more indebted for it, to the roguery of living men, than to accidents
like these. Six monks played off a clever trick of the kind upon that
worthy King, Louis, whose piety has procured him, in the annals of his
own country, the designation of "the Saint." Having heard his confessor
speak in terms of warm eulogy of the goodness and learning of the monks
of the order of Saint Bruno, he expressed his wish to establish a
community of them near Paris. Bernard de la Tour, the superior, sent
six of the brethren, and the King gave them a handsome house to live
in, in the village of Chantilly. It so happened that, from their
windows, they had a very fine view of the ancient palace of Vauvert,
which had been built for a royal residence by King Robert, but deserted
for many years. The worthy monks thought the palace would just suit
them, but their modesty was so excessive that they were ashamed to ask
the King for a grant of it in due form. This difficulty was not to be
overcome, and the monks set their ingenuity to work to discover another
plan. The palace of Vauvert had never laboured under any imputation
upon its character until they became its neighbours; but, somehow or
other, it almost immediately afterwards began to acquire a bad name.
Frightful shrieks were heard to proceed from it at night--blue, red,
and green lights were suddenly observed to glimmer from the windows,
and as suddenly to disappear: the clanking of chains was heard, and the
howling as of persons in great pain. These disturbances continued for
several months, to the great terror of all the country round, and even
of the pious King Louis, to whom, at Paris, all the rumours were
regularly carried, with whole heaps of additions, that accumulated on
the way. At last a great spectre, clothed all in pea-green, with a long
white beard and a serpent's tail, took his station regularly at
midnight in the principal window of the palace, and howled fearfully
and shook his fists at the passengers. The six monks of Chantilly, to
whom all these things were duly narrated, were exceedingly wroth that
the devil should play such antics right opposite their dwelling, and
hinted to the commissioners, sent down by Saint Louis to investigate
the matter, that, if they were allowed to inhabit the palace, they
would very soon make a clearance of the evil spirits. The King was
quite charmed with their piety, and expressed to them how grateful he
felt for their disinterestedness. A deed was forthwith drawn up--the
royal sign-manual was affixed to it, and the palace of Vauvert became
the property of the monks of Saint Bruno. The deed is dated in 1259.
[Garinet. Histoire de la Magie en France, page 75.] The disturbances
ceased immediately--the lights disappeared, and the green ghost (so
said the monks) was laid at rest for ever under the waves of the Red
Sea.
In the year 1580, one Gilles Blacre had taken the lease of a house in
the suburbs of Tours, but repenting him of his bargain with the
landlord, Peter Piquet, he endeavoured to prevail upon him to cancel
the agreement. Peter, however, was satisfied with his tenant and his
terms, and would listen to no compromise. Very shortly afterwards, the
rumour was spread all over Tours that the house of Gilles Blacre was
haunted. Gilles himself asserted that he verily believed his house to
be the general rendezvous of all the witches and evil spirits of
France. The noise they made was awful, and quite prevented him from
sleeping. They knocked against the wall--howled in the chimneys--broke
his window-glass--scattered his pots and pans all over his kitchen, and
set his chairs and tables a dancing the whole night through. Crowds of
persons assembled around the house to hear the mysterious noises; and
the bricks were observed to detach themselves from the wall and fall
into the streets upon the heads of those who had not said their
paternoster before they came out in the morning. These things having
continued for some time, Gilles Blacre made his complaint to the Civil
Court of Tours, and Peter Piquet was summoned to show cause why the
lease should not be annulled. Poor Peter could make no defence, and the
court unanimously agreed that no lease could hold good under such
circumstances, and annulled it accordingly, condemning the unlucky
owner to all the expenses of the suit. Peter appealed to the Parliament
of Paris; and, after a long examination, the Parliament confirmed the
lease. "Not," said the judge, "because it has not been fully and
satisfactorily proved that the house is troubled by evil spirits, but
that there was an informality in the proceedings before the Civil Court
of Tours, that rendered its decision null and of no effect."
A similar cause was tried before the Parliament of Bordeaux, in the
year 1595, relative to a house in that city which was sorely troubled
by evil spirits. The Parliament appointed certain ecclesiastics to
examine and report to them, and on their report in the affirmative that
the house was haunted, the lease was annulled, and the tenant absolved
from all payment of rent and taxes. [Garinet. Histoire de la Magie en
France, page 156.]
