The Arthur’s Seat Coffins – shades of Burke and Hare?

Tags

1836, Arthur's Seat, bodysnatchers, burke and hare, coffins, Edinburgh, fairy coffins, folklore, Lilliputian coffins, magic, memorial, Menefee, miniature, National Museum of Scotland, seventeen, Simpson, sympathetic magic, West port murders, witches

Edinburgh Castle viewed from the Grassmarket.

Edinburgh. The elegant New Town, the Athens of the North, home to writers, philosophers and surgeons – the cradle of the Scottish Enlightenment.  But entwined with this respectable façade there is also the Old Town, with its narrow wynds and closes, rife with tales of squalor, plague and sudden death.  And looming in the distance, the ancient extinct volcano called Arthur’s seat.

A Strange Discovery

Salisbury Crags and Arthurs Seat.

Late June, 1836, a group of lads out rabbiting made their way up the North East flank of Arthur’s Seat. Poking about in the undergrowth they came upon a small cave or recess, blocked by three slate slabs.  Intrigued, they removed the slates and found within, 17 miniature coffins laid out in three rows – two rows of eight and a top row, apparently just begun, comprising one coffin.  Boys being boys, as opposed to trained archaeologists, they then began to pelt each other with the mysterious little coffins.  Despite this rough treatment, enough of the coffins made it down from their resting place and into safer hands.

The Arthur’s Seat Coffins

The find was described by The Scotsman newspaper, at the time:

” [Each coffin] contained a miniature figure of the human form cut out in wood, the faces in particular being pretty well executed. They were dressed from head to foot in cotton clothes, and decently laid out with a mimic representation of all the funereal trappings which usually form the last habiliments of the dead. The coffins are about three or four inches in length, regularly shaped, and cut out from a single piece of wood, with the exception of the lids, which are nailed down with wire sprigs or common brass pins. The lid and sides of each are profusely studded with ornaments, formed with small pieces of tin, and inserted in the wood with great care and regularity.”

The discovery of the Arthur’s Seat coffins gripped the public imagination as both local and national newspapers began to speculate as to who put them there? How long had they been there? What was their purpose?

Media speculation and public fascination

16th Century woodcut of witches. Public Domain[?]

At some point shortly after discovery the boys had relinquished their treasure and the coffins eventually went on display in a private museum, run by Robert Frazier an Edinburgh Jeweller.  Although sealed when originally found, they were soon opened and it was  discovered that each neatly made coffin, contained a carved wooden figure, individually dressed – care had clearly gone into the construction of the strange artefacts.  It was noted that some of the coffins in the lower rows appeared more decayed, some of the grave-clothes were completely missing, and this seemed to infer that they had been laid down over a considerable period of time.  Theories were quickly developed as to the possible meaning of the ‘fairy ‘coffins.

The First newspaper report was in The Scotsman, 16 July 1836, which while managing to maintain an air of rationalistic superiority at the very idea of such superstitious nonsense as witchcraft or demons, at the same time seemed to revel in giving the paying public exactly the sensationalism that they wanted:

“Our own opinion would be – had we not some years ago abjured witchcraft and demonology – that there are still some of the weird sisters hovering about the Mushat’s Cairn or the Windy Gowl, who retain their ancient power to work spells of death by entombing the likenesses of those they wish to destroy.”

Sensing a good story, other newspapers followed suit offering their own, slightly more restrained, theories:

The Edinburgh Evening Post suggested the coffins could be an example of a tradition, found in Saxony, of symbolically burying those who died overseas.  While the Caledonian Mercury suggested the origin was a tradition for family members to provide a ‘Christian Burial’ to sailors lost at sea.  [1]  This theory was supported, in the 1970’s, by Walter Havernick of the Museum of Hamburg who also proposed that the Arthur’s Seat Coffins represented a stockpile of such charms, stored there by a merchant for later retrieval.[2]  However, this would seem to me to be rather an extreme measure to take in storing merchandise that did not appear to have any real monetary value, in addition to which, the place of concealment was not even weatherproof resulting in damage to some of the coffins.

Some coffins show signs of deterioration – a sign of age or just weathering?

The National Museum of Scotland boasts many examples of charms against witchcraft that have been found in Scotland, charms were in use as late as the nineteenth century.  Nevertheless the theories that the coffins were connected either with witchcraft or honorific burials for those who died abroad or were lost at sea, are hard to evidence in Scotland’s known folk traditions. [3]

Charms on display at the National Museum of Scotland.

Until recently though, two things did seem to be agreed upon: the coffins appeared to have been placed there over a period of time (differences in deterioration of individual coffins seemed to support this theory) and their most likely purpose was some sort of honorific burial.  These conclusions were supported by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (later the National Museum of Scotland), who were gifted the remaining eight coffins in 1901.

The West Port Murders and the Day of Last Judgement

One of the most compelling recent theories is that proposed by Professor Samuel Menefee and Dr Allen Simpson.  They studied the coffins in the 1990’s and although their published findings are hard to locate online, their work is quoted from extensively by Mike Dash in his detailed article on the Coffins, available on the Charles Fort Institute website (CFI).[4]

Details of the Arthur’s Seat coffins – tiny corpses both dressed and undressed.

Menefee and Simpson were able to identify that one or at most two individuals made the coffins (based on stylistic differences in coffin shape) and the tools used suggested the maker was a shoemaker, rather than a carpenter, as a sharp knife and not chisel was used to hollow out the coffins.  The tin decorations were of the type used in shoemaking or leather-making further strengthening this theory. Their findings also indicate that the figures themselves were probably originally toy soldiers dating from the late eighteenth century.  Perhaps the most important revelation from their study relates to the thread used in the clothing.  Three ply cotton thread was used to sew the grave-clothes for one of the figures, this thread was not in use in Scotland before 1830.  Other figures using one or two ply thread may have been earlier, but as Mike Dash suggests the date range could be as short at 1800-1830 – so it would seem that the infamous Scottish weather was to blame for the deterioration of some of the coffins, rather than the passage of time.

In fact Menefee and Simpson’s theory supposes a date after 1830 and they draw attention to the number of coffins in place as being a significant indicator that the placement of the coffins was event-driven, rather than part of a long-standing folk tradition. Dash provides the following quote from their work:

“It is arguable, that the problem with the various theories is their concentration on motivation, rather than on the even or events that caused the interments.  The former will always be open to argument, but if the burials were event-driven [..] the speculation would at least be built on demonstrable fact.  Stated another way, what we seek is an Edinburgh-related event or events, involving seventeen deaths, which occurred close to 1830 and certainly before 1836.  One obvious answer springs to mind – the West Port Murders by William Burke and William Hare in 1827 and 1828.” [5]

Burke and Hare. Image Source National Museum of Scotland.

Burke and Hare made a living out of death, selling bodies to the anatomist Dr Robert Knox a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.  They began their careers as opportunists following the death of Hare’s lodger, Old Donald.  Old Donald died owing a substantial amount of rent, so Hare and his friend Burke decided to sell his body to the local anatomists to recoup the loss.  So profitable was this enterprise that their initial opportunism soon blossomed into a full-scale murder spree, tallying sixteen victims before they were caught.  While Hare escaped the hangman’s noose by turning kings evidence, Burke was hanged for his crimes on 28 January 1829 and his body sent for public dissection.

Mort safe in Grey Friars Kirkyard.

What made both the work of the anatomist surgeons and the murders carried out by Burke and Hare so dreadful to people at the time, was they were in effect denying the deceased the chance of salvation at the Last Judgment.  Christians at the time held a strong belief that the dead would literally rise up on the final day of judgement.  So, if a loved one’s body was dissected and destroyed it was on the one hand a horror in the physical sense, but on the other hand, a deeper metaphysical horror at the spiritual consequences of the destruction of the body.  People went to great lengths to protect their departed relatives from this fate, as the mort-safes in Grey Friars Kirkyard attest.

Menefee and Simpson’s study suggests that the event that triggered the interment of the seventeen coffins on Arthur’s Seat was the West Port murders of Burke and Hare.  They propose that the coffins were a symbolic burial for those whose bodies were destroyed because of the actions of Burke and Hare.  A way that the dead could still stand for their last judgment. So although their scientific analysis of the material used to make the coffins explodes one theory (of their antiquity) they do support the long-held view that they represent honorific burial.[6]

Conclusion

So, were the coffins evidence of satanic rituals, witchcraft, protection for sailors on the high seas, or mock burials for those who died abroad?  Or a reminder of the grisly crimes of Burke and Hare?

It would seem that one of the earliest theories, that the coffins represented honorific burials, might not have been too far off the mark, even if the motivation for them was event driven rather than an ancient tradition.

If the crimes of Burke and Hare are the inspiration behind the Arthur’s Seat Coffins, some questions still remain: who made the coffins – a relative of one of the victims or someone who knew Burke and Hare and wished to make amends?  If they are related to the West Port Murders, then, as Min Bannister of the Edinburgh Fortean Society points out, why are they all male figures when the victims included twelve women?  Could this simply be because the offering was a token gesture and not meant to represent the actual individuals?  Is it also possible that the single coffin at the top represents the first ‘victim’ old Donald, whose death by natural causes gave Burke and Hare the idea for their terrible crimes?  Chances are we will never know for sure, but perhaps that is part of their enduring fascination…

The Arthur’s Seat Coffins are on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Sources and notes

Images – unless otherwise credited all images by Lenora.

http://www.nms.ac.uk/explore/stories/scottish-history-and-archaeology/mystery-of-the-miniature-coffins/ [1] [2] [3]

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/edinburghs-mysterious-miniature-coffins-22371426/

http://blogs.forteana.org/node/97  The Miniature coffins found on Arthur’s Seat by Mike Dash [4] [5] [6]

 

John Middleton and Laird Bocconi: A Ghostly Bromance

Tags

1st Earl of Middleton, charles II, civil war, covenanters, England, Ghosts, Hauntings, John Middleton, Laird Bocconi, pacts, presbyterians, Scotland

Images source unknown.

The image of the vengeful ghost is one which is very common in literature, films and folklore. Usually the spirit returns to wreak revenge on someone who had wronged them when they were alive or to seek help in carrying out their revengeful plan or even just to curse those who unluckily come into contact with them. Famous fictional examples include The King in Hamlet, Samara from The Ring series and Jennet Humfrye from The Woman in Black. There are also people who claim that evil spirits intent on causing them harm share the same house. For instance The Cage in St Osyth which was labelled as one of the UK’s most haunted houses by the TV series, Great British Ghosts is reported to be occupied by the vengeful spirit of Ursula Kemp, one of 13 women accused of witchcraft who were chained up in the house prior to their execution[1].

The flip side of the coin is spirits who return to help the living rather than to harm them. There are many reasons given as to why they return such as to bring comfort to grieving family and friends, to impart a message such as the location of important documents or family heirlooms or to give a warning. One of the most often repeated stories involves a pact made between two close friends, John Middleton and Laird Bocconi to help each other from beyond the grave.[2]

A Career Soldier

John Middleton, 1st Earl of Middleton, pictured in later life. Source Wikimedia.

John Middleton born around 1608 was the eldest son of a Robert Middleton, Laird of Caldhame in Kincardineshire in Scotland. Middleton’s origins are obscure which probably indicates that he was from a humble background. Some sources say that he enlisted as a regimental pikeman when he was just thirteen but all agree that by 1632 he had joined the regiment raised by Sir John Hepburn for service in France. Whatever the truth of his origins, Middleton was a career soldier and a good one. It was due to his skill and ability that he worked his way up the ranks to become captain of the Covenanter army led by Earl James Graham of Montrose during the Bishops’ Wars[3].

Victory at the Battle of the Brig O’Dee

The Bishops’ Wars (1639-1640) were triggered by Charles I desire to remove the Presbyterian system (without bishops) favoured by the Church of Scotland and replace it with an episcopal system (with bishops). Charles I also wanted to force the Scots to follow the Book of Common Prayer.

The determination and success of the Scottish rebellion led to Charles I eventually admitting defeat and accepting the decisions of the General Assembly and the Scottish Parliament. Middleton played a vital role in the Covenanter army. In June 1639, he successfully led an attack on the Royalists at the Brig o’ Dee outside Aberdeen. The battle at the Brig o’ Dee was the only ‘substantial action’ that took place during the First Bishop’s War.

Covenanters petitioning Charles I. Source: Bridgeman Art Library.

The Parliamentary Cause

At the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642, the Covenanter army allied themselves with the Parliamentarian cause against the Royalists. Middleton volunteered and fought at the Battle of Edgehill and in 1644 he was promoted to the rank of the Lieutenant-General in the Regiment of Horse in Sir William Waller’s Southern Associate and served in the Oxford Campaign and at the Battle of Cropredy Bridge. In 1645 Middleton returned to Scotland and joined the Army of the Covenant with the rank of major-general. In February 1646 Middleton was given the rank of commander-in-chief by the Committee of Estates and fought a campaign against the Royalists in the Highlands. Middleton also helped to negotiate the final terms for the surrender of Montrose (who he had formerly fought under) in July 1646[4].

The Battle of Edgehill. Source: Bridgeman Art Library.

