0:00:03 > 0:00:08'It's 1612 and a woman is in a courtroom.
0:00:08 > 0:00:11'She's accused of killing three men through witchcraft.
0:00:12 > 0:00:15'She's presented with a confession that she denies.'
0:00:15 > 0:00:20But then a girl is brought to testify against her.
0:00:20 > 0:00:25The girl bursts into tears as the woman screams at her desperately.
0:00:27 > 0:00:31And the woman is removed back to the dungeons.
0:00:32 > 0:00:36'Once the girl has her audience, she jumps up onto a table,
0:00:36 > 0:00:40'and calmly denounces the woman as a witch.
0:00:41 > 0:00:46'She's the woman's own daughter, and she's nine years old.'
0:00:48 > 0:00:52Jennet Device was a key witness in a trial
0:00:52 > 0:00:55that would lead to the execution of ten people,
0:00:55 > 0:00:58including all members of her own family.
0:00:58 > 0:01:01But then 20 years later, Jennet herself would come to be
0:01:01 > 0:01:05standing in the dock, charged with the same offence.
0:01:07 > 0:01:11'Jennet, a nine year old beggar, was part of a bigger story.
0:01:11 > 0:01:14'of justices, clerics and physicians. even the King himself.
0:01:14 > 0:01:20'Someone who should have been lost to history has lived on,
0:01:20 > 0:01:22'because of her chilling role
0:01:22 > 0:01:26'in one of the most disturbing witch trials on record.
0:01:27 > 0:01:29'This is a story about fear, politics
0:01:29 > 0:01:32'and religion, science and magic.'
0:01:34 > 0:01:35But, to me, as a poet,
0:01:35 > 0:01:40it's also about words and stories, and just how powerful they can be.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44The two trials that shaped the life of this little girl
0:01:44 > 0:01:47are emblematic of a much bigger story -
0:01:47 > 0:01:49the transition between
0:01:49 > 0:01:53a pre-modern world and our supposed age of reason.
0:01:53 > 0:01:58And yet our fear of evil has never really gone away.
0:01:58 > 0:02:01Neither, some say, has evil itself.
0:02:13 > 0:02:18'Fear of evil was endemic in England 400 years ago,
0:02:18 > 0:02:20'when King James I was on the throne.
0:02:20 > 0:02:23'James was living in fear of Catholic rebellion
0:02:23 > 0:02:25'in the aftermath of the gunpowder plot.
0:02:27 > 0:02:31'Recently arrived from Scotland, he was on the throne in a strange land.
0:02:31 > 0:02:36'And some parts of his new kingdom were particularly troubling.'
0:02:36 > 0:02:40Lancashire was a long way from London in many ways.
0:02:40 > 0:02:44Described by somebody at the time as "a dark corner of the land",
0:02:44 > 0:02:48it had a reputation for disobedience -
0:02:48 > 0:02:50full of troublemakers and subversives.
0:02:52 > 0:02:57'And this area, not far from where I live,
0:02:57 > 0:03:00'dominated by the strange brooding presence of Pendle Hill,
0:03:00 > 0:03:02'was almost beyond the back of beyond.
0:03:02 > 0:03:08'Today it's established an odd niche by trading on its dark past.
0:03:16 > 0:03:19'In 1612 the nine-year-old Jennet Device
0:03:19 > 0:03:23'lived in obscurity at her grandmother's house, Malkin Tower.'
0:03:23 > 0:03:25SHEEP BLEAT
0:03:28 > 0:03:33Malkin Tower. It sounds grand, but it really wasn't.
0:03:33 > 0:03:38Malkin was actually a 17th century word meaning "slattern" or "slut"
0:03:38 > 0:03:41and it was still being used in these parts in the 20th century.
0:03:41 > 0:03:45The house was also, and even less grandly,
0:03:45 > 0:03:47referred to as Mocking Tower,
0:03:47 > 0:03:50and according to some people, and not to put too fine a point on it,
0:03:50 > 0:03:53"mocking" is a local word for "shit".
0:03:56 > 0:04:01'Nobody knows for sure where the house would have stood,
0:04:01 > 0:04:04'but recent research suggests it may have been on THIS site.
0:04:07 > 0:04:11Jennet and her family survived mainly by begging,
0:04:11 > 0:04:13and by doing odd jobs for neighbours.
0:04:13 > 0:04:16But the family did have one other source of income,
0:04:16 > 0:04:19and I suppose a kind of power.
0:04:19 > 0:04:24Jennet's grandmother was well-known locally as a Cunning Woman.
0:04:24 > 0:04:27And everyone knew her as Old Demdike.
0:04:29 > 0:04:31The role of the Cunning Woman is an incredibly valuable one,
0:04:31 > 0:04:34especially for poor people who don't have recourse say to doctors.
0:04:34 > 0:04:38And there's all sorts of modern roles rolled up into one,
0:04:38 > 0:04:42social worker and policewoman, and doctor -
0:04:42 > 0:04:44all those things that give people
0:04:44 > 0:04:48a kind of security about their otherwise anxious lives.
0:04:48 > 0:04:51But it's rather an ambiguous role because to be a Cunning Woman
0:04:51 > 0:04:55the authorities would call it witchcraft really.
0:04:55 > 0:04:58So Cunning Women can get into trouble with the law
0:04:58 > 0:04:59if they fall out with their clients.
0:05:02 > 0:05:04To Jennet and her family,
0:05:04 > 0:05:09it was a fact of life that a person might have the power to heal
0:05:09 > 0:05:13or harm through the use of charms, or spells.
0:05:13 > 0:05:18To them it wasn't mumbo-jumbo. It was real. It happened.
0:05:19 > 0:05:21Witches are people who do bad things,
0:05:21 > 0:05:23Cunning Women are people who do good things.
0:05:23 > 0:05:25Cunning Women cure you and find your lost stuff -
0:05:25 > 0:05:29witches steal stuff from you and make you sick or kill you.
0:05:33 > 0:05:37'At Malkin Tower, Jennet lived with her grandmother,
0:05:37 > 0:05:38'her mother Elizabeth,
0:05:38 > 0:05:42'and her elder sister and brother, Alizon and James.
0:05:42 > 0:05:45'There were no adult men.'
0:05:45 > 0:05:48Elizabeth's husband had died 11 years earlier
0:05:48 > 0:05:52and nine-year-old Jennet wasn't his child.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55She grew up knowing that she was the runt of the litter
0:05:55 > 0:05:58and the bastard daughter of the house.
0:05:58 > 0:06:02I think that would have made her feel isolated and different.
0:06:02 > 0:06:04Even cursed.
0:06:06 > 0:06:08'In the later investigations, it became clear
0:06:08 > 0:06:12'that Jennet's world was populated by demons.
0:06:12 > 0:06:15'Jennet's grandmother was not the only
0:06:15 > 0:06:18'Cunning Woman in the neighbourhood.
0:06:18 > 0:06:21'Old Chattox, the head of a nearby household,
0:06:21 > 0:06:23'was a rival for her business,
0:06:23 > 0:06:25'and the Devices believed her to be a witch.
0:06:27 > 0:06:28'For some years,
0:06:28 > 0:06:33'Elizabeth's husband had been making payments of oatmeal to Chattox.
0:06:33 > 0:06:37'The year the payment was not made, he died.'
0:06:38 > 0:06:40At most times in history,
0:06:40 > 0:06:44such family squabbles would have passed by unnoticed.
0:06:44 > 0:06:46But these weren't usual times.
0:06:50 > 0:06:55England around 1600 is a country in the grip of conversion experience.
0:06:55 > 0:06:57Officially it had turned Protestant
0:06:57 > 0:06:59about 40 years before,
0:06:59 > 0:07:03but it had taken two generations for that really to sink in.
0:07:03 > 0:07:07So round about 1600 a lot of the English are in the grip
0:07:07 > 0:07:10of enthusiastic Protestantism for the first time.
0:07:10 > 0:07:13'And now that England was Protestant,
0:07:13 > 0:07:18'Catholics were increasingly feared as seditious and evil.'
0:07:18 > 0:07:21The idea that there are people out in Lancashire
0:07:21 > 0:07:23who are adhering to old religious ways
0:07:23 > 0:07:27can be transferred quite easily to the idea that these people
0:07:27 > 0:07:31are actually dangerous dissenters who need to be suppressed.
0:07:33 > 0:07:38To devout English Protestants, the Bible brackets idolaters,
0:07:38 > 0:07:40heathens, sorcerers together.
0:07:40 > 0:07:44So Catholicism, which is itself to Protestants a demonic religion,
0:07:44 > 0:07:47can come to look very closely related to witchcraft.
0:07:50 > 0:07:57These were nervy, apprehensive times at court and throughout the country.
