The Pendle Witches

the story...

In March 1612, Alizon Device, Demdike's granddaughter, was begging on the road to Colne and asked a passing pedlar named John Law for some pins. His living was poor so he refused and so the beggar cursed him for his meanness. Soon after the pedlar fell to the ground and suffered a stroke and accused the young woman of bewitching him.

John Law's condition deteriorated over the next few days and the local guard arrested Alizon and tried her, with John Law as the chief witness. When the local magistrate Roger Norwell questioned Alizon, she confessed and also incriminated her grandmother and Anne Whittle at the same time. She told how her grandmother had visited a miller called Richard Baldwin to beg some money from him. When he refused and told her to leave, she cursed him. A year later, the miller's daughter died and Demdike told Alizon that she had bewitched the child. She also tells of how the ale at the Inn at Higham was turned sour and how the landlord's son was bewitched to death using a clay image.

Roger Nowell gathered together the others who Alizon implicated, including Ann Redfearn, Chattox's daughter, who unusually spoke freely and willingly and voluntarily convicted themselves without torture or pressing. It seemd even more strange that the chief witness against the witches was another of Demdike's granddaughters - nine year old Jennet.

In April 1612 Demdike confessed to evil deed claiming that the Devil came into her and sucked out her blood leaving her stark mad. On hearing this, they were sent to Lancaster Castle to await trial for witchcraft. Later that month several other supposed witches were sent to join the others at Lancaster Castle. In all, there were eleven self-confessed witches, the strangest of which was a relatively wealthy woman who was happily married, Alice Nutter, who lived at Roughlee Hall and enjoyed a comfortable life.

A week or so after the women had been imprisoned in Lancaster Castle, Old Demdike's daughter, Elizabeth, called a meeting ay Malkin Tower of her family and that of Old Chattox to discuss a plan to free them. They devised a plan to kill the jailer and blow up the castle with gunpowder. However, when Nowell got wind of the meeting, he had arrested and sent to the Castle nine of those involved: Elizabeth Device and her son, James Device; Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt; mother and son Jane and John Bulcock; Isabel Robey; and Margaret Pearson. Other involved managed to escape.

In all, 20 persons were brought to trial in August. In addition to the 10 defendants from the Pendle locality, the so-called Samlesbury witches - John Ramsden, Elizabeth Astley, Isabel Southgraves, Lawrence Haye, Jane Southworth, Jennet Brierly and Ellen Brierly - along with Isobel Robey from Yorkshire and Margaret Pearson, the Padiham Witch, were also tried.

Much of the evidence given by prosecution witnesses was inconsistent, based on rumours, idle gossip and false confessions with the principal witnesses being Elizabeth Device's children, Alizon, James and Jennet.

Jennet said that Elizabeth had an imp named Ball, which she dispatched to murder anyone who displeased her. James said he had seen Ball in the shape of a brown dog and also had seen his mother making clay images. With the testimony of her children, Elizabeth then confessed. Jennet then implicated James, saying he used another imp in the shape of a dog, Dandy, to bewitch persons to test. James confessed.

Anne Redfearne was acquitted on charges of bewitching Robert Nutter to death, This verdict was so unpopular that she was retried for bewitching Nutter's father, Christopher Nutter, to death. This time, she was convicted. Alice Nutter, Christopher's wife, was charged with killing one Henry Mytton and was named by the three Devices.

After the three-day trial, 10 people were found guilty of witchcraft and sentenced to death to be hanged on the moor above Lancaster: Old Chattox, Old Demdike, James and Alison Device, Anne Redfearne, Katherine Hewitt, Jane and John Bulcock, Alice Nutter and Isabel Robey. Old Demdike died in prison before her trial and Margaret Pearson was sentenced to a lesser punishment of the pillory of four consecutive market days in Padiham, Clitheroe, Whalley and Lancaster, and then to serve one year in prison. The rest, including the Samlesbury Witches were found not guilty.