WEBVTT - S1 – 8: King and Queen 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:12.920 The sun was warm and bright in the sky as 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:15.760 the wagons slowly rolled down the road to and Over. 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:20.200 It was a community about fifteen miles northwest of Salem Town, 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:23.000 then one of the earliest settlements to get its own 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:27.480 church and autonomy from Salem. But on this particular July morning, 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:33.479 someone in and Over needed Salem's help, not that Salem 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:36.879 didn't need help as well. The official Oyer and Terminer 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:40.280 trials had been rolling along, but it was far from smooth. 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:44.080 After the first session, one of the nine magistrates resigned 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:47.680 his position on the trial. After the second trial, one 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:51.240 that convicted five more witches and scheduled them for execution 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:56.400 on July, the Attorney General himself, Sir Thomas Newton, also 0:00:56.480 --> 0:01:01.440 resigned his post. But despite those setbacks, things weren't slowing down. 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:06.600 So when Joseph Ballard sent a message to Salem asking 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:11.160 for help, they were happy to assist. Joseph's wife, Elizabeth, 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:13.319 had been sick for a while and no one seemed 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:15.520 to be able to help her, and as the weeks 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:19.479 went by, she was looking worse and worse off. Most 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:22.960 of the people around her, her husband included, expected her 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:26.399 to pass away sometime very soon, but they also began 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:29.880 to wonder if there might be darker reasons for her 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:35.759 illness witchcraft. Knowing what the people of Salem had been 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:38.520 dealing with and the sorts of experts that had come 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:41.880 out of the woodwork, Joseph Ballard decided to take a chance. 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:45.320 He sent word to the neighboring town that he suspected 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:48.000 his wife had been bewitched and asked if they might 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:50.600 be able to send someone to help find the person 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:55.280 or people responsible. So the wagon heading to end Over 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:59.880 on that bright July morning held someone special, two people actually, 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:03.920 two young women who had become known and trusted as 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.520 witch finders, and their task was simple, go to and 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:11.040 Over and find the witches who were killing Elizabeth Ballard. 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:16.000 Now I need to pause and make something clear. We 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:19.959 don't know who these two young women were. We have guesses, 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:24.120 but those guesses vary from historian to historian. All of 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:26.720 them pull from the same pool of accusers that sat 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:29.280 at the center of the Salem trials, but the two 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:32.240 names will differ depending on who you read. The best 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.440 hints we have are the records of other witch finding events, 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:38.560 and most of those were carried out by Mercy Lewis 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:41.840 and Elizabeth Hubbard, so that's who we're going to go with. 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:45.080 But I think it also illuminates just how easy it 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:49.840 is to forget now. Their activity in and Over certainly 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.960 wouldn't be the first. Martha Carrier, an abrasive and stubborn 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:56.800 mother of five in her mid thirties, had been arrested 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:59.520 nearly two months before, back at the end of May, 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.840 and she still sat in a Salem jail, and her 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:06.880 family connections had already landed her brother in law, Roger Toothaker, 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:09.720 in jail, where he died at the end of June. 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.920 But this witch finding expedition was something new and different, 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.839 something deadly, because it wasn't going to be a one 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.880 off that would happen and then be forgotten. Now, if 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:26.840 the Salem events were like a giant cistern holding millions 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:30.000 of gallons of water, this little trip to and Over 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:33.800 was a breach. The hole was being punctured in the 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:37.680 side of the cistern and a leakue had sprung, and 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:41.440 and Over was about to be swept away in the flood. 0:03:44.080 --> 0:04:21.960 This is unobscured. I'm Aaron Manky. The Ballards were an 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:25.640 old family. The city of Andover is listed as first 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:30.400 settled in six fifty years before the events in Salem, 0:04:30.400 --> 0:04:33.560 but the Ballards arrived a year before that. They were 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:36.279 part of that first wave of risk takers who packed 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:39.440 up and planted their lives farther inland from the safety 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:43.120 of the Atlantic. As far as I can tell, the 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:48.799 original Ballard family had three sons, John, William, and Joseph. Remember, 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:51.080 in those days, there weren't a lot of people living 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.120 in the area, so apparently the ratio of men to 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:58.839 women was slightly off and over constable. Joseph Ballard managed 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.599 to find a wife, a Elizabeth, the woman who was 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:05.240 sick and dying, but his brothers weren't so lucky. It 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:08.720 wasn't until around six eight that all of that changed. 