The Tragic Life of Catherine Tylney-Long

Tags

Catherine Tylney-Long, Child family, haunting, pocket Venus, Wanstead House, Wanstead Park, William Wellesley-Pole

A haunting among ruins

Catherine Tylney-Long, artist unknown, from Friends of Wanstead Park website

The story goes that amongst the ruins of the now long forgotten stately home of Wanstead House, the lonely ghost of a wretched heiress wanders unable to rest.  A tragic figure who either committed suicide or died from a broken heart. She walks the estate mourning her life and the love she held for a man who was never worthy of her.

The often seen ghost has long been reputed to be that of Catherine Tylney-Long, the last owner of Wanstead House. Although the haunting conjures up the traditional, romantic image of a doomed love affair, the little known story of the actual life and death of Catherine Tylney-Pole, an heiress, whose hand was once sought by all the most eligible men in the kingdom is even more poignant.

One of the grandest houses of its age

Wanstead House from Nathaniel Spencer, The Complete English Traveller, 1771, public domain, Wikimedia

The Child family first leased the estate of Wanstead Park in 1667, owning it outright from 1678. Richard Child, first Viscount Castlemaine and later Earl Tylney of Castlemaine replaced the old house with an immense Palladian mansion and laid the foundations for the gardens. The house designed by Colen Campbell became famous in Essex for “the grandeur of its architecture, its commanding position, and the beauty of its surroundings”1. Sometime around 1731, Richard Child commissioned Hogarth to produce a conversation piece. Entitled “An Assembly at Wanstead House 1728-1731”, the painting of the sumptuous long ballroom was used as a vehicle to flaunt Child’s wealth with expensive sculptures, marble work, furniture and tapestries all visible in the top half of the painting.

Later generations embellished, developed and beautified the gardens, employing the most skilled and eminent landscape gardeners of the day.

“Wanstead house…is a large and magnificent structure, standing in an extensive park, and surrounded with gardens and pleasure grounds…The prospects from several of the apartments are extremely beautiful, and include a very extensive part of the surrounding country.”2

The importance of the park today is confirmed by its Grade II listed status with Dr Simon Thurley of English Heritage writing that it is “of immense importance, being one of the most significant Parks in England”.3

“The Pocket Venus”

James Long inherited Wanstead Park from his Uncle, Earl Tylney and took the family name. He had four children with his second wife Catherine Sydney Windsor. Sir James Long-Tylney died two months after the birth of his only son, also called James. James died shortly before his eleventh birthday and the Tylney and Long estates passed to his eldest sister, the 16-year-old Catherine. An acknowledged beauty of diminutive stature “pocket Venus” with a lovely, pious and gentle nature, it seems becoming an heiress was the worst thing that ever happened to her.

Recognised as the richest commoner in the kingdom with estimates of her wealth ranging from the ridiculous one million pound mark to the more sensible £300,000, not surprisingly, Catherine suddenly saw herself at the centre of a lot of male attention. Her popularity was parodied using lines from Oliver Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield “Man wants but little here below, But wants that little long”4. On her début a paper reported “Lady Catherine Tylney-Long commenced her career in the fashionable world on Monday night in Grosvenor square with a splendid ball. Her ladyship possesses an immense fortune”5. It was reputed that whenever she drove around the park, she was accompanied by a bevy of suitors who rode around her carriage as guards around a king. Her most ardent admirers included Robert ‘Romeo’ Coates, an eccentric who was considered the vainest man of his day and the Duke of Clarence, whose proposal Catherine turned down, afraid that he was only after her money. Possibly fear of fortune hunters was the reason that Catherine did not marry until she was 22. Unfortunately when she did, she made a terrible mistake and in the end chose the sort of man she had tried so hard to avoid.

Enter William Wellesley-Pole

William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley, 4th Earl of Mornington and a rotter and a bounder. Artist unknow, 1812, public domain.

