A Popular History of Unpopular Things
A podcast that makes history more fun and accessible - we love all things gory, gross, mysterious, and weird!
A Popular History of Unpopular Things
The Pendle Witches
Join Kelli as she goes over the Pendle Witch Trial of 1612, England's most infamous trial. 12 people from the Pendle Hill Area in Lancashire were accused of witchcraft in James I's England, a monarch who hated all-things witches and demons. Of the 12, eleven were put on trial, and ten were hanged.
But, like we saw with Salem, two of the main sources of evidence came from hearsay and children's testimonies. Worse still, a nine-year-old girl helped get most of her family convicted!
What happened at Pendle helped pave the way for the Salem Witch Trials. So for the 2024 spooky APHOUT season, let's take a look at one of the most well-known witch trials in English history.
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The Pendle Witches
Intro
Welcome to A Popular History of Unpopular Things, a mostly scripted podcast that makes history more fun and accessible. My kind of history is the unpopular stuff - disease, death, and destruction. I like learning about all things bloody, gross, mysterious, and weird.
We’re continuing on with our 2024 spooky APHOUT season where the episodes are all about the things we love about Halloween and fall in general - ghouls, vampires, demons, witches, and ghosts.
And for those of you watching these episodes on YouTube, you’ll be treated to a new APHOUT episode every Sunday for the whole spooky season!
Now in August of 1612, a dozen people were accused of witchcraft near rural Pendle Hill in Lancashire, England. Of the 12 accused, 11 of them went to trial, and 10 were found guilty. They were sentenced to execution by hanging. And what is so fascinating about this trial is that it was very well-documented, giving us historians some excellent insight into the witch hunts in general.
So in today’s episode, we’re going to revisit witchcraft with the Pendle Witches - England’s most infamous witch trial centered on two matriarchal rival witch families.
First, as we normally do on the APHOUT podcast, we’ll start with the historical context - what was the state of witchcraft and the witch hunts in the late 16th and early 17th centuries in England? Once we get a good sense of the world the Pendle witches lived in, we’ll talk about the two rival families, why they were rivals, why they were seen as witches, and how the trials went down.
It’s important to remember that these trials preceded the Salem Witch trials - in fact, they preceded any Puritan settlements in the US. And these earlier English trials definitely influenced what later happened at Salem; the two incidents together helped define a century of witch-hunting and fearmongering.
And if you’re watching on YouTube… a newly recorded and revised Salem episode is coming out next week :)
So let’s get started!
Historical Context
Witch hunts and trials didn’t start in the 17th century. The earliest recorded European witch hunt began in 1428 in Valais [vuh-lay], Switzerland, and lasted for eight years. So certainly, by the time of the 1612 Pendle Witch trial, the concept of witchcraft and all of that was not new.
So what I want to focus on with today’s historical context is the way witch trials were held.
So beginning in 1559, there were courts held around England known as assizes [uh-size-is]. These assize courts would pop up in towns where necessary and would be presided over by judges from higher courts in London. It would usually take place in the main town for each county. So for today’s story, which takes place in Lancashire County, the assize was held in Lancaster, which is up the M6 from Liverpool and Manchester. Pendle Hill is give or take about 24 miles in a straight line east, southeastish from Lancaster, around 38 km.
Now these assize courts would handle trials that dealt with serious crimes or civil disputes. So for serious crime, think murder cases, robberies, assaults of any kind, forgery… anything that might result in a death sentence. And witchcraft fell into that category as well. Civil disputes over things like land and money could also mediated at assize courts.
But before we even get London judges to come by and oversee an assize court, we have the local justices of the peace. These were typically local landowners, and they’d be commissioned by the King to keep public order; as James McVicker wrote in an article about these 17th-century Justices of the Peace, quote,
“The justices of that time exercised wide powers of police, executive, administrative and judicial authority, and constituted a unique institution for the unification of national and local control.” end quote.
It was these justices of the peace who would do a preliminary exam of apprehended criminals. It was mostly inquisitorial. An attempt to get confessions out of people.
Neil skip this line
Now tt wasn’t inquisitorial like the Spanish Inquisition was… definitely less torture… though they did sometimes skirt the law to get confessions.
