Alright, so Matt, what do you call a whale that doesn't wear underwear?
I don't know any that do. I don't know what. Free Willy.
Hey, guys.
Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the graveyard.
Thank you for joining us tonight. My name is Adam and my name's Matt.
Now, pull up a tombstone or settle into your casket and get comfortable because this is graveyard tales.
Alright, everybody, here we are again, Matt. How you doing tonight, brother?
Hey, I'm doing alright. Good deal. Good deal.
It's I don't know what season we're in with Texas weather. I don't know. It's
a first summer, I think, is what it is. Yeah, first summer.
We'll get third winter here in a couple days and then we'll get first spring, then second summer,
then second spring. I mean, it's all jacked up, but yeah, so it is. I was at a softball game last
night. Yeah. And that's why I was sitting there going, I mean, Christmas was like six weeks ago,
I'm out at a ballpark. Fortunately, it was it was fairly warm here,
but we were under wind advisory. So the wind was blowing and the wind made it colder.
Mm hmm. You know, so we're all out there covered up. You know, we got blankets and hoodies and all
kinds of stuff on, but yeah, I mean, you know, it's like we're going to force spring to come.
We're screw it. We're going to we're doing all the spring stuff now. It's mid February.
Alright, it don't matter. I mean, I've seen spring bugs come out already. There's certain bugs that
are flying around that I don't see until it's weird. But I mean, like I said, it'll we'll get
another cold snap, kill them all and then, you know, start over again. Right, right. We want to
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Yeah, and they're not only are the meals delicious, but as Adam said, they're easy to make. I mean,
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So Matt, why don't you tell us what are we talking about tonight, brother?
Okay, so tonight, this is perhaps the most notorious witch trial of the 17th century.
It's a tale of darkness. It's a tale of fear.
I mean, it's really, really cool. 12 people were accused of witchcraft. One died while held in
custody. 11 went to trial. One was tried and found guilty in York, and the other 10 were tried
at in Lancaster in England. Only one of them was found not guilty.
So tonight, Adam and I are going to dive into the story of the Pendle Hill witches.
I mean, this is one of these that I had known this story for a long time.
In my head, I always sail them witch trials, Pendleton witches, Pendle witches, all this.
And it was just, hey, they did this really terrible stuff where they accused these women and men
of being witches, and they burned them or hanged them or whatever. I didn't have the detail that
we were able to get for this episode. And it's amazing. It really is. This is by far the most
well documented of any witch trial in history. And we're going to talk about that too.
I know we've got a lot of people ask for us to do this episode. So there's several people out
there that are clapping now because we finally got to this topic. Hopefully not golf clap like
finally. You're stupid. Right. I've been telling you for six months.
But just like with everything, we need to kind of look at the history and the background
of what was going on at the time and what led up to this. So Adam, take it away, brother.
All right. So as we always say, go check our sources down in the bottom of the show notes.
You can find where we found this information and you can expand on the information because I
guarantee you there's no way we could cover it all because there is so much. So go down there,
bottom of the show notes and check our sources. Now, the story of the Pendle Hill, which is,
is probably the most notorious of the 17th century. But it's only one of the many dark tales that
like this of imprisonment and execution at Lancaster Castle. So when you look into
Lancaster Castle historical documents, it talks about this, about the Pendle Hill witches. So
this is coming from their historical documents. It says on March 18th, 1612, a young woman by the
name of Alison device was out begging on the road to Cologne. She stopped a peddler from Halifax,
John Law, and asked him for a pen. He refused her request and walked away. According to Alison's
own testimony, her familiar spirit in the shape of a dog appeared to her and asked if she would
like to harm law. Alison was new apparently to the art of witchcraft. And, you know, it seems
that she was kind of resistant to being indoctrinated into what was in fact, in fact, the
family business. But now she agreed that law must be punished. And she told the dog to lame the
peddler. So no doubt to her great surprise, the curse took immediate effect and law fell to the
ground paralyzed down one side. Presumably they say by a stroke and unable to speak. He was taken
to a local inn and later Alison was brought to his bedside. She admitted her part in his illness
and begged his forgiveness, which he gave. However, law son Abraham had become involved.
And he was far from satisfied. He took the matter to Roger Noel, the local magistrate,
and from there things snowballed at an alarming rate. After hearing the most awful admissions
from those he interviewed, Noel made many arrests. And by the end of April, 19 people,
including a group of a group from Samusbury and Isabel Robey from Wendell,
were incarcerated at Lancaster Castle awaiting trial at the August Assizes. Now,
we've kind of tangentially discussed this on other episodes, but I want to look into it a
little bit deeper specifically for this episode. And that's the Malice Maleficorum. Now, I have a
link in the sources down there to a sacred text link. And you can go on that link and read the entire
Malice Maleficorum if you would like. So I pulled some of that, some of this information from there
and some from other sources. But let's look at it. Now, this is just an encyclopedia Britannica
definition of what the Malice Maleficorum is. It's Latin for hammer of witches. And it detailed
legal and theological documents regarded as the standard handbook on witchcraft, including its
detection and its extra patient until well into the 18th century. It appearance did much to spur
on and sustain two centuries of witch hunting hysteria in Europe. Now, the Malice was the work of
two Dominicans, Johann Springer, dean of the University of Cologne in Germany, and Heinrich
Kramer, professor of theology at the University of Salzburg, Austria, and Inquisitor of the
Tyrol region in Austria in 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued the bull's pumice, the ciderantes
effective us in which he deplored the spread of witchcraft in Germany, and authorized Springer
and Kramer to extrepate it. So the Malice codified the folklore and beliefs of the Alpine peasants
and was dedicated to the implementation of Exodus 2218, quote, you shall not permit a sorceress to
live, end quote. So the work is divided into three parts. Part one, the reality and the
depravity of witches is emphasized, and any disbelief in demonology is condemned as heresy.
So even if you don't believe in demonology, that's heretical.
Yeah, just by going, yeah, this is all a bunch of whoie. I don't believe any of this.
Right. I mean, you could get in some hot water, sometimes literally,
you know, by just admitting that, that you didn't believe in it.
