Is that a witches’ coven or a Tudor hen night that’s gone very wrong?

THIS is how Lucy Worsley describes a witches’ mass: 200 women with flagons of wine, ‘making merry and singing all with one voice’.

That sounds to me like a hen night on any Friday across Britain. Were these so-called witches wearing T-shirts with obscene slogans and staggering in stiletto heels?

One evening took an ugly turn, according to a Tudor pamphlet uncovered in The Witch Hunts: Lucy Worsley Investigates (BBC2).

Dismembered human limbs were tied to a cat and flung into the sea. My bet is this was no black magic ritual. Rather the bachelorettes had merely torn a male stripper apart and tried to get rid of the body.

Fans of Prof Lucy who hoped to see her dressed up in a pointed hat with a broomstick were disappointed. This documentary, the first of four delving into dark corners of British history, was a more sombre affair.

The presenter spent much of the episode visiting historians and exploring libraries around Scotland, where the notorious cat incident occurred in 1591.

She discovered magical amulets and charms, including a dried seed encased in silver. It was known as St Mary’s Nut and was believed to help women in childbirth.

It was plain that Lucy was not in a frivolous mood from the way she sat in the back of her chauffeured car between museums, gazing thoughtfully at the countryside.

Most celebrities drive themselves on telly, usually in vintage E-Type Jags or Minis. It’s pleasing to know that Prof Lucy is transported in more regal style. I hope her driver wears a peaked cap.

The tale of the witches’ coven, she conceded at the start, ‘all sounds absolutely bonkers’. But gradually a more serious and grim picture emerged of a clampdown on folk remedies and ‘wise women’ by Protestant extremists.

King James VI of Scotland encouraged the Puritans. He accused the

witches, and one Agnes Sampson in particular, of conjuring a storm while he was at sea.

The torture, trial and execution of Agnes unleashed a century of witch hunts. A re-enactment of her death, with bearded men in big hats standing around scowling, looked like an outtake from BBC2’s abysmal sitcom, The Witchfinder.

But some of the historic documents Lucy uncovered did prove fascinating. The list of Agnes’s clients as a folk healer included several gentlewomen of note. Her cures must have been fashionable. And proof that she was tortured by inquisitors showed up in the parish accounts — with entries in the expenses ledger for wooden stocks and three-inch pins.

Among the records discovered by Nicky Campbell, tracing the story of foundling ‘Ice Baby’ Matt Butt on Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace (ITV), were lurid newspaper cuttings.

On the coldest night for years, in January 1987, Matt’s mother left him in a North London phonebox with a note pinned to his knitted jacket: ‘I was born on January 6. Please look after me.’ DNA analysis helped to identify his father, who died nearly a decade ago. His mother was found, too, but she did not want to meet Matt.

Without any emotional reunions, I suspect his painful story would not have aired had it not been for the dramatic circumstances of his beginnings.

More uplifting was the tale of former RAF sergeant Paul Garner, who was left as a baby in toilets at a park in Abergavenny in the late 1950s. He met his two sisters and a brother, Terry, who looked more like his twin though he was ten years older.

This is what Long Lost Family does so well. Not a dry eye!