William Cormac and Mary Brennan

welcome back to the show, everybody. Yeah, thanks for tuning in my own Sorry, wow, that's all a different show. What do we did like that? Though? You know, I think we'd have a different, different response, I think so. Yeah, thanks everyone turning reblcables all Miles. I can't tell him. Is this like a drunk elvis or? I don't know either, but I feel like exploring this. It's an original character. It's nobody. Yeah, yeah, fascinating. Is out of my character study? Yeah? Yeah,

send your feedback. We'd love to hear it. What's the backstory of this guy? Oh, we're so excited to have you here for today's episode. And I promise that I didn't just sit down to the recording booth today as an excuse to talk about everything everywhere, all at once. I was going to say, can we just change this whole podcast. It's the only thing I want to talk about. If you haven't seen this movie, if you haven't heard of this movie, whatever, don't watch any trailers, don't read

anything about it. Just go go see it right now. It's unbelievable. It is the coolest movie I've ever seen. Pretty sure that's true statement. I'm trying to think of a cooler movie, and there's a lot of cool movies. I've seen a cool movie, but this one was truly original, so innovative and awesome and funny and weird. I really, really yeah. I just don't even want to talk about it that much. You just got to see it. It's just unlike anything else. I'm sitting here in the middle

of the movie and I never do this. I mean, you asked me what my favorite movie is, and I'm like, I hate that question. It's hard to answer, like what context, blah blah blah. But I'm sitting here in the middle of this movie thinking to myself, is this my favorite movie? Like it's wild and I'm still not you know, gonna set that in stone yet or anything. But man, just go see it. That's all. That's all there is to say, everything everywhere, all at once. Starring Michelle Yo. It's incredibly

exciting film. It's like watching Spider Verse sort of Spider Verse kind of did that, and it was just so original and interesting and doing so many different things. And I was like, Oh, there's a lot of cool ideas in this movie. Anyway. Yeah, we could talk about that film all day, Yes, but we won't talk. Call us after you've seen it and we'll we'll talk handlessly. Um,

but we're here for a totally different story today. This one came up kind of out of nowhere because we were going into research a totally different story, found this little intro to it and I was like, this is this is an episode that I can't summarize this story in uh in act one of of of the an Bonnie story. We have to we just have to tell this story on its own. So this is the story of William Cormick, his wife, and their maid Mary Brennan.

Now two of these people are the parents of the notorious pirate and Bonnie, a woman who sailed to the Caribbean with as much, if not more swashbuckling fury than any of her contemporaries. She's an awesome pirate. We're gonna learn all about her later, but so excited to her, very excited. But we just had to talk about how and came into this world. And this story in and of itself just had us wide eyed, jaws dropped face palms like this could leave the nonsense going on formanent

palm on my face. So I say, let's jump in and hear the story of and Bonnie's parents. Let's do this, Hayley French, come listen. Well, Eli and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no match making, a romantic tips. It's just about pridiculous relationships, a lover. It might be any type of person at all. And abstract concept are a concrete wall. But if there's a story where the second glance ridiculous roles a production, if I heart radio? Okay.

So most of this story comes from a novel which is titled A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most Notorious Pirates from their rise and settlement in the Island of Providence to the present time. With the remarkable actions and adventures of the two female pirates, Mary Reid and and Bonnie, contained in the following chapters, to which is added a short abstract of the Statute and Civil Law in relation to Piracy by Captain Charles Johnson.

Oh my god, I love the general history of the robberies and murders are the most notorious pirates when they rise in settlement in the island of the Providence to the present time, with the remarkable actions and adventures of the two female pirates Mary read and an Bonnie contained in the following chapters, to which is added a short abstract with the Statute in Civil law Law in relation to piracy. That is a great one. That is a joke you've got to commit to. And I respect that

you went through the whole thing a second time. And uh, we just lost half our audience, but you know what that the other half also really admired that committed to the bit. So this book was written by Captain Charles Johnson, but some historians claim that Captain Johnson is actually a pen name for Daniel Dafoe, who was the author of Robinson Crusoe. Others totally dispute that, saying that it was

this publisher named Nathaniel missed um. I don't know about you, but to me, Captain Johnson, Uh sounds more like a porn actor's name, right, who started something like? Like? Asked? Pirates of the car Lesbian Oh, a tale of plundered booty and rum guzzling semen, rum guzzling. You know, pirate porn? This is interesting you. What would your pirate born be called? M M? I guess, uh, pervy with scurvy, pervy with scurvy.

I don't know hervy with scurvy. If you're going to do a legit pirate born, you gotta have some toothless action in there. Don't you think the authenticity is really what I came to this porn I'm looking for in

my pornography. I wanted to feel real well. At any rate, nobody really knows who this Captain Charles Johnson was, but the way he writes all of his knowledge about sailor's speech and sailor's life and all the culture out on sea and everything, it's believed that he was either an actual sea captain or at least a professional writer who studied life at sea extensively. And this book is considered the prime source for a lot of biographies of well

known pirates. It's got black Bart, Roberts, Captain Kidd, of course Mary read And and and Bonnie, as well as Calico Jack and of course everyone's new best pirate friends Captain Edward Blackbeard, Teach and Steed Bonnet the Gentleman Pirates stad all right, which yeah, okay, I know we have to throw I'm not sure we've talked about this. We have devoured Our Flag means Death and freaking I mean just love it. I fell in love with every single character.

