Ghosts of the British Isles, Part 2

Published Oct 30, 2024, 1:00 PM

Part two of our week of ghosts is all about one spirit – this time, a poltergeist. People have been arguing over this one since the 1660s, including some prominent skeptics and supporters.

 

Research:

  • Aldridge, Alfred Owen. “Franklin and the Ghostly Drummer of Tedworth.” The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 7, no. 4, 1950, pp. 559–67. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1917046
  • “Ballygally Castle Hotel and it’s Ghost Room.” Ballygally Castle Hotel. https://www.ballygallycastlehotel.com/ballygally-castle-hotel-and-its-ghost-room/
  • Belanger, Jeff. “World’s Most Haunted Places.” Rosen Publishing Group. 2009.
  • "A blow at modern Sadducism in some philosophical considerations about witchcraft. To which is added, the relation of the fam'd disturbance by the drummer, in the house of Mr. John Mompesson, with some reflections on drollery and atheisme. / By a member of the Royal Society.." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A70179.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections.
  • Briggs, Stacia. “The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall.” Norfolk Folklore Society. Dec. 3, 2023. https://www.norfolkfolkloresociety.co.uk/post/the-brown-lady-ghost-of-raynham-hall
  • Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Joseph Glanvill". Encyclopedia Britannica, 6 Mar. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Glanvill
  • “The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall.” UK Paranormal Society. https://ukparanormalsociety.org/encyclopedia/the-brown-lady-of-raynham-hall/
  • “The day a Country Life photographer captured an image of a ghost, a picture that’s become one of the most famous ‘spirit photography’ images of all time.” Country Life. Oct. 31, 2022. https://www.countrylife.co.uk/nature/the-day-a-country-life-photographer-captured-an-image-of-a-ghost-234642
  • Dorney, John. “The Plantation of Ulster: A Brief Overview.” The Irish Story. June 2, 2024. https://www.theirishstory.com/2024/06/02/the-plantation-of-ulster-a-brief-overview/
  • Hunter, Michael (2005) New light on the ‘Drummer of Tedworth’: conflicting narratives of witchcraft in Restoration England. London: Birkbeck ePrints. http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/archive/00000250
  • Mackay, Charles. Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.” London. 1852. Accessed online: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24518/24518-h/24518-h.htm
  • Mantell, Rowan and Siofra Connor. “Weird Norfolk: The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall.” Eastern Daily Press. August 4, 2018.
  • Miles, Abraham. "Wonder of wonders being a true relation of the strange and invisible beating of a drum, at the house of John Mompesson, Esquire, at Tidcomb, in the county of Wilt-shire ... : to the tune of Bragandary / by Abraham Miles." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A50850.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections.
  • “On Wednesday Night died at his Seat … “The Derby Mercury. June 29, 1738. https://www.newspapers.com/image/394517191/?match=1&terms=Raynham%20Hall
  • “Settlers, Sieges and Spirits: The Story of Ballygally Castle.” Ballygally Castle Hotel. https://www.ballygallycastlehotel.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/heritage-leaflet_ballygally-web.pdf
  • Smith, Edd. “The Vast History of Raynham Hall.” BBC. May 20, 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/norfolk/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8058000/8058145.stm
  • Spirit, L. “THE BROWN LADY OF RAYNHAM HALL: The World’s Most Infamous Ghost.” Norfolk Record Office Blog. July 31, 2024. https://norfolkrecordofficeblog.org/2024/07/31/the-brown-lady-of-raynham-hall-the-worlds-most-infamous-ghost/
  • Spirit, L. “THE BROWN LADY OF RAYNHAM HALL: The World’s Most Infamous Ghost (continued).” Norfolk Record Office Blog. August 14, 2024. https://norfolkrecordofficeblog.org/2024/08/14/the-brown-lady-of-raynham-hall-the-worlds-most-infamous-ghost-continued/
  • Wade, Mike. “Ultimate proof that ghosts exist, or maybe it’s just dust on the lens.” The Times. March 27, 2009. https://www.thetimes.com/article/ultimate-proof-that-ghosts-exist-or-maybe-its-just-dust-on-the-lens-5xt5v03kk8k
  • Webster, John. “The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft.” 1677. 2024 eBook accessed online: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/72654/pg72654-images.html
  • “What was the Plantation of Ulster?” BBC Bitesize. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z2bgsrd
  • Wright, Dudley. “The Epworth Phenomena, To which are appended certain Psychic Experiences recorded by John Wesley in the pages of his Journal .” Accessed online: https://mail.gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301311.txt

 

