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HISTORIC GHOSTS
AND
GHOST HUNTERS
HISTORIC GHOSTS
AND
GHOST HUNTERS
BY
H. ADDINGTON BRUCE
_Author of "The Riddle of Personality"_
NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY
1908
_Copyright_, 1908, _by_
MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY
NEW YORK
***
_Published, September, 1908_
_The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A._
To
THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND
JOHN J. HENRY
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE ix
I. THE DEVILS OF LOUDUN 1
II. THE DRUMMER OF TEDWORTH 17
III. THE HAUNTING OF THE WESLEYS 36
IV. THE VISIONS OF EMANUEL SWEDENBORG 56
V. THE COCK LANE GHOST 81
VI. THE GHOST SEEN BY LORD BROUGHAM 102
VII. THE SEERESS OF PREVORST 120
VIII. THE MYSTERIOUS MR. HOME 143
IX. THE WATSEKA WONDER 171
X. A MEDIEVAL GHOST HUNTER 198
XI. GHOST HUNTERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY 216
PREFACE
The following pages represent in the main a discussion of certain
celebrated mysteries, as viewed in the light of the discoveries set
forth in the writer's earlier work "The Riddle of Personality."
That dealt, it may briefly be recalled, with the achievements of those
scientists whose special endeavor it is to illumine the nature of human
personality. On the one hand, it reviewed the work of the
psychopathologists, or investigators of abnormal mental life; and, on
the other hand, the labors of the psychical researchers, those
enthusiastic and patient explorers of the seemingly supernormal in human
experience. Emphasis was laid on the fact that the two lines of inquiry
are more closely interrelated than is commonly supposed, and that the
discoveries made in each aid in the solution of problems apparently
belonging exclusively in the other.
To this phase of the subject the writer now returns. The problems under
examination are, all of them, problems in psychical research: yet, as
will be found, the majority in no small measure depend for elucidation
on facts brought to light by the psychopathologists. Of course, it is
not claimed that the last word has here been said with respect to any
one of these human enigmas. But it is believed that, thanks to the
knowledge gained by the investigations of the past quarter of a century,
approximately correct solutions have been reached; and that, in any
event, it is by no means imperative to regard the phenomena in question
as inexplicable, or as explicable only on a spiritistic basis.
Before attempting to solve the problems, it manifestly was necessary to
state them. In doing this the writer has sought to present them in a
readable and attractive form, but without any distortion or omission of
material facts.
H. ADDINGTON BRUCE.
BROOKLINE, N. H., July, 1908.
I
THE DEVILS OF LOUDUN
Loudun is a small town in France about midway between the ancient and
romantic cities of Tours and Poitiers. To-day it is an exceedingly
unpretentious and an exceedingly sleepy place; but in the seventeenth
century it was in vastly better estate. Then its markets, its shops, its
inns, lacked not business. Its churches were thronged with worshipers.
Through its narrow streets proud noble and prouder ecclesiastic, thrifty
merchant and active artisan, passed and repassed in an unceasing stream.
It was rich in points of interest, preeminent among which were its
castle and its convent. In the castle the stout-hearted Loudunians found
a refuge and a stronghold against the ambitions of the feudal lords and
the tyranny of the crown. To its convent, pleasantly situated in a grove
of time-honored trees, they sent their children to be educated.
It is to the convent that we must turn our steps; for it was from the
convent that the devils were let loose to plague the good people of
Loudun. And in order to understand the course of events, we must first
make ourselves acquainted with its history. Very briefly, then, it, like
many other institutions of its kind, was a product of the Catholic
counter-reformation designed to stem the rising tide of Protestantism.
It came into being in 1616, and was of the Ursuline order, which had
been introduced into France not many years earlier. From the first it
proved a magnet for the daughters of the nobility, and soon boasted a
goodly complement of nuns.
At their head, as mother superior, was a certain Jeanne de Belfiel, of
noble birth and many attractive qualities, but with characteristics
which, as the sequel will show, wrought much woe to others as well as to
the poor gentlewoman herself. Whatever her defects, however, she labored
tirelessly in the interests of the convent, and in this respect was ably
seconded by its father confessor, worthy Father Moussaut, a man of rare
good sense and possessing a firm hold on the consciences and affections
of the nuns.
Conceive their grief, therefore, when he suddenly sickened and died. Now
ensued an anxious time pending the appointment of his successor. Two
names were foremost for consideration--that of Jean Mignon, chief canon
of the Church of the Holy Cross, and that of Urbain Grandier, cure of
Saint Peter's of Loudun. Mignon was a zealous and learned ecclesiastic,
but belied his name by being cold, suspicious, and, some would have it,
unscrupulous. Grandier, on the contrary, was frank and ardent and
generous, and was idolized by the people of Loudun. But he had serious
failings. He was most unclerically gallant, was tactless, was overready
to take offense, and, his wrath once fully roused, was unrelenting.
Accordingly, little surprise was felt when the choice ultimately fell,
not on him but on Mignon.
