New History Course Re-Examines the Pendle Witch Massacre

Written by Simon Williams

The Histories and Castles Academy has today announced the launch of a provocative new masterclass, “The Pendle Witch Trials: A Forensic Investigation”. Moving beyond the popular folklore of pointed hats and bubbling cauldrons, the course offers a forensic re-examination of one of the most chilling judicial tragedies in English history.

Set against the backdrop of a “lawless and wild” 17th-century Lancashire, the course explores how a perfect storm of political ambition, religious warfare, and desperate poverty led to the execution of ten people. The Academy suggests that the Pendle trials were a genuine national disaster, triggered by something as minor as an argument over some metal pins.

Key areas of investigation include:

• The Weaponisation of Law: An analysis of the Witchcraft Act of 1604, which lowered the bar for execution by making a “pact with the Devil” a capital offence, even in the absence of physical harm.
• The Royal Shadow: An exploration of King James I’s influence through his treatise Daemonologie, and the controversial use of nine-year-old Jennet Device as a star witness against her own family.
• Poverty as Pathology: A study of the fierce rivalry between the Demdike and Chattox families, framing their “sorcery” as a survival tactic in a brutal competition for the local “healing” market.
• Forensic Reality vs. Myth: The application of modern science to historical accounts, questioning whether the “magic” reported was, in fact, undiagnosed neurological conditions or neurodivergence.

“The Pendle Witches were almost certainly innocent members of the community whose vulnerability made them easy scapegoats in an anti-Northern narrative,” said Simon Williams from the Academy. “This course examines how local magistrates, such as Roger Nowell, utilised the hunt to prove their loyalty to the Crown by uncovering ‘Satanic’ conspiracies that were often merely thinly veiled Catholic recusancy.”

The masterclass invites students to step into the courtrooms of Lancaster Castle and the damp cells of the “Witches’ Tower” to witness how fear and prejudice can transform a community into a hunting ground.

The Pendle Witch Trials: A Forensic Investigation is now open for enrolment at the Histories and Castles Academy.

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