chapter I

shall have occasion to refer to the confessions of the various persons implicated in this 'Great Oyer' of witchcraft. What comes out very strongly in them is the hostility which existed between the Chattoxes and the Dundikes, and their respective adherents. In Pendle Forest there were evidently two distinct parties, one of which sought the favour and sustained the pretensions of Mother Dundike, the other being not less steadfast in allegiance to Mother Chattox. As to these two beldams, it is clear enough that they encouraged the popular credulity, resorted to many ingenious expedients for the purpose of supporting their influence, and unscrupulously employed that influence in furtherance of their personal aims. They knowingly played at a sham game of commerce with the devil, and enjoyed the fear and awe with which their neighbours looked up to them. It flattered their vanity; and perhaps they played the game so long as to deceive themselves. 'Human passions are always to a certain degree infectious. Perceiving the hatred of their neighbours, they began to think that they were worthy objects of detestation and terror, that their imprecations had a real effect, and their curses killed. The brown horrors of the forest were favourable to visions, and they sometimes almost believed that they met the foe of mankind in the night.' To the delusions of the imagination, especially when suggested by pride and vanity, there are no means of putting a limit; and it is quite possible that in time these women gave credence to their own absurd inventions, and saw a demon or familiar spirit in every hare or black or brown dog that accidentally crossed their path.

For awhile the witches created a reign of terror in the forest. But the interlacing animosities which gradually sprang up between its inhabitants were the fertile source of so much disorder that, at length, a county magistrate of more than ordinary energy, Roger Nowell, Esq., described as a very honest and religious gentleman, conceived the idea that, by suppressing them, he should do the State good service. Accordingly he ordered the arrest of Dundike and Chattox, Alison Device, and Anne Redfern, and each, in the hope of saving her life, having made a full confession, he committed them to Lancaster Castle, on April 2, 1612, to take their trials at the next assizes.

No attempt was made, however, to search Malkin Tower. This lonely ruin was regarded with superstitious dread by the peasantry, who durst never approach it, on account of the strange unearthly noises and the weird creatures that haunted its wild recesses. James Device, when examined afterwards by Nowell, deposed that about a month before his arrest, as he was going towards his mother's house in the twilight, he met a brown dog coming from it, and, of course, a brown dog was the disguise of an evil spirit. About two or three nights after, he heard a great number of children shrieking and crying pitifully in the same uncanny neighbourhood; and at a later date his ears were shocked by a loud yelling, 'like unto a great number of cats.' We have heard the same sounds ourselves, at night, in places which did not profess to be haunted! It is very possible that Dame Dundike, who was obviously a crafty old woman, with much knowledge of human nature, had something to do with these noises and appearances, for it was to her interest to maintain the eerie reputation of the Tower, and prevent the intrusion of inquisitive visitors. With all her little secrets, it was natural enough she should say, '_Procul este, profani_,' while she would necessarily seize every opportunity of extending and strengthening her authority.

It was the general belief that the Malkin Tower was the place where the witches annually kept their Sabbath on Good Friday, and in 1612, after Dame Dundike's arrest, they met there as usual, in exceptionally large numbers, and, after the usual feasting, conferred together on 'the situation'--to use a slang phrase of the present day. Elizabeth Device presided, and asked their advice as to the best method of obtaining her mother's release. There must have been some daring spirits among those old women; for it was proposed--so runs the record--to kill Lovel, the gaoler of Lancaster Castle, and another man of the name of Lister, accomplish an informal 'gaol-delivery,' and blow up the prison! Even with the help of their familiars, they would have found this a difficult and dangerous enterprise, and we do not wonder that the proposal met with general disfavour.

Seldom, if ever, do conspirators meet without a traitor in their midst; and on this occasion there was a traitor in Malkin Tower in the person of Janet Device, the youngest daughter of Alison Device, and grand-daughter of the unfortunate old woman who was lying ill and weak in Lancaster Gaol. A girl of only nine years of age, she was an experienced liar and thoroughly unscrupulous; and having been bribed by Justice Nowell, she informed against the persons present at this meeting, and secured their arrest. The number of prisoners at Lancaster was increased to twelve, among whom were Elizabeth Device, her son James, and Alice Nutter, of Rough Lea, a lady of good family and fair estate. There is good reason to believe that the last-named was in no way implicated in the doings of the so-called witches, but that she was introduced by Janet Device to gratify the greed of some of her relatives--who, in the event of her death, would inherit her property--and the ill-feeling of Justice Nowell, whom she had worsted in a dispute about the boundary of their respective lands. The charges against her were trivial, and amounted to no more than that she had been present at the Malkin Tower convention, and had joined with Mother Dundike and Elizabeth Device in bewitching to death an old man named Mitton. The only witnesses against her were Janet and Elizabeth Device, neither of whom was worthy of credence.

