Ursula Kemp and the St Osyth Witches

and I'm Holly fry So. This season is going to be all about the lives and fates of those accused of witchcraft and alchemy, and just as in previous seasons, we're continuing to try to delve in and look at what really did happen and if maybe any of these historical alleged evildoers in their activities might look a little

different through our modern perspective. In this episode, we're talking about st Osith witches as their common referred who were convicted of witchcraft in eighty two in England, and among those so called witches was a men named Ursula Kemp.

Before we get into Ursula's life, let's talk about the beliefs about witchcraft during the time of the st Osith, which is, and what happened in the years leading up to these alleged crimes back to the medieval era, Christian doctrine denied that witchcraft and which is even existed and considered the practice kind of just pagan superstition. It was in the eleventh century when the idea of witchcraft became

a problem that needed to be wiped out. It was a time when in the Western world, priests, the growing Christianity movement, and citizens in general began to associate witchcraft with things such as heresy and packs with the devil to gain supernatural powers. It was also a time when penalties for people found guilty for such activities were introduced. So we're going to make another jump forward in time. During the thirteenth century, Pope Gregory authorized that witches and

heretics could be executed. It was after fourteen the eighth though, when Pope Innocent the Eighth quote gave the sanction of the Church to the popular beliefs concerning witches. Basically, what that means is that he formally declared the church to confirm the existence of witchcraft, and in his declaration he also pronounced that those guilty of practicing witchcraft should be quote corrected, imprisoned, punished, and chastised. And that is when

a frenzy of witch hunting began in Ursula's lifetime. The passage of the Witchcraft Act of three, which was also known as an Act against Conjurations, enchantments and witchcrafts under Queen Elizabeth the First is the first time indictments for homicide caused by witchcraft began to appear in the historical record. We can't overlook the influence of the Malleus Maleficarum, which translates into English as the Hammer of Witches. It is likely that we are going to reference this book throughout

the season. It was written by Johann Springer, dean of the University of Cologne in Germany, and Imrich Kramer, professor of theology at the University of Salzburg, Austria, and it was referred to as a reference document for roughly three centuries. Pope Innocent the Eighth issued what was then known as the Witch Bowl. It was printed under the title the Preface to the Malius Maleficarum in fourteen six, and it was regarded as the go to handbook for recognizing, detaining

and interrogating witches. It was a legal and theological document that continued to be used far into the eighteenth century. This was kind of the ultimate witch hunting manual, and it gave permission for anyone to do anything to stop them. And in it there is a lot written about women in general, but specifically those who were midwives and the kinds of activities a midwife may practice. This will be

later on. I'm not just talking about it because midwives, claimed at the book had the opportunity and carried out terrible crimes, and especially common accusation was infanticide. It tells of stories of the murder of newborns as well as the unborn. It included examples of women's stealing and torturing unbaptized children to use in spells. Children who were killed in such manners were believed to be offered to the devil. For centuries, according to the historical record, it was midwives

who were most often prosecuted for witchcraft. Often in the historical record, midwives were written of as quote unwomanly and of course not assuming all sixteenth century midwives are alike. Many were considered suspicious for such things as being unmarried or for their sexual behavior. Like we were talking about earlier, that is going to be an ongoing theme this season. The way is that witchcraft and midwiffery did indeed overlap. Now we have her time and place and situations, so

finally let's start talking about Ursula account personally. Was born in or around five in st Osip, which is a small village in England. But here's why we brought up midwiffery earlier. Ursula was a midwife and possibly also an herbalist and an apothecary. In addition to assisting birth, she was frequently called upon by those in town to heal

people who had become ill. But certain events and accusations among fellow villagers caused many to begin to suspect that Ursula may be able to heal a person, but may also be able to injure them. We are going to take a break here for a word from our sponsor, and when we're back we will talk about the accusations against Ursula. Welcome back to Criminalia. So was she a witch or just a victim of hysteria? Let's take a look at Ursula's trial. Ursula's story really does tell itself

best through that trial. The charges brought against her had quite arranged, including everything from preventing beer from brewing to causing death through the use of sorcery. I found guilty. She was going to be punished by execution. After she was accused, arrested and charged, Ursula was put in what

