With her head tucked underneath her arm…..

Tags

Alison Weir, Anne Boleyn, Blicking Hall, Elizabeth I, English history, Hampton Court, Henry VIII, Hever Castle, Royal ghosts, Salle Church, Tower of London, Tudors, Witchcraft

A (very) brief history of Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn, this is possibly the most famous image of Anne, and most likely closest likeness, however no contemporary images of Anne survive (this image dates from the late 16th century). Image: National Portrait Gallery.

I have always been a bit of a sucker when it comes to royal ghosts – the bloodier and more headless the better – and they don’t come more headless than Anne Boleyn.  Strong willed, intelligent and beguiling, Anne Boleyn supplanted the popular Queen Katherine of Aragon and stole the heart of Henry VIII.  She successfully held the amorous Henry at bay until he divorced his wife and broke with Rome – talk about a tease.  Once queen she presided and flirted with a dazzling and talented young court, encouraged religious reform and was not afraid to go head to head with the King. Nevertheless she could also be ruthless – she passionately hated the Lady Mary, Katherine’s loyal daughter, to the point where Lady Mary became convinced that Anne was trying to poison her. She also made some very dangerous political enemies such as the equally ruthless Cromwell.

Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I; locket ring worn by Elizabeth I until her death in 1603

In short, it would seem that the seeds of tragedy were planted early on in Anne’s relationship with Henry VIII.  She was never a popular queen, and being an English commoner rather than a foreign princess she could not call on powerful alliances abroad to protect her when the kings love turned sour and the vultures began to circle.  Eventually, having failed to produce a male heir, and successfully alienating a lot of powerful men around her, including the King her only protector, Anne was accused of adultery with several men of her inner circle, and incest with her brother George (and just for good measure witchcraft was also added to the litany of charges).  Following the execution of many of those closest to her, on 19 May 1536 Anne Boleyn herself was executed by a French swordsman on Tower Green.  The fickle Henry was canoodling with Jane Seymour as Anne’s head fell.

Although we might all think we are familiar with Anne Boleyn, thanks to the most recognisable image of her (reproduced here), no contemporary images of Anne survive.  All we have are ghosts of her memory – initially created in the reign of her daughter Elizabeth I who, privately at least, did wish to keep the memory of her mother alive. It is a powerful reminder of how someone so famous, briefly so powerful and who held the most famous King of England in her thrall, so much so that he reshaped the English church in order to win her, was almost expunged from history after her fall.  Only the whim of fate, which placed her daughter Elizabeth I on the throne, ensured that this most enticing of Tudor queen’s was not lost to history for ever.   Sic transit gloria mundi indeed…

The Hauntings of Anne

Having just read Alison Weir’s fascinating account of the fall of Anne Boleyn, ‘The Lady in the Tower’, I was delighted to find a section in the appendices relating to the legends of hauntings related to Anne Boleyn.  Weir brought the historian’s rigour to these colourful tales and cross-referencing the tales against Anne’s known movements, and attested connections with a place during her life, Weir was able(sadly) to debunk quite a few of these sightings.  Well… at least to provide evidence that the spectre in question was not Anne Boleyn!  From my point of view, the fact that we don’t really know what Anne looked like, does make identification of her spectre problematic!  Nevertheless, here are a few tales of this royal revenants peregrinations…I will leave it to the reader to decide on their veracity…

Blickling Hall

Blickling Hall. Image by Lenora

Blickling Hall in Norfolk is one of my favourite stately homes. On a lush summers day it seems the quintessentially English ancestral pile with its dusty rose brick walls, mullioned windows and topiary garden….but on a dark night in May this rural idyll is rudely shattered by the unquiet souls of the dead.

Although the current hall was rebuilt in the early seventeenth century – well after Anne’s death – legend has it that Anne and her siblings were born at Blickling.  The earlier hall had belonged to the Boleyn family in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.  George and Mary were born there, and it seems likely Anne was too.

One local tale that was well established by the eighteenth century, according to Alison Weir, concerns Thomas Boleyn, Anne’s feckless father.  Happy to benefit from Anne’s rise, Thomas nevertheless stood by and did nothing as his children Anne and George went to their bloody deaths on the scaffold.  It is said that his tormented spirit is seen driving pell mell up the drive way of Blickling Hall in a carriage driven by a headless coachman and a team of headless horses, pursued by blue devils, and sometimes the headless corpse of George Boleyn.  By 1850 Weir notes that this version had elaborated to say that the luckless Thomas was cursed for a thousand years to ride out on the anniversary of Anne’s death, crossing every bridge between Wroxham and Blickling, his gory head in his lap.  (There is a slight flaw in this embellishment – Thomas died in bed, with his head fully attached).

