Picture the Market Square at Chelmsford in 1566. The kind of crowd that makes you wonder whether

anybody in town stayed home that day? People are packed shoulder to shoulder, children climbing

on wagon wheels for a better view, ballad sellers shouting over each other as they waved their freshly

printed sheets. At the center of it all stood Agnes Waterhouse, a grandmother, accused of

witchcraft with a black cat, said to speak in a man's voice. It was equal parts spectacle,

sermon, and sheer morbid curiosity. So, because so many of you asked after the last video we did on Tudor True Crime and

broadsheets were diving back in. Tudor England had a thriving crime media industry long before

Netflix and true crime podcasts existed. Pamphlets, woodcuts, street sung ballads turned local scandals into national sensations.

Today, we are going to look at a couple of the most striking cases of the 16th century.

Murder as well as witchcraft, each shaped and amplified by the early world of printed crime.

Music amplified by the early world of printed crime.

Hey friend, welcome back to the YouTube channel for the Renaissance English History podcast.

I am your host, Heather, and I've been podcasting on Tudor England since 2009, which of course makes my show the original

Tudor History podcast. I am just tickled pink that you decided to join me today to talk about

some really sensational Tudor True Crime. If you've ever wondered how a single courtroom drama

in Essex could turn into a story everyone from London to York seem to know. The answer is simple.

Tudor True Crime went viral through print and performance. Most people still couldn't read,

although that was growing, of course, because of the Reformation printing press, all of that.

But Tudor pamphlets weren't designed to sit in someone's hands and be read. They were read aloud in

taverns. They were sold in busy markets and shouted by hawkers who acted out the juiciest parts

to pull in a crowd. Printers mixed fragments of real court testimony with dramatic flourishes

and heavy moral lecturing. A poisoning became a warning

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