November 4, 2019 • 38 mins
England’s largest and deadliest set of witch trials were largely influenced by one man – Matthew Hopkins, who was known as the Witchfinder General, even though that doesn’t seem to have been an official title given to him in any sort of formal way.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying.
Today we are going to talk about England's largest and
deadliest set of witch trials, which were largely influenced by
(00:23):
one man. That was Matthew Hopkins, who was known as
the witch Finder General, although this really doesn't seem like
a title that was given to him in any kind
of formal or official capacity. This happened in the region
of East Anglia between sixteen forty five and sixteen forty seven,
so it was after the peak of witch trial activity
in early modern Europe, but it was also a couple
(00:45):
of decades before the Salem witch Trials on the other
side of the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the people who
were put to death in these trials were poor, elderly women,
and some of the methods that Hopkins and other investigators
were using could be classified as torture, even though torture
was not supposed to be used in cases of witchcraft
at that time. So this behavior on his part was
(01:07):
so over the line to a lot of people that
he earned a lot of criticism for it in his day. Yeah,
I think we tend to think that, oh, looking back,
that was horrible, but everyone was on board then. No, no,
absolutely not. These witch trials were not really about things
like pagan practices or herbal medicine or fortune telling. As
a basic definition, a witch was someone who was believed
(01:29):
to be using magic to do harm. People who are
using magic for good, like curing diseases were often called
white witches or cunning folk. Aside from the fact that
cunning folk were sometimes called in to help identify witches,
they weren't typically part of these trials at all unless
someone found a reason to suspect them of doing harm.
(01:51):
I think one of the common ideas about which trials
is that somebody was practicing herbal medicine and authorities found
that really threatening for some reason, and that wasn't so
much the case with what was going on here. Beyond
the basic idea of causing harm with witchcraft, specific beliefs
about which is really varied over time and from one
(02:12):
place to another. For example, the idea that which is
made a pact with the devil was common in some
parts of Europe before the seventeenth century, but it didn't
really make its way to what's now the UK and
Ireland until a little bit later. It might have been
introduced by King James, the sixth of Scotland and first
of England. King James wrote about that idea in his
(02:33):
book Demonology, which he published in fifteen nine seven. That
was shortly after ascending to the throne of Scotland, and
the idea of making pacts with the devil and having
demonic familiars was a huge part of the witch trials
that we're talking about today, but really not so much
in English witch trials that happened centuries before. There were
also variations in exactly how different communities dealt with suspected witches.
(02:58):
To look at England and Scotland again, and both had
laws against witchcraft by the sixteenth century. But in England
the demand for accused witches to be brought to justice
tended to start with members of a community who believed
that they had personally been harmed. In Scotland, that demand
tended to come from the ruling elite out of a
broader desire to root out which is and anything else
(03:21):
that was contrary to God. And early modern England witchcraft
accusations tended to follow a pretty regular pattern. Given how
deeply ingrained the belief in witchcraft was. It's totally possible
that there were some people who actually were trying to
harm their neighbors in some way, But most of the
time these accusations were faults, and it was really about
(03:42):
an interpersonal dispute. Here's an example from the trials that
we're talking about today. Robert Taylor testified that Elizabeth Gooding
came into his shop and asked for half a pound
of cheese, which she would pay for later. He said no,
because he's horrible and denied people cheese. No, that's a
totally not the thing. Uh. She muttered under her breath
(04:02):
about it, came back later with the money and bought
the cheese. That night, Taylor's horse fell ill, and four
days later that horse died, which he said was Elizabeth
Goodings doing as a payback for him refusing to help her.
Elizabeth Gooding denied all of these allegations entirely. So while
these kinds of interpersonal disputes could spark isolated accusations of witchcraft,
(04:26):
they weren't usually enough on their own to set off
a huge panic When that did happen, there was typically
some other larger issue going on that was causing other
social or political or economic unrest. In the case of
Matthew Hopkins time as a witch finder, that's something else.
Was the English Civil Wars okay as a quick recap.
(04:46):
The English Civil Wars spanned from sixteen forty two to
sixteen fifty one, and they also involved Ireland in Scotland.
In England, the dispute was between the monarchy and its
supporters on one side, and Parliament and its supporters on
the other. Charles the First had ruled England without a
parliament from six to sixteen forty, a period known as
(05:06):
the personal Rule that has come up on the show before.
He only summoned to parliament when he had no other choice.
But the King and Parliament disagreed over a number of matters,
especially whether the king or parliament should have control over
the military. During the English Civil Wars, King Charles the
First was executed, his son, Charles the Second was sent
(05:27):
into exile, and at least a hundred and eighty thousand
people were killed in battle or as a result of
the war. And then, on top of all of the
violence and chaos and loss of life. Both sides in
the English Civil War used the idea of witchcraft to
target the other. Royalist propaganda quoted First Samuel fifty three
(05:47):
from the Bible, which reads for rebellion is as the
sin of witchcraft. Parliamentarians claimed that Charles, the first nephew
Prince Rupert of the Rhine, was a witch and that
his dog Boy was as familiar. Battlefield losses were blamed
on bewitchment, and in sixteen forty three parliamentarian forces executed
a woman just before the Battle of Newbury. According to
(06:10):
written accounts, first they examined her and they found physical
evidence on her body that she was a witch. Although
hundreds of executions for witchcraft were carried out during the
English Civil Wars, this one in Newbury was something of
an anomaly because witchcraft was a crime that was typically
handled through the English courts. This legal history went back
to fifteen seventeen with the Bill against Conjurations and Witchcrafts
(06:34):
and Sorcery and Enchantments, which made witchcraft a felony punishable
by death. That law was later repealed, but the Act
against Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts followed in fifteen sixty two.
The law that was in effect during the events that
we're talking about today was the sixteen o four Act
against Conjuration, Witchcraft and Dealing with Evil and Wicked Spirits.
(06:58):
It repealed that fifteen sixty two law before going on
to say, quote, if any person or persons, after the
said feast of Saint Michael the Archangel next coming, shall
use practice or exercise any invocation or conjuration of any
evil and wicked spirit, or shall consult, covenant with, entertain, employ, feed,
(07:19):
or reward any evil and wicked spirit to, or, for
any intent or purpose, or take up any dead man, woman,
or child out of his, her or their grave or
any other place where the dead body resideth, or the skin, bone,
or any other part of any dead person, to be
employed or used in any manner of witchcraft, sorcery, charm,
(07:42):
or enchantment, or shall use practice or exercise any witchcraft, enchantment, charm,
or sorcery whereby any person shall be killed, destroyed, wasted, consumed, pined,
or lamed in his or her body or any part thereof.
So if any person who did all of that stuff
that I just read, they would be put to death
(08:02):
as a felon, as would anybody who aided or abetted
or counseled them. The method of execution in these cases
was generally hanging. Under the same law, anyone who used
witchcraft to find treasure, provoke unlawful love, or cause harm
to cattle or goods would be imprisoned for a year.
Of course, the parliamentarians execution of the woman known as
(08:25):
the Newberry which wasn't the only extra judicial killing of
a suspected which there were definitely other instances of vigilante
murder as well, but it was far more common for
an accused which to be tried before a jury in
the same court system that was being used for other crimes.
Through much of the sixteenth and seventeen centuries, it was
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possible and even likely to be found not guilty of witchcraft.
For example, between fifteen sixty and sixteen hundred, two hundred
fifty eight people were indicted for witchcraft in the home
circuit assizes. The assizes were criminal courts that tended to
focus on more serious crimes. Less than a quarter of
those two hundred fifty eight people were found guilty. Even
(09:08):
after the passage of the Witchcraft Act of sixteen o four,
which was stricter than the law that it replaced. Conviction
rates still tended to be about twenty or lower, even
though there were definitely periods where that percentage was much higher.