As with many stories passed down in folk memory they are often elaborated and embellished with the telling, and by the nineteenth century versions of this tale had Anne as the occupant of the carriage – dressed in pure white but glowing red, and with her blood drenched head resting on her lap.  Some versions have Thomas, her father as the coachman.  The carriage drives right into the hall and disappears, or else stops to allow the gory Anne to descend and begin a nocturnal perambulation of the gloomy chambers of the Hall.

The lake at Blickling – does Anne’s ghost search in vain by its shores…? Image by Lenora

Sightings of Anne (and/or Thomas) and the carriage have been frequent and reported by witnesses of varying degrees of credibility.  In 1979 an apparition supposed to be Anne was sighted in the library, in 1985 a former administrator of Blickling Hall was awoken by female footsteps in the night only to find no one there.  Another sighting occured during world war II when a Butler accosted a mysterious lady by the lake.  She was dressed in Grey and had a white lace collar and mob-cap.  When asked what she was looking for she replied with the poignant words “That for which I search has long since gone.”   It has been pointed out that the costume described sounds more seventeenth century than sixteenth, and that lace was extremely rare in the 1530’s, nevertheless adherents point out that Anne was beheaded in a very similar costume with a white-collar and coif.

Blickling Hall can even boast a lost chamber – no English country pile should be without one – associated with Anne Boleyn.  It is said that there is a room at Blickling that had such an evil atmosphere it was walled up and its whereabouts lost – it was called ‘Old Bullen’s study’.  Just as an aside, personally I don’t think some one as elegant and sophisticated as Anne would be as crass as to leave an evil atmosphere behind her, (intense perhaps – but surely not evil) perhaps Old Bullen could in fact be greedy, gutless Thomas!

Tower of London

The Tower of London from the Thames. Image from ‘London Attractions’ Tourist site.

Unsurprisingly there are many tales of Anne connected with the Tower of London – after all she was imprisoned here from April until her execution on 19 May 1536 and it was here that she watched as her brother and the men closest to her were brutally executed.

My favourite tales from the tower relate to the service that Anne has provided to countless soldiers, the first noted as being in 1864.  A guardsman on duty one night saw the white-clad figure of woman emerging from the Queen’s House.  Approaching to offer a challenge he got a clear look at the figure and was horrified to discover the lady was sans head!  The soldier was found to have fainted and accused of being drunk on duty and court marshaled.  One would not expect a hard-bitten military court to consider the appearance of a headless Tudor Queen as a mitigating factor in such dereliction of duty, however when two witnesses were produced the case was quietly dropped.  Needless to say, the ‘Anne Boleyn defense’ was used more than once by soldiers down the years to explain abandoning their posts!

Other sightings include ‘bluish figure’ floating across the ground to the Queen’s House and in 1967 the case of one John Hawden who observed a strange glow coming from the windows of the White Tower,  lighting a mysterious figure moving between the rooms.  When he asked a fellow warden about the phenomenon he was told that it was probably the ghost of Anne Boleyn and that many wardens had witnessed it (although few spoke of it).

Hever Castle

Hever Castle, Anne’s family seat in Kent. Image by The Giant Puffin via wikimedia.

Hever Castle was the Boleyn family seat in Kent and therefore has strong connections with Anne Boleyn.  The most famous story relating to Hever takes place on Christmas Eve (always a perfect time for ghost stories) and relates to a bridge over the River Eden, close by the Castle.  Anne is said to be seen crossing the bridge heading for home.  In other instances her shimmering wraith-like form is seen lurking about the lawns.  The Splatter blog (see sources) describes a chilling encounter with Anne on the bridge over the Eden.

In 1979 a member of the Society for Psychical Research set about capturing an image of Anne on the bridge.  Staking out the bridge on the appointed day, he was not to be disappointed.  On the stroke of midnight Anne duly appeared in the form of a white light.  Delighted, he took his picture.  Elation soon turned to fear though, when the white light came hurtling directly at him and passed right thorough him.  As he turned he saw it disappear over the bridge towards Hever.  The following day when he developed his film he found that the entire roll was exposed and not one image had been captured….

