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Are these Britain's MOST HAUNTED places?
HistoryExtra's Lauren Good explores the history behind five of the most haunted places in Britain – from the location that inspired Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' to a Welsh museum with many stories to tell
From Whitby Abbey to Inveraray Castle, here's a rundown of five locations in Britain you probably wouldn't want to venture to unaccompanied at night! Lauren Good explores the spooky legends that haunt these spots, and the real history that inspires them. View Green Video on the source website
Ellie Cawthorne visits Farleigh Hungerford castle in southwest England to hear more about the stories that lurk in the site’s long history
Cared for by English Heritage, Farleigh Hungerford castle in southwest England is the perfect place for a picnic and a stroll. But behind the ruins lie many fascinating, dark tales. HistoryExtra’s Ellie Cawthorne visits the castle – home to the Hungerford family for over 300 years – to hear more from site manager Frances Russell about the stories that lurk in the site’s long history. She also gets closer to Britain's best collection of human-shaped lead coffins, artefacts which drew many Victorian visitors with a taste for the macabre. With stories ranging from foul deeds to bloodthirsty goblins, Ellie asks: is this a contender for the English castle with the most gruesome history? View Green Video on the source website
Might Jesus and his 12 apostles have something to do with it? Discover the medieval history behind triskaidekaphobia – the fear of the number 13 – and why it is considered an unlucky number
Forget the Ides of March and Halloween – for some, a Friday that also happens to be the 13th of the month is scariest and unluckiest day of the year. The fear of Friday 13th is very real. It's even been given a scientific name, paraskevidekatriaphobia, from the Greek words Paraskeví, meaning Friday, and dekatreís, meaning 13. But what is it about this day and date combo that has given millions the heebie jeebies. Here's what we know of we know about Friday 13th's hazy history. When did people start believing Friday 13th was unlucky? It's believed that this superstition began in the Middle Ages. Some think it's related to the Last Supper, when 13 people were present at the meal before Jesus's crucifixion on Good Friday. Others think it's related to the Knights Templar, who were arrested for heresy on Friday 13 October 1307. But fear of 13 predates Christianity. The number 13 has been considered unlucky for millenia, and by many different cultures around the world. Why is the 13th unlucky? The ancient Romans believed that the number 13 was a bad omen, foretelling ill-fortune and death. The Vikings also hated 13, because in Norse mythology a banquet was held for 12 of the Norse gods during which the trickster god, Loki, appeared uninvited, like the wicked fairy in Sleeping Beauty, and as a result the beloved god Balder died. The Mayans thought that the 13th 'baktun' (a period equivalent to almost 400 years) would spell the end of the world – however, this came and went in 2012. For centuries, hosts avoided having 13 people seated around a dining table, convinced that the first person to leave would die within the year. Indeed, 16th-century witch-hunters often tried to claim there had been 13 people at a gathering – proof that the accused were witches in league with the devil. Why is Friday the 13th unlucky? Why Friday the 13th is considered especially unlucky isn't entirely clear. The first written record we have of the number 13 and Friday being unlucky in conjunction only dates to the 19th century, in a biography of Italian composer Gioachino Rossini: "He was surrounded to the last by admiring friends; and if it be true that, like so many Italians, he regarded Fridays as an unlucky day and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that on Friday 13th of November he passed away." Friday the 13th remains one of the most prevalent historical superstitions that we carry on today (alongside that of kissing under the mistletoe). Many people still choose to stay in bed to reduce the likelihood of accidents, and it's estimated that in the US, as much as $900 million is lost in business each time as a result.
Give away your worries, like an ancient Mesopotamian
What can we learn about managing worrying from the people of ancient Assyria and Babylonia? Dr Selena Wisnom offers some Near Eastern wisdom to Dave Musgrove
Do you worry about things? Do you wake up in the middle of the night, sweating about what might happen to you, to your family, to the world in general? I do. If you do too, rest assured you’re not alone. It’s a natural human trait, and it’s something people have been doing for millennia. In evolutionary terms, I imagine it’s something to do with forcing our minds to think about the things we ought to be doing next to keep ourselves alive, and keep us out of dangerous situations. It’s counterproductive, of course, to worry yourself into a state of paralysis – that’s when worrying goes wrong. Are there any lessons we can take from history that can help us worry productively? I went to the Assyria Galleries in the British Museum late one Friday afternoon to reflect on this. They are well worth a visit, whether you’re a worrier or not. Turn left at the main entrance and you’re straight into them. I wanted to go there because Dr Selena Wisnom, an expert on the history and heritage of ancient Mesopotamia and author of the excellent new book The Library of Ancient Wisdom (Penguin, 2025), had told me these people were worriers of renown: “They worry so much that they invent an entire branch of scholarship devoted to it. This is worrying on a kind of national cosmic scale.” This organised worrying was called ‘lamentation’. It wasn’t just a private matter – it was ritualised, institutionalised and shared across the whole society. We know they worried and lamented because they wrote about it. I wanted to get up close and personal with some ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform script. There is a lot of cuneiform script on display in the British Museum. I can’t read it – and there aren’t many people who can – but I figured it would be instructive just to look at it, and think a bit about the people who carved it. Hands and minds of the Mesopotamians Cuneiform is the writing system that they used in Mesopotamia. It was invented in the mid-fourth millennium BC and used for millennia afterwards, although it evolved on the way. It was basically a system of signs inscribed on clay tablets, produced by pressing a wedge into a piece of clay to make a three-dimensional impression. So when you’re looking at a cuneiform inscription, you’re looking at the hands and minds of the people who made them. By studying those cuneiform writings, Assyriologists like Wisnom have been able to understand a great deal about life in ancient Mesopotamia, and research how these people saw their world. It was a world, as Wisnom explained to me, that was full of worry and worriers. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/06/Alamy-2F61XHP-Astronomical-calendar--5c0dfc4.jpg" width="761" height="558" alt="A photograph of a beige-coloured stone tablet. On the left of the scene are three small figures with their hands aloft; on the right is a large seated figure on a throne. There are several lines of cuneiform writing towards the top of the scene" title="Ancient Astronomical Calendar" /> Let’s take a moment for a quick recap on where and when we’re talking about. Mesopotamia is a geographical term – it means between the rivers, and the rivers in question are the Tigris and Euphrates, so broadly where modern Iraq, north-east Syria and part of south-east Turkey are today. Mesopotamia was a focus for ancient civilisations from the fourth millennium BC onwards and Assyria and Babylonia were two of those civilisations, Assyria to the north and Babylonia to the south. Relations between these two kingdoms in the first millennium BC were, in Wisnom’s words, “tense”. Her book focuses on the time of the last great Assyrian king, Ashurbanipal, who reigned in the mid-seventh century BC from his splendid capital at Nineveh. His brother was king of Babylon, and as is so often the way, the siblings fell out and went to war. The upshot was an Assyrian victory over Babylon. However, a few decades after Ashurbanipal’s death, revenge was served when the Babylonians and their allies descended on Nineveh and reduced this mighty city to rubble in 612 BC. Its remains are now to be found on the outskirts of Mosul. Read more | Your guide to the ancient city of Babylon Why burning a library was good news for historians The destruction of Nineveh included the burning of the great library of Ashurbanipal – the library of ancient wisdom in Wisnom’s book title. You might imagine that a raging fire in a great library would be a Very Bad Thing for later historians. However, because the ancient Mesopotamians used clay tablets, the conflagration acted like a giant kiln and fired the tablets, making them more likely to survive for posterity. Crushed and forgotten though these tablets were, their subsequent rediscovery in the 19th century provides a huge source of material for us to understand how these people saw the world around them. Quite a lot of the writings in Ashurbanipal’s library have found their way to the British Museum, along with reliefs, sculptures and statues as well. And that’s how we know what the Babylonians and the Assyrians worried about, and how they coped with these worries. To understand the central role of worry in ancient Mesopotamia, you’ve got to appreciate the scale and sophistication of these civilisations. Assyria was one of the great powers of the ancient world, known for its military