The Real Barry Lyndon – Stoney Bowes, a Georgian Sociopath

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Bowes, eighteenth century, eighteenth century ireland, English history, Georgian, Gibside, history, Irish adventurers, Marriage, Mary Eleanor Bowes, North East, Sociopaths, Stoney Bowes

The Infamous Life of Stoney Bowes

Andrew Robinson Bowes, MP, by John Downman 1781 (Fitzwilliam Museum Cambs)

The tale of Andrew Robinson Stoney Bowes came to the attention of William Thackeray direct from the grandson of one of ‘Stoney Bowes’ most famous victims -his unfortunate second wife Mary Eleanor Bowes – and became the inspiration for Thackeray’s picaresque and satirical novel ‘The Luck of Barry Lyndon’.  Unusually, the fictional character is a much tamer version of the real man, for Stoney Bowes must rank as one of the eighteenth centuries most disturbing characters.  Handsome, charming and deadly he was an adventurer, wife-beater and pathological liar with a victim complex.

His behaviour was often censured by contemporary society as being more extreme than was acceptable but was he just an over zealous eighteenth century male or was his behaviour that of a Georgian sociopath?

Origins

Andrew Robinson Stoney came from a genteel but impoverished Anglo-Irish family and was born in 1747 in Greyfort House, County Tipperary.  Although he was a favorite son, his temperament and ambitions did not suit him to become a down at heel gentleman farmer on the family farm.  Even as a young man he was hot-tempered and arrogant.  By the 1760’s he was enlisted as an ensign in the British Army and following a misprint in a local newspaper promoted himself to the rank of Captain.

His army chums found him good company and his debauchery was well-known to his comrades.  He had the sense to keep it under wraps in polite society where he cut a dashing figure with his good looks, athletic figure and charming Irish brogue – a natty red uniform must have helped too.

“His speech was soft, his height was more than five feet ten, his eyes were bright and small, he had perfect command of them, his large eye brows were low large and sandy, his hair light,  and his complexion muddy, his smile was agreeable, his wit ready.”  So said his friend and some-time henchman the Surgeon Jesse Foot.

The charming Irish adventurer was a staple feature of eighteenth century life and heiress hunting was practically a national pass-time for many an ambitious and penniless gentleman.   This was Stoney’s special area of expertise.  He had a way of gaining the loyalty of men, and the adoration of women.  His first victim – for victim she most definitely was – was Hannah Newton.  As a wealthy heiress from Burnopfield, County Durham, he soon targeted her as a lucrative marriage prospect and he began courting her in earnest.

Bagging his first heiress

18th Century Lady, Bowes Museum

From here the charming adventurer began to show his true colours as a manipulative and mercenary predator.  He successfully inveigled his way into Hannah’s, and even her mother’s, affections by posing as a love-lorn and wealthy suitor.   Very soon the young girl was besotted and Stoney pressed his advantage home – being so frequently in Hannah’s company he was effectively ensuring she would have to marry him in order to protect her reputation from scandal.

Nevertheless Hannah’s father had left a clause in his will to protect his daughter’s inheritance – any future husband must have at least £50 per year income and any interest in the Newton fortune would die with his wife unless a male heir was forthcoming.  Stoney was aware – well aware – of this obstacle.

He considered elopement, but had rejected it as it would cost him Hannah’s fortune and all Hannah represented to him was cold hard cash.  Instead he begged and bullied his family, writing by turns pleading and aggressive letters demanding they give him the money.  At the same time he further manipulated Hannah and her mother by offering to release the besotted twenty year old from her obligations to him.   He is quoted as cynically saying:

Detail from ‘Company at Play’, Thomas Rowlandson, Plate 8 from Comforts of Bath, 1798

“You may be assured I had no intention of going, for I well knew I would not be permitted.  However, with the help of a few tears, I was prevailed to remain with her.”

His machinations were eventually successful, his family made him a settlement, and he was married to Hannah Newton and her twenty thousand pounds fortune on the 5th November 1768.  They moved to her home at Cole Pike Hill in Durham.  Stoney rejoined his regiment and resumed his debauched and violent lifestyle but now with ample funds to squander.

Hannah must have had a miserable marriage and was often at Bath for her health, Wendy Moore writing in ‘Wedlock’ thinks if not physically caused by Stoney, Hannah’s ill-health was exacerbated by his harsh treatment of her.  He engaged in legal wrangles with the Trustees of her father’s will when he tried to exploit the ancient woodlands on her estates, and he forced her to make a £5000 settlement on him should she die childless.  eventually Hannah did die, along with the child she had just given birth too.  Stoney reluctantly gave up his grip on her fortune.

A second heiress comes along

£5000 in his bank account, Stoney left the North, and set out in search of another cash cow to wed.  Anne Massingberd of Ormseby Hall was his next target and he soon had her eating out of his hand, his attentions were callously calculated to  ruin her reputation and any alternative marriage prospects.  However Stoney was in for a shock when he realised that Anne wasn’t quite as well off as she seemed and the liaison was soon over as far as he was concerned.  Anne felt differently and does not seem to have gotten over being jilted by Stoney, writing many letters to him begging for him to return to her.

The Richest Woman in England in his sights

Mary Eleanor Bowes, by JC Dillman, 1800 copied from George Englehart (Bowes Museum)

Despite the fact that Stoney’s reputation for bad treatment of women seems to have been well-known it is a measure of his charm and charisma and sexual chemistry that so many women fell for him.  True Hannah and Anne had led very sheltered lives, but his next victim Mary Eleanor Bowes was highly educated, a widow and had been living it up in a very scandalous manner since the death of her husband the Earl of Strathmore in 1776.

But in order to capture the largest fortune in England, Stoney would have to sink to very underhand and theatrical tactics and spin a web of deception and lies.  in 1776 Mary Eleanor was already planning to marry her current lover, Nabob Gray, and had even gone so far as to draw up crucial legal papers protecting her inheritance from any future husband, when Stoney appeared on the scene.  It is rumoured that he boasted openly that he was planning to go to London and marry the dowager Countess of Strathmore, such was his over-weaning confidence.

Duel Thomas Rowlandson [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Still, it took a spy in her household, a rigged slander campaign in the Morning Post – where Stoney acted the part of both slanderer and saviour with equal relish – and a faked duel in a crampt and darkened room at the Adelphi Tavern to achieve his aim.  He had already made advances towards Mary Eleanor, and when he offered to fight a duel with the editor of the Morning Post, Mr Bates, Mary Eleanor seems to have been caught up in the drama and romance of the situation, especially when Stoney was mortally wounded defending her honour.

Only, things weren’t quite what they seemed.  Bates and Stoney were in cahoots, they met a year earlier in Bath, and may well have hatched the whole plot there and then.  Stoney also roped in his friend and ally Jesse Foote, a surgeon, in order to authenticate his fatal wounds.  Mary Eleanor didn’t stand a chance, at his apparent deathbed she agreed to his request that he be married to the woman whose honour he had defended.  Thinking he would be dead soon anyway, Mary Eleanor made the biggest mistake of her life and agreed.  On the 17 January 1777, Stoney was carried to the altar in a stretcher, and he married his second fortune and took on the name of Bowes in accordance with her fathers will.

Stoney made a rapid recovery and soon made his true nature know to Mary Eleanor.  Finding out he was not in control of her fortune, and that prenuptial agreements had been put in place to limit the financial powers of any husband, he began a sustained and brutal campaign against her – eventually tricking her in to revoking the deed. She endured 8 years of beatings, starvation, humiliation and control at the hands of Stoney.  She finally escaped his clutches in February 1785, when with the help of her brave maid Mary Morgan and some other equally brave servants, she made her getaway.  Penniless, she set about getting a divorce and regaining her fortune.  She won.  But at a high price to her health and her reputation.

Divorce and abduction

Public opinion was initially with the Countess, the divorce made people aware of the brutal treatment she had suffered at the hands of Stoney Bowes.  But Stoney ruthlessly began to slander her reputation, buying a newspaper for the purpose and commissioning cruel satirical prints against her.  The Georgian public swiftly turned against her, a wife who had lived a scandalous life – he had forced her to write her highly damaging ‘confessions’ and he later published them.  A wife, furthermore, who had tried to prevent her husband from his legal rights to her money and property.  Many people at the time would see him as a man standing up for his rights and he swayed the public opinion in his favour.  Even those people who thought he had gone to far, may have thought she was getting no better than she deserved.

However, when legal proceedings began to turn in favour of Mary Eleanor, and Stoney Bowes knew his case would be lost, he took things into his own hands.  He had his wife abducted in broad daylight.  Bundled into a carriage and dragged back up north.  Threatened with rape and violence Mary Eleanor was then dragged on horseback on a desperate cross-country flight for weeks and in the depths of winter until she was finally rescued, and Stoney arrested.

Stoney Bowes at the Court of Kings Bench, James Gillray

Abduction was one step too far, and Stoney Bowes was given three years in prison for the abduction. The divorce was finally settled in 1789 but not before he had hammed up his own sense of victimisation as much as possible – as Gillray’s cartoon of his Court appearance shows.

