Speaker 1: Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio. Welcome to the first episode
Speaker 1: of a new season of Criminalia. This season, we're going
Speaker 1: to be talking about sorcery over the centuries and what
Speaker 1: became of many of those who practiced. I'm Maria Tremarqui
Speaker 1: and I'm Holly fry So. This season is going to
Speaker 1: be all about the lives and fates of those accused
Speaker 1: of witchcraft and alchemy, and just as in previous seasons,
Speaker 1: we're continuing to try to delve in and look at
Speaker 1: what really did happen and if maybe any of these
Speaker 1: historical alleged evildoers in their activities might look a little
Speaker 1: different through our modern perspective. In this episode, we're talking
Speaker 1: about st Osith witches as their common referred who were
Speaker 1: convicted of witchcraft in eighty two in England, and among
Speaker 1: those so called witches was a men named Ursula Kemp.
Speaker 1: Before we get into Ursula's life, let's talk about the
Speaker 1: beliefs about witchcraft during the time of the st Osith,
Speaker 1: which is, and what happened in the years leading up
Speaker 1: to these alleged crimes back to the medieval era, Christian
Speaker 1: doctrine denied that witchcraft and which is even existed and
Speaker 1: considered the practice kind of just pagan superstition. It was
Speaker 1: in the eleventh century when the idea of witchcraft became
Speaker 1: a problem that needed to be wiped out. It was
Speaker 1: a time when in the Western world, priests, the growing
Speaker 1: Christianity movement, and citizens in general began to associate witchcraft
Speaker 1: with things such as heresy and packs with the devil
Speaker 1: to gain supernatural powers. It was also a time when
Speaker 1: penalties for people found guilty for such activities were introduced.
Speaker 1: So we're going to make another jump forward in time.
Speaker 1: During the thirteenth century, Pope Gregory authorized that witches and
Speaker 1: heretics could be executed. It was after fourteen the eighth though,
Speaker 1: when Pope Innocent the Eighth quote gave the sanction of
Speaker 1: the Church to the popular beliefs concerning witches. Basically, what
Speaker 1: that means is that he formally declared the church to
Speaker 1: confirm the existence of witchcraft, and in his declaration he
Speaker 1: also pronounced that those guilty of practicing witchcraft should be
Speaker 1: quote corrected, imprisoned, punished, and chastised. And that is when
Speaker 1: a frenzy of witch hunting began in Ursula's lifetime. The
Speaker 1: passage of the Witchcraft Act of three, which was also
Speaker 1: known as an Act against Conjurations, enchantments and witchcrafts under
Speaker 1: Queen Elizabeth the First is the first time indictments for
Speaker 1: homicide caused by witchcraft began to appear in the historical record.
Speaker 1: We can't overlook the influence of the Malleus Maleficarum, which
Speaker 1: translates into English as the Hammer of Witches. It is
Speaker 1: likely that we are going to reference this book throughout
Speaker 1: the season. It was written by Johann Springer, dean of
Speaker 1: the University of Cologne in Germany, and Imrich Kramer, professor
Speaker 1: of theology at the University of Salzburg, Austria, and it
Speaker 1: was referred to as a reference document for roughly three centuries.
Speaker 1: Pope Innocent the Eighth issued what was then known as
Speaker 1: the Witch Bowl. It was printed under the title the
Speaker 1: Preface to the Malius Maleficarum in fourteen six, and it
Speaker 1: was regarded as the go to handbook for recognizing, detaining
Speaker 1: and interrogating witches. It was a legal and theological document
Speaker 1: that continued to be used far into the eighteenth century.
Speaker 1: This was kind of the ultimate witch hunting manual, and
Speaker 1: it gave permission for anyone to do anything to stop them.
