THE DISCOVERY OF WITCHES
Matthew Hopkins’s 1647 pamphlet, read as a defence
Title and imprint as they appear on the title page in the Wellcome Collection copy.
VIEW THE WELLCOME COPY ↗A short pamphlet in which Hopkins answers questions put about his methods. It is his own defence of what he did. Read it for how he justifies the methods, not as a neutral account of what happened.
This page is not one of the 20 animal records. It sits beside the library, and the animal records do not link back to it.
QUERY ≠ ANSWER · FOUR EXCHANGES
“I pray where was this experience gained? and why gained by him and not by others?”
“…upon command from the Justice they were to keep her from sleep two or three nights, expecting in that time to see her familiars, which the fourth night she called in by their severall names…”
“…they must be tortured and kept from sleep two or three nights, to distract them, and make them say any thing…”
“In the infancy of this discovery it was not only thought fitting, but enjoyned in Essex and Suffolke by the Magistrates…” He adds that once judges disallowed it, “it was never since used, which is a yeare and a halfe since”.
Hopkins does not deny the practice. He places it in the past and assigns it to the magistrates.
“…they were extraordinarily walked, till their feet were blistered, and so forced through that cruelty to confesse…”
Walking was “only to keepe them waking”. Abuses, he says, were by “rusticall People”, and “could never be proved against this Discoverer to have a hand in it”.
“…an abominable, inhumane, and unmercifull tryall of these poore creatures, by tying them, and heaving them into the water…”
“It is not denyed but many were so served”. But “It was never brought in against any of them at their tryals as any evidence”, and swimming “of late hath, and for ever shall be left”.
THE FIRST CASE · IN HOPKINS’S WORDS
The imps came on the fourth night: a white kitling, a fat spaniel without legs, a greyhound with an ox’s head, a black rabbit, a polecat.
PAMPHLETQUER. 4 · THE FIVE IMPS SHE CALLED
Hopkins writes that a woman was “searched, by women” and “found to have three teats about her”, kept from sleep, and on the fourth night called in her imps “by their severall names”, with “ten of us in the roome”. He lists five:
- Holt, “like a white kitling”
- Jarmara, “like a fat Spaniel without any legs at all”
- Vinegar Tom, “like a long-legg’d Greyhound, with an head like an Oxe”
- Sack and Sugar, “like a black Rabbet”
- Newes, “like a Polcat”
The other names often attached to this case belong, in Hopkins’s text, to other women’s imps: she “named to divers women where their marks were… and Imps names, as Elemanzer, Pyewacket, Peckin the Crown, Grizzel, Greedigut”.
Hopkins does not name her. He calls her “another Witch”. Cornell University Library’s witchcraft exhibition identifies the woman on the frontispiece as Elizabeth Clarke, hanged at Chelmsford in 1645 on evidence of her familiars. That identification is Cornell’s.
Hopkins also claims that in his hundred in Essex “29. were condemned at once”. That figure is his; this page has not checked it independently.
THE FRONTISPIECE · DESCRIBED, NOT REPRODUCED
Named on the block: only “Matthew Hopkins Witch Finder Generall”.
Two seated women, neither named. The scroll by the left-hand woman reads “Holt”.
The right-hand woman speaks: “My Imps names are 1 Ilemauzar 2 Pyewackett 3 Pecke in the Crowne 4 Griezzell Greedigutt”.
Animals labelled: Jarmara, Sacke & Sugar, Newes, Vinegar tom.
DESCRIBED FROM THE WELLCOME COPY · THE IMAGE ITSELF IS NOT REPRODUCED HEREThe block spells the names differently from the text (“Ilemauzar” for “Elemanzer”, “Griezzell Greedigutt” for “Grizzel, Greedigut”). Both spellings are kept as printed.
WATCHING AS A METHOD
| METHOD | IN HOPKINS’S TEXT | WHAT HE CLAIMED IT SHOWED | PROJECT INTERPRETATION WHAT IT DID |
|---|---|---|---|
| Watching | Kept “from sleep two or three nights, expecting in that time to see her familiars” (Quer. 4) | That the familiars would come to the accused | Made an exhausting, coercive setting in which ordinary events could be read as proof |
| Keeping awake · walking | “enjoyned… by the Magistrates” (Quer. 8); walking “only to keepe them waking” (Quer. 9) | That waking witches would call their imps sooner | Impaired judgement and made pressured statements more likely |
| Searching the body | “searched, by women”, “three teats” (Quer. 4); marks “insensible, and feele neither pin, needle, aule” (Quer. 6) | That a mark was where a familiar fed | Turned ordinary bodily variation into evidence |
| Swimming | “It is not denyed but many were so served” (Quer. 10) | Hopkins says it was never used as evidence at trial | A public ordeal, conceded by its defender |
| Naming | She “named to divers women where their marks were” (Quer. 4) | Matching marks and names confirmed the accusations | One statement made under pressure fed the next accusation |
PROJECT STATEMENT In Hopkins’s own account, the imps appear on the fourth night of enforced waking.
PROJECT STATEMENT Formatted as answers, it is still a defence.
HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW
Queries 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10 were read in the Project Gutenberg transcription (#14015) of the 1647 edition. Quotations keep its spelling.
Title, imprint and the frontispiece labels were read from the Wellcome Collection copy. The frontispiece is described rather than shown. The Wellcome page marks the item with a Public Domain Mark; the image is linked, not copied.
The identification of the woman as Elizabeth Clarke is Cornell University Library’s. Hopkins does not name her.
The QUERY ≠ ANSWER framing, the watching chain, the “what it did” column and the closing statements are authored by Make It Believable. They are not historical testimony.
WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW YET
- What the court records and John Stearne’s 1648 account add to Hopkins’s version of the first case.
- The dates of Hopkins’s career and death. This page does not state them.
- Whether the “29” condemned in his hundred matches the court records.