Dominic Selwood
speaker
436 appearances
4 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 8 Sep
Dominic Selwood’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.
Appearances
In 1735, the Witchcraft Act was passed.
And that, unlike the previous Witchcraft Acts, which had created offences of witchcraft, said witchcraft is a fraud.
So when it was prosecuting people under the Witchcraft Act 1735, it was for pretending to be witches or pretending to have those powers.
An interesting feature of the Pendle witch trial was that one of those who was hanged was James Device, who was the brother who stole the sheep for the party.
And that's quite important because men were hanged as witches.
Overall, during the entire witch craze globally, it's estimated that perhaps 20% of all those hanged for witchcraft were men.
The Pendle Witch Trial matters because of its place in the history of the witch craze.
A conservative view is that the witch craze was responsible for executing 40,000 to 60,000 people, although the real numbers are not very easy to find and people have wildly different estimates, but that's a fairly conservative view.
In England, the number was about 500 to 1,000.
In Scotland, where King James I had had more of an influence and where religion was more strongly Puritan, the number's a lot higher, it's 2,500, actually for a much smaller population as well.
But Pendle is important because it was one of the largest single witch trials in England.
The other main story about witchcraft in England is the Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins, who was active around the mid-1600s, particularly in the east of England, in Essex and Norfolk, and he oversaw maybe 100 executions.
But Pendle is a very, very significant part of the story.
It's quite early as the witch trials are really building up ahead of steam and it legitimises the idea that children can give evidence against their own family members.
There's perennially a question around why people tried witches.
And there are probably very many different reasons.
The case of Robert Nowell is really interesting because at first, when he heard these allegations of witchcraft from Alison, Squinting Lizzie and Old Demdyke and then Old Chattox, he dismissed it and wasn't interested.
But something happened that made him change his mind after the Good Friday party.
and it has to be a possibility that he saw a real possibility of convictions and that that could enhance his career because of course the administration at the time both in the courts and running up into the monarchy which was at the head of the court system was very much in favor
of finding witches and of exterminating this evil from the kingdom.
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