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:13.560 That's when Samuel Wardwell moved to town. He was roughly 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:16.360 the same age as the Ballard boys, and his household 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:20.560 included not only his wife and children, but his wife's sister, Rebecca. 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:24.400 Soon enough, Rebecca married John Ballard and the family had 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:28.960 grown a little larger. But in the summer of six 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:33.640 Joseph's wife, Elizabeth took sick, and no one knew what 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:37.680 was causing it. Medical science was barely more than folklore 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:41.280 and herbs at the time, especially miles from a trained physician, 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:45.960 so it was common for minds to wander towards unusual suspicions, 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:49.920 and one of those ideas apparently popped into Samuel Wardwell's head. 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:52.840 He claimed to have heard through the grape vine that 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:56.560 Joseph suspected Samuel of bewitching his wife. He was a 0:05:56.560 --> 0:05:59.520 bit embarrassed by the idea, though, so rather than confront 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:04.279 Joseph directly, he approached John Ballard instead. Had Joseph, ever 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:08.080 voiced a suspicion that Samuel was a witch, he asked him. 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:11.520 John Ballard shook his head, answering with an honest denial. 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:16.159 But John told Joseph about the conversation, and that put 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.479 a bug in Joseph's head. Why would Samuel ask such 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:24.360 a question? Why would he believe in such nonsense? Why? 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.960 But then the obvious answer struck him right between the eyes. 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:31.320 Samuel was asking because he was trying to see if 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.799 anyone suspected him of something he knew he was doing. 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:39.520 Thanks to Samuel's own initiation, Joseph now believed the man 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:43.360 was a witch, so he sent one of his employees 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:47.040 to Salem to bring back a witch finder. It's ironic, 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.039 I know. The man with crazy ideas decided to be 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.760 as logical as possible, and that logic included employing the 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:56.240 services of young women who claimed to be able to 0:06:56.320 --> 0:07:00.320 track down witches. It was almost comical in its addy, 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:06.279 but to Joseph Ballard it made perfect sense. Days before 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:09.120 Rebecca Nurse and the other four women convicted in the 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:13.160 second trial would hang. Mercy Lewis and Elizabeth Hubbard arrived 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:16.120 in and Over and got to work. But when they did, 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:20.360 they discovered that Samuel Wardwell wasn't the only suspicious person. 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:24.840 There was also Timothy Swan. Swan moved to the area 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:29.200 from the neighboring town of haverl years before. In five though, 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.960 Swan was accused of attacking and raping his neighbor's daughter, Elizabeth, 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:37.400 the proof, as presented in court, was that Elizabeth was pregnant. 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.640 The court decided to force Swan to pay child support, 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:44.960 but leveled no other punishment against him, which obviously upset 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.960 the community around him thanks to his reputation as a 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:53.160 rapist and abuser. Timothy Swan never married, He never even 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:56.680 made friends. He just lived alone with his brother seething 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.400 with bitterness about the way he had been treated and 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:04.000 feeling welcome everywhere he went, and rightly so, because the 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:07.480 people of andover hated him. So when the girls from 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:11.320 Salem got to work, Timothy Swan and Samuel Wardwell were 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:15.200 both likely suspects. They were both outsiders, and both had 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:19.360 reputations that placed them outside the norms of the Puritan society. 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:23.240 But there was one problem. Swan was definitely ill when 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:26.679 they arrived, and he was pointing the finger at someone else, 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:30.440 someone he believed who had bewitched him with crippling sickness. 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:35.480 And Foster, with a lead to follow up on, the 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:39.679 witch finders got to work digging into the stories and accusations, 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:44.000 but as they did, they encountered a problem. The pit 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:48.200 was much deeper and far more dark than they ever 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:56.800 could have imagined. I realized that I've thrown a lot 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:00.280 of names at you, and it's easy to get confused me. 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:03.600 I'm right there with you. Although I thankfully have hundreds 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:06.320 of pages of research outlines and notes to lean on. 