 

Hampton Court and other places

Hampton Court – does Anne’s restless spirit roam these corridors? Image by Lenora

Oddly enough there are not many sightings of Anne at Hampton Court – perhaps even her ghost finds it too painful to revisit the site of her greatest triumphs and her eventual fall.  However in the late 19th Century she was sighted walking the corridors dressed in blue and looking rather sad.

Anne’s restless spirit is associated with more locations that can be covered in this post.  Some other places she has been sighted at include Windsor Castle, Rochford Hall in Essex and Bollin Hall, Cheshire.  One memorable sighting is recounted by Alison Weir and is based on an interview Nora Lofts conducted with the old sexton of Salle Church in Norfolk.  This story links Anne with Witchcraft.  Anne is said to walk at Salle Church on the anniversary of her death. Wanting to find the truth of the legend the old sexton sat vigil determined to catch the royal revenant.  However, all he saw was a hare run a course about the church before disappearing……the hare being a symbol, particularly in East Anglia, of witchcraft.  (NB. Why is it always an old Sexton in these stories…?)

 

 Anne’s lasting memory

Some sightings of Anne’s ghost or imprint seem well attested by credible witnesses at sites with a verified connection with Anne’s life.  Others have grown around received wisdom and when checked against the historical ‘facts’ cannot possibly relate to Anne (this is not to say that they are not bona-fide sightings – just not necessarily sightings of Anne).  Whatever the truth of these tales, their continued popularity demonstrates how much Anne, with her glittering life and her cataclysmic fall from grace, has entered into the subconsciousness of a nation (and beyond).  People WANT to see Anne Boleyn and to claim that connection with her enduring ‘glamour’ and her tragic end.  Even now, vigils are held on the anniversary of her execution at Blickling Hall and other locations associated with Anne.  This woman who might have vanished from history with out a trace as the discarded wife of a fickle King – still has the power to fascinate and captivate us.

Anne – among us still? Image by Lenora

In her own words

So much has been written about Anne Boleyn, I would like to end by letting her speak for herself. The following poem has been attributed to Anne in the days before her execution…

O Death, O Death, rock me asleepe,
Bring me to quiet rest;
Let pass my weary guiltless ghost
Out of my careful breast.
Toll on, thou passing bell;

Ring out my doleful knell;
Thy sound my death abroad will tell,
For I must die,
There is no remedy.

My pains, my pains, who can express?
Alas, they are so strong!
My dolours will not suffer strength
My life for to prolong.
Toll on, thou passing bell;
Ring out my doleful knell;
Thy sound my death abroad will tell,
For I must die,
There is no remedy.

Alone, alone in prison strong
I wail my destiny:
Woe worth this cruel hap that I
Must taste this misery!
Toll on, thou passing bell;
Ring out my doleful knell;
Thy sound my death abroad will tell,
For I must die,
There is no remedy.

Farewell, farewell, my pleasures past!
Welcome, my present pain!
I feel my torment so increase
That life cannot remain.
Cease now, thou passing bell,
Ring out my doleful knoll,
For thou my death dost tell:
Lord, pity thou my soul!
Death doth draw nigh,
Sound dolefully:
For now I die,
I die, I die.

Read more: http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/resources/anne-boleyn-words/anne-boleyn-poems/#ixzz38hR6bntx

Sources

There are a lot of great books and websites out there devoted to Anne, her history and her ghost, here are a few that I found particularly useful in preparing this post:

http://marilynkaydennis.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/anne-boleyns-ghost/

http://onthetudortrail.com/Blog/

http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/anne-boleyn-portraits-which-is-the-true-face-of-anne-boleyn/

Weir, Alison, The Lady in the Tower, Random House, 2009

Guilty Pleasures…Leech’s pictures from Punch Magazine

Tags

Caricatures, comic sketches, English history, John Leech, Punch Magazine, Social History, Social Satire, Victorian

The cheap tailor and his workmen by Leech (detail) by John Leech

Just a short post today as I have been a bit busy this week.  I haven’t posted any guilty pleasures for a while and one of my biggest guilty pleasures of all time is the purchase, acquisition and general obsession with books.  Especially crusty old leather-bound tomes…

Finding a (rare) idle moment today I was perusing my book shelf and came across a book I had almost forgotten about… Leech’s Pictures.