Ok Neil, you can put the next part in
But things changed specifically for Witch Trials with the Witchcraft Acts, beginning with the Witchcraft Act of 1541. This act defined witchcraft as a crime punishable by death. It was repealed in 1547, but reinstated in 1562 under the Virgin Queen Elizabeth I with one caveat - the death penalty would only be on the table if someone was harmed as a result of witchcraft. It wobbled back and forth a few more times, on whether or not witches would receive death if they killed vs. hurt someone using witchcraft, but in 1603, under James I, it was the death penalty for witchcraft regardless. And, James expanded it to anyone who made a pact with Satan. And in 1604, prosecuting witchcraft became the job of the Courts, rather than the Church.
James’ ascension to the throne in 1603 was a big reason for this harsher and more definitive stance on witchcraft. James, you see, was very interested in witchcraft and demonology after he claimed that witches caused some North Sea storms in 1590 that almost killed his new wife, Anne of Denmark, while coming across to Scotland.
But I think it was less witchcraft and more mother nature that threatened poor Anne of Denmark.
But anyways. James got to work hunting down witches in Scotland, and around 70 people were rounded up in the coastal town of North Berwick [Berrick] under suspicion of causing the aforementioned North Sea storms. Many were tortured into confession, saying things like Satan appeared and told them to do it. And those who confessed were quickly put to death.
So clearly, James was very obsessed with rooting out and destroying witches, which explains the Witchcraft Acts of 1603 and 1604. He even published a treatise on witchcraft called the Daemonologie - the science of demons - which aimed to amp up the witchhunts, because he saw witchcraft as a, quote, “high treason against God.”
Now in addition to all this witchhunting, the law was clear on what types of evidence it would accept in labeling someone a witch. They accepted hearsay evidence - meaning I could walk into a court, say that I heard Beverly once say that Emily was a witch, and the court would accept that as evidence of Emily being a witch. And Beverly wouldn’t even need to be there to corroborate it. So that’s not great.
They also allowed any voluntary confessions, even ones made out of court or “off the record.” It didn’t matter if the confession was nonsensical, or uncorroborated - they’d be accepted.
And they even allowed (and encouraged) children to give evidence. In fact, if a child said it, it would be accepted as fact. Can you imagine that happening today? Woof.
The accused, once questioned and arrested by a justice of the peace, were not given the opportunity to prepare a defense or get proper legal representation. Some didn’t even know the exact nature of the charges against them. And since hearsay and/or uncorroborated evidence was allowed at trial, and confessions were seen as proof of guilt regardless of how they were obtained, the decks were stacked against anyone on trial for witchcraft.
As a result of all of this nonsense, between 1604 and 1614, the total number of witchcraft accusations was at its highest yet. And unfortunately for the self-proclaimed witches of Pendle Hill, the courts were ready and primed to charge them as witches and sentence them to death in 1612.
The Demdike and Chattox Matriarchies
So before I start going over the events that led up to the trial, I want to introduce you to the key players in today’s story. And most of them belong to two rival matriarchies in and around the Pendle Hill area led by two old witches named Demdike and Chattox.
Old Demdike, whose real name was Elizabeth Southerns, lived in a home named Malkin Tower. She had two children who lived at home with her: a son named Christopher Holgate and a daughter also named Elizabeth, who married a man named John Device [Davies]. If you go to research this on your own, the surname is spelled like “device” but should be pronounced “Davies.” The couple had three children who also lived at Malkin Tower - Alizon Device, a teenager, the middle child James Device, and Jennet Device, a nine-year-old girl.
Chattox, whose real name was Anne Whittle, lived with two of her daughters - Elizabeth and Anne. Anne married a Thomas Redfearn, and they had one daughter - Marie. They all lived together in the Chattox family home.
Both Demdike and Chattox claimed to possess magical powers, and everyone near Pendle Hill feared them. Demdike was even said to fear Chattox as the more powerful witch, especially once she got older and couldn’t see, relying heavily on her granddaughter Alizon for help getting around town. But it’s also worth noting here that being a witch didn’t always mean being in leagues with the devil. Old Demdike had been a witch for fifty years but in the capacity of the village healer who performed white magic and concocted medicines with herbs. Things only took a turn when King James came out ardently against all forms of witchcraft.