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:08.840 Still I want to take a moment to point out 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:12.320 that the Unobscured website has a resources page that will 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:15.480 continue to grow over the next couple of months. You 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:20.079 can find that over and history unobscured dot com slash resources. 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:23.600 There are a lot of fantastic books listed there that 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:25.600 you can use to look up names and keep all 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:28.840 of the families straight. The Salem witch Trials is a 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:32.680 complex network of families and neighbors, and there's nothing I 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:36.600 can do through audio to completely simplify that mess, but 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.360 I'll do my best. The Fosters were another of those 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:43.640 old and over families. Ann's husband had been one of 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:46.400 the earliest to arrive in the area, right alongside the 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:51.600 Ballard's patriarch, but after he passed away in trouble started 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.480 calling at the Foster family door and for a widow 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:57.199 in her seventies who was too frail to even walk 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:02.040 around town anymore. It was a bit overwhelming. First, there 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:06.120 was the murder. Four years earlier. One of Ann's daughters, Hannah, 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:09.680 was murdered by her husband, Hugh Stone, and on the 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:13.240 scale of bad to worse, this crime was horrid. Ann's 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:15.520 daughter had been pregnant at the time with what would 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:18.600 have been their eighth child, and Hugh didn't commit the 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:22.200 crime in private. Now he killed her in cold blood 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:25.920 right in the middle of town. It was a horrifyingly 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:29.520 tragic moment in and over his young history, and went 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:32.600 on the record books as the first murder in their community. 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:36.280 Ann's son in law hanged for the crime, but from 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:38.680 the gallows he had shouted out that it was all 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:41.520 the fault of the Foster family. His wife had been 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:45.200 contentious and because of that it was her fault that 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:50.000 he had murdered her. Exactly a century before William Murdoch 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.000 became the first person to use flammable gas as a 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:56.000 lighting source, and two d and fifty years before the 0:10:56.000 --> 0:11:00.360 film that established the concept, Hugh Stone was gassing his 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:03.959 victims from the gallows. Some thing's never change. I guess 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.480 The murder wasn't the end for Anne Foster's problems, though. 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:12.560 Her teenage granddaughter Mary Lacey Jr. Ran away from home 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:15.360 for a time, and that seemed to echo Hugh Stone's 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:19.080 claims from his execution day that the family was wild 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:23.480 and unruly through and through. So when Timothy swan known 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:28.200 rapist and unwelcome outsider, pointed his finger at her and 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:31.440 claimed she was a witch, those rumors had enough weight 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:36.280 to make him believable, and Foster was carried before the 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:40.440 magistrates in Salem. Literally, she wasn't strong enough to walk, 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:43.680 so they carted her to town and carried her inside 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:47.000 the meeting house. It was only an examination, not an 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:50.040 official trial, but there was very little to separate them 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:52.480 in the minds of the community as of late. It 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:54.640 was the beginning of a journey that could not end 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:57.120 well for the seventy five year old and over widow. 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.000 The Ray of Hope. Was the newcomer to the team 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:05.120 of magistrates, taking the place of Nathaniel Saltonstall, was John 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:08.880 Higginson Jr. The respected son of the Salem Town minister. 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:12.680 In fact, John's father, John Sr. Had been one of 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:16.560 the biggest advocates for the more liberal Halfway Covenants years before, 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:20.520 and almost gave up his job for it. Reverend Higginson 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:23.199 in Salem Town nearly left. He was willing to leave 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:25.480 Salem if they didn't loosen up those rules and adopt 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:28.360 the Halfway Covenant by the way, as had people like 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:31.760 Bartholemew Gedney and John Haythorn were two of the first 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:35.920 members to command under Higginson's loosened rules in Salem Town. 