A Fraught Partnership

Although between 1642 and 1647 the Covenanters and the Parliamentarians fought on the same side, the alliance was often on shaky grounds. Differences of religious ideology made them uneasy bedfellows. The parliamentarians were unhappy with the Scottish aim to impose a Presbyterian system on the Church of England and the Covenanters were equally uncomfortable with the increased radicalisation of the parliamentarian troops and the popularity of the levellers’ ideas in the New Model Army. The conflict between the two allies came to a head shortly after the Covenanters handed over Charles I to the parliamentarians after the king had surrendered to them at Newark in 1646. This led to an alliance or the Engagement between the Scots and the Royalists with Charles I promising to impose Presbyterianism on the Church of England for a period of three years once he was reinstated on the throne[5].

Charles I insulted by Cromwell’s soldiers. Source: wikipedia

A Change of Heart

As the covenanters changed alliances so did Middleton and as a result he found himself for the first time fighting for Charles I instead of against him. In August 1648 Middleton was amongst those who were taken prisoner by the Roundheads after the Royalist defeat at the Battle of Preston. Middleton broke parole and made his way back to Scotland to join up with Sir Thomas Mackenzie of Pluscardine in an abortive Royalist uprising in the Highlands in the Spring of 1649.

A Ruffian’s Penance

Sack cloth and ashes. Source: unknown.

Middleton’s support for both the Royalists and the Engagement brought him into conflict with the Presbyterians of the godly Kirk. Middleton was probably not someone whom the Presbyterians would have been too fond of anyway because of his reputation as a notorious ‘hard-drinking ruffian’[6]. As a punishment they excommunicated Middleton in October 1650 and then forced him to undergo a public penance. Middleton was made to wear a sackcloth at St Mary’s Kirk in Dundee[7]. This humiliating experience left Middleton with a deep hatred of and grudge against the Presbyterians. As a result of his degrading treatment Middleton became a loyal supporter of the Royalists and in particular Charles II. His grit, experience and ability made him indispensable to Charles II and a dangerous foe to the Presbyterians who he was once willing to put his life on the line for.

A Ghostly Visitation

The Tower of London. Source: hauntedisland.co.uk

In September 1651 whilst fighting on behalf of Charles II, Middleton was captured at the Battle of Worcester. In a bad state and wounded Middleton was sent to the Tower of London to await trial for treason. It is whilst he was a prisoner that one of the strangest stories of a ghostly apparition was reported to have occurred. One night while he was lying in bed feeling depressed, Middleton saw the ghost of his friend, Laird Bocconi appear before him. Many years before Middleton and Bocconi had made a friendship pact that if one of them died before the other and if the survivor was in trouble, the deceased friend would return to help him. Middleton first asked Bocconi if he was alive or dead[8]. Bocconi’s ghost replied that he was dead and that he had died a long time ago. Bocconi then continued that Middleton’s life was in serious danger and that he needed to make his escape sooner rather than later. Middleton did in fact manage to escape three days after receiving this ghostly advice by disguising himself in his wife’s, Lady Grizel’s clothes. His escape was even more remarkable since he manage to get out his cell despite the door being tripled locked! Did he have inside help? Did his wife change places with him? No one knows and no other details about how he got away have ever emerged.

Source: wikipedia

Bocconi’s appearance up to the point of his warning seemed to follow a typical pattern for manifestations of this type but then after delivering his message Bocconi did something very bizarre. Middleton reported that Bocconi started to do a frisk i.e. jigged around the room and recited a short rhyme,

“Givanni, Givanni, ‘tis very strange,

In the world to see so sudden a change”[9]

Then Bocconi vanished. Why did Bocconi’s ghost suddenly decide to prance around the cell and chant and what if anything did the rhyme have to do with Middleton’s situation? Bocconi’s use of the Italian equivalent of the name ‘John’ does show that Bocconi was addressing Middleton directly but the rest of his chant is confusing. Was the ghost referring to Middleton’s personal change in circumstances i.e. from a free man to a prisoner or to the remarkable change in his allegiances or more generally to the tumultuous times Middleton was living in? Could the message have been a prediction about Middleton’s future and his rise in the world? No one has ever managed to explain the ghost’s actions or to be fair I don’t think anyone has ever tried.

Aftermath

Middleton managed to get to France and join the exiled Charles II in Paris. By 1653 he was made commander of the Royalist forces and was at the forefront of the military campaign to restore the Stewarts to the English throne. When Charles II became king he was given the title of the Earl of Middleton. Middleton was appointed in 1660 as the Royal Commissioner to the (Scots) Parliament[10] using his position to help the king root out Presbyterianism from Scotland. His rapid rise from humble beginnings caused resentment amongst the established nobility, in particular the Earl of Lauderdale who contrived to destroy Middleton. Lauderdale succeeded for a while with Middleton being stripped of his position and offices but he was soon back in favour. In 1663 he was made Governor of Rochester and later in 1668 he was appointed as the Governor of Tangiers. Middleton remained in Tangiers as governor until his death in July 1674[11]. It is believed he died from injuries sustained after falling down some stairs whilst extremely drunk[12].

Image Source: Franz Hals[?]

A Final Note

On a historical note, Middleton had the last laugh as despite the Scottish aristocracy contempt for him, his descendant is currently sitting on the throne of England! Queen Elizabeth through her matrilineal line is a direct descendent of John Middleton[13]. The only mention of Bocconi I could find was in relation to his ghost, who he was, what he did and how he met Middleton seems so far to have vanished from the pages of history. Maybe they met when Middleton was fighting on the continent. Bocconi sounds Italian but the title of Lord was given in its Scottish form. Does that mean anything? probably not. As to the ghost story, it is a unique tale revealing very strange behaviour on the part of the spirit, from a dignified and ominous entry to a rather silly exit. I would also be fascinated to know if anyone ever manages to work out the meaning of Bocconi’s last words on earth!

Image source: favim.com[?]

Bibliography

John Middleton, 1^st Earl of Middleton, http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usbiography/m/johnmiddleton.html

Royal Middleton Roots, http://www.scotclans.com/royal-middleton-roots/

Alisdair McRae, How the Scots won the English Civil War: The triumph of Fraser’s Dragoons

Brave or bonkers? Man chooses to live in ‘Britain’s most haunted house’ where poltergeists BITE guests, http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/brave-bonkers-man-chooses-live-7080762

Magnus Bennett, Royal wedding: Prince William ‘has Middleton ancestry’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-13209043

Owen Davies, The Haunted: A social history of ghosts

Horace Welby (editor), Signs Before Death: Authenticated Apparitions

John Middleton, c.1608-74, http://bcw-project.org/biography/john-middleton

Covenanter, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenanter

Bishops’ Wars, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishops’_Wars

Tristan Hunt, The English Civil War: The Endgame – 1646 – 1649 – Introduction, http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/world-history/the-english-civil-war-the-endgame-1646-1649-introduction

John Middleton, 1st Earl of Middleton, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Middleton,_1st_Earl_of_Middleton

Middleton name already part of Prince William’s family tree, https://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/115525/middleton-name-already-part-of-prince-williams-family-tree/

Notes

[1] Brave or bonkers? Man chooses to live in ‘Britain’s most haunted house’ where poltergeists BITE guests, http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/brave-bonkers-man-chooses-live-7080762

[2] Owen Davies, The Haunted: A social history of ghosts

[3] John Middleton, c.1608-74, http://bcw-project.org/biography/john-middleton

[4] ibid

[5] Covenanter, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenanter

[6]Royal Middleton Roots, http://www.scotclans.com/royal-middleton-roots/

[7] Alisdair McRae, How the Scots won the English Civil War: The triumph of Fraser’s Dragoons

[8] Horace Welby (editor), Signs Before Death: Authenticated Apparitions

[9] ibid

[10] Middleton name already part of Prince William’s family tree, https://www.thecourier.co.uk/news/115525/middleton-name-already-part-of-prince-williams-family-tree/

[11] John Middleton, c.1608-74, http://bcw-project.org/biography/john-middleton

[12] Magnus Bennett, Royal wedding: Prince William ‘has Middleton ancestry’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-13209043

[13] Magnus Bennett, Royal wedding: Prince William ‘has Middleton ancestry’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-13209043

The deathly stoop chair of Thomas Busby

Tags

Busby Stoop Inn, cursed chair, daniel awety, death, Ghosts, gibbet, haunted furniture, Murder, stoop, thirsk museum, thomas busby

Thirsk Museum. Image source Trip Advisor.

If you visit the small jewel of a museum in Thirsk you will see the rather strange sight of an oak chair hung from the ceiling in one of the display areas. The chair was suspended at the explicit request of its owner to prevent anyone from ever sitting on it including maintenance and cleaners[1]. The museum has never broken its promise in over 30 years despite numerous requests and even the threat of legal action[2].

A notorious ruffian

Portrait of Thomas Busby. Image source: darkhauntingswordpress.com

Local legend has it that the chair belonged to Thomas Busby, a thug, thief and drunkard who lived in North Yorkshire in the latter part of the 1600s. Busby married Elizabeth, the daughter of a small time petty crock, Daniel Awety who lived near the village of Kirby Wiske. Awety had purchased a farm after moving to the area from Leeds. His house which he called Danotty Hall was ideal for Awety, enabling him to continue with his illegal coining activities in relative seclusion. It was even reported that Awety had built within the house a hidden chamber which was connected to the cellar via a secret passageway[3]. Busby who was also the original owner of an inn near Sandhutton and just three miles from Danotty Hall became Awety’s partner in crime.

A crime of passion

The details of what happened that fatal last day of Awety’s life are vague. Awety and Busby may have argued earlier that day but over what is not known, it could have been something to do with Elizabeth, the coining business or almost anything else. Their relationship was known to be far from harmonious with Busby often in a foul mood with Awety for some reason or another.

Gibbet. Source unknown.

What is clear is that later that day a drunken and volatile Busby returned to his inn only to find Awety waiting for him threatening to take Elizabeth home with him. Busby’s mood only blackened when he saw Awety sitting in his favourite chair. Whatever their second argument of the day was over Busby forcibly removed Awety from the chair and threw him out.

That night Busby still seething grabbed a hammer, stormed over to Danotty Hall and bludgeoned Awety to death. Busby then tried to hide his handiwork in the woods. Concern over Awety’s sudden disappearance led to a local search of the area being made. On finding the body, Busby was arrested at the inn and charged with murder.

In the summer of 1702 Busby was tried and sentenced to death for murder at the York Assizes. His punishment was to be gibbeted i.e. hung from a gibbet, his body dipped in tar and his remains displayed on a stoop (post) attached to the gibbet, in full view of his inn. The inn was soon after renamed the Busby Stoop Inn, a name which it retained until it closed in 2012.

The Busby Stoop Inn. Image taken from Paranormalguide.com

Busby’s final warning

Busby’s favorite chair. Image source: Paranormalguide.com

It is here that the story veers away from historical certainty and moves into the realms of local folklore. One version recounts how Busby was granted his last wish which was to have a final drink at his own inn and sit in his favorite chair. On leaving the inn to make his final journey to the execution site Busby cursed the chair declaring that death would come shortly to anyone who sat in it. Another version tells how Busby drunkenly shouted out the curse whilst being taken to the gibbet to be hung. Whichever way you look at it, Busby was determined that even from beyond the grave he would never allow anyone to enjoy sitting in his beloved chair.

Busby’s spirit was believed to have haunted his old pub as well as the area where he was gibbeted[4] but it’s his precious chair, the focus of his curse which became irrevocably linked to his revengeful spirit. According to local legend, this seemly innocuous piece of furniture has been responsible for more deaths than most serial killers (one estimate puts the number of its victims at over 60!).

The chair’s first victim?

The first reported death alleged to be associated with the death chair is that of a chimney sweep who along with a friend sat in the chair whilst having a drink one evening in 1894. The sweep never made it home that night, being completely inebriated he laid down on the road to sleep. The next morning his body was found hanging from the post next to the gibbet. His death was ruled as a suicide but in 1914 the friend with whom the chimney sweep had spent his last hours with admitted on his death bed to having robbed and murdered his friend.

Dead man’s chair or Don’t sit down!

During the Second World War, the pub became a popular drinking spot with RCAF airmen. The airmen would goad each other to sit in the chair. Those that took up the challenge never returned from their missions.

In 1968 a couple of years before Tony Earnshaw took over the running of the pub, he overheard two airmen dare each other to sit in the chair. They both did. Returning to the airfield their car left the road and crashed into a tree. They both died on the way to the hospital.

Source: Pinterest

Through the early 1970s the chair seemed to claim a number of victims including a cleaning lady who was diagnosed with a brain tumor after knocking into the chair; a number of cyclists and motorcyclists who suffered fatal road accidents; a hitch-hiker who was run over after having spent two nights at the pub and; a local man who died of a heart attack shortly after sitting in the condemned chair[5].

A group of builders having a drink at the pub cajoled the youngest of their group into sitting on the chair. Back at the site the man fell through the roof of the building and landed on the concrete ground below. This death proved to be the final straw for Earnshaw and he banished the chair to the cellar.

A delivery man from the brewery was in the cellar one day when he decided to try out the chair. He commented to Earnshaw that it was far too comfortable to be left down there. He was killed shortly afterwards when his van went off the road. Soon after Earnshaw must have decided that the chair despite being a profitable tourist attraction was too dangerous to keep any longer. In 1978 Earnshaw donated it to the Thirsk Museum

A grim legacy or tourist gimmick?

There are so many questions that have been left unanswered and probably unanswerable. Did Busby really commit murder over a chair? Could any person truly hold such deep affection for a carved piece of wood? Is Busby’s revengeful and jealous spirit still attacking anyone who dares sit in his seat? Or was the murder over something far more important, something which we will never know about? Is the chair really haunted or was it a money-making gimmick? Is the chair just really an extremely unlucky piece of furniture? Is this chair really the same chair that Busby fought over[6]?

