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00:00I've always been interested in history and I am fascinated by the supernatural but I had no idea
00:13that Essex is steeped in horrific stories of persecution and death all down to the pursuit
00:20of witches. Leave me alone no I've got nothing. Beyond the sunny beaches and mock Tudor streets
00:25of my beloved backyard there are dark and violent secrets waiting to be uncovered. I've teamed
00:32up with anthropologist Professor Alice Roberts to investigate what happened and why.
00:40Never call you a cat saver. During the 16th and 17th centuries hundreds of women were tried
00:48and executed for witchcraft. We want to know how did these witch trials come about who
00:53or what was the driving force behind them and how Essex's dark past is still linked to
00:58the present. His truth. I cursed him. In this episode we're investigating how it all began.
01:07In the early years of Queen Elizabeth I's reign a whole family of Essex women are put on trial
01:14for witchcraft. Accusations of dark magic plus a new law against witchcraft combine to bring
01:21these women in front of the Queen's attorney. A demonic spirit. In our incident room we'll
01:27put the pieces of the puzzle together. I feel like I just want to grab her and go lie. And
01:33reveal why three Essex women faced the death penalty on a charge of witchcraft. Our cold case
01:42is now open.
01:49To kick off our investigation we're paying a visit to Chelmsford. Witch trial ground zero.
01:58It was here about 30 miles from London that one case fired the start gun for the infamous
02:03Essex witch trials. A case that ended in a brutal execution. So babe welcome to Chelmsford.
02:11Thank you. I've never been to Chelmsford before. Well this is my old stomping ground. Is it? I used to work here as a makeup artist years ago. Yeah. And Sunday night
02:18was the best night out of the week in Chelmsford. Okay. So what about witches though? Did you know that this is where the first witch trial was held in
02:26Essex? No but I mean on a Sunday night there were a couple of witches. The 16th century court where our witchcraft suspects were tried stood in front of this newer Georgian era courthouse. Oh wow look. I feel like I've done something wrong. It's quite intimidating. It really is. It's a lot smaller than I thought it was going to be. It is. Yeah. It feels very um. Very intimate.
02:55The women accused of witchcraft wouldn't have been in anything like such a polished or discreet courtroom.
03:02I think it would have been. I think it would have been a lot rowdier than your average courtroom in the 21st century. The bottom of the buildings open to the market square so there would have been animals around. It would have been noisy.
03:13It could have been getting tried for the death penalty and there could have been a cow in the background mooing. Possibly. Yeah. So it would have been very very different but an incredibly serious case because you are looking at this crime which is punishable by by hanging.
03:27Women were maybe dragged kicking and screaming into this place. Yeah.
03:32To defend themselves against death. The women tried at Chelmsford for witchcraft come from a little village six miles away called Hatfield Peverell.
03:43They're a family living in poverty on the edges of their community. 18 year old Joan Waterhouse.
03:50Just take the weight off. Her mother Agnes who is 64. Charity for a poor widow. Don't go falling down, break your ankle. Joan? Sister? Look what?
04:12And Agnes' younger sister Elizabeth Francis. Well enough. And before you ask, no we ain't got no spare flower. Two males will feed here.
04:22How's my cat? Cat's fine. Got you luck has it? Luck enough. There might be a penny or two to scrounge up at the church.
04:33Yeah. If anyone's giving alms. Help me up.
04:38Off the church Joan. All right?
04:42We'll stop off at Widow Goodies on the way. Got a boner pick with her.
04:50In our incident room, we're going to investigate why these women were targeted and why one of them ended up dead.
04:57So here are the characters at the centre of our cold case. This is Agnes Waterhouse.
05:03Agnes.
05:05And this is her sister, Elizabeth Francis.
05:10Now these are very poor women. They're both widowed.
05:14And they have no real source of income.
05:17Agnes has also got to look after her daughter Joan.
05:20And they live in Hatfield Peverell.
05:26There's the church at the centre of the village.
05:31So three dirt poor women from a tiny village got swept up in a massive witch trial.
05:38What was going on in the world to make that happen?
05:41Queen Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen, was eight years into her reign when the Essex witch trials kicked off.
05:51One of the things about women and accusations of witchcraft, I think, is always about anxiety, about power held by women.