Image by Simon Finch Books, Holt

I picked this book up in a wonderful dusty little bookshop in Holt, a beautiful little Georgian market town in Norfolk.  The bookshop is in a rickety and maze-like seventeenth century building with crampt and winding staircases that require careful navigating – especially with a pile of books in your arms!  When ever I visit Holt I make a beeline for this bookshop – there are so few independent booksellers left on the High Street these days, it’s always a treat to find a real Gem like this one.

John Leech – Caricaturist

John Leech, public domain image via Wikimedia

John Leech was born in London on 29th August 1817, his parents hailed from Ireland.  Even as a child he was quick with his pencil and his talent was quickly recognised.  He went to Charterhouse school and there became friends with William Makepeace Thackeray (famously the author of Barry Lyndon and Vanity Fair) – the two remained friends for life.

Although he had some medical training, by eighteen he had begun to focus on his art as a profession and published some comic character sketches under the name of Etchings and Sketchings by A. Pen, Esq.  He then worked on a number of  magazines and produced illustrations for Dickens novels such as A Christmas Carol.

He worked in Lithograph and Wood Engraving, the latter being his main method of illustration in Punch Magazine.

Mr Leech and Mr Punch

Mr Punch, himself

He began his long association with Punch satirical magazine in 1841 and this continued until his death in 1864.  Leech’s style and technique quickly developed and by 1845 Ruskin was applauding Leech in fine style describing his work as:

“admittedly the finest definition and natural history of the classes of our society, the kindest and subtlest analysis of its foibles, the tenderest flattery of its pretty and well-bred ways”

Leech’s satirical sketches mainly focus on mocking the social foibles of all classes, and he was also famous for his sporting scenes.  Nevertheless his illustrations also sometimes have a keener edge.  Leech was not afraid to look at some of the harsher truths of life in the Mid Victorian world and he seems to have had a keen sympathy for the plight of horses.

I find the sketches to be a fascinating window onto  the world of Mid Victorian Britain: its mores, its aspirations, its foibles.  Leech’s pictures help, literally, to illustrate some aspects of the Victorian mindset and world view.  As such, his humour can take a somewhat hierarchical, patriarchical and ultimately imperialist tone (some of the depictions of other races in particular, can appear very distasteful to the modern eye).   However as an overall barometer for his era they provide a valuable social commentary.  Despite these flaws, many of his sketches show a keen eye for human nature, and even after nearly 150 years the humour remains evident in many of them.

Leech’s Pictures of Life and Character from the Collection of Mr Punch

Here are a few images from my copy of Leech’s pictures, they are from his Second Series and seem to date from the 1860’s – the book has clearly been read and re-read hence some of the images are a little, shall we say, crumpled!  If you click on the images they come up full size so you can read the captions.

The topics covered range from social satire, to political comments; events such as Crystal Palace Exhibition, the Crimea and sea bathing as well as a look at the  social mobility of the lower classes…ENJOY

My copy of Leech’s Pictures c1860’s

Frontispiece of Leech’s Pictures

Latest from Paris

The cheap tailor and his workmen

A Very Bad Way
‘You look quite wretched Frank’
‘Wretched, my boy! You may imagine how wretched I am when I tell you I don’t even care how my Twowsers are made!’

Managing Mama. ‘My goodness Ellen, how pale you look, for goodness’ sake bite your lips and rub your cheeks.’

Seaside – the bathing hour

New cricketing dress to protect all England against the present swift bowling.

Servantgalism. ‘Ousemaid from town ‘is Hann Jenkins at home?’
Suburban cook: ‘no; she has just gone to her milliners’
‘ousemaid ‘then give her my card, please, and tell her I ‘ope she got home safely from the ball’

dropped something madam?

The parliamentary female

The railway engine and the foxhunter – a prospective sketch

A country ball

The Beard and Moustache movement
Railway Guard ‘Now Ma’am, is this your luggage?’
Old lady (Who concludes she is attacked by brigands) ‘Oh yes! Gentlemen, it’s mine Take it-take all I have! But spare, oh, spare our lives!’

Further illustrations of the mining districts
First polite native: Who’s ‘im Bill?’
Second ditto ‘A stranger!’
First ditto ”eave a brick at ‘im’

Police wear beards and moustaches, panic among the street boys

Comments on the effectiveness of table tapping

The British Weather

New Christmas game for fox-hunters during a long frost.

Scene on the English coast

What a shame
Young lady (inclining to embonpoint). ‘I shall want him again this afternoond – from two to four!’

