Matthew Hopkins ( 1620 – 12 August 1647) was an English witch-hunter whose career flourished during the English Civil War. He was mainly active in East Anglia and claimed to hold the office of Witchfinder General, although that title was never bestowed by Parliament.
The son of a Puritan minister, Hopkins began his career as a witch-finder in March 1644 and lasted until his retirement in 1647. Hopkins and his colleague John Stearne sent more accused people to be hanged for witchcraft than all the other witch-hunters in England of the previous 160 years,Notestein 1911: p. 195Russell 1981: pp. 97–98Thomas 1971: p. 537, ... in Essex there were no executions after 1626 until 1645. and were solely responsible for the increase in witch trials during those years.Deacon 1976: p. 41Notestein 1911: p. 164Thomas 1971: p. 528Notestein 1911: p. 194, quoting Stearne who "boasted that he knew of 200"Notestein 1911: p. 195, quoting James Howell Familiar Letters, II 551, dates February 3, 1646/7 of "near 300"Thomas 1971: pp. 544, 537,"... when the campaign of Matthew Hopkins and his associates resulted in the execution of several hundred witches ..."
His methods of investigating witchcraft drew heavy inspiration from the Daemonologie of King James I, which was directly cited in Hopkins's book The Discovery of Witches. Although torture was nominally unlawful in England, Hopkins often used techniques such as sleep deprivation to extract confessions from his victims.Notestein 1911: p. 167; three days and nights of "watching" brought Elizabeth Clarke to "confess many things";
Early life Little is known of Matthew Hopkins before 1644, and there are no surviving contemporary documents concerning him or his family.Cabell 2006: p. 9; it is the author's opinion that "unfortunately one cannot dispute that all Hopkins documentation was deliberately destroyed after his death". He was born in Great Wenham, Suffolk,Gaskill 2005: p. 9Deacon 1976: p. 13 and was the fourth son of six children.Deacon 1976: pp. 15–17 His father, James Hopkins, was a Puritan clergyman and vicar of St John's of Great Wenham, in Suffolk.Deacon 1976: pp. 13, 17 The family at one point held title "to lands and tenements in Framlingham 'at the castle.Gaskill 2005: p. 23; Deacon 1976: p. 17; quoting James Hopkins's last will and testament His father was popular with his parishioners, one of whom in 1619 left money to purchase Bibles for his then three children James, John and Thomas.
Thus Matthew Hopkins could not have been born before 1619, and could not have been older than 28 when he died, but he may have been as young as 25.Cabell 2006: p. 6 Although James Hopkins had died in 1634, when the iconoclast William Dowsing, commissioned in 1643 by the Parliamentarian Earl of ManchesterCabell 2006: p. 19 "for the destruction of monuments of idolatry and superstition", visited the parish in 1645 he observed that "there was nothing to reform".Gaskill 2005: p. 13 Hopkins's brother John became Minister of South Fambridge in 1645 but was removed from the post a year later for neglecting his work.Deacon 1976: p. 14 Hopkins states in his book The Discovery of Witches (1647)The Discovery of Witches – In Answer to Several Queries, Lately Delivered to the Judges of Assize for the County of Norfolk; London; 1647 that he "never travelled far ... to gain his experience".Cabell 2006: p. 15
In the early 1640s, Hopkins moved to Manningtree, Essex, a town on the River Stour, about from Wenham. According to tradition, Hopkins used his recently acquired inheritance of a hundred marksGaskill 2005: p. 23 (£66 13s. 4d.) to establish himself as a gentleman and to buy the Thorn Inn in Mistley.Gaskill 2005: p. 27 From the way that he presented evidence in trials, Hopkins is commonly thought to have been trained as a lawyer, but there is scant evidence to suggest this was the case.Deacon 1976: pp. 58–59
Witch-hunting
Following the Lancaster Witch Trials (1612–1634), William Harvey, physician to King Charles I of England, had been ordered to examine the four women accused, and from this there came a requirement to have material proof of being a witch.Gaskill 2005: pp. 46–47 The work of Hopkins and John Stearne was not necessarily to prove any of the accused had committed acts of maleficium, but to prove that they had made a covenant with the Devil.Thomas 1971: p 543; Gaskill 2005: p 47 Before this point, any malicious acts on the part of witches were treated identically to those of other criminals, until it was seen that, according to contemporary beliefs about the structure of witchcraft, they owed their powers to a deliberate act of their choosing.Thomas 1971: pp. 521, 542–543
Witches then became heretics to Christianity, which became the greatest of their crimes and sins.Thomas 1971: pp. 542–543 Within continental and Roman Law witchcraft was crimen exceptum: a crime so foul that all normal legal procedures were superseded. Because the Devil was not going to "confess", it was necessary to gain a confession from the human involved.Robbins 1959: p. 498
The witch-hunts undertaken by Stearne and Hopkins were mainly in East Anglia, in the counties of Suffolk, Essex, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, with a few in the counties of Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire. They extended throughout the area of strongest Puritan and Parliamentarian influences which formed the powerful and influential Eastern Association from 1644 to 1647, which was centred on Essex.Deacon 1976: p. 39Notestein 1911: p. 197 Both Hopkins and Stearne would have required some form of letters of safe conductGaskill 2005: p. 79Cabell 2006: p. 46 to be able to travel throughout the counties.Deacon 1976: pp. 70–71 Deacon proposing that Hopkins knew John Thurloe future spy master for Cromwell, who facilitated any travelling. See also .Cabell 2006: p33
