Witchcraft

James Device

Malkin Tower, Blacko, Pendle

Accused April 1612; tried and hanged 18-20 August 1612

James Device, son of Elizabeth Device and grandson of Demdike, was drawn directly into the Pendle case alongside the rest of his own family following his sister Alizon's arrest back in March 1612, a chain reaction of accusations that would eventually consume nearly his entire household. He is recorded as having stolen a wether sheep belonging to a neighbour, John Robinson, and killed it specifically to provide food for the gathering his own mother had organised at their family home, Malkin Tower, on Good Friday, 10 April 1612, the very meeting the prosecution would later present in court as a witches' sabbath rather than the ordinary family gathering it more plausibly actually was.

James was tried at Lancaster Assizes in August 1612 and, like both his mother and his sister before him, was convicted largely on evidence given by his own young sister Jennet, who testified in court to having seen a black dog she believed to be his personal familiar spirit, a child's testimony that helped condemn her own brother to death.

He was hanged at Gallows Hill outside Lancaster on 20 August 1612, alongside nine others convicted in the very same round of trials that his own family's own ordinary Good Friday meal had, through nothing more than a magistrate's determined interpretation, ultimately helped set in motion.

The site of Malkin Tower, the family home, has never been conclusively identified and the candidate sites are private land.
Evidence
Contemporary written record
Access
Private property
Location
53.879, -2.222 (Parish-level only, treat as an area)

Sources: Wikipedia, "Pendle witches" [other]

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