[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
notice and action; just as a blight on any tree or vegetable calls to life a peculiar insect to
feed upon and enjoy the decay which it has produced. A monster like Hopkins could only
have existed during the confusion of civil dissension. He was perhaps a native of
Manningtree, in Essex; at any rate, he resided there in the year 1644, when an epidemic out-
cry of witchcraft arose in that town. Upon this occasion he had made himself busy, and,
affecting more zeal and knowledge than other men, learned his trade of a witchfinder, as he
pretends, from experiment. He was afterwards permitted to perform it as a legal profession,
and moved from one place to another, with an assistant named Sterne, and a female. In his
defence against an accusation of fleecing the country, he declares his regular charge was
twenty shillings a town, including charges of living and journeying thither and back again with
his assistants. He also affirms that he went nowhere unless called and invited. His principal
mode of discovery was to strip the accused persons naked, and thrust pins into various parts
of their body, to discover the witch s mark, which was supposed to be inflicted by the devil as
a sign of his sovereignty, and at which she was also said to suckle her imps. He also prac-
tised and stoutly defended the trial by swimming, when the suspected person was wrapped in
a sheet, having the great toes and thumbs tied together, and so dragged through a pond or
river. If she sank, it was received in favour of the accused; but if the body floated (which must
have occurred ten times for once, if it was placed with care on the surface of the water), the
accused was condemned, on the principle of King James, who, in treating of this mode of
trial, lays down that, as witches have renounced their baptism, so it is just that the element
through which the holy rite is enforced should reject them, which is a figure of speech, and no
argument. It was Hopkins s custom to keep the poor wretches waking, in order to prevent
them from having encouragement from the devil, and, doubtless, to put infirm, terrified, over-
Page 105
A Collection of Sacred Magick | The Esoteric Library | www.sacred-magick.com
watched persons in the next state to absolute madness; and for the same purpose they were
dragged about by their keepers till extreme weariness and the pain of blistered feet might
form additional inducements to confession. Hopkins confesses these last practices of keeping
the accused persons waking and forcing them to walk for the same purpose had been origi-
nally used by him. But as his tract is a professed answer to charges of cruelty and oppres-
sion, he affirms that both practices were then disused, and that they had not of late been
resorted to.
The boast of the English nation is a manly independence and common-sense, which will not
long permit the license of tyranny or oppression on the meanest and most obscure sufferers.
Many clergymen and gentlemen made head against the practices of this cruel oppressor of
the defenceless, and it required courage to do so when such an unscrupulous villain had so
much interest. Mr. Gaul, a clergyman, of Houghton, in Huntingdonshire, had the courage to
appear in print on the weaker side; and Hopkins, in consequence, assumed the assurance to
write to some functionaries of the place the following letter, which is an admirable medley of
impudence, bullying, and cowardice:
My service to your worship presented. I have this day received a letter to come to a town
called Great Houghton to search for evil-disposed person s called witches (though I hear your
minister is far against us, through ignorance). I intend to come, God willing, the sooner to
hear his singular judgment in the behalf of such parties. I have known a minister in Suffolk as
much against this discovery in a pulpit, and forced to recant it by the Committee in the same
place. I much marvel such evil men should have any (much more any of the clergy, who
should daily speak terror to convince such offenders) stand up to take their parts against such
as are complainants for the king, and sufferers themselves, with their families and estates. I
intend to give your town a visit suddenly. I will come to Kimbolton this week, and it will be ten
to one but I will come to your town first; but I would certainly know before whether your town
affords many sticklers for such cattle, or is willing to give and allow us good welcome and
entertainment, as others where I have been, else I shall waive your shire (not as yet begin-
ning in any part of it myself), and betake me to such places where I do and may punish (not
only) without control, but with thanks and recompense. So I humbly take my leave, and rest
your servant to be commanded, Matthew Hopkins.
The sensible and courageous Mr. Gaul describes the tortures employed by this fellow as
equal to any practised in the Inquisition. Having taken the suspected witch, she is placed in
the middle of a room, upon a stool or table, cross-legged, or in some other uneasy posture, to
which, if she submits not, she is then bound with cords; there she is watched and kept with-
out meat or sleep for four-and-twenty hours, for, they say, they shall within that time see her
imp come and suck. A little hole is likewise made in the door for the imps to come in at; and
lest they should come in some less discernible shape, they that watch are taught to be ever
and anon sweeping the room, and if they see any spiders or flies, to kill them; and if they can-
not kill them, they may be sure they are their imps.
If torture of this kind was applied to the Reverend Mr. Lewis, whose death is too slightly
announced by Mr. Baxter, we can conceive him, or any man, to have indeed become so
weary of his life as to acknowledge that, by means of his imps, he sunk a vessel, without any
purpose of gratification to be procured to himself by such iniquity. But in another cause a
judge would have demanded some proof of the corpus delecti, some evidence of a vessel
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]