0:07:57 > 0:07:58And in that climate of fear,
0:07:58 > 0:08:01it didn't take much to arouse suspicion.
0:08:04 > 0:08:09On March 18th 1612, Jennet's teenage sister, Alizon Device,
0:08:09 > 0:08:13was out and about, walking down a lane.
0:08:13 > 0:08:15Along the way, she met a pedlar.
0:08:15 > 0:08:18And being a beggar, she asked the pedlar for some pins,
0:08:18 > 0:08:21but he wouldn't open his pack and he walked on.
0:08:21 > 0:08:26For Alizon, this would have been an everyday experience.
0:08:26 > 0:08:27Probably several times a week,
0:08:27 > 0:08:29people would brush past her, or ignore her.
0:08:29 > 0:08:34And she probably responded to their rudeness by cursing them.
0:08:34 > 0:08:36'On March 18th,
0:08:36 > 0:08:41'she cursed the pedlar. And the curse seemed to work
0:08:41 > 0:08:43'because he fell to the floor,
0:08:43 > 0:08:48'and unable to speak or move he was eventually carried to a local inn.'
0:08:50 > 0:08:54And Alizon was terrified because she knew she had bewitched him.
0:08:54 > 0:08:58She rushed to his bedside and begged for his forgiveness.
0:09:05 > 0:09:09'From the legal records, we've a very detailed description
0:09:09 > 0:09:14'of the pedlar's condition following his collapse.'
0:09:14 > 0:09:17"His head is drawn awry, his eyes and face deformed,
0:09:17 > 0:09:19"his speech not well to be understood,
0:09:19 > 0:09:24"his arms lame, especially the left side." What would you say
0:09:24 > 0:09:26that was a description of?
0:09:26 > 0:09:28I think there's very little doubt that those symptoms
0:09:28 > 0:09:31reflect the fact that he has had a stroke.
0:09:31 > 0:09:34The face being awry, the left arm not working,
0:09:34 > 0:09:39I mean something coming on that suddenly really can only be a stroke.
0:09:39 > 0:09:45Alizon seemed convinced that she had caused this stroke
0:09:45 > 0:09:50through bewitching him, and blamed herself and agonised over it.
0:09:50 > 0:09:52Is there any logic in that?
0:09:52 > 0:09:54From the description,
0:09:54 > 0:09:58it does sound as though the two events were significantly linked.
0:09:58 > 0:10:02Looking at it as a scientist, yes, the curse,
0:10:02 > 0:10:06causing him to become very upset, and to put the blood pressure up,
0:10:06 > 0:10:08and to cause him to have a stroke.
0:10:08 > 0:10:10Exactly the same situation these days could happen
0:10:10 > 0:10:12as a result of road rage,
0:10:12 > 0:10:15or an argument, or some devastating piece of medical information
0:10:15 > 0:10:19being given to somebody, can result in people having a stroke.
0:10:22 > 0:10:25What's so striking for me is that Alizon was in no doubt that
0:10:25 > 0:10:29she'd nearly killed a man and perhaps she really had.
0:10:29 > 0:10:33It was her fear and her own contrition that would directly lead
0:10:33 > 0:10:36to her downfall and that of all her family as well.
0:10:39 > 0:10:43'The consequences of Alizon's curse spiralled out of control
0:10:43 > 0:10:45'when the pedlar's outraged son
0:10:45 > 0:10:50'reported the incident to the ambitious local magistrate,
0:10:50 > 0:10:51'Roger Nowell.'
0:10:52 > 0:10:55England has Justices of the Peace dotted all over the place
0:10:55 > 0:10:58and they're the men who dispense the law.
0:10:58 > 0:11:01Some of them aren't very good, some of them are very lazy,
0:11:01 > 0:11:03some of them are EXTREMELY zealous indeed.
0:11:03 > 0:11:05Roger Nowell is one of those zealous types.
0:11:05 > 0:11:08He's ambitious, he's a Protestant,
0:11:08 > 0:11:11and he sees that actually his route to success in his career is to
0:11:11 > 0:11:16go out and identify non-conformists, that could be witches
0:11:16 > 0:11:18or it could be Catholics, and bring them to justice.
0:11:21 > 0:11:24'Roger Nowell began investigating.
0:11:24 > 0:11:26He interviewed Alizon Device who,
0:11:26 > 0:11:31'in her need to unburden herself, confessed to everything.
0:11:31 > 0:11:34'But she also accused her neighbour, Chattox, of bewitching
0:11:34 > 0:11:38'and killing four people, and of "making clay figures".'
0:11:42 > 0:11:45Alizon seems to have been seriously spooked
0:11:45 > 0:11:47by what she'd done to the pedlar.
0:11:50 > 0:11:53I think it's likely that her little sister Jennet
0:11:53 > 0:11:55would have been pretty freaked out by it too.
0:11:58 > 0:12:02'Alizon's statement escalated the investigation.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06'Chattox and her daughter were very ready to point the finger back
0:12:06 > 0:12:11'at the Device family, and accused Granny Demdike of witchcraft too.
0:12:11 > 0:12:14'Nowell realised that he was no longer investigating
0:12:14 > 0:12:15'a single incident,
0:12:15 > 0:12:18'but was now heading up a major witch-hunt
0:12:18 > 0:12:20'rooting the evil out of Pendle.
0:12:22 > 0:12:26'On April 2nd, Nowell made his first arrests.
0:12:26 > 0:12:31'Jennet's sister and granny, as well as her neighbours Chattox and Anne
0:12:31 > 0:12:36'were all shipped off to distant Lancaster Castle to await trial.
0:12:36 > 0:12:37'Roger Nowell was confident
0:12:37 > 0:12:40'that these arrests would please the King.
0:12:50 > 0:12:55Just a year before the arrests in Pendle, the King James Bible
0:12:55 > 0:12:58'was published and laid out in stark words,
0:12:58 > 0:13:02'"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."
0:13:02 > 0:13:06'I've come here to Oxford in search of a book.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09'Not the King James Bible, but a book James wrote himself.'
0:13:11 > 0:13:15James I has a reputation as an avid witch-hunter,
0:13:15 > 0:13:19and participates personally in trials up in North Berwick,
0:13:19 > 0:13:21and he believes that witches are trying to kill him.
0:13:21 > 0:13:24In fact that the witches tried to sink the boat
0:13:24 > 0:13:26that he was bringing his wife,
0:13:26 > 0:13:28Anne of Denmark, back on their honeymoon.
0:13:28 > 0:13:32He writes a slim, exciting book called Daemonologie,
0:13:32 > 0:13:39which is unique among heads of state, in being a sole-authored work
0:13:39 > 0:13:42upon the nature of hell and what to do about it.
0:13:42 > 0:13:44And it's pretty popular.
0:13:44 > 0:13:47It's readable, it's concise, it's learned,
0:13:47 > 0:13:50it's actually a rather clever piece of work
0:13:50 > 0:13:54and it's a mandate to the British to hunt witches.
0:13:56 > 0:14:02This is an original, 1597 edition of James' Daemonologie,
0:14:02 > 0:14:04written,
0:14:04 > 0:14:07it says here at the beginning,
0:14:07 > 0:14:12because of, "The fearful abounding at this time in this country,
0:14:12 > 0:14:19"of these detestable slaves of the Devil, the Witches or enchanters."
0:14:19 > 0:14:24James is very much a product of the Presbyterian Kirk in Scotland.
0:14:24 > 0:14:27Presbyterian ministers who brought James up as Presbyterian
0:14:27 > 0:14:31in a bid to counteract the influence of his Catholic mother,
0:14:31 > 0:14:34told him stories all day about the power of the Devil.
0:14:34 > 0:14:37They deliberately scare him and it works.
0:14:37 > 0:14:39You can scare a child very easily.
0:14:39 > 0:14:42They talk him into feeling that he's surrounded by witches.
0:14:44 > 0:14:46The Daemonologie might seem a bit like
0:14:46 > 0:14:48the ramblings of a paranoid man.
0:14:48 > 0:14:51But, as the saying goes, just because you're paranoid,
0:14:51 > 0:14:54it doesn't mean that they're not out to get you.
0:14:54 > 0:14:58BELL TOLLS
0:15:02 > 0:15:06'The religious tensions in England had reached boiling point
0:15:06 > 0:15:08'just seven years earlier, when the King
0:15:08 > 0:15:12'and his entire Parliament had very nearly been blown up by Guy Fawkes
0:15:12 > 0:15:17'and his team of Catholic terrorists in the failed Gunpowder Plot.
0:15:19 > 0:15:22'And although Fawkes had been captured,
0:15:22 > 0:15:26'some of the conspirators were still at large.'