With Mignon the devils entered the Ursuline convent. Hardly had he been
installed when rumors began to go about of strange doings within its
quiet walls; and that there was something in these rumors became evident
on the night of October 12, 1632, when two magistrates of Loudun, the
bailie and the civil lieutenant, were hurriedly summoned to the convent
to listen to an astonishing story. For upwards of a fortnight, it
appeared, several of the nuns, including Mother Superior Belfiel, had
been tormented by specters and frightful visions. Latterly they had
given every evidence of being possessed by evil spirits. With the
assistance of another priest, Father Barre, Mignon had succeeded in
exorcising the demons out of all the afflicted save the mother superior
and a Sister Claire.
In their case every formula known to the ritual had failed. The only
conclusion was that they were not merely possessed but bewitched, and
much as he disliked to bring notoriety on the convent, the father
confessor had decided it was high time to learn who was responsible for
the dire visitation. He had called the magistrates, he explained, in
order that legal steps might be taken to apprehend the wizard, it being
well established that "devils when duly exorcised must speak the truth,"
and that consequently there could be no doubt as to the identity of the
offender, should the evil spirits be induced to name the source of their
authority.
Without giving the officials time to recover from their amazement,
Mignon led them to an upper room, where they found the mother superior
and Sister Claire, wan-faced and fragile looking creatures on whose
countenances were expressions of fear that would have inspired pity in
the most stony-hearted. About them hovered monks and nuns. At sight of
the strangers, Sister Claire lapsed into a semi-comatose condition; but
the mother superior uttered piercing shrieks, and was attacked by
violent convulsions that lasted until the father confessor spoke to her
in a commanding tone. Then followed a startling dialogue, carried on in
Latin between Mignon and the soi-disant demon possessing her.
"Why have you entered this maiden's body?"
"Because of hatred."
"What sign do you bring?"
"Flowers."
"What flowers?"
"Roses."
"Who has sent them?"
A moment's hesitation, then the single word--"Urbain."
"Tell us his surname?"
"Grandier."
In an instant the room was in an uproar. But the magistrates did not
lose their heads. To the bailie in especial the affair had a suspicious
look. He had heard the devil "speak worse Latin than a boy of the fourth
class," he had noted the mother superior's hesitancy in pronouncing
Grandier's name, and he was well aware that deadly enmity had long
existed between Grandier and Mignon. So he placed little faith in the
latter's protestation that the naming of his rival had taken him
completely by surprise. Consulting with his colleague, he coldly
informed Mignon that before any arrest could be made there must be
further investigation, and, promising to return next day, bade them good
night.
Next day found the convent besieged by townspeople, indignant at the
accusation against the popular priest, and determined to laugh the
devils out of existence. Grandier himself, burning with rage, hastened
to the bailie and demanded that the nuns be separately interrogated, and
by other inquisitors than Mignon and Barre. In these demands the bailie
properly acquiesced; but, on attempting in person to enforce his orders
to that effect, he was denied admittance to the convent. Excitement ran
high; so high that, fearful for his personal safety, Mignon consented
to accept as exorcists two priests appointed, not by the bailie, but by
the Bishop of Poitiers--who, it might incidentally be mentioned, had his
own reasons for disliking Grandier.
Exorcising now went on daily, to the disgust of the serious-minded, the
mystification of the incredulous, the delight of sensation-mongers, and
the baffled fury of Grandier. So far the play, if melodramatic, had not
approached the tragic. Sometimes it degenerated to the broadest farce
comedy. Thus, on one occasion when the devil was being read out of the
mother superior, a crashing sound was heard and a huge black cat tumbled
down the chimney and scampered about the room. At once the cry was
raised that the devil had taken the form of a cat, a mad chase ensued,
and it would have gone hard with pussy had not a nun chanced to
recognize in it the pet of the convent.
Still, there were circumstances which tended to inspire conviction in
the mind of many. The convulsions of the possessed were undoubtedly
genuine, and undoubtedly they manifested phenomena seemingly
inexplicable on any naturalistic basis. A contemporary writer,
describing events of a few months later, when several recruits had been
added to their ranks, states that some "when comatose became supple like
a thin piece of lead, so that their body could be bent in every
direction, forward, backward, or sideways, till their head touched the
ground," and that others showed no sign of pain when struck, pinched, or
pricked. Then, too, they whirled and danced and grimaced and howled in a
manner impossible to any one in a perfectly normal state.[A]
For a few brief weeks Grandier enjoyed a respite, thanks to the
intervention of his friend, the Archbishop of Bordeaux, who threatened
to send a physician and priests of his own choice to examine the
possessed, a threat of itself sufficient, apparently, to put the devils
to flight. But they returned with undiminished vigor upon the arrival in
Loudun of a powerful state official who, unfortunately for Grandier,
was a relative of Mother Superior Belfiel's. This official, whose name
was Laubardemont, had come to Loudun on a singular mission. Richelieu,
the celebrated cardinal statesman, in the pursuit of his policy of
strengthening the crown and weakening the nobility, had resolved to
level to the ground the fortresses and castles of interior France, and
among those marked for destruction was the castle of Loudun. Thither,
therefore, he dispatched Laubardemont to see that his orders were
faithfully executed.
