Witchfinder General

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Witchfinder General" – Not Just the Tudors

Episode Information

• Title: Witchfinder General
• Podcast: Not Just the Tudors
• Host: Professor Suzannah Lipscomb
• Guest: Professor Malcolm Gaskell, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
• Release Date: November 14, 2024

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1. Introduction to the Episode

In the "Witchfinder General" episode of Not Just the Tudors, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb delves into the tumultuous period of the British Civil War in the 1640s, focusing on the rise and impact of notorious witchfinders Matthew Hopkins and John Stern. Joined by esteemed historian Professor Malcolm Gaskell, the episode explores the socio-political climate that enabled witch hunts to flourish and the legacy these figures left behind.

2. The Context: British Civil War and Witchcraft Fear

Professor Gaskell sets the stage by describing the era's high tensions:

Professor Malcolm Gaskell [02:05]: "In the disjuncture and anarchy of the British Civil war of the 1640s, in which people broke faith with friends and family because of their position towards who held political power, some also located another foe dwelling in their erstwhile neighbours and kin."

This period wasn’t merely a military struggle but also a "spiritual war" where communities were deeply divided, fostering an environment ripe for witchcraft accusations.

3. Matthew Hopkins: Character and Background

Matthew Hopkins emerges as a central figure, described as:

Professor Gaskell [05:00]: "Matthew Hopkins, known as the Witchfinder General... a dangerous maverick whose initiatives led to gross injustices."

Though Hopkins left few personal records, his reputation as a fervent Puritan with an intense zeal to eradicate witches is well established. His partnership with John Stern, a slightly older and more established figure, catalyzed witch hunts in East Anglia, leading to the interrogation of approximately 300 suspects and the execution of a third.

4. Witchfinding Campaign: Operations and Methods

Hopkins and Stern operated primarily through grassroots initiatives, lacking official sanction from institutions like Parliament. Their authority stemmed from local magistrates and community leaders desperate to restore order. Their method involved intense interrogation tactics aimed at eliciting confessions:

Professor Gaskell [14:00]: "Keeping somebody awake for two or three nights and subjecting them to some fairly heavy brow beating... this was a very effective way to do this."

The duo focused on producing "homespun honesty" in confessions, seeking narratives that aligned with demonological beliefs, such as pacts with the devil and possession by imps.

5. The Process of Accusation and Prosecution

Accusations often began with local grievances. The first major case involved Elizabeth Clark, a middle-aged woman accused of cursing a tailor. Under pressure and observation, Clark confessed to consorting with the devil, illustrating the manipulated nature of these confessions:

Professor Gaskell [13:50]: "Elizabeth Clark does confess that she had given herself to the devil... these were actually extremely terrifying... to local people and quite possibly to Hopkins and Stern themselves."

Their process bypassed formal legal procedures, relying instead on coercion and communal fears to validate their hunts.

6. Legal Issues and Public Skepticism

The witchfinders operated in a legal gray area. While formal torture was not sanctioned under English law, Hopkins and Stern employed unofficial coercive methods. Their aggressive tactics contrasted sharply with the high standards of proof required in legal proceedings, resulting in a high acquittal rate—approximately 75%.

Professor Gaskell [26:25]: "The ends justify the means for a short period of time... trying to produce the kind of physical proof that... could persuade a jury of the guilt of the suspect."

Skepticism grew as methods became increasingly questionable, leading to public dissent and challenges from figures like John Gall, a minister who condemned witchfinders for exacerbating disorder.

7. Decline of Hopkins and the Witchfinding Era

By the mid-1640s, Hopkins’ influence began to wane due to several factors:

• Health Issues: Hopkins fell ill, limiting his activities.
• Public Opposition: Increasing resistance to his methods undermined his authority.
• Legal Scrutiny: High acquittal rates and legal challenges eroded trust in his hunts.

Hopkins’ self-defense in 1647 attempted to justify his actions as pious and necessary, countering accusations of corruption:

Professor Gaskell [36:13]: "He is a godly man, he did it for the right reasons, he didn't really take very much money..."