0:15:26 > 0:15:28It's perfectly reasonable for an early modern monarch
0:15:28 > 0:15:31to be paranoid about people trying to kill them.
0:15:31 > 0:15:34And James is one of those monarchs there's no shortage
0:15:34 > 0:15:37of potential conspiracies out there.
0:15:37 > 0:15:41He's got a dad who's been strangled after an attempt to blow him up,
0:15:41 > 0:15:44a mother whose head has been hacked off in an English prison,
0:15:44 > 0:15:46and there have been at least two attempts
0:15:46 > 0:15:48to kidnap him, maybe one to murder him.
0:15:48 > 0:15:49No wonder he's scared.
0:15:49 > 0:15:51And shortly after he arrives in England,
0:15:51 > 0:15:54some of his Catholic subjects try to blow him to smithereens
0:15:54 > 0:15:56along with the rest of Parliament.
0:15:56 > 0:16:00He's a king who's exceptionally nervous of conspiracy.
0:16:02 > 0:16:07The plotters who were caught were trying to flee to safety.
0:16:07 > 0:16:11And the place where they expected to find it was Lancashire.
0:16:12 > 0:16:16'In March 1612, local JPs had received an order
0:16:16 > 0:16:19'from London that they were to compile a report of all those
0:16:19 > 0:16:22'who refused to take communion in church,
0:16:22 > 0:16:26'in an effort to root out the Lancashire Catholics.
0:16:26 > 0:16:30'It was a crude, but hopefully effective, loyalty test.'
0:16:31 > 0:16:35"All those that do not come to the church and there communicate
0:16:35 > 0:16:39"must be presented and further proceeded against.
0:16:39 > 0:16:45"Fail not herein at your peril." And here, look,
0:16:45 > 0:16:50one of the order's signatories was Roger Nowell.
0:16:50 > 0:16:52There's no question about it,
0:16:52 > 0:16:58on Good Friday 1612, every loyal subject should have been in church.
0:17:00 > 0:17:03Instead, at Malkin Tower,
0:17:03 > 0:17:04Jennet's mother threw a party
0:17:04 > 0:17:08and to feed the guests, her brother stole a sheep.
0:17:12 > 0:17:16'Of course, there would be friends absent from the gathering.
0:17:16 > 0:17:19'Alizon and Granny Demdike, along with the neighbours,
0:17:19 > 0:17:22'were now awaiting trial in Lancaster Castle.'
0:17:23 > 0:17:26What happened in that house on that day would become
0:17:26 > 0:17:30the subject of intense scrutiny over the following months.
0:17:30 > 0:17:34There were guests at Malkin Tower. Was it an Easter party?
0:17:34 > 0:17:36Just friends round for lunch?
0:17:36 > 0:17:41Was it a solidarity meeting of those relatives of the prisoners
0:17:41 > 0:17:43held in Lancaster Castle?
0:17:43 > 0:17:46Or was it a gathering of witches?
0:17:47 > 0:17:51'The local constable hears a whisper that there's a meeting of witches
0:17:51 > 0:17:56'at Malkin Tower, and arrives suddenly at the door with his men.'
0:17:58 > 0:18:01'Afterwards,
0:18:01 > 0:18:04'with echoes of the recent Gunpowder Plot, they would be accused
0:18:04 > 0:18:09'of conspiring to blow up Lancaster Castle, and to murder its gaoler.'
0:18:12 > 0:18:15Everyone present was arrested,
0:18:15 > 0:18:18but the family at Malkin Tower did not come quietly.
0:18:18 > 0:18:22They told the constable that there had been more people at the party
0:18:22 > 0:18:26who had left already, "You'll never guess who you just missed."
0:18:28 > 0:18:32'And so the others implicated were also arrested.
0:18:32 > 0:18:36'They were all accused of plotting to kill a man by witchcraft.'
0:18:38 > 0:18:42By the time he'd finished, Nowell had sent another eight people
0:18:42 > 0:18:45to join the original four in Lancaster Castle.
0:18:45 > 0:18:50It was all going so much better than he could've hoped.
0:18:50 > 0:18:52'Unlike some of the people detained,
0:18:52 > 0:18:55'Jennet Device was definitely at Malkin Tower
0:18:55 > 0:19:01'on Good Friday 1612, but she wasn't taken away with the others.
0:19:04 > 0:19:06'The people rounded up at the party
0:19:06 > 0:19:09'were from the lowest possible walks of life.
0:19:10 > 0:19:13'But the others arrested were different.
0:19:13 > 0:19:17'Alice Nutter was from a respectable, land-owning family
0:19:17 > 0:19:23'and was arrested with her sister in law, her nephew and a friend.
0:19:26 > 0:19:29'The Nutters are still in the area.
0:19:29 > 0:19:32'Colin Nutter lives here, and many other relatives live nearby.
0:19:32 > 0:19:34'and always have.'
0:19:36 > 0:19:39Colin, as a Yorkshireman, I think I'm right in saying
0:19:39 > 0:19:41that there aren't many Nutters in Yorkshire
0:19:41 > 0:19:43- but there quite a few here, aren't there?- Oh, yes.
0:19:43 > 0:19:45Oh, yes, there's quite a lot of them here.
0:19:45 > 0:19:48How did somebody like Alice Nutter
0:19:48 > 0:19:50come to be caught up in the witch trials?
0:19:50 > 0:19:55I think she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, Alice Nutter.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58What would Roger Nowell's motivation have been?
0:19:58 > 0:20:02The Nutters at that point were a strong Catholic family.
0:20:02 > 0:20:06And, er, I think he would curry favour with the King
0:20:06 > 0:20:10and the powers that be if he's catching Catholics as well, you see?
0:20:10 > 0:20:12She had two relatives who were priests,
0:20:12 > 0:20:15who were hung drawn and quartered -
0:20:15 > 0:20:18one of them in Tyburn and one in Lancaster.
0:20:18 > 0:20:20So as far as Nowell was concerned,
0:20:20 > 0:20:23- she was just another troublemaking Catholic then?- Exactly.
0:20:23 > 0:20:27And she'd have been used as a pawn for his own ends really.
0:20:29 > 0:20:32It seems pretty unlikely to me that Alice Nutter
0:20:32 > 0:20:34and her friends spent Good Friday
0:20:34 > 0:20:39eating stolen mutton at "shit towers" with the local beggars,
0:20:39 > 0:20:42but whatever the truth they were rounded up, arrested
0:20:42 > 0:20:45and taken to Lancaster Castle.
0:20:51 > 0:20:52'Lancaster Castle
0:20:52 > 0:20:57'has remained a working prison right up until Spring of 2011.
0:21:00 > 0:21:02'This is still known as The Witches Tower.'
0:21:06 > 0:21:08The castle is huge
0:21:08 > 0:21:10but the cell that they were held in wasn't.
0:21:10 > 0:21:14Inside it were all of Jennet's family -
0:21:14 > 0:21:19her gran, her mother, her brother, her sister,
0:21:19 > 0:21:23plus all the neighbours - Chattox, Anne, Isobel Robey,
0:21:23 > 0:21:26Margaret Pearson, Alice Nutter,
0:21:26 > 0:21:30John and Jane Bulcock and Katherine Hewitt -
0:21:30 > 0:21:34plus eight other prisoners
0:21:34 > 0:21:35in a space 20' by 12'.
0:21:36 > 0:21:3820 people in all.
0:21:41 > 0:21:44'As for Jennet, we don't know where she spent the four months
0:21:44 > 0:21:46'that her family were imprisoned.
0:21:46 > 0:21:50'It's possible that she lived under the protection of Roger Nowell,
0:21:50 > 0:21:55'as she was about to become crucial to the case he was building.
0:21:59 > 0:22:02'The magistrate would have been well aware of
0:22:02 > 0:22:04'the King's thoughts on witch-hunting.'
0:22:05 > 0:22:08'Right at the end of his Daemonologie
0:22:08 > 0:22:11'King James wrote something that became especially relevant
0:22:11 > 0:22:15'for the case of the Pendle Witches.'
0:22:15 > 0:22:16And here it is.
0:22:16 > 0:22:19Here's what the King says. "In my opinion,
0:22:19 > 0:22:23"barnes or wives or never so diffamed persons..."
0:22:23 > 0:22:29That's children, women and liars all lumped in together.
0:22:29 > 0:22:33"..may of our law serve for sufficient witnesses and proofes
0:22:33 > 0:22:36"in matters of high treason against God."
0:22:36 > 0:22:40That's telling Nowell, and other magistrates in the country,
0:22:40 > 0:22:43two really important things.
0:22:43 > 0:22:44That witchcraft is treason
0:22:44 > 0:22:49not just against the King but, by extension, also against God himself.
