The Discovery of Witches by Matthew Hopkins

In the early 1640s, Hopkins moved to Manningtree, Essex, a town on the River Stour, about 10 miles (16 km) from Wenham. Hopkins states in his book The Discovery of Witches (1647) that he 'never travelled far .

Hopkins' brother John became Minister of South Fambridge in 1645 but was removed from the post a year later for neglecting his work. Although James Hopkins had died in 1634, when the iconoclast William Dowsing, commissioned in 1643 by the Parliamentarian Earl of Manchester 'for the destruction of monuments of idolatry and superstition', visited the parish in 1645 he observed that 'there was nothing to reform'. Thus Matthew Hopkins could not have been born before 1619, and could not have been older than 28 when he died, but he may have been as young as 25. His father was popular with his parishioners, one of whom in 1619 left money to purchase Bibles for his then three children James, John and Thomas. The family at one point held title 'to lands and tenements in Framlingham 'at the castle ''. His father, James Hopkins, was a Puritan clergyman and vicar of St John's of Great Wenham, in Suffolk. He was born in Great Wenham, Suffolk and was the fourth son of six children. Little is known of Matthew Hopkins before 1644, and there are no surviving contemporary documents concerning him or his family. Hopkins and his colleague John Stearne sent more accused people to the gallows than all the other witch-hunters in England of the previous 160 years. He is believed to have been responsible for the executions of over 100 alleged witches between the years 16. He and his associates were responsible for more people being hanged for witchcraft than in the previous 100 years, and were solely responsible for the increase in witch trials during those years. The son of a Puritan minister, Hopkins' career as a witch-finder began in March 1644 and lasted until his retirement in 1647. He was mainly active in East Anglia and claimed to hold the office of Witchfinder General, although that title was never bestowed by Parliament.

Matthew Hopkins ( c. 1620 – 12 August 1647) was an English witch-hunter whose career flourished during the English Civil War. A portrait of Matthew Hopkins, 'The Celebrated Witch-finder', from the 1837 edition of The Discovery of Witches

The Discovery of Witches by Matthew Hopkins