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Witches of Essex (2025) Season 1 Episode 2
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00:00I've always been interested in history and I am fascinated by the supernatural.
00:05But I had no idea that Essex is steeped in horrific stories of persecution and death.
00:12All down to the pursuit of witches.
00:15Let me go! There's nothing wrong!
00:17I've teamed up with anthropologist Professor Alice Roberts to investigate what happened and why.
00:24She would have been terrified.
00:25Of course she would have.
00:26During the 16th and 17th centuries, hundreds of women were tried and executed for witchcraft.
00:33Essex became known as the Witch County, home to some of the most infamous witch trials in England.
00:39We want to know how did these witch trials come about?
00:42Who or what was the driving force behind them?
00:44And how Essex's dark past is still linked to the present.
00:48The evidence is all here.
00:49In this episode, state-sponsored violence sweeps through Elizabethan England.
00:54What a pestilent people witches are!
00:57In a small town in Essex, a feud between two peasant women grows to engulf an entire village.
01:04In our incident room, we'll put the pieces of the puzzle together.
01:07It's getting out of control. People are going to die.
01:11And reveal the shocking truth behind this dark time in Essex history.
01:16You murdered my baby!
01:19Our cold case is now open.
01:29In 1581, this small village in Essex became the focus for one of the largest witch hunts ever seen in British history.
01:37St. Osef is located in the east of Essex, just five miles from Clacton-on-Sea.
01:43We've come to the scene of the crime, but this cold case begins with a more recent and rather unusual discovery.
01:50This is St. Osef.
01:52It's very pretty.
01:53It's gorgeous.
01:54And just up the road, about ten minutes away, you've got Clacton and Jaywick and Seawick.
01:59Yeah.
02:00And as a kid, I remember sometimes we would go up there, growing up in London, go down the seaside, stay in a caravan.
02:06Yeah.
02:07And it was really exciting as a kid, but I've never really spent time here, and I'm not too sure why you want to come here today.
02:13Actually, this is a really historic area.
02:16It's named after this Anglo-Saxon Mercian princess and abbess.
02:20There's a lovely priory just over there.
02:22That priory's funny.
02:24I dug out a story from the 1920s, and this is about somebody digging in their back garden, one of those houses just over there.
02:32OK.
02:33This man called Mr. Brooker found a skeleton, and Mr. Brooker basically had this in his garden as a tourist attraction.
02:42That's a little bit odd, isn't it?
02:43Well, look, I've actually got the newspaper cuttings from...
02:47Of course you have.
02:48So, St. Osef, a discovery of very great interest was made on Thursday, May 19th, very specific.
02:54Very.
02:55By Mr. Brooker, here we go.
02:56He was digging for sand at the rear of a cottage just there on Mill Street, digging up a skeleton lying about five feet beneath the surface.
03:04Look.
03:05It's a woman who was probably put to death as a witch in the 17th century.
03:08OK, well, that's odd.
03:09Yeah.
03:10But how does that mean that that's a witch?
03:12Was there like a brim stick and a hat or something?
03:15Do you think we need to find out more about this?
03:17OK, well, should we go digging for want of a better term?
03:20Yeah, I think we should.
03:21I'm just a little bit suspicious about this whole story.
03:24I'm not suspicious about a lot of things.
03:27When the St. Osef witch hunt took place, England was decades into the iron rule of Queen Elizabeth I.
03:34So what else was happening in the village and the nation at that time?
03:38England is reeling from multiple shocks in the 1580s.
03:43This is not a happy time for either Elizabeth or for the country.
03:48Elizabeth had been excommunicated by the Pope, which meant that the Church of England was now entirely separate from the Catholic Church.
03:58There is a radical break in terms of all kinds of relationship, intellectual, business, mercantile links with continental Europe.
04:08There were plots, plots and assassination attempts on Elizabeth I's life.
04:14This was a period of extraordinary mistrust and fear.
04:19She decides that her realm may possibly be full of witches and she introduces a number of punishments for these people, one of which is death.
04:29In 1563, Elizabeth passed an Act of Parliament establishing witchcraft as a criminal offence, carrying the maximum penalty of death by hanging.
04:44The case of the St. Osef witch trials begins 18 years later, in 1581, with two neighbours, Ursley Kemp and Grace Thurlow.
04:57When Grace's son Davy falls sick, in her desperation, she employs Ursley, a local healer.