The chair is safely out of reach now. Image source: Hauntedyorkshire.com

Many people believe the deaths were just an unlucky coincidence. Another explanation could be simply that the majority of those brave enough to defy the curse were just risk-takers, prepared to push their luck[7] (it is interesting how many of the deaths happened on roads and thousands of men of Bomber Command never returned from sorties) and were simply unlucky.

On one hand, it would be intriguing to test the chair to see if the legend about this unusual haunting is really true…but on the other hand, sometimes it is better not to know…

Bibliography

Thomas Busby’s Ghost – The Busby Stoop Inn: http://www.spiritseekers.info/thomasbusbyghost.php

Busby’s stoop chair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busby%27s_stoop_chair

The infamous Busby Stoop Chair: http://www.thirskmuseum.org/chair.htm

The Busby Stoop Curse – The full story: http://soapboxcorner.blogspot.co.uk/2007/10/busby-stoop-curse-full-story.html

The Cursed Busby’s Chair: http://seeksghosts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/the-cursed-busbys-chair.html

Chair of death: http://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/Chair_of_Death

Busby’s Stoop Chair of Death: http://www.theparanormalguide.com/blog/busbys-stoop-chair-of-death

Notes

[1] Busby’s stoop chair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busby%27s_stoop_chair

[2] The Busby Stoop Curse – The full story: http://soapboxcorner.blogspot.co.uk/2007/10/busby-stoop-curse-full-story.html

[3] ibid

[4] Thomas Busby’s Ghost – The Busby Stoop Inn: http://www.spiritseekers.info/thomasbusbyghost.php

[5] The Cursed Busby’s Chair: http://seeksghosts.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/the-cursed-busbys-chair.html

[6] The Busby Stoop Curse – The full story: http://soapboxcorner.blogspot.co.uk/2007/10/busby-stoop-curse-full-story.html

[7] Death chairs

 

The Thundering Earl and the Northumbrian Jacobites of the ’15

Tags

1715, Anna Maria Radcliffe, Devil Water, Dilston Castle, Earl of Derwentwater, Ghostly earl, Hanoverian, jacobites, James Radcliffe, Lords Bridge, Northumberland, Northumbrian Jacobites, Radclyffe, Rising, Tom Forster

Unraveling the thread of time

Taken near Alnwick, Northumberland. Picture source: Reed Ingram Weir/MASONS/SWNS.com

On 6 March 2016 the North of England was witness to the eerie dance of the Northern Lights in the night sky.  Not often seen so far south, the phenomena was perfectly timed almost coinciding, as it did, with the 300th Anniversary of the execution of James Radcliffe. The Third Earl of Derwentwater was executed on 24 February 1716, at Tower Hill in London, for his part in the doomed Jacobite Rising of 1715.  Perhaps the lights were a ripple in time, a reminder that it was as the coffin of the doomed Earl was born home to Dilston, that the same Aurora Borealis was witnessed in the north as a sign of heaven’s displeasure at Radcliffe’s death, and became known as Lord Derwentwater’s Lights.

Francis Dunn, a servant of the Earl’s aunt, witnessed the phenomena at the time, and wrote:

‘A most Beautifull glory appeard over ye hearse, wch all saw, sending forth resplendant streams of colours to ye east & west, the finest yt ever I saw in my Life.  It hung like a delicate rich curtain & continued a quarter & half of an hour over ye hearse.  There was a great light seen at night in several places & people flockt all night from durham to see ye corpse. Its remark’t yt att ye same day & hour ye glory appear’d over my lord’s hearse, ye most dreadfull signs appeared over London.’ [1]

Dilston and Chapel viewed from the trees.

In fact, in the 300 years since the Earl of Derwentwater died under the headsman’s axe, his shade, and that of his wife, has become part of local lore in and around Dilston and Northumberland.  In 1888 The Reverent Heslop writing in the Monthly Chronicle, claimed the Earl did not rest quiet in his tomb:

“The Hall is behind us, and its tragic story haunts the place.  it is but a generation since the trampling hoofs and the clatter of harness was heard on the brink of the steep here, revealing to that trembling listener that ‘the Earl’ yet galloped with spectral troops across the haugh.  Undisturbed, as the reverent hands of his people had laid him and his severed head, the Earl himself had rested hardly in the little vault for a whole century; yet the troops have been seen by the country people over and over again as they swept and swerved through the dim mist of the hollow of the dene.”

But not only the Earl is said to frequent the ruins of Dilston and Devil Water, his tragic bride is also bound to the castle in death.  The story goes that the Earl was a reluctant rebel, and upon setting out with his troop, turned one last time to view Dilston Hall and his vast estates.  His resolution wavered as he considered that should the rising fail, he would not only be risking himself, but the future prosperity of his young son and heir.  With that thought, he turned for home.  However, in the courtyard of Dilston, the Earl was met by his young and implacable wife who proceeded to berated him, going so far as to strike him with her fan, whilst exclaiming ‘take that, and give your sword to me.’ [2] With those words she condemned her husband to his terrible fate, and the Earldom of Derwentwater to eventual destruction.  After the young Earl’s death, she too died young and heartbroken; her tormented shade is said to flit between the tall tower of Dilston Castle and Dilston Chapel, lighted cresset in her hand, awaiting the return of her dead lord.

The tall tower at Dilston Castle.

But local lore and legend may have dealt harshly with the Countess and her hesitant husband….

The Jacobite cause in a nutshell

James II of England, by Godfrey Kneller. Source Wikipedia.

The seventeenth century was a time of great political, social and religious upheaval in England. When Charles II died in 1685 without issue, his brother James inherited the throne.  James was raised an Anglican but became a catholic, and after the religious turmoil of the past century, that made people nervous.  James’s autocratic style of rule didn’t make him many friends and when his second wife gave him a son in 1688, assuring a catholic succession, parliament made its move.

Parliament turned to James’s protestant daughter Mary and her Dutch husband William of Orange, offering them the crown jointly, thus triggering the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688 which ousted James II.  In replacing James II, the de jure king of England (King by right/divine or otherwise), with King William, the de facto (King by possession of the office) the Jacobite cause was born.

When William and Mary died without issue, James’s other protestant daughter, Anne, took the throne.  Anne died without issue in 1714 and the throne of England was set to pass to a distant German princeling, George, elector of Hanover.  This was almost too much, not only for the catholic Jacobites, but also for many high church Tories in England – the stage was now set for a dangerous rebellion [3 & 4].

The Radcliffes of Dilston Castle and the Stuart Connection

Lady Mary Tudor – the Stuart connection. Public Domain[?]

The North had always been viewed by the south as a hotbed of Catholicism and potential unrest and measures were taken to curb the powers and resources of Catholics in the area. In Northumberland the most prominent and wealthy catholic family was the Radcliffe family of Dilston Hall, near Corbridge.  In the seventeenth century the Radcliffe’s had successfully married into the Stuart Royal family – albeit on the wrong side of the sheets.  The 3rd Baronet of Derwentwater, Francis, engineered the marriage of his son Edward to the Lady Mary Tudor, the natural daughter of Charles II, in 1688. The Radcliffes were now fatally linked to the doomed house of Stuart.

The marriage brought an Earldom with it, granted by James II shortly before his overthrow, but it was not a successful marriage. Nevertheless they had four children, the first James, being born on 28 June 1689.

The Radcliffe’s Stuart links were further cemented when the teenage James was sent with his brother Francis, to live with their royal cousin James III (James II having died in 1701) at the court in exile at St Germain in France. In 1705, while James and Francis were still in France, their father died leaving James, at only 16, the third Earl of Derwentwater.

Dilston Hall, demolished in the 1760’s.

In 1709 Queen Anne allowed the young Earl to return to England and take up his responsibilities.  After a brief stay in London, James set off in February 1710 to view his northern estates for the first time.  He seems to have made a good impression on the locals, he was after all, young, fashionable and rich.  But more than that, he was described as possessing a charming smile and a generous nature – qualities which more than made up for his shortness of stature.   During this initial stay he fell in love with Dilston and decided to build a grand new hall befitting his status as third Earl of Derwentwater.  In the meantime the Earl made his presence felt in the area, entertaining his neighbours and cousins such as the Erringtons of Beaufront and Swinbournes of Capheaton.

James Radcliffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater. Source Wikipedia.

Early on James’s Jacobite sympathies were recognised by his neighbours, and in 1710 he was invited to Lancashire to meet with other gentlemen Jacobites who regularly met at the Unicorn Inn in Walton-le-Dale.  Eventually he became Mayor of this group.  Whether this was an honorary title, or something that required active engagement, it indicates that he took an keen interest in the Jacobite cause at an early stage.  However, it is important to note that at this time there was a genuine hope that Queen Anne would name James III as her heir, thereby providing a peaceful resolution to the problem of the king over the water.  James Radcliffe, cousin and childhood companion of James III, must have hoped as much.  After all, as one of the richest men in the North, he would have much to lose if it came to an uprising [5].

For a while things went smoothly for the young Earl, he married Anna Maria Webb, a pretty catholic heiress, in 1712 and moved away from Dilston for a few years while the new hall was constructed.  His heir John was born in 1713, and soon after Dilston Hall was completed, allowing Radcliffe family to return.  But things were not going so smoothly elsewhere…. Queen Anne sickened and died in 1714, and King George I’s reign looked set to entrench the power of the Whigs, the Jacobites and Tories grew fractious, riots and unrest soon broke out in London….

James and Anna Maria.

Oak Leaves and White Roses

Oakleaves and White Roses, Jacobite Symbols. Image SNA.

History records that the Jacobite Rising of 1715 began on 6 September, when John Erskine 11th Earl of Mar raised the Stuart standard in Braemar.   That the Jacobite Risings were largely Scottish affairs has entered the popular imagination, however there were many in England who felt sympathy for the king over the water. Catholic or not, he was the rightful heir and in a time when belief in the divine right of kings had not yet evaporated, that could count for a lot.   There were also many who were not happy at the prospect of a German king and a Whig stranglehold on power.

In the North, key catholic Peers such as The Earl of Derwentwater, Lord Widderington and MPs such as Thomas Forster of Adderstone and Sir William Blackett of Wallington quickly fell under suspicion.  On 22 September 1715 warrants were issued for their arrest.  The young Earl decided a low profile would be advisable, hiding for two weeks in in tenants cottages and with friends and relations all across the area [6].

All would seem the actions of a man who dabbled in intrigue, but was not an instigator of rebellion.  Nevertheless the Earl knew that he could not run and hide for ever, and after all, he had Stuart blood in his veins.  Under the guise of a race meeting held at Wide Hough meadow near Dilston on 5 October 1715, the Earl and his compatriots decided to make their stand on the morrow.  The next morning the Earl, his brother Charles and their small band set out to meet Thomas Forster,  the commander of the Northumbrian Jacobites, and his men, at Greenriggs, a wild desolate moorland, between Redesmouth and Sweethope Lough.  The die was cast.

The Rising in the North

The Northumbrian Jacobites of the ’15 have had a bad press, being described by one writer thus:

‘In October a handful of Catholic Gentry under Forster and Derwentwater, amateurs in rebellion and war, had ridden out in Northumberland [..]

The quixotic travesty of civil war by a mob of foxhunters, had found no support save from the more dare-devil of the Catholic gentry and Mackintosh’s Highlanders.  The English Rebellion was at an end.’ [7]

Thomas Forster MP, and leader of the Northumbrian Jacobites.

The mission of the Northumbrian Jacobites was to capture Newcastle and thereby hobble the government in London by cutting off their coal supply.  They would be supported by a French led invasion fleet which was expected to land on the Northumbrian coast.  History however did not record this outcome.  Instead, weak and indecisive leadership, lack of the promised support from the High Church Tories, inability to capture Newcastle and the failure of the French fleet to materialise left the Northumbrian Jacobites little choice but to head into the pro-Jacobite territory of Lancashire hoping for greater success.

Leo Gooch, however,  has presented a more sympathetic and compelling view of the effectiveness of the Northumbrian Jacobites in his book ‘The Desperate Faction?’  He argues that the original plan formulated by the Earl of Mar, for a Northumbrian landing of the Jacobite forces, was militarily sound. It was only when this plan was shelved by Ormonde and Bolingbroke (without bothering to inform Tom Forster and the Northumbrians) in favour of a landing in the South West, that things started to go badly wrong.  Gooch argues that when this new strategy failed, Forster was thrust into the role of commander of all the Jacobite forces in England.  Although he and Derwentwater did their best, they were, quite literally fighting a losing battle [8].

Execution

That losing battle was at Preston.  The supposed Jacobite support in Lancashire remained dormant and the rebel forces were defeated and their leaders captured and taken to London for trial.   Many were condemned to die, some escaped, some were pardoned.  Tom Forster who rode out with the Earl of Dertwentwater was executed but Derwentwater’s brother Charles managed to escape.  The Earl himself, was lodged in the Tower of London, as befitted his status.  His devoted wife Anna Maria stayed with him and petitioned for his release.  It was not to be.  He was beheaded on Tower Hill on 24 February 1716.

Jacobite Lords on Trial.

Catholic Martyr

Suit worn by the Earl at his execution. Source Northumbrian Jacobite Website.

