Another research post from The Brampton Witch Murders today, concerning the Witchfinder General himself, Matthew Hopkins (or, as Hopkins titles himself in his own book, the ‘Witch Finder Generall’).

Since I was writing about witch-hunting in the 17th century – specifically 1666 – I was desperate to include Hopkins in my book… except that he died in 1647. So I gave him a fictional son, Simon, who bestrode the land on a jet-black charger, continuing his father’s work. Yay, fiction!

If you know the name Matthew Hopkins, there’s a good chance it’s from the 1968 folk-horror film, Witchfinder General, starring Vincent Price. I watched it last year and… it’s pretty awful, sadly. Rather kitsch and radically unconvincing. Someone should remake it as it should have been made: really dark.

My featured image depicts the frontispiece from Matthew’s own pamphlet, The Discovery of Witches, and it is so evocative. That’s a couple of Essex ‘witches’ pictured with him, alongside their devilish familiars – hideously contorted beasts with names like Holt, Jamara and Pyewackett.

Hopkins was a militant Puritan, with deeply strict views on God, worship and behaviour. He truly believed he was on a God-given mission to rid England of witches, who, at that time – 1640s – were seen as a genuine threat by vast swathes of the population. The penalty for witchcraft, if found guilty at the assize court, was death.

On the plus side, for the poor accused women – and more rarely men (one in ten executed for witchcraft was male) – was that science was beginning to rear its head and more educated folk were becoming sceptical of the whole idea of witches. So the courts took some persuading, which meant that increasing numbers were found not guilty as the 17th century wore on.

Since Matthew Hopkins genuinely believed in his work, I did wonder whether he deserved his malevolent reputation. But then you learn of his methods – essentially torture – by which he extracted confessions. I mirrored the same in my fictional son, Simon Hopkins, and had a great deal of fun with it.

Incidentally, the women depicted with Hopkins in that woodcut illustration were real victims of the witchfinder. Rebecca West and Elizabeth Clarke of Manningtree in Essex, were tried at Chelmsford assizes on 29 July 1645 – both were found guilty (the Witchfinder General’s first victims) and hanged.

For today’s rabbit-hole treat, I’ve found you an account of the entire trial proceedings, which you could have originally purchased at a bookshop in Popes-head Alley in London, back in 1645.