0:22:49 > 0:22:51And secondly, he's saying the law
0:22:51 > 0:22:54should allow children to testify in court.
0:22:57 > 0:22:58'And it wasn't just Nowell
0:22:58 > 0:23:02'who was influenced by King James's Daemonologie.
0:23:02 > 0:23:05'It would influence the professional justice system.'
0:23:08 > 0:23:12Everything we know about this whole story comes from one book
0:23:12 > 0:23:17The Wonderful Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster.
0:23:17 > 0:23:19It was written by one Thomas Potts,
0:23:19 > 0:23:23while serving as clerk to court when the prisoners went on trial
0:23:23 > 0:23:24in 1612.
0:23:25 > 0:23:27'He kept his notes of the trial
0:23:27 > 0:23:29'and wrote them all up to demonstrate the rigour
0:23:29 > 0:23:32'of the trial proceedings.
0:23:32 > 0:23:37'He also dedicated the book to his patron, Thomas Knyvet.
0:23:37 > 0:23:40'Knyvet was the man who arrested Guy Fawkes.
0:23:40 > 0:23:44'Potts was making a clear connection for the reader between witches
0:23:44 > 0:23:47'and Catholics as traitors or terrorists.'
0:23:50 > 0:23:54The whole book is an exercise in political brown-nosing.
0:23:54 > 0:23:59Nonetheless, it represents an extraordinarily detailed account
0:23:59 > 0:24:01of a 17th century witch trial.
0:24:08 > 0:24:10LOW MURMUR OF VOICES
0:24:13 > 0:24:16'In the courtroom of Lancaster Castle,
0:24:16 > 0:24:19'on the 18th August 1612,
0:24:19 > 0:24:21'the trial of the Pendle Witches began.
0:24:23 > 0:24:26'The room is still a working court.
0:24:26 > 0:24:29'In 1612 it wouldn't have looked much like this.'
0:24:31 > 0:24:35Nonetheless there was a judge - in fact two judges in this case -
0:24:35 > 0:24:41a jury, witnesses, and the defendants.
0:24:41 > 0:24:47And all the while, Thomas Potts was scribbling the verbatim notes
0:24:47 > 0:24:50which would become his best-selling book.
0:24:53 > 0:24:57The outcome of the trial was far from being a foregone conclusion.
0:24:57 > 0:25:02Probably less than half of accused witches actually are convicted
0:25:02 > 0:25:03and executed.
0:25:03 > 0:25:06And the set of records that we have, which are very reliable
0:25:06 > 0:25:11for this, suggest that it's actually more like a 75% acquittal rate.
0:25:11 > 0:25:14'Whatever the odds, for Jennet's sister
0:25:14 > 0:25:19'whose curse had started the whole affair, things didn't look good.'
0:25:19 > 0:25:24Poor Alizon Device. She didn't even want to defend herself.
0:25:24 > 0:25:27She was completely convinced of her own guilt.
0:25:27 > 0:25:33Her words had caused the pedlar to collapse, and that terrified her.
0:25:33 > 0:25:35She was asked in court if, through her magic powers,
0:25:35 > 0:25:38she could restore the pedlar to his health and strength,
0:25:38 > 0:25:41but regretfully she said that she couldn't.
0:25:41 > 0:25:44She did say though, and others agreed with her,
0:25:44 > 0:25:47that her grandmother would have been able to help him.
0:25:49 > 0:25:53'But in the four months of waiting for the trial to begin,
0:25:53 > 0:25:57'Granny Demdike had died in the tiny, filthy cell.'
0:26:02 > 0:26:05Thomas Potts had some sympathy for Alizon.
0:26:05 > 0:26:10He liked his witches desperate and contrite. Her mother was neither
0:26:10 > 0:26:12and Potts was vile about her.
0:26:13 > 0:26:18'He wrote that, "This odious witch was branded with a preposterous
0:26:18 > 0:26:22'"mark in nature, which was her left eye standing lower than the other,
0:26:22 > 0:26:25'"the one looking down, the other looking up,
0:26:25 > 0:26:29'"so strangely deformed as the best that were present
0:26:29 > 0:26:32'"did affirm that they had not often seen the like."'
0:26:32 > 0:26:34400 years ago it wasn't common
0:26:34 > 0:26:39for a witness to be brought to testify in the courtroom itself.
0:26:39 > 0:26:43But on 18th August 1612, a star witness
0:26:43 > 0:26:46was being prepared to take the stand.
0:26:47 > 0:26:52'Elizabeth Device was furious and protested her innocence.
0:26:52 > 0:26:55'But then her nine-year-old daughter, Jennet,
0:26:55 > 0:26:59'was brought to testify against her.
0:27:02 > 0:27:07'Elizabeth was distraught. She yelled at her desperately.
0:27:07 > 0:27:10'Jennet burst into tears. She was only a little girl after all
0:27:10 > 0:27:13'before turning to the judge,
0:27:13 > 0:27:16'and asking that her mother be taken away before she'd speak.'
0:27:19 > 0:27:20'Once Elizabeth had been silenced,
0:27:20 > 0:27:24'and Jennet had her audience, she jumped up onto a table,
0:27:24 > 0:27:28'and calmly denounced her own mother as a witch.'
0:27:28 > 0:27:32MURMUR OF VOICES
0:27:32 > 0:27:36When I was a probation officer, many moons ago,
0:27:36 > 0:27:39I spent a lot of time sitting in the crown courts of Lancashire,
0:27:39 > 0:27:43lot of them old and intimidating cock-pits like this.
0:27:43 > 0:27:46And some of the cases involved evidence from children.
0:27:46 > 0:27:49And, of course, the legal system these days
0:27:49 > 0:27:53is very sensitive in its handling of young people.
0:27:53 > 0:27:57We'll never know why Jennet Device said what she said,
0:27:57 > 0:28:01but, standing on the table, centre-stage in the middle of this
0:28:01 > 0:28:05moral and political and legal drama, I can't help think
0:28:05 > 0:28:08that she was reciting her lines.
0:28:08 > 0:28:09My mother is a witch,
0:28:09 > 0:28:12and that I know to be true. I have seen her spirit
0:28:12 > 0:28:15in the likeness of a brown dog, which she called Ball.
0:28:17 > 0:28:21The dog did ask what she would have him do, and she answered
0:28:21 > 0:28:26that she would have him help her to kill John Robinson of Barley.
0:28:26 > 0:28:29James Robinson. Henry Mitton.
0:28:29 > 0:28:31DOG PANTS
0:28:31 > 0:28:35Jennet went on to describe the meeting at Malkin Tower
0:28:35 > 0:28:36on Good Friday.
0:28:36 > 0:28:39At 12 noon, about 20 people came to our house.
0:28:40 > 0:28:43My mother told me that they were all witches.
0:28:46 > 0:28:48She described the food they ate,
0:28:48 > 0:28:51and named six people she'd seen there,
0:28:51 > 0:28:55whose names she knew as well as her mother and brother.
0:28:55 > 0:28:57There's a kind of a paradox surrounding
0:28:57 > 0:28:59the evidence of children in the courtroom.
0:28:59 > 0:29:05On the one hand, they're seen as unreliable because they're so young.
0:29:05 > 0:29:09But on the other hand, they're seen as pure witnesses of the truth.
0:29:09 > 0:29:11And so that in somebody like Jennet Device,
0:29:11 > 0:29:15there's something horrific about exploiting a child who's so young,
0:29:15 > 0:29:18and I think people may have felt that at the time too.
0:29:18 > 0:29:24But at the same time, she could well be the means to cracking open
0:29:24 > 0:29:25this secret ring of witchcraft.
0:29:28 > 0:29:31It wasn't just Jennet who testified against Elizabeth.
0:29:31 > 0:29:33Her son James denounced her too.
0:29:34 > 0:29:36'He said that three skulls had been robbed
0:29:36 > 0:29:39'from graves at the New Church in Pendle,
0:29:39 > 0:29:43'and four of the teeth then kept at Malkin Tower.
0:29:43 > 0:29:46'Four teeth were then presented in court,
0:29:46 > 0:29:50'which had been found at Malkin Tower by the constable,
0:29:50 > 0:29:51'alongside a clay figure,
0:29:51 > 0:29:54'all buried together in the ground.'
0:29:54 > 0:29:59But giving evidence against his mother wouldn't help him
0:29:59 > 0:30:02because Jennet turned on her own brother too.
0:30:03 > 0:30:07'Jennet said that James had been a witch for three years.
0:30:07 > 0:30:10'She'd seen his "spirit" kill three people.
0:30:11 > 0:30:14'She then went on to recite charms
0:30:14 > 0:30:17'she said she'd heard her brother use.'
