Hello and welcome to the Renaissance English History podcast, a part of the Agora Podcast network.

I'm your host, Heather Tesco, and I'm a storyteller

who makes history accessible because I believe it's a pathway to understanding who we are,

our place in the universe, and being much more deeply in touch with our own humanity.

This is episode 164, and it's the story of Agnes Boker and her cat.

And it's a scandal.

And I wanted to tell her story during Women's History Month because it's still

Women's History Month.

And we're going to talk about everything it says about society for women who fell outside of the boundaries of what

was expected of them. One thing I will say right off the bat about this episode is that

it's coming with a bit of a trigger warning. I'm going to talk about a story that involves

sexual abuse, sexual predators, testimony that goes into detail on the birth of what

was seen as a monster, and potential infanticide. So if that's going to be difficult listening

for you, please skip this episode. Consider yourself warned. I still think it's an important

story even with those difficult conversations that we have to

have because it tells a story about a woman and how she was seen and the resources available to her

when she needed them. And it sheds a little bit of light on life for normal people in 16th century

England, but it might be difficult. So there's that.

First, though, I want to remind you about the Intelligence Speech Conference that's coming

up on April 24th, a whole day with lots of amazing podcasters.

It's all online, lots of topics being covered.

And you can register for intelligence speech at

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