“My dear,” Hopkins lowered his voice. “I understand you are afraid. What if I could offer you safety, despite a confession? Perhaps if you cooperated with something, I could offer you safe passage through the legal system.”
Elizabeth Clarke looked up with wide eyes.
“I know you fear the gallows. I can spare you from them. But only if you cooperate. And confess. Think of it as a plea bargain.”
“I will,” Clarke finally said. “I will.”
“Good. First, I need you to sign this confession.” Hopkins handed her a slip of parchment with a written confession. Clarke eagerly signed the bottom, feeling the weight of her exhaustion lift off her shoulders. “Next,” Hopkins said, ripping a blank page from his leather notebook, “I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything…”
“Give me names.”
E lizabeth Clarke named 19 women who she believed could have possibly been witches. Truthfully, she simply named everyone she knew, hoping each name would increase the chances of her avoiding the gallows.
The women had slowly been brought to Colchester Castle over the following days. Each one screamed and pleaded. Elizabeth’s heart sank as she watched each accused witch be dragged across the stone floor and thrown into a cage.
Among the women were young Rebecca West and her mother, Anne West. Rebecca, unlike her mother, was calm as she was arrested. While her mother struggled in the arms of Hopkins’ assistants, Rebecca calmly walked with a confident happiness to her steps. She smiled and waved at Elizabeth Clarke as she was escorted past her cell.
The girl knows, Clarke thought. She knows I pointed fingers. Truthfully, Clarke thought none of the women were witches. But she was tired, and desperate. Now, the guilt had begun to build in the pit of her stomach. For she knew, in the back of her mind, that many of these women would soon be dead because of her.
That night, after the last accused witch had been imprisoned, the castle lay silent but for the faint weeping of the women awaiting their fates, wondering why God would betray them.
However, sometime around midnight, a gentle singing reverberated through the castle’s stone walls: “My own fairest daughter, your bride shall be. If you will swim alongside, our enemies. And send them to the depths, of the Lowland Sea.”
“Stop!” shouted John Stearne as he banged on the portcullis of Rebecca West’s cell. “The singing’s making me head throb!”
“It was that bad, was it?” Rebecca West tapped her chin. “Perhaps you just have poor taste in music.”
“Rebecca!” her mother whispered from the cell next to her. “Stop! Show some respect!”
“Listen to your mother, girl,” John Stearne said. “And you just might survive this.”
“Hmm,” Rebecca playfully crossed her arms and smiled. “I have a greater concern.”
John Stearne squinted through the metal gate at the girl’s defiant form. “And what would that concern be?”
“That you might not survive this.”
John Stearne’s body went cold. He suddenly felt light-headed. Then he heard a squeak and felt something running up his leg.
A rat!
He felt the vermin pawing at his legs. “Get if off!” He danced about, shaking his leg until the rat finally escaped and darted between the grating of Rebecca’s cell, into her waiting hands. It climbed up her shoulder and nuzzled her neck.
“Filth!” Stearne barked through the prison cell.
“I assure you,” Rebecca West said, “that his fur is much cleaner than your soul.”
T hree weeks passed. Elizabeth Clarke and the women she had accused had been confined within the walls of Colchester Castle. They had been given more company over the past few days as more and more women named other potential witches in the village in the hopes of having their sentences reduced. There were 29 women and seven men imprisoned by the time court convened in April of 1645.
Hopkins and his team had extracted confessions from every single prisoner. The most difficult had been Anne West. The woman was a widow, and it was frequently assumed in the 17th century that any woman who outlived her husband, especially at such a young age, must have obviously made a contract with the Devil to have him killed and inherit his fortunes.
While Anne West took six nights of sleep deprivation to finally coax a confession, her daughter Rebecca giggled as she signed hers. The other women looked on in horror, fearing the woman had either made a deal with the witch hunters that would result in their own deaths…or that she was simply just mad.
