HEDY MAG ISSUE 1
Digital Magazine for nonconformist women.
Digital Magazine for nonconformist women.
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two families and a lot of people<br />
around them. But that does<br />
not explain why Jennet Device<br />
would hate her family so much<br />
that she would behave as she<br />
did, even if she had been taught<br />
her statements by court officials<br />
eager to win favour with a political<br />
elite obsessed with witchcraft<br />
– King James I himself had<br />
written a demonology. Many of<br />
the accused were Catholics, and<br />
the meeting at Malkin Tower<br />
again fits with a paranoid political<br />
class in an unpopular county<br />
trying to uncover another<br />
Gunpowder Plot to impress the<br />
court in London. So local events<br />
A PETITION TO JACK STRAW TO<br />
POSTHUMOUSLY PARDON THE<br />
PENDLE WITCHES WAS REJECTED<br />
gone out of control? Political<br />
spin? Most likely an unhealthy<br />
mixture of both that lead to the<br />
death of many innocent people,<br />
or at least not guilty of anything<br />
more than – in the case of the<br />
Demdikes and Chattoxes – being<br />
poor and unlikeable. There<br />
is a coda: In 1998 a petition to<br />
the then home secretary Jack<br />
Straw to posthumously pardon<br />
the Pendle Witches was rejected,<br />
likewise a similar petition<br />
to pardon Elizabeth Southern<br />
(Old Demdike) and Anne<br />
Whittle (Old Chattox) started<br />
ten years later. Apparently it easier<br />
to erect statues, encourage<br />
dress-up and use “our witches”<br />
to encourage heritage tourism<br />
than to face up to the injustices<br />
of the past.<br />
<strong>HEDY</strong> 19
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