There is one thing more evil than oppression in the shape of
wrong-doing, and that is oppression in the guise of good. Tennyson,
in one of his poems, speaks of the dishonest pharmacist who “pestles
a poison’d poison.” This is a refinement of iniquity; a poisoned
poison is not even an enlargement of evil but a structural change
eliminating the intention of good and replacing it with evil intent.
Witches were quite bad enough; or rather they would have been, had that
which was alleged of them been true. But a man who got his living by
creating suspicion regarding them and following it out to the practical
consummation of a hideous death, was a thousand times worse. To-day
such a functionary as a witch-finder exists, it is true; but only
amongst the very lowest and most debased savages. And it is only by the
recorded types made known to us that it is possible even to guess at
the iniquity of their measures, the vileness of their actions. In the
full tally of the two centuries during which the witch mania existed
in England, it is impossible to parallel the baseness of the one man
who distinguished himself in this loathsome occupation. The facts of
his history speak for themselves. Matthew Hopkins was born in Suffolk
early in the seventeenth century. He was the son of a minister, James
Hopkins of Wenham. He was brought up for the law, and when enrolled
as an attorney, practised in Ipswich; but after a while he moved to
Manningtree where, after he had given up the law, he took to the
calling of witch-finder, being the first person in England to follow
that honourable trade.
If he had had no suitable opportunities of earning an honest livelihood
and been graced with no education, some excuse might have been offered
for his despicable calling. But when we remember that he passed his
youth in a household practising religion, and was a member of a learned
profession, it is difficult to find words sufficiently comprehensive
for the fit expression of our natural indignation against him. If
picturesque profanity were allowable, it might be well applied to
this despicable wretch and his nefarious labours. In no imaginable
circumstances could there possibly be anything to be said in mitigation
of his infamy. When we think that the whole ritual of oppression was
in his own hands--that he began with lying and perjury, and ended with
murder; that he showed, throughout, ruthless callousness for the mental
and physical torture of great numbers of the most helpless class of
the community, the poor, the weak, the suffering, the helpless and
hopeless; that when once his foul imagination had consecrated any poor
wretch to destruction, or his baleful glance had unhappily lighted
on some unsuspecting victim there was for such only the refuge of
death, and that by some means of prolonged torture, we cannot find
any hope or prospect even in evil dreams of the nether world, of any
adequate punishment for his dreadful sins. When we remember that this
one man--if man he can be called--was in himself responsible for what
amounted to the murder of some two hundred women whom he pursued to the
death, the magnitude of his guilt can be guessed but not realised.
He occupied three whole years in his fell work; and in those years,
1644, 1645 and 1646, he caused a regular reign of terror throughout
the counties of Huntingdon, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. He had a gang
of his own to help him in his gruesome work of “discovering” witches;
amongst whom was a wretch called John Stern and--to her shame--a woman,
whose name is unrecorded. These three had a sort of mock assize of
their own. They made regular tours of discovery, at a charge of twenty
shillings for expenses at each place they visited. There appears to
have been a fee paid or exacted for each witch “bagged”; and such was
his greed that after a while he actually lowered the price. In 1645,
which was perhaps his “best” year, the price declined to a shilling
a head. Hopkins and his gang took comfort, however, from the fact
that the industry was a growing one. The trade had only been initiated
in 1644, and already in a year’s time he had in one day procured
the execution of eighteen alleged witches; and at the end of that
assize, after the gaol delivery had been effected, one hundred and
twenty suspects still awaited trial. In the skilful hands of Matthew
Hopkins, trial was only a step on the road to certain execution by one
of the forms in use. Here came in, not only the witchfinder’s legal
knowledge, but also his gift of invention--the latter being used in the
formulation of so-called “tests” which were bound to be effective. Of
these the simplest was the water test. The subject’s thumbs were tied
together and she was then thrown into water of sufficient depth. If she
did not drown, it was taken as a proof of guilt; and she was hanged
by form of law. In some cases, as an alternative, she was burned. If
she did not stand the test her friends had the pleasure of knowing
that she was pronounced to have died innocent. In any case there was
no further trouble with her. Such was the accuracy as well as the
simplicity of similar “tests” that, in the twenty years previous to the
Restoration, between three and four thousand alleged witches perished
in England from one cause or another. Hopkins professed to be both
just and merciful. He seemed generally willing to afford a “test” to
the accused; though, truth to tell, the result was always the same.
In such cases the test was eminently calculated to evoke confession,
and such confession, no matter how ridiculous or extravagant it
might be, was simply a curved road to the rope or the torch instead
of a straight one. One of these pleasing “tests” was to place the
old woman--they were all women and all old--sitting cross-legged on
a stool or table where she could be well watched. She was generally
kept in that position under inspection, without food or water, for
twenty-four hours. At the end of that time such resolution as had
remained disappeared, and in the vain blind hope of some change for the
better, some alleviation however slight of the grinding misery, of the
agony of body and mind and soul, they confessed. And such confessions!