One of the best stories of a haunted house is that of the royal palace
of Woodstock, in the year 1649, when the commissioners sent from London
by the Long Parliament to take possession of it, and efface all the
emblems of royalty about it, were fairly driven out by their fear of
the devil and the annoyances they suffered from a roguish cavalier, who
played the imp to admiration. The commissioners, dreading at that time
no devil, arrived at Woodstock on the 13th of October, 1649. They took
up their lodgings in the late King's apartments-turned the beautiful
bedrooms and withdrawing-rooms into kitchens and sculleries--the
council-hall into a brew-house, and made the dining-room a place to
keep firewood in. They pulled down all the insignia of royal state, and
treated with the utmost indignity everything that recalled to their
memory the name or the majesty of Charles Stuart. One Giles Sharp
accompanied them in the capacity of clerk, and seconded their efforts,
apparently with the greatest zeal. He aided them to uproot a noble old
tree, merely because it was called the King's Oak, and tossed the
fragments into the dining-room to make cheerful fires for the
commissioners. During the first two days, they heard some strange
noises about the house, but they paid no great attention to them. On
the third, however, they began to suspect they had got into bad
company; for they heard, as they thought, a supernatural dog under
their bed, which gnawed their bedclothes. On the next day, the chairs
and tables began to dance, apparently of their own accord. On the fifth
day, something came into the bedchamber and walked up and down, and
fetching the warming-pan out of the withdrawing-room, made so much
noise with it that they thought five church-bells were ringing in their
ears. On the sixth day, the plates and dishes were thrown up and down
the dining-room. On the seventh, they penetrated into the bedroom in
company with several logs of wood, and usurped the soft pillows
intended for the commissioners. On the eighth and ninth nights, there
was a cessation of hostilities; but on the tenth, the bricks in the
chimneys became locomotive, and rattled and danced about the floors,
and round the heads of the commissioners, all the night long. On the
eleventh, the demon ran away with their breeches, and on the twelfth
filled their beds so full of pewter-platters that they could not get
into them. On the thirteenth night, the glass became unaccountably
seized with a fit of cracking, and fell into shivers in all parts of
the house. On the fourteenth, there was a noise as if forty pieces of
artillery had been fired off, and a shower of pebble-stones, which so
alarmed the commissioners that, "struck with great horror, they cried
out to one another for help."
They first of all tried the efficacy of prayers to drive away the evil
spirits; but these proving unavailing, they began seriously to reflect
whether it would not be much better to leave the place altogether to
the devils that inhabited it. They ultimately resolved, however, to try
it a little longer; and having craved forgiveness of all their sins,
betook themselves to bed. That night they slept in tolerable comfort,
but it was merely a trick of their tormentor to lull them into false
security. When, on the succeeding night, they heard no noises, they
began to flatter themselves that the devil was driven out, and prepared
accordingly to take up their quarters for the whole winter in the
palace. These symptoms on their part became the signal for renewed
uproar among the fiends. On the 1st of November, they heard something
walking with a slow and solemn pace up and down the withdrawing-room,
and immediately afterwards a shower of stones, bricks, mortar, and
broken glass pelted about their ears. On the 2nd the steps were again
heard in the withdrawing-room, sounding to their fancy very much like
the treading of an enormous bear, which continued for about a quarter
of an hour. This noise having ceased, a large warming-pan was thrown
violently upon the table, followed by a number of stones and the
jawbone of a horse. Some of the boldest walked valiantly into the
withdrawing-room, armed with swords, and pistols; but could discover
nothing. They were afraid that night to go to sleep, and sat up, making
fires in every room, and burning candles and lamps in great abundance;
thinking that, as the fiends loved darkness, they would not disturb a
company surrounded with so much light. They were deceived, however:
buckets of water came down the chimneys and extinguished the fires, and
the candles were blown out, they knew not how. Some of the servants who
had betaken themselves to bed were drenched with putrid ditch-water as
they lay, and arose in great fright, muttering incoherent prayers, and
exposing to the wondering eyes of the commissioners their linen all
dripping with green moisture, and their knuckles red with the blows
they had at the same time received from some invisible tormentors.
