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Hopkins (Matthew)

,

of Manningtree, Essex, the witch-finder of the associated counties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Huntingdonshire. In one year he hanged sixty reputed witches in Essex alone. Dr. Z. Grey says that between three and four thousand persons suffered death for witchcraft between 1643 and 1661.

Nicholas Hopkins. A Carthusian friar, confessor of the Duke of Buckingham, who prophesied “that neither the king (Henry VIII.) nor his heirs should prosper, but that the Duke of Buckingham should govern England.

“1 Gent. That devil-monk

Hopkins that made this mischief.

2 Gent. That was he

That fed him with his prophecies.”

Shakespeare: Henry VIII., ii. 1.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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