Witches of Essex

TV presenter Rylan teams up with anthropologist Professor Alice Roberts to investigate the harrowing witch trials of Essex. They start in 1566 with accusations levelled at a poor family of women from Hatfield Peveril, who are tried before Queen Elizabeth’s own attorney. It’s a test trial of a newly passed Act of Parliament, making witchcraft a felony, punishable by death.

Rylan and Alice Roberts investigate the St Osyth witch trial of 1582. A falling out between friends led to accusations of witchcraft, encouraged by a local magistrate, which ripped an Essex village apart. One woman is claimed to have unnatural, devil-driven carnal desires, while the mysterious death of a young girl is blamed on black magic. Soon a fully-fledged witch-hunt unfolds.

Rylan teams up with Alice Roberts to look into the rise of the self-styled Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins. In 1645, Hopkins started his reign of terror, arresting and torturing a disabled woman on a charge of witchcraft. Hopkins’ motivations, the abusive techniques he used to extract confessions, and how these methods were exported out of Essex and into the rest of the world are revealed.