Deprived of his wife’s fortune, lambasted in print (even as early as 1777 The Stoniad had accused him of domestic violence and financial abuse of his wife), Stoney Bowes spend the last years of his life in debtors prison –  eventually dying in 1810.

Stoney Bowes via wikimedia

Yet, even in prison he wangled the best rooms, enticed young lawyers to take up his legal shenanigans, and spend his time seducing innocent girls.  Polly Sutton fell into his clutches because her father was  also in prison.  By all accounts she was a lovely young girl with prospects when he met her – yet even in prison he was able to ensnare her. Stoney  had several children with Polly and kept her locked up in a room he hired at the prison.  She got the same treatment that all of his previous wives received – violence and abuse.

Typical Georgian Gent or Sociopath?

The eighteenth century, despite being a rather feminine century, was essentially a mans world.  Men ran things and owned most of the property whilst women were in the power of their fathers, brothers or husbands for most of their lives.  Men expected to own their wives as much as they owned the property their wife brought to the marriage.  Society was also tolerant of some levels of domestic violence against women.

Stoney Bowes went much further than this.  He was clearly charming and charismatic, but he bullied, cajoled, and manipulated male friends into becoming his accomplices, and women into becoming his victims.  He was an extremely good liar, and appears to have had absolutely no conscience in relation to his dealings with women or empathy for the suffering he caused.  He lived a parasitic lifestyle – to him, women were a meal-ticket, he manipulated their emotions then trapped them into violent abusive marriages.  He was promiscuous, violent, controlling and showed no remorse for any of his actions.  I’m certainly no expert on psychology, but I would say that Andrew Robinson Stoney Bowes was quite likely a bona-fide Georgian Sociopath.

Sources

Arnold, Ralph, The Unhappy Countess, Constable, 1987 edition
Moore, Wendy, Wedlock, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2009
Parker, Derek, The Trampled Wife, Sutton, 2006
Thackeray, William, The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Futura, 1974 edition
Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Robinson_Stoney
Author unknown, Profile of the Sociopath, http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html

St Mary’s Island…

Tags

coast, England, English history, granny irene's guide to the afterlife, North East, smugglers, St Mary's Island, St Mary's Lighthouse

St Mary’s Island: A chequered past

St Mary’s Island at low tide. Image by Jim Blakeley.

Originally named Bates Island after Thomas Bates who owned it during the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1, St Mary’s Island is a quaint and peaceful little island situated off the North East Coast of England, between Whitley Bay and Seaton Sluice. Neatly sitting opposite Curry’s point on the mainland, the island is accessible at low tide by causeway. Whilst a light has shone in some capacity on the island for centuries, the most prominent feature and tourist attraction is it’s lighthouse which was built in 1898, and decommissioned and turned into a visitor centre in 1984.

Back in the medieval days there was a chapel on the island, and right next to the chapel was a burial ground where the monks were buried. Unfortunately all traces of the chapel were destroyed when the lighthouse was built.

It’s difficult to imagine when you visit it now that such a small and tranquil little island could have such a dark and chequered history, however in it’s time the island has suffered from a plague of locusts, and is also the setting of a horrific and brutal murder; namely that of Anthony Mitchell, a local customs officer who was slain brutally by smugglers who in the year 1722 had been illegally hovering off the North East coast line, his body dumped in what became known as smugglers creek on the north of the island; the creek still being visible to visitors to the island today.

Smugglers by John Atkinson. Public domain via Wikimedia.

Then just a few years later in the year 1739, Michael Curry, a local glassworker, was found guilty of the murder of the landlord of the inn at Old Hartley. He was duly hanged for his crime in Newcastle, and as was customary in those days his body was hung on a gibbet in sight of his crime, at the spot which is now known as Curry’s point.

In 1799 a boat load of Russian Soldiers on their way to fight in the Napoleonic wars, were struck down with cholera and the island was used to quarantine them.

Then later, in the nineteenth century, a local couple obtained permission from the landlord Lord Hastings to open a public house on the island. The pub was known locally as the Square and Compass, and the family lived there peacefully doing a roaring trade for decades, until a dispute over their drunken customers brawling on neighbouring land, resulted in the somewhat ungainly eviction of the family and their pigs from the island that they loved.

St Mary’s island and it’s dark history features heavily in my novel Granny Irene’s Guide to the Afterlife, Revenge. You can find out further information at http://www.ingridhall.com

St Mary’s Island with tide coming in. Image by Jim Blakeley.

Sources

En.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary’s_Island,_Tyne_and_Wear
http://www.visitnorthtyneside.com/things-to-do/st-marys-island-P689091
northeasthistorytour.blogspot.com/…/stmarys-island-lighthouse-nz35375

The strange case of Sir Francis Bacon and the frozen chicken

Tags

bizarre deaths, chickens, English history, Ghosts, history, science, seventeenth century

One of the strangest ghost stories that I have ever come across involves Sir Francis Bacon, empirical scientist and a frozen chicken.

Sir Francis Bacon, “The Queen’s Bastard”*

Sir Francis Bacon, by Paul van Somer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Sir Francis Bacon (1^st Viscount of St Albans), philosopher, jurist, statesman, author and scientist was born on 22 January 1561 at York House in London.  At the age of twelve, Bacon was sent to study at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1579 he took up a residence in law at Gray’s Inn.  Famous as a liberal-minded reformer he openly opposed feudal privileges and religious persecution.  He was a favourite with Queen Elizabeth I as well as being a close advisor of the Earl of Essex.  He also flourished under the reign of James I, under whom he was granted a knighthood in 1603.  In 1618 he was appointed Lord Chancellor but his success did not last and three years later, after falling into debt, he was accused of twenty-three separate counts of corruption and thrown out of office.  With the end of his public career, Sir Francis Bacon turned to the other great passion in his life, the philosophy of science. He believed that science should be used as tool for the betterment of humanity and espoused a new approach, one based on tangible proof achieved through experimentation, gathering of data and analysis.  Alas his dedication to his beliefs eventually led to an experiment which effectively caused his death on the 9 April 1626 at the age of 65.

Bacon and the first frozen chicken

In the early part of 1626, Sir Francis Bacon whilst out in his carriage fell into an argument with his companion Dr Winterbourne.  The cause of the disagreement was Dr Winterbourne’s scepticism over Bacon’s hypothesis that fresh meat could be preserved if frozen.  In order to prove his theory he ordered his coachman to buy a chicken from the nearest source.  According to John Aubrey in his book “Brief Lives”,

“They alighted out of the coach, and went into a poor woman’s house at the bottom of Highgate Hill, and bought a hen, and made the woman gut it, and then stuffed the body with snow, and my lord did help to do it himself.

After the chicken had been partially plucked, Bacon placed the chicken in a bag, packed some more snow around it and buried the carcass.  Unfortunately according to Aubrey, Bacon caught a severe chill and was so ill he was unable make the distance to his own lodgings and instead was taken

“to the Earl of Arundel’s house at Highgate, where they put him into a good bed warmed with a pan, but it was a damp bed that had not been laid-in about a year before, which gave him such a cold that in two or three days, as I remember Mr Hobbes told me, he died of suffocation.” 

Death by chicken: Fact or fiction

It is difficult to tell how reliable Aubrey’s sources were.  The main problem with his account is the time of the year. If Aubrey’s report is correct then London would have been suffering from snowy conditions in April 1626.  According to contemporary evidence there is no record of snow in London at that time.  This is not to say that Bacon did not conduct an experiment with a frozen chicken or that it wasn’t an experiment with refrigeration that led to Bacon’s illness.  It could be that either two separate incidences were confused or that the illness that Bacon picked up earlier that year was a lingering one or even more likely that Bacon on returning to analysis the results of his experiment caught a chill in the damp, cold weather.  In fact Bacon himself confirms the cause of his illness.  In a letter written to his absent friend, Lord Arundel, he apologises for being a burden on his household and admits that it was whilst concluding an experiment in refrigeration that he caught a chill,

“My very good Lord,—I was likely to have had the fortune of Caius Plinius the elder, who lost his life by trying an experiment about the burning of Mount Vesuvius; for I was also desirous to try an experiment or two touching the conservation and induration of bodies. As for the experiment itself, it succeeded excellently well; but in the journey between London and Highgate, I was taken with such a fit of casting as I know not whether it were the Stone, or some surfeit or cold, or indeed a touch of them all three”

Whatever the truth behind the story, the death of Sir Francis Bacon will always be linked with that of a frozen chicken,

“Against cold meats was he insured?

For frozen chickens he procured —

brought on the illness he endured,

and never was this Bacon cured.”**

 

The hauntings of Pond Square

In a bizarre twist to the story, Pond Square, believed to be the site of Bacon’s experiment, has developed a reputation for being haunted, not by Sir Francis Bacon as you would expect but by a ghostly chicken.  Numerous sightings have been reported in the leafy suburb of Highgate (in 1864 the pond itself was filled in) during the winter months, and at least twenty of these were made in the twentieth century, most during the Second World War. 

