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163. The Pendle Witches · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now?
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: The history podcast That's not your history class with me
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: your host Katie Charlewood, history harlot and reader of books
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: who is also a complete wimp by the way. So
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: it is, you know, October. It is this spooky season,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: which is why, of course we are now doing what
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: everyone has been asking me for to do for a
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: long time, which.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Is witches, witches, spooky bitches.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: But it's spooky month, and I thought, you know what,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm going to finally watch all of the horror stuff
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: that I haven't I haven't watched yet, you know that
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: I haven't caught up on because I'm so behind on
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: bloody everything, right, So I was like, I love RHO Coley,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: so I'll start with Midnight Mass. So the plan is,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I'm going to watch Midnight Mass, follow the House of Usher,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: I'm going to finish follow the House of Ushers. I
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: started it, but I didn't finish it. I'm going to
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: watch a Haunting of Hill House, Black Manner, so on
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and so forth. So I think I'm on like the
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: penultimate episode of Midnight Mass because again big whole Holifan
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: accents wobbling places. But pretty solid acting otherwise, you know.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Watching that, and it's nighttime and it's time for me
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: to go to bed, and then I have to turn
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: off the lights and walk through the house. And as
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I walk up the stairs in that sort of dusky darkness,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I'm like, do I run up the stairs in order
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: to escape the beastis or do I walk in a
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: normal pace? So the beast stays don't know that I
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: know they're there, because you know, at that time of
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: night where no matter how rational and reasonable you are,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: you're still like.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Ghosties. They ghostis.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Because I'm like, yeah, no, a vampire is totally gonna
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: come of get me, even though I don't invite anybody
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: into my house, So how are they going to get in?
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Bitches? But yeah, then be's the.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Breaks, So it is. It is that, and yes, I
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: think I need someone to protect me while I'm watching
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: like this spooky stuff. So Nearly up North they are
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: a podcast and a Facebook group and a bunch of
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: other cool stuff.
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  Speaker 2: They asked me to do like top.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Five movies that scared you like, and I was like, okay,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: so number one was the others okay, And you might
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: be thinking the others that's what scared you. I watched
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: it alone in a Victorian house. Do you know what
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: it's like walking through a Victorian hallway which is the
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: size of a typical bedroom with floors that creak in
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: lighting that hasn't been fixed since the nineteen seventies. Let
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: me tell you that is not a fun experience. So yeah,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: so that was one of them, so I'm a bit
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: of a scared cat. Like the rest of them were typical.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: So like the original Evil Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Dark Water, the Japanese version, specifically, I wasn't scared of
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: the Jennifer Conley version. You No, the Japanese version was
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: just no, it's so creepy. And finally, the movie Daylight.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: You may notice none of these movies are new, so
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: either I haven't watched anything scary or I was just
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: easier to scare when I was younger. So the movie
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Daylight isn't actually a horror movie. It's a disaster movie,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: which is like, I don't like disaster movies because I
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: don't like the option of not being able to win.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: So Daylight is a movie. As far as I can remember,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: they're like in a tunnel that goes under like water
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: and something happens and they have to like escape it,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: so they have to like crawl up through concrete and yeah,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: like one guy breaks his spine and his left to drown.
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  Speaker 1: It is.
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  Speaker 2: It is scary.
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  Speaker 1: I don't like it and it has scared me since
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I was a child. So sorry, Sylvester Stallone, I will
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  Speaker 1: not be rewatching that movie ever again.
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Oh and before I forget I I was messaged about
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: the London show. So this is a completely seated show.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: This is you will have a seat. Okay, there's no
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: standing because apparently that's a thing in some places, but no,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: it is a seated show. And yeah, over a quarter
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: of the tickets are gone now, so you know things
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: are picking up speed, like more tickets are being sold
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: every day. So if you want to get your ticket,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I suggest you just snap it up quickly. But I
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Kerry, quit your jibbil
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: jabba in fact me, in fact you I will. But
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: first we've got to get our source on. Our sources
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: are The Wonderful Discovery of Witches in the Country of
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Lancaster by Thomas Potts, The Story of Witches by Willow
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Wincham Witches, Midwives and Nurses by Barbara Ehin Reich and
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Deirdre English, The Lancashire Witch Conspiracy by John A. Clayton,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: The Pendell Witch Trial by Rachel Hasted, The History of
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Witchcraft by Lewis Martin, The Lancashire Witch Craze Janet Preston
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: and the Lancashire Witches by Jonathan Lumbey. Witchcraft in England
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: by Barbara Rosen, A Witch Trial That Made History by
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Francis Cronin, The Pendle Witches by Ellen Costello. And of
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: course we have Pendle Witches dot Co dot UK and
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: ye old Favorite History dot com aosiding comfortably good.
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  Speaker 2: Then let's begin.
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  Speaker 1: In a Lancaster castle. Over four hundred years ago, the
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  Speaker 1: darkest and deadliest witch trials in the history of England
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  Speaker 1: took place the sixteen twelve trial of the Pendle Witches. Now,
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  Speaker 1: whch trials were not a new trend in England. There
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  Speaker 1: had been many before and there would be more after.