Right. So because of the nature of the enemy, any witness, no matter what his credentials
may testify against and accused. Now part two is a compendium of fabulous stories about the
activities of witches. So it says, e.g. diabolic compact sexual relations with the devil,
incubine succubi, transvection, which is night writing, and metamorphosis. So it them changing
shape. Now part three is a discussion of the legal procedures to be followed in witch trials.
Torture is sanctioned as a means of securing confessions. Lay and secular authorities are
called upon to assist the inquisitors in the task of exterminating those whom Satan has enlisted
in his cause. Now the Malleus went through 28 editions between 1486 and 1600, and was accepted
by Roman Catholics and Protestants alike as an authoritative source of information concerning
Satanism and as a guide to Christian defense. Yeah, I mean, it was like the handbook.
Right. You know, how to deal with witches in your neighborhood. I mean, that's basically what it was.
Right. Right. Now, I read a good amount of the Malleus maleficarum off of that sacred text
link that I had, but I needed another way to say it, because it was in an older form of English
and translated a few times. And so it was difficult for a lot of people to understand there's some
things in there that I didn't understand. So I found a good synopsis of each section. So I'm
going to do that. I'm going to go through a synopsis of the section here and we can kind of see what
this was all about. Now, one section is women and midwives. So the manual charges that witchcraft
was mostly found among women. The manual bases this on the idea that both good and evil in women
tend to be extreme after providing many stories of women's vanity, tendency to war lying,
and weak intellect. The Inquisitors also alleged that a woman's lust is at the basis of all witchcraft
thus making witch accusations also sexual accusations. Now, what kind of crap is all that?
I like the tendency for lying. Yeah, what? Yeah, tendency toward lying and what what kills me
is the weak intellect part, because it's like the people writing this book, I guarantee you
their spouses, their wives were smarter than these dummies were. Oh, yeah, guaranteed. Yeah.
I mean, history has proven that. Yeah, right.
Yeah. As a group, men will have a tendency to screw stuff up. It's like that joke. That's why
men usually die first. Mm-hmm. It is because we do something stupid to cause the death. So,
Hey, what's this? Mm-hmm. But I mean, this just expands and gives examples of the way
women were looked at during that time. Right. And unfortunately, hundreds of years later,
people still have this kind of mentality. Yeah, some people do. You know, not just towards women,
but I mean, you see it, you see it in society now. I mean, it's like, we haven't evolved enough
over 500 some odd years. Yeah, it's weird. So the midwives part of this, it says midwives are
especially singled out as wicked for their supposed ability to prevent conception or terminate a
pregnancy by deliberate miscarriage. They also claim midwives tend to eat infants or, with live
births, offer children to devils. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So the manual asserts that witches make a formal
pact with the devil and copulate with incubi, a form of devils who have the appearance of life
through, quote, aerial bodies. It also asserts that witches can possess another person's body.
Another assertion is that witches and devils can make male sexual organs disappear.
I wish most of y'all could see my face.
But, you know what this is? This is people. These are dudes that are very insecure with themselves.
Oh, man. And they're like, I swear, last night it was bigger. The witch got a hold of me.
And I mean, it's half of what it was. This witch did it. The witch did it. She made it almost
disappear. Mm-hmm. Do you think guys like in their mid-50s around this time were like they would buy
like these big fancy carriages to roll around me? Yeah, right. And couldn't get a Corvette.
A lift kit. Yeah, so they put a big lift kit on their carriage.
Oh, giant tires on it and rolling through the streets and up high.
So many of their sources of, quote, evidence for the weakness or wickedness of wives are
with unintentional irony. Pagan riders like Socrates, Cicero, and Homer. They also drew heavily on
writings of Jerome, Augustine, and Thomas of Aquinas. So get some of these old, quote,
pagan riders and then twist what they say and, you know, use it to their advantage.
Now, let's look at the examinations and signs from the Malice Maleficarum.
Since detailed directions were given for examinations, one aspect was a physical
examination looking for, quote, any instrument of witchcraft, end quote, which included marks on
the body. So it was assumed most of the accused would be women for the reasons given above there.
So the women were to be stripped in their cells by other women and examined for,
quote, any instrument of witchcraft. Hair was to be shaved from their bodies so that
devil's marks could be seen more easily. How much hair was shaved, I guess, depended on
who was doing the shaving and what area, how hairy they were. Yeah, I mean,
it says these quote instruments could include both physical objects concealed and also bodily
marks. Beyond such instruments, there were other signs by which the manual claimed a
witch could be identified. For example, being unable to weep under torture or when before a judge
was a sign of being a witch. So if you're just hardcore and you're being tortured and you're like,
I'm not crying for you. Oh, you're a witch. That's right. So we've joked about this in other
episodes about the whole, well, you know, witches don't float or witches float.
Humans don't float. So if you sink and drown, well, you aren't a witch, but you're right,
you're dead. So you're dead. They don't mind. She turned me into a noot. I got better.
So there were references to the inability to drown or burn a witch who still had any objects of
witchcraft concealed or who were under the protection of other witches. Thus, tests were justified to
see if a woman could be drowned or burned. If she could be drowned or burned, she might be innocent.
If she could not be, she was probably guilty. If she did drown or was successfully burned,
while that might be a sign of her innocence, she was not alive to enjoy the exoneration.
So like we were just saying, I mean, yeah, the this just continues to show the mentality
of the people writing this crap at the time. It's like, well, how do we test?
Drown them. What? Or do you think anybody at any point in time goes, well, what if we just kind
of try to burn their finger? If we can burn their finger, then they're not a witch. And we don't
have to kill them. No, we got to burn burn the whole person. Yeah, put them on a stake and set them
on fire. Well, sir, what if they're innocent? I don't care. Yeah, what was it? That was it right
there. You hit it. They didn't care. Okay. For one reason, because they were terrified.
For another reason because they're stupid. They're stupid and and and ignorance,
ignorance breeds fear and fear can cause people to do some absolutely insane things.
And that's, you know, we've talked about this before when we talked about the sailing witch trials.
