The Witch-Finder of East Anglia

In 1542 Parliament passed The Witchcraft Act, making it a crime punishable by death. It was repealed five years later. However when King James the VI of Scotland became James I of England, the Witchcraft Statute was passed, again carrying the sentence of death.

King James himself was so fascinated with the occult that he wrote and published a best-selling book about it, Daemonologie. This tome explored witchcraft and demonic magic, making clear the King's recommendations for torture and execution of witches. Any 'invocation, conjuration or employment of any wicked spirit' became a hanging offence instead of imprisonment. All of which seems to have given free reign to Matthew Hopkins, son of a Puritan clergyman, who assumed for himself the title Witch-Finder General in 1645 during the troubled times of the English Civil War.

Claiming to be officially commissioned by Parliament, a booklet detailing his witch-hunting methods: ‘The Discovery of Witches’, published in 1647, was delivered to the Judges of Assize for the County of Norfolk 'for the benefit of the whole kingdome' and appears to have given him license to travel East Anglia, examining and trying women for witchcraft. It was very much in his interests to do so since he charged 'twenty shillings a town', with records showing that the small market town of Stowmarket in Suffolk, paid the equivalent in today's money of £3,300 for his services, plus travelling expenses at a time when the average farm worker’s wage was just 6 pence a day. The cost to the local community was such that, in 1645, a special local tax rate had to be levied in Ipswich.

Such was the fear and suspicion that abounded, anything out of the ordinary it seems could be attributed to witchcraft. Toads featured large should they appear nearby. Ailing or lice-ridden people and animals were clearly cursed. Curdling milk or falling chimneys all could be attributed to anyone unfortunate enough to be born with a birth mark, moles or other disfigurements or who had simply had an argument with a neighbour.

The methods used for deciding a witch were both brutal and bizarre. Hopkins and his assistants looked out for ''the Devil's mark', something all witches or sorcerers were supposed to possess. Said to be dead to all feeling, it would not bleed other than to suckle a witches's animal familiar with blood, such as a baby drinks milk from the nipple.

To make matters worse for the accused, if the suspect had no such visible marks, invisible ones could be 'discovered' by the hunters who shaved off the suspect's body hair, then pierced the skin with a needle or sliced her arm with a blunt knife for a convincing exhibition, for if she did not bleed she was said to be a witch.

Hopkins’ favoured method however was the 'swimming test' based on the idea that as witches had renounced their holy baptism, water would reject them. So the unfortunate suspect was tied to a chair and ducked in the river or the village pond. If she did not drown she faced trial as a witch. If she died, she would be declared innocent and received into heaven.

Thanks to Matthew Hopkins, the largest single witch trial in England took place in Bury St. Edmund in 1645 when 18 people were executed by hanging but not before they had had their nails cut and locks of hair shorn from their heads. These were stored in brown jars in the basement of the court in the belief that if you were not whole when you died, you would be unable to come back as a complete witch in the next life!

After just three years as Witch-finder General, Matthew Hopkins retired, moving back to Manningtree in Essex. Before the year ended he had died, supposedly of tuberculosis. Sadly, his book lived on to provide a blueprint for further persecution of witches over the next hundred years, the last being executed in Devon in March, 1684.

Mellis

Mellis common by Mike Dodman

14th November, 2019

This morning, mid-November, the sun was shining bright and early from a clear blue sky, so Hubby and I decided not to miss the opportunity to venture out. I quickly made a flask of soup, filled some rolls and we were off! We didn’t travel far before we arrived at Mellis in Suffolk, where we browsed the furniture and furnishings housed in The Old Mill before settling ourselves outside in the village car park to eat lunch. We ate facing the common to enjoy the vista before changing our footwear and setting off for a stroll to wherever the grassy paths led us. We were astonished at the size of the open green space and found out that for some reason or other, Mellis Common escaped the fate of so many other villages that lost land under a series of Acts of Parliament which enclosed open fields and common land. Those Acts created legal property rights to the fortunate (or greedy) few, to land that was previously used by commoners to graze their animals. In fact, between 1604 and 1914, over 5,200 individual acts enclosed 6.8 million acres. Lucky enough to have escaped enclosure, Mellis retains the largest area of unfenced common land in England. Puritan Oliver Cromwell whose Parliamentarians controlled the East of England, trained his troops here in 1644, ready to do battle with Catholic sympathising King Charles I, whose death warrant he signed in 1649. Strange then, when we entered the church basking in sunshine behind huge Irish yew-trees in the churchyard, to find a yellowing coat-of-arms dedicated to Charles I and dated 1653. Perhaps the congregation had been sympathisers too… We left the church whose building began in the 13th century, sorry to see that its tower had fallen in 1730. Never replaced, the precious stone was re-used to build a raised path across the boggy land known as The Carnser.

Picture by Richard Rice

As is the case with so many of East Anglia’s beautiful churches, it is left to the imagination as to how sumptuous the interior must have been in its prime, and the painted tracery of the rood screen only hints at the glorious sight that must have been beholden by congregations of the past.

Rood Screen, Mellis Church

Out again onto the spongy grass, we basked in the profound silence and imagined the meadows as they must have looked then. Now, thankfully, they are managed by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust using age-old methods that ensure a succession of wild-flowers as well as nutritious grazing for the animals. We concluded our morning out and about in Suffolk, determined to try to visit to a new place of interest every week if possible. ​ https://www.suffolkwildlifetrust.org/melliscommon