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.

In Association with the Western Gazette 

You can also read this article, and many others, at the Western Gazette website. Click here to follow me and be the first to know when I publish my next short story, article or book review.

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900 years ago...a hated King...a murder...a Royal Ghost

William II

When that most iconic of Kings William the Conqueror died, he left the throne to his younger son who became William II. Naturally, this caused intense anger with his older brother who fairly promptly organised a revolt. This challenge was supported by many of the Norman landowners who had been given their estates through the largesse of his father.

Quickly, William II in a truly duplicitous move, crushed this danger by promising the native anglo-saxons huge reforms in taxes and restrictive laws. But these pledges were immediately abandoned when any further threats had disappeared. Indeed, he actually increased taxes and enforced the laws more brutally. So it was within this mood of seething resentment that William arrived in the New Forest for a few days hunting in the year 1100.

It came then as no surprise that an “accident” happened which resulted in the death of this most hated King. An arrow was found neatly lodged in his chest.

Rufus Stone, New Forest

One of the party, Sir William Tyrrel whose arrow it was, said that it was a ghastly mistake; but he didn’t hang around long enough to argue his case and re-appeared months later in France where he wisely stayed. Next, because William was so hated, his body was abandoned while all his companions fled to secure their estates against the retributions which the new regime would be bound to bring. So it fell to a lowly Charcoal worker who lived nearby to take the King’s body in the back of his crude wooden cart to Winchester for burial. A truly humiliating last journey for this most detested Monarch.

But now it gets far more interesting. Along the path the cart took to Winchester there was left a trail of royal blood which dripped remorselessly every few yards from the body. This forest blood-trail is reputed to lie there still, and the ghost of the King can sometimes be seen, mournfully following this his last journey.

In fact, a memorial stone called the Rufus Stone, has been erected to mark the spot where the king died. And this is where his ghost re-starts his last journey from time to time.

In Association with the Western Gazette 

You can also read this article, and many others, at the Western Gazette website. Click here to follow me and be the first to know when I publish my next short story, article or book review.

Buy P J Cadavori's Catacombs of the Damned at Winstone’s of Sherborne, Waterstones or Amazon, in paperback and e-book formats. Click on the book covers below to view Catacombs of the Damned at Amazon.

 
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