You know, fear was the driving force. And behind that was ignorance and and an unwillingness to
to learn or to listen. You know, these these people thought we're right. We're the ones we have to
protect our society. And you're going to listen to us. And you're going to obey us or we're going
to punish you. And so even the people were in fear of being involved or even being seen having a
conversation with anyone who was a little strange, who was a little off, you know, somebody that
somebody might get up, might could go at any point in time. I think she's a witch.
Because the next thing you know, somebody else comes along and says, well, I saw, you know,
Goody Johnson over here talking to her the other day. They're both witches.
Right. And here, here you are. You were just trying to go buy some bread. Right.
Now you're on trial for being a witch. So I mean, everybody was just at a time where,
you know, education wasn't necessarily lauded. You know, people were poor. They were afraid. They
I can't think of the word I'm trying to say. But anyway, I'm impressed. You know, that would be a
good way to put it. They were oppressed. Yeah. You know, I guess to sum it up. But
if when you're stupid and scared, there's no limit to the insanity that you will do. And
I mean, it can be seen not just in this time, but throughout all time, that when you get,
when people are dumb and I don't I don't even mean that derogatory in a derogatory way,
I just mean if you are ignorant so that the true definition of ignorant,
you just have not been presented with the correct information. Right. Not that you have.
It's like, I used to used to say to people all the time, there's a difference between
stupidity and ignorance. Ignorance is never being presented with the information
to be able to understand it. Stupidity is being presented with the information and going, nah,
that's not it. So ignorance in its true definition, when you are ignorant and scared,
then all it does is compound the insanity. And then it draws you away from other people around
you. Yeah. So that's exactly what was happening during this time. Like Matt was saying, they
were ignorant to this information. They were being used by the people who wrote the Malice
Maleficorum that their ignorance on this topic was being used to what end I don't know, just
mass kill people, I don't know. But they were being used and then that was a control mechanism
because if they had you scared that they were going to come after you for witchcraft,
guess what? You didn't talk to people. You didn't. Right. You didn't want to be seen like Matt said
buying a loaf of bread and talking to goody-gretta over here who might be a little off and then
the whole town is on trial. So you just say it to yourself. Right. You didn't ask questions.
You didn't seek out knowledge because especially at that time for a woman to be seeking knowledge,
reading books, what was available. That would be considered suspect because that wasn't a part
of their role. So we got to look at confessing witchcraft. So confessions were central to the
process of investigating and they don't have that in quotes, but I'm going to start putting
investigating in quotes. But it was central to the process of investigating and trying suspected
witches and made a difference in the outcome for the accused, a witch could only be executed by
the church authorities if she herself confessed, but she could be questioned and even tortured with
the aim of getting a confession. So this was before your rights and stuff. They didn't have
rights to not say anything, you know, plead the fifth or anything like that. And they just got
tortured. But a witch who confessed quickly was said to have been abandoned by the devil
and those who kept a quote stubborn silence had the devil's protection. They were said to be more
tightly bound to the devil. So torture was seen as essentially an exorcism. It was to be frequent
and often to proceed from gentle to harsh. And if the accused witch confessed under torture,
however, she must also confess later while not being tortured for the confession to be valid.
So if you were beaten a breaks off of somebody and they went, I'm a witch, I'm a witch.
You had to get them to say it again later. That's the only part of this that makes sense.
Yeah, right. Right. Right. I mean, you know, people will under, you know, under duress,
people may confess to absolutely anything if it means you're going to stop.
Right. And we've seen that in recent history and not with torture, we've seen people just
in police interrogation. If the interrogation goes on so long and they're verbally badgering
these people, they'll falsely confess to something that they weren't even in the state for.
Yeah. And you know, it's just a different screen. It's psychological torture at that point.
Right. It's not physical. Right. That's true. Now, if the accused continued to deny being a witch,
even with torture, the church could not execute her. However, they could turn her over after a year or
so to secular authorities who often had no such limitations. So if you didn't confess during
torture and they kept you for a while, they could just go, well, we're going to hand you off to
Bill and Pete over here and Bill and Pete, they don't care. They'll just hang you. And that's usually
what happened. So if you were innocent and you held to your innocence and they didn't like it,
they'd just send you off to somebody else who would hang you, burn you or whatever. Right.
Now, after confessing, if the accused then also renounced all heresy, the church could permit the
penitent heretic to avoid a death sentence. So, I mean, it happened. It was rare, but it happened,
where if you renounced everything and said you'll be a different person and they could say, okay,
well, the devil is out of you. You can go on living after 15 years or whatever of imprisonment
and torture and whatever. We've done beat the hell out of you. Litterite. Right. Right. Pretty much.
So the prosecutors had permission to promise an unconfessed witch her life
if she provided evidence of other witches. This would produce more cases to investigate.
Those she implicated would then be subject to investigation and trial on the assumption that
the evidence against them might have been a lie. So they go about it saying, yeah, it could have
been a lie, but we're still going to torture you to find out because the investigation,
the reason I want to put investigation in quotes is because their investigation is just yelling
at people and torturing them. So it's not much of an investigation, but the prosecutor in giving such
a promise of her life explicitly did not have to tell her the whole truth that she could not be
executed without a confession. So the prosecution also did not have to tell her that she could be
imprisoned for life on bread and water after implicating others, even if she did not confess
or that secular law in some locales could still execute her. So people would implicate others
in being witches, but never say they were thinking this would get them off.
But then they would be imprisoned on a bread and water treatment and sometimes even still
executed. So it was a trick. Just because the church couldn't do it without a confession
didn't mean that the law of the land couldn't take it from there. And that happened a lot too.
Oh sure. And just a little tidbit on the bread and water thing.
I know for me when I was younger and I heard bread and water as a torture, I thought,
I like both of those things. Why is that torture? The problem is, and a lot of people probably don't
know this, if you eat nothing but bread and water for weeks, months, it will turn into
basically glue and then harden in your intestines. So it creates basically abdominal distress
and could kill you from being plugged up and backed up because it forms a paste and then it
gets dried out and then you're just stuck. So that's why they did the bread and water thing is that
was torture as well. Now let's look at procedures for trials and executions. So the third part
of the Malice Maleficarum deals with the goal of exterminating witches through trial and execution.
