The Devices Versus The Whittles
Alison then shifted the spotlight from her own family. Perhaps she wanted to provide Roger Nowell with a wickeder clutch of witches. So she offered him with an account of the misdeeds of another Pendle witch family: The Whittles, who were lead by their elderly matriarch, Anne Whittle or Old Chattox. There was no love lost between the Devices and the Whittles.
It seems that they were rival cunning folk. Alison’s revelations may also have been a form of revenge as she and her family held Old Chattox responsible for the death of her father eleven years earlier.
When Alison was a child, someone broke into Malkin Tower and stole some grain meal and linen. The Devices later reputedly caught the Whittles with the goods. However, despite his powerful mother-in-law, John Device, Alison’s father, was too afraid to take the matter further. He seems to have raised the ire of Old Chattox and so cut a deal with her: he would give her an annual tribute of grain meal- if she would leave the Devices alone. However, it was not long before John Device stopped paying the tribute and he fell ill. On his deathbed, he blamed Old Chattox for his predicament.
Besides killing her father, Alison Device accused Old Chattox of killing a friend of hers, one Ann Nutter just because she laughed at the old woman. She also accused Chattox of bewitching to death a farmer, Hugh Moore who accused Chattox of killing one of his cows with her art. Chattox had even targeted John Moore, a local gentleman from nearby Higham. Mr. Moore had accused Chattox of bewitching his drink (quite how is uncertain) As a response to this, Chattox had said she would “meet” or get even with “the said John Moore, or his.” Chattox then made a clay image of John Moore’s child- who promptly fell ill and died six months later.