strength, monumental architecture and extensive bureaucracy. The Babylonians were renowned for their scholarship and cosmopolitan culture. Babylon became a centre of religious ritual, law and intellectual life. Assyrian and Babylonian fortunes rose and fell turn-by-turn over the centuries. As Wisnom notes in her book, “Assyrian culture owes so much to the Babylonians that the two can be difficult to disentangle.” She likes to use the term Mesopotamian to refer to aspects of their culture that are shared, as well as relating to earlier Sumerian texts. “They were guardians of knowledge stretching back a thousand years before them,” she says, inheriting and preserving earlier Sumerian and Akkadian traditions. Flood, fire, famine and fear This long historical memory brought with it an equally enduring awareness of the risk of natural disaster. Flood, fire and famine were things they knew and feared. They also knew that the way to avoid catastrophe was to keep their gods happy. They had a pantheon of gods who were active in daily life. Mesopotamian gods, says Wisnom, “behave much like human beings do… they have strong personalities, they can be persuaded, they can be tricked. They do things, they care, they intervene, and people are really trying to get their attention and call them over to their side.” “They had ways to address it,” says Wisnom. “They had prayers. They had rituals. They might go to the exorcist to help them go through a very elaborate procedure where they give voice to all of that and express it.” In a society where fear of the gods was interwoven with daily life, ritualised expressions of worry were not eccentric – they were essential. I don’t want to give you the impression that these people were superstitious bumpkins though. These were advanced societies – pioneers of writing, architecture, mathematics, and astronomy – but their cultural sophistication did not free them from fear. Quite the opposite. WATCH | Dr Selena Wisnom on ancient anxiety View Green Video on the source website Lament, and let the Gods know you’re there They believed the world was sustained by divine order, and that disorder – famine, floods, illness, invasion – meant that something had gone wrong in the human relationship with the gods. Misfortune wasn’t random: it was a message. And so they acted, regularly and ritually, to express their anxieties and try to restore divine favour. “They lament to the gods in the temples every single day,” says Wisnom. “They have people whose job it is to sing in front of the gods four times a day, these very, very long litanies, bewailing all of the potential things that could go wrong to the city.” These professional lamenters were essentially state-appointed national worriers. Their job was to imagine worst-case scenarios in elaborate poetic form, and recite them in public ceremonies, even when no immediate crisis was at hand. “If you make it clear to the gods that you know they could do all these terrible things to you,” says Wisnom, “then they won’t feel the need to do it.” It was an act of pre-emptive humility – ritualised worrying in the hope of divine mercy. In order to know what you need the gods to do on your behalf in the future, you need to know what’s coming your way. One of the ways the Assyrians and Babylonians dealt with their worries about the future was by attempting to predict it. They developed highly sophisticated systems of divination, which were treated not as superstition but as a vital form of scholarship. Their premise was simple but profound: if misfortune is a message from the gods, it must be possible to read the signs in advance. This approach took many forms. Celestial omens were especially important. The movement of stars and planets, eclipses, and unusual celestial events were meticulously recorded and interpreted. The Assyrians and Babylonians were very proficient at studying the stars. Wisnom notes that Mesopotamian astronomers could “predict the movements of any star or planet to an accuracy of four minutes on any day, past or future,” using only naked-eye observations and mathematical ingenuity. The wisdom of sheep entrails But divination didn’t stop at the sky. The Assyrians also practised extispicy – the reading of entrails – as a means of answering specific questions posed to the gods. “It was one of the most important ways for kings to receive divine guidance,” says Wisnom. Priests would sacrifice a sheep, examine its liver and other organs, and interpret the shape, texture, and marks according to detailed manuals. The process was collaborative, peer-reviewed and surprisingly scientific in its approach. Other forms of divination included dream interpretation, reading smoke patterns, and interpreting odd occurrences in the natural world – like a pig dancing in a town square or a goat giving birth to a two-headed kid. Any anomaly might hold a message. I’m reading this as a response to uncertainty. I’ve locked in my mortgage rate because I didn’t know if the interest rate was going to spiral upwards, so I’ve listened to the predictions of financial experts and acted accordingly. That means I don’t need to worry about it because I actually can’t do anything about it. If you believe that you can get divine guidance from the stars or a sheep’s liver, then you too can get certainty about the future, and I guess, reduce anxiety. Managed risk it’s called, I think. Read more | Ashurbanipal 'the Great', the Lion of Assyria The people in Nineveh and other cities across the Mesopotamian world had a lot to worry about. Their world was full of unseen dangers. They had demons, witches and ghosts to contend with. Malevolent forces could afflict individuals or communities, and their symptoms – physical, mental or social – had to be interpreted and treated. Demons were blamed for sleeplessness and depression. Others, like Lamashtu, threatened pregnant women and infants. Even King Ashurbanipal’s grandfather Sennacherib was said to have been afflicted by a demon that left him “so miserable his advisors were afraid to speak to him”. Witchcraft, too, was taken seriously. If someone suffered from unexplained weight loss, dizziness, or persistent anxiety, a diagnosis of witchcraft might follow. “Witchcraft is actually a diagnosable disease like anything else,” says Dr Wisnom. Treatment came through rituals. Figurines were made and destroyed; incantations were recited; offerings were made to the gods. Exorcists – far from being theatrical performers – were highly trained specialists who used a combination of ritual, medical knowledge and divine petition to help patients. “The exorcist is more like a lawyer than a magician,” Wisnom explains. “He pleads with the gods to change their verdict.” Putting worries in a pot I suppose the point is that these people didn’t worry in silence. They worried very publicly, loudly and regularly. Anxiety was given a voice, a schedule and, often, a proxy. “They assigned worrying to professionals and fixed times of day,” Wisnom notes. “It’s not actually that different from what the NHS suggests that we do.” The NHS’s Every Mind Matters platform offers guidance on how to manage persistent worry using self-help CBT techniques. These include identifying whether a worry is hypothetical or practical, writing worries down to gain distance from them, and allocating a set time each day to process them – techniques that echo the Assyrian practice of ritualising anxiety through structured lamentation. As the NHS explains, “If you find that you’re constantly worrying, it can help to give yourself a set time to do it – and then let those worries go the rest of the day.” I’m thinking that the ancient Mesopotamians would likely have approved. There was also no shame in acknowledging emotional distress. Letters from royal scholars, priests and even kings include candid confessions of despair, hopelessness and guilt. Ashurbanipal himself once wrote: “I did absolutely everything right… and yet still I’m constantly depressed.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/06/Alamy-RK4BW4-King-1d84e3c.jpg" width="866" height="1190" alt="An Assyrian statue of Ashurbanipal from his royal palace in Nineveh. He once wrote: “I did absolutely everything right… and yet still I’m constantly depressed.” (Image by Alamy)" title="London, England / United Kingdom - 2019/01/28: Ancient Assyria statue of king Ashurbanipal from his royal palace in Nineveh at the archeologic exposit" /> Not so distant, not so weird If the scale and solemnity of Mesopotamian lamentation sounds distant and weird, hang on for a second to consider how we’ve reacted to disaster and threat in Britain in recent times. I’m reminded of an article that Professor Natalie Mears, a historian of early modern Britain, wrote for BBC History Magazine a few years ago about national days of prayer in Britain (if you’re a HistoryExtra member, you can read it in full here now). She notes that since 1535, there have been more than 500 such occasions in England and Wales alone. These were not mere religious observances – they were formal, state-sanctioned rituals in response to national anxiety. “There seem to have been two principal motivations for the country to come together in prayer: to seek God’s help in secular affairs, and to offer thanks for his intervention,” says Mears. So Charles II, in 1666, ordered a “day of solemn fasting and humiliation” after the Great Fire devastated the capital. But there were also days of thanksgiving when the nation had been delivered from disaster, such as after Trafalgar and Waterloo in the early 19th century. More recently, in May 1940, just days after becoming prime minister, Winston Churchill approved a national day of prayer in response to the crisis unfolding in France. “People throughout Britain flocked to their local churches and chapels,” Mears writes. When news broke of the Dunkirk evacuation’s