The Lancashire Witch Trials

The early part of the 17th century was a turbulent time in English history. King James VI of Scotland ascended to the English throne in 1603, assuming the royal moniker of King James I in the union of English and Scottish crowns. A year later, James I effectively brought his Scottish anti-witchcraft act to England in the form of the Witchcraft Act of 1604, which made a capital crime of consorting with evil or familiar spirits and removed the trial of witches from ecclesiastical courts to those of English common law.

The following year, in 1605, the infamous Gunpowder Plot was hatched in an attempt by English Catholics to assassinate James I. All of this set the stage for the Lancashire Witch trials of 1612, which bridged the gap between the Witchcraft Act of 1604. The trials were notable both for their scope (20 individuals were put on trial for their alleged witchcraft), and also for the allegation in James Device's confession that the Lancashire witches intended to blow up Lancaster Castle.

This would have represented something of a double challenge to the king. Witchcraft, in addition to being an affront before God, was an affront in the eyes of James as well, who believed that witches were after him personally. The putative attempt to blow up Lancaster Castle would likely have been an unpleasant reminder of the Gunpowder Plot, as well.

So why are the Lancashire Witch Trials relevant to the question of whether witch hunting was woman hunting? Eleven individuals were accused of witchcraft: ten women and one man. Eight women were found guilty, one died before her trial, and the tenth was found not guilty. The sheer numbers alone might provide the basis for a convincing argument, but to that we add that six of the accused came from two families. Each of those families was headed by an old woman - Elizabeth Southerns, aka "Old Demdike" and Anne Whittle, aka "Chattox." In addition to those two, three of the other four family members accused were also women.

Demdike was, as her nickname suggests, old. She was also blind. This fact appears to have escaped the interrogators who seem to have paid little mind to such word choices in Demdike's confession as "vanished out of sight" with respect to the spirit Tibb, from whom Demdike claimed to have gained her powers of witchcraft (Peel and Southern, 29).

Both Chattox and Demdike were old and blind by the time of the investigations, in fact. It is also likely, given the nature of their testimonies, that they were well into their dotage. Both were impoverished, as well, and the Device family in particular (descended from Demdike) appear to have scratched out their living by beggary. Why, then, would they have so readily confessed, as they seem to have done? Perhaps because in confessing, they could claim a power and status they wished to have in Lancashire society. Perhaps the relative proximity of the Witchcraft Act of 1604 meant that they were unaware of the ramifications of confessing to witchcraft. Up until this time, witchcraft had not been universally a capital crime in England; only malevolent acts of witchcraft qualified until King James I broadened the statutes to encompass all varieties of witchcraft. Perhaps they were simply women (and a couple of men) ignorant enough that the mere accusation of witchcraft was, in their minds, proof that they were, in fact, witches and sufficient to cause them to falsely remember things which would support that status.

Finally, the testimonies of 9-year-old Jennet Device and her brother James (who may not have been entirely competent mentally) sufficed as grounds against the accused (Peel and Southern, 41). In most cases, the testimony of a child would not have been permissible; only in the case of witchcraft did King James set aside that prohibition and allow the testimony of children to carry weight in open court. Once accused, the victims could be tortured for their confessions; thus, accepting the testimony of a 9-year-old girl as grounds for trial may be considered tantamount to doing so for a conviction.

Clearly, the desire for answers outweighed the need for justice; better to allow the testimony of children - a class who would frequently have been excluded from the more serious charges of witchcraft because of their ignorance! - to convict women for causing the otherwise-inexplicable deaths of people and animals than to allow the presumed witches to escape the King's justice.

 

Edgar Peel and Pat Southern, The Trials of the Lancashire Witches: A Study of Seventeenth-Century Witchcraft, (New York: Taplinger Publishing Company, 1969).