The Great exhibition at Crystal Palace emptied the theatres

An early example of Goth fashion?

The Crimean War
‘Well, Jack. Here’s good news from home. We’re to have a medal’
That’s very kind. Maybe one of these days we’ll have a coat to stick it on!’

A hint for the horseguards.
Showing how all the weight of our heavies might be preserved, and more fairly adjusted.

The peril of keeping ones gloves in ones hat.

Sources

Leech, John, Pictures from Life and Character From the Collection of Mr Punch,  Second Series, published c1860 by Bradbury and Evans

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Leech_%28caricaturist%29

Mother Shipton: Yorkshire’s Nostradamus

Tags

English history, history, Knaresborough, Mother Shipton, Nostradamus, Petrifying Well, seventeenth century, tourism, witches, Yorkshire

Old Mother Shipton

I visited Knaresborough in Yorkshire on a family holiday when I was a teenager.  One of the things I remember most about the trip was a visit to Old Mother Shipton’s cave and the Dropping Well – famed for its petrifying properties (hang a teddy up and it will turn to stone in under five months).

The Dropping Well, Image by Chris (click image for copyright info)

For a start Old Mother Shipton looked like the archetypal witch, but more than that, she was credited with being Yorkshire’s answer to Nostradamus.  She was a prophetess and seer who had predicted everything from the death of Cardinal Wolsey, the great fire of London, the building of Crystal Palace, the Crimean War, the train, the car, the telephone – you name it Mother Shipton had prophesied it!  I was understandably impressed.

The legend is born

Sculpture of Mother Shipton in the cave where she was alleged to have been born. Image by Chris, click image for copyright info.

In 1488 Ursula Southeil was born out-of-wedlock to a fifteen year old girl called Agatha.  Agatha steadfastly refused to name the father of her child and sought refuge in the cave by the dropping well on the banks of the River Nidd, here she gave birth to the remarkably ugly Ursula.  Agatha either died in childbirth, or gave Ursula up for fostering when the child was two.  Because strange happenings followed the child, people began to suspect her father was non other than Old Nick himself.

Tales of objects moving around or going missing and furniture shifting about were common.  In one such tale, the foster-mother returns home to find baby Ursula gone, and a commotion in her cottage.  Upon entering, she and her companions are set upon by imps disguised as monkey’s.  Ursula is finally located swinging in her crib – up the chimney!

Ursula Southeil was noted for her startling appearance.  One early source describes her thus:

“She was of an indifferent height, but very morose and big boned, her head very long, with very great goggling but sharp and fiery eyes; her nose of an incredible and improportionable length, having in it many crooks and turnings, adorned with many strange pimples of divers colours, as red, blue and mix’t..”  (1)

When she married Toby Shipton at the age of 24, it was said she used a love potion to attract him (either that or else he just had very bad eyesight!).

Their home in Shipton soon became the focus for people seeking advice and her reputation for wisdom grew.  She was particularly good at locating lost or stolen property.

She is most famous for her prophecies, many of which came true during her life time.  She was also supposed to have predicted her own death, at the age of 73, in 1561.

A talent for prediction

Mother Shipton did not write down any of her prophecies.  As a poor woman in the sixteenth century the chances of her being able to write would have been slim – nevertheless her biographers credit her with a sharp intelligence and inborn ability to read from a very early age.

Mother Shipton and Cardinal Wolsey, image Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Her fame grew beyond her locality when her prophecies were published in 1641.  ‘The Prophesie of Mother Shipton in the Raigne of King Henry the Eighth’ was printed in York and was composed of regional predictions and had only two prophetic verses, this version did not predict the end of the world (2).

A later version of her life and predictions ‘The Life and Death of Mother Shipton’ was published in 1684 by the unfortunately named Richard Head.  It is likely that he invented most of the biographical details about her.

A still later version published by Charles Hindley in 1862 contains the famous rhyming couplets relating to Crystal Palace, cars trains, and the famous end of the world prediction (1881):

“Carriages without horses shall go,
And accidents fill the world with woe.
Around the world thoughts shall fly
In the twinkling of an eye.
The world upside down shall be
And gold be found at the root of a tree.
Through hills man shall ride,
And no horse be at his side.
Under water men shall walk,
Shall ride, shall sleep, shall talk.
In the air men shall be seen,
In white, in black, in green;
Iron in the water shall float,
As easily as a wooden boat.
Gold shall be found and shown
In a land that’s now not known.
Fire and water shall wonders do,
England shall at last admit a foe.
The world to an end shall come,
In eighteen hundred and eighty one.”