The detailed guidance given was designed to separate false accusations from truthful ones.
And again, got to be in quotes here. But it was always assuming that witchcraft and harmful
magic really existed rather than being a superstition. It also assumed that such
witchcraft did real harm to individuals and undermine the church as a kind of heresy.
One concern was about witnesses. What could be witnesses in a witchcraft case among those who
could not be witnesses were quote, quarrelsome women, presumably to avoid charges from those
known to pick fights with neighbors and family. So basically, my grandmother's neighbor before she
moved this lady would quarrel with everybody on the street for nothing. My grandmother was in
her mid to late 70s and the lady saw her in a tom thom and shoulder checker. And this lady was
50 something years old and a teacher. And I'm like, Hmm, okay. So speaking of beating the breaks off,
glad I didn't want to go to jail. So to keep going, should the accused be informed of who had
testified against them? Well, the answer was no, if there was a danger to the witnesses,
but that the identity of witnesses should be known to the prosecuting lawyers and the judges.
So was the accused to have an advocate? Well, an advocate could be appointed for the accused,
though witness names could be withheld from the advocate. It was the judge, not the accused,
who selected the advocate. So the advocate was charged with being both truthful and logical.
So in that sense, if the judge appoints the advocate for the accused, the accused doesn't
get to pick them. That means you're going to get one of two things. You're going to get a biased
advocate who is working for the judge, or you're going to get a dummy as an advocate,
who doesn't know what the heck is going on and just, Oh, yeah, me and all, I'll do that for you.
All advocate for him. So very biased in that, that advocate thing.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you're going to, now that you've heard all this,
I thought we were going to talk about the pendul witches. We're getting there. Understanding
the mindset and, and the, I guess if you call them regulations on how to proceed in one of these
trials, it's helpful when you see how the trials of the Pendleton witches went down.
Because a lot of this comes back up and you're like, why, why, why was this allowed? Because the,
because all the regulations dictated that it could be done this way.
Okay. So let's look at Adam, let's look at the events that led up to the trials before we get
into the details of the trials themselves. Now, you know, Adam let us off with the, with the story of
Alison device that she had asked her familiar spirit to curse Mr. Law and he became paralyzed on one side.
So once they started this investigation, Adam used the term snowballed.
Man, it went, it went fast from there. I mean, they, they just kept, kept uncovering more and more
and arresting more and more people. Now, it's important to understand what was going on
specifically at the time in the area where the, the Pendle, the Pendle Hill area.
Now, six of the 11 witches on the trial trial came from two rival families. Okay. They were the
dimdike family and the Chaddox family. And they were both headed up by old poverty stricken widows.
Okay. Elizabeth Southernd, who was also known as old dimdike and Ann Whittle, who was known as
mother Chaddox. Now, old dimdike had been known as a witch for 50 years, 50 years.
People in this area knew that old dimdike was a witch. Right. It was just an accepted part of
village life in the 16th century that there were village healers who practiced magic and dealt in
herbs and medicines. Sure. That's, that's who you went to. There wasn't a local doctor.
You know, you, you had an ailment, you went and saw, you know, a healer, a witch.
And back then, I would rather go see somebody who gave me herbs and remedies like that than a
actual doctor because of the, the shape medicine was in. They bleed you to death. Yeah. You know,
anyway, well, you could either go to this healer. I mean, she's a witch, but you go in the healer
and she'll give you some lemon balm and catnip or come to me, a doctor, and I'll cut your leg off.
I mean, which do you really want? I mean, it's like, uh, you've got ghosts in your blood. Let's do
cocaine about it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. Um, but as is the case so many times,
frauds began to pose as witches and healers because of the money they could funnel from local
villagers. Sure. It was a time when witchcraft was not only feared, but it fascinated everyone from
common, common village folk all the way to King James. Mm hmm. Now, James the first had been
greatly interested in witchcraft even before he took the throne in 1603. He wrote a book called
demonology instructing his readers to condemn and prosecute both supporters and practitioners
of witchcraft. Okay. Now this is outside of the, um, Malia, um, Malefar. Yeah. The skepticism of the
king became reflected in the feelings of unrest about witchcraft among the common people. The
king's views were also imposed on the law. Now each justice of the peace and Lancashire at the
beginning of the year, uh, 1612 was instructed to compile of list, uh, a compile list of all of
those who refuse to attend church or take communion, which at that time was a criminal offense.
I like it. Yeah. Go ahead. I just, and the stuff that during that time was a criminal offense
just gets me. No, I know it. I know it. So you, you kind of understand how, you know, how people would
be uptight about this stuff. Mm hmm. Oh, well, now the area of Lancashire was widely viewed as kind of
wild and lawless. Okay. This was partly due to the area's devotion to the Catholic church.
Henry the eight's act of supremacy in 1534, which separated England from the Vatican influence
also led to the closure of the, uh, I think it's, um,
Cistercian Abbey. I think that's how you say it. There's too many C's in that word.
Cistercian, Cistercian Abbey, which was a monastery, uh, in Lancashire and the people of
Pendle Hill were, were pretty ticked off about it. I mean, you know, here they were. They were,
they were devout Catholics, even though the law said that they could no longer practice Catholicism.
And now the law is shutting down the monastery right there in, in their hometown.
Now when Queen Mary took the throne in 1553, Pendle Hill immediately reverted back to the,
to Catholicism. So officials saw the people of Lancashire as those who honored the church,
but understood very little about its doctrine. And it was this lack of understanding and the
unease that comes with it that the judges exploited in their investigations and trials of the alleged
witches. So, um, so Alison, uh, confessed to justice, Noel, that she had indeed told the devil
to lame John law. And it was after further questioning that Alison accused her grandmother,
which was old dimdike, Elizabeth Southerners, and also members of the Chaddix family of witchcraft.
I remember the dimdikes and the Chaddix were like the Hatfields and the McCoy's. Right. You know,
they didn't like one another. So, you know, not only does Alison say, well, my grandmother's a witch,
everybody knows this. She says, there are also people in this other family that are witches too.