Born in Ireland to one of the most eminent families in the kingdom, his uncle being none other than the Duke of Wellington, William was reported to have been a wild, difficult child, resistant to any attempts to educate him. In his mid-teens he ran up considerable debts. His family bought him a commission in the army which he seems to have promptly resigned (possibly due to his inability to listen to authority) and decided to go into politics. A failure in this too and after losing a lot of money into the bargain, William decided the only answer to his problems was to marry an heiress and so unlucky for her, he set his sights on Catherine Tylney-Pole. William proposed to Catherine seven times, why she finally changed her mind is not really known as it appears that the decision was made against her better judgement and in spite of her mother’s concerns. Maybe he just wore down her defences, maybe in the end she succumbed to his dubious charms or maybe his powerful family put pressure on her to accept. One story following the tradition of all the best  romantic fiction relates that it was only after she learnt that he had fought a duel in her name, possibly in her mind proving the verity of his feelings that she finally agreed to marry him. The groom forgetting the wedding ring seems with hindsight to bode ill for their future but on the 14 March 1812 at St James’s in London with the bride wearing a wedding outfit of real Brussels’ point lace and a necklace worth 25,000 guineas, she became Catherine Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley and he secured a life’s interest in his wife’s estate.

Married life

Although at the beginning they seemed happy, it was not long before William went back to his dissipated ways and scandalous rumours started to surface. The couple decided that Wanstead House needed modernising and begun an extravagant and expensive refurbishment which as one paper reported

“is fitting up Wanstead House in a style of magnificence exceeding even Carlton House“ 6

It was also reported that William entertained with lavish parties from which his wife was excluded and magnificent suppers after the opera, gambled outrageously, hosted extravagant stag hunts and spread sovereigns around field workers like confetti.

Assembly at Wanstead House by William Hogarth, mid 18th century. Public Domain, Wickimedia

Failed expensive political campaigns did even more damage to their finances and in a bid to generate more funds William mortgaged the marriage settlement trust which included Wanstead House and its contents. In just over ten years, William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley had run through his wife’s immense fortune. With a debt of £250,000, William ever ready to shirk responsibility claimed

“I found that I had been robbed to an enormous amount by the person who had the control and management of my large expenditure at Wanstead for upwards of three years” 7

The only recourse the family had to escape their debtors was to flee to the continent.

Fugitives abroad      

Whilst abroad William unsurprisingly did not have a sudden crisis of conscience instead his behaviour towards his wife continued to worsen. In Italy he became involved with Helen Paterson-Blight, the wife of an ailing captain of the Coldstream Guards and the protégé and according to rumours started by William himself, the natural daughter of the Duke of Wellington. Forced to leave her family and home, made destitute and now humiliated by William, Catherine tried to mitigate any further disgrace by buying off her rival. Failing, Catherine gave up and returned to England with her four children to seek a permanent separation from her husband.

The end of Wanstead House

In order to pay their debts, Catherine had no choice but to put the Wanstead Estate up for sale. First the contents were auctioned and when the house itself failed to generate any interest after 32 days, it was pulled down and the timber and fabric sold. A house which had cost £360,000 to build in the end sold for just £10,000.

Dreams of a Winter’s night by Geraldine Pilgrim, 2007. Photo by Lenora.

“The highest ornament of the age”

In 1825, in order to protect her children and prevent them from ever suffering at the hands of their father again, Catherine made them Wards in Chancery and started divorce proceedings. A few months later, Catherine fell ill, fearing again for her children’s future security she changed her will in favour of them, disinheriting her husband. Her dying wish was that they should never see their father again. She died at the age of 35 years on the 12 September 1825 at the family’s seat of Draycott where she was buried.

Her family and friends believed that her death was hastened by the fear of losing her children and her husband’s harassment. There is a strong possibility that she was suffering from an inflammation of the bowels caused by a venereal disease, a final parting gift from William!

A number of obituaries were published on her passing. The tragedy of her life and death seemed to saddened society. She was called “one of the highest ornaments of the age in which she lived”8 and Sir George Dallas writing a beautiful epitaph in her memory praised her beauty, piety and virtue, “Few of her sex ever commenced life with more brilliant, prospects, or closed it under a darker cloud”9. It was Bell’s Life for Sporting which pithily summed up her life, “Let her fate be a warning to all of her sex, who blessed with affluence, think the buzzing throng which surround them have hearts, when, in fact they have none”10.

