must have seen something to account for these phenomena.
The trials took place at Chelmsford on July 29th, 1645, Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, being President of the Court. Hopkins says that twenty-nine were condemned, and Stearne records about twenty-eight. It is certain that four were hanged at Manningtree, and ten at Chelmsford, the rest probably being executed in other towns or villages throughout the district. Hopkins had now covered himself with great glory and presently he extended his operations into Suffolk, since the confessions of Elizabeth Clarke had implicated a number of persons living in that county, and it is hardly too much to say that a terrible panic incontinently began to spread throughout the whole of East Anglia. Hopkins was accompanied in his dreaded visitations by his jackal John Stearne, and by a female assistant one Goody Phillips. Hutchinson writes: “You must know then, that in the Years 1644, 1645, and 1646, Matthew Hopkins, of Manningtree in Essex, and one John Stern, and a Woman along with them, went round from Town to Town, through many Parts of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Huntingtonshire, to discover Witches. Several Clergymen preached, and spake against them, as far as those Times would suffer, and particularly Mr. Gaul, of Stoughton in Huntingtonshire, opposed very heartily that Trade that these People drove.” In Suffolk a most sensational discovery was made when it was found that John Lowes, an old man above eighty years of age, who had for half a century been Vicar of Brandeston, was a witch. Although he had been minister in the same place for fifty years, it is to be noticed that he was continually quarrelling with his neighbours and had the common