In December 1943, Aircraftman Terence Long was crossing the pond late one night, when he heard noises of what sounded like horses’ hooves and a carriage behind him.  Turning around he was stunned to see something which looked like a half plucked, shivering chicken shrieking wildly and running around in circles until it eventually disappeared. Shocked he then met an Air Raid Precautions fireman to whom he recounted his visitation.  The fireman told him that the bird was regularly seen in the area and that one ARP had chased it, hoping to catch it for dinner until it ran into a brick wall and disappeared. 

Chicken Run; Parks & Lord; Dreamworks Pictures

Again during the Second World War, a Mrs J. Greenhill, a resident of the area, confirmed that she had seen the ghostly chicken on a number of occasions, describing it as a “large whitish bird”.

In the 1960s a motorist who had broken down, reported seeing a half plucked bird in a state of distress, squawking and running in circles.  Going towards it, concerned that it was injured, he was startled when it suddenly vanished into thin air.

The last confirmed sighting of the poultry ghost was in 1970.  The couple whilst kissing were rudely interrupted when a bird dropped out of the air next to them.  They stated that the bird was squawking and running in circles and disappeared shortly afterwards.

Recently the sightings of the ghostly chicken have virtually ceased.  Maybe the bird, distressed at its unorthodox demise has finally accepted its place in scientific history and come to terms with the circumstances of its death. 

Notes

*Edward Coke (opponent of Sir Francis Bacon)

** Composed by the poet, Pip Wilson

Sources and references

 Brief Lives, John Aubrey

Pond Square Chicken, Highgate http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/greater-london/hauntings/pond-square-chicken-highgate.html

The Ghost Chicken of Highgate, London http://news.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-lancashire/plain/A14042099

Highgate Chicken Ghost http://www.real-british-ghosts.com/highgate-chicken-ghost.html

The ghost of pond square http://www.unexplainedmysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=3678

The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories, J.A. Cuddon

True Ghosts and Spooky Incidents, Vikas Khatri

Francis Bacon: Biography, http://www.biography.com/people/francis-bacon-9194632

 

The Jupiter Chronicles: The Secret of the Great Red Spot by Leonard Ramirez

Tags

alternative history, book reviews, childrens books, science fantasy, Steampunk

A review by Lenora

In between looking at the dark underbelly of history I also do reviews of Indie authors for a friend’s website www.ingridhall.com. Not all of the books I review for Ingrid would fit the aesthetic of this blog but I thought this one, although it is a children’s book, was very much in keeping with my interests.

The first book in the Jupiter Chronicles introduces the reader to the Callisto children: Callie 9, and Ian 12.  They live in the late nineteenth century, and have had to suffer the mysterious loss of their father Peter.  This has left the children fatherless and impoverished. While their mother struggles to provide for them, the children must face up to being the only children in school without a father.   One night Callie, the curious one, accidentally triggers a secret device in the telescope that Peter gave to his son just before disappearing.  The telescope is suddenly transformed into a steam-powered space-ship and whisks them away from their home and off across space to the planet Jupiter.  The children find themselves in the beautiful steam punk Jovian Empire, they meet the sinister hissing Emperor Phobos and with the help of Stinky Frank, a robot, set out on a series of adventures to find their father who they discover is the First Petros of Jovian; their adventures herald the beginning of the Steam punk age.

I have to admit to being incredibly biased in this review – I LOVE steam punk and am not averse to occasionally dressing up a bit steam-punky and, of course,  I do possess a very fine pair of steam punk goggles!  For anyone not familiar with Steam punk, it is basically a branch of science fiction: alternative history/speculative fiction often with a Victorian/Edwardian aesthetic.  Basically think Victorian Style with modern technology – brass computers powered by steam – that kind of thing.  I LOVE IT.  And the idea that someone had written with the intention of introducing the Steam punk aesthetic to children seemed like a fantastic idea!

This book is clearly aimed at the younger pre-teen, not being an expert on children, I would say 7-10 year olds would love this book.  It is written in a clear style that children would easily understand, yet also presents them with some challenges.   The characters of Callie and Ian are well drawn and their sibling banter is very authentic and very funny – I particularly loved Callie’s pithy entries into her journal.  Emperor Phobos was wonderfully sinister with his reptilian hisssssing speech.

There are hints of a more deadly version of Quidditch in the Drifterdash games and perhaps a nod to John Carter of Mars; the steam punk elements were all there, and beautifully described – especially the city of Jovian.  I loved the emphasis on learning which was present throughout the book and I particularly loved the way that the novel was peppered through with facts and questions – to pique the interest and feed the imagination.  The book also deals with more serious issues faced by children as it tackles the issue of growing up as a single-parent family, and coping with the loss of a parent.

All in all, this is a great book to introduce Steam punk to children, I think both girls and boys would enjoy it.  Although it is an adventure story, it is also very educational as it encourages a sense of enquiry both into history and science, whilst also appealing to the imagination and creative side of children.

You can buy the Jupiter Chronicles on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jupiter-Chronicles-Secret-Great-Spot/dp/0615633331/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366806928&sr=1-4&keywords=Chronicles+of+jupiter

Sawney Bean: Cannibal, Progaganda or Bogeyman?

Tags

Cannibal Clan, cannibals, Christie Cleek, eighteenth century, Hills have eyes, history, James I, James VI, Progaganda, Sawney Bean, scottish folklore, Scottish history, seventeenth century

By Levi L. Hill [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, image adapted by Lenora

“A man and his wife behind him on the same horse, coming one evening home from a fair, and falling into the ambuscade of these merciless wretches, they fell upon them in a furious manner…..in the conflict the poor woman fell from behind him, and was instantly murdered before her husbands face; for the female cannibals cut her throat, and fell to sucking her blood with as great a gust, as if it had been wine.  This done, they ript up her belly and pulled out her entrails….It pleased providence…that twenty or thirty from the same fair came together as a body; upon which Sawney Bean and his blood thirsty clan withdrew and made the best of their way through thick wood to their den.” Captain Charles Johnson in 1742.

The legend of Sawney Bean and his incestuous clan of cannibals is famous in Scotland and a whole heritage industry has grown up around the infamous Sawney. The grisly tale has spawned horror films such as The Hills Have Eyes, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Ravenous, as well as films dealing directly with Sawney himself.

The Legend

There are a number of versions of the legend, but most agree that Alexander ‘Sawney’ Bean was born in a village in East Lothian a few miles outside Edinburgh and that he began life as a hedger and ditcher.  Not keen on honest graft Sawney ran away from his parents in the company of a like-minded woman who may or may not have been called Black Agnes Douglas. It seems the couple tried to settle in Ballantrae but Black Agnes was accused of witchcraft and the pair decamped to the hidden cave of Bennane Head.  They soon took up a more sinister occupation suited to their vicious natures namely highway robbery with a cannibalistic twist.

Sawney Bean and wife [Pulbic domain] via Wikimedia

It is said that their reign of terror lasted for 25 years during which time they bred an incestuous clan of children and grandchildren numbering nearly 50 at the time they were caught.  They were remarkably good at evading notice, despite the high numbers of victims attributed to them – some say up to 1000 were murdered by the clan.  In part this was due to their hideout – their cave lair extended a mile under ground and its entrance was covered by the sea when the tide was in.   The other element in keeping their bloody lifestyle a secret was leaving no survivors.

The size of the clan enabled them to attack groups of travellers and it is said that they often had a surplus of food.  Discarded arms and legs were tossed into the sea miles from the cave and caused alarm amongst coastal villages when they washed up on the shore.

As the surrounding area became depopulated, and the local villagers became more fearful, accusations were levelled against innocent individuals, particularly innkeepers, and many were hanged for the crimes of Sawney Bean and his family.

Eventually the Bean Clan’s luck ran out.  They were interrupted in attacking a couple returning from a fair and their crimes were exposed.  The husband had survived the attack and took his wife’s mutilated body to the magistrate at Glasgow and the matter came to the attention of the king.

Sawney Bean’s Cave, Image by Tony Page via Wikimedia

A party of 400 men led by King James VI set out to catch the culprits.  Riding up and down the coastline it is said that they overlooked the cave because nobody could conceive of human beings living in such conditions.  But the bloodhounds they had brought with them were drawn towards the cave and the smell of rotting meat issuing from it.  Entering the cave the king and his men found Sawney Bean and his clan.  Captain Charles Johnson writing in 1742 describes what they found in the cave:

“Legs, arms, thighs, hands and feet of men, women and children, were hung up in rows like dried beef.  A great many limbs lay in pickle, and a great mass of money, both gold and silver, with watches, rings and swords, pistols, and a large quantity of clothes, both linnen and woollen, and an infinite number of other things, which they had taken from those they had murder’d, were thrown together in heaps, or hung up against the sides of the den.”

The murderous troupe was taken to Edinburgh Tollbooth, then to Leith were they were executed in suitably Grisly fashion:

“The men had their privy members cut off, and thrown into the fire before their faces, then their hands and legs were severed from their bodies; by which amputation they bled to death in some hours.  The wife, daughters and grand children…were afterwards burned to death in three several fires.”

