History for Halloween XI

(Hosts: Christine, Lucy, Kristin) 

Spooky season is here again! To celebrate we have another selection of historical frights just for you.

 

For further reading suggestions and more, please visit: https://www.footnotinghistory.com

Episode Transcript

(00:23):
Hey everyone, Christine here, to kick off our 11th annual History for Halloween episode.
We’re so glad you all continue to respond to this tradition in such a positive way that it allows
us to continue with it. This year, I’m going to do that with an unfortunate grisly and ghostly
event that was written about in newspapers in England and Scotland in January of 1804. Usually,

(00:49):
it takes some digging for me to decide what story I’m going to cover as I dive through
the newspaper databases. But this one, well, it was an immediate yes as soon as I came across it.
As long-time listeners know, I try to share these stories in the same way the newspapers
did in order to give you, for better or worse, the same information that readers in the day

(01:11):
were given. The two newspaper versions that I used primarily for this episode are from the
Caledonian Mercury of January 9, 1804 and the Bury and Norwich Post of January 18, 1804, but
I did combine them with some other sources from places like the Old Bailey, Library of Congress,
and Wellcome Collection because it is such a famous tale. So,

(01:34):
as I say nearly every Halloween, settle in and relax, maybe with a blanket and a warm beverage,
and think about being someone who, in 1804, encountered this breaking story…
In the winter of 1803 going into 1804, a ghost was sighted wandering the streets of Hammersmith,
an area of London, particularly along Black Lion Lane. It was, as ghosts tend to be,

(02:01):
cloaked in a white shroud. This ghost appeared more than once and, according to the Caledonian
Mercury, “the terror of the phantom, operating under the superstition of an elderly woman,
brought on a dejection of mind from which she never recovered.” So this was some pretty serious
stuff. Whether it was a real spirit from the great beyond or some person’s attempt at a prank,

(02:25):
people wanted to know this ghost’s identity. Though certainly many tried, keeping themselves
on high alert as evening came each day, the ghost continued to roam free without explanation.
That is, until a man called Francis Smith got involved. Apparently,
Smith decided he would patrol Black Lion Lane in order to see what happened. Well, what happened

(02:48):
ended badly for Smith and significantly worse for the person who encountered him. You see,
at the same time Smith was looking for a ghost, one Mr. Thomas Milwood was out and about.
Anyway, Thomas Milwood was a bricklayer in his early 20s who began the evening at home. Again
according to the Caledonian Mercury, as the night wore on and it got closer to midnight,

(03:12):
his sister noticed that Milwood’s wife was still not home from her job and that he should go and
collect her because it was such a dark night. Thomas eventually agreed and went out to do so.
However, he didn’t make it very far. According to the Old Bailey files, a witness who testified
at the later trial, said that Thomas Milwood left his house wearing, “Linen trousers entirely white,

(03:35):
washed very clean, a waistcoat of flannel, apparently new, very white, and an apron,
which he wore round him; his trousers came down almost to the edge of his shoes.”
You can guess what that means he looked like while coming down the street in the middle
of the night in an area where people were concerned about ghostly activity.
Smith was no doubt shocked to see this white apparition coming toward him, and he claimed

(03:59):
to have shouted out asking the potential ghost who they were and to identify themselves. When,
for reasons we cannot know, Milwood didn’t reply but continued to walk toward him,
Smith opened fire. It was reported that Milwood was hit in the lower jaw and died on the spot.
Smith, for his part, did not run. Shocked though he was by what he’d just done,

(04:20):
he was agitated and upset and swore he didn’t know he was shooting a person. What he thought
shooting a ghost would do is anyone’s guess. Smith was arrested and would later say,
“I can only declare, that I went out with a perfectly good intention; after calling to the
deceased twice, and receiving no answer, I became so agitated that I did not know what I was about:

(04:43):
but I solemnly declare that I am innocent of any malicious intention against any person whatever.”
No one, it appears, believed Milwood was attempting to be the prankster who pretended to be
the ghost. Sometime later a local man named Graham claimed that he was the one who had initiated the
ghost prank. While that particular story came to an end, ghosts continue to pop up in Hammersmith

