The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster

The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster is the account of a series of English witch trials that took place on 18–19 August 1612, commonly known as the Lancashire witch trials. Except for one trial held in York they took place at Lancaster Assizes. Of the twenty men and women accused – amongst them the Pendle witches and the Samlesbury witches – eleven were found guilty and subsequently hanged; one was sentenced to stand in the pillory, and the rest were acquitted.

Thomas Potts, the clerk to the Lancaster Assizes, was ordered by the trial judges Sir James Altham and Sir Edward Bromley to write an account of the proceedings, making them some of the most famous and best recorded witch trials of the 17th century. Potts completed the work on 16 November 1612, and submitted it to the judges for review. Bromley revised and corrected the manuscript before its publication in 1613, declaring it to be "truly reported" and "fit and worthie to be published".^[1]

Historian Stephen Pumfrey has suggested that Bromley and Altham worked closely with Potts in the writing of The Wonderfull Discoverie "to manipulate the extraordinary records into an account that would protect and advance their careers".^[2] Potts' book has been called the "clearest example of an account [of a witch trial] obviously published to display the shining efficiency and justice of the legal system".^[3] Although written as an apparently verbatim account, Potts was not reporting what had actually been said during the trials; he was reflecting what had happened.^[4]