Once executed James’s body was wrapped in black cloth, with his severed head in red velvet.  His body was then secretly conveyed to a surgeon called Metcalf who embalmed the corpse and removed the heart which was to be sent to the English nuns at Angers in France.  Mr King the undertaker then provided a lead coffin covered in crimson velvet and gilt nails, to convey the third Earl back to his home at Dilston for burial in the chapel.  It was said that his heart remained uncorrupted for many years and was able to heal those who touched it, it was especially effective on Scrofula or the king’s evil [9].

On his return to Dilston, the Northern Lights accompanied his procession.  Many saw this as a sign of Heaven’s displeasure at the Earl’s execution, it was said the Devil Water ran red at Dilston. Already tales began to be told that would place James Radcliffe, the Jacobite third Earl of Dertwentwater firmly in the folk memory of the region.

Devil Water at Dilston ran red when the Earl was executed.

James’s widow, Anna Maria, never returned to Dilston and died in Belgium 7 years later.  The Radcliffe estates were confiscated by the government, but in a lengthy legal battle it was successfully argued that as James only had life interest in the Derwentwater estates and his son John should inherit the great wealth of the Radcliffes.  Sadly though, he died in 1731 before reaching his majority.  That left only Charles Radcliffe, James’s brother, as heir.  Unfortunately he was was still under attainder for his part in the ’15 so could not inherit.  By default then, the estates then passed back to the crown.  The power of the Radcliffe’s was broken.

Whether James Radcliffe was a reluctant Rebel [10] or a passionate and committed Jacobite, his legend lives on in the North. Even today, Paranormal investigators such as Otherworld North East, and Christina Ogilvy and James Davidson, have reported strange anomalies in and Around Dilston Castle.  Orbs, strange mists and dark figures still haunt the ruins of Dilston [11 & 12].  On a moonlit night it may still be possible to come across James and his young bride Anna Maria, walking by the Devil Water.

Lords Bridge, over the Devil Water at Dilston.

Access to castle:

http://www.northumbrianjacobites.org.uk/pages/detail_page.php?id=36&section=27

Sources and notes

Dickinson, Frances, ‘The Reluctant Rebel A Northumbrian Legacy of Jacobite Times’ 1996, Cresset Books [1][3][5][6][10]

http://www.friendsofhistoricdilston.org/

http://www.ghostnortheast.co.uk/dilston.html

Gooch, Leo, ‘The Desperate Faction The Jacobites of North-East England 1688-1745’ 2001, Casdec Ltd [4][8]

Graham, Frank, ‘The Castles of Northumberland’ 1976 Frank Graham Books [7]

Liddell, Tony, ‘Otherworld North East Ghosts and Hauntings Explored’ 2004, Tyne Bridge Publishing [12]

http://www.northofthetyne.co.uk/Dilston.html

http://www.northumbrianjacobites.org.uk/pages/section_homepage.php?section=27

Matthews, Rupert, ‘Mysterious Northumberland’ 2009, Breedon Books [2]

Ogilvy, Christina and Davidson, James, A, ‘Haunting Dilston’ 2015, Powdene Publicity Ltd [9][11]

Thomas Skelton: the murderous jester of Muncaster Castle

Tags

competition, Court Jester, Cumbria, evil clowns, Fool, Foolery, Ghosts, Hauntings, Jesters, King lear, Muncaster Castle, Murder, murderous jester, Pennington, seventeenth century, Thomas, Tom Fool, Tom Fools will, Tom Skelton

Evil Clowns

Coulrophobia – the fear of clowns.  From fictional phantoms such as Stephen King’s Pennywise to serial killer John Wayne Gacy’s alter-ego Pogo the Clown, and even the current trend for ‘killer clowns’ sweeping the US and UK,  clowns have developed a somewhat sinister reputation of late.  Their painted faces and over-sized clothes intended to convey innocent humour can, to some people, appear both uncanny and disturbing.   But evil killer clowns are not an entirely modern phenomenon – if the stories about Thomas Skelton, the last jester of Muncaster Castle – are to be believed.  Thomas Skelton is thought by some to be the original Tom Fool from Shakespeare’s King Lear, but his  ‘Last Will and Testament’  may hint at a much darker side to this comedian.

My personal favourite: Twisty the Clown, from American Horror Story: Freak Show.

Who was Thomas Skelton?

Thomas Skelton is famous for being the last jester of Muncaster Castle, a stately pile near the village of Ravenglass, Cumbria, in the north-west of England.  We know this because he is the named subject of a famous full length portrait that hangs in the castle.  The picture depicts a ruddy-faced middle-aged man, dressed in jester’s motley, holding a staff of office in one hand, and a document written in doggerel, attested to be his will, hangs beside him.

Thomas Skelton last jester of Muncaster Castle. Image via BBC website.

That a portrait was painted of a family retainer must indicate that he was a beloved family servant.  His attire is masterfully comic – his patchwork robe, staff of office and scroll and mock privy seal all act to parody the pompous badges of office of high officialdom, and rather than listing his titles and achievements the scroll offers up what purports to be Tom Fools last will and testament. He even mocks the noble gallant, with the name of his lady pinned into his hatband, aping the fashions of the day, whilst wearing his jesters motley.

Interestingly, the portrait at Muncaster Castle isn’t the only portrait of Tom Skelton. EW Ives in his article for the Shakespeare Survey [1] focuses his research on a second portrait, purchased by the Shakespeare Society in 1957 from the Haigh Hall Collection of the Earls of Crawford and Balcarres. It is by examining this portrait and the text of the will, that EW Ives has attempted to pin-point exactly when and where Tom Fool lived.

Dating Tom Fool

Thomas Skelton’s Will

Ives uses references to well-known local individuals named in the will, cross checked with burial records from Wigan, to build a picture of the movements and the dates for Tom Skelton.  He proposes that although Tom Skelton was originally the jester at Muncaster Castle, upon the death of Lord Pennington, Tom accompanied the young heir when he was sent to live with his relatives, the Bradshaugh’s, at Haigh Hall in Wigan.  At Haigh Hall, sometime between 1659 – 1665, a portrait of Tom was painted. Sir Roger Bradshaw’s wife was a Pennington, and may have known Tom Fool as a child. Ives suggests that when the heir reached his majority and wished to return to Muncaster, he wanted to take the portrait of the much-loved jester with him.  As Tom Fool had been a well-loved family servant, at both Muncaster castle and Haigh Hall, a copy of the portrait was commissioned to remain at Haigh Hall (possibly completed in the 1680’s) while the original returned with the heir to Muncaster. Ives states that there is no evidence that Skelton returned to Muncaster after 1659, while the young heir was away, so it would seem likely Tom died at Haigh Hall [2].

The current incumbent of Muncaster Castle, Peter Frost-Pennington, confirms that evidence for Thomas Skelton’s life in the historical record is hard to find.  He was, after all, just a servant, even if he was one esteemed enough to have his likeness captured in oils.  Frost-Pennington keeps his margins wide quoting ‘1600 give or take 50 years’ [3],  a possible references to him comes from a letter dating to the reign of Henry VIII, while another could put him as far back as the late fifteenth century.  However if the research by EW Ives is correct, then unfortunately Tom Skelton could not be the model for Shakespeare’s Tom Fool in King Lear which dates from about 1605/6.

“King Lear and the Fool in the Storm” by William Dyce (1806–1864) (c) National Galleries of Scotland; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

A Killer Sense of Humour

There were two mains types of fool or jester,  the natural fool – one with a physical or intellectual disability; and the artificial fool – an entertainer or comedian. Fools and jesters were often part of a royal court or noble family and by virtue of their position could often speak harsh truths to their ‘betters’ in the guise of drollery.  Shakespeare often uses the fool as the voice of common sense and wisdom, in Twelfth Night the jester is remarked to be ‘wise enough to play the fool’ [4] It is not clear from the scant historical record, or the portrait, which kind of fool Tom Skelton was, but whether natural or artificial, some of his favourite antics have come down to us.

Mr Claypole from Children’s TV Series Rent-a-ghost.

Like many fools and jesters, Tom was a valued and trusted servant of the Pennington family, entertaining them with a mixture of practical jokes and wit.  He is famed for such clownish antics as cutting off a branch while he sat upon it; greasing up banisters on the staircase to annoy guests, then when asked who was responsible, quipped that he thought ‘everyone had a hand in it’.  

However things take a more sinister turn in the anecdotes relating to Tom Skelton reported in ‘The Remains of John Briggs a compilation of tales and essays’ published in the Westmorland Gazette and Lonsdale Magazine in 1825.

Briggs relates what purports to be oral tradition surrounding a murder committed by Thomas Skelton at the behest of one Sir Ferdinand Hoddleston, of Millum Castle. It all began when Helwise, the lovely daughter of Sir Alan Pennington of Muncaster Castle, had disguised herself as a shepherdess and attended the May Day festivities in order to meet her secret lover, Richard the Carpenter.  Wild Will of Whitbeck, a local ruffian, had fancied his chances but was rejected by Helwise.  To to get his revenge on the lovers he spilled the beans to Sir Ferdinand (yet another wannabe suitor for Helwise).

May Day by William Collins, Wikimedia.

Angered at losing out to a humble carpenter, Sir Ferdinand went to Muncaster Castle bent on informing Sir Alan Pennington of his daughter’s low connection.  However as chance would have it, first he met with Tom Fool, aka Thomas Skelton, and had the following conversation in which Tom recounted a nasty trick he played on ‘Lord Lucy’s Footman’.  This seems to have given Sir Ferdinand an idea of Tom’s homicidal potential…

“‘he asked me’ said Tom, ‘if the river was passable; and I told him it was for nine of our family had just gone over. – They were geese’ whispered Tom; ‘but I did not tell him that.-the fool set into the river, and would have drowned, I believe, if I had not helped him out'”. 

Briggs goes on to recount that Tom also had a personal grudge against Dick the Carpenter –

“‘[..]I put those three shillings which you gave me into a hole, and I found them weezend everytime I went to look at them; and now they are only three silver pennies.  I have just found it out that Dick has weezend them.’
‘Kill him Tom, with his own axe, when he is asleep sometime – and I’ll see that thou takest no harm for it.’ Replied Sir Ferdinand.
‘He deserves it, and I’ll do it,’ said Tom.
[..]
And the next day while the unsuspecting carpenter was taking an after dinner nap, and dreaming probably of the incomparable beauties of his adorable Helwise, Tom entered the shed, and with one blow of the axe severed the carpenters head from his body. ‘There,’ said Tom to the servants,’I have hid Dick’s head under a heap of shavings; and he will not find that so easily, when he awakes, as he did my shillings.'”

Detail of the beheading of Holofernes, by Caravaggio.

The conclusion of this unhappy tale was that heartbroken Helwise entered a nunnery, while the vengeful Sir Ferdinand met a bloody death fighting the Earl of Richmond (Henry Tudor) at Bosworth Field [5].  Which frankly, seems to place this tale much to early to be attributed to the seventeenth century Tom Skelton.

Other tales claim that Tom Fool would sit under a chestnut tree outside Muncaster Castle, watching travelers go past.  Should any traveler ask him for directions, they were at risk of being misdirected to dangerous quicksands near the River Esk [6]. May people consider that his will makes oblique reference to this murderous pass-time.

‘But let me not be carry’d o’er the brigg,
Lest fallin I in Duggas River ligg;’ [9]

Some tales even have Tom recovering the bodies, decapitating them and burying them under tree trunks.

Death from the Medieval Scapini Tarot. Image from SheWalksSoftly website.

All of this would seem to paint a picture of an evil and conscienceless individual.  But is there more to this than meets the eye?  The north-west of England was for hundreds of years,a remote and dangerous place.  Blood feuds, rough justice and robbery with violence were part and parcel of everyday life.  Could these local folk tales and stories have elided themselves onto half remembered anecdotes of the jolly japes and crude practical jokes of Thomas Skelton?  In the Middle Ages there was a tradition in the Tarot of showing death in the garb of the Fool, death having the last laugh (of course) and some traditions also associate the Fool with the trickster and with vice [7&8].  Could these earlier darker traditions, coupled with bloody local legends have become associated with the portrait of Tom Skelton.  Once the immediate family who knew him died out, the portrait, with its slightly menacing air could easily have attracted macabre tales in a similar way that some Screaming Skull legends may have developed.

The punchline…

Tom Skelton was the last jester of Muncaster Castle, and probably of Haigh Hall as well.  Jesters fell out of fashion with the restoration of Charles II to the throne (and I can’t imagine the puritans would have had much use for Jesters either!)  During his lifetime Skelton appears to have been a much valued family retainer, so much so that not one but two portraits were commissioned of him.  Even now, his legend as an entertainer has been revived, and Muncaster Castle hosts an annual Jester Competition in honour of Tom Skelton.

But was Tom Skelton the original Tom Fool from Shakespeare’s King Lear? Well probably not, the dating evidence seems to be against it. And more pressingly, was Skelton an evil killer clown?  His troubled spirit is said to haunt Muncaster Castle to this day – his heavy tread and the sound of a body (the unfortunate carpenter?) being dragged up the stairs have been reported by several witnesses…is he doomed to walk the earth for eternity re-living his heinous crimes? On that, I will leave you to make up your own mind.