Naturally, the cardinal's commissioner became interested in the trouble
that had befallen his kinswoman, and the more interested when Mignon
hinted to him that there was reason to believe that the suspected wizard
was also the author of a recent satire which had set the entire court
laughing at Richelieu's expense. What lent plausibility to this charge
was the fact that the satire had been universally accredited to a court
beauty formerly one of Grandier's parishioners. Also there was the fact
that in days gone by, when Richelieu was merely a deacon, he had had a
violent quarrel with Grandier over a question of precedence. Putting two
and two together, and knowing that it would result to his own advantage
to unearth the real author to the satire, Laubardemont turned a willing
ear to the suggestion that the woman in question had allowed her old
pastor to shield himself behind her name.
Back to Paris the commissioner galloped to carry the story to Richelieu.
The cardinal's anger knew no bounds. From the King he secured a warrant
for Grandier's arrest, and to this he added a decree investing
Laubardemont with full inquisitorial powers. Events now moved rapidly.
Though forewarned by Parisian friends, Grandier refused to seek safety
by flight, and was arrested in spectacular fashion while on his way to
say mass. His home was searched, his papers were seized, and he himself
was thrown into an improvised dungeon in a house belonging to Mignon.
Witnesses in his favor were intimidated, while those willing to testify
against him were liberally rewarded. To such lengths did the prosecution
go that, discovering a strong undercurrent of popular indignation,
Laubardemont actually procured from the King and council a decree
prohibiting any appeal from his decisions, and gave out that, since
King and cardinal believed in the enchantment, any one denying it would
be held guilty of lese majesty divine and human.
Under these circumstances Grandier was doomed from the outset. But he
made a desperate struggle, and his opponents were driven to sore straits
to bolster up their case. The devils persisted in speaking bad Latin,
and continually failed to meet tests which they themselves had
suggested. Sometimes their failures were only too plainly the result of
human intervention.
For instance, the mother superior's devil promised that, on a given
night and in the church of the Holy Cross, he would lift Laubardemont's
cap from his head and keep it suspended in mid-air while the
commissioner intoned a _miserere_. When the time came for the fulfilment
of this promise two of the spectators noticed that Laubardemont had
taken care to seat himself at a goodly distance from the other
participants. Quietly leaving the church, these amateur detectives made
their way to the roof, where they found a man in the act of dropping a
long horsehair line, to which was attached a small hook, through a hole
directly over the spot where Laubardemont was sitting. The culprit
fled, and that night another failure was recorded against the devil.
But such fiascos availed nothing to save Grandier. Neither did it avail
him that, before sentence was finally passed, Sister Claire, broken in
body and mind, sobbingly affirmed his innocence, protesting that she did
not know what she was saying when she accused him; nor that the mother
superior, after two hours of agonizing torture self-imposed, fell on her
knees before Laubardemont, made a similar admission, and, passing into
the convent orchard, tried to hang herself. The commissioner and his
colleagues remained obdurate, averring that these confessions were in
themselves evidence of witchcraft, since they could be prompted only by
the desire of the devils to save their master from his just fate. In
August, 1634, Grandier's doom was pronounced. He was to be put to the
torture, strangled, and burned. This judgment was carried out to the
letter, save that when the executioner approached to strangle him, the
ropes binding him to the stake loosened, and he fell forward among the
flames, perishing miserably.
It only remains to analyze this medieval tragedy in the light of modern
knowledge. To the people of his own generation Grandier was either a
wizard most foul, or the victim of a dastardly plot in which all
concerned in harrying him to his death knowingly participated. These
opinions posterity long shared. But now it is quite possible to reach
another conclusion. That there was a conspiracy is evident even from the
facts set down by those hostile to Grandier. On the other hand, it is as
unnecessary as it is incredible to believe that the plotters included
every one instrumental in fixing on the unhappy cure the crime of
witchcraft.
Bearing in mind the discoveries of recent years in the twin fields of
physiology and psychology, it seems evident that the conspirators were
actually limited in number to Mignon, Barre, Laubardemont, and a few of
their intimates. In Laubardemont's case, indeed, there is some reason
for supposing that he was more dupe than knave, and is therefore to be
placed in the same category as the superstitious monks and townspeople
on whom Mignon and Barre so successfully imposed. As to the
possessed--the mother superior and her nuns--they may one and all be
included in a third group as the unwitting tools of Mignon's vengeance.
In fine, it is not only possible but entirely reasonable to regard
Mignon as a seventeenth-century forerunner of Mesmer, Elliotson,
Esdaile, Braid, Charcot, and the present day exponents of hypnotism; and
the nuns as his helpless "subjects," obeying his every command with the
fidelity observable to-day in the patients of the Salpetriere and other
centers of hypnotic practice.
The justness of this view is borne out by the facts recorded by
contemporary annalists, of which only an outline has been given here.