Despite his efforts, the movement lost momentum, marking the end of England’s intense witch-hunting phase.

8. Legacy and Impact

Hopkins and Stern left a lasting legacy as symbols of unchecked authority and mass hysteria. Their campaigns are remembered not for their success in eliminating witchcraft but for the "gross injustices" and societal divisions they caused.

Professor Gaskell [41:12]: "They become symbols of chaos and disorder... they actually turned out to be nothing of the sword."

Their story serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of fanaticism and the importance of due process in justice systems.

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Notable Quotes

• Professor Malcolm Gaskell [07:07]: "They have a great sense of purpose in fighting Antichrist in the world, but that he is, as you say, protected against whatever charms, you know, maleficent spells that witches could cast against him."

• Professor Gaskell [19:00]: "They're a kind of narrative about the individual's life... where somebody is talking about the humdrum circumstances of their life, which made that devil pact seem attractive."

• Professor Gaskell [27:40]: "Witch finders become facilitators... they say, we have experience, trust us, and go on, you know, have a go, go to the magistrate, we'll be there, we'll back you."

• Professor Gaskell [37:25]: "The witch finders... they sometimes are surprised and shocked by the things that they hear... expose the subjectivities of accused people's lives."

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Conclusion

The "Witchfinder General" episode of Not Just the Tudors offers a compelling exploration of Matthew Hopkins and John Stern's witch-hunting endeavors within the fraught context of the British Civil War. Professor Gaskell provides insightful analysis into how societal fears and fragmented communities facilitated one of history's most infamous witch hunts. The episode not only sheds light on historical injustices but also underscores the timeless relevance of safeguarding justice against fanaticism and unverified authority.

Transcript

[Professor Susanna Lipscomb]

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[Professor Susanna Lipscomb]

Hello, I'm Professor Susanna Lipscombe and welcome to Not Just the Tudors From History Hit the podcast in which we explore everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs, from Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to samurais, relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not, in other words, just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

In the disjuncture and anarchy of the British Civil war of the 1640s, in which people broke faith with friends and family because of their position towards who held political power, some also located another foe dwelling in their erstwhile neighbours and kin.

[Professor Susanna Lipscomb]

The Devil.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

That Satan made promises to the vulnerable of wealth and power had long been known and his acolytes long suspected. Since 1604, under English law, making a pact with the devil had been a capital offense. But in the 1640s in East Anglia arose men who would catalyze latent fears and simmering resentments into barely legal prosecutions of witches. By their legitimizing presence, they created an outlet for the fears of a riven society. The most famous of these men, these witch finders, was what my guest has termed a callow, vainglorious young man called Matthew Hopkins, a dangerous maverick whose initiatives led to gross injustices and seems from our perspective to quote my guest again, to be a man too far gone in blood to leave room for compassion. But how did he see himself? What were his actions and beliefs? And what damage did he do? And when was he given the title of witch finder? General? My guest today is Professor Malcolm Gaskell, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and acclaimed historian. He's been on the podcast before to talk about his wonderful book, the Ruin.

[Professor Susanna Lipscomb]

Of All Witches, which looks at a.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

Witchcraft case in America in the 1650s. But an earlier book of his, a 17th century English tragedy, looks at the events that Matthew Hopkins and his colleague John Stern were responsible for in East Anglia, during which perhaps some 300 suspects were interrogated and a third of whom were hanged. This is another episode in our series on witchcraft over the whole of this month. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb and you're listening to Not Just the Tudors. Malcolm, it is always a joy to speak to you. Thank you so much for joining me.

[Unknown Speaker]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

So we're going to be talking today about Matthew Hopkins, known as the Witchfinder General. Can we start by thinking about him as a person, his formation, his character? What do we know?