Blind old Mother Dundike escaped the terrible penalty of an unrighteous law by dying in prison before the day of trial. But justice must have been well satisfied with its tale of victims. Foremost among them was Mother Chattox, the head of the anti-Dundike faction--'a very old, withered, spent, and decrepit creature,' whose sight was almost gone, and whose lips chattered with the meaningless babble of senility. When judgment was pronounced upon her, she uttered a wild, incoherent prayer for Divine mercy, and besought the judge to have pity upon Anne Redfern, her daughter. The next person for trial was Elizabeth Device, who is described as having been branded 'with a preposterous mark in nature, even from her birth, which was her left eye standing lower than the other; the one looking down, the other looking up; so strangely deformed that the best that were present in that honourable assembly and great audience did affirm they had not often seen the like.' When this woman discovered that the principal witness against her was her own child, she broke out into such a storm of curses and reproaches that the proceedings came to a sudden stop, and she had to be removed from the court before her daughter could summon up courage to repeat the fictions she had learned or concocted. The woman was, of course, found guilty, as were also James and Alison Device, Alice Nutter, Anne Redfern, Katherine Hewit, John and Jane Balcock, all of Pendle, and Isabel Roby, of Windle, most of whom strenuously asserted their innocence to the last. On August 13, the day after their trial, they were burnt 'at the common place of execution, near to Lancaster'--the unhappy victims of the ignorance, superstition, and barbarity of the age.

Janet Device, as King's evidence, obtained a pardon, though she acknowledged to have taken part in the practices of her parents, and confessed to having learned from her mother two prayers, one to cure the bewitched, and the other to get drink. The former, which is obviously a _pasticcio_ of the old Roman Catholic hymns and traditional rhymes, runs as follows:

'Upon Good Friday, I will fast while I may Untill I heare them knell Our Lord's owne bell. Lord in His messe With His twelve Apostles good, What hath He in His hand? Ligh in leath wand: What hath He in His other hand? Heaven's door key. Open, open, Heaven's door keys! Stark, stark, hell door. Let Criznen child Goe to its mother mild; What is yonder that crests a light so farrndly? Thine owne deare Sonne that's nailed to the Tree. He is naild sore by the heart and hand, And holy harne panne. Well is that man That Fryday spell can, His child to learne; A crosse of blew and another of red, As good Lord was to the Roode. Gabriel laid him downe to sleepe Upon the ground of holy weepe; Good Lord came walking by. Sleep'st thou, wak'st thou, Gabriel? No, Lord, I am sted with sticks and stake That I can neither sleepe nor wake: Rise up, Gabriel, and goe with me, The stick nor the stake shall never dure thee. Sweet Jesus, our Lord. Amen!'

The other prayer consisted only of the Latin phrase: 'Crucifixus hoc signum vitam æternam. Amen.'[42]

FOOTNOTES:

[40] So in Duclerq's 'Memoires' ('Collect. du Panthéon'), p. 141, we read of a case at Arras, in which the sorcerers were accused of using such an ointment: 'D'ung oignement que le diable leur avoit baillé, ils oindoient une vergue de bois bien petite, et leurs palmes et leurs mains, puis mectoient celle virguelte entre leurs jambes, et tantost ils s'en volvient où ils voullvient estre, purdesseures bonnes villes, bois et cams; et les portoit le diable au lieu où ils debvoient faire leur assemblée.'

[41] That is, of sacrificing to the Evil One, of meeting the demon Robert Artisson, and so on; though it is quite possible that strange unguents were made and administered to different persons, and that Dame Alice and her companions played at being sorcerers. Some of the so-called witches, as we shall see, encouraged the deception on account of the influence it gave them.

[42] Thomas Pott's 'Wonderful Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancashire' (1615), reprinted by the Chetham Society, 1845.

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