05:05Good child, how art thou, Lorden? Good child, how art thou, Lorden? Good child, how art thou, Lorden? Good child, how art thou, Lorden?
05:18How art thou, Lorden?
05:25You'll be fine now. I've lifted the curse.
05:28Oh, God be thanked.
05:30You'll be needing a nursemaid for the new babe, what with you, working up the priory.
05:34Hmm.
05:36We'll see.
05:39That leg's still giving you bother.
05:41Why don't you let me treat it?
05:43I've got Hogsdon, Chervil, St John's Wort.
05:46You'll feel better in no time.
05:48Shall we say a shilling?
05:49A desperate mother, a village healer and a mysterious skeleton. Are the three linked? And if so, how are they connected to the witch trials?
06:05In our incident room, we review the first clues of the cold case.
06:12We know this is Ursley. Yeah.
06:14All right, we know that. She's our main character in the cold case.
06:17She is. Main character energy.
06:19Now, in the 1920s, this skeleton was found in a garden in St. Osir.
06:26And there's a possible link that people believe that this could be Ursley.
06:31Yeah, I'm very intrigued but quite sceptical about this link, but let's put it in as a suggestion.
06:37This is Grace. Grace is a friend of Ursley, and Grace employed Ursley to help her with her sick son, Davy.
06:48Ursley Kemp is a healer, also known as a cunning woman, with a reputation for treating sickness and removing curses.
06:56A cunning woman is somebody who does magical healing.
07:01She will come to you and she'll maybe say a spell or a charm or a prayer over you.
07:05Maybe she'll give you some medicine, some ointment to rub on your body, something to eat or drink.
07:11And she'll carry away your disease.
07:13Herbal medicine is still practice today. So can a modern day herbalist provide any clues to how and why the cunning folk were effective healers?
07:25They were people who supported their community's health, working with herbal medicine, by making remedies to address ailments.
07:34They would have been a known character, a known member of their community.
07:38But there is this idea that the healer in many cultures has been located at the edge of the ecosystem.
07:43That everyone knows about them. Yeah, and that you might go to them at a certain time.
07:47I think the term today sounds kind of sinister because of cunning and what we think of the term cunning.
07:54But actually it just means knowledge, doesn't it? It's a wise person.
07:57I know and it's a distortion, I think, that reflects how people who practice those kinds of healing modalities have also been discredited through the ages.
08:08People who were cunning women tended to be people that were more voiceless, that had less power in the hierarchy of the community, being older women, perhaps being widowed.
08:19Yeah. But in Old English, the word root means to have power, to have knowledge.
08:23And still using plants, fungi, all of those kind of natural origins.
08:28The way that plants work, we metabolise and we've evolved to break them down and they do amazing things in our bodies.
08:35The famous example is the white willow bark.
08:38Yeah, salicylic acid. Aspirin, basically.
08:41Yeah. Which is the isolated constituent of the plant.
08:44See, this is where we're very different. The first thing when she hears salicylic acid, she says,
08:48Aspirin, I think cosmetics. Oh, really?
08:51Yeah, I think skincare.
08:52Yeah. Well, there's always been an association between medicine and cosmetics as well, hasn't there?
08:57As well, definitely.
08:58Because you're talking about things which have been tried and tested over generations.
09:03Yeah, yeah. Some of them have passed into modern medicine and have become part of our pharmacology today.
09:12The cunning folk were skilled practitioners.
09:15They couldn't afford to work for free and so Oursley expected her due payment.
09:21Morning, Grace. See that leg looks better.
09:25Yeah, it's been fine these last few weeks.
09:27Might you have that shilling in payment for the healing?
09:30Come now, Oursley. I'm a poor and needy woman. I don't have the money.
09:34Oh. Well, how about a quarter of that cheese you had?
09:38I've got nothing to give. Please, let me get on.
09:43So if that lameness don't come back or that son of yours fall sick again then, eh?
09:47Threats, is it? Someone might think you're cursing me.
09:51What are you talking about?
09:53Should I or my boy fall sick again? I'll report you to the magistrate. Charge a witchcraft, I think.
10:00Cunning people walked a fine line in their community because, on the one hand, they were thought to be helpful.
10:08On the other hand, if something went wrong, they could be accused of being a witch.
10:13The relationship between these two women is breaking down.
10:17Grace is saying no, it's because she don't want to pay.
10:20She pleads a little bit of poverty. Oursley then says to her,
10:23Well, I hope your son don't get sick again. Grace then flips.
