Pendle Witches: The Real Story Behind England's Most Notorious Witch Trials

In the summer of 1612, ten people from Pendle Forest and the villages around it were hanged for witchcraft: nine at Lancaster on 20 August, and one, Jennet Preston, at York on 27 July. The case began with a pedlar's collapse on a Lancashire road, was driven forward by a magistrate's interrogations, and was carried through the Lancaster Assizes by confessions, neighbours' testimony and the evidence of a nine-year-old girl against her own family. This article sets out what the records show, where they run out, and where later retellings have added to them.

Three companion pieces go further into particular parts of the story. The judicial audit of the 1612 trials examines how the 1604 Witchcraft Act and the evidence heard at the Lancaster Assizes made the prosecution possible. A second piece looks at the case's legal aftermath, and a third collects the myths about the Pendle witch trials that popular retellings still repeat.

Key Facts

• Twelve people were accused and ten were executed. Nine were hanged at Lancaster on 20 August 1612 and Jennet Preston was hanged at York on 27 July. Elizabeth Southerns (Old Demdike) died in gaol before trial, and Alice Grey was acquitted.
• The trigger was a meeting on 18 March 1612 between Alizon Device and the Halifax pedlar John Law, who collapsed soon after refusing her request for pins. Some modern accounts give the date as 21 March.
• The child witness Jennet Device, aged about nine, gave evidence against her mother, her brother and others at the Lancaster Assizes.
• The 1604 Witchcraft Act widened the capital offences. Under the 1563 Act only killing by witchcraft carried the death penalty; from 1604, consulting or covenanting with an evil spirit was capital, as was harming someone by witchcraft short of killing them.
• The Malkin Tower gathering took place on Good Friday, 10 April 1612. The prosecution claimed it was a witches' meeting to plan the destruction of Lancaster Castle.
• Jennet Device was named as a witch herself in 1633 and was still held in Lancaster gaol in 1636.

Study note: the Lancashire witches of 1604 to 1613 form a depth topic in Edexcel A-level History, Paper 3, Option 33 (The Witch Craze in Britain, Europe and North America, c1580 to c1750).

The Pins and the Pedlar

On 18 March 1612 Alizon Device, granddaughter of Elizabeth Southerns (known as Old Demdike), was out begging near Colne when she met John Law, a pedlar from Halifax. She asked him for some pins. Handmade pins were not cheap, and nobody now knows whether she wanted them for the house or, as some retellings suggest, for magic. Law would not open his pack. In the account of Thomas Potts, Alizon was angry, and shortly afterwards Law was struck down, losing the use of part of his body and his speech.

Modern readers usually take this to have been a stroke, and that is a reasonable reading. It is still a reading. The record gives no age for Law, no medical detail and no cause, and in 1612 apoplexy was a recognised condition with a name. What made it a witchcraft case was Law's certainty that Alizon had done it.

His son Abraham Law brought Alizon to the sickbed on 29 March. Potts records that she confessed and begged forgiveness, and that Law forgave her. It made no difference. The story had already reached the magistrate Roger Nowell, and on 30 March he took statements from Alizon and members of her family. In her examination Alizon went further than anyone required: she confessed to witchcraft and said she had lamed Law by it.

Why she said it is impossible to know. The Demdike family lived by begging and on a reputation as wise women who could lift curses and heal, so claiming a little power was not obviously foolish until a magistrate started writing it down.

Two Families and a Debt of Oatmeal

Old Demdike and Anne Whittle, known as Old Chattox, were both in their eighties and both worked the same local trade in charms and cures. They were bitter rivals. Potts records that Alizon's father, John Device, had agreed to give Chattox eight pounds of oatmeal (about 3.6kg) every year in return for her promise not to harm his family, an arrangement modern writers sometimes call a protection racket. The Devices later blamed Chattox for his death. Much of what was laid against the two women at trial was old grievance recast as maleficium, and Nowell's questioning drew it all out.

A Magistrate With a Brief

Nowell did not come to the Law complaint as a blank slate. Early in 1612 every Justice of the Peace in Lancashire had been instructed to compile a list of those who refused to attend church or take communion, and recusancy was a live concern for the authorities in a county with a large Catholic minority. How far that shaped his handling of the Device family is a matter of interpretation, and the instruction is context, not proof of his motive. It is fair to say that the political mood of the year gave a witchcraft case a weight it might not otherwise have had.

The 1604 Act

The Witchcraft Act of 1604 was passed in James I's first parliament, before the Gunpowder Plot of November 1605, and it raised the stakes considerably. The Elizabethan statute of 1563 made killing by witchcraft a capital crime, while lesser harm brought a year in prison for a first offence. The 1604 Act made it capital to consult, covenant with, feed or reward an evil spirit, and it also made capital any harm to a person by witchcraft, including lameness and wasting. That is why Alizon could be tried for laming John Law and face the gallows for it.