the villagers called the cage. The cage was actually a two bedroom cottage which today real estate agencies have described as quote the most haunted house in Essex and possibly England in two When Ursula was there, it was a medieval prison, and Ursula and a dozen other women were jailed there while awaiting trial. This is when the group became known as the st Osith Witches. A related bit of digression, but we found some interesting modern information about

the cage during our discovery phase. Modern owners have described this building as being alive and of having quote relentless paranormal activity. According to the UK real estate site right Move though rest easy quote, the house has now been cleared of the many evil residents encountered over the years. A vision of a satanic looking goat, growling, moving shadows, violent rattles, drops in temperature, and visions of ghostly figures,

quite often trying to push the living down the steep staircase. Okay, so let's get out of the cage and back to the witch trial. The Seat witch trial was overseen by the magistrate Brian Darcy. Let's start with one of Ursula's foremost accusers in this trial, a woman named Grace Thurlow, who was also from St. Bosa. Grace testified that when her son Davey fell ill, she called on Ursula for help.

Davy recovered, and Grace believed that it was because of Ursula, who she also believed had cured him through her incantations. But just a few months later, the two women had an argument over how to care for Grace's infant daughter, Joan. Some stories report that the two fought when Grace refused to allow Ursula to be the infant's nurse. Soon thereafter, Joan fell from her cradle and she tragically died of a broken neck. Grace wasn't finished with her testimony, though.

There's more. Grace developed a problem with her legs and had trouble walking. When she asked for Ursula's help, Kemp agreed to offer her services but for twelve pence. Grace agreed, and she did get better, but when she did, she refused to pay Ursula, complaining she couldn't afford the cost. Again, the women argued, but this time Ursula threatened she'd get even. When Grace began to walk with difficulty a second time, she believed it was because of a spell Ursula had

cast upon her. It was then that Grace, she continued in her testimony, filed the complaint with the magistrate, and an investigation into Ursula followed. That complaint made Ursula a prime target for the village's witch hunter, Brian Darcy, who, as we just mentioned, was also the local magistrate. He was her justice at her trial, so adding it all up, Grace Thurlow testified that since she and Ursula had argued, one her son had become ill, two she had become lame,

and three her infant daughter had died. But there was more testimony against Ursula. Another villager, Alice Leatherdale, testified that Ursula had asked her for some abrasive cleaner or scouring sand, as it would have been known, but Alice refused, continuing that she considered Ursula to be quote a naughty beast. But her testimony continued beyond that inability to share household cleaners.

At a later date, she said Alice's daughter Elizabeth fell ill and died after Ursula had allegedly quote murmured in her direction. Alice blamed Ursula for specifically bewitching her daughter to death. Perhaps the most incriminating testimony came from Ursula's own eight year old son, Thomas Rabbit. Thomas wasn't expected to take the stand, but during the trial, Darcy persuaded or I actually prefer the word coerced because it's probably more accurate. He persuaded him to testify that his mother

practiced witchcraft, and Thomas agreed. He testified that she kept four familiars in their home. Familiar in Western witchery would be a small animal, often said to be an or a black cat, or maybe a toad, which would have been given to her by the devil or possibly also another witch. Thomas described Ursula's familiars as a gray cat named Tiffin, a white lamb named Tidy, a black toad named Pygiene, and a black cat named Jack. His testimony continued that he had seen his mother feed her familiars

and that they enjoyed beer and cake. Well, who doesn't h he had also seen his mother feed them her blood. Thomas confirmed that Tidy the lamb had indeed been sent to kill the infant Joan Thurlough, and that Jack the cat had been sent to kill his aunt. A note about this aunt, though she is not mentioned much at all in historical writings about Ursula, and we can't even be sure if she did or didn't exist. Alma's also testified that he had been present when a woman named