According to his book The Discovery of Witches, Hopkins began his career as a witch-finder after he overheard women discussing their meetings with the Devil in March 1644 in Manningtree. The first accusations were actually made by Stearne, and Hopkins was appointed as his assistant. Twenty-three women were accused of witchcraft and were tried at Chelmsford in 1645. As the English Civil War was in progress, the trial was conducted not by justices of assize, but by justices of the peace presided over by the Earl of Warwick.Thomas 1971: p. 545 Four died in prison and nineteen were convicted and hanged. During this period, excepting Middlesex and chartered towns, no records show any person charged of witchcraft being sentenced to death other than by the judges of the assizes.Notestein 1911: p. 201
Hopkins and Stearne, accompanied by the women who performed the pricking, were soon travelling over eastern England, claiming to be officially commissioned by Parliament to uncover and prosecute witches. Together with their female assistants, they were well paid for their work, and it has been suggested that this was a motivation for his actions.Russell 1981: p98 Hopkins stated that "his fees were to maintain his company with three horses",Cabell 2006: p36Notestein 1911: p. 193 and that he took "twenty shillings a town". The records at Stowmarket show their costs charged to the town to have been £23 () plus his travelling expenses.Notestein 1911: p183 & p193; quoting A.G. Hollingsworth, History of Stowmarket (Ipswich 1844)
The costs to the local community of Hopkins and his company were such that, in 1645, a special local tax rate had to be levied in Ipswich.Thomas 1971: p544, quoting Ipswich and East Suffolk R.O. Quarterly Sessions Order Book, 1639 – 57, and Memorials of Old Suffolk, ed V.B.Redstone(1908). Parliament was well aware of Hopkins and his team's activities, as shown by the concerned reports of the Bury St. Edmunds witch trials of 1645. Before the trial, a report was carried to Parliament"as if some busie men had made use of some ill Arts to extort such confession"Notestein 1911: p. 178that a special Commission of Oyer and Terminer was granted for the trial of these witches. After the trial and execution the Moderate Intelligencer, a parliamentary paper published during the English Civil War, in an editorial of 4–11 September 1645, expressed unease with the affairs in Bury.
Methods of investigation Methods of investigating witchcraft drew heavy inspiration from the Daemonologie of King James I, which was directly cited in Hopkins's The Discovery of Witches. Although torture was nominally unlawful in England, Hopkins often used techniques such as sleep deprivation to extract confessions from his victims.Notestein 1911: p. 167; three days and nights of "watching" brought Elizabeth Clarke to "confess many things"; He would also cut the arm of the accused with a blunt knife, and if she did not bleed, she was said to be a witch. Another of his methods was the swimming test, based on the idea that as witches had renounced their baptism, water would reject them. Suspects were tied to a chair and thrown into water: all those who "swam" (floated) were considered to be witches. Hopkins was warned against the use of "swimming" without receiving the victim's permission first.Cabell 2006: p. 22 This led to the legal abandonment of the test by the end of 1645.
Hopkins and his assistants also looked for the Devil's mark. This was a mark that all witches or sorcerers were thought to possess that was said to be dead to all feeling and would not bleed – although it was sometimes a mole, birthmark or an extra nipple.Robbins 1959: p. 552 If the suspected witch had no such visible marks invisible ones could be discovered by pricking. Therefore, "witch prickers" were employed, who pricked the accused with knives and special needles looking for such marks, normally after the suspect had been shaved of all body hair.Robbins 1959: p. 398Robbins 1959: p. 469; ... justification for shaving applied especially, but not exclusively, in England" It was believed that the witch's familiar, an animal such as a cat or dog, would drink the witch's blood from the mark, as a baby drinks milk from the nipple.
Opposition Hopkins and his company quickly ran into opposition after their work began, but one of his main antagonists was John Gaule, vicar of Great Staughton in Huntingdonshire.Notestein 1911: p. 187Gaskill 2005: pp. 219–220 Gaule had attended a woman from St Neots who was held in gaol charged with witchcraft until such time as Hopkins could attend. Upon hearing that the woman had been interviewed, Hopkins wrote a letterGaskill 2005: p. 220 to a contact asking whether he would be given a "good welcome". Gaule hearing of this letter wrote his publication Select Cases of Conscience touching Witches and Witchcrafts; London (1646)dedicated to Colonel Walton of the House of Commonsand began a programme of Sunday sermons to suppress witch-hunting.
In Norfolk, both Hopkins and Stearne were questioned by justices of the assizes about the torturing and fees.Robbins 1959: p. 252 Hopkins was asked if methods of investigation did not make the finders themselves witches, and if with all his knowledge did he not also have a secret,Gaskill 2005: p. 238 or had used "unlawful courses of torture". By the time this court session resumed in 1647, Stearne and Hopkins had retired, Hopkins to Manningtree and Stearne to Bury St Edmunds.Robbins 1959: p. 253
Colonial impact