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The 1970s Witchcraft Trial and Other Oddities in Witch History

Khalid Elhassan March 15, 2022 25 min

11. The Conman Who Profited From Witchcraft Fears

History is full of conmen, but few were more sinister and terrible than Matthew Hopkins (1620 – 1647). In 1644, amidst the chaos of the English Civil War, he claimed to be England’s official “Witch Finder General” – a title and office that did not exist. He then traveled around, mostly in East Anglia, to offer his services – for a fee – to local governments to root out witches.

Fears of witchcraft and sorcery were rife at the time, so Hopkins found plenty of employers who paid him handsomely. It would be funny, if not for the fact that Hopkins got scores of innocents killed based on evidence that he had manufactured. He was active for only two years, but in that brief span, he got over 100 people executed.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.