Hopkins looked up. And smiled.
Heavy rain fell hard along the High Street at Thorpe-Le-Soken, kicking the clay and dung-rich dirt briefly into to air and mixing it into reddish-brown pools which eked out the ruts and flowed fast as though to trying to escape the attack. Night was starting its descent and the street was empty save for a few horses grazing at sweating hay under a lean-to, and quiet save for the constantly crackling of the downpour and the strained barking of a chained dog somewhere on the very edges of town.
Candles burned in almost every window along the way, casting flickers of light across the splashing rain like sparks from a grindstone and making it seem as though the very ground itself were alive. Bright flecks of orange and yellow leaped into the air as though dancing to escape a burning floor.
This was no more evident than directly outside the Bell Inn where many of the village had chosen to seek refuge both from the driving rain and the toils of the day. Candles burned bright from every window. The inn was busy and rowdy with good cheer as the constant flow of ale thinned worries to nowt and convinced each of the weary residents, yet again and with no clear proof, that a better and more prosperous day might just lay ahead tomorrow.
In the furthest, darkest corner of the dimly-lit inn, to the right of a quite beautifully constructed bar (for Jonas Clarke, a Thorpe resident, was one of the finest carpenters in the Tendring Hundred) was a small corner of near-peace and quiet reflection; one fully appreciated by Matthew Hopkins and his colleague, John Stearne. It was here in the light of a single wall-mounted candle that they too sought solace from the day and sought to familiarise themselves with the finer details of their next venture. Parchments and papers covered the table before them and every so often a paragraph of interest would be exchanged or a note jotted down in preparation.
Their last week in Frinton had included ‘three prickings and two uncovered’. Though Hopkins had hoped to go three-for-three, in the case of Catherine Dowling it had simply not been possible to find any definitive mark about her person that might have made their case as watertight as The Bell was proving to be this most horrid of evenings. No strange ‘markes of birth’, no ‘extra nippes’ and not even the ‘hanging nippes’ to be found eking their way out of the backsides of so many in this area that he could easily twist to be dark sources of sustenance for the Devil’s own horde. And Hopkins knew, perhaps better than the no-less-greedy but less astute Stearne, that if too many of his carefully-concocted ‘discoveries’ were rejected by the Magistrates, then their combined reputation would soon dwindle away, the contents of a bulging purse swiftly following suit. Best, he reasoned, to take the funds for two and hope that Kirton - their next appointment - might offer the pair heftier dividends in the weeks to follow.
This new life was Matthew Hopkins’ destiny, he had decided. A fiscal enterprise sent to him by no less than God himself, and he could not afford for Stearne’s avaricious stretching of the most flimsy of facts, nor the Magistrate’s clear and precise analysis of those laid before them, to end his holy calling. He had acquainted himself with the theories put forward from works such as James I’s Daemonologie, and A Guide to Grand-Jury Men by clergyman Richard Bernard; but he also understood that it was always real events which cloaked flesh to the bones. Sad and mysterious incidents in every town and village in the land were soon linked to landscape and landmarks: barren ground where a corpse had been found, a creaking tree from which a man might once have hanged himself, or even a dark stone scarred white with the claw-marks of the devil. People recalled storms and floods, eclipses and meteors, plagues and monstrous births, visions and visitations. Moreover, they remembered witches, a legacy the families of the accused were never ever allowed to forget.
Memory, like witchery, ran in the blood.
In years gone by, once every six weeks or so and always on a Friday night, Matthew himself had been disturbed by eerie voices drifting over the fields near his house. Standing at his bedchamber window, pressing an ear to the darkness and barely daring to take breath, he had caught snatches of conversation between the witches of Manningtree, his home, and their accomplices from neighbouring villages.