So those accusations about the Chaddix family, it looked like an act of revenge. You know,
it's like, well, we'll get you. Yeah. Now, as I said, the families had been feuding for years,
especially since one of the Chaddix family had broken into Malcan Tower, which was the home of
the dimdikes and stole goods to the value of one pound, which would be the equivalent of about
120 pounds now. Okay. So not a lot, but not a little either. Right. Okay. I mean, you really,
these people were, were poverty stricken. I mean, they didn't, you know, they, they had to find a way
to make, you know, any kind of whatever money they had to figure out a way. I mean, you,
Alison was begging when this, this all began. And I did, I told Adam, I watched a lot of videos
and struggled through a lot of people with Scottish accents and me trying to follow what they were
saying and understand it. I'd have to go back and listen to it. I didn't catch that. What was that
word? But they talked about Malcan Tower, which sounds very regal and Malcan Tower, you know,
it wasn't. In fact, like I said, these people were poor.
One, one interview I watched said that at the time Malcan was akin to, I won't say what he said,
but it crapped. So this would have been, it sort of been like a slang term for crap,
crap tower is what this would have been. So it wasn't some, you know, they didn't live in a castle.
Okay. It was just what they called it. But beyond, beyond that, beyond the feud because
one of the, the Chaddixes had stolen from them. John Devis, who is Alison's father,
blamed the illness that led to his death on old mother Chaddix,
who had threatened to harm his family if they didn't pay annually for their protection.
Now the device family had paid the Chaddix family with, or, or old mother Chaddix with eight
pounds of oatmeal a year up until the year prior to John Devis's death. So she says, you pay,
I'm going to harm your family. They pay the eight pounds of oatmeal. The one year they do it,
John Devis dies at the end of that year. And it was on his death bed that he accused
old Chaddix is being the cause of his death. Now the deaths of four other villagers that had
occurred years before the trial were raised and the blame was laid on witchcraft performed
by old, old, old mother Chaddix. Now James Dimdike, who was Alison's brother,
confessed that Alison had also cursed a local child sometime before. And Elizabeth, although
more reserved in making accusations, confessed that her mother had a mark on her body, supposedly
where the devil had sucked her blood, which had caused her to go mad. So remember, Adam,
talking about the instruments of the devil, those body marks or things like this, this is,
this is what they were looking for. This is why they would shave people down. And so,
Alison had said that her mother, Elizabeth, had one of these marks of the devil where the devil
had sucked her blood. Right. Okay. So not, not only is she pointing to her as a witch, she's saying,
she's got the mark of the devil. Again, you got to realize Alison was a young woman,
and I'm sure was terrified. Sure. Not, not only was she terrified of the authorities in the church,
she was terrified of her own abilities. You know, she believed in her powers. Right. And, and it
frightened her what she had been able to do, or at least what she thought she had been able to do.
Now, on April 2nd, 1612, dimdike, Chaddix, and Chaddix's daughter and Redfern were summoned to
appear before Justice Noel. Both dimdike and Chaddix were, at that time, were blind in their 80s,
and both provided Noel with damaging confessions. Dimdike claimed that she had given her soul to
the devil 20 years before. And Chaddix said that she had given her soul to quote, a thing like a
Christian man on his promise that she would quote, not lack anything and would get any revenge she
desired. So, and Redfern, who was mother Chaddix's daughter, was allegedly seen to create clay figures.
Okay. That doesn't sound bad, but you got to understand clay magic was a big deal. And clay
magic is still practiced today, used in healing a variety of ailments. And it's because clay is of
the earth. And, you know, if you go back and do some reading, clay is utilized in many religions,
creation stories, you know, they breathed life into the dirt into the clay. So, it's sometimes
considered to be the artist's first medium. So, there's a lot of power in the clay and making these
clay figures was something that only a witch would have done. Now, after hearing this evidence,
the judge detained Alison device and Redfern, old Dimdike and old Chaddix and Lancaster jail
and set them for trial. Okay. Now, the story would have ended there. Okay, it would have just been
those four. If it hadn't been for a meeting that was held at Malkin Tower by Elizabeth and James
device for, um, to discuss this situation, James stole a neighbor's sheep to provide a meal for all
the attendees. Hey, look, they're still poor. Right. Okay. And it just so happened that this
particular meeting day was good Friday. And so they being trying to be secret, but good Catholics,
you know, they were going to gather on good Friday. They were going to have a meal. And so,
he stole the sheep from a neighbor to feed everybody that was there. Now, those that were
sympathetic to the family attended, but word reached the judge who felt compelled to investigate.
Now, on April 27, 1612, an inquiry was held before Noel and another magistrate, Nicholas
Bannister, to determine the purpose of this meeting at Malkin Tower, who had attended the meeting
and what happened there. As a result, a further eight people were summoned for questioning and
then trial. Elizabeth device, James device, Alice Nutter, Catherine Hewitt, John Bullcock,
Jane Bullcock, Alice Gray, and Jeanette Preston. So we've, we've just ballooned from four to 12.
So Jeanette Preston was the first tried on July 27, 1612. Now Preston lived in Gisburn, which was
then in Yorkshire. And she was sent to the York, um, a sizes for her trial. Her judges were Sir
James Altham and Sir Edward Bromley. A Jeanette was charged with the murder by witchcraft of a
local landowner, Thomas Lister of Westby Hall, to which she pled not guilty. Now, she had already
appeared before Bromley in 1611 accused of murdering a child by witchcraft, but had been found not
guilty. So, so Jeanette Preston had, it's a situation where she was actually accused and acquitted,
of witchcraft a year earlier, which we'd already determined didn't happen very often. But this is
evidence that it did happen. Right. You know, they, they did. They didn't present enough evidence to,
um, to the church to say, Yep, this lady's a witch and needs to be found guilty and executed.
So then let her go. Yep. Like you said, that's not common. And obviously they didn't have the
thing. Once you've been found innocent of a crime, you can't be tried again for that same crime.
Oh, yeah. But this, this would have been a different crime. Oh, yeah, it's true.
So you can't kill once and get away with it and then kill whoever you like. Right. That would be
terrible. The most damning evidence given against her was that when she had been taken to see Lister's
body, the man that she was accused of killing, it was said that when Preston touched the body,
it began to bleed fresh blood, an event that was witnessed by several people.