The death of a scoundrel

18th Century Gaming chips, image by Lenora

William fell even further into debt after being sued in 1827 by the Captain Thomas Bligh for criminal conversation with his wife. Bligh was awarded damages in the amount of £6000 and filed for divorce. William married Harriet but soon fell into his old habits, frittering away her fortune, having affairs and leaving her destitute (records reveal that in 1847 she was claiming poor relief). Vilified in the press and cast out by his family, denied the rights of a father and excluded from society, William spent the last three decades in poverty and obscurity. He died in 1857 in cheap lodgings of heart failure at the age of 69 whilst eating a boiled egg. A newspaper obituary notice had no qualms about talking ill of the dead,

“A spendthrift, a profligate, and gambler in his youth, he became a debauchee in his manhood…Redeemed by no single virtue, adorned by no single grace, his life has gone out without a flicker of repentance”11

A final thought

The only remains which survive of the palatial house and magnificent gardens are a building known as The Temple and the Wanstead Grotto. Built in the mid-18^th century, the grotto as part of an overall design for the gardens, the aim of which was to create the illusion of a romantic and ethereal world. The main chamber of the grotto was used as a boathouse which opened directly onto the lake. In 1884 it was destroyed by a fire and only a small part survived.

The Grotto, Wanstead Park, built c1760. Image Geograph.org via Wickimedia

Maybe to some extent Catherine did die of a broken heart but if her ghost does wander the park and grotto she does so not out of grief for her husband but out of sadness for a promising life that went so tragically wrong and the part she played in the destruction of her beautiful ancestral home.

Notes

1 A description of Wanstead House and its park in 1819,

2 The New British Traveller (1819)

3 Welcome to the Friends of Wanstead Parklands

4 The Lady Victoria Tylney Long Wellesley: A memoir,

5 Wanstead Park

6 The Owners of Wanstead Park: Part 10 1784-1825

7 The Owners of Wanstead Park: Part 10 1784-1825

8 The Lady Victoria Tylney Long Wellesley: A memoir

9 Beaux of the Regency

10 Earls before Swine

11 The Morning Chronicle, 4 July 1857

References

Friends of Wanstead Parklands, http://www.wansteadpark.org.uk

The New British Traveller (1819), James Dugdale

Beaux of the Regency, Lewis Melville

A description of Wanstead House and its park in 1819, http://www.wansteadpark.org.uk/hist/a-description-of-wanstead-house-and-its-park-in-1819/

The Lady Victoria Tylney Long Wellesley: A memoir, www.archive.org/stream/ladyvictoriatyln00barrich/ladyvictoriatyln00barrich_djvu.text

Wanstead Park, www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/greater-london/hauntings/wanstead-park.html

Earls before Swine, www.marylebone.journal.com/history/earls-before-swine

The Owners of Wanstead Park: Part 10 1784-1825, www.wansteadpark.org.uk

Book Review – A Dangerous Place by Robin Herne

Tags

A Dangerous Place, Animism, crime stories, Genius Loci, Moon Books, mysticism, Polytheism, Robin Herne, Short stories

I originally posted this review on http://www.ingridhall.com on the 6 September but thought a few of my readers might also find this book of great interest…

Robin Herne

Robin Herne is a practicing Druid who lives in Suffolk and has a number of books already under his belt.  Founder of the Druidic Clan Ogma and the Ipswich Pagan Council Robin Herne is also an accomplished story-teller and poet. His latest volume of short stories, A Dangerous Place, will be published by Moon Books on 27 September 2013.

A Dangerous Place by Robin Herne

‘A Dangerous Place’ is a collection of ten crime stories set in Ipswich, and covering over two thousand years of history.  From the Iron-Age to the modern-day; the sinister power of Castle Hill exudes its baleful influence on those who inhabit it leading to gruesome murder after gruesome murder.

I have to say that the only thing I knew about Ipswich, before picking up this book, was that a few years back it gained notoriety as the stomping ground of a serial killer bent on murdering women – so the title ‘A Dangerous Place’ certainly seemed appropriate.  However, the focus and theme of this book is the animist and polytheist concept of how a place can have a ‘genius loci’, spirit of place, which can influence its human inhabitants.  Robin Herne provides a very good introduction to explain the premise for his collection to those less familiar with this world view.