Hopkins was now a little over twenty-six years old, though he looked older and that aided his cause when he found himself in disagreement with an elder purse-holder. He wore his beard short, but his hair long over a broad linen collar. The high-crowned hat, Geneva cape and bucket-top boots demonstrated that he had adopted the style of a country magistrate, his staff and spurs more items of self-importance rather than of any real authority. From his father he had gained not only a Calvinist belief in his own predestined salvation, but also a loathing of witchcraft and idolatry which he took to be cancers at the heart of Christian society. He made it his mission to eradicate them from the face of God’s green earth.
Convinced that the witches had detected his spying, Hopkins had further become convinced that they had despatched a ‘bear-spiryt’ in order to kill him, but that he had been protected by the carapace of his godliness. He told any who might listen that the coven had commanded some imps to assist a particular witch living in Manningtree: and the name he overheard had been that of an old widow, Elizabeth Clarke. She was the first for whom he had put forth the suggestion of a ‘pricking’. She would by no means be the last.
The process of ‘swimming’ a suspected witch, favoured and championed by no less than James I, had long been outlawed by the Magistrates as a ‘most dubious and sinful ordeal’. This process had involved tying the thumbs and big toes of the suspect together and dropping them in water to see if they floated. If they did, it had been suggested, then the water was rejecting them just as they had rejected their baptism and fallen into the ever-grateful arms of evil.
They would be hung shortly afterward.
Matthew had ultimately found the need to resort to other methods in order to uncover the dark brood and the equally dark process of ‘pricking’ had soon taken its place. In the case of Ellen Garrison, in Aldeburgh in the autumn of 1643, that had involved taking her into a room alone, for as long as it might take for her imps to show, some three days in that particular case. They began by stripping her naked. A team of five ‘watchers’, recruited by Hopkins from amongst the most fervent goodwives in the local area, then set about examining the surface of the body, its creases and its crevices. Having reported to Hopkins that they had found ‘twoe very smale teates neare to her fundament’ he then ordered them to commence their lengthy vigil. Hopkins told them, as he always did, that they should expect to see clearly her imps and so they began to focus their attention as best they were able by the poor candlelight and glow of the hearth. Even so, when a creature did finally arrive it still took all those gathered by surprise. Avis Savory, one of the chief watchers, had claimed that she had seen ‘a thinge in the likenesse of a beetle come into the roome’ and that ‘one of the watchers killed it, and that about an hower after a Crickett came from herward and she believes it did come from the chimney.’
Avis Savory had been just the kind of woman Hopkins had been looking for to do his bidding on his arrival in Thorpe. Ten years earlier her husband had been arrested for having ‘made insurrection & mutinously disturbed the drayning of the fennes’ and had only escaped punishment because, like most of the other rioters, he was so poor. One among them, however, described as ‘the first mover of this mutinie’, had been committed to Wisbech prison. She was the aforementioned Ellen Garrison who ‘by her neighbors was esteemed a witch’... ‘for they takeinge a boate neere her house were bitterlie accursed by her and soone after a strong man the waterman was striken with such a lamentable crick in his backe that he was constrayned to get helpe.’ With her husband’s freedom secured only by the skin of his teeth, and Avis’ blame set firmly upon a woman renowned as a witch, it made her an ideally malleable ally when it came to Hopkins’ desire to identify Garrison as a member of the dark brood and secure his purse.
On hearing news of the beetle and the cricket, Hopkin
s had immediately ordered a second body-search. Ann Morrice and Avis Savory had then been amazed to to see that there were now three teats between Garrison’s legs, and that they were swollen. Anne Clarke pronounced them ‘such as she never sawe before and that, by her experience as a Midwife, shee veryly believes then not to be naturall’. They looked again to Matthew Hopkins for confirmation. As Goodwife Savory later recalled to the Magistrates, ‘some that were there whoe pretended to have skill in the discovery of witches sayd that some of the divles impes had sucked her’.
By the time of the Ruddy Woman’s pricking, Hopkins had become supremely adept as his task. His recruitment of the right kind of female aides to do the watching, usually those who harboured a dark grievance of their own, coupled with the tiredness they would undoubtedly feel as the days wore on, would mean that one of them would either see something that simply had not appeared or, more likely, that they would mistake the most mundane for the most unholy. Despite operating a shift-system, none would want to sleep so much as a wink lest the witch take upon them as they slumbered. With such carefully calculated methods enveloping his task, the confirmation of a witch in the midst of a town and the money it delivered was all too often a foregone conclusion.
