By Richard Clements

Mention witch-hunting in England and it is almost always Matthew Hopkins who springs to mind. Styling himself the “Witchfinder General,” he has passed into history as a figure of infamy. The stories told about him, repeated in cheap pamphlets of the day and later embroidered by writers and film-makers, fixed his image as the chief villain of the Essex and East Anglian trials during the 1640s.

Yet there was another figure at his side, often written off as little more than an assistant. John Stearne, older, wealthier, and of more established social standing, may in fact have been the real driving force behind the campaign. Looking more closely at the surviving records, it is possible to see Stearne not simply as Hopkins’ companion, but as the man who laid the foundations and carried much of the authority for what followed.

The beginnings at Manningtree

In the chill of early 1645 the focus of village gossip in Manningtree, Essex, fell upon Elizabeth Clarke. She was old, poor, and had lost a leg, surviving on little more than parish charity. Clarke was also sharp-tongued, which made her few friends. Before long the mutterings about her strange behaviour and supposed familiars took on a more dangerous edge and were spoken of as witchcraft.

Although Hopkins is sometimes described as a lawyer, there is no firm evidence that he ever trained formally in the law. If anything, it was Stearne who showed the greater grasp of legal process, knowing how to approach magistrates and secure official sanction.

What changed idle suspicion into a formal hunt was Stearne’s success in persuading two local magistrates, Sir Harbottle Grimstone and Sir Thomas Bowes, to issue a warrant. Both had sat on witchcraft cases before, so they were not easily swayed. That they gave Stearne the authority suggests they already regarded him as a man of substance whose word could be trusted.

Clarke was subjected to “watching” — being deprived of sleep for nights on end while observed by Hopkins and Stearne. During this ordeal she confessed, naming other supposed witches in the area. At one point she even threatened to send a toad-shaped familiar to kill Stearne, suggesting that she saw him, not Hopkins, as the principal danger. The case set off a chain reaction. Once Clarke had spoken, more women were arrested, and suspicion rippled through Manningtree and beyond.

It is important to note that Hopkins only joined after Stearne had secured that first warrant. In fact, early reports describe Hopkins as Stearne’s assistant rather than the other way around. It was Stearne’s legal initiative that transformed rumour into a judicial process. The Chelmsford Assizes of July 1645, where twenty-nine people were tried for witchcraft, grew directly out of the groundwork Stearne had laid.

Authority, status, and independence

It is often imagined that Hopkins led and Stearne followed. The picture is not so simple. The two men travelled widely together, but there are clear signs that Stearne acted on his own as well. In some counties he secured warrants, questioned suspects, and pressed charges without Hopkins by his side.

Stearne’s position in local society strengthened his authority. He was born about 1610, making him a decade older than Hopkins. He came out of a gentry family linked to Cambridge and by the 1640s had become a substantial landowner. His holdings stretched from Lawshall near Bury St Edmunds to Little Clacton in Essex, with another house in Manningtree. This property base gave him a standing in local society that Hopkins, with his more modest background as a clergyman’s son, could not match.

It was not only property that mattered. Stearne’s ties to Grimstone and Bowes pre-dated the trials, meaning he could call on the confidence of justices already known for their involvement in witchcraft prosecutions. His ability to speak with authority before magistrates, backed by social position, suggests that he was regarded as more than a mere helper. He was a partner, and at times perhaps the more credible figure of the pair.

Lives on the line

The trials were not only about ideas and authority. They swept up real people whose lives were destroyed. At Chelmsford in July 1645, Rebecca West, a young woman caught up in the panic, turned informer.

Brought before the court, Rebecca buckled under the pressure. To save her own life she turned against her mother, naming her as a witch. That desperate bargain bought her survival, yet it also added weight to the wider prosecution. It was exactly the kind of tragedy made possible once Stearne’s machinery of warrants and interrogations was set in motion, where fear and betrayal went hand in hand.

Dividing the counties

Later, when the scale of their work grew too large for both to cover every case, they split the counties between them. A rough line was drawn from Ipswich up to Norwich. Stearne ranged across the western side, taking in parts of Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and the Isle of Ely. Hopkins moved eastwards, pursuing suspects through Norfolk towns and the Suffolk coastline. The very fact they carved up the territory in this way shows they were operating as equals, each trusted to act without the other.

Hopkins and Stearne compared

Hopkins became notorious in part because he styled himself as the “Witchfinder General,” a title that carried drama even if it had no official basis. He also published his pamphlet, The Discovery of Witches (1647), a short defence of his methods. Stearne’s contribution has been overshadowed by this flair for presentation.

Yet Stearne’s own book, A Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft (1648), is in many ways the more substantial text. Written after Hopkins’ death, it laid out a fuller theological and legal justification for the hunt. While Hopkins offered a brief manual, Stearne produced a systematic defence, showing that he thought deeply about what they were doing and wanted to anchor it in scripture and law. Some scholars describe it as the first full-scale analysis of witch-finding methods and legal justifications to appear in print in England.

Contemporary criticism

Neither man escaped controversy. Some towns accused them of charging excessive fees, though Stearne insisted that what he took was openly acknowledged and agreed by communities. He could also be firm when challenged, warning that if payment was refused he would take the matter before the courts. Opposition was not limited to money. Clergymen such as John Gaule, the outspoken vicar of Great Staughton, preached and published against the witch-hunters, condemning their methods as both unchristian and unlawful.

That both men faced resistance shows that they were taken seriously as actors in their own right. Stearne, unlike Hopkins, lived long enough to try to defend himself in print. His book reads not just as a justification of past actions, but as an attempt to secure his reputation in the face of growing doubt.

After Hopkins

When Hopkins died of consumption in 1647, Stearne carried on for a short while, conducting one last round of witch-hunting in the Isle of Ely before retiring to his farm at Lawshall. The sudden end of the campaign suggests that the two men had been interdependent, yet Stearne’s decision to write a major defence of witch-hunting also hints that he saw himself as more than an adjunct. He wanted to shape how posterity remembered those years.

Rethinking the balance

Hopkins remains the figure who has captured the popular imagination, but there are good reasons to reconsider John Stearne’s role. He was the one who first secured legal authority in 1645. He had the social standing to deal with magistrates. He operated independently at times, suggesting he was not simply following orders. And he wrote the more substantial book, which provided the intellectual scaffolding for their campaign.

Stearne may never dislodge Hopkins in the public imagination. Yet if we look closely, it seems fair to see him not as the lesser partner but as the man who helped set the entire tragedy in motion.

It is worth asking, then, whether the familiar tale that crowns Hopkins as the sole master of events is the full picture. Behind him stood John Stearne, less flamboyant but perhaps more central, a figure who lingers in the shadows and deserves far closer scrutiny.

References

• Eaton, Scott. John Stearne’s Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft: Text, Context and Afterlife. New York: Routledge, 2020.
• Gaskill, Malcolm. Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy. London: John Murray, 2005.
• Hopkins, Matthew. The Discovery of Witches. London, 1647.
• Stearne, John. A Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft. London, 1648.
• Gaule, John. Select Cases of Conscience touching Witches and Witchcraft. London, 1646.
• Timbers, Frances. The Magical Cause of Witchcraft? Ritual Magic and Witch-Hunting in Seventeenth-Century England. London: Routledge, 2019.