Vulgar History - Regency Era Witch Mary Bateman

00:00:00.000 hello and welcome to vulgar history a feminist women's history comedy podcast my name is ann

00:00:13.900 foster in this series we've been talking about the regency era which if you know about the

00:00:18.320 regency era you might think about jane austen or like people going to fancy balls or king george

00:00:23.640 the third or you know bridgerton things like that those are the vibes of the regency era and i hope

00:00:28.700 this series, you've learned that actually it was full of dirtbags. Everybody was addicted to opium

00:00:32.980 and everyone was in massive gambling debt. And also what were the everyday poor people doing?

00:00:38.680 Today, we're going to talk about one of those everyday poor people,

00:00:41.780 the Yorkshire witch, Mary Bateman. I have a special guest. It's Alison Epstein. 0.73

00:00:47.940 Hello.

00:00:49.080 Alison, welcome. So for people who maybe just joined the show, this series,

00:00:53.580 Regency era, they might not know what it portends when you're a guest. Could you explain who you are

00:00:59.240 and what it means to have you here? Yes, I am. I am a frequent guest in the vulgar history

00:01:04.160 pantheon. And I show up like a terrible harbinger whenever anybody's going to do something

00:01:10.520 absolutely ridiculous. Because Anne brings me on for a nonsense dirtbag story when I get to loudly 0.92

00:01:16.980 react to something I know nothing about, but will be excited about. And Anne pitched me this one

00:01:23.660 with exactly one fact about this person. And I canceled all of my plans for today to record this

00:01:30.020 episode. So you've sent me a few times a picture of your schedule being like one of these things.

00:01:34.740 It's not like the other. We won't say what the thing is, because the thing that you know

00:01:39.600 comes towards the end of the story, which is delightful. So we're going to build up.

00:01:44.400 that'll be that's called a tease listeners so just wait and see what it was that they got

00:01:51.720 a very busy person to to set aside hours of your life to talk about this and when we say hours

00:01:59.360 ann and i know that we always say we'll record for like 45 minutes to an hour and we know better

00:02:04.440 than that now so i have blocked the entire afternoon we'll see how long this ends up being

00:02:08.740 as well you should so the first thing that I wanted to we'll just bring up because this is

00:02:13.640 I came across this story from a listener don't know who it was don't have a record of that

00:02:18.120 but back when I was starting I think when I was just starting doing the Regency era I posted on

00:02:22.300 my Instagram stories I was like who's what stories do you hope to hear and people were sharing things

00:02:27.360 I'm like okay good good these are ones I'm working on and then someone was like Mary Bateman and I'm

00:02:31.120 like who's that and then I looked it up and I was just like a witch like was there witness at Regency

00:02:37.680 times wasn't that more like like james the first era like which didn't they kill them all um i just

00:02:45.540 feel like regency era witch is not a thing that i what about you when i said regency era witch are

00:02:50.520 you like was there that then yeah i i had sort of assumed that like witches were pre 1700 and then

00:02:57.460 again after like 2014 like it seems to me there's 300 years in the middle era we didn't really have

00:03:03.920 as many witches i know like there have been witches all along but i haven't encountered any

00:03:08.580 no exactly so i was like regency era witch okay and so as i do um and you know shout out to

00:03:14.220 wikipedia who really often they're gonna have a page it might be short but you're gonna have

00:03:19.520 those subheadings and the subheadings of this were just like i'm sorry one of them was the

00:03:23.200 thing i told you about um listeners that's a tease but this is one where i'm like oh i gotta

00:03:29.620 to get into this and thank god there is a book that is called the yorkshire witch the life and

00:03:34.280 trial of mary bateman by summer strevens so like wikipedia got some facts from there but the

00:03:39.760 yorkshire witch this book like she really and she in the introduction of the summer strevens i assume

00:03:44.380 as a woman i don't know um they said like yeah they were researching some sort of other thing

00:03:49.600 just about just kind of you know dirtbaggy crime stories from the yorkshire region and came across

00:03:54.380 this and they're like gotta write a book about this so like thank you thank you summer strevens

00:03:58.640 for putting this all together i love a historical figure who every time anyone learns about them

00:04:04.060 they're like i have to stop what i was doing i'm so sorry what who are you yeah those are my people

00:04:09.400 that's when i show up for these no this is and just getting into the facts i was you know i'm

00:04:14.360 always looking for an opportunity there's there's various guests who i like to bring on and they

00:04:18.060 always have a certain calling and a certain reason why they come on but i was just like

00:04:21.140 i at first i'm like i think this might be an allison story and the more i learned i'm just

00:04:24.840 like this is an allison story i can't do this without allison um so we're in the northern

00:04:31.840 northern england is where this all takes place largely around leeds and other small towns around

00:04:37.560 leeds so you can picture everybody with that cute sort of bronte sister type accent i was gonna say

00:04:44.280 are we near the graveyard water situation here i think graveyard water could be could be the reason

00:04:53.040 behind some people's bananas decisions in the scaga but there was one part in this there's i

00:04:58.580 it's there's one part of the story you know i'm trying to keep like to nice narrative but there's

00:05:03.320 a side character who did live near where the brontes would later live and in this book summer

00:05:08.700 street once was like the brontes hadn't actually moved in there yet so i was like okay so there's

00:05:12.020 not actually any crossover there's not actual brontes in this but just bronte energy wandering

00:05:19.320 along the moors on her own sort of having her time well like emily bronte like was there ever

00:05:25.500 not an emily bronte so the arrow we're looking at here let me just drink my tea we started

00:05:29.880 recording late because i had a tea emergency but sorted that was the message i got listeners was

00:05:34.720 just tea emergency and i didn't ask questions and i don't want to know there is tea in the story so

00:05:40.800 So 1768 is when our girl is born, Mary.

00:05:44.580 Her name at birth was Mary Harker.

00:05:48.600 Isn't that the name from Dracula?

00:05:50.700 It sure is.

00:05:52.100 Yeah.

00:05:52.680 So she was born Mary Harker.

00:05:54.760 And I'm going to, new listeners, you may not know.

00:05:58.020 But I like to say the names of small towns on this podcast because I've learned that

00:06:02.020 every time I say one, somebody from that small town or whose parents who live in that small

00:06:06.020 town messages me to be like, oh my God, I can't believe you said this name on the podcast.

00:06:09.260 So I like to show it in a small town because someone out there is going to be like, what?

00:06:13.400 Astonby?

00:06:16.920 Astonby Hive, rise up.

00:06:18.660 So anyway, so the north riding of Yorkshire.

00:06:21.540 So the nearest big town is Thirsk, but they're living in like a small farming community nearby.

00:06:27.380 Her dad was called Benjamin.

00:06:28.620 He's a farmer.

00:06:29.520 The wife is called Anne.

00:06:30.640 She had several siblings, one of whom we'll see later, a brother.

00:06:33.720 so from a young age and actually i will say so most of what we know about her is from a book

00:06:39.080 that was written about her after her death was this book exaggerated maybe but at the same time

00:06:44.400 i think this is for people who don't know allison has a subset called dirtbags through the ages

00:06:49.060 and i subscribe to a similar thing as you where it's just like if this is information we have

00:06:54.000 and it's like shocking and audacious like we take it as fact because what other facts are this

00:06:58.800 The motto of Derp X Through the Ages is if there is a ridiculous, absolutely insane explanation for something, that's the one I'm going to pick.

00:07:06.520 I don't care if there's a more normal explanation.

00:07:08.740 I'm not interested in that one.

00:07:09.940 That one's not for me.

00:07:11.220 Exactly.

00:07:11.760 And so this book, and I can't tell you the title of the book.

00:07:13.940 It's one of these like Regency era, extremely long book titles.

00:07:17.760 But there's.

00:07:18.380 Or the saga of a witch in the Yorkshire moors who someday.

00:07:22.480 Yeah.

00:07:23.100 Yeah.

00:07:23.560 So I can't tell you the title of this pamphlet book that was published in 1811.

00:07:27.360 but um it went into 12 printings people love to read it this very and i'll tell you the title at

00:07:32.600 the end but anyway this is where we get a lot of our information from but summer streven's biographer

00:07:36.880 like looked up court records and stuff so you know she's throwing in some other facts but 0.95

00:07:40.220 what i will say about young mary she was um destined for a life of crime some people just

00:07:47.140 are and in her case it's in a way that i find charming i don't know this is going to be like

00:07:52.800 a true crime adjacent episode of this podcast because she's like i don't anyway we'll get into

00:08:00.040 it you can tell me i was trying to think i like to give you a little task while we're doing this

00:08:03.660 you know like keeping track of things how many of napoleon's relatives are in this episode for

00:08:08.940 instance yes those are my cousins of catalina de rosso how many basque cousins arrive to kill

00:08:15.540 somebody i will say for this one let me know if or when she loses you because i'm on her side

00:08:21.600 from minute one summer strevens not summer strevens it's just like i'm just like you know

00:08:28.060 what what else are you gonna do like if everything you know about me as a sympathetic listener i

00:08:33.160 don't think that's gonna be an issue but let me know if it happens but i will you know this is

00:08:37.420 like times are not good in northern england for farmer folk in the late 18th century because like

00:08:46.020 the industrial revolution is kind of like peaking its way in and that's going to take away people's

00:08:50.420 jobs crops have been bad like this is still we're getting into the period of like the year with no

00:08:55.040 sun and like all those you know people starving there's no bread this is the little ice age

00:08:59.880 everybody's in france and they have no crops and all of that stuff yeah there's like wild things

00:09:05.440 happening in the weather like things are not good for the poor so if somebody decides to start a

00:09:10.020 life of crime i'm like yeah what's the other option like die of starvation do your life of

00:09:14.420 crime what are your options not really anything else nodding nodding enthusiastically yeah so

00:09:20.400 she starts at age five okay and this is where it's kind of like is this like you know she's

00:09:26.580 doing a life of she will do a life of crime as an adult um but as a child it's kind of like there

00:09:31.600 might be some sort of what's that called where you um kleptomania is that the thing where you

00:09:35.340 just like uncontrollably steal things yes yeah i think there might be a bit of that going here as

00:09:40.860 well because age five she also just likes chaos and so do i so age five she stole a pair of leather

00:09:47.020 shoes. From who? I'm not sure. And hid them in her father's barn for months until she pretended

00:09:52.260 to have found them. And people figured out pretty quickly, like, Mary, you stole these.

00:09:58.020 And I'm like, where are you up to? So she's just having a nice time. So the nearest town fair is

00:10:06.340 in Topley, which is the nearest place where a fair happens. Truly, I don't know anything about

00:10:11.540 this geography, but shout out to Topley. It was one of these fairs that like has been like, you

00:10:17.260 know, trading your livestock and whatever. And it's been going on since like the medieval times,

00:10:21.300 like everywhere there's a fair and the people who come in to fairs are the Romani people. And what 0.53

00:10:26.280 they're doing to, because what other jobs do they have is like fortune telling and stuff like that.

00:10:31.440 So presumably young Mary Harker sees these people doing these things and is like, I could do that.

00:10:36.620 that seemed like okay I get this I see what the grift is here and that inspires me so I don't

00:10:43.860 I don't think again I don't think the timing is such that she would have gone to the fair at the

00:10:48.720 same time that someone like um oh what's her name Sarah Biffin no hands I don't think that they were

00:10:54.760 at the same time but like it's that sort of fair where it's just like look there's people with like

00:10:58.200 limb differences and there's people Siamese twins they wouldn't call them that but you know it's

00:11:04.240 just like and here's like a pig that was born and it's in a jar now because it had two faces like

00:11:08.320 it's just kind of like here's some sure like the the proto pt barnum thing except they were still

00:11:12.760 outside and they hadn't built a building for this yet yeah yeah so she's like as a young kid you 0.96

00:11:18.240 know an enterprising young criminal she's just like lots of opportunities going on here and she's

00:11:23.180 just drinking it so presumably some of the stuff she does later on it's like she must have seen

00:11:27.540 someone do this and this is probably where she saw people do these things so somehow and for some

00:11:32.380 reason she learned how to read and write which is just unusual for this time and place for the

00:11:36.920 daughter yeah she does and you'll see why we know that later anyway she got into trouble so much for

00:11:43.160 stealing as a child that by the time she was 12 her parents sent her into service because they

00:11:47.400 thought maybe that would mend her ways so at age 12 she's enough to thirst to be like you know the

00:11:53.200 lowest of the low like scullery maid type person where it's like yeah you let her into a really 0.99

00:11:58.840 nice rich house where all the nice things are and see how she does let me they'll help

00:12:03.340 Allison you're guessing things that are going to happen 1.00

00:12:05.540 anyway so some of the things that she would have done in that house were like cleaning and stuff

00:12:11.380 but probably also doing some sewing like mending because later we'll learn she's very good at 1.00

00:12:15.620 sewing she was guess what um dismissed and from various jobs and thirst due to theft

00:12:22.360 um to the point and this is where like you need to when you leave a job as people will know from

00:12:28.560 the most recent series of Bridgerton. And also you might know for other reasons, but you leave

00:12:32.860 and you want to have like a reference, like from your person who hired you before. So you can go

00:12:36.120 to another house and be like, hi, I was the ladies made at such and such. And here's my like good

00:12:39.300 reference. I definitely was not fired for stealing from this house. So don't, you don't have to worry

00:12:44.480 about that. Yeah. So what she does eventually is changes cities because the past is great for that,

00:12:52.020 isn't it yeah yeah so just like move to another town so she moved to york at around age 20 so

00:12:58.600 that means that she was kind of bouncing from job to job for like eight years or so um and then she's

00:13:03.180 just like no one else will hire her so she's like okay go to a new city and start over so

00:13:09.460 she goes to york um guess what she was dismissed again for stealing things

00:13:14.100 and so she's stealing things but she's not at this point keeping them she's stealing things

00:13:19.760 and then pawning them. Like this is her go-to. We're going to see a couple of go-to moves and

00:13:24.000 she like finds different ways to do them in different settings, but like stealing stuff

00:13:28.340 and then pawning it and then keeping the money is, is a thing she does a lot and she gets really