Speaker 1: And in it there is a lot written about women
Speaker 1: in general, but specifically those who were midwives and the
Speaker 1: kinds of activities a midwife may practice. This will be
Speaker 1: later on. I'm not just talking about it because midwives,
Speaker 1: claimed at the book had the opportunity and carried out
Speaker 1: terrible crimes, and especially common accusation was infanticide. It tells
Speaker 1: of stories of the murder of newborns as well as
Speaker 1: the unborn. It included examples of women's stealing and torturing
Speaker 1: unbaptized children to use in spells. Children who were killed
Speaker 1: in such manners were believed to be offered to the devil.
Speaker 1: For centuries, according to the historical record, it was midwives
Speaker 1: who were most often prosecuted for witchcraft. Often in the
Speaker 1: historical record, midwives were written of as quote unwomanly and
Speaker 1: of course not assuming all sixteenth century midwives are alike.
Speaker 1: Many were considered suspicious for such things as being unmarried
Speaker 1: or for their sexual behavior. Like we were talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: that is going to be an ongoing theme this season.
Speaker 1: The way is that witchcraft and midwiffery did indeed overlap.
Speaker 1: Now we have her time and place and situations, so
Speaker 1: finally let's start talking about Ursula account personally. Was born
Speaker 1: in or around five in st Osip, which is a
Speaker 1: small village in England. But here's why we brought up
Speaker 1: midwiffery earlier. Ursula was a midwife and possibly also an
Speaker 1: herbalist and an apothecary. In addition to assisting birth, she
Speaker 1: was frequently called upon by those in town to heal
Speaker 1: people who had become ill. But certain events and accusations
Speaker 1: among fellow villagers caused many to begin to suspect that
Speaker 1: Ursula may be able to heal a person, but may
Speaker 1: also be able to injure them. We are going to
Speaker 1: take a break here for a word from our sponsor,
Speaker 1: and when we're back we will talk about the accusations
Speaker 1: against Ursula. Welcome back to Criminalia. So was she a
Speaker 1: witch or just a victim of hysteria? Let's take a
Speaker 1: look at Ursula's trial. Ursula's story really does tell itself
Speaker 1: best through that trial. The charges brought against her had
Speaker 1: quite arranged, including everything from preventing beer from brewing to
Speaker 1: causing death through the use of sorcery. I found guilty.
Speaker 1: She was going to be punished by execution. After she
Speaker 1: was accused, arrested and charged, Ursula was put in what
Speaker 1: the villagers called the cage. The cage was actually a
Speaker 1: two bedroom cottage which today real estate agencies have described
Speaker 1: as quote the most haunted house in Essex and possibly
Speaker 1: England in two When Ursula was there, it was a
Speaker 1: medieval prison, and Ursula and a dozen other women were
Speaker 1: jailed there while awaiting trial. This is when the group
Speaker 1: became known as the st Osith Witches. A related bit
Speaker 1: of digression, but we found some interesting modern information about
Speaker 1: the cage during our discovery phase. Modern owners have described
Speaker 1: this building as being alive and of having quote relentless
Speaker 1: paranormal activity. According to the UK real estate site right
Speaker 1: Move though rest easy quote, the house has now been
Speaker 1: cleared of the many evil residents encountered over the years.
Speaker 1: A vision of a satanic looking goat, growling, moving shadows,
Speaker 1: violent rattles, drops in temperature, and visions of ghostly figures,
Speaker 1: quite often trying to push the living down the steep staircase. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's get out of the cage and back to
Speaker 1: the witch trial. The Seat witch trial was overseen by
Speaker 1: the magistrate Brian Darcy. Let's start with one of Ursula's
Speaker 1: foremost accusers in this trial, a woman named Grace Thurlow,
Speaker 1: who was also from St. Bosa. Grace testified that when
Speaker 1: her son Davey fell ill, she called on Ursula for help.
Speaker 1: Davy recovered, and Grace believed that it was because of Ursula,
Speaker 1: who she also believed had cured him through her incantations.
Speaker 1: But just a few months later, the two women had
Speaker 1: an argument over how to care for Grace's infant daughter, Joan.
