Witches, victims or pawns?

During the encounter on the moor road between Pendle and Colne, the poor pedlar suffered a seizure (what we now know as a stroke) and immediately attributed it to being cursed by witchcraft. Alizon was the granddaughter of Elisabeth Southern, a somewhat decrepit, nearly blind elderly woman who had a reputation of being one of the area’s ‘wisewomen’. Alizon was often seen leading her grandmother around when she ventured from the cottage (known somewhat incongruously as ‘Malkin Tower’) where she lived on Pendle Hill. The other ‘wisewoman’ of the district was Anne Whittle. Southern had the nickname of ‘Old Demdike’, whereas Whittle was known as ‘Old Chattox’. The latter was probably a contraction of ‘chatterbox’, as she had a reputation of constantly mumbling to herself.

 

In the absence of any real form of doctors, the two had often been called upon by the residents of area to use their abilities to deal with all sorts of ailments, and they had been feuding over who was the best for as long as anyone could remember. Although Alizon later begged, and was granted, forgiveness from the pedlar she had apparently cursed, his son Abraham was not so generous and had her hauled before the local magistrate, Roger Nowell, along with Old Demdike and Alizon’s brother James, who was mentally ill.

 

During questioning, the Southerns brought up their feud with the Whittles. Magistrate Nowell was evidently delighted at this turn of events, for he had been charged (along with other law officers of the county) by King James I to rid Lancashire of witches and recusants (those who refused to attend Anglican church services).

 

King James had a morbid fear of witchcraft (which he refers to in his 1597 work Daemonoligie) and, after the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, of Catholics. Recusants could be fined or imprisoned, and Lancashire, being far from London, was deemed to be somewhat lax in rooting out these folk - hence King James’s edict to the local magistrate..

 

As the accusations between the Southerns and the Whittles became more and more outrageous, Roger Nowell seized the chance to gain favour in the eyes of the King and committed both families to the dungeons at Lancaster Castle to be tried at the next assizes which was in August of that year. Other witchcraft accusations began to proliferate and several more men and women from Samlesbury, a few miles away, also ended up at the castle. Nowell then had another stroke of luck.

 

He heard that friends of the Southerns and Whittles had held a meeting at Old Demdike's home Malkin Tower, supposedly to plot to blow up Lancaster Castle and free the prisoners. This seems somewhat fanciful and appears to have been more of an excuse to take advantage of James Device - especially as Nowell was led to understand that a Mistress Nutter had attended as well.

 

Alice Nutter is something on an anomaly among the so-called Witches of Pendle. She was a gentlewoman of some standing, but she was also a staunch Catholic and it was rumoured - but never proved - that she had been harbouring priests at her home at Roughlee. She was also in the middle of a land boundary dispute with Roger Nowell. After Nowell had finished questioning James, she and several others also ended up in the dungeons of Lancaster Castle.

 

The trial, when it finally came round on 17 August, became famous thanks to an account published by the Clerk to the Court, Thomas Potts, under the title of ‘The Wonderfull Discoverie Of Witches In The County Of Lancaster’ the following year at the behest of the judges, Sir James Altham and Sir Edward Bromley. It also gained notoriety for another reason: the main witness for the prosecution was a nine-year-old girl, Jennet Device, the granddaughter of Old Demdike.

 

Prior to this trial, children of such a young age had not been deemed fit to be witnesses, but the precedent of Jennet’s testimony was used 80 years later in Massachusetts when a witch frenzy gripped the town of Salem and 28 people were executed mainly on the words of three children.

 

The Lancaster trial lasted three days and included 12 people from Pendle and eight from Samlesbury. Of the Samlesbury accused, four were released without trial, three were acquitted and one sentenced to the pillory. All the Pendle group were found guilty and sentenced to hang.

 

Elisabeth Southern (Old Demdike) had - unsurprisingly given the foul conditions in which she had been cooped up for five months - died in prison; ten were found guilty on Jennet Device’s testimony and were hanged on 20 August on a hill outside Lancaster. Alice Nutter was also found guilty and hanged but remained silent throughout her trial, preferring to sacrifice herself rather than betray her secrets.

 

Were they really witches? Victims of the times they lived in? Or perhaps just pawns in some devious greater game?

 

 

 

Barry Durham is the author of The Demdike Legacy, a supernatural thriller about the descendants of the Lancashire witches, out now.