[Unknown Speaker]

Quite a lot of what has been said, including by myself, about his character is inference. I mean, he's a very shadowy figure and he died young and didn't actually leave a lot of personal records, so quite a lot has sort of been read between the lines of things that he wrote. But the general picture is that he is a young man in a hurry, that he is religiously zealous, and that he has an uncommon, unnatural, perhaps hatred of witches and a cocksure determination to rid the country of them. So he sets out on a mission. I think he sees himself as a man of the hour and he's unusually confident in the campaign that he launches in East Anglia.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

Yes. And there's very much a sense that he feels protected himself by his own godliness. I was really struck, in rereading your book, that there's an implicit idea here that the victims of witchcraft are somehow to blame for their own impiety as well, in his view.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, certainly. Well, he's the son of a Puritan clergyman. His whole culture that he's grown up in suggests that he's a member of God's elect, and that for that reason, I think he feels not only this great sense of purpose in fighting Antichrist in the world, but that he is, as you say, protected against whatever charms, you know, maleficent spells that witches could cast against him. His sense of mission. His sense of destiny perhaps isn't just because he's a cocky young man, it's really because he feels that he's part of this providential Calvinist mission to do the things that he's going to do.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

And can you give us a bit more of a sense of that conceptual context, the eschatological angst, their idea of the devil, what were kind of puritan worldview with regard to these things?

[Unknown Speaker]

He grows up in the Stour Valley between Essex and Suffolk, and in this area there are a lot of Puritans. And these Puritans, you know, they're particularly fired up not because they're. It's exclusively Puritan, but because there are what they see as hangovers from Catholicism. They see that actually that there's a. There's a fight to be had. And so that in their world it's extremely polarized. They're obviously on the side of the angels. They have God's backing, God's imprimatur and what they do. But there are many who are, they feel on the other side of things. And if they're not actually explicitly diabolical, then they are at least not members of the puritan elect. They are the damned and that needs to be resisted. They feel that they need to purify this world before Christ's second coming. And that's an idea that they take very seriously indeed.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

And he moved to Manningtree in the early 1640s. Can you give us an idea of what the area was like?

[Unknown Speaker]

So, yeah, so his father dies relatively young, his mother remarries a clergyman in Essex and so moves over the River Stour to Manningtree. Manningtree is a small decaying port. That means it's gradually getting silted up. It's a place that in the Middle Ages was doing relatively well, but he's now kind of in decline. And I think this perhaps sets some of the economic or establishes some of the economic framework in which he's growing up. Perhaps he doesn't feel especially that there is a future for him there. And maybe perhaps like a lot of young men, he sees this opportunity at this particular moment in time to go out and fight witches off his own bat and make his godly reputation not as a clergyman, but as a witch finder.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

One thing I was struck by is that there is a kind of pre history of witchcraft accusations before his arrival. I mean, it's, I think, a theme we'll come back to in terms of this balance between thinking of his agency and initiative and those of Others. But there's stuff going on already, isn't there?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, Hopkins doesn't invent witch hunting in Essex in 1645. There is a background, and I think the background is extremely important, not just the incidents of witchcraft accusations, but actually their absence during the 1630s, that there have been very, very few witch trials at all. During the reign of the latter part of the reign of James I and the reign of Charles I, the witch fund's not been a big thing. But of course, the anxieties and the animos behind witchcraft accusations have festered away regardless. And so that by the time that Hopkins comes along, there is a sort of a. You know, there's a lot of backstory to the accusations that he exposes, a lot of burgeoning resentment, not just about one's neighbors, but about witchcraft specifically. So, yeah, he's got quite a lot to work with. And again, I think that is a really important part of Hopkins modus operandi, that he isn't. He doesn't just come along because he's obsessed with witch and start blaming things on witchcraft. He works with the accusations and the resentments and the, you know, the bad blood that exists between the people in the places where he goes.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

And he also works with a partner, John Stern. We think of Hopkins as the witch finder General. We'll come back to that term. But can you tell us about Stern?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Much is made of Stern as a kind of junior sidekick. I don't think he was really. He's a slightly older man. He's a Suffolk man, too, but he has a. He's married with a family, unlike Hopkins, and he is also a mandatory at this time. And in fact, it seems, working out the timeline from the archives, that it's Stern who's there first. Stern is the one that townsmen ask to go to the magistrates because he has a certain amount of gravitas, I think, to make the complaint. And Hopkins initially rather piggybacks on top of that. They have a common purpose. They are both puritans. They both have a particular fear and hatred of witches. They both feel fired up to go and do something about it. And they both profess the kind of expertise that is needed in order to identify witches.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