Speaker 1: Some stories report that the two fought when Grace refused
Speaker 1: to allow Ursula to be the infant's nurse. Soon thereafter,
Speaker 1: Joan fell from her cradle and she tragically died of
Speaker 1: a broken neck. Grace wasn't finished with her testimony, though.
Speaker 1: There's more. Grace developed a problem with her legs and
Speaker 1: had trouble walking. When she asked for Ursula's help, Kemp
Speaker 1: agreed to offer her services but for twelve pence. Grace agreed,
Speaker 1: and she did get better, but when she did, she
Speaker 1: refused to pay Ursula, complaining she couldn't afford the cost. Again,
Speaker 1: the women argued, but this time Ursula threatened she'd get even.
Speaker 1: When Grace began to walk with difficulty a second time,
Speaker 1: she believed it was because of a spell Ursula had
Speaker 1: cast upon her. It was then that Grace, she continued
Speaker 1: in her testimony, filed the complaint with the magistrate, and
Speaker 1: an investigation into Ursula followed. That complaint made Ursula a
Speaker 1: prime target for the village's witch hunter, Brian Darcy, who,
Speaker 1: as we just mentioned, was also the local magistrate. He
Speaker 1: was her justice at her trial, so adding it all up,
Speaker 1: Grace Thurlow testified that since she and Ursula had argued,
Speaker 1: one her son had become ill, two she had become lame,
Speaker 1: and three her infant daughter had died. But there was
Speaker 1: more testimony against Ursula. Another villager, Alice Leatherdale, testified that
Speaker 1: Ursula had asked her for some abrasive cleaner or scouring sand,
Speaker 1: as it would have been known, but Alice refused, continuing
Speaker 1: that she considered Ursula to be quote a naughty beast.
Speaker 1: But her testimony continued beyond that inability to share household cleaners.
Speaker 1: At a later date, she said Alice's daughter Elizabeth fell
Speaker 1: ill and died after Ursula had allegedly quote murmured in
Speaker 1: her direction. Alice blamed Ursula for specifically bewitching her daughter
Speaker 1: to death. Perhaps the most incriminating testimony came from Ursula's
Speaker 1: own eight year old son, Thomas Rabbit. Thomas wasn't expected
Speaker 1: to take the stand, but during the trial, Darcy persuaded
Speaker 1: or I actually prefer the word coerced because it's probably
Speaker 1: more accurate. He persuaded him to testify that his mother
Speaker 1: practiced witchcraft, and Thomas agreed. He testified that she kept
Speaker 1: four familiars in their home. Familiar in Western witchery would
Speaker 1: be a small animal, often said to be an or
Speaker 1: a black cat, or maybe a toad, which would have
Speaker 1: been given to her by the devil or possibly also
Speaker 1: another witch. Thomas described Ursula's familiars as a gray cat
Speaker 1: named Tiffin, a white lamb named Tidy, a black toad
Speaker 1: named Pygiene, and a black cat named Jack. His testimony
Speaker 1: continued that he had seen his mother feed her familiars
Speaker 1: and that they enjoyed beer and cake. Well, who doesn't
Speaker 1: h he had also seen his mother feed them her blood.
Speaker 1: Thomas confirmed that Tidy the lamb had indeed been sent
Speaker 1: to kill the infant Joan Thurlough, and that Jack the
Speaker 1: cat had been sent to kill his aunt. A note
Speaker 1: about this aunt, though she is not mentioned much at
Speaker 1: all in historical writings about Ursula, and we can't even
Speaker 1: be sure if she did or didn't exist. Alma's also
Speaker 1: testified that he had been present when a woman named
Speaker 1: Alice Newman had visited his mother. He said Ursula had
Speaker 1: given Alice a container that he believed was holding familiars,
Speaker 1: although he never did actually see its contents. He continued
Speaker 1: that the next time Alice visited his mother, she told
Speaker 1: Ursula she had used it to kill a neighboring man
Speaker 1: and his wife. Alice Newman was also one of the
Speaker 1: women on trial for witchcraft here, Perhaps ironically, because we
Speaker 1: know they were so often accused of practicing witchcraft, midwives
Speaker 1: were often brought in to discover any evidence that a
Speaker 1: woman was a witch. This was a practice that was
Speaker 1: called searching. Searching could find many clues. A mole or
Speaker 1: a birthmark, for instance, would be considered proof of a
Speaker 1: demonic pact made with the devil. There is no record
Speaker 1: that Ursula's body had any such signs that indicated her guilt,
Speaker 1: but here perhaps is the most interesting part of her trial.