00:13:33.000 good at. Good for her. So anyway, so she's just like, she's burned out of York. So she moves to 0.81

00:13:39.940 Leeds. So this is kind of going to like bigger city, bigger city, bigger city. And Leeds is

00:13:44.460 like the bustling metropolis. This is the biggest city she's been, which is probably good for

00:13:48.760 someone like her because you could go to like one neighborhood to another neighborhood and nobody

00:13:52.620 would know each other like because the city is so big sort of thing so anyway at this point a friend

00:13:59.860 of her mother's got her a job at a mantua maker's shop um friend of the mother like okay okay well

00:14:08.980 i'm trying to figure out what a mantua is a mantua yes i can tell you it's sort of like an overdress

00:14:14.320 you put on top of your dress so it's just sort of like a sewing job i was picturing a manta ray

00:14:20.780 like for some reason and i was hoping it'd be like a big cape like a manta ray shape but it is sort

00:14:27.540 of like a like a dress you put on top of your dress i was picturing some sort of like spanish 0.72

00:14:32.560 headdress but anyway so she gets this job doing sewing she's got this good sewing skill which 1.00

00:14:38.000 will come in handy later um and she remained there uncharacteristically for more than three

00:14:42.300 years which means they didn't notice her stealing she wasn't doing stealing that's not likely but

00:14:48.920 actually part of why maybe she wasn't stealing as much is because she started her side hustle she is 1.00

00:14:53.700 a millennial of her time candace had one job everyone's so poor um she's just like i gotta 1.00

00:14:59.100 find different things to do um she started telling fortunes and making love potions 0.99

00:15:03.660 so this is where she becomes double side muscle the yorkshire witch i love is she doing this like

00:15:11.720 out of the the mantua shop where she works like come in after seven and that's when i start making

00:15:17.420 my love potions or just delightful maybe there was a thing that happened this is like 20 years ago

00:15:22.580 but where i'm from in canada um do you know what timbits are at tim hortons they're like little

00:15:28.320 donut holes of course i know what timbits are i'm from the canada of america well listeners might

00:15:36.500 not know so they're like little donut holes and you can buy like 12 or 24 but there was a grift

00:15:42.040 again i respect this is like 20 years ago at one of the the tim hortons where i lived um and what

00:15:47.960 the thing was with somebody was this is before like the legalization of cannabis in canada

00:15:52.520 and so people would go to the drive-thru this tim hortons when this person was working and

00:15:57.660 they would ask for 13 timbits and if you ask for 13 timbits give you a weed yes yes i love that is

00:16:06.400 the most canadian grift i've ever heard in my life so i'm picturing like well and eventually

00:16:12.260 it got suspicious because someone was like why do people keep asking like 13 timbits if one person

00:16:16.640 does that okay but like why would you that's not one of our like value price deals right right

00:16:21.940 that's not a thing that we actually offer here so i feel like if you go to the man show makers

00:16:25.500 you're like i'm looking for the 13 mantuas i'm looking for the mantua in in red silk if you know

00:16:34.020 what i mean wink wink yeah perfect i'm back at seven triple toss exactly so she's i don't know 0.55

00:16:41.560 um so she's just like so telling fortunes and making love potions is what she starts off doing

00:16:46.060 so at this point so i'm gonna just like backtrack like what's up with witches because this is like

00:16:51.320 early hundreds what's up with witches like are we no it's even like the late 1700s so there's

00:16:58.020 two other major witches in yorkshire at this time so we have yeah so we've got old nan

00:17:04.380 who relied on her pet guinea pig to tell fortunes oh my god what did he tell me i i don't know how

00:17:14.620 he would do it is it like the octopus that predicts the world cup winners like she just

00:17:19.340 puts them in between two carrots is like yeah and see which one he goes to that's what he's

00:17:23.420 picturing if the guinea pig goes to the carrot on the left you're gonna meet a tall dark stranger

00:17:28.320 and if it goes to the one on the right yes love so old man was using her pet guinea pig as well

00:17:33.780 as tarot cards to tell fortunes and then there was hannah green aka the ling bob witch who lived i

00:17:39.960 guess at a place called ling bob bob not bob oh it was a bog witch she's a bog witch yes excellent

00:17:48.580 So these are the two witches. And so she read tea leaves, which tea just, you know, really, really kicking off in this time and place in England.

00:17:56.920 People are all about tea. So this is a new art divining from tea leaves.

00:18:02.100 And so the two of them, they both serve like a more wealthy clientele.

00:18:06.120 And where Mary Bateman, who's still Mary Harker, but she gets married soon, where she sees an opening is like, who's going to tell fortunes to the poor?

00:18:13.420 that will be me i will this will be my lane is i'm going to be a witch serving the poor 0.68

00:18:20.440 and downtrodden the people's witch yes yes she was providing services to like servant girls and

00:18:28.060 like poor people so witchcraft in england at this time was a felony um still it was but okay as

00:18:36.500 opposed to in scotland and elsewhere in europe it was seen as like devil worshiping like anti-christian

00:18:43.340 awfulness but okay so i guess i'll take a felony it's kind of like jaywalking like being a witch

00:18:50.320 it's just kind of like okay i'll pay the fine like it's not anyway so she's just like yeah i'm gonna

00:18:56.860 be the third witch of yorkshire and she's the one who becomes known as the yorkshire witch

00:19:01.340 not old man her guinea pig are just steaming their cabin in their cabin

00:19:07.280 so she's age 24 she marries a man named john bateman who was a wheelwright don't know what

00:19:14.820 that is but he was like an upstanding guy that's all i made wheels he he he righted wheels

00:19:20.640 he righted those carriages and stuff like that so they had a three-week courtship um

00:19:28.460 and then got married and he he stayed by her through all of what i'm about to tell you

00:19:34.260 So was he in on it? Was he just didn't care? I don't know, but he didn't get in her way.

00:19:40.140 Successful season of Love is Blind. It sounds like about that timeline. So I'm here for it.

00:19:43.960 Yeah. Three weeks. Yeah. So now she's Mary Bateman, the name that she will become very

00:19:47.560 famous for. So they, um, at this point also, again, it's like, Oh, this is kind of like now,

00:19:52.280 like people couldn't afford to buy places to live. So you're just like renting rooms from places

00:19:57.360 and you'd rent a room and then you'd rent a room in your room. Like people are just,

00:20:01.440 this is the economy of what's going on.

00:20:03.960 Sure, the Airbnb of the Regency.

00:20:06.520 Exactly.

00:20:07.140 So they get married.

00:20:09.280 They rented rooms.

00:20:10.900 She would steal things from other lodgers in the same place.

00:20:15.300 She would often, one of her go-tos is just like when she's caught,

00:20:18.560 she's like, oh, you got me.

00:20:19.400 And then she gives the stuff back.

00:20:20.360 And they're like, okay, we won't charge you for it then.

00:20:22.540 So she would just kind of like give it back.

00:20:26.360 She was just so charming.

00:20:27.780 They're like, oh, I guess it's fine, Mary.

00:20:30.100 Later, so they took in lodgers of their own.

00:20:32.340 I presume the thing where, like, they're renting a room and then they rent, like, a room within the room.

00:20:37.000 Anyway, she, of course, would steal from them also.

00:20:39.780 But she was careful to never steal more than 40 shillings.

00:20:42.600 Because stealing 40 shillings or more is a capital offense.

00:20:46.420 Less than that.

00:20:48.020 It's like, okay.

00:20:50.100 You know, like, a night in jail.

00:20:51.660 I don't know.

00:20:52.460 I mean, 40 shillings, I think, was a lot of money back then.

00:20:55.840 I do not know what the conversion is.

00:20:57.640 exchange rate is not good but i think that's several thousands of dollars but she's like

00:21:02.600 diversify like bananas so she's got her like fortune telling she's got her love potions

00:21:07.580 she's got her like stealing from her like roommates she's like these are things she's

00:21:12.500 doing and then she also starts a new thing which is um she would go to like uh i don't know

00:21:19.280 petticoat maker and she'd be like hey i'm here on behalf of like mrs clarkson um this really rich

00:21:24.860 person and she wants to see three of your petticoats can I just take them show them to her

00:21:28.860 and she'll decide which one to keep and then I'll bring the other ones back and they're like oh yes

00:21:31.860 Miss Clarkson for sure and then she like keeps the petticoats like absolutely yes yeah this is

00:21:37.940 like the the lower stakes version of the affair of the necklace which is like yes I will give that

00:21:41.920 to Marie Antoinette don't you worry about it then I'll just kind of like yeah and often and then if

00:21:46.680 she's when she's caught out for it like the well also just she's in Leeds bustling metropolis of

00:21:53.300 leave it's just like no one knows who she is so she just like they can't track her down and then 0.74

00:21:57.000 she sells them at the pawn shop like she's not walking around wearing the petticoats like people

00:22:00.280 don't know it was her she even grifts her husband I love her this is the thing me too so she's doing

00:22:07.560 all these things but she also like she's stealing stuff she has to give it back but maybe sometimes

00:22:11.880 she stole some stuff and then she'd already pawned it so she couldn't give it back so she has to like

00:22:16.220 repay people in different ways so um here's how she did that in one occasion so so john her husband

00:22:24.020 long-suffering john bateman his father lives in i think thirsk um one of the nearby towns his

00:22:29.640 father is the town crier top tier job i can't believe that was still a job at this time like

00:22:34.900 fantastic i love a town crier so she rushes to his workplace at the wheelwright shop and she's

00:22:41.220 like oh my gosh and she has this letter and the letter says like oh my god your father the town

00:22:45.300 crier of thirst is ill you need to go and be with him and john was like oh my god okay i will and

00:22:50.100 so he rushed off to thirst and while he was away mary sold all of their possessions

00:22:53.980 using the money to pay off the people she had sold from comes back like hey my dad was fine

00:23:01.400 and now our house is empty there's nothing here but wheels don't know what happened john don't

00:23:08.660 know what happened the town crier in thirst because like here are you here are you my son

00:23:12.520 just got conned by his wife well this is part of where we know that she could read and write

00:23:17.300 because she forged this letter so that's true so one other time john you think would be like

00:23:23.280 man who's oh from i love lucy like lucy you got some splaining to do

00:23:28.960 this is extra good because i'm picturing her husband is jason bateman and i'm just like that

00:23:35.260 that's the person who would be in this situation like i don't know what i expected he at one time

00:23:40.640 john went off to visit friends when he came back would it surprise you know mary had sold all of

00:23:45.320 his clothes and possessions um just don't leave if she could just do that when he was at work

00:23:54.300 anyway but this is where i'm just like what's his deal what's going on with john like they had at

00:23:59.480 least three children together he never left her i don't know i feel like he might have been into it

00:24:04.780 i don't know but it does seem like first time you sell all of my clothes and possessions shame on

00:24:09.860 you but second time it's a love language i don't know i should have seen that coming she's also an

00:24:17.060 incredibly charismatic person as we'll see so he couldn't stay mad at her so about four years into

00:24:23.180 their marriage so we're in 1796 uh there was a serious fire broke out on the outskirts of leeds

00:24:29.000 10 people died i think it was like a factory or something it's one of these tragedies and mary was

00:24:34.680 like oh no people a tragedy like I'll just go in there and do some relief work and so she went

00:24:42.440 around like collecting linens from sympathetic people she's like oh my god all these people

00:24:46.120 lost their homes they need more linens really good quality linens do you have any really good

00:24:52.780 quality linens I can give the people that need them and then she would pawn them for money

00:24:56.920 obviously and then she also she stepped it up by then posing as a nurse um collecting she realized 0.99

00:25:03.400 you could get even more linens and she's like oh the doctors need linens for bandages for people 1.00

00:25:07.580 really fine linens high thread count can i any linens you think she had a little like nurse 0.92

00:25:14.420 costume as part of this because i have to imagine this was a full situation i have to imagine i

00:25:20.400 have to imagine yes so uh shortly after this and this is where we're just like what are you up to

00:25:25.460 john so he decided to join the supplementary militia so no this is like 1790s late 1790s

00:25:33.380 There's like French Revolution era war type things happening.

00:25:36.560 I don't think Napoleon's on the scene, but it's like getting to the Napoleon era.

00:25:40.100 So like Britain needs soldiers.

00:25:43.060 And so there's this thing where if you just sign up for the supplementary militia, you can go off and do that.

00:25:48.060 Summer Streven's biographer suggests that John might have been like, we need to get out of here. 0.90

00:25:53.440 We're going to get arrested for so many linen based crimes that like we can't.

00:25:58.900 We need to go. So he joined the militia. 1.00

00:26:01.440 she accompanied him on the march we don't know what she was up to for those three years but i

00:26:05.280 can't imagine she was just like knitting she was learning some new skills presumably i assume 0.99

00:26:10.420 every every soldier in the supplementary militia woke up one morning it's like where the fuck are 0.92

00:26:15.320 my shoes where everything i own my entire tent is empty and her tent is full um so she was with 0.77

00:26:26.920 them for three years and after three years they returned to leeds so maybe the concept was just

00:26:31.020 like, let's just make everyone forget about us. And then come back and be like, Oh, we're totally

00:26:34.320 new to town. Not those people that were here before during the fire situation. But this is

00:26:39.380 where she totally doubles down into being what I like to call a witch to printer, which is like 0.97

00:26:44.440 love was at and other witches we've talked about. Who's like a witch, but a business witch. Like 1.00

00:26:48.520 here's my shop. Here are the things you can procure from me. Like I'm a business witch

00:26:53.960 sort of thing. So, um, so she was selling trinkets and love potions offering healing services. I feel 0.98

00:27:00.880 like her healing services is this like fake nursing or i feel like i'm more right more like

00:27:05.860 reiki just kind of like oh the vibes i'll be like i'm gonna cleanse your aura and yeah it's probably

00:27:12.100 a lot like hi here's a handful of like grass and if you eat this in three weeks you're gonna feel

00:27:17.740 better yeah come back it doesn't work and i'll give you more grass for another another 20 pounds

00:27:23.240 oh that is very much what she's up to um so not with grass so um she also she's offering so

00:27:32.160 predictions of the future as well so kind of everything she's been doing she's just adding

00:27:35.600 more and i feel like she's a sort of witch entrepreneur someone comes to her witch shop

00:27:39.420 and like oh do you offer predictions for the future she's like yes like absolutely i do you

00:27:45.040 have this i do so anytime someone asks for something she would just be like that is a

00:27:49.820 thing i do yes it is so she became an expert in what is called screwing down have you ever heard

00:27:56.260 of this no and this could you could say anything after that and i would be like yeah okay i guess

00:28:02.720 that's what that is yeah so what screwing down means is that if somebody has it out for you

00:28:10.640 she would send a curse to that person she would like screw down that person to help you revenge 0.95

00:28:16.900 revenge witch oh my god pre-proactive revenge witch i could make a million dollars doing this 0.93

00:28:25.100 i'm so sorry and i have to go start a website for my screwing business or i axed my my enemy's 1.00

00:28:31.100 enemies that's good this is i've got so many i've got several examples of how she did this because

00:28:37.380 it's like i'll give you examples okay like me explaining it isn't as good as telling you exactly

00:28:41.360 what she did so but she was just like i'm not i'm mary bateman i'm not i can't do the screen

00:28:46.720 down myself. But my friend, I have this friend, Mrs. Moore, and she tells me what to do. And then

00:28:54.540 if you need to get screwing down done, she'll tell me what to do. So you have to pay her 0.85

00:28:58.100 and also me. Aha. Yes. Beautiful. Double grift. I love that she called her Mrs. Moore. Like,

00:29:06.240 Mrs. Also, pay me one more time, please. Like, that's great. Mrs. Very expensive.