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:39.440 He had the potential to be the voice of common 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:43.240 sense over piety. Added to that, just the month before, 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:46.959 John's own sister had been arrested on suspicion of witchcraft 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.440 and was sitting inside a filthy jail awaiting a trial 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.320 of her own. He had more than enough reason to 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:58.760 approach this new examination with caution and logic, and Foster 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:03.160 ruined of that though when she did the unthinkable she 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:06.600 confessed to being a witch. She told the magistrates that 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:08.400 the devil had appeared to her in the shape of 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.600 a colorful bird, something that echoed the imagery used by 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:15.720 the Paris slave Tichiba. The devil had offered her prosperity 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:19.200 and instructed her to harm people as part of the deal. 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:22.720 One of the witches who came with the devil to 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:26.040 recruit her was none other than Martha Carrier. As I've 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:29.079 mentioned before, she was the first andover resident to be 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:32.440 accused and thrown in jail, but for six long years 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:35.960 Martha Carrier had been training her, teaching her to make 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:38.640 poppets and how to squeeze them and stick them with 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:42.880 pins to inflict pain on others. Over the course of 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:46.920 three days of examination, and Foster unloaded a treasure trove 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:50.640 of confessions. They held witch meetings with hundreds of their 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:54.680 kind and flew from all over on wooden sticks. Martha 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:58.400 Carrier was there, as was the minister George Burrows, leading 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:01.880 the evil Congregation, which earned them the nicknames the King 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:06.880 and Queen of Hell. Here's Stacy Schiff, historian and author 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:10.240 of the Witches. That's an expression of Cotton Mathers. I 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:11.880 think he kind of makes that up. To be honest 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:13.400 with you, I don't think there's a King and Queen 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:15.800 of Hell. I don't know. I think that was just, 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:18.319 you know, Mother trying to make the whole thing a 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:21.520 little bit more dramatic. He really goes to great lengths 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:25.000 to paint Martha Carrier in the most wretched terms and 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:28.360 con mother would have been at the trials, and he 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:33.160 bases his portraits there loosely on the testimony. If you 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:35.280 look at it, you see he's taken some liberties with 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:38.040 the testimony. He's left out a great number of things. 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:40.600 He's left out things that were to people's credit. He's 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:44.000 injected things that weren't actually in the testimony, and my 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:46.880 senses that would for whatever reason, Martha Carrier rubbed him 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:48.960 the wrong way. And that's why she gets promoted to 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:53.160 Queen of Hell. I also want to point out something intriguing, 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:57.560 and Foster, through her stories, actually painted herself in the 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:00.880 stereotypical image of a witch that most modern people have 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:05.120 in their heads today, an old, decrepit woman riding through 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:09.320 the night sky on a wooden broom handle. In the 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.560 midst of all of this, Mercy Lewis and Elizabeth Hubbard 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:16.200 reached the conclusion of their own witch finding investigation back 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:20.120 in and Over. Despite the clear suspects that Samuel Wardwell 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:23.880 and Timothy Swan presented, the two women seemed to follow 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:27.320 the excitement out of and Over and back home. In 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:31.360 their minds, the witch is responsible for Elizabeth Ballard's illness 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:37.320 were obvious, and Foster her daughter Mary Lacey Sr. And 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:47.200 her granddaughter Mary Jr. With actual names from official witch finders. 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:50.560 Joseph Ballard had a case and a chance to save 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:54.560 his dying wife. He traveled to Salem on July and 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:57.840 filed his complaint the same day. By the way that 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:00.440 Rebecca Nurse and the others were carded out to the 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:05.360 execution site and hanged. It's interesting to note that Joseph 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:08.880 Ballard's legal complaint represents the first time in the entire 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:12.360 months long event that anyone actually paid the bond that 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:16.040 was supposed to accompany such serious charges. Maybe it was 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:19.120 because he was from out of town, or perhaps having 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:22.360 John Higginson on the court brought a refreshed view of 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.840 proper procedures. All we know is that he paid the 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:31.680 one pound fee. On July and and over, Constable, although 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:36.360 not Joseph Ballard, arrested Mary Lacey Senior and Mary Lacey Jr. 