tinuity finds
further illustration in the fact that there was a third alarm at
Chelmsford in 1589, which resulted in three more executions. But in this
case the women involved seem, so far as we know, to have had no
connection with the earlier cases. The fate of Elizabeth Francis and
that of Elleine Smith are more instructive as proof of the long-standing
nature of a community suspicion. Elleine could not escape her mother's
reputation nor Elizabeth her own.

Both these women seem to have been of low character at any rate.
Elizabeth had admitted illicit amours, and Elleine may very well have
been guilty on the same count.[11] All of the women involved in the two
trials were in circumstances of wretched poverty; most, if not all, of
them were dependent upon begging and the poor relief for support.[12]

It is easy to imagine the excitement in Essex that these trials must
have produced. The accused had represented a wide territory in the
county. The women had been fetched to Chelmsford from towns as far apart
as Hatfield-Peverel and Maldon. It is not remarkable that three years
later than the affair of 1579 there should have been another outbreak in
the county, this time in a more aggravated form. St. Oses, or St.
Osyth's, to the northeast of Chelmsford, was to be the scene of the most
remarkable affair of its kind in Elizabethan times. The alarm began with
the formulation of charges against a woman of the community. Ursley Kemp
was a poor woman of doubtful reputation. She rendered miscellaneous
services to her neighbors. She acted as midwife, nursed children, and
added to her income by "unwitching" the diseased. Like other women of
the sort, she was looked upon with suspicion. Hence, when she had been
refused the nursing of the child of Grace Thurlow, a servant of that Mr.
Darcy who was later to try her, and when the child soon afterward fell
out of its cradle and broke its neck, the mother suspected Ursley of
witchcraft. Nevertheless she did not refuse her help when she "began to
have a lameness in her bones." Ursley promised to unwitch her and
seemingly kept her word, for the lameness disappeared. Then it was that
the nurse-woman asked for the twelve-pence she had been promised and was
refused. Grace pleaded that she was a "poore and needie woman." Ursley
became angry and threatened to be even with her. The lameness reappeared
and Grace Thurlow was thoroughly convinced that Ursley was to blame.
When the case was carrie