The witch trials that happened in East Anglia between sixteen
forty five and sixteen forty seven happened during one of
those periods when a lot more people were convicted of witchcraft.
(09:31):
The chaos of the English Civil Wars had led to
an increase in the number of witchcraft allegations. Authorities in
general were also overstretched because of the war, and then
on top of that, the courts themselves were understaffed. Most
of the assize circuits had lost at least one judge
after the ones who had sanctioned King Charles's personal rule
(09:51):
of England were impeached. So an overburdened, understaffed court system
was having to deal with a sudden influx of all
of these allegation. Jens, and another important point, Matthew Hopkins
was out there drumming up allegations, and we're gonna get
into that. After we first paused for a little sponsor break,
(10:18):
Matthew Hopkins went from relative obscurity to being the most
notorious and influential figure in England's largest series of which
trials seemingly overnight. His father was a Puritan named James Hopkins,
who was vicar of Great Winnham in Suffolk, England. James
took that position in sixteen twelve, which was a couple
(10:38):
of years after he got married. James's father had been
a landowner and he inherited money from both of his parents,
so the family was able to live pretty comfortably regardless
of how profitable their vicarage was, and they were able
to set their children up with trusts. James Hopkins died
around sixteen thirty four. That's the year that his will
was proved or legally ex cepted as the last will
(11:01):
of the deceased. That will referenced six children, including Matthew
and his brother Thomas. It left them in the care
of his widow, with instructions that they be brought up
quote in the fear of God. This suggests that at
least some of James's children were not legal adults yet
when he wrote this will. Based on the timing of
his marriage and death and the fact that Matthew was
(11:23):
the fourth of six children, most sources estimate that he
was born in sixteen nineteen or later, and then it
is a mystery. Given the family's affluence, Matthew probably had
a good education, but we don't really know in what
He's often described as being a lawyer, but there's no
evidence that he formally studied law. Although his fixation with
(11:44):
witchcraft clearly had some religious roots, it does not seem
as though he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps
into the clergy. We don't even know whether he had
really studied the literature of the day on witchcraft and
the identification of witches, which there was a whole lot of.
There was the Malleus Maleficarum, or The Hammer of Witches,
(12:05):
which was written by two Dominicans from Germany and Austria
and published around fourteen eighty six. The Hammer of Witches
became a standard manual for witch hunting, and there were
almost thirty editions published between fourteen eighty six and sixteen hundred.
We mentioned King James's Demonology earlier. That was a compendium
on necromancy, sorcery and spirits, and it might have been
(12:28):
one of the sources for Shakespeare's Macbeth. George Gifford produced
two books on witchcraft. They were A Discourse of the
Subtle Practices of Devils by Witches and Sorcerers in eight seven,
and a Dialogue concerning Witches and Witchcrafts in free John
Coda published The Trial of Witchcraft in sixteen sixteen and
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then republished it nine years later as The Infallible, True
and Assured Witch. Richard Bernard's A Guide to Grand Juryman
came out in sixteen twenty seven and discussed methods of
identifying which is, as well as natural conditions in quotation
marks that might be mistaken for witchcraft. There were to
be clear also writers arguing that at least some of
(13:12):
this was superstitious nonsense, including the more skeptical The Discovery
of Witchcraft by Reginald Scott in four As an aside,
he has long been on my list as a subject.
How good this show. I went down kind of a
rabbit hole of all of these various writings on witchcraft
and was like, I wish we could just do episodes
(13:32):
on all of them, because some of them are just
so bizarre in their claims that they put forth um
Various historians have closely read Hopkins writing to try to
find traces of these and other previous works on witchcraft.
They have drawn varying conclusions on what he might or
(13:53):
might not have been familiar with. Given his upbringing and
his father's position, and the really widespread belief in this
type of witchcraft, it's probably something that he would have
talked about at home among his family. But aside from
King James's Demonology, Hopkins doesn't directly reference any of these
previous works in his own writing. He instead says that
(14:15):
his knowledge of witchcraft and how to identify witches came
from his own experience. I like how the idea of
talking about it at home leads me, of course, be like,
if you don't talk to your kids about witchcraft, I
learned it by watching you, right exactly. That's exactly the
whole entire self entertainment loop that's running in my head
(14:36):
right now. That experience, though, that Tracy just referenced, started
in sixteen forty four, when Hopkins was living in Manningtree
in Essex. In his account in which he refers to
himself in the third person quote in March sixteen forty four,
he had some seven or eight of that horrible sect
of which is living in the town where he lived,
a town in Essex called Manningtree with diverse other adjacent
(15:01):
witches of other towns, who every six weeks in the night,
being always on the Friday night, had their meeting close
by his house and had their several solemn sacrifices they're
offered to the devil. Hopkins went on to say that
one night he heard one of the witches talking to
her imps and telling them to go to another witch,
who was then caught and searched for a devil's mark,
(15:24):
which these which is purportedly used to feed their imp familiars.
In this case, the woman who was examined had quote
three teeths about her, which honest women have not. This
woman was Elizabeth Clark, who was an elderly disabled woman
who was living in poverty. Having identified the mark, the
next step to identifying a witch was to keep her
(15:44):
awake for at least two or three days to lure
her familiars into coming to her assistance. This was known
as watching the witch, and sometimes it was combined with
walking or making the accused woman stay on her feet
pacing around, sometimes until she injured herself. In Hopkins account,
the familiars in this case appeared on the fourth night,
(16:05):
and there were ten people in the room when it happened.
Hopkins said, Clark called several familiars. Quote one Holt who
came in like a white kittling. To Jarmara, who came
in like a fat spaniel without any any legs at all.
She said she kept him fat for she clapped her
hand on her belly and said he sucked the good
blood from her body. Three Vinegar Tom, who was like
(16:28):
a long legged greyhound with an head like an ox,
and a long tail and broad eyes, who, when this
discoverer spoke to and bade him go to the place
provided for him and his angels, immediately transformed himself into
the shape of a child four years old without a head,
and gave half a dozen turns about the house and
(16:49):
vanished at the door. Four Sack and Sugar like a
black rabbit. Five News like a pull cat. After this,
Hopkins said, the imprisoned Clark named several other witches from
the community, including where their witch marks were, how many
imps they had, and what those imps names were. Those
were names that included Elamanzer, Pie, Whackett, Peck. In the Crown, Grizzle,
(17:12):
and greedy gut. So if you're looking for pet names,
maybe make a list today, because there are a lot
of good ones in this episode. As I was working
on this, I kept getting really frustrated because, I mean,
the story is about a lot of women, most of
them elderly and living in poverty, who were put to
death for no reason and sometimes tortured beforehand, which is awful,
(17:33):
But these descriptions of their familiars and stuff are amazing,
and I'm like, I having like I wish this story
wasn't so horrible and tragic because these are great. Yeah.
I mean, that's always like the long term appeal of
of all of these stories, right, there is something fantastical
and fantasy and wonderful about them. Like it's this panic
(17:54):
made people real creative, um, but unfortunately it also made
them jerks and read women with just deplorable uh methods.
Yeah yeah, So like we don't want to minimize that
at all. But at the same time, Pie Wackett and
peck in the Crown, like it's fascinating. While she was
(18:14):
being questioned, Elizabeth Clark said that Anne West was another witch,
and soon accusations of witchcraft were spreading all through the community.
Rebecca West, who was Anne's teenage daughter, accused several women
as well, including also accusing her mother. After these and
other accusations, trials began in sixty five, Clark gave her
(18:37):
own testimony about this before the Right Honorable Robert Earl
of Warwick and several Justices of the Peace. In her confession,
she said that the devil had been coming to lie
with her in bed for six or seven years. She
traced it back to another woman. That woman being and West.