The nuns of Loudun were, as has been said, mostly daughters of the
nobility, and were thus, in all likelihood, temperamentally unstable,
sensitive, high-strung, nervous. The seclusion of their lives, the
monotonous routine of their every-day occupations, and the possibilities
afforded for dangerous, morbid introspection, could not but have a
baneful effect on such natures, leading inevitably to actual insanity or
to hysteria. That the possessed were hysterical is abundantly shown by
the descriptions their historians give of the character of their
convulsions, contortions, etc., and by the references to the anesthetic,
or non-sensitive, spots on their bodies. Now, as we know, the convent at
Loudun had been in existence for only a few years before Mignon became
its father confessor, and so, we may believe, it fell out that he
appeared on the scene precisely when sufficient time had elapsed for
environment and heredity to do their deadly work and provoke an epidemic
of hysteria.
In those benighted times such attacks were popularly ascribed to
possession by evil spirits. The hysterical nuns, as the chronicles tell
us, explained their condition to Mignon by informing him that, shortly
before the onset of their trouble, they had been haunted by the ghost of
their former confessor, Father Moussaut. Here Mignon found his
opportunity. Picture him gently rebuking the unhappy women, admonishing
them that such a good man as Father Moussaut would never return to
torment those who had been in his charge, and insisting that the source
of their woes must be sought elsewhere; in, say, some evil disposed
person, hostile to Father Moussaut's successor, and hoping, through thus
afflicting them, to bring the convent into disrepute and in this way
strike a deadly blow at its new father confessor. Who might be this evil
disposed person? Who, in truth, save Urbain Grandier?
Picture Mignon, again, observing that his suggestion had taken root in
the minds of two of the most emotional and impressionable, the mother
superior and Sister Claire. Then would follow a course of lessons
designed to aid the suggestion to blossom into open accusation. And
presently Mignon would make the discovery that the mother superior and
Sister Claire would, when in a hysterical state, blindly obey any
command he might make, cease from their convulsions, respond
intelligently and at his will to questions put to them, renew their
convulsions, lapse even into seeming dementia.
Doubtless he did not grasp the full significance and possibilities of
his discovery--had he done so the devils would not have bungled matters
so often, and no embarrassing confessions would have been forthcoming.
But he saw clearly enough that he had in his hand a mighty weapon
against his rival, and history has recorded the manner and effectiveness
with which he used it.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Aubin's "Histoire des Diables de Loudun," a book by a writer who
scoffed at the idea that the nuns had actually been bewitched. For an
account by a contemporary who firmly believed the charges brought
against Grandier, consult Niau's "La Veritable Histoire des Diables de
Loudun." This latter work is accessible in an English translation by
Edmund Goldsmid.
II
THE DRUMMER OF TEDWORTH
There have been drummers a plenty in all countries and all ages, but
there surely has never been the equal of the drummer of Tedworth. His
was the distinction to inspire terror the length and breadth of a
kingdom, to set a nation by the ears--nay, even to disturb the peace of
Church and Crown.
When the Cromwellian wars broke out, he was in his prime, a stout,
sturdy Englishman, suffering, as did his fellows, from the misrule of
the Stuarts, and ready for any desperate step that might better his
fortunes. Volunteering, therefore, under the man of blood and iron,
tradition has it that from the first battle to the last his drum was
heard inspiring the revolutionists to mighty deeds of valor. The
conflict at an end, Charles beheaded, and the Fifth Monarchy men
creating chaos in their noisy efforts to establish the Kingdom of God on
earth, he lapsed into an obscurity that endured until the Restoration.
Then he reemerged, not as a veteran living at ease on laurels well won,
but as a wandering beggar, roving from shire to shire in quest of alms,
which he implored to the accompaniment of fearsome music from his
beloved drum.
Thus he journeyed, undisturbed and gaining a sufficient living, until he
chanced in the spring of 1661 to invade the quiet Wiltshire village of
Tedworth. At that time the interests of Tedworth were identical with the
interests of a certain Squire Mompesson, and he, being a gouty,
irritable individual, was little disposed to have his peace and the
peace of Tedworth disturbed by the drummer's loud bawling and louder
drumming. At his orders rough hands seized the unhappy wanderer, blows
rained upon him, and he was driven from Tedworth minus his drum. In vain
he begged the wrathful Mompesson to restore it to him; in vain, with the
tears streaming down his battle-worn, weather-beaten face, he protested
that the drum was the only friend left to him in all the world; and in
vain he related the happy memories it held for him. "Go," he was roughly
told--"go, and be thankful thou escapest so lightly!" So go he did, and
whither he went nobody knew, and for the moment nobody cared.
But all Tedworth soon had occasion to wish that his lamentations had
moved the Squire to pity. Hardly a month later, when Mompesson had
journeyed to the capital to pay his respects to the King, his family
were aroused in the middle of the night by angry voices and an incessant
banging on the front door. Windows were tried; entrance was vehemently
demanded. Within, panic reigned at once. The house was situated in a
lonely spot, and it seemed certain that, having heard of its master's
absence, a band of highwaymen, with whom the countryside abounded, had
planned to turn burglars. The occupants, consisting as they did of women
and children, could at best make scant resistance; and consequently
there was much quaking and trembling, until, finding the bolts and bars
too strong for them, the unwelcome visitors withdrew.