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  Speaker 1: But this case had somewhat of an unusual addition, the
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: testimony of a child against her family. But before we
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: get into that, we need to slip into some context.
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  Speaker 1: Women being accused of witchcraft and put on trial had
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  Speaker 1: been accuring for centuries, accused of dancing with the devil
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  Speaker 1: for everything from perceived slights to accidents to even natural disasters.
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  Speaker 1: Witch trials predominant took place during the fifteenth and eighteenth
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  Speaker 1: centuries in Europe and in North America. These societies were
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  Speaker 1: well patriarchal in nature, with men holding the positions of
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  Speaker 1: power and you know, in all of the institutions political, legal,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: and of course religious. In these regions where Christianity was
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: the main religion, the religion of well the people in power.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Women were seen as subordinate to men. Any display of power,
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  Speaker 1: knowledge or gasp independence was viewed as a threat to
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  Speaker 1: the established power structures. In addition to religion's role in
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: the witch grace that swept through the Western world, and
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: it was a big one because as Christianity grew, the
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  Speaker 1: older religions, the various forms of paganism and the like,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: these become associated with evil and witchcraft. But yes, in
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: addition to the role religion played economic and societal changes
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: well well, they led to witches being the scapegoats for
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  Speaker 1: our region's ills.
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  Speaker 2: Like tim for a little bit of.
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  Speaker 1: Statia, over eighty percent of the people accused of witchcraft
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  Speaker 1: were women. Some men and even some children were accused,
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  Speaker 1: but make no mistake, the majority of those accused were women,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Women who were accused of challenging societal norms, expressing autonomy,
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  Speaker 1: or exhibiting traits outside of traditional gender roles. How many
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: times do we have to go through this? They're not
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: witches the lesbian's harald, See, it was about power and control,
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  Speaker 1: and like, there's also this connection between female sexuality and witch.
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  Speaker 1: Women who were sexually liberated or challenged modesty and sexual.
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  Speaker 2: Behavior like they were.
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  Speaker 1: Targeted as witches, unlabeled as morally corrupt. Then, of course,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: during times of plague, pestilence, famine, or economic hardship, it
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: was often the others of society, marginalized people, in particular
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  Speaker 1: elderly women, those living alone, right, these were often blamed
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  Speaker 1: for such tragedies. What attacking the vulnerable who have no
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  Speaker 1: one to help or support them. How strange AnyWho throughout
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: history there is like this pattern that occurs. So whenever
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: there's a rise in moral conservatism, whenever there's a rise
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: in this, there is an application of other ring and
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: in this freedom of choice is moved and the marginalized,
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  Speaker 1: are dehumanized and branded as morally corrupt. This pattern can
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  Speaker 1: be seen, you know, even up to the modern day
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: and the times we are currently living in. AnyWho, in
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  Speaker 1: another sense, it is a form of victim blaming. By
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  Speaker 1: placing a blame on witches, it shifts the actual blame, accountability,
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  Speaker 1: and responsibility from the people in power and unsurprisingly, is
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  Speaker 1: yet another tool to perpetuate violence against women, to keep
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  Speaker 1: women down, suppress their voices and fall in line. So
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: from the late medieval period to like the early modern period,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: there was a marked increase in witch hunts and of
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: course witch trials. This was helped in no small part
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  Speaker 1: by Pope Innocent the eighth is one of the worst popes,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: and you're thinking, wow, that's an impressive achievement in one way,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: and how well, apart from the fact he was incredibly
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  Speaker 1: vile and repugnant, he was the very pope who instigated
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  Speaker 1: the witch hunts which resulted in the slaughter of thousands
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  Speaker 1: of women, innocent women. But he wasn't the only pope
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  Speaker 1: involved in this. We also had Pope Gregory the ninth,
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  Speaker 1: who declared a holy war on cats. Like he issued
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  Speaker 1: a papal bull that claimed that cats were agents of
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  Speaker 1: the devil, which fed into the whole.
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  Speaker 2: You know, black death.
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  Speaker 1: Which is familiar situation. And another thing that fueled this
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  Speaker 1: fire was a book published in fourteen eighty six, the
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  Speaker 1: Mallias Malvacaram. The name translates to the Hammer of the Witches,
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  Speaker 1: which sounds much less dramatic in English.
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  Speaker 2: It was a.
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  Speaker 1: Misogynistic, vitriolic text written by Heinrich Kramer, a Dominican inquisitor
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  Speaker 1: who decided that he was an authority on witches and witchcraft.
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  Speaker 2: Now there is.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: The name springer often gets attached to it, but it's
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: like years later and there's you know, debate on like
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  Speaker 1: how much input he actually had in this. So this
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  Speaker 1: book is split into multiple sections and chapters. And this
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: somewhat lengthy text was essentially a witch hunting manual that
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  Speaker 1: addressed different aspects of witchcraft, including, but not limited to,
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  Speaker 1: the identifying, prosecuting, and punishing of witches. Right, the manual
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  Speaker 1: was so thorough that there were so many ways find
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  Speaker 1: a witch. So many innocent people, mainly women, were killed
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  Speaker 1: for inconsequential reasons based on a mix of pseudosigns, superstition, misogyny,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: and good old fashioned moral panic. Like one way of
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: targeting sort of discovering if someone was a witch was
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: because of a physical mark, a birthmark, a scar, or
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: a mole. Devil's marks, as they were known, were believed
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  Speaker 1: to be a sign of a deal with the devil,
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  Speaker 1: and if pricked with a needle, say, not only would
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  Speaker 1: the person not feel any pain, but it wouldn't bleed.