The two families didn’t get along. And it’s not just because they were rival witches; there was some real beef between them.
Sources suggest that at some point, one of Chattox’s daughters - I’ve seen sources that it was a third daughter, Bessie, or perhaps Elizabeth - one of them broke into the Demdike home at Malkin Tower and stole some clothes and food. Alizon later saw her wearing some of these stolen clothes and reported her to the local justice of the peace - Roger Nowell. He’ll pop back up again later; he was involved with the 1612 trials.
Now supposedly, Anne’s husband Thomas Redfearne settled the beef with a year’s supply of oatmeal with the promise that the Demdike family wouldn’t harm the Chattoxes for this indiscretion. The Chattoxes reportedly paid up for a few years, but stopped - and when they stopped, Thomas Redfearn mysteriously fell ill and died. Demdike was accused of bewitching him. And later, John Device fell ill and blamed Chattox for it as a type of retribution.
But it wasn’t just squabbles between the two families; they were accused of witchcraft against some of the other locals as well.
One of the earlier accusations goes back to Christmas, 1598. A man named Robert Nutter, who came from the prominent and relatively wealthy Nutter family, fell ill near Pendle Forest and died, seemingly at random, as he wasn’t sick beforehand. The Nutters blamed the Chattox family, particularly Anne Redfearn, because they lived on Nutter land and the two families were in a bit of a dispute. Supposedly, Robert Nutter had made several advances on the widowed Anne Redfearn, which she rejected. So, in revenge, the Nutters planned on evicting the Chattoxes. But then Robert died… and the Chattoxes were blamed.
And in another incident, which may just be made up, Elizabeth Device and her mother Old Demdike were blamed for the death of a local’s daughter. The story goes that Elizabeth was working for a corn miller named Richard Baldwin, but he wasn’t paying her a fair wage. The matriarch Demdike went over there, with granddaughter Alizon to help guide her, to plead for fairer wages for her daughter. Baldwin turned them away, calling them whores and witches. In response, Demdike uttered “I care not for thee,” which Baldwin took to be a threat. And soon after, Baldwin’s daughter died, and he blamed Demdike’s witchcraft for it. But again, a lot of these sources are questionable and could have just been the locals lying to see the Chattoxes and Demdike’s taken care of.
But regardless of their bias and authenticity, they shed some light on how the rival families were seen in and around Pendle Hill - they were seen as witches.
And it wouldn’t be long until someone went to the Justice of the Peace to have them put away and hanged to death, especially with King James’ new Witchcraft Acts.
The Pendle Witch Trial
On March 18, 1612, Alizon Device was out begging on the streets. She came across a peddler named John Law from Halifax, who was selling all kinds of little trinkets. Alizon asked for some pins, but was refused. We’re not sure what we wanted the pins for, but I imagine some people assumed that since she came from a family of witches, she must want pins for the clay figurines they made as little witch dolls that would be used to bewitch people. But regardless, John Law refused to give Alizon pins, and she left.
Shortly after, John Law collapsed in the street. He was brought to a local inn and wrote a letter to his son, Abraham Law, to come and see him. Abraham arrives, seeks out Alizon, and charges her with bewitching his father. Alizon apparently confessed, said that she sold her soul to the devil who told her to hurt John Law, and then asked for forgiveness. Remember what I mentioned earlier about confessions used in court, and about how militant King James was against anyone who was in leagues with the devil.
As a result, the local Justice of the Peace, Roger Nowell, had Alizon, her brother James, and her mother Elizabeth brought before him for questioning. Alizon again confessed to making John Law collapse, saying she used her familiar, a black dog, to hurt him. And then, curiously, she gave an account of her family and the Chattox family’s dealings with witchcraft.
Alizon told Nowell a story about Chattox killing a man’s son in the village of Higham [high-um]. A man named John Moore suspected that Chattox, a known witch, turned his ale sour. In revenge, according to Alizon, Chattox killed the man’s son. Alizon claimed that she saw Chattox making clay dolls of the child.
But it didn’t stop there - Alizon also told the Justices that Chattox was responsible for killing several other men with witchcraft, including her father, John Device.