And on what authority do they first act?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, it's sometimes said that they have the authority of Parliament. There's absolutely no evidence for this whatsoever. This is something which really starts at grassroots level. And the authority that so many people act on during the era of the Civil wars comes from local Communities, local magistrates, local landowners and that, you know, this is the granular state, I suppose. Everything isn't coming as law or some dicked up from the center. These are people who are slightly making it up as they go along. So that the authority that Hopkins and Stern have initially comes from the local magistrates to go and find witches. But that doesn't mean to say that there is any particular approval outside this. It's really being done on the hoof in a very ad hoc way.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

They first proceed against a woman called Elizabeth Clark. What happened?

[Unknown Speaker]

The women involved in this sometimes thought to be very old, but Elizabeth Clark is much more likely to have been a middle aged woman, a disabled woman, a woman who had a child, and that she is the first suspect who is interrogated because it is said that she cursed a local tailor during the winter of 1644-45. And as so often happened, when somebody believed that they had been or suspected that they had been bewitched, she went to a cunning woman who said whatever. She. We don't know exactly what was said, but it was something that he wanted to hear. It was something suggestive that pointed towards Elizabeth Clark. And so this is where Hopkins and Stern first of all make their investigations. And that having been watched for a number of nights, Elizabeth Clark then does confess that she had given herself to the devil. And that is said the creatures entered the room, which were not natural and they were diabolic familiars that Elizabeth Clark confessed to be her children. So incredibly outlandish, but within this very, you know, demonic and claustrophobic environment, this was actually extremely terrifying as well to local people and quite possibly to Hopkins and Stern themselves.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

Okay, I'd like to unpack some of those things. So being watched. Can we talk about the treatment of the suspects? How effective was it? What did they do?

[Unknown Speaker]

We have to remember that the torture isn't common in English law. It's not a formal part of normal procedure. So that if somebody like Hopkins and Stern wanted to put pressure on somebody, they wouldn't be able to torture them legally. So that keeping somebody awake for two or three nights and, you know, subjecting them to some, you know, some fairly heavy brow beating, I think was actually a very effective way to do this. Of course, from their perspective that the witch finders thought that they needed to break down the will of the person, the resistance, who was actually in the grip of the devil, and that possibly then the devil would either manifest himself or would desert his acolyte and therefore then they would get a confession. This is really what they're after is to try to find some means, fair or foul, in order to get a suspect to confess.

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[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

Edtails. So what sort of things are they looking for in terms of the evidence? In terms of the confessions they're getting, how are they operating to overcome the problem of proof?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, Hopkins and Stern really, this is really how they sell themselves. As the witch find, the witch hunter unfolds, they Sell themselves on the fact that they will provide the kind of proof that possibly has been lacking in previous trial, which is why previous trials have often ended in acquittal. So they are really looking for a kind of homespun honesty. I think it's actually no good to Hopkins and Stern if an accused person just parrots back the kinds of demonological obsessions which they certainly have in their heads and which they definitely do imply during these interrogations. But they want to hear something that sounds like honesty about the way that a suspected witch would talk about how she first gave herself to the devil, the circumstances, the motivations, and how that relationship with Satan unfolded. Because that's the sort of thing that, within a demonological framework, sounds like the truth, however absurd or offensive that might seem to us today.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

And what are the characteristics of the confessions they get? What are some of the features they share?