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  Speaker 1: On top of that, there was a belief that witches
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  Speaker 1: had an extra nipple, a witch's teat that was used
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  Speaker 1: to feed their familiar so moles, warts, skin tags, all
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: of these were labeled as a witch's teat and they
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: could be anywhere on a person's body, and typically there
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  Speaker 1: would be somewhere hidden, right, which meant that an accused witch. Again,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: typically a woman would be subjected to a very intimate
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: examination of their body, something that would have been seen
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  Speaker 1: as incredibly shameful during these eras, right, that's not something
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: you did, Like, you didn't show your body to anyone
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  Speaker 1: like that wasn't a thing.
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  Speaker 2: And so women are.
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  Speaker 1: Being subjected to these these inspections, and a lot of
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: the time in front of many other people, Like it
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: wasn't even like a private affair. This was public or
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: not fully public because it wasn't like out in the open,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: but typically it would be done in front of a
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  Speaker 1: group of men. Powerful powerful men. Midwives women with knowledge
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  Speaker 1: of childbirth and gasp, female health made them prime suspects
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: in England, renowned misogynists and all around dickhead. King Henry
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: the Eighth added fuel to the fire when he decreed
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  Speaker 1: witchcraft to be a felony in fifteen forty two, laws
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: that were then hardened with harsher punishment by Queen Elizabeth
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: the First in fifteen sixty three and King James the
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: First in sixteen oh four. So this was a time
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: when England had suffered a political unreligious upheaval thanks to Yes,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Henry the eight So he splits from the Catholic Church
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: because he wanted to bone and ball in. Right, that's
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: that's it. He wanted a shagger, so he needed to
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: marry her because she was an evangelical Christian, so she
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: refused to sleep with someone unless they were married. Okay,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: that's it. So the entire country's religion changed. Those who
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: didn't fall in line were often banished or more likely
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: executed for heresy if they did not convert the Protestant
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Reformation put a huge focus on purity pety, and something
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: that was oft used to attack rivals and discredit individuals
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: were accusations of witchcraft. This was solidified by King James
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: the sixth of Scotland, first of England's three part book
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: three part Book on Witches Demonology in fifteen ninety seven.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know, sidebar how well someone can be running
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: a country if they have the time to write a
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: three part manual about witches and produce their own Holy
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Bible fan fiction. So James is sixteen oh four witchcraft
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: actors passed and it remained a felony crime until seventeen
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: thirty six. Seventeen thirty six, witchcraft is a felony crime.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Now it doesn't disappear as a crime.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: It's still there.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: It's just not a felony anymore. Shockenly enough, this led
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: to intense witch hunting across England and Scotland. And another
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: thing about this political upheaval. So the last Catholic monarch
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: was Mary the First, and she's often referred to as
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Bloody Mary, even though like see when it came to
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: like executions and whatnot, Even if you take it by
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: like time and you you know, compare to Henry the
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: eighth Edward Elizabeth the first James, she killed even percentage
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: wise based on like era timeframe, she killed much less
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: people and she actually established a lot of things that
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth takes credit for. And she was demonized for being
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: a Catholic and the active succession was changed to ensure
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: that no Catholics took the throne. So being Protestant is
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: super super important in this era, which brings me to Lancashire.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: So Lancashire and England had managed to remain a Catholic
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: stronghold after the Protestant Reformation, and so this made a
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: target for accusations of heresy and witchcraft. And at the
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: start of the seventeenth century, like the area around Pendle
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Hill was, I mean, it's rural, okay, there is a hell,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: and it's got a hill, a prominent hill, and it's
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: agricultural in nature. So you've got woods, you've got hills,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: you have moorors, so you've got fields which have crops
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: or livestock those who could grow out with that. Again,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: you have wooded valleys, you've got morors, and it is
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: very much reliant on you know, agriculture, on the weather,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: on ensuring that your landlord isn't going to kick you
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: from the area that you're farming on because you might
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: not own that because typically most of the area was
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: owned by a wealthy landowner. So small communities will smatter
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: around right, mainly tenant farmers letting from the wealthy landlords
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: who had both wealth and influence.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: And in these rural areas you'd.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Find that people would hold on to their folklore more
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: now we say that is if that's ridiculous now, but
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: we still do that. We still hold on to superstitions.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Black cats are good or bad luck, depending on which
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: side of the Atlantic you're on. Sometimes you'll throw salt
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: over your left shoulder if you spill it, if you
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: break a mirror, you're worried you're gonna get seven years
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: bad luck. Mad pies one for sorrow, two for joy, right,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: three for girl, four for wi, five for silver, six
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: for gold, seven for a secret level to be told.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: I think that's another version where there's like it goes
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: up to nine. I don't remember that one. Like people
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: are afraid to tempt fate and they knock on wood.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Hold our breath as we go over bridges like we
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: hold on to these these old traditions and civil stitions.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna walk on a line or a crack
