The Alsop Family, How It Diminished and Grew Again

The sound you hear is that of a grave being dug on a hillside in an only section of England in the 17th century. And that was English thunder of the era. And that, a soft English drizzle, water, earth, sky, elementals.

James Alsop, Money Clipper, High Women, Father-in-law, Grave Digger. It'll take him about another hour to finish, and about another hour to give it a corpse. For in that time, James Alsop will add murder to his other attributes.

And tonight, my report to you on the Alsop family, how it diminished and grew again. Crime Classics, a new series of true crime stories from the records and newspapers of every land from every time.

Your host each week, Mr. Thomas Highland, Connoisseur of Crime, Student of Violence, and Teller of Murders. Now once again, Mr. Thomas Highland. 1673, and the place, Hem, a small village about four miles from London, situated in the county of Essex.

Now the month is March at the tail end of a wild winter, a winter of great snows, much poverty, and much returning to the earth of the folk of Ham, young and old. Never was there such a winter within the memory of what villages were left alive.

And now that the snows had melted and the first warmth blew across the heat and into cold stone rooms, there was stirring among the hamlings who had survived. and wife smiled on each other where yesterday had been chill. Life must go on. But what of those whom the ravages of the season and starvation had made lonely? What of, say, a widow? What

of, say, widow Ursula, who lost her husband to the wild dogs two days after Christmas? What of her? Well, let's see. be lonely, a widow. I was a cruel thing as up unto your husband.