While they were still speaking, there was a noise like the loudest
thunder, or the firing of a whole park of artillery, upon which they
all fell down upon their knees and implored the protection of the
Almighty. One of the commissioners then arose, the others still
kneeling, and asked in a courageous voice, and in the name of God, who
was there, and what they had done that they should be troubled in that
manner. No answer was returned, and the noises ceased for a while. At
length, however, as the commissioners said, "the devil came again, and
brought with it seven devils worse than itself." Being again in
darkness, they lighted a candle and placed it in the doorway, that it
might throw a light upon the two chambers at once; but it was suddenly
blown out, and one commissioner said that he had "seen the similitude
of a horse's hoof striking the candle and candlestick into the middle
of the chamber, and afterwards making three scrapes on the snuff to put
it out." Upon this, the same person was so bold as to draw his sword;
but he asserted positively that he had hardly withdrawn it from the
scabbard before an invisible hand seized hold of it and tugged with him
for it, and prevailing, struck him so violent a blow with the pommel
that he was quite stunned. Then the noises began again; upon which,
with one accord, they all retired into the presence-chamber, where they
passed the night, praying and singing psalms.
They were by this time convinced that it was useless to struggle any
longer with the powers of evil, that seemed determined to make
Woodstock their own. These things happened on the Saturday night; and,
being repeated on the Sunday, they determined to leave the place
immediately, and return to London. By Tuesday morning early, all their
preparations were completed; and, shaking the dust off their feet, and
devoting Woodstock and all its inhabitants to the infernal gods, they
finally took their departure. [Dr. H. More's Continuation of Glanvil's
Collection of Relations in proof of Witchcraft.]
Many years elapsed before the true cause of these disturbances was
discovered. It was ascertained, at the Restoration, that the whole was
the work of Giles Sharp, the trusty clerk of the commissioners. This
man, whose real name was Joseph Collins, was a concealed royalist, and
had passed his early life within the bowers of Woodstock; so that he
knew every hole and corner of the place, and the numerous trap-doors
and secret passages that abounded in the building. The commissioners,
never suspecting the true state of his opinions, but believing him to
be revolutionary to the back-bone, placed the utmost reliance upon him;
a confidence which he abused in the manner above detailed, to his own
great amusement, and that of the few cavaliers whom he let into the
secret.
Quite as extraordinary and as cleverly managed was the trick played off
at Tedworth, in 1661, at the house of Mr. Mompesson, and which is so
circumstantially narrated by the Rev. Joseph Glanvil, under the title
of "The Demon of Tedworth," and appended, among other proofs of
witchcraft, to his noted work, called "Sadducismus Triumphatus." About
the middle of April, in the year above mentioned, Mr. Mompesson, having
returned to his house, at Tedworth, from a journey he had taken to
London, was informed by his wife, that during his absence they had been
troubled with the most extraordinary noises. Three nights afterwards
he heard the noise himself; and it appeared to him to be that of "a
great knocking at his doors, and on the outside of his walls." He
immediately arose, dressed himself, took down a pair of pistols, and
walked valiantly forth to discover the disturber, under the impression
that it must be a robber: but, as he went, the noise seemed to travel
before or behind him; and, when he arrived at the door from which he
thought it proceeded, he saw nothing, but still heard "a strange hollow
sound." He puzzled his brains for a long time, and searched every
corner of the house; but, discovering nothing, he went to bed again. He
was no sooner snug under the clothes, than the noise began again more
furiously than ever, sounding very much like a "thumping and drumming
on the top of his house, and then by degrees going off into the air."
These things continued for several nights, when it came to the
recollection of Mr. Mompesson that some time before, he had given
orders for the arrest and imprisonment of a wandering drummer, who went
about the country with a large drum, disturbing quiet people and
soliciting alms, and that he had detained the man's drum, and that,
probably, the drummer was a wizard, and had sent evil spirits to haunt
his house, to be revenged of him. He became strengthened in his opinion
every day, especially when the noises assumed, to his fancy, a
resemblance to the beating of a drum, "like that at the breaking up of
a guard." Mrs. Mompesson being brought to bed, the devil, or the
drummer, very kindly and considerately refrained from making the usual
riot; but, as soon as she recovered strength, began again "in a ruder
manner than before, following and vexing the young children, and
beating their bedsteads with so much violence that every one expected
they would fall in pieces." For an hour together, as the worthy Mr.
Mompesson repeated to his wondering neighbours, this infernal drummer
"would beat 'Roundheads and Cuckolds,' the 'Tat-too,' and several other
points of war, as cleverly as any soldier." When this had lasted long
enough, he changed his tactics, and scratched with his iron talons
under the children's bed. "On the 5th of November," says the Rev.