According to a statement made by Noel, um, according to a statement made to
Judge Noel by James device on April 27th, Jeanette had attended the Malcan Tower meeting to seek
help with Lister's murder. She was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging.
And her execution took place two days later on July 29th. They didn't, they didn't waste any time.
Yeah, that's, that's not screwing around. That's. Yep. So Jeanette Preston was the first one tried,
first one found guilty and the first one executed for the murder of Thomas Lister.
Now the remaining trials were held at Lancaster between the 17th and 19th of August 1612
with the judges once again, being author and Bromley and the prosecutor being Roger Noel.
And whittle again, that's, that's old Chaddox was accused of the murder of Robert Nutter.
Now she pled not guilty, but the confession she had made to Roger Noel, most likely under torture,
was read out in court. And evidence against her was presented by one James Robinson,
who had lived with the Chaddox family 20 years earlier. He claimed to remember that Nutter had
accused Chaddox of turning his beer sour and that she was commonly believed to be a witch.
Okay. So, so she made my beer sour and everybody thought she was a witch.
Right. So, hanger. Yeah. That's, I mean, that, that's pretty much what, what he said.
But even with that, flimsy evidence, Chaddox broke down and admitted her guilt, calling on God for
forgiveness and the judges to be merciful to her daughter and Redfern.
And the daughter's going, why are you bringing my name into this woman?
I wasn't even on trial. She was already there. She was already there. They already knew.
They were going after her and she knew they would. But maybe she was hoping that her confession
would save her daughter. Well, it's like, remember, she's old. Yeah. Like the Malia said,
if you confess and are penitent, then they can let you off. Right.
But you got to remember, Chaddox was old, you know, Anne Whittle was old. Probably in her 80s.
She was blind. You know, she lived a long life. All she really wanted to see was that was her daughter
be shown some mercy and not executed. Now, nine year old Jeanette device, you're going to see,
I'm going to repeat names. I'm not talking about the same person. Okay. It's like, it's like they
had a list of names and surnames. And that's what everybody got, you know, because there wasn't a
lot of variation. Five surnames and then eight first names. That's it. That's what you had to
choose from. And they had them on dice and they would roll the dice. And that was your name.
This came up Tom Thomas. Sorry, but you're stuck with that one. It's bad. I know. Yeah,
it's terrible, but you got it. Tom Thomas. That's the dice. I mean, Tom Tom.
You know, just think you could have been Thomas Thomas. Or even worse, Thomas Tom.
That would have been just stupid. So you lucked out with this one.
But it was nine year old Jeanette device who was a key supplier of evidence for the Pendle
Witches trial, which was allowed under the system from King James. All normal rules of evidence
could be suspended for witch trials. You remember when Adam was talking about earlier,
you got to say it. Malayless, Maleficarum. Malayous, Maleficarum. Malayous, Maleficarum.
In that it said that it didn't anyone could provide evidence in a witch trial. It didn't matter
who you were or what your qualifications were. You could present evidence. So in this case,
a nine year old girl was able and allowed to present evidence. And hers was, you know, the most
effective because normally someone at age nine wouldn't have been allowed to be a witness.
No. So Jeanette gave evidence. You know, some of the some of the crazy things nine year old say.
Oh, yeah. Michael, when he was nine, he could come up. I mean, he still does and he's 11,
but he can come up with some wild stuff to say. Oh, yeah. And you're going to put a nine year old
on the staff. I mean, their brains aren't even fully developed yet. That's right. Piper does it.
You know, she's 10, but Brooks did it. Yeah. He still does. He's 13. Yeah, right. So Jeanette
gave evidence against those who attended the meeting at Malcolm Tower, but also against her mother,
her sister and her brother. So it's, you know, it's a little, this little turn coat,
you know, gave everybody up. Well, and I mean, that that proves one of the things that I've told
Michael before and I've said to other people before is the frontal part of your brain is not
fully developed until in your twenties. And that part of your brain is the part of your brain that
allows you to understand long term consequences of your decisions. Yeah. Until your mid twenties
or so that part of your brain is not fully developed. So as a nine year old, where it's far
from being fully developed, she doesn't see the long term ramifications of saying that.
She just, she's on the stand. She's scared and I like, you know, anybody else? And she's like,
well, yeah, my mom, my brother, my sister, the goat, my horses. And she doesn't realize that by
saying this, she's condemning them to death. Yeah. And how easy would it have been?
Yeah, how easy would it have been to convince a nine year old, you just have to tell us what
you know, you know, we're going to everybody's going to get to go home. We just need you to
stand up here and tell the truth. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, you know, yeah, I mean, you can't imagine
that she wasn't manipulated in some aspect. Absolutely was. So now Elizabeth device,
that's Jeanette's mother, okay, was charged with the murders of James Robin Robinson,
a different James Robinson, John Robinson. And together with Alice Nutter and Demdike,
the murder of Mr. Henry Mitten. Okay. So two murders on her own.
And then one, where she conspired with Alice Nutter and old Demdike to murder Henry Mitten.
Now, Elizabeth device vehemently maintained her innocence. And when Jeanette gave evidence
against Elizabeth, she had to be removed from the court, screaming and cursing her daughter.
Yeah. So she hadn't even really gotten into any evidence yet.
And so they had to remove Elizabeth from the courtroom. I mean, how would you react if your own
child, especially a nine year old child, was coerced into saying it? Exactly.
So once Elizabeth had been removed from the court, Jeanette's testimony continued.
It says Jeanette was placed on a table and stated that she believed her mother had been a witch
for three or four years. She also said her mother had a familiar called ball who appeared in the
shape of a brown dog. Jeanette claimed to have witnessed conversations between ball and her mother
in which ball had been asked to help with various murders. James device also gave evidence against
his mother saying he had seen her making a clay figure of one of her victims, John Robinson.
Elizabeth device was found guilty.
Yeah. Now James device, James device, this is Elizabeth's son, Alice and his brother.
Okay. James device pleaded not guilty to the murders by witchcraft of and townly and John Duckworth.
