Pendle Hill: The Pendle Witches and the Lancashire Witch Trials of 1612
Pendle Hill rises above the towns and villages of east Lancashire, reaching 557 metres at its summit. The hill itself wasn’t the site of the Pendle witch trials, but it dominates the landscape in which the events of 1612 began. That year, accusations of witchcraft involving families living around the Forest of Pendle led to arrests, imprisonment at Lancaster Castle and one of the best documented witch trials in English history.
Ten people were convicted of witchcraft at the Lancaster Assizes and hanged on the moor above Lancaster on 20 August 1612. Another woman connected with the Lancashire accusations, Jennet Preston, had already been tried and executed at York. Among the dead were members of two local families whose names still dominate the story: the Devices and the Whittles.
We know an unusual amount about what happened because Thomas Potts, clerk of the court, published a detailed account of the investigation and trials in 1613. Potts wasn’t a neutral observer, however. He wrote with the approval of the judges involved in the case and presented the convictions as the successful prosecution of genuine witches. His account preserves much of the evidence, but it also preserves the prosecution’s version of events.
Witchcraft in the England of James I
The Pendle accusations happened at a time when witchcraft was a criminal matter. James I believed strongly in its existence and had written about witches and demons in Daemonologie, first published in Scotland in 1597. In England, the Witchcraft Act of 1604 introduced the death penalty for a number of offences involving witchcraft.
Lancashire also attracted the attention of the authorities for religious reasons. Catholicism remained strong in parts of the county despite the English Reformation, and the Gunpowder Plot was still recent history. Potts’s own account reflects that atmosphere, particularly in his treatment of Catholicism elsewhere in the 1612 Lancashire cases.
The Forest of Pendle was a rural area of scattered farms and hamlets. Two elderly widows living there had acquired reputations for supernatural abilities: Elizabeth Southerns, better known as Demdike, and Anne Whittle, known as Chattox. Their families appear to have known one another for years, and relations between them were poor.
Demdike and Chattox
Demdike was around 80 years old in 1612. She lived with members of the Device family and, according to the evidence later recorded by Potts, had been associated with charms and witchcraft for decades. Chattox had a similar local reputation. Both belonged to poor families, and accusations against them became mixed with older disputes, illnesses and deaths in the surrounding community.
Potts describes Demdike in openly hostile terms, claiming that she had practised witchcraft for around 50 years and taught her children and grandchildren to do the same. His account is important because it is the principal surviving source for the case, but these descriptions shouldn’t be mistaken for independent evidence about the women themselves. Potts was documenting a prosecution in which witchcraft was already accepted as real.
The investigation that eventually sent members of both families to Lancaster began not with Demdike or Chattox, but with Demdike’s granddaughter Alizon Device and an encounter on the road to Colne.
Alizon Device and John Law
On 18 March 1612, Alizon Device met a travelling pedlar from Halifax called John Law. According to Potts, Alizon asked him for pins and Law refused. The two exchanged words, Alizon cursed him and shortly afterwards Law collapsed. Later accounts of the case describe him as having lost the use of one side of his body.
Law’s son Abraham subsequently confronted Alizon. Instead of simply denying responsibility, she reportedly admitted that she had caused Law’s illness through witchcraft and asked for his forgiveness. When local magistrate Roger Nowell questioned her, she repeated the accusation against herself and implicated Demdike, Chattox and others.
Nowell’s investigation brought older allegations to the surface. Chattox was accused of causing the death of Robert Nutter years earlier, while her daughter Anne Redferne was accused in connection with the death of Christopher Nutter. Members of the Device family were linked with other deaths and misfortunes. Some of those questioned made confessions or accusations of their own, although the surviving versions of those statements come largely through the official record of the prosecution.
Demdike, Chattox, Alizon Device and Anne Redferne were sent to Lancaster Castle to await trial. Demdike would never leave it.
The Meeting at Malkin Tower
Malkin Tower was the Device family home, although its exact location has never been conclusively established. On Good Friday, 10 April 1612, a group of relatives and neighbours gathered there while Demdike, Chattox, Alizon and Anne Redferne were imprisoned at Lancaster.
The authorities treated the meeting as evidence of a wider gathering of witches. Testimony recorded by Potts claimed that those present discussed freeing the prisoners from Lancaster Castle and killing Thomas Covell, the castle’s keeper. A sheep was also said to have been stolen to provide food for the gathering. Later descriptions of Malkin Tower as a witches’ sabbath derive from these accusations rather than from an independent account of what happened inside the house.
The meeting gave Nowell grounds to extend his investigation. Elizabeth Device, James Device, Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, Jane Bulcock and John Bulcock were among those subsequently drawn into the case. By the time the Lancaster Assizes began in August, an argument between Alizon Device and a pedlar five months earlier had developed into a much larger prosecution.
Jennet Device Gives Evidence
One of the most important prosecution witnesses at Lancaster was Jennet Device, the young daughter of Elizabeth Device. She is generally believed to have been about nine years old. Jennet identified people she said had attended the meeting at Malkin Tower and gave evidence against members of her own family, including her mother.