(05:04):
at various intervals over the centuries.But back to 1804. Ultimately, Smith was
found guilty of murder. He was, as a result, sentenced to execution but that was never carried
out and he, instead, was imprisoned for a year. He didn’t catch the ghost, but his desire to do
so had tragic consequences that caused lengthy discussions about what exactly constitutes self

(05:26):
defense. If indeed the ghost existed or still exists, and far be it from me to declare that
not true, this story surely indicates we should not mess with the supernatural.
Have a happy and safe Halloween! Hello, I’m Lucy, and this year,

(05:47):
my Halloween footnote comes from Jonesboro, Arkansas. As longtime listeners may know,
while my Halloween stories range far afield, I’ve also used them to explore the local histories of
places I’ve moved because of the academic job market. In exploring the hauntings of Arkansas,
I discovered there are several notably haunted locales that, alas, do not make for particularly

(06:10):
good spooky footnotes. The story of a tragically killed railway lineman who still waves his lantern
in the train yard by night—spooky, but not a full narrative. A haunted Art Deco hotel? Romantic,
but not linked to specific historical happenings. So I started looking still closer to home. And I
found some fascinating, if mostly benevolent, historical ghosts. For one thing, there are

(06:35):
two historical theaters of northeastern Arkansas said to be haunted. (I should say: at least two.
If you know of more, let me know in the comments!) The first owners of Paragould’s Collins Theatre,
a married couple, are said to still sit in their box. Personally, I think this is adorable. They’re
having posthumous date nights! In Jonesboro, our singular theatre ghost is named Charlie.

(06:57):
Apparently he loved working there in life and just… never left. People hear him around,
but he is, by all reports, friendly and harmless. The most genuinely creepy ghosts I found turned
out to be… practically in my own backyard. I know. I’m the unwilling protagonist of a horror
movie. Fortunately, my own century-old house is not haunted… as far as I know. But in 1926,

(07:22):
a man named Jimmy Lyle built a house that he continues to haunt, whether inspecting his
property or standing in his bedroom window. I turned to Jonesboro’s historic newspapers

to try to find out more about Mr. Lyle (07:34):
what  unfinished business might he have? A Jim Lyle
was a paroled convict, identified as part of “the Dirty Dozen,” in 1921: ominous. A year later,

a possibly likelier candidate turned up (07:49):
Jimmy  Lyle was among the “young people of this city”
who reported “a most delightful dance at the Armory and an elegant midnight lunch.” So,
however haunted his house, perhaps Jimmy Lyle just didn’t want to leave it. Until next Halloween,

(08:11):
dear listeners, may all your ghosts be friendly. Hello, spooky listeners, it’s Kristin, back with
one last tale for this year’s Halloween episode – a grisly, gruesome tale about an execution gone …
not exactly to plan. This story is about Margaret de la Pole, who was born in 1473 at Farley Castle,

(08:38):
which is near the city of Bath in England. She was a countess in her own right, meaning she didn’t
marry to get the title, she was born with it. Her father was George, duke of Clarence – who was a
younger brother of Edward V and Isabel Neville – Isabel was the daughter of Richard Neville,
Earl of Warwick and Salisbury, aka the Kingmaker. You may remember this cast of characters from

(09:02):
Christine’s episode on the War of the Roses. Suffice it to say, Margaret was a big deal,
her brother Edward, the earl of Warwick was a big deal and the Tudors – Henry VII and later
Henry VIII – were, let’s just say, a little uneasy by the family’s potential claims to the throne.
Margaret’s family were Plantagenets, and not many Plantagenets survived into the reign of Henry

(09:27):
VIII. In 1487, Margaret married Sir Richard Pole – whose mother was Edith St. John, the half-sister
of Margaret Beaufort and that made Richard Henry VII’s sorta cousin. The plot thickens.
And there were other things working against Margaret later on in her life. For one,
she ended up being pretty dang rich. She was widowed in 1504 and did not remarry.