It's so good. If you haven't checked it out yet, it's on HBO. And I know sometimes we were just like we love to sidebar about what shows you want to and it's so annoying when you say, like you gotta watch this TV show because we all have fifty thousand shows on our list. But it's loose, very loosely based on these real characters black Beard and Steve Bonnet um and it's just a very funny, touching, wonderful show. You've got to watch it. Hashtag renew Our Flag means

stuff real. So this book came out in seventeen in London. By seventy six it was so popular that four editions had come out, each with additional information in chapters, and there is no doubt whatsoever that the author definitely embellished a lot of things. You know, he's trying to sell, sell the book. So the British public was thirsty for exotic, adventurous stories, and Captain Johnson gave it to them. Yeah, people want like, I mean kind of like, I don't

know when was the pirate craze contemporary? It was, and it's still going on a little, but I don't want to stay like around them. Did the movies right, the Black Flag and it was about two thousands, Yeah, those were it was hot. Pirate culture. It comes in waves, and this was a wave. People were super into pirate ship then. And yeah, I guess he had a bit of a creative imagination. This is where kind of the stereotypes and tropes of pirates originated. The missing eyes and legs,

the buried treasure, colorful clothing like all that stuff. Although I will say with the colorful clothing, we learned when we did Robert Culifford and John Swan that they did, in fact steal plenty of fabric and well known that they would often stitch together wild outfits and look insane to everyone else, and it was like part of the way to stand out. Yeah, because at the time, I remember we talked about that episode like your class was very tied to how you dressed, and if you were poor,

you were meant to wear drab, dull clothes. And the pirates were like, screw that, We're going to address like crazy colors and patterns and like whatever we happened to steal exactly. It was like a real sign of success for a pirate. I'd argue based on what I read that Johnny Depp even toned it down a little bit definitely for Captain Jack Sparrow, because I think I think

they were even more gaudy than that generally. Yeah, we're striped patterns, I mean, because the fashion of the rich was so wild to time, Like what you were sealing was insane, and they were just cobbling together like a bunch of I war a pounds tooth coat over a polka dot shirt and so yeah, writers like Robert Louis Stevenson and Jay and Barry have said that this book was a pretty major influence on their pirate characters. So

the stereotypes just kept on rolling. Over the ages. But a lot of his work is based on journals, interviews, and court records. So there's a lot of truth mixed into this book for sure, despite it being considered pretty embellius, right right, right, Yeah, the bones, the bones are there, and maybe he fancied it up a little bit, like

you said, to sell copies, right. And of course some of these details just can't be proven with any other surviving documentation, and that includes the story of a Bonnie's parents that we're about to tell here, So do take it with a grain of sea salt. But um, but it is told in pretty impressive detail here in Johnson's book, and almost every other article that I found about a Bonnie summarizes it in like two sentences. It's like, this was her dad, and they moved to South Carolina and

then she became a pirate. And I'm like, y'all skipped over an incredible story, So it needs to be told. You know, we we don't generally think of pirates parents, but everybody's got him, right, So let's learn about an Bonnie's So, according to Johnson, and Bonnie's father was named William Cormick, and he was a pretty well to do lawyer in late sixteen hundreds in a town near the city of Cork, Ireland, or Corky as I've heard it pronounced in pronunciation videos. So his wife goes unnamed in

the book. So Mrs Cormick, I guess, I don't know. I feel like we should throw her name just so we can keep track of her a little better instead of just being like Mrs Cormick the whole time. So what's what's Mrs Cormick's name? Ship? Not it can't be Merry or we already have those characters coming up. How about Molly Molly? That seems like a common Irish name, Molly. Since it's definitely a made up name, maybe it should be like totally like Nicki Minaje cormick ers like Cormick,

not that, but you know what I mean? Yeah, how about like Apple Apple Apple Cormick. I mean, you know, Gwynedd's kids going to grow up sometime and she's going to have to be Mrs Apple somebody. That's all I'm saying. All right, So William and his wife, whose name for the purposes of our telling you the story is Apple? Um. I guess at some point around the turn of the century, like maybe or so Apple Cormick got really sick and nobody could figure out exactly what was wrong with her.

So her doctor advised that she moves somewhere else for quote a change of air. And Johnson says that, quote the place she chose was a few miles distant from her dwelling where the husband's mother lived. So she's going to stay with her mother in law to recover, right, But like it's only a few miles away. How is the air any different there? Right? Is it just more trees? Maybe? Maybe the doctor was like, I think you just need to get away from your husband for a few weeks.