Clark had been gathering sticks in a field one day,
and Anne West had seen her and felt sorry for
(18:59):
her because she only had one leg. According to Clark,
West said she would send quote a thing like a
little kittlin that would help her and bring her provisions.
And her confession, Rebecca West said that she and Leech,
Elizabeth Gooding, Helen Clark, and her mother had all met
at Elizabeth Clark's house. They had prayed to their familiars,
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and they'd planned a number of misfortunes and tragedies that
had happened in the community, and she said that the
devil came to them while they were there. Her confession
ended with the devil having appeared to her at night
and married her, a thing that we should note here.
All of this testimony about the appearance of familiars in
various animal forms suckling on the bodies of the accused
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sounds really bizarre. Some of this is often attributed to
the nature of the questioning. If watchers kept a suspected
which awake for days at a time, she was likely
to be delirious by the end of it, and it
would make total sense for her sleep deprived statements to
sound absolutely unreal. Many of the techniques used to test
which is are defined as abuse or torture today, so
(20:05):
it also makes a lot of sense that the accused
people would tell the investigators what they wanted to hear
to just stop the torture, or otherwise simply to protect
their own life. At the same time, though people sincerely
believed that this type of witchcraft and these imps and familiars,
they believed all that was real, and in court documents,
(20:25):
the watchers and the investigators, who hadn't been through any
of these ordeals themselves, also described personally seeing these demonic
familiars in various shapes and forms. In the case of
Elizabeth Clark, that included Matthew Hopkins, his associate John Stern,
for women who had participated in watching her, and other people,
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all of whom testified to personally seeing these familiars when
they were in court. The testimonies from this first set
of sixt witch trials are documented in a true and
exact relation of the several information, examinations and confessions of
the late witches arraigned and executed in the County of
Essex who were arraigned and condemned at the late Sessions
(21:09):
Holden at Chelmsford before the Right Honorable Robert, Earl of
Warwick and several of His Majesty's Justices of Peace the
twenty nine of July sixty five, wherein the several murthrs
and devilish witchcrafts committed on the bodies of men, women
and children and diverse cattle are fully discovered published by authority.
(21:31):
So there are scans of this online and it goes
on and on with pages of testimony detailing witch marks
and imps and marriages to the devil, as well as accidents, illnesses,
miscarriages and deaths that the witches purportedly caused and in
some cases confessed to. In July of sixteen forty five,
Elizabeth Clarke and Anne West were tried, along with thirty
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four other suspected witches. Nineteen of them were executed by hanging,
and nine more died of disease in prison. Rebecca West
was released in exchange for testifying against the others. Only
one of those women was actually acquitted. These accusations and
trials then spread well beyond Essex, and we will get
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to that after another sponsor break. The accusations of witchcraft
that were made in Manningtree were the start of a
set of witch trials so widespread and so closely associated
with Matthew Hopkins that it is sometimes called the Hopkins
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witch Panic. Hopkins and his associate John Stern traveled from
place to place investigating reports of witchcraft, inspecting women's bodies
for marks, watching suspected witches, and in some cases swimming them,
which was throwing them into the water, sometimes tied up
to see if they would sink or float. More than
ten people were put on trial in Sudbury, Forty and Norfolk,
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and in Huntingtondonshire. They were overwhelmingly, but not exclusively women.
The records are not always clear, but in total, at
least two hundred fifty people were put on trial in
East Anglia between sixteen and sixteen forty seven, and more
than one hundred of them were executed. Some estimates double
all of those numbers. The number of accusations was so
(23:23):
big that Parliament appointed a special Commission of Oyer and
termin or to hear the cases, and that followed the
letter of the sixteen o four Witchcraft Law. The commission
criticized Hopkins and his methods. Torture had been outlawed and
the questioning of witches, so they thought some of what
he was doing was unacceptable. Although the most questionable cases
(23:43):
were thrown out, most of the accused were again found guilty.
Although Hopkins and Stern maintained that they only went to
places where they had been invited by concerned people in
the community, the people in those towns were not universally welcoming,
even apart from the people being accused of which craft.
The witch finders were paid for their work and paid well,
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so people accused them of making up allegations for money.
Hopkins total pay has been estimated at one thousand pounds,
when the average person at the time was making pennies
per day. Hopkins and Stern were criticized for what they
were doing almost from the very beginning when they started
doing it, possibly even criticized from Parliament. One of hopkins
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biggest individual critics was Puritan rector John Gall, who was
something of a skeptic when it came to witchcraft. Gall
directly challenged what Hopkins was doing, and in sixteen forty
six he published quote Select Cases of Conscience Touching Witches
and Witchcrafts, which begins with a letter from Hopkins saying
that he was going to go into Great Stockton to
(24:47):
look for witches. Gall believed that which has existed, and
in his opinion, total disbelief in which is was a
first step on a path of disbelieving in God. But
at the same time he thought what was real be
at work in England in six with superstition. He thought
that people were using witchcraft and demons to find something
to blame for the ordinary problems of life. After noting
(25:11):
his belief that which is did exist, he wrote quote,
but there are also a sect or sort that, on
the other hand, are as superstitious in this point, as
these can be infidelious, They conclude preremptorial lee, not from
reason but in discretion, that which is not only are,
but are in every place and parish with them. Every
(25:31):
old woman with a wrinkled face, of furrowed brow, a
hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint eye, a squeaking voice,
or a 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. Every new disease,
(25:52):
notable accident, mirrable of nature, rarity of art, nay and
strange work, or just judgment of God, is by them
accounted for no other but an act or effect of witchcraft.
Gall also noted that this whole profession of witch finder
seemed to be a new invention. Before this work had
fallen to people like magistrates and justices of the peace,
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but now it was being handled by people like Matthew Hopkins,
who was calling himself the witch finder General. And Gall
placed the blame for the witch panic where it belonged
on Hopkins and Stern, who were going from town to
town stirring people up. In Gaul's words quote it is
strange to tell what superstitious opinions, affections relations are generally
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risen amongst us since the witch Finders came into the
country and May of sixteen forty seven, Matthew Hopkins published
his own pamphlet in response to these and other criticisms.
It was called Quote the Discovery of Witches, An Answer
to Several Queries, lately delivered to the Judges of the
Assize for the County of Norfolk, and now published by
(26:59):
Matthew Hopkins, Witch Finder, for the benefit of the whole Kingdom.
Hopkins framed his defense as a series of answers to
fourteen queries he had purportedly been asked, although some of
the queries are really statements rather than questions. The first
is that he must be a witch, sorcerer and wizard himself,
otherwise he could not have done what he was doing.
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The second is that, if he wasn't a witch himself,
that he had met with the devil and stolen a
book containing the names of all the witches in England,
so he was doing this work with the help of
the Devil. He responds to the first of these statements
with quote, if Satan's Kingdom be divided against itself? How
shall it stand? That's his whole answer. He responds to
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the second by basically saying that if he did steal
the Devil's book, wasn't that something that he should be
commended for rather than judged. It's also in the earlier
queries that Hopkins says his knowledge of witchcraft came from
his own experience, which he describes as quote yet the
surest and safest way to judge by query five. In
(28:02):
this painphle it points out that a lot of people,
especially people who are poor or elderly, have marks on
their bodies naturally, along with quote other natural excrescencies as hemorrhads, piles, childbearing, etcetera.
So how is one man to judge that one of
these perfectly normal things is unnatural? Hopkins reply is quote
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the parties so judging can justify their skill to any
and show good reasons why such marks are not merely natural,
neither that they can happen by any such natural cause,
as is before expressed, And for further answer for their
private judgments alone, it is most false and n true.
