Today I was one of the speakers at St Paul’s Girls School‘s annual history conference, on the subject of ‘The Last Witch-hunt: John Stearne in Ely, 1647′. The talk dealt with the end of Matthew Hopkins’ and John Stearne’s infamous witch-hunt of 1644-47 in the Fenland town of Ely, exploring the reason why the witch-hunt came to an end (beyond Hopkins’ death in August 1647) and why witch-hunting became unfashionable.
Francis Young 