The setting for each of the ten tales is Castle Hill, Ipswich, and each of  tales takes place in distinct and well researched historical periods – in fact Herne ends each story with a comprehensive (and very readable) set of explanatory notes.  I was reminded of other weightier tomes such as Edward Rutherford’s ‘London’ which told the story of London from earliest times and, like Herne, had reoccurring families and character-types.  Unlike Rutherford though, Herne weaves a pagan and spiritual theme throughout his tales.  Not just travelling through social history (there is a welcome inclusion of gay and lesbian victims and protagonists in the cast of characters ); but through the history of beliefs – Druids, Heathens, Puritans, Spiritualists and Modern Pagan all get a turn on the murderous stage of history.  Herne demonstrates how paganism once the lifeblood of Britain was suppressed by incoming religions but never quite eradicated.

One of the things that I liked most, was that Herne was not afraid to incorporate real historical characters.  One of my favourite stories was set in the seventeenth century and concerned Mary Lakeland, a real life woman accused of murdering her husband through witchcraft.  The epistolary style of this tale was very effective.  He also incorporated the often neglected role of the ‘Cunning man’ into one of his tales – and I could definitely see Dr Bayldon Winter being the focus of further stories!

My decided preference was for the later tales – I can say that I really began to enjoy these stories from The Golem onwards; ‘Suffer a Witch’, ‘A Doctor Calls’ and ‘The Black Dog’ were my favorite stories (Look out for the humorous parody of Holmes and Watson in The Black Dog).  Perhaps it is simply that I am more familiar with those historical periods, or that the sinister reputation of Castle Hill took a few stories to establish itself! Herne admits in the introduction that it is almost impossible to define what characterises a Genius Loci as joyful or sinister…he considers that in some cases it may be simply experience that makes a place hostile to humans…and he certainly wastes no time in laying down enough negative experiences connected with Castle Hill to make the reader believe his theory.

One of the elements that I particularly enjoyed about these tales was that although they each ‘stand alone’ the folk memories and long forgotten religious practices of previous generations that feature in earlier tales, resurface as half remembered  folk-memories (the dog is one such reoccurring theme) and are woven into the fabric of each succeeding story, thereby providing the dark thread that binds both the past and the future together.

My only caveat would be that the short story format does not always allow for a great amount of detail to build up, those expecting complex forensic crime stories may be a little disappointed at the speed at which crimes are wrapped up.  However, Herne provides a well researched, entertaining collection of murder mysteries in a variety of literary styles and with a historical and spiritual twist.  Not only that, he successfully creates a wonderful cast of memorable and sometimes eccentric detectives who employ everything from observation, psycho-analysis to mysticism in their historical crime-fighting.  All in all, a good read!

A Dangerous Place by Robin Herne will be published by Moon Books on 27 September:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/A-Dangerous-Place-Robin-Herne/dp/1782792112/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1378495540&sr=8-1&keywords=A+Dangerous+Place+by+Robin+Herne

The Curse of the Delhi Purple Sapphire

Tags

Christopher Blayre, Colonel W. Ferris, cursed jewels, cursed stones, Dehli Purple Sapphire, Edward Heron-Allen Edward Heron-Allen Edward Heron-Allen, Indian Mutiny, Indra, The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins

“The devil’s pet bait…”

Cullinan Diamond

Gemstones have for centuries been objects of fascination and most cultures have at one time or another ascribed to them magical properties.  Many are seen as possessing healing or protective qualities such as the amethyst.  The ancient Greeks believed that an amethyst would prevent the wearer from becoming drunk whilst medieval European soldiers wore amethyst amulets to protect them in battle.  On the other hand the rarity, beauty and value of most gems have led them to become objects of desire and so it is little wonder that their ability to generate greed and envy has often been used in literature to explore the theme of how far a person would go to possess them.   Sherlock Holmes in “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” investigates the theft of a blue garnet (the carbuncle) and gives a damning verdict on the seductiveness of gems,

Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, Image Granada TV

“Holmes took up the stone and held it against the light. “It’s a bonny thing,” said he. “Just see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil’s pet baits. In the larger and older jewels every facet may stand for a bloody deed… In spite of its youth, it has already a sinister history. There have been two murders, a vitriol-throwing, a suicide, and several robberies brought about for the sake of this forty-grain weight of crystallised charcoal. Who would think that so pretty a toy would be a purveyor to the gallows and the prison?”

In “The Hobbit” and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy this sinister influence is depicted in its most extreme form.  You have only to think of Gollum whose obsession with the evil ring “his precious” had corrupted both his body and mind turning him into “a small, slimy creature“.