10:27And she's just reminding her about the payment.
10:30Well, she promised her a shilling. That's all she wanted.
10:33But what's really interesting, I think, is the fact that Grace is then actually threatening Oursley
10:39and saying, watch out, don't keep asking me for this money because I might say that you're a witch.
10:44And this isn't an empty threat.
10:46It's majorly serious. These women know what happened to women that are accused of witchcraft.
10:571581. In the village of St. Oseph, East Essex, Oursley Kemp and Grace Thurlow have come to blows over a disputed payment.
11:07We know that cunning women are providing the service of their communities, that they're acting as healers,
11:12they're using herbs, but they do also seem to be treading quite a difficult line.
11:19Obviously, if you are a cunning woman like Oursley, that is something that you're trying to portray as being good.
11:25But if somebody takes against you, doesn't like you, then that can always be changed into an accusation of malevolent magic.
11:34And that's the problem. Yeah.
11:36But these people around that time, the cunning folk, they're choosing to do this with their life.
11:41Why do you think they were happy to tread that line?
11:43A lot of them don't have very much of a choice. Not a whole lot of jobs available to women at the time.
11:48So there's this sense that a woman can maybe only have this knowledge if she's in league with the devil.
11:55This is something that women struggle with in general.
11:58Like, the very first woman, Eve, gets all of her knowledge by being in league with the devil, right?
12:04So if you are one of these women who has access to something that is seen as supernatural,
12:09maybe you were drawing on this ancient feminine tradition of being particularly evil and loving to talk to snakes.
12:15I mean, it is baked in misogyny running through societies.
12:19Absolutely. I mean, nothing new under the sun, babe.
12:22It's not just a throwaway comment when Grace accuses Oursley of being a witch, is it?
12:28No. It's not going to be gossip. That is something that can get you killed.
12:34In October 1581, Grace Thurlow's six-month-old baby dies in mysterious circumstances.
12:40The stage is now set for an explosive reckoning between Grace and Oursley.
12:45I came as soon as I heard.
12:51Oh, that poor babe.
12:54I told you to take me on as nursemaid.
12:58The band would never have fallen if I were looking after her.
13:02It was you.
13:04You did this.
13:06I'd have prevented this.
13:09If I were looking after her, the babe would still be in your arms.
13:13You cursed her.
13:15I couldn't pay you, so you cursed my baby.
13:19I didn't curse anyone.
13:21I protect babes.
13:23I thought we were friends.
13:25And you murdered my baby.
13:27Just go.
13:30I'll see you hang for this.
13:39Grace loses her little girl.
13:41And this tragic event causes her to accuse Oursley Kemp of having attacked the child.
13:48This idea of blaming was strongly connected to the misunderstanding of what causes sickness.
13:56At a time of crisis, the society could be brought together by attaching a blame to a human being, to a person.
14:04Once it's attached, they are in extraordinary danger.
14:07Grace makes good on her threat and later reports Oursley to the authorities.
14:18A warrant is issued for her arrest.
14:21Match three wants a word with you.
14:26What are you doing?
14:28Let me go.
14:29I ain't got nothing wrong.
14:30Oursley is thrown into the village lockup, known as the cage.
14:35It's thought part of the jail still stands within this house.
14:40Now considered to be one of the most haunted buildings in England.
14:44I love a good ghost story.
14:46You are obviously very spiritual.
14:48Yeah.
14:49I can see just by looking around your house.
14:51What's your take on witchcraft?
14:52So I'm supposed to spiritually, so I believe in what kind of fits well with me.
14:56You know, the first ghost I saw in there, I was sitting in the front room on the floor,
15:02and she was carrying a bowl, and in it was something like papyri or leaves.
15:07I don't know. I couldn't properly see into it.
15:09And she just sprinkled them over my head as I'm sitting on the floor,
15:12and then she disappeared.
15:14Do you think there's any way that this is in you?
15:17Do you think that this is...
15:18How do you know that those phenomena are outside you,
15:21rather than being a hallucination?
15:23No, you know what a hallucination is?
15:25What you try and do is rationalise it and say,
15:27OK, right, because you want it to be the mice in the attic,
15:30you want it to be that the window's left open,
15:32you want it to be imagination.
15:34So for people who maybe don't believe what you're saying,
15:38how did you feel living in that house?
15:40Yeah.
15:41I felt literally like I had become the prisoner in my own home.
15:46I had the vicar in, I had the local vicar in,
15:48I tried everything I knew.