Joseph Glanvil, "it made a mighty noise; and a servant, observing two
boards in the children's room seeming to move, he bid it give him one
of them. Upon which the board came (nothing moving it, that he saw),
within a yard of him. The man added, 'Nay, let me have it in my hand;'
upon which the spirit, devil, or drummer pushed it towards him so
close, that he might touch it. "This," continues Glanvil, "was in the
day-time, and was seen by a whole room full of people. That morning it
left a sulphureous smell behind it, which was very offensive. At night
the minister, one Mr. Cragg, and several of the neighhours, came to the
house, on a visit. Mr. Cragg went to prayers with them, kneeling at the
children's bedside, where it then became very troublesome and loud.
During prayer time, the spirit withdrew into the cock-loft, but
returned as soon as prayers were done; and then, in sight of the
company, the chairs walked about the room of themselves, the children's
shoes were hurled over their heads, and every loose thing moved about
the chamber. At the same time, a bed-staff was thrown at the minister,
which hit him on the leg, but so favourably, that a lock of wool could
not have fallen more softly." On another occasion, the blacksmith of
the village, a fellow who cared neither for ghost nor devil, slept with
John, the footman, that he also might hear the disturbances, and be
cured of his incredulity, when there "came a noise in the room, as if
one had been shoeing a horse, and somewhat came, as it were, with a
pair of pincers," snipping and snapping at the poor blacksmith's nose
the greater part of the night. Next day it came, panting like a dog out
of breath; upon which some woman present took a bed-staff to knock at
it, "which was caught suddenly out of her hand, and thrown away; and
company coming up, the room was presently filled with a bloomy noisome
smell, and was very hot, though without fire, in a very sharp and
severe winter. It continued in the bed, panting and scratching for an
hour and a half, and then went into the next room, where it knocked a
little, and seemed to rattle a chain."
The rumour of these wonderful occurrences soon spread all over the
country, and people from far and near flocked to the haunted house of
Tedworth, to believe or doubt, as their natures led them, but all
filled with intense curiosity. It appears, too, that the fame of these
events reached the royal ear, and that some gentlemen were sent by the
King to investigate the circumstances, and draw up a report of what
they saw or heard. Whether the royal commissioners were more sensible
men than the neighbours of Mr. Mompesson, and required more clear and
positive evidence than they, or whether the powers with which they were
armed to punish anybody who might be found carrying on this deception,
frightened the evil-doers, is not certain; but Glanvil himself
reluctantly confesses, that all the time they were in the house, the
noises ceased, and nothing was heard or seen. "However," says he, "as
to the quiet of the house when the courtiers were there, the
intermission may have been accidental, or perhaps the demon was not
willing to give so public a testimony of those transactions which might
possibly convince those who, he had rather, should continue in unbelief
of his existence."
As soon as the royal commissioners took their departure, the infernal
drummer re-commenced his antics, and hundreds of persons were daily
present to hear and wonder. Mr. Mompesson's servant was so fortunate as
not only to hear, but to see this pertinacious demon; for it came and
stood at the foot of his bed. "The exact shape and proportion of it he
could not discover; but he saw a great body, with two red and glaring
eyes, which, for some time, were fixed steadily on him, and at length
disappeared." Innumerable were the antics it played. Once it purred
like a cat; beat the children's legs black and blue; put a long spike
into Mr. Mompesson's bed, and a knife into his mother's; filled the
porrengers with ashes; hid a Bible under the grate; and turned the
money black in people's pockets. "One night," said Mr. Mompesson, in a
letter to Mr. Glanvil, "there were seven or eight of these devils in
the shape of men, who, as soon as a gun was fired, would shuffle away
into an arbour;" a circumstance which might have convinced Mr.
Mompesson of the mortal nature of his persecutors, if he had not been
of the number of those worse than blind, who shut their eyes and refuse
to see.