You'll feel a lot better. Honey, he's a real stress in your life. You need to need tout. She's close with her in laws at least that's nice. Yeah, So Williams stayed back at home to continue his work, and of course they had a serving maid named Mary Brennan, who Apple had asked to stay back and watched the house and attend her husband, you know, because she wouldn't be there to do it. So somebody's going to make

this guy sandwich and stuff. So Johnson describes her as quote, the man cannot care for himself at fast, straight up like bread ingredients. I don't know what am I supposed to do. Johnson describes Mary Brennan as quote a handsome young woman who was being courted by a man in town who was the local tanner. The tanner whenever the family was out of the house, he would lay down his hides and sneak on over to hang out with

Mary Brennan. They had just had a little secret thing going on, you know, young love amongst the serving class happens all the time. And this kid shows up and I don't know, uh speculation station here, I'm gonna say they just they just did it in every room with the house, right. I mean, these are two again to serving class people living it up in some rich dude's house. When he's away, they're going to come in. They'll probably like role play, like pretend to be Mr and Mrs

Cormick like, but like they'll gender swap it. Like she'll she'll she'll get William's pipe, you know, and he'll come in in a silk gown and be like, oh, oh, I'm fainting, it's all I'm so wealthy. I just don't know what to do. Don't worry, honey, You'll catch you. Let me the man you're so strong, come over here and leave you over my knee, Medaari, air's in the air. I wonder what I'll do with that? Is this what

rich people do all day? We wonder? I love doubt, Nabby, and I'm just trying to picture anything like that happening. It would not well. One day. Johnson writes that the Tanner quote not having the fear of God before his eyes, waited until Mary wasn't looking, and he swiped three silver spoons, slipped them into his pocket. He and Mary finished their date, and before William came home from work, the Tanner slipped away until their next rendezvous. Well, here's the thing about maids.

Back then, you know, they're in charge of the house, so they pretty much know every nook and cranny of the house. Yes, you know every trinket, they know every corner. I mean, they know the books, she's dust and everything. Yeah, she polishes those spoons like three times a week. Ship. And also it's not like I mean, we've got a drawer full of random utensils we've picked up over the years, and nine forks could go missing and i'd be like,

we still have thirty six works. I don't know, but they had like a set right, there was like an equal number of each utensil and it's silver, and it's silver, it's worth something. That's why I got stolen to count that ship. So she was counting it and yeah, like the very next day, her spiky sense went off and she's like, hang on, now, I gotta check this. She like sat up bolt up right in a cold sweat,

and it's like, I gotta check the spoon. And she went and counted him and she's like, oh, ship, there's three spoons missing. So she starts doing a little detective work. Okay, she really applied her whole brain to this problem and put together all her suspects, a very long list of exactly one dude, the Tanner, because he's literally the only other person who would come into the house. So she's like,

it's definitely Hippen obviously, can't be anyone else. So Tanny boy here shows up the next day and she corners him because Mary liked her job, right, and also when a maid was suspected of having stolen something like, there's real jail time there. It's not cute and then you probably never get a job again if I have down't Nabby taught me anything. Yeah, it's a stain you cannot scrub out. So she corners him. She's like, why did you steal the spoons? Give me the spoons, and the Tanner,

being a complete idiot, denies it. Again he's the only other person who's been in the house. So Mary gets piste. She's like, there's literally no one else who could have taken them. If you don't fess up, I'm going to call the constable. They're gonna come down here, drag you before the justice of the peace if we have to. And Johnson writes, quote these menaces frightened him out of his wits well, knowing that he could not stand a search. So the Tanner says, he's thinking on his feet, is

going real quick. He says, whoa wa wait wait wait, let me help you look for them. And it all right, we'll just search around the house. They've got to be here somewhere. So Mary rolls her eyes at this kid in his terrible accent, and she starts digging around for the spoons. Fine, we'll take a look. I'll look here. You look there, the tanner says, here, I'm gonna go check in your bedroom while you look around the kitchen, okay,

and he slips into the bedroom. This this tanner thinks he's like Moriarty over here, coming up with some ingenious, some really mastermind plan to get himself out of trouble. And he decides, I know what, why does he sound like that? Oh yeah, he's definitely not cockney. We'll decide what you made him sound like? A lepricn He decides, I'll hide the spoons in her bid. Then she'll find them tonight and tomorrow I'll tell her I did it as a fun prank to freak her out. Girls love

that shake. Yeah, girls love being pranked to the point where they're freaking out about losing there. There could be a felony conviction here. Hilarious. That's how I get all my girls. So that's what he does. He tucks the spoons under her sheets. He slips out the back door. Well, Mary, unlike her boyfriend, has like working Cerebrum and Sarah Bellum, you know, all working together up in there, and she

notices that he left out of nowhere. While in the middle of their search for spoons that she knows, damn well he's got. So she very logically assumes that he has run off with the spoons. So she goes straight to the constable and tells them everything, and they're like, right, we'll take care of it. And the Tanner hears that the cops are after him, so he goes into hiding for a few days. But he's also like baffled by this.

