Samlesbury Witches (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles The Samlesbury witches were three women from the Lancashire village of Samlesbury- Jane Southworth, Jennet Bierley, and Ellen Bierley- accused by a 14-year-old girl, Grace Sowerbutts, of practising witchcraft. Their trial at Lancaster Assizes in England on 19August 1612 was one in a series of witch trials held there over two days, among the most famous in English history. The trials were unusual for England at that time in two respects: Thomas Potts, the clerk to the court, published the proceedings in his The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster; and the number of the accused found guilty and hanged was unusually high, ten at Lancaster and another at York. However, all three of the Samlesbury women were acquitted.