Tudor England's Dumbest Murder

Summary

After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal
Episode Summary: Tudor England's Dumbest Murder
Release Date: April 10, 2025
Hosts: Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling
Guest: Dr. Blessing Adams

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Introduction: Setting the Stage

In this gripping episode of After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal, hosts Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling delve into one of Tudor England's most convoluted and bungled murders—the case of Thomas Arden and his wife, Alice. The story unfolds in 1551 in Faversham, Kent, amidst a backdrop of social unrest and shifting class dynamics.

Historical Context

Dr. Blessing Adams (06:03):
"There's been quite a fair amount going on. There's been quite a few sort of upheavals, rebellions, dissatisfaction from the populace against such things as the basement of the coin or enclosure..."

During this period, England was rife with tension between the ruling and lower classes. Enclosure acts were displacing farming families, fostering resentment and occasional rebellion. This societal unrest provides the chaotic environment in which the Arden murder plot takes place.

The Key Players

• Thomas Arden: A highly ambitious and unpopular man, often seen as the "nouveau riche" of Faversham. His relentless pursuit of power and wealth made him many enemies.

• Alice Arden (née Murphy): Younger than Thomas, Alice entered the marriage for social and professional advancement rather than love. Her affection lies elsewhere.

• Thomas Mosby: Alice's true love, described as a "black swart tailor" with a volatile temper. Despite his unpleasant demeanor, Alice is deeply infatuated with him.

• John Green: A neighbor who despises Thomas Arden, initially approached by Alice to assist in the murder.

• Black Will: A notorious ruffian and murderer encountered by John Green during their quest to eliminate Thomas Arden.

• Michael Sanderson: Thomas Arden's servant, who is coerced into the conspiracy with promises of marrying Cicely Ponder, Mosby's sister.

The Plot Unfolds

Initial Attempt: Poisoning Thomas Arden

Maddy Pelling (12:58):
"She's having an affair with her lover and decides somehow... she's like, right, I need rid of the old Thomas Arden needs to go."

Alice's first attempt to kill Thomas involves procuring poison from a local painter. However, her lack of expertise results in an ineffective dose. Thomas suffers minor discomfort but remains unharmed, oblivious to Alice's intentions.

Escalation: Recruiting Accomplices

Anthony Delaney (10:35):
"I'm having a little bit of a reinvestigation of Ardyn. I think he may have got a bad reputation..."

Frustrated by the failed poisoning, Alice enlists John Green by offering him a monetary incentive to murder Thomas. Green's involvement leads to the recruitment of Black Will and eventually, Michael Sanderson. Each recruitment is marked by incompetence and lack of discretion.

Dr. Blessing Adams (18:44):
"This poor woman just trying to kill her husband. Honestly, she can't catch a break, so."

The conspiracy grows increasingly absurd as more individuals are brought into the plot, each adding layers of incompetence that ultimately doom the murder plan.

Failed Attempts and Growing Chaos

Multiple attempts to assassinate Thomas Arden in London falter due to poor planning and interpersonal conflicts among the conspirators. Black Will's aggressive nature and Michael Sanderson's hesitation further complicate matters.

Maddy Pelling (24:22):
"He's in love with a woman called Cicely Ponder, who happens to be Alice's lover, Thomas Mosby's sister."

Michael's reluctance stems from personal motivations, including his love for Cicely Ponder, intertwining personal relationships with the murderous scheme.

The Final Attempt: A Brutal Murder

Frustrated by previous failures, the group orchestrates a final, brute-force attack on Thomas Arden during a seemingly innocent game of backgammon.

Guest (26:23):
"They decide that they're just gonna go for it. So what happens is one evening, Alice invites Black Will and Mosby and Cicely Ponder... They're playing backgammon..."
[Timestamp: 22:58]

The murder scene is meticulously, yet poorly executed:

• Setup: Thomas is lured into a vulnerable position with manipulated lighting from candles, limiting his peripheral vision.
• Attack: Black Will attempts to smother Thomas, escalating to beating him with an iron. When Thomas shows signs of life, both Black Will and Mosby continue the assault.
• Alice's Involvement: Ultimately, Alice joins in the brutal stabbing.

Maddy Pelling (35:37):
"These fools are capable of such terrible, terrible crimes as well."

The violent nature of the murder starkly contrasts the earlier farcical attempts, highlighting the depth of the conspirators' desperation.

Unraveling and Aftermath

Due to their incompetence, the conspirators leave clear evidence—a bloody trail in the snow—which leads to their swift capture.

Guest (38:03):
"As you say, they enter the house, they see the bloody knives that have been tossed thoughtlessly into a washtub outside, they find the bloody rags..."

Alice's desperate attempts to construct an alibi only expedite their downfall. The group is charged with petty treason, a severe offense warranting execution.

Maddy Pelling (40:18):
"They're charged with petty treason... usually requires being burned at the stake."

Motivations and Moral Implications

Alice's relentless pursuit of Thomas's elimination appears driven by her obsession with Thomas Mosby and a desire to ascend socially. Her actions serve as a cautionary tale about the perils of defying societal norms.

Guest (43:31):
"It's a warning piece for men and women and just that constant reminder to know your place and stay in your lane..."

The story emphasizes the rigid social hierarchies of the time and the dire consequences of transgressing them.

