The Sedgemoor Ghosts

It was a gentle, warm day on June 11th 1685 when a small flotilla of boats made landfall in the bay at Lyme Regis in the County of Dorset. There were 82 men in the group who went to work immediately by raising a further 300.

The landing party was led by the Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles II. He had a vision; to wrest the throne of England from James II. But as events unfurled how he, and his supporters must have wished for a “wise woman”, or a suitable seer to warn them of their folly. But in those days such women were hanged.

At first it all went well with more recruits volunteering, but it was a ragtag army of peasants, artisans and farm workers. They marched north with several skirmishes on the way and eventually, in weather which was getting worse and worse, found themselves in the small town of Bridgwater where they dug in. However, by this time recruits were now missing their families and were quietly drifting home. Monmouth’s navy had been captured so cutting off any retreat, and a simultaneous rebellion in Scotland had fizzled out. Royalist troops had virtually surrounded Bridgwater.

So the Duke was stuck on the Somerset Levels, a rather ghostly, mist engulfed marshlands where, about 700 years earlier, King Alfred had also sought sanctuary from the Vikings. The Duke then made the extraordinary decision to lead his ill-equipped army out of Bridgwater on a night march across the moors. He clearly had no knowledge of all the deep and dangerous drainage ditches which criss-crossed the countryside. These are hard enough to ford in daylight, let alone on a cloudy, dark night. So it was only a matter of time before they were seen by a royalist patrol and the alarm was raised.

It was a disaster for the Duke which was eventually to lead to his execution. His army of farm-workers were no match for the King’s regulars and in the early morning of July 6, 1685 the flatlands of Sedgemoor absorbed the blood and spirits of more than 2000 violent deaths. There was more bloodshed to follow as Judge Jeffries hanged more than 300 survivors, but there was one lucky escapee, a certain Daniel Defoe who would go on to write more than 500 books and pamphlets, including the famous Robinson Crusoe.

Today, phantom cavalry can be seen galloping across the moors, jumping the ditches and then disappearing into the mist which hangs in a melancholy salute to the dead. And spectral voices can be heard calling the opposition to defect, while it is said that on the anniversary of the battle the ghost of Monmouth himself can be seen making his escape, stooped and slinking over the land as he fled the field of battle in dishonour. But the most poignant legend is that of a farmer who was given the chance to escape if he could outrun a horse. With his local knowledge he picked the most sodden, waterlogged area and won the race while the horse got bogged down. But he was shot anyway. His lover, who had to witness this event, then cast herself in her misery into the nearest river and drowned. Her ghost can now be seen gliding along the path of the race, while the heavy breathing of the runner can be heard over hoof beats on the turf. Or it might be just the sighing of the wind over the grasses; local views are mixed.

Finally, those who like the books written by Arthur Conan Doyle should get a copy of Micah Clarke. This gives a wonderful dramatisation of the whole saga. Then go to Lyme Regis and Sedgemoor to see for yourself.

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Religion and the Decline of Magic by Keith Thomas

My rating at Goodreads: 5 of 5 stars

This is a very scholarly book of about 1000 pages, but don’t let that put you off. Granted, it’s not the sort of light entertainment that can justify cover to cover reading, but rather is split into many very enticing chapters which are written in an easy to read style. It is also punctuated by contemporary pictures which help the text along.

It looks at sixteenth and seventeenth century England with such delightful chapter headings as magic and the medieval church, magical healing,cunning men and popular magic, ancient prophesies and astrological practices. There is a whole section on witches and their craft, with allied beliefs such as ghosts, fairies and omens. And finally you get to the core as to why magic declined....

“the virtuosi who dabbled in magic or alchemy had come to appear increasingly cranky to their scientific colleagues” as the seventeenth century progressed.

In addition, as Hilary Mantel says in her introduction “it is a treasure house stuffed from cellar to attic with the quotable and the remarkable.”

This book really should be part of everyone’s library, to be opened and savoured from time to time.


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Molly Leigh and her North-South grave

In 1685 an unfortunate child was born in a hovel on the windswept moors of Burslem in Staffordshire. She was reputed to have “the sight” and at a time when all Englishmen and women wore amulets and whispered charms for protection against witchcraft, this was a handicap indeed. In addition, she was rumoured to have refused her mother’s milk in favour of suckling farm animals in a fearful display of independence. And because she was horribly deformed with a terrible squint she was greatly feared and shunned. Naturally she grew up to be a lonely and bitter woman with a malicious temper. She made a living by selling milk into the local markets and such was the fear of her that local people were too frightened to buy elsewhere, but it was rumoured that they then disposed of it in the roadside ditches.

After many years of crushing misery and loneliness she began to befriend animals, especially a blackbird who roosted in the hawthorn bush outside her cottage. But this blackbird, which the locals were convinced was Molly’s “familiar”, had a particularly evil character and would look balefully at all passersby. Together they were deemed to be responsible for many local disasters such as failed crops, still born cattle, random fires during the heat of the summer. More seriously they were held responsible for wholesale sickness when the beer in the Turk’s Head Inn turned sour. It was this episode which made a particular enemy of the local Parson, Parson Spencer. He was a regular at the Inn and on one particularly torrid afternoon shot the blackbird. But it immediately recovered and flew off back to Molly’s cottage.

Things were getting to an intolerable impasse, but then Molly died. So this should have been the end of it all. But it wasn’t.

Molly was buried in the village graveyard but the blackbird remained and began to terrorise the villagers. So was the witch really dead?

Parson Spencer and some Vicars from nearby villages went to Molly’s cottage which was now empty as nobody could be found to take on the lease. They wished to conduct a service there to settle her soul; now she was gone they could afford to be charitable. But they found her sitting, rocking in her chair by the fire with the blackbird on her shoulder. Four evil eyes gave them a glacial look and they fled in terror.

So what was to be done?

Late at night, the villagers under the authority of the Parson moved into the graveyard. They exhumed the grave and moved it onto a north-south axis. This axis was believed to anchor the spirit as at that time Christian burials were laid east-west so the deceased could see the dawn and the coming of the Christ on his return to earth. And to make the matter final, the blackbird was caught and entombed in the grave with Molly’s remains. That should have been the end of it as the north-south axis should prevent her ghost from wandering.

But Molly is still said to be seen walking the streets of Burslem. And one further mystery is that she died a pauper. It is not known who paid for her extremely expensive tomb; it is constructed of stone and stands about four feet high.

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In Association with the Western Gazette 

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