05:59At this time, vicious rumours spread about the Queen's own mother, Anne Boleyn, and her marriage to Henry VIII.
06:07The people who didn't like Anne thought that she might have bewitched Henry.
06:11And that was because she was very beautiful, apparently.
06:15And it was because she had possibly a sick finger on one of her hands.
06:19This atmosphere of suspicion went right through Elizabethan society.
06:25There was a problem around social cohesion.
06:29Large swathes of the English population suffered extraordinary poverty.
06:34And so when your even poorer neighbour comes round and begs you for some food or for some money, you're much more likely to turn them away.
06:43You get this increasing sense of worry about what people might be doing behind closed doors.
06:53Agnes, Joan and Elizabeth are single women living without a male protector.
06:59And they're facing hostility from their village.
07:02It wouldn't be just because they're widowed.
07:05It wouldn't be just because they're single parent mothers.
07:08And it wouldn't be just because they were poor.
07:09But if all of those were combined, then they might become ostracised.
07:14You were dependent on your neighbour's charity.
07:18But you were also vulnerable to their anger, their anxiety, their paranoia.
07:23In July 1566, Hatfield Peverell is struck by a series of tragic and unexplained events.
07:30A man dies, a baby is paralysed, and a child sees a nightmarish vision.
07:39Looking for people to blame, the villagers turn on the local beggar women.
07:43What are you doing? Get off! Get off me!
07:52Leave me alone! No, I've got nothing!
07:54Joan! Joan! Joan!
07:57Get off me!
08:01We're investigating the Elizabethan cold case of three Essex women who were threatened with the death penalty for witchcraft.
08:09They've all been arrested, right? Yeah.
08:13Then they're taken to the Chelmsford Assides.
08:16Yeah, it's getting really serious.
08:18So you recognise this place, but obviously the original building would have been in front of them.
08:22Did the villagers accusing Agnes, Elizabeth and Joan really believe they had dark powers?
08:28Or was there an ulterior motive behind their arrests?
08:32I'm taking Alice to Colchester Castle.
08:37Curator Ben Pates has evidence of how the fear of witches revealed itself in the 16th century.
08:47We have some images here of things called witch marks.
08:50These are things that were carved into buildings.
08:53And was this to mark where they believed a witch was?
08:56Actually, it was to ward off witches.
08:57Oh, sort of like a protection thing.
08:59Exactly.
09:00They were so terrified of witches getting inside their buildings, whether that's houses, pubs, wherever,
09:06they would mark those buildings with those marks.
09:09Like garlic to a vampire?
09:10Yes.
09:12The W or WV, it could also have been VV, which means Virgo Virginum, which is Latin for Virgin of Virgins.
09:19Virgin Mary.
09:20Virgin Mary, exactly.
09:22Ben has some other, even stranger ways to ward off witches.
09:26These are all objects that were buried inside buildings.
09:30This is a beer bottle. Why has a beer bottle got anything to do with witches then?
09:33Everyone was afraid of witches, whether you're rich, poor, whatever.
09:36So everyone needed the ability to be able to protect themselves.
09:40So they recycled bottles like this and filled them with some assortment of objects.
09:44Here we have some iron nails that were rusted inside another jar.
09:49So you can see how they kind of ended up.
09:50That's strange, isn't it?
09:51What?
09:52And they also added urine.
09:53What, someone had a quick widow in it?
09:54Yeah.
09:55And the idea was that horrible things would repel horrible things, I think.
09:59It's that idea of sympathetic magic.
10:01And a bottle full of urine.
10:02You wouldn't really want that inside your house unless there was a good reason to keep it there.
10:05Oh, you got caught short on the M25?
10:07Well, possibly.
10:09It's looking like the mob from Hatfield Peverell were genuinely terrified of witches.
10:15I think there's a bit of an elephant in the room here, though.
10:17Because we're seeing all of these things which look quite ritualistic, for want of a better term.
10:22Yes, they are.
10:23Is this not a version of these people practicing their own type of witchcraft?
10:28Well, this is the entire irony of the whole situation, is that people were so terrified of witches back then
10:33that they had to resort to magic themselves to protect themselves.
10:37That's very interesting.
10:38Ben's shown us that witchcraft was deathly real to these people.