15:50I mean, I do believe in stuff like this.
15:52I think there's a rational explanation for everything.
15:54I know you do, but that's why we work.
15:56This woman then that you say you saw coming and sprinkling leaves
16:00or whatever it was over you, do you think that was her?
16:02Do you think that was Ursley?
16:03I don't know, because she never said her name,
16:06but I think that in some kind of way that was some sort of protection.
16:09That's obviously something I'm appreciative of.
16:13I had great empathy for her, her situation,
16:17and how I would feel if that was me, you know, as a single parent.
16:22How would you feel?
16:24What could you do?
16:25Witches had no say, did they?
16:28Once they were accused of it, that was that.
16:30It's a horrendous story, isn't it?
16:32Ursley's situation is about to take a turn for the worse.
16:36St. Joseph's ambitious local magistrate, Brian Darcy,
16:40is keen to make a name for himself.
16:43He's poised to capitalise on the anti-witch hysteria.
16:47We have to diminish the multitude of wicked people
16:52to reform detestable abusers and secret offenders
16:57and withdraw honest natures from the corruption of evil company.
17:07Sorcerers, wizards, witches, wise women, for so they will be named,
17:14will be rigorously punished.
17:17Rigorously say I.
17:20It is too mild a term.
17:23I should have said most cruelly executed.
17:26For all men must know what a pestilent people witches are.
17:30Unworthy to live in our Christian Commonwealth.
17:34Yes!
17:36We know about Darcy's anti-witch zealotry
17:39thanks to a key piece of evidence,
17:41a pamphlet or chapbook published soon after the trial.
17:44This claim to give a true and full account of the investigations
17:48and subsequent confessions.
17:50I think the chapbook is largely Brian's work.
17:52It's essentially a kind of autobiography.
17:54It's about him as a witch hunter and his witch trial.
17:58We can tell reading between the lines of the papers
18:03that he's commonly well read.
18:06He's clearly read a quite recent book
18:09by a hugely famous French intellectual called Jean Baudin.
18:15Not only urging magistrates across Europe to hunt witches,
18:21but also giving them some remarkably frank advice on how to do so.
18:26And Darcy has now read the theory.
18:29He's avid for the practice.
18:32So here's where we are in the story.
18:34Oersley is arrested and we saw the local politician,
18:40the local magistrate getting involved.
18:42So this is Brian Darcy.
18:44He is clearly interested in witches.
18:48He's got his own agenda.
18:50I mean, he's a politician identifying an enemy
18:54and saying to this society, this community,
18:57I can sort this enemy out.
18:58He can gain some political capital from this.
19:00This is what it is with him, isn't it?
19:02It's just all about furthering his own career.
19:04There's also a connection with the grandest house in St. Osseth.
19:08The Priory.
19:10Now this is where the Lord of the Manor lives
19:12and guess what?
19:13Brian Darcy is his cousin.
19:15Oh, so the cousin is the Lord of the Manor?
19:17Yep.
19:18Right, so there's a connection.
19:19So there's a connection.
19:21And Grace works at the Priory.
19:24Right, so we've got a bit of a double connection stacking up against Oersley.
19:27Yeah, and we know all of this because actually we have transcripts from the court.
19:34This is known as a chapbook and they're probably heavily biased,
19:37but it's the best evidence that we've got here.
19:40So we know from this, Brian Darcy is going to get even more involved with this case.
19:47Darcy's next step is to bring Oersley in for pretrial questioning.
19:51You are Oersley Kemp, also known as Grey?
19:58I am.
20:00Sit.
20:05You've been accused by Grace Thurlow, wife of John,
20:09who testified under oath.
20:11You bewitched both her and her son causing lameness and you...
20:18Dear God.
20:21That you murdered her infant daughter.
20:23I did none of those things.
20:25I'm a healer, one of the cunning folk.
20:27I'm not a witch.
20:28I have a second accusation, brought to me only yesterday.
20:32By Annis Leatherdoll, wife of Richard.
20:35Says you sent your bastard son Thomas begging for some scouring sand,
20:40but she'd none to give.
20:42You were then heard cursing her infant daughter, Elizabeth.
20:45A murmuring and a muttering it was.
20:49A child has since taken ill.
20:53I lay my life on it.
20:55I never curse that child.
20:56I undo cursings and bewitchings.
20:58Mistress Leatherdoll says she called on a cunning woman of high regard,
21:02who confirmed it was you who bewitched the child.
