Thomas Potts and the 1612 Pendle Witch Trials

Thomas Potts was the clerk of the court at the 1612 Lancaster assizes, and he was instructed by the trial judges to write the account that became the main source for the Pendle case. His Wonderfull Discoverie is a partisan document written to justify the verdicts, so it has to be read with care.

Key Facts About Thomas Potts 

• Thomas Potts was the clerk of the court at the Lancaster assizes of August 1612, where Sir James Altham and Sir Edward Bromley presided. He was instructed by the trial judges to write an account of the proceedings.
• The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster was published in 1613 and dedicated to Thomas Knyvet, Baron Knyvet. Some accounts say Potts had been part of Knyvet's household. That detail rests on a single reference source and should be treated with caution.
• Later writers say Bromley reviewed and corrected the text before publication. That claim also rests on a single reference source.
• Potts did not produce a verbatim court transcript. The book is a selective and partisan account, and it presents the confessions and the evidence in the way that best supports the verdicts.
• The Discoverie reports the evidence of Jennet Device, aged about nine, in the third person, so the wording is Potts's, not hers.
• Twelve people were accused and ten were executed. Potts's book is the main source for the Lancaster trials of 18 and 19 August 1612, and it was reprinted in the nineteenth century, including an edition for the Chetham Society in 1845.

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).

Thomas Potts did not invent the Pendle story, but he gave it the form in which it has been read for four centuries. His The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster (1613) is the reason we know the names of the accused, the details of the confessions and the outline of the trials. It is also a reason to be cautious. For the wider story of what happened, see the account of the Pendle witches.

The Author of the Record: Thomas Potts

Potts was not an impartial observer. He was a court official, and the judges who instructed him to write the account were the men who had presided over the trials. The book was published in 1613, the year after the executions, and it was dedicated to Thomas Knyvet. A clerk writing at the request of the judges, about proceedings in which the judges had already secured convictions, was always likely to present those convictions as sound.

The judges in question were Sir James Altham and Sir Edward Bromley. Why they wanted a published account is not recorded, and claims about their career ambitions go beyond the sources. What can be said is that the book leaves no doubt about the verdicts it expects its reader to accept.

What the Text Is, and What It Is Not

Potts writes in a style that suggests a word-for-word record of the courtroom. He describes the accused and the witnesses in vivid detail, and it is easy to feel present in Lancaster Castle. But the Discoverie is not a transcript. It is a narrative of what the court had decided happened, assembled from the pre-trial examinations and the evidence heard at the trials, and it is written to persuade.

The same caution applies to its portrait of the accused. Potts describes the members of the Device and Chattox families in the language of his own time, and he does not offer a defence for anyone. Readers should treat his physical descriptions and his dialogue as part of that persuasive purpose, not as neutral reporting.

Building the Case on the Page

The raw material behind the book was a set of local quarrels, illnesses and rumours, together with the examinations taken by the magistrate Roger Nowell in the weeks after 18 March 1612 (some sources say 21 March), when the pedlar John Law collapsed after a meeting with Alizon Device. Potts organises this material into a single narrative that runs from the first accusations to the hangings.

Two episodes show how he does it. The first is the collapse of John Law, which he presents as harm done by witchcraft. Modern readers often suggest a stroke, but that is a modern reading and the record gives no medical detail. The second is the Malkin Tower gathering of Good Friday, 10 April 1612, which the prosecution presented as a meeting of witches planning to destroy Lancaster Castle. The location of Malkin Tower is unknown, and Potts's account is the main evidence that the plot existed at all.

The Child Witness

Potts's most striking passages concern Jennet Device, who was about nine when she gave evidence against her mother, Elizabeth Device, and her brother James. Potts reports her evidence in the third person. She described a brown dog called Ball, which she said was her mother's familiar. The court accepted her evidence, and James I's Daemonologie (1597) argued for relaxed rules of evidence in witchcraft cases. But Daemonologie was a treatise, not a statute, and this case set no binding legal precedent. What became of Jennet in later life is covered in what happened to Jennet Device after the trials.