10:43We can be sure that the fears and superstitious beliefs of the women's neighbors nudged them ever closer to the gallows.
10:50The supernatural was always all around you in Tudor England.
11:00People had a sense of a world around them thronging with spirits.
11:05The good spirits are angels sent by God, and the bad spirits are demons in the service of Satan.
11:12The devil and angels and demons, but also fairies and goblins and all sorts of wild supernatural creatures.
11:22What becomes really important as the period progresses is this association of Satan with unexplained occurrences.
11:35And that's the breeding ground for accusations of witchcraft if you then suffer uncanny bad luck.
11:45While the magistrates investigate the villagers' accusations, the frightened women languish in prison.
11:52They've got you too.
11:57Bastards come and grab me in the night, accusing me of bewitching William Walker's boy.
12:03A sickly child at the best of times. You don't need no curse to make him decrepit.
12:08Well, I told them! But then that Reverend Cole pipes up, says I've renounced God, and I can summon devil spirits!
12:18We need to be careful what we say.
12:22Agnes, Elizabeth and Joan are in shock at their arrests.
12:27But with the benefit of history, we can see that there's a pattern here.
12:32About 75-90% of the people accused in witchcraft trials are women.
12:39The negative ideas about women being the harbingers of original sin.
12:44All of that misogyny, if you like, could then be applied to those women.
12:50The Elizabethan conduct manuals all stress the natural inferiority of the female sex.
12:57And the duty of men to lead them, rule them and control them.
13:01They tended to be looked on as people who would be seduced by lures of either money, or companionship, or simply the most basic lure of all, revenge.
13:14So the people of Hatfield Peverell think they've caught three witches.
13:21But what identified you as a witch?
13:24The first ever image of what we think of as a stereotypical witch, kind of ugly old woman on a broom, comes from an artist called Albrecht Durer, who makes something called the witch.
13:36And everyone thinks, oh, that's a banging image, and that's, like, really scary.
13:39I bet it catches on.
13:40It kind of goes viral.
13:42This isn't about subtlety.
13:43You're trying to sell a book.
13:45You're trying to sell a piece of art.
13:46So you go, yeah, demon, cauldron, old woman, here we go.
13:50And then everyone goes, oh, that's a witch.
13:52The problem with that is, is that if you are an old woman with a big nose.
13:57Maybe a broomstick.
13:58Having a little sweep up outside while the old stew's having a stew.
14:03Witch.
14:04It goes out of the sphere where this is just art, where we are trying to communicate something to becoming a real threat for actual people trying to live their lives.
14:12On the subject of broomsticks, Eleanor thinks we're missing something.
14:17Broomsticks.
14:18That's kind of a dick joke.
14:20Really?
14:21Yeah.
14:22Yeah, so you're riding a broomstick.
14:24Oh, I see.
14:25So it's like, yeah, on the way to shag the devil, basically.
14:30No.
14:31Not a euphemism.
14:32So it takes us back to the idea that there's a promiscuity here, that witches just love having sex all the time.
14:39And the idea here is that the reason there are more women witches than men is because women are more sexual.
14:45You're being sold the idea of what a witch is and who is dangerous.
14:49And you're buying it.
14:52The three supposedly dangerous women are called before the Chelmsford court in a major case.
14:59Interrogating them is the Queen's attorney, Gilbert Gerrard.
15:03At his side, the Archdeacon of Essex, the Reverend Dr. Thomas Cole.
15:08Elizabeth Francis, Agnes and Joan Waterhouse.
15:20The Bible commands us, thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
15:25Amen.
15:29By the laws of this country, as passed by our sovereign queen, if found guilty of these crimes of maleficium, punishment shall be death by hanging.
15:43Now, this is where we meet two very interesting characters.
15:50Do you know who this is?
15:52That is Gilbert Gerrard.
15:54It is indeed.
15:55Now, he's attorney general to Queen Elizabeth I.
15:58Quite an important man.
15:59Yeah.
16:00And sat alongside him, we have got Reverend Thomas Cole.
16:05And you've got the most senior judge in the country, somebody really senior from the church as well, coming to try these three poor women from Hatfield Peverell.
16:18Well, now, there's a big reason why these two are here, because three years previous, in 1563, this act came about.
16:27Now, this basically says anyone who's done murder by witchcraft will be sentenced to death by hanging.
