HKA-001698Historical Event
The Pendle Trials at Lancaster Assizes
The 1612 Pendle witchcraft prosecutions as proceedings at the Lancaster assizes, distinct from later folklore retellings.
Open archive record →Archive subject
Pendle Witches
Browse Hawthorn Archive records filed under this catalogue heading.
HKA-001617Historical Event
The 1634 Lancashire Case Reused the Pendle Narrative
A later Lancashire witchcraft case in 1634 shows how memory of the Pendle prosecutions could shape new accusations. During re-examination, testimony in the later case was linked to stories already circulating about the Malkin…
Open archive record →HKA-001616Primary Source
Thomas Potts’s 1613 Account of the Pendle Trials
Thomas Potts’s The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster, published in 1613, is the principal detailed printed source for the Pendle witch trials. It preserves names, examinations, allegations and the sequence…
Open archive record →HKA-001615Historical Event
Jennet Device’s Testimony at the Pendle Trials
Jennet Device, a young child, gave evidence against members of her own family and other accused people during the Pendle prosecutions. Potts records her identifying people said to have attended the Malkin Tower gathering…
Open archive record →HKA-001614Historical Event
Ten Pendle Defendants Executed at Lancaster in 1612
On 20 August 1612 ten people convicted at the Lancaster Assizes were hanged on the moors above Lancaster: Anne Whittle, Elizabeth Device, James Device, Alizon Device, Anne Redferne, Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewitt, Jane Bulcock,…
Open archive record →HKA-001613Historical Event
The Malkin Tower Gathering of Good Friday 1612
On Good Friday 1612 a gathering took place at Malkin Tower, the Device family home in the Pendle area. Thomas Potts’s later account presented the meeting as an assembly of witches and made it…
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