Happy Halloween! And apologies for the unintended extended break from the blog. Hopefully we will be back to business as usual soon, but for now, what better way to end October than with a topic I’ve long been wanting to cover here—witches!

More specifically, the witches of Lancashire and the 1612 Pendle Witch Trials. The trials are some of the most famous in English history, and they were unusually extensively reported by Thomas Potts, the clerk to the court, in his The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster. Of the twelve accused (ten women and two men), ten were executed and only one was found not guilty, with the last dying in prison before trial. 

The trials took place at a time when religious tensions were prevalent across the country. Just seven years before, the Gunpowder Plot had narrowly been foiled, and distrust of Catholicism had only intensified since. Lancashire was known for having a large Catholic population and it was widely regarded as being wild and lawless.

In 1612, King James I instructed each Justice of the Peace in Lancashire to compile a list of those who refused to attend church or take communion. Roger Nowell was the local Justice for the area around Pendle Hill, and it was he that would bring the eleven accused to trial.

‘Witches’ were an accepted part of life in English villages in the 16th century; there was always at least one healer who was thought to practice magic. The villages surrounding Pendle Hill had two notable ‘cunning women’, as they were known—Elizabeth Southerns (Old Demdike) and Anne Whittle (Mother Chattox). 

These two were the matriarchs of the Device family and the Redferne family respectively. These two families had a long-standing rivalry originating from a Redferne breaking into the Device’s home and stealing goods worth £117 in today’s money. This perhaps petty grudge would quickly turn deadly as the witch-hunts arrived in Lancashire.

The catalyst came in March 1612, when Alizon Device (Old Demdike’s teenage granddaughter) was walking through the woods. She came across a peddler named John Law whom she asked for metal pins; Law refused and so Alizon ‘cursed’ him. By some tragic coincidence, Law suffered what we would now recognise as a stroke very shortly after this incident, and suspicion instantly alighted upon Alizon. Alizon herself believed that she was the cause of Law’s illness and she went to visit him a few days later, confessing to her crimes and begging him for forgiveness. 

At Alizon’s trial, Law did in fact grant her his forgiveness, but this meant nothing to the outcome.

Alizon, alongside her mother, Elizabeth, and brother, James, were called before Nowell. James claimed Alizon had bewitched a local child, whilst Elizabeth denied all charges levelled against her, instead accusing her mother (Old Demdike) of having the Devil’s mark on her body. Alizon and Old Demdike both confessed to having sold their souls to the devil, as did Mother Chattox when she too was brought before Nowell. Chattox’s daughter, Anne Redferne was also among the accused—Alizon claimed that Chattox and Anne had killed five village men using witchcraft, including Alizon’s father.

Anne made no confession, but her mother said that Anne made voodoo dolls, thus damning her. The four women—Alizon, Anne, Old Demdike, and Mother Chattox—were imprisoned in Lancaster Gaol as witches, and it is possible that the story could have ended there, were it not for an ill-advised meeting organised by Elizabeth Device, Alizon’s mother.

To commiserate their misfortune, the Devices and friends of the family met at Malkin Tower. To feed them, James Device stole a sheep.

When word of the meeting got back to Nowell, he thought it sounded like a coven and decided to investigate. As a result, eight more people were arrested: Elizabeth Device, James Device, Alice Nutter, Alice Grey, Jennet Preston, Katherine Hewitt, John Bulcock, and Jane Bulcock. Due to living across the border in Yorkshire, Jennet Preston was tried at the York Assizes on 27th July—she was executed two days later—but all other accused were tried at the Lancaster Assizes, except Old Demdike who died in Lancaster Gaol.

The Assizes took place between 17th and 19th August 1612, where the ten remaining Pendle witches plus the three Samlesbury witches and the Padiham witch were sentenced. The trials set an unusual legal precedent for future witch trials in England through their use of witches’ own testimonies and the acceptance of children’s testimonies. Usually, the latter would not have been permitted, but James I had decreed that normal legal proceedings be suspended for witch trials in his Daemonologie.

This would prove crucial to the outcome of the Pendle Witch Trials, as a key witness was nine-year-old Jennet Device, the youngest member of the Device family. She even went as far as to testify against her own mother and siblings; when Elizabeth saw Jennet in the courtroom, she caused such a great disturbance that she had to be escorted out.

Interestingly (or perhaps tragically) Jennet was accused of witchcraft herself twenty-two years later, though it turned out that the accuser was inventing evidence. Despite this, however, all the accused remained in Lancaster Gaol, and it is likely that Jennet died there.

All those trialled in 1612 were found guilty, with the exception of Alice Grey. Alizon, Elizabeth and James Device, Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, John and Jane Bulcock, Anne Redferne, and Mother Chattox were all hanged at Gallows Hill on 20th August 1612.

The story of the Pendle Witches is one that remains legendary up to this day. Over three centuries of witch trials in England, fewer than 500 people were executed for witchcraft, meaning that the ten people executed in 1612 account for 2% of all ‘witch’ executions in England.

Sources:

• Holmes, Clive, ‘Women: Witnesses and Witches’, Past & Present, 140.1 (1993), 45–78
• Poole, Robert, ‘Polychronicon: Witchcraft History and Children: Interpreting England’s Biggest Witch Trial, 1612’, Teaching History (London), 147 (2012), 36–37
• https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/The-Pendle-Witches/
• https://www.historyhit.com/what-were-the-pendle-witch-trials/
• https://witchcraftandwitches.com/witchcraft/trials-pendle/