Can a ghost be in two places at once? ... perhaps

Lady Lisle 

In 1685 a certain Lady Lisle lived at Moyles Court in the New Forest in Hampshire. This was of course the same year that the Monmouth rebellion was crushed (see my blog The Sedgemoor Ghosts) and the whole of the south-west of England was seething with desperate escapees fleeing the retribution of Judge Jeffreys. In those days to be on the losing side was no small matter.

Lady Lisle was soon contacted to provide safe haven for two rebels who were in sore need of sanctuary. Because of her anti-royalist views she took them in. The house was raided the next day and the two fugitives and Lady Lisle were arrested. She was 70 years old and by all accounts a formidable personality.

Lady Lisle was one of the first to be tried at Winchester Castle and was found not guilty of harbouring traitors. However, the power and personality of Judge Jeffreys was such that he over-ruled the decision and she was sentenced to death. There then followed much discussion about the merits of burning at the stake, hang drawing and quartering, and beheading. On one side was Jeffreys who wanted maximum impact through burning, and those sympathisers who wanted a less harsh punishment of beheading due to her age.

The Eclipse Inn, Winchester

Eventually it was decided that she should be beheaded in Winchester Market Place. She spent her last night in the upper rooms of a building which fronted onto the Market Place, and is now the Eclipse Inn. She had a sleepless night while awaiting her fate because the sounds of the scaffold being constructed were impossible to muffle. The next morning she stepped out of a window straight onto the scaffold where, after the normal speeches, sentence was carried out.

So, 350 years later, what of today?

In the Eclipse Inn a Grey Lady has often been seen drifting along the upstairs passage. She is accompanied by surreal sounds of a wooden construction being nailed together ... presumably the scaffold. And at the same time sounds of footsteps with the swish of an expensive, voluminous dress is heard along the corridors of Moyles Court. It is said that both are Lady Lisle.

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