Also by Ellis Blackwood

  The Samuel Pepys Mysteries

  Book 0.5: Mr Pepys's Stolen Diaries (via ellisblackwood.com)

  Book 1: The Brampton Witch Murders

  Book 2: The Plague Doctor Murders (September 2024)

  Book 3: The Coffee House Murders (October 2024)

  Book 4: The King's Court Murders (January 2025)

  See my website and social links by scanning the QR code:

  The Brampton Witch Murders

  The Samuel Pepys Mysteries Book 1

  Ellis Blackwood

  Vintage Mystery Press

  Copyright © 2024 by Ellis Blackwood

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without prior written permission from the author, with the exception of non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  ISBN: 978-1-0687027-0-9

  Cover design, editorial & historical fact-checking: Tim Brown, A.S.C. (Rtd).

  Cover illustration licensed from shutterstock.com.

  For Soren, my favourite budding author.

  Contents

  1. Pepys Tells of the Witch-finder

  2. By Coach from Cripplegate

  3. To Brampton

  4. Simon Hopkins

  5. The Pepys Household

  6. Rebecca Thacker

  7. Goody Grimston

  8. Hopkins’s Arrival

  9. Incident at Supper

  10. Aftermath

  11. The Good Physician?

  12. The Stablemaid

  13. Will Farlow

  14. Hopkins’s Witch-hunt

  15. Pitchforks at Dawn

  16. Magistrate & Wife

  17. A New Curse

  18. Hopkins Interrogates

  19. To Huntingdon

  20. Hopkins Challenged

  21. A Door Slams Shut

  22. Figures in Shadow

  23. The Visitor

  24. A Seal Broken

  25. By Starlight

  26. A New Threat

  27. The Cottage

  28. To Battle

  29. A Few Ales

  30. The Morning After

  31. Near Hysteria

  32. The Unravelling

  33. Post Mortem

  34. To London

  Coming Soon

  Ellis Blackwood

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter one

  Pepys Tells of the Witch-finder

  London, September 1666

  As Samuel Pepys pulled the thin pamphlet from his library shelf, he shuddered involuntarily, such ill-conceived malevolence did it contain. Its title was printed on the cover: The Discovery of Witches. And the name of its author: Matthew Hopkins.

  Pepys well knew the story, having read the pamphlet many times.

  Hopkins, the self-proclaimed Witch-finder General, had died in 1647, yet his name lived on. He and his accomplice, John Stearne, were responsible for hunting down at least a hundred witches, whom they had mercilessly interrogated and sent to the gallows. The true number may have been even three times higher, had records been more efficiently kept and shared.

  His pursuit of these poor wretches had taken Hopkins on horseback through the counties of Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire. And to Huntingdonshire, where Mr Pepys’s parents and their daughter, Paulina, lived, in the village of Brampton.

  Only yesterday, Pepys had learned that Paulina stood accused of witchcraft, and that her very life hung in the balance.

  It felt as if the ghost of Hopkins had returned to haunt him.

  It was the morning after the night before, when a fire had started on Pudding Lane.

  That same night, Pepys had charged his new protégé, Jacob Standish - son of his recently deceased friend and colleague, Sir Miles Standish - with the retrieval of his precious stolen diaries and capture of the thief. It was Pepys’s way of looking after the somewhat ungainly young man, while putting him to good use. It would enhance Jacob’s character and provide for him a trade: that of inquisitor.

  When Jacob proved hesitant to accept the responsibility, Pepys allowed his young housemaid, Abigail Harcourt, to join the investigation through London’s night-time streets. She was unusually quick-witted, he was aware, and more familiar with the city’s seamier corners.

  To his delight, their mission had been a success. While Jacob discovered previously untapped observational skills, Abigail proved to be the finer inquisitor, so Pepys was happy to allow the pair to reunite for this new case: to save his sister from the hangman’s noose.