Unmeasured was Mompesson's wrath when he returned and learned of the
alarm. He only hoped, he declared, that the villains would venture
back--he would give them a greeting such as had not been known since
the days of the great war. That very night he had opportunity to make
good his boast, for soon after the household had sought repose the
disturbance broke out anew. Lighting a lantern, slipping into a
dressing-gown, and snatching up a brace of pistols, the Squire dashed
down-stairs, the noise becoming louder the nearer he reached the door.
Click, clash--the bolts were slipped back, the key was turned, and,
lantern extended, he peered into the night.
The moment he opened the door all became still, and nothing but empty
darkness met his eyes. Almost immediately, however, the knocking began
at a second door, to which, after making the first fast, he hurried,
only to find the same result, and to hear, with mounting anger, a tumult
at yet another door. Again silence when this was thrown open. But,
stepping outside, as he afterward told the story, Mompesson became aware
of "a strange and hollow sound in the air." Forthwith the suspicion
entered his mind that the noises he had heard might be of supernatural
origin. To him, true son of the seventeenth century, a suspicion of this
sort was tantamount to certainty, and an unreasoning alarm filled his
soul; an alarm that grew into deadly fear when, safe in the bed he had
hurriedly sought, a tremendous booming sound came from the top of the
house.
Here, in an upper room, for safe-keeping and as an interesting relic of
the Civil War, had been placed the beggar's drum, and the terrible
thought occurred to Mompesson: "Can it be that the drummer is dead, and
that his spirit has returned to torment me?"
A few nights later no room for doubt seemed left. Instead of the
nocturnal shouting and knocking, there began a veritable concert from
the room containing the drum. This concert, Mompesson informed his
friends, opened with a peculiar "hurling in the air over the house," and
closed with "the beating of a drum like that at the breaking up of a
guard." The mental torture of the Squire and his family may be easier
imagined than described. And before long matters grew much worse, when,
becoming emboldened, the ghostly drummer laid aside his drum to play
practical, and sometimes exceedingly painful, jokes on the members of
the household.
Curiously enough, his malice was chiefly directed against Mompesson's
children, who--poor little dears--had certainly never worked him any
injury. Yet we are told that for a time "it haunted none particularly
but them." When they were in bed the coverings were dragged off and
thrown on the floor; there was heard a scratching noise under the bed as
of some animal with iron claws; sometimes they were lifted bodily, "so
that six men could not hold them down," and their limbs were beaten
violently against the bedposts. Nor did the unseen and unruly visitant
scruple to plague Mompesson's aged mother, whose Bible was frequently
hidden from her, and in whose bed ashes, knives, and other articles were
placed.
As time passed marvels multiplied. The assurance is solemnly given that
"chairs moved of themselves." A board, it is insisted, rose out of the
floor of its own accord and flung itself violently at a servant. Strange
lights, "like corpse candles," floated about. The Squire's personal
attendant John, "a stout fellow and of sober conversation," was one
night confronted by a ghastly apparition in the form of "a great body
with two red and glaring eyes." Frequently, too, when John was in bed
he was treated as were the children, his coverings removed, his body
struck, etc. But it was noticed that whenever he grasped and brandished
a sword he was left in peace. Clearly, the ghost had a healthy respect
for cold steel.
It had less respect for exorcising, which, of course, was tried, but
tried in vain. All went well as long as the clergyman was on his knees
saying the prescribed prayers by the bedside of the tormented children,
but the moment he rose a bed staff was thrown at him and other articles
of furniture danced about so madly that body and limb were endangered.
Mompesson was at his wits' end. Well might he be! Apart from the injury
done to his family and belongings, his house was thronged night and day
by inquisitive visitors from all sections of the country. He was
denounced on the one hand as a trickster, and on the other as a man who
must be guilty of some terrible secret sin, else he would not thus be
vexed. Sermons were preached with him as the text. Factions were formed,
angrily affirming and denying the supernatural character of the
disturbances. News of the affair traveled even to the ears of the King,
who dispatched an investigating commission to Mompesson House, where,
greatly to the delight of the unbelieving, nothing untoward occurred
during the commissioners' visit. But thereafter, as if to make up for
lost time, the most sensational and vexatious phenomena of the haunting
were produced.
Thus matters continued for many months, until it dawned on Mompesson and
his friends that possibly the case was not one of ghosts but one of
witchcraft. This suspicion rose from the singular circumstance that
voices in the children's room began, "for a hundred times together," to
cry "A witch! A witch!" Resolved to put matters to a test, one of the
boldest of a company of spectators suddenly demanded, "Satan, if the
drummer set thee to work, give three knocks and no more!" To which three
knocks were distinctly heard, and afterward, by way of confirmation,
five knocks as requested by another onlooker.
Now began an eager hunt for the once despised drummer, who was presently
found in jail at Gloucester accused of theft. And with this discovery
word was brought to Mompesson that the drummer had openly boasted of
having bewitched him. This was enough for the outraged Squire. There was
in existence an act of King James I. holding it a felony to "feed,
employ, or reward any evil spirit," and under its provisions he speedily
had his alleged persecutor indicted as a wizard.