In the mean time the drummer, the supposed cause of all the mischief,
passed his time in Gloucester gaol, whither he had been committed as a
rogue and a vagabond. Being visited one day by some person from the
neighbourhood of Tedworth, he asked what was the news in Wiltshire, and
whether people did not talk a great deal about a drumming in a
gentleman's house there? The visiter replied, that he heard of nothing
else; upon which the drummer observed, "I have done it; I have thus
plagued him; and he shall never be quiet until he hath made me
satisfaction for taking away my drum." No doubt the fellow, who seems
to have been a gipsy, spoke the truth, and that the gang of which he
was a member knew more about the noises at Mr. Mompesson's house than
anybody else. Upon these words, however, he was brought to trial at
Salisbury, for witchcraft; and, being found guilty, was sentenced to
transportation; a sentence which, for its leniency, excited no little
wonder in that age, when such an accusation, whether proved or not,
generally insured the stake or the gibbet. Glanvil says, that the
noises ceased immediately the drummer was sent beyond the seas; but
that, some how or other, he managed to return from transportation; "by
raising storms and affrighting the seamen, it was said;" when the
disturbances were forthwith renewed, and continued at intervals for
several years. Certainly, if the confederates of this roving gipsy were
so pertinacious in tormenting poor weak Mr. Mompesson, their
pertinacity is a most extraordinary instance of what revenge is capable
of. It was believed by many, at the time, that Mr. Mompesson himself
was privy to the whole matter, and permitted and encouraged these
tricks in his house for the sake of notoriety; but it seems more
probable that the gipsies were the real delinquents, and that Mr.
Mompesson was as much alarmed and bewildered as his credulous
neighhours, whose excited imaginations conjured up no small portion of
these stories,
"Which rolled, and as they rolled, grew larger every hour."
Many instances, of a similar kind, during the seventeenth century,
might be gleaned from Glanvil and other writers of that period; but
they do not differ sufficiently from these to justify a detail of them.
The most famous of all haunted houses acquired its notoriety much
nearer our own time; and the circumstances connected with it are so
curious, and afford so fair a specimen of the easy credulity even of
well-informed and sensible people, as to merit a little notice in this
chapter. The Cock Lane Ghost, as it was called, kept London in
commotion for a considerable time, and was the theme of conversation
among the learned and the illiterate, and in every circle, from that of
the prince to that of the peasant.
At the commencement of the year 1760, there resided in Cock Lane, near
West Smithfield, in the house of one Parsons, the parish clerk of St.
Sepulchre's, a stockbroker, named Kent. The wife of this gentleman had
died in child-bed during the previous year, and his sister-in-law, Miss
Fanny, had arrived from Norfolk to keep his house for him. They soon
conceived a mutual affection, and each of them made a will in the
other's favour. They lived some months in the house of Parsons, who,
being a needy man, borrowed money of his lodger. Some difference arose
betwixt them, and Mr. Kent left the house, and instituted legal
proceedings against the parish clerk for the recovery of his money.
While this matter was yet pending, Miss Fanny was suddenly taken ill of
the small-pox; and, notwithstanding every care and attention, she died
in a few days, and was buried in a vault under Clerkenwell church.
Parsons now began to hint that the poor lady had come unfairly by her
death, and that Mr. Kent was accessory to it, from his too great
eagerness to enter into possession of the property she had bequeathed
him. Nothing further was said for nearly two years; but it would appear
that Parsons was of so revengeful a character, that he had never
forgotten or forgiven his differences with Mr. Kent, and the indignity
of having been sued for the borrowed money. The strong passions of
pride and avarice were silently at work during all that interval,
hatching schemes of revenge, but dismissing them one after the other as
impracticable, until, at last, a notable one suggested itself. About
the beginning of the year 1762, the alarm was spread over all the
neighbourhood of Cock Lane, that the house of Parsons was haunted by
the ghost of poor Fanny, and that the daughter of Parsons, a girl about
twelve years of age, had several times seen and conversed with the
spirit, who had, moreover, informed her, that she had not died of the
smallpox, as was currently reported, but of poison, administered by Mr.
Kent. Parsons, who originated, took good care to countenance these
reports; and, in answer to numerous inquiries, said his house was every
night, and had been for two years, in fact, ever since the death of
Fanny, troubled by a loud knocking at the doors and in the walls.
Having thus prepared the ignorant and credulous neighhours to believe
or exaggerate for themselves what he had told them, he sent for a
gentleman of a higher class in life, to come and witness these
extraordinary occurrences. The gentleman came accordingly, and found
the daughter of Parsons, to whom the spirit alone appeared, and whom
alone it answered, in bed, trembling violently, having just seen the
ghost, and been again informed that she had died from poison. A loud
knocking was also heard from every part of the chamber, which so
mystified the not very clear understanding of the visiter, that he
departed, afraid to doubt and ashamed to believe, but with a promise to
bring the clergyman of the parish and several other gentlemen on the
following day, to report upon the mystery.