The charges against most of the accused were still for murder by witchcraft, so the case did not rest on the pact alone. Nor did it turn mainly on the "spectral evidence" associated with Salem: the Pendle prosecution leaned on confessions, on reports of familiars, and on neighbours' stories of illness and death that could be tied back to a quarrel. Both assize judges, Sir James Altham and Sir Edward Bromley, sat at Lancaster.

Malkin Tower on Good Friday

On 10 April 1612 friends and relatives of the Device family met at Malkin Tower, the home of Demdike. Four women were by then in Lancaster gaol: Demdike, Alizon, Chattox and Chattox's daughter Anne Redferne. Nowell heard about the gathering and questioned James Device, and the account he was given became the prosecution's version: that around twenty witches had met to plan the blowing up of Lancaster Castle to free the prisoners, and to kill the gaoler by magic. A sheep stolen by James Device supplied the meal.

A plainer explanation is a family gathering among people who were frightened, hungry and had just watched their relatives taken away. The evidence for the coven came almost entirely from statements by James Device and his young sister, taken by Nowell. Nobody has firmly identified where the tower stood. Potts places it only somewhere in Pendle Forest.

Who Was Accused, and What Happened

Alice Nutter stands apart. She was comparatively wealthy, the widow of a yeoman farmer, and why she was drawn into a case that otherwise took in beggars and cunning folk remains unclear.

The Trial and the Surviving Account

The trials ran on 18 and 19 August. Potts, the clerk of the court, was instructed by the trial judges to write an account, and he published it the following year as The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster. Almost everything known about the case comes from it, which is a problem, because Potts wrote to justify the verdicts. He goes out of his way to present the accused as archetypal witches: ugly, old, malicious and unrepentant. Any physical or psychological description of the Devices in his pages tells you what he wanted a reader to believe about them.

Confessions carried a great deal of weight. Alizon, James Device and Chattox had all confessed to Nowell before the trial began, and those examinations were read out. Given the conditions they were held in, and a magistrate driving the questioning, their value as evidence is doubtful, and a modern court would treat them with great caution.

A Nine-Year-Old in the Witness Box

Jennet Device was about nine, and her evidence was among the most damaging in the case. She told the court that her mother was a witch, and said that her mother had a witch's familiar, a spirit that appeared to her in the shape of a brown dog called Ball. Potts reports her words in the third person, so the exact phrasing is his. She also named her brother James, and identified Alice Nutter among those at Malkin Tower on Good Friday.

Elizabeth Device cursed and screamed at her daughter so violently in court that the judges had her removed before the evidence could be heard. To the bench that looked like a witch's fury; it can as easily be read as a mother's horror at what her daughter was saying.

The legal basis for hearing a child at all is often overstated. James I's Daemonologie (1597) argued that the usual limits on who could give evidence should not apply in witchcraft cases, and the court accepted a child's evidence. But it was a treatise, not a statute. Nor was Jennet the sole basis of the convictions: confessions and other testimony carried much of the case. The court chose to take a nine-year-old's word against her own family, and it could as easily have chosen otherwise.

Samlesbury: The Same Assizes, a Different Result

Three women from Samlesbury, accused by a girl named Grace Sowerbutts, were tried at the same assizes and acquitted after her story collapsed and she was shown to have been coached by a Catholic priest. The two outcomes show that acquittal was possible at Lancaster when a witness's account fell apart. The Pendle case did not fall apart in court in the same way, and the confessions carried much of it.

Not the Largest, but Unusual

Pendle is often called the biggest witch execution in English history, and it was not. In August 1645, during the Matthew Hopkins campaign, 18 people were executed at Bury St Edmunds in a single day. Around 19 were hanged at Chelmsford in the same period. What made Pendle stand out in 1612 was the number hanged together, which was unusual for England at that time, and the fact that a court official published a full account of the proceedings.

Jennet Device, 1633 to 1636

Jennet Device survived the year that destroyed her family. In 1633 a boy of about ten, Edmund Robinson, told a story of witches meeting in Pendle Forest and named many people, Jennet among them. At Lancaster in 1634 the jury found most of the accused guilty, but the judges declined to pass sentence and referred the case to the king. Under questioning in London Robinson admitted that he had invented his evidence. Jennet was still held in Lancaster gaol on 22 August 1636, and that is the last record of her.

Lancaster Castle, where all of them were held and tried, still stands. Check opening times before you visit.

People Also Ask

Why were the Pendle witch trials so significant?

They are among the best-documented witch trials in English history, largely because the court clerk Thomas Potts published a detailed account in 1613. Ten people were executed, and the sight of so many hanged together was unusual for England at the time, although the East Anglian trials of 1645 later exceeded it. Their lasting value is in how clearly they show a prosecution being assembled: a disputed illness, a magistrate working in an anxious political climate, confessions taken under pressure, and a child witness.