For never was any man tried by search of his body,
(28:44):
but commonly a dozen of the ablest men in the
parish or elsewhere were present, and most commonly as many
ancient skillful matrons and midwives present when the women are tried,
which marks not only he and his company attests to
be very suspicious, but all beholders, the skillfullest of them,
do not approve of them, but likewise assent that such
(29:05):
tokens cannot, in their judgments, proceed from any the above
mentioned causes. In the next query, Hopkins goes on to
explain that you can tell these marks aren't natural because
they're in unusual places. They're also insensible to pain, and
they change shape, for example, because they're sending their imps
to feed from someone else to avoid detection, or because
(29:27):
their imps have been able to feed from anyone for
a period of time. This pamphlet goes on to explain,
in hopkins opinion, various aspects of witchcraft and to defend
his own actions, simultaneously explaining the necessity of practices like
waking and swimming witches and saying that he utterly denies
(29:47):
any confession that results from torture, and the last query
quote all that the witch finder doth is to fleece
the country of their money, and therefore rides and goes
to towns to have employment, and promises the fair promises,
and it maybe doth nothing for it, and possesseth many
men that they have so many wizards and so many
(30:07):
witches in their town, and so heartens them on to
entertain him. His answer quote, you do him a great
deal of wrong. And every of these particulars. For first one,
he never went into any town or place, but they
rode rit or sent often for him, and were for aught.
He knew glad of him too. He is a man
(30:29):
that doth distclaim that ever he detected a witch, or
said thou art a witch, only after her trial by
search and their own confessions, as he as others may judge. Three, lastly,
judge how he fleeceth the country and enriches himself by
considering the vast sum he takes of every town he
(30:49):
demands but twenty shillings a town, and doth sometimes ride
twenty miles for that, and hath no more for all
his charges thither and back again. And it maybe he
stays a week there and find there are three or
four witches, or if it be but one, cheap enough.
And this is the great sum he takes to maintain
his company with three horses. Hopkins partner John Stern published
(31:12):
his own defense of their work, called A Confirmation and
Discovery of Witchcraft, and like Hopkins, Stern pushed back on
criticisms that quote, there are no witches, but that there
are many poor, silly, ignorant people hanged wrongfully, and that
those who have gone or been instruments in finding out
or discovering those of late made known have done it
(31:32):
for their own private ends, for gain and such like,
favoring some where they thought good, and unjustly prosecuting others.
Unlike Hopkins, who made only one direct reference to King
James's demonology, Stern's work sites a lot more references, especially
Bible verses. There are so many book, chapter and verse citations,
(31:53):
especially in the first portion of this, that it is
difficult to read. It's like every third word is a
book of the Bible, and some chapters in verse. By
the time Stern published his book in sixteen forty eight,
the East Anglia witch trials were essentially over. As English
Civil War drew to a close, the courts got back
to a more normal operation, and the number of witchcraft
accusations dropped. People were also less inclined to trust Hopkins
(32:17):
and Stern in the face of such vocal criticism about
their methods. Hopkins was also dead. He published his defense
of his work roughly three months before he died. He
was probably in his mid to late twenties, and his
pursuit of witches and east Anglia had lasted for less
than three years. Although there is a popular story that
Hopkins was eventually convicted of witchcraft himself, he actually died
(32:41):
of tuberculosis, which was probably affecting his health for most
or all of the witch trials that he was part of.
He was buried at miss Ley with Manningtree on August twelve,
sixty seven, and today he is said to haunt miss
Ley Pond and other sites around the area. He's also
the focus of the nineteen sixty eight film Which Finder,
which is directed by Michael Reeves and stars previous podcast
(33:05):
subject Vincent Price and best Actor of all Time. I
never speak in superlatives, but I sure do love Vincent Price,
and he has a rad little bob in that movie. Yeah,
Holly and I had a conversation before, uh, before this
whole outline was even done. Really about how I'm so
(33:28):
used to seeing Vincent Price clean shaven or with a
beard that seems to denote I am evil, like a
little very pointy beard that h for when I watched
the trailer um to this film, which finder at first
I did not recognize him, Like his face is there
in the thumbnail and I'm like, oh, I wonder what
character he played. Oh, it's that one. As soon as
(33:48):
he started talking, I of course immediately knew who it was. Um,
this whole story we talked earlier about, like this incongruity
between how tragic and terrible it is and how bizarre
and fantastic all the testimony from the trial is. But
the thing that I just find the most terrifying about
it is that basically this guy kind of showed up
(34:10):
out of nowhere at age twenty something, and not single handedly.
There was other stuff going on, but he definitely was
the instigator in in these trials all across East Anglia
Um that went on for roughly three years, and then
he died at with not really any experience that anybody
(34:33):
knows of besides his own opinion about who was a witch. Yeah,
it's interesting because it's it's uh one of those things
where I mean, I certainly joked in this episode about
all the great names for pets, but like when you
think about one person on this weird quest to do
this thing, and how many lives he completely obliterated in
(34:53):
of course of it, it becomes very sobering and dismaying. Well,
and we've also we've for sure talked about figures on
the Pie cast before who single handedly, uh had just
terrible consequences and a lot of a lot of time.
That was a person who was already in a position
of power, um not not you know, the relatively well
(35:13):
off son of a vicar who didn't seem to have
any other notable background to to put him in that
level of authority besides his own authority that he decided
to keep up for himself. Anyway, do you have a
little bit of listener mail that's maybe less damaging to
people's lives? Sure is? That'd be great. This is from Brian.
(35:36):
Brian says, Hi, Holly and Tracy. I loved listening to
your podcast at work. You two are both so funny
and informative, and you were the reason I've started to
use the word delightful more in my life. I learned
so much from the two of you, and so I'm
super excited to share some of my own knowledge. I
was doing some research on the development of liturgical colors
in the Catholic Church. During different times of the year,
(35:58):
the priest's vestments are different colors. Very early on lent
An Advent used black because it was a penitential time.
They made the black by dyeing the clothes either with
blue or purple. Dye over and over, the black would
fade back to blue or purple, and most churches couldn't
bother to redie them. Eventually, people just sort of accepted
that the right color at these times the year was
(36:20):
purple or blue. Blue instead of purple was used in
Salisbury in particular. The Latin word for Salisbury is sarum,
so when you see blue used it Advent instead of
purple today it is called saram usage. Brian goes on
to say, if you're curious about more religious history stuff, uh.
Brian co hosts a podcast called Sunday School for Heathens,
(36:42):
which is currently on um on hiatus for some personal
reasons that I'm not going to get into because privacy,
but that sounds pretty cool. It involves Brian explaining some
of the weirder parts of Christianity to a non religious
co host, UM, and I would like to say I
love the name Sunday School for Heathens. So thank you
so much Brian for writing this to us. UM. While
(37:03):
I was working on the podcast The Mysteries of the
Color Blue, which we did for our live show, and
that's the episode that this is in reference to, for
a while I was down a rabbit hole of of
all the different UM colors used UH in religious services
in Europe and in clothing for religious people. And one
(37:24):
of the things that UH that was temporarily in the
outline and then came out was definitely about UM how
often religious figures were supposed to be wearing black, but
it was really hard to get a really true color
fast black dye, so a lot of times the black
really looked more like a faded bluish purple ish color. UH.
(37:45):
That whole evolution was a thing that had at one
point been in the outline, and then I was like,
this is too long, and it's kind of a digression.
So I'm very glad that we had a chance to
talk about it here. Thank you so much, Brian. For
writing if you would like to write to us where
a history podcasts at how stuff works dot com. We're
also all over social media at missed in History. That's
where you'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. You
(38:08):
can come to our website, which is missed in History
dot com and find an archive of all of our
episodes and share notes for the episodes Holly and I
have done together. And you can subscribe to our show
on Apple podcast, the I heart radio app, and anywhere
else you get your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History
Class is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works.
(38:30):
For more podcasts, for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying.