success five days later, many saw it as divine deliverance. How different is this national prayer for deliverance, and humiliation before God, from ancient Mesopotamian lamentation? Seems pretty similar to me. Would it even be going too far to suggest that the banging of pots and pans outside during Covid was the latest iteration of lamentation and thanksgiving in a more secular Britain? Were we trying to hammer away our worries about the pandemic, as much as say thanks to the NHS and first responders? Gods, demons and algorithms The Assyrian and Babylonian response to anxiety was, in many ways, deeply pragmatic. It acknowledged fear as part of life, and sought to engage with it openly and communally. There were specialists to diagnose it, rituals to manage it, and no expectation that individuals should bear it alone. Read more | A history of happiness: 5 life lessons from the past Their world may have been filled with gods and demons rather than algorithms and economic graphs, but the emotional terrain is familiar. They show us that naming our fears, expressing them in structured ways, and seeking support from others are timeless strategies for resilience. As Wisnom reflects: “Even the king of Assyria was admitting to feeling rubbish. Something we can all relate to.” The problem with this is in the practical application today. I’m not the king of Assyria, and nor are you, so we can’t instruct a temple of professional lamenters to take our worries off our shoulders. But maybe there is something basic here, in terms of personal delegation of worrying. “I do like the concept of delegating your worrying to somebody else or something else,” says Wisnom. “that’s something that I have in fact inadvertently tried myself. One night I was very worried about something. It was late at night. Nobody was awake so I called a friend in America because they are awake in America. He said to me ‘Don’t worry. I will hold your worries until morning,’ and it actually worked. I got back to sleep.” So if perhaps the method of delegation is a little alien when we compare ourselves to the ancient Mesopotamians, the underlying concept works. Delegate your worries to someone else, or something else, and you might find the demon within more manageable. This article is part of HistoryExtra's new Life Lessons from History Substack newsletter. 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Don’t fear the fairies – but do allow a little enchantment into your life
In an age in which we are no longer mortally afraid of the supernatural, there's space to enjoy freely magic and ritual, Professor Ronald Hutton tells David Musgrove
Most of us, these days, do not believe in fairies. But maybe we should allow a little more enchantment into our lives – that is the Life Lesson from History that Professor Ronald Hutton would have us consider. In late December every year, on the winter solstice, I like to make a mini-pilgrimage to Avebury at dawn. Avebury is, of course, one of Britain’s most impressive prehistoric megalithic monuments – a huge Neolithic stone circle, surrounded by a massive bank and ditch, with two smaller stone circles inside. It’s so big, in fact, that inside the stone circle is an entire village and a pub (which are obviously substantially later in date than the megaliths). I’m not alone in heading to this huge henge for the solstice – many are drawn to it, and there is something of a carnival vibe. I get up at about 4am and generally make some of my friends get up as well (they thank me not for this). We drive for an hour in the dark and then go for a jog for a few miles from the stone circle, past the enormous and abundantly enigmatic Silbury Hill, up to the West Kennet Long Barrow, and then back along the avenue of standing stones that leads into the henge and circle. I try to plan it to arrive back in Avebury as dawn breaks, but I never get the timing right, and it’s invariably overcast anyway, so I’ve never witnessed an impressive spiritual sunrise moment. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/05/HEPKG2avebury-846ee37.jpg" width="5100" height="3400" alt="A large rock takes up half the image. In the background a long line of people gather together under the purple sky" title="Avebury in Wiltshire is home to Britain’s largest stone circle, which is so big that inside are an entire village and a pub (built much later) (Image by Alamy)" /> I thought about Avebury after I’d chatted to Professor Hutton, one of the leading experts on the history of belief, ritual and the supernatural. I invited him to talk about his life lessons from history and I was delighted when he promptly replied, with the following message: “Perhaps I could offer some thought on the conveniences of living in a modern disenchanted world, in which we no longer feel generally menaced by fairies, ghosts, demons or spirits, and people who do feel the presence of a spirit world or the divine can interact with it as a private matter and without being called to account for it by authorities.” I was keen to understand what he meant by the ‘modern disenchanted world’, and he explained that it was in essence a place where fairies are not at large to cause mischief, witches won’t make your children ill, and lettuce leaves are unlikely to harbour demons (I’ll come back to that last point). “ I hear a lot these days about the world having lost that thrilling sense of the supernatural: a real belief in dragons, fairies, witches and wizards, and a general sense of wonder in the world. And I understand that feeling, having spent quite a lot of my professional life studying beliefs in exactly these things, but my basic argument is it’s actually a real asset living in a disenchanted world,” Professor Hutton says. “First, because you don’t have to be afraid of the supernatural. And second, because most people don’t have to be afraid of the supernatural in you.” Back at Avebury, I’m guessing that quite a lot of the people turning up there on the winter solstice have not lost that sense of the supernatural. There are always crowds of people flowing around the stones, and more people stood crowning the top of the henge bank. It’s a busy place on the winter solstice. Among the stones, you’ll find people dressed in garb that you might describe as druidic, actively celebrating and communing, banging drums, singing, chanting, blowing horns and things that look suspiciously like didgeridoos. They appear to be practising what I imagine are pagan rites. I’ve never asked these celebrants what they’re doing, and I’ve never felt any need to either join in or intervene. I assume they are looking for something that isn’t readily available in the 21st century. I also guess that there are a lot of people who are spectators, looking in from the disenchanted world, sitting on the sidelines and hoping for entertainment over enlightenment. As far as I can tell, there is no sense of antagonism between these groups, and no obvious sign of anyone being challenged for their actions or beliefs, even if they might be somewhat unorthodox. This, says Hutton, is something we should celebrate, and use to our advantage. “People can actually be what they wish – express themselves – without their neighbours beating them up, dragging them into court, or in modern times, breaking their windows or posting horrid things through their letter boxes.” If we wish, we are afforded the best of both worlds. We can bewitch ourselves with ritual, legend, spirituality – but we don’t have to live in fear of being accused of sorcery. “It’s only safe to be a witch in a society that doesn’t believe you’re a witch,” points out Hutton. Read more | A medieval mystery: the green-coloured children found in an English village Policing the unknown Ronald Hutton has spent his academic life exploring these fears – what they meant, how they manifested, and crucially, how they were policed. “There was the constant nagging fear of orthodoxy needing to be policed, to get rid of heretics,” he explains. Such fears included “a real belief that if your child falls sick and the local doctor, if there is one, can’t work out what’s wrong with them – they’ve actually been bewitched by a neighbour.” Obviously it would be ridiculous to suggest that we don’t still live with fears today, but says Professor Hutton, they are of a different magnitude to what people had to contend with in the past. “Today we face all sorts of dangers in daily life – car crashes, muggers, drunken revellers, nutcases, hustlers.” But these, he says, are nothing compared to the terrifying reach of the unseen that haunted our ancestors. “If you went out at night in the countryside, you were in danger of being blighted by fairies or led astray by goblins. And there was also the issue of people being afraid of what you might do or believe in supernatural terms.