00:29:12.640 oh and then also like like i was saying like people come to the door like oh do you do this

00:29:17.940 also she also started being an abortionist at this time i feel like that's a thing you shouldn't

00:29:23.100 start doing like without training but i guess it was the 1790s i think i think it connects with

00:29:29.900 the healing stuff i think her abortion services were kind of like giving herbs okay sort of thing 0.55

00:29:35.560 i guess not doing a physical task yeah yeah she sell that next to the love potions i guess that

00:29:42.420 makes sense yeah it's like here's the love potion and then here's the abortion potion and like

00:29:46.380 yeah so she's an abortionist and so here's an example so businessman barzile stead 0.99

00:29:54.640 this fake ass man 0.95

00:29:58.840 but this is a real guy barzile stead so so he didn't come to her being like oh my gosh i'm in 0.96

00:30:07.420 so much debt my creditors are moving in she approached him and was like hey do you have

00:30:10.780 creditors moving in you don't think you do i think you do here's what i'm gonna do screw them down

00:30:16.320 for you she she went worth that man that's incredible i love it so this is how her 0.83

00:30:23.860 screwing down services seem to mostly work she finds like an impressionable gullible person

00:30:27.740 and then convinces them that someone else is out to get them and then they'll pay her to screw down

00:30:33.280 the other person so not like people come to her in need it's like she's finding people and then

00:30:38.280 just telling them oh guess what your husband wants to kill you so do you want me to make that not

00:30:42.820 happen okay so it's that's the legendary grift i love that so much well and then when like something

00:30:50.280 doesn't happen where it's like well my husband didn't kill me that was me it's because it worked

00:30:54.940 i made that not happen just so many fantastic examples of this so um barzile is dead she's

00:31:04.380 like oh my gosh your creditors are closing in so what you need to do is join the army and skip town

00:31:09.180 and at this point again because of like napoleonic wars and stuff like britain was desperate for

00:31:15.160 people to join the army so if you like now in some countries like yours they will pay you to

00:31:21.720 join the army because no one wants to do it so he joined the army um and she convinced him to give

00:31:28.760 the enlistment fee to her simultaneously his wife or is it's dad's wife she was working on her as

00:31:36.560 well saying like did you know your husband berzil i stead has a secret mistress who he's planning

00:31:40.700 to run off with do you need so you need me to screw down the mistress that's like non-existent

00:31:46.660 mistress i love her she's like here's what mrs moore says we need to do like to to screw down 0.97

00:31:54.460 this love rival what you need to do is you need to give me all this money um and also two lumps

00:31:59.360 of coal and then place the two lumps of coal on the rival's doorstep this is where i just like

00:32:04.560 i love the narrative of this she's like because then the love rival will be like oh my god coal

00:32:09.240 amazing she'll burn the coal because she's a poor person but then this coal is magical coal it'll 1.00

00:32:16.160 make her fall asleep um and it'll cause so much smoke in her house that her clothes are going to 1.00

00:32:23.860 all get dirty and with no clean clothes to wear she won't run off with your husband oh my god

00:32:28.520 this is so unnecessarily elaborate like this it's it's like you know if you give a mouse a cookie

00:32:38.520 then eventually your husband won't run off with his mistress and join the militia like you couldn't

00:32:42.920 you didn't have to do that much mary but i'm so glad you did there's one later thing where she

00:32:49.180 has I'll tell you now just because it's a similar sort of thing so she has another later fake witch

00:32:56.180 who she works with called Mrs. Blythe um and she had to explain why Mrs. Blythe said she'd be in

00:33:01.680 this one city but then she wasn't and it was this thing about like Mrs. Blythe like oh she wished

00:33:05.480 she could have been there but when she was driving her carriage past this town she was so frightened

00:33:11.220 by seeing a hot air balloon in the sky and then it flipped and now her leg is broken

00:33:18.240 that's gonna be me next time i'm late to work well how come you couldn't get here on time well

00:33:28.360 i was on the train and i was going to work there was a hot air balloon and i got so scared yeah

00:33:34.460 but the whole train derailed so i love i love when i love an elaborate narrative but this is

00:33:41.780 also where like i know from various murder mystery shows the more complicated you make

00:33:46.440 your story the more guilty and lying you look right yes yeah it reminds you know what this

00:33:51.920 reminds me of is the part in the flight to verben where they were coming up with those elaborate

00:33:56.140 backstories from marie and her children she's like yes i am the mysterious russian noble woman

00:34:01.700 no exactly exactly my my daughter alouette like

00:34:09.720 it's just been like and this child it's fine yeah so she loves this is the thing with mary

00:34:18.020 bateman she's having a nice time she's she's having so much fun and she's making so much

00:34:23.500 money it sounds like and people like he said with her husband it's like you know fool me once shame

00:34:28.540 on me fool me try shame on you it's like the people who she's going after like not that they

00:34:33.620 like deserve to have this done to them but just like come on like come on right and they think 0.52

00:34:43.940 they're getting like they think she's following through on the promise she's like well i wasn't

00:34:48.840 killed by my husband so i guess i'm happy with the service i've received yeah like the the double

00:34:54.500 negative service that she's doing so it's kind of like okay yeah the victimless crime exactly

00:35:00.480 exactly like if she was going after like the jean de lamotte where it's like well you're just going

00:35:04.500 after like the wealthiest shittiest people so like fine but this is like he's going after like

00:35:09.620 poor people who don't have any money so you're like but at the same time it's like but you're

00:35:14.300 doing it in such a fun way that like if i was gonna get grifted that's how i'd want to get

00:35:18.940 grifted it's like it's like respect you know so yeah so the love rival this all worked

00:35:28.260 so berzilai he left to join the army and uh mary just kept going after the wife mrs berzilai

00:35:35.660 stead and this this is the thing we see with her as well where she's just like she finds a victim 0.99

00:35:39.860 and it's just like at some point you think the victim would be like fuck you goodbye but people 0.97

00:35:46.480 are so into it like she must have been so convincing but it's the like sunk cost fallacy 0.99

00:35:51.780 is that what it's called where like yeah so much to this thing it's like if you give up now then

00:35:57.820 that retroactively means you were dumb before so you just like dig in even more so she just 1.00

00:36:03.800 keeps going after the same people um she proceeded to con mrs berzelay stead out of all of the things 0.94

00:36:10.160 in her house um okay i do have to keep reminding myself that these are like poor people in the

00:36:17.220 regency era there's probably like eight things total in their house but yeah that is a hilarious

00:36:23.720 is Khan every time is I'll take all of this please I will I will the Grinch who stole Christmas 0.94

00:36:28.100 you please yeah well and in this case how she's doing it is she's just like oh Mrs. Moore thinks 0.99

00:36:33.180 there's someone else like do you want to keep your husband safe in the military I think the

00:36:37.140 other soldier like the other soldiers might kill him unless you give me money for Mrs. Moore and 0.99

00:36:41.960 then we'll screw down the enemy soldiers like so she's just pawning her stuff to give her stuff 0.98

00:36:47.580 Anyway, eventually Mrs. Brzele is dead, you know, going through it, attempts suicide by throwing herself in the river.

00:36:56.220 Oh, no.

00:36:57.620 And the Leeds Benevolent Society intervened.

00:37:00.920 And I'm just happy that such a thing exists.

00:37:03.700 The Leeds Benevolent Society is like, well, we have to form because people keep losing all of the things in their home and their linens.

00:37:11.620 So we've got to do something.

00:37:15.080 So they gave her money to help her out. 0.94

00:37:17.580 But then Mary managed to extort this money from her.

00:37:21.420 Because she's like, what I need, what I think we need to do is to screw down the Leeds Benevolent Society.

00:37:30.200 I think they're after you, too.

00:37:33.520 They want your linens, girl.

00:37:36.080 I don't have any linens.

00:37:38.960 So she also said, oh, she's like, oh, my gosh, just got a letter from Mrs. Moore. 0.89

00:37:42.900 she says that your father-in-law is going to murder you so we need to screw him down so many

00:37:49.140 people are out after this woman and then she told mrs brisley said so they have like an eight-year-old

00:37:54.900 daughter and she's like your eight-year-old daughter when she turns 14 is going to become

00:37:58.500 pregnant and she's going to either kill herself or murder her seducer to protect her mrs moore

00:38:05.160 will provide you with this silver bracelet um so you need to give me the money to buy the silver 0.99

00:38:12.900 eventually so i think let me see because she got like you know it's it's kind of like how she

00:38:18.840 couldn't get the the jobs as a maid because she kept stealing from people the opposite is with

00:38:23.460 the witch stuff because people like she's so good at screwing down look at me not murdered 0.96

00:38:27.240 so they would keep i've been saved from so many imaginary murders like you should go talk to this 0.98

00:38:32.520 woman she too will make you not get murdered so a friend of the steads came to mary for help 0.53

00:38:38.820 um she was pregnant and she'd been abandoned so this is not the daughter like the daughter's got

00:38:42.800 her bracelet she's fine um and so mary provided her with charms to bring the baby daddy back but

00:38:48.960 it didn't work and then she's like oh well you know what i can also do abortions surprise yeah 1.00

00:38:55.800 i wonder if that was the first time she tried to do a grift where she was making something

00:38:59.000 actually happen instead of making something not happen oh this is actually much harder than i

00:39:03.960 thought it was and so another example um the case of mrs cooper so mary convinced her that mrs cooper's

00:39:11.420 husband was going to sell all of their belongings to pawn them so to prevent this what mrs cooper

00:39:16.740 should do is bring all of her belongings to mary for safekeeping another classic all of your

00:39:22.660 belongings scam yeah this is this is if you're gonna call something like the mary bateman i think

00:39:29.520 It's the, like, it's the Grinch.

00:39:31.440 It's the, like.

00:39:32.140 It's the, you're just like, and there's one crumb too small for a mouse.

00:39:35.720 Perry Bateman.

00:39:37.980 This, this is her move.

00:39:39.920 And it keeps working.

00:39:41.020 So why would she stop doing it?

00:39:42.560 Okay.

00:39:42.900 So then we get into the next era of her life, which you'll see what happens. 1.00

00:39:49.680 So Quakers are in Leeds. 0.99

00:39:52.960 I love a Quaker.

00:39:54.080 I love a Quaker story.

00:39:56.700 Public universal friend being a notable.

00:39:58.740 I was going to say, this is getting close to public universal friend time, isn't it?

00:40:02.700 Maybe that was a little bit weird.

00:40:04.500 But the Quakers, they're in town.

00:40:06.300 And, you know, they're nice people.

00:40:07.840 They're, like, progressive.

00:40:08.820 They're, like, abolitionists.

00:40:10.240 They're cool.

00:40:11.760 They're chill.

00:40:12.200 We like the Quakers.

00:40:13.420 And so there's these two Quaker sisters.

00:40:15.520 They're unmarried women called, their last name was Kitchen. 0.94

00:40:18.680 So they're called the Mrs. Kitchen. 1.00

00:40:21.100 I bet you they would have been good friends with Mr. and Mrs. Sauce.

00:40:26.600 Mm-hmm.

00:40:27.240 they could go into business together kitchen sauce um what they ran is a small draper shop

00:40:34.260 with their mother i presume that means like draperies like curtains linens mary bateman

00:40:39.620 he rang she's just sitting outside of a bed bath and beyond just so ready

00:40:47.160 pounce so mary bateman um at this point she i think this is more is kind of like

00:40:53.260 done. And now she's got Ms. Blythe, who is like her new person. I don't know. Maybe honestly,

00:40:59.600 why would there not be? I feel like it would be both. It's like, I need to consult with Ms. Moore

00:41:02.820 and Ms. Blythe. So you have to pay three of us for this screwing down service. Thank you so much. 0.98

00:41:10.840 Anyway, so she, you know, saw that they were gullible people. And so she became their confidant.

00:41:16.840 She did some work with them in their shop on a casual basis. You remember, she's good at

00:41:21.040 seamstress things she is good at that sort of thing and I would presume at that time she's

00:41:27.960 like can I just look around your house and see like how many possessions there are and just like

00:41:31.920 would this be a two-trip situation would they fit in my cart yeah um so anyway one of the kitchen

00:41:39.680 sisters fell ill in 1803 and Mary took over nursing putting on her you know nurse costume

00:41:45.740 from that other girl um and she's like oh my gosh you're sick you know what you can do pay me 0.99

00:41:50.620 And Miss Blythe, like Miss Blythe will send along some medicines. 1.00

00:41:53.880 I will personally prepare and administer these medicines for you.