Today we are going to talk about England's largest and
deadliest set of witch trials, which were largely influenced by
(00:23):
one man. That was Matthew Hopkins, who was known as
the witch Finder General, although this really doesn't seem like
a title that was given to him in any kind
of formal or official capacity. This happened in the region
of East Anglia between sixteen forty five and sixteen forty seven,
so it was after the peak of witch trial activity
in early modern Europe, but it was also a couple
(00:45):
of decades before the Salem witch Trials on the other
side of the Atlantic Ocean. Most of the people who
were put to death in these trials were poor, elderly women,
and some of the methods that Hopkins and other investigators
were using could be classified as torture, even though torture
was not supposed to be used in cases of witchcraft
at that time. So this behavior on his part was
(01:07):
so over the line to a lot of people that
he earned a lot of criticism for it in his day. Yeah,
I think we tend to think that, oh, looking back,
that was horrible, but everyone was on board then. No, no,
absolutely not. These witch trials were not really about things
like pagan practices or herbal medicine or fortune telling. As
a basic definition, a witch was someone who was believed
(01:29):
to be using magic to do harm. People who are
using magic for good, like curing diseases were often called
white witches or cunning folk. Aside from the fact that
cunning folk were sometimes called in to help identify witches,
they weren't typically part of these trials at all unless
someone found a reason to suspect them of doing harm.
(01:51):
I think one of the common ideas about which trials
is that somebody was practicing herbal medicine and authorities found
that really threatening for some reason, and that wasn't so
much the case with what was going on here. Beyond
the basic idea of causing harm with witchcraft, specific beliefs
about which is really varied over time and from one
(02:12):
place to another. For example, the idea that which is
made a pact with the devil was common in some
parts of Europe before the seventeenth century, but it didn't
really make its way to what's now the UK and
Ireland until a little bit later. It might have been
introduced by King James, the sixth of Scotland and first
of England. King James wrote about that idea in his
(02:33):
book Demonology, which he published in fifteen nine seven. That
was shortly after ascending to the throne of Scotland, and
the idea of making pacts with the devil and having
demonic familiars was a huge part of the witch trials
that we're talking about today, but really not so much
in English witch trials that happened centuries before. There were
also variations in exactly how different communities dealt with suspected witches.
(02:58):
To look at England and Scotland again, and both had
laws against witchcraft by the sixteenth century. But in England
the demand for accused witches to be brought to justice
tended to start with members of a community who believed
that they had personally been harmed. In Scotland, that demand
tended to come from the ruling elite out of a
broader desire to root out which is and anything else
(03:21):
that was contrary to God. And early modern England witchcraft
accusations tended to follow a pretty regular pattern. Given how
deeply ingrained the belief in witchcraft was. It's totally possible
that there were some people who actually were trying to
harm their neighbors in some way, But most of the
time these accusations were faults, and it was really about
(03:42):
an interpersonal dispute. Here's an example from the trials that
we're talking about today. Robert Taylor testified that Elizabeth Gooding
came into his shop and asked for half a pound
of cheese, which she would pay for later. He said no,
because he's horrible and denied people cheese. No, that's a
totally not the thing. Uh. She muttered under her breath
(04:02):
about it, came back later with the money and bought
the cheese. That night, Taylor's horse fell ill, and four
days later that horse died, which he said was Elizabeth
Goodings doing as a payback for him refusing to help her.
Elizabeth Gooding denied all of these allegations entirely. So while
these kinds of interpersonal disputes could spark isolated accusations of witchcraft,
(04:26):
they weren't usually enough on their own to set off
a huge panic When that did happen, there was typically
some other larger issue going on that was causing other
social or political or economic unrest. In the case of
Matthew Hopkins time as a witch finder, that's something else.
Was the English Civil Wars okay as a quick recap.
(04:46):
The English Civil Wars spanned from sixteen forty two to
sixteen fifty one, and they also involved Ireland in Scotland.
In England, the dispute was between the monarchy and its
supporters on one side, and Parliament and its supporters on
the other. Charles the First had ruled England without a
parliament from six to sixteen forty, a period known as
(05:06):
the personal Rule that has come up on the show before.
He only summoned to parliament when he had no other choice.
But the King and Parliament disagreed over a number of matters,
especially whether the king or parliament should have control over
the military. During the English Civil Wars, King Charles the
First was executed, his son, Charles the Second was sent
(05:27):
into exile, and at least a hundred and eighty thousand
people were killed in battle or as a result of
the war. And then, on top of all of the
violence and chaos and loss of life. Both sides in
the English Civil War used the idea of witchcraft to
target the other. Royalist propaganda quoted First Samuel fifty three
(05:47):
from the Bible, which reads for rebellion is as the
sin of witchcraft. Parliamentarians claimed that Charles, the first nephew
Prince Rupert of the Rhine, was a witch and that
his dog Boy was as familiar. Battlefield losses were blamed
on bewitchment, and in sixteen forty three parliamentarian forces executed
a woman just before the Battle of Newbury. According to
(06:10):
written accounts, first they examined her and they found physical
evidence on her body that she was a witch. Although
hundreds of executions for witchcraft were carried out during the
English Civil Wars, this one in Newbury was something of
an anomaly because witchcraft was a crime that was typically
handled through the English courts. This legal history went back
to fifteen seventeen with the Bill against Conjurations and Witchcrafts
(06:34):
and Sorcery and Enchantments, which made witchcraft a felony punishable
by death. That law was later repealed, but the Act
against Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts followed in fifteen sixty two.
The law that was in effect during the events that
we're talking about today was the sixteen o four Act
against Conjuration, Witchcraft and Dealing with Evil and Wicked Spirits.
(06:58):
It repealed that fifteen sixty two law before going on
to say, quote, if any person or persons, after the
said feast of Saint Michael the Archangel next coming, shall
use practice or exercise any invocation or conjuration of any
evil and wicked spirit, or shall consult, covenant with, entertain, employ, feed,
(07:19):
or reward any evil and wicked spirit to, or, for
any intent or purpose, or take up any dead man, woman,
or child out of his, her or their grave or
any other place where the dead body resideth, or the skin, bone,
or any other part of any dead person, to be
employed or used in any manner of witchcraft, sorcery, charm,
(07:42):
or enchantment, or shall use practice or exercise any witchcraft, enchantment, charm,
or sorcery whereby any person shall be killed, destroyed, wasted, consumed, pined,
or lamed in his or her body or any part thereof.
So if any person who did all of that stuff
that I just read, they would be put to death
(08:02):
as a felon, as would anybody who aided or abetted
or counseled them. The method of execution in these cases
was generally hanging. Under the same law, anyone who used
witchcraft to find treasure, provoke unlawful love, or cause harm
to cattle or goods would be imprisoned for a year.
Of course, the parliamentarians execution of the woman known as
(08:25):
the Newberry which wasn't the only extra judicial killing of
a suspected which there were definitely other instances of vigilante
murder as well, but it was far more common for
an accused which to be tried before a jury in
the same court system that was being used for other crimes.
Through much of the sixteenth and seventeen centuries, it was
(08:46):
possible and even likely to be found not guilty of witchcraft.
For example, between fifteen sixty and sixteen hundred, two hundred
fifty eight people were indicted for witchcraft in the home
circuit assizes. The assizes were criminal courts that tended to
focus on more serious crimes. Less than a quarter of
those two hundred fifty eight people were found guilty. Even
(09:08):
after the passage of the Witchcraft Act of sixteen o four,
which was stricter than the law that it replaced. Conviction
rates still tended to be about twenty or lower, even
though there were definitely periods where that percentage was much higher.
The witch trials that happened in East Anglia between sixteen
forty five and sixteen forty seven happened during one of
those periods when a lot more people were convicted of witchcraft.
