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    The Other Pendle Witches
    The Other Pendle Witches
    The Other Pendle Witches
    Ebook115 pages1 hour

    The Other Pendle Witches

    By John Clayton

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    About this ebook

    An fascinating account of witch trials in 1634 where over 60 local people were arrested in the area of Pendle Forest (East Lancashire - Northern England). These unfortunates were tried for their lives on the evidence of a ten year-old boy who became famous as the 'Pendle Witch-finder.'

    This case became nationally famous when King Charles the First took a personal interest. Playwrights wrote and performed plays in London and these were widely acclaimed.

    The 1634 trials followed on from the infamous Pendle Witch Trials of 1612 when ten Pendle people were executed at Lancaster gaol for having consorted with the Devil and causing death by means of witchcraft.

    In 1634 we see that a number of the families caught up in the 1612 case appear once more as witches. In particular Jennet Device, a young girl who was responsible for the deaths of a number of people by giving false testimony, is herself indicted by the witch-finder boy.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn Clayton
    Release dateNov 5, 2012
    ISBN9781301283569
    The Other Pendle Witches
    Author

    John Clayton

    Having qualified at Oxford University as a local historian I proceeded to study as a landscape archaeologist. I have written a number of books (including a novel)covering aspects of the history of my district - namely the East Lancashire Forest of Pendle. I am a leading authority on the subject of the Lancashire Witches of 1612 and 1634 and have puplished three books relating to these nfamous witch trials. In 2011 I acted as historical advisor to Wingspan Productions on their 2011 BBC4 film The Pendle Witch Child. I have also helped on other BBC television productions and have broadcast on BBC radio.

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      Book preview

      The Other Pendle Witches - John Clayton

      Introduction

      This year of 2012 marks the fourth centenary of an event where ten people were executed at Lancaster following the infamous Lancashire Witch Trials of August 1612. The ten people executed included a mother and son, a mother and daughter and a grandmother, her daughter and two grandchildren. Nine of these people lived in, or on the periphery, of the East Lancashire rural district known as the Forest of Pendle.

      The 1612 trials also included a group of women from Samlesbury, a village situated near to the Lancashire town of Preston, and this is the reason why the trials were commonly referred to as the Lancashire Witch Trials. However, given the fact that the case against the Samlesbury group was dismissed, and almost all of those found guilty of the offence of witchcraft were from the Pendle area, it seems apposite to refer to this series of trials as the Pendle Witch Trials.

      As indicated in the title of this book, the 1612 trials are not the focus of attention here – the subject within is the lesser known 1634 Pendle Witch Trials relating to events that occurred in the previous winter of 1633. This later event relied directly upon the precedent of the 1612 case and would, therefore, never have occurred in isolation.

      Mirrored in the 1634 case we see yet again that a large number of local people are accused of practising witchcraft and related maleficarum: indeed many of those accused in the later case were related to the unfortunates who lost their lives through the application of distorted justice in 1612.

      Ideally, a reasonable understanding of the 1612 witch trial would be an advantage to the reader when it comes to contextualising the later events - a brief synopsis is included below:

      The first trials were instigated on the 18th March 1612 when eighteen year old Alison Device asked for a packet of brass pins (value one penny) from a travelling chapman in Colne Field Lane, on the northern boundary of the town of Colne.

      For some reason the chapman became angry (or scared), began to hurry away and was struck down by the effects of a stroke. Alison just happened to be the daughter of Elizabeth Device, and sister of James and young Jennet Device. Elizabeth Device was the daughter of Elizabeth Southern, also known as Old Demdike. Following the misfortune of the chapman Alison was interrogated by local magistrate, Roger Nowell, and her statement of guilt quickly impacted upon other members of her family.

      In turn Old Demdike was interrogated and implicated other women from the Pendle district – among them one Elizabeth Whittle, known as Old Chattox. Soon the accusations of witchcraft were flying thick and fast and more people were dragged in front of the magistrates to offer up increasingly farcical statements.

      In the end thirteen people were committed for trial (the Samlesbury accused are omitted).

      1612 Trials Timeline

      18th March: Alison Device meets ‘chapman’ John Lawe on the outskirts of Colne: he collapses, supposedly bewitched.

      21st March: Halifax:- Abraham Lawe receives a letter informing him of his father's condition.

      29th March: Abraham Lawe goes to Colne and is supposedly informed by the local people that his father had been the victim of Alison Device: the inferencebeing that as she was the granddaughter of the infamous Demdike she must have used witchcraft to strike him down. Lawe, finding Alison, takes her to Colne and confronts her with his sick father  Alison is reported to have been contrite and she subsequently confesses.