  Pepys rose around six o’clock on Sunday 2nd September, having been made aware of a fire in the city during the early hours of the morning. He had viewed the conflagration across rooftops from an upstairs window of his house on Seething Lane, and deemed it sufficiently distant not to concern his own welfare. So he had returned to bed.

  Jacob joined Pepys for breakfast that morning, seated at a fine oak table in the dining room. They talked not of the fire, but of Matthew Hopkins and Paulina Pepys.

  The room was dark-wood panelled, illuminated by daylight through twin leaded windows overlooking the street. As Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board - among the navy’s most senior administrators - Pepys’s decor reflected his position. Maps and paintings of naval vessels hung on the walls and a gleaming brass sextant (polished by Abigail) took pride of place on an ornate sideboard. Elsewhere were stacked plates, dishes and pewter-ware, in preparation for meal times.

  His house, on three floors, stood within the Navy Board’s estate. It boasted ornamental gardens, which Pepys would show off to visitors, sited just west of the Tower of London. In that sprawling stone fortress both Elizabeth I and her favourite explorer, Sir Walter Raleigh, had been imprisoned, and Henry VIII’s second wife, the luckless Anne Boleyn, had been executed.

  Pepys, aged 33, was wearing a billowing, off-white linen shirt and silk breeches. He had not yet donned his periwig, revealing matted brown hair that he had attempted to comb. With his ready grin, he had the look of a man who enjoyed life.

  Standish, eleven years his junior, was inclined to be a little more dour. He was wearing the same clothing from the night before, having stayed overnight in a guest room: a faded black coat and waistcoat, with saggy breeches. He too was bare-headed for the morning meal, and his sandy-coloured hair was unkempt and greasy, as was commonplace. He was tall and robust, though occasionally his limbs seemed to take on a life of their own.

  Were you charging into battle, the sight of such a man beside you, fearless and imposing, would gladden your heart. Only a while later, when you realised he had tripped some furlong back and lay face down in the mire, might you reconsider. That was Jacob Standish.

  As the kitchen maid, Mary Blythe, served them bread rolls with butter and cold roast beef left over from the night before, Pepys handed Jacob his copy of The Discovery of Witches. Its pages were crudely fashioned and Standish regarded its cover quizzically. The pamphlet had been Hopkins’s defence of his trade, in response to increasing scepticism and pockets of outrage.

  Inside, the title page read:

  In Answer to severall QUERIES, LATELY

  Delivered to the Judges of Assize for the County of NORFOLK.

  And now published By Matthew Hopkins, Witch-finder,

  FOR The Benefit of the whole KINGDOME.

  M. DC. XLVII.

  “See what Hopkins did write beneath the year,” urged Pepys.

  Jacob read aloud: “‘Exodus 22.18. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’”

  Pepys groaned. “As I informed you, Mr Standish, my sister, Paulina, has been accused of witchcraft and her prospects are grave indeed. A pain, she may be, but I would sincerely not wish the poor woman any harm.”

  Jacob chuckled, causing Pepys to stare daggers. “But, sir. The country is changed since the dark days of Hopkins. Witchcraft still causes fear in people’s hearts, yet they are disinclined to condemn the accused. When was the last poor wench hanged for witchcraft? Surely many a year since?”

  “Indeed,” Pepys agreed. “Science and reason have since taken hold and those accused have been acquitted, as I believe to be right. However, I am lately informed of a new peril arising from the home of Matthew Hopkins in Manningtree, Essex: his son, Simon. The boy is grown to a man and, fuelled by the spirit of his father, has renewed the witch-hunts. Though many are against him, he pays them no heed. And he does use the same dire methods as his father.”

  Pepys, ironically, was describing a man possessed. That man, Simon Hopkins, had Paulina Pepys in his sights.

  While Jacob was broadly aware of witchcraft, he had not researched the subject. Pepys, an avid reader and self-educator, of course had, and he keenly passed on his knowledge. “You must know your enemy, Mr Standish,” he told his young protégé.