21:05It's not true!
21:06The infant now suffers such piteous issue and swellings of her privy parts,
21:10she is unlikely to live.
21:16And by the law of our sovereign queen,
21:18these wicked acts of sorcery make this a hanging offence.
21:22St. Osith Magistrate Brian Darcy continues to interrogate Ursley.
21:35He pushes her to admit to keeping demonic animal spirits,
21:39otherwise known as familiars.
21:41Ursley is buckling under the pressure.
21:44If you deal plainly with me,
21:47and confess the truth of your wicked acts,
21:50I could save you from the gallows.
21:55Confess.
21:57And this,
21:59will all go away.
22:02But I'm not a witch.
22:05A cunning woman, yes.
22:07The healer, but not a witch.
22:09And yet the evidence is all here.
22:13I even have testimony from your bastard son Thomas.
22:18He told me.
22:20If your devil spirits confess plainly the truth.
22:26But Thomas is only a child.
22:28These spirits!
22:30What forms do they take?
22:32What colours?
22:33What are their names?
22:36There are four of them.
22:39Two cats.
22:40One grey, one black.
22:43A dark coloured tote.
22:45And a white lamb.
22:46And which did you send to Thurlow's wife?
22:54Confess.
22:58It will be in your favour.
23:02It was a grey cat.
23:04A grey Sturlow.
23:06And the...
23:08The toad that punished Leatherdoll's daughter.
23:14And it was the white lamb.
23:16The grey old that killed Grace's baby.
23:22God forgive me.
23:23It's not really clear why Ursley confesses.
23:33She might feel that she just needs to go along with the magistrate's bullying and say what is necessary.
23:40There's no sign that Brian Darcy uses physical torture.
23:43But in a profound sense he doesn't need to.
23:46Because he is the absolute master of the leading question.
23:50He is resentful, he is ambitious, he is anxious to rise in society and make himself known.
23:56He wants to encourage his suspects to confess and he also wants to reduce them to a state of submission to him.
24:05I think he bullies them.
24:07Although Ursley confesses thinking she'll be released, with more and more people now accusing her, her life still hangs in the balance.
24:14So this is Anis Leatherdoll.
24:18Now Anis has also claimed that Ursley has killed slash cursed one of her own children as well.
24:24So this is two people now that have come forward to say that Ursley is a witch or accusing her of some form of witchcraft.
24:31Now when you're in that situation, she's been in the cage, she obviously just wants to get back to her normal life.
24:36She doesn't want to be trolled.
24:37She would have been terrified.
24:39Of course she would have, of course she would have.
24:41Yeah.
24:42She ends up admitting to having familiars.
24:45To discover more about these familiars, we seek out a modern day witch.
24:51A witch is someone who tries to marry the mesh of the universe and distill it into their own lives and to everybody else's lives.
25:00And to walk gently upon the earth and to be a decent human being.
25:07And in terms of the ideology, would you describe it as a religion?
25:11It is a religion. It has a beating sacred heart to it.
25:15One thing that we've been learning about as well is familiars.
25:18Can you explain to me what a familiar is?
25:20It's like a well-trained pet that you don't have to talk to.
25:23Right.
25:25That just sounds like a long marriage to me.
25:26Yeah!
25:36Don't, I'm a woman who just...
25:38Familiars are...
25:40Traditionally, they are animals that do your bidding.
25:44And they can go and spy on neighbours or they can go and turn milk sour.
25:48You know, if a cat pees in a bucket of milk, then it's going to go sour.
25:52Yeah.
25:53And so, but your cat would then get the blame because you were the person that nobody liked in the village.
25:58Right.
25:59And these stories, which are started by, you know, rumours, it seems to be that it's ramped up...
26:04It's encouraged. ...into this frenzy.
26:06Yes, yes. But again, it's unfair.
26:09Did Ursley truly believe she possessed demonic familiars or was she simply submitting to Darcy?
26:14Now, familiars are like these animals that people believe are sort of spiritual and supernatural and can do the devil's work on your behalf.
26:24She has two cats.
26:26But you know, we're saying these are familiars. Is it... Are they just animals?
26:29Well, of course they could be because then she throws in a toad.
26:33They're not kind of fantastical animals.
26:34Oh, we're not talking unicorns here, but this one is really interesting.
26:39A lamb. And what Ursley goes on to admit is that this lamb basically did her bidding for her.
26:46Yeah, but do you believe that she really confessed to that? Because we don't know what...