      30th March: Roger Nowell examines both Alison Device and Abraham Lawe at Read Hall. After she admits to having a Familiar, in the shape of a black dog, Nowell decides that there is sufficient evidence to hold Alison.

      2nd April: Demdike and Chattox are examined at Ashlar House in Fence by Nowell. Also present are John Nutter, Margaret Crooke (his sister) and their step-brother James Robinson. Accusations of witchcraft fly thick and fast and more local people are brought into the fray.

      4th April: Chattox, Demdike, Anne Redfern and Alison Device are packed off on remand to the Well Tower at Lancaster Castle to await trial in the coming August.

      6th April: Jennet Preston, of Gisburn (Yorkshire) is tried at York Assizes after being accused by Thomas Lister of killing a child of the Dodgeson family in the Gisburn area. She is acquitted.

      10th April: This being Good Friday some twenty witches hold a 'diabolical' meeting at Malkin Tower. The local constable, Henry Hargreaves, is well aware of this gathering and informs Nowell that it has taken place.

      27th April: Roger Nowell and his fellow Justice, Nicholas Bannister of Altham, are again at Fence, this time to examine the Device family of Elizabeth, James and Jennet. Another bout of apparent confession, recrimination and accusation breaks out  James and Jennet are only too happy to chat with the magistrates about their party at Malkin.

      The fate of those they insist were in attendance at the Good Friday gathering is now sealed.

      27th July: Jennet Preston, of Gisburn, is tried at York on a charge of having bewitched to death Thomas Lister of Westby. Roger Nowell has sent the relevant witness statements relating to the Good Friday Malkin meeting to York Assizes. Jennet is said to have enlisted the help of others to kill Lister and his brother, she is found guilty and sentenced to death by the same judges who would later try the Pendle accused.

      17th August: The Lancaster Assizes are officially opened for business.

      18th August: Elizabeth and James Device, along with Chattox, are found guilty. Chattox’s daughter, Anne Redfern, is found not guilty of murdering Robert Nutter of Greenhead.

      19th August: Anne Redfern is tried for the murder of Christopher Nutter of Greenhead and this time is found guilty. Alison Device, Margaret Pearson, John and Jane Bulcock, Isabell Roby, Alice Nutter and Katherine Hewitt are all found guilty. The case against the Samlesbury accused proves to have been a farce and they are found not guilty.

      When the Assize judges, Bromley and Altham, arrived at Lancaster in the August of 1612 they were presented with a Calendar of Proceedings - this took the form of a list of the accused to be tried within the session along with the evidence against them and the order in which they were to be tried.

      Vpon Sunday in the after noone, my honorable Lords the Iudges of Assise, came from Kendall to Lancaster. Wherevpon M. Couell, presented vnto their Lordships a Calender, conteyning the Names of the Prisoners committed to his charge, which were to receiue their Tryall at the Assises: Out of which, we are onely to deale with the proceedings against Witches, which were as followeth. Viz

      Elizabeth Sowtherns alias Old Demdike of Malkyn Tower

      (Who dyed before shee came to her tryall)

      Anne Whittle, alias Chattoxe of West Close

      Elizabeth Device: Daughter of old Demdike of Malkyn

      Iames Device: Sonne of Elizabeth Device of Malkyn

      Anne Readfearne: Daughter of Anne Chattoxe of West Close

      Alice Nutter of the Roughlea

      Katherine Hewytte of Colne

      Alice Grey of Colne: Found not guiltye

      John Bulcocke of Mossende

      Jane Bulcocke of Mossende

      Alizon Device: Daughter of Elizabeth Device of Malkyn

      Isabell Robey of Windle

      Margaret Pearson of Padiham

      The prosecution of Isabell Roby, at the same time as the Pendle accused were being arraigned, would almost certainly have been as a consequence of her nemesis, Sir Thomas Gerard, being close to the gentry who prosecuted the trials i.e. Roger Nowell, the Towneleys, Thomas Lister, Nicholas Bannister, Sir Richard Shuttleworth, the earls Molyneux of Sefton, Thomas Heber, the Asshetons.

      Beneath this strata of society were the local minor gentry such as the Nutters of Greenhead, the Bannisters of Barrowford and the Hartleys of Old Laund.

      Gerard would very quickly have heard through the old (underground) Catholic grapevine of the feeding-frenzy that was happening within Pendle Forest;

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