Matthew Hopkins 'Witchfinder General' - a short history c1619-1647

In just two years, between 1645 and 1647, he created a climate of fear and hysteria throughout East Anglia amidst the confusion of the English Civil War, torturing and putting to death hundreds of women accused of witchcraft.

He was the son of a well-off Church of England minister, James Hopkins, of Great Wenham, Suffolk, and his wife Marie. He may have been educated at home with his five siblings and possibly was sent abroad to Holland. On returning to Mistley in Essex, he worked as a legal clerk for a shipping company. In March 1645, perhaps three years after receiving an inheritance from his father’s will, and having interests in property in the Manningtree and Mistley area (including the Thorn Inn), he began his crusade against witches.

His first victim was Elizabeth Clarke, a poor, one-legged old woman from Manningtree. She confessed, like the hundreds that followed, after being subjected to Hopkin’s interrogation methods. These included being stripped naked, deprived of food and sleep, tied-up in cramped discomfort for hours and walked up-and-down barefoot and cold until the feet bled.

His methods evolved. He and his equally-cruel henchman, John Stearne, used a retractable spike to ‘prick’ victims in their search for the ‘devil’s mark’. They also ‘tried’ suspects by ‘swimming’ – a more elaborate variation they developed on the ‘ducking’ theme – whereby the person was tied toe to thumb and then pulled to-and-fro across a pond by two men on either end of a rope. If they floated they were a witch and would be hung; if they sank, they were innocent but were likely to drown anyway.

By August 1645, following the Chelmsford trials where 29 ‘witches’ were condemned and hung, the demand for his services grew rapidly, as did the charges he could levy. Public approval of his tirade continued and he extended his search area throughout Suffolk and Norfolk. Towards the end of 1646 however, public opinion began to turn against him, not least due to the courageous condemnation of his methods by John Gaule, the vicar of Great Staughton, Huntingdonshire. John preached openly against him and made public his condemnation in a book. By the end of 1646, Hopkins was forced to cease his activities, disband his team and retire to Manningtree, a rich man.

Was Hopkins an opportunist who exploited the confusion of the English Civil War to carry out a highly-lucrative two-year killing spree? Or was he, as his connections with influential people might suggest, an agent moving freely throughout East Anglia gathering information for Cromwell’s cause – or even both sides? We may never know. Nor will we know whether, as one record has it, he met a gruesome but fitting end in 1647, tried by his own methods and hung; or, as henchman John Stearne’s 1648 account, that he died later that year of consumption. Some say these were false trails and he followed his Puritan forbears and lived the rest of his days in America.

© Copyright of Lifechart 2008