What really happened to Jennet Device?

What happened to Jennet Device after the Pendle witch trials of 1612? The story goes that the wheel of fate turned full circle when in 1634, Jennet found herself on the receiving end of a child's allegations of witchcraft. After a short trial, she was imprisoned at Lancaster Castle where she suffered the same fate as her grandmother Elizabeth Southern, dying of jail fever bewteen 1636-1638.

Who was Jennet Device?

"Iennet Deuice, a yong Maide, about the age of nine yeares"
Jennet's baptism record shows she turned twelve that year

.Jennet Device was baptised at St Mary's, Newchurch-in-Pendle in 1600. She was the illegitimate child of Elizabeth Device (nee Ingham), half-sister of Alizon and James Device, and granddaughter of Elizabeth Southern. During the Pendle witch trials of 1612, she was a witness for the prosecution and gave evidence that sent most of the accused, including her own family to their deaths on Lancaster Moor.

What happened next?

On November 1st, 1633, a ten-year-old boy by the name of Edmund Robinson claimed to have been abducted by a witch and taken to a house called Hoarstones, not far from his home in Wheatley Lane. When news of the incident reached the authorities, Edmund and his father were summoned to Gawthorpe Hall for questioning. Their testimony survives in the form of three manuscript copies (click here to read one of them) in which a woman by the name of Jennet Davies - commonly held to be Jennet Device from the earlier trials - is accused of being at the sabbath at Hoarstones. Edmund also claimed he'd been frightened whenever he saw Jennet in the croft or close next to his father's house.

"Jennet Davies, he hath seene at severall tymes in a croft or close adjoininge to his fathers house, whiche put him in a greate feare".

Hoarstones, 1888-1913

The following year, Jennet Davies was tried as part of a group of twenty people at the Lancaster Assizes for the murder of Isabell, the wife of William Nutter. All but one were found guilty, but the judges were reluctant to pass the death sentence and referred the matter to the King and Privy Council. Meanwhile, the prisoners languished in the dungeons of Lancaster Castle. Jennet next appears in a document known as the Londesborough Manuscript, a supposedly contemporary document containing the results of the prisoner's physical examinations. Jennet is said to have had "two paps or marks betwixt her secrets" that were found to be nothing unnatural. 

In July, the case collapsed when young Robinson confessed to George Long, JP for Middlesex that the story was a fabrication. Although they were acquitted, this was of little benefit to Jennet and her fellow prisoners who now had to pay off the debts incurred from their imprisonment. The last known record of her whereabouts is in a calendar of prisoners dated August 22nd, 1636. It belongs to a collection known as the Farrington Papers, the family documents of William Farington of Worden who held the office of High Sheriff of Lancashire at the time of her imprisonment.

Note: Davies, Device and Devys are used interchangably 
The Farington Papers, Chetham Society

The wife of William Davies

So, who was Jennet Davies, and could she really have been the child witness of 1612? More than likely not. The available evidence suggests there were at least two Pendle Forest women laying claim to the same name and that we've probably been looking at the wrong person. 

Jennet Davies, Wm. Davies, uxor (wife)
A History of Whalley, T.D Whitaker

Narratives of Sorcey and Magic, Thomas Wright 

No record for William and Jennet's marriage appears to have survived, but a burial at Newchurch-in-Pendle in 1635 for Jenet Seller alias Devis is further confirmation of the two Jennets. In all probability this is the burial of Jennet Device of 1612. The Seller connection is explained by the fact that Elizabeth Device is said to have had an illegitimate child, i.e. Jennet with a man by the name of Seller.

"The reason wherefore shee this Examinate [Elizabeth Device] did so bewitch the said Robinson to death, was: for that the said Robinson had chidden and becalled this Examinate, for hauing a Bastard-child [Jennet] with one Seller".

Jenet Seller als Devis sepult, December 22

If we accept this entry as relating to Jennet Device of 1612 then the woman imprisoned at Lancaster in 1636 must have been a different person.

Newchurch in Pendle

All Devis and related entries from 1574-1754

Johes Devis [John Device] = Elizabeth Ingham 1590

Jacobus Devis [James Device] - bap 1590
Alicea Devis [Alizon Device] - bap 1593
Henricus Devis [Henry Device] - bap 1595, bur 1599
Jeneta Devis [Jennet Device] (illegit) - bap 1600
Jenet Seller alias Devis [probable burial of Jennet Device] - bur 1635
Robert Davis - bur 1682

William Devys, her half brother

Curiously, during the re-examination of Edmund Robinson by George Long, JP for Middlesex, William Davies is described as the half-brother and not the husband of Jennet. While William could have married his half-sister, it's possible that certain details were mixed up somewhere in the translation between Robinson, Long, court statements and the privy council. This remains unexplained.

"Jennet Devys, William Devys, her half brother"
 Re-examination of Edmund Robinson the younger before George Long, July, 1634

The most reasonable explanation, then, is that after the execution of most of her family at Lancaster, Jennet returned to Pendle Forest to live with her father or Seller relatives and, quite understandably, took the family name. She died at the age of 35, presumably childless and unmarried. Perhaps James Crossley wasn't too far off the mark after all when he wrote:

In all likelihood she dragged on a miserable existence, a forlorn outcast, pointed at by the hand of scorn, or avoided with looks of horror in the wilds of Pendle. 

St Mary's, Newchurch-in-Pendle

Further reading

James Crossley (1845) Pott's Discovery of witches in the county of Lancaster

John A. Clayton (2012) The Boy Witchfinder of Pendle Forest

John A. Clayton (2007) The Lancashire Witch Conspiracy

Mildred Tonge (1932) The Lancashire Witches: 1612 and 1634 

Robert Poole (2002) The Lancashire Witches: Histories and Stories

Susan Maria Ffarington (1856) Remains, Historical and Literary, Connected with the Palatine Counties of Lancaster and Chester, Vol. XXXIX

T.D Whitaker (1801) History of the Original Parish of Whalley and Honour of Clitheroe, in the Counties of Lancaster and York