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The Devil's Neighbours: Fear, Betrayal and the Witchfinder General
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He was never appointed. He was never paid a salary by anyone but the villages that hired him. In two years, Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne helped send roughly a hundred people to the gallows across five English counties.
The Devil's Neighbours tells the true story of the East Anglian witch-hunt of 1645–1647, the largest of its kind England ever saw at a single sitting. It is a narrative history first, built around named individuals rather than statistics: Elizabeth Clarke, an older disabled woman accused after a neighbour's grudge; the vicar who finally stood up to Hopkins in print; the judges who quietly let the hunt run out of road.
You will know Hopkins as the Witchfinder General. That title was invented in 1968 by a film. This book explains where the myth came from, and what actually happened instead.
What you will find inside:
- The documented story of Hopkins and Stearne: who they really were, how an ordinary Puritan and a Suffolk landowner with no legal office between them came to run England's deadliest witch-hunt
- Why a wartime collapse in local justice, not sorcery, let the accusations spread from one Essex village into Suffolk, Norfolk, the Isle of Ely and Huntingdonshire
- Who the accused actually were: overwhelmingly poor women, often already isolated by their own community, named and followed individually rather than reduced to a body count
- How local magistrates, clergy and neighbours let it happen, and exactly what Hopkins and Stearne were paid, parish by parish
- John Gaule, the vicar of Great Staughton whose sermons and determined book helped turn the legal tide against the hunt
- The real, quiet story of Hopkins's death in 1647, and why the popular legend that he was swum and hanged as a witch himself is false
Tailored to your exam:
The back matter includes a dedicated mapping to Edexcel A-level History Option 33 (The Witch Craze in Britain, Europe and North America), a timeline, cast of characters, essay-practice questions with guidance, and a section for GCSE Crime and Punishment students, for whom Hopkins is a named case study.
Author: Simon A. Williams. Histories and Castles produces independent history books and articles for students, teachers and general readers.
How you receive it: You will be taken to Amazon.co.uk, where you can choose between instant ebook delivery or a printed paperback. All links are secure and direct you to Amazon UK.
Why this book: While other witch trial histories focus on a single location (Salem, Pendle) or compress the story into a textbook format, The Devil's Neighbours spans five counties and traces the real, named people involved; accused, accusers, and the magistrates who allowed it. Unlike popular adaptations, this book separates the 1960s film myth from what Hopkins and Stearne actually did.