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/05/2AHX04Edemons-ea8e85e.jpg" width="4724" height="3188" alt="A woodcut depicts gremlins, dragons and goblins. In the centre a warlock or wizard sits at a table" title="An early woodcut showing gremlins, dragons and goblins, summoned by a wizard or warlock. Magical creatures were once a source of fear in society (Image by Alamy)" /> And sometimes the fear went further still: not just suspicion of others, but fear of the world itself. “The lurking presence of demons in the air all around you. There’s an anecdote about a 14th-century nun who forgot to make the sign of the cross over a lettuce leaf in a salad. As a result, she swallowed a demon that was sitting invisibly upon it and was inflicted with all sorts of terrible digestive problems until she was exorcised.” That might sound a little absurd, I know, but that’s because we are today so far removed from the world view that these people had. I’m reminded of a HistoryExtra podcast conversation I had with the social historian Patrick Joyce, regarding his book about the vanished world of European peasants, Remembering Peasants: A Personal History of a Vanished World (Penguin, 2024). In his mind, that is a place most of us simply don’t understand at all. “Their world was full of spirits, but then the world was a kind of a thing in itself, a natural thing, in which they didn’t invoke spirits necessarily,” Professor Joyce told me. “If you behaved to the world as you felt the world should be behaved to, ie you respected the soil and the way in which it should be worked, you showed a solidarity with nature, and if you showed solidarity with nature, nature would show solidarity.” Joyce’s argument is that the rapid decline of peasantry in the 20th century has been overlooked and understudied. So it leaves us with an inability to understand properly how they saw things, and I guess what they were afraid of. A sense of control Back to Professor Hutton: “People in charge of society all over Europe began to lose their fear of these things from about 1660 onwards, but ordinary people, especially in the countryside, were burdened by them right up to the early 20th century.” So how did this change? What led us away from that weird world of magic and menace? According to Ronald Hutton, it’s a matter of pragmatism. Let’s take witches for instance. “One very good reason why witch-hunting came to an end in Europe is that Europeans realised there were no benefits. Communities that had witch hunts and put to death their neighbours as witches did not have healthier children, better weather, or better working farm equipment. On the contrary, they tended to be decimated, divided, and traumatised. It just wasn’t profitable.” If these fears didn’t produce positive results, the obvious question is why did they persist? What human need did they serve? Ronald Hutton is clear: they gave people a sense of agency. “You have someone to blame. The world seems a bit more manageable, because you can take action: hunt a witch; carry out an exorcism; hang up a rowan wood cross over your door to keep out bad luck.” And more deeply, they offered explanations for the inexplicable. “All over the world, people have wanted to blame somebody for things going remorselessly wrong. There are three entities on the hit list, and if you believe in one of these, you don’t tend to believe in the others. So societies dotted around worldwide tend to divide up between them.” First to blame, says Hutton, are angry or evil land spirits, fairies, demons. Secondly, “the human dead who’ve taken a dislike to you, vengeful ghosts, offended ancestors”. And the third, he explains, are evil human beings who’ve been working magic, in other words, witches. “But the point about all these three are there are remedies to all of them. So people feel less vulnerable and more empowered in the midst of what traditionally is an overwhelmingly powerful natural world, which nobody really understands.” Where it gets a little sobering though, is that the fear wasn’t just psychological – it could be fatal. Hutton recounts studies from American doctors in the 1940s, trying to understand why soldiers fighting in the Pacific were dying of minor wounds, apparently under the misapprehension that they had been seriously injured. These American medics looked at interwar medical records from doctors working in colonial possessions of imperial powers. They carried out autopsies on indigenous people in these colonies who believed they’d been fatally cursed, and observed why that might have happened. “Your system is bombarded by a constant tidal wave of adrenaline, which suppresses the immune system,” said Hutton, “and if you have a latent defect in a vital organ, the body breaks that open and people die.” So yes, it seems that believing in the supernatural could kill, under those circumstances. This is why, Hutton says, it’s such a gift that we no longer have to believe. “It’s so nice to have got rid of all that stuff.” A time for enchantment On the flip side of that though, if you do want a little magic in your life, that’s not a bad thing, according to the professor. “People often stabilise their lives in all sorts of societies by having what scholars slightly patronisingly call a ‘myth to live by’. A religion. A personal guardian spirit. A belief in certain aspects of the preternatural. These are not just comforting – they’re beneficial. They give confidence. They build character. They enable people to explore the world profitably in all sorts of ways. They work extremely well. I would be the last person to suggest that none of these entities actually exist. I’d never suggest that these belief systems are necessarily false. It’s just they’re not proven so we can take or leave them.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/05/GettyImages-2188133124chirstianity-478107c.jpg" width="3896" height="5564" alt="A drawn illustration shows the Virgin Mary, dressed in blue robes and holding baby Jesus. They are surrounded by a pink rose frame" title="The Virgin Mary and Child, surrounded by a pink rose, are depicted in this illustrated Vita Christi (Life of Christ) from the 15th century (Image by Getty Images)" /> Over recent decades people have been leaving, rather than taking, Christianity in the UK. Church of England attendance has been on the decline, though a recent survey does suggest a revival of late. But this is where the lesson from history comes in because now, maybe more than most other times in history, you can – if you wish – DIY your own religion. You can look to whatever spiritual or magical force you choose, and engage with it however you wish. There’s one time and place, where we might draw a parallel though: Roman London. If you travelled back in time to there, Hutton says, “you’d find yourself surrounded by an enormous range of deities, philosophies, and belief systems … with no formal structure to decide which are best. “And we’re simply reverting to that, with the tremendous multiculturalism and multi-ethnicity now – which Roman Britain had.” Read more | Prehistoric religion: a pagan riddle we will never solve? That might sound chaotic – but for Professor Hutton, it’s full of possibility. “Given that diversity and multiculturalism – whether people like it or not – has actually happened, people will get more used to it. And, with that wonderful adaptability of our species, find ways of turning it to their advantage. “I also take an immense comfort from the fact that I get complete radio silence from the supernatural with so much else to worry about in my professional and personal life. It’s great to be able to dispense with that. It’s great to be able to – if I am alone – go to bed alone in a particular room and not worry about anything else being there.” Ronald Hutton, I think, seems to be quite optimistic about the possibilities open to us if we do allow a little bit of room for the unknown in our disenchanted environment. “We can have the best of both worlds. The excitement of belief and possible encounters with supernatural worlds – without needing to be terrified of them as people often were in the past. And without needing to fear that our neighbours or the authorities will arrest us or beat us up because they think we have the wrong attitude to these things.” DIYing my beliefs I’ve never met a spirit, or a fairy, goblin or anything else out of the ordinary in the night. But I do love a good ghost story – Danny Robins’s Uncanny podcasts are my go-to when I’m not checking over HistoryExtra episodes. And I do love visiting prehistoric monuments, particularly at times of the year when I think people in the past have identified a certain liminal looseness in the boundary with the supernatural world. Having chatted to Ronald Hutton, I suspect this is all driven by an unmet need for that thrilling sense of the supernatural. So maybe next solstice, I shouldn’t run past, but rather stop and ask those folks celebrating around the stones at Avebury what they are actually doing. The beauty of being alive today, in Britain at least, is that they are at liberty to do whatever it is they think makes sense, and this quote from Hutton’s excellent book Pagan Britain (Yale University Press, 2013) sums it up nicely: “The relics of Britain’s pagan past offer a powerful challenge and stimulus to the modern imagination. They also have in common … an ability to defy full understanding and confident interpretation … One logical response to this trait is to encourage a multiplicity of interpretations, in which different people, and groups of them, reconstruct the pagan past subjectively, according to their own instincts and desires, within the limits of the available evidence.” Read more | Scotland's season of the witch Obviously I couldn’t finish my chat with Professor Hutton without asking him the question that I’m sure he gets asked any time anyone interviews him: what does he actually believe in? “If I have met a spirit, I haven’t been aware of the fact, so I have no personal experience of the divine or the supernatural. I have met an awful lot of people who have had these experiences, or at least believe they have them, and they sound pretty convincing to me. “So I have no overall frame of interpretation as to the nature of the cosmos. I find beliefs very exciting. I find some more attractive than others. Those that are more liberal and permissive and less prescriptive and repressive. But that’s a reflection of my personal politics. If you come down to the question: do I have religion? What do I believe in? I always in the end give the same answer, which is that, I never say.” This article is part of HistoryExtra's new Life Lessons from History Substack newsletter. Subscribe to the newsletter for more articles and podcasts exploring the ways in which history can help us live better, happier, healthier or more productive lives.