(09:31):
The chaos of the English Civil Wars had led to
an increase in the number of witchcraft allegations. Authorities in
general were also overstretched because of the war, and then
on top of that, the courts themselves were understaffed. Most
of the assize circuits had lost at least one judge
after the ones who had sanctioned King Charles's personal rule
(09:51):
of England were impeached. So an overburdened, understaffed court system
was having to deal with a sudden influx of all
of these allegation. Jens, and another important point, Matthew Hopkins
was out there drumming up allegations, and we're gonna get
into that. After we first paused for a little sponsor break,
(10:18):
Matthew Hopkins went from relative obscurity to being the most
notorious and influential figure in England's largest series of which
trials seemingly overnight. His father was a Puritan named James Hopkins,
who was vicar of Great Winnham in Suffolk, England. James
took that position in sixteen twelve, which was a couple
(10:38):
of years after he got married. James's father had been
a landowner and he inherited money from both of his parents,
so the family was able to live pretty comfortably regardless
of how profitable their vicarage was, and they were able
to set their children up with trusts. James Hopkins died
around sixteen thirty four. That's the year that his will
was proved or legally ex cepted as the last will
(11:01):
of the deceased. That will referenced six children, including Matthew
and his brother Thomas. It left them in the care
of his widow, with instructions that they be brought up
quote in the fear of God. This suggests that at
least some of James's children were not legal adults yet
when he wrote this will. Based on the timing of
his marriage and death and the fact that Matthew was
(11:23):
the fourth of six children, most sources estimate that he
was born in sixteen nineteen or later, and then it
is a mystery. Given the family's affluence, Matthew probably had
a good education, but we don't really know in what
He's often described as being a lawyer, but there's no
evidence that he formally studied law. Although his fixation with
(11:44):
witchcraft clearly had some religious roots, it does not seem
as though he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps
into the clergy. We don't even know whether he had
really studied the literature of the day on witchcraft and
the identification of witches, which there was a whole lot of.
There was the Malleus Maleficarum, or The Hammer of Witches,
(12:05):
which was written by two Dominicans from Germany and Austria
and published around fourteen eighty six. The Hammer of Witches
became a standard manual for witch hunting, and there were
almost thirty editions published between fourteen eighty six and sixteen hundred.
We mentioned King James's Demonology earlier. That was a compendium
on necromancy, sorcery and spirits, and it might have been
(12:28):
one of the sources for Shakespeare's Macbeth. George Gifford produced
two books on witchcraft. They were A Discourse of the
Subtle Practices of Devils by Witches and Sorcerers in eight seven,
and a Dialogue concerning Witches and Witchcrafts in free John
Coda published The Trial of Witchcraft in sixteen sixteen and
(12:50):
then republished it nine years later as The Infallible, True
and Assured Witch. Richard Bernard's A Guide to Grand Juryman
came out in sixteen twenty seven and discussed methods of
identifying which is, as well as natural conditions in quotation
marks that might be mistaken for witchcraft. There were to
be clear also writers arguing that at least some of
(13:12):
this was superstitious nonsense, including the more skeptical The Discovery
of Witchcraft by Reginald Scott in four As an aside,
he has long been on my list as a subject.
How good this show. I went down kind of a
rabbit hole of all of these various writings on witchcraft
and was like, I wish we could just do episodes
(13:32):
on all of them, because some of them are just
so bizarre in their claims that they put forth um
Various historians have closely read Hopkins writing to try to
find traces of these and other previous works on witchcraft.
They have drawn varying conclusions on what he might or
(13:53):
might not have been familiar with. Given his upbringing and
his father's position, and the really widespread belief in this
type of witchcraft, it's probably something that he would have
talked about at home among his family. But aside from
King James's Demonology, Hopkins doesn't directly reference any of these
previous works in his own writing. He instead says that
(14:15):
his knowledge of witchcraft and how to identify witches came
from his own experience. I like how the idea of
talking about it at home leads me, of course, be like,
if you don't talk to your kids about witchcraft, I
learned it by watching you, right exactly. That's exactly the
whole entire self entertainment loop that's running in my head
(14:36):
right now. That experience, though, that Tracy just referenced, started
in sixteen forty four, when Hopkins was living in Manningtree
in Essex. In his account in which he refers to
himself in the third person quote in March sixteen forty four,
he had some seven or eight of that horrible sect
of which is living in the town where he lived,
a town in Essex called Manningtree with diverse other adjacent
(15:01):
witches of other towns, who every six weeks in the night,
being always on the Friday night, had their meeting close
by his house and had their several solemn sacrifices they're
offered to the devil. Hopkins went on to say that
one night he heard one of the witches talking to
her imps and telling them to go to another witch,
who was then caught and searched for a devil's mark,
(15:24):
which these which is purportedly used to feed their imp familiars.
In this case, the woman who was examined had quote
three teeths about her, which honest women have not. This
woman was Elizabeth Clark, who was an elderly disabled woman
who was living in poverty. Having identified the mark, the
next step to identifying a witch was to keep her
(15:44):
awake for at least two or three days to lure
her familiars into coming to her assistance. This was known
as watching the witch, and sometimes it was combined with
walking or making the accused woman stay on her feet
pacing around, sometimes until she injured herself. In Hopkins account,
the familiars in this case appeared on the fourth night,
(16:05):
and there were ten people in the room when it happened.
Hopkins said, Clark called several familiars. Quote one Holt who
came in like a white kittling. To Jarmara, who came
in like a fat spaniel without any any legs at all.
She said she kept him fat for she clapped her
hand on her belly and said he sucked the good
blood from her body. Three Vinegar Tom, who was like
(16:28):
a long legged greyhound with an head like an ox,
and a long tail and broad eyes, who, when this
discoverer spoke to and bade him go to the place
provided for him and his angels, immediately transformed himself into
the shape of a child four years old without a head,
and gave half a dozen turns about the house and
(16:49):
vanished at the door. Four Sack and Sugar like a
black rabbit. Five News like a pull cat. After this,
Hopkins said, the imprisoned Clark named several other witches from
the community, including where their witch marks were, how many
imps they had, and what those imps names were. Those
were names that included Elamanzer, Pie, Whackett, Peck. In the Crown, Grizzle,
(17:12):
and greedy gut. So if you're looking for pet names,
maybe make a list today, because there are a lot
of good ones in this episode. As I was working
on this, I kept getting really frustrated because, I mean,
the story is about a lot of women, most of
them elderly and living in poverty, who were put to
death for no reason and sometimes tortured beforehand, which is awful,
(17:33):
But these descriptions of their familiars and stuff are amazing,
and I'm like, I having like I wish this story
wasn't so horrible and tragic because these are great. Yeah.
I mean, that's always like the long term appeal of
of all of these stories, right, there is something fantastical
and fantasy and wonderful about them. Like it's this panic
(17:54):
made people real creative, um, but unfortunately it also made
them jerks and read women with just deplorable uh methods.
Yeah yeah, So like we don't want to minimize that
at all. But at the same time, Pie Wackett and
peck in the Crown, like it's fascinating. While she was
(18:14):
being questioned, Elizabeth Clark said that Anne West was another witch,
and soon accusations of witchcraft were spreading all through the community.
Rebecca West, who was Anne's teenage daughter, accused several women
as well, including also accusing her mother. After these and
other accusations, trials began in sixty five, Clark gave her
(18:37):
own testimony about this before the Right Honorable Robert Earl
of Warwick and several Justices of the Peace. In her confession,
she said that the devil had been coming to lie
with her in bed for six or seven years. She
traced it back to another woman. That woman being and West.
Clark had been gathering sticks in a field one day,
and Anne West had seen her and felt sorry for
(18:59):
her because she only had one leg. According to Clark,
West said she would send quote a thing like a
little kittlin that would help her and bring her provisions.
