The Pendle Witches

On August 18th 1612, eight women and two men were found guilty of witchcraft at the summer assizes in Lancaster. They were all hanged two days later.

Three of them - Elizabeth Device and her teenage children, James and Alizon - were convicted, in part at least, from evidence supplied by Elizabeth's daughter, Jennet, variously thought to be somewhere between the ages of nine and eleven. So small was Jennet, that a table had to be brought in for her to stand on so that she could be seen. Whether she could be heard or not was a different matter, as the courts were notoriously rowdy places in those days.

For such a young child to be brought in to testify was questionable at best, but she spoke out against her mother, sister and brother and identified others of the accused who allegedly attended a Sabbat on Good Friday of that year, held at her grandmother's house, called Malkin (or Malking) Tower. She spoke of witches' familiars, clay images and curses and appeared calm and collected. As she accused her mother, the poor, wretched woman screamed abuse at her.

Included in this motley bunch of suspects were two feuding families. Anne Whittle (known as Old Chattox) and her daughter, Anne Redferne hated the Devices. The feeling was mutual. It seems they were only too ready to accuse each other of various damning acts of witchcraft. The origin of the bad blood between them is unknown, but it certainly proved fatal for both families.

One of the most interesting characters in this story is Alice Nutter, who ranked far above the others in social status and wealth but was nevertheless identified by Jennet Device as having been at Malkin Tower on that fateful Good Friday. Alice refused to say one word in her defence - possibly because, far from participating in witchcraft, she was a practicing Roman Catholic, a dangerous pursuit in the intolerant Protestant England of James I.

Between them, the unfortunate ten were convicted of no fewer than sixteen murders, along with a catalogue of bewitchings, curses and dark deeds. Their principal prosecutor was the local Magistrate, the ambitious and ruthless Roger Nowell. His methods, along with those employed by the jailkeeper of Lancaster Prison, Thomas Covell, were highly suspect. Although illegal except in cases of suspected treason, there is little doubt that torture was used on at least some of the suspects, in order to illicit confessions. It is also likely that Nowell tricked some of his prisoners into accusing others.

The trials of the Lancashire Witches in 1612, have been kept vividly alive as a result of a detailed account made at the time by Thomas Potts called The Wonderful Discoverie of Witches in the County of Lancaster. He was commissioned to write this by 'his Majesty's Justice of Assize in the North Parts'. Not that his account could ever be accused of avoiding bias!

The conduct and methods employed in Lancaster were drawn upon eighty years later when a magistrates' handbook, used at the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts, 1692, cited Jennet Device's evidence as a perfect model for the use of child witnesses in trials for witchcraft.

Visitors to Pendle today will find little remaining of the buildings significant at that time. Malkin Tower is long gone and its location hotly disputed. Only Pendle Hill remains, brooding over hilly landscape which has changed little over the centuries. The wind whips over the grass, gunmetal clouds swirl and rain lashes down. It can be harsh living up there even today.

Lancaster Castle, which houses the former prison and the court (still in use), is open to visitors. On the eastern side is the infamous 'Witches Tower', properly called the Well Tower, which is rarely opened to visitors. A flight of steep stone steps leads down to a grim dungeon, in the depths of which are two large metal rings secured into the stone floor. Here it was that the accused were chained, possibly for up to four months, awaiting their trials. Here the mother of Elizabeth Device, the notorious Old Demdike, died before she could be tried. The walls of this place drip with water, allegedly still contaminated by enzymes belonging to bodies buried nearby.

It's not hard to imagine.

My novel, The Pendle Curse, is now available in a lovely new print edition from Crossroad Press! Here's a taste of what to expect:

Four hundred years ago, ten convicted witches were hanged on Gallows Hill. Now they are back…for vengeance.

Laura Phillips’s grief at her husband’s sudden death shows no sign of passing. Even sleep brings her no peace. She experiences vivid, disturbing dreams of a dark, brooding hill, and a man—somehow out of time—who seems to know her. She discovers that the place she has dreamed about exists. Pendle Hill. And she knows she must go there.

But as soon as she arrives, the dream becomes a nightmare. She is caught up in a web of witchcraft and evil…and a curse that will not die.

Available from:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Blackwell's

Images:
Crossroad Press
Shutterstock