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and it is time for part two of our Ghosts of the British Isles week that we are doing to wrap up Halloween season this year. As we mentioned before, each of these episodes can stand alone, so if you missed part one, you can absolutely listen to today's episode and then go back to part one later if you wish. You're not going to be left behind. They are standalone stories of ghosts, and as we mentioned in part one, today's episode is all about one spirit, this time a poltergeist or maybe or a trickster. People have been arguing over this one since the sixteen sixties, including some very prominent skeptics and supporters, all of which we will talk about. One of the oldest poultergeist story in Britain is The Drummer of Tedworth, and this is sometimes described not as one of the oldest but Britain's first and oldest poltergeist story. It's also one of the oldest recorded poltergeist stories in Europe. In the sixteen sixties. John Mompison lived in North Tidworth, which is in Wiltshire, England, on the east side of the Salisbury Plane. Mompison was an excise officer and a commission officer in the militia, and in March of sixteen sixty one, as part of his duties, he felt that he needed to settle a matter of concern. Yeah, if you're wondering why, it's the drummer of Tedworth, and Tracy mentioned that he lived in North Tidworth. Today it is known as Tidworth, but at the time it was Tedworth, So that Tidworth mention is just so you understand where exactly it sits on the map today. And this story is really really well known because it was written about extensively by a number of chroniclers, including, among other Samuel Peet, who talked about it some years after the fact, and more importantly John Glanville. So we're actually going to use some of Glanville's account, which was published in sixteen sixty eight, to set up the entire discussion. Here quote Master John Mompison of Tedworth in Wiltshire, being about the middle of March in the year sixteen sixty one, at a neighboring town called Ludgershaw, heard a drum beat there, and, being concerned as a commission officer in the militia, he inquired of the bailiff of the town, at whose house he then was what it meant. The bailiff told him that they had for some days been troubled by that idle drummer, who demanded money of the Constable by virtue of a pretended pass, which he thought was counterfeit. Upon this information, Master Mombison sent for the fellow and asked him by what authority he went up and down the country in that manner, demanding money and keeping a clutter with his drum. The drummer answered he had good authority, and produced his pass with a warrant under the hansas Sir William Coley and Colonel Aliff of Gretisham. These papers discovered the knavery for mister Mompson, knowing those gentlemen's hands, found that his pass and warrant were forgeries, and upon the discovery, commanded the vagrant to put off his drum, and charged the Constable to carry him to the next justice of peace to punish him according to the dessert of his insolence and roguery. The fellow then confessed the cheat and begged earnestly for his drum, but mister Mompson told him that if he understood from Colonel Aliff, whose drummer he pretended to be, that he had been an honest man, he should have it again, but then in the interim he would secure it. So he left the drum with the bailiff, and the drummer in the Constable's hands, who, it seems, after upon entreaty, let him go. So, just to clarify, there was a guy drumming loudly as part of a public street performance and then demanded that people pay him for the entertainment that he had provided. He claimed he had been approved to do so by two men, Sir William Cowley and Colonel Aliff, But Mombison knew their handwriting, and he saw that this permit was a forgery. So Momison confiscated the drummer's drum told him he could have it back if it turned out that the papers were legit. Here's how the rest of the story played out, according to the accounts of Joseph Glanville and others. Mombison's own letters reflect the same story. It becomes apparent that Glanville really closely followed these letters in rewriting it. And to reiterate the fact, Mombison did include this idea that the drummer begged to have his drum back again. He writes in his version, which he'll see is very close to the one we just read. Quote the fellow then confessed that he had gotten it the counterfeit permit to be made, and begged of me for his drum. And then he relays the same thing about Colonel Alif that if he was honest, he could have the drum again, and then finish his quote. But whereas he pretended to have been a soldier for the king, I could give no credit to a man taken in forgery. I just want all of the listening audience to have the delight of the way confessed is spelled in this passage, which is confest. I love it. As we've discussed many times, spelling standards are all made up. So yeah, I mean it left no margin of error of what he meant. We understood. The drummer, William Jurry, was arrested and for some reason that is a little bit unclear, he was not initially held until his trial the way it was expected that he would be. We know from