The Lancashire (Pendle) Witches on This Day in History

This Day In History: The trial of the Pendle witches, one of England's most famous witch trials, began on this day in 1612. The trial is one of the best documented witch trials in history and this is partly because so many of the accused actually believed themselves to be witches. 

The accusations also started out as a feud between two clans.

"We have all the elements here of a mountain feud; but, in place of the revolvers and Kentucky moonshine of to-day, we have clay images and Satanic banquets. The battles were to be fought out with imps of Hell as participants and with ammunition supplied by the Evil One himself. It was this connection with a reservoir of untouched demoniacal powers that made the quarrel of the miserable mountaineers the most celebrated incident in Lancashire story. Here were charmers and "inchanters," experienced dealers in magic, struggling against one another. Small wonder that the community became alarmed and that Roger Nowell, justice of the peace, suddenly swooped down upon the Pendle families. It was but a short time before he had four women cooped up in Lancaster castle. In a few days more he was able to get confessions out of them. They admitted acquaintance with the Devil and implicated one another."~~Wallace Notestein [A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718]

The trials also happened to coincide with the reign of King James (of King James Bible fame) who took an interest in the theology of witches. "James had very definite opinions on the subject and hesitated not at all to make them known. His views had weight. It is useless to deny that the royal position swayed the courts. James's part in the witch persecution cannot be condoned, save on the ground that he was perfectly honest. He felt deeply on the matter. It was little wonder. He had grown up in Scotland in the very midst of the witch alarms. His own life, he believed, had been imperilled by the machinations of witches. He believed he had every reason to fear and hate the creatures..."~Wallace Notestein

This trial led to the hanging of ten people.

However, the Lancashire witch problem persisted.

"...this did not stamp out the Lancashire witches, for so long as the people continued to believe in their supernatural powers, so long would the supply be equal to the demand. In 1633 another batch of seventeen witches of Pendle were commanded to take their trial at Lancaster assizes, and, singularly enough, one of the convicting justices was the John Starkie who in 1596 was himself the subject of demoniac possession. The chief witness in this case was a stonemason, who on oath declared that he had seen two greyhounds, with which he tried to hunt a hare; but they refused to run, and on his beating them, they immediately became transformed, one into Dickonson's wife, and the other into a little boy..." A History of Lancashire By Henry Fishwick

It has been estimated that all the English witch trials between the early 15th and early 18th centuries resulted in fewer than 500 executions, so this one series of trials in July and August 1612 accounts for more than two per cent of that total.

The Lancashire area held a large 400th anniversary event to commemorate this event in 2012. This anniversary also set a record for the largest amount of people dressed as witches in one place. 

Victorian novelist William Harrison Ainsworth wrote a romanticised account of the Pendle witches: The Lancashire Witches, first published in 1849, which you can download here.

The novel Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman features several witch characters named after the original Pendle witches, including Agnes Nutter, a prophet burned at the stake, and her descendant Anathema Device. Gaiman confirmed the homage in a 2016 tweet.

The novel The Familiars (2019) by Stacey Halls includes historical figures as characters in a story that is based at the time of the Pendle witch trials.

Interestingly, there are still Witch laws on the books around the world to this day. There is an obscure law in Canada that makes it illegal to pretend to be a witch. Romania has a Witch Tax that goes after witches, fortunetellers, and astrologers. Saudi Arabia has a Magical Police Unit that goes after people who practice the dark arts. In one town in Delaware, you can't perform witchcraft. You can't even pretend to perform it. You also can’t cast magic spells; tell fortunes; read palms, leaves or crystal balls; practice divination or phrenology; or “deal with spirits” or you could be fined up to $100 and jailed for up to 30 days.

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