All died cursing and unrepentant.  One daughter was said to have left the clan and married, but when the horrible deeds of her family were uncovered she was lynched by the villagers and hanged from the ‘hairy tree’.

What lies beyond the legend?

Like many legends concrete evidence is hard to locate.  One of the biggest stumbling blocks to proving Sawney Bean ever existed is that the records simply are not there.  If a thousand people had disappeared over a generation, and the culprits had been found by the King himself and executed in such a gory fashion, then surely someone somewhere would have recorded it?  Sean Thomas sees this as one of the biggest proofs that Sawney is simply a legend.

No official records, no royal records, no letters, no journals no contemporary evidence of these extraordinary crimes exists.  Even allowing for the sparsity of records in early seventeenth century Scotland Dr Louise Yeoman, in an interview with the BBC,  has pointed out that if a king such as James VI of Scotland/I of England had been involved in such a perilous and successful venture against a group of blood-thirsty cannibals he would surely have publicised it.  After all this was a king with a strong sense of paranoia and a hands on interest in demonology and witchcraft.

Frontispiece of Captain Charles Johnson’s 1742 book

In fact the earliest references to Sawney Bean and his family occur in eighteenth century English broadsheets and chap-books.  Publications that were designed to amaze and horrify their audiences with tales of terrible deeds.  Dr Yeoman in her BBC interview and Fiona Black writing in ‘The Polar Twins’ support the idea that Sawney Bean was actually a piece of English Propaganda.  It is to be noted that the earliest versions of the story appear in English publications not Scottish.  Perhaps it was a colonial view of the barbarous Scots designed to show the superiority of the English at a time when suspicion of the Scots was rife.  The Sawney Bean tale surfaces just after the Union of England and Scotland, and at a time when Anti-Jacobite feelings were running high.   Dr Yeoman further supports this interpretation with the fact that ‘Sawney’ was a derogatory name often given to Scotsmen in English cartoons at the time.

Against this view, Sean Thomas points out that these same periodicals also contain a plethora of horrible deeds perpetrated by English criminals.  However, it would seem to me that Sawney’s deeds stand out from the rest.

Neverthless there seems to be some consensus in the view that one of the biggest anomalies in the various tellings of the story relates to when the events took place.  The most common time-period is the reign of James VI/I, but versions exist that take place in the reign of James I in the 1400’s and some set in earlier periods.  Could the legend be based on earlier tales of real cannibalism?

During Scotland’s turbulent history and its many conflicts with England, there were many periods of famine.  During such times of starvation there were tales of cannibalism occurring.  One such documented case is that of Christie Cleek who lived in the reign of David II.  Christie was a butcher from Perth, and in a period of famine, he and a band of friends lived a life of scavenging to survive.  When one of the party died, Christie used his butchers skills and the group ate their comrade.  Eventually Christie took to attacking travellers and robbing them and when necessary eating them to ward of starvation.  This story is documented in the 1400’s when it was alleged to have occurred so appears to be historically plausible.

Goya [public domain] via Wikimedia

It may be that the story simply fulfills the psychological need for a good scare story and it certainly contains many of the staple ingredients of the macabre that seem to crop up time and time again whatever the century. Sean Thomas certainly draws this conclusion. Sawney Bean has never lost his gory appeal – from the broadsheets, to John Nicholson’s 1843 version of the tale, the Newgate Calendar, numerous film versions, and even the Edinburgh Dungeon’s Sawney Bean experience, shock horror endures because it appeals to something dark within the human psyche.

At the end of the day it may be that Sawney Bean is the archetypal Bogeyman, a tale to tell children at bed-time; a half-remembered folk-memory of times when famine drove people to commit terrible deeds to survive and that was then co-opted by anti-Jacobite propagandists.  We may never know for sure.

Sources

Brocklehurst, Steven, Who was Sawney Bean? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-21506077
Johnson, Charles, A General and True History of the lives and actions of the most famous highwaymen, murderers, street-robbers, &c, 1742 http://archive.org/stream/generaltruehisto00defo#page/n49/mode/2up
Sawney Bean: Scotland’s Hannibal Lector,http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/myths_legends/scotland/s_sw/article_1.shtml
The Legend of Sawney Bean, http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/scotland/dumfriesshire/legends/the-legend-of-sawney-bean.html
The Newgate Calendar – Sawney Bean, http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/scotland/dumfriesshire/legends/the-newgate-calendar-part-1-sawney-bean.html
Thomas, Sean, In Search of Sawney Bean, http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/129/in_search_of_sawney_bean.html
Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawney_Bean; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christie-Cleek

Dick Turpin, Boudica, Hangman’s Hill and the Suicide Pool: Tales from Epping Forest

Tags

Boudica, Dick Turpin, England, Epping Forest, Folklore of Epping Forest, highwaymen, history, London, Suicide Pool

Image by John Leeming/Wickimedia Commons

Epping Forest together with Hainault and Hatfield forests are all that is left of the ancient woodland known as the Forest of Essex.  Originally covering 60,000 acres, the remaining 6,000 acres of woodland with its ancient oak and beech trees, open heath, bogs, ponds and grasslands stretches for 12 miles from Manor Park in the East of London to just north of Epping in Essex, on a ridge between the valleys of Lea and Roding.

The forest has been a refuge for people escaping the plague and the bombing of London during the Second World War.   Although much of its history and folklore has been lost over time, the stories that do survive often reveal a darker more unpleasant side (such as the rumoured satanic rites at the Church of the Innocents at High Beech and the failed case of alleged satanic human sacrifices in 1991) which contrasts sharply with the mysterious beauty of the place.

A forest fit for royalty

Queen Elizabeth’s Hunting lodge by Claire Ward via Wikimedia Coommons

The forest is first mentioned in connection with royalty in the 12^th century, when an edict by Henry III allowed commoners to gather wood and foodstuffs, graze livestock and turn pigs out for mast.  Only the king was allowed to hunt.  It is believed that in 1543 Henry VIII commissioned the building of structure in Chingford known as the Great Standing which enabled the king and courtiers to watch the chase.  The timber-framed building was renovated in 1589 and its name changed to the Queen Elizabeth Hunting Lodge, although it is debatable if she ever actually visited the lodge.  In the 19^th century local landowners requests to enclosure about 550 hectares of land ignited mass protests.  Led by Thomas Willingale, the fight to protect commoners’ rights including lopping for firewood and grazing of cattle was successful and resulted in the passing of the Epping Forest Act of 1878.  In 1882, after seven centuries of royal patronage, Queen Victoria declared the forest to be “the People’s Forest” and control passed into the hands of the City of London Corporation where it remains to this day.

Dick Turpin: Butcher, thief, highwayman and forest dweller

Dick Turpin, by The Complete Newgate Calendar Volume III [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

One of the most famous names associated with the forest is Dick Turpin.  Time has merged fact and fiction creating a legend of a gentlemen highwayman, gallant and noble who died a courageous death.  The reality was very different.  Stories on his early life vary but one accepted version is that Richard Turpin moved to Buckhurst Hill (Bucket Hill) in 1725 with his wife Elizabeth to open a butcher shop.  Somehow Turpin became involved with deer thieves known as the Essex Gang led by Samuel Gregory.  Possibly Turpin disposed of the deer meat as the butcher’s shop would have been a perfect cover.  After a number of the gang were caught, the remaining members along with Turpin took to robbing isolated farmhouses, torturing the female occupants if they refused to cooperate.  The notoriety of the gang became such that a notice for their capture was placed in the London Gazette. The Gazette described Turpin as “a tall fresh coloured man, very much marked with the small pox, about 26 years of age, about five feet nine inches high”*.  In February 1735 the youngest of the Essex Gang, John Wheeler was arrested.  Under interrogation, Wheeler revealed the names of other members of the gang, who in turn were seized.  Somehow Turpin escaped and turned to the highway robbery which he became famously associated with.

Along with Matthew (Tom) King and Stephen Potter, Turpin was responsible for a number of robberies along the roads around and in the forest, instilling fear and panic amongst the locals.  In April 1737 King and Turpin stole one horse too many, the owner reported the theft to Richard Bayes, the landlord of the Green Man at Leytonstone.  Bayes tracked the animal to the Red Lion at Whitechapel and laid an ambush for Turpin and King.  In the shoot-out that followed King was killed and Turpin again evaded capture and went to ground in the forest.  Despite the man hunt that followed Turpin managed to survive undiscovered in his dugout for a couple of weeks but on the 4 May his luck finally ran out.  Thomas Morris a servant of one of the keepers stumbled across the hideaway. Turpin surprised, shot and killed Morris with his carbine.  Under the assumed name of John Palmer and with a £200 reward on his head, Turpin fled north and his association with the forest ended, at least whilst he was alive.

