ENGLAND’S GHOSTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 910, 1 March 1930, Page 27

ENGLAND’S GHOSTS

MYSTERIOUS VISITATIONS FROM EERIE FOLK CLANKING CHAINS AND SHRIEKS Ghost stories still persist in some parts of England. Residents of the ancient Thamesside town of Richmond have sometimes claimed to see the wraith of Queen Elizabeth, who died in the Old Palace there, careering on a ghostly horse, surrounded by phantom hounds in full cry, through the Old Deer Park on Christmas Eve, says a writer in an English exchange. Only a few fragments 'of the onetime palace now remain, but it is a curious fact that many of the courtiers present during the long hours that the withered, ancient Queen lay unconscious before her death, left testimony to seeing a vision of her, young and blooming, as in her youth, and clad in gorgeous hunting attire, wandering in various parts of the buiidiug and grounds, although they well knew that the dying woman was in the heavily curtained Royal bedchamber. The Queen was notoriously loath to leave life, and it was as though her astral body was revisiting scenes of past happiness before leaving forever its mortal shell. The spirits of Anne Baleyn, Jane Seymour and Katharine Howard, three of Henry VIII.’s luckless wives, are all said to haunt Hampton Court Palace. But two more humble ghosts have for many years been known to disturb the Christmas festivities of residents in one wing. Shouts and oaths, uttered by men's voices in a gutteral foreign tongue, would be heard above the music and merriment at midnight, but the most careful search failed to reveal their origin. Beneath Flagstones What is probably the solution of the' mystery came to light some time ago, when workmen, repairing the paving of a part of the courtyard, discoverel two skeletons beneath the flagstones. These have now had Christian burial in the churchyard of Hampton-on-Thames. Research among ancient documents concerning the Palace seems to indicate that they are those of two Dutch soldiers of the bodyguard of King William 111., who slew each other in a duel over a pretty waiting-maid during the Christmas festivities. Those who visit the riverside church at Hampton cannot fail to notice the ancient tombstone, rather like a fourpoater bed with an effigy reclining lull-length in it, of Mistress Sibell I’aun, foster-mother and governess to King Edward VI. This lady, whose descent from the Hampden family, and whose virtues, almost too many to be true, are set out in a long. Quaint verse on her monument, lived °u for many years after the early death of her beloved royal charge, at Hampton Court, where she acted as a busted domestic adviser to the Queens Mary and Elizabeth.

"Whirring” Noise SHe died in 1562. and passed out of Je memories of men until 1529, when acr tombstone was moved from its °bginal position to that it now occuShortly afterward, mysterious and disturbing noises began to be Juticed by the residents of the Palace, djrticularly a persistent whirring, as spinning-wheel behind some pansuing. Some years ago, during the renovat°n of a disused wing, a forgotten room Was found, which contained a orm-eaten spinning-wheel and sew- “ B-gear of the Elizabethan age. Sine* un the whirring of the invisible Has ceased. ,0n wild December nights travellers ~ *°nely parts of the Pentlaud HUIS ( ?‘d to meet the spectre of the 'Uite Lady of Woodhouselee, a wild-

eyed wraith, clasping a babe to her bosom, who brings ill-luck to all who behold her. In life, she was the beautiful Alison St. Clair, Lary of Bothwellhaugh. Her husband, the Daird of Bothwellhaugh, loyal to Mary Queen of Scots, was banished by the Regent Moray after the Queen’s abdication. His lady and her infant child stayed on in the Castle of Woodhouselee, which had been her dowry. One bitter winter afternoon a band of desperadoes, led by the Regent’s favourite. Sir William Bellenden, sacked and burned the castle and turned the lady and her child out into the raging snowstorm, where they perished after terrible sufferings. A sad little child-ghost is that of little William Hoby, who wanders sobbing along the corridors of Bisham Abbey, the line old mediaeval manorhouse which stands on the banks of the Thames, near Marlow. This unhappy little boy had the misfortune to he the son of a female "bluestocking,” who had no patience with a child who was not very quick at his book. Lady Hoby’s portrait, by Holbein, at Hampton Court, depicts her as distinctly lacking in feminine charm and softness. She had the habit of thrashing poor little William unmercifully, and on one occasion, when he upset ink on his books, beat him so severely that he never recovered. Many years later the blotted sixteenth century copybooks were discovered in an old chest. The unquiet spirit of Lady Hoby herself, compelled to wander forever wringing her hands around her old home in expiation of her wickedness, has also been seen about the grounds of Bisham. In the West of England, round about Yuletide, the ghost of the dreaded Judge Jeffreys is said to revisit the places where he lodged during the Bloody Assize at Tauntoft, Dorchester, and Frome. Outside the last-named there is a high hill, long known as the Gibbet Hill, where the bodies of citizens suspected of complicity in Monmouth’s, rebellion were hung in chains. . . . Frightful shrieks and wails, mingled with 'the clanking of chains, have been heard on wild winter nights near this spot, and errand boys, delivering parcels of New Year fare after dark at houses in the vicinity, have been known to drop their baskets in terror, an d risk dismissal rather than venture nearer to the dread sounds. Harmless Spook A harmless midnight visitor is the nun of Ripley Castle, in Yorkshire, who merely knocks at bedroom doors, but does not enter unless invited to do so and the Cauld Lad of Hylton Castle, near Sunderland, was, until his abode fell into ruins, a Positively helpful spook. He liad the habit o cleaning out the kitchens eacu and doing other domestic jobs. me was mrely seen, his modest shyness being no doubt due to the fact that he wore no clothes. . Tradition has it that he is the spirit of a stable iaa murdered in a tit of ill-temper by his masterin 1609. His unclad figure is sometimes seen flitting ?;°£ e the % n n e e d r e r J most f SZi.^-T unlucky supernatural v^itaHcns^iScthe terrible Bu ,T Sfnsmtord, a fifteenth-FyS&--^-srss S Gerard Lee B.vae « the time of liis arrest. Frightful Fate This spectre is said to mosit frightful fate jld night Tl ie story is that o n Elizabeth during the reign mi< jwife of Great Mistress Baines, Valley, was Shefford, in the Jven pretext called out 1 t £ Charlton Manor, that Lady Kny ' - ' g he W as mounted needed her services when on n Pu'g 11 removed from her the coveting , , , mansion eyes she found n l i e „\ s . fwUh a beautisiia did not iec g • patient.

and shortly afterwards an elegantly dressed young man, of angry aspect, and apparently the worse for drink, rushed into the room, and, seizing the babe, flung it with violence on the blazing fire In the grate. The terrified midwife did not mention the incident for many years, but when on her death-bed gave a statement which was signed and sealed by Mr. Bridges, a local magistrate, and a cousin of “Wild Will Darell,’ who was the owner of Littlecote at the time of the tragedy. Some years ago, in the ancient archives at Longleat House, near Warminster, the Marquess of Bath's seat, a letter was discovered from Sir Henry Knyvett, of Charlton, to Sir Thynne, of Longleat, asking him to make inquiries of a certain Mistress Bonham what had happened to her child, alleged to have been born at Littlecote, and supposed to have been murdered by ill Darell.