Chapter IV: Part 4

[176] John Stearne, Hopkins’s associate, speaks of what
he has himself “learned and observed since the 25. of
March 1645 as being in part an agent in finding out or
discovering some of those since that time, being about two
hundred in number, in Essex, Suffolke, Northamptonshire,
Huntingtonshire, Bedfordshire, Norfolke, Cambridgeshire,
and the Isle of Ely in the County of Cambridge, besides
other places, justly and deservedly executed upon
their legall tryalls” (A Confirmation and Discovery of
Witch-craft, London, 1648, To the Reader). Stearne wrote
his book after the death of Hopkins, which took place
in 1647. In the life of Hopkins in the Dictionary of
National Biography, the Witch-Finder is said to have
begun operations in 1644. This is a manifest error.
Hopkins himself (Discovery of Witches, 1647, p. 2, see
below) says that his experiences began at Manningtree “in
_March_ 1644,” but Stearne’s statement makes it clear
that this is Old Style, for Stearne was also concerned
in the Manningtree business, and the year is completely
established by the report of the proceedings,--A True
and Exact Relation of the several Informations [etc.] of
the late Witches, London, 1645 (cf. T. B. Howell’s State
Trials, IV, 817 ff.). The traditional statement that
Hopkins was hanged as a wizard (cf. Hudibras, Part ii,
canto 3, 11. 139 ff.) is disproved by the following passage
in Stearne: “I am certain (not-withstanding whatsoever hath
been said of him) he died peaceably at Manningtree, after a
long sicknesse of a Consumption, as many of his generation
had done before him, without any trouble of conscience for
what he had done, as was falsly reported of him” (p. 61).
For the record of his burial, Aug. 12, 1647, see Notes and
Queries, 1st Series, X, 285. The notion that Hopkins was
“swum” and, since he floated, was subsequently hanged,
most likely originated in a document criticising his
performances which was brought before the Norfolk judges in
1646 or (more probably) in 1647. Hopkins printed a reply to
this document shortly before his death,--The Discovery of
Witches: in Answer to severall Queries, lately delivered
to the Judges of Assize for the County of Norfolk. And now
published by Matthew Hopkins, Witch-finder (London, 1647).
The first “query,” as printed by Hopkins, was this:--“That
he must needs be the greatest Witch, Sorcerer, and
Wizzard himselfe, else hee could not doe it.” Cf. Wright,
Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, II, 145 ff.; Lives of
Twelve Bad Men, edited by Thomas Seccombe, London, 1894,
p. 64; Ady, A Candle in the Dark, 1656, pp. 101-102; James
Howell, as above (p. 8, note 7); Gough, British Topography,
1780, II, 254.

[177] Legge, Scottish Review, XVIII, 273-274. Ady (A
Candle in the Dark, 1656, p. 105) says: “A little before
the Conquest of _Scotland_ (as is reported upon good
intelligence) the Presbytery of _Scotland_ did, by their
own pretended authority, take upon them to Summon, Convent,
Censure, and Condemn people to cruel death for Witches and
(as is credibly reported) they caused four thousand to be
executed by Fire and Halter, and had as many in prison
to be tried by them, when God sent his conquering Sword
to suppress them.” The “conquest” to which Ady refers
is Cromwell’s in 1650. It is well known that from 1640
to Cromwell’s invasion, witch prosecution ran riot in
Scotland, but that during his supremacy there were very few
executions in that country (see Legge, pp. 266-267). Cf. p.
8, note 6, above.

[178] Die praktischen Folgen des Aberglaubens, p. 34.

[179] Soldan, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, ed. Heppe, I,
492.

[180] Dæmonolatreia, Lugduni, 1595.

[181] See p. 42, above.

[182] Soldan, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse, ed. Heppe, II,
38 ff.

[183] See the extraordinary enumeration in Roskoff,
Geschichte des Teufels, Leipzig, 1869, II, 293 ff.; cf. S.
Riezler, Geschichte der Hexenprozesse in Bayern, pp. 141
ff., 283 ff.

[184] Potts, The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches, 1613
(Chetham Society reprint).

[185] Matthew Hopkins, Discovery of Witches, 1647, p. 3.

[186] John Stearne, A Confirmation and Discovery of
Witchcraft, 1648, p. 14.

[187] Wright, Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, Chap. xxv.

[188] Memorials, 1732, p. 163.

[189] Page 450.

