precautions to defend themselves from their enemy, and it appears that there were comparatively few executions, although this was probably the occasion referred to in Glanvill’s Saducismus Triumphatus, part 2, Relation viii, where there is mention of the “examining certain Witches at Castle Hill in Cambridge,” when the most notorious was hanged.[1] From Cambridge he tilted at full speed into Northamptonshire, and here he came across some very remarkable evidence. His next excursion led him into Huntingdonshire, a county famous in the annals of English sorcery for the exploits of the witches of Warboys in 1593. The local Justices of the Peace warmly seconded the efforts of Hopkins, but it was now that he met with a check, which seems to have been the turning point in his career. Mr. John Gaule, the Vicar of Great Staughton, preached a stirring sermon against the witch-finder, and this had so extraordinary an effect that although Hopkins had been invited to visit the town he hesitated and in the end contented himself with writing the following letter to one of Mr. Gaule’s parishioners: “My service to your Worship presented, I have this day received a Letter &c.—to come to a Towne called Great Staughton to search for evil disposed persons called Witches (though I heare your Minister is farre against us through ignorance) I intend to come (God willing) the sooner to heare his singular Judgment on the behalfe of such parties; I have known a Minister in Suffolke preach as much against their discovery in a Pulpit, and forc’d to recant it (by the Committee) in the same place. I much marvaile such evill Members should daily preach Terrour
- ↑ London, 1681, pp. 208–9.
43