If you want to view the portrait of Thomas Skelton you can visit Muncaster Castle, they even offer paranormal ghost tours so you might even get to meet him….

http://www.muncaster.co.uk/castle-and-gardens/castle-overview/

Sources and notes

BBC Cumbria, ‘Muncaster Castle jester competition reveals dark past’ [3] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-22704190

Bob, ‘The History of the Fool’ http://www.foolsforhire.com/info/history.html

Briggs, John, The remains of John Briggs, Kirkby Lonsdale, Foster, 1825 available via https://archive.org/stream/remainsofjohnbri00brigiala#page/154/mode/2up/search/jester   [5]

Ives, E.W. ‘Tom Skelton – A Seventeenth-Century Jester’ , Shakespeare Survey 13, 1960 (partial article available via Google books)  [1] [2]

Jadewik, ‘A Little Bit of Tom Foolery’, the Witching Hour, 2011 https://4girlsandaghost.wordpress.com/tag/tom-foolery/ [1] [2]

Jones, Paul Anthony, ‘Tom Skelton: The Serial Killer Court Jester’, 2015, http://mentalfloss.com/article/68443/tom-skelton-serial-killer-court-jester [6]

Lipscombe, Suzannah, ‘All the Kings’s Fools’, History Today, 2011 http://www.historytoday.com/suzannah-lipscomb/all-king%E2%80%99s-fools

Mason, Emma, ‘Playing the fool: Tudor jesters’, History Extra, 2015 http://www.historyextra.com/feature/playing-fool-tudor-jesters

Past Presented, ‘Tom Skelton’s Foolish Will’ http://www.pastpresented.ukart.com/eskdale/tomfool3.htm (includes full text of the will) [1] [2] [9]

http://www.mythandimage.com/fool.html [8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jester [4][8]

Part Two: The Mysterious Brown Lady of Raynham Hall – sightings

Tags

1936, Brown Lady, Captain Provand, Colonel Loftus, Country Life, Dorothy Walpole, Frederick Marryat, ghost sightings, Indre Shira, Lucia C. Stone, Norfolk, proof of ghosts, Raynham Hall, Townsend

In part two of the Mysterious Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, Miss Jessel examines sightings of her wandering spirit, and considers whether the famous Country Life photograph, believed by many to provide proof of the existence of ghosts, can be taken at face value.  To read part one, click here The Mysterious Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, part one: who was she? 

A Debut Performance

The first attested appearance of the Brown Lady at Raynham Hall was during a Christmas gathering in 1835 held by Lord Charles Townshend. Lucia C. Stone and Colonel Loftus were amongst those invited. One evening after a game of chess, the men decided to retire to bed. On the way to their bedrooms they noticed the outline of a woman wearing an old fashioned brown dress standing in the doorway of one of the rooms. Suddenly she disappeared into thin air. The following evening Loftus saw the same figure again but this time he managed to study her appearance more closely. According to Loftus she appeared to be a genteel woman with an aristocratic bearing but to his horror her eyes seemed to have been gouged out “dark in the glowing face”[1].

The Captain and the Ghost

Interest in the Brown Lady began to grow as Stone and Loftus’ story circulated and more and more people reported having seen her. In 1836, the author and Royal Navy captain, Frederick Marryat visited Raynham as part of a hunting party. A sceptic, Marryat was determined to prove that the haunting had been a trick by local smugglers to keep strangers away. He asked to be put in the room which contained the painting of the woman who Loftus was convinced he had seen.

Frederick Marryat by John Simpson. Source Wikimedia.

The first two nights passed without incident and he was given no opportunity to use the gun which he kept hidden under his pillow. On the evening of the third night just as he was changing for bed he heard a knock on the door. Two of the company had come to ask Marryat’s opinion on a new gun recently arrived from London. After examining the gun, the men decided to accompany Marryat back to his room and joked that he should take the gun with him to protect himself from the Lady[2].

The three men were making their way along the dark and gloomy corridor when suddenly they saw the figure of a melancholy woman carrying a light approaching them. Thinking that it was one of the ladies in their party, the half-dressed Marryat for the sake of modesty hid himself in the space between the double doors of one of the bedrooms. The two other men joined him. As she approached, Marryat recognised her as the woman from the portrait in his bedroom. Never a man to cower in fear, he kept his finger firmly on the trigger intending to confront her and demand an explanation for her presence. Before he could do so, the apparition stopped in front of where Marryat and the others were concealing themselves. She turned to face him and “grinned in a malicious and diabolical manner…”[3]. Marryat shot and the woman vanished, the bullet lodging in the door across the way. A shaken Marryat never tried to challenge the Brown Lady again.

Captured on Camera

Over the following 100 years numerous witnesses claimed to having seen or felt the presence of the Brown Lady at the Hall including in 1926 when Lady Townshend and her son saw the Lady on the staircase.

The Brown Lady, captured by Cpt Provand, first published in Country Life in 1936.

Ten years later on the 19^th September 1936 the Country Life photographer Captain Hubert C. Provand and his assistant Indre Shira were taking pictures for an article. They claim that they had already taken a photograph of the staircase when Shira noticed a strange mist like essence coming towards them. Gradually the vapour solidified to form the figure of a woman. Shira instantly gave directions to Provand who quickly took the cap off the lens whilst Shira pressed the flash trigger[4]. Together the two men claimed to have captured on film definitive proof of the existence of ghosts. The image appeared in the 26^th December 1936 edition of the magazine and again in the 4^th January 1937 edition.  The image is considered one of the most famous ghost photographs ever taken and the negative is still held in the Country Life archives[5].

A Ghostly Image or Clever Fake?

This might just be a fake…..

Since the photograph of the Brown Lady was taken, the image has come under intense scrutiny. At the time the paranormal investigator, Harry Price, interviewed both Provand and Shira and concluded that the men had not conspired to deceive the public and that the photograph was genuine[6].

Since then many other theories have been put forward to explain the image including that the photographers smeared grease on the negative, that it was due to double exposure, that it was the movement of a person (living) on the stairs who was captured during the exposure and that light accidently got into the camera.

Investigators John Fairley and Simon Welfare claim that on examining the image they could discern a pale line above each stair-tread which indicates that one picture has been superimposed over the other. Others agreeing with Fairley and Welfare have suggested that the image looks like a standard Virgin Mary statue and that on close study you can see that the hands of the woman are clasped in prayer, that the dress is typical of the v-shaped garments carved in those statues and that even the pedestal on which the statue stands can be clearly seen[7].

Many others even today believe that the photograph is genuine including Lord Raynham who is convinced that Dorothy’s spirit does remain in the house “she isn’t there to haunt the house but she is still there I know she’s there and I’m glad she’s around”[8].

Is the Brown Lady an angry, suffering spectre whose miserable life has bound her to the house which became a prison or a loving spirit staying in the home where she lived a happy life or simply a tale to titillate visitors? I again leave it to others to decide.

Dorothy Walpole’s Wandering Spirit

Raynham Hall is not the only place where the spirit of Dorothy has been seen. The ghost of a young Dorothy has been seen occasionally at Sandringham House whilst a Royal guest claimed to have been visited by a terrifying vision. A young George IV whilst staying at Houghton awoke in the middle of the night to see the ghost of the Brown Lady at the foot of the bed. It is claimed that the Prince of Wales left the Hall immediately declaring that he would “not spend another hour in the accursed house, for tonight I have seen that which I hope to god I never see again”[9].

Lady Dorothy Townsend nee Walpole.

Other Ghostly Residents of Raynham Hall

The ‘camera shy’ Brown Lady has not been seen since the photograph was taken in 1936 but other apparitions have including the ghosts of a cocker spaniel, two children and the Duke of Monmouth.

The Duke of Monmouth, the housewife’s choice…

An elderly spinster claims to have been visited by the Duke of Monmouth whilst she was spending a night at Raynham and found the experience both flattering and agreeable – the mind boggles![10]

Happy Halloween!

Bibliography

Florence Marryat, There is No Death, 1917

Henrietta Hobart, Duchess of Suffolk: Letters from 1712 to 1767 with historical, biographical and explanatory notes

William Coxe and Horatio Walpole: Memoirs of Horatio, Lord Walpole – Volume I, 1808

M. Townshend, Townshend – Townshend: 1066-1909, 1909

John Harold Wilson, Court Satires of the Restoration, 1986

Norman Milne, Libertine and Harlots, 2014

Raynham Hall, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raynham_Hall

The vast history of Raynham Hall, http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/norfolk/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8058000/8058145.stm

Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Lady_of_Raynham_Hall#cite_note-4

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/norfolk/hauntings/the-brown-lady-of-raynham-hall.html

Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, http://www.paranormalunited.co.uk/brown-lady-of-raynham-hall-norfolk-1936/

The Whartons of Winchendon, http://thedabbler.co.uk/2014/10/the-whartons-of-winchendon-4-honest-tom/

Raynham Hall, http://www.delcoghosts.com/raynham_hall.html

Dorothy Townshend, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Townshend

The Brown Lady, http://altereddimensions.net/2012/brown-lady-ghost

Thomas Wharton, 1st Marquess of Wharton, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wharton,_1st_Marquess_of_Wharton

Charles Townshend, 3rd Viscount Townshend, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Townshend,_3rd_Viscount_Townshend

Raynham Hall, http://home.worldonline.co.za/~townshend/raynham.htm

Gothic Literature, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_fiction

Notes

[1] Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Lady_of_Raynham_Hall

[2] ibid

[3] Florence Marryat, There is No Death, 1917

[4] Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Lady_of_Raynham_Hall#cite_note-4

[5] Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, http://www.paranormalunited.co.uk/brown-lady-of-raynham-hall-norfolk-1936/

[6] The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Lady_of_Raynham_Hall

[7] ibid

[8] The vast history of Raynham Hall, http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/norfolk/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8058000/8058145.stm

[9] The Brown Lady, http://altereddimensions.net/2012/brown-lady-ghost

[10] Raynham Hall, http://www.delcoghosts.com/raynham_hall.html

 

 

 

Part one: The Mysterious Brown Lady of Raynham Hall – who was she?

Tags

Brown Lady, Captain Hubert C Provand, Country Life, Dorothy Walpole, Frederick Marryat, ghost hunters, Ghosts, Harry Price, Honest Tom Wharton, Houghton Hall, Lady Dorothy Townsend, Lucy Loftus, most famous ghost photo, Norfolk, photographs, Raynham Hall, supernatural, Walpole

This is a two-part post, examining the history, legend and paranormal sightings of the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall.  Part one examines the historical basis of the legend.

Raynham Hall in Norfolk is one of the oldest buildings in the county and has been the home of the Townshend family for nearly 400 years. Built in 1619 by Sir Robert Townshend and believed to have been designed by Inigo Jones, the Italian style palatial mansion originally sat in an estate of 7000 acres[1].

The Hall is also the setting for one of the most famous hauntings in England as well as a photograph which for many people proved the existence of ghosts.

Witnesses have reported seeing the ghostly figure of an aristocratic lady wearing an old-fashioned brown dress at various locations in the house but in particular in the upstairs corridor, on the grand staircase and in one particular bedroom.

The Legend of the Brown Lady

The Brown Lady, captured by Cpt Provand for Country Life in 1936.

The Brown Lady is believed to be the spirit of Dorothy Townshend, the second wife of Lord Townshend, sister of the famous Whig politician and first British Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole and aunt of the prolific writer, historian and politician, Horace Walpole.

The story goes that Dorothy fell deeply in love with the young Lord Charles Townshend who returning her feelings asked her father, Robert Walpole, for her hand in marriage. Robert who was also Townshend’s guardian refused to give his permission afraid that people would think that he was using his guardianship for his own self-interest.

Heart-broken, Charles shortly afterwards married Elizabeth Pelham, daughter of the 1st Baron Thomas Pelham of Laughton. Elizabeth died in 1711 leaving Charles a widower with five surviving children. He was eventually reunited with Dorothy and the two married in 1713.

What Charles did not know was that during the time they had been apart, Dorothy had an affair with the notorious Lord Wharton (father of the infamous Philip, first Duke of Wharton, founder of one of the earliest Hell-fire Club’s). When Charles eventually found out, he flew into a terrible rage. Locking Dorothy in her rooms, he forbade her from ever seeing her children again. Dorothy remained imprisoned for the rest of her life until her death in 1726 reportedly from smallpox[2].

Variations on a theme

Other versions differ slightly, in particular when it comes to Dorothy’s death. One story purports that she died of a broken neck after falling or being pushed down the stairs whilst another insists that the funeral in 1726 was a sham and that Dorothy died years afterwards.

Whatever the truth behind the manner of Dorothy’s death, the one point these stories all agree on is the belief that Dorothy never really left Raynham and that her spirit wanders the Hall looking for the children she was so cruelly separated from.

A Gothic Nightmare or a Misjudged Marriage

With the publication of Horace Walpole’s ‘Castle of Otranto’ in 1764, Britain fell in love with a new genre of literature – the Gothic novel. Early gothic stories included elements of ancestral curses, rambling castles with hidden passages and supernatural elements. The gothic fever which gripped the nation was insatiable and new writers emerged on the scene such as Ann Radcliffe, author of the ‘Mysteries of Udolpho’ (1794) “who introduced the brooding figure of the Gothic villain…a literary device that would come to be defined as the Byronic hero”[3]. Later during the Victorian period the gothic genre developed culminating in some of the most famous books ever written such as Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte); Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) and Dracula (Bram Stoker). These together with novels such as The Woman in White (Wilkie Collins) and The Rose and the Key (Sheridan Le Fanu) which tapped into a growing fear amongst women of being locked away by ruthless mercenary male relatives and a fascination with the supernatural may have contributed to the rise of the Brown Lady legend.

Image via Gutenberg Press.

Gothic elements abound in the Brown Lady tale; there is the violent husband; the beautiful wronged woman locked away; the charming but devious villain who defiles a virtuous young woman; the manipulative wife who helps her husband in his schemes; an old house; a suspicious death.