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: and all that jazz. Old habits die hard, and in
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: regions like this you'll find a greater connection to folklore
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: and the supernatural, and of course the idea of the
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: cunning folk healers and the like. Then, of course we
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: have politics, judges and magistrates, males and local authorities. They
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: have great influence over the growth and spread of witch trials.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: An aspiring politician may use their own personal interpretation of
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: law and religion to determine who an enemy was and
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: what crime they had committed. This would create us versus
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: them scenario, a common enemy, someone to be protected from,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: and of course such a politician would be labeled a
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: pret a hero even speaking out against an invented enemy
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: h This fuels their political aspirations and perpetuates the villainizing
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: of those deemed illegals I'm sorry, I mean witches. It's
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: fire for their political fuel. Politicians like well, magistrates like
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Roger Knowle, who spearheaded the Pendul witch trial investigations and
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: weirdly enough, was the prosecutor at the pendul witch trials.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: So we have a group of people to talk about today.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: The primary agent of the devil, according to Thomas Potts,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: the primary source of this. Oh that man was so
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: excited to talk about this witch trial. But yes, so
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: according to him, the edies something year old Elizabeth's southerns
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: also known as Demdike, the primary agent of the devil.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: So Dendyke had lived in the Pendle Forest and practiced
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: witchcraft for over fifty years, and worse still, allegedly is
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: raised her children and crown children in the ways of witchcraft.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Being a major witch. Anyone who wronged her, crossed her
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: in any way, even a minor infraction, they.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Would suffer her wrath.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: So you have Elizabeth southerns Demdike, her daughter Elizabeth Device,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: and then Demdyke's grandchildren, James and Alison Device. Then we've
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: got Alice Nutter. Any fan of Good Omens will have
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: heard that name might sound familiar, So in Good Omens
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: she's called Agnes Nuttle. She's the inspiration for the character,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: probably because they heard the name once and went, hum,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: that sounds like a good Then we have Anne Whittle,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: also known as Chattis. There's going to be nicknames in
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: this I should warn you. So Anne Whittle, her daughter
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Anne Redvelm, and you've got Catherine Hewitt, Janet Preston, Alice Gray,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Janet Bullcock and Jane's son John. So you've got this
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: group of people, And how how did all of them
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: become accused of witchcraft? Well, I'm glad you asked, because
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you it. All starts in March of sixteen
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: twelve and Alison Device is traveling along the road near
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Kolne in Lancashire, where she comes across a peddlar called
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: John Law. John Law's a pedler, he pedals goods, and
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: so she asks him for some pins. Now, pins are
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: used for a bunch of reasons, for haberd artery, you know,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: sewing reasons, but also they're used in folklore and magic
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: and herbology and whatnot.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: So I said ask she begged.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: She was begging for pins because Alison was poor. She
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: was like part of a beggar family. Like even in
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: this community of poverty, Alison is considered poor poor, so
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: charity is refused and it is claimed that Alison curses him.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Not long after, as in like days after, John Law
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: suffers a stroke, and his son reported to the local
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: magistrate Know that his father had been inflicted by a
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: witch's cuss. The stroke didn't kill John Law, but it
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: did leave him partially paralyzed. Roger Know the aforementioned magistrate
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: questions Alison device, her mother, Elizabeth's device, and her brother
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: James on the thirtieth of March sixteen twelve. So yet
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: the devices are I begar family, they are the poorest
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: of the poor. Like that is bear in mind, this
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: is our context. And Alison, she confesses totally not under
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: torture of duress, that she enlisted the Devil's help in
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: cursing John Law after he accused her of stealing. So
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: like technically during this time period, like torture wasn't permitted,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Like you're not supposed to torture people, like legally not
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: meant to be a thing.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Just it's not meant it okay.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: James, who was also questioned totally not under torture of dress,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: confirmed the story. Elizabeth's device also in a completely safe
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: and not go Wher's confession hinted that her mother, Dandyke,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: was in league with the devil, and when questioned, Alison
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: accused Anne.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Whittle of witchcraft.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Chattics, as she was known. Her family had a long
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: standing feud with the device's clan. So you've got these
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: two beggar families and the rivals. They do not like
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: each other, and now one of them has accused the
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: other of witchcraft. Alison claimed that her dad had enlisted
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Chatti's witchcraft for some oatmeal for a part, but be
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: an actual dark poor he couldn't pay, and Chattix cursed
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: him to death. I feel like I should point out
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: that there is no official legal document that show the
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: circumstances or methods used to acquire Allison's confessions. Like that
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: that doesn't exist.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Weird.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Alison would go on to confess that her grandmother Demdike
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: would make her bring a devil when she was out
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: begging to make the begging like easier or something.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: I guess.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Dendyke told her to be allowed the familiar to feed
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: off of her blood and it would grant her gifts.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: She also mentioned that John Nutter had asked dem Dick
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: to cure his sick cowt but instead she bewitched the
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: cow to death. Something I forgot to mention earlier. Actually
