Matthew Hopkins Witchfinder General

A Memory of Manningtree.

Essex has the unhappy distinction of having executed more witches than any other county in England’s history, and the first major trial for witchcraft itself, as the main indictment, took place in Chelmsford in 1566 when 63-year-old Agnes Waterhouse of Hatfield Peverell was found guilty and hanged. One of the most unpleasant characters in the county’s story was Matthew Hopkins, who lived at Manningtree in north-east Essex in the mid 17th century. After denouncing his crippled neighbour as a witch, Hopkins realised he had a particular talent for terrorising old women that could make him powerful and wealthy. He claimed to hold the ‘Devil’s own list of all the witches in England’, and as the hysteria of witch-fever gripped East Anglia in 1645-46, many towns paid him to come and search for ‘witches’. He assumed the title of ‘Witchfinder General’, made his headquarters in Colchester, and is believed to have been responsible for the deaths of up to 400 people throughout East Anglia; people were either denounced by neighbours (who were rewarded for the information) or tortured until they confessed, and were put to death for witchcraft on the most flimsy evidence. His reign of terror at last came to an end when John Gaule, a Huntingdonshire parson, decided that enough was enough and it was time Hopkins received his come-uppance. He preached a number of scathing sermons denouncing Hopkins and published his sermons in a pamphlet in which he attacked Hopkins and his accomplices, particularly denouncing his methods of obtaining ‘confessions’ by means of torture which, as he pointed out, was actually illegal in England at that time. His complaints helped lead to Hopkins being formally questioned about his methods, after which he retired from witch hunting and went home to Manningtree, where he died soon after, probably in 1647. He was buried at Mistley Heath, but that isn’t the last of the story – his ghost is said to haunt the area around Mistley pond, particularly at the time of the full moon…

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