Alice Newman had visited his mother. He said Ursula had given Alice a container that he believed was holding familiars, although he never did actually see its contents. He continued that the next time Alice visited his mother, she told Ursula she had used it to kill a neighboring man

and his wife. Alice Newman was also one of the women on trial for witchcraft here, Perhaps ironically, because we know they were so often accused of practicing witchcraft, midwives were often brought in to discover any evidence that a woman was a witch. This was a practice that was called searching. Searching could find many clues. A mole or a birthmark, for instance, would be considered proof of a

demonic pact made with the devil. There is no record that Ursula's body had any such signs that indicated her guilt, but here perhaps is the most interesting part of her trial. Witch Hunter and magistrate Darcy claimed Ursula had made a full confession to him and in private maybe he promised leniency, but maybe not. Maybe there was torture. We don't know. There is no record of what happened to Ursula in

this private meeting. He claimed she told him that about ten years prior, she had experienced a quote lameness in her bones and had visited a local cunning woman. If you were a cunning woman or a cunning man, you were considered a folk healer who often practiced not only

folk medicine, but also folk magic and divination. There, Ursula was told she had been bewitched, and she was prescribed a ritually using ingredients that included pig manure, charnel grounds from the remains of a dead body, sage, and St. John's wort to quote unwitched herself. She recovered, and that she had explained led her to providing healing services to others. Darcy also claimed that Ursula admitted to keeping the four

familiars her son had testified about. He said that she told him that two of them were male and they were used to kill people, and two were female, and they were used to bring about disease. She allegedly confessed that she sent her familiars to cause Grace Thurlow's condition, and that she had also used them to kill Joan Thurlow, Elizabeth Leatherdale, and her maybe not on the record, sister

in law. In this alleged private conversation with Darcy personally named the names of other witches, and they in turn named more. In total, fourteen women the st Asath Witches were tried for witchcraft. The accused women who stood trial were Agnes Glasscock, Alice Hunt, Alice Manfield, Alice Newman, Anice Heard and Swallow, Cecily Selah's, Elizabeth Bennett, Elizabeth Eustace, Joan Pesci,

Joan Turner, Marjorie Salmon, Margaret Greville, and Ursula Kemp. We're going to take a break for a word from our sponsor. When we come back, we're going to talk about the outcome of this trial. Welcome back to CRIMINALLYA. Okay, let's wrap up the trial and then talk about Ursula's future. When the trial ended, Ursula was sentenced to death by hanging, as was Elizabeth Bennett, who had confessed to having two familiars and was found guilty of murdering four people through

witch craft. Ursula Kemp and Elizabeth Bennett, according to resources at the st Asat Museum, were executed, but the fate of the other twelve women really is not known. Some are reported to have also been hanged. Some, it's suspected, may have died in prison before their execution was carried out, and others might have seeved a mixture of acquittals, discharges, or reprieves. But her execution was actually not the end of Ursula's life. She still lives on, or at least

kind of. Four centuries later, in nine a man named Charlie Brooker unearthed the skeleton while digging in his yard, a skeleton that his grandson Paul would later describe as having quote a very long spine, pure white teeth, and nails through the elbows and knees. Broker believed his discovery was the skeleton of Ursula Kemp, but at the time no scientific testing of the skeleton was conducted, and continued Paul quote, there was a skull beneath Ursula's feet, and

to the right there was another skeleton. That second skeleton was considered to be possibly Elizabeth Bennett. First, Charlie put the skeleton on display, including added intrigue by adding those iron nails to the body. They were he claimed, used to shackle ursula. Later, his grandson would share that Charlie was known to embellish things. When Charlie's house burned down in either ninety two or nineteen thirty three, the grave was covered up again, and this time with corrugated iron.

But in nineteen sixty three the remains were once again exhumed. The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Cornwall, England, bought the bones and then they were sold to the artist and book collector Robert Lincoln, which Robert kept the skeleton on display in his library. According to the Evening Harold we Quote, the skeleton was lying inside a coffin which was lined with blue material. The skeleton was laid out in the coffin with nails laid beside it at the

appropriate points. It was at the far end of the library on the first floor, where an index er would work. There was nothing special about it. It was just dried out old bones. When Robert died in two thou and two, the skeleton and was released by the trustees of his estate to a man named John Warlen. It's John who was a filmmaker who discovered the truth about these remains

is he unraveled Ursula's story for a documentary. The skeleton belonged to a young man, not to an adult woman, and the remains were reburied in two thousand and twelve. So there's our future of Ursula, who is actually not

the future of Ursula, Okay, Maria. That means it is time for my favorite part always, because of course we're once again going to have cocktails and mocktails this season, and this time around we are calling our little our little corner of the world where that happens, the cauldron. Appropriate what I have bubbling in the cauldron, I actually almost called it unwitch yourself, because I just thought that was funny. But what I'm actually calling it is the cage.