16:34So, for these two, this is a really big case, because this is pretty much one of the first test cases out there.
16:40Before this act of parliament, alleged witches had been tried under heresy or treason laws.
16:47Now, with this law against witchcraft, it's being weaponised by men like Gilbert Gerrard and Thomas Cole.
16:54So, there are some really significant things happening here.
16:58First of all, we've got a law, which means that something supernatural...
17:03Is real.
17:04..can be punishable by execution.
17:06Yeah.
17:07And these women are among the first to be accused under this new law, then.
17:13Hence the reason why we've got Billy Big and Billy Bigger.
17:16It's powerful evidence that our women are victims of a high-stakes test case.
17:23But why pass a law against dark magic?
17:29Against dark magic.
17:30Elizabeth comes to the throne and very soon she becomes aware that various people are trying to kill her.
17:39And one of the ways in which they're alleged to be doing so is by using magic.
17:44So, in 1563, her parliament obligingly produces a government-sponsored bill.
17:51Murder by witchcraft was now a capital offence.
17:57The persecution of witches is absolutely state-sanctioned.
18:06I think it's in the interest of the state to have a group of people to attack.
18:10And I think we see this even today.
18:12In our 1566 trial, under interrogation, Elizabeth Francis starts to reveal incriminating details.
18:21Your grandmother, Eve, was a known witch.
18:26You must have learnt from her.
18:28Well, she gave me a cat.
18:32Name of Satan.
18:35Said it could make my life better.
18:37A demonic spirit, no less.
18:40I don't have him anymore.
18:41I gave him away.
18:42To Mother Waterhouse.
18:43Tell me of your lewd affair with one Andrew Biles.
18:56It wasn't lewd.
18:58I desired him to be my husband.
19:01You used your wicked powers to seduce a man of wealth.
19:07He refused to marry me.
19:10And he beat me.
19:15So I...
19:16I willed the cat to waste his goods and...
19:18And...
19:19What?
19:24And...
19:26And he died.
19:27We're investigating the 1566 witch trial held in Chelmsford, Essex.
19:40Details are emerging of the apparent victims of defendant Elizabeth Francis.
19:46One of them is a man she had a lewd relationship with.
19:50So this is Andrew Biles.
19:53Apparently, she's using witchcraft to curse him to the point that he dies.
20:01Via a cat.
20:02Via a cat?
20:03Called Satan.
20:05Yeah, that was a silly thing to do.
20:07Never call you a cat Satan.
20:08Never call you a cat Satan.
20:09To be fair to Elizabeth, it was her nan who came up with the cat's name.
20:16But this family link won't have helped her case.
20:21The idea of demonic animal spirits is quite an English thing.
20:26A lot of people would have thought about it as a real-life animal,
20:30that the devil had somehow got inside.
20:33It was a devil, but it was also an animal at the same time.
20:39Elizabeth has already told the court she had the opportunity,
20:43the means by way of her cat, and the motive to kill her boyfriend.
20:49This is what I don't understand.
20:50Look, if Elizabeth's being beaten by this man,
20:53of course she's going to wish you all upon him, or wish him death, whatever.
20:56But why on earth would she stand up in a court of law
21:00when she's on trial for witchcraft and say,
21:02Oh, yeah, by the way, I did curse him.
21:06I did pretty much wish him dead, and I sent me cat called Satan.
21:09I mean, she's not helping herself, is she?
21:11I'm looking at her and thinking she's a poor and educated woman.
21:14She's being interrogated by these two.
21:16It must have been absolutely terrifying.
21:18She's under duress.
21:20Maybe she's just coming up with this in the moment.
21:24Or actually, maybe she feels guilty.
21:27And perhaps she then thinks that she's got some kind of power.
21:30Maybe she believes it.
21:34We're going to need more intel about why Elizabeth made this confession.
21:38But first, we need to investigate how the account of the trial was recorded over 450 years ago.
21:46There's something called a chat book.
21:49Chat? Not chat?
21:50No.
21:51Oh.
21:52But it's kind of like those chat magazines now.
21:54Right, like this is kind of a tabloid sort of publication.
21:57And someone claims that they were at the trial,
22:01and that this is the actual transcript, and they publish it.
22:06It's super sensationalistic.