26:50Absolutely not.
26:51We don't know what Brian's asking her. We don't know if he was saying, have you seen any animals around?
26:54No.
26:55She mentions a lamb and he says, could the lamb have gone into Grace's house? Could the lamb have tipped the cot? All she's got to say is, maybe...
27:04Whatever drove Ursley to confess, she remains imprisoned.
27:09In an attempt to deflect attention away from herself, she starts pointing the finger of blame at other women.
27:15The constable says you have more to confess. The knight in the cage loosened your tongue, eh?
27:30Perhaps you have the names of other witches in St. Lucis.
27:37My offer of clemency still stands.
27:40It wasn't me that sent those beasts.
27:43They were taken from me.
27:45By Alice Newman.
27:47And?
27:49And it was she that sent them to Grace Thurlow and Leatherdall's daughter.
27:53So you're in league with Mother Newman?
27:55No. No, we ain't friends.
27:59She also cursed Master Johnson, who collects for the poor.
28:03And send the imps to plague Edna Stratton.
28:10Any others?
28:15Ursley spends a night in the lock-up, and the next morning, she comes out saying,
28:21not necessarily that she's primarily responsible for all of these witchcraft crimes,
28:26but that maybe other people are.
28:28When you put on the pressure cooker effect, then the cracks are really going to show.
28:32And so every rift in the community is going to gape wide open, and the names of the accused are going to start tumbling out.
28:42It ruptures the village.
28:44There's no way that previous relations can go back to normal.
28:47Accusations fly as the village starts to rip itself apart.
28:52No one is safe.
29:00Following Ursley's confession, which local magistrate Brian Darcy assured would save her,
29:06her plight has worsened.
29:08Ursley is unravelling.
29:10And Grace Thurlow continues to stir up trouble.
29:16Magistrate! Magistrate!
29:19What news of Mother Kemp?
29:21She currently resides at Colchester Castle,
29:24awaiting trial at the Springer's eyes.
29:26With some persuasion, she has confessed to all charges.
29:30There's more witches in St. Osa than just Ursley Kemp, you know.
29:34Go on.
29:36I heard Annis Glasgow bewitched the child of Mitchell, the shoemaker.
29:40And then Alice Hunt told me that Joan Peachey cursed Master Johnson.
29:45Mother Kemp has said as much.
29:47Then there's Elizabeth Bennet.
29:49They say, dear God,
29:52the devil makes her have unnatural, carnal tendencies.
29:57Tendencies.
30:06Anyone is turning on anyone now.
30:08So, Ursley is accusing Alice Newman of taking over her familiars,
30:14for being the actual malevolent force in the village
30:16and sending these animals out to do their evil work.
30:19There's Annis Glasgow,
30:21there's another Alice, Alice Hunt,
30:23and there's Joan Peachey,
30:26all these women in St. Osa being accused of witchcraft.
30:30I mean, you've clearly got people who are scared
30:33and they think they can deflect blame onto others.
30:37What Brian Darcy is doing is stoking that.
30:40100%. He's stirring that pot.
30:42Whatever his motives are, whatever he's got in mind,
30:45it's getting out of control
30:47and people are going to die.
30:49We know there was this fear of witches and witchcraft and supernatural,
30:53but do you think there were any hidden motives behind the whole witch trials?
30:57Oh, God, yeah.
30:59It could just be something like you owe money to someone who is accused of witchcraft
31:03and you don't feel like paying it, right?
31:05Great way to get out of paying your bills.
31:07It could be sometimes that a woman kind of owns a lot of land and you've got your eye on it.
31:11Oh, accuser of being a witch. Look, it's for sale.
31:15It's also a way of making yourself a bit of a celebrity.
31:17Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?
31:18Because there's not a one-size-fits-all.
31:19There could be lots of different motives.
31:21But what you've got around it is this state-sanctioned approach
31:26and the fact that it's written into law.
31:28Yeah, so that always gives you a framework to fall back on.
31:29And the more law you have, the more this is written about, the more ways there are to exploit it.
31:45Backed by the state, the St. Oseth witch hunt intensifies.
31:50Darcy now has his sights set on another villager, Elizabeth Bennet.
31:55But this time, he takes a more aggressive approach.
32:00We have testimony of your devil spirits.
32:04Sucking and leered, is it?
32:07I know you sent them to torment the wife of William Wiles and Mistress Fortune.
32:13You are also accused of using them to kill William and Joan Byatt.
