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Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full

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Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,

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Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

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Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities. For any parents, the happiness and well being

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Speaker 1: of their child is the most important thing in the world.

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Speaker 1: Making sure they grow up to be kind and respectable

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Speaker 1: members of society is one of the key goals of

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Speaker 1: being a good mom or dad, and sometimes that means

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Speaker 1: being the bad guy. When a child wants to test

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Speaker 1: the limits of their independence, maybe they want to stay

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Speaker 1: out past their curfew or try and illicit substance for

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Speaker 1: the first time. Sure, it's important to let kids fail

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Speaker 1: and learn, but there are certain occasions where allowing the

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Speaker 1: child too much freedom can be dangerous, even deadly. Take

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Speaker 1: d D for example. Born Deirdre in nineteen fifty three.

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Speaker 1: D D was no stranger. It's a luxury. Her parents

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Speaker 1: were celebrities who were often out of the house, so

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Speaker 1: she and her brother would hang around their Malibu mansion

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Speaker 1: looking for ways to keep themselves busy. For d D.

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Speaker 1: That meant drugs, quickly escalating to heroin and other harder substances,

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Speaker 1: often pushed by her group of questionable friends. By the

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, teenage d D had firmly entrenched herself within

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Speaker 1: the growing counterculture on the West Coast, hanging out with

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Speaker 1: free loving, anti establishment hippies and using her family's money

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Speaker 1: and fame to help them. D D was enthralled with

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Speaker 1: her new group of friends, especially their leader, Charlie. She

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Speaker 1: would introduce other people that she knew to him at

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Speaker 1: his request, so that he could gain access to the

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Speaker 1: inner circles of their famous parents and maybe get a

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Speaker 1: record deal for Charlie. D D was a means to

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Speaker 1: an end, and in order to get her to help him,

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Speaker 1: he supplied her with drugs and a sense of family.

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Speaker 1: He was a handsome manipulator who would find young women

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Speaker 1: estranged from their parents and offered them a sense of family.

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Speaker 1: He'd then isolate them and make them dependent on him

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Speaker 1: for everything. In other words, he was their cult leader.

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Speaker 1: But Deed hadn't just found herself embedded within a group

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Speaker 1: of countercultural misfits. She had inadvertently joined up with a

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Speaker 1: man who would eventually get the fame that he craved,

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Speaker 1: but not for his musical talents. He'd eventually be held

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Speaker 1: responsible for instigating one of the most heinous crimes ever

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Speaker 1: committed in American history. His name Charles Manson. Indeed, he

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Speaker 1: was firmly within his clutches thanks to the drugs that

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Speaker 1: he was providing. In exchange, she would buy him food

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Speaker 1: and clothes using her mother's credit cards. When Deed's mother

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Speaker 1: saw the state that she was in and the group

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Speaker 1: of friends that she was hanging out with, she stepped

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Speaker 1: in immediately. Deed's mother was an actress, one who had

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Speaker 1: started in numerous films and plays starting in the nineteen forties.

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Speaker 1: She was wildly successful and beloved on both the stage

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Speaker 1: and the screen, but none of that meant half as

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Speaker 1: much as the safety of her daughter. So in order

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Speaker 1: to get her clean, Deed's mother moved the whole family

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Speaker 1: out of California and across the ocean to Ireland. They

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Speaker 1: settled in County Cork, about three hundred miles south of

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Speaker 1: where Dedi's grandmother had been born. It was a fresh

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Speaker 1: start for everyone, with Deed's mother putting her own career

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Speaker 1: on hold for over a year as she fought the

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Speaker 1: addictions of both of her children. They eventually got clean

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Speaker 1: thanks to the simple life that they led, far from

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Speaker 1: the glitz and glamor of Hollywood. Deed's mother even learned

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Speaker 1: how to garden and cook while she was there. After

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Speaker 1: the children got sober and things calmed down, they all

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Speaker 1: returned to California so that Deeed's mother could resume her career.

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Speaker 1: And what a career it was. From the late sixties

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Speaker 1: all the way until the early Deed's mother played everything

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Speaker 1: from a murderous pie cook to a crime solving mystery

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Speaker 1: writer to a singing teapot. She was a versatile comedic

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Speaker 1: and dramatic actress and beloved by fans all over the world.

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Speaker 1: But her greatest role was that of mother to her children,

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Speaker 1: especially when they needed her the most. Because of Angela

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Speaker 1: Lansbury's commitment to her family, her daughter, Deared Rashaw, was

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Speaker 1: able to escape the clutches of a murderous cult leader

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Speaker 1: named Charles Manson. Not exactly a tale as old as time,

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Speaker 1: but a heck of a story, nonetheless. Queen Elizabeth, the

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Speaker 1: first reign during the sixteenth century brought turmoil to the

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Speaker 1: United Kingdom's Catholic community. The fear was that the Pope

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Speaker 1: would try to usurp power from the crown, which wasn't

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Speaker 1: entirely unfounded. Pope Pious the Fifth did exactly that when

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Speaker 1: he excommunicated the Queen in fifteen seventy and publicly denounced her.

