Note 4 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
The oft-repeated statement that he had been given a commission by Parliament to detect witches seems to rest only on the mocking words of Butler's Hudibras:
"Hath not this present Parliament A Ledger to the Devil sent, Fully empower'd to treat about Finding revolted Witches out?"
(Hudibras, pt. ii, canto 3.)
To these lines an early editor added the note: "The Witch-finder in Suffolk, who in the Presbyterian Times had a Commission to discover Witches." But he names no authority, and none can be found. It is probably a confusion with the Commission appointed for the trial of the witches in Suffolk (see below, p. 178). Even his use of the title "witch-finder-general" is very doubtful. "Witch-finder" he calls himself in his book; only the frontispiece has "Witch Finder Generall." Nor is this title given him by Stearne, Gaule, or any contemporary record. It is perhaps only a misunderstanding of the phrase of Hopkins's title-page, "for the benefit of the whole kingdome"—a phrase which, as the punctuation shows, describes, not the witch-finder, but his book. Yet in County Folk Lore, Suffolk (Folk Lore Soc., 1893), 178, there is an extract about John Lowes from a Brandeston MS.: "His chief accuser was one Hopkins, who called himself Witchfinder-General." But this is of uncertain date, and may rest on Hutchinson.