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: about Demdyke, Elizabeth Southern's the eighty something year old matriarchal
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: forest witch.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: She was blind.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Now, it's probably cadiaracts, because like a lot of the time,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: when they describe, you know, older people losing their vision,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: especially old timey, they're like they've got cloudy eyes. Yeah,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: that sounds like cadacts. So Alison just cannot stop, She
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: really cannot stop talking about witchy stuff. She talks about
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: an incident with Richard Baldwin and the Pendle Woods. Baldwin
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: had a disagreement with Demdyke two years before and had
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: forbidden Alison to enter his land, and so Dendyke she
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: leaves the house for an hour or so, like late
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: at night, and the very next day Robert Baldwin's daughter
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: had fallen ill and was sick for a whole year
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: and then died, which is totally the result of a
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: witchy curts. Then we have the butter incident. Dendyke was
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: in bed resting because she's an eighty something year old
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: blind woman living in a forest. There's no butter in
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: the house. Like, Alison goes begging for milk and she
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: brings it back and she leaves it at her granny's house.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: And she goes away for half an hour and when
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: she comes back she finds butter in the milk. Now
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: there's the same volume of milk, but suddenly there's butter
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: in it.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: Mag Jack.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Alison accused so many people in her family, like and others,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: of witchcraft. She accuses Dendyke, her mom, Elizabeth Device, her
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: brother James, and Whittle Chattis her daughter, and Red Film
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: and so on. Now Alison as well, like at the
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: time of this, she's eighteen nineteen, so she's young, right,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: this is a teenager. And these again, these bigger families,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: like the Whittles and the Demdykes, they've been feuding for
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: yales like it's poverty versus poverty. And on the second
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: of April, Demdike, Chattix and Ann Red Film they are
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: all interrogated by Roger Knowle. Both Chatticks and Demdyke confess
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: to a pact with the devil, but Anne Redfilm didn't.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: That didn't stop Demdike, whom accusing her of doing witchy stuff.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Then some other witness made a connection between and and
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: a man's mysterious death, and the four women were sent
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: to Lancaster j to await trial. Basically, most trials were
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: held during assizes, so which is like traveling judges going
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: around the country. So there was often a wee bit
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: of time between arrest and trial, and these things were
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: colin practice. They arrest the trial and it's usually over
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: pretty swiftly once the assize is a car But then
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Good Friday happened on the tenth of April sixteen twelve.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Good Friday, there is a gathering at Milkin Tower, which
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: is like, actually, that's the name of Darmdyke's house and
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Milkin actually is an old word for like dirty. So
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: was it even a tower whomn's to say, Like, it's
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: just like a ramshackle building. And so friends, they come
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: over from the border of Yorkshire and they ate a
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: meal of stolen mutton. Now good Friday, for like any
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Catholics listening, we'll know this, so and people probably know
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: this anyway, Like it's just a typical Catholic thing. It's
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: a day of fasting and you're not supposed to eat,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: let alone eat meat. Like now it's more like don't
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: eat meat, but back then it was like don't eat anything.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: So James device he has allegedly stolen an old cheap
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: to eat, and they allegedly plan which gets like Weldorn Wilder.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: According to testimony of Genet Device, that there's this talk
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: of getting the woman out of the jail, for breaking
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: them out of the jail, and it's like they're going
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: to do it with magic and it's going to be
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: like a whole thing.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: So this meeting on Good Friday.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: In a Protestant like rolling class, right, it is viewed
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: with suspision. Clearly it is a meeting of a coven
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: right on Good Friday. So on the twenty seventh of April,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: rog Or Knowle and Nicholas Banister conduct an investigation to
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: uncover the secrets of the Milkon meeting, which leads to
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: eight more accusations of witchcraft. So you've got Elizabeth Device,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: James Device, John Bullcock, Jane Bullcock, Alice Nutter, Catherine Hewett,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Alice Gray, and Janet Preston. Janet Preston like she's from Gisburne.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: So she's from Yorkshire or Gisburne was in Yorkshire at
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: the time, And so yes to my American listeners, shiles
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: are a real thing. It's all over England and Scotland.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure what Welsh has, Welsh has what Wales
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: has and.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Have to check.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: So she's from Yorkshire and so she is to be tried.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: The Yorkshire were sizes.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: So she sent to Yorkshire and the rest was sent
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: to Lancaster Jail. And to adding something to injury. All
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: of them are in the same cell devices, whittles, nuttles,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: and all like all of them. Elizabeth Southern, the blind
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: old lady, confesses that twenty years prior she encountered a
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: boy and a half black, half brown coat, except there
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: was no boy but a spirit named Tib. There were
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: some who call me Tib who offered her anything she
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: wanted in exchange for her soul, and she agrees to
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: this deal, but somehow kept living in abject poverty, and
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: the spirit would appear at twilight every like five or
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: six year and go, I'm a killer, Bella. I got nothing.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: Sorry.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: No, He would try to make another deal and she
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: would decline, so she never actually asked for anything like
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: throughout this period. Then one year he shows up as
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: a dog and tries to draw blood from her as
