Blog

Remember, Remember...

Guy, guy, guy
Poke him in the eye,
Put him on the bonfire,
And there let him die.
(Traditional Gunpowder Plot Rhyme)

It has been 403 years since the Gunpowder Plot, the assassination attempt by a group of English Catholics against King James I of England and VI of Scotland and his family, failed. Unknowingly, Robert Catesby, Guy Fawkes, and the other co-conspirators gave us not riot and revolt, but a night filled with fireworks, bonfires, toffee-apples... and several stories of ghosts and hauntings that have persisted down through the centuries.

Guy Fawkes, caught with naked flame in hand ready to explode the 36 barrels of gunpowder concealed under the Houses of Parliament, still lurks at several sites. At the Tower of London, one of the UK's most paranormally active locales, his screams and cries while being tortured could be heard for years after his execution, while a little down the road at Westminster Hall his ghostly form, complete with 'V for Vendetta' style cloak and wide-brimmed hat, vanishes near a passageway that led to his stash of explosives. Fawkes is also said to make his presence felt at his former home at Scotton Old Hall.

Huddington Court, Worcester, is reputed home to the headless ghost of Lady de Wintour. She is named as the wife of Robert Wintour, one of the leading conspirators of the failed plot, and now appears every 31 January, the date when her husband was hanged, drawn and quartered.

A legend says that Dame Dorothy Selby was killed on the orders of Guy Fawkes in her home of Ightham Mote, Kent, after she warned the authorities of the plot. She was bricked up alive within the walls of the building, and her skeleton remained undiscovered until 1872. While her involvement in the plot is highly unlikely, this has not prevented reports of a phantom woman walking the building, creating the occasional, unexplained cold spot.

A book with the not-so-memorable title of A True and Perfect Relation of the Whole Proceedings Against the Late Most Barbarous Traitors, Garnet, a Jesuit and his Confederates was put up for auction last November, sold to a private bidder for 5,400. What made the publication attract much media attention was anthropodermic bibliopegy: the book was rumoured to be bound in the skin of Father Henry Garnet, with his face clearly visible on the cover. Garnet was executed at St Paul's Churchyard in May 1606 for his (debatable) part in the Gunpowder Plot, and legend says that when his blood dripped on a leaf of corn, an image of Father Henry's face appeared. The holy relic was taken to France for safe keeping, though vanished during the French Revolution. Needless to say, this artefact would fetch far more than the book if ever rediscovered and put on the market...

Other dates for the Paranormal Diary this week...

03 November
Bruce Castle, London
The Lady Coleraine is seen once a year, screaming as she throws herself from a balcony in a fatal attempt to escape the possessive nature of her husband.

05 November
Shebbear, Devon
A local, yearly tradition is to rotate a large stone known as the Devil's Boulder. It is said that if the village population fail to do so, disaster and ill-fortune will strike the region.