page_title: The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster
section_title: Political background
hierarchical_section_title: The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster / Political background
caption_attribution_description: English: The Gunpowder Conspirators are discovered and Guy Fawkes is caught in the cellar of the Houses of Parliament with the explosives. Français&#160;: Les conspirateurs sont découverts et Guy Fawkes est pris dans les sous-sols du Palais de Westminster avec les explosifs Svenska: Krutkonspiratörerna upptäcks och Guy Fawkes fångas med sprängämnena i källaren på parlamentsbyggnaden.
context_page_description: The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster is the account of a series of English witch trials that took place on 18–19 August 1612, commonly known as the Lancashire witch trials. Except for one trial held in York they took place at Lancaster Assizes. Of the twenty men and women accused – amongst them the Pendle witches and the Samlesbury witches – eleven were found guilty and subsequently hanged; one was sentenced to stand in the pillory, and the rest were acquitted.
  Thomas Potts, the clerk to the Lancaster Assizes, was ordered by the trial judges Sir James Altham and Sir Edward Bromley to write an account of the proceedings, making them some of the most famous and best recorded witch trials of the 17th century. Potts completed the work on 16 November 1612, and submitted it to the judges for review. Bromley revised and corrected the manuscript before its publication in 1613, declaring it to be "truly reported" and "fit and worthie to be published".
context_section_description: The trials took place not quite seven years after the Gunpowder Plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in an attempt to kill King James and the Protestant aristocracy had been foiled. It was alleged that the Pendle witches had hatched their own gunpowder plot to blow up Lancaster Castle, although historian Stephen Pumfrey has suggested that the "preposterous scheme" was invented by the examining magistrates. It may therefore be significant that Potts dedicated The Wonderfull Discoverie to Thomas Knyvet and his wife Elizabeth; Knyvet was the man credited with apprehending Guy Fawkes and thus saving the king's life.
caption: Thomas Knyvet arresting Guy Fawkes in the cellar of the Houses of Parliament
exif: {"Image Copyright": "Copyright (c) 1950 Rex Features. No use without permission."}