Conclusion: The Enduring Legacy

Thomas and Alice Arden's story endures as a quintessential Tudor true crime narrative, blending societal commentary with the gruesome realities of early modern justice. The episode underscores how personal vendettas and societal pressures can intertwine, leading to catastrophic outcomes.

Anthony Delaney (42:07):
"This is gripping the nation. It appears in the Chronicles of England in 1557... it's really, really quite fascinating."

Notable Quotes

• Dr. Blessing Adams (06:03):
  "There's been quite a fair amount going on. There's been quite a few sort of upheavals..."

• Maddy Pelling (12:58):
  "She's having an affair with her lover and decides somehow... she's like, right, I need rid of the old Thomas Arden needs to go."

• Anthony Delaney (10:35):
  "I'm having a little bit of a reinvestigation of Ardyn. I think he may have got a bad reputation..."

• Guest (26:23):
  "They decide that they're just gonna go for it. So what happens is one evening, Alice invites Black Will and Mosby and Cicely Ponder..."

• Maddy Pelling (35:37):
  "These fools are capable of such terrible, terrible crimes as well."

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Disclaimer: This summary omits all advertisements and non-content sections to focus solely on the narrative of Tudor England's most inept murder plot as discussed in the episode.

Transcript

[Anthony Delaney]

Hi, we're your hosts Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling. And if you would like After Dark Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal ad free and get early access, sign up to.

[Maddy Pelling]

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[Anthony Delaney]

Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe.

[Dr. Blessing Adams]

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[Narrator]

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[Guest]

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[Anthony Delaney]

We're standing in the crowd at a London theater in the late 1500s. The play is called Arden of Faversham and it's by the one and only William Shakespeare. Except that it's not. It's by Christopher Marlowe. Or actually, is it by Thomas Kidd? It doesn't really matter what we've seen so far. Is a nasty looking piece of work. Thomas Arden accused his young beautiful wife Alice of cuckolding him, saying she'd called out the name of her lover Mosby in her sleep. Then Arden announced he's leaving on business for a few days and departed the stage alone. Now Alice steps towards us. She leans into the crowd to tell the true state of her heart. She says, ere noon he means to take horse and away. Sweet news is this. Sweet Mosby is the man that hath my heart. And Arden usurps it, having naught but this, that I am tied to him by marriage. Love is a God and marriage is but words. And therefore Mosby's title is the best tush. Whether it be so or no, he shall be mine in spite of Arden. Marriage and of rights. What we are about to witness is the first domestic tragedy ever performed on the English stage. There are no kings and queens here, no foreign and exotic lands, no semi mythical settings. Instead we'll watch the grind of everyday life. And yet this is nonetheless dramatic. There will be poison and hired villains, many of them enraged lovers and an ever widening pool of conspirators to commit bloody murder. And what adds to the thrill of it all is that this, as they say, is based on a true story. Welcome to After Dark. This is the tale of Arden of Faversham.

[Maddy Pelling]

Hello and welcome to After Dark. I'm Maddie.

[Anthony Delaney]

And I am Anthony.

[Maddy Pelling]

And today we are looking at the story of a murder that took place in 1551. And that was an instant true crime sensation. It's the story of a wife, Alice, who kills her husband, Thomas Arden, with the help of her lover and confusingly, a whole cast of accomplices. From a neighbour, to a hired villain, to a painter, a maid, her lover's sister. The list is long and confusing and we will need some help to wade through it. Here as our guide through this twisting and twisted tale is a returning guest. It is Dr. Blessing Adams. Blessing was on a previous episode of ours talking about the poisoners of Plym, so go check that out. She is an amazing author of a book newly out all about female killers in early modern Britain called Thou Savage Woman. And before she was a historian, she spent two years as a police constable in Norfolk. She is the perfect guest, you might say, for After Dark. Blessin, welcome back to the show.

[Guest]

Thank you so much. It's good to be back.

[Maddy Pelling]

You're very welcome back, Blessing. It's lovely to have you. Now let's start in 1551. This is an interesting time in English history. Can you give us a sense of what's happening in this moment. Where are we in this story?

[Guest]

Well, in this particular story, we're in Faversham in Kent. But I think on a more national scale there has been a fair amount going on. There's been quite a few sort of upheavals, rebellions, dissatisfaction from the populace against such things as the basement of the coin or enclosure, which has been seeing hard working farming families dispossessed of their lands. So there's been an awful lot of. There's been a lot in the air of sort of like the lower classes rising up against the ruling classes, with occasional pockets of violence or rebellion breaking out. So it's a time period where it feels unsettled. It feels like that the upper classes are looking at the lower classes with a slightly suspicious eye and the lower classes are feeling a little bit of resentment towards the ruling classes because they don't feel like they're looking after the lower classes as they should be. So, yes, that's sort of like the pervasive atmosphere that's happening right now in England. It's something that's felt by the residents of Faversham as well. They've had some rebellions happening in the local area quite recently. So it's very near to the citizens of Faversham.

[Anthony Delaney]

Well, let's look at a couple of those citizens, mainly Thomas and Alice. Now, the first thing I want to say about these people is they are not just parts in a play, which I thought they were. When I saw this headline for this episode, I was like, why are we doing a play? But the play is based on the true crime. And I really did not know that. So I find that fascinating. But what can you tell us about the real people? What do we know about them?