22:08Everyone wants to get their hands on this.
22:10It's like the Heat magazine of its day.
22:12Absolutely.
22:14Queen Elizabeth's government normally loved a bit of censorship.
22:18So why did they let this witch trial gossip rag spread across England?
22:24So you have a way of kind of like producing a mass hysteria,
22:27where you're like, oh, okay, well, this works.
22:29The word is getting out that it's bad to be a witch.
22:31That suits the aims of the state at the time.
22:33It's more evidence that the fingerprints of the state are all over our cold case.
22:40Not only did Elizabeth's government bring in the death sentence for witches,
22:45they also turned a blind eye to anti-witchcraft propaganda spreading across the country.
22:51The state is demonstrating that when it comes to witchcraft allegations,
22:57there's no smoke without fire.
23:00In court, Gilbert Gerard piles pressure on Elizabeth, eager to make her crack.
23:06The noose is tightening.
23:08The noose is tightening.
23:09And what of Yeoman Christopher Francis, the man you eventually married?
23:15What curse did you place on him?
23:20We lived not so quietly.
23:23He was moved to swear and punch him.
23:27Given your past lascivious behavior,
23:33the husband has every right to discipline his unruly wife.
23:39But this time there was an infant from the Union.
23:46My daughter.
23:48Barely six months old.
23:52But then...
23:53Go on.
23:54I cursed my husband.
23:59I cursed him.
24:01And my child.
24:08You used a Satanic beast to end the life of a blameless infant.
24:15Just to get back at your husband.
24:21something strange is going on elizabeth isn't on trial for murder she's charged with putting
24:30a curse on a boy who became paralyzed and yet here she is confessing to cursing her husband
24:37christopher and murdering her own daughter with dark magic for me personally i feel like i just
24:44want to grab her and go lie you haven't got to say this now infant mortality was incredibly high
24:51in the 16th century but what the court is hearing or what the court wants to hear i think is that
24:59these are not natural deaths they're not unnatural deaths they're supernatural supernatural deaths
25:06the motivation for elizabeth francis to confess to these killings is really puzzling is there
25:13an underlying issue at play so elizabeth is clearly a really quite disturbed person with a thoroughly
25:22unfortunate past it would have been really easy for her to have felt guilty about all of those
25:27relationships and some people have suggested that postnatal depression might play a role in women
25:33confessing to hurting or killing their own children we don't know how much of it was elizabeth's
25:40reworking of a tragic personal history with a new demonic spin on it we don't even know whether
25:48she actually did curse people now it's the turn of elizabeth's sister agnes to face the prosecution
25:56but unlike elizabeth agnes is going in fighting mother waterhouse
26:03you stand accused that in october last year you bewitched your neighbor william fine causing him to
26:14suffer a bloody flux and subsequent untimely death old man fine was a tight old bastard never gave a
26:24grain to any of us needy folk we also have testimony from your sister elizabeth francis that you took
26:33possession of her demonic spirit i took in a cat if that's what you mean
26:41cat keeps mice and rats at bay a cat the good christian people of hatfield peveril
26:49have seen you feeding with your own blood
26:53people need to mind their own business we also have sworn testimony from an eye witness that you
27:05have been heard in church saying our lord's prayer in latin just the language i learned it the illegal
27:16language of papists and catholics the most abhorrent traitors to our sovereign queen
27:27and the devil's own tongue
27:36so now the court turns its attention to agnes so she's being accused of killing this man by witchcraft
27:44william fines who she doesn't much like she admits to that but she's not admitting to the charge
27:52however the court are also then accusing her of a sin which is perhaps as bad as being a witch
28:01they are saying that she's been overheard saying the lord's prayer in latin the pater noster
28:07and that that means that she is potentially a catholic the religion is marrying up with the law
28:16yeah but agnes unlike her sister ain't taking it lying down she self-admittedly says but that's how
28:22i learned it when i was young mary the first you would have said the lord's prayer in latin
28:27so how did latin prayers become such a taboo in elizabethan england there were some people in
28:35england who feared that elizabeth i would not survive would the pope bless a catholic nation
28:45to invade england and remove the heretical elizabeth from the throne how long would england remain
28:52sovereign the queen passes laws against catholicism around the same time as she passes laws against
28:59witchcraft and many people come to conflate the two if you look at the accusations against both of