Who were the main accused in the Pendle witch trials?

Twelve people were accused. Two families sat at the centre: the Device family (Elizabeth Southerns, known as Old Demdike; her daughter Elizabeth Device; and her grandchildren Alizon and James Device) and the Chattox family (Anne Whittle, known as Old Chattox, and her daughter Anne Redferne). Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, Jane Bulcock, John Bulcock, Alice Grey and Jennet Preston made up the rest. Demdike died in gaol before trial, Alice Grey was acquitted, and the other ten were hanged.

What was the role of Jennet Device in the Pendle trials?

Jennet Device, aged about nine, was Alizon's younger sister. Her evidence against her mother Elizabeth, her brother James and others was central to the convictions, alongside confessions and other testimony. She described her mother's familiar as a brown dog called Ball and identified Alice Nutter as present at the Malkin Tower gathering. She was herself named as a witch in 1633, and was still in Lancaster gaol in 1636.

What was the Malkin Tower meeting and why did it matter?

On Good Friday, 10 April 1612, friends and relatives of the Device family met at Malkin Tower, Demdike's home. The prosecution said it was a witches' meeting to plan the destruction of Lancaster Castle and free the four women already in gaol. A plainer reading is a family gathering among frightened, hungry people whose relatives had just been arrested. The site of the tower has never been firmly identified.

How did the 1604 Witchcraft Act affect the Pendle trials?

The Elizabethan Act of 1563 made only killing by witchcraft a capital crime. The 1604 Act made it capital to consult or covenant with an evil spirit, and to harm a person by witchcraft even without killing them. That widening meant an accusation such as Alizon Device's, that she had lamed John Law, could carry the death penalty.

What happened to the Pendle witches after the trials?

Nine of the accused were hanged at Lancaster on 20 August 1612, and Jennet Preston was hanged at York on 27 July. Demdike had died in gaol earlier, and Alice Grey was acquitted. Jennet Device was named as a witch again in 1633, and the last record of her is in Lancaster gaol in 1636.

Are the Pendle witch trials included in Pearson Edexcel A-Level History?

Yes. They form part of Paper 3, Option 33: The Witch Craze in Britain, Europe and North America, c1580 to c1750, within the depth topic on the Lancashire witches of 1604 to 1613. Students study the background to the trials, the 1604 Act, the conflict between the Device and Chattox families, Roger Nowell's investigation, the Lancaster assizes, Jennet Device's evidence, and Thomas Potts's account.

Where can I buy books about the Pendle witch trials?

The Pendle Witch Conspiracy is available on Amazon in paperback and on Kindle. An Investigated History digital download is available exclusively from Histories and Castles.

This article is part of the Pendle Witch series.

Deepen Your Understanding

• Jennet Device: The Child Witness of the 1612 Pendle Witch Trials: the nine-year-old whose evidence was central to the Lancaster convictions, and what became of her.
• Roger Nowell's Role and the 1612 Pendle Witch Trials: the magistrate who took the statements and built the case.
• Thomas Potts and the 1612 Pendle Witch Trials: the court clerk whose 1613 account is the main source for the case.
• The Law of Fear: A Judicial Audit of the 1612 Lancashire Witch Trials: the legal mechanics of the prosecution, from the 1604 Act to the evidence heard at Lancaster.
• The 1612 Lancashire Pendle Witch Trials: A Systemic Judicial Failure: what happened after the verdicts and the case's legal aftermath.
• The Pendle Witch Trials: Surprising Truths: the myths that popular retellings still repeat.
• Witchcraft in the Middle Ages: Myths, Fears and Trials: the older beliefs about witches that shaped the world of accusers and accused.
• The Witch’s Familiar: From Demonic Imps to Beloved Pets: how belief in animal helpers grew in England, including the familiars named in the Pendle case.
• Trial by Water: The Dark History of Witch Ducking and Other Ordeals: the ordeals used to test suspected witches.

Primary Sources and Further Reading

• Thomas Potts, The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster (1613), the court clerk's published account and the main source for the case.
• King James I, Daemonologie (1597), the treatise that argued for relaxed rules of evidence in witchcraft cases.
• James Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England 1550 to 1750 (1996), which places Pendle within the wider pattern of English prosecutions.
• Jonathan Lumby, The Lancashire Witch-Craze: Jennet Preston and the Lancashire Witches, 1612 (1995), a detailed study of the case.
• Robert Poole (ed.), The Lancashire Witches: Histories and Stories (2002), a collection of essays on the trials and their afterlife.

Potts's pamphlet was written to justify the prosecution and should be read as a partisan legal document, not a neutral transcript. The confessions recorded in it were taken under pressure, and the supernatural elements of the case (the familiars, the curses, the Malkin Tower coven) rest on testimony, not on independently verified fact. The dates, the statutes and the outcomes of the trials are documented; the diabolism attributed to the accused is not.

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