The location of Turpin’s cave is not exactly known and several sites have been put forward including Wellington Hill at High Road.  In the 19^th century the location of the hideaway was believed to have been found and became a popular tourist attraction.  After his death some people believed that the spirit of Turpin returned to his old hunting ground and numerous sightings of a ghost wearing a tricorn hat riding a horse have been reported in the forest.

Boudica’s last stand

Boudica by John Cassell (Internet Archive) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The revolt of Boudica, leader of the Iceni tribe is well documented by historians.  No-one really knows why she and her daughters have become associated with the forest as the tribe inhabited an area mostly falling within the county of Norfolk and there is no historical or archaeological evidence to support the theory.  The only tenuous link is through the Trinovantes and Catuvellauni tribes (who joined the Iceni in the war against the Romans) whose adjoining territory border falls within the area. The myth goes that Boudica and her followers’ last stand against the Romans took place in the forest.  Realising that there was no hope of victory, Boudica and her daughters took poison rather than risk falling into Roman hands.  Two Iron Age hill forts have been identified as possible contenders for the Iceni camp: Ambresbury Banks and Loughton Camp.  Rumour has it that at night three phantom women can be seen walking along the road near the camps.

Ambresbury Banks, image by Stephen Craven via Wikimedia Commons

Hangman’s Hill

On a slip road at High Beech, a very strange phenomenon occurs.  If you park your car at the bottom of the hill at night, turn the engine and the power off, the car can be seen to roll slowly uphill.  Local legend has it that the car is being pulled towards an ancient tree by a hangman’s noose.  The tree itself is believed to be the site of a hanging either of an innocent man who was mistakenly convicted or of three witches. Scientists call these places either magnetic or gravity hills, an optical illusion due to the layout of the surrounding area, which tricks the brain into thinking that it is going uphill rather than downhill.  Only two such places exist in England.  Although this seems a logical answer, many who have tried it found the atmosphere unnerving and sinister and are convinced that they were walking uphill. Supernatural or geological? The only way to find out is to have a go yourself.

The Suicide Pool

Blackweir Pond, Epping Forest, by Stephen Craven via Wikimedia Commons

The Irish author, Elliott O’Donnell wrote in his book “Haunted Britain” about a pool in Epping Forest which is home to unearthly presences, some very miserable and others evil.  O’Donnell never revealed the location of the pool but the belief in its existence remained ingrained in local folklore.  One story goes that about 300 years ago a young couple embarked on a dangerous and forbidden relationship, meeting secretly at a beautiful pool. The girl’s father found out and in a fit of anger he killed her at the pool, on hearing of his lover’s murder, the boy committed suicide at the same spot. After that, no birds were heard, no animals ever seen there and the water became dank.  People with no inclination committed suicide at the pool including a woman in 1887 and a young servant, Emma Morgan who killed both herself and her child. In 1959 a competition was held in the magazine “Essex Countryside” to find the exact whereabouts of the pool.  One writer claimed to know its location of the pool but refused to reveal the details.  She wrote that the place was evil beyond measure,

“The suicide pool is deep in the heart of the forest, far from any road…It is dank, evil and malignant, with an atmosphere unpleasant beyond description.  It doubt if the sunshine ever penetrates through the surrounding trees; if it did it would never lighten the black waters”**

In 2012 as a tribute to the Olympics, the folk singer Ruairidh Anderson composed a series of songs (Songs from the Howling Sea) based on specific legends from the London boroughs hosting the games.  His ballad “The Call of her Song” was inspired by the legend of the Epping Forest Suicide Pool and can be heard on YouTube.

“A Walk in the Forest”

John Clare, by William Hilton

Despite its dark history, the forest itself can rival anywhere for beauty.  This is best summed up by the poet John Clare who was treated at Dr Matthew Allen’s private asylum in High Beech for severe depression in the late 1830s.  In a letter to his wife, he remarked that he considered the countryside the finest he had ever seen. Whilst a patient he wrote a number of poems including a “A Walk in the Forest”,

“I love the Forest and its airy bounds

Where friendly Campbell takes his daily rounds

I love the breakneck hills – that headlong go

And leave me high and half the world below

I love to see the Beech Hill mounting high

The brook without a bridge and nearly dry

There’s Bucket Hill – a place of furze and clouds

Which evening in a golden blaze enshrouds”

 

 

 

 

Notes

* London Gazette no. 7379, February 1734

** Loughton and District Historical Society, newsletter 185, March-April 2010

 

Sources and Further Reading

Epping Forest, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epping_Forest

Epping Forest Then and Now, Winston G. Ramsey (Editor)

Dick Turpin, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Turpin

Dick Turpin: The Myth of the English Highwayman, James Sharpe

The Queen Boudica Gallery, http://www.sheshen-eceni.co.uk/boudica_info.html

Boudica, Vanessa Collingridge

Haunted Britain, Elliott O’Donnell

Songs from the Howling Sea by Ruairidh Anderson, http://songsfromthehowlingsea.com/tag/london-songs/ or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4jSrC-8iMk

Clare: Everyman’s Poetry, John Clare

John Clare Society, http://johnclaresociety.blogspot.co.uk/

The Ghosts of Felbrigg Hall

Tags

English Ghosts, English history, Felbrigg Hall, Ghosts, history, Norfolk, phantoms, spectres, Stately Homes, William Windham

The Approach to Felbrigg Hall

Felbrigg Hall is situated amidst vast parklands in North Norfolk and is one of the finest houses in East Anglia.  Originally the home of the Felbrigg family, the land and house was acquired in the fifteenth century by the Wyndham’s.  Its Jacobean facade hides elegant Georgian interiors that speak of the Wyndham/Windham’s tastes and fancies over the centuries.

Although the last Wyndham died over 200 years ago and the home has been in the hands of the National Trust since the 1960’s, not all of its past residents seem eager to quit their former home.

Detail from Felbrigg Churchyard

One such tale tells of an elderly woman, once a parlour made in the Hall, recounting how she and other maids would find that their candles were mysteriously extinguished when ever they passed by a particular door.  A female voice would beckon them to enter the chamber but the room was always found to be uninhabited…

By far the most famous spirit inhabiting the hall is that of William Windham III (1750 – 1810) known as ‘the fighting Windham’ for his sporting prowess.

William Windham III, image by Joshua Reynolds

William Windham was a noted orator and a prominent statesman for much of his life. His career spanned the American War of Independence, the French Revolution and the Colonial Wars of the early 19th Century; but the over-riding passion of his life, and the cause of his tragic death, was his love of books.  The wonderful Gothic library at Felbrigg, designed by James Paine in the 1750’s, was filled with books both William II and William III each brought back from their Grand Tour.

The Gothic Library, Felbrigg; © National Trust Images/Nadia Mackenzie

William was to meet his fate one summer evening in 1809. As he returned to his home in Pall Mall, he noticed a fire had taken hold in a house on Conduit Street very close to the residence of his friend Robert North.  Windham knew that his friend had a very valuable library and he immediately set about the rescue operation.  He and three others succeeded in rescuing most of the valuable manuscripts.  The rescue was not without its price though as William fell and bruised his hip.  The bruise became a tumor and the tumour needed to be operated on.  Operations in the early nineteenth century were brutal affairs, and William died as a result.  His final words, addressed to his physician were:

Felbrigg Church, resting place of the Windham family

“I thank you; this is the last trouble I shall give you.  You fight the battle well, but it will not do.”

His body was buried in the family vaults at Felbrigg Church a stones throw from the Hall…and the spectre of William Windham can occasionally be encountered in the dark and shadowy Gothic Library.  He has oft been found standing by a table when his favourite volumes were laid out; or ensconced in an easy chair, by a roaring fire, engrossed in some favourite book.  It would seem like a pleasant way to spend eternity.

Leaving the hall and walking about the grounds you soon find yourself amidst the dark woods of Felbrigg where oaks, sweet chestnuts and conifers hold sway.  Here you may cross paths with ‘Mad Windham’ driving his phantom coach through the trees.  And a spectral wind rising out of nowhere and disappearing as suddenly as it arose, may cause more than a whisper amongst the leaves….

Felbrigg woods

Links

National Trust,  http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/felbrigg-hall/

The Wicked Lady: folklore, fiction – fact?

Tags

civil war, English history, folk lore, Hertfordshire, highway women, highwaymen, history, Katherine Fanshawe, Lady Katherine Ferrers, legends, Markyate Cells, seventeenth century, The wicked lady

The Gentleman’s Magazine, Monday, 24 November 1735:

Margaret Lockwood as the Wicked Lady, 1945 Gainsborough Pictures.

“A Butcher was Robb’d in a very Gallant Manner by a Woman well mounted on a Side Saddle, &c. near Rumford in Essex. She presented a Pistol to him, and demanded his Money; he being amaz’d at her Behaviour told her, he did not know what she meant; when a Gentleman coming up, told him he was a Brute to deny the Lady’s request, and if he did not gratify her Desire immediately, he wou’d Shoot him thro’ the Head; so he gave her his Watch and 6 Guineas.”†

The term Highway Man entered the English Language in 1617, courtesy of one William Fennor in his work ‘The Counter’s Commonwealth’ and it did not take long for the female highway man to follow.