And her confession, Rebecca West said that she and Leech,
Elizabeth Gooding, Helen Clark, and her mother had all met
at Elizabeth Clark's house. They had prayed to their familiars,
(19:20):
and they'd planned a number of misfortunes and tragedies that
had happened in the community, and she said that the
devil came to them while they were there. Her confession
ended with the devil having appeared to her at night
and married her, a thing that we should note here.
All of this testimony about the appearance of familiars in
various animal forms suckling on the bodies of the accused
(19:42):
sounds really bizarre. Some of this is often attributed to
the nature of the questioning. If watchers kept a suspected
which awake for days at a time, she was likely
to be delirious by the end of it, and it
would make total sense for her sleep deprived statements to
sound absolutely unreal. Many of the techniques used to test
which is are defined as abuse or torture today, so
(20:05):
it also makes a lot of sense that the accused
people would tell the investigators what they wanted to hear
to just stop the torture, or otherwise simply to protect
their own life. At the same time, though people sincerely
believed that this type of witchcraft and these imps and familiars,
they believed all that was real, and in court documents,
(20:25):
the watchers and the investigators, who hadn't been through any
of these ordeals themselves, also described personally seeing these demonic
familiars in various shapes and forms. In the case of
Elizabeth Clark, that included Matthew Hopkins, his associate John Stern,
for women who had participated in watching her, and other people,
(20:46):
all of whom testified to personally seeing these familiars when
they were in court. The testimonies from this first set
of sixt witch trials are documented in a true and
exact relation of the several information, examinations and confessions of
the late witches arraigned and executed in the County of
Essex who were arraigned and condemned at the late Sessions
(21:09):
Holden at Chelmsford before the Right Honorable Robert, Earl of
Warwick and several of His Majesty's Justices of Peace the
twenty nine of July sixty five, wherein the several murthrs
and devilish witchcrafts committed on the bodies of men, women
and children and diverse cattle are fully discovered published by authority.
(21:31):
So there are scans of this online and it goes
on and on with pages of testimony detailing witch marks
and imps and marriages to the devil, as well as accidents, illnesses,
miscarriages and deaths that the witches purportedly caused and in
some cases confessed to. In July of sixteen forty five,
Elizabeth Clarke and Anne West were tried, along with thirty
(21:53):
four other suspected witches. Nineteen of them were executed by hanging,
and nine more died of disease in prison. Rebecca West
was released in exchange for testifying against the others. Only
one of those women was actually acquitted. These accusations and
trials then spread well beyond Essex, and we will get
(22:14):
to that after another sponsor break. The accusations of witchcraft
that were made in Manningtree were the start of a
set of witch trials so widespread and so closely associated
with Matthew Hopkins that it is sometimes called the Hopkins
(22:36):
witch Panic. Hopkins and his associate John Stern traveled from
place to place investigating reports of witchcraft, inspecting women's bodies
for marks, watching suspected witches, and in some cases swimming them,
which was throwing them into the water, sometimes tied up
to see if they would sink or float. More than
ten people were put on trial in Sudbury, Forty and Norfolk,
(22:59):
and in Huntingtondonshire. They were overwhelmingly, but not exclusively women.
The records are not always clear, but in total, at
least two hundred fifty people were put on trial in
East Anglia between sixteen and sixteen forty seven, and more
than one hundred of them were executed. Some estimates double
all of those numbers. The number of accusations was so
(23:23):
big that Parliament appointed a special Commission of Oyer and
termin or to hear the cases, and that followed the
letter of the sixteen o four Witchcraft Law. The commission
criticized Hopkins and his methods. Torture had been outlawed and
the questioning of witches, so they thought some of what
he was doing was unacceptable. Although the most questionable cases
(23:43):
were thrown out, most of the accused were again found guilty.
Although Hopkins and Stern maintained that they only went to
places where they had been invited by concerned people in
the community, the people in those towns were not universally welcoming,
even apart from the people being accused of which craft.
The witch finders were paid for their work and paid well,
(24:04):
so people accused them of making up allegations for money.
Hopkins total pay has been estimated at one thousand pounds,
when the average person at the time was making pennies
per day. Hopkins and Stern were criticized for what they
were doing almost from the very beginning when they started
doing it, possibly even criticized from Parliament. One of hopkins
(24:26):
biggest individual critics was Puritan rector John Gall, who was
something of a skeptic when it came to witchcraft. Gall
directly challenged what Hopkins was doing, and in sixteen forty
six he published quote Select Cases of Conscience Touching Witches
and Witchcrafts, which begins with a letter from Hopkins saying
that he was going to go into Great Stockton to
(24:47):
look for witches. Gall believed that which has existed, and
in his opinion, total disbelief in which is was a
first step on a path of disbelieving in God. But
at the same time he thought what was real be
at work in England in six with superstition. He thought
that people were using witchcraft and demons to find something
to blame for the ordinary problems of life. After noting
(25:11):
his belief that which is did exist, he wrote quote,
but there are also a sect or sort that, on
the other hand, are as superstitious in this point, as
these can be infidelious, They conclude preremptorial lee, not from
reason but in discretion, that which is not only are,
but are in every place and parish with them. Every
(25:31):
old woman with a wrinkled face, of furrowed brow, a
hairy lip, a gobber tooth, a squint eye, a squeaking voice,
or a 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. Every new disease,
(25:52):
notable accident, mirrable of nature, rarity of art, nay and
strange work, or just judgment of God, is by them
accounted for no other but an act or effect of witchcraft.
Gall also noted that this whole profession of witch finder
seemed to be a new invention. Before this work had
fallen to people like magistrates and justices of the peace,
(26:16):
but now it was being handled by people like Matthew Hopkins,
who was calling himself the witch finder General. And Gall
placed the blame for the witch panic where it belonged
on Hopkins and Stern, who were going from town to
town stirring people up. In Gaul's words quote it is
strange to tell what superstitious opinions, affections relations are generally
(26:38):
risen amongst us since the witch Finders came into the
country and May of sixteen forty seven, Matthew Hopkins published
his own pamphlet in response to these and other criticisms.
It was called Quote the Discovery of Witches, An Answer
to Several Queries, lately delivered to the Judges of the
Assize for the County of Norfolk, and now published by
(26:59):
Matthew Hopkins, Witch Finder, for the benefit of the whole Kingdom.
Hopkins framed his defense as a series of answers to
fourteen queries he had purportedly been asked, although some of
the queries are really statements rather than questions. The first
is that he must be a witch, sorcerer and wizard himself,
otherwise he could not have done what he was doing.
(27:20):
The second is that, if he wasn't a witch himself,
that he had met with the devil and stolen a
book containing the names of all the witches in England,
so he was doing this work with the help of
the Devil. He responds to the first of these statements
with quote, if Satan's Kingdom be divided against itself? How
shall it stand? That's his whole answer. He responds to
(27:42):
the second by basically saying that if he did steal
the Devil's book, wasn't that something that he should be
commended for rather than judged. It's also in the earlier
queries that Hopkins says his knowledge of witchcraft came from
his own experience, which he describes as quote yet the
surest and safest way to judge by query five. In
(28:02):
this painphle it points out that a lot of people,
especially people who are poor or elderly, have marks on
their bodies naturally, along with quote other natural excrescencies as hemorrhads, piles, childbearing, etcetera.
So how is one man to judge that one of
these perfectly normal things is unnatural? Hopkins reply is quote
(28:24):
the parties so judging can justify their skill to any
and show good reasons why such marks are not merely natural,
neither that they can happen by any such natural cause,
as is before expressed, And for further answer for their
private judgments alone, it is most false and n true.