  Principally, Pepys had read King James I’s seminal 1597 tome on the subject, Daemonologie. The same book had inspired Matthew Hopkins to ply his trade, and had even informed him of ways he might determine the presence of a ‘genuine’ witch.

  These included binding the accused’s limbs and throwing them into a pond or river, to see whether they submerged. If they floated then it was deemed water - the element essential to the Christian baptism - had refused to receive them, and so they were decreed to be a witch. If they s
ank, they were cleared of the charges, but might - and in many cases, did - drown.

  Although divining guilt by the water method was effectively illegal, that had not stopped Matthew Hopkins, who simply brazenly denied his use of it.

  Hopkins was a God-fearing Puritan and his path a righteous one. Witches, he declared, had sworn allegiance to the Devil, forsaking God and Jesus Christ. The land would be cleansed of their evil.

  ’Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’

  Explaining all this to Jacob, the naturally ebullient Pepys was working himself into a lather. He began furiously prodding the Discovery of Witches’ frontispiece illustration, his bulging cheeks ruddy and his dark eyes blazing. It depicted two seated women wearing simple country attire, watched over by Hopkins as they called to their animal familiars.

  These familiars - or imps, which children believed lived secretively in every field and hedgerow - were agents of the Devil and a sure sign of witchcraft at play. The imps pictured on the frontispiece comprised an ungodly menagerie bound to strike fear into any man’s heart. Each was named.

  Among the mutations were Jarmara, a fat, shaggy dog-creature with with no legs, and Vinegar Tom, an elongated greyhound-type monstrosity with the head of an ox. In The Discovery of Witches, Hopkins described Vinegar Tom later changing into a headless four-year-old child, who ran half-a-dozen times around the room and “vanished at the door”.

  “No sane man can believe such nonsense!” railed Pepys (though the women depicted - Elizabeth Clarke and Rebecca West of Essex - had indeed been hanged). “Hopkins and his accomplices did deny those poor wretches sleep for many days and nights, until they would confess to any such devilry as he did warrant!”

  Jacob, taken aback by his mentor’s fiery passion, was rendered mute.

  “Have you nothing to say, Mr Standish?” asked Pepys.

  The two men became aware of a figure in the doorway. It was the housemaid, Abigail Harcourt, who had been standing there for some time.

  Aged 19 and petite, she wore a servant’s outfit of petticoat, dress and stockings, all woollen against the chill, and a linen kerchief covered her tied-back red hair. She had been up since dawn, going about her duties - despite three hours of sleep - and had become intrigued by her master’s ranting on the floor below.

  In deference to both men, she lowered her turquoise eyes. “Good morning, Master Pepys. Mr Standish.” Then she added boldly, “From what you’ve just said, we can’t get to Brampton soon enough.”

  Pepys managed a thin smile. He couldn’t help seeing something of his younger self in the girl. She was forward-thinking and confident, despite her lowly status, and he admired that. Not that he would ever let on.

  “Haste is indeed of the utmost importance,” he said. “Though the Brampton magistrate, Bulstrode Bennett - an indecent fool with whom I am unfortunately acquainted - called for Simon Hopkins, I heard tell that the witch-finder rides first to Cambridge. If you make haste, you may prove Paulina’s innocence even before his arrival. Else… you know my fears.”

  “Then we should leave,” urged Abigail. “I’ve packed a bag. Are you ready, Mr Standish? The coach from Cripplegate departs at ten of the clock.”

  “I will finish my breakfast first,” he replied haughtily.

  Pepys glared at him.

  “Or I could take it with me,” he conceded, pocketing a lump of beef and rising.

  Chapter two

  By Coach from Cripplegate

  Distant, urgent voices could be heard as they left Seething Lane, and a great pall of smoke seen rising in the west. London was not unaccustomed to fires, its buildings being largely wooden. As far back as the 12 th century, city elders had decreed that dwellings be constructed from stone, precisely to counter the fuelling of fires, yet the citizens had ignored them and taken the cheaper timber option.

