The Pendle Witches

by Catherine Rothwell

It is a reasonable assumption that alongside the computer-orientated technology of the 21st century an interest will remain which has already endured twenty centuries: superstition, charms and witchcraft. Strange bedfellows! Even the scoffers who know it's all rot avoid walking under ladders, refuse to make journeys on Friday the 13th, toss a pinch of salt over their left shoulder after upsetting the cruet and say "Bless you" when a friend sneezes. Passed down from generation to generation, these superstitions still lurk in the best computer of all - the human brain.

Rooted in paganism, the belief in charms, witches and wizards spread throughout Europe and the New World. Stories from Sweden to Salem inspired books, plays and films. Even St Augustine was a believer, but it was King James 1 whose thunderous treatise "Daemonologie" on the need to destroy witches because they leagued with the Devil that brought about the death penalty.

In the heart of Lancashire the drama of witchcraft peaked in 1612 and before the year was out had played to its grim end. Thomas Potts, Clerk to the Judges at the 1612 Lancaster Assize, produced "The Wonderful Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster" within three months of their execution.

At least two of the accused had been known to dabble in the black art for the past fifty years, which raises the questions: Why the sudden clampdown and extermination? Was the local magistrate, Roger Nowell of Read Hall, wealthy landowner and High Sheriff of Lancashire in 1610, looking for quick fame? Was Puritanism getting a strong foothold in a county once predominantly in favour of the old religion? Some thirty years later the crime of regicide, regarded by some as bold, by others as monstrous, was committed when General Oliver Cromwell signed King Charles I's death warrant. This was a far cry from persecuting terrified old women and simpletons ground down by poverty.

The 13 accused were indeed a pathetic sight, dirty, ill-clad, mis-shapen and under-nourished. Poverty had been rife in Pendle Forest for years. A century earlier two women of Barley had been excused attending church because they had no clothes to wear.

For the first time in their lives this motley crew were noticed and listened to by important people and appeared to be enjoying the attention unaware that they were incriminating themselves as the stories they told gathered momentum and embroidery. Rivalry and spite between the two main families of reputed witches merely fuelled the fervour of biased Magistrate and Judges. Although they were a bad lot, thieves, beggars and liars, they deserved help, not death.