0:30:17 > 0:30:20Upon Good Friday, I will fast while I may.
0:30:20 > 0:30:23A cross of blue, and another of red.
0:30:23 > 0:30:26As good Lord was to the rood.
0:30:26 > 0:30:28Gabriel laid him down to sleep upon the ground...
0:30:28 > 0:30:31What we've got here
0:30:31 > 0:30:33is a series of half-understood,
0:30:33 > 0:30:37maybe quarter-understood, recollections of prayers,
0:30:37 > 0:30:41practices, rites of popular Catholicism,
0:30:41 > 0:30:43and a bit of a play text...
0:30:43 > 0:30:48..That I can neither sleep nor wake. Rise up Gabriel that I may...
0:30:48 > 0:30:49..all swirled together,
0:30:49 > 0:30:55into something that would sound impressive to a listener,
0:30:55 > 0:30:56as a healing charm.
0:30:56 > 0:30:59..Sweet Jesus, our Lord, amen.
0:31:01 > 0:31:05Potts was impressed by Jennet's testimony.
0:31:05 > 0:31:09In fact, he seemed to relish her calm, clear and chilling account.
0:31:11 > 0:31:15"Although she were but very young, yet it was wonderful to the court,
0:31:15 > 0:31:18"with what modesty, government, and understanding
0:31:18 > 0:31:22"she delivered this evidence against the prisoner at the bar,
0:31:22 > 0:31:24"being her own natural brother."
0:31:25 > 0:31:30An adult would know that what they were saying
0:31:30 > 0:31:32was likely to lead to mum and grandma being hanged.
0:31:32 > 0:31:36I don't think Jennet did really know in the way an adult would know.
0:31:36 > 0:31:39I think she only knew it intellectually, not emotionally.
0:31:39 > 0:31:43And that's why, I think, her mother screams at her in the way she does.
0:31:43 > 0:31:46I think her mother is desperately trying
0:31:46 > 0:31:50at least to make her realise what she's done.
0:31:50 > 0:31:54She's clearly a rather odd child. She's extremely articulate.
0:31:54 > 0:31:56She clearly doesn't like her family.
0:31:56 > 0:31:58She's a bit different from the others.
0:31:58 > 0:32:00We don't know who her father was.
0:32:00 > 0:32:02She's the only illegitimate child
0:32:02 > 0:32:05and, clearly, either she's really terrified of the magistrates
0:32:05 > 0:32:08and determined to save herself at all costs,
0:32:08 > 0:32:11or, more probably, it gives her a chance
0:32:11 > 0:32:14for all sorts of concealed resentments and animosities
0:32:14 > 0:32:17against her family to explode lethally.
0:32:19 > 0:32:22We need to imagine that she believes in the reality of witchcraft,
0:32:22 > 0:32:25and that these people really are witches,
0:32:25 > 0:32:27and that she seeks to distance herself from them.
0:32:27 > 0:32:30Of course she's also been put under a great deal of pressure.
0:32:30 > 0:32:32It may be direct pressure.
0:32:32 > 0:32:35It may just be the atmospheric pressure of the courtroom,
0:32:35 > 0:32:37the tension of all these men around her,
0:32:37 > 0:32:40telling her that, in fact, the witchcraft is taking place,
0:32:40 > 0:32:43and that she's the lynchpin in punishing it.
0:32:45 > 0:32:50It wasn't just her own family Jennet was prepared to denounce as witches.
0:32:50 > 0:32:53'Alice Nutter and her friends were more well-to-do,
0:32:53 > 0:32:59'and the judge was more demanding of evidence against them.
0:32:59 > 0:33:02'He arranged identity parades,
0:33:02 > 0:33:06'mixing them in with other prisoners from the castle.
0:33:07 > 0:33:10'One by one, Jennet picked them out.'
0:33:15 > 0:33:18You were there on Good Friday.
0:33:18 > 0:33:20You had on the prettiest dress.
0:33:21 > 0:33:24You ate the mutton.
0:33:24 > 0:33:27You were sitting right by me.
0:33:28 > 0:33:32'In an attempt to catch her out, the judge then asked,
0:33:32 > 0:33:35'"Did you see Johanna Style?"
0:33:35 > 0:33:40- 'A made-up name.'- No, sir. I never heard of her.
0:33:41 > 0:33:45Most of the early modern witch-hunters rely on the Bible,
0:33:45 > 0:33:49and, or, the texts by the great continental demonologists
0:33:49 > 0:33:50as their texts.
0:33:50 > 0:33:53The Lancashire witch trials are really unusual
0:33:53 > 0:33:56in that they ignore these pretty well completely,
0:33:56 > 0:34:00and fasten on the King's own book, King James's Daemonologie.
0:34:00 > 0:34:04In a way, that's extremely rare. They're plainly ticking boxes.
0:34:04 > 0:34:07King James says witches use body parts for evil magic.
0:34:07 > 0:34:11Body parts are found at the Lancashire witches' property.
0:34:11 > 0:34:12They make clay images -
0:34:12 > 0:34:15whoops, that's what Lancashire witches are supposed to be doing.
0:34:15 > 0:34:18Children are extremely useful as witnesses.
0:34:18 > 0:34:20Wow! We suddenly have Jennet.
0:34:20 > 0:34:23What these people are doing is looking upwards to the monarch
0:34:23 > 0:34:24as their fount of wisdom.
0:34:26 > 0:34:31'The evidence against the prisoners had stacked up perfectly.'
0:34:31 > 0:34:34We tend to assume that witchcraft was just one big delusion,
0:34:34 > 0:34:36and therefore that the witches
0:34:36 > 0:34:38who were convicted were, in fact, innocent.
0:34:38 > 0:34:40But accused witches believed in witchcraft too,
0:34:40 > 0:34:43and I think it's improbable to think
0:34:43 > 0:34:48that witches never tried to use magic in order to kill somebody.
0:34:48 > 0:34:51Well, today we prosecute people and punish them
0:34:51 > 0:34:54if they attempt a crime but are unsuccessful.
0:34:54 > 0:34:58So, the witches of 1612, by that measure, were they innocent?
0:35:00 > 0:35:02By the end of the two-day trial,
0:35:02 > 0:35:05the jury had decided that all of Jennet's family,
0:35:05 > 0:35:07and most of her neighbours,
0:35:07 > 0:35:12were guilty of causing death or harm by witchcraft.
0:35:12 > 0:35:16Ten people were sentenced to hang
0:35:16 > 0:35:17'Elizabeth Device,
0:35:17 > 0:35:19'Alison Device,
0:35:19 > 0:35:21'James Device,
0:35:21 > 0:35:22'Anne Whittle,
0:35:22 > 0:35:23'Anne Redfearne,
0:35:23 > 0:35:25'Isobel Robey,
0:35:25 > 0:35:27'Alice Nutter,
0:35:27 > 0:35:29'Jane Bulcock,
0:35:29 > 0:35:31'John Bulcock,
0:35:31 > 0:35:33'Katherine Hewitt.
0:35:38 > 0:35:41'The day after the trial, the ten convicted prisoners
0:35:41 > 0:35:44'were brought to a place still known as Gallows Hill.'
0:35:47 > 0:35:50This was a piece of State theatre - the moment when the majesty of God,
0:35:50 > 0:35:54and the majesty of the law, were very much focused on this one event,
0:35:54 > 0:35:56and everybody could see the power of it.
0:35:56 > 0:36:00CREAKING
0:36:00 > 0:36:03At the critical moment the witch was led out,
0:36:03 > 0:36:04forced to climb the ladder,
0:36:04 > 0:36:09the noose put over her neck. At that moment, the crowd went rather quiet.
0:36:13 > 0:36:16They didn't die from having their neck broken,
0:36:16 > 0:36:20but from slow strangulation that might take as long as 20 minutes.
0:36:20 > 0:36:22In fact, there are accounts of friends and family
0:36:22 > 0:36:25coming forward and pulling on the legs
0:36:25 > 0:36:29of the poor person being executed in order to hasten their end.
0:36:36 > 0:36:41Condemned prisoners were expected to make one final confession.
0:36:41 > 0:36:44It was a last chance to save their souls,
0:36:44 > 0:36:46though not of course their lives.
0:36:46 > 0:36:51We're told that Elizabeth and Alice Nutter NEVER confessed,
0:36:51 > 0:36:53not even with their dying words.
0:36:55 > 0:36:57I think it's probably very likely,
0:36:57 > 0:36:58based on the standards of the day,
0:36:58 > 0:37:01that Jennet would have been encouraged to be there, too.
0:37:03 > 0:37:06A lot of history's most ghastly locations
0:37:06 > 0:37:08are completely transformed now.
0:37:08 > 0:37:12This is a park where kids come to play football
0:37:12 > 0:37:15and do whatever kids do in parks these days.
