HISTORY - The Witchcraze: East Anglia Witch Hunts 1645-47

Why was 1645 the perfect time for witch hunting?

• England was midway through a civil war

• Made trials more likely as conflict was based on religion

• Also brought economic and political instability

• Led to tensions in communities

• Power was decentralised

What was the political context of East Anglia?

• Charles I became king 1625

• Had conflict with parliament so dissolved them 1629 and ruled alone for 11 years

• Parliament had their first victory in Naseby due to the formation of the New Model Army in 1645

How did civil war impact society?

• By 1645 had experienced 3 years of war

• Little fighting in the area but 20% of men left villages/ towns to fight

• Mortality rates were alr high, added to the strain

How were Puritan sects connected with witchcraft?

• Witches were apparently discovered in areas believing women equal to men

• Connected to radical sects who held these ideas

• However very few accused women were linked to these sects

What strange occurrences were reaching East Anglia?

• Woman said to have birthed a headless baby

• women beginning to drink and swear like men

Which two symbols of continuity declined in power due to the chaos of war?

1. Church of England

2. Gentry

How did CoE authority decline?

• Undermined due to areas being controlled by Parliamentarians

• They removed undesirable ministers and replaced them with Puritans

How was the authority of the gentry undermined?

• Many had to leave their estates to fight

• Those with Royalist sympathies had their estates confiscated

How did legal structures break down due to war?

• Assize courts unable to function properly due to war

• Meant justice was given by local magistrates with limited legal experience

• With no kingly authority, normal laws didn’t apply

• Assize circuits disrupted as was rendered too dangerous for judges to travel to London

• Condemned prisoners would be immediately executed

How did the legal breakdown impact witch accusations?

• Absence of senior judges meant witch hunt could spread more quickly

• Town councillors paid Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne as they provided seemingly legitimate legal knowledge

• Neither acted as judges but interrogated suspects and collected evidence to take cases to court

What was the conviction rate following Hopkins and Stearne?

42%

When did the assize courts return and what was its effect?

• 1647

• Ended trials and witch hunts

How did heavy rainfall impact the witch hunts 1645-46?

• Disease affected livestock and crops

• Wheat and Rye rotted with ergot

• The crops were trodden into the mud

• Deeply religious society saw this as a punishment from God

• Blamed witchcraft for misfortune

What effect did enclosure have?

• The rich had more land to feed cattle but the poor were left to beg

• Landlords saw how much profit could improve if they enclosed their land and focused on one crop

How did the wealthy respond to having to pay Poor Rates?

• Were reluctant to do so

• They say laziness as a sin so didn’t want to encourage beggars

What happened on the Isle of Ely?

• Sir Sandys enclosed 4000 acres of land in 1620s

• This deprived the poor of grazing land and a source of fuel

• 30 families were evicted from the land

• People rioted in 1630s and he was resented into the 40s

How did enclosure impact witch hunts?

• When donations were made to beggars they were seen with suspicion

• Esp if they were poor older women, the wealthy feared them using magic in revenge if they didn’t give charity to them

What impact did the Civil War have on the economy?

• price of livestock increased by 12%

• Price of grain increased 15%

• Due to army taking up so many resources on both sides

• Prices increased but wages stayed the same

what was the new tax put in place to aid increasing costs due to the Civil War?

• The weekly assessment

• 12x higher than Ship Money tax of 1630s which was already loathed

Impact of civil war on witch hunts?

• Many fell into poverty and got suspected

• Eg: Margaret Moone who fell into begging and was blamed for deaths of livestock and crop failures and murdering of a child

What percentage of the accused were women?

80%

How many people were accused in total?

700 and 300-400 were executed

How and when did Hopkins first become interested in witchcraft?

• 1644 in Manningtree

• He was kept awake claiming witches were meeting near his house

• The first witches identified were all women

• Hopkins and Stearne worked together to find more

What did Hopkins and Stearne do in 1645?

• Presented some accusations to local magistrate Sir Harbottle Grimston

• Began to offer their services as witchfinders for a fee

What was Grimston’s background?

• Was Puritan

• Most of the accused were his tenants or lived illegally on his land

Who was the first woman accused and what was she suspected of?

• Elizabeth Clark

• Had one leg

• Body searched, found devil’s marks

What torture methods were used on Clark?

• Watched for many nights

• Due to this she named other witches including Rebecca West

Who was Rebecca West and what did she do?

• Named by Clark

• Admitted to suckling imps

• Became a witness for the crown = immunity from execution

Who was John Lowes?

• 80 yr old Royalist clergyman

• He had defended a woman accused of witchcraft saying he was just as much a witch as she but people took this as a confession

• Hopkins put him to the swimming test, floated

• He admitted to making Devil’s pact after interrogation

When did the witch trials begin?

• July 1645 in Chelmsford

• 20 found guilty including Clark

When did Hopkins and Stearne separate?

August 1645

What happened in Norfolk in 1645?

• Hopkins oversaw the questioning of many arrested witches

• 40 women tried at the assizes

What happened in Huntingdonshire in 1646?

8 women tried

What happened in Kimbolton in 1646?