The very consideration of such of them as now remain in the cold
third-person method of a mere recorder, almost makes one weep; there
is hardly a word that is not almost a certificate of character. With
every desire to confess--for such was the last hope of pleasing their
torturers--their utter ignorance of confessional matter is almost a
proof of innocence.
Just imagine the scene--a village or hamlet, or the poorer quarter
of a small country town with squalid surroundings, marking a poverty
which in this age has no equal; a poor, old, lonely woman whose long
life of sordid misery, of hunger and the diseases that huddle closely
around want, hopeless, despairing, recognising her fate through the
prolonged physical torture with which age and infirmity rendered her
unable even to attempt to cope. Round her gathered, in a sickly ring,
a crowd of creatures debased by the exercise of greed and cruelty to a
lower level than the beasts. Their object is not to inquire, to test,
to judge; but only to condemn, to wreck, to break, to shatter. Some
of them, she realises even in her agony, are spurred on by the same
zeal which animated the cruelty of followers of Ignatius in the grim
torture-chambers of the Inquisition.
The poor dazed, suffering old creature, racked with pains prolonged
beyond endurance, tries to rally such glimmerings of invention as
are possible to her untaught, unfed mind; but finds herself at every
failure fluttering helplessly against a wall of spiritual granite which
gives back not even an echo to her despairing cry. At last she comes
to that stage where even fright and fear have no standing room, and
where the blank misery of suffering ceases to be effective. Then the
last flicker of desire for truth or rectitude of purpose dies away, and
she receives in feeble acquiescence such suggestions as are shouted
or whispered to her, in the hope that by accepting them she may win a
moment’s ease of body or mind, even if it be her last on earth. Driven
beyond mortal limits her untutored mind gives way; and with the last
remnants of her strength she yields her very soul to her persecutors.
The end does not matter to her now. Life has no more to offer her--even
of pain, which is the last conscious tie to existence. And through
it all, ghoul-like, watching and waiting for the collapse, whilst
outwardly he goes through the mechanical ritual of prayer, we see in
the background the sinister figure of the attorney, preparing in his
mind such evidence as he may procure or invent for his work of the next
day.
It needs the imagination of a Dante to consider what should be the
place of such an one in history, and any eternity of punishment that
that imagination could suggest must be inadequate. Even pity itself
which rests on sympathy and is kin to the eternal spirit of justice,
would have imagined with satisfaction the wretched soul going through a
baleful eternity clinging in perpetual agony of fear to the very King
of Terrors.
In judging Matthew Hopkins one must not, in justice to others, accord
him any of the consideration which is the due of good intent. Not a
score of years after his shameful death, a man was born in a newer land
far beyond the separating sea, who through his influence, his teaching,
the expression of his honest conviction, was the cause of perhaps more
deaths than the English anti-witch. We refer to Cotton Mather, who
believed he wrought for the Lord--in his own way--in New England. But
guilt does not attach to him. He was an earnest, though mistaken man,
and the results of his mistaken teaching were at variance with the
trend of his kindly, godly life.
It must be pleasing to the spirit of the Old Adam which is in us
all in some form, to think of the manner of the death of Matthew
Hopkins. Three years had exhausted not only the material available
for his chosen work, but, what was worse for him, the patience of the
community. Moreover, he had given cause for scandal in even his own
degraded trade and in himself, the filthiest thing in connection with
it. Not content with dealing with the poor, helpless folk, whom he
had come to regard as his natural prey, he went on fancy flights of
oppression. At last he went too far. He ventured to denounce an aged
clergyman of blameless life. The witch-fever was too strong for justice
in any form, and neither age, high character, nor sacred office could
protect this gentleman of eighty years of age. He too was tortured,
till in a moment of unhinged mind, he confessed as he was ordered,
and was duly hanged. This was in 1645. The old man’s death was not in
vain, for it was made the occasion of much necessary plain speaking.
Presently the public conscience was wakened; chiefly by another cleric,
the Rev. John Caule, vicar of Great Staughton, Huntingdonshire--all
honour to him!--who, though strange to say he believed in witchcraft,
realised the greater evil wrought by men like Hopkins. He published
a pamphlet in which he denounced Hopkins as a common nuisance. The
result, if slow, was sure. The witch-finder never recovered from the
shock of Caule’s vigorous attack. In 1647, on information based on
Hopkins’ own rules, he was arrested and subjected to the test which
he had devised: he was tied by the thumbs and thrown into the water.
Unfortunately for himself he withstood the test--drowning, except for a
short period of pangs, is an easy death--and so was by process of Law
duly hanged.
One can imagine how the whole atmosphere of the country--surcharged
with suspicion, fear, oppression, torture, perjury or crime--was
cleared by the execration which followed the removal of this vile
wretch.