And despite this being hearsay, and child’s evidence, it was enough to convince Roger Nowell that Chattox was a witch.
As a result of her confession and all the other implicating statements, Alizon was detained, her brother and mother were temporarily released, and Nowell had Demdike, Chattox, and Anne Redfearn appear before an inquiry on April 2nd.
And once again, curiously, Demdike confirmed that everything that her granddaughter Alizon said was true. All three women - Demdike, Chattox, and Anne - were detained. Both Demdike and Chattox claimed they had sold their souls to the devil about two decades prior in exchange for their witchcraft powers.
Now after the four women were locked away in Lancaster Prison, where the assize took place, there was a meeting of sorts organized at Demdike’s home, Malkin Tower. Apparently, a bunch of witches came out in support of the women on Good Friday, planning to destroy Lancaster Castle and rescue the witches imprisoned there.
So on April 27th, more of the Demdike family was brought in for questioning - Elizabeth Device and James were brought back in, but this time, so was 9-year-old little Jennet.
And it’s here that sweet little Jennet Device, granddaughter of the great witch Demdike, testified against everyone, dooming them all to death by hanging.
Jennet, when asked, told the justices of the peace about the witches who gathered at Malkin Tower on Good Friday. She named her mother Elizabeth, her brother James, a woman named Jane Bulcock and her son John, her uncle Christopher Holgate, a woman named Katherine Hewitt, and another named Alice Nutter - the same Nutter family who once accused Anne Redfearn of killing Robert Nutter. Two other women, Alice Grey and Jennet Preston, were also named. Jennet Preston was brought to York Castle because she was accused of killing someone in a different county, and Alice Grey was found not guilty.
Now Alice Nutter was a surprise on this list because of her family’s wealth and status in the community. But it wasn’t just Jennet who mentioned her - Elizabeth Device confessed that Alice once helped her bewitch a man.
And beyond all that, like with what we saw in Salem, Alice Nutter’s inclusion in these trials might have been political payback because of land disputes. David Holding, in his book The Pendle Witch Trials of 1612, notes that, quote,
“As far as Alice Nutter is concerned, it does appear that Roger Nowell, the local justice of the peace, entered into the prosecution as a willing participant to an obvious conspiracy, arising from a grudge he nursed over a long-disputed boundary.” End quote.
So there we go. Alice Nutter might have been a political casualty so that Roger Nowell could win his boundary dispute and get more land from the Nutters. So that’s great.
Now when little Jennet Device started to speak out against her mother, Elizabeth, the mother screamed and cursed to get her to stop. Supposedly the mother was escorted out so Jennet could continue with her damning testimony.
But the confessions didn’t stop there.
James Device confessed to being responsible for the deaths of an Anne Towneley and a John Duckworth. Anne Towneley apparently accused him and his mother Elizabeth of stealing her peat, used as fuel for fires, so they made a clay figurine of her and she died as a result. And apparently John Duckworth promised James a shirt, and when he went back on that promise, James had his familiar, a dog, kill him.
But James wasn’t done with confessing to his own crimes. He also incriminated his mother, Elizabeth, by telling the Justices that she killed a man named John Robinson with a clay figurine.
James also told the Justices that his sister Alizon confessed to bewitching a child.
Elizabeth Device then admitted that her mom, Old Demdike, had a devil’s mark. A devil’s mark was the place where the witch supposedly suckled the devil, so it resembled a teat of sorts. But it was likely just a boil or some other minor skin issue. We saw that with the Salem Trials, too.
Elizabeth also said that the rival matriarch, Chattox, was a witch.
James and Elizabeth were sent to Lancaster Prison on the strength of James’ accusations and confessions. The Bulcocks and Katherine Hewitt were also sent to Lancaster.
So in total, 12 people were arrested in connection with witchcraft in Pendle Hill:
Demdike, her daughter Elizabeth, her grandson James and her granddaughter Alizon.
Chattox and her daughter Anne Redfearn.
Alice Nutter
Jane Bulcock and her son John
Katherine Hewitt
Alice Grey
And Jennet Preston.