• Accusations had been made but never followed up

• Residents had conflicted with a woman famoud for swearing and cursing

• She was also suspected of killing cattle

• Hopkins got involved

What was special about Kimbolton?

• Was first time Hopkins had a major setback

• Local clergyman, John Gaule, objected to Hopkins and Stearne’s presence

When were the Norfolk assizes and what happened?

• 1647

• Hopkins attended

• Was subjected to hostile questioning about his activity by suspicious officials

What did Hopkins write as a defence to the questioning in Norfolk?

• The Discovery of Witches, May 1647

How is the impact of Hopkins and Stearne limited?

• There’s no pattern to their accusations

• They simply followed the money in communities that already held resentment and suspicion of women

Which group did the East-Anglia witch hunts mainly target?

• Women

• Accusations focused on female tasks in the home

• Hopkins keen to find evidence of sexual activity with the Devil

• Murder of husbands and children regularly ref in the trials

Class wise, who was mostly accused?

• Those who were illiterate

• This was determined by who wrote their name and who didn’t

• Men more likely to be literate than women

Who else seemed to be illiterate? What does this show?

• The searchers

• Shows they were probably neighbours of the accused

Why were Hopkins and Stearne essentially frauds?

Neither had any qualifications to be trained as witchfinders

What religion were H and S?

Puritan

What title did Hopkins give himself?

Witch-finder general

How good were they at their job?

• Very effective

• Parish and towns paid them as well as search women and watchers

• Expenses also paid to interrogators and testifiers in court

• No evidence H&S were present at executions

List some things Hopkins and Stearne were concerned with uncovering

• Uncovering any relationship with the Devil

• Any devils marks

• any familiars

What methods did H&S use?

• Suspects isolated

• Watching where suspects were sleep deprived and monitored

• Physical violence

• Walking around a room till exhaustion

• Swimming test

What evidence is there that H&S had significant influence and power?

• Hopkins son of Puritan clergy man, from good social standing

• He came into some inheritance

• Parliament appointed him as their agent to discover witches

• Stearne lived longer, was also Puritan

What evidence is there that H&S didn’t have significant influence and power?

• Hopkins only did it for 3 years

• He was invited to parishes didn’t investigate anything

• Hopkins gave himself title of witch-finder general

• He was simply in the right place at the right time

What are the three reasons the witch-hunts ended?

• Growing costs

• Re-establishment of traditional authority

• Secpticism of Hopkins and Stearne

What kind of costs did the trials entail?

• Witches in prison awaiting trial costed up to £50

• Those who wanted to watch executions had to pay

• Assizes were expensive

• Burning was 3x more expensive than hanging

How much did Hopkins and Stearne charge per case?

20 shillings

How much did the Aldeburgh witch hunt cost in total?

£40 which was 1/7 of the town’s annual budget

How did Hopkins and Stearne justify their fees?

• Hopkins said he only charged what he needed and only went where he was asked to be

• Stearne said he needed it to maintain his family

What did the end of the civil war mean for witchcraft?

• Assize courts returned

• By summer 1646 more witches were being acquitted

What else did the civil war bring in terms of re-establishing authority?

• Royalist gentry returned

• They pushed out the Puritans who dominated the pursuit of witches

What did the end of the civil war do to the economy?

• Improved

• led to less social tensions

Give an example of witch accusations decreasing

• Hopkins visited King’s Lynn to give evidence on 9 accused witches

• Judge at trial was Miles Corbett

• All prisoners pleaded not guilty

• 7 were acquitted and only 2 were convicted

How was scepticism evidently increasing towards witchcraft?

• At the Norfolk Assizes 1647 the judges were given questions by leading gentry who took issue with aspects of the witch hunt

• Hopkins responded to them in his “The Discovery of Witches”

What were some of the questions asked by the judges to Hopkins?

• Was he a witch

• Did he meet with the Devil and get told of all the witches in England

• Where did Hopkins acquire his skills

• Believing in the Devil’s power is blasphemous as it shows lack of faith in God

Who was John Gaule?

Minister of Great Staughton mid 1646

What did Gaule do promoting scepticism?

• Was aware his parishioners were blaming witches for misfortune

• Believed it was instead their sin that was to blame

• He went to visit one of the suspects at Huntingdon and exposed the malpractice of the witch finders

What did Gaule publish his criticisms in?

• Select cases of conscience touching witches and witchcrafts 1646

• He affirmed existence of witches and need for witch hunting but disagreed with Hopkins’ methods

• Pleaded common sense when making accusations

• Alleged that the craze for witch hunting was idolatrous, they praised witch finders more than they praised God

What could Gaule’s motivations have been?

• he was a conservative

• angry that episcopacy had been eroded and replaced with independent churches during civil war

• Explains his anger that witch finders had authority when in reality they had none

How did Gaule influence the public opinion about witchcraft?

Told his congregation that confessions shouldn’t be taken at face value and that evidence needs to be evaluated by magistrates NOT witchfinders

What impact did Gaule’s scepticism have on the witchcraze ending?

• Didn’t have much support initially

• But helped convince authorities and judges that witch hunts were no longer necessary as trad authority had returned and they were too expensive