00:41:58.260 Can you guess where this is headed? 1.00

00:42:00.400 I'm very afraid this Quaker woman is going to die of leaf poisoning or whatever. 1.00

00:42:06.240 Okay, so what I used to tell you about arsenic is that it was readily available. 1.00

00:42:14.820 Okay.

00:42:16.880 Oh, girl.

00:42:17.840 It is readily available, unregulated, tasteless, odorless powder that anyone could buy for rat poison.

00:42:29.660 In future decades, when people realized how many people or somebody called it inheritance powder,

00:42:36.360 like people were just like, hell yeah, arsenic, let's go.

00:42:40.220 It would later be regulated.

00:42:41.900 At this point, it's not.

00:42:44.360 Arsenic, unregulated, tasteless, odorless.

00:42:47.840 um, cheap, uh, easy to get. So, uh, Mary Bateman is preparing these concoctions for the sick 0.94

00:42:58.940 miss kitchen. Um, and their mom, ma kitchen came to town who, oh my gosh, well, that's what I like 0.94

00:43:05.880 to think she's called. Um, she came to town, but within days of her arrival, she also was ill.

00:43:12.180 The other daughter became ill.

00:43:14.260 Eventually, all three of them died from the same symptoms, which are the symptoms of arsenic

00:43:21.120 poisoning, which I won't get into, but are pretty unpleasant and also become pretty recognizable.

00:43:26.460 Did they happen to, in their will, leave all of their belongings in their house to the

00:43:32.120 woman who sold the medicine?

00:43:34.380 It's even more convoluted than that.

00:43:36.540 So to avoid any investigation into these deaths, Mary spread rumors that they had all died

00:43:40.980 of the plague.

00:43:42.180 And there had been like plague.

00:43:43.960 There'd been like typhus.

00:43:44.960 There'd been like so many outbreaks of so many things in Leeds in recent history.

00:43:48.520 So I was just like, oh my God, plague.

00:43:49.800 So they just like warded up the house and the shop.

00:43:52.920 Like, so nobody went in or out.

00:43:56.520 So, but by the time the, you know, estate agents came to be like, okay, well, let's just assess what's left in this house.

00:44:01.760 Nothing.

00:44:02.800 There's nothing in this house or business.

00:44:05.440 Where's the linens?

00:44:07.940 All of their drapery.

00:44:09.660 It's gone.

00:44:11.260 Isn't that strange?

00:44:12.180 Yeah. So everything was devoid of goods. And so there's still leads, which again, I just need to emphasize. It's like, and I recently was on a trip to England and I learned a thing that I sort of make sense, but I just had never been told this outright. But like in this time period, like everybody lived walking distance from their house and you never really went anywhere else.

00:44:34.360 if you're a poor person like you just go home you go work like there's not trains there's not

00:44:40.140 buses there's not like how and why would you ever go anywhere else so you're just in your

00:44:44.020 neighborhood so in leeds like you just go to this neighborhood grift everybody and if you go to

00:44:48.720 another neighborhood like it's very rare that someone would go from one neighborhood to another

00:44:51.900 so you can just it might as well be a different city so they moved to a different part of leeds

00:44:56.760 her and her husband and her children so they moved to a place called black dog yard which i like

00:45:03.220 Fabulous 0.60

00:45:04.580 That would be a good name for

00:45:07.140 I don't know if it's like a

00:45:08.920 Pub or like 0.98

00:45:11.100 A band black dog yard

00:45:13.300 This is a craft brewery in like

00:45:15.000 A little lakeside town

00:45:16.680 Okay and this is leading into

00:45:18.340 The way that I lured you into recording this episode

00:45:21.260 Because it's time for her most audacious

00:45:23.180 Con yet 1.00

00:45:23.780 The prophet hen of Leeds 0.93

00:45:26.780 Now you all see why 0.65

00:45:29.100 I cleared my afternoon

00:45:30.500 Because all I was told was

00:45:33.220 the prophet hen of leads and i said yes great there is a four hour block on my outlook calendar

00:45:41.420 that just says fortune telling chicken question mark question mark question mark so so okay so

00:45:50.940 1806 so for a little backstory so we've talked about how like the weather is terrible like the

00:45:58.820 crops are bad. Like industrialization is happening. Like just, she just exploited,

00:46:03.040 like there's all these like weird diseases happening for the poor and working class people.

00:46:08.200 Life is not so different in like 1806 as it would have been in like 1406. Like

00:46:12.820 things are shitty. Everything's confusing. Everyone's poor. Life is terrible. And you

00:46:18.620 just feel like, and there's all these weird weather things are happening. So it's kind of

00:46:22.060 like, Oh, is it the end times coming? And there's a real spiritual movement. I know you're into this

00:46:27.860 sort of thing in your I do love a spiritual movement have you heard of the prophetess

00:46:33.000 Joanna Southcott give me a time period okay no then I had not okay so Joanna Southcott was a

00:46:42.980 prophetess she was very popular in this time and place so she actually I don't know if either of

00:46:48.860 us is prepared to talk about this but the book of revelations is a part of the bible that is

00:46:54.360 unhinged and i have read it many years ago it is much wilder than i was led to believe

00:47:01.680 yeah it's kind of a list of of things that will happen and then you know like jesus will return

00:47:07.960 to earth and like the world will stop but it's like are these literal things that will happen

00:47:14.540 or are these metaphors and it's all kind of like weird like or was this just john the prophet on

00:47:21.020 some absolutely wild mushrooms coming up with whatever he was seeing which is how it was taught

00:47:25.860 to me but yeah there's a lot going in that in that book it's it's a list of sort of like things

00:47:32.580 to look out for it's like the antichrist will show up and like if you see a big sexy woman

00:47:38.720 followed by a giant whale things are getting bad out there yeah so everyone's really like

00:47:45.460 jonah southcott and her followers are really into the book of revelations and like because they're

00:47:49.920 like all this weird stuff is happening all these plagues all this weird weather stuff the little

00:47:54.280 ice age they're like this must be the end times okay let's prepare for it which is one of those

00:47:59.580 times where it's like it feels like nowadays but it feels like so many times where it's just like

00:48:03.900 everything in the world is so big and so scary it's like well how can i feel no control over

00:48:08.180 what's happening so it's like but if someone tells you like no here's what's happening like

00:48:12.900 it's why people are pulled into cults because you want yeah an explanation and you want somebody to

00:48:18.720 be in charge yeah so i would be so susceptible to a cult i know this yeah that's why we keep you

00:48:25.980 away yes because i want someone else to be in charge to tell me what to do it's really very

00:48:31.260 straightforward exactly so join a southcott um so she says the return of jesus is imminent her

00:48:38.020 devotees are called these southcottians there is over a hundred thousand of them um she wrote

00:48:43.620 She wrote and dictated prophecies in rhyme, which is a charming touch.

00:48:50.880 She identified herself as the woman spoken of in the book of Revelation who would give birth to the new Messiah, despite her being, at this point, 64 years old.

00:49:01.600 So, South Cotians, she gave her followers special tokens.

00:49:06.220 So, there's something, I don't know what this is.

00:49:07.620 I know it's in like a couple different religions, Christian religions, where something about like only 144,000 people are going to get into heaven.

00:49:17.720 Like, that's the number.

00:49:19.680 I think it's like people listening to this will know this a lot better than I do.

00:49:23.840 But I'm like, well, I did religious studies class in high school.

00:49:26.040 And here's what I vaguely remember.

00:49:27.880 But it's like there's only 144,000 people are going to get into heaven.

00:49:30.640 And so you live your life in a way to demonstrate to everyone that you were one of those 144,000 in some religions.

00:49:37.620 But what Joanna Southcott did is she gave her followers special tokens, being like, you are one of those 144,000.

00:49:46.920 Like a fast pass at Disney World.

00:49:49.040 You definitely get to go in.

00:49:50.480 You get to cut the line.

00:49:51.560 You're fine.

00:49:53.120 So Mary Bateman had gotten one of these tokens.

00:49:58.600 Definitely.

00:49:59.040 If I had to pick 144,000 people in all of human history to go to heaven, I'm like, yes, this is the one.

00:50:05.620 You know what?

00:50:06.160 I would. 0.99

00:50:06.820 She'd make it interesting.

00:50:07.620 so she had one of those so she kind of like the bona fides of being like i'm a south caudian

00:50:11.760 like i'm one of 144 000 like i'm a spiritual leader you might have heard of me the yorkshire

00:50:17.140 witch but i'm christian now and so she uh like many people had hens in her house for egg reasons

00:50:27.620 for food reasons and so her fortune telling business was waning due to having grifted

00:50:34.840 everybody and no one having any people to screw down at this point yeah exactly so this is where

00:50:42.000 she's just like i'm gonna i'm gonna do this south codian adjacent thing i'm gonna become a

00:50:46.640 spiritualist which again it's like there's the podcast um scam goddess and you see this which

00:50:53.060 is a great podcast people should listen to it posted by lacey mosley um but you see people

00:50:57.360 who are grifting and then just when you get to the end of it like they can sense like it's time

00:51:00.860 to change the grift like let's just switch what we're so she's just like let's just take this in

00:51:05.660 a different direction like the fortune telling is not doing it so let's go into this kind of

00:51:09.860 apocalypse prophesizing so she announced where and how outside of her house i don't know well

00:51:18.060 her father-in-law's the town crier i'm sure he showed up and just started hollering he could

00:51:23.000 yep or maybe her husband had those same vocal cords and he could do it she had had a vision

00:51:28.740 that told her one of her hens would lay 14 special eggs

00:51:31.920 and that when the 14th one is laid,

00:51:34.140 that will mark the beginning of the apocalypse.

00:51:36.900 Okay.

00:51:38.740 Great. 0.81

00:51:40.400 And right on cue, one of her hens laid an egg

00:51:43.120 and the egg had written on it,

00:51:46.980 Christ is coming.

00:51:51.820 Yes, girl.

00:51:54.860 And it's important that you know

00:51:56.680 that Christ is spelled without the H.

00:51:58.740 So it says, Christ is coming.

00:52:01.160 Christ is coming.

00:52:03.480 Christ is coming, which was written on the egg, not with ink.

00:52:08.160 Almost like as though the egg itself had sort of, it was almost like, one might say, perhaps using some sort of vinegar-like substance.

00:52:17.780 Did she get like one of those little wax crayons that you draw on Easter eggs with before you dye them?

00:52:24.460 And it leaves like a little mark.

00:52:26.040 Oh, my God.

00:52:28.740 So, no, Allison, this is the prophet hen of Leeds.

00:52:32.740 Oh, I'm so sorry for disrespecting the hen.

00:52:36.680 The egg came out like this.

00:52:38.400 It's the prophet hen of Leeds. 0.79

00:52:40.400 Right, right, right.

00:52:41.400 So she put the prophet hen, as you would, on display,

00:52:45.800 charging people money just to look at it.

00:52:48.680 And, like, maybe, perhaps, witness one of these eggs coming out.

00:52:54.460 Because, you know, after there's number 14,

00:52:56.720 then it will be the end of days.

00:52:58.740 you want to keep track of when are they coming up it wasn't that it was going to lay 14 eggs at a

00:53:03.780 time it was it will eventually lay 14 eggs it will eventually lay 14 profit eggs in between

00:53:10.780 that probably eggs but just like 14 of these like magical eggs are going to come about 0.80

00:53:15.080 okay um over one would presume quite a lengthy period of time not so she also um sold her own

00:53:25.440 version of the Southcott seal saying like Mary Bateman said I'm one of the chosen ones and here's

00:53:32.440 my thing it's like a scroll it's like a piece of paper what is it it's a piece of paper and on it

00:53:37.080 it said the initials JC which she says you show it when you go to heaven just be like it's the

00:53:44.640 fast pass JC I'm on the list so she was selling those as well thousands of people came and paid

00:53:52.520 to see the hen and to get one of these papers like it was a successful entrepreneurial task

00:53:58.600 but at least one person was skeptical so this one guy a doctor i doesn't really matter that he's a

00:54:06.620 doctor but maybe because he's a doctor he's just like well this can be science so he uh woke up

00:54:12.780 early and then hid near her house to to nab this egg um to see the egg and so he deduced that the

00:54:21.780 inscription had been applied with concentrated vinegar like sort of like acidically so it's like

00:54:29.580 it's not it's like carved into the egg almost okay and now for a quick advertising break

00:54:36.160 the war is over and both sides lost kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered

00:54:44.540 like bones in the dust now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world praying

00:54:51.220 The darkness chooses someone else tonight, but in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins.

00:54:58.340 This is old-school adventuring at its most cruel.

00:55:01.800 Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job.

00:55:07.720 This is a brutal rules-light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make.

00:55:15.280 This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back.

00:55:19.920 Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on youtube.com slash the glass cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day.

00:55:30.720 See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark.

00:55:37.960 Welcome to the realms of peril and glory.

00:55:43.360 Explore the mechanically magical vistas of Vale,

00:55:47.760 the paranormal mysteries of liminal London,

00:55:50.580 and the cyberpunk chaos of Cyborg.

00:55:56.620 Be awed by our incredible guests from familiar shows like Oxventure and No Rolls Barred.

00:56:04.220 Search realms of peril and glory to find out more.

00:56:07.520 The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a not-so-dark,

00:56:17.180 not-so-stormy, hard-boiled detective story that probably nobody saw coming.

00:56:23.480 Follow Sonic and the intrepid Chaotix Detective Agency as they take on their biggest case yet.

00:56:30.320 This high-flying, action-packed adventure will take them across the world,

00:56:34.600 Fighting for every clue they can find

00:56:37.060 It's one heck of a tale

00:56:39.740 Which is good

00:56:41.320 Because this story might

00:56:43.240 Be the only thing that can save

00:56:45.680 Their lives

00:56:47.320 Well if that's all 0.97

00:56:49.400 I can just dispose of you

00:56:51.000 Wait what?

00:56:55.440 All will be revealed in

00:56:57.520 Sonic the Hedgehog presents

00:56:59.760 The Chaotic's Case Files

00:57:01.740 Listen now

00:57:03.080 Wherever you get your podcasts.

00:57:10.000 Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement and modern leadership.