Potts records that Elizabeth became so angry when Jennet appeared that she was removed from the courtroom before her daughter continued. Jennet then described alleged familiar spirits, the making of clay figures and the gathering at Malkin Tower. Her evidence was used against several defendants, including Alice Nutter.
The use of a child witness is one of the reasons the Pendle trials remain so striking. The accused were also unable to have defence counsel or call witnesses to speak on their behalf. Their case was heard in a court that accepted the possibility that people could cause illness and death through witchcraft, and evidence that would be treated very differently in a modern criminal trial could determine whether somebody lived or died.
The Trials at Lancaster Castle
The Lancashire witch trials began at Lancaster Castle on 18 August 1612. Demdike wasn’t among those brought into court because she had died in the castle while awaiting trial. Chattox survived to face the charges against her, along with members of the Device family and others caught up in the investigation.
The evidence varied considerably between defendants. It included confessions, accusations made during examinations, statements from neighbours, allegations concerning deaths that had occurred many years earlier and Jennet Device’s testimony. Lancaster Castle’s history of the trials notes that much of the prosecution evidence was inconsistent and based on rumours, gossip and false confessions.
Ten people were ultimately convicted and sentenced to death: Anne Whittle, known as Chattox; Anne Redferne; Elizabeth Device; Alizon Device; James Device; Alice Nutter; Katherine Hewitt; Jane Bulcock; John Bulcock; and Isobel Robey, who came from Windle near St Helens rather than Pendle.
On 20 August they were taken from Lancaster Castle and hanged on the moor above the town. The precise site of the executions hasn’t been established.
Thomas Potts and The Wonderfull Discoverie
The reason we can reconstruct the Pendle witch trials in such detail is Thomas Potts. In 1613 he published The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster, an extensive account of the examinations and trials which remains the principal primary source for the case.
Potts had been clerk of the court and says in the book that he was acting under instructions from the assize judges. His language leaves little doubt about his position: he repeatedly describes the accused as dangerous or wicked witches and treats the supernatural allegations against them as fact. Lancaster Castle describes the resulting work as a detailed but biased account.
The book nevertheless preserves names, examinations, accusations and court proceedings that might otherwise have disappeared. It also allows the accused to be heard, however imperfectly, through statements attributed to them. The difficulty is that their words reach us through a document produced on behalf of the judicial system that prosecuted them.
Alice Nutter
Alice Nutter stands out among the Pendle accused because she appears to have come from a wealthier family than many of the others. She lived at Roughlee and was described as a gentlewoman. Unlike several of the defendants, she doesn’t appear to have confessed to witchcraft.
The case against her rested heavily on Jennet Device’s identification of her as one of the people present at Malkin Tower. Lancaster Castle describes the evidence against Alice as flimsy, but she was convicted along with the others and executed on 20 August.
The Nutter name still appears in the landscape around Pendle. A grave marked Nutter in the churchyard at Newchurch has sometimes been described as Alice’s grave, but the date on it is too late for that identification to be correct.
Newchurch in Pendle
Newchurch in Pendle sits beneath the hill and is one of the places most closely associated with the witches today. St Mary’s Church has its own collection of later folklore, including an oval-shaped feature on the tower popularly known as the Eye of God. Local tradition says it was intended to protect the church from evil.
The churchyard contains the Nutter grave, although there is no good evidence connecting it with Alice Nutter herself. The official Walking With Witches Trail makes the distinction clear, noting that the date is much too late for the woman executed in 1612.
The same walking route passes Faugh’s Quarry, another location connected with the testimony recorded by Potts. Demdike was said to have claimed that she met a spirit called Tibb near a stone pit in Goldshaw Booth around 20 years before the trials. That story comes from her alleged examination and belongs to the evidence recorded against her, rather than to independently documented events at the quarry.
Jennet Device After the Trials
The name Jennet Device appears again in connection with another Lancashire witchcraft investigation in 1633. This later case began with claims made by a boy called Edmund Robinson, who said he had witnessed a gathering of witches at Hoarstones.
Robinson’s story eventually collapsed and he admitted that his allegations were false. The case reached the attention of Charles I, and the accused were not executed, although some remained imprisoned and several are thought to have died in custody.
A Jennet Device was among those accused. Historians have generally treated her as potentially the same Jennet who gave evidence as a child in 1612, although the identification isn’t certain. If she was, we know very little about the intervening years or what eventually happened to her.
Pendle Hill and the Witch Trail Today
Pendle Hill wasn’t where the accused were tried or executed, and there is no evidence that the summit itself played a significant part in the events of 1612. Its association with the witches comes from the communities around it: Barley, Newchurch, Roughlee and the former Forest of Pendle where the accused lived.
The Walking With Witches Trail starts at Barley and follows a four-mile western loop through Newchurch and the surrounding countryside, passing several places connected with the history and later folklore. The route includes road sections, and its official guidance recommends suitable footwear and clothing.
Pendle Hill can also be climbed separately from Barley. The Pendle Hill walking route includes a steep ascent of the Big End before crossing Barley Moor and returning through the countryside around Newchurch. Lancaster Castle lies further west in Lancaster, where the prisoners were held, tried and taken from the castle to their executions in August 1612.
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