After identifying Margaret Moone, the Ruddy Woman, as a witch in the back room of this very inn, as the rains once more pounded the street outside and lighting lit the windows, Hopkins had remained in Thorpe a further week. Eight more women had been brought to him during that time and he had been able to confirm, in his own inimitable way and without ever dirtying his own hands, that a further six had also been guilty of witchcraft. He and Stearne left the town with a purse swollen almost as fully as their pride.
It was not long before Matthew Hopkins had begun to see himself as a warrior of reformation. His ability to confirm or deny the existence of such dark forces among those already suffering the most heinous of times had become a much sought after commodity. More importantly, for Matthew at least, it had become a highly valuable one. Still, he was always on the search for the next easy penny…
“What did you say, young lady..?” he asked, one thick eyebrow raised high as he placed his papers back on the table and feigned more interest than he felt was truly warranted.
Before him stood a young woman. She was probably quite bonny when the sun saw fit to shine, but for now her dress was soaked as if with blood and her sodden hair clung tight to her skin as though Medusa’s very own snakes had fallen dead around her face. Her complexion was reddened from the cold and rain and her eyes were dark; as though she had accentuated them in some way and the pastes she had used had also fallen victim to the cleansing properties of the rains. She looked as wretched as any stray.
“Witches,” the girl said. “They say you can find ’em..?”
Hopkins smiled to himself. She had no doubt heard the talk; the name of ‘Witchfinder General’ that had been bandied from town to town following his departure from another successful pricking. He was not completely enamoured with the title, but had to admit that it carried with it an air of authority and did immensely aid the movement of word of his deeds from village to fund-laden village. So he let it slide. After all, anything that could be classed as ‘pro-motion’ could not be all bad, he reasoned.
Stearne had also looked away from his papers and was now eyeing the girl top to bottom with not a little distrust etched across his expression.
Older than Hopkins, in his mid thirties, Stearne had also been raised in rural Suffolk, though he too shared a Cambridgeshire ancestry. At Long Melford, he had met and married a woman named Agnes, and together they set up home in Lawshall near Bury St Edmunds. Reform had spread quickly in Lawshall, and by 1600 the Catholic community had been driven to practice their religion in secret, at Coldham Hall. Stearne himself was a staunch puritan, censoriously mannered and possessed a mind that was steeped in scripture.
Having crossed paths in late 1643, Hopkins and Stearne had very swiftly seen a future in collaboration with each other. As well as similar geographical origins, the two shared a gentility that originated more in their own self-assertions than in any wealth, estate, breeding, or title. Like many of the emergent puritans of the age they chose to define themselves according to the present, not the past, most specifically with regard to their predestined election to the sainthood, an unswerving duty to God and a heartfelt calling to be seen as this torrid earth’s saviours.
Above all, both were men of action, and often far more astute than those who might commission their services.
“Does you?” the girl asked again. “Does you find witches?”
The more he looked into this girl’s eyes the more Hopkins sensed that beyond them lay just the kind of pliable naivety on which his work so often feasted. Besides that, he also saw that she was quite really bonny indeed, and he a handsome young man of a position which undoubtedly surmounted her own. These were the things which, if he read her social desires correctly, would deliver him just the kind of aide that would do anything and everything requested of her in securing a paid conviction. Without question.
He smiled. If the accused had so much as an odd-shaped freckle, then the purse that he and Stearne carried secreted about their belongings would be swelling yet further soon enough.
“I do not find witches,” Hopkins said, leaning back in his chair and clasping his hands, though not before curling a knowing smile in the direction of his colleague. Like a preacher, he chose his words very carefully. “For if I did, then folks of towns hereabouts might come to suggest that I act only my own grievances or desires. No, my dear, I have learned methods for uncovering the proof of witches. That is all. I leave it for those around these lands to uncover devilry in their midst. When they do, I merely act to confirm or deny their suspicions, for not all are as cut and dried as good fodder.”