For never was any man tried by search of his body,
(28:44):
but commonly a dozen of the ablest men in the
parish or elsewhere were present, and most commonly as many
ancient skillful matrons and midwives present when the women are tried,
which marks not only he and his company attests to
be very suspicious, but all beholders, the skillfullest of them,
do not approve of them, but likewise assent that such
(29:05):
tokens cannot, in their judgments, proceed from any the above
mentioned causes. In the next query, Hopkins goes on to
explain that you can tell these marks aren't natural because
they're in unusual places. They're also insensible to pain, and
they change shape, for example, because they're sending their imps
to feed from someone else to avoid detection, or because
(29:27):
their imps have been able to feed from anyone for
a period of time. This pamphlet goes on to explain,
in hopkins opinion, various aspects of witchcraft and to defend
his own actions, simultaneously explaining the necessity of practices like
waking and swimming witches and saying that he utterly denies
(29:47):
any confession that results from torture, and the last query
quote all that the witch finder doth is to fleece
the country of their money, and therefore rides and goes
to towns to have employment, and promises the fair promises,
and it maybe doth nothing for it, and possesseth many
men that they have so many wizards and so many
(30:07):
witches in their town, and so heartens them on to
entertain him. His answer quote, you do him a great
deal of wrong. And every of these particulars. For first one,
he never went into any town or place, but they
rode rit or sent often for him, and were for aught.
He knew glad of him too. He is a man
(30:29):
that doth distclaim that ever he detected a witch, or
said thou art a witch, only after her trial by
search and their own confessions, as he as others may judge. Three, lastly,
judge how he fleeceth the country and enriches himself by
considering the vast sum he takes of every town he
(30:49):
demands but twenty shillings a town, and doth sometimes ride
twenty miles for that, and hath no more for all
his charges thither and back again. And it maybe he
stays a week there and find there are three or
four witches, or if it be but one, cheap enough.
And this is the great sum he takes to maintain
his company with three horses. Hopkins partner John Stern published
(31:12):
his own defense of their work, called A Confirmation and
Discovery of Witchcraft, and like Hopkins, Stern pushed back on
criticisms that quote, there are no witches, but that there
are many poor, silly, ignorant people hanged wrongfully, and that
those who have gone or been instruments in finding out
or discovering those of late made known have done it
(31:32):
for their own private ends, for gain and such like,
favoring some where they thought good, and unjustly prosecuting others.
Unlike Hopkins, who made only one direct reference to King
James's demonology, Stern's work sites a lot more references, especially
Bible verses. There are so many book, chapter and verse citations,
(31:53):
especially in the first portion of this, that it is
difficult to read. It's like every third word is a
book of the Bible, and some chapters in verse. By
the time Stern published his book in sixteen forty eight,
the East Anglia witch trials were essentially over. As English
Civil War drew to a close, the courts got back
to a more normal operation, and the number of witchcraft
accusations dropped. People were also less inclined to trust Hopkins
(32:17):
and Stern in the face of such vocal criticism about
their methods. Hopkins was also dead. He published his defense
of his work roughly three months before he died. He
was probably in his mid to late twenties, and his
pursuit of witches and east Anglia had lasted for less
than three years. Although there is a popular story that
Hopkins was eventually convicted of witchcraft himself, he actually died
(32:41):
of tuberculosis, which was probably affecting his health for most
or all of the witch trials that he was part of.
He was buried at miss Ley with Manningtree on August twelve,
sixty seven, and today he is said to haunt miss
Ley Pond and other sites around the area. He's also
the focus of the nineteen sixty eight film Which Finder,
which is directed by Michael Reeves and stars previous podcast
(33:05):
subject Vincent Price and best Actor of all Time. I
never speak in superlatives, but I sure do love Vincent Price,
and he has a rad little bob in that movie. Yeah,
Holly and I had a conversation before, uh, before this
whole outline was even done. Really about how I'm so
(33:28):
used to seeing Vincent Price clean shaven or with a
beard that seems to denote I am evil, like a
little very pointy beard that h for when I watched
the trailer um to this film, which finder at first
I did not recognize him, Like his face is there
in the thumbnail and I'm like, oh, I wonder what
character he played. Oh, it's that one. As soon as
(33:48):
he started talking, I of course immediately knew who it was. Um,
this whole story we talked earlier about, like this incongruity
between how tragic and terrible it is and how bizarre
and fantastic all the testimony from the trial is. But
the thing that I just find the most terrifying about
it is that basically this guy kind of showed up
(34:10):
out of nowhere at age twenty something, and not single handedly.
There was other stuff going on, but he definitely was
the instigator in in these trials all across East Anglia
Um that went on for roughly three years, and then
he died at with not really any experience that anybody
(34:33):
knows of besides his own opinion about who was a witch. Yeah,
it's interesting because it's it's uh one of those things
where I mean, I certainly joked in this episode about
all the great names for pets, but like when you
think about one person on this weird quest to do
this thing, and how many lives he completely obliterated in
(34:53):
of course of it, it becomes very sobering and dismaying. Well,
and we've also we've for sure talked about figures on
the Pie cast before who single handedly, uh had just
terrible consequences and a lot of a lot of time.
That was a person who was already in a position
of power, um not not you know, the relatively well
(35:13):
off son of a vicar who didn't seem to have
any other notable background to to put him in that
level of authority besides his own authority that he decided
to keep up for himself. Anyway, do you have a
little bit of listener mail that's maybe less damaging to
people's lives? Sure is? That'd be great. This is from Brian.
(35:36):
Brian says, Hi, Holly and Tracy. I loved listening to
your podcast at work. You two are both so funny
and informative, and you were the reason I've started to
use the word delightful more in my life. I learned
so much from the two of you, and so I'm
super excited to share some of my own knowledge. I
was doing some research on the development of liturgical colors
in the Catholic Church. During different times of the year,
(35:58):
the priest's vestments are different colors. Very early on lent
An Advent used black because it was a penitential time.
They made the black by dyeing the clothes either with
blue or purple. Dye over and over, the black would
fade back to blue or purple, and most churches couldn't
bother to redie them. Eventually, people just sort of accepted
that the right color at these times the year was
(36:20):
purple or blue. Blue instead of purple was used in
Salisbury in particular. The Latin word for Salisbury is sarum,
so when you see blue used it Advent instead of
purple today it is called saram usage. Brian goes on
to say, if you're curious about more religious history stuff, uh.
Brian co hosts a podcast called Sunday School for Heathens,
(36:42):
which is currently on um on hiatus for some personal
reasons that I'm not going to get into because privacy,
but that sounds pretty cool. It involves Brian explaining some
of the weirder parts of Christianity to a non religious
co host, UM, and I would like to say I
love the name Sunday School for Heathens. So thank you
so much Brian for writing this to us. UM. While
(37:03):
I was working on the podcast The Mysteries of the
Color Blue, which we did for our live show, and
that's the episode that this is in reference to, for
a while I was down a rabbit hole of of
all the different UM colors used UH in religious services
in Europe and in clothing for religious people. And one
(37:24):
of the things that UH that was temporarily in the
outline and then came out was definitely about UM how
often religious figures were supposed to be wearing black, but
it was really hard to get a really true color
fast black dye, so a lot of times the black
really looked more like a faded bluish purple ish color. UH.
(37:45):
That whole evolution was a thing that had at one
point been in the outline, and then I was like,
this is too long, and it's kind of a digression.
So I'm very glad that we had a chance to
talk about it here. Thank you so much, Brian. For
writing if you would like to write to us where
a history podcasts at how stuff works dot com. We're
also all over social media at missed in History. That's
where you'll find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. You
(38:08):
can come to our website, which is missed in History
dot com and find an archive of all of our
episodes and share notes for the episodes Holly and I
have done together. And you can subscribe to our show
on Apple podcast, the I heart radio app, and anywhere
else you get your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History
Class is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works.
(38:30):
For more podcasts, for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
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Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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