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: she slept with her grandchild on her lap, And she's
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: like half asleep and was praying to protect the child,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: but she couldn't pray for herself, Like she was like
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: fighting it, but she just couldn't do it. Then the
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: dog disappeared and she felt mad for about eight weeks,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: like I'm sorry, did you maybe eat a mushroom that
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't have? You know, maybe you had an illness
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: or other things happened, Like she would have been in
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: her sixties at this point, right so, like sidebar, Actually,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: what if many of like the insanity slash witchcraft accusations
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: like from history were just menopause related, like, oh, she's
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: burning hot and yet she's not dying of this fever
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: and she's acting irrational, yeah, because her hormones are all
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: in flux like mmmm. Anyway, dem Dyke also admittled under
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: torture that she had cussed Baldwin. Right so, the previous Christmas,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Demdike's daughter Elizabeth had helped out the Baldwin's family at
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: the mill. Naturally she wanted to be compensated for it,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: being dirt poor and all. And she's being led Demdike
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: is by her granddaughter now because remember Demndyke is blind
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: and she meets Richard Baldwin like on the road, like
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: on the way to his family farm, and he tells
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: her to get off his land and calls her family
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: whores and witches, which is bad enough, but he threatens
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: to bun one and hang the other, so elderly blind lady.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: And teenage girl.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: So he threatens an old lady and her granddaughter, and
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: so she cursed him. The boy dog spirit Tib appeared
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: and she in anger called Tib to take revenge on
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Richard Baldwin and his family. Tib agreed and she never
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: saw the spirit again. The first effaced trial was Janet
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Preston at the Yorkshire Sizes on the twenty seventh of
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: June sixteen twelve. The judges overseeing the trial were Sir
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: James Altham and Sir Edward Bromley. Janet Preston pleaded not
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: guilty to charges of using witchcraft to murder Thomas Lister
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: of Westby Hall, a wealthy local landowner. So Janet had
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: previously been acquitted of infanticide through witchcraft the previous year
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: like so in sixteen eleven she's accused of like witching
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: a child to death, and then in sixteen twelve she's
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: accused of witching Thomas Lister to death.
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: Now it really.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Feels like someone had it out for Janet. The damning
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: piece of evidence against Janet was that Thomas Lister's corpse
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: bled when she touched it. So she's convicted by cointation,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: so countation. For about seven hundred year, US people thought
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: corpses could solve their own murders. I've said it before
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: and I've said it again.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: That is far too long.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: It's far too long, okay, from the twelfth to the
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century, like people believed in cruentation, like the belief
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: that a dead body would bleed in the presence of
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: their killer. And yes, this was an official method used in.
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: A court of law.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Janet Preston was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: and Janet Preston, the Gisbon Witch, was executed on the
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: twenty ninth of July at Knavesmia, which for the record
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: is now the current location for the York Race Course.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: The next trials were held on the eighteenth and nineteenth
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: of August in sixteen twelve at Lancaster Castle. Roger Know
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: the magistrate, He was the prosecutor, and the trial was
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: presided over by the judges Album and Bromley again, Roger
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: Knowle had collected the relevant testimonies and confessions of the
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Pendle Witches. And what's unusual about this trial is that
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: the material witness, if you will, the testimony that damned
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: so many people, was that of a nine year old child. Now,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: typically in criminal courts of any kind, like even back then,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: like this was not a done thing. You did not
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: bring a child into court, You did not question them.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: It was not.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Something you did. But as in King James's book Demonology,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: he said, you know, sometimes you have to like color
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: outside the lines, like there are exceptions to the rule,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: and this was the exception. Elizabeth Device's nine year old daughter,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Jenet Device, testified against her widowed mother, members of her
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: own family, and the attendees of the Milkin Tower meeting.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: When the nine year old girl was called, her mother
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: like to start shouting at her, like she's just trying
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: to make sure the child doesn't speak like. Unsurprisingly, the
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: young girl is scared and she starts crying and tells
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: the judge that she couldn't speak with her mother there.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: And the more Genet tries to talk, the more her
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: mother like shrieks and screams in her I mean and
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: she's like freaking out and she is removed from the court.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: The judge is like, no, out you go. The nine
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: year old child was then placed on top of a
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: table in front of the entire court. They put her
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: on a table because she's so small, Right, this is
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: a small, probably malnurished child who is afraid and is
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: like kids say things, right, They're not always true. They
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: are you know, fueled by you know, folklore and history
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: and the adults around them, and so they absorb things
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: in a way which makes sense to them, like kid logic,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: but not to others. They're also manipulated and coached in
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: all that jazz. And the worry could be like her
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: mother is screaming. Is it because she's worried her daughter
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: is going to say something damning, like had she made
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: a joke about something at one point?
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: Is she genuinely angry.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: At her child or is she fearing for her daughter's life?