newspaper accounts of the day that he was from Ufcot in broad Hinton. We do not know a lot about him beyond that. Yeah, we'll talk about some supposition in behind the scenes on Friday because it involves some gross racism. In April, that drum, which was still in possession of the bailiff, was sent to Mombison's house and at that time he was about to leave for London on business and he did take that trip, but when he returned, his wife described some frightening things that had been happening in his absence. She told him that the house had been broken into by what seemed to be thieves one night. Didn't seem like they took anything, but they did destroy the house. Mombison was of course disturbed by this, and then a couple of days after he had been home, he too heard a rucus in the house. In the middle of the night. There was a loud knocking noise at the door, and also what sounded like a pounding all around the exterior walls of the house. Mombison grabbed a pistol, threw open the door and saw nothing. He walked the perimeter of the house, still hearing the knocking noises, but could not find anyone outside, so he locked up and he went back to bed, but the noise continued, and it started to sound as though somebody was drumming on the roof of the house. The knocking and drumming sounds continued on subsequent nights. Then there would sometimes be gaps of days or even weeks when there were no noises, and then suddenly they would return. It was described as usually lasting about two hours in the middle of the night, which sounds frankly awful, although according to the Glanville account, the spirit or whatever it was, and that account refers to it as an it or a demon, was apparently in some ways considerate. When Mompison's wife was in bed for several weeks following childbirth, this being did not visit whatever was making the noise, although when it returned after she was up and about again, it was more aggressive than before. Not only did it continue to cause banging on the roof and walls, it also started to violently shake the children's beds so hard that at least one of them fell completely apart. It also reportedly lifted the children while they were sleeping, and they were sometimes marked with scratches after such encounters. This entity also started following the kids as they moved through the house, trying to get away from it. One of the more eerie descriptions of events in the home comes from a letter written by momson too a friend quote, sometimes the candles will not burn in the room where it is, And though it come never so loud, and on a sudden yet no dog will bark. It hath often been so loud that it hath been heard into the fields and has wakened my neighbors in town. One of the house staff, while watching over the children as they slept, saw two boards moving in their room and called out to this entity to give those boards to him. And then the man wrestled with whatever it was over those boards for several minutes of long description of them pulling and pushing back and forth, trying to each of them get possession. There was reportedly also a smell of sulfur in the house after that night. The next step was to have a minister lead a prayer circle at the house, which was conducted by mister Craigie. As they prayed around the children, the noise receded into the highest point in the house, near the roof, and then returned, getting louder and louder. Once the prayer stopped, the people who had gathered at the house all witnessed a great deal of commotion per Glandfill quote in the sight and presence of the company. The chairs walked about the room, the children's shoes were thrown over their heads, and every loose thing moved about the chamber. Also, a bedstaff was thrown at the minister, which hit him on the leg, but so favorably that a lock of wool could not have fallen more softly. The youngest children were moved from the house after that, and they stayed for a while with a neighbor. The oldest child, a daughter of ten, moved into her parents' room, but once she was there, the banging began again. After a few weeks, the younger kids returned home and they were set up with beds in the parlor, and that was because that was one of the only rooms that had never had any sort of a problem. But the mysterious entity did appear there, although it seemed less aggressive and only tugged at the children's hair and clothes. The household staff was the next target of more assertive activity, although it was not violent. There were incidents of people being lifted from their beds, but also placed gently back down. They also reported feeling as though something was lying on their feet. We will talk about the ways this alleged demon continued to make itself known. After we paused for a sponsor break in January of sixteen sixty two, the family started seeing a blue and glimmering light that moved through the house. Doors started to open and shut repeatedly throughout the night, and there was sometimes the sound of rustling silk. And there started to be a belief that somehow the drummer William Drury, had