32:18Says who?
32:20Bet it was that telltale, Ursley.
32:21I also have testimony from Master William Bonner.
32:27He says you used your devil powers to seduce his godly wife.
32:32And that you had unnatural relations with her.
32:37Bonner says, Lars Candlemus, you were seen kissing his wife on her mouth!
32:43Whereupon her lips swelled, her eyes sunk, and she has not spoken since!
32:48No, it's lies. I wouldn't hurt.
32:52You're sexually bewitched and cursed, a devout Christian woman and goodly wife.
32:57This is witchcraft of the basest kind.
33:02Confess, or I'll see you hanged and burned.
33:06Elizabeth Bennet resists Brian Darcy because she won't confess.
33:16He bullies Elizabeth by saying he's going to hang and burn her if she's found to be a witch.
33:23He can't actually do that. Witches are not burned to death in England.
33:26They are hanged if they're found guilty.
33:29He's refining his technique and using verbal terrorism as a way of breaking the person in front of him.
33:38One name that keeps popping up is Elizabeth Bennet.
33:42There she is.
33:43William Bonner already says, yeah, she's a witch, you know, she's this, she's that.
33:49But then there's another accusation that comes in.
33:52William Bonner.
33:54He's basically saying that this Elizabeth is a lesbian and is having some type of relation with his wife.
33:59And back then, what you need to remember is anything out of the ordinary when it comes down to sexuality was seen as the doing of the devil.
34:09And what's quite sad to think about, there are certain parts of the world, certain religions that also believe in this day and age.
34:15Yeah.
34:16That something that Elizabeth may or may not have been, we don't know that.
34:20That sexuality is sinful.
34:22Yeah.
34:23I'm not right in saying that the sort of sexuality side of stuff and witchcraft are pretty much grouped together in this instance.
34:33You are bang on.
34:35So the first ever witch hunting manual that is written, which is called the Malleus Maleficarum, specifically says that the reason there are more women witches than men is because women are more sexual.
34:45And the idea here is that to become a witch, you shag the devil.
34:49No.
34:50Not a euphemism, just full on going at it.
34:54And that witches get together and they have big old orgies with the devil and each other.
34:59So, if you are actually queer and out in the world, then the idea is, oh, well, you shag women, you shag the devil.
35:06So you must be a witch as well.
35:07Exactly.
35:09Do you think people actually believe that the devil is involved here just because somebody isn't heterosexual?
35:13Incredibly, the first time this ever happens, when the first book comes out, everyone says, you are crazy, this makes no sense.
35:19A hundred years later, when we get Protestants and Catholics, yep, apparently they just think to be a witch is to be kind of gay, to be kind of gay is to be a witch.
35:28Yeah.
35:29And it's about controlling people.
35:30But in terms of actually controlling their bodies.
35:33Mm-hmm.
35:34And if you think about it, it is really threatening to society to have a woman who is this out of control by men.
35:40So if you are only attracted to women, you're having sex with other women, well, where are the men in here to tell you what to do?
35:46You're not answering to a man, are you?
35:47Exactly.
35:49She's outside the patriarchy.
35:50Mm-hmm.
35:51And that has to be stopped.
35:52With Elizabeth and many others being swept up in the witch hunt, a desperate Oursley is still stuck behind bars.
36:01Now, even her own brother turns against her.
36:05Master Darcy!
36:07Master Darcy!
36:08Master Darcy!
36:13I told you everything.
36:15You promised me favour if I did.
36:19Your confessions have proved useful.
36:22I now have 14 persons to put before the Azores.
36:26Please.
36:28Can I go on?
36:29Tell me, what of your sister-in-law?
36:39We weren't on good terms, I admit that.
36:43We came to blows on Elliot's Eve a while back.
36:47In just the day your own brother, Lawrence, came to me and told me the curse you put on his wife.
36:56That's not true.
36:58She felt sick, I was trying to help her.
37:01He says his wife languished in agony for nine months and then breathed her last.
37:10You, Oursley Kim, killed her with wicked sorcery.
37:19You must hang for your crimes.
37:28Brian Darcy wanted to be famous.
37:31He does go down in English history as one of the very first English witch hunters.
37:37This witch hunt expands right across Essex and by the time it's finished a large number of people have been accused and they're taken for trial at Chelmsford.
37:45Oursley goes to court but was she sentenced to death and was it her skeleton that was unearthed?