Sir Henry buys a well

In 1630 Sir Henry Slingsby, a local grandee, purchased some land around the River Nidd from King Charles I.  The land contained the Dropping Well (now known as the Petrifying Well).  The enterprising Sir Henry, seeing the potential in such an extraordinary geological feature quickly constructed an exhibition and began running tours.

Could it be co-incidence that only 11 years after he begins this commercial venture, a book of prophecy linked with the well is published?  As Philip Coppens points out, having a famous prophetess linked to the miraculous well would be an added draw to reel in visitors.

Some believe that the well was feared and avoided by the locals during Mother Shipton’s life – supposedly believing that its petrifying properties would turn them to stone.  However, this does not seem to have been the case with everyone.  John Leyland, the Antiquary of Henry VIII visited the well during Mother Shipton’s lifetime – 1538.  He remarked that the well was known for its healing properties and was regularly visited.  He doesn’t seem to have mentioned Mother Shipton at all.  All of which would point to Mother Shipton being a fabrication to bring in paying visitors.

And tourists did come – even the famous female traveller Celia Fiennes visited the cave in 1697 and noted the following in her journal:

‘and this water as it runns and where it lyes in the hollows of the rocks does turn moss and wood into Stone …I took Moss my self from thence which is all crisp’d and perfect Stone … the whole rock is continually dropping with water besides the showering from the top which ever runns, and this is called the dropping well’(3).

The Truth behind the legend…

So what is the truth behind the legend?  Well, the historical evidence for the existence of Mother Shipton is as scarce as clear skin was on her nose.  This is not necessarily proof she didn’t exist, but if Leyland visited the well during her lifetime  and knew of the miraculous properties of the well, surely he would also have mentioned the presence of a noted seer so closely associated with it?

The links to the commercialisation of the well and the publication of the first prophecies are also suggestive of her tale being fabricated.  Also, as Philip Coppens points out: it is quite a common historical feature to associate oracles with wells, caves and other subterranean features.  Mother Shipton added a mythic dimension to the geological feature.

Mother Shipton working at her predictions, image public domain via Wikipedia Commons

There might even be a hint of intercontinental rivalry going on here as well – the French had Nostradamus, so maybe the English came up with Mother Shipton?  It is notable that after the repeal of laws relating to witchcraft in 1736 Mother Shipton’s image began to transform from the archetypal witch, to a more benign prophetess, depicted with scrolls instead of familiars, and much less warty about the nose.

As for the predictions – the earliest are from 80 years after her death, and relate mainly to events that have already happened.  The later versions seem to have embellished the prophecies.  Charles Hindley author of the 1862 version (extract quoted above) later admitted to inventing the predictions he published.

A Folk-memory of a cunning woman?

For hundreds of years (and well into the nineteenth century) the cunning woman or cunning man was an integral part of village life in England.  A local healer who could offer advice and assistance in the form charms and love potions.

I like to think that Mother Shipton falls into this category.  That she did exist in the capacity of a local cunning woman, and that a folk-memory of her endured until Sir Henry’s day allowing him to appropriate her for his own purposes. The facts and details of her life that have come down to us may be total fabrication and her prophecies have certainly been elaborated down the centuries, but I think that there is a tiny grain of truth in the tale of Mother Shipton which has fixed her in to the very fabric of folk-memory and the landscape itself.

The Cave and Well are open to the public, you can find details of how to arrange a visit on the Museum website:  http://www.mothershipton.co.uk/

River Nidd, Mother Shipton’s Museum just visible under the arches.

Notes

(1) Extract from ‘Yorkshire Legends and Traditions’ by Rev. Thomas Parkinson 1881, himself quoting from Richard Head’s 1684 account.
(2) Wikipedia/Mother Shipton
(3) Morris, Christopher (Ed), The Journeys of Celia Fiennes, Cresset Press, 1947.

