Seventeenth Century Lancashire
was of great concern to the Crown. King James I regarded the whole place with
suspicion, as a seething den of papist dissention and potential rebellion. The
Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was proof, if it were needed, of the Catholic threat to
him. In the turmoil of the Reformation, Lancashire had remained a Catholic
stronghold, and, in spite of the dissolution of the monasteries, the ‘old
faith’ remained strong there. It was seen as a wild, lawless place; there were
few roads, communication with outside world was difficult, if it existed at
all, and there was widespread illiteracy. King James was also highly aware of
the dangers that were posed by witchcraft. In the 1590s he believed that a plot
against him by Scottish witches had been foiled, and in 1597 he published his Daemonologie,
in which he actively encouraged witch-hunting. It is no surprise then that when
accusations of witchcraft were brought before Roger Nowell, the ambitious
Justice of the Peace at Read Hall, Pendle, that his investigations were
zealously undertaken.
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| Pendle Hill |
A pedlar, John Law, from Halifax,
claimed that the teenaged Alizon Device had put a curse on him. He had met her
on the Trawden Road near Colne, Lancashire on March 18th 1612, where
she had asked him for some pins. It may be that Law was unwilling to undo his
pack for such a trifle, it may be that Alizon had no money to pay, but a
quarrel ensued and Alizon angrily cursed, or swore, at him. Within minutes, Law
fell down and his stricken body was carried to a nearby ale-house. He was in
great pain, paralysed and unable to speak. Alizon followed Law to the inn, but
left after a short while and went off elsewhere to continue begging. A letter
was sent to Law’s son, Abraham, in Halifax, which reached him on March 21st.
He came to Colne immediately, where he found his father paralysed down his left
side ‘all save his eye’, lame, but able to speak. Today, we would
recognise that Law had suffered a stroke – he was described as a ‘sufficient
stout man of bodie’, and the stress of the argument no doubt played its part,
but in those days, the obvious cause was witchcraft.
Law told his story to his son,
who sought out Alizon, and brought her to his father, who accused her of having
bewitched him. Alizon fell to her knees, confessed, and begged forgiveness,
which Law granted her. The following day, March 30th, Abraham took
Alizon, her mother, Elizabeth, and her brother, James, to Read and Justice
Nowell. We can assume that Nowell spoke informally to the girl, to get her
version of the story, and worked up what he heard into a more formal statement
later.
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| A witch with her familiars |
What he heard must have concerned him greatly, as Alizon spoke of how
her grandmother, Elizabeth Southerns (also known as Demdike), had told her to
let a ‘deuill or familiar’ suck at some part of her, and how one John
Nutter of Bullhole in Pendle had asked the grandmother to attend his sick cow,
which died the following day, Alizon saying that the cow had been bewitched to
death. She told how she had begged some ‘blew’ milk, which she took to
her grandmother and how she had produced a quarter pound of butter from it, and
how this grandmother had cursed Richard Baldwin of Wheathead, Pendle, whose
daughter became sick, lingered for a year and then died. She went on to tell
the Magistrate of her family’s feud with the Whittles, another local family, of
how Anne Whittle (also called Chattox) had stolen goods to the value of twenty
shillings and how her father John had confronted the thief, and agreed to pay
her a yearly dole of meal in return of them. One year the dole was not paid,
and soon John fell ill, claiming on his deathbed that Chattox had killed him by
witchcraft in revenge. Two years ago, said Alizon, she had been at the house of
Anthony Nutter, and had been laughing with his daughter Anne, when Chattox came
by and thought they were laughing at her, whereupon she cursed them. Anne
Nutter fell ill the following day and died three weeks later. More stories of ‘pictures
of clay’, curses and deaths followed. Elizabeth Device, Alizon’s mother,
told Nowell that Demdike had ‘a place on her left fide by the fpace of
fourty yeares’, meaning a witch’s mark, and John Device, Alizon’s brother,
said his sister had bewitched the daughter of John Bulcock, of whom she later
had begged forgiveness.
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| The devil and witches |
Nowell ordered Alizon to be
retained, and three days later he travelled the short journey to Fence to
examine Demdike and Chattox for himself.
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