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Samlesbury witches
The Samlesbury witches were three women who were said to be witches, murderers and cannibals. The three women, Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley, were accused of practising witchcraft by a 14-year-old girl, Grace Sowerbutts. They were tried in the village of Samlesbury in Lancashire. Their trial on 19 August 1612 was one of a series of witch trials held over two days. It is among the most famous in English history. The trials were unusual for England at that time for two reasons. First, Thomas Potts, the clerk to the court, wrote about it in his "The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster". Secondly, the number of people found guilty and hanged were high: ten at Lancaster and another at York. Some of those accused were burnt alive and hung.
However, the three Samlesbury women were found not guilty of witchcraft.
The women were accused of murdering children, and of cannibalism, amongst other things. In contrast, other people tried at the same time were accused of "maleficium", that is causing harm by witchcraft. This included the Pendle witches. The case against the three women collapsed "spectacularly" when the main witness, Grace Sowerbutts, was shown by the trial judge to be "the perjuring tool of a Catholic priest".
Many historians, most notably Hugh Trevor-Roper, have said that the witch trials of the 16th and 17th century were a result of the religious struggles of the period. During this time, both the Catholic and Protestant Churches wanted to stamp out what they saw as heresy. The trial of the Samlesbury witches is perhaps one clear example of that trend; it has been described as "largely a piece of anti-Catholic propaganda". A trial would show that Lancashire, a wild and lawless area, was being cleared not only of witches but also of "popish plotters", that is, Catholics.
King James I, came to the English throne in 1603. He was influenced by the strict Scottish Reformation very much. He was very interested in witchcraft. By the early 1590s, he was convinced that Scottish witches plotted against him. His 1597 book, "Daemonologie", he told his followers that they must report and prosecute any supporters or practitioners of witchcraft. In 1604 a new witchcraft law was made, called "An Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft and dealing with evil and wicked spirits". Anyone who caused harm by the use of magic or the exhumation of corpses for magical purposes would be given the death penalty. James was, did not believe some of the evidence presented in witch trials, he even personally showed discrepancies in the testimonies presented against some accused witches.
The accused witches lived in Lancashire. At the end of the 16th century, the government thought this county was a wild and lawless area, "fabled for its theft, violence and sexual laxity, where the church was honoured without much understanding of its doctrines by the common people". Since the death of Queen Mary and the coming to the throne of her half-sister Elizabeth in 1558, Catholic priests had been forced to hide, but in remote areas like Lancashire they were still able to celebrate mass in secret. In early 1612, the year of the trials, each justice of the peace (JP) in Lancashire was ordered to make a list of the recusants in their area—those who refused to attend the services of the Church of England, which was a criminal offence at that time.
During the 16th century English Reformation, the Church of England broke away from the rule of the pope and the Catholic Church. This event split up the Southworth family of Samlesbury Hall. Sir John Southworth, head of the family until his death in 1595, was a leading recusant. He had been arrested many times for not giving up his Catholic faith. His eldest son, also called John, did join the Church of England, for which his father disinherited him. The rest of the family stayed strictly Catholic.
One of the accused witches, Jane Southworth, was the widow of the disinherited son, John. Relations father and son were not polite; John Singleton, said that the father would not even go past his son's house if he could keep clear of it, and believed that Jane would probably kill her husband. Jane Southworth (born Jane Sherburne) and John were married in about 1598, and the couple lived in Samlesbury Lower Hall. John had died only a few months before her trial for witchcraft in 1612, and she had seven children.
On 21 March 1612, Alizon Device, who lived just outside the Lancashire village of Fence, near Pendle Hill, met John Law, a pedlar from Halifax. She asked him for some pins, which he refused to give to her, and a few minutes later Law suffered a stroke, for which he blamed Alizon. Along with her mother Elizabeth and her brother James, Alizon had to appear before local magistrate Roger Nowell on 30 March 1612. Based on the evidence and confessions he obtained, Nowell sent Alizon and ten others to Lancaster Gaol, to be tried for "maleficium"—causing harm by witchcraft.
Other Lancashire magistrates learned of Nowell's discovery of witchcraft in the county. On 15 April 1612 JP Robert Holden began investigations in his own area of Samlesbury. As a result, eight individuals were sent to trial, including Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley. They were said to have used witchcraft on Grace Sowerbutts, Jennet's granddaughter and Ellen's niece.
The trial was held on 19 August 1612 before Sir Edward Bromley, a judge seeking promotion to a circuit nearer London. He may have wanted to impress King James, the head of the judiciary. Before the trial, Bromley ordered the release of five of the eight defendants from Samlesbury, with a warning about their future conduct. Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley were said to have used "diverse devilish and wicked Arts, called Witchcrafts, Inchauntments, Charmes, and Sorceries, in and upon one Grace Sowerbutts", to which they pleaded not guilty. Fourteen-year-old Grace was the chief prosecution witness.
Grace was the first to give evidence. She said that both her grandmother and aunt, Jennet and Ellen Bierley, were able to change themselves into dogs and that they had "haunted and vexed her" for years. She also said that they had transported her to the top of a hayrick by her hair. They had also tried to make her drown herself. Grace said the women had taken her to the house of Thomas Walshman and his wife, from whom they had stolen a baby to suck its blood. Grace said the child died the next night and after its burial at Samlesbury Church, Ellen and Jennet dug up the body and took it home. The women then cooked and ate some of it and used the rest to make an ointment that let them change themselves into other shapes.