does not lack knowledge of medications and has the best of them, has only to mortify that place. As for the scar, the devil is such a skilful worker that he can place the hot iron on the body without causing any scar” . One way of identifying a witch was by ‘pricking’ his or her body. This method was linked with the theory of devil marks, which were areas on the skin disfigured by some mole, birthmark or scar. This method was attributed to Hopkins in his method of identification of suspected witches. The spate of witchcraft accusations started by Hopkins soon spread to Suffolk, where in Sudbury 117 people were tried and examined, while in Norfolk forty women were tried and examined by the Norfolk Assizes in 1645. By the summer of 1646, eight women were tried and at least five executed in Huntingdonshire, however the figures for Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire were not very high. Nevertheless, independent borough jurisdictions also were busy during the period 1645-1646, trying and examining women for witchcraft. In Norwich during this period only one woman was executed; this can be compared with Great Yarmouth where six were tried and five executed. Sharpe concludes that Hopkins’ activity had an indirect role in many of the accusations, with reference to 250 witches who came in front of the authorities during Hopkins’ ‘reign’ as Witchfinder General. As previously mentioned, the total number of women who were executed is more difficult to calculate. Sharpe suggests that the minimum number of women executed is approximately 100, while John Stearne, a close associate of Hopkins, asserted that as many as 200 were hanged. The statistics suggest that the East Anglia trials of 1645-1647 represented a major panic and were comparable to the European witch crazes of the late 16th - early 17th century. The motivation of Hopkins and Stearne has often been represented as financial greed or Puritan enthusiasm, but neither claim is wholly convincing. The payment was modest, according to Briggs; Swain on the other hand has suggested that Hopkins made his fortune out of his activities. Stowmarket paid him £23 and Aldeburgh £6 for his work. This is in comparison with the average wage which was just 6d a day. Swain concludes that his fees may have totalled about £1000. By 1646 there was discontent among the Puritan elite about the witch trials. A Parliamentary news pamphlet, ‘The Moderate Intelligencer’, began to question Hopkins’ methods. In addition a Puritan minister from Great Staughton in Huntingdonshire, John Gaule, published a pamphlet, ‘Select Cases of Conscience’ which hinted that Hopkins himself was a witch. Gaule remarked sceptically that “every old woman with a wrinkled face, a furrowed brow, a hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint eye, a squeaking voice or scolding tongue, having a rugged coat on her back, a skull-cap on her head, a spindle in her hand and a dog or cat by her side, is not only suspect but pronounced for a witch” . In 1647 Hopkins attempted to rebut the charges against him, saying that his methods of torture were sound and that he was not simply a fortune-seeker. His fate is unknown; the Dictionary of National Biography follows the legend that he was ‘swum’ as a witch and then hanged in May 1647. Sharpe however maintains that Hopkins returned to Maningtree and died within a year of tuberculosis. Bibliography
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