[Unknown Speaker]

They're a kind of narrative about the individual's life. So that a typical confession, if there is such a thing, would be something like many years ago, it could be 20 years ago, that I was laboring at some task, or I was unhappy in some way, and that I cursed. And then a man, some figure, appeared to me and offered some way out, some better life could lie ahead. And at that point, the woman, typically a woman, consents to this and at that, and possibly writes her name in the devil's book or allows herself to be pricked by the devil's claw. And this then seals that bond. And from that point, she has given her soul to the devil. But she has some kind of agency with which she can put things right in her life, including avenging herself on those who have wronged her. And that really sets a kind of template which is obviously demonologically damning. It really sounds like the, you know, the idea of somebody making a pact with the devil. But it also has that kind of authenticity of motivation, where somebody is talking about the humdrum circumstances of their life, which made that devil pact seem attractive.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

One feature that comes out as well is the story of the familiars, the keeping of imps. And I wonder if you can help us understand this, because I was really struck by the fact that it feels that Hopkins and Stern are driving the body searches because they employ women to search the bodies of the suspects, often more than once, and find teats on which the familiars are suckling. This is unusual. We don't find it across Europe when it comes to witch hunts. What's going on with this?

[Unknown Speaker]

It is rather a peculiarly English thing, as you Say, but you do find familiars in witch trials going back to the Elizabethan period. So that the idea of the devil taking physical form as some kind of animal, a small animal, usually is quite well established in the folkloric culture of English witchcraft. It's, again, it's not part of the formal procedure. But what one finds in these witch trials, as in all witch trials, is that there is some kind of confluence or compromise between high and low concepts of witchcraft, for want of a better way of describing it. So this isn't demonological theory that comes out of some treatise. This is just some popular belief, possibly because it's harder for uneducated people to imagine the kinds of abstracts, spiritual abstracts, positive and negative, that at this point, clergymen are expecting them to try and understand. So it's a tangible manifestation of something rather abstract, which is demonic power. And so the idea that the devil might come to you as the classic black figure with horns and the tail and the claws and so on, well, that's one way of looking at it. But the idea that secretively a witch might have an animal which really, you know, the devil's servant, it makes kind of sense within this framework.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

So we have Elizabeth Clark as one of the first accused, but by the middle of 1645, we can see that not only are the accusations spreading across Essex, but even spreading up into Suffolk. We get some of the first male witches at this point in time. John Lowes, for example. Why were towns and villagers inviting Hopkins and Sterne?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, we have to remember that this is the period of the English Civil War, which isn't just a military war, as we're often familiar with. It's a spiritual war. It's a war for the heart and soul of England. Which way is going to go? Is it going to go the king's way? The king certainly in Puritanize, has been associated with Catholicism and idolatry and backsliding in the Protestant Reformation. This is why these Puritans of the Tower Valley really want to purify things, so that a lot of these communities, towns and villages, find themselves very divided. Not just overtly politically divided, but rather spiritually divided and damaged as well. So it can be quite appealing to invite witch finders in who might root out the source, root out the poison, if you like. That seems to be affecting their communities and heal them, bring things back together. I mean, ultimately that's a delusion, but we can, I think, understand that impulse. We sometimes hear about the world turned upside down. People who invite the witch finders in want to turn the world back the right way again, and that's really why they are invited.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

That's so interesting. There's that book about the Second World War or about Nazi Germany called Hitler's Willing Executioners, and it feels that we've got that going on here as well. You say that Hopkins is supported by volunteers wherever he went, but how did his arrival act as a catalyst? How did it change the atmosphere?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, again, having said that, during the 1630s, that there haven't been very many trials, but there's actually been quite a lot of anger about witches. People are very reticent and that people don't want to go to law, which is expensive in time and money. If they feel that actually it's not going to get them anywhere, it might even backfire on them. So that what Hopkins and Stern do is that they have a galvanizing effect upon a community because they say, we have experience, trust us, and go on, you know, have a go, go to the magistrate, we'll be there, we'll back you. And so they're a very reassuring presence for people who know exactly who the witches are in their own minds and what really they should do about it. But they actually just need that helping hand to get them to do something about it. So the Hopkins and Stern become kind of facilitators. I mean, it's, again, sort of Second World War comparison. This is the banality of evil. They have that kind of administrative effect on these passions which are simmering away in these communities, drawing those things out and turning them into case at law.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

