Pepys Tells of the Witch-finder
London, September 1666
As Samuel Pepys pulled the thin pamphlet from his library shelf, he shuddered involuntarily, such ill-conceived malevolence did it contain. Its title was printed on the cover: The Discovery of Witches. And the name of its author: Matthew Hopkins.
Pepys well knew the story, having read the pamphlet many times.
Hopkins, the self-proclaimed Witch-finder General, had died in 1647, yet his name lived on. He and his accomplice, John Stearne, were responsible for hunting down at least a hundred witches, whom they had mercilessly interrogated and sent to the gallows. The true number may have been even three times higher, had records been more efficiently kept and shared.
His pursuit of these poor wretches had taken Hopkins on horseback through the counties of Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire. And to Huntingdonshire, where Mr Pepys’s parents and their daughter, Paulina, lived, in the village of Brampton.
Only yesterday, Pepys had learned that Paulina stood accused of witchcraft, and that her very life hung in the balance.
It felt as if the ghost of Hopkins had returned to haunt him.
It was the morning after the night before, when a fire had started on Pudding Lane.
That same night, Pepys had charged his new protégé, Jacob Standish - son of his recently deceased friend and colleague, Sir Miles Standish - with the retrieval of his precious stolen diaries and capture of the thief. It was Pepys’s way of looking after the somewhat ungainly young man, while putting him to good use. It would enhance Jacob’s character and provide for him a trade: that of inquisitor.
When Jacob proved hesitant to accept the responsibility, Pepys allowed his young housemaid, Abigail Harcourt, to join the investigation through London’s night-time streets. She was unusually quick-witted, he was aware, and more familiar with the city’s seamier corners.
To his delight, their mission had been a success. While Jacob discovered previously untapped observational skills, Abigail proved to be the finer inquisitor, so Pepys was happy to allow the pair to reunite for this new case: to save his sister from the hangman’s noose.
Pepys rose around six o’clock on Sunday 2nd September, having been made aware of a fire in the city during the early hours of the morning. He had viewed the conflagration across rooftops from an upstairs window of his house on Seething Lane, and deemed it sufficiently distant not to concern his own welfare. So he had returned to bed.
Jacob joined Pepys for breakfast that morning, seated at a fine oak table in the dining room. They talked not of the fire, but of Matthew Hopkins and Paulina Pepys.
The room was dark-wood panelled, illuminated by daylight through twin leaded windows overlooking the street. As Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board - among the navy’s most senior administrators - Pepys’s decor reflected his position. Maps and paintings of naval vessels hung on the walls and a gleaming brass sextant (polished by Abigail) took pride of place on an ornate sideboard. Elsewhere were stacked plates, dishes and pewter-ware, in preparation for meal times.
His house, on three floors, stood within the Navy Board’s estate. It boasted ornamental gardens, which Pepys would show off to visitors, sited just west of the Tower of London. In that sprawling stone fortress both Elizabeth I and her favourite explorer, Sir Walter Raleigh, had been imprisoned, and Henry VIII’s second wife, the luckless Anne Boleyn, had been executed.
Pepys, aged 33, was wearing a billowing, off-white linen shirt and silk breeches. He had not yet donned his periwig, revealing matted brown hair that he had attempted to comb. With his ready grin, he had the look of a man who enjoyed life.
Standish, eleven years his junior, was inclined to be a little more dour. He was wearing the same clothing from the night before, having stayed overnight in a guest room: a faded black coat and waistcoat, with saggy breeches. He too was bare-headed for the morning meal, and his sandy-coloured hair was unkempt and greasy, as was commonplace. He was tall and robust, though occasionally his limbs seemed to take on a life of their own.
Were you charging into battle, the sight of such a man beside you, fearless and imposing, would gladden your heart. Only a while later, when you realised he had tripped some furlong back and lay face down in the mire, might you reconsider. That was Jacob Standish.
As the kitchen maid, Mary Blythe, served them bread rolls with butter and cold roast beef left over from the night before, Pepys handed Jacob his copy of The Discovery of Witches. Its pages were crudely fashioned and Standish regarded its cover quizzically. The pamphlet had been Hopkins’s defence of his trade, in response to increasing scepticism and pockets of outrage.
Inside, the title page read:
In Answer to severall QUERIES, LATELY
Delivered to the Judges of Assize for the County of NORFOLK.
And now published By Matthew Hopkins, Witch-finder,
FOR The Benefit of the whole KINGDOME.
M. DC. XLVII.
“See what Hopkins did write beneath the year,” urged Pepys.
Jacob read aloud: “‘Exodus 22.18. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’”
Pepys groaned. “As I informed you, Mr Standish, my sister, Paulina, has been accused of witchcraft and her prospects are grave indeed. A pain, she may be, but I would sincerely not wish the poor woman any harm.”