One of the most colourful and persistent legends of the female highwayman is that of The Wicked Lady.  Her tale has entered both the local folk-lore of the Hertfordshire area and become well-known to the public at large through the 1944 novel by Magdalen King Hall and the 1945 Gainsborough film starring Margaret Lockwood and James Mason.  A later more frolicsome version was also produced by Michael Winner in 1983 and starring Faye Dunaway (although it is not to be forgotten that the 1945 version was considered extremely daring in its day because of the low decolletage of the ladies gowns).

The legend of the Wicked Lady

Both book and film contain most of the salient points of the legend, although they clearly embellish the account.  King Hall names her protagonist Lady Barbara Skelton of Maryiott Cells (rather than Markyate Cell), her lover the notorious highwayman Captain Jackson.    These versions of the tale have taken on an authority of their own in imparting the legend to a contemporary audience.

The main elements of the traditional tale are that a beautiful, young and bored noblewoman takes to dressing as a man and riding the countryside between Markyate Cells, Watling Street, Nomansland Common and Gustard Wood holding up travellers at gun point and stealing their goods.  Her antics are unknown to her husband and retainers as she is able to exit Markyate Cells via a secret passageway.

She falls in love with a local farmer Ralph Chaplin and together they continue their reign of terror.  Eventually Chaplin is hanged during a failed robbery on Finchley Common and in her grief the wicked lady terrorises the villagers around  Markyate Cells burning their cottages as they sleep, killing livestock and even going as far as to kill the Constable of Caddington.

Faye Dunaway – the death of the Wicked Lady, from the Michael Winner film 1983

Despite her grief she continues to rob and plunder travellers until one night she attacks a lone waggoner on the remote and chillingly named Nomansland Common.  Unbeknownst to her, he has comrades hidden in the waggon and she is shot and fatally wounded.  Riding back to Markyate Cells she dies before she can reach her home and is found, in her highwayman’s garb, in the grounds by servants who under the cover of darkness convey her body for burial.

Spectral Sightings

It might be supposed that the death of The Wicked Lady would see the end of her antics.  However, there was more to come, as Magdalen King Hall well knew.  At least one-third of her novel deals with a fictionalised history of the sightings of the female highwayman’s ghost particularly in and around ‘Maryiott Cells’.

“Slow dragging footsteps could be heard across the floors and lights seen in windows of unoccupied rooms; where mysterious rappings, sighs and whispering disturbed the stillness of the night house.”

A trembling bishop at a garden party describes seeing a comely female form in male attire that chilled him to the bone:

“The expression on the face was malign, predatory, doleful and all together most disquieting”

Nomansland Common, image by Hogweard

Not so fanciful it would seem, as there are many real life accounts of the spectre of the Wicked Lady.  The accounts seem to begin in the nineteenth century and include the somewhat surprising manifestation of the lady swinging from the branches of an old Sycamore tree in the grounds of Markyate Cell, terrifying a gang of workmen away from the location of her hidden treasure.

In 1840 Markyate Cell burned down and this was said to have been caused by the wicked lady – those fighting the fire are said to have felt very uneasy and many thought that their efforts were being watched from the woods by her baleful spirit.

In the late 19th Century the journal of August Hare records her presence at Markyate Cell – he apparently was not phased by sharing his home with a phantom and often bid her good night when he passed her on the staircase.  One comical entry states he found her shade standing in a doorway. Calling to his wife, who was on the other side, they both ran forward arms outstretched to capture her but – of course – she was not there. I don’t believe Mr Hare’s journal notes whether he and his wife bumped noses as a result of this encounter!

In the early twentieth century one George Wood was travelling the road from Markyate to Kensworth and saw a female figure dressed as a man about half a mile away.  The figure jumped into a ditch and when he reached the spot she was gone.  Mr Wood was unaware of the legend, but a local woman interpreted his vision for him and decided it was clearly the famous highway woman herself.

In 1970, Doug Payne, owner of The Wicked Lady Pub in Wheathampstead, claimed that whilst dog walking on Nomansland Common one night he was startled by the sounds of hoof-beats fast approaching him – yet he saw no rider.  The Wicked Lady pub was an inn in the seventeenth century and was thought to be one of her haunts.

More recently still, a woman returning to St Alban’s and stuck in a traffic jam was amazed to see a rider galloping in front of her car, pursued by a figure on foot who leaned on the car bonnet!  The vision dissolved in front of her eyes.

Local legend has it that horses left out in the fields near Markyate Cell at night, have been found in the mornings foam-flecked and exhausted, as thought they had been ridden hard all night….

Who was the Wicked Lady?

Katherine Fanshawe – the wicked lady? Portrait currently in Valence House Museum

Such a rich legend has to be true, doesn’t it?  There has to be a real woman behind this legend – right?  Well many people have tried to identify the real historical woman behind the legend and by far the most popular candidate is Lady Katherine Ferrers (1634 – 1660).

Katherine Ferrers (sometimes spelled Catherine) was the daughter of Knighton Ferrers and his wife.  Early in life she suffered the tragedy of losing her father and grandfather and brother which meant that by the age of 6 she was heiress to a vast fortune and extensive property and land.  Her mother remarried in 1640 Simon Fanshawe (later Sir Simon) but died only two years later leaving the young Katherine to the mercenary mercies of her step-father.

The Fanshawes were another wealthy landowning family, and a match between the Ferrers and the Fanshawes would seem practical – both families needed to ensure an heir or die out, their lands were adjoining and both were of the same religion.  Katherine was betrothed to Simon Fanshawe’s nephew Thomas.  In 1648 when she was 14 and he was 16 they were married and their fortunes were united.

One cloud on the horizon for the young couple was the Civil War.  It is likely that both families were royalist, but the Fanshawe’s were very actively so, and had suffered as a consequence.  The Sequestration Act took one of their properties and unlike parliamentarians, royalists had to obtain funds for their cause through contributions (from willing contributors such as the Fanshawe’s and less willing contributors who were looted or taxed unfairly).  Many of the Fanshawe’s fled abroad and others were often away fighting or in prison.  All of this made the family short of ready money.  Katherine’s inheritance was fair game and bit by bit her lands and properties were sold off for the cause.  Even Markyate Cell, so integral to the legend was sold by her husband in 1655 to ‘3 Londoners’ then again in 1657 to Mr Coppins.

Did this sudden pressure on the Ferrers/Fanshawe coffers lead Katherine to a life of highway robbery?  It was not unheard of – the Civil War left may noble and dashing young royalist without funds and a number of noble men (and even some noble women) were credited with taking to the highways and byways to replenish their wealth.  Did the bored and beautiful young wife, neglected by her husband take up with the handsome Ralph Chaplin and seek a life of adventure and peril on the open road?

She certainly died young – only 26 years of age.  She was not recorded as having any issue and was buried by night not in the Fanshawe family vault as might be expected, but at St Mary’s Church, Ware.  With her early death, the Ferrers line died out.

Katherine Ferrers – Guilty or Innocent?

Putting aside any thought for what the real Katherine may have thought about her posthumous fame/infamy, I would love her to be the prototype for the Wicked Lady.  A modern minx or proto feminist who just wouldn’t sit back and be the passive wife while her inheritance was frittered away by her neglectful husband, someone who took destiny by the throat, and even though she eventually lost, someone who died trying!  I would like to think she had an exciting, if short, life.  But I just don’t think the evidence holds up.

Markyate Cell, from The Gentleman’s Magazine, 1805

Yes, she was in the right place at the right time, and circumstances could have led her to seek her fortune on the road and her early death may hint at some violent end….but.

The legend sets her base as Markyate Cell, her ancestral home, yet it has never been proven that she actually lived there and in any-case the manor was sold well before her death.  In addition to this, Markyate Cell would seem too far away from her alleged stomping ground on Nomansland Common to be practical (although Gustards Wood has been mooted as an alternative HQ).

The handsome Ralph Chaplin, who swept the bored young girl off her feet, appears no where in local records and seems as much a phantom as the unseen rider.  Finchley Common, the site of his death, is also just a bit too far away to be likely.

Her early death, and burial by night can hardly be seen as uncommon in the seventeenth century.  Insanitary conditions, even for the wealthy, and poor understanding of medicine would have led to many an untimely death.  Burial in the evening was also a common practice at that time.  Her choice to be buried in the Church at Ware may have been out of respect to her Ferrers heritage rather than a sign of disgrace.

A case of mistaken identity or folk-lore gone wild?

The female highwayman/soldier/sailor is a common folk motif in English tradition. And treasure – what good folk-tale or legend is repleat without lost treasure to keep the story alive!

“Near the Cell, there is a wellNear the well there is a tree
And under the tree the treasure be”

Ballads and folktales abound on this subject of cross-dressing highwaymen and lost treasure; and perhaps at a time of civil war when there was so much turmoil and unrest a female highwayman entering the local cannon of folk-lore might be expected.  That Katherine Ferrers name has become associated with this local legend may be down to misidentification and coincidence.

