St Osyth Museum
Ursula Kemp, also known as Ursley Kempe,[1] was one of fourteen women from St Osyth, Essex who were put on trial at Chelmsford Assizes in March 1582, accused of killing by bewitchment. Ursula was found guilty and hanged, along with one of her fellow accused, Elizabeth Bennett; the fate of many of the other twelve women is uncertain.[2]
Ursula made a meagre living as a cunning womanPractitioners of folk medicine, divination and thwarting witchcraft.. She claimed to have a particular expertise in cases of bewitchment, and used various herbs and magic rituals in her work. Ursula’s troubles began when she was asked to treat Davy, the son of Grace Thurlowe, a servant at St Osyth Priory, who had fallen ill in the winter of 1581.[3]
When Ursula visited the boy at the Thurlowe’s cottage she took his hand and said “Ah good child, how art thou loden!”, after which she exited the property. This she did three times in all, suggesting that she was attempting to transfer the load of Davy’s illness onto herself and carry it away, “a classic treatment for bewitchment”. That night Davy slept well, for the first time in a long time. Grace Thurlowe was then six months pregnant and beginning to suffer from lameness, and it seems that Ursula anticipated that in return for her services Grace would employ her as her keeper, to act as midwife and look after the baby while she recovered. But Grace chose someone else as her keeper.[4]
Accusations
The relationship between Ursula and Grace came to a crisis during Grace’s confinement. Ursula visited the Thurlowe’s house, angry that she had not been given the job of keeper, and Grace responded by suggesting that Ursula was using witchcraft to cause her lameness. Ursula countered by saying that “though she could unwitch, she could not witch”, and offered to show Grace “how to unwitch herself or any other at any time”, if only she would send away her keeper; Grace declined the offer.[5]
Grace and John Thurlowe’s daughter Joan was born in mid-1581. Ursula was still arguing that she should be employed to look after the baby while Grace was working at St Osyth Priory, but Grace still refused. Then a few months after her birth Joan fell out of her cradle, and died of her injuries three days later.[6]
Ursula then offered to help cure Grace’s lameness, for twelve pence.[7] Grace’s condition improved, but she refused to pay Ursula her fee, saying she could not afford it.[8] The two women argued again and Ursula threatened to get even with Grace, whose lameness returned. Grace testified in a complaint to the local magistrate that since that quarrel, either she or her son had suffered,[9] and blamed Ursula for her son’s illness, her own lameness, and the death of her baby.[8]
Investigation
Ursula was arrested in February 1582, and interrogated by the local magistrate, Brian Darcy.[10] Under his examination Ursula allegedly confessed to having “foure spirits”, two of which were male and killed people, and two female, who could hurt people. She named them as Tyttey, a grey tomcat, Jacke, a black tomcat, Pigin, a black toad, and Tyffin, a white lamb.[11] Darcy persuaded Ursula’s eight-year-old illegitimate son, Thomas Rabbett, to testify against his mother by confirming the story of her familiarsDemonic spirit who attends upon a witch, possessing magical powers that can be used for good or evil. Often taking the form of a small animal such as a cat..[9]
As a result of his enquiries Darcy imprisoned Ursula to await trial at the next Chelmsford Assizes. But he continued with his interrogations,[12] and eventually Ursula named four others as witches: Elizabeth Bennet, Alice Hunt, Alice Newman and Margery Sammon. Those women in turn named a further nine: Cicely Celles, Elizabeth Eustace, Agnes Glascock, Margaret Grevell, Anis Herd, Alice Manfield, Joan Pechey, Anne Swallow and Joan Turner.[2]
Trial and execution
Ursula and her co-accused were brought to trial at the Chelmsford Assizes on 29 March 1582, presided over by John Southcote and Thomas Gawdy. Ursula and Alice Newman faced three counts under the Witchcraft Act 1563Series of Acts passed by the Parliaments of England and Scotland making witchcraft a secular offence punishable by death. of killing by bewitchment: Elizabeth, daughter of Richard and Annis Letherdall; Edena, wife of John Stratton; and Joan, daughter of Grace and John Thurlowe.[13]
Ursula was found guilty of all three charges and sentenced to be hanged. Alice Newman was also found guilty but was remanded in custody, until her eventual release under a general pardon in February 1588.[14]
Ursula was executed together with Elizabeth Bennett at Chelmsford in 1582.[2] Unlike the other women appearing at the Assizes alongside her, Elizabeth chose not to contest her indictment, and was therefore sentenced to death without being tried.[15]
Modern interpretation
Almost immediately after the trial Darcy had published a 100-page pamphlet, A True and Just Recorde, which shows that he and his friends had recently been reflecting on a 1580 book on demonology written by a French lawyer, Jean Bodin, De la daemonomanie des sorciers (On the demonomania of witches). Bodin argued that one of the most effective ways to get witches to confess was to lie to them, and lull them into a false sense of security, a strategy that Darcy certainly employed in his interrogation of Ursula and others.[16]
A True and Just Recorde has been used to support the argument that Darcy was motivated to hunt witches out of some “godly zeal”. Others, such as the historian Jonathan Durrant, have suggested that Darcy, although certainly credulous, did not go out of his way to hunt for witches, he simply reacted to the accusations that people put to him.[17] But the pamphlet also reveals a small community under pressure; there was at the time a short-term mortality crisis in and around St Osyth, which may go some way to explaining why so many people felt compelled to unearth long-standing grudges and quarrels, and accuse their neighbours of witchcraft.[17][18]