I mean, he's like, I know, she must have found the spoons and then decided to turn them against me, just to be mean, how rude, and like he never thought like that maybe she never found the spoons and that that was why this. She still thought, what would be the point of sending him after something he didn't have. Well, he's thinking that he put the spoons in her bed. There's no way she could not. It's been a few days. There's no way she wouldn't have found the spoons by now.

She must have found them, and now she's just like trying to get back at me or something. I don't really know. He's just nervous because he's like, this, should she should have found the spoons? And I'm like, oh, never mind, I guess I didn't. I guess I just misplaced them in my bed, in my own bed. At at any rate, during all this running around, he's hiding from the cops. She's she's still doesn't know where the

spoons are. Mrs Cormick Apple has made quite a remarkable recovery, and she decided it's time for me to return home. So she and the mother in law hopped into a carriage and returned back home to their village, excited to greet her husband there may aid and presumably play with her three favorite spoons. She's like, can't wait to count my sober and we will find out exactly what happened next. Right after this welcome back to the show, what so Sexy? Trying not to be too weird. I guess I made

it weird. Oh it's super weird. I loved it. Okay. So Mrs Cormick Apple Cormick as we've named her, is back at home and she brought her mother in law with her, and the first thing that she hears when she walks in the door is the maid runs up to her and it's like, oh my god, I'm so sorry about there's three spoons missing. And I know it was this kid who took them when I confronted him, but he ran off, but don't worry. The constables they're looking for him. And Mrs Cormick is like, oh my god,

slow down. I just got home, like recovering from an illness. But you know, you did the right thing, because if there's one thing rich people hate, it's when their spoons go missing. Nothing riles me up like that. Well, the Tanner heard that Mrs Applecormick was home, and he thought, well, this is my chance to clear this whole thing up. This is just a big misunderstanding because he's also he's in hiding, like he can't even go operate his business until this is cleared up. At this point, this is

like a big incident of three spoons. So yeah, he shows up the house and he tells Mrs c the whole story, or at least his version of it, and he told her, you know, I took the spoons as a joke, trying to freak out the hilarious and he hid them in her bed, and he just couldn't believe that she hadn't found them yet because it had been days, you know, like you were saying, anyone who got into that bed would have felt the spoons under them, you know,

so they were unmissable. Right, It's not like a princess in the peace situation. This is like three silver spoons under your sheet, not comfortable lay upon. So he will say, I have slept on some random objects you know, never never noticed. It depends out tired. You are exactly made pretty tired. I wonder if she was ever like, oh, I slept once on an encyclopedia for ten months, I never knew it, slept on a pile of legos. So Mrs C. I thought this story sounded bonkers, which it does.

She's like, what a mess. So she's like, I'll go check the maid's bed and just to see if you know what you're saying is true. And sure enough, there's three spoons in the maids bed, still sitting there, and she tells the kid, Okay, no harm done, just go home, mind your business, get out of my house, and he finishes shooting himself with relief, and he scurries back to his shop in the village to resume his tanning life. Now Mrs C is trying to put this whole thing together.

She's like, okay, so how did Mary not know that these spoons were in her pit. I mean, has she not been sleeping there? She would never steal from us. She's always been a good mate. She's always been cordial with me, and she's very friendly with my husband, and he's always been exceptionally kind to her. And oh, suddenly she starts having these flashbags to just how friendly William

always was with Mary. And she starts thinking, wait a minute, I just got home after being away sick for four months, and William happened to arrange to be out of town today. Okay, And again, it didn't take a Sherlock Holmes here to figure out why Mary hadn't found the spoons in her bed, because she hadn't been sleeping in her bed. Mrs C doing the real sleuth in here, right, Yeah, she's definitely putting two into like what other bed could she possibly spoon?

It's actually not a very complicated board. It's like it's our bed and it's your bed. That's it. There's no other beds. Johnson writes that quote as women seldom forgive injuries of this kind. She thought of discharging her revenge upon the maid women. You know, women be crazy. I mean, he's not totally wrong. I always hated the song The Boy is Mine because I only ever heard it on the radio, and I was always like, why are Monica

and Brandy fighting each other? They should be fighting with the man who has been lying to them both clearly. And then I saw the video and in the video at the very end they can they confront him together. Was like, oh, well, now I like the song better. The director of the video fixed it. The director the video fixed it. I was like, I wish it was a little line, you know where they like black mcnock,

you know, or something. He's like huhh right. So anyway, she's pissed and she starts hatching a plan to screw Mary and catch her husband in the act. And first she puts the spoons right back where she found them in Mary's bed, and she goes to the maid and says, hey, my mother in law is going to be sleeping in my bed tonight, so I'm going to sleep in yours, So if do we favor, go change the sheets and then find somewhere else to sleep. I know you're good

at that. Oh no, you're good on that. And she's like huh, She's like nothing, nothing, You're so good at everything. That's what I said, Oh, thank you, and Mary obeyed. She went and stripped the sheets off her bed and what should clattered to the floor but the three silver spoons. And she's like, these spoons are haunting my days. She's totally confused why these spoons in her bed, but she knows it doesn't look good because she's been talking about