[190] A Relation of the Diabolical Practices of above
Twenty Wizards and Witches, 1697; Sadducismus Debellatus,
1698; A History of the Witches of Renfrewshire, 1877. A
seventh committed suicide in prison.

[191] An Account of the Tryals, Examination and
Condemnation, of Elinor Shaw, and Mary Phillips [etc.],
London [1705]; The Northamptonshire Witches. Being a true
and faithful Account of the Births [etc.] of Elinor Shaw,
and Mary Phillips, (The two notorious Witches) That were
executed at Northampton on Saturday, March the 17th,
1705.... Communicated in a Letter last Post, from Mr. Ralph
Davis, of Northampton ... London, 1705. The first tract is
dated March 8, 1705; the second, March 18th, 1705. Both are
signed “Ralph Davis.” I have used the reprints by Taylor &
Son, Northampton, 1866. On this case, see [F. Marshall,]
A Brief History of Witchcraft, with Especial Reference
to Northamptonshire, Northampton, 1866, pp. 13-15, 16;
Notes and Queries, 7th Series, IX, 117; Northamptonshire
Notes and Queries II, 19; Eugene Teesdale, in Bygone
Northamptonshire, edited by William Andrews, 1891, pp.
114-115; Gough, British Topography, 1780, II, 46.

[192] See p. 48, above. This was the last conviction for
witchcraft, and probably the last trial, in England. Mrs.
Mary Hickes and her daughter are said by Gough (British
Topography, 1780, I, 439, II, 254, note) to have been
executed for witchcraft on July 28, 1716, at Huntingdon.
Gough cites a contemporary pamphlet as authority. The
genuineness of this case is doubted (see Notes and Queries,
1st Series, V, 514; 2d Series, V, 503-504), but Mr. F. A.
Inderwick argues for its acceptance (Side-Lights on the
Stuarts, 2d ed., 1891, pp. 177-180), and it has certainly
never been disproved. The alleged executions at Northampton
in 1712 are certainly based on a slip of the pen in Gough,
British Topography, 1780, II, 52; the cases actually
occurred in 1612, and an account of them may be found in a
tract (The Witches of Northamptonshire) published in that
year, and reprinted by Taylor & Son, Northampton, 1867.
See also Thomas Sternberg, The Dialect and Folk-Lore of
Northamptonshire, London, 1851, p. 152; F. Marshall, A
Brief History of Witchcraft, Northampton, 1866, p. 16.

[193] That is, Francis Bragge, who was also a clergyman,
being Curate of Biggleswade according to Mr. W. B. Gerish
(A Hertfordshire Witch, p. 8).

[194] Commentaries, book iv, chap. 4, sec. 6 (4th ed.,
1770, IV, 60-61); cf. Dr. Samuel A. Green, Groton in the
Witchcraft Times, 1883, p. 29. In 1715 and 1716 there
appeared, in London, A Compleat History of Magick, Sorcery,
and Witchcraft, in two volumes, which asserted the truth,
and gave the particulars, of a long line of such phenomena,
from the case of the Witches of Warboys (in 1592) to the
Salem Witchcraft itself. The book was the occasion of Dr.
Francis Hutchinson’s Historical Essay, published in 1718,
and in a second edition in 1720. Richard Boulton, the
author of the Compleat History, returned to the charge in
1722, in The Possibility and Reality of Magick, Sorcery,
and Witchcraft, Demonstrated. Or, a Vindication of a
Compleat History of Magick, etc. The Compleat History came
out anonymously, but Boulton, who describes himself as
“sometime of Brazen-Nose College in Oxford,” acknowledges
the authorship in his reply to Hutchinson.

[195] The Case of Witchcraft at Coggeshall, Essex, in
the year, 1699, being the Narrative of the Rev. J. Boys,
Minister of that Parish. Printed from his Manuscript in the
possession of the Publisher. London, A. Russell Smith, 1901
(50 copies only).

[196] In Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World, 1700,
pp. 3 ff.

[197] An Answer of a Letter from a Gentleman in Fife,
1705; cf. also A Collection of Rare and Curious Tracts on
Witchcraft and the Second Sight, Edinburgh, 1820, pp. 79 ff.

[198] Daily Journal, Jan. 15, 1731, as quoted in the
Gentleman’s Magazine for 1731, I, 29.