On the morning the verdicts were read, most of the village had gathered in Colchester Castle. Many of them cheered on as guilty verdicts were announced by the magistrate. They truly believed that the pacts with the Devil by these men and women were the reason for their ills and misfortunes.
When it was over, 26 of the 36 accused had been condemned to hang, including Elizabeth Clarke and Anne West. When Elizabeth’s name was called as among the guilty, she gave Matthew Hopkins a hurt stare of betrayal. The man did not offer a look back, instead clapping along with the rest of the crowd who wanted to see witches executed.
An hour later, the accused had been lined up behind the gallows. There were only four ropes, so four prisoners were executed at once. The process was well-oiled; four accused would come up, be read their last rites, and then hanged. Sometimes their necks snapped and they stopped moving immediately. Other times it took ten or even fifteen minutes before a body went limp and urine streamed down their legs. All of them pleaded their innocence, and each time they did, the crowd booed and condemned them, calling them liars, sinners, and blaming them for bringing on the hardships that had plagued the village.
Elizabeth Clarke and Anne West were executed in the same batch. Clarke was fairly stoic, feeling defeated and tired. She had no qualms about simply ending it at this point. A part of her was looking forward to it. She’d lived 80 years and most had been miserable. Her only regret was that she’d be remembered as a witch, as a monster, when she most certainly was not.
I suppose it is better than being forgotten.
Anne West screamed her innocence. But her protests were drowned out by the crowd, roaring for blood. “Speak to the Devil when you see him!” “Enjoy the Hell you’ve brought upon our village!” “You’re lucky we have not decided to burn you instead, witch!”
An executioner placed a rope around Anne West’s neck and tightened it until she could barely scream. Then, with little ceremony, he kicked the woman off the gallows platform.
It was a quick death. A merciful death. The woman’s neck cracked in two and her body went stiff in the breeze. The crowd applauded as her cries of terror were immediately cut off.
Next was Elizabeth Clarke’s turn. She closed her eyes and said a prayer as the executioner tightened a rope around her neck as well. When she opened her eyes, she caught the dark, black spheres of Matthew Hopkins’ eyes staring back at her. He was at the back of the crowd, standing proudly with his arms crossed. He looked on with a sinister smile.
Elizabeth felt a boot kick her back and she was pushed off the platform and into the abyss. Unlike Anne West, her death was neither quick nor merciful. The old woman twisted and curled in the air as she hung by her neck. Her face turned blue and she gurgled, her eyes bugging from her head as her leg kicked back and forth. The prosthetic fell off, landing in the mud below. Finally, after several minutes, Elizabeth Clarke, the first woman persecuted by Matthew Hopkins, was dead. Her body swung stiffly in the breeze, the shadow of her fresh corpse swaying over the crowd.
As the last witch was hanged and the crowd dispersed, Matthew Hopkins collected his payment from the magistrate. Afterwards, he walked back to his cart, where John Stearne was tending to the horses.
“How much this time?” Stearne asked.
Matthew Hopkins tossed him the sack of coins. “One pound per witch. Enough to keep us in business for quite some time.”
From behind the witch hunters’ cart, there was a fa
miliar voice: “One pound? Is that it?”
Rebecca West emerged. She had been spared the gallows by the magistrate, though Matthew Hopkins did not know how. He suspected that her age was a factor. Perhaps their weak wills drew the line at executing teenagers, despite the danger he knew harlots like Rebecca West brought to their villages. They were easy targets for the Devil because their minds were already so corrupt.
“What do you want?” Hopkins asked with an angry, spiteful snarl.
“Well, I’m a tad perturbed, if you want honesty,” Rebecca said. “I was quite fond of my mother, you know. After my father’s death, she would rock me to sleep at night. I’m not certain what I’ll do now, on my own.”
“Then maybe you and your whore mother should have thought of that before making a deal with sin,” Hopkins fumed. “I do not know how you escaped conviction, but I promise that my work here is not done. Watch your back.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Rebecca smiled. “I pity you, you know?”
