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n Apriln2nd 1612 – Fence, Lancashire. Roger Nowell had Elizabeth Southernsn(called Demdike), Anne Whittle (called Chattox) and her daughter Anne Redfernenbrought before him. Both Demdike and Chattox were in their eighties, and bothnwere blind. Also present, giving evidence, were John Nutter of Higham, hisnsister Margaret Crooke, and their friend, James Robinson. The brother andnsister spoke first, telling how Chattox and Anne Redferne had killed theirnolder brother, Robert, some eighteen or nineteen years previously. Robert andnJohn had been travelling with their father, Christopher, and John had heardnRobert say to Christopher that he had been bewitched, and added, “I pray youncause them to be layed in Lancaster Castle”, to which his father had replied,n“Thou art a foolish Ladde, it is not so”. Margaret took up the story, sayingnRobert had become ill and insisted ‘a hundred times’ that Anne Redferne and hernfamily were to blame, before he died. The father, Christopher, also became illnand before he died, he too said he had been bewitched, although he did not givenany names. James Robinson continued the story, relating how he had served innthe household of Nutter’s grandfather, and had heard Robert threaten ThomasnRedferne (Anne’s husband) with eviction. Robinson confirmed that both Chattoxnand Redferne were known locally to be witches, and had once spoiled a barrel ofnale in his house.
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| A witch, the devil and a familiar |
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nThen Chattox was questioned by Nowell, and gave a differentnslant on the story presented by the first three witnesses. Robert Nutter had,nshe said, tried to seduce Anne Redferne, but she, being a married woman, hadnrefused his advances and humiliated him as he rode away, in a fury. Chattoxnadded that her familiar, Fancie, had appeared later in the form of a man, andnshe had asked him to revenge her on Robert Nutter. She went on to say thatnRobert Nutter’s grandmother had once approached her and two other women, nowndead, and asked them to kill her grandson so that ‘the women the coosens mightnhave the land’, but Thomas Redferne had dissuaded them from the act. Nowellndrew out from Chattox how a ‘thing like a Christian man’ had sought her soulnfor about four years, and promised her that should want for nothing, addingnthat she should call him ‘Fancie’.
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| Chattox and Anne Redferne |
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nWhen Demdike came to be questioned, she toontold of familiars, of how a boy called Tibb, dressed in a black and brown coat,nhad come to her near a stonepit in Goldshaw (Newchurch), and she had given hernsoul to him. Tibb returned six years later, and had sucked her blood. Some timenlater Richard Baldwin had refused to pay her daughter, Elizabeth, for some worknshe had done, so her granddaughter, Alizon Device, had taken her to him, whennTibb appeared and was told to ‘revenge thee either on him or his’, Baldwin’sndaughter became ill and died after a year.
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nShe said how she had seen Chattoxnand Redferne making ‘pictures of clay’ of Robert and John Nutter, and MargaretnCrooke, when Tibb, in the form of a black cat, appeared and told her to makenthe same. She refused, so Tibb pushed her into a ditch, disappeared and thennreappeared further down the road in the form of a hare, which then followednher. Anne Redferne refused to make a confession of any sort, or to implicatenanyone in the allegations being made, but on the strength of the evidence beforenhim, Roger Nowell committed Alizon Device, Demdike, Chattox and Anne Redfernento be taken to Lancaster Castle, awaiting the August Assizes. They were takennthere through the Trough of Bowland, which must have been an extremely arduousnjourney for the two octogenarians. The Trough may well be one of the mostnoutstandingly beautiful areas in this country, but it’s tough going, even in anmodern car.