00:57:16.780 I'm Mick Hunt, your host, and I'm here to challenge your why and fuel your because.

00:57:23.020 This is where leaders, entrepreneurs, and go-getters come to level up.

00:57:26.840 Each week, I bring you unfiltered conversations, game-changing strategies, and the kind of

00:57:32.620 motivation that transforms lives and legacies.

00:57:35.660 I've learned from legends like Les Brown, Damon John, and Robert Irvine.

00:57:39.540 And now, I'm bringing their lessons, along with mine, straight to you.

00:57:45.240 From modern leadership tips to creating unstoppable momentum, this is the podcast that redefines

00:57:51.580 what's possible.

00:57:52.360 Hit play, subscribe, and join the millions who've made Mick Unplugged their go-to source

00:57:58.660 for growth and greatness, because your next breakthrough is just one episode away.

00:58:04.800 This is Mick Unplugged, the voice and face of modern leadership, entrepreneur, and self-improvement.

00:58:11.140 Let's get started.

00:58:20.300 And we're back.

00:58:21.660 so i just want to tell people warning for an unpleasant thing involving chickens if you want

00:58:27.660 to skip ahead 30 seconds to avoid that go ahead so what happened is that so this doctor told the

00:58:35.060 authorities and the authorities went to mary's house and they caught her reinserting this egg

00:58:39.940 back into the oh she mary tofted the chicken yeah um so i don't think she had like written on 14

00:58:48.760 eggs i think she just had this one egg and she would just like every couple days put it back 0.51

00:58:52.260 inside the chicken i know the poor chicken um and people were honestly mostly upset about cruelty

00:59:00.160 to chickens really yeah people were like good for them this poor chicken um but also the reveal of

00:59:09.780 this hoax um it like there's some backlash for joanna southcott because mary had like so closely

00:59:16.080 tied herself to being a Southcottian so I had nothing to do with the magical chicken please

00:59:22.460 leave I have to remove myself from the narrative exactly Jonah Southcott stopped giving the seals

00:59:29.520 to her own followers because of the Mary just kind of ruined that that game um Mary but you know

00:59:37.480 like they revealed that this is but there's still people who are like but is it a there's still

00:59:41.860 people who want to believe you know and one of which includes one of her neighbors so Mary was

00:59:45.740 able to sell the chicken to her neighbor and the neighbor was just like oh my god prophet hen now

00:59:50.560 i have it um but it just laid it just laid regular eggs and so the neighbor um just treated the

00:59:56.820 chicken like any other chicken and like made soup or whatever um and that is the saga of the

01:00:03.800 prophet hen of leads which later on when this book is written about mary bateman in 1811

01:00:11.200 you should we should look up the picture of it later there's a picture of of mary and she's

01:00:18.280 holding the egg like the egg became an indelible part of her story it's like the most famous part

01:00:22.980 of her story so like after all this like you know thousands of people have come to her house to see

01:00:27.320 the prophet hen etc um she her face was now well known as the she was sure she's the chicken lady

01:00:35.180 who gives you the fast pass to heaven so she's like time to maybe leave Leeds um let's go to

01:00:42.760 maybe York um York coincidentally a place where a lot of South Cautians lived and they had their

01:00:48.940 like South Cautian meetups and so she went to the meetups to look for like a gullible person and

01:00:54.660 then she saw someone like this elderly widow and she's like great so then she kind of fell at her

01:00:58.880 home to see where she lived and then pretended she was new to town to like oh my god I'm new to town

01:01:02.900 I'm a Southcottian um can I stay with you please and the widow was like okay you seem cool

01:01:09.680 I love Southcots you have the little symbol that shows you're one of the cool people you can come

01:01:14.760 to my house here's my pass and then Mary kept trying to find ways to get the widow to like 0.99

01:01:19.420 could you go buy some meat from the market so we could have food and just leave me alone in your 1.00

01:01:23.680 house for no apparent reason like so I can gather up all your belongings or even just kind of like 0.96

01:01:28.920 inventory um but the the widow wouldn't do that eventually um so they're eating food together it

01:01:36.600 was like mutton with gravy and mary had made the gravy and she's like drink this gravy old lady 0.54

01:01:41.600 and the widow's like no thank you um mary herself you have your arsenic face on ma'am i don't trust

01:01:50.580 it so mary also didn't drink the gravy she threw it away so it's like presumably what she was going 1.00

01:01:56.420 to do is just kill this old lady, steal all her stuff and go. But the old lady outsmarted her, 1.00

01:02:01.780 whether consciously or not. And then, I don't know, just a little sojourn to York. And they

01:02:06.740 just went back to some other part of Leeds, not black dog yard. And she pivoted back to medicinal

01:02:12.460 remedies, abortions, and stealing people's furniture, for instance. So there's one family

01:02:21.880 there the the man of the household died and then she convinced those that the widow is left with

01:02:26.720 four children and she tells the widow like i think your oldest son is going to sell all your furniture

01:02:31.000 so what you should do is give it to me 0.98

01:02:37.560 um so like a classic mary bateman you know furniture stealing but she's always looking 0.99

01:02:45.460 for like a casual a casual grift like i love this one so she at one point she was just like

01:02:50.980 in a butcher shop and she heard somebody come by to be like hey can i order like a leg of mutton

01:02:55.580 for delivery to such and such an address and they're like yeah for sure so then she's like

01:03:00.760 and she goes to like interesting arsenic sauce you say no arsenic in this one she just found 0.93

01:03:07.680 the delivery boy she's like oh my god you're so late let me give me that mutton i'll take it to 1.00

01:03:11.340 her and she took it home and she like mutton um except this would have all worked she would have

01:03:16.460 gotten away with it except for the the delivery boy was like well that's mary bateman

01:03:19.420 so they went to her house and she was like cooking the mutton and they're like

01:03:27.220 god damn it mary bateman so she paid them back i guess um but i just like you know she's always

01:03:32.480 looking for an opportunity was she ever like arrested for any of this because like the fact 0.97

01:03:38.140 that it doesn't seem like she spent a day in jail is incredible well and i think it's because she'd

01:03:43.180 be like no you got me and then she like pays them back i guess no she's not she's not arrested for

01:03:50.180 anything that's wild yeah and that's why i always go like under 40 shillings or whatever so a thing

01:03:58.740 that she had been doing throughout but this becomes more of a thing in this part of her story

01:04:02.220 is so she had sort of like um like it's a witch thing i guess i mean allegedly so like people

01:04:09.460 would give her money like a certain amount of paper money coins and then she would sew the 0.99

01:04:15.340 money into small bags and then give the bags to them and be like okay put this under your bed or

01:04:19.620 like pin this into your jacket or whatever and don't open it until there's definitely still

01:04:25.940 money in there it definitely still feels like it has the weight of coins which means that it's

01:04:31.660 still absolutely filled with coins so this is a thing that she would do a lot and then if people

01:04:36.600 open the bags and they found that there was like not money in it she'd be like well that's because

01:04:39.600 you open it too early until it just magically turned into not money because you open it early 0.92

01:04:44.000 dummy so this is the thing she's been doing and this is where her like seamstress skills come into 0.97

01:04:49.440 play as well um sewing these things into bags and so i don't know scene setting for this is a thing

01:04:57.620 she's been doing this whole time meanwhile one of her brothers remember she had siblings so one of

01:05:02.620 brothers came by he had deserted the navy which was a huge deal in this time of like because we're

01:05:07.420 in like 1807 i think it's like sure and as all of the master and commander girlies know uh oceans

01:05:13.940 were battlefields at this time in history yeah no and this is why like if you left the navy like

01:05:20.080 if you deserted the navy it was the death penalty like you also it's gotta be really hard to desert

01:05:25.080 the navy like you're in the middle of the ocean where are you gonna go swim so her brother came

01:05:33.720 by he deserted the navy he came out with his wife and mary was just like how can i make money off

01:05:39.400 this situation also i don't like having them around so she pulled out a classic mary bateman

01:05:44.760 she presented a letter to the wife saying her father was ill the wife left town your father

01:05:51.460 the town crier so while the wife was away um she just played on the brother being like oh you

01:05:59.540 should divorce her i think she's been cheating on you etc etc but the wife anyway the wife came back 0.98

01:06:05.960 and she's like uh that's not true but when the wife came back they realized that mary had stolen

01:06:10.040 and pawned all of the possessions that they had traveled with like in their trunks

01:06:13.840 that's on you you know who your sister is like don't bring things into her house 0.86

01:06:24.920 you know she's gonna pawn them anyway so things are you know going down hell with her brother and 0.74

01:06:31.920 the wife eventually um she goes to the local magistrate being like my brother is a deserter 0.51

01:06:38.080 from the navy because then she gets i think a reward for that he the brother and the wife flee

01:06:43.480 at this point and then she wrote a letter to their mother being like oh my gosh my brother

01:06:47.520 your son deserted the navy and i need 10 pounds to set him free mom please send me 10 pounds the

01:06:53.420 mother sent the money of course so she you know did her best to destroy her brother's life 0.99

01:06:57.660 and marriage but she made some money off of it and that's just what she's gonna do

01:07:03.220 the brother and the wife got away i feel like good for them there's no arsenic involved

01:07:08.480 no they're good yeah okay so then she's approached by a couple william and rebecca perigo so they're

01:07:17.540 a couple i think they're in like their 50s or so like no children rebecca had been having these

01:07:22.520 chest pains and she went to her doctor here's what i want to say like was mary a poisoner

01:07:29.560 con artist stealing people's possessions yes but the society in which she lived

01:07:35.340 like made it really easy to be that so these the paragos they went to the doctor and the doctor

01:07:42.880 was just like oh i don't think this is medical i think you have a curse so you should go see a

01:07:46.780 witch like perhaps a yorkshire witch and she will help you so like they did yeah they did go to a 0.61

01:07:53.600 doctor first and the doctor was like looks like a curse to me so this is witch business yeah so 0.75

01:08:00.160 the one to see Mary. And she's just like, Oh yeah, this, you've been put under a spell. Um,

01:08:05.360 so here's what we're going to do. Like, I'm going to talk to Ms. Blythe, see what she says. Oh,

01:08:09.780 here's a letter from Ms. Blythe. It says like, give her lots of money. So money into bags. Um, 0.68

01:08:16.120 Ms. Blythe also wants, we'll get these people, the Paragos were incredibly susceptible to what

01:08:25.040 mary bateman was up to so she like every two weeks she's like oh a new letter from miss blyth

01:08:30.760 she says like oh yeah but she's really working on this curse that is on you but she needs some 0.80

01:08:34.720 more dresses and some silverware and some bread and a nice new pair of shoes and so 0.96

01:08:43.660 they keep being told to give this stuff for miss blyth and give it to mary bateman to give him his

01:08:51.080 of course so here's an example so these letters and the letters all ended with like and then as

01:08:57.000 part of the counter spell like burn this letter don't keep this letter they kept some of the

01:09:02.240 letters so one of the letters says like buy me a small cheese about six or eight pounds weight

01:09:09.460 it is so much cheese eight pounds of cheese do you think that's for her

01:09:18.260 are you gonna pawn it do pawn shops take cheese probably i mean yes and i'll tell you how i know

01:09:26.380 is because um famously in the great fire of london when samuel peeps was trying to save all of his

01:09:33.220 most expensive possessions he took a giant wheel of parmesan cheese and buried it in his backyard

01:09:37.880 so it wouldn't burn down in the great london fire so yes you could people so it's just normal to

01:09:44.560 have a wheel oh cheese in your house that's just i don't think it was normal but i know of exactly

01:09:49.460 two instances where it happened the cheese the permanent cheese did not melt i don't know not

01:09:57.040 if you buried it far enough underground before the fire came yeah you just brush the dirt off

01:10:02.440 the rind and you're rich in cheese again so she's asking for eight pounds of cheese so and every two 0.97

01:10:08.160 weeks these letters came from miss blythe quote-unquote um demanding more money and goods

01:10:12.480 So the letters were delivered to the Paragos either by Mary's son, who also we know later from the trial that is going to happen.

01:10:21.280 He would go pick up things for her, like arsenic from the chemists, or the letters would arrive in the post. 0.70

01:10:27.300 So the Paragos, here's a list of some things that they gave that Ms. Blythe requested and that they gave her. 0.98

01:10:33.540 So furniture, clothing, one goose, a tea caddy, a quantity of tea and sugar, two or three hundred eggs, 60 pounds of butter, a new waistcoat, two napkins, half a pound of tea and a tea canister to put the tea in and more.

01:10:50.580 More than that.

01:10:51.320 Those are the things that stood out to me.

01:10:52.860 So many eggs.

01:10:54.960 What do you do with so many eggs?

01:10:57.400 Three hundred eggs.

01:10:59.320 So many eggs.

01:11:00.420 you could ah i'm panicked at the thought of having to like put that many eggs somewhere 0.87

01:11:05.920 well that's why i think it's funny that she wants two napkins and 300 eggs

01:11:09.980 are those equivalent value i don't know eventually um miss blize sent a letter saying she was unable 0.98

01:11:18.860 to sleep in her own bed due to the battle she was having with the spirits who were cursing 1.00

01:11:23.980 And so she needed a new bed and bedding.

01:11:28.780 So the Paragos acquired this for her.

01:11:31.760 And I mean, like this is the Paragos are going like the guy who like they bought the bed and they're like, oh, yeah, can you deliver this bed to this?

01:11:39.940 And like Miss Bly's brother is going to bring the boat up the river and pick it up.

01:11:44.880 And the bed seller is just like, it's very unusual to buy a bed for someone so far away.

01:11:49.720 Like this is preposterous.

01:11:51.940 preposterous and like you see mary bateman just kind of being like oh can you send me like two

01:11:55.840 dozen eggs and then they do they're like can you send me six dozen eggs and then they do like

01:12:00.280 300 like how much can i ask for how how much and at this point she's like i wonder how far i could

01:12:07.580 push this before yeah so like a bed is like a really expensive thing in this era and time so

01:12:15.920 ultimately i think around the time of the bed mary is just like this is like i'm gonna get caught

01:12:21.700 Like, this is, this has been a fun time, but like, this is becoming pretty apparent that

01:12:27.060 I am defrauding these people.