“Pity me? I’ll remember that,” Matthew leapt up into the driver’s seat of the carriage. “I shall take comfort in your pity as I am enjoying my fancy meal that I purchased with the blood of your mother.”
“If you’re looking for me to lash out,” Rebecca said calmly, “you’re wasting your time. I should warn you, Mr. Hopkins, that you cannot make me angry. I have grown far beyond retaliation for petty insults from people who feel the need to make them. But I do pity you. Very much so, in point of fact. I pity you because you are blind.”
“Am I?” Hopkins was getting both frustrated and uncomfortable. He looked at Stearne, “John, let’s go. There are other towns and other witches.” The two men took off down the road in the carriage, their female companions in the back. Behind them, Rebecca West stared, her form growing smaller and smaller as they got farther away, finally leaving the village far behind.
Their reign of terror, however, was just beginning.
-5-
Ashes and Darkness
FEBRUARY 1644
One Year Before the Arrest of Elizabeth Clarke
F ire. An elemental monster responsible for both creation and destruction. It is fire that welds the swords of a battle, the glasses and potteries and stones that make up the walls of fortresses and keeps. But it has a dark side. It also consumed the very things it once formed.
St. Andrews Church in Cambridgeshire had stood for hundreds of years. But on this night, the once-beautiful stone house of worship was engulfed in flames. Like a dying beast, the building collapsed in on itself, wood and glass splintering in all directions.
From their horses, William Dowsing and his team of iconoclasts watched until they were satisfied that the church was but hours from being a pile of ashes in the snow. A monument that stood for centuries reduced to a pile of rubble. Then, they took off down the road, toward the parish of Great Wenham. Dowsing had been to two villages over the past week; Wenham would be his last stop before taking a month’s hiatus, and he was looking forward to spending time with his family.
William Dowsing was a radical puritan and had been commissioned by the Earl of Manchester to travel across East Anglia and destroy any “objects of idolatry and superstition.” This included many Catholic staples such as fixed altars, crucifixes, crosses, and even certain stained glass windows. There were times where a church was so decorated with Catholic regalia that it was easier to simply burn the building down, as they had just done with St. Andrews. It has been estimated that Dowsing either partially or completely destroyed around 250 churches over his two-year career.
Hours after destroying St. Andrews, Dowsing and his team arrived in the village of Great Wenham, a quaint little town near the confluence of two large rivers. Ordering the rest of his men to find an inn and rent some rooms, Dowsing went to visit St. Johns Church, which served as the home of the Hopkins family.
In the chilly night, Dowsing knocked on the front door of the church. There was no answer at first, so he pounded. He knew someone was inside.
Finally, the door was opened, and Dowsing was greeted by the tall, lanky form of John Hopkins. John was two years older than his younger brother, Matthew. But unlike Matthew, he had become the minister of the church…much to his own dismay. The truth was that John Hopkins was planning on leaving soon to pursue other careers, though historians now agree that he was actually removed before he could leave voluntarily.
“Can I help you?” John asked Dowsing.
“You know why I’m here.”
John sighed. “I do. And I assure you, William, that there is nothing here left to ‘reform,’ as the Earl has so elegantly put it.”
“I figured as much.” William Dowsing nodded. “I see you have carried on your father’s will. May I come in?”
Minutes later, William Dowsing and John Hopkins were in the church’s administrative office. Hopkins poured Dowsing a glass of white wine. “It’s been years, uncle,” John Hopkins said. “I hear you’ve been busy.”
William Dowsing and James Hopkins had been good friends in their youth. The two were both staunch puritans with the same fear that the world was changing for the worse, and that aggression was the only way to stop it. But whereas James became a vicar, Dowsing had become a soldier.
“I have been busy.” Dowsing nodded.
“Destroying churches across England?”
“Destroying heresy, John.” Dowsing sipped the wine. It was the best he’d had in quite some time. “The old ways, the good ways, they’re dying.”