[Guest]

Thomas Arden was a deeply unpopular, unpleasant man. He's one of those people that would have been thought of as the nouveau riche. Sort of the new upper middle class, I suppose, would have been, as we would picture it today, he was highly ambitious. He was ruthless in his wish for advancement, professional advancement. He wanted to become richer, he wanted to become more powerful. He just wanted to be the biggest and best man in Faversham. And then he was married to Alice. She was born Alice Murphy. She was quite a bit younger than him. It was a marriage alliance that was designed to enhance his professional career. This wasn't a love match. This was a marriage that Thomas entered into in the hopes that it would do him good in his career and in his grab for power. So Thomas and Alice. They move into Faversham and very quickly Thomas starts to infuriate, enrage and alienate all of his neighbours by being incredibly antisocial and selfish and quite horrible, actually.

[Maddy Pelling]

They're a fascinating study already, and we only are scratching the surface of the cast of characters that we're going to encounter in this episode. So we have Thomas, deeply unlikable, and we have Alice, his wife. It's not a love match, we know that much. She is going to start looking outside the marriage for affection and romance, isn't she?

[Guest]

Yes. So Alice is deeply, deeply in love with her father's servant, Thomas Mosby. We don't know much about Mosby other than he was described as a black swart tailor, which I think is just to describe. He has sort of like a dark look about him more than anything. So he is also a deeply unpleasant man. I do not know what Alice sees in Thomas Mosby. He's got a terrible temper. He has no patience. He loses his temper at the drop of a hat. He's always falling out with Alice, he's always stomping off in a rage. And Alice seems to spend all of her time chasing after him and trying to appease his temper, trying to win him back. I always got the feeling as I was reading this, that Alice was desperately in love with Thomas Mosby, but Mosby was quite indifferent towards Alice. I don't think it was an equal love affair here. I think what Mosby enjoyed about his relationship with Alice is that Alice very quickly moved him into the family home and started treating him as her lord and master. So while Thomas Arden was away, working out and about doing his thing, he seemed to travel a lot. He spent time on the Isle of Sheppey or he would go to Canterbury. So he was moving around a fair bit. Alice would then have Mosby in the house, sleeping in the marital bed, sitting at the family table. She was always buying him gifts. She was always doing everything she could to please him. So I think what Mosby was getting out of this relationship was he was this man who was a servant, and in this relationship with Alice, he was being treated as a master of the house, which he wasn't. He was just a servant who was playing the role of the master. But it was a role that he seemed to fall into with ease and enjoyment.

[Anthony Delaney]

I hope for Alice's sake and for Mosby's sake, I suppose, that he was an absolute, like, the most handsome man in Faversham or something, that there was at least some reason, because clearly he's like has a despicable personality. So let's hope he was at least an absolute right or something.

[Guest]

Let's hope so.

[Anthony Delaney]

Which is the historical perspective? That's my interpretation of the primary source material. Tell me this. Okay, so she's with him. She's married to Thomas Arden. She's in love with Thomas Mosby. Mosby is the most Shakespearean surname I've ever heard my entire life, despite the fact that this play is not by Shakespeare, let's just be very clear about that. Nor is this entire thing a play. It's a real fact, which I'm having to remind myself the entire time. But she decides somehow, and I'm sure we probably don't know why, but she's like, right, I need rid of the old Thomas Arden needs to go. And as we were talking with you before, Blesson, the first step she takes towards that is, ah, I know what I'll do. I'll poison him.

[Guest]

Yes, it's something that she thinks would be a very easy thing to do, is if I murder my husband, then I can just marry Mosby and he can carry on being the Lord as I'm treating him. So she's thinking she'll just replace one man with another and there won't be any comment in the community, I suppose. But I don't think she's a deep thinker, our dear Alice. But yes. So she goes to a painter and she's not subtle at all. Painters would have been working with various substances and chemicals in the production of pigments for their craft and a lot of these would have been toxic, even deadly. So she goes to a local painter who's also known to sell a few things under the counter, and she, quite bold as brass, just walks in there and asks him to give her a poison. And he gives her a quick look, weighs up the risk and decides, okay, I'll sell your poison. I guess we're not going to pretend here. And it's a very sort of like a morbid transaction where instructs her on how to administer the poison. He's quite detailed. You have to do it like this. You have to mix it into the milk. You have to do it like this. And so Alice trips home and somehow manages to mess it up and doesn't administer the poison properly. Her husband takes a few sips, sees that it's quite disgusting, spits it out, and he's quite sick at the side of the road, but he doesn't have any other more serious effects because she failed to poison him properly.

[Maddy Pelling]

It's completely remarkable, this, that I suppose it's potentially testament to how much Arden himself is disliked in his community that his wife can go around to a painter and say, hey, I want to buy some poison, no questions please, and that they're happy to sell that to her. But I suppose at this point she must be panicking that he hasn't actually died. Is he aware at this point that his wife is trying to bump him off? Or is this simply, you know, he thinks he's eaten something a little bit dodgy and he goes about his day and it's all fine? What's the situation now?

[Guest]

I think he's completely unaware at this point. Actually. Now's a good time to say that Thomas Arden was aware that Alice was having an affair with Mosby. And this is something that he was perfectly happy to let carry on in his household. It suited him to keep his wife happy because his wife's father was his boss. So it was very important for him to keep his wife sweet because by keeping his wife sweet, he kept his employer sweet. And that was good for his career. So you can see that Thomas Arden is only interested in Thomas Arden and he's only interested in Thomas Arden's career. If having Mosby living in his house and cuckolding him is how he goes about doing that, then fine. So Mosby thinks that his wife has basically got the best of everything. Why would she be unhappy? Why would she complain? She's got a comfortable home, she's in a good situation and she has a live in lover that is allowed to go on. So I don't think Thomas Arden suspected that his wife would want to kill him at all. Why would she? He's giving her everything she wants.