So they legitimize them and allow them to be brought to prosecution. But the things existed already.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, I think they just really give people confidence to go forward in a way that they might not have had, given this very low regime of prosecutions that one finds in the previous generation.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

And can we talk about the relationship between these proceedings and legality? Because, you know that the swimming ordeal, which we're also familiar with, with the hands, the toes and thumbs tied together, being dipped into the water to see if the witch is going to float or sink, was actually illegal, despite the fact that King James VI and First have written about it. The confessions are supposed to be voluntary and unconstrained, but evidently they're anything but. And that Matthew Hopkins appears as a witness, as indeed does one of the prosecuting magistrates. I mean, this feels quite. Quite sort of tenuous in terms of legality. What's the procedure of law here?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, there's a real tension, isn't there? Between the need to get rid of witches, it feels to be so important to these people, but it's actually very difficult to do anything about it because the demands of proof at law are actually surprisingly high. In Essex, we're looking at, across the early modern period, we're looking at an acquittal rate of roughly 75. So you've really got your work cut out to do something about it. So what Hopkins and Stern are doing is it's like, this is a very dangerous time. So the ends justify the means for a short period of time, not forever, but for this moment, the ends justify the means. And that the ends, obviously, is to get rid of witches. Many people agree that's the good thing. But the means, which are, as you suggest, rather extra legal. Well, we need to do something about it so that there are all these things going on to try to produce the kind of physical proof that, including confessions, including the results of various ordeals, to ultimately persuade a jury of the guilt of the suspect.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

And as this expands, how did people explain to themselves the fact that there aren't quite so many witches in this godly heartland of East Anglia?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, during the Civil War, the Royalists have a field day with this because they say, oh, the Puritan heartland of East Anglia, it's so godly, but also seems to be full of witches. But of course, the Puritans have quickly come back in their own propagandist pamphlets and they say, oh, well, you know, it's so godly here. This is obviously where the Devil would come to try to. Because he wouldn't go anywhere else because work's already done for him there. This is the place where the Devil really needs to focus his attention. So I think that, you know, as is often said, that Puritanism is one half of a stressful relationship. And the stressful relationship here is that the Puritans feel that their Antichrist abounds and that they are under attack. And if they don't have that kind of tension in their lives, a lot of the fire goes out of Puritanism, as, of course, actually subsequently happens later in 7 century.

[Professor Susanna Lipscomb]

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[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

For communities who are willing to do this, they actually do have to spend quite a lot of money as well, making it happen, don't they?

[Unknown Speaker]

They do. And these are, again, remember, this is the Civil War, that a lot of money is drained out of communities. Just the effects of war are very economically depressing. A lot of men have been away, land has been untended, and so that it's the worst possible time to spare money on witch finders. One might, unless actually people identified that the source of their woes wasn't just the war, but was the fact that the devil was in their midst and the better to spend the last of your money on getting rid of your witches. And then possibly the suddenly uplands lie ahead and, you know, and that's the kind of gamble which is. Which is taken often with quite enormous amounts of money or enormous proportions of a budget for these small towns that invite Hopkins and Stern in.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

Yes, the gamble on the sunlit uplands doesn't always pay off. So in terms of thinking about how the contagion spreads, we start to find witches popping up in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. Hopkins and Stern don't go there, do they? But do we see their influence?

[Unknown Speaker]

We do. This is. This is a time when, I mean, there are news sheets and there is printed popular literature, but an awful lot, really, a lot. News basically travels by word of mouth and it can. Travels very far and very fast. So that any of these small towns or communities that feel that in that previous generation they've got witches that haven't been able to do anything about it might be tempted to get in touch by some means and invite Hopkins and Stern in. I think actually just the effect of publicity, that there are witches the Hopkins and Stern find encourage other places to do something about their own witches. You see this in Kent, in Faversham in 1645, and other places further afield, places which, as you say, Hopkins, Stern never went. But there's a feeling not only that witches are abounding, but that we can do something about it. Those two things, I think, are the effect of Hopkins and Stern's campaign being publicized further afield and are the voices.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