0:37:15 > 0:37:19For me, the most chilling thought about what happened here
0:37:19 > 0:37:24was the idea that Jennet might well have been watching the hangings.
0:37:24 > 0:37:26And the last thing that Elizabeth might have seen
0:37:26 > 0:37:29as she looked from the gallows might have been
0:37:29 > 0:37:32the face of her daughter, the child who'd put her there.
0:37:44 > 0:37:45We don't know anything
0:37:45 > 0:37:49about what happened to the orphaned Jennet Device
0:37:49 > 0:37:53in the years that followed the execution of her entire family
0:37:53 > 0:37:55and most of her neighbours.
0:37:55 > 0:37:58It's difficult to imagine anybody wanting to take her in.
0:37:58 > 0:38:02But it could be argued that they weren't her last victims.
0:38:09 > 0:38:11'Thanks to Potts's published account,
0:38:11 > 0:38:15'Jennet's influence would travel far beyond Lancashire.
0:38:17 > 0:38:19'Although there had been earlier cases
0:38:19 > 0:38:22'of children being heard as witnesses in witch trials,
0:38:22 > 0:38:25'the law stated that children under the age of 14
0:38:25 > 0:38:30'were not credible witnesses as they could not be sworn under oath.
0:38:30 > 0:38:32'But that was set to change.'
0:38:34 > 0:38:38Imagine you're a 17th century JP or magistrate.
0:38:38 > 0:38:41You're not trained in the law like the judges are,
0:38:41 > 0:38:44but you need to investigate, question witnesses,
0:38:44 > 0:38:47and compile a case for the Assize.
0:38:47 > 0:38:51What you need is one handy book that gives you all the basics,
0:38:51 > 0:38:55something that you can just pull off the shelf whenever you need it.
0:38:55 > 0:38:59'The Country Justice is that book.
0:38:59 > 0:39:03'It's by a man called Dalton, and was first published in 1618.
0:39:03 > 0:39:08'This handbook was used by all magistrates both here
0:39:08 > 0:39:10'and in the colonies in America.'
0:39:11 > 0:39:15You've got some people accused of witchcraft.
0:39:15 > 0:39:20So you look up "Advice On Witnesses" - see page 541...
0:39:22 > 0:39:24And here it is.
0:39:24 > 0:39:29"For children, I find in the book of the Discovery of Witches
0:39:29 > 0:39:32"at Lancaster Assizes..." That's Thomas Potts's book.
0:39:32 > 0:39:35"..that the son and daughter..." That's Jennet and James.
0:39:35 > 0:39:38"..of Elizabeth Device, a witch..." Here we go.
0:39:38 > 0:39:41"..the one about nine years of age,
0:39:41 > 0:39:44"the other of 14, did, upon their oaths,
0:39:44 > 0:39:47"give open evidence against their mother,
0:39:47 > 0:39:49"then prisoner at the bar."
0:39:49 > 0:39:54So, what Jennet did in 1612 ended up giving a precedent to magistrates,
0:39:54 > 0:39:57not just here, but across the Atlantic,
0:39:57 > 0:40:02to seek the testimony of children in trials of witchcraft.
0:40:02 > 0:40:04And, before we say that this is outrageous,
0:40:04 > 0:40:07let's remember that today there are still trials
0:40:07 > 0:40:13which rely on child testimony due to lack of alternative witnesses.
0:40:13 > 0:40:16Today, the testimony of children as young as three
0:40:16 > 0:40:18has been used in criminal trials.
0:40:18 > 0:40:22The law says that they have to understand the questions put to them
0:40:22 > 0:40:26and to give answers which are understandable.
0:40:27 > 0:40:31'And the most extraordinary thing was that Jennet herself
0:40:31 > 0:40:34'would come to fall victim to the very precedent she set.
0:40:40 > 0:40:45'In November 1633, 22 years after the nine-year-old Jennet
0:40:45 > 0:40:47'testified against her family,
0:40:47 > 0:40:51'a ten-year-old boy from Pendle came home late one evening,
0:40:51 > 0:40:54'and told his parents a very strange story.'
0:40:54 > 0:40:59Edmund Robinson explained that the reason he was late
0:40:59 > 0:41:01was that he'd been picking berries.
0:41:01 > 0:41:04'And, while gathering berries,
0:41:04 > 0:41:06'he said he'd seen two greyhounds.
0:41:08 > 0:41:11'"I tried to get them to chase a hare, but they didn't run,
0:41:11 > 0:41:14'"so I beat them with a stick.
0:41:14 > 0:41:18'"One of the dogs turned into a witch,
0:41:18 > 0:41:20'"and the other into a boy.
0:41:20 > 0:41:22'"She then turned him into a horse.
0:41:25 > 0:41:30'"The witch took me away on the horse to that house, Hoarstones,
0:41:30 > 0:41:32'"and their barn was full of witches,
0:41:32 > 0:41:34'"maybe 60 of them.
0:41:34 > 0:41:38'"From the ceiling there were all these ropes hanging down,
0:41:38 > 0:41:40'"and they were pulling on the ropes,
0:41:40 > 0:41:42'"and amazing food came falling down.
0:41:44 > 0:41:49'"I was frightened so I ran away, and they chased me for ages.
0:41:49 > 0:41:53'"Before I got home I met a boy with cloven hooves.
0:41:53 > 0:41:56'"I fought him - that's why I'm so scruffy.
0:41:56 > 0:41:59'"It's not my fault!"'
0:41:59 > 0:42:02All of which seems to have been accepted
0:42:02 > 0:42:07as a genuine reason for lateness. Somewhat surprisingly!
0:42:07 > 0:42:09BELL TOLLS
0:42:11 > 0:42:13'After hearing this story,
0:42:13 > 0:42:17'the boy's father took him from village to village,
0:42:17 > 0:42:21'to stand in the churches and point out the witches he had seen.
0:42:21 > 0:42:22'For three months.'
0:42:24 > 0:42:30The curate of a local church described seeing Edmund at work.
0:42:30 > 0:42:34'"The boy was brought into the Church of Kildwick,
0:42:34 > 0:42:38'"and was set upon a stall to look about him,
0:42:38 > 0:42:40'"which moved some little disturbance
0:42:40 > 0:42:43'"in the congregation for a while.
0:42:43 > 0:42:46'"And after prayers, the people told me that it was the boy
0:42:46 > 0:42:48'"that discovered witches."
0:42:53 > 0:42:57'On the evidence of Edmund's bizarre story,
0:42:57 > 0:43:03'about 20 people were imprisoned and put on trial in February 1634.'
0:43:03 > 0:43:07One of them was called Jennet Device -
0:43:07 > 0:43:12accused of killing Isabel, wife of William Nutter.
0:43:12 > 0:43:15I can see absolutely no reason
0:43:15 > 0:43:19to think that it's not the same Jennet Device,
0:43:19 > 0:43:23from the earlier Lancashire trial, that's accused by Edmund Robinson.
0:43:23 > 0:43:26The fact that someone of the same name
0:43:26 > 0:43:29appears as a suspect in the second trial,
0:43:29 > 0:43:33with some of the same families involved, in the same place,
0:43:33 > 0:43:34I think is very suggestive.
0:43:34 > 0:43:38I think really that there's no reason to suspect that it's not her.
0:43:40 > 0:43:43Again, it's the stories the children tell
0:43:43 > 0:43:45that have such an incredible power.
0:43:45 > 0:43:48Not only Edmund's story in 1633,
0:43:48 > 0:43:53but the words Jennet used back in 1612 have returned to haunt her.
0:43:53 > 0:43:56She'd been a witness for the crown as a nine-year-old,
0:43:56 > 0:43:58and had been spared the noose.
0:43:58 > 0:44:02But this time, surely, she'd hang?
0:44:05 > 0:44:10'Yet these were different times, and England had changed since 1612.'
0:44:10 > 0:44:12When we look back
0:44:12 > 0:44:14into the 17th century,
0:44:14 > 0:44:17we think of what happened before the 17th century.
0:44:17 > 0:44:19We think of a world
0:44:19 > 0:44:20where witches were persecuted,
0:44:20 > 0:44:23where people relied on what others said,
0:44:23 > 0:44:26everybody was suspicious, everybody was uncertain.
0:44:26 > 0:44:29It was a time of great political and religious uncertainty.
0:44:29 > 0:44:32And then, when you look forward to the 18th century,
0:44:32 > 0:44:35you've got a sense of order and stability.
0:44:35 > 0:44:37So the 17th century WAS a period of transition.
0:44:37 > 0:44:40'When Thomas Potts wrote his book,
0:44:40 > 0:44:45'he thought he'd be pleasing the King with his account.