Rich men, reckless affairs and ruined reputations: the scandalous lives of London's 18th-century courtesans
In the 18th century, some sex workers elevated their status to that of a courtesan, servicing an upper-class clientele and becoming celebrities of their day. Historian Julie Peakman examines the lives of four of these women
Sexy, flirtatious, witty and beautiful, the best-known female courtesans in the 18th century made a name for themselves by having numerous affairs with wealthy or titled men. Unlike their sisters selling sex on the streets or in common brothels, these women often lived in luxurious apartments with maids and liveried servants. They were the pin-ups of their day and set many fashionable tends around London. Many courtesans became famous as a result of a new cult of celebrity in the 18th century. Changes in technology allowed for mass printing and the circulation of news about these social butterflies, leading the public to clamour for information on courtesans’ love affairs and their scandalous behaviour. Famous painters such as George Romney and Sir Joshua Reynolds even made portraits of celebrated courtesans, which became available in cheap prints. But who, among all the courtesans of 18th century London, was the most famous? Read more | The real Harlots: Hallie Rubenhold on Covent Garden's courtesans Kitty Fisher: London’s golden girl Her shocking escapades drew the attention of elite men around Europe – including Cassanova himself <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/04/GettyImages-77944601-9bcdfa2.jpg" width="855" height="1024" alt="A portrait of Kitty Fisher by Sir Joshua Reynolds, painted between 1723 and 1792 is pictured at Sothebys auction house, in London, 16 November 2007. The painting is expected to fetch between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000 pounds (2,793,496.24 and 4,190,362.13 Euros). AFP PHOTO / CARL DE SOUZA (Photo credit should read CARL DE SOUZA/AFP via Getty Images)" title="A portrait of Kitty Fisher by Sir Joshua" /> Sought after by some of the wealthiest men in Europe, the courtesan Kitty Fisher was at the top of her game. Such was her fame that poems were written about her (such as Kitty’s Stream and A Sketch of the Present Times); satirical prints were made of her (like The Merry Accident, which depicted her fall from a horse displaying her bare legs); and a mezzotint of her face based on a painting by Joshua Reynolds was available in print shops all over London. Born in Soho, London around 1741, Fisher’s full name was Catherine Maria Fischer. According to The Uncommon Adventures of Miss Kitty F****r (1759), she came from a poor background and lived in Paddington with her younger brother and two sisters. She rose to notoriety while working in a milliner’s shop (an outlet frequently connected to prostitution) before she was allegedly seduced – and subsequently deserted – by a military officer, Ensign Anthony George Martin. Others claim it was Captain Augustus Keppel who first debauched Fisher, whereas the 18th-century satirical poet, Edward Thompson, suggested that there were too many men from which to choose in his work The Meretriciad. For five years from 1758, Fisher was one of the most toasted women in London. She had liaisons with politicians and noblemen, among them Baron Anson of Soberton, Baron Montfort, the Earl of Sandwich and Earl of Harrington. The second Earl Poulett was rumoured to have wanted to marry her, as did Henry Herbert – earl of Pembroke – who provided Fisher with £1,000 per year, and £1,000 for ‘present decorations’. Even the infamous Italian adventurer and ladies’ man Giacomo Casanova is thought to have met Fisher while he was in London. He recounted in his memoirs; “Mrs Walls [a famous bawd] told us that one day this Fisher swallowed a thousand pound bank-note on a slice of bread-and-butter. The note had just been given her by Atkins, brother of the beautiful Mrs. Pitt.” It was also alleged that Prince Edward was told he was no longer welcome at Kitty’s house in New Norfolk Street after leaving her ‘only £50’ after being admitted for tea. Fisher ultimately married John Norris – the MP for Rye – at Trinity church in Haddington, Scotland in 1766. While still only in her late twenties, she became ill with consumption and died at the Three Tuns in Stall Street, Bath, in March 1767, though there is contention about the place and date of her death. Listen on the podcast | Casanova: more than a serial seducer Sally Salisbury: the criminal courtesan The fiery temptress rose to fame and fortune – but fell from grace when she stabbed her lover with a bread knife Like Kitty Fisher, Sally Salisbury was a courtesan who worked her way up from a lowly background in 18th century London. At first, she worked as a prostitute for the well-known bawd, Mother Wisebourne. By the time she left Wisebourne’s establishment, Salisbury’s status had risen and her finances were good enough for her to establish herself in a select house where she employed a full entourage of servants, including a cook, a chambermaid and a housemaid. The Original Weekly Journal reported in 1719, “We hear that Salisbury Sally, a noted Lady of Pleasure, is setting up a Chariot and has hired a Coachman and two Footmen.” As a fully-fledged courtesan, she was now able to entertain rich noblemen. Salisbury became so famous that a flurry of pamphlets was issued to celebrate her life story. Her followers could read about her in The Genuine History of Mrs. Sarah Prydden, which was sold at pamphlet shops during 1723 for a shilling a copy, and Authentick Memoirs of the Life and Adventures of the Celebrated Sally Salisbury, which sold for 2s 6d. She even had songs named after her, such as ‘Sally in our Alley’ and ‘four new songs’ printed in Sally Slisbury’s [sic] Garland. You might also like | From murder bottles to arsenic wallpaper: 5 hidden killers in Victorian Britain Salisbury’s downfall came at the peak of her career when, in a fit of fury she stabbed one of her lovers – John Finch, third son of the 2nd Earl of Nottingham – with a bread knife at a tavern in Covent Garden. Though Finch desperately tried to have the charges against her dropped, Salisbury was indicted in February 1723 for assaulting and wounding with intent to murder. She was sent to Newgate prison, where she caught jail fever – likely typhus – and died. The London Journal for 15 February 1724 described Salisbury’s rise and fall as being “like a Comet, her Blaze was bright but of no consequence; Scarce had she appear’d like the Sun, before she disappears like a Meteor.” Harriet Mellon: from rags to riches The young actress enchanted an elderly banker – and became one of the wealthiest women in London <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/04/2RAA3A9-867d797.jpg" width="4326" height="4893" alt="Though from a poor background, Harriet Mellon came into great wealth and a title through her marriage to Thomas Coutts. (Photo by Alamy)" title="Though from a poor background, Harriet Mellon came into great wealth and a title through her marriage to Thomas Coutts. (Photo by Alamy)" /> Though from a poor background, Harriet Mellon came into great wealth and a title, making her one of the most fortunate 18th-century courtesans. Born to a dresser and wardrobe mistress in the theatre in 1777, Mellon began her career as a child actress in a theatre barn in Ulverstone, Cumbria. She later joined Stanton’s theatre company in the Midlands, where she was spotted by the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. He engaged Mellon for his production of The Rivals on 31 January 1795 at the Drury Lane Theatre in London, where she played Lydia Languish. In 1805 she caught the eye of the elderly married banker Thomas Coutts (1735–1822), who quickly fell in love with her. Mellon’s affair with Coutts lasted ten years, during which time she continued to perform a wide variety of roles. While Mellon never gained great accolades in the acting world, she was competent enough and was praised for how she looked; her figure was said to surpass even that of the renowned actress ‘Mrs Jordan’ (stage name of Dorothy Bland). With Coutts, Mellon felt secure enough to give up acting, and her final performance was on 7 February 1815 as Audrey in As You Like It. After his first wife died, Coutts married Mellon at St Pancras church on 12 April 1815. He was now 79 years old, while Mellon was 37. The marriage was a fairly short one, and after almost seven years together, Coutts died on 24 February 1822, leaving his whole fortune to his wife, including his partnership in Coutts Bank. You might also like | 'Arib al-Ma’muniyya: the enslaved medieval woman who sang her way to wealth Mellon was now a very wealthy woman and attracted other suitors while throwing luxurious parties at her town house in the Kings Road in Brighton – but proved herself an astute businesswoman with an ability to make wise investments. She was generous to Coutts’s three daughters, and provided them with £10,000 a year each. At 49, Mellon married the Duke of St Albans, a man 23 years her junior. She died on 6 August 1837 at her home in London, leaving most of her vast fortune to Coutts’ granddaughter, Angela, thereby giving another young woman her freedom and independence. Nancy Dawson – the prince’s favourite? The London dancer was a celebrity of her day – captivating actors, soldiers, and even royalty <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/04/2E37D74-28e5514.jpg" width="3178" height="4404" alt="London dancer Nancy Dawson edged her way up in life as an actress and courtesan, only to later fall back on hard times. (Photo by Alamy)" title="London dancer Nancy Dawson edged her way up in life as an actress and courtesan, only to later fall back on hard times. (Photo by Alamy)" /> Nancy Dawson’s life oscillated between poverty and riches. She edged her way up in life as an actress and courtesan, only to later fall back on hard times. Her lovers included captains, soldiers, peers of the realm and royalty, supposedly among them Prince Henry, Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn. Music was composed for her; songs were sung about her; even rude poems were made up about her, such as: “Nancy Dawson was a whore/And in the town was many more/And when the sailors went on shore/Law, they ask’d for Nancy Dawson!” A scurrilous memoir slated her reputation in The Genuine Memoirs of the Celebrated Miss Nancy Dawson, published in 1760. You might also like | Singer, dancer, Nazi-fighter: how Josephine Baker became a WW2 heroine The daughter of a staymaker (corset maker), Nancy Dawson was baptised as Ann Newton in 1728. At some point she married a mariner, James Dawson, who soon disappeared from her life. She later evoked a scandal with her affair with comic actor Edward Shuter. Though she spent seven years dancing in London theatres, Dawson was never offered a role as leading lady. She came to public attention when she danced the hornpipe in the John Gay’s The Beggars Opera in 1759, and was forever after associated with that dance, her name puffed up in bills “as sure bait to fill the house”. She played pantomime in The Rites of Hecate during December 1763 but retired soon after. Little is known about her from then until her death on 9 June 1767 in Hampstead, Middlesex except that she was buried in a Bloomsbury’s St George the Martyr graveyard. Julie Peakman is an author and historian in 18th-century culture and history of sexuality
The Bayeux Tapestry tells the story of the Norman Conquest, and also contains 93 embroidered penises – Professor George Garnett explains why
Historians have counted lots of things in the Bayeux Tapestry – animals, ships, hands and plants. But nobody had counted the number of penises it contained until Oxford historian Professor George Garnett decided to take on the challenge. David Musgrove invites George to discuss his findings, and explain why this is, in fact, serious research that helps us better understand this vital account of the Norman Conquest of 1066.
The "outwardly respectable" man who had a body in his basement: how the Dr Crippen case shocked Britain
Hallie Rubenhold speaks to Ellie Cawthorne about the notorious Crippen murder case – and why we need to expose the enduring misogyny that blackened the victim’s name.
