Pendle Witchcraft Trials

It wasn’t just the sheer number of people involved in the trials which made it notable, but the fact that the majority of the accused came from two feuding families.

It all began in 1601, when a seemingly petty argument over the alleged theft of clothes and meal brought the friendship between the two families to an abrupt end.  The feud between the two families grew increasingly bitter until accusations of witchcraft emerged; and it wasn’t long before the local justice of peace, Roger Nowell, was involved. 

Image source

The charges were typical of all witch trials.  Several related to the killing of people by means of witchcraft, and others to the harming of animals and humans via witchcraft. 

It was also claimed that they were known to have familiars, supernatural spirit companions in the physical form of animals.  It was unbelievably easy in those days to find yourself accused of having familiars.  If you owned a cat or dog, or even so much as had a cat or dog pass by your house, you could be accused.  Even having a hare or toad close by was sometimes enough!

One of the accused, Elizabeth Devine was convicted largely on evidence of her own children.  Although, legally both were ineligible to give evidence  (the son in his twenties was considered simple minded and the daughter was only nine years old) this, as was common, was overlooked by the courts.

Image Source

An interesting slant was added, when following the arrests of several of them,  members of the two families joined to hatch a plot to blow up Lancashire Castle, where they were being held, with a view to releasing their imprisoned relatives.

At the end of the trial, ten of the accused were sentenced to death by hanging on 20 August 1612, despite most of them still protesting their innocence.