0:44:45 > 0:44:47'But James's continued interest in witch trials
0:44:47 > 0:44:50'led him to become more sceptical.'
0:44:50 > 0:44:54Something very important happens at Leicester in 1616.
0:44:54 > 0:44:58A boy, maybe 12 or 13 years old, claims that he's bewitched,
0:44:58 > 0:45:02the case goes to trial, and nine women are hanged.
0:45:02 > 0:45:06Well, the following month James I goes to Leicester,
0:45:06 > 0:45:09he interviews the boy, and discovers that he's lying.
0:45:09 > 0:45:13Then, as a consequence, the judges are very soundly rebuked
0:45:13 > 0:45:15and this goes out as a message to other judges
0:45:15 > 0:45:19to be very, very cautious in witchcraft cases,
0:45:19 > 0:45:22particularly if your star witness happens to be a child.
0:45:23 > 0:45:27'And, by the time Edmund told his story in 1633,
0:45:27 > 0:45:30'a new king was on the throne.
0:45:30 > 0:45:33'Charles I was even more doubtful about witch-hunting
0:45:33 > 0:45:35'than his father had become.
0:45:35 > 0:45:39'His attitude towards religion was so different from his father's
0:45:39 > 0:45:42'that many suspected him of being a Catholic.
0:45:42 > 0:45:44'His wife certainly was.'
0:45:45 > 0:45:49Crudely it's true that the most radical Protestants,
0:45:49 > 0:45:51the people we call Puritans,
0:45:51 > 0:45:54are the most concerned about the Devil and demons.
0:45:54 > 0:45:58And, as Charles I is a king who is deeply suspicious of Puritanism,
0:45:58 > 0:46:01he's pretty suspicious of accounts of demons.
0:46:04 > 0:46:08So, here we are, 22 years later, back in the courtroom.
0:46:08 > 0:46:13Just as before, a jury listened to a child telling stories of witches.
0:46:13 > 0:46:16But this time, Jennet was in the dock.
0:46:18 > 0:46:22'And, just as before, the jury believed the child to be honest,
0:46:22 > 0:46:24'and the prisoners evil.
0:46:24 > 0:46:28'On Edmund's testimony, 17 people were found guilty,
0:46:28 > 0:46:31'and should have been sentenced to death.'
0:46:31 > 0:46:34But, in this new kind of England,
0:46:34 > 0:46:35this changed England,
0:46:35 > 0:46:38the judges weren't happy with these verdicts,
0:46:38 > 0:46:40and the matter was referred to London -
0:46:40 > 0:46:43to the King and the Privy Council.
0:46:46 > 0:46:50'Four were sent from Lancashire to London.'
0:46:50 > 0:46:51But not Jennet.
0:46:51 > 0:46:55She was one of those who waited behind in the castle,
0:46:55 > 0:46:58where several prisoners had already died of gaol fever
0:46:58 > 0:47:01during the 15 months they'd spent there.
0:47:13 > 0:47:17'London in 1634 would have been another world
0:47:17 > 0:47:19'for the women of Lancashire. When they arrived
0:47:19 > 0:47:23'the four were held in the Fleet Gaol. While they were there,
0:47:23 > 0:47:27'a pair of playwrights immediately produced a play called
0:47:27 > 0:47:28'"The Witches of Lancashire",
0:47:28 > 0:47:31'featuring the story told by little Edmund.'
0:47:31 > 0:47:35They got the play on stage so quickly
0:47:35 > 0:47:37that, while the women were behind bars,
0:47:37 > 0:47:40on show to the public for a penny or two,
0:47:40 > 0:47:42the piece was already being performed.
0:47:42 > 0:47:46Londoners could go to the gaol in the morning to gawp at a witch,
0:47:46 > 0:47:47or a Northerner,
0:47:47 > 0:47:49and then see a play about them in the afternoon.
0:47:49 > 0:47:52It was the complete entertainment package.
0:47:54 > 0:47:57ACOUSTIC MUSIC PLAYS
0:47:57 > 0:47:58A hare!
0:47:59 > 0:48:00A hare!
0:48:00 > 0:48:02DOGS WHINE
0:48:02 > 0:48:03There!
0:48:03 > 0:48:06The Devil take these curs - will they not stir?
0:48:06 > 0:48:08I'll see if I can put spirit into you
0:48:08 > 0:48:11and put you in remembrance what "halloo, halloo" means.
0:48:11 > 0:48:12METALLIC TWANG
0:48:12 > 0:48:13Blessed heaven!
0:48:14 > 0:48:17One of the greyhounds turned into a woman, and the other into a boy!
0:48:17 > 0:48:21You have served me well to swinge me thus!
0:48:21 > 0:48:24You young rogue, you have USED me like a DOG!
0:48:24 > 0:48:26Are not you a witch?
0:48:26 > 0:48:30The power of stories never ceases to amaze me.
0:48:30 > 0:48:33A young lad in rural Lancashire tells his tall tale,
0:48:33 > 0:48:36the next minute it's a play in London.
0:48:36 > 0:48:39Help! Help!
0:48:39 > 0:48:42Help! Help!
0:48:42 > 0:48:44Help!
0:48:44 > 0:48:47'It's interesting that, although in 1634,
0:48:47 > 0:48:50'most people still believed in witches,
0:48:50 > 0:48:52'they were able to laugh at them.
0:48:52 > 0:48:54'That would never have happened in 1612.
0:48:59 > 0:49:02'This new way of looking at the world
0:49:02 > 0:49:05'was also apparent in the advances being made by scientists
0:49:05 > 0:49:08'which would, over the century,
0:49:08 > 0:49:11'transform our understanding of nature.'
0:49:11 > 0:49:14Scientific research and experimentation
0:49:14 > 0:49:18didn't banish a belief in witchcraft and superstition overnight.
0:49:18 > 0:49:19Far from it.
0:49:19 > 0:49:21But it did provide serious tools
0:49:21 > 0:49:24for trying to tell the innocent from the guilty.
0:49:24 > 0:49:27These were applied in 1634
0:49:27 > 0:49:30to those women from Lancashire accused of witchcraft.
0:49:30 > 0:49:33This was one of the earliest ever cases
0:49:33 > 0:49:36of what came to be known as forensic science -
0:49:36 > 0:49:38science relating to the law courts.
0:49:38 > 0:49:40The 1612 trial
0:49:40 > 0:49:42represents an older way of thinking
0:49:42 > 0:49:45where everything was based on credulity, superstition,
0:49:45 > 0:49:49everybody willing to believe everything nasty that was said.
0:49:49 > 0:49:51By the time you get to 1634,
0:49:51 > 0:49:54although it's absolutely by no means a scientific era,
0:49:54 > 0:49:58it seems as though people are behaving in a more rational way,
0:49:58 > 0:50:02and demanding what we would think of as scientific, forensic,
0:50:02 > 0:50:03objective evidence.
0:50:03 > 0:50:07What is shifting in the 17th century,
0:50:07 > 0:50:10slowly, and by fits and starts,
0:50:10 > 0:50:14is a belief that you have to demonstrate something physically.
0:50:14 > 0:50:16And if you can't demonstrate it in medicine,
0:50:16 > 0:50:18you cannot use it as evidence.
0:50:18 > 0:50:21In other words, there may be an invisible world
0:50:21 > 0:50:24of spirits around you, but you have to prove physical effect
0:50:24 > 0:50:26in order to bring them into a law court.
0:50:26 > 0:50:30'King James had written in his Daemonologie,
0:50:30 > 0:50:32'that one good way to identify a witch
0:50:32 > 0:50:34'was to look for "witches' marks" -
0:50:34 > 0:50:37'a place on the body where you could see a teat
0:50:37 > 0:50:41'that had been used by the Devil to suckle.'
0:50:41 > 0:50:43All the accused people from Lancashire
0:50:43 > 0:50:46were examined for these marks, including Jennet.
0:50:46 > 0:50:48Here, it says they found,
0:50:48 > 0:50:53"Jennet Device - two paps or marks in her secrets".
0:50:53 > 0:50:57I think "secrets" means probably exactly what you think it means.
0:50:57 > 0:51:01The other four people brought to London
0:51:01 > 0:51:03also had their marks listed.
0:51:03 > 0:51:06For example, Margaret Johnson -
0:51:06 > 0:51:11"One mark or pap betwixt her seat and her secrets."
0:51:13 > 0:51:17'Now, King Charles wanted his own, trusted physician, William Harvey,
0:51:17 > 0:51:19'to re-examine the women.'
0:51:20 > 0:51:24William Harvey is one of the great medical Brits of all time.
0:51:24 > 0:51:29He is most known for discovering how blood circulates through the body.
