Pendle witches
The outbreaks of 'witchcraft' in and around Pendle may suggest that some people made a living as traditional healers, using a mixture of herbal medicine and talismans or charms, which might leave them open to charges of sorcery.
Despite the abbey's closure, and the execution of its abbot, the people of Pendle remained largely faithful to their Roman Catholic beliefs and were quick to revert to Catholicism on Queen Mary's accession to the throne in 1553.
[4] When Mary's Protestant half-sister Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558 Catholic priests once again had to go into hiding, but in remote areas such as Pendle they continued to celebrate Mass in secret.
The Act provided that anyone who should "use, practise, or exercise any Witchcraft, Enchantment, Charm, or Sorcery, whereby any person shall happen to be killed or destroyed", was guilty of a felony without benefit of clergy, and was to be put to death.
[6] After a visit to Denmark, he had attended the trial in 1590 of the North Berwick witches, who were convicted of using witchcraft to send a storm against the ship that carried James and his wife Anne back to Scotland.
[8] In early 1612, the year of the trials, every justice of the peace (JP) in Lancashire was ordered to compile a list of recusants in their area, i.e. those who refused to attend the English Church and to take communion, a criminal offence at that time.
It was against this background of seeking out religious nonconformists that, in March 1612, Nowell investigated a complaint made to him by the family of John Law, a pedlar, who claimed to have been injured by witchcraft.
Altham was nearing the end of his judicial career, but he had recently been accused of a miscarriage of justice at the York Assizes, which had resulted in a woman being sentenced to death by hanging for witchcraft.
[18] According to the 1613 tract "Potts Discovery of Witches", the Devil appeared in the likeness of a black or brown dog with fiery eyes; which Jennet Device later claimed was a spirit familiar of her grandmother named Ball; which spoke twice in English offering to lame him.
[19] A few minutes after the encounter with Alizon Device, she said she saw Law stumble and fall, apparently lame, perhaps because he suffered a stroke; he managed to regain his feet and reach a nearby inn.
Margaret Crooke, another witness seen by Nowell that day, claimed that her brother had fallen sick and died after having had a disagreement with Redferne, and that he had frequently blamed her for his illness.
[28] Based on the evidence and confessions he had obtained, Nowell committed Demdike, Chattox, Anne Redferne and Alizon Device to Lancaster Gaol, to be tried for maleficium – causing harm by witchcraft – at the next assizes.
[29] The committal and subsequent trial of the four women might have been the end of the matter, had it not been for a meeting organised by Elizabeth Device at Malkin Tower, the home of the Demdikes,[30] held on Good Friday 10 April 1612.
The evidence seems to discount an earlier belief that Malkin Tower was located close to Lower Black Moss Reservoir, near Barley, after a 17th-century cottage, with a mummified cat sealed in the walls, was discovered by water engineers in 2011.
[48] She pleaded not guilty, but the confession she had made to Roger Nowell—likely under torture—was read out in court, and evidence against her was presented by James Robinson, who had lived with the Chattox family 20 years earlier.
That, and the evidence presented against him by his sister Jennet, who said that she had seen her brother asking a black dog he had conjured up to help him kill Townley, was sufficient to persuade the jury to find him guilty.
[54][55] 19 August The trials of the three Samlesbury witches were heard before Anne Redferne's first appearance in court,[53] late in the afternoon, charged with the murder of Robert Nutter.
Potts does not provide an account of Alice Grey's trial, simply recording her as one of the Samlesbury witches – which she was not, as she was one of those identified as having been at the Malkin Tower meeting – and naming her in the list of those found not guilty.
[71] Nevertheless, Potts "seems to give a generally trustworthy, although not comprehensive, account of an Assize witchcraft trial, provided that the reader is constantly aware of his use of written material instead of verbatim reports".
[72] The trials took place not quite seven years after the Gunpowder Plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in an attempt to kill King James and the Protestant aristocracy had been foiled.
It was alleged that the Pendle witches had hatched their own gunpowder plot to blow up Lancaster Castle, although historian Stephen Pumfrey has suggested that the "preposterous scheme" was invented by the examining magistrates and simply agreed to by James Device in his witness statement.
Neighbouring Cheshire, for instance, also suffered from economic problems and religious activists, but there only 47 people were indicted for causing harm by witchcraft between 1589 and 1675, of whom 11 were found guilty.
[76] Pendle was part of the parish of Whalley, an area covering 180 square miles (470 km2), too large to be effective in preaching and teaching the doctrines of the Church of England: both the survival of Catholicism and the upsurge of witchcraft in Lancashire have been attributed to its over-stretched parochial structure.
Until its dissolution, the spiritual needs of the people of Pendle and surrounding districts had been served by nearby Whalley Abbey, but its closure in 1537 left a moral vacuum.
Under cross-examination in London, Robinson admitted that he had fabricated his evidence,[82] but even though four of the accused were eventually pardoned,[84] they all remained incarcerated in Lancaster Gaol, where it is likely that they died.
[86] In modern times the witches have become the inspiration for Pendle's tourism and heritage industries, with local shops selling a variety of witch-motif gifts.
The later petition followed the Swiss government's pardon earlier that year of Anna Göldi, beheaded in 1782, thought to be the last person in Europe to be executed as a witch.
[95][96] The novel The Familiars (2019) by Stacey Halls includes historical figures as characters in a story that is based at the time of the Pendle witch trials.
The story focusses on Fleetwood Shuttleworth, a noblewoman who becomes pregnant at the age of seventeen, and becomes involved in the trial of her midwife Alice Gray who is accused of witchcraft.
[100] In August, a world record for the largest group dressed as witches was set by 482 people who walked up Pendle Hill, on which the date "1612" had been installed in 400-foot-tall numbers by artist Philippe Handford using horticultural fleece.