set all of this in motion by perhaps conjuring a demon or some other kind of witchcraft. At one point, according to Glanville quote, during the time of the knocking, when many were present, a gentleman of the company said, Satan, if the drummer set the a work, give three knocks and no more, which it did very distinctly and stopped. Then the gentleman knocked to see if it would answer him. As it was wont but it remained quiet. He further tried it the same way, bidding it for confirmation if it were the drummer, to give five knocks and no more that night, which it did accord, and was silent all the night after. This was done in the presence of Sir Thomas, Chamberlain of Oxfordshire and several others. This went on throughout sixteen sixty two, and at the end of the year in December, a new noise was heard that sounded like coins jingling. Throughout the Christmas holiday, it played many tricks, including pulling a latch from a door and throwing it at the keel of one of the children, and throwing Missus Mompesson's clothes around and tossing her bible into the fire. One of John Mompesson's personal attendants became the next target. This section, as relayed by Glanville, becomes more comical. It seems almost like he might be embellishing and taking a few more liberties with the actual facts of the case. But in any case, according to his account, this servant was adamant that he wanted to help protect the family, and he was moved to a room next to mister Mompesson's where he slept at night with his sword, ready to battle whatever might appear, and it seems that the spirit, according to accounts, kind of played with him by doing things like slapping him with shoes. This went on for a while. The entity and this attendant did nightly battles on the regular, although there was never any significant harm done to the man, various attacks continued. At one point, John Mompison convinced that the entity was moving around wood in the fireplace discharged a gun into it. Not the first time somebody's shot at a specter in this two parter. Yeah, don't shoot a gun into a fireplace, I mean, yeah, just don't a lot of reasons not to just do that at all, Yeah, he claimed. Drops of blood were found on the hearth and there was no more banging or other unusual activity for several days. There are so many other notes of things that the spirit allegedly did, like climbing into beds and purring like a cat, dumping chamber bots onto the beds, which gross and turning the money of guests black in their pockets. Numerous visitors came to the house to see what was happening, including Sir Christopher Wren, who heard the drumming. King Charles the Second even sent an emissary that was Charles Berkeley to see what was going on and to report back. Some people said that they heard and saw nothing, but all told, hundreds of people corroborated the accounts of Mompison. Mompison eventually claimed he was getting tired of people showing up all the time because their already disrupted lives became even more so with this steady stream of traffic into the house. At some point, and the Glanville account mentions no particular date, the drummer, William Drury, was arrested and tried on another charge, which was for stealing pigs that was at the assize at Salisbury, and he was found guilty and condemned to the islands, so a penal colony. But he jumped overboard from the prison transport ship and made his way back to the Tedworth area, and the house is apparently quiet while he was away. It's unclear when all of this stopped, but it went on until at least sixteen sixty three, and a letter believed to have been written in November of that year, Mompison states that the house had quote been very quiet since the time the drummer had been banished. The banishment he refers to is William Drury's second sentence. In August sixteen sixty three, Drury was once again in front of a judge, this time for having escaped his first sentence, and he was once again sent away, after which time he does not seem to have returned. However, during the time between Drury's first sentence and his second, he was actually tried for witchcraft. This was because when Mompison found out about his escape, he decided to invoke a sixteen oh four witchcraft law and accused Drury quote with ciss suspision, of practicing witchcrafts and so causing the troubles that had been in his house for above these twelve months. A Wiltshire judge named Isaac Burgess heard the case, which included testimony from both Drury and Mompison. Drury was acquitted, but he did still have to face that escape charge, so he was not released. Now we have to give some context on Glanville, since he visited the house in sixteen sixty three said that he heard scratching noises there and took statements from Mombison the rest of the household and the neighbors. His account, which comes from those statements as well as information obtained from Mombison's own letters, is one of the main sources we have for information regarding the Mombison spirit. Joseph Glanville, who was born in sixteen thirty six, was a