And yet most appeared to be so.
Purse full. Hands clean. Conscience clear. Always.
Like all puritans and pious folk of the time Hopkins did, it seems, believe in his deeds, and the money he received was nothing more in his skewed vision than a holy bonus. Unless, of course, it’s flow was ever to be threatened. The hypocrisy of a Christian sending anyone, let alone an innocent, to the gallows permanently escaped the narrow range of vision and was always backed up with phrases containing the words ‘faith’ or ‘belief’. Exodus told him clearly that: ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’; Revelation that: ‘...into the fiery lake would go not just murderers, whoremongers and liars, but also sorcerers and idolators.’
Finally, and though he did not know it yet, more notably for this particular case, Micah Chapter 5, Verses 12-13 told everyone who would listen when he spoke, in no uncertain terms, that there would come a time when God would: ‘‘...cut off witchcrafts out of thine hand; and thou shalt have no more soothsayers.’
That time was now. It was all around him, like cold air. And, if the Good Book said it was true then it could, quite simply, be twisted to suit whatever hunger Hopkins now sought to assuage. Especially in the eyes of the blind. It mattered little if that hunger was spiritual or fiscal as he had already decreed, somewhere in the depths of his own mind, that the two were clearly one and the same.
“I knows of a witch,” the girl said, curling her lip. “A proper one n’all. She has the marks.”
“Marks are not everything,” Hopkins lied, for he had been known to offer far less and secure a noose. He feigned a shrug. “But... they are a start.” He pondered a moment, carefully timed. “Our calendar is quite full at present...” he glanced to Stearne who pursed his lips and nodded in agreement, “...so it might well depend where it is you have journeyed from, as I can see you have... at some haste. It may be that we can perhaps steer your way on our travels. Why not take a seat with us, remove the weight of that sodden dress from your shoulders and start by telling me your name?” He smiled. Warmly. “I shall beckon for drinks and you can tell us more about the vile woman you would wish us to investigate..?
&nb
sp; The girl pulled a chair, smoothed the heavy folds of her dress and lowered herself cautiously as though called to testify before God himself.
“Well...?” Hopkins prompted.
The girl looked blank. Innocent and and not particularly bright. Easy.
“Your name..?”
“Prudence,” she said, fidgeting nervously as though her tightening skin was telling her that she was now in the presence of true men of God. “Prudence Hart.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Friday, November 25, 1644.
Champillon Forêt, Chalons, Northern France.
“Sir, I feel you would wish to see this..?”
Hearing the call, Louis took just a few more moments to assess the odd scene which laid around him, moving the torch in front of him as he did. In the darkness of a winter forest’s night, deep black shadows danced around him like devilish imps laughing at a wasted journey. He had known in his gut that something was wrong the instant they had veered from the main road to the camp. There was gentle smoke to be seen wisping into the deep blue sky above them but it was a cold night and this was not the smoke of a raging fire. This was the thin smoke of a fire which was long extinguished and was now struggling against heavy odds to keep the embers from dying completely.
With that in mind, Louis had scoured the soils beneath his feet as they headed into the forest. Three deep sets of hooves in; only one out. Something was most definitely amiss.
When they reached the clearing where the three men had made their camp, there was an instant sense of disarray, even though everything was seemingly in its rightful place. It was a feeling; one in which certain things he saw did not sit right. They had clearly lit a fire, which still glowed a little, and boxes and cases were gathered around it to be used as stools. Food had been eaten, seemingly a local bird roasted and the bones still lay on the soil. One of the men had seen fit to spit regularly and a small puddle of the stuff was close by where his feet might have been. Two of what would undoubtedly have been three horses were standing and grazing in an area to the right of the clearing, where grass between the trees was still lush. One of them had seemingly been attached to a cart but that cart now sat empty and forgotten at the furthest edges of the camp.
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