[199] Daines Barrington points with pride to this early
abolition of penalties:--“It is greatly to the honour of
this country, to have repealed all the statutes against
this supposed crime so long ago as the year 1736, when
laws of the same sort continue in full force against these
miserable and aged objects of compassion, in every other
part of Europe” (Observations on the More Ancient Statutes,
3d ed., 1769, p. 367. on 20 Henr. VI.).

[200] Gough, British Topography, 1780, I, 517.

[201] Gentleman’s Magazine for 1751, XXI, 186, 198; Wright,
Narratives of Sorcery and Magic, II, 326 ff.; Gough, as
above, I, 431.

[202] Soldan, ed. Heppe, II, 314, 322, 327.

[203] See, for example, A. Löwenstimm, Aberglaube und
Strafrecht, Berlin. 1897; W. Mannhardt, Die praktischen
Folgen des Aberglaubens, 1878 (Deutsche Zeit- und
Streit-Fragen, ed. by F. von Holstendorff, VII, nos. 97,
98); Wuttke, Der Deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart,
2d ed., 1869; the chapter on Hexerei und Hexenverfolgung
im neunzehnten Jahrhundert, in Soldan, Geschichte der
Hexenprozesse, ed. by Heppe, II, 330 ff; cf. The Monthly
Chronicle of North-Country Lore and Legend, [II,] 1888, p.
394; North Riding Record Society, Publications, IV, 20,
note; History of Witchcraft, sketched from the Popular
Tales of the Peasantry of Nithsdale and Galloway (R. H.
Cromek, Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, 1810, pp.
272 ff.); H. M. Doughty, Blackwood’s Magazine, March,
1898, CLXIII, 394-395; Brand’s Popular Antiquities, ed.
Hazlitt, III, 71, 95, 96,100 ff.; The Antiquary, XLI, 363;
W. G. Black, Folk-Medicine, 1883; Miss Burne, Shropshire
Folk-Lore, Chap. xiii; W. Henderson, Notes on the Folk-Lore
of the Northern Counties, 1879, Chap. vi; J. G. Campbell,
Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands
of Scotland, 1902; Notes and Queries, 1st Series, VII,
613, XI, 497-498; 3rd Series, II, 325; 4th Series, III,
238, VII, 53, VIII, 44; 5th Series, V, 126, 223, IX, 433,
X, 205, XI, 66; 6th Series, I, 19, II, 145, IV, 510; 7th
Series, IX, 425, XI, 43; 8th Series, IV, 186, 192, V,
226, VI, 6, VII, 246; 9th Series, II, 466, XII, 187; the
journal, Folk-Lore, _passim_.

[204] Cf. Allen Putnam, Witchcraft of New England explained
by Modern Spiritualism, Boston, 1880.

[205] “And by the way, to touch but a word or two of
this matter, for that the horrible vsing of your poore
subiects inforceth thereunto: It may please your Grace to
vnderstand, that this kind of people, I meane witches, and
sorcerers, within these few last yeeres, are maruellously
increased within this your Graces realme. These eies haue
seene most euident and manifest marks of their wickednesse.
Your Graces subiects pine away euen vnto death, their
collour fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their speech is
benummed, their senses are bereft. Wherefore, your poore
subiects most humble petition vnto your Highnesse is, that
the lawes touching such malefactours, may be put in due
execution. For the shole of them is great, their doings
horrible, their malice intollerable, the examples most
miserable. And I pray God, they neuer practise further,
then vpon the subiect. But this only by the way, these
be the scholers of Beelzebub the chiefe captaine of the
Diuels” (Certaine Sermons, 1611, p. 204, in Workes of
Jewell; cf. Parker Society edition, Part II, p. 1028). I
cannot date this sermon. 1572, the year to which it is
assigned by Dr. Nicholson (in his edition of Reginald
Soot’s Discoverie, p. xxxii), is certainly wrong, for Jewel
died in 1571. Strype associates it rather vaguely with
the passage of the Witchcraft Act of 1563 (Annals of the
Reformation, I, 8; cf. I, 295).

[206] Legge, The Scottish Review, XVIII, 262. See also
Newes from Scotland declaring the Damnable Life of Dr.
Fian, 1591 (Roxburghe Club reprint).

[207] Mather Papers, Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 4th
Series, VIII, 366-368. This was the same Joshua Moodey, it
will be remembered, who afterwards assisted Philip English
and his family to escape from jail in Boston, and thus
saved them from being executed as guilty of witchcraft
(Sibley, Harvard Graduates, I, 376-377.)

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