
POTTS, Thomas
The Wonderful discoverie of witches in the countie of Lancaster: with the
arraignment and triall of nineteene witches ...
London: Printed by W. Stansby for John Barnes, 1613
One of the most astounding chapbooks describing witch trials in England. This mass trial of nineteen alleged witches was the largest in England to that date and created a considerable stir throughout the northern counties. The unusually long work of 188 pages was a semi-official record written by the Clerk of the Court, Thomas Potts. The judge, Sir Edward Bromley, wrote a small forward.
Potts made each of the principals into a caricature of a witch. Elizabeth Southern, called "Old Demdike", an eighty year old blind widow, was described as "the rankest hag that ever troubled daylight". Anne Whittle, "Old Chattox", also eighty, was a "withered, spent and decrepit creature". These two were aided by their daughters Elizabeth device and Anne Redfearne respectively. Also implicated was Alice Nutter, the mother of one of those bewitched by the first two, and fourteen others, including Elizabeth device's children.
Much of the evidence was common hearsay or mutual confessions. Old Demdike died in gaol but ten others were hanged including Old Chattox, Anne Redfearne, her son James and eleven year old daughter Alison, and Alice Nutter. Two were imprisoned and pilloried, the rest acquitted.