This bestseller presents a remarkable series of new insights into the Lancashire Witch Craze. By placing the events in their wider European context, it explains far more satisfactorily than ever before exactly why these disturbing events occurred.

Was there really a satanic coven on Pendle side? Or was Jennet framed by Lister's son? This very popular book separates the myth from the legend on the Lancashire witches'. 'Jennet Preston lies heavy upon me, ' cried Thomas Lister on his deathbed. We are told that his corpse bled when she touched it ...and Jennet was convicted of witchcraft. Was there really a satanic coven on Pendle side? Or was Jennet framed by Lister's son? And were the other 'witches' actually caught up in a much broader and more disturbing pattern of religious persecution? Jonathan Lumby presents a remarkable series of new insights. By placing the events in their wider European context, he explains far more satisfactorily than ever before exactly why these disturbing events occurred.

A study of England's biggest and best-known witch trial, which took place in 1612 when ten witches from the forest of Pendle were hanged at Lancaster. A little-known second trial occured in 1633-4, when up to nineteen witches were sentenced to death.

This fascinating little book is a great introduction to the story of the Pendle witch trials of 1612.

This book is the first major study of England's biggest and best-known witch trial which took place in 1612, when ten witches were arraigned and hung in the village of Pendle in Lancashire. The book has equal appeal across the disciplines of both History and English Literature/Renaissance Studies, with essays by the leading experts in both fields. Includes helpful summaries to explain the key points of each essay. Brings the subject up-to-date with a study of modern Wicca and paganism, including present-day Lancashire witches. Quite simply, this is the most comprehensive study of any English witch trial.

In the febrile religious and political climate of late sixteenth-century England, when the grip of the Reformation was as yet fragile and insecure, and underground papism still perceived to be rife, Lancashire was felt by the Protestant authorities to be a sinister corner of superstition, lawlessness and popery. And it was around Pendle Hill, a sombre ridge that looms over the intersecting pastures, meadows and moorland of the Ribble Valley, that their suspicions took infamous shape. The arraignment of the Lancashire witches in the assizes of Lancaster during 1612 is England's most notorious witch-trial. The women who lived in the vicinity of Pendle, who were accused, convicted and hanged alongside the so-called 'Salmesbury Witches', were more than just wicked sorcerers whose malign incantations caused others harm. They were reputed to be part of a dense network of devilry and mischief that revealed itself as much in hidden celebration of the Mass as in malevolent magic. They had to be eliminated to set an example to others. In this remarkable and authoritative treatment, published to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the case of the Lancashire witches, Philip C Almond evokes all the fear, drama and paranoia of those volatile times: the bleak story of the storm over Pendle.

The Lancashire Witch Conspiracy draws upon the experience of an author well versed and qualified in the history of his locality - namely the Forest of Pendle. John A Clayton provides here an in-depth study of the Lancashire Witch Trials of 1612 and, in so doing, many new discoveries of the event come to light. For instance; the most famous 'witch' of them all, Old Demdike (Elizabeth Southern), is found amongst the dusty records of Whalley parish church where she was both baptised and married. Demdike's husband, a farmer, brought his new wife and her illigitimate child into Pendle Forest and this would eventually trigger the trials at Lancaster of 19 people upon charges of witchcraft. The ancestors of Old Demdike, along with those of Chattox, Elizabeth Device, Alice Nutter et al are covered in a detail never before seen. The history of the Pendle Forest is covered in a depth that provides an unrivalled understanding of the subject of the Pendle Witches. The religious and political climate within the forest provide us with a fascinating idea of the times and, above all, new evidence is offered to show that the gentry would go to any lengths in the advancement of their estates - this would lead to tragedy for whole families within Pendle.

Thomas Potts' famous account of the Pendle witch trials of 1612 is the only original source of information about the events, and in this new version historian Robert Poole makes the text accessible and usable for 21st-century readers.