ONLY IN BRITAIN
W
itch trials
may sound
like the stuff
of Stephen
King novels or comic books,
yet in the 17th century they
were commonplace. Not only
that but here in Britain, they
would even lead to changes
in the law on the advice of
the king himself. In fact, the
outcome of the Salem Witch
Trials in America directly
hinged upon the legal
precedent set by the Pendle
Witch Trials 80 years earlier.
At the beginning of the
17th century, paranoia was
endemic throughout British
society. James I of Great
Britain had narrowly avoided
being killed by the foiled
Gunpowder Plot (see page 34)
and subsequently lived in fear
of a Catholic uprising. And, as any sane and rational individual
might do, the king channelled much of that paranoia into his
fascination with magic, sorcery and witchcraft.
James I had first become interested in the subjects in 1590,
back when he was still just plain old King James IV of Scotland
and had presided over the North Berwick Witch Trials. They were
instigated at His Majesty’s request because James believed witches
had brewed storms to attack his ship as he had travelled back to
Scotland with his new wife, Anne of Denmark. More than 70 people
were implicated in the North Berwick trials and confessions were
extricated via torturous methods at the Old Tolbooth in Edinburgh.
Pleased by the outcome and keen to explain to his subjects why
the persecution of a Christian was legal under canonical law, James
set out his reasonings in Daemonologie, In Forme of a Dialogue,
a 1597 book that was believed to have influenced William
Shakespeare’s Macbeth (James was patron of the Bard’s acting
company, after all). The key line in Daemonologie, as we shall
soon see, would turn out to
be “Children, women and
liars can be witnesses over
high treason against God”.
The Pendle Witch Trials
occurred in 1612 after every
justice of the peace in the
English county of Lancashire
was required to compile a list
of anyone refusing to attend
church and take communion.
Emboldened to seek out
religious nonconformists, the
local magistrate for Pendle,
Roger Nowell, investigated a
complaint from John Law, a
peddler from West Yorkshire.
Law claimed that Alizon
Device had passed him on
the road and asked him for
some pins; when he refused,
she cursed him, and he later
suffered a stroke. Device
admitted to selling her soul
to the devil and she also implicated her grandmother and members
of the rival Chattox family in charges of witchcraft.
The trials took place on 17-19 August 1612. Nowell was influenced
by the Daemonologie quote and called Jennet Device as his key
witness. The nine-year-old gave damning evidence against her
mother and siblings. The irony is that while James had remained
sceptical of much of the evidence used in previous witch trials, he
had nevertheless passed a law within a year of being crowned king
of England that said the death penalty could be imposed in any
cases where it was proved that magic was used to cause harm.
As such, the lengthy trial resulted in nine suspects being hung
the following day.
It was a gruesome end to a trial, which one can learn more
about at the Pendle Heritage Centre, where you can also discover
the story of George Fox, whose vision on nearby Pendle Hill
inspired the international Quaker movement. n
http://www.pendleheritage.co.ukWORLD HISTORY ARCHIVE/ALAMYThe Pendle
Witch Trials
This 17th-century witch hunt involved Shakespeare,
King James and a nine-year-old star witnessNine-year-old
Jennet Device gave
damning evidence
against her mother
and siblingsRight: The witches in
Shakespeare’s
Macbeth may have
been inspired by the
Pendle Witch Trials