Speaker 1: Witch Hunter and magistrate Darcy claimed Ursula had made a
Speaker 1: full confession to him and in private maybe he promised leniency,
Speaker 1: but maybe not. Maybe there was torture. We don't know.
Speaker 1: There is no record of what happened to Ursula in
Speaker 1: this private meeting. He claimed she told him that about
Speaker 1: ten years prior, she had experienced a quote lameness in
Speaker 1: her bones and had visited a local cunning woman. If
Speaker 1: you were a cunning woman or a cunning man, you
Speaker 1: were considered a folk healer who often practiced not only
Speaker 1: folk medicine, but also folk magic and divination. There, Ursula
Speaker 1: was told she had been bewitched, and she was prescribed
Speaker 1: a ritually using ingredients that included pig manure, charnel grounds
Speaker 1: from the remains of a dead body, sage, and St.
Speaker 1: John's wort to quote unwitched herself. She recovered, and that
Speaker 1: she had explained led her to providing healing services to others.
Speaker 1: Darcy also claimed that Ursula admitted to keeping the four
Speaker 1: familiars her son had testified about. He said that she
Speaker 1: told him that two of them were male and they
Speaker 1: were used to kill people, and two were female, and
Speaker 1: they were used to bring about disease. She allegedly confessed
Speaker 1: that she sent her familiars to cause Grace Thurlow's condition,
Speaker 1: and that she had also used them to kill Joan Thurlow,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Leatherdale, and her maybe not on the record, sister
Speaker 1: in law. In this alleged private conversation with Darcy personally
Speaker 1: named the names of other witches, and they in turn
Speaker 1: named more. In total, fourteen women the st Asath Witches
Speaker 1: were tried for witchcraft. The accused women who stood trial
Speaker 1: were Agnes Glasscock, Alice Hunt, Alice Manfield, Alice Newman, Anice
Speaker 1: Heard and Swallow, Cecily Selah's, Elizabeth Bennett, Elizabeth Eustace, Joan Pesci,
Speaker 1: Joan Turner, Marjorie Salmon, Margaret Greville, and Ursula Kemp. We're
Speaker 1: going to take a break for a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we're going to talk about the
Speaker 1: outcome of this trial. Welcome back to CRIMINALLYA. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: wrap up the trial and then talk about Ursula's future.
Speaker 1: When the trial ended, Ursula was sentenced to death by hanging,
Speaker 1: as was Elizabeth Bennett, who had confessed to having two
Speaker 1: familiars and was found guilty of murdering four people through
Speaker 1: witch craft. Ursula Kemp and Elizabeth Bennett, according to resources
Speaker 1: at the st Asat Museum, were executed, but the fate
Speaker 1: of the other twelve women really is not known. Some
Speaker 1: are reported to have also been hanged. Some, it's suspected,
Speaker 1: may have died in prison before their execution was carried out,
Speaker 1: and others might have seeved a mixture of acquittals, discharges,
Speaker 1: or reprieves. But her execution was actually not the end
Speaker 1: of Ursula's life. She still lives on, or at least
Speaker 1: kind of. Four centuries later, in nine a man named
Speaker 1: Charlie Brooker unearthed the skeleton while digging in his yard,
Speaker 1: a skeleton that his grandson Paul would later describe as
Speaker 1: having quote a very long spine, pure white teeth, and
Speaker 1: nails through the elbows and knees. Broker believed his discovery
Speaker 1: was the skeleton of Ursula Kemp, but at the time
Speaker 1: no scientific testing of the skeleton was conducted, and continued
Speaker 1: Paul quote, there was a skull beneath Ursula's feet, and
Speaker 1: to the right there was another skeleton. That second skeleton
Speaker 1: was considered to be possibly Elizabeth Bennett. First, Charlie put
Speaker 1: the skeleton on display, including added intrigue by adding those
Speaker 1: iron nails to the body. They were he claimed, used
Speaker 1: to shackle ursula. Later, his grandson would share that Charlie
Speaker 1: was known to embellish things. When Charlie's house burned down
Speaker 1: in either ninety two or nineteen thirty three, the grave
Speaker 1: was covered up again, and this time with corrugated iron.
