Matthew Hopkins

Matthew Hopkins was an English witch hunter who led witchcraft prosecutions in East Anglia during the English Civil War. He became known as the Witchfinder General.

Witch trials in England: Legal proceedings in England that prosecuted people accused of witchcraft. Hopkins’s East Anglian campaigns were a concentrated episode of English witch prosecutions.
English Civil War: A series of armed conflicts in England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1642 to 1651 over political and religious authority. The breakdown of authority during the English Civil War created conditions for Hopkins’s rapid rise.
Witchcraft in early modern Britain: Beliefs, accusations, and prosecutions concerning witchcraft in Britain from the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. Hopkins’s campaign belongs to this broader history of belief and persecution.
Scottish witch trials: A series of prosecutions for witchcraft in Scotland, especially numerous during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Scottish prosecutions provide a nearby comparison without being part of Hopkins’s English campaign.
Witchcraft Act 1604: An English statute that made several forms of witchcraft a felony punishable by death. This law supplied the legal framework for prosecutions during Hopkins’s campaigns.
East Anglia: A region of eastern England comprising Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and surrounding areas. Hopkins’s principal witch-hunting activity took place in this region.
Bury St Edmunds witch trial: The 1645 trial at Bury St Edmunds that led to the execution of eighteen people accused of witchcraft. This mass trial became one of the most notorious outcomes of Hopkins’s investigations.
Matthew Hopkins's The Discovery of Witches: A 1647 pamphlet by Matthew Hopkins defending his methods and describing alleged evidence of witchcraft. Hopkins’s own account contrasts with later critical descriptions of his conduct.
Swimming test: A test in which accused witches were cast into water to see whether they floated. Hopkins used this ordeal as evidence, despite its lack of legal validity.
Matthew Hopkins's witch hunt: A wave of witchcraft investigations and prosecutions led by Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne in eastern England from 1644 to 1647. This campaign is the central historical episode associated with Hopkins.

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Witch trialsRelated: His investigations contributed to a concentrated wave of executions in the 1640s.