Ellie Cawthorne: In 1910, Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen murdered his wife, Belle Elmore, before going on the run with his mistress, triggering an international manhunt. It was one of the biggest news stories of the day and became known as the ‘crime of the century’. What drew you to this case as a historian? Hallie Rubenhold: I believe that historical true crime can offer a lens through which we can look at a particular moment in time – and this case is no different. You have a huge amount of documentation – witness statements, police files, trial transcripts – revealing what people saw, what they experienced, what their daily lives were like. It’s like a core sample of what was happening in the world at a certain time, and it goes very deep. As a social historian, that’s priceless. Read more | Hallie Rubenhold: “To most people, the women killed by the Ripper are just corpses. I want to tell a different story” What can you tell us about the man at the centre of this case? Hawley Harvey Crippen was born in Coldwater, Michigan in 1862. In 19th-century America, it was easy to leave your past behind and become somebody else – and Crippen did that a lot. He trained as a doctor and specialised in homeopathic medicine, which was seen as a legitimate, progressive field at the time. At some point, though, Crippen gave up on being a respectable doctor and decided to work in patent medicine, which was a huge industry at the turn of the 20th century. You could open any newspaper and find adverts for nostrums or cure-alls that claimed to be able to resolve anything from rheumatism to acne. Crippen decided that this was how he would make his fortune – as a snake-oil salesman, essentially. From that point on, he fell deeper and deeper into medical fraud, which proved a slippery slope into fraud in general. Eventually he ended up in London, the white-collar fraud capital of the world at the time. During your research, you also explored the story of Crippen’s first wife, Charlotte Bell. What happened to her? Charlotte was a nurse, which is how she met Crippen. They married in 1887 but, less than five years later, while she was still in her early thirties, Charlotte died suddenly. It was claimed that she died of heart failure and “paralysis of the nervous system”. Her death certificate was signed by a friend of her husband, and within 72 hours Charlotte had been buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave. This all happened in the middle of winter, when the ground was frozen. Why the rush? Crippen was a proud man – why did he not bury her properly? After Charlotte’s mysterious death, Crippen met his second wife, Belle Elmore. How did their paths cross? Born to a poor Polish family in Brooklyn, Belle was originally called Kunegunde Mackamotzki. She went on to change her name several times during her life – to Connie, Concordia, Cora and then Belle. Names were essentially disposable at that time, and Belle got the measure of this point. It was quite an American way of looking at the world: you could be whoever you wanted, and you were what you made of yourself. When she met Crippen, Belle was living with another man. He was actually her employer but, in spite of this, he had got her pregnant. We can’t know whether this was a consensual relationship or not, but lots of servants at the time were victims of sexual violence. New York had strict anti-abortion laws, but Crippen worked for an abortionist nonetheless – and this is how they met. Read more | The long fight over abortion rights in the United States Later, Belle’s ovaries were removed on Crippen’s orders, even though nothing was wrong with her. Crippen did this because he didn’t want children, but Belle was devastated for the rest of her life. What was Belle like as a person? In the wake of her murder, Crippen did everything he could to blacken Belle’s character. He wanted to promote the idea that he had been pushed into murder by this terrible woman – but he must have loved her at some point. After learning that she couldn’t have children, Belle decided to pursue a career on the stage, which was incredibly progressive for a woman in the 1890s. When the couple moved to London, she threw herself into the music-hall scene. She was part of a circle of seriously famous music-hall performers, and became involved with a fascinat-ng group of women called the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild. This was a social organisation and charity raising money for performers who had fallen on hard times. Here, Belle really found her métier. She was outspoken, colourful and well-loved by her friends, often attending parties and having people round to her house. Belle was an incredibly flamboyant woman, with an enormous wardrobe, and this was one of the criticisms later levelled against her. But people don’t realise that a lot of these clothes were stage outfits; performers at the time had to buy their own costumes. Yes, she liked jewellery, and Crippen bought her lots of it. But Crippen wore diamonds, too – he also enjoyed the trappings of wealth. Read more | “In times of political volatility, it’s more vital than ever that we tell women’s stories” | 3 historians on the state of women's history Another important character in this story is Crippen’s mistress, Ethel Le Neve. Who was she? Ethel Le Neve – or Ethel Neave, as she was born – was such a complex character. All of the people in this story are fascinating to me, but Ethel positively haunted me. Her story also offers an interesting insight into the changing landscape for women at the time. By the turn of the 20th century, women were working in shops, factories and domestic service, but Ethel went to secretarial college. Working in an office allowed working-class women like Ethel to enter the middle classes. Although they were paid much less than their male contemporaries, these women could earn (and spend) their own money. They could live apart from their parents, as Ethel did. It was an exciting, empowering time – and as a so-called ‘New Woman’, Ethel was right in the thick of it all. Read more | Challenging gender in the Victorian Age: the 'masculine' New Woman and 'effeminate' New Man Crippen initially hired Ethel as his secretary but, over time, she became his right-hand woman in all of his fraudulent schemes, and the pair became lovers. Their relationship lasted around six years; all the while, he was promising to marry her. He told Ethel that Belle was going to leave him for another man, but there’s no proof of that. Eventually, Ethel got pregnant; she, too, had an abortion, but this was a real tipping point. She started pushing Crippen for answers about the marriage – and he decided to take matters into his own hands. How did Crippen plan to kill his wife, Belle? First, he bought a sedative called hyoscine hydrobromide. Crippen’s plan was to make it look as if Belle died in her sleep, and then get a doctor friend to sign the death certificate. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Then, Bob’s your uncle – he could marry Ethel. But it didn’t quite work out like that. Crippen gave Belle too much hyoscine hydrobromide. Though it’s a sedative, at very high doses it can create the opposite effect – it makes you sick and act crazy, then stops your heart. Crippen gave Belle five grains, when one would have been sufficient. Belle probably started screaming, or there may have been a physical fight; in any case, by the time she died, there would have been evidence on her body revealing what had happened, and he couldn’t pass it off as a peaceful death in her sleep. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, Crippen had to get rid of a body. Read more | Victorian murder scandals: what six killings tell us about women's lives in the 19th century How did he try to cover up the murder? He had a real problem, because now he had to make up an excuse for his wife’s disappearance. And the members of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild were beginning to ask questions. Crippen decided to tell them that Belle had gone to America at late notice to visit a dying relative. But he kept changing the story – he was constantly pivoting. Without a shadow of a doubt, Ethel knew exactly what was going on in this cover-up. She always knew Crippen’s secrets – they were partners in crime, quite literally. After Belle was gone, Ethel moved into the Crippens’ house at Hilldrop Crescent in north London, and started calling herself Mrs Crippen. She also appropriated Belle’s enormous wardrobe of clothing, running around town in her furs. But what really gave her away was a distinctive diamond brooch called the Rising Sun. This brooch had belonged to Belle, and all of her friends were familiar with it. After Belle had ‘gone to America’, Crippen bought two tickets for a charity ball hosted by Belle’s friends. He took Ethel, his secretary, who was dressed in Belle’s clothes and wearing this Rising Sun brooch. The first time I read this, I couldn’t believe it. All of the people at the ball were performers with quite rackety lives, so the idea of someone having a mistress wasn’t that shocking. What was brazen was that these were Belle’s friends. It was rude, and it was obnoxious, like sticking two fingers up at everybody. Of course, it transpired that Belle hadn’t gone to America; in fact, she’d never left the house. The terrible way in which Crippen disposed of his wife’s body would really come back to haunt him in court. Remember, this was a man who understood anatomy. He removed all of Belle’s bones, as well as her head and sex organs, and disposed of them piecemeal. We don’t know where these ended up, but Hilldrop Crescent was close to a polluted canal and an abattoir. He then put the remaining viscera under the floor of his coal cellar, covered it with quicklime and assumed it would disintegrate. Ethel was always complaining that Belle and Crippen hadn’t kept a servant, and moaning about how much cleaning there was to do. But curiously, although she moved into Hilldrop Crescent in March, they didn’t recruit a servant until June. Mysteriously, lots of things were being burned, and huge amounts of rubbish were removed. The local dustmen later said that they’d never seen anything like it, and visitors reported that the house had a strange smell. So Ethel must have known what was in the basement. Was the shocking treatment of Belle’s body the reason why this domestic murder became known as the ‘crime of the century’? That was part of it. But this also happened in middle-class suburbia, where everybody was worrying about their sherry glasses and Christmas cards. The idea that Crippen was an outwardly respectable man, taking the tram to work every day in his bowler hat, while in private he had chopped up his wife’s body and hidden it in the basement of his tree-lined street, was grotesque and horrifying. The middle classes were shocked, because the Crippens could be their neighbours. No one was safe. How did Crippen’s crimes get uncovered? This is where the story takes a real turn. After being dismissed by the police several times, Belle’s friends at the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild finally convinced Scotland Yard to investigate. Inspector Walter Dew was assigned to the case and interviewed Crippen, which basically spooked him. So Crippen and Ethel decided to go on the run, dis- guised as father and son. He shaved off his moustache, while she cut her hair and dressed in boy’s clothing. They sailed to the Hook of Holland and travelled on to Antwerp and Brussels, where they hid out in a hotel for