Latest / Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood / Bittisode 004: The Hanging of the Hartlepool Monkey

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Bittisode 004: The Hanging of the Hartlepool Monkey · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to an Airwave media podcast. Hi everybody, and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: welcome to Who Did What Now? The history podcast That's
• 0:21
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  Speaker 1: it isn't smooth with your host Katie Charlwood, birth de
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  Speaker 1: Gail and reader of books. Yea, I'm milkom this birthday thing.
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  Speaker 1: Still mentioning your birthday, Katie. No, No, It's in a
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  Speaker 1: couple of days and I'm gonna keep mentioning it. Don't
• 0:42
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  Speaker 1: so much. You have no idea, But I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: tell you about this and don't forget. If you want
• 0:57
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  Speaker 1: up there. I'm going to post on Instagram at the minute.
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  Speaker 1: Who Did What Now? Pod all one word all. The
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• 1:12
  Speaker 1: because of the time of year, TikTok trying to share
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  Speaker 1: there's no space to do anything really, So I'm going
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  Speaker 1: up to for my birthday, you can absolutely do that.
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  Speaker 1: So it is bitty so time. So I am going
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  Speaker 1: to talk about something. So this is kind of history,
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  Speaker 1: kind of legend. So yeah, and I know what you're thinking.
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  Speaker 1: You're thinking, quite your jibber jabber in fact me, in
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  Speaker 1: fact you I will, But first we get to get
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  Speaker 1: our source on today. Our sources are Heartlepool dot co,
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  Speaker 1: dot uk and historicuk dot com. We're going to talk
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  Speaker 1: about the hanging of the Hartlepool Monkey. So basically during
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  Speaker 1: the Napoleonic Wars, which is you know Napoleon. The Napoleonic Wars,
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  Speaker 1: they basically ran from May eighteenth, eighteen oh three to
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  Speaker 1: November twentieth, eighteen fifteen. Ooh, my birthday. So Napoleon the
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  Speaker 1: first pits the French Empire against its allies. Effectively, France
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  Speaker 1: was working so the French Republic slash French Empire whichever,
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  Speaker 1: they were sort of working with Austria, Denmark, Norway, Iran, Prussia,
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  Speaker 1: Russia and Spain, and it was kind of fighting the
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  Speaker 1: what's known as the Coalition forces. And let me just
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  Speaker 1: like try and run down this massive fucking list. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: So the Napoleonic Wars effectively included the United Kingdom, the
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  Speaker 1: Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Portugal, bad
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  Speaker 1: and Bavaria, Brunswick, Hanover, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, Nassau, Nasau. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: the the Netherlands, the Ottoman Empire, the Papal States, Iran, Sardinia, Saxony, Sicily, Switzerland, Tuscany, Vutenberg, Denmark, Norway. Ah, yeah, no,
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  Speaker 1: that's and France obviously, so French Republic, the French Empire.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so there's like seven wars. It's so there's
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  Speaker 2: like wars of like coalitions and peninsulas and everything else.
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  Speaker 2: But anyway, but we're not going to get into that
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  Speaker 2: right now. So during the Napoleonic Wars, Britain knows it's happening,
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  Speaker 2: England knows it's happening, and the coastal town of Hartlepool
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  Speaker 2: knows it's happening.
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  Speaker 1: So on the horizon they notice that a French ship
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  Speaker 1: is sinking off the Hartlepool Coast. Naturally, the entire town
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  Speaker 1: is like, what the actual fuck. That's weird, that's suspicious.
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  Speaker 1: So they're like, shit, are we going to get raided
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  Speaker 1: or invaded or attacked by the French? Well croissant and
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  Speaker 1: like are they going to make us eat the croissant?
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  Speaker 1: We don't want croissant. No, they don't want to eat
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  Speaker 1: a croissant anyway, the wreckage of the ship appears on
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  Speaker 1: the shore, so like so being you know, the best
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  Speaker 1: at sea, the fishermen are keeping an eye because they're
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  Speaker 1: like genuinely worried because there's like a storm going on,
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  Speaker 1: and eventually but it gets beaten and battered by the
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  Speaker 1: sea and it gets wrecked effectively, and basically the wreckage
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  Speaker 1: gets washed upon the shore. So the people are partly
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  Speaker 1: pull they run down towards it. So like the general
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  Speaker 1: consensus at the time was like there was a massive
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  Speaker 1: fear of like the possibility of French infiltrators and spies
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  Speaker 1: and being invaded by like foreigners. So when the wreckage
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  Speaker 1: shows up on the beach, they run down, you know,
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  Speaker 1: to make sure there's no like danger because they have
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  Speaker 1: to predict their countrym So when they come upon the wreck,
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  Speaker 1: they find one single solitary survivor, the captain's pet monkey,
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  Speaker 1: dressed in a French military style uniform. And you're thinking, okay,
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  Speaker 1: they found a monkey and an adorable outfit. Well, okay, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it does not end well. The legend goes that, you know,
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  Speaker 1: because of the satirical cartoons and imagery that was released,
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  Speaker 1: you know, and the sort of propaganda of the era,
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  Speaker 1: that the French were generally drawn as monkey like creatures
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  Speaker 1: with like claws and tails, and because Hartlepool is so
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  Speaker 1: far away from France that they would have no idea
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  Speaker 1: what a Frenchman looked like, and as such, when they
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  Speaker 1: saw the monkey, the monkey in his uniform, that they
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  Speaker 1: automatically assume that the monkey in a miniature military uniform
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  Speaker 1: was not only a Frenchman, a human Frenchman, but also
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  Speaker 1: a French spy. So they conduct a beach based trial
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  Speaker 1: with the fishermen questioning the monkey. Now, surprisingly enough, because
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  Speaker 1: it's a fucking monkey, it can't actually answer any of
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  Speaker 1: the questions asked of it. So because the monkey, because
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  Speaker 1: the monkey could neither confirm nor deny, because it couldn't
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  Speaker 1: speak English or any human language, because it's fucking monkey.