Jacob chuckled, causing Pepys to stare daggers. “But, sir. The country is changed since the dark days of Hopkins. Witchcraft still causes fear in people’s hearts, yet they are disinclined to condemn the accused. When was the last poor wench hanged for witchcraft? Surely many a year since?”
“Indeed,” Pepys agreed. “Science and reason have since taken hold and those accused have been acquitted, as I believe to be right. However, I am lately informed of a new peril arising from the home of Matthew Hopkins in Manningtree, Essex: his son, Simon. The boy is grown to a man and, fuelled by the spirit of his father, has renewed the witch-hunts. Though many are against him, he pays them no heed. And he does use the same dire methods as his father.”
Pepys, ironically, was describing a man possessed. That man, Simon Hopkins, had Paulina Pepys in his sights.
While Jacob was broadly aware of witchcraft, he had not researched the subject. Pepys, an avid reader and self-educator, of course had, and he keenly passed on his knowledge. “You must know your enemy, Mr Standish,” he told his young protégé.
Principally, Pepys had read King James I’s seminal 1597 tome on the subject, Daemonologie. The same book had inspired Matthew Hopkins to ply his trade, and had even informed him of ways he might determine the presence of a ‘genuine’ witch.
These included binding the accused’s limbs and throwing them into a pond or river, to see whether they submerged. If they floated then it was deemed water - the element essential to the Christian baptism - had refused to receive them, and so they were decreed to be a witch. If they sank, they were cleared of the charges, but might - and in many cases, did - drown.
Although divining guilt by the water method was effectively illegal, that had not stopped Matthew Hopkins, who simply brazenly denied his use of it.
Hopkins was a God-fearing Puritan and his path a righteous one. Witches, he declared, had sworn allegiance to the Devil, forsaking God and Jesus Christ. The land would be cleansed of their evil.
’Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’
Explaining all this to Jacob, the naturally ebullient Pepys was working himself into a lather. He began furiously prodding the Discovery of Witches’ frontispiece illustration, his bulging cheeks ruddy and his dark eyes blazing. It depicted two seated women wearing simple country attire, watched over by Hopkins as they called to their animal familiars.
These familiars - or imps, which children believed lived secretively in every field and hedgerow - were agents of the Devil and a sure sign of witchcraft at play. The imps pictured on the frontispiece comprised an ungodly menagerie bound to strike fear into any man’s heart. Each was named.
Among the mutations were Jarmara, a fat, shaggy dog-creature with with no legs, and Vinegar Tom, an elongated greyhound-type monstrosity with the head of an ox. In The Discovery of Witches, Hopkins described Vinegar Tom later changing into a headless four-year-old child, who ran half-a-dozen times around the room and “vanished at the door”.
“No sane man can believe such nonsense!” railed Pepys (though the women depicted - Elizabeth Clarke and Rebecca West of Essex - had indeed been hanged). “Hopkins and his accomplices did deny those poor wretches sleep for many days and nights, until they would confess to any such devilry as he did warrant!”
Jacob, taken aback by his mentor’s fiery passion, was rendered mute.
“Have you nothing to say, Mr Standish?” asked Pepys.
The two men became aware of a figure in the doorway. It was the housemaid, Abigail Harcourt, who had been standing there for some time.
Aged 19 and petite, she wore a servant’s outfit of petticoat, dress and stockings, all woollen against the chill, and a linen kerchief covered her tied-back red hair. She had been up since dawn, going about her duties - despite three hours of sleep - and had become intrigued by her master’s ranting on the floor below.
In deference to both men, she lowered her turquoise eyes. “Good morning, Master Pepys. Mr Standish.” Then she added boldly, “From what you’ve just said, we can’t get to Brampton soon enough.”
Pepys managed a thin smile. He couldn’t help seeing something of his younger self in the girl. She was forward-thinking and confident, despite her lowly status, and he admired that. Not that he would ever let on.
“Haste is indeed of the utmost importance,” he said. “Though the Brampton magistrate, Bulstrode Bennett - an indecent fool with whom I am unfortunately acquainted - called for Simon Hopkins, I heard tell that the witch-finder rides first to Cambridge. If you make haste, you may prove Paulina’s innocence even before his arrival. Else… you know my fears.”
“Then we should leave,” urged Abigail. “I’ve packed a bag. Are you ready, Mr Standish? The coach from Cripplegate departs at ten of the clock.”
“I will finish my breakfast first,” he replied haughtily.
Pepys glared at him.
“Or I could take it with me,” he conceded, pocketing a lump of beef and rising.