37:53To finally identify the Mill Street remains, we head to the St. Osef Social Club to meet with retired police inspector turned local historian, John Morland.
38:03So we've seen this photograph which was said to be that of Oursley or Ursula Kemp.
38:08I should have mentioned I also found there was evidence of a nail through the bone as well.
38:11OK, so this is interesting.
38:14So this is an iron nail piercing through the bone.
38:18I can't see it in this picture.
38:20It's not there.
38:22The hole here doesn't look like a hole that's been made when that bone is fresh and green.
38:27So hold up.
38:29This skeleton's found, dug up by Mr Brooker.
38:33There's photo evidence of the skeleton being dug up.
38:37But there's no nails.
38:38Yeah.
38:40So it's all been...
38:41He's done it.
38:42I mean, I'm no detective but...
38:44Bit suspect, isn't it?
38:46Exactly. It's all been done very, very quickly after the remains have been uncovered.
38:52Yeah.
38:53Just going back to these pictures, I was immediately suspicious.
38:57For a number of reasons. I mean, I'm worried about the date of it.
39:00St. Osef is, you know, well known for its Anglo-Saxon history.
39:03It's named after an Anglo-Saxon princess.
39:05This could just be an Anglo-Saxon burial ground.
39:08I mean, one of the things, surely, that you can do is look for a date.
39:14Absolutely. And that's exactly what I did.
39:17Had carbon dating done.
39:19And...
39:20So before you show us...
39:21Yes?
39:22I'm going to say it's a thousand years old.
39:23OK.
39:28It's 1600s.
39:29There we go.
39:30OK, so my hypothesis is wrong.
39:33Still looking at a skeleton, which is the right age...
39:36It's in the right area.
39:37Yeah, the right...
39:38So it's Ursley?
39:39The right antiquity.
39:40No, it means we haven't disproven that it's her.
39:42OK, well I'm fine with that.
39:44Is this where I can put a spoiler in or not?
39:47Well, I...
39:48Do you know?
39:49I think I can throw a spoiler in.
39:50Go for it.
39:51Because that does not look like a female skeleton to me.
39:55You're absolutely right.
39:56It's a man.
39:58Oh, for...
39:59What?
40:03Well, this was a waste of time.
40:05And I think everybody locally wanted it to be Ursley.
40:08What's happened to the bones now then?
40:10The bones, I'm pleased to say the executors said,
40:14I can take the remains and rebury them with some dignity
40:17in unconsecrated land as originally found.
40:20Where they're meant to be.
40:23So the Mill Street skeleton is not Ursley.
40:27But at the end of March, 1582,
40:30Ursley, along with Elizabeth Bennet,
40:32are both convicted of witchcraft,
40:35and led to the gallows.
40:37We have to diminish the multitude of wicked people.
40:51For all men must know what a pestilent people witches are.
40:56Unworthy to live in our Christian commonwealth.
41:00I'm a healer, one of the cunning folk.
41:02I'm not a witch.
41:14Confess, or I'll see you hanged and burnt.
41:30I think there are malevolent forces at work in 16th century St. Osis,
41:45but I don't think it's witchcraft.
41:48I think it is self-interest, rumour, coercion.
41:50I think you're absolutely right.
41:52Brian Darcy played his part really well,
41:53because what he then went on to be was promoted.
41:55He moved up in the world.
41:56He got what he really wanted.
41:57And unfortunately, two women lost their lives.
41:59It's really sad.
42:00It's really sad.
42:01It's desperately sad.
42:02But I think also it contains many lessons of how power can be misused and abused.
42:07How people in positions of power can be believed.
42:12Be believed.
42:13Be believed.
42:14Be believed and can cause greater rifts in society.
42:17How people in positions of power can be believed.
42:19How people in positions of power can be believed and can cause greater rifts in society.
42:22And it's so damaging.
42:23In the end, through the needless victimisation of women like Oursley and Elizabeth,
42:25state suppression,
42:26state suppression,
42:27how people in positions of power can be believed.
42:28How people in positions of power can be believed and can cause greater rifts in society.
42:43And it's so damaging.
42:46In the end, through the needless victimisation of women like Oursley and Elizabeth,
42:51state suppression reigned supreme, social control was achieved.
42:56Next time on Witches of Essex.
42:59Self-styled Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins begins his reign of terror.
43:04What do you want from me?
43:06With the torture and execution of Manningtree's most vulnerable women.
43:11We should root out these women until every last one is swinging from the gallows.
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