the Stanner. So she decides to slip them into her trunk so that she can later place them somewhere conspicuous in the house and then conveniently happened upon them and be the hero of the hour. Well, what do you know? Here they are? How do they find their way into the library? So, just as planned, the mother in law takes the master bedroom and Mrs c goes down to sleep in Mary's bed. She lay there late just jealousy,

keeping her wide awake the whole time. She wasn't quite sure what was going to come with this little scheme, but she knew something was up, and sure enough, late that night, William came home snuck into the house and he goes up to the master bedroom and he looks inside and he sees a woman sleeping in the bed, and he thinks my wife is home. Well, what's one more night with Mary, Hell's wife. He's asleep, so let me just go down to the servants quarter. Is real

quick and had myself one last little fling. So he goes down to Mary's bedroom and he creaked open the door and he saw a woman in the bed. Of course he thinks, well, Mary's in there, sleeping, wife's upstairs, the perfect crime. Everything's coming up, William. So but of course Mrs C is lying awake in that bed in the dark, and at first she was scared that when the door opened it was thieves. But then right where the thief would go to the servant where all the

riches are. But then William whispered, Mary, are you awake? And Mrs C immediately knew that voice that was her husband, that rat bastard. So it's time for everybody's favorite game show, What this lady do? Okay, Diana, your today is contestant on what did this lady do? So this woman is faking sleep in the bed of the woman that she thinks is sleeping with her husband. She's had this whole plan to catch him in the act, and now it's all coming to fruition. As the husband is in the

room and he's called out the maid's name. So what did this lady do? Did she a leap from the bed, call him out on coming into the servants quarters in the middle of the night instead of his own bedroom, and accuse him of infidelity, be disguise her voice as the maids invite him into bed, and then reached down his pants and squeeze the life out of his balls

as she revealed herself to him. I'm pretty compelling, or see, continue to pretend to be asleep, let him get into the bed and have sex with her in the dark, thinking the whole time that she was in fact Mary the maid, and never give herself away. What did this lady do? Oh? My god? How well? I know what I would do is probably be I guess, um, let's see. But I feel like, what's really going to get her where she? I mean, C is insane. I mean, that's

not gonna solve any of her problems. So I feel like she probably I think I'm gonna go with a. Oh, I'm so sorry, But of course it was c most ridiculous choice you can imagine. Yeah, Unfortunately C is the correct answer. Johnson writes that quote, the husband came to bed and that night played the vigorous lover. That Shakespearean played the vigorous lover. Sorry, honey, I'm just playing the

vigorous lover. Don't mind me, mind me. And the wife just lays there knowing this isn't even meant for her. All this vigorous lovemaking end quote was very passive and bore it like a Christian, you know, like a good Christian woman. She just shot up and took it. That's terrible. Wow, that's really something coming from Captain Johnson, star of Asked Pirates. That is insane. I love that She's like, I'm going

to catch him in the act. And then when she was literally in the act with him, she's like, I guess I'll just lay here and not get any of my goals anyway. So before the sun came up, she snuck out of the bed and did the one thing that she knew would punish this man more than anything else in the world. She told his mother, that is good. That is good. And of course she wasn't done with Mary either. Super pissed at Mary, probably like, wow, he sure plays a vigorous lover with you. She had some

of that energy upstairs in my room. And she called the constable and said that the maid stole all her spoons, and if he came and started your stuff, he would find them. Man, these spoons, it's like right, like, it's just like the spoons just keep getting moved around stage, people coming in out of towards, keep opening different doors. He's like, oh good, here's my spoons, and they pick him up and move him somewhere else. Somebody else comes

in the room. Where did those spoons go? Meanwhile, William woke up, noticed the bed was empty, and just assumed that Mary, you know, had to get up go to work. You know, she stayed up late at night to work on him, and then she had to get up early to work on his house. Life of a maid, I guess. So he also snuck out and left the house. He wandered around the grounds until around noon, and then casually strolled into his house like, honey, I'm home. Which I

love that he's like skulking around his own house waiting. Yeah, so we will get to the consequences of that right after this. Welcome back to the show. Everyone. So William comes home, or rather just comes inside, opens the door and it's like, oh, it's so good to be back in town, this parting. What a night. Oh my dear wife, you're back, so glad to see you. And mother's here too, Oh wonderful. Hey, um, why are you both looking at

me like that? They're tapping their feet, staring at him, arms crossed, and eventually Mrs C looks at him and said, so, our maid is stealing from us three silver spoons. Can you believe it? The constables already on his way, and William, of course, it's basically like, oh, we have a maid. Why that's crazy? Stolen spoons? Well, I don't know. Are you sure? It's probably nothing? You know what, Let's just forget the whole thing. I mean, who cares about spoons anyway? Right,