The question that this raises is are there elements of truth in these stories? Yes people have killed to acquire gemstones but do they possess magical qualities? If they do and many people believe gems to have benevolent properties, is it also possible that some of them could be cursed? One gem whose curse seems not to have lessened over time is that of an amethyst which was mistakenly named the Delhi Purple Sapphire and unlike the talismans of the medieval age seems intent to harm rather than protect its owners.

A sacrilegious theft

Temple of Indra, 19C image [public domain]

In Cawnpore (Kanpur) during the bloody Indian Mutiny of 1857, a Bengal cavalryman stole a purple gemstone from the a sacred temple of Indra, the Hindu god of weather (rain and thunderstorms) and war, who carries a lightning bolt and rides a white elephant.  The soldier, a Colonel W. Ferris brought the purple amethyst back to England.  Although during the Victorian era the plunder and looting of religious artefacts was nothing new, for Colonel Ferris the period of time from when he “acquired” the jewel seemed to coincide with an unfortunate downturn in his health and financial fortunes.  His son when he inherited the jewel also suffered the same fate, losing both his health and money.  The ill fortune was not just confined to the family of the thief; a friend was also reported to have committed suicide whilst in possession of the jewel.

The Dehli Sapphire

An unlikely victim

Edward Heron-Allen

Edward Heron-Allen was born in 1861 in London.  Educated at Harrow, he enjoyed studying the sciences, classics and music.  Although as an adult he practiced law, his interests were eclectic and his exceptional intellectual ability meant that he excelled in everything he undertook.  He became an accomplished violin player; an expert in palmistry, graphology, palaeontology and the Persian language and; a writer producing books on a wide-range of subjects from archaeology to Buddhism to the cultivation of the asparagus.  He also wrote science fiction and horror books under the alias “Christopher Blayre”.

On the surface he seems an unlikely victim of a curse and it would appear that initially he was sceptical about the stories that surrounded the stone, otherwise why in 1890 would he have so willingly accepted it.  He seems to have quickly changed his mind as he claimed to have had bad luck from the moment he became its owner.  Again the bad luck seemed to extend to family friends.  One of his friends who asked for it seemed to suffer every type of misfortune and another a singer lost her voice and never sung again.  Heron-Allen believed that the stone was cursed and “stained with the blood, and the dishonor of everyone who has ever owned it.”  He kept it in seven boxes and surrounded it with lucky charms.  In despair he even tried to throw it into a canal only to have it returned to him from a dealer who himself had acquired it from a dredger.  With the birth of his baby daughter in 1904 and in fear that the bad luck would affect her, Heron-Allen sent the stone to his banker instructing him to lock it away until after his death and never to let his daughter hold it.

In 1943, after Heron-Allen died, his daughter donated the stone to the Natural History Museum along with a note on the accursed history of the gem and a written warning.  Even after over fifty years the family’s belief in the curse remained undiminished with his grandson, Ivor Jones a 77 year old former naval officer refusing to hold it stating that

“My mother certainly wouldn’t touch it and she recommended that we didn’t either because of the curse.”1

“Cast it into the sea.”

In 1974, a curator at the Natural History Museum chanced upon the stone whilst looking in the mineral cabinets along with the Heron-Allen’s note.

“Whoever shall then open it, shall first read out this warning, and then do as he pleases with the jewel. My advice to him or her is to cast it into the sea.“²

Obviously the warning went unheeded as most curators are reluctant to dispose of any objects in their collection for more practical reasons let alone the threat of malignant misfortune.  Maybe the advice should have been listened to, as the stone continued to cause trouble.

Image from noupe.com

In 2000, John Whittaker, former head of the Natural History Museum’s micropalaeontology team, took the amethyst to the first annual symposium of the Heron-Allen Society.  Maybe the stone still carried a grudge against its former owner for on the way Whittaker found himself in the middle of a horrendous thunderstorm,

“the sky turned black and were overtaken by the most horrific thunderstorm I’ve ever experienced…we considered abandoning the car and my wife was shouting ‘Why did you bring that damned thing.”3

At the second symposium he became sick with a stomach bug and third time unlucky he ended up passing a kidney stone!