“And you believe the only way to save them is to destroy the new ones?”
Dowsing shrugged. “More or less.”
“And you see no irony in this? Destruction is a trait of the Devil, of evil, is it not?”
“I will admit it is not easy,” Dowsing said. “But for one to truly complete the work of God, one must be willing to what must be done.”
“At any cost to your soul.” John shook his head and poured his own glass of wine. He sat back at his desk and sighed. “Have you been to Manningtree?”
“No. Why?”
“Matthew moved there, years ago. When my father passed away, we each received an inheritance. Generous ones, I might add. Though none as much as Matthew’s.”
“Jealous, are you?”
“Perhaps. Though it makes sense. Matthew was always father’s favorite.”
“He’s a believer,” Dowsing said. “As am I, and as was your father. Or at least he used to be.”
“Oh, he’s still a believer, that’s for sure,” John ensured him. “He still hasn’t married. No woman is ‘pure’ enough for him. Please.” John rolled his eyes. “Any woman who doesn’t immediately throw up when she looks at me is pure enough for me.”
“You said he lives in Manningtree, now?”
“Yes. When my father died, he took it very hard. He didn’t speak for days. He was convinced that he was killed by someone who had made a pact with the Devil because of his commitment to God. He believed that, because my father had been preaching so furiously against witchcraft, that a witch decided to take him out and shut him up, so to speak.”
“And what do you think?” It was obvious that Dowsing was not totally convinced it wasn’t a witch.
“Fantasy,” John said. “My father was old and sick. He was going to die, witch or no witch. That is the reality that I fear many people cannot accept.”
“Perhaps people just refuse to believe in coincidence, John.”
“A coincidence implies suspicious timing. My father was eighty years old. His time was long passed.”
Dowsing grinned. “I won’t argue with you, John. I simply wanted to stop by and see you. It’s been too long.”
“Agreed. A toast to health. And hopefully a swift end to this war that has claimed too many lives.”
The two drank beneath the flicker of torchlight. Outside, they could hear the crunching of snow as horses marched by. They spoke of the war, and of John’s lack of commitment to the church. John Hopki
ns had made it no secret that he was here because it paid. Not that he didn’t believe in God, of course. But he did not consider himself a puritan nor a Catholic. He preferred Anglicanism, the middle way, but this was often seen as a cop-out as opposed to the all-or-nothing, for-us-or-against-us approach many others took.
“When is the last time,” Dowsing finally asked as they finished the bottle of wine, “that you saw Matthew?”
“Five years ago, he passed by. Said he’d purchased an inn in Manningtree, the Thorn Inn. He seemed…odd. His hair was long and unkempt. He’d put on weight. His beard was gray. He was only, God, twenty-three years old the last time I saw him? But he already looked as weathered as a middle-aged man.”
“Perhaps it is the stress of these disastrous winters. And the emotional toll of losing his father. I have lost people. It does things to your mind, and your body, that one might mistake for old age.”
“Not like this,” John Hopkins said. “The last thing I did was wish him luck in his travels.” He stared into space as he spoke. The memory had obviously left quite an impression. “He told me that he did not need luck when he had the backing of God. He truly believes that he is a warrior for the light, but…when I looked in my brother’s eyes, I saw something else.”
“What did you see, John?”
“Darkness. Pure, darkness.”
-6-
Wails and Falls
MARCH 1645
One Day Before the Arrest of Elizabeth Clarke
W ailing. Horrible, ghostly wailing. It penetrated the walls of Elizabeth Clarke’s home and echoed off the floors and ceilings. She couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t think. The screaming, the crying, the bawling; it went on night after night, and even scared away her feline companions. It drove her mad.
One night in March 1645, Clarke had decided that enough was enough. She threw a blanket over her shoulders and lumbered outside into the cold. The house next to her, separated by only a few feet, seemed to be the source of the arrant sobbing that had kept her awake going on several nights. She couldn’t take it anymore.
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