Ghosts of the British Isles, Part 2

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-

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
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

(00:23):
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

(00:46):
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

(01:11):
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

(01:32):
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

(01:52):
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

(02:14):
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,

(02:36):
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

(02:58):
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

(03:20):
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

(03:41):
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

(04:02):
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

(04:23):
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

(04:43):
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

(05:04):
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

(05:26):
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

(05:46):
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

(06:06):
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

(06:30):
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

(06:53):
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

(07:17):
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

(07:38):
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

(08:01):
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

(08:23):
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

(08:47):
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

(09:07):
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,

(09:30):
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

(09:51):
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

(10:13):
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

(10:34):
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

(11:06):
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.

(11:29):
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

(11:49):
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

(12:13):
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

(12:33):
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

(12:55):
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,

(13:19):
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

(13:41):
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,

(14:02):
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

(14:23):
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

(14:45):
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

(15:06):
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,

(15:31):
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,

(15:54):
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

(16:17):
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

(16:38):
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

(17:01):
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

(17:21):
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

(17:45):
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

(18:06):
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

(18:29):
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.

(18:52):
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

(19:15):
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.

(19:36):
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

(19:59):
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

(20:22):
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

(20:42):
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

(21:05):
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

(21:26):
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

(21:47):
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

(22:08):
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.

(22:29):
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

(22:51):
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,

(23:17):
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

(23:39):
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

(24:02):
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

(24:25):
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

(24:48):
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

(25:10):
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

(25:33):
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,

(25:55):
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

(26:17):
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

(26:38):
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

(26:58):
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,

(27:19):
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

(27:41):
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,

(28:01):
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

(28:24):
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

(28:46):
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

(29:06):
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

(29:30):
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

(29:53):
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

(30:14):
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

(30:34):
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

(30:57):
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

(31:23):
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,

(31:43):
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

(32:04):
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,

(32:26):
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

(32:48):
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

(33:10):
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

(33:31):
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

(33:53):
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast Asks, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.