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  Speaker 1: It couldn't answer any of the court's questions. It could
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  Speaker 1: not answer any of this beach tribunal's questions. And so
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  Speaker 1: the monkey was found guilty and was sentenced to hang
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  Speaker 1: by the neck until dead. So there's two two versions
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  Speaker 1: of the legend. One say that they dragged him into
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  Speaker 1: the town square, another says, you know, to be hung,
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  Speaker 1: and another says he is to be hung from a
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  Speaker 1: ship's mast. Either way, they fashion away noose, they put
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  Speaker 1: it around the monkey's neck, and then they execute a
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  Speaker 1: monkey for being a French spy. I mean, okay, okay,
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot to unwrap here, But considering the monkey
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  Speaker 1: was in uniform military uniform, can you really accuse them
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  Speaker 1: of being a spy because the military uniform of your
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  Speaker 1: enemy is not exactly inconspicuous attire. That being said, because
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  Speaker 1: of this legend, the people of Hartlepool are affectionately known
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  Speaker 1: as monkey hangers. However, if you can hear the cat
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  Speaker 1: crying in the background, he's only doing it for attention.
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  Speaker 1: He's had enough treats for the day, thank you.
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  Speaker 3: So there is the possibility that the people of the
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  Speaker 3: coastal town of Hartleypool were genuinely convinced that a monkey
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  Speaker 3: and cosplay was in fact a French spy.
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  Speaker 1: Or or perhaps this is a story that's sort of
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  Speaker 1: lost in translation. Awey, bit warning, this is about to
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  Speaker 1: get up a bit dark, okay, because there's a possibility
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  Speaker 1: that it wasn't an actual monkey that they hung, but
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  Speaker 1: a powder monkey. What's a powder monkey? Kry? Well, I'm
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  Speaker 1: glad you asked, because I'll tell you so. So way
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  Speaker 1: back when, back in the day, we boys, small boys,
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  Speaker 1: they were employed by warships to prime the cannons with gunpowder,
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  Speaker 1: and these wee boys, they were known collectively as powder monkeys.
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  Speaker 1: I did warn you it was dark. This kind of
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  Speaker 1: leaves us with two kind of gruesome tales, one more
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  Speaker 1: horrible than the other. So, either the locals of Hartleypool
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  Speaker 1: came across a monkey and a military uniform and we're
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  Speaker 1: so ignorant to what a foreign person would look like
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  Speaker 1: that they were convinced an actual monkey was a spy
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  Speaker 1: and decided to hang him. Or the people of Hartleypool
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  Speaker 1: came across a small boy in the wreckage of a
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  Speaker 1: friendship and we're so afraid, and we're so afraid of
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  Speaker 1: being invaded that they murdered a small boy because he
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  Speaker 1: could not answer their questions as he couldn't speak any English,
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  Speaker 1: and between you know, one area to the next, and
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  Speaker 1: over time, the story becomes legend because people are ashamed
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  Speaker 1: the fact that they killed a child. All we know
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  Speaker 1: is that the legend of the hanged monkey in Hartleypool
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  Speaker 1: has lasted for over two hundred years. If you liked
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  Speaker 1: my retelling of this story, feel free to write and
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  Speaker 1: review five stars on Apple Podcasts. Yeah. That was that
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  Speaker 1: was unpleasant at the very least. I mean, that is
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  Speaker 1: either funny and horrific or just plain horrific regardless. But
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  Speaker 1: I had to. I had to share that one with you.
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  Speaker 1: How could I not share that with you? That's just
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  Speaker 1: like one of the weirdest things. But now that I've
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  Speaker 1: shared this weird story with you, don't forget. You can
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  Speaker 1: follow me on social media Instagram, Facebook, TikTok on who
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Did What Now pod? And then Hoo Did What Now?
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  Speaker 1: Pd on Twitter. Links are in the show notes down below,
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  Speaker 1: and I shall chat to you next time. Adios, Oilvoir
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  Speaker 1: of ware is end my friends. Ah bye bye.