Episode 50 - Matthew Hopkins

This week, it’s all history. History rooted in an individual’s superstition and greed, but history nonetheless.

Matthew Hopkins, born sometime around 1620 and dying a short 27 years later, became dedicated to a career that was lucrative and brutal. He became a Witchfinder in East Anglia during the English Civil War, and his troupe would go on to be responsible for the majority of executions for witchcraft in all of English history. In a short, three year career, Hopkins would execute 300 alleged witches.

East Anglia, an eastern region of England, saw the country’s most numerous and most brutal witch hunts. Although witch trials were recorded as early as the 1400s, and as late as the 1700s, one fourteen month window saw, at the most conservative estimates, 60% of the country’s executions for witchcraft.

These brutal trials were held under the supervision and guidance of self-proclaimed Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins. In his short-lived career, he is believed responsible for at least 300 hangings for witchcraft, most of them in East Anglia.

I am Andrew Eagle, and I am excited to invite you to join me as I pass Through the Veil, and explore the history and villainy of Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General.

From the 1400s until the 1800s, witch trials were being held in Europe. Most on the continent were far more brutal and common, even than the trials held by Matthew Hopkins. In Germany, for example, execution by burning at the stake was common while no official execution by burning ever occurred in England.

However, while they may not have had the monstrousness of the continental trials, nor the volume, England developed several strange ways of “investigating” accused witches. Many of these methods were defined by witchfinders like Hopkins.

Throughout all of England’s history, fewer than 500 people are recorded as being executed for witchcraft. Hopkins, apparently deciding the witchfinders of the past were not up to snuff, set out on a crusade that would see 300 of those executions occur at the most moderate estimate, it is possible that many more died at the hands of Hopkins’ investigations.

This means that in 14 months, Hopkins and his company caused 60% of all executions by witchcraft within a 300 year window, resulting in more accusations and executions than the previous 160 years.

There is almost no record of Matthew Hopkins before 1644, when his Witchfinding career began. The little we do know suggests he was born in Suffolk, probably in the town of Great Wenham, and had five siblings.

His father, James Hopkins was a Puritan vicar in Great Wenham, and the family at one point held lands and titles.

We know that Matthew was not born before 1619 because we have records of a parishioner of James giving James a gift for his then three children, Matthew not among the list.

James died in 1634 and it is unclear who took over the parish. The next record we have of significance shows Matthew using his inheritance to move to Manningtree in Essex, purchase an inn, and establish himself as a wealthy gentleman.

It was shortly thereafter, in 1644, when Hopkins began his career as a witchfinder.

His career did not take long to develop. He formed a partnership with John Stearne and the pair began to travel East Anglia. Although they were never granted explicit roles by the Parliament, to travel between counties as they were doing would have required a letter of safe conduct, so they were at least partially backed by officials at some capacity.

The records of Hopkins and Stearne’s career come from several sources, the first is Hopkins book: The Discovery of Witches. Other sources include county court records from their trials, notes and letters from the towns they passed through, and finally from Parliamentary reports and writings.

According to his book, Hopkins began his career in witchfinding after overhearing a group of women discuss their meetings with the Devil. Specifically, Hopkins started as assistant to Stearne, who made the formal accusations toward a group of 23 women.

Four of the twenty-three died in prison, the other nineteen were convicted and hanged.

During this trial, Hopkins and Stearne began to develop a method they claimed could identify witches. While England had made torture illegal, that did not stop Hopkins from developing cruel ways of gathering confessions.

For the first half of his career, until he was warned to stop, Hopkins used the swimming test. People believed that because witches had renounced their baptism, water would reject them, so they would tie accused witches to a chair and throw them into a lake. If they floated, they were witches, if not, they were innocent but also often drowned.

He and Stearne also developed a technique to search for what they called the Devil’s Mark. They believed that all witches and sorcerers had a mark, a spot on their body that could not feel pain and would not bleed. If the mark was not obvious, Hopkins and Stearne would use a technique they called pricking. They would stab the accused with long needles looking for places that did not feel.

With these techniques in hand, they set out on the road, roaming from town to town holding witch trials. For a fee. One town’s records show the exorbitant rate they were being paid for their so-called services. The town of Stowmarker paid the pair 23 pounds, roughly equivalent to 3700 pounds or nearly 5000 united states dollars at the time of recording, plus travelling expenses.

It seems likely that Hopkins and Stearne’s zealous identification of witches was motivated perhaps by their greed for what they saw as an easy paycheck.

Their techniques, cruel by all accounts, began to draw the attention and ire of Parliament.

As word spread about Hopkins and his methods, some people became rightfully concerned. One of his initial opponents was John Gaule, a vicar who spoke with at least one woman who was imprisoned on accusations of witchcraft and who were awaiting the arrival of Hopkins to run the trial. Gaule became convinced that these trials were being handled inappropriately and wrote a letter to a member of the House of Commons, and began a series of sermons that were aimed at suppressing panic and witch-hunting practices.

Additionally, Parliament began to publish editorials that suggested that those in power were uncomfortable with the witchfinder and his practices.

Finally, growing distrust and dislike of Hopkins and his troupe culminated in Hopkins and Stearne being questioned by a group of justices about their practices. After one interview, and before the court session could resume in 1647, the pair had retired to their respective homes.

During their retirements, both men published books. Stearne retired to his farm, wrote and published A Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft, and lived for another 23 years in relative peace.

Hopkins however, was not so fortunate. He finished and published his book, The Discovery of Witches, and then died several months later, probably from tuberculosis. He was no older than 28, and perhaps as young as 25. Yet he managed to cause great harm to so many in such a short time.

While Hopkins’ career was short-lived. His methods unfortunately inspired the witchtrials and subsequent executions of several New England colonies.

The first to die was Alse Young in Windsor Connecticut in 1647. Followed shortly by Margaret Jones in the Massachusetts Bay. In the case of Margaret, we have a record that Hopkins’ methods were used in her trial.

This started a series of witch-hunts in the New England colonies that resulted in 80 arrests leading to 17 executions.

Later on, during the Salem Witch Trials, Hopkins’ methods were again used by the accusers to extract confessions from the accused. The Salem Trials resulted in 150 arrests, of which 19 people were executed for witchcraft. Another man, Giles Corey was pressed to death when he refused to plea guilty or not guilty.

Hopkins’ legacy is one of pain and suffering and fear.

His book and his methods inflicted suffering in the colonies for decades. And his work during his short stint resulted in hundreds of deaths. His reputation became one of a villain, and eventually his name came to be synonymous with false informers, paid to commit perjury and lie to the courts. His is a legacy of greed and preying upon people’s fear.

Matthew Hopkins was a greedy conman, who decided to take advantage of people and their fear of the unknown. He used their superstition to enrich himself and did not care at all about the pain he caused along the way.

His practices and his book caused death and pain to hundreds, and for decades after his death.

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Through the Veil. I hope you enjoyed. I encourage you to subscribe to receive new episodes weekly wherever you listen as we continue our exploration of folklore, myth, and magic.

Music this week was: Resist Hunt by Natron of Earth

If you are enjoying the show, and have subjects you would like to hear covered, please email me at throughtheveilpodcast@gmail.com or reach out on Twitter, you can find me @ThroughVeil.

As always, thank you, for listening.