Something Wicked

On 20 August 1612, ten people from Pendle were executed before a vast crowd at Lancaster’s Gallows Hill. The condemned and their associates had endured six months of accusations, imprisonment and torture; their treatment was such that one of the group died in Lancaster Castle’s dungeons, while awaiting trial. Today, a thriving tourism industry exists in and around Pendle, the former home of the so-called witches, yet virtually everything we know about the case originates from a single source: Thomas Potts’ ‘Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches’, hurriedly published in 1613 and distinctly skewed in favour of the prosecution. Now, Carol Ann Lee brings a fresh perspective to the story by approaching it as true crime. Her research leads to revelatory discoveries, transforming our knowledge of those shadowy figures behind ill-famed names, and the terrible events that befell them.