29:06those there are multiple things that resonate with each other one of them is the emphasis on obscure
29:14rituals the other is language so agnes is in a very difficult position when she's using latin she
29:21sounds catholic and she sounds magical too agnes's testimony is being used to cast her as an enemy
29:30of the state she's making herself incredibly vulnerable next to endure gilbert gerard's scrutiny
29:38is agnes's teenage daughter joan and gerard has an ace up his sleeve
29:47joan waterhouse
29:51you are accused of summoning your mother's demonic spirit to attack your neighbor
29:59the court calls agnes brown
30:08what is your age my dear 12 i think
30:16tell me what happened
30:17joan came to our house she asked for bread and cheese but i told her we had none
30:23heard her muttering as she walked off
30:25and then what appeared before you
30:28a black dog appeared with a face like an ape with a pair of horns on its head
30:36and a silver whistle around its neck
30:38from the mouths of babes such innocence and honesty
30:47now joan's not been you know accused of killing anyone however
30:51a 12 year old girl another agnes agnes brown gets called in
30:59agnes b i think yeah and her testimony is just bizarre isn't it it's really really ridiculous
31:06you know joan goes around to ask for some bread and cheese agnes turns around and says
31:11that this little fella a black dog with an ape's face and horns
31:17appears and i can't believe that her evidence such as it is is it is admissible in course it's just
31:24extraordinary well you say that but in those times from the mouth of babes that was a very key
31:30line because back then people would believe what children would say they thought that they were pure
31:36they were honest why would a child need to lie so they're using this really to drive home
31:40that idea that this whole family yeah are witches like a coven yeah the elizabethan cultural belief
31:50in the honesty of kids is a key clue in our cold case young agnes brown's evidence pushes our women
31:57closer to execution so why does she say it is it possible agnes was hallucinating our medical
32:06consultant jonathan goddard has a theory on this so jonathan what i really want to know is why have
32:12you brought your breakfast in i wouldn't eat that why is it is this a mold growing on cereal yeah it's
32:19fungus and um so on on the cereals that you would then make into your bread and this mold this ergot
32:28it can cause you to be really ill so there is one theory someone in the 1970s was looking at the
32:34the salem witches and she thought it could be to do with something called ergotism or ergot poisoning and
32:42there are two major things it can cause it can cause you to have horrible gangrene and sores
32:47but also it can have mental effects as well it can cause um hysteria mania psychoses so you can hear
32:54things and you see things that aren't there almost like a hallucinogenic it's like lsd right so we're
33:00living in a world where potentially young agnes brown may have just eaten some dodgy bread you know
33:06maybe she truly believes that that she saw this dog with horns and the face of an ape
33:13so agnes brown could have been tripping on ergot but alternatively she could have been plain old lying
33:20about 90 percent of witchcraft accusations in tudor and stewart england are neighborhood feuds
33:29that have now reached a tragic level and the testimony of 12 year old agnes brown is a classic case
33:39and the court is eagerly devouring her testimony
33:44that wasn't the only time the devil beast came
33:48no he came again last wednesday this time he had a knife in his mouth
33:55he threatened you said he would thrust his dagger knife into my heart
34:00i asked him who he belonged to and he wagged his head to your house mother waterhouse
34:06she lies i'm no such dagger be quiet joan waterhouse
34:12you were angry with your neighbor and so you conjured your mother's devil beast
34:22i called for it as i'd see my mother do and the dog appeared and sent it to kill agnes brown
34:30it's true the beast joe speaks of it's mine
34:42we're investigating the 1566 chelmsford witch trial and under duress agnes waterhouse has made a shock
34:50confession what's really really interesting is agnes has been so strong up until this point
34:58she has fought her corner unlike her sister elizabeth she's not folded but the second
35:03that joan admits to yeah i've maybe conjured this up like my mum has she stands up and she goes no i'm not
35:13having that that's my daughter and it's a mother's love for her daughter that ultimately lands agnes in it
35:21it's awful roylan i mean i'd you know at this point i'm looking at these two men and thinking they're
35:26planning all of this they know that agnes is holding out against them that she's not admitting
35:33to anything and i think they they have worked out that the way to get her to confess is to implicate
35:41her daughter jones made a fatal error why did she make her confession in open court
35:49is she just going along with what the magistrate wants we have no idea of how these confessions
