TRICKS OF THE WITCH-HUNTERS’ TRADE
Six tactics that were deployed to secure a conviction
1 Sleep-deprivation
Some witchfinders kept suspects pacing up and down during their interrogations, refusing them rest and sleep. It was rightly believed that this fatiguing technique was a way to break down mental coherence, and wrongly believed that it would access the truth. While Matthew Hopkins is often credited with inventing this technique for his interrogation of Bess Clarke, he stated that it was approved and perhaps suggested by local magistrates. He was also assisted by a team of watchers, although a contemporary woodcut (below) shows him as the heroic, lone “Witchfinder General”.
Today sleep deprivation is categorised as either “inhumane and degrading treatment” or as a form of torture. It reliably produces exhaustion, confusion and compliance.
2 The strip-search
Suspected witches would be stripped naked so that witchfinders could examine their bodies forensically. Nothing could be concealed by clothing, and no jewellery was allowed to remain: it might mask a witch mark or teat or contain a charm to stop the suspect from confessing.
Male witchfinders would examine male suspects (in England, around 1 in 10 suspects were men), but women were employed to search women. They would pay particular attention to suspects’ genitalia, where a mark might easily be concealed. Sometimes suspects were shaved to allow closer inspection.
Female searchers were respected wives and mothers, the kind of women who assisted at births. They might be paid for their work, but perhaps more importantly they were convinced that they knew what was medically normal about the female body.
3 Instruments of torture
The torture of witchcraft suspects was not oʛcially permitted in British law codes. But where suspected witchcraft overlapped with accusations of treason or heresy, witches were tortured with impunity. &uring the interrogation of supposedly traitorous suspects in , the Scottish king ,ames|8I (the future ,ames I of 'ngland) oversaw their torture by several methods. The accused witch #gnes Sampson had her head bound with a rope that was then tightened progressively. Her supposed co conspirator ,ohn (ian had his legs crushed by a contraption consisting of metal sheaths and wedges hammered in with mallets.
#lso available to oʛcial 'uropean witchfinders such as Inquisitors were specially built torture instruments such as the rack, designed to extract the truth from suspects by straining and dislocating their Loints.
4 Acts of deception
Physical torture was not necessary to get witchcraft suspects to confess. Some demonologists prescribed pressurising forms of questioning instead. A specialist questioner, they argued, would be able to get to the truth by leading and tricking the suspect. Questioning underage children helped loosen their parentso tongues. Some witch-hunters lulled suspects into a false sense of security by telling them outright lies. The magistrate Brian Darcy recorded proudly how he had hoodwinked two suspects, 7rsula -emp and 'li\abeth Bennett, in 1582. He told Bennett that “they which do confess the truth of their doings, they shall have much favour: but the other they shall be burnt and hanged”. $oth women fell for his lies and were executed.
5 Pricking the skin
Witches were thought to have insensible spots on their bodies where the devil had marked them, a belief that was strong in Scotland. Satan was believed to make pacts with his witch servants, promising them power in return for their soul and also guaranteeing immunity from confession. +f witch finders could locate a numbed mark that was apparently insensible to pain, it was a sign the suspect was a witch and was hoping to resist torture.
Less sensitive and/or bloodless spots are actually Suite common on the body, because of unequal distribution of nerves. But witch-prickers could also potentially cheat with retractable needles or sleight of hand. They were paid for their work s which was potentially a motivation for securing a conviction through deceit s but some no doubt believed in their own skill.
6 Swimming the suspects
Some theologians believed that, because Christians were baptised in water, anti Christian witches would ʚoat. To test suspectso guilt, witch finders put them through the “water test”. &rowning was not the intended outcome s however, it was an obvious risk, which is why some suspects were roped to their persecutors on the shore. #mong those swum was the Bedfordshire woman Mary Sutton in (shown below). That same year, 0orthamptonshire residents #rthur Bill and his (unnamed) mother and father endured a similar fate. “The Lustices,” weore told, “caused them all to be bound, and their thumbs and great toes to be tied across, and so threw the father, mother and son, and none of them sunk, but all ʚoated.”