Book Review
Review of ‘Witchfinders by Malcolm Gaskill ’
The book ‘Witchfinders’ took me a stage further, being a chronological account of the life and times of Matthew Hopkins and his associate John Stearne, concentrating on the two most barbaric years of 1645 and 1646, and giving an insight into the mindset of the self-appointed Witchfinder General, although as the preface to the book tells us, much of his life remains obscure. ‘Witchfinders’ has been written by a historian, who has turned facts into voluble literature, although he does tend to dwell more on the state of the countryside ‘the broad plains dipped and narrowed into winding tunnels of dappled light and shade as branches reached to interlace overhead’ than the horror of the dark, overcrowded, disease-ridden, squalid jails, or even the tortuous death by hanging.
The book takes us back to seventeenth century England, reminding us that ‘barely fifteen generations ago, England was a God-fearing but by modern standards superstitious nation, where rivers of Christianity and Pagan folklore flowed into one another.’ It also points out that ‘Witchcraft was female power’ and between the years 1563 and 1736 was a statutory offence punishable by death.
In order to catch a witch, certain criteria had to be satisfied and of the recorded cases, this was apparently a staple of the witchfinder’s task, in order to bring a witch to trial and make the charge stick. The body search was done by women, resulting time after time in the discovery of unnatural teats, used for suckling familiars. This would be followed by a period of ‘watching’ involving the search women and independent witnesses, who sat up with the witch, night after night, awaiting the appearance of her familiars. Confessions were of paramount importance, supported by the accounts of victims themselves or their families, although ‘the methods used to extract these confessions are as shrouded in darkness as the deeds the confessions described.’ Details are given in some cases, of sleep deprivation and enforced marching, until the accused was exhausted and disorientated and ready to admit to anything.
Because the book follows a time-scale, it is sometimes difficult to follow individual cases – Margaret Moore for example first being accused on page 247, but her death not taking place until page 267, with all manner of other things in between, which I feel detracted from her story, which was a particularly poignant one. ‘Margaret Moore died for the truth that she and others saw in her dreams, and which according to the law of England put her beyond reason or mercy.’
Contrary to popular belief, tried and sentenced witches were put to death by hanging, with burning being reserved for heretics, including Mary Lakeland, a convicted witch who had murdered her husband and so was guilty of the crime of treason, for ‘rising up treasonably against her natural lord and master’.
Resistance to the witchfinders increased, both on moral and financial grounds. Details of trial costs are given, with Matthew Hopkins being paid more than £23 for his work to convict witches tried at Stowmarket in the spring of 1646, plus expenses. A year’s wages to some.
Both Hopkins and Stearne however, published books, in which they emphatically stated that they had never accused anyone of anything, just going to places when invited and applying their expertise, with prosecutions being carried out by the various searchers and watchers.
Huntingdonshire clergyman John Gaule was ultimately responsible for wrecking Hopkin’s reputation, with his insistence that the discovery of witches should be left to magistrates and ministers, and not for members of the public to assume that right themselves.
Matthew Hopkins died on 12th August 1647, from pleural tuberculosis, but he left a terrible legacy, with the attributes of the witch firmly ingrained in the minds of the general public, and ‘until the twentieth century, English villagers continued to scratch, swim, and even murder suspected witches. There was a lynching as late as 1945.’
And sadly it has still not ended. The book reminds us right at the end, of parts of the world today, where witch-hunting is rife, with two hundred witch-lynchings recorded for the period 1985-95 in South Africa’s poverty-stricken Northern Province alone, scenes repeated throughout many other parts of Africa and India.
The book ends on a sobering thought – ‘Then, as now, witch-hunts involved not just savage persecutors tormenting innocent scapegoats, but ordinary neighbours with a close affinity to one another who also happened to believe in witchcraft powerfully enough to act out their most violent fantasies.’
So, for me, this was an interesting glimpse into the background of an infamous name and a book which I would recommend for anyone with an interest in the witch trials generally and Matthew Hopkins in particular.
Freda