0:51:29 > 0:51:33He takes up his place with the likes of Isaac Newton and Christopher Wren
0:51:33 > 0:51:36as one of the new, forward-looking people of the 17th century,
0:51:36 > 0:51:41who are plugging into a European will to do things better than ever before.
0:51:41 > 0:51:43'Harvey was sent on more than one occasion
0:51:43 > 0:51:47'to examine witches on the King's orders.'
0:51:47 > 0:51:50There was a village witch who had a toad as her familiar.
0:51:50 > 0:51:53Not an unfamiliar situation.
0:51:53 > 0:51:55William Harvey caught the toad,
0:51:55 > 0:51:57and dissected the toad,
0:51:57 > 0:52:01and then showed the dissection to the witch
0:52:01 > 0:52:03to prove to her that it was just a normal toad -
0:52:03 > 0:52:08that there was nothing supernatural about it.
0:52:08 > 0:52:11And the woman flew at him and tried to tear his skin off with her nails.
0:52:11 > 0:52:13"You've killed my toad!"
0:52:13 > 0:52:15She wasn't in the slightest bit grateful
0:52:15 > 0:52:18that he'd brought science and rationality to her aid.
0:52:18 > 0:52:21From her point of view, he'd killed her pet,
0:52:21 > 0:52:24and probably removed the foundation stone of her business.
0:52:27 > 0:52:29Here in London, Harvey recruited
0:52:29 > 0:52:32five physicians and ten female midwives
0:52:32 > 0:52:34to conduct the examination.
0:52:34 > 0:52:38This time, almost all of the previously suspicious marks
0:52:38 > 0:52:42were deemed to be "nothing unnatural".
0:52:42 > 0:52:46And this is actually the way in which witch-hunting becomes undone.
0:52:46 > 0:52:49It's not so much people going in straight for the core,
0:52:49 > 0:52:52and saying, "We don't believe in witchcraft."
0:52:52 > 0:52:56It's people saying, "We need to be careful about how we prosecute
0:52:56 > 0:52:58"because standards of evidence needed to be raised."
0:52:58 > 0:53:01And if you raise a standard of proof high enough in witch trials,
0:53:01 > 0:53:04they come to an end altogether.
0:53:04 > 0:53:07According to William Harvey and his scientific team,
0:53:07 > 0:53:11there was no physical evidence against any of the prisoners.
0:53:11 > 0:53:15Everything now rested solely on the evidence of the child.
0:53:15 > 0:53:20In 1612, Jennet Device had been unflappable in court -
0:53:20 > 0:53:22cool and consistent.
0:53:22 > 0:53:27But, in 1634, under examination from the Privy Council
0:53:27 > 0:53:32and Secretary of State, ten-year-old Edmund Robinson cracked.
0:53:32 > 0:53:35'He said that the story he told was inspired by
0:53:35 > 0:53:38'stories he'd heard about the Device family.
0:53:38 > 0:53:40'He had heard the neighbours talk
0:53:40 > 0:53:44'of a witch feast that was kept at Mocking Tower in Pendle Forest
0:53:44 > 0:53:46'about 20 years since.
0:53:46 > 0:53:49'Cross questioning established that Edmund's father
0:53:49 > 0:53:51'had been blackmailing the women,
0:53:51 > 0:53:55'getting his son to accuse any who refused to pay.
0:53:57 > 0:54:00'The Robinson family had some fine new cows!
0:54:04 > 0:54:09'Jennet and the other prisoners were acquitted of witchcraft.'
0:54:11 > 0:54:13For me, the story is remarkable
0:54:13 > 0:54:18because the tale told by Jennet in 1612 had such resonance
0:54:18 > 0:54:23that it took on a life of its own in Pendle, and refused to go away.
0:54:23 > 0:54:25Edmund accused Jennet of witchcraft
0:54:25 > 0:54:30precisely because her story had been so convincing and so compelling.
0:54:30 > 0:54:34Her own words were almost the death of her.
0:54:41 > 0:54:43'Since the time of Jennet Device,
0:54:43 > 0:54:46'we have become less credulous of magic,
0:54:46 > 0:54:49'and more rigorous in our demand for empirical evidence.
0:54:49 > 0:54:53'In our modern, technological age, we pride ourselves
0:54:53 > 0:54:57'on our rationality and scientific understanding of the world.'
0:54:59 > 0:55:01But some things don't change.
0:55:01 > 0:55:04Many people still believe in evil,
0:55:04 > 0:55:08though where that evil occurs tends to change from year to year,
0:55:08 > 0:55:10from community to community -
0:55:10 > 0:55:12child-killers,
0:55:12 > 0:55:13drug-dealers,
0:55:13 > 0:55:14paedophiles,
0:55:14 > 0:55:15terrorists.
0:55:22 > 0:55:25Many still consider such evil to be the work of the Devil.
0:55:25 > 0:55:27Believe it or not,
0:55:27 > 0:55:30the Church of England continues to perform exorcisms.
0:55:33 > 0:55:36'Now, as then, we have fear,
0:55:36 > 0:55:42'and at times of crisis, fear still leads to miscarriages of justice.'
0:55:42 > 0:55:45When we hear a story, like the Lancashire witch trials
0:55:45 > 0:55:48from the first half of the 17th century,
0:55:48 > 0:55:51it's easy to feel distance from this strange alien world,
0:55:51 > 0:55:54where people believed things that we don't believe,
0:55:54 > 0:55:57and acted in ways that we might consider to be barbaric.
0:55:57 > 0:55:59But, of course, in the post 9/11 world,
0:55:59 > 0:56:01the era of the War on Terror,
0:56:01 > 0:56:06it's still quite easy to build policy on paranoia,
0:56:06 > 0:56:10and therefore to over-react in certain situations
0:56:10 > 0:56:13and to infringe civil liberties in the name of security.
0:56:13 > 0:56:17So, in situations where we do feel threatened by the enemy within,
0:56:17 > 0:56:21people around us who might be trying to undermine Western civilisation,
0:56:21 > 0:56:24we can easily find ourselves behaving
0:56:24 > 0:56:26in ways which are frighteningly similar
0:56:26 > 0:56:30to the ways in which some of those people behaved in Pendle
0:56:30 > 0:56:33in 1612 or 1633.
0:56:33 > 0:56:35BIRDSONG
0:56:36 > 0:56:38So, what about Jennet Device,
0:56:38 > 0:56:41the Lancashire child at the heart of this story?
0:56:41 > 0:56:45Did she walk away from two witch trials unscathed?
0:56:45 > 0:56:46'Perhaps.
0:56:50 > 0:56:53'In the prison records of 1636,
0:56:53 > 0:56:56'Jennet and some of the others acquitted of witchcraft
0:56:56 > 0:56:58'were still imprisoned.
0:56:58 > 0:57:02'Lancaster Castle inmates had to pay for their board,
0:57:02 > 0:57:05'and stay until the debt was cleared.
0:57:05 > 0:57:09'Which, for someone like Jennet, might have been impossible.
0:57:11 > 0:57:16'There are no more records of Jennet Device after 1636.
0:57:16 > 0:57:19'But we do know that her legacy lived on.
0:57:20 > 0:57:27'3,000 miles from Lancaster, 19 people were hanged in 1692.
0:57:27 > 0:57:30'These witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts,
0:57:30 > 0:57:33'were perhaps the most infamous in history.
0:57:35 > 0:57:40'Most of the evidence was given by children.
0:57:40 > 0:57:45'On the Salem magistrates' table was Dalton's Country Justice,
0:57:45 > 0:57:49'suggesting children were suitable witnesses in trials of witches,
0:57:49 > 0:57:54'and citing Jennet Device, 1612.'
0:57:58 > 0:58:03400 years ago, the idea of witches in one's midst
0:58:03 > 0:58:05must have been terrifying,
0:58:05 > 0:58:10but, for us today, I think it's the enigma of Jennet Device herself
0:58:10 > 0:58:12which we find so disturbing.
0:58:12 > 0:58:15We'll never know why she said what she said,
0:58:15 > 0:58:17but that desire to believe her
0:58:17 > 0:58:20was borne out of the kind of wild and irrational fear
0:58:20 > 0:58:23that can turn neighbour against neighbour,
0:58:23 > 0:58:25and relative against relative,
0:58:25 > 0:58:28and can make, well, demons out of all of us.
0:58:28 > 0:58:32Maybe it's because our protective instincts are so strong,
0:58:32 > 0:58:34and our imaginations so powerful,
0:58:34 > 0:58:40but we still struggle to control that fear during times of crisis,
0:58:40 > 0:58:44times when the truth can be the hardest thing of all to divine.
0:59:02 > 0:59:05Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd.
0:59:05 > 0:59:08E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk