The Trial of Old Chattox, Elizabeth and James Device
Trials could only occur when judges visited the towns that formed part of their judicial circuit. In the case of Lancaster that was just twice a year. So the accused witches languished together in their dungeon for five months before they had their day in court. Finally, the trial of the Pendle witches began on August 18, 1612.
By this time Jennet Preston was already dead, tried, found guilty and hanged in York. Old Chattox’s acknowledgment of her as a witch was all that was needed to secure the conviction. There was no other evidence. The same was to prove true for most of the Lancashire witches. However, on the first day of the trial, at least, the witches in question damned themselves with their confessions. They were Old Chattox, Elizabeth Device and James Device.
Potts in his description of the accused goes out of his way to portray them as archetypical witches. He described Chattox as ‘ very old withered spent & decrepit, her sight almost gone: a dangerous witch……her lips ever chattering and walking: but no man knew what.” He mocked Elizabeth Device in her turn, saying she was “branded with a preposterous mark in nature, ……her left eye, standing lower than the other; the one looking up, the other looking down, so strangely deformed, as the best that were present ……did affirm they had not often seen the like.”
However, the overwhelming impression these descriptions give to the modern eye is rather more pitiable. Chattox seems more like an infirm elderly lady, rendered decrepit by her age and experiences in the dungeon- not a dangerous witch. Elizabeth Device is similarly pitiful. However, it is perhaps the teenage son James Device who cut the most pathetic figure. James had tried to kill himself in prison and was insensible and unable to stand at the time of his trial. He was so severely injured that he had to be held up throughout the proceedings.
The court charged Chattox with the murder of John Nutter, to which she pleaded ‘not guilty’ despite having admitted to it in her earlier testimony. Elizabeth Device also pleaded not guilty, to the deaths of James and John Robinson, who she was said to have killed because they insulted her. James Device was likewise charged.
The chief witness against Elizabeth and James was nine-year-old Jennet Device whose youth and close relationship to the accused swayed the court. Elizabeth was so distraught at her daughter’s damning testimony that she became incoherent with rage and had to be removed so the child could testify. All three were found guilty: Chattox’s own words damned her. In the case of Elizabeth and James Device, the final nail in their coffins was dealt by their daughter and sister.