01:12:28.780 So she's like, time to pull out the old arsenic.

01:12:31.360 So she's like, Ms. Blythe, um, said that what we need to do is like, here's this powder.

01:12:37.800 Please like mix this into pudding, eat one of these puddings every day.

01:12:42.040 And then if you, if it makes you feel sick, that's good.

01:12:44.680 That's just like, you know, the demons may exercise.

01:12:47.040 It makes you feel sick.

01:12:48.020 Then mix this powder in with your honey and then just take like a teaspoon of the honey.

01:12:50.920 like that wall that's what you should do please and thank you um and if they didn't consume

01:12:57.580 everything exactly as directed everyone would die like both of them mary miss blythe miss more

01:13:02.980 everybody so like chicken it's all over everybody so they started eating the pudding and at first

01:13:08.840 it's like it's fine but like it's like eats pudding every day for six days and it's like

01:13:14.320 on the sixth day suddenly the amount of powder to put in was like five to six times more than

01:13:19.300 on previous dates what i learned about arsenic is you need just like a pea size amount is what 0.98

01:13:25.960 to kill somebody so i don't know how much she was putting in this day six six to eight pounds 0.99

01:13:31.720 pudding mix it with your cheese um there's so much powder that she couldn't like make pudding

01:13:39.300 out of it all so she made a cake also rebecca i wonder if those two to three hundred eggs were

01:13:43.960 at the pudding i don't know so then okay here's this cake and william tried the cake he's like

01:13:50.180 this tastes awful like i hope the pudding this tastes like arsenic interestingly like uh when

01:13:57.600 you have enough arsenic it stops being tasteless and odorless so he didn't eat it because it tasted

01:14:02.880 so bad but rebecca was all in she ate it she became violently ill um and then she took the

01:14:08.880 honey to help that made her even more ill and mary had warned them like this might make you sick

01:14:15.340 but it's good that's you expunging all the curse stuff so don't call a doctor so they did not call

01:14:23.680 a doctor until towards the very end when it really seemed like she was dying william called for a

01:14:27.500 surgeon doctor didn't arrive until after beck had already died but william spoke to the surgeon

01:14:32.080 he's like yeah these were the symptoms she had and i had similar symptoms and the surgeon is like oh

01:14:36.180 that's arsenic poisoning that's like oh categorically the exact symptoms of arsenic

01:14:43.060 poisoning yeah the doctor suggested like well let's just test they took they gave some of this

01:14:48.580 powder and they gave it to a chicken to see if the chicken would die the chicken did not die

01:14:54.420 i feel like the chicken was working for mary bateman somehow is it the hen before maybe

01:15:00.280 are chickens susceptible to arsenic that could be and that's what i thought too because maybe

01:15:08.480 they're not yeah like i don't know i've never tried to poison a chicken so like i am i'm just

01:15:15.320 guessing i don't know but what i will say and this is a warning google it while we do this

01:15:20.140 because i need to know okay but i just want to give everybody a heads up warning skip ahead 30

01:15:24.580 seconds if you need to for some things that happen to a cat and a dog skip ahead 30 seconds if you

01:15:30.140 don't want to hear this but what it was is you might imagine allison is they fed some of the

01:15:33.780 pudding to a cat and the cat died um and then they fed some of the honey to a dog and the dog died

01:15:39.200 and then this guy would you believe chickens are are not susceptible to arsenic is that true yeah

01:15:46.540 what a great loophole for something i i don't know what but i'm thrilled that she found it

01:15:55.560 It would have proved her innocence if only they hadn't moved on to testing it with other animals.

01:16:00.980 So they did an autopsy on the dog and found like poison in its stomach.

01:16:05.480 So this doctor guy is just like, seems like these two people have been poisoned and she died of it.

01:16:11.580 So William, still ever trusting, went to Mary and was like, oh, my gosh, Rebecca died.

01:16:18.100 Like, I can't believe it.

01:16:18.720 Somebody poisoned me with arsenic.

01:16:22.640 Will you help me?

01:16:23.560 this is like there's another story i didn't put in here but there's like a young servant girl who

01:16:27.380 mary was helping with like screwing down um and then she eventually i guess went to get rid of

01:16:32.780 her and so she just like anonymously delivered like a fruitcake on this woman's front porch and 0.98

01:16:37.660 the girl was like oh my god that's great i'm a poor servant girl fruitcake and she's like this 0.92

01:16:42.620 fruitcake smells weird i'm not gonna eat it sometimes she took the fruitcake to mary bateman

01:16:45.920 to be like mary bateman someone left me this cake i think it's pointless like yes i'll screw down

01:16:51.020 that person. Pay me more money. Anyway. So William went to Mary and is like, Oh my God,

01:16:57.080 Rebecca died. This guy says it's poison. And Mary is like, well, did she, she didn't eat all the

01:17:01.340 honey. Like she should have eaten all the honey. Did you guys touch those bags of coins sewed

01:17:05.520 into your bed? Like you must, she met, this must be her fault somehow. And Ms. Blythe continued

01:17:11.100 sending letters to William with new demands. Um, and he kept fulfilling them. So telling him like,

01:17:18.140 bring one of your wife's dresses for mary why wasn't the point of them was like we're gonna

01:17:24.780 heal your wife i know your wife is dead so what exactly are you getting out of this now

01:17:30.500 i don't know i guess they must have told william like some you're cursed i don't know um but he's

01:17:36.860 still doing stuff so the letter said like give one of your dresses the wife's dresses to mary

01:17:41.200 and then to be excited it's like mary didn't like that dress because he said mary a different dress

01:17:45.340 um and also can you send a wagon load of coal some flour tea sugar and eggs thank you

01:17:53.620 just like a grocery shopping list how can you need more eggs girl

01:17:57.000 surely surely you have enough eggs never enough so finally i don't know what violate crack for

01:18:08.180 william but he's just like i'm just gonna open these bags of quote-unquote coins in my bed

01:18:13.000 and he's like what there's not coins in them um and so he went to confront mary he's like

01:18:20.680 why aren't there coins in the bag and mary is like well you open them too soon it broke the

01:18:24.800 magic etc etc and then she's like okay like let's meet tomorrow by the bridge um and i'll explain

01:18:31.540 everything tomorrow by the bridge meet me there come alone way way way up on the bridge right

01:18:37.080 above where the sharp rocks are is that the way this is going right by the edge of the bridge

01:18:42.880 anyway at this point william like he can't like you know god bless william not not a smart person

01:18:52.000 but in this case i think other people maybe the doctor were like don't go see her by yourself 0.98

01:18:57.080 absolute idiot so two other men followed him to go meet her and they watched him meet with her 0.99

01:19:05.880 when she realized that there was witnesses she pretended to vomit she's and she's like oh 1.00

01:19:11.140 William tried to poison me last night he gave me this bottle and told me to drink it and I think

01:19:17.220 there's poison in it and it's like the bottle poison she had brought to kill him with but she's

01:19:22.980 like oh he poisoned me anyway the contents of the bottle were later found to contain a mixture of

01:19:28.440 oatmeal and arsenic so the magistrate and William went to Mary's house and they're like wait a

01:19:35.720 minute why is your house full of all the items why do you have so many belongings ma'am

01:19:41.500 if you average up the amount of belongings she has with the no belongings everybody else has 0.86

01:19:47.560 it's still too many why do you send the eggs you have this giant bed like two barrels like what

01:19:54.140 yeah so they they recognize things william had got from his blithe were in her house so they're like

01:19:58.880 okay you have been defrauded sorry so at this point mary is taken into custody for the first

01:20:05.160 time in her life so she was brought before the leads magistrates and charged with fraud initially

01:20:11.000 like just for having taken all this stuff from him although they were like seems like she's

01:20:17.840 probably guilty of also murder so let's just keep her fully investigate when i say we investigate

01:20:23.520 like there's not a police force there's not detectives it's like the magistrates just casual

01:20:29.720 guys investigating but i think all these doctors were really interested because they like doing

01:20:34.860 chemistry and autopsies and like seeing what poison was and what so she was arrested in October 1808

01:20:41.560 murder charges were late in January 1809 and then her trial was March 1809 and she was charged with

01:20:48.100 murder murdering Rebecca Perrigo and the case hinged on had she actually supplied the poison

01:20:55.420 that had killed them and did she know that it was poison when she gave it to them so the laws 0.95

01:21:01.600 I mean, that being said, you know, maybe a good lawyer could have could have tripped somebody up, but she did not have money to hire a lawyer.

01:21:11.960 So she was not represented by anybody. And the laws of the time, she's not allowed to speak in her own defense.

01:21:16.840 so just a whole bunch of witnesses came up and just kind of all explaining like other people

01:21:24.000 who she had worked with like who she had provided services to like friends of the perigos like her

01:21:30.060 messenger person i think like her son testified yeah i used to buy arsenic for mom all the time

01:21:36.240 yeah well what no it was a chemist i think who said like yeah her son came in and he wanted to

01:21:41.200 buy so much arsenic i was like why would anyone eat this much arsenic and he was like to kill rats

01:21:45.960 so many rats is because of all the eggs don't worry about it eight pounds of arsenic please

01:21:52.780 so anyway it was determined during the trial and you know these chemistry guys were just like living

01:21:57.640 for being able to talk about all the chemistry experiments they did they found arsenic there's

01:22:02.320 arsenic in the pudding powders the pudding powders were arsenic um yeah and the honey was a different

01:22:08.640 poison sublimate of mercury was there so it's kind of like have this arsenic pudding and then wash it

01:22:15.000 down with this mercury honey and that will cure you so the trial was done in 11 hours it was like

01:22:20.940 one day of just people yeah 11 straight hours of this is the guiltiest woman you've ever seen in

01:22:29.820 your life yeah and it was a jury trial and she was in fact found guilty i think the trial is at 11 0.57

01:22:36.360 hours and they found her guilty in like five minutes or something so the judge sentenced her

01:22:41.900 like the jury decided if she's guilty or not and then the judge decides what's the punishment going

01:22:45.920 to be and he's like uh hanging it's going to be what happens to you um and then your body will be

01:22:51.380 given to surgeons for a dissection surgeons are like yes oh okay like we'll talk about what 0.94

01:22:58.920 happens to her body but um so the law at the time mandated the dissection of bodies of executed

01:23:05.040 murderers because doctors and medical schools were always wanting bodies you know there's a million

01:23:09.880 books about this and like frankenstein and stuff the medical schools needed bodies and so all the

01:23:15.140 murderers bodies would be donated to science because there was like all the normal belief

01:23:21.300 a bit at that time was like your body must be it whole so that when it actually is day of judgment

01:23:27.100 you can rise up in your physical body when it's actually chicken of revelations time like well

01:23:32.080 the murderers aren't going to heaven anyway so we'll use that yeah well and this is so it's like

01:23:36.300 an extra punishment to a person that they would not get into heaven like your punishment is like

01:23:40.440 you're going to be executed and then not go to heaven but they don't know she has the fast pass

01:23:44.600 so she's got two of them she's definitely getting the egg the egg so this is like i don't i don't

01:23:54.720 know i feel like there's a merch idea somewhere in this episode and it might just be a shirt with

01:24:00.940 an egg that says crisp is coming i don't know i don't know i have to think about it i think there's

01:24:07.060 an arsenic pudding recipe in there somewhere or just sort of like a thing that's like mary

01:24:12.260 bateman which entrepreneur you know just like advertising all of her services abortion i think

01:24:17.700 i want to assure it with the chicken on it the chicken has to be the chicken has to be involved

01:24:22.780 we'll brainstorm well think about it listeners you raised on it too please so anyway so they

01:24:29.980 said like okay you're ex you're going to be executed and then also we're gonna send your

01:24:34.260 body to science to be dissected but mary still had a scheme so you know like in weddings when

01:24:40.080 they say like if anyone here has like a reason why these two people can't be married so i guess

01:24:44.460 at the time they had like mary bateman do you have any reason why you shouldn't be executed

01:24:48.520 it's like a thing and she's finally able to talk um and she she bursts into tears and she's like

01:24:53.580 I'm pregnant girl. Okay. So there is a thing that is called pleading the belly. And this was a law

01:25:03.660 at the time in England where women in the later stages of pregnancy couldn't be executed until 0.98

01:25:08.200 the child was born. So you had to be at least 22 weeks pregnant or something. So like, if you were

01:25:14.360 only just pregnant, like you could still be executed, but if it's like past the quickening 0.68

01:25:18.060 or whatever, and it's like, well, what's this going to do? Like, they're still going to execute 0.98

01:25:22.000 you after like yeah but what they what often happens you're also going to notice that you

01:25:25.720 are not pregnant oh fair yeah but like let's say somebody was really pregnant and then they pleaded

01:25:32.420 the belly and then they had a baby like there's an opportunity that maybe they wouldn't be

01:25:37.220 executed after the child was born maybe they would be sent for allison transportation yeah 0.51

01:25:43.240 i was excited when i saw that this was an option for her so this could be she would have been 0.66

01:25:51.960 amazing in australia can you imagine her as a bush ranger she would have thrived she would have

01:25:59.140 the silliest name oh she'd been amazing so good i know i know i'm just like the things we've we've

01:26:05.780 lost that she wasn't sent in transportation to australia because she would have been such an

01:26:09.980 iconic legend there queen of the bush rangers so like yeah you would say like oh my god i'm pregnant

01:26:15.940 but then it's like what do you do wait like six months or whatever no so what you do is that 0.99

01:26:20.880 verification pregnancy had to be done by a jury of matrons which meant that 12 women who were 0.94

01:26:27.720 already in the courtroom were just like grabbed and forced to go see to inspect her so there was 0.86

01:26:36.280 a lot of people in the courtroom for this trial because it was like you know the yorkshire witch

01:26:41.240 so when they're like oh she's like i'm pregnant i feel like all the married women in the room

01:26:45.620 were like oh no and they all start like trying to leave and the judge is like lock that door 1.00

01:26:49.320 12 of you women have to do this so then they got sworn in to be the jury of matrons 0.96

01:26:55.920 then they went in with Mary into another room for an exam and then they came back and they're like

01:27:01.040 yeah no she's not pregnant that's not or at least if she is she's not that far along so yeah but

01:27:06.560 you know it's worth a try and so she's sent to prison to await her execution she had at least 0.99

01:27:14.080 three children and one of well one of them was her son who went to buy her arsenic but she also had 0.97

01:27:18.720 like an infant aged child and that child was allowed to be with her,

01:27:22.120 which is just like normal for this time.