However, he, like Chaddix, had earlier made a confession to know which was read out in court.
That and the evidence presented against him by his sister Jeanette, who said that she had seen
her brother asking a black dog he had conjured up to kill to help him kill townly was enough
to persuade the jury to find him guilty. Well, yeah. I mean, you know, here now you've got a story that
not only is he talking to a dog, you know, with a familiar spirit that he actually conjured this
dog up and asked him specifically to help him kill Mr. Townley or Miss Townley. Yeah.
So they found him guilty. Now let's go back to Anne Redfern. Remember, Anne Redfern was old Chaddix's
daughter. So Anne Redfern was also charged in the murder of Robert Nutter. But the evidence against
her was considered unsatisfactory and she was acquitted. But Redfern was not so fortunate the
following day when she faced her second trial for the murder of Robert Nutter's father Christopher,
to which she pled not guilty. Now, old Dimdike statement to know which accused Anne of having
made clay figures of the Nutter family was read out in court. Witnesses were called to testify that
Anne was a witch, quote, more dangerous than her mother. But Redfern refused to admit her guilt
to the very end and had given no evidence against any others of the any others of the accused.
But Anne Redfern was found guilty. Of course. Now, we had two that we mentioned that we hadn't
talked about till till now. Jane Bullcock and her son John Bullcock. They were both from new
church in Pendle and they were accused and found guilty of the murder by witchcraft of Jeanette
Dean. So here's another Jeanette. That was a very common name. Both denied that they had attended
the meeting at Malcom Tower. But of course, Jeanette device identified Jane as having been one of
those present. And John had been turning the spit to roast the stolen sheep, which was the centerpiece
of the Good Friday meeting at the Dimdike's home. So if anybody ever steals a sheep and you're going
to cook it, don't help cook it. Because if you help cook it, you could be accused of witchcraft.
I mean, you just have to laugh. I mean, that is just at this point. Yeah. I mean, we're
so many hundreds of years beyond this, we can laugh about it, but it's still it's ridiculous.
It's absolutely ridiculous. But remember, I made a comment earlier in the show about
even if you were just seen associating with somebody that would eventually be accused of
witchcraft, it could come back on you. That, you know, these folks were just, they were, they were
in support of their friends and neighbors. You know, they didn't want to see this happen to them.
And of course, old Dimdike had been basically the the the healer for that village for 50 years.
So here they come just in support. And now they're both condemned of being witches
just because they were at this meeting. And then of course, we got to find find somebody that died.
Okay, we can accuse them of of this death. Yeah, you notice that's why they all played out.
They were all accused of some type of murder or a conspiracy to commit murder by witchcraft.
Now, Alice Nutter was unusual among the accused and being comparatively wealthy.
She was the widow of a tenant, Yomen farmer. She made no statement either before or during her trial
except to enter her plea of not guilty to the charge of murdering Henry Mitten by witchcraft.
Now this is the same Henry Mitten from earlier. The prosecution alleged that she,
together with Dimdike and Elizabeth device, had caused Mitten's death after he refused to give
Dimdike a penny that she had begged from him. The only evidence against Alice Nutter seems to have
been that James device claimed Dimdike had told him of the murder. And that and Jeanette device in
her statement said that Alice had been present at the Malcan Tower meeting. Alice may have
stopped in on the meeting at Malcan Tower on her way to a secret and of course illegal
good Friday Catholic church service and refused to speak any further because she was afraid she
would incriminate her fellow Catholics. Many of the Nutter family were Catholics and two of them
had been executed as Jesuit priests, John Nutter in 1584 and his brother Robert in 1600.
Alice Nutter was also found guilty. And you know, this is one that she's just, she's guilty by
association. Right. Now, Catherine Hewitt was charged and found guilty of the murder of Ann
Folds. She was the wife of a clothier from Cologne and had attended the meeting at Malcan Tower with
Alice Gray. According to the evidence given by James device, both Hewitt and Gray told the others
at the meeting that they had killed a child from Cologne. And her name was Ann Folds. Jeanette
device also picked Catherine out of a lineup and confirmed her attendance at the Malcan Tower meeting.
Now, some of the Pendle witches seem to be genuinely convinced of their guilt. Like Alice
Nutter was convinced that her powers were real and that she had had something to do with
with John, John law's affliction. But others fought to clear their names.
Alice Nutter was one of those who believed in her own powers. And she was also the only one on
trial who was faced with one of her victims, John law. He said, when John entered the court,
it was documented that Alison fell to her knees, confessed and burst into tears. So Alison was also
found guilty. So if you're keeping score at home, nine of the accused, Alison device, Elizabeth device,
James device, Ann Whittle, Ann Redfern, Alice Nutter, Catherine Hewitt, James Bullcock and
Jane Bullcock, were all found guilty during the two day trial and hanged at Gallows Hill and
Lancaster on August 20, 1612. Elizabeth Southerns, also known as Old Demdike, never reached the trial.
The dark dank dungeon in which they were imprisoned proved to be too much for her and she died while
awaiting trial. Only one of the accused, Alice Gray, was found not guilty. And we have such
detailed information about the Pendle Witch Trials thanks to Thomas Potts, who was the clerk to the
court who wrote the official publication of the proceedings entitled, The Wonderful Discovery
of Witches in the County of Lancaster. It's the majority of the information I presented
came from a synopsis of that book, going through the details. You know, we, I had already had a
mast, a lot of information about, well, they were accused and found guilty. This one was accused and
found guilty. But by finding this synopsis, I was able to get a little bit more detail of who they
were accused of murdering, what their involvement was, who their accusers were, what evidence was
presented against them. So like I said, we found a lot more than I had ever known about the Pendle
Witch Trials. And it's, it's amazing. And that we have that much detailed information. Oh, yeah,
it's incredible that something like this actually happened. But we saw it in the United States with
the Salem Witch Trials. You know, and it was, you know, around the same time, you know, this was,
this was happening in different parts all over. You know, other parts of Europe, just not,
not just England, you know, Adam and I have mentioned that, you know, not only were there,
their witch hunters, but you know, there were vampire hunters and all kinds of stuff
that, you know, it was, it was all led by, by fear and ignorance.