A literary parallel

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

In my personal opinion the stone’s setting does not make it a particularly attractive piece of jewellery but it is interesting.  The silver ring is decorated “with astrological symbols and mystical words with two scarab-carved gems attached”.4  All this just adds to its preternatural air emphasising the stone’s religious significance.

As I was reading about the curse, I could not help see parallels with the plotline of “The Moonstone” by Wilkie Collins.  The background to the story concerns the murderous actions of a British army officer who steals a valuable Indian diamond from a holy shrine during the Siege of Seringapatam.  This sets in motion a series of unfortunate consequences for himself, his niece and many others. Whether here the theft of the diamond really invokes a curse is open to interpretation but it is noticeable that peace is only truly restored when the Moonstone is returned to its temple by its hereditary guardians.

The Hope Diamond

Although “The Moonstone” is meant to be based on the origin story of either the Hope Diamond or the Black Orlov Diamond (both also believed to be cursed gems with equally colourful histories), it could easily refer to the Delhi Purple Sapphire.  All three gems were stolen from India and all seemed to have exacted their revenge.  What is difficult to understand is why in the case of the Delhi Purple Sapphire did no one think to follow the advice given in “The Moonstone” and return the stone to its rightful place?  It may have ended the curse but then again it would have made a less interesting story.

Indra, true owner of the Dehli Purple Sapphire?

Notes

1 http://www.otherworldnortheast.org.uk/the-cursed-delhi-purple-sapphire/

2 http://www.gemselect.com/help/newsletter/newsletter-mar-12.php

3 http://www.otherworldnortheast.org.uk/the-cursed-delhi-purple-sapphire/

4 http://www.luxist.com/tag/the+delhi+purple+sapphire/

References

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins

The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

Short Biography of Edward Heron-Allen by R.B. Russell, http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/heronallen/ehabiog.htm

Sinister Sparkle Gallery: 13 Mysterious & Cursed Gemstones, http://www.livescience.com/18407-mysterious-cursed-gems-diamonds.html

The Delhi Purple Sapphire, http://www.gemselect.com/help/newsletter/newsletter-mar-12.php

The Cursed Delhi Purple Sapphire, http://www.otherworldnortheast.org.uk/the-cursed-delhi-purple-sapphire/

Cursed stone goes on display in London by Deidre Woollard, http://www.luxist.com/tag/the+delhi+purple+sapphire/

King Coal and the witch-pricker: the Newcastle witch trials of 1649/50

Tags

civil war, Hobson, King Coal, Newcastle Corporation, Newcastle upon tyne, Newcastle Witches, Ralph Gardiner, seventeenth century, St Andrews Church Newcastle, witch trials, witch-prickers

Newcastle c1590

The case of the Newcastle Witches lead to one of the biggest witch trials in England, yet the story is not as well-known as the infamous cases at Berwick and Pendle.  This is a tale of a ruthless City Corporation,  a coal monopoly, a corrupt witch-finder and how a skeptical Lieutenant with an eye for the ladies saved an accused witch from the gallows-tree.

Newcastle in the Seventeenth Century

Newcastle Keep, image by Lenora

The seventeenth century was a time of turmoil, civil war, regicide and religious upheaval; as if this wasn’t enough it was also a superstitious age and an age of dreadful and incurable diseases.  All of these factors created a perfect recipe for social and economic uncertainty across England.  In such parlous times, people often look for scapegoats….

“In every place and parish, every old woman with a wrinkled face, a scolding tongue, having a rugged coate on her back, a skull-cap on her head, a spindle in her hand, a dog or cat by her side, is not only suspected but pronounced a witch.  Every new disease, notable accident, miracle of nature, rarity of art, nay, and strange work or just judgement of God, is by the people accounted for no other but an act or effect of witchcraft.” [1]

Newcastle upon Tyne, in the mid seventeenth century, had been in the thick of things.  Burgeoning industrialisation on Tyneside as a whole had created a large class of poor and often disgruntled workers – as many as 40% of households in Newcastle did not have a fireplace.  In 1636 the city had been visited by plague and the death toll had been devastating – out of a population of 20,000 people 7,000 died.