And this is the last straw. Mrs C freaks out, starts accusing him of everything. She's like, you've been sleeping with her. I know it. I was in the bed last night, you were sleeping with me. You thought it was her? Well, you're dumb. How can you not tell the difference between us? A that's so ridiculous. And he looks to his mom like, hey, mom, little help here. My wife's being real crazy and the mom who don't forget Mrs c has been living with for the last

four months. She's been caring for her while she was sick. The mom is like, oh, I don't think so big trouble, and she starts screaming at him too, for being a big piece of ship, and the two of them, his mom and his wife both leave the house in a huff. They hop in a carriage and they sped off to go back to the mother's estate. What a day for William and his wife just piling on it, right, He just fake got back into town from a big trip and immediately gets yelled at he'd only had one trip

to redew ate himself. Well, Mary the maid was indeed arrested because, of course the constable came and found the spoons in her trunk where she was just waiting for an opportune time, I guess, to find somewhere to slip on, right, And what's she gonna say, Like, No, I was just waiting to put those back somewhere. It's just that, like this other guy had, I had stolen them, and then like he put him back like a joke. And then I found them later, and then I realized that it

would show that I was having an affair. So I was like, oh, I mean, just like hide them for later, just to like put him somewhere else and find them so I could give him that. He's like, all right, Lassie, tell it to the judge. Yeah. She sat in jail for nearly six months before her trial, but when the time came, Mrs C just could not testify against her. Johnson writes, quote, she did not believe the made guilty

of any theft except that of love. So Mrs C just didn't show up at court and Mary was released for lack of evidence. And that's just so crazy that she had to sit in jail for six months to wait for her trial. To see it was like, I think you've had enough, d You're going to get six months in jail. How's that sound. I took my freaking time. She didn't drop the charges. You'll note she was just like, I guess I won't go, but I'll let her. I'll

let her rotten there think about what she did. But while Mary was in prison, it was revealed that she was pregnant, and she and William both knew that it was his. Shortly after her release, she delivered a baby girl and named her Anne, and she went to live in town by herself, with William offering her secret financial support. Meanwhile, William got word that his wife was pregnant as well.

Oh shit, But you know what, the timing doesn't really line up because he hadn't slept with her since the night that he thought she was married, at least seven months before, but she wasn't that far along yet. Oh apple was stepping out also, So of course he gets super mad at her and he starts acting like he knew all along that she was being unfaithful and he finally had proof of it. Now okay, William, And a few months later she gave birth to twins, a boy

and a girl. Now William's mother, the Mrs C's mother in law, had fallen very ill and she was urging William to reconcile with his wife, but he refused his classic ship where he was acting like she was the villain here, like he wasn't the victim. Yeah, like he wasn't doing the exact same thing sleeping around and his likely before her, I mean hers was probably a response to the fact that she had left him. She had to go rebound with hot Tanner, the Tanner. She's like,

who did Mary? Like, oh that Tanner? Okay, get over here. Yes, that's good. So he's being a real jerk about his wife and he won't reconcile with her because he says she's the one who's doing everything wrong, she's sleeping around, blah blah blah. Well, his mother saw what was going on with this, and she decided to really stick it

to him one last time before she died. So she wrote out a will, and she left everything she had in a trust and designated it to be under the use of Mrs c and her two twins to do with as they pleased. Just bypassed her. I'm going to support your wife and her I mean it was her daughter in law, you know, like she cared about her. Clearly they got pretty close. And just a few days after she wrote that will, she passed away. And most of William's money outside of his business came from his mother.

So this really screwed him. You know, this was an inheritance he was waiting for. But as Johnson writes, quote, his wife was kinder to him than he deserved for she made him a yearly allowance out of what was left, though they continued to live separate, and for five years, Mrs c would send William a big chunk of cash every year so that he could, you know, maintain his uh fancy lifestyle. Wow, that's pretty impressive. I guess maybe she was like, well, I also stepped out. I guess

she's like, you know, this is your family money. I'm gonna take a lot of it, but I'll send you some every year. The concession is. But during that time, William grew really fond of Mary and the daughter they had together, and he would visit her home occasionally. Keeping his paternity a secret, he decided he really wanted Anne to come live with him. So would this man do, eliar, our contestant, Hi, shout out to my family, now, Eli,

would this man do? Did he a admit to his paternity, divorce his wife Mary the maid, and raise the girl as his own daughter? Okay, be adopt the girl from Mary for a large sum of money, reconcile with his wife, moved back in, and offer to be a father to the twins in the hopes that she would be willing

to be a mother to Anne. Well, it's kind of nice, okay, okay, okay, or see sneak Anne into his house and raise her in boy's clothing because everyone knew Mary had given birth to a girl, so he could pretend it was a relative son that he was raising as a ward so as not to raise suspicions as to why he had his child in his house. I've seen this game before and I kind of feel like it must be CEE because of just how dumb that sounds. Well, Eli, you've won the big problem it is c ding ding? What

do I win? Um? The chance to leave a chance? It kind of game show is this? It's a few doors to pick from God. The's like gremlin and one of them can't only lie and the truth. Okay, what would he tell me to do? That's a different game though.