You know, a dark time in history for sure. But it's just incredible. But my question is,
how much of it is true? I mean, some of these women, they immediately opened up and said,
yeah, I'm a witch. You know, openly confess. So it wasn't necessarily that it was just some
of my old world, you know, you were, you were talking to so and so, so you must be a witch.
Or we saw you with a dog, you that must be your familiar. It was way beyond that.
We saw where old dimdike was a practicing witch for 50 years. Yeah, I'm sure that
a small percentage of those that were accused actually were practicing witches and
all that. And I think there, there probably was some of them that got put on trial and they
confessed to it. I think there's probably some that were practicing witches that were found
innocent and all that went on. But I think most of it was ignorant hysteria.
I think it was a lot like the Salem witch trials, where it was just people
with more power than brain cells. Yeah. And they just ran with that.
But even for the people that openly confessed, yes, I'm a witch.
They weren't doing anything wrong. Right. They were helping.
Right. I mean, you know, they, they were healers. They weren't.
Now I say this like I know one of them. You know, they weren't cursing, you know, people and
murdering people. No, could they? Yeah, I'm sure they could. Did some of them do that?
I would, I would almost guarantee it.
But in, in, in such cases, the evidence that was presented, especially in these murders was
so flimsy. I mean, and, and hearsay for the most part, especially if, if your star witness is a
nine year old girl. Yeah. No. It, it, you know, it, it really makes you think,
okay, you know, it, it's not that there were so many innocent people that weren't witches that
were killed. My opinion, it's, man, these witches got a bad rap. Because they, they were not,
they were not to be feared. They were to be respected. Right. You know, they, they had knowledge
well beyond what was typical for that time. You know, knowledge of, of herbs, you know,
medicinals, uh, elixirs, things that could help. Um, and that's what they did. But yet even still,
you saw old dimdike, she was poor. I mean, these people were poor.
Everyone was profiting off of her gift. Certainly, certainly not. And, and at the time,
you know, I said earlier, there were a lot of charlatans out there that were trying to profit.
Oh, you want to get rich? Oh, you want to meet this woman? You, you want to, you want to marry
this pretty lady here, get her to drink this, you know, and she'll fall madly in love with you.
Only going to cost, you know, 20 quid or how many pence or whatever. I don't, I don't,
I don't know all the, the monetary names. Um, but I mean, those people were running a muck.
Now, probably not a Kindle Hill, um, but in other areas of the country.
It's like we've said before that,
even to this day, if you've got the magician, the psychic, the fortune teller that's doing it on TV,
that's less believable than the people that are not trying to profit off of it. If, if you're
in the same way with Bigfoot and UFO witnesses, if they immediately go out and start getting
trying to get attention for it, write a book or get on TV, you got to look at that a little more
skeptically than just the person who saw Bigfoot and only tells their family and they're not trying
to make money off of it or anything. So I think in, it's been that way for millennia,
that if you're trying to profit off of your quote gift, you may not, your gift may not be all
it's cut out to be. Right. I love talking about this to people and then bringing up something like,
have you ever put, uh, wet tobacco on a bee sting? Um, you know, you ever, you know, use, use mint leaves
for, to help heartburn or anything like that. You'd, you'd have been a witch. You'd have been a
witch back then. Yeah. Um, well, the herbalism that I did for so long, I would have been considered a
witch. Oh, yeah. Hell yeah. I can see you're a witch anyway. Yeah. It happens.
Uh, but you think about it. Pharmacists, apothecary. I mean, you're, you're blending medications.
You know, you, you would have, you would have been a witch. You know, and, and nowadays, it's like,
oh, well, yeah, you know, oh, that's just, ah, it's just an old home remedy. It came from somewhere
and chances are it came from somebody who maybe even if not publicly thought of themselves as a witch.
Um, well, like, you know, the term, which didn't mean you're going to flound broomsticks and
cackle and wear pointed hats, you know, well, think about, okay, aspirin is salicylic acid,
right? Okay. So the quote, pagan start of that is that Native Americans and, um, I feel, I think
in the Amazon as well, the bark of the white willow tree contains salicylic. When that
is metabolized in your body, it becomes salicylic acid, which is aspirin. So for centuries,
Native Americans and others would chew white willow bark, make it into a tea. They would make it into
a poultice and put it on a wound. And it would have aspirin-like effects. Right. Then modern
technology came along and they started synthesizing salicylic acid, putting it in pill form and saying
here to do this, it's better. Well, they got that from a quote, heretical quote, pagan thing of
mixing all these herbs and everything. And it's recently been proven that white willow bark is
more easily digestible. And for those that have allergens to aspirin, a lot of times they can
get away with white willow. Yeah. Because modern medicine then put a lot of crap into it and
that's right. But it's that, like you were saying, where did it come from? Well, most of our
modern medication comes from an old source, like what would be considered witchcraft of,
I'm going to go see the local witch on the corner because I've got a sprained elbow,
she's going to rub some goo on me and it gets better. That goo probably had white willow bark
in it or something similar. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So just a great story.
You know, so much detail and it just it leads to so much discussion. We couldn't even get into all
of it in one show. But I really enjoyed learning more about the Pendle Witch Trials and we hope
that you guys have enjoyed this too. Remember, you can let us know if you have any history of
witches or witchcraft in your family. We're not going to condemn you for it.
I have several friends that are witches. And in fact, I was talking to one earlier tonight.
But let us know, you know, if you've got a, you know, a you yourself or maybe a great grandmother
who was considered a witch or had, you know, did home remedies, I say quote home remedies,
let us know we'd love to hear it. The best place to do that is in our Facebook group. It's called
the graveyard. We've got thousands of members in there. It is extraordinarily active and it is a
safe place. You can come and share those stories and know that you're not going to be made fun of
or harassed or call a coup or anything else. But on trial for witchcraft. That's right. Not
in the graveyard. We just, we want to hear these great stories. And that's why we're here.
And after that, you can go and check out our website, which is graveyardpodcast.com.
And there you can find links to purchase graveyard tells merchandise. You can listen to the show
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