You're making us a possessed drink. It sounds unpleasant, but I find it delicious. It will trap you with deliciousness, but it is otherwise harmless. However, I have a confession

to make up front. One of the spirits in this concoction is kind of expensive, so I try not to do that and I won't do it often, but in this case I wanted to do something that kind of linked it thematically with these concepts of both midwiffery, which involved some you know, medicinal administration, and witchcraft, which also, you know, kind of sometimes invokes the use of herbs, and do something that was a little herbaceous. That meant

that I used chartreuse. If you don't know about chartreuse, boy, are you in for a drink. It is a liqueur that is said to contain a hundred and thirty different herbal components. This is made by Kentusian monks according to a recipe that they were given in six five, still made the same way today, although they didn't actually start making it until the seventeen thirties. It's one of those things that there are very few people who know how it's made. There's not a ton of it made. That's

why it's expensive. If you're like me, look out, because you're going to really love it and then you're gonna have a taste for an expensive liqueur. So this is the cage. It is one ounce of vodka. I actually used a potato vodka here and that was super smooth and perfect one ounce of green chartreuse, because you can also get a yellow version that's a little bit sweeter and lighter, but go with the green here because it

has that heavier herbaceous flavor. One ounce of black tea brewed however it is you like to do it, and then one how to three ounces of vanilla syrup, depending on how much sweetness you like, and you're gonna shake this all together and pour it into a chilled Again,

it's always a chilled coupe with me. I'm very predictable. Um, it's herbal and it's complex, and one of the beautiful things about Chartrue's is that on your palette it kind of does a little flavor shift naturally, where it starts out with that very herbaceous kick and then different people

perceive it differently. But for me, it has like a little um, spicy, almost smoky, earthy flavor at the finish, and so you get that with all these other things, because neither the vodka nor the black tea really mess with that much. They just kind of rounded out and give it some more volume. It's absolutely delicious. It's herbal and complex, and that seemed for the start of our season on witchcraft and alchemy, like the best way to go.

So that is the cage. If you want to do mocktail version with no alcohol, it's a little tricky to approximate, but here's what I would do. I did this myself and I enjoyed it. It didn't taste quite the same, but it was still yummy. I just subbed it out, since it's a basic one to three of one ounce of each of the components. I did one ounce of black tea, and then I used two different herbal teas in lieu of the vodka and the chartreuse, and that

way you're getting a few more notes. And I think you can use any herbal tea you want to try. I did one that was a liquorice and one that was an orange and put all those together and that was pretty interesting. Favors great together. The vanilla set it off really nicely, so that's super yummy. You can do

that again. I chill it so you'll you'll brew your teas and then let them cool off and then it makes more work, but you get all those different flavors coming together and having a party and it's quite lovely. So that is the cage, which again hopefully only traps you in deliciousness. Did I go looking to see if the cage was available for purchase, Yes, of course it's not. It was on the market for like eight years, but

then somebody bought it and it wasn't me. It looked to me like it had been on the market for quite a while after a woman sold it because she claimed that blood seeped through the wall for no reason. Yeah, you know, I mean there's a reason why she wants to leave. I understand. I actually think there is a reason for that, being a person whose home is currently getting some updates because it is nowhere near that old, but has some issues just from being a house in

the world. I think there's probably some mineral or something that's trapped in the walls, or even like, um, you know, something that grows like a mildewy thing. I think that's probably what's a foot. Yeah. I can't be scared by the cage. I looked at it and tried to buy it. I didn't really try to buy it. I don't have that kind of money to throw around, but I thought about it. We hope that you have enjoyed this first

foray into which is an alchemy. There is so much more to come, and we will be right back here next week with it on Criminalia. Criminalia is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, please visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.