It's a whole separate game show. After this game show, Yeah, well no it was c William took his daughter, his biological daughter Anne, back to his home and dressed her in boy's clothing for years, telling everyone that it was some cousins boy and this boy was going to be a clerk for him one day, so he wanted him to grow up around the house and learn the ins and outs of Irish law. M Well, what do we know about Mrs c We know that she's not an idiot.

She knows his family very well. She's been living with his mother for quite a long time. And so she hears about this boy one day and she's like, William, I know all of your relatives, none of them have recently had a baby boy, So what the hell is going on over there? And William really underestimates her all his moves. He's like, she'll never put two and two together, right.

So she sent a friend to go to the house and talk to the kid directly, which immediately revealed that a this kid was a girl, and be this kid's mother was Mary Brennan, their former maid. And see that William was still constantly communicating with Mary. So it's again didn't take a very complicated sleuthing job, but she figured it out real quick, real real quick, and that was

enough for Mrs Applecormick. She was quote unwilling that her children's money should go towards the maintenance of bastards, and she immediately cut off William's allowance, which I had to say, that's not very fair. First of all, his own mother was like maintaining her bastards with her money. So let's be real girls, I'll like you had you were trying to force some kids off didn't belong to you on somebody. So anyway, William was like, I'm not taking that line down,

and he had one more trick up his sleeve. He moved Mary into his house publicly and lived with her as his mistress. Bat'll show her, I mean, like, how was that supposed to have. I'll embarrass myself and that'll really teach you something. Yeah, I'll make me and Mary really uncomfortable. That sounds like a real way to stick it to her. Of course, it did not stick it

to her. All it did was generate a huge scandal around him with his neighbors and Mrs Cormick's family had a lot of influence in the area as well, and once they realized what was happening, they started talking mad shit about him all over town, and little by little his law firms started to lose business. It wasn't long before he lost the practice altogether. And you know, it

was only one thing left to do. He took Mary and Anne, sold just about everything owned, and together with the family, went to Cork and hopped a ship for the New World and they landed and what's now Charleston, South Carolina, and he took up a law practice there, which didn't work out too well for him. He eventually ended up working as a merchant and that worked out very well. Yeah, he made a ton of money as

a merchant, really made a name for himself. Uh, down there in the in the sort of port towns and in the Caribbean and all these places that were a real hot spot at the time. Time enterprising gentleman can make a lot of money in a pop pound. He never did. Mary Mary, but publicly she was known as his wife. Um. Sadly, when Anne was only about thirteen years old, Mary died and Anne sort of had to

step up and become the housekeeper. But around this time and started acting out, and she would get really violent. She was a really rambunctious and difficult teenager. Um. It's rumored that she even killed a serving maid with a knife when she was a teenager. But even Captain Johnson, you know that the King of Embellishments, says that that story is quote ground bliss. But he does say that at one point a young man tried to force himself on her, but Mary quote beat him so that he

lay ill of it a considerable time. Yes, but she lived with her father in a pretty good lifestyle. She was well provided for, and she grew up in a pretty nice situation. But William wanted a very specific match in a husband for her, and she had fallen in love with a young broke sailor named James Bonnie, and she ended up marrying him without her father's consent, and this made William furious and he kicked her out of

the house. So Ann and James Bonnie hopped a ship and set sail for the island of New Providence, which is now Nassau in the Bahamas, and they started looking for work. And that is just the beginning of Ann Bonnie's story. But but it it it sort of sets the stage and let's you know about this crazy situation that led to her birth. Um probably had some sort of influence on why she became, you know, such a

notorious pirate, certainly had an interesting upbringing. Um who knows why she got so violent, But everyone in this story just chose the weirdests. It's so funny. He's like, well, I guess I can't dress my kids, my girl like a boy anymore. Everybody figured that one out. I can't divorce my wife, so living with my mistress as a mistress doesn't really work. I guess I'll just literally leave the entire country. Sometimes that's your only I got to start.

Let me go to England or something. But no, that's what the New world was for, right, want me shed my whole identity and just try and start over with an ocean between me and everybody who hates me. Right, that's so true. He's like the entire all of Cork or all of this town hates me. Let's just get at you, right, Like you said. You know, an enterprising young man can make quite a fortune as a merchant.