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: We don't know, We don't know why. But here we are,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: so again, this nine year old child, she's up on
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: a table in front of an entire court of people,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: and she testifies that her mother is a witch with
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: a spirit called ball that looks like a dog. Jennet
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: went on to say that her mother asked the dog
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: slash spirit to kill a man, a rich man known
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: as Swire John Robinson of Barlow. The next year, her
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: mother called upon ball to kill James Robinson of Barlow,
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: who was also known as Swire, like and.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: Three weeks later he's dead.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Jennett then starts naming people, like twenty or so that
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: were at Milkin Tower. Her mother had told her that
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: they were a meeting of witches, and only two that
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: were there, like she noticed, were men. Her mother told
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: her that they had come to name Janet's sisters Alison's
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: familiar and they had a feast of bacon, beef and
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: roasted mutton. They had a facet. These incredibly put up
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: people had been and bacon and mutton. Okay, James, her
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: older brother, had stolen an old cheap from Christopher Swiles
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: of Barlow. So many Swiles, so many Barlows. He had
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: stolen it the night before, and this does not explain
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: how the impoverished group also had bacon and beef. Jenett
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: was able to point out and name six of the
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: witches present at the Milkon meeting on Good Friday. Her
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: uncle Christopher Howgate of Pendell, his wife Elizabeth, Christopher Jackson,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: his wife from thorny Holme, Hugh Hargreaves from Pendell, and
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: I kid you not Dick Miles.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: From roughly.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: If I write a book that's fiction, I'm having a
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: character called Dick Miles because I can't. Finally, Jennet informs
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: the court that her mother, Elizabeth, taught her two prayers,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: one to obtain drinks and the other to heal those
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: who are bewitched. She taught me, I would to get drinks,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: which is flatter eyelashes a man as is problematic, like
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: a child who's probably been coached and manipulated like m
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: I have issues and feelings about this. Little Jennet accused
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: her brother James of practicing witchcraft for three years, and
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: he had a black dog named Dandy, who would on
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: James's behalf kill an elderly woman, Mistress Townley of car
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: For why Who's to say so?
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: Janet?
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: She visited Mistress Townley at car Hall and saw that
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: the very old lady looked sick, and naturally she assumed
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: it was the work of James and dandee, here's the
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: thing like During the trial, James device. He's described as
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: a poor ducre boy, apparently of weak intellect and so
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: informed that he had to be physically held up during
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: the trial. And James never denied any of Jenet's accusations.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: From what little we know.
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: Of him, maybe he had a learning difficulty, Maybe he
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: was young, like there's no given age. There's talk of
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: him being not much older than Janet, and then there
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: was talk of him being closer an age to Alison,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: but Allison is like eighteen nineteen, so this is at
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: least a teenager, like maybe even younger. Right, Maybe it's
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: any of these factors, or maybe he just didn't want
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: to scale his little sister.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: Either way, he was.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Found guilty of murdering Ann Townly and John Duckworth with witchcraft,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: and so he was sentenced to death. Also on the eighteenth,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: and Whittle Chatticks, she is accused of murdering Robert Nutter.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: She pled not guilty, but the confession, the confession she
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: had provided to Roger or No previously, and her duress
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: was shared with the court. Then James Robinson testified that
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: Robert Nutter had blamed Chatticks of spoiling his beer and
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: that many knew that she was a witch. So Robinson
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: he lived with the like Chattox Wittle family, like many
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: many yells, like decades previous, right, and now he's like, yeah,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: this one dude said she ruined his billup in a
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: desperate attempt to save her daughter and knowing that she
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: herself was damned. Chattis takes all the blame and begs
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: the court to spare and read film. But yes, she
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: is convicted and sentenced to hang. The next day, the
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: Samisbury witches were tried, and these were followed by Anne.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: Readfilm.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Anne was accused and acquitted of the murder of Robert Nutter. However,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: she was then tried for the magic mutter of Robert
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: Nuttell's father Christopher. A statement that Demdyck had provided to
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: Roger Knowle was read to the court on how Anne
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: had crafted a clay figure, well, clay figures of the
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: Nuttle family like an old English version of voodoo dolls.
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: And so if you wanted to hurt a person, you
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: would like crack the clay in certain places, or if
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: you wanted to just like end their life, you would
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: throw the clay figure into a fire.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: Witness after witness.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: Accused Anne of not only being a witch, but an
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: incredibly dangerous one. She was convicted partially on that and
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: partially because she didn't testify against the others that were
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: accused of witchcraft, so she didn't try and blame anybody else,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: which somehow made her more guilty. And she's also convicted.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: Jane Billcock and her son John from New Church and
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: Pendle were convicted of murdering Jenet Dean through witchcraft. Now,
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: Janet is a name that keeps appearing, and I think
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: we should bring it back.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: Alice Nuttle, she is like a bit of an odd
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: fish in this group because most of the accused they're poor,
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: and Alice she's a widow, a wealthy widow right her
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: late husband he was like a yeoman farmer, and she
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: was doing quite well. So she doesn't quite fit. And
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: she was quiet, silent even throughout her trial except to
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: plead not guilty of murdering Henry Mitten with witchcraft. Jenet
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: Device had named Alice Nutter as one of the attendees
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: at Melkin Tower, and James, in his confession, claimed that
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: his grandmother had told him about the murder. When Mitton
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: denied her a penny, so she begged for a penny.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: He denied her, and Alice helped curse him somehow, And
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Alice Nutter was convicted of the murder through witchcraft. But
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get back to Nutter later because I