Puritan, and he was all in on the idea of the supernatural and that witches were real and witchcraft was being practiced everywhere. His account of the events in Tedworth are laid out in the form of two letters to William Lord Brereton and philosopher Henry Moore, and introducing the story, Glanville notes to his reader quote, now though you, my lord, are in no danger of that cold and desperate disease the disbelief of spirits and apparitions. So there is obviously plenty of bias in Glanville's account. His writing on witchcraft is even said to have been an inspiration for Cotton Mather. The drummer of Tedworth's story is also something that was questioned during the time it was happening. Mombison himself, in correspondence shared his initial thought that he was the victim of a prank Glanville even mentions the popular arguments against the validity of Mombison's story in the beginning of his letter to More. The big criticism and rumors were that one Mompesson was renting the house and was trying to make it look haunted so he could negotiate paying a lower rent. Glanville assures More that Mobison actually owns the house, and two that Mapisen is trying to start a little cottage industry where he charges people to visit his haunted house. To this, Glanville countered that Mopison is a gentleman and one of means and would never do that. It does not appear that he ever profited from any of this. There was also a lot of speculation among skeptics about the actual nature of the noises and other happenings, so they took into account the logistics of the house layout and the likelihood that someone could be managing a really epic bit of trickery. There are a lot of explanations derived from this whole thing, but Glanville pretty flatly refuses to give much credence to those criticisms, and he cites the account itself as proof that those criticisms are unfounded. This case inspired a sixteen sixty three ballad with the following exceedingly long title, A wonder of wonders, being a true relation of the strange and invisible beating of a drum at the house of John Mompison, Esquire, at Tidcombe, in the County of Wiltshire, being about eight of the clock at night, and continuing till four in the morning, several days, one after another, to the great admiration of many persons of honor, gentlemen of quality, and many hundreds who have gone from several parts to hear this miraculous wonder since the first time it began to beat. Roundheads and cuckolds, Come dig, Come dig. Also the burning of a drum that was taken from a drummer. Likewise, the manner how the stools and shared danced about the rooms. The drummer is sent to Gloucester jail. Likewise a conflict betwixt the evil spirit and Anthony, a lusty country fellow, to the tune of Brigandary, I just, I mean, that's the title of a top ten hit right there, for sure. This ballad, which was penned by Abraham Miles, tells a simplified form of the story. In verse, We're just gonna read the two concluding stanzas of it. Quote both rooms, stables and orchard ground. A drum was heard to beat, and sometimes in the chimney sound by night, make cattle sweat, both chairs and stools about, would jig, and oftentimes would dance a lig Oh wonders, notable wonders, You never the like did here? So powerful were these motions all by Satan, sure appointed The chamber floor would rise and fall, and never a board disjointed. Then they heard a show from high three times a witch, a witch did cry, Oh, wonders, notable wonders, you never the like did here. We will pause here to hear from our sponsors, and when we retire, and we'll talk about some of the writing about the Drummer of Tedworth and the years following the events at the Mopson Home. Although Joseph Glanville very clearly felt he had addressed all possible questions regarding the case, many other people did not, and the matter was debated for years. In sixteen seventy two, Mompison wrote a letter to Glanville to address one of the many questions that had persisted in the intervening years, writing quote, I have been very often of late asked the question whether I have not confessed to his majesty or any other a cheat discovered about that affair to which I gave, and shout to my dying day give the same answer that I must belie myself and perjure myself also to acknowledge a cheat in a thing where I am sure there was nor could be any phil A lot of people thought the whole thing was an elaborate trick, so much so that Glanville reiterated in writing that when he visited the home and heard scratchings seeming to come from under a bed, he had performed a thorough search of the area and felt confident there could not have been any trickery in play. In a two thousand and five article titled new Light on the Drummer of Tedworth Conflicting Narratives of Witchcraft in Restoration, England, which was published in the journal Historical Research, Michael Hunter notes that the relationship between Mompesson and Glanville and their back and forth letters about the case may have resulted in a reinforcement and refinement of Mompison's account of