Sources

http://www.ephemera-society.org.uk/articles/shipton.html
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/occult/mother-shipton.html
http://www.philipcoppens.com/mother_shipton.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Shipton

Wicked Jimmy Lowther: The Toadstool Earl

Tags

Earl of Lonsdale, eighteenth century, english aristocrats, English Ghosts, English history, history, Lowther Castle, Toadstool Earl, Wicked Jimmy

Vincent Price, from Tales of Terror (Dir.Roger Corman 1962)

When I first found out about  Wicked Jimmy, otherwise known as Sir James Lower 1st Earl of Lonsdale (1736 – 1802), my imagination ran wild with visions of Lon Chaney or Vincent Price skulking around in cobwebbed castles and dank dungeons getting up to suitably nefarious deeds.   A little digging and I came up with more equally intriguing nick-names: Jemmy Grasp-all, The Gloomy Earl and  most delicious of all The Toadstool Earl – just who was this man, and why did he end up with so many unflattering sobriquets?

Well, James Lowther was a very, very, very rich man.  He inherited not one, not two, but THREE fortunes making him one of the Georgian era’s wealthiest individuals.  One of his fortunes alone (Coal mines, harbour trade, and lots of lovely money) came to a quarter of annual British Exports at the time(1).

Sir James Lowther, by Thomas Hudson (Wordsworth Collection)

Despite being born with the proverbial silver spoon, it seems he may not have enjoyed a happy childhood.  His first fortune was inherited from his father who died when James was only 9 years old.  John Sharpe a Local Historian believes that his widowed mother pushed him into becoming ruthlessly ambitious – it would seem that Pushy Parents aren’t a new phenomena.

Sent away to boarding school he found himself the target for bullies – English Public Schools at the time could be brutal places. Nevertheless he soon graduated to the top of the pecking order and became a bully himself – a characteristic he seemed to have maintained all of his life.

How the Earl got his Ninepins

Despite his great wealth, Sir James’s lust for power set him on the path of politics.  Politics in the eighteenth century was a shady business and Sir James seems to have had a natural flare for political skullduggery.  He entered politics in 1757 in Cumberland, and soon proved adept at rigging elections and controlling boroughs.  He also seems to have been good at spotting talent because he helped William Pitt the Younger to enter politics in the 1781 as MP for Appleby.  Pitt then had a stellar political career and became Prime Minister at only 24 years of age.   The Earl received lucrative kick-backs a plenty from his grateful prodigy including the Earldom of Lonsdale.

Chairing the Member, by William Hogarth [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The Gloomy Earl ended up controlling 9 Parliamentary Boroughs in the North West of England and they became known as his ninepins.

The Toadstool Earl and the Mushroom Election

Wicked Jimmy was a name that seems to have attached to the Earl after his death, however The Earl of Toadstool was a name he picked up during his lifetime.  The Earl decided to win the Carlisle seat for one of his relatives and to do so he manipulated the electorate by creating 1400 honorary freemen to vote in the election.  The new freemen were made up of men who were subservient to the Earl – his tenants and workers – and could be relied upon to vote as directed.  The election of 1786 became infamous as the ‘Mushroom election’ because of its mushrooming electorate.

Jemmy Grasp-All

It can often be observed that rich people stay rich by not spending their money – and the Earl was noted for being a fabulously wealthy skinflint.  Unfortunately, one other way the rich stay so rich is by exploiting the masses and Sir James not only exploited his dependents in elections, but he also exploited them in the workplace.  He was a mine owner and his lack of investment in making his mines at Whitehaven safe cost the lives of both workers and pit-ponies in 1791.

He also ensured that the Poet William Wordsworth grew up in poverty.  Wordsworth’s father was agent to The Earl and he died in 1783 with the Earl owing him £5000 (a huge sum in the eighteenth century).

Madman, too influential to be confined(2)

Despite being known as the Gloomy Earl, he was also a fiery character and was not averse to riding 300 miles between Lowther and London and covering the distance in only 36 hours.  He was also a bit of a speed freak and was notorious for driving at break-neck speed – regardless of whether he was passing through a village or not.  I can’t imagine that he was popular in the locality.

Lowther Castle by Simon Ledingham, via Wikimedia Commons (click image for licence info)

The Earl was also fond of a good duel and in 1792 he and a Captain Cuthbertson seem to have had an early Road Rage incident which resulted loud words followed by pistols at dawn to satisfy honour.

Wicked Jimmy and a love that will last for ever….

Wicked Jimmy was a noted ladies man, just because he married the daughter of the Earl of Bute in 1761 didn’t mean he wouldn’t continue to keep mistresses.  Such behaviour was hardly unusual amongst eighteenth century noblemen, and plenty of aristocratic women also took lovers as well (although if they got caught in the act the consequences were far harsher than for the men).

