twenty at one time.” There was, however, a growing opposition to Hopkins and all his works, and it is probable that after May, 1646, his activities entirely surceased, although it may be just possible that he was associated with Stearne in the discovery of witches in the Isle of Ely, when five persons were hanged. Although Hopkins, as Stearne tells us, died “peacibly, after a long sicknesse of a Consumption,” at his old home in Manningtree, and although we have the actual entry in the parish register of Mistley-cum-Manningtree, “Matthew Hopkins, son of Mr. James Hopkins, Minister of Wenham, was buried at Mistley, August 12, 1647,” yet poetical justice would have it otherwise, and the famous witch-finder who had earned for himself such hate and execration throughout the eastern counties of England was not to be allowed to go down to his grave in peace as a just and good man. Gossip and tradition were immediately busy with his memory. Even in his lifetime he had found it necessary to defend himself against the charge of being a wizard who had betrayed his fellows, and now this story was bruited in yet more elaborate detail. One story said that he had actually at some Sabbat filched the devil’s private roll of all the witches in England. It was also reported that he had been swum in a pool and floated buoyantly over the surface of the water. Even so careful an inquirer as Bishop Hutchinson reports “that Hopkins went on searching and swimming the poor Creatures, until some Gentleman, out of Indignation at the Barbarity, took him, and tied his own Thumbs and Toes, as he used to tye others, and when he was put into the Water, he himself swam as they did. That clear’d the County of him; and it
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