[Anthony Delaney]

Sorry, I am fascinated by this now that he's like in the context of the 16th century, he's like, oh, listen, let her on, she's grand, she can like. That's very unusual for a man in that era, even now, to think that. So that's really interesting.

[Guest]

It was absolute. Like to his neighbours and to the community, this particular setup was outrageous. It would have been in their minds, a sort of lunacy in their minds. The household in early modern times was treated as sort of like a microcosm of the country, the kingdom, the commonwealth. The husband was supposed to be the ruler of the household and his wife was supposed to obey him and do what he says. The idea of the wife being in charge and having her live in lover tripping about the house, doing whatever he wants, this went against everything that good, upstanding citizens of Faversham believed in. So they not only hated Thomas Arden because he was a grasping, mercenary, horrible man who worked against them as hard as he could, they also despised him because they thought he was a degenerate. They thought he was weak. They thought he was disgusting. So he didn't do himself any favors. This Thomas Arden.

[Dr. Blessing Adams]

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[Narrator]

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[Guest]

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[Narrator]

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[Guest]

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[Narrator]

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[Guest]

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[Maddy Pelling]

Our Skin tells a story. Join me, Holly Fry, and a slate of incredible guests as we are all inspired by their journeys with psoriasis. Along with these uplifting and candid personal histories, we take a step back into the bizarre and occasionally poisonous history of our skin and how we take care of it. Whether you're looking for inspiration on your own skincare journey or are Curious about the sometimes strange history of how we treat our skin. You'll find genuine, empathetic, transformative conversations here on our skin. Listen to our skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast tests. Okay, plot one is done. She's tried to poison him. It hasn't worked. Enter plot two, or act two. We might say, if this were a play, and we know that it was, in the subsequent months afterwards, I have written here a neighbour and a hired villain, which sounds very much like something from a Shakespeare play. So what is plot two, bless happening now? What is this poor woman's plan going forward?

[Guest]

This poor woman.

[Maddy Pelling]

This poor woman just trying to kill her husband. Honestly, she can't catch a break, so.

[Guest]

Her next grand scheme is to bring accomplices in to help her murder her husband. She approaches a neighbour, a man named John Green, and it was well known in Faversham that John Green despised Thomas Arden. At one point, they had a fist fight quite publicly over a piece of land. This sounds like neighbour disputes of today, doesn't it? One neighbour is trying to move on to the other neighbour's land and claim it for their own, and this explodes into a fist fight. So John Green, he despises Thomas Arden. And again, with all the subtlety that she's shown before, she just goes straight up to John and says, I'll give you a tenner if you murder my husband. And John Green goes, I hate that man. Yes, I will take your money. So this is the sophistication of this particular plot. She's just walking up to neighbours and offering them money. John takes her up on this. And then, as you say, it just becomes more and more absurd because John then starts blabbing to his friends. And then he decides that he's going to head off to London and he's going to hire a professional assassin to join him in this quest to murder Thomas arden.

[Maddy Pelling]

Obviously, that £10 that's been offered is enough of a budget that you can take that fee and then hire a professional alongside you. What?

[Guest]

She was one of the more wealthier citizens of Faversham, so she would have had money to fund this. This. I'm wondering if she was just throwing more and more money at this problem, but yes. So John Green starts roping in quite a few people to join him. He starts heading off to London with a fellow citizen of Faversham, a goldsmith, I believe. And it's as they're traveling towards Gravesend that they spot some notorious ruffians on the Road. And one of these ruffians is a man named Black Will. And he's quite famous in the area for being a vagabond, sort of like a wandering thief, a. A wandering murderer. He would have been a man for hire. And John Green very quickly thinks, aha. So he then approaches Blackwill and offers to pay him money if he will help him to assassinate Thomas Arden. So, as you can see, this conspiracy, already, just at the very beginning, is branching out and involving so many people. And not to mention the fact that before John Green set off to hire his assassin, he was in the local pub telling people about it. So he wasn't being discreet in his inquiries. And while he's talking to Blackwell and sort of like sugaring him up, there's other people around. So it's just like he's not being. He's not being clever about this. But. Yes. So this is where the plot is at the moment. They're sort of like roping in as many people as they can, apparently.

[Anthony Delaney]

But we're not even done, because there's got to be somebody else. A man called Michael Saunderson, who is Ardyn's servant. He is gonna have to play a part in this too. And guess what? We're gonna follow the pattern and we're gonna give him some money too. I mean, there's nothing of this 10 pounds left at this point. Like, the neighbour's just doing it for the crack now, but we're gonna bribe him too, right?