And I was going to say, especially after he lost his business, he's probably like, all right, now I need to like start over career wise too, So I really need to go somewhere where I can make a niche and I don't have to know somebody around and stuff. That does make sense. He did do well for himself, and now, okay, I will say that again, there's not a lot of evidence outside of this book to back up these stories. Um, there is a deed someone found that was to a William Cormick for some land in

South Carolina from King George. Uh so they're like that could be his, But there's nothing really else to tie that to An Bonnie. So there's no telling if this is the same guy or not, or if that guy really was her father or any of these stories. Um, but the only document we have says that it was. So I love going with it. I think it's a great story, and it's just hard to to leave that one aside. Again, I'm looking at the An Bonnie story and it opens with this tail, and I was like, this,

We've got to tell this. Hell are like you said, what are any of these people doing? They're all making the worst choices. That's one of the reasons I believe it's so hard, because I'm like, you can't make this. Shut up that this is This is very much a display of true human idiocy. You know, if anyone was trying to write that spoon story, they'd be like, oh, this is boring, just spoons, I should change it to a necklace or something. I feel like, I feel like

you're right. A writer would would be doing different things. Yeah, if this was fiction, it would have been humans. But yeah, that whole ship with the spoons is nuts, and then she lays in bed and pretends to be the maid. That's so weird while he's screwing her. That's so weird, so weird. There's no heroes in this story. Everyone's sucks here,

at least of all the maid, I guess. But again, she was kind of you know, she was sleeping with with a married man, although we could talk about power dynamics and say maybe she really didn't have as much choice as she wanted. Definite they're definite and balance and it would be especially hard without the wife there. I think to be like, oh, I'm you know, I don't want to lose my job. She's going to find out, like,

you don't have any excuses. So but she might have been really into him, clu she was because they lived together for the rest of her life, or again, the reason she slept with him because it was like, this is my best option for a comfortable life. That's true too. Um so all right, well he's the father of this kid that I've that I'm responsible for that I want

a good life for. So yeah, I guess I'll move in with the rich guy and go to the New world with him, and it's better than sitting here where everybody hates me in town, you know, incredibly hard to be an unmarried mother, particularly I think in Ireland. Sure, I know they have a lot of Catholic energy around motherhood. I don't um. What was that The Magdalene Sisters. Do you ever see that movie? Oh? You know, I didn't see it, but I'll never forget it because it just

made me so upset. But it was about Irish girls having to go to a convent because they were seen as being like loose or flirtatious or whatever. And one of them was an unwed mother, um and one of them got sexually assaulted by a family member, but of course she got she got sent away. He nothing happened to him, it was all her fault. And then the other girl was just like kind of flirty. She never did anything, but they were like, you're gonna do something one day, so we may as well go ahead and

start torturing you out of your femininity. Like it's really insane movie anyway, But that's I was thinking about that with her. She must have Mary must have had a very hard time, like Williams having a hard time with Anne's family talking ship and he's losing business, Like, I feel like people wouldn't look at Mary and they probably called her names. I spit at her and she was thinking about the future of Anne's future, being very stunted

by those choices too. It's always I'm guessing, but you know, yeah, it's always the woman's fault, right when when a man, when a merry band sleeps with the home wrecker, they say, like, all right, who wrecked the home? Here? Really home to preserve? It's a good point. I mean, it takes two. It takes two to tango. Like, you can't put all the blame on either party. Um, but it is unfairly placed

on lady, on the woman. And again in this situation with the power dynamics, I think it'd be unfair to really even weigh it anywhere towards her, because we can only assume that it probably wasn't like her comment on to him. It's probably like, hey, you're cute little maids. Why don't you come over here and and uh, you know, feather my duster or whatever. And she's like, oh, you're not very good with your words, there are you? William.

He's like, now, are people really like job based sexual puns? Uh? But yeah, I just thought this was such a goofy story, a bunch of really wacky characters. It's such a farce. Um, but but it does lead us into the story we were in setting out to tell, which was and Bonnie Mary read and Calico Jack so excited. That's one of my like the earliest stories. I was like, we should definitely do this right away, and then we haven't done

it yet something so excited again. You know, we got a space out our pirate stories a little bit, but I love it. I can't wait, so very excited to come back with you for that later this week or next week. Whenever this episode airs and that one airs. You'll figure it out anyway the next the next episode. So please let us know what you thought of This is such a fun story and we would love to hear from you. Um shoot us an email. Yeah, ridic

Romance at gmail dot com. Slide into the d M s. I'm at Dynamite Boom on Twitter and Instagram and I'm at oh great, it's Eli on the same although god, I've been so off Instagram lately. So follow the show at ridic Romance because that's really where you're going to get the most of us. Uh, we're gonna have all sorts of fun stuff. We'll have a post about each episode. You can comment there with your thoughts. Super fun and hey, uh,

what have you done today? Have you gotten onto Apple Podcasts and left us review because that's a great way to spend fifteen minutes out of your day. Yeah, I mean you just clicked a little five star button there and then you just write out some good thoughts about what you like about the show. Um, other people see it, they think, well, that's a good show. It makes this person feel good. Maybe I should try it out. And then they listen to and we're all happy. Everyone feels

good at least an hour day, right, well twice a week. Yeah, throw some joy into the world. We can't wait to catch you on the next episode. Thanks for tuning in as always. Yes, I love to have you here. Hey for you to leave, I wish I could watch you walk away? All right, Thanks al, we'll catch next time. Bye, So long friends, it's time to go. Thanks so listening to our show, tell your friends names, uncle's and dance to listen to our show. Ridiculous, Well NaNs