The Pendle Witches: The Girl Who Testified Against Her Mother

In 1612, a nine-year-old girl stood on a table in Lancaster Castle and accused her own mother of murder by witchcraft. Twenty-two years later, a woman with the same name was accused on the word of a ten-year-old boy who later admitted he had made it all up. This is the story of the Pendle witches, the best-recorded witch trial in English history. It began when a pedlar refused Alizon Device some pins on a road near Colne and collapsed soon after. That led the magistrate Roger Nowell to two rival families of reputed cunning women in the Forest of Pendle: the households of Old Demdike and Old Chattox. Confessions, accusations between the families, and a Good Friday gathering at Malkin Tower produced a dozen accused. The chief witness at Lancaster was Jennet Device, who testified against her mother, brother and sister. Ten people were hanged, one of them at York. Nearly everything we know comes from one book, written by the court's clerk, Thomas Potts. We look at what his account was written to prove, why a child's evidence was allowed, and what may have happened to Jennet when, in 1634, she seems to have found herself on the other side of the court. CHAPTERS 0:00 The Girl on the Table 0:48 The Forest of Pendle 2:16 Lame Him 3:49 Good Friday at Malkin Tower 5:05 Lancaster, August 1612 7:06 The Clerk's Book 8:07 The Witness Becomes the Accused SOURCES • Thomas Potts, The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster (1613) (Project Gutenberg (Chetham Society edition)) https://www.gutenberg.org/files/18253... • Pendle witches (Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendle_... • Malkin Tower (Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malkin_... • Thomas Potts (clerk) (Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_...) • The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster (Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Won... • What Were the Pendle Witch Trials? (History Hit) https://www.historyhit.com/what-were-... • The Pendle Witches: How a Nine-Year-Old Girl Sentenced Her Family to Death (Retrospect Journal) https://retrospectjournal.com/2022/10... • Daemonologie (Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemono... #history #witchtrials #witch #witchy #truehistory #lancashire