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:39.760 And brought them to Salem. Another person searched their home 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:42.560 for proof of witchcraft, but all they managed to find 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:45.560 was a bundle of sticks and some yarn, nothing that 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:51.360 would scream diabolical plots and devil worship. Much like a 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:55.080 number of the previous cases, Mary Lacey Senior was questioned 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:58.720 thoroughly before she ever stepped foot into her formal examination 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:02.840 later that day. Records of the conversation no longer exist, 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:06.000 if they were ever written down at all, but we 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:09.320 do know that she confessed and the details she revealed 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:14.120 were swallowed whole by the magistrates. I want to point 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:16.600 out that we also have a new type of person here. 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:20.280 In the beginning, we just had the afflicted Those were 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:22.680 the people who appeared to be victims of attacks by 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:25.800 the witch, and the afflicted had driven much of the 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:30.080 proceedings for months. Then there's the accused. I think that 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:33.080 one makes more sense, right. These are the people who 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:36.080 the afflicted pointed at and declared to be a witch. 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:39.800 The accused had been rounded up through scores of warrants, 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:42.639 examined in front of the magistrates prior to a trial, 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:45.360 and then housed in one of a handful of jails 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:48.160 around the area until their day in court would arrive. 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:53.159 But the confessors, these were new. Sure, there were a 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:57.359 few random cases earlier, accused women who spoke freely about 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:00.240 their interactions with the Devil and his book and the 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:04.119 Red Communion and witches gatherings, but it always came in 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:07.720 small pieces, requiring the magistrates to put it all together 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:13.560 over time. The confessions, though, we're different. Looking back, it's 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:16.160 easy to wonder why anyone would do something like that. 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:21.040 Here's Mary Beth Norton, professor of American History at Cornell University, 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:25.840 an author of In the Devil Snare. The question of 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:30.679 why people confessed has always been something that people have 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:35.840 been wondering about. But when it became clear as it 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:40.040 became clear later in the trials that if you confessed, 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:43.000 you would be kept alive so you could testify against 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:46.200 other people. Is when more and more people started to confess. 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:50.600 And one of the things I noticed was that when 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:58.080 adults confessed late in the sequence of the trials, they 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:03.960 accused only people who were already dead, who had already 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:07.360 been hanged, or they accused people who had been accused 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:11.520 by other people. They did not name new people. It 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:14.280 seemed clear to me that it was very strategic when 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:17.560 they confessed. They did not want to hurt anyone who 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.959 wasn't already hanged or already had been accused of others. 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.320 These were people who stood before the authorities and when 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:29.160 they were asked if they were a witch, they answered yes, 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:34.320 and then they detailed every single moment of their diabolical lifestyle. 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:38.760 Step by step, they exposed themselves as the enemy, and 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:43.200 oftentimes pulled their own family into the fire with them. 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:46.800 Mary Lazy Sr. Was one of those people. She freely 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:51.440 confessed on julye giving the magistrates powerful tools to use 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:54.320 on her mother and her daughter. When they brought Anne 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:57.040 Foster back into the examination room and told her that 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:00.880 her daughter had confessed and didn't freak out and deny it. 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:03.920 She seems to have accepted it as fact and then 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:07.440 added her own details to the story. Then they brought 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:10.520 Mary Lacey Sr. Back in to see Anne, right in 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:15.399 front of the magistrates. When Mary saw her, she cried out, Oh, Mother, 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:19.000 we have left Christ and the devil hath got hold 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:22.400 of us. How shall I get rid of this evil one? 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:26.480 When their moment was over, both of the women were 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:29.840 escorted back out of the room, and young Mary Lacey Jr. 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:34.040 Was brought in alone. At first, she denied everything, even 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:36.960 when one of the afflicted girls started convulsing and fits 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:39.520 on the floor, But when the judges told her that 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:44.320 her mother and grandmother had already confessed, she crumbled. She 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:46.520 told them that she had seen a horse just a 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:49.360 week before and now wondered if that horse had been 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:52.520 the devil in disguise. The magistrates told her that her 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:56.840 only chance to obtain mercy and be saved by Christ 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:01.159 was to freely and openly confess, and with that ultimatum 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:04.920 hanging over her head, she gave in, adding even more 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:07.800 details to the stories told by her mother and grandmother. 