Speaker 1: But in nineteen sixty three the remains were once again exhumed.
Speaker 1: The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Cornwall, England, bought
Speaker 1: the bones and then they were sold to the artist
Speaker 1: and book collector Robert Lincoln, which Robert kept the skeleton
Speaker 1: on display in his library. According to the Evening Harold
Speaker 1: we Quote, the skeleton was lying inside a coffin which
Speaker 1: was lined with blue material. The skeleton was laid out
Speaker 1: in the coffin with nails laid beside it at the
Speaker 1: appropriate points. It was at the far end of the
Speaker 1: library on the first floor, where an index er would work.
Speaker 1: There was nothing special about it. It was just dried
Speaker 1: out old bones. When Robert died in two thou and two,
Speaker 1: the skeleton and was released by the trustees of his
Speaker 1: estate to a man named John Warlen. It's John who
Speaker 1: was a filmmaker who discovered the truth about these remains
Speaker 1: is he unraveled Ursula's story for a documentary. The skeleton
Speaker 1: belonged to a young man, not to an adult woman,
Speaker 1: and the remains were reburied in two thousand and twelve.
Speaker 1: So there's our future of Ursula, who is actually not
Speaker 1: the future of Ursula, Okay, Maria. That means it is
Speaker 1: time for my favorite part always, because of course we're
Speaker 1: once again going to have cocktails and mocktails this season,
Speaker 1: and this time around we are calling our little our
Speaker 1: little corner of the world where that happens, the cauldron.
Speaker 1: Appropriate what I have bubbling in the cauldron, I actually
Speaker 1: almost called it unwitch yourself, because I just thought that
Speaker 1: was funny. But what I'm actually calling it is the cage.
Speaker 1: You're making us a possessed drink. It sounds unpleasant, but
Speaker 1: I find it delicious. It will trap you with deliciousness,
Speaker 1: but it is otherwise harmless. However, I have a confession
Speaker 1: to make up front. One of the spirits in this
Speaker 1: concoction is kind of expensive, so I try not to
Speaker 1: do that and I won't do it often, but in
Speaker 1: this case I wanted to do something that kind of
Speaker 1: linked it thematically with these concepts of both midwiffery, which
Speaker 1: involved some you know, medicinal administration, and witchcraft, which also,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of sometimes invokes the use of herbs,
Speaker 1: and do something that was a little herbaceous. That meant
Speaker 1: that I used chartreuse. If you don't know about chartreuse, boy,
Speaker 1: are you in for a drink. It is a liqueur
Speaker 1: that is said to contain a hundred and thirty different
Speaker 1: herbal components. This is made by Kentusian monks according to
Speaker 1: a recipe that they were given in six five, still
Speaker 1: made the same way today, although they didn't actually start
Speaker 1: making it until the seventeen thirties. It's one of those
Speaker 1: things that there are very few people who know how
Speaker 1: it's made. There's not a ton of it made. That's
Speaker 1: why it's expensive. If you're like me, look out, because
Speaker 1: you're going to really love it and then you're gonna
Speaker 1: have a taste for an expensive liqueur. So this is
Speaker 1: the cage. It is one ounce of vodka. I actually
Speaker 1: used a potato vodka here and that was super smooth
Speaker 1: and perfect one ounce of green chartreuse, because you can
Speaker 1: also get a yellow version that's a little bit sweeter
Speaker 1: and lighter, but go with the green here because it
Speaker 1: has that heavier herbaceous flavor. One ounce of black tea
Speaker 1: brewed however it is you like to do it, and
Speaker 1: then one how to three ounces of vanilla syrup, depending