01:27:24.380 Okay. 1.00

01:27:25.460 If a woman's in jail and she has an infant, 0.87

01:27:26.860 you can like bring the child into breastfeed or whatever.

01:27:29.540 And so over the week,

01:27:30.420 like she's convicted like sentenced to execution and then it's like the

01:27:34.600 weekend and then she's going to be executed on Monday sort of thing.

01:27:37.160 So she's there for the weekend and the prison chaplain tried to get her to

01:27:40.500 confess and repent.

01:27:41.280 She never confessed.

01:27:43.180 She never repented.

01:27:45.260 And I respect that.

01:27:46.700 and like uh you'll know him about this later titus andronicus type way i only wish i could

01:27:51.760 have grifted more people so um she did write a letter to her husband she sent along her wedding

01:28:00.620 ring and was like can you give this to our daughter can you pawn this for a couple more belongings

01:28:06.300 so she admitted in this letter to being guilty of quote some frauds

01:28:13.580 but maintained her innocence in the death of rebecca perigo like okay i did

01:28:21.220 some frauds in the biography you know you were there like when i pawned all of your belongings

01:28:29.140 twice um for instance in the biography of her by summer streamings in that part summer streamings

01:28:36.180 but in italics some frauds and then was like italics mine like summer streamings

01:28:41.260 I hate Mary Bateman so much.

01:28:43.940 It's palpable in this biography.

01:28:47.740 But here's the thing.

01:28:48.940 Here's the thing. 0.86

01:28:49.420 Mary Bateman, unstoppable. 0.98

01:28:51.640 Even while in prison, waiting to be executed, 0.88

01:28:54.240 she got her fellow prisoners to pay her to tell their fortunes.

01:28:58.300 Yes.

01:28:58.940 What was she going to do with the money?

01:29:01.560 Exactly.

01:29:02.200 And then another prisoner who was like, oh, sad that her sweetheart didn't come by. 0.77

01:29:05.780 Mary was like, I can ensure that the sweetheart's going to come by, visit you in prison.

01:29:09.920 Just give me some coins. 1.00

01:29:10.860 i'll sew them into this thing put them in your stays so she took the woman's coins and claimed 1.00

01:29:17.480 to sew them into her stays and after mary bateman was executed the woman's like wait where's my

01:29:20.960 coins one last grift for the road yeah it's like she couldn't stop so her hanging was public um

01:29:34.780 as they were in this time but also she was so notorious at this point um so the crowd was

01:29:41.500 estimated this is like a huge estimation but it's olden times and there's not a lot of records so

01:29:46.100 it's some anywhere between 5 000 and 20 000 people so many people watch her be yeah because

01:29:53.200 she's like well partially because many of whom were like oh my god she's the yorkshire witch 0.98

01:29:56.940 like she's gonna like fly out of here she's gonna like something the apocalypse is gonna happen i

01:30:02.220 was just like something's gonna happen like this is tragically she did not have any supernatural

01:30:07.500 abilities and so she died um by hanging march 20th 1809 age 41 but that's not the end of the

01:30:15.000 story allison actually we went through the story and she never lost you i was just thinking i

01:30:20.020 wobbled for a second but she never did lose me like with the only time i wobbled is when she

01:30:25.800 tried to frame her brother for deserting the navy because i support anybody who deserts the navy i

01:30:30.840 was like the rest of it yeah okay good yeah no it's i am too but i feel like just the audacity

01:30:39.120 and it's like she's living in this time where it's like she did all this stuff like she could

01:30:44.340 have just like been like a stay-at-home mom whatever like just raising her kids working

01:30:49.260 in a factory and she's just like loved the grift she loved it that's the thing it's not just like

01:30:55.640 oh i'm you know if they made a movie of this maybe they try to make her more sympathetic

01:31:00.540 it's like oh she's just doing this for her children it's like no she was just good at it

01:31:03.860 she figured out what she could get away with obviously having fun while she was doing it

01:31:09.580 she wasn't doing it in the most efficient way to make money possible she's like this is wild

01:31:14.880 but i think it'll be a good time for everybody like yeah that's awesome i love that i like

01:31:20.980 yeah exactly and this is like again if people listen to the podcast scam goddess like the

01:31:24.840 story is there they talk about like someone who's just there's um this guy this is like a few years

01:31:29.760 ago it's this like teenage boy and he started representing himself as a doctor he's like I'm

01:31:35.220 Dr. Love and he like took patients and like rented office space and it's like you're 15 and look like

01:31:42.760 a child like he's just having a nice time yeah it's not a victimless crime but I don't know

01:31:52.440 but it's so weirical that it's kind of okay okay so here's what happens with mary's body and we 0.80

01:32:00.200 haven't had a vulgar history like fucked up things happening to somebody's body in a while but we do

01:32:05.320 have a history of this happening on the podcast so she was taken away and here's the thing what 0.60

01:32:10.300 i also want to say about like if you've listened to this long of the podcast it's like yeah because

01:32:13.940 this story is great but like she's everyone is a grifter and if you're not a grifter then you're

01:32:19.620 being grifted like okay so she her body's taken away put on exhibit put on exhibit in the surgeon's

01:32:26.360 room at the infirmary where people paid three pence three pence just to see her body more than

01:32:33.000 2,500 people paid this fee just to see her body so they raised 30 pounds for the infirmary

01:32:39.760 summer streamings was like that was the only charitable thing she ever did in her

01:32:43.080 calm down summer streamings but so this is and this is not it so her body was undissected and

01:32:51.440 this became an event people could pay to attend as well over three days a three-day mary bateman 0.95

01:32:56.360 dissection coachella festival so on day one medical students could pay to watch the dissection 0.93

01:33:03.140 on day two other gentlemen not medical students could pay to see the body and on day three women

01:33:09.460 could buy a ticket to hear a lecture about the body which i'm like let them see the body 0.95

01:33:14.660 she would have loved that like come on she's a woman anyway so people are just making money off 0.94

01:33:21.420 of her although the one person who you might think would be here all about this madame tussaud 1.00

01:33:27.600 not involved in this now this is exactly madame tussaud's shit like she would make the death mask 1.00

01:33:33.440 she would have like oh here's like here's the here's the actual egg you know like that's madame 0.98

01:33:37.740 tussauds right but at this point madame tussauds exhibit was like a touring exhibition it didn't

01:33:43.080 have a permanent home and so she was currently busy in dublin and then belfast so she never had

01:33:48.840 a bear yeah otherwise this has got big madame tussauds energy um so now i'm just going to give 0.79

01:33:55.860 a warning for fucked up things happening to a human corpse so skip ahead 30 seconds perhaps 1.00

01:34:02.760 one minute so after the dissection mary's skin was removed and turned into leather 0.96

01:34:09.760 um no to make like charms that people could buy bad it's because she's like a witch right and it's 0.96

01:34:17.920 like have this mary skin leather um the tip of her tongue was uh was pickled and preserved

01:34:25.060 other portions of her skin were used to cover books did you hear you probably did this is big

01:34:31.820 in the library slash archives world a year or two ago there's some various archives and museums that

01:34:36.820 have in their possession books with human skin covering and there's been sort of a movement in

01:34:42.020 museums and archives and stuff to like be more respectful about human remains in general so it's

01:34:47.280 like what you do about these books with like human skin binding so anyway do you know do you know who

01:34:54.680 allegedly owned one of the books covered in mary bateman leather skin it's someone who's been on

01:35:01.960 this podcast numerous times who is a man is it is it lord byron no oh is it prinny it's pretty no

01:35:12.120 no listeners if you don't know prinny is king george the fourth the husband of caroline of

01:35:21.060 brunswick who i wrote a book about caroline rebel of the regency and prinny has this remarkable 0.61

01:35:26.900 ability to show up in every goddamn story i've done this whole season i was almost at the end 0.68

01:35:33.420 of this biography and i'm just like prinny what are you doing with this book buying a human skin 0.97

01:35:39.080 book i love you and because you are doing a regency season and every time the regent shows

01:35:48.820 up here like what are you doing why is he always here why is he here he's always this is the worst 1.00

01:35:59.380 like he's like pretty like why do you want this human skin book but i don't know but i do feel

01:36:10.660 like if the human skin charms were being sold for like a sufficient amount of money mary probably

01:36:16.380 would have been okay with it like yeah no absolutely you put it in a bag and then you

01:36:20.200 put it in your in your petticoat you're good well that's the thing like the fact that she died and

01:36:25.040 then so many people have made money off of her since feels like a good sort of way to remember

01:36:29.740 her that's how she would want to be remembered by like new grifters making money so mary's skeleton

01:36:36.340 was initially used for anatomy classes at leeds medical school or remained for 200 years and 0.96

01:36:42.540 interestingly, she had one more rib than most people do at the top on one side. Interesting.

01:36:49.580 Yeah. So it was an interesting skeleton, I guess. Um, so it was at Leeds medical school

01:36:54.680 and it remained for 200 years and it was loaned to the Thackeray medical museum in Leeds where it

01:36:59.560 was on exhibit until 2015. When these discussions I just mentioned about like, let's be more

01:37:04.140 respectful about human remains happened. And they were like, maybe let's not have this on this one.

01:37:09.080 But it still has not been buried, the skeleton.

01:37:12.740 And this is where I can finally reveal the title of the book.

01:37:16.140 So two years after her execution, so she was executed in 1809.

01:37:20.160 In 1811, this book came out called

01:37:22.940 The Extraordinary Life and Character of Mary Bateman, the Yorkshire Witch,

01:37:28.160 traced from the earliest thefts of her infancy

01:37:30.400 through a most awful course of crimes and murders

01:37:33.220 till her execution at the New Drop near the Castle of York

01:37:37.380 on Monday, the 20th of March, 1809.

01:37:43.000 We just don't title books like we used to anymore.

01:37:46.700 I love it.

01:37:47.840 I love it.

01:37:48.680 It's a great title.

01:37:51.000 We got time.

01:37:52.160 We got day of the week.

01:37:53.720 We got geography.

01:37:55.480 It's all in there.

01:37:57.120 A summary.

01:37:57.600 It's like, do I want to read this book?

01:37:59.160 I don't know.

01:37:59.460 The title tells you everything.

01:38:01.760 And it's like her thefts from her childhood.

01:38:04.260 Awful course of crimes and murders.

01:38:05.680 It's intriguing.

01:38:06.180 but you kind of know and then you know and with her death so it came out 1811 within two years

01:38:11.440 it had been published 12 times people love this book and on the the front of it like the inside

01:38:19.040 um there is on the frontispiece there is a engraving like an image this is the only image

01:38:24.280 we have from vaguely contemporaneously of mary bateman and it's her sort of sitting at a desk

01:38:29.260 holding up an egg and the egg says Christ is coming yes I love she's the most famous for

01:38:40.700 so we get to give her a score on in four categories and for the listeners who have

01:38:48.860 never scored a person with me before I have a I have a special little corner of the scale

01:38:56.380 dedicated to people who I find interesting,

01:38:59.000 they all score exactly the same.

01:39:00.520 Is it a 23?

01:39:01.920 It's a 23, yep.

01:39:03.560 Okay, so we're not going to do that on purpose.

01:39:05.580 We are going to score based on the merits of the case.

01:39:08.160 But if we end up with a 23,

01:39:10.260 Ian owes me $10.

01:39:11.700 Yeah, like it's the Alison Epstein Grotto.

01:39:14.780 I forget what I call it on the website.

01:39:16.580 If you go to vulgarhistory.com

01:39:17.880 and then there's like the scores is there

01:39:19.780 and I call it, wait, I'll look at it right now

01:39:21.820 because it is remarkable how the people

01:39:25.020 that we talk about you and i keep ending every time yeah once i got a 24 and that was a big day

01:39:31.580 it was let me see so it's called the allison epstein dirtbag cul-de-sac

01:39:38.180 which is where i belong and it's it's all i will say that the scores range from 22.5

01:39:47.780 to 23.5

01:39:50.280 yes that's my happy zone all 23 okay but we're not trying for that but we'll see how this goes

01:39:59.080 so i mean i i have some idea of scandalousness how scandalous was

01:40:06.380 no i mean like she was executed for murder she was the prophet hen of leads like she was 0.97

01:40:15.720 prophet henna leads she's being fired she co-opted an entire she took over a doomsday

01:40:23.400 cult and made it about her chicken like 20 000 people come out to be executed yeah like that's

01:40:31.720 a tent right i think it can't be more of a tent i think like she won the fact that her whole life

01:40:39.800 was so scandalous that she kept having to leave town come back to town go to new town leave town

01:40:45.660 and then yeah i think like when i'm doing scandalousness and i'm explaining it to like

01:40:50.220 other guests or whatever it's like did this person like murder somebody like and get caught

01:40:55.080 like that's a hard core yeah and she murdered numerous people her biography went into 12

01:41:02.980 printings yeah so in terms of like her time and era like she could not have been more scandalous

01:41:08.540 and i think part of it too and they talk about this or summer streamings does in the biography

01:41:11.840 about the sort of like you know the thing about like it's unnatural for a woman to be a murderer

01:41:17.640 like sometimes there's a woman is accused of murder and it's like well what man put her up to

01:41:21.440 this because a woman would never do this but her it was always just like this was her and that was 0.70

01:41:25.840 even more shocking to people because women are supposed were thought to be like nurturers and

01:41:31.080 whatever but it's just like oh well she does have children and i don't know how they did or what

01:41:35.460 they did but she also grifted non-stop from the age of five and murdered countless people so it's

01:41:43.220 like the unnatural quote-unquote-ness of her being a woman made her even more like if a man did this 0.65