a while before boarding a ship called the Montrose and sailing to Quebec. By then, Dew had discovered what was in the basement of Hilldrop Crescent. Bulletins were issued all over the world: every port was watching out for the couple, and the newspapers were going absolutely mad. The whole world was looking for them. This story was unfolding in real time, like some kind of reality drama. People became completely wrapped up in it. Meanwhile, aboard the Montrose, Crippen and Ethel had caught the attention of the captain. He realised that something was amiss with this odd father-and-son duo, and used his Marconi wireless transmitter to contact Scotland Yard. Inspector Dew jumped on the Laurentic – one of the fastest ships in the world – to try to beat them to Quebec. This case really highlighted the explosive innovations in transport and communication happening at the time. Dew did beat Crippen and Ethel to Canada – and arrested them as soon as the Montrose came into port. They were brought back to Liverpool, where they were met with wild crowds as they got off the ship – throngs pushing and shoving and booing and hissing. People climbed in through the skylights at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court to witness the hearing. The trial was similarly sensational; even Winston Churchill went to watch. Crippen and Ethel were tried separately. Crippen was found guilty, based on toxicology – which was fairly new at the time – and pathology reports. Meanwhile, the murder charges against Ethel were dropped, and she was instead charged as an accomplice to murder. But she played up to an image of a poor, quivering girl who had known nothing – and was acquitted. There was no attempt to gather more evidence against her. For the rest of her life, Ethel remained completely unrepentant. She never once demonstrated remorse or expressed any sadness for Belle’s family or friends. Crippen was executed, but Ethel went on to lead an ordinary life – changing her name, disappearing into the ether and dying in the 1960s. Even her children never knew her previous identity. Read more| A brief history of capital punishment in Britain How has this case been misrepresented in the past, and why did you want to rectify that? I wanted to challenge the way the women involved have been portrayed – Belle, especially, who has been maligned and even blamed for her own murder. The first account of this case was written by Alexander Bell Filson Young in 1920. It’s important to remember what was going on at the time. The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act was passed in 1919, which meant that women could enter the professions. Women were bobbing their hair, wearing make-up, shortening their hemlines. Massive change was afoot, and a lot of people were perturbed. You can see this reflected in the way Filson Young writes about the trial: he demonises Belle Elmore as a horrible, shrewish woman who destroyed her husband’s life. According to his narrative, Ethel was a good girl, and Crippen was a good man, because he was respectable and educated. Belle Elmore was the monster who needed to be slain in order for them to be together. Every account that came out afterwards followed suit. Belle was a slut and a peacock, they said: she deserved to die. But this is just utter rubbish and unadulterated misogyny. There’s absolutely no proof that she was that way. And even if she were, in what world is it okay to say that a woman deserved to be murdered? More generally, we need to reconsider how we approach and discuss historical true crime, because we tend to take all of the prejudices of a previous era, frozen in aspic, and regurgitate them. But we should treat true crime as we would any other historical event – something that’s worthy of dissection and proper examination. Consider this my clarion call to historians to take historical true crime seriously. Hallie Rubenhold is an author, historian and broadcaster. She is the author of Story of a Murder: The Wives, the Mistress and Doctor Crippen (Doubleday, 2025). Her previous books include The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper (Doubleday, 2019) This article was first published in the April 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Liquor, loot and death on the high seas: 5 things you (probably) didn't know about the history of pirates
Sophie Nibbs shines a light on the murky world of the bandits who marauded the high seas in the 17th and 18th centuries
1. Pirates followed strict rules Despite their fearsome reputations, these maritime bandits often signed up to stringent codes of conduct. Bartholomew Roberts (1682–1722), a well-known and brutal Welsh pirate, enforced rules for his crew, aiming to ensure that things ran smoothly on board. He issued a ban on gambling, which was likely to spark conflict, and lights were to be put out at 8pm. Anyone who wanted to stay awake and continue drinking after that time was required to do so on deck. Read more | The most famous and despicable pirates from history The code also dictated that each member of the pirate crew should receive a fair share of the loot. Meanwhile, compensation was paid for injuries, encouraging a sense of loyalty and fairness. The first article of his code states that: “Every man has a vote in affairs of moment; has equal title to the fresh provisions, or strong liquors, at any time seized, and may use them at pleasure, unless a scarcity makes it necessary, for the good of all, to vote a retrenchment.” Anyone found to have violated the rules could find themselves marooned or even killed. It was often down to the rest of the crew to decide on a fitting punishment for a fellow pirate’s crimes. Listen | Dr Rebecca Simon responds to your questions on the 17th-century golden age of piracy. Plus, how accurate are pop culture portrayals of pirates? 2. They didn’t make captives walk the plank Pirates dealt with their captives in various practical or brutal ways – killing them outright, enslaving them or marooning them on deserted islands. Sometimes those captured would be spared if they had useful skills or a high ransom value. In common with many of the dramatic or fantastical ideas we hold about pirates today, the myth of enemies being made to walk the plank seems to have its roots in Captain Johnson’s A General History of the Pyrates (1724), a collection of biographies detailing the lives and dramatic tales of infamous characters. Its mysterious author – thought by some to have been Daniel Defoe but who was more likely newspaper publisher Nathaniel Mist – blended historical accounts with heavily embellished storytelling. Read more | Q&A: Was walking the plank a real pirate punishment? Such myths were picked up by other writers who helped cement them in the public consciousness. Robert Louis Stevenson, for example, wrote of the brutal – albeit mythical – practice in Treasure Island (1883). “His stories were what frightened people worst of all,” recounts narrator Jim Hawkins of the “seaman with the sabre cut” who drank in his father’s inn. “Dreadful stories they were – about hanging, and walking the plank, and storms at sea.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/03/BAL3784207cmyk-54b1083.jpg" width="4016" height="2675" alt="A 19th-century illustration possibly depicting Chinese pirate Zheng Yi Sao. Perhaps the most successful buccaneer of all time, at one point she commanded more than 1,800 ships." title="A 19th-century illustration possibly depicting Chinese pirate Zheng Yi Sao. Perhaps the most successful buccaneer of all time, at one point she commanded more than 1,800 ships. (Photo by Bridgeman)" /> 3. Women were pirates too There are records of several women who became highly successful pirates, defying societal norms of their time, though some codes contained articles that banned women on pirate ships. Two of the best-known female buccaneers of the early 18th century, famed for their courage and combat skills, were Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Captain Johnson explained that, in order to be accepted onto the crew of Captain ‘Calico Jack’ Rackham, “they both went through the usual formalities of pirates, and dressed in men’s clothes, for the more concealment of their sex”. When captured in 1720, both claimed they were pregnant and were spared the death penalty. Calico Jack received no such leniency, and was hanged in Jamaica. Another legendary female pirate was Zheng Yi Sao (c1775–1844), sometimes known as the ‘pirate queen’. Considered one of the most successful pirates of all time, at the height of her power she commanded more than 1,800 ships in the South China Sea. In 1810, she negotiated her surrender with the Chinese government – a very rare way for a pirate’s career to end. She saw out her retirement running a gambling house in Guangzhou (then Canton) until her death at the age of 69. Read more | When pirates ruled Asia's waves 4. Not every pirate flag sported a skull and crossbones Pirate flags, sometimes known as ‘Jolly Rogers’, were intended to strike fear into the hearts of victims, encouraging them to surrender. While the skull and crossbones is the most iconic design, alternatives featured weapons, hourglasses and bleeding hearts – all symbols of danger and death. If the crew raised a red flag, it indicated that blood would be shed. In a letter from 1724, Captain Richard Hawkins wrote that “[They] hoisted Jolly Roger... in the middle of which is a large skeleton with a dart in one hand, striking a bleeding heart and in the other an hour glass... when they fight under the Jolly Roger, they give quarter, which they do not when they fight under the red or bloody flag.” Read more | Did all pirates fly the Jolly Roger? Another tactic was to sail under the flag of a neutral or friendly nation. Their identity masked, pirates could get close enough to attack a target ship, catching their victims off guard. They sometimes waiting until the last minute before raising the Jolly Roger. 5. Many pirates were former navy sailors Several pirates served as navy or merchant sailors before being driven to piracy by poor wages, harsh conditions and a lack of opportunities after conflicts ended. Compared with legitimate posts, piracy offered better pay, freedom from oppressive hierarchies and a share of any loot. Unlike on naval vessels, pirate crews were often democratic, electing captains and dividing treasure based on skills and contributions. Some pirates also came from captured ships. Prisoners, particularly skilled sailors, were sometimes given the option to join the pirates rather than face execution or abandonment. Adopting this recruitment strategy enabled pirate ships to build experienced and loyal crews. There are also examples of pirates who had formerly been privateers, issued a licence or ‘letter of marque’ by the British government authorising them to attack and capture ships from enemy nations. Some privateers, such as Captain William Kidd, saw opportunities to make vast fortunes, and seized ships they were not permitted to take. As a result, the government in London declared Kidd a pirate; he was captured, found guilty of piracy and hanged at Execution Dock in Wapping in 1701. Read more | Hunting pirates: how piracy’s golden age came to an end Sophie Nibbs is a curator of exhibitions and interpretation, currently at Royal Museums Greenwich. A new exhibition on the history of pirates opens at the National Maritime Museum, London on 29 March. This article was first published in the April 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Who were the Illuminati – and how can you join them?
