Moreover it cannot escape notice that the prosecutions were particularly rife in those counties which were notoriously disloyal to the King and fell entirely under Puritan influence.
It was at this juncture that there came into prominence the most notorious figure in the annals of English witchcraft, a man who was wholly worthy to be the accredited emissary of the Parliament in these dark and difficult businesses. We may here not impertinently quote Richard Baxter’s summary of the affair which he gave in the last of his many works to be published during his long life, The Certainty of the Worlds of Spirits, fully evinced, by unquestionable histories of Apparitions and Witch-crafts, Operations, Voices, etc.; … Written for the Conviction of Sadducees and Infidels, 8vo, London, 1691.[1] This runs as follows: “The hanging of a great Number of witches in Suffolk and Essex, by the Discovery of one Hopkins in 1645 and 1646, is famously known. Mr. Calamy went along with the Judges in the Circuit, to hear their Confessions, and see that there were no Fraud or Wrong done them. I spake with many understanding, pious and credible Persons, that lived in the Countries, and some that went to them to the Prisons. Among the rest, an old Reading Parson named Lowis, not far from Framlingham, was one that was hanged; who confessed that he had two imps, that one of them was always
- ↑ Term Catalogues, Michaelmas (November). Baxter died December 8th, 1691.
Year 1640 to the King’s Restoration.” Hudibras … with Large Annotations … by Zachary Grey, LL.D., London, 1744, Vol. II, p. 11. The De origine et progressu officii Sanctae Inquisitionis of Ludovico à Paramo was published at Madrid, 1598. Hutchinson in his Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft, Second Edition, London, 1720, p. 51, sub anno 1649, has: “Great Numbers burnt in Scotland in those unsettled Times. Mr. Ady saith many thousands.” A Candle in the Dark by Thomas Ady was printed London, 1656.
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