(09:53):
She had estates in 17 counties in England, stuff in Wales and in Calais – and in 1538,
she was one of the top 5 wealthiest peers in England. She was also a lady in waiting for
Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife – and Margaret remained a pretty loyal friend

(10:14):
to Catherine even after Catherine fell out of favor with Henry (as so many of
Henry’s wives did). Margaret and Richard had 5 surviving children together – one of whom,
Reginald, would go on to play an important – if off-stage – role in his mother’s death.
Reginald ultimately became Cardinal Reginald, which is a pretty schmantzy position in the

(10:39):
Catholic Church. And when Henry VIII was a devoted Catholic, Reginald had some important
positions in the Catholic Church in England. But not in the Church of England, because Reginald
was not a fan of Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn and he strongly criticized the king.
And then wisely got the hell outta there and called for Henry’s deposition from abroad.

(11:07):
This – and Margaret’s bloodline – did the countess no favors. She also may have been involved in the
so-called “Nun of Kent” affair – the Nun of Kent was a self-proclaimed mystic and Catholic nun who
had some dire prophecies about Henry VIII and, well, her story didn’t end great either. Margaret

(11:27):
also clashed with Henry’s advisor and lawyer Thomas Cromwell – who was, at that moment, allied
with Henry. In 1537, Reginald was appointed by the pope to oversee a Catholic uprising in England
known as the Pilgrimage of Grace (I don’t know how personally involved he could have been while,

(11:48):
you know, not being in England but the sentiment was not appreciated and he did some organizing,
so he was involved). And then in 1538 – two years after the execution of Anne Boleyn, by
the way – Geoffrey Pole, another of Margaret’s sons, was discovered to have been in contact
with his brother Reginald and that’s when things really started to go downhill.

(12:13):
A lot of people were arrested and questioned. Margaret was moved to the infamous Tower of
London in November of 1539, and she was formally accused of aiding and abetting her sons in their
treason against Henry and for conspiring to reinstate Catholicism in England. Maybe it

(12:34):
also had something to do with her strategically placed estates, some on the coast in the south
of England, that would have been good landing bases for any sort of invasion. Margaret was
not tortured while she was in the Tower – at least not formally, being imprisoned there had
to be some sort of psychological torture though. But expense accounts reveal that she ate pretty

(12:57):
well and had a maid to wait on her and she was having clothes made by the queen’s tailor. But
then in 1541, there was another rebellion and there were suspicions that Reginald was going
to rescue his mother and there was pressure to “empty the Tower of the prisoners now there

(13:18):
for treason.” So … Margaret’s day had come. At 7 o’clock in the morning on May 27, 1541,
67-year-old Margaret Pole was led from her cell to Tower Green – which was an area inside the walls
of the Tower and not out in the public where most prisoners were taken. This was kind of a crappy

(13:41):
favor but a favor nonetheless. And Margaret was, by some accounts, not about to dutifully play her
role in this macabre display of kingly authority. So, there are a few versions of what happened that
day inside the Tower. Some accounts say that she commended her soul to God, asked people

(14:02):
to pray for her and asked to be remembered by Princess Mary, Catherine of Aragon’s daughter.
Other accounts say they had to drag her to the block because she was not going to go quietly.
But all the versions agree that it was not, shall we say, a clean cut. The main executioner had been
sent north, to deal with that rebellion. And so Margaret got the second string, the B-team,

(14:30):
“a wretched and blundering youth … who literally hacked her head and shoulders to pieces in the
most pitiful manner.” Another account – that maybe is apocryphal, and maybe isn’t based on eyewitness
testimony – the eye witnesses had wildly different reports about how many people even
attended Margaret’s execution so … eye witnesses aren’t always (okay, usually) reliable – and if

(14:55):
you’ve listened to my episode on the many accounts of the execution of Anne Boleyn, you know that
primary sources often disagree. But, this version is way more bad ass, so I’m including it here and
a small part of me hopes this is how it went down. In this version, Margaret basically tells

(15:15):
the executioner if he wants her head, come and get it – and then she made him chase her around
until he finally … did get her in the end. Margaret is buried in the chapel of St. Peter
ad Vincula, which is inside the walls of the Tower, close to Tower Green. So
you can go see her there. Or … you might join the ranks of those who claim to see her ghost,

(15:37):
shrieking and running in the dead of night, being chased by the axe man. If you’re one of the lucky
few who gets to visit the Tower of London at night. Historic Royal Palaces does Tower
Twilight Tours from October thru Dec 10, just … FYI. Happy Halloween!