Of skepticism at the same time.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, One of the things about witchcraft trials is that there's always skepticism. There was back in the 16th century, there was in the 17th century, there is even during the period of the East Anglian witch hunt, there is some rather sketchy but undeniable evidence that right at the start in Colchester in Essex in 1645, that there are voices, skeptical voices, being heard, not necessarily about skepticism about witchcraft, but skepticism about whether these methods and the proof that these methods produce is actually something which is safe enough on which to build a conviction. So that there is a. Having said earlier that Hopkins feels like a kind of young man in a hurry, I think he perhaps is in a bit of a hurry because, you know, everywhere he goes, he leaves. Ironically, given that he's there to try to cleanse and bring people together, he always also leaves division and disagreement about what he's done. So what he's doing, there isn't this political consensus about Hopkins, the witch finder. On the contrary, he exposes and I think exacerbates divisions that exist over the nature of legal procedure and the nature of evidence.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

And I suppose both those qualities can be found in King's Lynn, where he goes in the summer of 1646. It invites Matthew Hopkins in, but then when it comes to trial, the majority of witches are acquitted. Why?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, well, one finds this in other places, too. It's the art of the possible, really. If Hopkins is allowed to go there and he's paid to do his work and he can put a case together, all well and good, but ultimately, you've got to make that stick in a legal procedure. And I think that those divisions, especially when jurors, remember, are people who will hate the devil, will believe in witchcraft, will think it's right to get rid of witches, but they do not want to hang innocent people. And there is, you know, there is a whispering campaign about Hopkins and about what he's doing. Some people think he's great, some people don't. He's a divisive figure. And so that sometimes, I think, well, quite a lot of the time, actually, jurors give the accused the benefit of the doubt because they do not want to hang an innocent person.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

How, then, are the methods of the witch finders undermined?

[Unknown Speaker]

In the end, I think that the methods are almost being undermined right from the start, but it's just ultimately because they're not really active for very long. We're only talking about 1645-1647, and it's just that the balance tips against them. And Hopkins is sick as well, I think he's finding it harder to go on. And so he's running out of time in all sorts of ways. So when they are challenged, and we do know about challenges, there's a challenge by John Gall, minister in Great Stalton near Huntingdonshire, and he's much more vocal and he actually publishes the sermons which he speaks against witchfinders, again, these are not anti witchcraft sermons. The anti witch finding. And witch finding has come to represent a worse kind of disorder than the disorder of witchcraft the witch finders are intended to eradicate. That makes sense. So that as a symbol of disorder at a time when people want to restore order, then witch finders inevitably will find a kind of opposition that makes it impossible for them to operate any further. And we see exactly the same thing happening in Scotland and in the north of England, and we see the same things happening in France and in Sweden and in other places where there were witch finders who run out of road because the opposition builds against them because of the methods that they use.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

Matthew Hopkins publishes a self defense, doesn't he, in 1647. What does he say?

[Unknown Speaker]

One of the accusations against Hopkins is that he doesn't do it out of godly motives. He's mainly doing it for money and that he's corrupt. And so that this apologia that he writes is really a defense that says he is a godly man, he did it for the right, right reasons, that he didn't really take very much money, just what he needed to keep what he called his company going. So stern possibly, and some search women, midwives who would then look for the devil's mark on the accused. And that really he's just trying to always. I think by 1646 he's trying to push back these accusations that he is a dubious figure, not just a man without authority, but somebody whose motives should be suspected.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