Speaker 1: on how much sweetness you like, and you're gonna shake
Speaker 1: this all together and pour it into a chilled Again,
Speaker 1: it's always a chilled coupe with me. I'm very predictable. Um,
Speaker 1: it's herbal and it's complex, and one of the beautiful
Speaker 1: things about Chartrue's is that on your palette it kind
Speaker 1: of does a little flavor shift naturally, where it starts
Speaker 1: out with that very herbaceous kick and then different people
Speaker 1: perceive it differently. But for me, it has like a
Speaker 1: little um, spicy, almost smoky, earthy flavor at the finish,
Speaker 1: and so you get that with all these other things,
Speaker 1: because neither the vodka nor the black tea really mess
Speaker 1: with that much. They just kind of rounded out and
Speaker 1: give it some more volume. It's absolutely delicious. It's herbal
Speaker 1: and complex, and that seemed for the start of our
Speaker 1: season on witchcraft and alchemy, like the best way to go.
Speaker 1: So that is the cage. If you want to do
Speaker 1: mocktail version with no alcohol, it's a little tricky to approximate,
Speaker 1: but here's what I would do. I did this myself
Speaker 1: and I enjoyed it. It didn't taste quite the same,
Speaker 1: but it was still yummy. I just subbed it out,
Speaker 1: since it's a basic one to three of one ounce
Speaker 1: of each of the components. I did one ounce of
Speaker 1: black tea, and then I used two different herbal teas
Speaker 1: in lieu of the vodka and the chartreuse, and that
Speaker 1: way you're getting a few more notes. And I think
Speaker 1: you can use any herbal tea you want to try.
Speaker 1: I did one that was a liquorice and one that
Speaker 1: was an orange and put all those together and that
Speaker 1: was pretty interesting. Favors great together. The vanilla set it
Speaker 1: off really nicely, so that's super yummy. You can do
Speaker 1: that again. I chill it so you'll you'll brew your
Speaker 1: teas and then let them cool off and then it
Speaker 1: makes more work, but you get all those different flavors
Speaker 1: coming together and having a party and it's quite lovely.
Speaker 1: So that is the cage, which again hopefully only traps
Speaker 1: you in deliciousness. Did I go looking to see if
Speaker 1: the cage was available for purchase, Yes, of course it's not.
Speaker 1: It was on the market for like eight years, but
Speaker 1: then somebody bought it and it wasn't me. It looked
Speaker 1: to me like it had been on the market for
Speaker 1: quite a while after a woman sold it because she
Speaker 1: claimed that blood seeped through the wall for no reason. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean there's a reason why she wants
Speaker 1: to leave. I understand. I actually think there is a
Speaker 1: reason for that, being a person whose home is currently
Speaker 1: getting some updates because it is nowhere near that old,
Speaker 1: but has some issues just from being a house in
Speaker 1: the world. I think there's probably some mineral or something
Speaker 1: that's trapped in the walls, or even like, um, you know,
Speaker 1: something that grows like a mildewy thing. I think that's
Speaker 1: probably what's a foot. Yeah. I can't be scared by
Speaker 1: the cage. I looked at it and tried to buy it.
Speaker 1: I didn't really try to buy it. I don't have
Speaker 1: that kind of money to throw around, but I thought
Speaker 1: about it. We hope that you have enjoyed this first
Speaker 1: foray into which is an alchemy. There is so much
Speaker 1: more to come, and we will be right back here
Speaker 1: next week with it on Criminalia. Criminalia is a production
Speaker 1: of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, please visit the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
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