The Legal Framework Behind the Record

Potts wrote in the shadow of the 1604 Witchcraft Act, which made harm by witchcraft capital even short of death. The legal mechanics of the prosecution are examined in the judicial audit of the trials. The 1604 Act pre-dates the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, so the statute cannot be read as a response to it, whatever the political atmosphere of the following years.

The Afterlife of the Text

The Discoverie shaped how the case was remembered. It was reprinted in the nineteenth century, including an edition for the Chetham Society in 1845, and later writers, novelists and tour guides have drawn on it heavily. Several of the most repeated claims about the case, including some that go beyond what Potts himself wrote, are tested in the myths that surround the Pendle trials.

Conclusion: A Source to Use, and to Question

Potts's book is indispensable, because without it the details of the case would largely be lost. It is also partisan, because it was written to justify the outcome. Serious readers use it as a source and check its claims against other evidence wherever they can. What Potts records tells us what the court wished to be believed. It does not tell us what the accused would have said in their own words.

People Also Ask

Who was Thomas Potts and what was his role in the 1612 Pendle trials?

Thomas Potts was the clerk of the court at the Lancaster assizes of August 1612. He was instructed by the trial judges, Sir James Altham and Sir Edward Bromley, to write an account of the proceedings, which he published in 1613 as The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster.

Was The Wonderfull Discoverie an accurate record of the 1612 trials?

It is the main source for the trials, but it is not a neutral or verbatim record. Potts wrote a selective and partisan account that presents the evidence in the way that best supports the verdicts. Readers should check its claims against other evidence wherever possible.

Why was Potts asked to write the account?

The sources say that the trial judges instructed him to write it. They do not record why. Later writers have suggested motives for the judges, but these go beyond what the surviving record shows.

How does Potts present Jennet Device?

Potts reports the evidence of Jennet Device, who was about nine, in the third person, so the wording is his. She gave evidence against her mother and brother, and described a brown dog called Ball. The court accepted her evidence, but it created no binding legal precedent.

Was there any link between Potts's account and the Gunpowder Plot?

The prosecution said the Malkin Tower gathering planned to blow up Lancaster Castle. That is an allegation in the trial record, not evidence of a link to the Gunpowder Plot. The 1604 Witchcraft Act was passed before the Plot of November 1605.

Has the Discoverie been reprinted?

Yes. It was reprinted in the nineteenth century, including an edition for the Chetham Society in 1845, and it is available online through Project Gutenberg.

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.

Primary Sources and Further Reading

Potts, Thomas (1613): The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster. The primary source for the trial details, though written to justify the verdicts.

James I (1597): Daemonologie. The king's treatise on witchcraft, which argued for relaxed rules of evidence in witchcraft cases.

The National Archives: Surviving assize and gaol delivery records from the Northern Circuit provide procedural context against which Potts's account can be checked.

Lumby, Jonathan (1995): The Lancashire Witch-Craze: Jennet Preston and the Lancashire Witches, 1612, Carnegie Publishing. A detailed study of the wider 1612 Lancashire prosecutions.

Poole, Robert, ed. (2002): The Lancashire Witches: Histories and Stories, Manchester University Press. Examines the Discoverie as a text and its long afterlife in popular culture.

Lancaster Castle: The official heritage site for the courtroom and gaol where the trials and executions took place.

Where this article discusses motive, it offers interpretation, not settled fact. Readers should distinguish that from the embellishments and folklore that have grown up around the Pendle story since 1612.

This article is part of the Pendle Witch series.

Deepen Your Understanding

• Pendle Witches: The Real Story Behind England's Most Notorious Witch Trials: the full account of the 1612 trials, from a pedlar's collapse to the gallows at Lancaster.
• 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.
• What Happened to Jennet Device After the Pendle Trials?: the later records of the child witness, and what they do and do not show.
• Roger Nowell's Role and the 1612 Pendle Witch Trials: the magistrate who took the statements and built 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.

Regular podcasts by Histories and Castles to help you get a deep dive understanding of histories events and figures.