Amid great excitement the aged veteran was brought from Gloucester to
Salisbury to stand trial. But his spirit remained unbroken. Instead of
confessing, humbly begging mercy, and promising amends, he undertook to
bargain with Mompesson, promising that if the latter secured his liberty
and gave him employment as a farm hand, he would rid him of the
haunting. Perhaps because he feared treachery, perhaps because, as he
said, he felt sure the drummer "could do him no good in any honest way,"
Mompesson rejected this ingenuous proposal.
So the drummer was left to his fate, which, for those days, was most
unexpected. A packed and attentive court room listened to the tale of
the mishaps and misadventures that had made Mompesson House a national
center of interest; it was proved that the accused had been intimate
with an old vagabond who pretended to possess supernatural powers; and
emphasis was laid on the alleged fact that he had boasted of having
revenged himself on Mompesson for the confiscation of his drum. Luckily
for him, Mompesson was not the power in Salisbury that he was in
Tedworth, and the drummer's eloquent defense moved the jury to acquit
him and to send him on his way rejoicing. Thereafter he was never again
heard of in Wiltshire or in the pages of history, and with his
disappearance came an end to the knockings, the corpse candles, and all
the other uncanny phenomena that had made life a ceaseless nightmare for
the Mompessons.
Such is the astonishing story of the drummer of Tedworth, still cited by
the superstitious as a capital example of the intermeddling of
superhuman agencies in human affairs, and still mentioned by the
skeptical as one of the most amusing and most successful hoaxes on
record.
To us of the twentieth century its chief significance lies in the
striking resemblance between the tribulations of the Mompesson family
and the so-called physical phenomena of modern spiritism. All who have
attended spiritistic seances are familiar with the invisible and
perverse ghost, which, for no apparent reason other than to mystify,
causes furniture to gyrate violently, rings bells, plays tambourines,
levitates the "medium," and favors the spectators with sundry taps,
pinches, even blows. Precisely thus was it with the doings at Mompesson
House, where many of the salient phenomena of modern spiritism were
anticipated nearly two hundred and fifty years ago.
The inference is irresistible that a more or less intimate connection
exists between the disturbances at Tedworth and the triumphs of
latter-day mediumship, and it thus becomes doubly interesting to examine
the evidence for and against the supernatural origin of the performances
that so perplexed the Englishmen of the Restoration. This evidence is
presented in far greater detail than is here possible, in a curious
document written by the Reverend Joseph Glanvill, a clergyman of the
Church of England and an eye witness of some of the phenomena. His point
of view is that of an ardent believer in the verity of witchcraft, and
his narrative of the Tedworth affair finds place in a treatise designed
to discomfit those irreligious persons who maintained the opposite.[B]
It is therefore evident that his account of the case is to be regarded
as a piece of special pleading, and as such must be received with
critical caution.
The need for caution is further emphasized by the important circumstance
that of all the phenomena described, only those most susceptible of
mundane interpretation were witnessed by Glanvill or Mompesson. All of
the more extraordinary--the great body with the red and glaring eyes,
the levitated children, etc.--came to the narrator from second or third
or fourth hand sources not always clearly indicated, and doubtless
uneducated and superstitious persons, such as peasants or servants,
whose fears would lend wings to their imagination.
Keeping these facts before us, what do we find? We find that, so far
from supporting the supernatural view, the evidence points to a
systematic course of fraud and deceit carried out, not by the drummer,
not by Mompesson and Glanvill (as many of that generation were unkind
enough to suggest), not by the Mompesson servants, but by the Mompesson
children, and particularly by the oldest child, a girl of ten.
It was about the children that the disturbances centered, it was in
their room that the manifestations usually took place, and--what should
have served to direct suspicion to them at once--when, in the hope of
affording them relief, their father separated them, sending the youngest
to lodge with a neighbor and taking the oldest into his own room, it was
remarked that the neighbor's house immediately became the scene of
demoniac activity, as did the Squire's apartment, which had previously
been virtually undisturbed. Here and now developed a phenomenon that
places little Miss Mompesson on a par with the celebrated Fox sisters,
for her father's bed chamber was turned into a seance room in which
messages were rapped out very much as messages have been rapped out ever
since the fateful night in 1848 that saw modern spiritism ushered into
the world.
Glanvill's personal testimony, the most precise and circumstantial in
the entire case, strongly, albeit unwittingly, supports this view of the
affair. It appears that he passed only one night in the haunted house,
and of his several experiences there is none that cannot be set down to
fraud plus imagination, with the children the active agents. Witness the
following from his story of what he heard and beheld in the
oft-mentioned "children's room":
"At this time it used to haunt the children, and that as soon as they
were laid. They went to bed the night I was there about eight of the
clock, when a maid servant, coming down from them, told us that it was
come.... Mr. Mompesson and I and a gentleman that came with me went up.