It feels to me that as we think about the confessions that are made in these instances, there is a crucial fact to bear in mind. And just to quote you back to yourself, you say that duress and delusion aside, certain desperate people either aspired to witchcraft or came to believe that such powers had been bestowed upon them. Do you think this shows us the limits of the power of the witch finder?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. So the witch finders, what they do is, as we've already said, is they encourage people, they don't claim to have any special sort of psychic insight into what's going on. They are essentially legal administrators and that's really why they are both Initially very effective. And why actually that in the end that they, you know, it's wound up for them. But the things that they hear, you know, it's. We're not, you know, not everything should be just blamed on the witch finders. I mean, I'm not making any kind of, obviously any kind of defense of them. That's not what historians do, as, you know. But in terms of trying to understand them, I think that even they sometimes are surprised and shocked by the things that they hear. Because when they do hear these confessions, which some of the confessions are pretty straightforward, that they just say that, yes, I'm a witch and I, you know, killed someone's cows or something, but some of them go into very deep emotional, psychological spaces which expose the subjectivities of accused people's lives. And I think that's actually where, you know, we can almost flip the witchcraft accusation. And rather than just telling us about witchcraft, we can really see into the emotional lives of some very ordinary people at a period of terrific stress in English history and terrific stress in their own individual lives.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

We refer to Hopkins as the witch finder General. When was he called that? Is it a self adopted title or was it posthumous?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, we'd really like to know that one. I mean, let's, I'll, I'll take, I'll take a punt on it really. I think, I don't think he necessarily did come up with that title for himself and it certainly wasn't a title which was bestowed upon him by any officialdom. But I don't think that he would have minded it much. I think it could have actually been used ironically, you know, rather critically, mockingly against him, but that he picked it up and ran with it because actually he, what he really wants, he wants that kind of credential. He wants to feel that he has the backing of authority, that ultimately he is denied.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

This, ironically enough, is the final act of witch hunting, at least in England. Why is that so?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, witch hunting is quite a rare thing anywhere, so that we sometimes use the term witch hunt as a loose shorthand for the period of witchcraft prosecutions, but that what we find in most places are no witch trials at all. This is true across Europe and, you know, it's rather episodic here and there. There might be the odd accusation, the odd prosecution, but witch hunts are very intense things. They tend to be in a witch craze is often a better word for them because things get really out of hand in a short area. So that after Hopkins and Stern's campaign, you still see plenty of witchcraft accusations in England, but again, it's back to a pattern that we would have been more familiar with in perhaps the end of the 16th century or into the early 17th century. A few cases here and there which sometimes result in conviction, but actually more often do not. And so what happens in 1645-7 is to that extent an aberration. And the same thing happens at Salem in Massachusetts in 1692, which again, sometimes seem to stand in for witch hunting in colonial America, but is really the exception that proves the rule. And the rule is that there aren't actually that many witch trials year in, year out from place to place.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

Ultimately then, Malcolm, how do you think we should define the witch finder role and what should we think of as the impact and legacy of people like Hopkins and Stern?

[Unknown Speaker]

Well, I think even in their own time, that the witch finders stood as kind of bogeymen, really, as symbols of what happens when you allow the law to get, you know, you put the law into the hands of people who are, you know, not authorized to use it. And so they become symbols of chaos and disorder, ironically for them, because they thought that the witch finders thought that they were going to correct in English life by getting rid of the devil. So I think we should remember them in the way that they were actually remembered by people in the later 17th century as dangerous mavericks who caused an awful lot of injustice when, of course, what they said they were going to do was further God's will and further the requirements of the law, but it really turned out to be nothing of the sword.

[Professor Malcolm Gaskell]

Well, thank you so much for introducing us to Matthew Hopkins and John Stern. And those who want to find out more can delve into your book Witchfinders the seventeenth Century English Tragedy. Thank you so much for your time.

[Unknown Speaker]

Thank you so much for inviting me on.

[Professor Susanna Lipscomb]

Suzanne, thanks for listening to this episode of Not Just the Tudors and also to my researcher Alice Smith and my producer Rob Weinberg. We're always eager to hear from you, including receiving your brilliant ideas for subjects we can cover. So do drop us a line at not just the tutorsistoryhit.com or on X, formerly Twitter otjusttutors. Remember that you can also listen to all of these podcasts ad free and watch hundreds of documentaries when you subscribe and historyhit.com subscribe, it's well worth it. And as a special gift, you can also get 50% off your first three months when you use the code Tudors at checkout. That's historyhit.com subscribe with the code Tudors and if you would be so good as to follow not just the Tudors on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, you'll get each new episode as soon as it's released.

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