the matter. Hunter notes quote having started as a symptom of the anxious, perplexed world of the early Restoration, it then acquired a new dimension due to the input of the tropes of demonology and of fairy beliefs, as Mompson was offered a strategy and an explanatory framework that helped him to approach the phenomena with greater confidence. This was then itself transmuted into the confident rhetorical assertion of an orthodox agenda in the hands of Glanville, with an appeal to matters of fact being just bosposed with a comfortably ironic tone in relation to the reality of the devil and his works. In sixteen seventy seven, John Webster, a minister who was very skeptical regarding witchcraft claims, published displaying of supposed witchcraft, and he included his opinion that the Tedworth case was in no way paranormal, writing quote, miracles being long since ceased, it must needs follow that devils do nothing but only draw the minds of men and women into sin and wickedness, and thereby they become deceivers, cheats, and notorious impostures. So that we may rationally conclude that all other strange feats and delusions must, of necessity be no better or of any other kind than these we must have recited, except they can show that they are brought to pass by natural means. Must not all persons that are of sound understanding judge and believe that all those strange tricks related by mister Glanville of his drummer at mister Mombison's house, who he calls the demon of Tedworth, were abominable cheats and impostures, as I am informed from persons of good quality that they were discovered to be for I am sure mister Glanville can show no agents in nature that the demon applying them to fit patients could produce any such effects by and therefore we must conclude all such to be impostures. I kind of love that setup. That It's like, oh, the devil's real, but he's not doing stuff stuff. He's kind of convincing humans to do things now. But there were also, we should say, prominent men who spoke in support of Mompison over the centuries. The theologian John Wesley wrote about Tedworth and other apparitions in his journal in May seventeen sixty eight. He first ruminates on the shift in English thinking away from believing in the supernatural, writing quote, it is true likewise that the English in general, and indeed most of the men of learning in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions as mere old wives fables. I am sorry for it, and I willingly take this opportunity of entering my solemn protest against this violent compliment which so many that believe the Bible pay. To those who do not believe it, I owe them no such service. Then Wesley lays out his argument quote. One of the capital objections to all these accounts which I have known urged over and over as this, did you ever see an apparition yourself? No? Nor did I ever see a murder? Yet I believe there is such a thing, yea, and that in one place or another murder is committed every day. Therefore, I cannot, as a reasonable man, deny the fact, although I never saw it, and perhaps never may. The testimony of unexceptionable witnesses fully convinces me both of the one and the other. But to set this aside, it has been confidently alleged that many of these have seen their error and have been clearly convinced that the supposed preternatural operation was the mere contrivance of artful men. The famous instance of this, which has been spread far and wide, was the drumming in mister Mompesson's house at Tedworth, who, it was said, acknowledged it was all a trick, and that he had found out the whole contrivance. Not so. My oldest brother, then at christ Church, Oxford, inquired of mister Mombison, his fellow collegian, whether his father had acknowledged this or not. He answered, the resort of gentlemen to my father's house was so great he could not bear the expense. He therefore took no pains to confute the report that he had found out the cheat, although so he and I and all the family knew the account which was published to be punctually true. So, according to Wesley, at some point the Mapison family refuted their claims just so they could get some peace from all the people showing up at the house. Yeah, for clarity, it's probably pretty clear, but the mister Mompison that Wesley's relative is talking to is a son of the Mompison that is the main person in this story. Throughout the time since this alleged poltergeist, the case has been taken up again and again at various times when interest in the supernatural has grown. A very similar story was even printed in the Pennsylvania Gazette in the seventeen thirties, as though it had happened outside Philadelphia. In the eighteen hundreds, as spiritualism gained popularity, the Tedworth case was often revisited, and in nineteen hundred the Society for Psychical Research was home to a heated debate of the case among A. R. Wallace, Frank Podmore, and Andrew Lang. That debate played out in the pages of the organization's periodical. But the growth of interest in the ways psychology plays a part in