Was there any truth in the stories and rumours surrounding Dorothy Walpole life and death or were various strands of the story twisted and moulded into a gothic tale? Does the historical evidence support the legend? Is it possible that the greatest politician of the era would have allowed his sister to be locked away or possibly murdered without batting an eyelid? Was Charles Townshend really so cruel and despotic? There are so many questions unanswered.

Introducing The Principle Players…

Lady Dorothy Townshend (née Walpole)

Lady Dorothy Townsend nee Walpole

Dorothy ‘Dolly’ Walpole was born on the 18 September 1686 at Houghton Hall in Norfolk to a wealthy landowning family. She was the thirteenth child of Mary Burwell and Colonel Robert Walpole, a Whig politician who represented the district of Castle Rising.

Little is known about her early life but at some point she fell in love with her father’s ward, Charles Townshend. As previously mentioned, her father turned down their request to marry[4]. Dorothy would have been about 10 or 11 years old at this point. Although that seems really young to us now, in the 17^th century the legal age for marriage was 12 for a girl and 14 for a boy. In practice even if a match was made at such an early age, consummation of the marriage did not occur until a few years later.

Houghton Hall. Image by Lenora.

Raised in a family deeply involved in politics, it is highly probable that she mixed with important Whig politicians and their families including Lord Wharton. The story of Dorothy’s affair with Wharton is seen as the catalyst for the events that followed with some even suggesting that the relationship may have been resumed after Dorothy’s marriage to Townshend. Although the evidence does suggest that Dorothy did have a mild flirtation with Wharton whether or not the relationship went any further will never be known.

Two years after the death of Townshend’s first wife in 1711 Dorothy finally got her wish and with the permission of her brother, Robert Walpole, married her first love Charles Townshend in a magnificent ceremony at Raynham Hall. During their thirteen years of marriage they had seven children with six reaching adulthood.

Not much is known about their marriage but in 2009 in an interview given by Lord Raynham to BBC Norfolk he refuted the idea that Dorothy had been ill-treated “People said that Dorothy was locked away and badly treated, but in the 1960s we uncovered paperwork and medical reports suggesting she had a happy life and was much loved”[5].

Most of what we can gather about Dorothy’s personality and life can be found in the remarks made by her contemporaries when they heard about her death from smallpox. One commentator describes her as an elegant and accomplished woman with engaging manners whose death is a great loss to her husband and family[6] and who used her influence to keep the peace between her husband and her brother. Another stated that she was “generally and justly lamented for her uncommon merit and the accomplishments that adorned her mind as well as her person”[7]. Lastly in a letter to Mr Walpole, Lord Waldegrave expresses his sadness at Lady Townshend’s death and recalls how on a trip to Hanover where she accompanied her husband as part of the king’s party she acted “with so much good humour, into the ways of the country, that she pleased everybody to admiration”[8]. It is really hard from these comments to see this Dorothy as the same Dorothy who was so violently abused that she was locked away and possibly murdered.

Lord Charles Townshend (2^nd Viscount Townshend)

Charles Townsend, 2nd Viscount Townsend by Godfrey Kneller.

Charles Townshend was born on the 18 April 1674 and succeeded his father to the peerage at the early age of thirteen. He was educated at Eton College and then at King’s College at Cambridge and as he grew up became deeply involved with the Whig cause. In November 1708 he was promoted to Captain of the Yeoman of the Guard and helped to negotiate the Treaty of Utrecht. He was favoured by George I and his standing with the king only increased when the policies he formed helped to crush the Jacobite Rising in 1715 resulting in him being given the position of Secretary of State for the Northern Department. With the exception of a brief period when he fell out of favour with the king, he held the position of Secretary of State for the rest of his political life and remained at the forefront of politics until differences of opinion with Sir Robert Walpole led him to abandon politics and retire to his estate at Raynham Hall, where he lived until his death in 1738[9].

In the story of the Brown Lady, Charles Townshend is portrayed as a violent man who had trouble controlling his temper. A description of Townshend the politician states that he “was frank, impetuous and overbearing, long accustomed to dictate in the cabinet and fond of recommending violent measures”[10]. The picture that emerges of Townshend is of a wily, determined and intractable man who could be ruthless when he had to be  – but that could describe any politician, no man could reach such a powerful position in that tumultuous climate by being a soft pushover.

On his retirement from politics, Townshend became heavily involved in agricultural developments. He became the champion of turnips as a new winter fodder crop for cattle and introduced large-scale turnip production on his estate. As a result he was given the name of ‘Turnip’ Townshend.

Raynham Hall, seat of Charles Townsend. Image via Wikimedia.

Again the evidence from contemporary sources contradicts the image of an abusive and evil husband. He is described as having retired with a “most unsullied character for integrity, honour and disinterestedness, and gave several striking proofs that he could command the natural warmth of his temper” and that his hospitality endeared him to his neighbours and the dignity of his character earned everyone’s respect[11].

The question is would Robert Walpole have allowed his sister to marry a man with such an unpleasant character? Possibly, Walpole himself had a difficult relationship with his first wife and is known to have treated her badly, and the marriage did cement an alliance between two exceptionally powerful men and two important families. It is also more than likely that Walpole held a traditional view of a woman’s place i.e. the husband was responsible for his wife and that no one else had the right to interfere in their personal affairs. It is interesting that Townshend’s jealously of Walpole rising above him led to a permanent rift between the two only after Dorothy’s death. It might be that the loss of their intermediary left no-one to hold the now fragile alliance together, (often families fall apart when an important member dies). There is no evidence that their arguments were caused by Walpole blaming Townshend for his sister’s death and would have Walpole allow his sister to be held prisoner for years? It seems unlikely but then again no-one knows what goes on behind closed doors.

Lady Lucy Wharton

Lady Lucy Wharton by Godfrey Kneller. Private Collection.

Lucy Wharton was the second wife of Lord Thomas Wharton and heiress to the vast Rathfarnham estates in Ireland. She was the daughter of Adam Loftus, 1^st Viscount Lisburne, a man who was described as hot-tempered, a compulsive gambler and a heavy drinker[12].  Worth £5000 a year, Lucy married Wharton shortly after the death of his first wife, Ann in 1685.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (who had an affair with Lucy’s son, Philip) was not a fan of Lucy describing her as well suited to Lord Wharton, “unfeeling and unprincipled; flattering and fawning, canting, affecting prudery and even sanctity, yet in reality as abandoned and unscrupulous as her husband himself”[13].

Not only did both Lady Wharton and her husband turn a blind eye to each other’s affairs but Lady Wharton was not above helping her husband to seduce innocent girls “his character was so infamous, and his lady’s subservience so notorious, that no young woman could be four and twenty hours under their roof with safety to her reputation”[14].

One of the stories about Dorothy is that somehow Lady Wharton was responsible for entrapping her at Raynham Hall. The origin of this story may stem from an episode which occurred during Dorothy and Wharton’s brief flirtation before her marriage when Lady Wharton lured her to the Wharton’s London residence knowing that it would ruin the girl’s reputation. Apparently Robert Walpole heard a whisper that something was in the air and stormed over to the house and removed his sister by force.

Eventually Lord Wharton became tired of his wife and banished her to a small brick tower in the garden of his mansion at Winchendon in Buckinghamshire[15]. So in a strange way she was banished to some sort of gothic residence but not as a prisoner!

Lord Wharton

Honest Tom Wharton, 1st Marquess of Wharton.

Lord Thomas Wharton was born in August 1648 to a wealthy and powerful family. Wharton was a clever and distinguished Whig politician and virulently anti-Catholic. He sided with the Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of Charles II, in his campaign to be named as his father’s heir in place of the Catholic James II and was instrumental in William, the Dutch Prince of Orange being crowned as king rather than as a consult to Mary. He was also behind the Hanoverian accession and involved in the 1707 Act of Union with Scotland. Despite his decadent ways and occasionally falling out of favour (i.e. Queen Ann disliked him intensely especially after the Barrington Affair when he along with some friends broke into the church and relieved and defecated on the altar and pulpit), he somehow always managed to rise to the top.

Wharton was a libertine, a brilliant swordsman, a debaucher and when he needed to be a manipulative liar. He was sarcastically nicknamed ‘Honest Tom’ as it was believed that no one could trust him “of all the liars of his time he was the most deliberate, the most inventive, and the most circumstantial”[16].

In 1673 he married Ann, granddaughter of Anne St John, the Dowager Duchess of Rochester. It comes to something when probably the most notorious libertine of the age, the Duke of Rochester actually tried to prevent his beloved niece from marrying Wharton. Ann was bookish, clever, a poet and a writer, completely different from Wharton. Neglected by Wharton, in favour of his numerous mistresses, she died in intense pain and misery from syphilis. It is rumoured that Wharton refused to tell Ann that he was infected.

Wharton’s mercurial character was one that aroused deep hatred in some, admired by others and definitely not a man to offend. To the Tories he was almost a satanic figure. Jonathan Swift, whose deep animosity towards Wharton increased when Wharton passed him over for preferment, wrote a number of pieces on the ‘diabolical’ Wharton and called him “the most universal villain I ever knew”[17].

Wharton died in 1715 and left his son by his second wife, Philip as his successor. Swift’s wish that “May it please god to shorten the life of Lord Wharton, And set up his son in his place”[18] eventually came true but if his hope was that the son would somehow atone for the father he would have been sadly disappointed as Philip earned a reputation which equaled and maybe surpassed that of his father as the founder of the Hellfire Club.

In many ways Wharton does fit the image of the Gothic villain; dynamic, charming and dangerous but then again being a drinker, gambler and libertine in the 17^th century was like wearing flared trousers in the 70s, nearly everyone was doing it. Was Wharton worse than others – maybe, maybe not! It is probably best to leave the last word on Wharton to an anonymous source who wrote,“A monster, whom no vice can bigger swell, Abhor’d by Heaven and long since due in Hell”[19].

So was Dorothy the tragic victim of a vicious plot? – I leave it to people to draw their own conclusions!

In part two of the Mysterious Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, Miss Jessel will examine evidence for the sightings of her wandering spirit, and will consider whether the famous Country Life photograph, believed by many to provide proof of the existence of ghosts, can be taken at face value. 

Bibliography

Florence Marryat, There is No Death, 1917

Henrietta Hobart, Duchess of Suffolk: Letters from 1712 to 1767 with historical, biographical and explanatory notes

William Coxe and Horatio Walpole: Memoirs of Horatio, Lord Walpole – Volume I, 1808

M. Townshend, Townshend – Townshend: 1066-1909, 1909

John Harold Wilson, Court Satires of the Restoration, 1986

Norman Milne, Libertine and Harlots, 2014

Raynham Hall, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raynham_Hall

The vast history of Raynham Hall, http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/norfolk/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8058000/8058145.stm

Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Lady_of_Raynham_Hall#cite_note-4

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/norfolk/hauntings/the-brown-lady-of-raynham-hall.html

Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, http://www.paranormalunited.co.uk/brown-lady-of-raynham-hall-norfolk-1936/

The Whartons of Winchendon, http://thedabbler.co.uk/2014/10/the-whartons-of-winchendon-4-honest-tom/

Raynham Hall, http://www.delcoghosts.com/raynham_hall.html

Dorothy Townshend, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Townshend

The Brown Lady, http://altereddimensions.net/2012/brown-lady-ghost

Thomas Wharton, 1st Marquess of Wharton, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wharton,_1st_Marquess_of_Wharton

Charles Townshend, 3rd Viscount Townshend, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Townshend,_3rd_Viscount_Townshend

Raynham Hall, http://home.worldonline.co.za/~townshend/raynham.htm

Gothic Literature, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_fiction

Notes

[1] Raynham Hall, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raynham_Hall

[2] The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/norfolk/hauntings/the-brown-lady-of-raynham-hall.html

[3] Gothic Literature, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_fiction

[4] Dorothy Townshend, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Townshend

[5] The vast history of Raynham Hall http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/norfolk/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8058000/8058145.stm

[6] William Coxe and Horatio Walpole: Memoirs of Horatio, Lord Walpole – Volume I, 1808

[7] Ibid

[8] Ibid

[9] Raynham Hall, http://home.worldonline.co.za/~townshend/raynham.htm

[10] M. Townshend, Townshend – Townshend: 1066-1909, 1909

[11] ibid

[12] John Harold Wilson, Court Satires of the Restoration, 1986

[13] The Whartons of Winchendon, http://thedabbler.co.uk/2014/10/the-whartons-of-winchendon-4-honest-tom/

[14] The Brown Lady, http://altereddimensions.net/2012/brown-lady-ghost

[15] Norman Milne, Libertine and Harlots, 2014

[16] The Whartons of Winchendon, http://thedabbler.co.uk/2014/10/the-whartons-of-winchendon-4-honest-tom/

[17] ibid

[18] ibid

[19] ibid

 

 

Screaming Skulls – folklore, fact and fiction

Tags

Ambrose Barlow, Anne Griffiths, apotropaic, Apotropaic tradition, Bettiscombe Manor, British folklore, Burton Agnes Hall, celtic, Celts, Dickie, English folklore, english stately homes, Ghosts, Guardian Spirits, haunted houses, haunted objects, Hauntings, Head Cults, mememto mori, Owd Nance, Pinney, Screaming skulls, Wardely Hall

Screaming Skulls – a very British Tradition

Screaming Skull, 1958, director Alex Nicol. Wikimedia

Tales of screaming skulls punctuate both the folklore and the ghost literature of the British Isles. From benevolent guardian spirits bringing luck to the household to vengeful spirits tied to a location for all eternity, promising doom and destruction should their mortal remains ever be disturbed. England, is dotted with many manor houses and farmsteads with such tales -but what is their origin?  Are they comparatively recent – many tales cite the seventeenth century for their origin – or do they have more ancient antecedents?  The tales were both relished and embellished by the Gothic-loving Victorians and later writers – how much influence have those literary tales of screaming skulls had in shaping the living folk tradition?