Who were the Illuminati, and do they really control the world? Here's what we know about one of history's most alluring secret societies, including how you became a member...
What is the Illuminati? The Illuminati is a name given to both a real secret society and a fictitious one. The latter has fuelled conspiracy theories for years, described as a secretive and mysterious worldwide organisation intent on world domination – as well as being behind some of history’s greatest revolutions and assassinations. The original Illuminati was a secret society formed in Bavaria (now part of modern-day Germany) that existed from 1776 to 1785. Its members originally referred to themselves as Perfectibilists. The group was inspired by the ideals of the Enlightenment and founded by professor of canon law Adam Weishaupt, who wanted to promote the education of reason and philanthropy and oppose superstition and religious influence in society. Weishaupt sought to change the way states in Europe were run, removing the influence of religion from government and giving people a new source of ‘illumination’. It’s believed that the Bavarian Illuminati’s first meeting was held in a forest near Ingolstadt on 1 May 1776. Here, five men set out the rules that would govern the secret order. Eventually the group’s aims focused on influencing political decisions and disrupting institutions like the monarchy and the Church. How could you join the Illuminati? To join the Illuminati, you had to have full consent from the other members, possess wealth, and have a good reputation within a suitable family. There was also a hierarchical system to Illuminati membership. After entering as a ‘novice’, you graduated to a ‘minerval’ and then an ‘illuminated minerval’, although this structure later became more complicated, with 13 degrees of initiation required in order to become a member. The term minerval was linked to the ‘owl of Minerva’ (Minerva being the ancient Roman goddess of wisdom), and the bird eventually became the group's main symbol. Illuminati members didn't use their real names – pseudonyms were used to keep their identities of members a secret. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2021/06/GettyImages_188003212-6aa6cf1.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A 19th-century depiction of an Illuminati initiation ritual. In reality, scant details about the true nature of the ceremony remain" title="A 19th-century depiction of an Illuminati initiation ritual. In reality, scant details about the true nature of the ceremony remain (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)" /> How is the Illuminati connected to the Freemasons? Some members of the Illuminati joined the Freemasons in order to recruit new members. The Freemasons are a fraternal order that evolved from the guilds of stonemasons and cathedral builders of the Middle Ages. In some countries, especially the US, there has historically been a lot of paranoia about the Freemasons – in 1828, a single-issue political movement known as the Anti-Masonic Party was even established. Due to the original Illuminati recruitment of Freemasons, the two groups have often been confused for each other. What were the Illuminati's rituals? The Illuminati did use rituals, but most remain unknown . Those that we do know about (found in seized, secret papers) explain how novices could move to a higher level within the Illuminati’s hierarchy. To do so, they had to compile a report on all the books they owned, write a list of their weaknesses, and reveal the names of any enemies they had. The novice would then promise to sacrifice personal interests for the good of the society. Is the all-seeing eye linked to the Illumnati? The ‘Eye of Providence’ – a symbol resembling an eye inside a triangle – appears on churches around the globe, as well as on Masonic buildings and the US one-dollar bill. In addition to being associated with Freemasonry, it has also been linked with the Illuminati as a symbol of the group’s control and surveillance of the world. Originally a Christian emblem, the all-seeing eye has been used in paintings to represent God’s watchfulness over humanity. In the 18th century, it began to be used in new ways – for example, in Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier’s The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, an illustrated version of the human rights document adopted by France’s National Constituent Assembly in 1789. Here, it is depicted as an instrument of paternalistic reason, keeping a watchful eye over the newly democratic nation. There is no official link between the all-seeing eye and the Illuminati – the proposed connection probably stems from the fact that the original group shared similarities with the Freemasons, who used the image as a symbol of God. Were there any famous members Illuminati? By 1782, the Illuminati had grown to around 600 members – these included German nobles such as Baron Adolph von Knigge who, as a former Freemason, helped shape the group’s organisation and expansion. Initially, Weishaupt’s students were the only members, but soon, doctors, lawyers and intellectuals joined. There were between 2,000 and 3,000 Illuminati members by 1784. Some sources say that renowned writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe also joined, but this is disputed. Why did the Illuminati disappear? In 1784, Karl Theodor, Duke of Bavaria, banned the creation of any kind of society not previously authorised by law and the following year he passed a second edict, which expressly banned the Illuminati. During the arrest of suspected Illuminati members, compromising documents (defending ideas such as atheism and suicide) were found in their possession, as well as instructions for carrying out abortions. This cemented the belief that the group was a threat to both the state and the Church. The Illuminati then seems to have disappeared, with some people believing that it continued underground. Adam Weishaupt was eventually stripped of his post at the University of Ingolstadt. After being exiled from Bavaria, he spent the remainder of his life in Gotha, Thuringia, dying in 1830. Did the Illuminati succeed in world domination? Some people believe that the Illuminati controls the world today, suggesting that they are so secretive that few are aware of it. From the moment they disbanded, conspiracy theories about the Illuminati began to take hold. In 1797, French publicist and Jesuit priest Abbé Augustin Barruel suggested that secret societies like the Illuminati had spearheaded the French Revolution. First president of the US, George Washington, then wrote a letter the following year in which he stated that he believed the threat of the Illuminati had been avoided, adding further fuel to the idea that the order still existed. Books and sermons condemning the group later sprung up, and third US president, Thomas Jefferson, was falsely accused of being a member. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/04/GettyImages-514901450-b2df122-e1744284143723.jpg" width="620" height="414" alt="Three piles of newspapers on the ground, with headlines about US President John F Kennedy's assassination" title="Conspiracy theorists have accused the Illuminati of being the culprits behind numerous assassinations, including that of John F Kennedy (Photo via Getty)" /> The idea of a world-dominating Illuminati has never really left people’s minds, and still infiltrates popular culture today. In 1963, a text called the Principia Discordia was published, promoting an alternative belief system known as ‘Discordianism’. Calling for anarchism and civil disobedience by perpetrating hoaxes, its adherents included writer Robert Anton Wilson. Some followers of Discordianism sent fake letters into magazines claiming that events such as the assassination of US president John F Kennedy were all the work of the Illuminati. Wilson later published a book with Robert Shea, The Illuminatus! Trilogy, which became a cult success and inspired a new genre of conspiracy fiction, including Dan Brown’s novel (and subsequent film) Angels & Demons. The Illuminati also became connected with Satanism and other ideals that were far removed from those associated with the original 18th-century Bavarian group. As many members of the Illuminati infiltrated the Freemasons and vice versa, it’s difficult to judge the Illuminati’s success, but most historians believe the original group only gained moderate influence. History's Greatest Conspiracy Theories Member exclusive | Was the moon landing faked? Did Shakespeare actually write his plays? Were the pyramids built by aliens? Expert historians offer their perspectives on history's biggest conspiracy theories. Listen to all episodes now