01:41:47.580 it'd be like oh that was a good time but that it's a woman it's like oh it's a little it's more

01:41:52.920 exciting in some ways i think a 10 is completely appropriate scheminess i feel is also a really

01:41:58.460 high like when was she ever she was scheming in her sleep she was scheming and she wasn't just

01:42:03.820 scheming she was giving it worked every time it'd be they were like so convoluted it wasn't like

01:42:12.020 these are the kind of schemes that i love which is not like i'm going to go and implement some

01:42:18.640 battle tactics it was like i'm gonna invent an imaginary friend who places hexes on your

01:42:25.060 imaginary enemies and she wants you to pay me in eggs like yes all of it just like oh and

01:42:33.760 she couldn't make it because she saw a hot air balloon and then like even the fact that she's 0.96

01:42:42.420 on death row about to be executed and she's just like what want me to tell you more grit she's

01:42:48.200 she's never like the fact that she's she claimed to be pregnant like she she was never never not

01:42:56.240 grifting and i like i can't think of what would be more of a tent of scheminess like she was me

01:43:01.960 either she was abg always be grifting yeah it's truly incredible this is where i think the scores

01:43:09.960 may not be so high that's what i always dwindle after those two those are those are big for an

01:43:15.600 alice napstein episode yeah because the next one is significance and this is significance to 0.83

01:43:20.300 history in general i mean i think you know how many families did she bankrupt and ruin

01:43:25.480 how many people died but at the same time it's like i'd never heard of her you never heard of

01:43:29.840 her summer stream has never heard of her like were i to go to york leeds what was the other place

01:43:36.420 thirst like i don't think i'm going to be like mary bateman's pub like i don't think she's like

01:43:41.320 be amazing if you did can you imagine if you had like a fried chicken restaurant in york

01:43:46.000 i would die i would love it i saw i was just in england and i loved seeing all the

01:43:52.140 oldie timey businesses named up for oldie timey people um but there are people who i would have

01:43:58.720 expected to have seen be remembered that weren't i feel like again i didn't go to northern england

01:44:04.340 i don't know what's up what's happening in leeds but you know there's places like i went to boss

01:44:09.040 which is how they pronounce it boss um where jane austin briefly lived and the whole city is just

01:44:14.320 like jane austin lived here once and i'm like so did mary shelley so did lola montez so did like

01:44:20.360 so many people were here actually yeah but the whole city is just like oh they jane austin

01:44:25.000 so i feel like leads might have anyway all which to say i don't think her significance score is

01:44:30.280 very high i think i don't think it's very high but i also don't think it's a zero because of

01:44:35.660 the body being in the museum it's a the families that she killed like that is significant to both

01:44:42.680 families and b for like the contributions to medical science like true i think she she trained

01:44:48.940 doctors for 200 years so yeah it's something so i'm thinking like a one or a two i think

01:44:55.960 maybe a two okay like one for medical science and one for all the families she destroyed

01:45:01.060 okay and then the final category is the sexism bonus how much did living in a patriarchy get 1.00

01:45:09.840 in her way and i don't think anything got in her way but i think what got in her way was just like 1.00

01:45:14.060 the strict class structure like but she figured that out and she figured out how to still

01:45:18.600 thrive within it yeah like i remember when you started doing this podcast you're like everybody 0.90

01:45:24.320 gets a five for sexism and then we started running into people like this woman and we're like actually

01:45:28.540 did she experience any sexism at all like i guess had she been no because if she had been born a boy 0.98

01:45:36.700 she still wouldn't have had like job opportunities she would have just been like a farmer who got 1.00

01:45:42.060 fired for stealing instead of a lady's mate who got fired for stealing like i don't think exactly 1.00

01:45:46.040 yeah yeah i don't you probably wouldn't even have had as many opportunities to grift in the

01:45:52.260 in the way that she did because she was kind of trusted as like a yeah as like a woman like

01:45:57.680 patron exactly like the two like old nan and the bog witch like all the witches at this time were

01:46:02.740 women like men weren't yeah like doing a south cot like that was kind of like a woman's position 1.00

01:46:09.580 is it you is it even earlier that like she's particularly notorious because 1.00

01:46:17.740 that's true that could be a one i think if it if a man did all these same things

01:46:25.400 would it have been would he have been sentenced to death hanged probably hanged yes not turned

01:46:33.920 into jewelry and sold around town yeah fair i think yeah something like part of what scandals 0.96

01:46:41.040 about it is the womanhood of it and just people feeling like oh this is like a sexy betrayal of

01:46:46.420 gender or something so i would say one for sexism you know what that gets us ann 23 allison

01:46:53.280 it sure does 1.00

01:46:57.900 mary she goes where she belongs 10 10 2 1 a 23 so she's up there with people like

01:47:10.820 catalina de arosso 23.5 lola montez 23 the marquis de lafayette 23 for different reasons

01:47:20.340 empress elizabeth 23 um argument christopher marlowe 22.5 this is the allison cul-de-sac

01:47:30.420 richelle got a 26 that was the one where i i broke out of my neighborhood that's right

01:47:38.600 yeah i think she had well she just had a bit more of of other things she was more significant 1.00

01:47:43.940 because she had sex with more napoleons um and she had the big wasn't it like 10 000 people 0.99

01:47:50.020 came to her funeral and stuff she was right although 20 000 people came to watch 20 000

01:47:54.760 people came to this hanging i'm just saying what a time thank you so much for joining me for this

01:47:59.980 i couldn't this was such an allison story i had to bring you to talk about it i was in from the

01:48:07.280 moment you teased it for me and it it met and exceeded all my expectations i know when you

01:48:12.580 say that like the prophet hen of leads is not even it's a high point but there's so many others

01:48:17.740 if you had said her imaginary friend was waylaid because she saw a hot air balloon i also would

01:48:22.960 have joined the episode there's so many hooks she's just such a creative creative little

01:48:30.120 villainess i love it um i think this would be a great limited series um on a streaming service 1.00

01:48:36.740 but you have to make her be a dirtbag you have to go peaky blinders on this you have to you can't 0.99

01:48:42.120 make it be like oh she's only doing this because her family suffered it's like no she's doing this 1.00

01:48:46.120 because she's a sociopath. And I love her. You have to do it like that, or you have to do it 0.90

01:48:51.820 like the weirdest comedy anybody's ever seen. Yes. Like a true, oh, lots of options. You know

01:48:59.460 what? If you want to license this episode, filmmakers, you know, call us. But yeah,

01:49:05.620 Alison, tell people who may not know, you wrote several books, one of which has been nominated

01:49:11.980 for and or won various awards. Can you tell people about your work? Yeah, I write historical

01:49:18.400 fiction books. My most recent book is Fagin the Thief. It is also about a dirtbag in roughly the

01:49:25.280 early 1800s who has a stealing and pawning items problem. So that's my genre. It is currently up

01:49:33.500 for an Edgar Award for Best Crime Novel, which I'll find out if it wins at the end of next month.

01:49:38.980 um i appreciate your good thoughts and prayers as i try to be presentable at an award ceremony

01:49:43.780 next month is there's an actual award ceremony you're attending yes where i find out if i win

01:49:50.140 i didn't win listeners but i'm just delighted to go to an award ceremony yeah where is it is it in

01:49:56.780 chicago or where it's in new york oh my gosh you're going to new york to attend an award ceremony

01:50:02.480 for which you were nominated okay fancy that's so exciting and i'm gonna go see the revival of

01:50:08.560 cats the jellicle ball when i'm there abso-fucking-lutely i am amazing get hyped for that

01:50:13.680 but yeah everybody should read elison's book if you haven't yet faking the thief so good um and

01:50:18.780 we've mentioned this before but like the audiobook so good that that guy's voice yes yeah and because

01:50:26.160 ann only only um buzz marketed herself maybe once or twice in this episode ann wrote a book

01:50:30.740 it's called rebel of the regency it's very good i'm like one third of the way through it and very

01:50:34.900 much enjoying it yay if i was playing your drinking game i'd be i would be dead by now

01:50:40.440 but yeah my book rebel the regency the scandal saga of carolina brunswick britain's queen without

01:50:46.480 a crown um a woman who had the truly bad luck to marry a man who bought a book um covered in the

01:50:54.660 leather of human skin pretty um among other odious things he did yeah you can get that it's

01:51:01.380 available as a book as an audiobook as an ebook it's available now in europe it took like for

01:51:06.620 some reason a month and a half for it to but it's like north america it's in europe um it's an

01:51:11.420 audiobook as well with a really lovely voiced narrator and you can really well read introduction

01:51:16.360 as well i believe yeah uh the introduction is read by someone with a with a really beautiful

01:51:21.620 canadian accent um that the editor had to be like could you say that again not with such a

01:51:29.220 on Canadian accent. And I'm like, isn't that how that word is said? Oh, it's not. Okay.

01:51:33.660 Sorry.

01:51:35.980 Exactly. I recorded my parts while my across the street neighbor was snowblowing.

01:51:40.320 Could not have been more Canadian.

01:51:42.040 And then you went to a Tim Hortons and you said, can I have 13 Timbits, please? 0.93

01:51:45.600 13 Timbits, goddammit. Go to rebelwithheregency.com to get all the information about that.

01:51:52.320 And Alison, you should plug your sub stack as well because people like dirtbags and you write

01:51:57.140 about them yes i'm on brief hiatus due to the amount of things happening in my life right now

01:52:02.300 but i my sub stack is called an archive years of back issues of dirtbags through the ages on 0.56

01:52:08.260 sub stack which is uh people just like mary bateman told about with uh stupid gifts and bad

01:52:15.320 punts so go subscribe there if you like this episode yeah if you want my notes but mary

01:52:21.940 bateman i'd be happy to forward those to you for future dirtbags installment um that'd be awesome

01:52:26.540 so I can not have to research something new yeah a summary of a book I read um well thank you so

01:52:33.640 much for joining me Allison again like I couldn't I feel like almost every season of this podcast

01:52:39.300 you've come on once or twice and I feel like anytime you find a chicken that's predicting

01:52:44.700 the end of the world you know who to call and it's me so I know and I'm so glad to to know that

01:52:50.380 and to have that oh and also people love our banter um you want to hear the two of us talking

01:52:54.220 with another hilarious person who has a friend, Lana Wood Johnson. If you join my Patreon, we do

01:52:59.100 approximately once a month, um, a show called Vulgar Peace Theater, where we talk about a movie

01:53:04.440 or a book, um, for two to three hours and slowly descend into madness. And it's a nice time. And

01:53:11.820 our most recent episode was about the movie Gothic from 1986. Alison's making face.

01:53:18.220 what an episode that was yeah that episode could have involved like a book with human skin on it

01:53:26.480 um it was the movie feels like holding a book made of human skin anyway it's a movie about

01:53:31.760 mary shelley the night that she wrote frankenstein allegedly and it's also a 1980s synthesizer

01:53:36.620 fever dream um in our next episode we're going to talk about uh the book dracula by bram stoker

01:53:42.280 which i'm excited which i reread in preparation for that episode and i remember how much i love

01:53:47.340 how ridiculous it is so get excited for that so finessex if you join the my patreon um you can

01:53:54.680 hear all that stuff and that's a patreon.com and foster writer anyway thank you so much allison 0.55

01:53:59.740 for taking her customary extremely long time to talk about really bananas story i had the best

01:54:06.620 time my pleasure um right and i have to say because it's in the episode you pants on and

01:54:12.660 tits out everybody vulgar history is researched scripted and hosted by ann foster editor is

01:54:20.380 christina lumagi theme music is by the severin duo regency era artwork by karen moynihan social

01:54:26.500 media videos by magdalena denson transcripts of this podcast are available at vulgarhistory.com

01:54:32.060 by aveline malik you can get early ad-free episodes of vulgar history by becoming a paid

01:54:36.940 member of our Patreon at patreon.com slash Anne Foster Writer. Vulgar History merchandise is

01:54:42.380 available at vulgarhistory.com slash store for Americans and at vulgarhistory.redbubble.com

01:54:48.240 for everyone else. Follow us on social media at vulgarhistorypod. Get in touch with me at

01:54:53.180 vulgarhistorypod at gmail.com. Chew on this bold question from Dantine Gum.

01:54:59.220 Is it ever okay to compliment a millennial on their skinny jeans in 2026?

01:55:09.160 Dentine, too bold.

01:55:12.660 Legendary stories, awe-inspiring sound, and endless adventure.

01:55:19.200 Welcome to the realms of peril and glory.

01:55:25.240 Explore the mechanically magical vistas of Vale.

01:55:29.220 The Paranormal Mysteries of Liminal London

01:55:33.720 And the Cyberpunk Chaos of Cyborg

01:55:39.480 Fall in love with our core cast

01:55:44.660 Or be awed by our incredible guests

01:55:47.660 From familiar shows like Oxventure, Three Black Halflings, and No Rolls Barred

01:55:54.320 Ignite your imagination and discover the realms of peril and glory today.

01:56:01.260 Go to RealmsPod.com or search Realms of Peril and Glory wherever you listen to podcasts.

01:56:11.380 Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement and modern leadership.

01:56:18.200 I'm Mick Hunt, your host, and I'm here to challenge your why and fuel your because.

01:56:24.320 This is where leaders, entrepreneurs, and go-getters come to level up. Each week,

01:56:29.540 I bring you unfiltered conversations, game-changing strategies, and the kind of motivation that

01:56:34.940 transforms lives and legacies. I've learned from legends like Les Brown, Damon John,

01:56:40.300 and Robert Irvine. And now, I'm bringing their lessons, along with mine, straight to you.

01:56:46.740 From modern leadership tips to creating unstoppable momentum,

01:56:50.320 this is the podcast that redefines what's possible.

01:56:54.320 Hit play, subscribe, and join the millions who've made Mick Unplugged their go-to source

01:57:00.260 for growth and greatness, because your next breakthrough is just one episode away.

01:57:06.400 This is Mick Unplugged, the voice and face of modern leadership, entrepreneur, and self-improvement.

01:57:12.760 Let's get started.

Vulgar History - April 01, 2026

Regency Era Witch Mary Bateman

Episode Stats

Transcript