Matthew Hopkins
In all likelihood, the brief and bloody career of this persecutor is taken as proof that England in the 1640s was a cruel and superstitious place where witch mania was common (‘All those vicious Puritans, you know!’). In fact, if Hopkins’ activity proves anything, it is the exact opposite. Why do we not know of other dedicated witch hunters?
Because there were none. Hopkins is a one-off. That does not mean he was unimportant. What it does mean is that we need, as best as we are able, to understand this maverick young man and the strange circumstances that allowed his three-year campaign to happen – because it’s happened over and again throughout history. In every era histrionic rabble-rousers appear, appealing to popular anxieties and prejudices and scapegoating groups and individuals who are, supposedly, responsible for the ills of society. The victims vary – Jews, immigrants, the government, the EU, the ‘neighbour from hell’ – but, whoever the current ‘them’ is, the symptoms of this social disease seldom vary. So, who was Matthew Hopkins and what might we learn from him?
Hopkins (c.1620-1647) was the son of a Puritan minister at Great Wenham in Suffolk. He was put to the law and his trainingimpulse to form their partnership came from the older man. Certainly, in his own apologia, published shortly after Hopkins’ death, he denounced witchcraft in the strongest possible terms, ‘to the end I might satisfy the opinion of such as desire to be further satisfied’ ( ). As we shall see, there were several who questioned the witchfinders’ rationale and motivation and Stearne asserted vehemently, and with copious biblical references, that satanic congress was the vilest of all crimes.