35:56were exacted but we do not know what uh pressures bribes persuasions promises have been made to joan
36:06to persuade her to cooperate is there some sort of collective delusion going on here i really don't
36:11know but it's at that moment the trial kind of flips over you might actually think these women are both
36:16witches it's becoming clear how expertly the state played their suspects both behind the scenes and
36:24in court now that gerard has found agnes will say anything to protect her daughter he piles on the
36:31accusations we're nearing the end game agnes waterhouse on the charge of witchcraft you wish to confess
36:47i confess i do have a devil beast
36:52he comes as a white cat but i sometimes change him to a toad or a black dog
37:05and you've used this beast i have
37:11i sent it to kill master kersey's hogs it caused widow goodie's cow to drown
37:20i willed it to give william five the bloody flux and and
37:28and nine years past i sent it to kill my husband
37:34if you can bring the beast before us now i will dispatch you from prison
37:40i cannot
37:46for in faith i no longer have power over it tell me when did it last feed from you
37:54never
37:56never
37:58really
37:58take off your kercher
38:08i see devil marks as clear as day
38:12proof you feed your demon spirits and proof you are a witch
38:17in our incident room we have a new clue the court's interest in the marks on agnes's face and neck
38:28they're hidden under her chief under a hat aren't they um and and it's obviously looks like
38:34it's some it's bled so something must have been drinking her blood and she's giving a drop of
38:40blood to one of her imps and to ask it to go and do an evil thing but we all have blemishes
38:46you know we all have apart from you obviously thank you but we all have skin blemishes um and
38:53so if you look hard enough you'll find something isn't that awful though because if you think about
38:58it from her perspective you know maybe she has got a blemish or a sore on her face which she's which
39:03she is trying to cover up yeah just because she doesn't want people to see it absolutely and then
39:08that's being taken as being suspicious these marks were used as hard evidence against agnes but what
39:15were they so all of these things you would say oh this is a witch's mark this is a proof that you
39:22are a witch really absolutely if you see me in the morning without any makeup you'd definitely be able
39:27to prove it i mean that that's just a blood brister bit of pigmentation here some sort of
39:33nevus bit of pigmentation completely normal what's this a skin tag it looks like it's a
39:38little a little skin tag there what's extraordinary though is that the men that are interrogating agnes
39:43believe in the existence of imps but they also believe that the imps are feeding off her and they
39:48also think that they've got physical evidence absolutely and often this is really helpful to them
39:54because in english law you have to have proof before you can convict somebody at the trial
40:02the accused women discover their fate
40:0718 year old joan is acquitted
40:12elizabeth is sentenced to one year in prison
40:18but poor agnes is convicted of murder by witchcraft and the full force of the law is brought down on her
40:25on the 29th of july 1566 just days after the trial agnes is led to the gallows i see devil marks as
40:36clear as day it's true the beast joe speaks of it's mine
40:49proof you are a witch
40:51that's true the lost her quies in kyle's sanctificator no man to
40:59it's really interesting when you look at the three accused Agnes was the strong one she was
41:23the one that wasn't having any of this yeah Agnes is the one who faces her end I think at the beginning
41:31when we were getting into the story I thought that Gilbert Gerard actually might be the most
41:39sinister character here I I still think he is quite sinister but it's much bigger than than these two
41:48men I mean this is state-sanctioned state-sponsored violence it's the outcome that they want in this
41:58act has come in three years previous Elizabeth the first wants people to be frightened of this
42:03act they want people to be frightened of this and this is the result that it culminates in
42:10Agnes and her family were victims of misogyny and superstition they were stigmatized for begging
42:19had their prayers conflated with dark magic and their bodies probed for marks
42:25but one reason for Agnes's execution stands above the others she was a victim of a brutal conspiracy
42:34of control that went right to the top to the queen of England herself and the persecution was just
42:44getting started next time on witches of Essex a petty feud between former friends triggers one of the
42:52most devastating witch hunts in English history someone might think you're cursing me and we'll
42:58investigate how one man's ambition threatens to rip an entire community apart sorcerers wizards witches will be
43:07rigorously punished
43:28so you
43:39you
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