Part 13 (1/2)

[28] _Ibid._, p. 80.

[29] Baines, _Lancaster_, ed. of 1868-1870, II, 12. Utley, who was a professed conjurer, was alleged to have bewitched to death one a.s.sheton.

[30] _Travels in Holland, the United Provinces, England, Scotland and Ireland, 1634-1635, by Sir William Brereton, Bart._ (Chetham Soc., no.

1. 1844), 33.

[31] (London, 1635.) As to Heywood see also chapter X.

[32] The correspondent who sent a copy of the MS. to the _Gentleman's Magazine_ signs himself ”B. C. T.” I have been unable to identify him.

For his account of the MS. and for its contents see _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1832, pt. I, 405-410, 489-492.

[33] John Aubrey, _Letters written by Eminent Persons_ (London, 1813), II, 379, says that Harvey ”had made dissections of froggs, toads and a number of other animals, and had curious observations on them.” This fits in well with the story, and in some measure goes to confirm it.

[34] For example, in 1637 the Bishop of Bath and Wells sent Joice Hunniman to Lord Wrottesley to examine her and exonerate her. He did so, and the bishop wrote thanking him and abusing ”certain apparitors who go about frightening the people.” See _Hist. MSS. Comm. Reports_, II, app., p. 48. For a case of the acquittal of a witch and the exposure of the pretended convulsions of her accuser, see _Cal. St. P., Dom., 1635_, 477. For example of suits for slander see North Riding Rec. Soc, IV, 182, session July 9, 1640.

[35] A solitary pamphlet of this period must be mentioned. It was ent.i.tled: _Fearefull Newes from Coventry, or A true Relation and Lamentable Story of one Thomas Holt of Coventry a Musitian who through Covetousnesse and immoderate love of money, sold himselfe to the Devill, with whom he had made a contract for certaine yeares--And also of his Lamentable end and death, on the 16 day of February 1641_ (London, 1642). The ”sad subject of this little treatise” was a musician with nineteen children. Fearing that he would not be able to provide for them, he is alleged to have made a contract with the Devil, who finally broke his neck.

CHAPTER VIII.

MATTHEW HOPKINS.

In the annals of English witchcraft Matthew Hopkins occupies a place by himself. For more than two years he was the arch-instigator in prosecutions which, at least in the numbers of those executed, mark the high tide of the delusion. His name was one hardly known by his contemporaries, but he has since become a figure in the annals of English roguery. Very recently his life has found record among those of ”Twelve Bad Men.”[1]

What we know of him up to the time of his first appearance in his successful role about March of 1644/5 is soon told. He was the son of James Hopkins, minister of Wenham[2] in Suffolk. He was ”a lawyer of but little note” at Ipswich, thence removing to Manningtree. Whether he may have been the Matthew Hopkins of Southwark who complained in 1644 of inability to pay the taxes[3] is more than doubtful, but there is reason enough to believe that he found the law no very remunerative profession.

He was ready for some new venture and an accidental circ.u.mstance in Manningtree turned him into a wholly new field of endeavor. He a.s.sumed the role of a witchfinder and is said to have taken the t.i.tle of witchfinder-general.[4]

He had made little or no preparation for the work that now came to his hand. King James's famous _Daemonologie_ he was familiar with, but he may have studied it after his first experiences at Manningtree. It seems somewhat probable, too, that he had read, and indeed been much influenced by, the account of the Lancas.h.i.+re witches of 1612, as well as by Richard Bernard's _Advice to Grand Jurymen_. But, if he read the latter book, he seems altogether to have misinterpreted it. As to his general information and education, we have no data save the hints to be gained from his own writings. His letter to John Gaule and the little brochure which he penned in self-defence reveal a man able to express himself with some clearness and with a great deal of vigor. There were force of character and nervous energy behind his defiant words. It is no exaggeration, as we shall see in following his career, to say that the witch crusader was a man of action, who might in another field have made his mark.

To know something of his religious proclivities would be extremely interesting. On this point, however, he gives us no clue. But his fellow worker, John Stearne, was clearly a Puritan[5] and Hopkins was surely of the same faith. It can hardly be proved, however, that religious zeal prompted him in his campaign. For a time of spiritual earnestness his utterances seem rather lukewarm.

It was in his own town that his attention was first directed towards the dangers of witchcraft. The witches, he tells us, were accustomed to hold their meetings near his house. During one of their a.s.semblies he overheard a witch bid her imps to go to another witch. The other witch, whose name was thus revealed to him--Elizabeth Clarke, a poor one-legged creature--was promptly taken into custody on Hopkins's charge.[6] Other accusations poured in. John Rivet had consulted a cunning woman about the illness of his wife, and had learned that two neighbors were responsible. One of these, he was told, dwelt a little above his own home; ”whereupon he beleeved his said wife was bewitched by ...