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: have a wey theory. So Catherine Hewitt also known as
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: mold Heels, the names the nicknames guys I. She was
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: a clothier's wife from corn and she had attended the
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: Melkon meeting and she was convicted of murdering a.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: Child and folds.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Alice Gray, another one of the so called Pendal witches,
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason, was acquitted. Now sometimes like she'll be
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: linked in with the Selmsbury Witches. But she's one of
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: the Pendle witches. So then we have the trigger for
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: this series of events. Alison Devise. So she takes the stand.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: John Law, her alleged victim, confronted her in court. Now, Alison,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: she is convinced of her own guilt. She's a teenager
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: who lived a very particular life, and she, like many
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: members of her family, like she falls to her knees
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: and cries and confesses like she's convinced that she did this,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: Like she thinks that her words, like her anger, caused
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: this man to suffer a stroke and be partially paralyzed.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: So she, like many members of her impoverished family, were
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: convicted of witchcraft, and so Anne Whittle, Anne Readven, Elizabeth Device,
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: James Device, Alison Device, Alice Nutter, Jane Billcock, John Bullcock,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: and Catherine Ewett was sent to the gallows. They were
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: executed the next day, the twentieth of August sixteen twelve,
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: with like on the moors, like overlooking the tip, like
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: the a huge proportion really of a village, are executed
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: for all to see. You may have noticed that Elizabeth
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Severn dam Dyke, like she is not on that list,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: will be seeing the sixteen hundreds, and Elizabeth being an
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: elderly woman being held in a seventeenth century jail cell.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: She died before the trial began.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: She wasn't treated very well because prisoners will not, like
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: there's so many tales of prisoners being forgotten and everything else,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: and like the stress also of being there, and it's
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: like less than a month they're held, and she's already dead.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: So the people, the alleged victims, some died suddenly, other
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: had clearly long term illness you know or you know,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: or old and there are plenty of explanations for what
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: could have ended these people's lives. No, not lopes, well,
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: you know what, maybe lippus, but probably not lippus, right Like,
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: there were so many things that lately to death, Like
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: we still don't have an answer for things like sudden
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: adult death syndrome, you know, like people die sometimes and
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: we don't always have an answer.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: Or we miss something.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: Right, there are so many things happening inside our body
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: that we just don't We just don't know yet because
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: we're not all medical professionals. So anyway, let me give
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: you my Nutter theory. So, first of all, most of
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: the accused were women, single women, widwed women, women of
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: a certain age, A group of people look down upon
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: by society, A group of people who met on Good
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: Friday in a country ruled by Protestantism. Protestantism, I can
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: pronounce words, I can enunciate hat. So the Nuttile family,
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: many of them had Catholic ties, right like, there had
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: even been some Jesuit priests who had been executed. Like,
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: this is a traditionally Catholic family. And what is a
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: traditionally Catholic stronghold even after a Protestant Reformation. And what
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: if it wasn't a mutton eating plotting feast. What if
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: it was a secret Catholic service, the very thing that
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: could get you accused of heresy Because like Alice Nutter,
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: she's silent through her whole trial when she could have argued,
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: she could have blamed other people. But there is a
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: theory that she didn't want to like link any Catholics
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: to this event, right, And what if the whole eating
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: mutton because you're not supposed to eat meat on Good
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Friday was a distraction into a secret Catholic service, all right,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: Because being Catholic and being a witch, they can both
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: get you, you know, convicted of heresy. Like you're done,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: you know. So this is just a thought, but so
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: ends the story of the Pendule Witches. So of course,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: if you liked My Tale of the Suffering of Women,
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: I feel for you.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: To rate and review of five stars.
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: If you don't have anything nice to say, you don't
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: have to say anything at all. It's fine, I forgive you.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I just realized this is the first episode.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: But I didn't say fuck this for a game of Soldiers. Well,
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: I've said it now you're welcome. So yeah, you can
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: follow me on the socials, you can follow me on
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: Patreon and all of the other things, and come to
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: London and see me. I'm doing a live podcast. It
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: is very fun. There is back and forth, there's good times.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: I wear a dressed that definitely shows a little bit
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: too much cleavage and everyone has a good time. Sometimes
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: I even talk about them up at Treasure Island. With that,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: I think I will have to say good day to you.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: But before I do, it's recommendation time for listening Sabrina Carpenter.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: You know what, listen to Sabrina Carpenter. I don't care
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: anything in the last like two years.
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: Give it a go.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: It's fun, it's it's fluffy. It's a fuck you to
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: patriarchal society. So do that. For reading, I'm gonna recommend Bold,
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: Brilliant and Bad Irish Women from History by Marion Broderick.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: And for watching Practical Magic.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: We deserve this, okay.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: But the lime and the coca, not ding drink, but
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: the lime and the coca.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: I was actually in.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: Salem the day the day that they announced Practical Magic two.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: I've never had a perfect information moment as walking through
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: a graveyard in Salem to finding out Practical Magic two
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: is coming to us. And please, for the love of
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: all that is unholy, we're going with our witchy theme.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Someone give Nicole Kidman a high quality wig, because that
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: woman is wearing a wig, right. I want a high
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: quality wig. I want Game of Thrones at level wiggery. Okay,
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: Downtown Abbey level wigs. Okay, that's what we deserve. And
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: with that, my delicious friends, I will bid you ad
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: you adios au revoir of where is?
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: Then, my friends, bye bye,