How to spot a screaming skull

So, what exactly is a screaming skull and what are their defining characteristics?

Firstly the term screaming skull, with all its supernatural and dramatic connotations, is unsurprisingly the product of literature. In folklore they are categorised as guardian skulls – the embodiment of the luck of a household or family – which, frankly, sounds a lot less sensational and a lot more, well, protective.

David Clarke in his PhD thesis on Head Cults [1] proposes the following characteristics, common to most traditions:

1. A Dwelling place has a human skull which has been kept for hundreds of years in an important part of the house, in a specially made wall niche, on a prominent windowsill, or beside a hearth;

2. The origin of the skull in unclear, but in oral tradition the date when it took up residence is often placed outside living memory, between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, usually as the result of violence, for example murder or execution;

3. Under no circumstances must the skull be removed from its resting place in the building, this being emphasised in all the stories as the most important theme;

4. If the skull is disturbed then outbreaks of paranormal, poltergeist-like phenomena will plague the residents of the house until the skull is replaced in its favourite place.

Three tales of screaming skulls: Anne Griffiths, ‘Owd Nance’ of Burton Agnes Hall, Yorkshire

Burton Agnes Hall. Image by Lenora.

I have to admit that my first introduction to Screaming Skull folklore came from a Misty annual in the 1980’s- and it resulted in me pestering my dad until he took me to Burton Agnes Hall.  I still have the old guide-book and one solitary grainy old photograph I took at the time (see above) as well as a lingering sense of disappointment that I didn’t get to see the infamous skull itself, which is walled up in a secret location within the hall.

Anne Griffiths, by Geehearts (Burton Agnes Hall).

Folklore has it that the three Griffiths sisters, Frances, Margaret and Catherine (known by her baptismal name as Anne), caused Burton Agnes Hall to be built during the closing years of the reign of Elizabeth I.  Just before the hall was completed, the youngest sister, Anne, was returning from a visit to a family in a nearby village when she was attacked and left for dead by a gang of ruffians.  Brought back to her beloved hall, her dying wish was to remain there after death; she claimed to her sisters that she would not rest ‘unless I, or part of me at least, remain here in our beautiful home as long as it lasts’[2]. She pressed her sisters to agree that once she had died, they would remove her head and keep it on a table in the hall.  However, unsurprisingly, they buried her intact in the local churchyard.

Shortly afterwards, strange things began to happen within the Hall, loud crashes and bangs were heard, poltergeist activity erupted in the depths of the night. The family was terrified and recalling their broken promise to Anne, they set out to make amends.  The coffin was duly opened and what they found shocked them – Anne had preempted them. Although her body remained well-preserved, to their horror they found that her head was now detached and bare of all flesh – only a grinning skull remained.   Anne had her will in the end, and her skull was set upon a table in her beloved hall. Peace reigned once again at Burton Agnes Hall…..well, for most of the time – it is said that Anne, also known as Owd Nance, still walks in October, the month of her supposed demise, and her presence is often felt in the Queens Chamber at Burton Agnes Hall, to this very day.

The Vengeful Slave of Bettiscombe Manor, Dorset

Bettiscombe Manor. Image source: British History.ac.uk website.

Bettiscombe Manor is the ancestral home of the Pinney family, and is built on very ancient ground.   The story goes that one Azaiah Pinney was due to be hanged drawn and quartered for his part in the failed Monmouth Rebellion of 1685.  A swift bribe ensured he was instead whisked away to the colonies, to be an indentured servant in the Caribbean.  Clearly being a man of sterner stuff, Azaiah eventually became a rich plantation owner on the Isle of Nevis.  Many years later a descendant of Azaiah,   returned to Bettiscombe in the company of a negro slave.

The Bettiscombe skull beneath the gaze of a Pinney. Image from Rusmea.com.

The slave, used to tropical climes, was not much taken with the wind and rain-swept Dorset landscape and was soon on his deathbed.  His dying wish was that his remains be returned home for burial and added to this entreaty was a warning not to fail him ‘if his wish were to be ignored, then the house would have no peace.’ [3].  Well, the canny Pinney family were not about to go to the expense of repatriating the remains of a negro slave, and the man was duly buried in the local churchyard.

Soon the dark chambers of Bettiscombe were disturbed by unearthly screams and unexplained happenings, something was terribly amiss.   The broken promise was recalled and the unfortunate slave’s remains dug up.  His bones were brought to the hall and at once the disturbing phenomena ceased.  Only his skull now remains, and was set in a niche in a chimney up in the attic.  Should anyone be foolish enough to try to remove it from its favourite resting place –

‘it is said to scream and cause agricultural disaster if taken out of the house and also causes the death, within a year, of the person who commits the deed.’ [4]

 A rake or a martyr – Wardley Hall near Manchester

Old Postcard of Wardley Hall.

Two stories exist to explain the mysterious skull of Wardley Hall, and they could not be more different.  The first claims that in the reign of Charles the II, one Roger Downes was a notorious rake and libertine.   One night in 1676, Downes was walking on London Bridge with some acquaintances, when he boasted that he would attack the next person he met – he was as good as his word, killing an innocent tailor.  Unfortunately for the young blade, his next intended victim, a Thames water man, was no pushover and not only got the better of Downes, but succeeded in decapitating him and tossing his body into the Thames.  In a macabre twist, his severed head was returned to his sister at Wardley Hall (one can’t help imagining her reaction upon opening the parcel…).

Rakes duelling. Image source uncertain.

The head was duly buried but then the boisterous bachelor took haunting the hall in order to convey his displeasure at being displaced.  Consequently his skull found a permanent resting place in a niche on the stairs – and harmony returned to Wardley.

However in 1799 when Roger Downes coffin was opened – his head was found to be firmly attached to his body!

The alternative origin story of the Wardley Hall skull, is that is belongs to one Father Ambrose Barlow, a Catholic Martyr – and this is the view of the Catholic Church.  Wardley Hall is now the home to the Catholic Bishop of Salford.  Perhaps this is why the story of the libertine Roger Downes exists – as cover for the real provenance of the skull as a Catholic relic?

Skull of St Ambrose.  Source: Visit Salford website.

During the seventeenth century, what with the Reformation and the gunpowder plot,  it was not such a good thing to be seen to be a Catholic.  However, certain parts of the country still held enclaves, Lancashire being one.   Ambrose Barlow was said to have been conducting a Catholic Mass on  Sunday 25th of April when a mob, lead by a protestant preacher, carried him off to gaol.  He was hanged, drawn and quartered on 10 September 1641.  As was the custom, his head was displayed (as a warning to the others) and was set upon a spike in Manchester.   Eventually the head was saved from this ignominious fate by a Catholic sympathizer and returned to Wardley Hall, to be revered as a holy relic.  It was lost for a time, then rediscovered in the 1740’s and the screaming skull legend swiftly began. In 1782 Thomas Barritt wrote:

‘From time out of mind the occupiers of Wardley Hall have had a superstitious veneration for the skull, not permitting it to be removed from its place on the topmost step of the staircase.  There is a tradition that if removed or ill-used, some uncommon screaming and lamenting is heard, and disturbances take place in many parts of the house.’ [5]

In order to ensure that the skull was secure in its tenure, its continued presence was even a condition of the lease [6]. All of which shows how quickly Skull legends could arise, as Clarke notes, the thirty years between the rediscovery in the 1740’s to the recording of the account in 1782, is hardly ‘time out of mind’!

From Guardian Skulls to Screaming Skulls

The origin of the skulls is often lost in the mists of time, and as the Wardley Hall Skull demonstrates, there may even be conflicting stories associated with them within the oral tradition.  Tradition places the origin for most of them as between the fifteenth and seventeenth century – with the Civil War being oft cited.

The Screaming Skull and other Mysteries by Peter Haining

As far as written accounts go, it would seem that the phenomenon was first recorded by Antiquarians in the seventeenth century.  Further accounts were recorded in the eighteenth century, but it was in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that Screaming Skull legends became part of the popular culture. Writers such as Judge Udal’s 1872 work ‘Notes and Queries’ first brought the Bettiscombe skull to popular attention and inspired a number of other writers to follow suit.   Often these accounts were inaccurate (three sisters did not build Burton Agnes Hall, and it is even doubtful as tp whether Anne Griffiths actually existed) and rather on the dramatic side, emphasizing the supernatural phenomena associated with the skulls.  It was from these accounts that the ‘classic screaming skull’ story became fixed in the public imagination and in the literature. Including that of F Marion Crawford whose supernatural tale ‘ The Screaming Skull’, published in 1911, was inspired by the Bettiscombe Skull.

Earlier accounts had focused on the Skulls apotropaic qualities, their protective magic or ‘luck’ for a certain location or family, later tales focused on a more purposeful and romantic ideal of vengeful spirits of those who died violently. Such examples as those at Burton Agnes Hall and Bettiscombe Manor fit the ‘classic’ mold perfectly, with their wronged spirits tied to a place for eternity – and their noisy disapproval if anyone should dare to move them.  It has been noted by Gillian Bennett that once these tales were recorded, they became fixed and immutable, unlike the living oral tradition that had been repeated and elaborated on for many centuries.  Nevertheless because these artifacts do indisputably exist, they still form part of a living folk tradition.  Examples of this can be found at the Pack Horse Inn, Bury, Lancs, where Skull behind the bar (origin unknown) has, in recent years, developed a reputation for being cursed and causing supernatural events.

Celtic stone head. Image via Wikimedia.

In 1996 Clarke recorded a gazette of 32 English Guardian Skull legends, noting that although many were missing, and 7 (including the Burton Agnes skull) had been walled up, 10 remained on display.  Such visible reminders of our own mortality coupled with their link to supernatural phenomenon make them a magnet for stories and legends.

However, considering that the actual evidence for supernatural events, and the famed screaming, is relatively hard to pin down, it might be that the skulls do represent some earlier tradition.  Possibly not stretching back to Celtic head cults as has been suggested (Jennifer Westwood cited in Clarke) –  there is little surviving evidence for Guardian/screaming Skulls in Celtic regions of the British Isles (baring outliers) [8].  Nevertheless such an early origin cannot be entirely discounted – Mysterious Britain also cites some evidence of ancient Celtic traditions surviving in remote communities. In addition to this, two of the skulls, Dickie of Tunstead Farm and the Bettiscombe Skull have been dated to prehistory, and are likely female not male.  Clarke has suggested that it is possible some remnant of a Guardian Skull/Genius Loci concept lingered in certain parts of England.  He cites evidence in that many areas where the legends occur, place names have Celtic origins. And he points to the specific places skulls are often displayed – facing doors, on window sills, at hearths or rafters.  Liminal places and entry points for  malevolent spirits.

It is also hard to ignore the veneration of skulls and bones in Christianity as demonstrated in the reverence for saints relics, a more acceptable form of ancestor worship to the Church, perhaps.

An alternative, could be more metaphysical than supernatural.  Many of the Skulls are said to date from the sixteenth century.  In the late Elizabethan and Jacobean world there was a flowering of metaphysical contemplation of mortality and the vanities of life, both in art and literature.  Could some of these skulls represent Memento Mori from the Jacobean Cult of Melancholy?  The skull was certainly a popular emblem at the time. Is it possible, that once the the original contemplative purpose of the skull was forgotten, stories and legends of a more supernatural bent grew up around these objects?  People have long been fascinated with human skulls, as the seat of the soul and offering a possible link to the other world.

‘Vanitas’ c1671 by Philippe de Champaigne – Public Domain, via Wikimedia.

What ever their true origin, and it could well be a blend of ancient and more modern traditions, the Screaming Skull remains an evocative element of British folklore.

For a classic take on the screaming skull legend in literature, you can read F Marion Crawford’s ‘The Screaming Skull’, inspired by the screaming skull of Bettiscombe Manor….

Sources and Notes

Clarke, David (1999) The head cult : tradition and folklore surrounding the symbol of the severed human head in the British Isles. PhD thesis, University of Sheffield. <http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/3472/> [1]-[5] and [7]

http://www.darkdorset.co.uk/bettiscombe_screaming_skull [4]

http://www.mjwayland.com/index.php/screaming-skull/

http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/hauntings/screaming-skulls-an-introduction.html [8]

http://www.pitlanemagazine.com/cultures/the-history-of-screaming-skulls.html [6]

http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/scremskl.htm – F Marion Crawford 1911

Hell-hounds, Hyter Sprites, and god-fearing Mermaids

Tags

all saints church, black dogs, black shuck, carvings, churches, hell hounds, hound of the baskervilles, hytersprites, medieval church, mermaids, North Norfolk, old shuck, pews, sir arthur conan doyle, upper sheringham

Normal for Norfolk

Norfolk is a strange place at the best of times: a famously flat county dotted with windmills, flint cottages and churches; a land of salt-marsh, sea and sky.  Perhaps some of its strangeness comes from the fact that over the centuries much of the land was reclaimed from the sea – land which the sea still coverts.  A place on the margins of sea and land would seem primed for folk-lore and legends, yet it is not as famous for its folklore as, say, the west country.

