The Pendle Witches - were they guilty or not guilty?

ALMOST 400 years ago, a traveller's chance meeting with an 18-year-old girl in the shadow of Pendle Hill sparked off one of the most spine-tingling tales ever to grip East Lancashire.

The traveller ignored the woman's begging and she cursed him. When he later had a seizure and collapsed it was taken as proof that the woman, Alizon Device, was a witch.

An investigation led to nine people, including a 13-year-old boy, meeting a grizzly end on the gallows after the infamous Pendle Witches trial. Toil and trouble still surrounds the tale and even now debate rages over whether the 'witches' were guilty or not.

Here, JEREMY RICHARDS presents the evidence for and against.

A fair trial - the case for the prosecution

AS THE travelling pedlar passed the teenage girl begging by the wayside he ignored her pleas for charity.

The girl shouted a curse at him and the pedlar fell to the floor, paralysed down one side of his body.

In the early 1600s, what more proof was needed that the woman, eldest grand daughter of Alizon Device, and those that consorted with her were witches?

Wild tales of witches covens, clay images, ale being turned sour, cows going lame and people being turned mad echoed around the hillside as the investigation unearthed evidence that bodies had been dug up from graves and teeth and bones used for evil practices. According to John Hope, who lives in the heart of Pendle Witch country and who has written a history of St Mary's Church, Newchurch-in-Pendle, which has strong links to the families involved, the witches were given a fair hearing for the time.

"The evidence shows they had a perfectly fair trial for their day and age," said Mr Hope, who has researched the story extensively.

"The question is did they believe they could use supernatural powers for their own end? There are people today who say they can harness supernatural powers.

"The evidence points to the fact that the witches believed they could do the same thing, which was a capital offence at that time.

"Most of those involved confessed even though in those days in England witches were not put to the torture."

Conditions were horrendous in Lancaster Castle with prisoners herded into dark, damp cellars.

Mother Demdike, who was more than 80 years old, did not survive the cells to be tried. Perhaps the others were eager to bring their ordeal to an end, but not on the end of a hangman's rope.

Of the 11 people who stood in the dock during the infamous Pendle Witches trial at Lancaster Assizes in 1612, nine were condemned to death by hanging, the normal punishment for consorting with the Devil.

On August 20, the seven women, a man and a 13-year-old boy were hanged at the gallows watched by thousands. A good hanging, especially of witches, was a highlight not to be missed. Most of those who died were connected to the quarrelling peasant families of Chattox and Demdike who scratched a meagre living in the shadow of Pendle. But one, a gentlewoman with money, Alice Nutter who lived in Roughlee, stood out from the starving crowd. It is still a mystery why she was mixed up with the local peasants.

Poor evidence - the case for the defence

THE nine people who went to the Lancaster gallows were hanged on the basis of poor evidence centred on information given by nine-year-old Jennet Device, who testified against her own mother, brother and grandmother.

Sarah Lee, Pendle Council's promotions officer who has taken a keen interest in the witches, said: "Some of the Pendle witches did confess to using charms and prayers.

"They may have used their reputation to gain influence in the community, for good or evil, but it didn't mean they deserved to be hanged.

"They didn't have a fair trial. There was no defence lawyer or someone to speak for them.

"I think we owe it to them to tell the true story and not forget them so that people today can make up their own minds."

According to Jennifer Parton, a student working on a masters thesis on witchcraft, while Mother Demdike and Mother Chattox may have practised as witches, enlisting their families to help them, it is unclear whether the woman believed in their magic or not.

"At a time when magic and devil pacts were taken as irrefutable facts, it was all too easy for those accused of witchcraft to believe in their powers," said Jennifer.

"A woman who was denied charity by a neighbour might retaliate using the only means at her disposal, by cursing them.

"If that neighbour then had a misfortune, such as crops failing or an illness or death in the family, that would be seen by both parties as a clear example of witchcraft. "The witchcraft scare of 1612 started in just such a way."

The confessions of the Pendle Witches were far from reliable even if torture was not used, said Jennifer. There were cases where the accused were kept awake for days, starved and beaten. Clever and persistent cross-examining of ignorant peasants led to innocent people incriminating themselves.

"There is no mention in the accounts of the 1612 trial of how the confessions of the witches were obtained but it is perhaps significant that one of the accused, James Device, was too weak to stand when he was brought to court," explained Jennifer.

"The witches were victims of a society and legal system which not only encouraged the accusers to believe the charges brought against the defendants but often made the defendants themselves believe their guilt.

"A re-trial today would find those same witches innocent. At worst they were deluded or fakes, at best completely innocent."

Have you reached your verdict?

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