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Speaker 1: According to Pious, Queen Elizabeth was no longer in charge

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Speaker 1: of any one. But that wasn't really the case, and

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Speaker 1: the Queen intended on proving it, so she began in

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Speaker 1: prisoning and executing Catholics, as well as Jesuits who supported them. However,

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Speaker 1: one of the men she had arrested and incarcerated for

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Speaker 1: the crime of being Catholic refused to bend to her will.

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Speaker 1: He wouldn't give up his faith, and he demonstrated his

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Speaker 1: loyalty to the Catholic Church in a very unique way.

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Speaker 1: His name was Sir Thomas Tresham and he was born

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Speaker 1: in fifteen forty three to a rich Catholic family. His

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Speaker 1: father died when Thomas was only three years old, so

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Speaker 1: he was raised by another Catholic family, the Throckmorton's. He

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Speaker 1: grew up to become an academic and an upstanding citizen,

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Speaker 1: with high ranking connections. He studied at the finest schools

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Speaker 1: and exchanged letters with the Queen's Secretary of State, William Cecil.

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Speaker 1: In fifteen seventy three he served as High Sheriff of Northamptonshire,

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Speaker 1: putting him in charge of law enforcement for the county.

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Speaker 1: Two years later he was knighted by the Queen. Tresham

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Speaker 1: was also something of a bibliophile. He spent most of

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Speaker 1: his life adding books to his ever expanding collection, and

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Speaker 1: he read voraciously. But his keen political mind and his

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Speaker 1: divisive opinions on states rights also made him a target.

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Speaker 1: He was often fined and even put in jail for

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Speaker 1: his beliefs, as well as his connections to the Jesuits.

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Speaker 1: The Queen was worried about a Catholic uprising, possibly involving

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Speaker 1: her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, and so she considered

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Speaker 1: Sir Thomas a threat. Over the course of almost twenty

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Speaker 1: five years, Tresham was forced to pay roughly eight thousand

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Speaker 1: pounds in fines that amounts to nearly two million pounds today,

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Speaker 1: and it was during this time that Sir Thomas got

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Speaker 1: the idea to stick it to the Crown in a

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Speaker 1: not so subtle way, he began work on a construction

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Speaker 1: project after spending fifteen years locked up in part for

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Speaker 1: refusing to give up Catholicism for Protestantism. The structure was

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Speaker 1: erected along the edge of his Rushton Estates, about ninety

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Speaker 1: miles north of London, as a testament to his unwavering faith.

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Speaker 1: It was triangular in shape, with three thirty three foot

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Speaker 1: long walls. Three sets of three windows adorned each wall,

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Speaker 1: many triangular shaped while others were circular and carved around

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Speaker 1: a cruciform. Each side also had three gables, each with

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Speaker 1: their own gargoyle perched beneath that looked down on visitors

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Speaker 1: from above. On top of each gable, Tresham placed an obelisk,

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Speaker 1: giving the roof a crown like shape, not unlike the

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Speaker 1: crown of thorns worn by Jesus at his crucifixion, and

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Speaker 1: just below the roof, around the perimeter of the building

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Speaker 1: were three separate Latin texts, each one no longer than

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Speaker 1: thirty three letters. And finally, inside the lodge, Tresham constructed

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Speaker 1: a basement and two additional floors on top of it,

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Speaker 1: making it a three story building. Triangles Christian iconography and

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Speaker 1: other religious nods were sculpted and placed all over the lodge,

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Speaker 1: turning the building into one giant puzzle for theologians and

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Speaker 1: scholars to solve later. It sounds like something out of

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Speaker 1: a National Treasure sequel or a Dan Brown novel. However,

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Speaker 1: one thing stands out above all else, the number three.

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Speaker 1: Three walls at thirty three ft long, three gables and

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Speaker 1: three sets of three windows on each side, three internal floors,

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Speaker 1: and bigger numbers that all had the number three at

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Speaker 1: their roots. But why the Holy Trinity? Of course, the Father,

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Speaker 1: the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The number thirty five

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Speaker 1: oh nine and thirty eight ninety eight were engraved into

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Speaker 1: the gables on the roof and were said to correspond

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Speaker 1: to the years of creation and when Abraham was called

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Speaker 1: by God to leave his home and travel to Canaan.

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Speaker 1: Other years, such as fifteen eighty, denoted when Tresham officially

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Speaker 1: converted to Catholicism, and he included future dates as well,

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Speaker 1: such as sixteen twenty six and sixteen forty one, but

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Speaker 1: not because he expected to live that long, nor did

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Speaker 1: he have any grand plans. Following his eventual death in

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Speaker 1: sixteen o five. He was believed that the numbers were

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Speaker 1: significant for two reasons. First, they were each divisible why three. Second,

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Speaker 1: when they had the number fifteen ninety three subtracted from

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Speaker 1: them the year that Tresham was least from prison, they

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Speaker 1: totaled thirty three and forty eight, respectively, numbers that were

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Speaker 1: said to connect to the deaths of Jesus and his

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Speaker 1: mother Mary. Tresham stayed devouts his entire life, despite the

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Speaker 1: constant threats from Queen Elizabeth hanging over his head, and

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Speaker 1: he saw no better way to rub his faith in

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Speaker 1: her face than to build a monument to his pettiness.

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Speaker 1: And I have to say he sure did make his point.

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Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn

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Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.

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Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership

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Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show

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Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,

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Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the

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Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.

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Speaker 1: One