Matthew Hopkins
Matthew Hopkins, d. 1647, was an English witchhunter whose career flourished in the time of the English Civil War. He held, or claimed to hold, the office of "Witch-finder General", though this was not a title ever bestowed by Parliament and conducted witch-hunts in the counties of Suffolk, Essex, Norfolk and other eastern counties of England.
Matthew Hopkins, born in Great Wenham, Suffolk, was a shipping clerk and thought to be the son of James Hopkins, a Puritan clergyman; Hopkins is commonly thought to have been a lawyer, however, there is scant evidence to suggest this was the case. According to his book The Discovery of Witches (not to be confused with Reginald Scot's book The Discovery of Witchcraft) he began his career as a witch-finder when he overheard various women discussing their meetings with the Devil in March 1644 in Manningtree, a town near Colchester, where he was living at the time. As a result of Hopkins's accusations, nineteen alleged witches were hanged and four more died in prison.
Hopkins was soon travelling over eastern England, claiming, perhaps truthfully, to be officially commissioned by Parliament to uncover and prosecute witches. His witch-finding career spanned from 1645 to 1647. While torture was technically unlawful in England, he used various methods of browbeating to extract confessions from some of his victims. He used sleep deprivation as a sort of bloodless torture. He also used a "swimming" test to see if the accused would float or sink in water, the theory being that witches had renounced their baptism, so that all water would supernaturally reject them. He also employed "witch prickers" who pricked the accused with knives and special needles, looking for the Devil's mark that was supposed to be dead to all feeling and would not bleed. It was believed that the witch's familiar would drink their blood from the mark as milk from a teat.
Hopkins and his co-worker John Stearne, together with female assistants, were well paid for their work, earning £20 from one visit to Stowmarket, Suffolk, which was then more than a year's wages for most people.
Samuel Butler's satire Hudibras commented on Hopkins's activity, saying:
- Has not this present Parliament
- A Lieger to the Devil sent,
- Fully impowr'd to treat about
- Finding revolted witches out
- And has not he, within a year,
- Hang'd threescore of 'em in one shire?
- Some only for not being drown'd,
- And some for sitting above ground,
- Whole days and nights, upon their breeches,
- And feeling pain, were hang'd for witches.
- And some for putting knavish tricks
- Upon green geese and turky-chicks?
- And pigs, that suddenly deceast
- Of griefs unnat'ral, as he guest;
- Who after prov'd himself a witch
- And made a rod for his own breech.
The last line refers to a tradition that disgruntled villagers caught Hopkins and subjected him to his own "swimming" test: he floated, and it was therefore suspected that he was hanged for witchcraft himself but, again, no evidence of this ever happening exists. However, it is believed by most historians that Hopkins actually died of illness (possibly tuberculosis) in his home. The parish records of Manningtree in Essex record his burial in August of 1647.
Matthew Hopkins in popular culture
Matthew Hopkins has been immortalized in song, literature and film for his role as the Witchfinder General. References include:
- Witchfinder General, a 1966 novel by Ronald Bassett
- Witchfinder General, a 1968 film based on the Bassett's novel starring Vincent Price as Matthew Hopkins
- Witchfinder General, a New Wave of British Heavy Metal band
- "Witchfinder General", a song by Witchfinder General from their album Death Penalty (1982)
- Matthew Hopkins is named as the distant ancestor of Pamela Chamcha (neé Lovelace) in Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses
- "Hopkins (The Witchfinder General)", a song by British doom band Cathedral from their album The Carnival Bizarre (1995)
- "I, The Witchfinder", a song by another British doom band, Electric Wizard, from their album Dopethrone (2000), although it references the 1971 film Mark of the Devil
- Witchsmeller Pursuivant, a character on the British sitcom Blackadder
- The Devil on the Road, a 1978 novel by Robert Westall about a young man transported to the 17th century to combat Hopkins and save a woman accused of witchcraft.
- In Good Omens, a 1990 novel by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Matthew Hopkins and his position as Witchfinder General are briefly mentioned when describing the history of the Witchfinder Army, a group in the novel.