such situations has also led to a lot of study. In eighteen fifty two, Charles McKay published Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, and he includes the Tedworth drummer as one of his case studies. He opens by clearly calling it out as a prank of some kind. Quote, quite as extraordinary and as cleverly managed was the trick played off at Tedworth in sixteen sixty one. At the house of mister Mompson, and which is so circumstantially narrated by the Reverend Joseph Glanville under the title The Demon of Tedworth and appended, among other proofs of witchcraft to his noted work called Seducismus Triumphatus. McKay mentions the frame of the story, drawing people to judge the matter with their owning existing bias. Quote, the rumor 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. McKay also relays a story that William Drury confessed while imprisoned to another visitor, saying that he staged this whole thing as revenge for Mampison taking his drum. The conclusion that McKay comes to is that none of these events involved a poltergeist or witchcraft, and while many people thought Mompson was in on it, it was more likely that Drury and his friends were just very tenacious and that quote mister Mompson was as much alarmed and bewildered as his credulous neighbors whose excited imaginations conjured up no small portion of these stories. A lot of people have come to the conclusion that, whether the culprit was Drury Mompison himself, or, as some seem to think, the Mamason children who were enacting a very elaborate prank, the community and many other parties are taken in by it is kind of a mass delusion. The Tedworth Drummer was also mentioned in Amos Nortoncraft's eighteen eighty one book Epidemic Delusions, containing an expose of the superstitions and frauds which underlie some ancient and modern delusions, including a special reference to modern spiritualism, and that book lays out the reasons that delusions happen this way. So I wanted to end on this because he makes a really lovely statement that applies all the time. Quote. The principal sources of delusions are superstition, fraud, and dissatisfaction with previous customs and beliefs, inspired by the passions restless under restraint, or the imagination impatient with the limited horizon of human knowledge. All of these causes have been at work in every age of the world, and I would say, still are done, done done. So I hope everybody enjoys a little ghost story for the holiday. Like I said, we have some stuff to talk about on Friday, I have a listener mail from our listener Rebecca, which kind of is almost like a ghost story, except it involves real world things but found in an interesting manner. Rebecca writes, Hi, Holly and Tracy. I've always been a fan of history, in being able to see history from the point of view of the people for whom it was a current event. Today, my son brought home some sections of an old newspaper that he found while doing a renovation with his uncle on an older house in Troy, New York. I eagerly read through the ripped snippets and found an article about Vidcan Quizzling's failed appeal. As you can see from this picture, the press did not have any sympathy for him. From what we can tell, the newspaper clippings were published somewhere between October fourteenth and sixteenth, and we believe the name of the paper was the Troy Times Record. We have six for babies, all of them cats. Sadly, we are currently making Rory, one of our eleven year old black cats comfortable in her final days. I am including her picture is a pet tax laying in her favorite spot on our dining room table. On a more cheerful note, I am also including a picture of my children's kittens, Tuck Gray and Nora Brownish, five month old siblings. I love that Rory is getting her golden year's treatments. I think all cats should be spoiled to pieces in their final years and final days. So thank you for spoiling Rory. I know she appreciates it. I also just love this idea of like one. I love that your son was like, hey, I found all newspapers in a building. I should bring them to my mom because that's cool and it really does give an interesting perspective on what was going on at the time, and it's an interesting place. Her subject line was insulating with quizzling, so apparently that is how these newspapers were used, which I think is super fascinating. Of course, all of these babies are beautiful. Who doesn't love kitties. I love all the creatures. Those kittens are like, that's weaponized cute. That's like nuclear grade cuteness kittens. We want them all. Thank you so much for sending us this email. If you would like to send us email about any newspapers you find in your walls, or your kitties, or anything else, you can do so at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast Asks, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Stuff You Missed in History Class

Join Holly and Tracy as they bring you the greatest and strangest Stuff You Missed In History Class  
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 2,440 clip(s)