Signing the Devil’s Book

During the English Civil War of the 1640s, a man named Matthew Hopkins proclaimed himself the ‘Witchfinder General’, although that title was never bestowed upon him officially by Parliament. His witch-hunting activities mainly took place in the eastern counties of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk and occasionally in the more central counties of Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Huntingdonshire.

Hopkins' witch-finding crusade began in March 1644 and ended in 1647, when he retired from his busy career. During those brief three years, he and his associate, John Stearne, spread terror and death across these counties with their zealous witch- hunting and were responsible for more people being hanged for witchcraft in England than had occurred in the previous 100 or so years.  

Hopkins and Stearne brought a new energy to searching out those who had made ‘a pact with the Devil’. Having sex with Satan was now seemingly rampant in the eastern counties of the country and incidences of suspected witches signing the Devil’s book with their blood, abounded, according to Hopkins and his sidekick.   

When this pact is made, the witch’s souls are given to their ‘master’ in exchange for diabolical favours, such as wealth, fame, power, youth and knowledge. It is a bargain made in hell. Sometimes though, according to writings of the time, some of those who signed or marked oaths and covenants of allegiance to the Devil received nothing. One may wonder why then they should risk their eternal souls in this way.   

Those who made this pact, promised Satan they would kill children or devote them to him at the moment of birth, so midwives were prime targets for Hopkins and Stearne, when, as was common in that time, babies often died at birth. Taking part in Sabbaths and having sex with demons was another activity of those who had signed the book. Once the pact had taken place, according to witch trials and inquisitions, they left a ‘diabolical mark’ where the person had been touched by the Devil to seal the agreement. Hopkins and his associate enthusiastically searched their victims for these marks as proof to determine that the pact was indeed made, so they could secure convictions and cause more innocent people to go to their deaths. If they could not find any such visible marks, they would ‘discover’ invisible ones by having the suspects pricked with knives and special needles. This spawned another industrious group of torturers called ‘witch prickers’. They shaved the victim of all their body hair so they could search for moles, birthmarks or anything that could be proclaimed as the Devil’s mark. The witch's familiar, an animal, such as a cat or dog, drank the witch’s blood from this place.

Interestingly, torture in England during this time was actually unlawful but the ever resourceful Hopkins still managed to get away with using techniques such as sleep deprivation to gain his desired confession. Another method he used was cutting the arm of the suspect with a blunt knife. If this did not cause bleeding, then the accused was a witch. Then of course there was the old tried and tested method of ‘swimming’. As witches had supposedly renounced their baptism, water would obviously reject them. The poor suspects were tied to a chair and thrown into water. Those who floated were witches. Those that did not, basically drowned, unless retrieved in a timely manner, which was often not the case. It is said that Hopkins was warned against using this act (unless he had the accused’s permission to do so) but he seems to have ignored that and he continued to do it. Ironically, the practice of swimming was legally stopped in 1645 because of Hopkins appetite for it; although we know from records, it was done to other poor souls after this time.

Hopkins and his accomplices were said to have been responsible for the deaths of some 300 women between 1644 and 1646. As fewer than 500 people had been executed in the whole of England over a period of 300 years (between the 15th and 18th centuries) Hopkins and Stearne’s activities accounted for something like 60 per cent of the total. In their short campaign, these cruel madmen sent to the gallows more people than all the other witch-hunters in England did over the previous 160 years.

If anyone had made a pact with the Devil and signed his book, it was Matthew Hopkins and John Sterne. Let us hope their souls are paying the appropriate price.