  Strong winds were fanning the flames towards the heart of the city and down towards the Thames, where warehouses were now burning and the intense heat was causing stored flammables - oils, alcohol, tallow - to explode. The heat grew so fierce that pigeons began falling from the sky.

  London Bridge itself was on fire. Fortuitously, a large gap between its buildings gave the fire nothing to feed on, and had stopped the spread to the south bank of the river.

  While Jacob and Abigail rushed on foot towards their appointed carriage, Samuel Pepys climbed the Tower of London for a better view of the fire. Suitably concerned, he then hurried by water to Whitehall to warn King Charles II himself, with whom he had become acquainted through his work for the navy.

  London was burning.

  Witnessing the developing carnage for themselves, the intrepid inquisitors agreed to travel east and follow the curve of London Wall to reach their destination of Cripplegate. It would ensure maximum distance between themselves and the conflagration.

  Jacob bemoaned not having enough time to return home to Strand Lane, to collect supplies for their trip. The shirt on his back, he had already worn for several days. Abigail suggested he be grateful to live so far from the travelling flames. (Standish resided in affluent Westminster, outside the city boundary.)

  Having followed Hart Street, the inquisitors reached Aldgate, the city’s easternmost gate. London’s Wall had been built by the Romans to enclose the ancient city of Londinium. Over the centuries, it had been expanded and rebuilt. Inside were all life and commerce; outside were green fields and grazing animals being fattened for consumption, having been driven down from as far as Wales and Scotland.

  Aldgate itself, like all of London’s great gates into and out of the city, was set within the Wall. An imposing stone structure with towers on either side of an arch, it was large enough to allow the passage of carts and coaches.

  London’s citizens were out in force. Market stalls were operating, selling everything the Londoner could want, from towels to tools, and the smells of baking bread and cooking filled the air. All talk was of the fire.

  There was a hackney coach stand near the gate, where drivers of horse-drawn four-wheeled coaches awaited their fares.

  “I walked quite enough last night,” said Jacob, climbing inside one. “Today we take a carriage.”

  Abigail, whose shilling-a-week wage meant she walked everywhere, was happy to agree. Time was running short - they had just an hour to catch the ten o’clock stagecoach to Huntingdon.

  Following the curve of London Wall westwards, Abigail and Jacob passed Bishopsgate and Moorgate, two of the city’s northern gates, as well as the vast churches of St Augustine Papey and All Hallows. Here, on raised ground overlooking the city, they could see the burning spires of less fortunate churches closer to the river. They could smell the smoke and hear the distant, frantic cries of Londoners fighting the blaze or fleeing.

  If the wind direction did not change, Jacob feared, it would not be long before the financial district around Lombard Street, even the popular shopping centre, the Great Exchange at Cheapside, were reduced to rubble.

  Already it was clear that this was a disaster like no other.

  “How much of the city will remain when we return?” Jacob wondered aloud, his brow deeply furrowed.

  Abigail bit her lip. “I can’t help worrying about Master Pepys’s house. Will it survive?”

  Their coachman, seated outside, must have overheard them, as he called back. “Be one of them foreigners that started it,” he said. “Frenchman. Or Dutch, most likely.”

  “Indeed,” Jacob replied.

  Abigail, accustomed to such prejudice among her fellow Londoners, remained mute.

  Cripplegate was one of London’s busiest gates, since it led north towards the popular suburbs of Islington and Hoxton, then much further on to Chester, from where a boat could be taken to Ireland. Its main arch featured an iron portcullis gate that could be raised and lowered in the event of attack.

  There were several windows in it and rooms on top. In one of them, a sign showed, lived the powerful man who policed the Thames: London’s Water Bailiff, who was also head of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers.

  Today, Cripplegate was busier than ever, with people fleeing the city for safer havens. They jostled and argued while traders, seemingly blithely untroubled, continued hawking their wares.