[Guest]

Yes. So they know that Thomas Arden is going to be in London on some business and they decide that the best place to commit this murder is London. Because if you commit to a murder in Faversham, people probably will notice. But if the murder goes off in London, it might get lost in the wash if, you know. So they go off to London and they're sort of like. It's so absurd like this. It does sound made up when you're telling the story, but there they are, hiding in the shadows of the graveyard of St. Paul's and they're waiting, because St. Paul's was very much a gathering point in the early modern period. It was where a lot of business was conducted. It was where a lot of people went to meet. So there they are at St. Paul's waiting for Thomas Arden to come along. And I guess the general plan was they were just going to jump out of the shadows and beat him to death. I don't know. But they're just sort of like hiding and waiting for him to appear as Thomas Arden appears. He's unfortunately with some friends and with his servant, Michael Sanderson. So Thomas goes off to have some lunch and he leads Michael Sanderson behind. And, yes, as you say, they decide, ah, one more person for our conspiracy. So they wander up to Michael and they say, hello, Michael. Do you know us? You know, remember us from Faversham? But we're all friends here.

[Maddy Pelling]

Do you want to help us murder someone?

[Guest]

If we give you some money, will you help us kill Thomas? Thomas being Michael's master. So Michael has more. He has access to Thomas. He has access to Thomas in his home. He has access to Thomas where? His lodgings in London. So Michael agrees, and he agrees that he'll leave the door open at night and then Black Will can sneak in and murder Thomas in his bed. But at the very last minute, Michael gets cold feet and he realizes that if he invites a morally bankrupt assassin into his house, chances are he might get murdered too. So at the very last minute, he chickens out and he locks the door against Black Will. And Black Will is furious and decides that he's going to murder everybody.

[Anthony Delaney]

As you do.

[Guest]

It just gets so absurd. So, yes, it just seems to unravel and there seems to be more and more people are getting involved. So, yes, another failed attempt to murder Thomas Arden.

[Maddy Pelling]

One thing that I was gonna interject to say here, that I absolutely love this detail. So we've got these three men, we've got John Green, we've got Blackwill, and then we've got Arden's servant, Michael Sanderson. And I have it in my notes here that Michael Sanderson, the servant of Arden, who's meant to leave the door open, one of his motivations for agreeing to do this is that he is in love. Bear with me, listener. He is in love with a woman called Cicely Ponder, who happens to be Alice's lover, Thomas Mosby's sister. Is this right?

[Anthony Delaney]

I'm done. I'm done. Call it a day.

[Guest]

The town of Faversham is a bit like EastEnders. Everybody knows everybody, everybody's related to everybody. So, yes. So Cice Ponder is Mosby's sister, and they say to Michael Sanderson, hey, we'll let you marry Cicely if you help.

[Maddy Pelling]

Us murder Thomas, because she's really into murderers. So if you help us, she'll like you more.

[Guest]

This. This is a saving on the £10, is you don't have to dip into your cash sesh. You can offer Sicily Ponder in marriage. So, yes, this is how they get Michael to enter into the Conspiracy. And it's just getting more absurd because now we have more people getting involved. I don't think it occurs to anybody that the more people you involve, the more likely you are to be caug. They seem perfectly happy to discuss this and spread the news around, but yes. So we have this failed attempt. We have several more failed attempts, I believe. On the way back to London, Blackwill decides he's going to have another crack at Thomas Arden. And he fails. And then there's a few more sort of like on the road ambushes that are arranged by Alice. She sets it up so that Thomas has to rush off to the Isle of Sheppey. And it's all a ruse. He doesn't need to go. But she sort of like produces this letter and says, oh, you have to go, there's business. So off he goes. The Isle of Sheppey. And she's hidden Black Will on the road. But it just so happens it's just this fuss. Thomas takes the wrong route or Mosby gets lost, or Thomas has got people with him. It just always seems to be something is standing in the way of Blackwill getting his hands on Thomas Arden. So there's multiple failed attempts to stage an ambush against por. Unaware. I think he's still unaware at this point. Thomas Arden, he has no idea, no matter that there's probably about 20 assassins hanging around outside his house at the.

[Anthony Delaney]

Moment, falling over themselves.

[Maddy Pelling]

Okay, so we have all these failed attempts, everything's going wrong. And then we have. I've lost count of the. The number of plots. There's this now, but we have a plot that takes place around Valentine's Day. Is that the next one where there's a sort of a renewed enthusiasm for getting the job done?

[Guest]

Yes. So this particular plot is the brainchild of Mosby. He's getting quite fed up of this bungling group of assassins. And he also thinks that. I think he's quite embarrassed by them because they're trying all these sneaky tactics. And Thomas Mosby is more of a I like to do things man to man kind of guy. He decides that his plan is going to be that during the St. Valentine's Fair, which happens every year in Faversham, he's going to publicly confront Thomas Arden. He's going to provoke him into a fight, and then during the fight, he's going to land a killing blow. Now, in Mosby's mind, this makes perfect sense because for men to have this sort of flare up of tempers and then to fight, it's Often mitigated and isn't considered murder because it wasn't premeditated. It was sort of like an act of passion in the moment. Two honourable men that are just caught up in the moment, it's not sort of like committed with what they would have called malice aforethought. So there was no intention and there was no malice. So this is what Mosby thinks. He thinks if I kill Thomas Arden in a man on man fight, I'm going to get away with it because this is acceptable violence. This is fine. But he's missing, miscalculated terribly because he thinks of himself as being Thomas Arden's equal. And that's how he's been treated in the Arden household. But he's not, he's a servant. And it is absolutely not okay for servants to start picking fights with their betters. And it's certainly not okay for a servant to land a killing blow, no matter the circumstances. So Mosby's caught up in his own sort of like the, the fantasy that him and Anne have been living, that they are the leading couple of the Arden household. He's not, he's just a servant. So anyway, he goes off to the St Valentine's Day Fair and he decides to pick this fight with Thomas Arden. But Thomas Arden says, I'm not going to fight with you, you're just a servant. This isn't honourable. And Mosby is deeply humiliated because I think in that moment the fiction he's woven around himself has completely collapsed. He can't push Arden into a fight because Ardyn wouldn't lower himself to brawling with a servant at the St. Valentine's Day Fair. So Mosby is forced to flee the scene in heightened humiliation because this is something that would have played out in front of the whole town. So I think at this point he would have been absolutely humiliated and probably quite enraged as well by his failure to see this particular plan through.