In the impending Civil War, Newcastle found itself on the Royalist side and as a hub of the Coal trade was a rich source of funds for the king. As tensions rose in the Kingdom,  Charles I decided to introduce (or should that be foist?) the English Prayer Book on Scotland.  London merchants saw this as a perfect opportunity to hit out at the King, and hit him where it hurt most (in his pocket) so they encouraged the Scots to capture Newcastle in order to disrupt the highly lucrative coal monopoly.  The town was captured in 1640 then again following a siege in 1644 – this time the Scot’s army stayed for two years.

16 & 17C Buildings on Sandhill, Newcastle. Image by Lenora

Ralph Gardiner and the coal monopoly

Frontispiece of Ralph Gardiner’s book published in 1655

By the end of 1640’s, with the Civil War ended, the Corporation of Newcastle was now in the hands of the Puritan’s in place of its former Royal Burgesses.  The new Puritan Corporation was no less harsh or money-grubbing than the previous one, and continued to exercise the lucrative monopoly on the coal trade much to the annoyance of one Ralph Gardiner.  It is thanks to Gardiner and his book which railed against the Coal monopoly that we have so much information on one of the largest witch trials in England – that of the Newcastle Witches.

Gardiner was an angry man.  He was unhappy at the punitive tax on the coal trade exerted by Newcastle, and the attendant risk to ships and men sailing up the perilous river Tyne to pay it. Gardiner felt North Shields was the logical focus for this trade being ideally placed at the mouth of the Tyne rather than several miles in land.  To emphasise his case Gardiner also draws on other injustices carried out by the Corporation which further illustrate the arbitrary oppressive nature of the corporation’s rule.  As part of his book he looked at the brutal public humiliations visited on citizens of the town – the scold’s bridal being one such punishment. He also took testimonies relating to the notorious witch trials of 1649/1650.  One has to respect the bravery of his witnesses in standing up to the witch-finder, one woman who Gardiner spoke too – Elinor Loumsdale – had actually been prosecuted for trying to dissuade witnesses giving evidence against the accused.

Enter the witch-pricker

Fear of witchcraft was rife in Newcastle.  The new Puritan Regime fostered this fear with a more fundamental reading of the Bible especially the passage: ‘thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’ (Exodus XX11, V18). In March 1649 the council of Newcastle heard a petition concerning witches.  The Puritan council demanded that all witches be tried and sent to Scotland for a witch-finder, or witch-pricker, to assist in rooting out these individuals.

One such man was currently wreaking havoc in Berwick and at 20 shillings a head had rounded up 30 unfortunates whom he accused of witchcraft.  It is recorded that some of them confessed to use of harmless magic, whilst others claimed to have been present at Preston (a battle where witchcraft was blamed for the kings defeat).  Sensing a profit to be made further south, this unnamed witch-pricker who, according to one local MP ‘professeth himself an artist in that way’ found his way to Newcastle by December 1649.

The newly powerful Puritan’s of the Corporation encouraged the plague and war ravaged population of the city to vent their frustrations on their neighbours, and they heralded the arrival of the witch-pricker very publicly.  The Magistrate’s bellman went about the town announcing that anyone with a complaint against a witch should denounce them, the accused would be brought to the town hall and tried.  It seems that many Novocastrians embraced the opportunity to settle old scores and soon 30 people had been brought before the magistrates and their witch-pricker.

Newgate Prison, Newgate Street c1823, where the Witches were imprisoned.

Methods used by witch-finders and witch-prickers were quite brutal. Although torture was not legal in England, the accused would often be deprived of sleep or walked for hours until they confessed.  They were also subject to public humiliation, being stripped and searched for witch marks which were then ‘pricked’ by the witch-finder.  If no blood flowed then they were guilty of witchcraft.   It was not unusual for witch-finders to employ retractable bodkins to prick their victims thereby ensuring a guilty verdict – and their fee.

Of the 30 unfortunate women accused at Newcastle, 27 were found guilty, 2 were declared innocent…but it was the final woman who caused some controversy.

17C image of woman being stripped [4]

It seems that this final accused was not the usual warty old crone of stereotype, but a quite handsome and well-presented young woman.  The woman had been ‘pricked’ by the witch-finder and had not bled thus condemning her to be hanged.