In the 1820’s builders discovered a secret passage way at Markyate Cell.  It ran from the Kitchen to a chamber above.  The discovery excited local gossip about the legendary highway woman.  In 1833 a poem called ‘Maude of Allinghame’ told of the exploits of a female highwayman.  Coincidentally Katherine’s mother was related to a family called Allinghame.

Add to this the muddled memory of the Wicked Lord Ferrers, hanged at Tyburn in 1760 for murdering a faithful servant and it’s not to big a step to create a Wicked Lady Ferrers – the film versions have the wicked lady murdering a faithful old retainer so incorporate this element.

Overall, I am with John Barber and Marianne Gilchrist on this one and I believe that on balance, Katherine Ferrers probably wasn’t the Wicked Lady of folk legend; but that the strength of this legend in the popular consciousness was such that it appropriated a real person to validate it.

Certainly Anne Fanshawe writing the family history in the 1920’s had little to say of Katherine, and gossip at the time of her death did not attribute any scandal to her name.

She was, perhaps best described thus (despite the unfortunate emphasis on her fortune):

“A very great fortune and most excellent woman”§

Katherine Fanshawe

Notes

† Quote taken from http://www.outlawsandhighwaymen.com, http://www.outlawsandhighwaymen.com/gentmag.htm

§ Quote from ‘Dictionary of National Biography’,  http://www.hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk/data/answers/answers-2001/ans-0021-wickedlady.htm

Sources

http://www.dunstablehistory.co.uk, http://www.dunstablehistory.co.uk/archives/VWX/Wicked_Lady.htm
http://www.hemelonline.com, http://www.hemelonline.com/history
http://www.hertfordshire-geneaology.co.uk, http://www.hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk/data/answers/answers-2001/ans-0021-wickedlady.htm
http://www.johnbarber.com, http://www.johnbarber.com/wickedlady.html part 1-4
/the_wicked_lady_of_markyate.html
King-Hall, Magdalen, ‘The Wicked Lady’, 1944, reprinted 1976.
http://www.lutonparanormal.com, http://lutonparanormal.com/hertfordshire/popups/markyate.html
http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk, http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/nostalgia/crimelibrary/katherineferrers/
Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Katherine_Ferrers
http://fadedvideolabels.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/the-wicked-lady-1945.html

Guilty Pleasures: Gabriella Pierce’s 666 Park Avenue Series

Tags

666 Park Aveune, fiction, Gabriella Pierce, supernatural chick lit, supernatural romance, The Dark Glamour, The Lost Soul

A Review by Lenora

Book 1: 666 Park Avenue

This series is definitely a guilty pleasure! I first came across Gabriella Pierce’s 666 Park Avenue series by accident.  I had begun following the TV series based on the books but found out that it was being cancelled mid-season.  Curious as to how the story ended I decided to read the books.  It is worth stating that the books bear very little relation to the TV series.  I have to admit to quite liking the ‘Dynasty does the Dark-side’ style of the TV series but the books were so much better.

Just one word of warning before you read on: if you haven’t read all of the books yet you might want to only read part of this post – there are a couple of potential spoilers below!!

Book One:  666 Park Avenue

Jane Boyle is a witch, only she doesn’t know it.  She has grown up in France, isolated and protected by her grandmother who is a powerful witch and is unbeknownst to Jane, in hiding.  Whilst in Paris working as an architect Jane meets and falls in love with the fabulously wealthy and gorgeous Malcolm Doran, a member of the Manhattan elite.  Book one describes Jane’s coming to terms with the fact that she has a secret witchy heritage, she also gets to indulge her penchant for designer labels courtesy of the Doran’s unlimited wealth.  Much shopping ensues.  Jane finds herself at the centre of the wedding of the year as planned by Lynne Doran, matriarch of the Doran Clan, wearer of scary peach lipstick and plotter of nefarious plans involving Jane.  Jane soon finds out that Lynne is pretty much the wickedest witch on the block tracing her ancestry back to the original witch Ambika and her evil daughter Hasina – Lynne’s favourite hobby in between shopping and sniping at Jane  is bumping off rival witches and stealing their power.  Jane also has to come to terms with the terrible secrets Malcolm is hiding from her.

Stop reading here if you haven’t read book Two!!!

Book Two: The Dark Glamour

Book 2 – The Dark Glamour

The second book has Jane, now single and undercover in Manhattan, trying to avoid the murderous plans of Lynne by reuniting her with her long-lost daughter Annette.  To do this she must play a dangerous game with some very dangerous (and needless to say gorgeous) Romanian witches, so she takes on a glamour and becomes the exotic Ella Medieros.  More shopping ensues.  Jane unpicks more of the mysteries of her own past and how they link her family to the Doran’s.  She discovers only too late that reuniting Lynne with her long-lost daughter will have devastating consequences for all of them.

Ditto – stop here if you’re not up to the final book yet!!!

Book Three:  The Lost Soul

The third and (so far) final book in the series sees Jane reunited with Malcolm and fighting to save Annette as Lynne plans a spell that will see the undying Hasina reborn again into Annette’s body.  Jane uncovers much more about her magical heritage and why she is of such importance to Lynne/Hasina. There is a lot of action in this last novel as Jane learns more about her powers and begins to use them, but in doing so puts everyone she loves at risk.

Book 3: The Lost Soul

If you like your chick-lit with a supernatural twist then you will probably enjoy these books.  Obviously I want to avoid spoilers but it’s just the usual story of: boy meets girl, girl goes shopping, boy and girl fall in love, girl goes shopping, boy betrays girl, girl goes shopping, girl has to fight ancient evil…(after picking the right outfit of course!) etc, etc.

Nevertheless there are some interesting twists.  The ancient matriarchal lineage from Ambika through her witchy daughters creates possibilities for future novels;  the idea of trying to save someone who doesn’t want to or cannot be saved is explored and there is no guarantee that there will be the happy ending for everyone that you might expect for chick-lit/supernatural romance.  There is also quite a lot of humor and even a nod to the wicked witch of the west in her ruby slippers. Although magic plays an integral part in the story and the acquisition of it is Lynne’s driving force, the novels are surprisingly light on the nitty-gritty of magic.  Similarly back-stories exist for many of the characters but are not overly explored except as they relate immediately to the narrative.

Although the ending leaves an opening for another installment of the serial,  I secretly hope that Pierce leaves this as a trilogy. The ending leaves the reader free to imagine what happened next rather than spelling things out to obviously.

Basically the books are a light frothy look at witchy socialites, and are very entertaining if not very deep.  Good for a long train journey or a lazy evening in the company of a glass of vino and a bar of chocolate!

Gabriella Pierce’s 666 Park Avenue Series is available on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/

Eyam: Village of Death

Tags

black death, bubonic plague, Derbyshire history, England, Eyam, history, mompesson, plague village, seventeenth century

A Lovers Tryst

Detail of tombstone at Eyam

Two lovers meet in secret. Gazing across the grassy Delph, they dare not speak for fear of discovery, they dare not touch for fear of the terrible consequences.  This silent meeting takes place every day for many weeks until one day, at the end of April, the young man stands there alone.  Although he returns often she does not come again.  He is fraught with worry but he cannot go seek her at her home.  His name was Rowland Torre of Stoney Middleton, her name was Emmott Sydall and she lived in the village of Eyam.

I visited the sleepy village of Eyam (rhymes with stream) on a dank and misty day in February.   The village nestled beneath damp green hills and was encircled by the shiny black branches of winter trees – the whole landscape seemed drenched in silence and mystery.  I would almost say there was a mournful air to the place, but that would be to over simplify the incredible story of this village and the terrible sacrifice its inhabitants chose to make.

Signs and Portents

They said that Plague was a punishment from God visited on the sinful, and that it should be borne with fortitude and prayer.  The seventeenth century had seen a world turned upside down with regicide, the commonwealth and the restoration bringing religious, political and economic turmoil in their wake.  But by the 1660’s things had calmed, Charles II was on the throne, the village of Eyam was thriving with a rich lead mining industry, busy yeomen farmers and tradesmen plying their trades.  But the signs were there all the same…

They said that village lads had allowed the cows to stray into the churchyard, the nave had been fouled; soon after unnatural white crickets were spied on hearths; the Gabriel hounds were heard calling on the moors:  God was displeased with Eyam.  Or so the faithful reasoned when plague arrived as an unwanted guest a year later.

The Plague

Plague Doctor/undertaker

The Plague has been known in Europe since the mid fourteenth century.  Its first terrible outbreak in the late 1340’s wiped out up to one-third of England’s population.  In the intervening years there were many sporadic outbreaks across Europe.  It was not until the early twentieth century that the cause of the plague was discovered to be bacillus carried by fleas and transmitted to Black Rats and thence (when there were not enough rats to support the fleas) to humans.

The Bubonic Plague was spread by black rats who lived in very close proximity to humans (in the wainscot, in the thatch, under your floor).  You could expect vomiting, high fever, extreme pain, gangrene in the extremities, swellings of the lymph glands, particularly in the groin.  These swellings were excruciatingly painful, large and often burst.