I heard a strange scratching as I went up the stairs, and when we came
into the room I perceived _it was just behind the bolster of the
children's bed and seemed to be against the tick. It was as loud a
scratching as one with long nails could make upon a bolster_. There were
two modest little girls in the bed, between seven and eight years old,
as I guessed. I saw their hands out of the clothes, and they could not
contribute to the noise that was behind their heads. _They had been used
to it and still[C] had somebody or other in the chamber with them, and
therefore seemed not to be much affrighted._
"I, standing at the bed's head, thrust my hand behind the bolster,
directing it to the place whence the noise seemed to come. _Whereupon
the noise ceased there, and was heard in another part of the bed; but
when I had taken out my hand it returned and was heard in the same place
as before._[D] I had been told it would imitate noises, and made trial
by scratching several times upon the sheet, as five, and seven, and ten,
which it followed, and still stopped at my number. I searched under and
behind the bed, turned up the clothes to the bed cords, grasped the
bolster, sounded the wall behind, and made all the search that possibly
I could, to find if there were any trick, contrivance, or common cause
of it. The like did my friend, but we could discover nothing.
"So that I was then verily persuaded, and am so still, that the noise
was made by some demon or spirit."
Doubtless his countenance betrayed the receptiveness of his mind, and it
is not surprising that the naughty little girls proceeded to work
industriously upon his imagination. He speaks of having heard under the
bed a panting sound, which, he is certain, caused "a motion so strong
that it shook the room and windows very sensibly"; and it also appears
that he was induced to believe that he saw something moving in a "linen
bag" hanging in the room, which bag, on being emptied, was found to
contain nothing animate. Therefore--spirits again! After bidding the
children good night and retiring to the room set apart for him, he was
wakened from a sound sleep by a tremendous knocking on his door, and to
his terrified inquiry, "In the name of God, who is it, and what would
you have?" received the not wholly reassuring reply, "Nothing with you."
In the morning, when he spoke of the incident and remarked that he
supposed a servant must have rapped at the wrong door, he learned to his
profound astonishment that "no one of the house lay that way or had
business thereabout." This being so, it could not possibly have been
anything but a ghost.
Thus runs the argument of the superstitious clergyman. And all the
while, we may feel tolerably sure, little Miss Mompesson was chuckling
inwardly at the panic into which she had thrown the reverend gentleman.
* * * * *
If it be objected that no girl of ten could successfully execute such a
sustained imposture, one need only point to the many instances in which
children of equally tender years or little older have since ventured on
similar mystifications, with even more startling results. Incredible as
it may seem to those who have not looked into the subject, it is a fact
that there are boys and girls--especially girls--who take a morbid
delight in playing pranks that will astound and perplex their elders.
The mere suggestion that Satan or a discarnate spirit is at the bottom
of the mischief will then act as a powerful stimulus to the elaboration
of even more sensational performances, and the result, if detection does
not soon occur, will be a full-fledged "poltergeist," as the
crockery-breaking, furniture-throwing ghost is technically called.
The singular affair of Hetty Wesley, which we shall take up next, is a
case in point. So, too, is the history of the Fox sisters, who were
extremely juvenile when they discovered the possibilities latent in the
properly manipulated rap and knock. And the spirits who so maliciously
disturbed the peace of good old Dr. Phelps in Stratford, Connecticut, a
half century and more ago, unquestionably owed their being to the nimble
wit and abnormal fancy of his two step-children, aged sixteen and
eleven.
It is to be remembered, further, that contemporary conditions were
exceptionally favorable to the success of the Tedworth hoax. In all
likelihood the children had nothing to do with the first alarm, the
alarm that occurred during Mompesson's absence in London; and possibly
the second was only a rude practical joke by some village lads who had
heard of the first and wished to put the Squire's courage to a test. But
once the little Mompessons learned, or suspected, that their father
associated the noises with the vagrant drummer, a wide vista of
enjoyment would open before their mischief-loving minds. Entering on a
career of mystification, they would find the road made easy by the
gullibility of those about them; and the chances are that had they been
caught _in flagrante delicto_ they would have put in the plea that
fraudulent mediums so frequently offer to-day--"An evil spirit took
possession of me." As it was, the superstition of the times--and
doubtless the rats and shaky timbers of Mompesson House did their
part--was their constant and unfailing support. Everything that happened
would be magnified and distorted by the witnesses, either at the moment
or in retrospect, until in the end the Rev. Mr. Glanvill, recording
honestly enough what he himself had seen, could find material for a
history of the most marvelous marvels.
In short, the more closely one examines the details of the Tedworth
mystery, the more will he find himself in agreement with George
Cruikshank's brutally frank opinion:
"All this seems very strange, about this drummer and his drum;
But for myself I really think this drumming ghost was all a hum."
FOOTNOTES:
[B] Glanvill's "Sadducismus Triumphatus," a most instructive and
entertaining contribution to the literature of witchcraft. Contemporary
opinion of Glanvill is well expressed in Anthony a Wood's statement that
"he was a person of more than ordinary parts, of a quick, warm, spruce,
and gay fancy, and was more lucky, at least in his own judgment, in his
first hints and thoughts of things, than in his after notions, examined
and digested by longer and more mature deliberation. He had a very
tenacious memory, and was a great master of the English language,
expressing himself therein with easy fluency, and in a manly, yet withal
a clear style." Glanvill died in 1680 at the early age of forty-four.