Lieutenant Col Hobson, had witnessed the degrading spectacle.   The witch-finder had pulled up the woman’s clothes thereby exposing her, much to her horror.  He then appeared to pricked her thigh just as he let her skirts fall about her – thus obscuring the actual ‘pricking’.  When questioned as to whether she felt anything, the woman admitted she had not – at this point the witch-finder theatrically reached up her skirts and pulled out his bodkin.  She was condemned by her own words.  Hobson, who was a Baptist not a Puritan, and was also an ex military surgeon seems to have suspected either sleight of hand on the part of the witch-finder or simple shock on the part of the woman,  objected.  May be the fact that she was quite attractive also spurred the gentleman into action –

“The said reputed Witch-finder acquainted Lieutenant Colonel Hobson that he knew women, whether they were Witches or no by their looks, and when the said person was searching of a personable, and good-like woman, the said Colonel replied and said, ‘Surely this woman is none, and need not be tried’..”[2]

Hobson had cunningly tried to employ the witch-finders own argument against him, however the chilling response from the witch-finder was: –

“..but the Scotch-man said she was, for the Town said she was, and therefore he would try her;”[3]

The power of gossip and calumny was all that was required to bring about a successful accusation of witchcraft and clearly young and attractive women could be just as vulnerable to slander as the more obvious targets: old crones.  However in this case Hobson insisted that the process was repeated in a more decent manner, this time the woman bled and was thereby acquitted.

Nevertheless, despite Hobson’s intervention, of the remaining accused 14 women and 1 man were hanged on the Town Moor in August 1650.  Their remains were buried in unmarked graves in St Andrew’s Church Newcastle.

The roll call of victims of the one of the largest witch trials in England, was listed by Gardner:

Matthew Bulmer
Eliz. Anderson
Jane Hunter
Mary Pots
Elianor Rogerson
Margaret Muffet
Margaret Maddison
Eliz Brown
Jane Copeland
Ann Watson
Elianor Henderson
Elizabeth Dobson
Katherine Coultor

The Newcastle Witches being hanged, from Ralph Gardiner’s book, 1655

Karma catches up with the Witch-pricker

Too often these sinister individuals seem to escape justice, however, in this case, the witch-pricker himself met a sticky end. Heading into the remote reaches of Northumberland in order to pick up more fat fees for his vile trade, the witch-pricker found himself arrested by JP Henry Ogle. Escaping into Scotland, Gardner says that he was later hanged after confessing to causing the deaths of 220 English and Scottish women. While Gardner does not go so far as to question the judgment or the execution, considering them ‘ordinary’, he shows considerable sympathy towards the women, writing that “These poor souls never confessed anything, but pleaded innocence [..]”.  Gardner attacks the legality of the methods used, in particular the sending out to “another nation, for a mercenary person, to try women for witches”. In his view the over-reaching magistrates of Newcastle were just a culpable for the deaths of those innocent women and man as the sadistic witch pricker.  

Have the Newcastle witches resurfaced after 350 years?

Bones found in St Andrews Church, Newcastle – are they witches bones? Image from NE Chronicle

In 2008 the Newcastle Chronicle reported that teeth, ribs and skull bones had been recovered during renovations to St Andrew’s Churchyard.  The bones were believed to be those of the Newcastle Witches finally uncovered after being flung in an unmarked pit following their execution.  It was claimed that the bones could be cursed as a workman is said to have come up in blisters and boils following handling the bones….it seems that the even after 350 years very little has changed and people are still willing to attribute strange powers to witches….

St Andrews Church, Newcastle, final resting place of the Newcastle Witches. Image by Lenora

 

Notes

1. John Gaule, 1646, ‘Select cases of conscience touching witches and witchcraft’
2 & 3. Ralph Gardiner’s England’s grievance discovered, in relation to the coal-trade(1655).
4. Image source: https://the1642goodwyfe.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/stripping-whipping-and-pumping/

Sources

Armstrong, Pamela, 1990, Dark Tales of Old Newcastle, Bridge Studios
Bath, Jo, 2002, Dancing with the Devil and other True Tales of Northern Witchcraft, Newcastle City Council
http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/bones-find-casts-spell-workers-1465557
Unattributed, 1989, More Ghosts and Legends of Northumbria, Coquet Editions
http://roy25booth.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/newcastle-witch-pricker-1649-and-other.html
31 Days: Witches (A Tale of a Northen Witch Finder)
http://www2.newcastle.gov.uk/collections.nsf/display?readform&id=EEC2032B0AFCE516802574270030652B
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostmen_of_Newcastle_upon_Tyne