{"product_id":"the-pendle-witch-conspiracy","title":"The Pendle Witch Conspiracy","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Pendle Witch Conspiracy: The True Story Behind England's Most Notorious Witch Trials\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStrip away four centuries of folklore and the Pendle witch trials stop looking like a tale of black magic and start looking like something far more calculated: a legal system turned against people who had no way to defend themselves.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn August 1612, ten people from the villages surrounding Pendle Hill were hanged for murder by witchcraft, on evidence built almost entirely from the testimony of a nine-year-old girl. Jennet Device's words condemned her own mother, brother, and sister. Simon A. Williams reconstructs how a single accusation on a Lancashire road grew into a prosecution shaped as much by poverty, religious suspicion, and political ambition as by any belief in sorcery.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is not another retelling of cursed cattle and clay dolls. It is an examination of who held power in Jacobean Lancashire, who stood to gain from the trial's outcome, and how a court could accept a child's word as sufficient grounds for execution. The book follows the case to its final, bitter turn: twenty years later, the same Jennet Device stood accused of witchcraft herself, was acquitted, and still died in the dungeon of Lancaster Castle because she was too poor to pay for her own release.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Pendle Witch Conspiracy is for readers who want the machinery behind the myth: the law, the fear, and the men who used both.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFormat\u003c\/strong\u003e: Paperback | \u003cstrong\u003ePublisher\u003c\/strong\u003e: Histories and Castles | \u003cstrong\u003eAuthor\u003c\/strong\u003e: Simon A. Williams | \u003cstrong\u003eLanguage\u003c\/strong\u003e: English\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Amazon","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":58577681809740,"sku":null,"price":8.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1028\/3869\/8316\/files\/Pendle_Witch_Conspiracy_Cover.jpg?v=1787742950","url":"https:\/\/historiesandcastles.com\/products\/the-pendle-witch-conspiracy","provider":"Histories and Castles","version":"1.0","type":"link"}