By Józef Simmler [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

One of the more lurid stories that has attached itself to the Earl relates to the beautiful daughter of a tenant whom he seduced.  Legend has it that the girl became his mistress and he kept her in great luxury.  However the girl died young and the Earl was so distracted by grief that he refused to admit she was dead.  When the servants complained about the smell, he is said to have dressed her corpse himself and often dined with her decaying body seated next to him.  Eventually he is said to have had her placed her in a glass coffin. She was finally laid to rest 7 weeks after her death.

If this is true then one can only imagine what the girl’s family must have felt.

Ernest Jones, writing in 1931 in ‘On the Nightmare’ said that such necrophiliac behaviour was rooted in the idea that:

“The dead person who loves, will love forever and will never be weary  of giving and receiving caresses.”

If this story is true, then perhaps at least some of the Earls bluster and bullying was a front for his own lack of self-esteem (he was, after-all,  bullied as a child) or perhaps it was a consequence of the early loss of his father making him unable to cope with separation from someone he loved.  Or perhaps he just couldn’t bare the thought that one of his ‘possessions’ had eluded him by dying.

Whatever the truth behind this very Gothic story, it certainly adds a very macabre twist to the legend of Wicked Jimmy Lowther.

The Earl died on 24 May 1802, and it is said that on the anniversary of his burial, if the moon is full, his spectre can be seen driving his carriage at break-neck speed through the grounds of Lowther Castle.

Lowther Castle is open to the public:
http://www.lowther.co.uk/index.php/visiting-lowther

Notes

1. http://www.lowther.co.uk/index.php/the-lowther-family/the-lowther-family
2. Carlyle, Alexander

Sources

http://www.lowther.co.uk/index.php/the-lowther-family/the-lowther-family
Sharpe, John, 2013, http://www.cwherald.com/archive/archive/%26%238220%3Bwicked-jimmy%26%238221%3B,-1st-earl-of-lonsdale-20130306405026.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lowther,_1st_Earl_of_Lonsdale

The Real Barry Lyndon – Stoney Bowes, a Georgian Sociopath

Tags

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

The Infamous Life of Stoney Bowes

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

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

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

Origins

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

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

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

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

Bagging his first heiress

18th Century Lady, Bowes Museum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A second heiress comes along

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

The Richest Woman in England in his sights

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

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

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

Duel Thomas Rowlandson [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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

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

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

Divorce and abduction

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

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

Stoney Bowes at the Court of Kings Bench, James Gillray

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

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

Stoney Bowes via wikimedia

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

Typical Georgian Gent or Sociopath?

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

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

Sources

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

St Mary’s Island…

Tags

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

St Mary’s Island: A chequered past

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

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

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

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

Smugglers by John Atkinson. Public domain via Wikimedia.

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

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

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

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

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

Sources

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

The strange case of Sir Francis Bacon and the frozen chicken

Tags

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

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

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

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

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

Bacon and the first frozen chicken

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

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

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

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

Death by chicken: Fact or fiction

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

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

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

“Against cold meats was he insured?

For frozen chickens he procured —

brought on the illness he endured,

and never was this Bacon cured.”**

 

The hauntings of Pond Square

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

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

Chicken Run; Parks & Lord; Dreamworks Pictures

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

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

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

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

Notes

*Edward Coke (opponent of Sir Francis Bacon)

** Composed by the poet, Pip Wilson

Sources and references

 Brief Lives, John Aubrey

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

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

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

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

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

True Ghosts and Spooky Incidents, Vikas Khatri

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

 

The Ghosts of Felbrigg Hall

Tags

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

The Approach to Felbrigg Hall

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

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

Detail from Felbrigg Churchyard

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

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

William Windham III, image by Joshua Reynolds

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

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

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

Felbrigg Church, resting place of the Windham family

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

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

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

Felbrigg woods

Links

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

The Wicked Lady: folklore, fiction – fact?

Tags

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

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

Margaret Lockwood as the Wicked Lady, 1945 Gainsborough Pictures.

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

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

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

The legend of the Wicked Lady

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

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

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

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

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

Spectral Sightings

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

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

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

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

Nomansland Common, image by Hogweard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who was the Wicked Lady?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Katherine Ferrers – Guilty or Innocent?

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

Markyate Cell, from The Gentleman’s Magazine, 1805

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“A very great fortune and most excellent woman”§

Katherine Fanshawe

Notes

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

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

Sources

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