As I mentioned, Alice Grey was found not guilty. Old Demdike died in prison at Lancaster Castle awaiting trial. Jennet Preston was tried in York, found guilty, and hanged. And the other nine, awaiting trial in Lancaster Prison, were brought to trial between August 17th and 19th. And between the hearsay evidence, the various confessions, and a lot of testimony from little Jennet Device, all nine of these accused were found guilty. They were hanged to death on August 20th, 1612. Although I have also seen sources say that Jane and John Bulcock were acquitted along with Alice Grey… so that’s something to consider. But most sources say they died alongside the Chattoxes and Demdikes.
So why on earth, in a time when witchhunts were known and feared, would so many of these people make accusations or confessions of engaging in witchcraft? They knew they’d likely be killed, right?
Holding notes that, quote,
“There is no doubt that many of the allegations in the trial resulted from members of the Demdike and Chattox families making accusations against each other in attempts to settle outstanding scores and because they were in fierce competition with each other to secure advantages and prestige in their respective communities.” End quote.
And fair enough, I buy that. We know they were rival families; perhaps they thought that ratting each other out would be their salvation, or at least take their enemies down with them. But we also need to consider that not every self-professed witch saw witchcraft as a bad thing. Many, like Alizon, believed they did have witch powers, and they saw it as both a good and bad thing, depending on how it was used.
Professor Marion Gibson at the University of Exeter notes that, quote,
It appears they did believe they were practicing magic… They talked about performing spells to heal animals, a kind of good magic that village healers did. People like the accused witches–who were very poor–could make money from this. They described making clay images of people in order to crumble them and harm victims, which is something they could have done. They might have done it out of malice or to turn back spells on people thought to have bewitched them.
Some witches may have tried to harm neighbors by magic, but many were magical healers or completely innocent of any magical activity. They seem to have been picked on because they were poor, usually women, and were thought to be a social problem: disorderly, immoral, aggressive beggars, and a burden on society. End quote.
And that last part might describe Old Demdike and Chattox - marginalized widows and known witches.
But then why would the children incriminate their parents, siblings, and grandmother?
Well, we don’t really know. Perhaps Jennet was heavily persuaded by the justices of the peace. Perhaps witchcraft was so commonplace in her home that she didn’t see a problem with talking about her brother, sister, mother and grandmother as witches. Or perhaps it’s the opposite - little Jennet was afraid of her witchy siblings and mother, so she told the truth because she feared for her life. But in the end, she was only 9. And we’ll never really know the inner workings of a nine-year-old put in that kind of high-anxiety, intense environment - both at home AND in the court.
Although the Pendle Witch Trial is not the only example of witch hunts and trials in England, they are among the most famous because of how well they were recorded. The Clerk of the Court, Thomas Potts, wrote the book “The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster,” which is biased, but an excellent documentation of the Pendle Witch Trials.
And although the Pendle Trials happened 80 years before what happened in Salem, Salem may not have happened had it not been for the precedent that the Pendle Trials set. Professor Gibson notes that, quote,
“The merchants and Puritans who went to America carried English witchcraft beliefs with them. As early as 1626, there was a prosecution in Virginia, and the 1692 Salem trials featured stories very similar to English trials.”
And the idea of using child’s evidence and hearsay, which doomed many of the so-called Pendle Witches, was also used during the Salem Witch Trials. I’ve said it before and I’ll probably say it again, but I am so glad I live in the 21st century! Being a woman still isn’t easy, but at least I’m not in danger of being hanged as a witch!
Kelli, cut the next part out of the audio. Neil, keep it in.
In next week’s episode, I’ll go over the Salem Witch Trials, so don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss out on that one! It’s the classic witch trial story, and perfect for the 2024 APHOUT spooky season :)
Outro
Thanks for joining me for this episode of A Popular History of Unpopular Things. My name is Kelli Beard, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the story of the Pendle Witch Trials. Thank you for supporting my podcast, and if you haven’t already checked out my other episodes, go have a listen!
You can also support me and the show on Patreon - just look up a popular history of unpopular things. And subscribe to APHOUT on YouTube!
Go listen to Nedric, my editor and the musician behind my intro and outro song, Yello Kake. You can find his stuff wherever you get your music! Links are in the description.
Be sure to follow my podcast, available wherever you listen, so you know when new episodes are dropped. And stay tuned to get a popular history of unpopular things.