[Maddy Pelling]

I don't know about you, Anthony, but are you just amazed by the sort of delusions of these two men? And like you say, iblacent, it's kind of fantasy that both of them have of like what their standing is and how they're perceived? You know, you talk about Mosby wanting to sort of have a man on man fight and that's a respectable thing to do because he's that kind of guy, yet he's living in another man's house, literally having an affair with his wife. It's not very honourable. And then also Ardyn in public saying, no, no, no, I'm not going to fight a servant. That's beneath me. You're allowing this guy to live in your house and sleep with your wife. Like, what is happening?

[Anthony Delaney]

I'm having a little bit of a reinvestigation of Ardyn. I think he may have got a bad reputation in this thing. Just because the locals didn't like him just didn't mean he was a bad man necessarily. I want to know why they didn't like him. I mean, just because he was a bit uppity. Like, he seems to have been a bit like, okay, I'm full of my own importance, but, like. So that's hardly the worst thing you could do.

[Guest]

Yeah, I mean, he's a strange man because I think he really is just only interested in his own ambition. And you're right, it's like, why should he be so despised? He's mostly despised by the citizens because he is trying to rob them of their land and that, you know, their money. But also because they think he's. He's a cuckold and he's pathetic and he can't even manage his own household. So we have very different moral standards in this day and age. I mean, I don't think many people would be accepting of an affair going on under their roof, but I think in the early modern period, the stakes were so much higher and it was so much more explosive for this sort of relationship to be going on in the community.

[Anthony Delaney]

Well, we're not done yet because we're going all to hide together in a cupboard. And whatever we're planning to do there, we're gonna try and kill this fella again. But this time, it's all of us. It's the Avengers. Of all the conspiracy theorists. They're all coming together as one big group, including Mosby, including Black Will, all of them. Alice. Is Alice here this time? Are they all just coming together?

[Guest]

Alice is here. So, yes, it's like you say, it's the Avengers. They're pooling their resources. They're all getting together, so they decide that they're just gonna go for it. I think there's been so much of the sneaky business going on that's not been working for them. They've just decided to go for the direct approach. So what happens is one evening, Alice invites Black, Will and Mosby and Cicely Ponder. Yes, he's sort of like the. The whole gang are sort of like at the Arden family home. And Mosby is dressed up in his night shirt and he's looking Quite relaxed with his little slippers and his little nightcap on. And when Thomas Arden comes home, he sees that Mosby is relaxed and, you know, ready for a nice chilled evening. And they decide that they're going to sit in the park and play a board game. It doesn't say what the board game is, but in one of the pamphlets they have a drawing of them playing backgammon. And I quite like that because I love backgammon. So I'm like, oh, cool, you're playing my game. So there they are playing backgammon and it's very sort of like carefully arranged. The whole scene is carefully arranged. So Thomas is led to the gaming table and he's placed so that his back is facing a particular cupboard. And they've also placed candles around the room that are designed to throw the light into his eyes so that he sort of like doesn't have good vision of the periphery space around him. He's sort of like dazzled. And then you have Mosby sat opposite him and they're playing a game. And then at one moment Mosby cries out, ha, I have you now. Or something like that. And this is the pre arranged code word. And as Thomas is scratching his head and going, what? You don't have me at all. Black Will bursts out of the cupboard that he's been hiding in. And, and bizarrely, he runs up to Thomas and wraps a towel around his face and starts trying to smother him. And all hell breaks loose. It's not an easy thing to smother a man to death. So this tussle falls onto the floor. Things start getting violent. Blackwill is suffocating Thomas Arden. And then Mosby joins in. He picks up an iron and starts battering Thomas about the head with this iron. And eventually they believe that they have now beaten him to death. Death. They drag his body into the counting house and as they're standing over him, Thomas starts to moan and move his arms and legs around and they think, oh, we've not done the job. So this is when they draw their knives and then they start stabbing Thomas viciously, repeatedly, in the face, neck and chest. And it's at this stage that Alice comes in and she takes a knife and starts stabbing Thomas as well. So it really is a visceral, brutal, up close, bloody murder that is dragged from one room to the other. This isn't a swift killing. This is a very drawn out, brutal murder. So it's kind of like it's one of those strange moments where the story leading up to this killing is so ridiculous and so farcical, you have to laugh. It's so strange and so funny. But then you get to this moment and you're just like, oh, wow. Wow, that's horrific. These fools, these absolute party of fools are capable of such terrible, terrible crimes as well.