Elizabeth Clarke, ... for that the said Elizabeth's mother and some other of her kinsfolke did suffer death for witchcraft.” The justices of the peace[7] accordingly had her ”searched by women who had for many yeares known the Devill's marks,” and, when these were found on her, they bade her custodians ”keep her from sleep two or three nights, expecting in that time to see her familiars.”[8]

Torture is unknown to English law; but, in our day of the ”third degree,” n.o.body needs to be told that what is put out at the door may steal in at the window. It may be that, in the seventeenth century, the pious English justices had no suspicion that enforced sleeplessness is a form of physical torture more nerve-racking and irresistible than the thumb-screw. Three days and nights of ”watching” brought Elizabeth Clarke to ”confess many things”; and when, on the fourth night, her townsmen Hopkins and Stearne dropped in to fill out from her own lips the warrants against those she had named as accomplices, she told them that, if they would stay and do her no hurt, she would call one of her imps.

Hopkins told her that he would not allow it, but he stayed. Within a quarter of an hour the imps appeared, six of them, one after another.

The first was a ”white thing in the likeness of a Cat, but not altogether so big,” the second a white dog with some sandy spots and very short legs, the third, Vinegar Tom, was a greyhound with long legs.

We need not go further into the story. The court records give the testimony of Hopkins and Stearne. Both have related the affair in their pamphlets.[9] Six others, four of whom were women, made oath to the appearances of the imps. In this respect the trial is unique among all in English history. Eight people testified that they had seen the imps.[10] Two of them referred elsewhere to what they had seen, and their accounts agreed substantially.[11] It may be doubted if the supporting evidence offered at any trial in the seventeenth century in England went so far towards establis.h.i.+ng the actual appearance of the so-called imps of the witches.

How are we to account for these phenomena? What was the nature of the delusion seemingly shared by eight people? It is for the psychologist to answer. Two explanations occur to the layman. It is not inconceivable that there were rodents in the gaol--the terrible conditions in the gaols of the time are too well known to need description--and that the creatures running about in the dark were easily mistaken by excited people for something more than natural. It is possible, too, that all the appearances were the fabric of imagination or invention. The spectators were all in a state of high expectation of supernatural appearances. What the over-alert leaders declared they had seen the others would be sure to have seen. Whether those leaders were themselves deceived, or easily duped the others by calling out the description of what they claimed to see, would be hard to guess. To the writer the latter theory seems less plausible. The accounts of the two are so clearly independent and yet agree so well in fact that they seem to weaken the case for collusive imposture. With that a layman may be permitted to leave the matter. What hypnotic possibilities are inherent in the story he cannot profess to know. Certainly the accused woman was not a professed dealer in magic and it is not easy to suspect her of having hypnotized the watchers.

Upon Elizabeth Clarke's confessions five other women--”the old beldam”

Anne West, who had ”been suspected as a witch many yeers since, and suffered imprisonment for the same,”[12] her daughter Rebecca,[13] Anne Leech, her daughter Helen Clarke, and Elizabeth Gooding--were arrested.

As in the case of the first, there was soon abundance of evidence offered about them. One Richard Edwards bethought himself and remembered that while crossing a bridge he had heard a cry, ”much like the shrieke of a Polcat,” and had been nearly thrown from his horse. He had also lost some cattle by a mysterious disease. Moreover his child had been nursed by a goodwife who lived near to Elizabeth Clarke and Elizabeth Gooding. The child fell sick, ”rowling the eyes,” and died. He believed that Anne Leech and Elizabeth Gooding were the cause of its death. His belief, however, which was offered as an independent piece of testimony, seems to have rested on Anne Leech's confession, which had been made before this time and was soon given to the justices of the peace. Robert Taylor charged Elizabeth Gooding with the death of his horse, but he too had the suggestion from other witnesses. Prudence Hart declared that, being in her bed in the night, ”something fell down on her right side.” ”Being dark she cannot tell in what shape it was, but she believeth Rebecca West and Anne West the cause of her pains.”

But the accusers could hardly outdo the accused. No sooner was a crime suggested than they took it upon themselves. It seemed as if the witches were running a race for position as high criminal. With the exception of Elizabeth Gooding, who stuck to it that she was not guilty, they cheerfully confessed that they had lamed their victims, caused them to ”languish,” and even killed them. The meetings at Elizabeth Clarke's house were recalled. Anne Leech remembered that there was a book read ”wherein shee thinks there was no goodnesse.”[14]

So the web of charges and counter-charges was spun until twenty-three or more women were caught in its meshes. No less than twelve of them confessed to a share in the most revolting crimes. But there was one who, in court, retracted her confession.[15] At least five utterly denied their guilt. Among them was a poor woman who had aroused suspicion chiefly because a young hare had been seen in front of her house. She was ready to admit that she had seen the hare, but denied all the more serious charges.[16] Another of those who would not plead guilty sought to ward off charges against herself by adding to the charges acc.u.mulated against her mother. Hers was a d.a.m.ning accusation.

Her mother had threatened her and the next night she ”felt something come into the bed about her legges, ... but could not finde anything.”