Get Lost, Mr. Anachronistic Witchfinder General

 

I have just read on the Lancashire Telegraph website (12^th January 2012) that a sculpture trail is to be set up at Aitken Wood near Barley to celebrate the witches’ anniversary. 

 

 I thought this was a lovely idea until I went on to read that one of the sculptures will apparently portray a Witchfinder General.  This information caused my hackles to rise immediately.  Witchfinder General was a very specific title assumed and invented by Matthew Hopkins, a disgusting and pathetic excuse for a human being, who – along with his colleague John Stearne - was responsible for the torture and death of numerous  ‘witches’ in and around East Anglia in the mid 1600s. He was famously portrayed by Vincent Price in the film Witchfinder General in 1968 - one of the few occasions when I felt no inclination to laugh along with the wonderful Price's performance.  Hopkins had nothing whatsoever to do with the Lancashire witches of 1612 – all long dead by his time. 

 

Vincent Price as Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General

1. http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=matthew+hopkins&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=642&tbm=isch&tbnid=W4XNe8OLMoFm9M:&imgrefurl=http://beautyandterrordance.tumblr.com/post/270813575&docid=ec9TFvRkmh1FoM&imgurl=http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ku7aa8Lo4w1qaun7do1_500.jpg&w=500&h=329&ei=OTIVT7m6AsWwhAfE5uSfAg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=484&vpy=286&dur=279&hovh=182&hovw=277&tx=125&ty=125&sig=113496791261492495512&page=2&tbnh=135&tbnw=180&start=24&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:10,s:24

1.  

 

This man was such a horrifying and compelling character that he has become something of a gift for storytellers, the result being that people cannot seem to resist inserting him into any tale involving witches – however anachronistic.  R.T. Gunton, for example, was guilty of inveigling the horrid creature into his comic opera “The Lancashire Witches: Or King James’ Frolic”, written in 1879.

 

2012, however, is supposed to be all about the Lancashire witches of 1612.  Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General, has no place in their story.  There was NO “witchfinder general” in the Lancashire case – just local Justices of the Peace and that other piece of work Thomas Covell, the gaoler of Lancaster Castle.  And he didn’t hunt witches (as far as we are aware) – he just dealt with them once he had got his vicious hands on them.  Therefore, please let’s NOT use Hopkins' made-up title to describe ANYONE  in the Lancashire witch case of 1612.  The lazy and loose use of such terms is most misleading.

This man has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE LANCASHIRE WITCHES!

 

Jennie, exasperated again