[Dr. Blessing Adams]

I don't know about you, but the number one thing I look forward to when I return from traveling is a good night's sleep in my own bed. That has never been more true than it is now that I have a sleep number smart bed. I get so sore after traveling on planes. But after literally one night in my sleep number smart bed, my body feels restored, rested and relaxed. The fact that my bed actually listens to my body and adjusts to my needs to keep me sleeping soundly all the way through the night is worth it alone. Not to mention, my husband and I never need to argue over firmness because we can each dial in our own sleep number set setting. Why choose a sleep number smart bed? So you can choose your ideal comfort on either side. And now for a limited time, Sleep number smart beds start at $849. Price is higher in Alaska and Hawaii. Exclusively at a sleep number store near you. See store or asleepnumber.com for details.

[Narrator]

When the Moore family ditched cable Internet and switched to Zigly fiber, they got so much more. Mr. Moore got more upload speed for next level gaming and live streaming to the masses. With reliable service, Mrs. Moore is no longer her family's IT guru, leaving her more time to stream games into overtime.

[Guest]

Let's go.

[Narrator]

And young Mason Moore got more done quickly uploading HD product demos and video conferencing. Without freesight, the numbers look good.

[Guest]

Brad, you're on mute.

[Narrator]

Switch from cable Internet to Zibli fiber and get more of what you love for $65 less per month than cable@ziply fiverr.com.

[Maddy Pelling]

They'Re so incompetent and yet they, they do get the job done eventually. I tell you what though. I love, love, love, love, love. Whenever we do anything around the early modern period and we get into the how people experience the domestic space and what you were saying there Blesson about the manipulation of the light, the candles, drawing his vision and limiting his vision to the gaming board. And I'm always so interested in, in certainly the medieval and early modern house, the darkness, how people experience that space and how, you know, often in these stories of true crime, we'll hear testimony of someone thinking they might have seen something but they're not sure. Because it was dark, or someone was stood on the other side of the room so they couldn't be sure. And to our modern sensibilities, with our electric lights, it just seems very unlikely and unfeasible that people wouldn't see things clearly enough to be able to testify. And yet here we have an example of this where you almost get transported back into that moment, into that darkness, and just how that house was manipulated and controlled in that way and set up as a murder scene. And then, of course, how it's, you know, it's sort of transformed from this albeit unconventional domestic setup, but a seemingly peaceful one, to being the scene of a really brutal crime.

[Guest]

Yes, it was a trap. And I love your comment there about sort of like the darkness of the space. And you do try to imagine it, and it's very atmospheric. But have you ever walked around your house and you've had all the lights switched off and you've just got a candle? You can't see anything. It's like the candle is so bright and it dazzles your eyes because it's right there in front of you.

[Maddy Pelling]

I can absolutely tell you, me and Anthony will absolutely have both done that at different points in our life.

[Guest]

Yes.

[Anthony Delaney]

Quite often I'm doing it. I'm living by candlelight mostly at the minute. So we have a situation now where they've finally, finally done it. But we're not getting into clever territory here because they drag his body through the back garden and they dump the body in a meadow behind the house. We know this. That's documented. But it has begun to snow. And so this ridiculous party of fools have left a trail in the snow as they were dragging the body from the house. And therefore, the body is very soon discovered. Alice, she's like, oh, no, no, it wasn't anything got to do with me. But, like, the footsteps and the footprints are there in the snow. Then she just confesses. All the conspirators are rounded up, and essentially they're gonna be executed now for petty treason. Right, Blesson?

[Guest]

Yes, absolutely. And this. This whole scene, sort of like the aftermath of the murder where they're carrying the body, it very quickly switches back into hilarious this can't be true territory. Again, Thomas Arden was a big man. He was a heavy man.

[Maddy Pelling]

Man.

[Guest]

And they had some difficulty carrying his body. And as they were carrying his body, he shed a lot of blood. They were pulling out tufts of hair and dropping those, I think, as they were trying to maybe carry the head or something. So they were. They were not just leaving they were leaving sort of like a bloody trail of evidence all the way to the meadow outside the back of the house. And then, as you say, the snow, they trump through the snow directly back to the house, leaving the most obvious trail. And you just think to yourself, what's wrong with you? Do you not have even one iota of intelligence? And you just have to wonder what on earth they were thinking. They probably weren't thinking at all. Maybe in the aftermath of such a horrific, violent crime, you just don't have the mental capacity to orchestrate the cleanup operation afterwards. But as you say, they're very swiftly rounded up. And this is in part because Alice amasses her own search party. She's trying to put around this fiction that Thomas hasn't come home, Thomas is missing. We have to find him. Like, this was her great alibi. And part of her great alibi was to run around, get her servants to run around Faversham, knocking on everybody's door, telling them they have to come search for Thomas. And she's knocking up the mayor, she's probably knocking up the local constable, you know, everybody that's going to be looking. So these are the people that find the body is like the sheriff and the law enforcement officers and everybody. And it's just strange to me that she's orchestrated her own force to come and arrest her, really. She brings them to the house. It's just bizarre. But, yes, they enter the house, they see the bloody knives that have been tossed thoughtlessly into a washtub outside, they find the bloody rags, they find the counting house is absolutely covered in blood. She didn't try very hard to cover up after herself, but then again, she.

[Anthony Delaney]

Didn'T try at all.

[Guest]

She didn't try at all to be subtle in the latest in the lead up to the murder either, either. It's amazing that there's so much was allowed to happen in the run up to this murder. But, yes, everybody was very quickly arrested. There was no sophistication here.