“The pain of the swelling was in particular very violent and to some intolerable; physicians and surgeons may be said to have tortured many poor creatures, even into death.”  So wrote Daniel Defoe in his ‘Journal of the Plague Year’.

The Pneumonic Plague  was even more virulent as a flea bite was not required in its transmission – it was spread by the coughs and sneezes from its victims.  Pneumonic plague affected the blood and lead to extreme fluctuations in temperature which usually lead to coma and death.

During the three hundred or so years when the Plague visited and revisited Europe, people had few defences against it.  Nostrums and charms both Christian and more pagan varieties were employed.   Sweet smelling nosegays were used to ward of noxious plague filled air; fires were burned in the streets to disperse the infected miasma.  Some of the cures on offer were unorthodox to say the least – tying a chicken or a toad to the buboe to draw off the poison; poultices made up of varying degrees of foul ingredients.  Preventative measures were taken such as killing cats and dogs who were mistakenly seen as responsible for spreading the plague; and most disturbing of all the immuring of whole families where plague had visited a household, effectively condemning sick and healthy alike to a slow and painful death.  Some advice was sound:  leave the infected area, however this also facilitated the spread of the disease.

Plague comes to Eyam

1665 saw the plague raging in London but the remote village of Eyam would seem far away from the problems of the capital. But plague, like bad news, travels fast.  Legend has it that sometime in August or September 1665 a bundle of cloth was sent from London (some say Canterbury) to a travelling tailor lodging with Mrs Cooper of Eyam.

The Plague Cottages

Records suggest that Mrs Cooper was a relatively affluent widow, and possibly a merry one as she married a second time in March of 1665.  Her new husband Alexander Hadfield may have been the travelling tailor referred too in local legend but he was away from home at the time of the plague (not returning until much later).  It is likely that he had an apprentice or a servant by the name of George Viccar’s whose fate was to be the first victim of the plague.  Dr Richard Mead, writing in the eighteenth century and using the recollections of Mompesson’s son described the scene thus:

“a box of materials relating to his trade [was delivered] a servant [George Viccars] who opened the aforesaid box, finding they were damp was ordered to dry them by the fire.”

Perhaps he loosed fleas from the cloth or perhaps flea eggs hatched in the warmth of the fire, what ever he let loose George Viccars paid the price and died within the week.  The second victim was young Edward Cooper Mrs Cooper’s son.  Over the next few days close neighbours began to fall ill and die: Peter Hawksworth, Thomas Thorpe and his 12-year-old daughter.  It couldn’t have taken long for the villagers to realise that something was terribly wrong.

The deaths continued through the late summer and autumn, those who had means, such as the wealthy Sheldon family, fled.  Those who were tied to their trade or land, or simply too poor or too late to flee remained.  Some camped in the hills and caves in the surrounding area but many stayed in the village.  Those who camped nearby might have made the best decision – in fleeing the outbreak they had left behind the insanitary conditions that helped spread the plague.

Plague comes in the summer, preferring the warmer months of the year so there was a falling off of deaths during the winter.  Numbers began to creep up again in spring 1666, and by April there had been 73 deaths (well above the average for a village of Eyam’s size).  May saw a lull and the villagers hoped for the best.  Medical knowledge of the day said there should be a clear gap of 21 days with no new infections before an area could be deemed clear of plague.  Eyam was not so lucky.

William Mompesson

By June many more had fled – the Rector William Mompesson had sent his children to safety in Yorkshire although his consumptive wife Catherine had insisted on remaining by his side to help tend the sick, although it would cost her life (she died in August and was buried in the churchyard by special dispensation).  It was clear that action needed to be taken in order to prevent plague spreading beyond the village.  In the absence of the usual village hierarchy who had mostly fled, the Rector became the focus of authority in the village.  However, village life was never simple and the rector was a young man and a newcomer to the village.  He needed an ally in order to successfully carry out any action, and he found it in Thomas Stanley the former incumbent.

Thomas Stanley was a puritan who replaced the traditionalist and unpopular rector during the civil war.  The old rector was re-established in 1660, but Stanley remained a part of religious life in the village and was very popular.  Mompesson took the rectorship in 1664 but Stanley’s influence must still have been very strong in the village.  Nevertheless  despite their widely differing views both were able to put aside these differences in order to present a united front to the village.  This unity undoubtedly helped in gaining their parishioners consent to the radical plan the men proposed.

A Simple Plan

1. No more burials in the churchyard – people would bury their own dead on their own land or gardens.
2. The Church would be closed and services would be held out-of-doors at Cucklet Church, in the Delph, with family groups remaining at least 12 feet apart from their neighbours (sound advice).
3. The village would be quarantined.  No one would leave or enter the village until it was clear of plague in order to prevent it spreading to neighbouring villages and towns such as Bakewell, Fulwood and Sheffield.

The villagers entered into a pact with their Rector and consented to the quarantine, knowing full well that for many of them it was a death sentence.  Nevertheless their religious faith fortified their resolve – many felt it was their religious duty to seek divine forgiveness, some went to the extreme of refusing the cures on offer for fear of offending God.

It is hard to understand how terribly these simple rules would have affected the villagers. It is harder still to imagine the suffering that was to come:  whole families were wiped out, people were forced to bury their own dead, inscribe their own headstones when even the mason died.  The infected, whilst still living, would have heard their own graves being dug in preparation.  But death would bring no respite because at that time it was held that if a person was not buried in consecrated ground they would not rise on Judgement Day and be reunited with loved ones in paradise.  That was the extent of the sacrifice the villagers were prepared to make to prevent plague spreading.

Staying alive

Mompesson’s well

Despite the bleak outlook, in the midst of death, life still goes on.  Practical measures were implemented to alleviate suffering.  The Earl of Devonshire paid for food and medical supplies and local villages supported Eyam by supplying goods which were dropped off and paid for at set points around the boundaries of the Cordon Sanitaire.  Many of these drop off points remain today as poignant reminders of this time.  In order to disinfect coins left by the villagers they were usually left in water – Monday Brook earned its name at this time when goods from Bakewell’s Monday market were exchanged there.  The Boundary Stone has niches drilled in it that were filled with vinegar to disinfect the coins and Mompesson’s Well sits on a lonely stretch of the Grindleford Road.

Of death and life

The death toll was huge, Mompesson stated 76 families were affected. Some of the monthly figures show the devastation of the plague:  July 56 deaths, August 78, September 24, October 14.

However, statistics can never truly convey the human cost of plague, individual families suffered huge losses:  Jane Hawksworth lost 25 members of her immediate and extended family; The Talbot’s and the Hancock’s were all but wiped out:  Mrs Hancock burying her husband and 6 children in the space of a week before eventually fleeing Eyam.  The graves she dug can still be seen, and have become known as the Riley Graves, they stand as a silent testament to one woman’s almost unimaginable loss.

The Riley Graves dug by Mrs Hancock, Image by Stephen G Taylor

Not everyone who contracted plague died, some survived and their stories have entered local folk-lore. Margaret Blackwell was in the final stages of plague when suffering from a raging thirst she swigged back a jug of bacon fat mistaking it for milk.  She vomited up the fat and made a remarkably swift recovery, convinced that the bacon fat had saved her.  Another case has a certain macabre humor about it – Marshall Howe himself a plague survivor thought he may have built up some immunity so offered his services (for a fee) to help bury the dead.  One such client was a man called Unwin, and as Marshall dragged the corpse towards its grave, he was horrified to hear the dead man call for a drink.  Marshall fled in terror thinking the dead had risen.

Finally by Christmas 1666 Plague was officially over and the villagers began to return to their homes.  One final action was required to ensure plague was gone for good and, lead by the Rector himself, villagers burned all but the clothes on their backs.

Emmott and Rowland meeting at Cucklet Church, in the Delph, a window at St Lawrence Church

And what of Emmott and Rowland?  Rowland was one of the first outsiders to enter the village once the quarantine was lifted.  When he found the Sydall house empty his hopes must have begun to fade.  He soon discovered that the Sydall’s were all dead and that his precious Emmott had fallen ill and died shortly after their last meeting.  All his months of waiting and hoping had been in vain.

In all close to 260 villagers of Eyam died in the outbreak which lasted for 14 months.  But they had succeeded in their plan – the plague did not spread beyond Eyam.

Today Eyam is a working village, but it has never forgotten its extraordinary history.  The Parish Church commemorates events in a stained glass window, and Eyam Museum provides historical detail.

Every year, at the end of August a commemorative service is held at Cucklet Church, in the Delph, to remember those who made this sacrifice.

List of plague victims on display at St Lawrence Parish Church, Eyam

Sources

BBC – Legacies, http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/myths_legends/england/derby/article_1.shtml
Clifford, John, ‘Eyam Plague 1665 – 1666’, 2003 edition
Eyam Museum, http://www.eyammuseum.demon.co.uk/museumguide.htm
St Lawrence Eyam Parish Church, http://www.spanglefish.com/EyamChurch/index.asp?pageid=14206