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:12.800 All three of the women did something unusual too. You 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:15.359 would expect them to name the less savory people in 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:19.400 their community as witches, but instead they pointed their fingers 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:24.480 at family. Here's Mary Beth Norton. Once again, it's very interesting. 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:27.359 It's a completely different pattern in and over. Then you 0:21:27.359 --> 0:21:31.040 get in Salem Village. Salem Village, people accuse their enemies, 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:34.879 and and over people accuse their friends and their relatives. 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:38.600 There's this one family where five sisters and the mother 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:42.200 all confess and basically accuse each other and say they're 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:47.880 all working together. So it's a very different pattern. It 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:51.600 was easy to believe them though. When questioned individually, they 0:21:51.680 --> 0:21:54.760 each told stories about the same event, and many of 0:21:54.760 --> 0:21:57.560 the details seemed to line up. It was as if 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:01.159 the things they described were real. I asked Stacy Scheff, 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:03.919 author of The Witches, why is she thought that was 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:06.320 the case. The answer to your question really is when 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:08.520 you when you get toward and over the sale and 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:11.959 witchcraft of ultimately will will migrate to and over, and 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:14.480 by that time all the imagery has really changed. It's 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:17.919 less about the enchanted hey and the Satanna cat, and 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:20.800 it's more about this diabolical meeting to which people have 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:24.080 flown from all over New England, and there most of 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:26.879 the testimony is utterly on point. It's extremely as as 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:29.840 if everyone compared no swall in prison. Everyone has. Everyone 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:32.600 talks about precisely the same sound to call the people 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:34.960 to the field. They talk about the same person presiding 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:38.360 over this dark sabbath. They mentioned the same guest list 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:41.919 of who was there. Every detail corroborates each detail, and 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:44.840 that's obviously because they're being told either by their friends 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.840 in prison, or their family who think they're guilty, or 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:51.680 the ministers in charge what to say. Looking back, it's 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:55.560 easy to see countless examples of the authorities leading the witness. 0:22:56.080 --> 0:22:59.240 They suggest answers with their questions and give the accused 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:03.520 just enough detail to reply with answers that fit their expectations. 0:23:04.280 --> 0:23:07.840 Maybe these men were just really bad at interviewing the accused, 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:10.920 or perhaps they allow their bias to steer the ship. 0:23:11.640 --> 0:23:14.840 We might never know. But something else came out of 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:18.600 the examination of Anne Foster and her family New names 0:23:18.640 --> 0:23:23.080 from andover. Mary Lacey Sr. Mentioned two of Martha Carrier's 0:23:23.080 --> 0:23:26.120 own children as one of their own, sending the court 0:23:26.200 --> 0:23:29.919 into a frenzy. The following day, eighteen year old Richard 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:33.640 and sixteen year old Andrew were arrested and brought to town. 0:23:34.920 --> 0:23:39.240 What awaited them, however, was not the usual examination we 0:23:39.280 --> 0:23:42.680 have come to expect. Their fate would be much more 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:53.560 painful than anyone thus far torture. The Carrier boys were 0:23:53.560 --> 0:23:56.800 brought to a tavern in Salem Town owned by Thomas Beadle. 0:23:57.280 --> 0:23:59.640 The end Over constable who delivered the warrant and brought 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:02.840 them there was none other than Joseph Ballard. There were 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:07.280 magistrates waiting for the boys when they arrived. The authorities 0:24:07.280 --> 0:24:10.560 asked Richard and Andrew a whole slew of questions, but 0:24:10.600 --> 0:24:14.080 they refused to answer. Maybe it was because they weren't 0:24:14.119 --> 0:24:17.119 alone in the tavern. Seated around them were some of 0:24:17.119 --> 0:24:20.879 the afflicted girls, along with Mary Lacey Senior and junior. 0:24:21.520 --> 0:24:24.520 Those two women would eventually cry out that the spirit 0:24:24.560 --> 0:24:28.280 of Martha Carrier and the devil himself were standing among them, 0:24:28.280 --> 0:24:31.600 preventing the boys from answering. It can't have been a 0:24:31.680 --> 0:24:37.080 pleasant experience, so they refused to talk. In response, the 0:24:37.119 --> 0:24:39.719 magistrates had the boys removed from the main room and 0:24:39.840 --> 0:24:42.919 taken elsewhere in the tavern, where the questions picked up 0:24:42.920 --> 0:24:48.080 speed and urgency. Still they remained silent, and that's when 0:24:48.080 --> 0:24:52.119 the authorities moved on to a new method of extracting information. 0:24:53.640 --> 0:24:56.560 The English called it neck and heels, and it was 0:24:56.600 --> 0:24:59.920 an old military punishment. A person would have one bore 0:25:00.119 --> 0:25:03.400 strapped across the backs of their knees and another across 0:25:03.440 --> 0:25:06.800 the back of the neck. Then rope was looped around 0:25:06.800 --> 0:25:11.320 both boards, one on each side, and slowly tightened. The 0:25:11.400 --> 0:25:14.080 result was that as the boards were pulled closer and 0:25:14.119 --> 0:25:18.480 closer together, the person would be bent forward, essentially folding 0:25:18.520 --> 0:25:22.959 in half. It was cruel and painful too. There are 0:25:23.000 --> 0:25:26.440 stories of victims bleeding from their mouth, ears, and nose 0:25:26.720 --> 0:25:30.440 as the pressure inside their body built up. Some people 0:25:30.600 --> 0:25:34.119