[Maddy Pelling]

So they're charged with petty treason, which, as we know, is obviously, as the name suggests, a form of treason. This is an offence committed against the man of the household, the patriarch, if you like. And we know that that, in this period, usually requires being burned at the stake. So Alice is taken to Canterbury and she's executed in front of a large crowd. Blessing, do we ever get a sense of why, why she wanted this crime to happen in the first place? Because she pushed so hard for it and as you say, it involved so many people. But what was her motivation really, I.

[Guest]

Think she just wanted to have it all. I think she was deeply in love with Mosby. It's mentioned a few times in records of this particular story how Mosby, he says he's done with her and he does this actually quite late on in the conspiracy as well. He wants to leave and she's having him chased down the street and brought back and she's falling on her knees and begging him. You get a very strong impression that she is perhaps obsessed with Mosby. That might perhaps be a motivation behind this because she knew going into this like petty treason and the consequences of this particular crime. It was no secret. In fact, it was something that was, was very widely publicized and written about. And it was like the horror story that was often doing the rounds. This is what happens if you wives kill your husband or if servants kill their masters. You will suffer the horrors of a traitor's execution. So she knew the consequences for what she was doing. And knowing that she was still so careless and as you say, so determined to see this through. Perhaps it was that sort of like, like single minded determination that pushed her through every single risk. That's perhaps she wasn't thinking of anything except the end game, which would have been mosfy. It's hard, it's hard to know sometimes.

[Anthony Delaney]

As storytellers, writers, pockets, hosts, whatever it is, we want to get to the bottom of that. But it's often so far removed from human experience that we can't quite get to it. But it says something about why these stories endure so much. This was so often on this show we're like, this is one of the very first true crime stories. We've said it about 19th century, we said it about the 17th century, we said it about every century. And we're going to say it about this one too. Like this is gripping the nation. It appears in the Chronicles of England in 1557. And then in 1592 we have the play, which is how I know of this story. And it just is underpinning all of those things that you were talking about, Blessing, about turning society upside down. There's the social and political issues, there's the gory details of the finding the bloody knives and the blood in the snow is very visual as well, of course. And then there's the sex, this sexual freedom of the household and all of these things. But Alice emerges from this as a warning, I suppose, to married women and men. Actually, Alice and Thomas both become these warning signals of this is not how you should be conducting yourselves. This is not how a functioning household should be managed in the 16th century. So it becomes this kind of warning tale as well as this true crime obsession that people are going to see in theatres. It's really, really quite fascinating.

[Guest]

Yes, absolutely. Like you say, it's a warning piece for men and women and just that constant reminder of know your place and stay in your lane and don't diverge from societal norms, otherwise this is the outcome. If you're a weak husband, you're inviting murder, you're leaving yourself open to these sorts of atrocities. And if you're an unfaithful wife, if you're a murderous wife, then you're going to be burned at the stake. It was very much a moral message and a warning to all households. And it's not just sort of like a warning, you know, women, don't kill your husbands. It's just, don't disobey in general. It's like, don't start off at the small end because this is how it grows. Alice's story, Alice's and Mosby's story starts with an affair. It starts with adultery. And adultery is sort of like the spark that lights this fire. So it's making that warning, don't kill your husbands, but don't do anything, don't do anything subversive, don't do anything wrong because it can lead to terrible places.

[Anthony Delaney]

Well, I'm off to insist that my husband's live in lover is out the door as of this evening in case this escalates to this. I'm heeding the warning, but it falls to me to thank you all very much for listening to this episode. And of course, thank you so much again. Maddy had said at the start of the episode, we've been championing Blessing for a long time to come onto the podcast and we're so glad to have had you. So thank you so much for joining us. If you've enjoyed this journey into the world of early modern England, then you know there's more just like this on our sister podcast, Not Just the Tudors, which is hosted by the incredible professor Susannah Lipscomb, of course. And if you've got any ideas of some dark true crime stories or histories from the darker sides of the archive that you think we would like to share here on After Dark, then email [e-mail] until next time, happy listening.

[Dr. Blessing Adams]

I don't know about you, but the number one thing I look forward to when I return from traveling is a good night's sleep in my own bed. That has never been more true than it is now that I have a Sleep Number Smart bed. I get so sore after traveling on planes, but after literally one night in my Sleep number smart bed, my body feels restored, rested and relaxed. The fact that my bed actually listens to my body and adjusts to my needs to keep me sleeping soundly all the way through the night is wor worth it alone. Not to mention, my husband and I never need to argue over firmness because we can each dial in our own Sleep number setting. Why choose a Sleep Number smart bed? So you can choose your ideal comfort on either side. And now for a limited time Sleep Number Smart beds start at $849. Price is higher in Alaska and Hawaii. Exclusively at a Sleep number store near you. See store or asleepnumber.com for details.

[Narrator]

When the Moore family ditched cable Internet and switched to Zigly Fiber, they got so much more. Mr. Moore got more upgraded upload speed for next level gaming and live streaming to the masses. With reliable service, Mrs. Moore is no longer her family's IT guru, leaving her more time to stream games into overtime.

[Guest]

Let's go.

[Narrator]

And young Mason Moore got more done quickly uploading HD product demos and video conferencing. Without freesight, the numbers look good.

[Guest]

Brad, you're on mute.

[Narrator]

Switch from cable Internet to Ziply Fiber and get more of what you love for $65 less per month than [e-mail].