Norfolk is densely packed with churches and ruined religious houses, as well as hosting the famous Pilgrimage site at Walsingham. Nevertheless, despite the ubiquity of the church in the county’s history and landscape, there are still many strange folk-tales and legends ingrained in the lore of the county.  From ominous black dogs, to admonitory sprites and determined mermaids. Here is a very brief journey through some of those tales.

Black Shuck

Black dogs abound in British folk-lore, many counties boast their own version of this phantom hell-hound: Guytrash, Trash and Barghuest are but a few of the names it goes by, depending upon the county or region in question.  Even Essex’s famous witch village, Canewdon, boasts a ghostly black dog.  However, it is Norfolk’s lanes, churchyards, salt-marshes and coastal paths, for my mind, which are the natural home of Old Shuck.  Historically, the county also had a thriving smuggling trade, and smugglers were not averse to ‘encouraging’ such beliefs if it made their covert exploits easier to manage by keeping the idle and the curious indoors of a night-time.

Oft described as the size of a calf, this shaggy dog with glowing red saucer eyes, would silently stalk – or even directly confront – the solitary traveler wending his way along a lonely road at dusk.  Sometimes Old Shuck drags a chain, sometimes he is headless; occasionally he comes as a guardian or protector, but most often his presence forebodes ill to the witness and legend says that they, or their kin, will die within a twelve-month.

Image from http://www.basilrathbone.net/films/shhound/

‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, published initially in serial form in The Strand Magazine between 1901-1902, helped introduce the idea of the Phantom Hound to a wider public.  Although the story is set on Dartmoor,  and is most likely based on a Devonshire legend relating to one Richard Cabell [1], Conan Doyle did stay for a while at Cromer Hall in Norfolk.  An estate which encompassed a lane supposedly the haunt of Black Shuck – so there is a slim possibility that this may also have proved some inspiration for his famous story.

The origins of the name have been attributed to the Old English Scucca, meaning Devil or fiend [2] or perhaps a Norfolk dialect word ‘shucky’ meaning ‘shaggy’ or ‘hairy’ [3].  As descriptions often refer to the shaggy nature of this particular cryptid or para-canine (as the author of the very informative Shuckland website prefers to call it), this would seem a fairly logical theory.

Some much has been written on Black Shuck that it is impossible to do justice to the subject in so few words, there are excellent websites out there devoted entirely to Old Shuck.  However one cannot avoid presenting the most famous cases of ‘Death by Shuck’ on record…

Abraham Flemming’s account of 1577. Taken from http://www.bungay-suffolk.co.uk/bungay/black-dog-legend.asp

The Churches at Bungay and Blythburgh in Suffolk, were visited by both a terrifying electrical storm and a terrifying para canine, on the 4 August 1577.  Death and destruction followed. The London-based Reverend Abraham Flemming, in his ‘A Straunge and Terrible Wunder’ provided the Tabloid version of events, based second-hand tales (which the locals might just have embroidered – a tad – with each re-telling…)

“This black dog, or the divil in such a linenesse (God hee knoweth al who workesth all,) running all along down the body of the church with great swiftnesse, and incredible haste, among the people, in a visible fourm and shape, passed between two persons, as they were kneeling uppon their knees, and occupied in prayer as it seemed, wrung the necks of them bothe at one instant clene backward, in somuch that even at a mome[n]t where they kneeled, they stra[ng]gely dyed.” [4]

Another unfortunate parishioner was left horribly burned.  Famously, scorch marks were left on the church door and were ever after called ‘the devil’s fingerprints’.

Later that day the storm, and the Shuck, reached a church at Blythburgh with similarly deadly consequences.

It has been suggested, quite reasonably, that the fierce electrical storm, occurring at the same time as the appearance of the hell-hound, is the most likely reason for all the death and destruction (especially when the burn injuries of the survivors are considered).  That, combined with the traumatic religious upheavals of the day, might have led the superstitious people of the parish to translate such a terrible catastrophe, caused in a church (surely the safest place they could possibly be), to  be caused by a malign supernatural agency. [5] It may have made the tragedy easier for them to process.

The interest in Black Shuck persists even now, on a recent visit to Norfolk I picked up an entertaining contemporary supernatural thriller, ‘Black Shuck’ by Piers Warren. Set in the salt-marshes around Blakeney Point, the novel successfully evokes the strangeness and remoteness of the North Norfolk coastline, creating a perfect setting for Black Shuck.  Warren uses a version of the Shuck legend that explains Shuck as the loyal dog of a drowned sea-captain, doomed to spend eternity searching the coastline for his lost master.   While his hound isn’t entirely sympathetic, and is in fact, very much in need of some serious Barbara Woodhouse treatment, it is one of the alternative explanations of the Black Shuck.  To see black dogs as demonic hell-hounds, or manifestations of Old Nick himself is not the whole story.  Perhaps Black Shuck is as doomed as those he encounters, perhaps he is just the bearer of bad news and not its cause.  It can’t be much of an after-life for a loyal hound – becoming a terrifying harbinger of doom.

Hyter Sprites

The most mysterious and elusive Norfolk beastie seems to be that of the Hyter Sprite (also known as hikey, hykry, hikra and ikry sprite)[6].  Rather like Shuck, their name may originate in Old English which contains the word ‘hedan’, or perhaps, the Saxon word ‘Hodian’. Both broadly meaning ‘to heed, guard, keep’ or to ‘take notice’/’give attention too’ [7].  This rare sprite is found in Eastern Norfolk and the North Norfolk coast. Most commonly appearing as an admonition to children – ‘if you go out on your own after dark, the hyter sprites will get you’ they are associated with nightfall, woodland and marshes.  Mostly used to encourage children to be safe and behave, with a mild threat implied that the hikeys will get them if they don’t, they do not seem particularly dangerous or foreboding, unlike the often menacing Old Shuck.

They are a creature rarely sighted and with no clear description to fit. The most famous, and likely misleading, description being that given by Dr Katherine Briggs in her 1973 Encyclopaedia of Fairies and based on information provided by Ruth Tongue:

“Hyter Sprites.  Lincolnshire and East Anglian fairies.  they are small and sandy-coloured with green eyes like the Feriers of Suffolk. The assume the bird form of sandmartins.  They are grateful for human kindnesses and stern critics of ill-behaviour [..]the hyter sprites have been known to bring home lost children, like the Ghillie Dhu of the Highlands.” [8]

Others have envisioned them as bat-like creatures.  But always as protective spirits who warn children from danger and were possessed of had bird-like qualities.   However not all descriptions were so favorable, one tale collected by Daniel Allen Rabuzzi during his researches found an alarming description provided by the aged aunt of one informant – the protective little hyter sprite was transformed into ‘a spindley-legged light-footed blooksucker’  that haunted the salt-marshes and kept locals safely in their cottages at night….no doubt much to the benefit of local smugglers.

An unlikely sprite

Oddly enough, there is no definitive description of a hyter sprite.  In fact, Rabuzzi comments that in comparison the many recorded sightings of the supernatural beastie, Black Shuck, there appeared to be few if any recorded sightings of hyter sprites.   This lead him to the conclusion that they were not in any sense a fully fledged fairy folk tradition, but rather were ‘heeder spirits’ that represented a ‘folk-expression’. Primarily used to admonish children and discourage them from taking risks, rather than creating any real expectation of an actual encounter.  A bit like a mildly threatening Easter bunny (and distinctly preferable to spindle-legged blood-suckers, in my mind at least).

The Mermaid of Upper Sheringham

Oddly enough, although considered freakish, mermaids were actually thought to exist within nature, certainly during the medieval period and even beyond (a belief that the showman Barnum famously capitalized on, in the 19th century).

No coastal village would be complete without at least one Mermaids tale… and the small fishing village of Sheringham is no different.  A mile or so up the hill from the bucket and spade paradise of Sheringham, is the quieter village of Upper Sheringham.  In the 14th century village church, All Saints, is the remnant of a very fishy tale indeed.

The pews in the church date from the 15th century, and the bench ends contain many a fantastical beastie, but one in particular draws the visitor, the pew by the north door is adorned with a somewhat stocky and rather burly mermaid.  Looking distinctly unsiren-like this mermaid is commemorated with an inscribed tale which goes something like this:

A mermaid’s tale

A mermaid decided to visit the parish church at Syringham (Sheringham) and managed to flip and flap her way from the seashore, up the hill to All Saints church in the village of Upper Sheringham.  Some say she came seeking a soul, and so, with her goal almost in sight, she pushed open the north door of the church.  A service was in progress and the beadle, seeing a slippery siren trying to gain admission, somewhat unchivalrously slammed the door in the unfortunate fish lady’s face, exclaiming ‘Git ew arn owt, we carn’t hev noo marmeards in ‘are!’

Not to be deterred – mermaids may suffer from a bit of a bad reputation at times, but they are descended from an Assyrian goddess after all – the mermaid bided her time, and when a suitable opportunity arose, she pushed open the north door of the church and slithered into the pew at the back of the church.   And here she remains to this day.  Whether she gained a soul – or was truly in want of one – nobody knows.

Mermaids, despite their divine ancestry suffered from very bad PR during Christian times, often being used as a symbol of vanity and sexuality, prostitution and earthly vices.  It has been suggested that perhaps the little mermaid in All Saints could commemorate an unwelcome visit to the church by a prostitute [9] however appealing this interpretation is,  personally I think it is more likely just down to the imagination of the medieval carver – either coloured by local lore or on the order of the parish priest, to illustrate a moral tale.

From the ill-omened supernatural cryptid, Old Shuck, to the pseudo real creatures mermaids, and the heeder spirit folk-expression that is the hyter sprite, Norfolk would seem as rich in folk traditions as it is in medieval churches.

 

Sources and notes

Images – all images copyright Lenora unless otherwise stated.

http://www.fairyist.com/fairy-types/hikey-sprites/

http://norfolkcoast.co.uk/myths/ml_blackshuck.htm [9]

http://www.norfolkcoast.co.uk/myths/ml_mermaid.htm

Pickering, David, ‘Cassell’s Dictionary of Superstitions’ Cassell

Rabuzzi, Daniel Allen, ‘In Pursuit of Norfolk’s Hyter Sprites’  Folklore vol.95 No.1  (1984), pp 74-89 (available on JStor) [2] [6] [7] [8]

Simpson, Jacqueline and Round, Steve, ‘Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore’ Oxford, 2000

http://www.hiddenea.com/shuckland/introduction.htm

Timpson, John, ‘Timpson’s Norfolk Notebook’, Acorn, 2001

Trubshaw, Bob, ‘Black dogs in folklore’ At the Edge archive http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/edge/bdogfl.htm

Warren, Piers, Black Shuck http://www.wildeye.co.uk/black-shuck/index.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Shuck [3] [4] [5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hound_of_the_Baskervilles [1]

 

Ghosts, deadly judges, and the hanging of cousin Charlotte

Tags

after-life, anthology, Carmilla Voiez, death, Dennis Higgins, Essays, Franco Esposito, Ghost stories, Ingrid Hall, Our Day of Passing, Poems, reincarnation, Short stories

Our Day of Passing – An Anthology of Short Stories, Poems and Essays

Complied by Ingrid Hall and Franco Esposito

Free Kindle Download

King Death

Illustration from Chapter 6: ‘Ghosts’; Our Day of Passing.

Death is a subject that most of us are at least mildly curious about. The fact that it is inevitable and that there is no hiding from it adds to its macabre appeal. I have always had a strange relationship with death and rather than becoming increasingly afraid of it in my middle-age, if anything, I have come to respect the power that it has over us all. You can be the sweetest person ever to walk the earth or a twisted, psychopathic serial-killer…but ultimately that great leveler, Death, will come for you.

The beauty of Our Day of Passing – An Anthology of Short Stories, Poems and Essays is that it has been written from a wide range of authors and poets from around the world. Rather than looking at death from one fixed, religious perspective it contains a full range of opinions proving that when it comes to death, there is no right or wrong answer.

So, whether you are pagan in your leanings or deeply rooted in your Catholic faith, or just like a good ghost story, I am sure that you will find something that will make you not only contemplate your own mortality but embrace your life.

Illustration from Chapter 5: ‘The Immortals’; Our Day of Passing.

Our Day of Passing was compiled by Ingrid Hall and Franco Esposito; edited by Ingrid Hall, Carmilla Voiez and Joanne Armstrong; and has contributions from the following international writers and artists:

Ingrid Hall, Franco Esposito, Dennis Higgins, Virginia Wright, Candida Spillard, Valeri Beers, Dada Vedaprajinananda, Strider Marcus Jones, Adam E. Morrison, Allyson Lima, D. B. Mauldin, David A. Slater, David King, Dee Thompson, Donald Illich, Edward Meiman, Eileen Hugo, Emily Olson, Joan McNerney, J.S. Little, Kin Asdi, Madison Meadows, Malobi Sinha, Marianne Szlyk, Mark Aspa, Mark David McClure, Megan Caito, Michael Brookes, Michael Burke, Pijush Kanti Deb, Prince Adewale Oreshade, Rafeeq O. McGiveron, Robin Reiss, Sasha Kasoff, Stephanie Buosi, Talia Haven.

Our Day of Passing is free to download on Amazon until Tuesday 23 February 2016 and will be available in paperback soon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Our-Day-Passing-Anthology-Stories-ebook/dp/B01BQLXBXE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1456046999&sr=8-1&keywords=our+day+of+passing