Telling Witch From Witch

Today, it's exactly four hundred years since the alleged Lancashire Witches were put on trial here, deep within the castle walls. It's a dark day, with the wind raging, and the rain coming down in torrents, which you might think was some kind of supernatural omen, if you were a tourist or a moron.

The likelihood of the "Witches" having magical Satanic powers, of course, is astronomical. The likelihood that most of them practised Catholicism secretly, on the other hand, is overwhelming. It speaks volumes that most of the accused readily confessed to witchcraft - including all the wacky bits about kissing Satan's anus - rather than be "outed" as adherents to the Roman church; a mere seven years after Catholic terrorists had attempted to kill the King and destroy Parliament, public opinion was probably marginally more in favour of witches. Every tavern and inn undoubtedly had some opinionated gobshite in the corner weighing the relative evils of the two practices: "Rimming the Devil, that's fair enough. Each to their own. But LISTENING TO SERVICES IN LATIN? Hanging's too good for 'em."

Obviously, the confessions were helped along somewhat by the torture, and six months of imprisonment in the castle dungeons. But in the conviction of Elizabeth Device - who had pleaded her innocence - the Assizes relied on the testimony of Jennet Device, Elizabeth's nine-year-old daughter. Jennet's witness statement was a suspicious concoction of eloquent grammar and syntax, describing scenes that ticked every box of King James's own pamphlet on witchcraft and demonology - the handbook that prosecutors used in these cases. While Jennet testified, Elizabeth had to be removed from the courtroom, screaming at her daughter for not understanding the dire consequences of her words. Needless to say, being dragged out of a court whilst shrieking at your own child is never going to make you look more innocent, but given the situation, Elizabeth was probably beyond the more gentle: "Now, what did we say about not incriminating Mummy in front of a bigoted, bloodthirsty lynch mob?"

The only one of the accused who seemed to voluntarily and sincerely confess was Alizon Device, whose cursing of a pedlar in Trawden Forest had sparked the initial investigation. The pedlar had collapsed, with "his head drawn awry, his eyes and face deformed, his speech not well to be understood, his arms lame, especially on the left side." In modern parlance, the pedlar had suffered a stroke. But to Alizon Device - who rushed tearfully to the victim's bedside hours later to beg his forgiveness - she'd seen her own words magically cut down a healthy man. She believed wholeheartedly in the existence of witchcraft, and was terrified by the idea that she'd developed these powers against her will. She was an impoverished but generally good-natured person who couldn't bear living with a guilty conscience, and so turned herself over to the mercy of the State, who promptly relieved her of that conscience forever.

On the 19th of August 1612, ten of the "witches" from Pendle Hill were convicted of the crimes of causing multiple deaths through witchcraft, causing illness and disability through witchcraft, and plotting to blow up Lancaster Castle. (That last one is my personal favourite, by the way; exuding, as it does, the timeless sense of officers of the law trying desperately to trump up charges that will stick: "Right, we've got 'em on supernatural mass murder, and supernatural GBH; better try for 'domestic terrorism' as well though, or this bloody liberal justice system will let 'em walk right out the door.") Consequently, on the 20th of August, the convicted prisoners were led up to Gallows Hill, and hanged in front of a large crowd that included nine-year-old Jennet Device - who watched in increasing horror as she realised that she'd condemned her whole family to death.

Jennet herself was free, but doomed to live as an orphan and beggar, until two decades later, when she herself - in an astonishing irony - was accused of witchcraft by a local boy. But by this time, England was changing; all the cool kids were getting into science and reason, and "she lives alone on a hill so she must lick Satan's bumhole" was no longer considered to be a thesis of ironclad logic. At her trial, Jennet was acquitted of witchcraft. But there was no happy ending; all prisoners - even those found innocent - were required to pay the State for the food they'd been given and the dungeon-space they'd occupied during their imprisonment before they could be released (and that slight murmuring noise you can hear right now is Margaret Thatcher nodding her head and saying, "that's such a wonderful idea.") Jennet was a destitute woman with no family, and no way of earning except for begging. She could not pay to be released, and it's highly likely she died in the dungeons of the castle.

Still, all was well after that, as the Witchcraft Act was finally repealed in the United Kingdom in 1951 (no, that's not a typo). The last women to be convicted under the Witchcraft Act were Jane Rebecca Yorke and Helen Duncan, both in 1944 (no, that's not a typo either). I wouldn't be surprised if there were rural magistrates running around in 1950, mad with news of the law being quashed, desperately trying to stuff black conical hats onto various oddballs and Roman Catholics, and set them all alight before the bill could make it through the House of Lords.

And in 2012, Moorhouse's Brewery in Burnley - who've branded a lot of their products down the years with names and designs related to the 1612 trials - have launched a campaign for the government to pardon the Pendle Witches, on the basis that the evidence against them was ever so slightly flimsy. Personally, I'm a bit sceptical of the petition, as any pardon granted won't exactly be arriving in the nick of time; that, and it just seems like a handy bit of publicity for Moorhouse's and the tourist trade.

Then again, it might be a nice legal precedent to set if we declare as a nation that we will not hang people merely on the basis that they're poor/odd/inclined to a different religion. It would give the editors of The Sun something to think about, at least.