The trials of the Pendle witches in 1612 are among the most famous witch trials in English history. The twelve accused lived in the area surrounding Pendle Hill in Lancashire, and were charged with the murders of ten people by the use of witchcraft. Of the eleven who went to trial – nine women and two men – ten were found guilty and executed by hanging; one was found not guilty.
About Pendle witches in brief
The trials of the Pendle witches in 1612 are among the most famous witch trials in English history. The twelve accused lived in the area surrounding Pendle Hill in Lancashire, and were charged with the murders of ten people by the use of witchcraft. All but two were tried at Lancaster Assizes on 18–19 August 1612, along with the Samlesbury witches and others. Of the eleven who went to trial – nine women and two men – ten were found guilty and executed by hanging; one was found not guilty. It has been estimated that all the English witch trials between the early 15th and early 18th centuries resulted in fewer than 500 executions; this series of trials accounts for more than two per cent of that total. The outbreaks of witchcraft in and around Pendle may demonstrate the extent to which people could make a living by posing as witches. Many of the allegations resulted from accusations that members of the Demdike and Chattox families made against each other, perhaps because they were in competition. The people of Pendle remained largely faithful to their Roman Catholic beliefs and were quick to revert to Catholicism on Queen Mary’s accession to the throne in 1553. The nearby Cistercian abbey at Whalley had been dissolved by Henry VIII in 1537, a move strongly resisted by the local people, over whose lives the abbey had until then exerted a powerful influence. In the year of the trials, every accused witches was ordered to attend a list of justice recusants in their area, i.e. those who refused to attend the trials or refused to present evidence in support of their claims.
Some of the evidence presented in the trials presented against some of the accused presented against others, even to the extent of personally exposing discrepancies in the testimonies. In early 1612 the accused witches were ordered to e. recusant in their areas, or to give evidence in their favour to the magistrates. The trials were unusual for England at that time, and the number of witches hanged together – nine at Lancaster and one at York – make the trials unusual for the UK at the time. In 1562, early in her reign, Elizabeth passed a law in the form of An Act Against Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts. This demanded the death penalty, but only where harm had been caused; lesser offences were punishable by a term of imprisonment. The Act provided that anyone who should use, practise, or exercise any Witchcraft, Enchantment, Charm, or Sorcery, whereby any person shall happen to be killed or destroyed was guilty of a felony without benefit of clergy, and was to be put to death. On Elizabeth’s death in 1603 she was succeeded by James I. James I was intensely interested in Protestant theology, focusing much of his curiosity on the theology of witchcraft, and wrote a book called Daemonie. He was sceptical of the witch trials, even though he had attended the trial in 1590 of the North Berwick witches, who were convicted of using witchcraft to send a storm that sent his wife back to Scotland.
You want to know more about Pendle witches?
This page is based on the article Pendle witches published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 07, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