[C] Used here in the sense of "always."
[D] The Italics are mine.
III
THE HAUNTING OF THE WESLEYS
The Rev. Samuel Wesley is chiefly known to posterity as the father of
the famous John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, and of the hardly less
famous Charles Wesley. But the Rev. Samuel has further claims to
remembrance. If he gave to the world John and Charles Wesley, he was
also the sire of seventeen other Wesleys, eight of whom, like their
celebrated brothers, grew to maturity and attained varying degrees of
distinction.
He was himself a man of distinction as preacher, poet, and
controversialist. His sermons were sermons in the good, old-fashioned
sense of the term. His poems were the despair of the critics, but won
him a wide reputation. He was an adept in what Whistler called the
gentle art of making enemies. Though more familiar with the inside of a
pulpit, he was not unacquainted with the inside of a jail. He raised his
numerous progeny on an income seldom exceeding one thousand dollars a
year. And, what is perhaps the most astonishing fact in a career replete
with surprises, he was the hero of one of the best authenticated ghost
stories on record.
This visitation from the supermundane came as a climax to a series of
worldly annoyances that would have upset the equanimity of a very
Job--and the Rev. Samuel, in temper at any rate, was the reverse of
Job-like. His troubles began in the closing years of the seventeenth
century, when he became rector of the established church at Epworth,
Lincolnshire, a venerable edifice dating back to the stormy days of
Edward II., and as damp as it was old. The story goes that this living
was granted him as a reward because he dedicated one of his poems to
Queen Mary. But the Queen would seem to have had punishment in mind for
him, rather than reward.
Located in the Isle of Axholme, in the midst of a long stretch of fen
country bounded by four rivers, and for a great part under water,
Epworth was at that epoch dreariness itself. The Rev. Samuel's spirits
must have sunk within him as the carts bearing his already large family
and his few household belongings toiled through quagmire and morass;
they must have fallen still farther when he gazed down the one
straggling street at the rectory of mud and thatch that was to be his
home; and they must have touched the zero mark, zealous High Churchman
that he was, with the discovery that his peasant parishioners were
Presbyterian-minded folk who hated ritualism as cordially as they hated
the Pope.
Whatever his secret sentiments, he lost no time in endeavoring to stamp
the imprint of his vigorous personality on Epworth. Forgetful, or
unheedful, of the fact that the natives of the Isle of Axholme were
notoriously violent and lawless, he began to rule them with a rod of
iron. Thus they should think, thus they should do, thus they should go!
Above all, the Rev. Samuel never permitted them to forget that in
addition to spiritual they owed him temporal obligations. In the matter
of tithes--always a sore subject in a community hard put to extract a
living from the soil--he was unrelenting.
Necessity may have driven him; but it was only to be expected that
murmurings should arise, and from words the angry islanders passed to
deeds. For a time they contented themselves with burning the rector's
barn and trying to burn his house. Then, when he was so indiscreet as to
become indebted to one of their number, they clapped him into prison.
His speedy release, through the intervention of clerical friends, and
his blunt refusal to seek a new sphere of activity, were followed by
more barn burning, by the slaughter of his cattle, and finally by a fire
that utterly destroyed the rectory and all but cost the lives of several
of its inmates, who by that time included the future father of
Methodism.
The bravery with which the Rev. Samuel met this crowning disaster, and
the energy with which he set about the task of rebuilding his home--not
in mud and thatch, but in substantial brick--seem to have shamed the
villagers into giving him peace, seem even to have inspired them with a
genuine regard for him. He for his part, if we read the difficult pages
of his biographers aright, appears to have grown less exacting and more
diplomatic. In any event, he was left in quiet to prepare his sermons,
write his poems, and assist his devoted wife (who, by the way, he is
said to have deserted for an entire year because of a little difference
of opinion respecting the right of William of Orange to the English
crown) in the upbringing of their children. Thus his life ran along in
comparative smoothness until the momentous advent of the ghost.
This unexpected and unwelcome visitor made its first appearance early in
December, 1716. At the time the Wesley boys were away from home, but the
household was still sufficiently numerous, consisting of the Rev.
Samuel, Mrs. Wesley, seven daughters,--Emilia, Susannah, Maria,
Mehetabel, Anne, Martha, and Kezziah,--a man servant named Robert Brown,
and a maid servant known as Nanny Marshall. Nanny was the first to whom
the ghost paid its respects, in a series of blood-curdling groans that
"caused the upstarting of her hair, and made her ears prick forth at an
unusual rate." In modern parlance, she was greatly alarmed, and hastened
to tell the Misses Wesley of the extraordinary noises, which, she
assured them, sounded exactly like the groans of a dying man. The
derisive laughter of the young women left her state of mind unchanged;
and they too gave way to alarm when, a night or so later, loud knocks
began to be heard in different parts of the house, accompanied by sundry
"groans, squeaks, and tinglings."