Continuing on with the plates from Philip Morant’s eighteenth century book on Essex. The county’s first history.

This next plate/engraving is of the Priory of St Osyth Priory.  Originally a religious priory, it was closed by Henry VIII at the Dissolution of Monasteries in 1539.

In 1553 the estate was granted to Thomas, 1st Lord Darcy (1506-58), for £3,947.   According to The National Archives’ online Currency Convertor, in the 1550’s, this was the equivalent in today’s money of a staggering £1,084,235!!!

If you live in the Maldon area, you will be very familiar with the D’Arcy name.  It was this family that built the Moot Hall in the High Street in the fifteenth century.  And why the village of Tolleshunt D’Arcy’s is so named – after the village’s estate that was in the hands of the D’Arcy family from the 15^th century onwards.

They were a fabulously wealthy, powerful and influential family – not just in Essex, but in England too.

The D’Arcy family also became the owners of St Osyth’s Priory from 1553, and owned the Priory for the next hundred or so years.

You may be aware that I have great research interests in the Witches of Elizabethan Essex. One event that has fascinated me includes Essex’s (and probably England’s) first witch-hunt.  This witch-hunt took place in St Osyth’s – led by none other than a member of the D’Arcy family.

Brian D’Arcy was a lesser member of this great and powerful Essex family.  He was born at Tiptree Priory sometime in the mid-sixteenth century.

By 1582, he was living in St Osyth’s Priory and “merely” the local JP/magistrate.  Unfortunately for the local women of the village, he decided that he wanted to be as powerful as his famous D’Arcy relatives.

This he achieved with appalling results for the local population.

He carried out a witch-hunt.

The first person to be interrogated was the local midwife – Ursula Kemp.  She immediately confessed to being a witch and confessed that she had caused the death of a baby.

This started a snowball effect with many women throughout St Osyth and nearby Great Clacton implicated in the alleged witchcraft activities.  These activities had apparently taken place in the village and surrounding area.

By the end of Brian D’Arcy’s 1582 witch-hunt, at least 10 women – all from the village or the nearby area – were tried and executed in Chelmsford for murder by witchcraft.  Many more were incarcerated in Colchester Castle (Essex’s county gaol), but released after being found not-guilty during their trial.

It has been calculated that for the whole of the 1580s, the activities of Brian D’Arcy account for 13% of all trials for all crimes that took place in Essex that decade.  That is a tremendously high number!

St Osyth today is small. Back then, the population was tiny.  Probably every single family or house in the village were under the shadow of this appalling witch-hunt.

After the witch trials were over, Brian D’Arcy got his wish to be all powerful. He became the Sheriff of Essex in 1585. On the back of his witch-hunting activities.

Many people have heard about Matthew Hopkins – the self-styled Witch-finder General.  But few know about Brian D’Arcy.  Essex’s (and England’s) first witchfinder.  Who, for his own political ambitions, conducted England’s first ever witch-hunt – with devastating consequences for local St Osyth’s women.

Across today’s Maldon District, the legacy of the D’Arcy family is tremendous.  The beautiful village bearing the family’s name. Maldon’s fabulous Moot Hall.

But less known is the legacy of Brian D’Arcy’s terrible witch-hunt of 1582.

My online course on the Witches of Elizabethan and Stuart course explains more about the strange story of witchcraft in Essex. Click the “Learn More” button below for full details.

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Post Updated: April 2020 Post Created: June 2019 © Kate J Cole | Essex Voices Past™ 2012-2020