The rights to Rex Milligan belong to the late Anthony Buckeridge. Those to Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling. Those to the Dana girls, Linda Craig and others to the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Those to The Tudors belong to Showtime Entertainment, although clearly most of them were genuine historical people. Those to Once Upon a Time are held by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. Other rights belong to Marvel Comics, DC Comics/Warner Brothers/Hanna-Barbera, the BBC, the estates of the late Enid Blyton, the late Charles Addams, the late Malcolm Saville, the late Ian Fleming, the late Terrance Dicks and more. I own nothing and make claim to the same nothing.
The Tower of London, Halloween 2019
The Tower of London has been used as a palace, a garrison, a prison, a menagerie and much more over its 950 or so years of existence. It houses the Crown Jewels, the Yeoman Warders, the British Headquarters of UNIT and several ghosts.
Three Queens were beheaded here. All three still – reside here. I should know. Anne Boleyn is peering over my shoulder as I write. Don't worry. She's sweet once you get to know her, as well as one of the few ladies capable of rivalling my wife in beauty. Henry VIII was an addle-pated clodpoll, quite frankly.
Anne and her fellow victims have agreed to introduce us to the major festivals of the year at the Tower. It made sense to start tonight on the Eve of All Saints Day, or Samhain to any British Pagans amongst you.
So, dear Quibbler readers, join me, your Muggle Correspondent Rex Milligan, at a roaring bonfire on Tower Green. By the way, Anne reminds me to tell you that she was executed on the parade ground some distance away and nowhere near the currently marked scaffold site on the Green, despite what it says on the notice. She should know…
The great and the good (and not so good) of the centuries are here. Three queens, three dukes, several earls and assorted other peers of the realm are gathered around the fire alongside various of my fellow guests. Luna is having a whale of a time dancing with Katherine Howard, who just loves to party like it's 1540. Mark Smeaton is serenading my wife and sisters-in-law with his lute. My adopted daughter Harriet and the Scamander twins are playing with the Princes in the Tower. Shouldn't it be the King and the Prince in the Tower? King Edward V may have never been Crowned, but he is described as such in the Order of Succession.
Anne rises to her feet. The ceremony is about to begin!
"My friends, many of us suffered in this doleful place. Those tortures, torments and bloody deaths are all now in the past. Now we are all one in such pursuits as are open to us
"It is some time since we last had a great revel. Our friends from UNIT have provided us with a bonfire to dance around."
"Your Majesty," Lorcan asked politely, "when do we get to hear some scary stories?"
"Yes, your Majesty," Lysander chorused, "we are around a bonfire on Halloween. Ghost stories are a must!"
"Oh please, Auntie Anne!" Harriet chimed in, her eyes sparkling.
"Boys, please follow Harriet's example and call me Auntie Anne. I'm a decapitated traitress, allegedly, and not a reigning monarch or their consort. I was beheaded, but I am no more a traitor than that…" As usual, I shall spare you her considered opinion on that odious oik that she had the great misfortune to have married.
"If you want grisly stories, you have come to the right place. James, would you come here please? Thank you." The ghost of a tall man with long dark hair came forward. He was dressed in the clothes of the 1680's rather than the 1530's that Anne was wearing.
"Children, this is James, Duke of Monmouth. Can you tell them of your sad fate?"
"Of course. I was born to Charles II in exile, a few months after my grandfather's execution during the Civil War. My mother, Lucy Walter, had died before the Restoration of the Monarchy and my father's childless marriage to Catherine of Braganza, his Queen Consort. He made me the Duke of Monmouth in 1663. I quickly obtained a reputation as a fine soldier.
"With all his offspring, male or female, of doubtful legitimacy, his Catholic brother James, Duke of York was heir to the throne. This was unpopular with many of my fellow Protestants, who began a rumour that my parents were wed prior to my birth and that I was thus the rightful heir to the Throne. I lost favour and fled abroad to the Netherlands, with a supposed plot to murder my father and uncle four years later making my choice of exile seem prudent.
"When my father died in 1685, my uncle was crowned King James II of England, Wales and Ireland and King James VII of Scotland. I, believing in my legitimacy and my claim to the Throne, landed in Lyme Regis and launched a rebellion. My troops were a ragtag and bobtail of West Country farmers armed with scythes and pitchforks. We were soundly trounced, and I was captured a few weeks later and taken here for my execution.
"Jack Ketch was the chief executioner back then. No more incompetent cur had ever wielded an axe! He took at least five strokes to kill me and still had to use a butcher's knife to fully separate my head from my body."
"My headsman was worse," a tall female ghost said, wearing the clothes of Anne's time. "With the execution arranged at very short notice, I got a callow youth who had probably never chopped more than wood before. He just hacked at my neck until my head was finally severed."
"That is true, Margaret," Anne nodded. "Everyone, this is Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, another of my beloved husband's unfortunate victims."
"The Blessed Margaret Pole is a martyr of the Roman Catholic Church," I added. "One of her sons, Cardinal Reginal Pole, wrote some papers condemning Henry VIII during the English Reformation. As he was in exile abroad, the king reacted with typical charity and restraint by having most of his family imprisoned and later executed on the Cardinal's behalf.
"The Countess of Salisbury was imprisoned in the Tower for two-and-a-half years. Her execution was a last-minute affair, scheduled as the King and Queen went on a Royal Progress of the North. Since the Progress was partly to punish traitors, he took the best executioners with him. Hence, the Tower authorities merely placed a block directly on Tower Green, rather than bothering to erect a scaffold, and used the Tudor England equivalent of a fifteen-year-old schoolboy on a couple of weeks' work experience to behead the formidable 67-year-old niece of a previous king. By all accounts, he panicked and merely swung wildly and hoped for the best. Hopefully, he decided on a different choice of future career.
"Jack Ketch by all accounts was a decent hangman but was rarely called upon to act as a headsman, which was a means of, err, dispatch usually reserved for nobles. On both the execution of the Duke and that of William Russell, Lord Russell, two years before, he badly botched both decapitations.
"My sympathies to both of you on your sadly bungled deaths."
"I was beheaded by a sword wielded by a wonderful executioner from Calais," Anne admitted. "It was over in a trice."
"This is certainly gory," Lysander noted, "but not exactly ghost stories."
"They are stories told by ghosts," Louise pointed out, those beautiful soft brown eyes sparkling. My wife is a stunningly beautiful woman with her tall and slender figure and brunette hair, but to me her eyes will always be her best feature. How did it take me over fifty years to realise that I was in love with the elder Dana sister?! Well, that story has already been published in The Quibbler!
"Countess, my sister, sister-in-law and I are Catholics. It is a great honour to meet you. I can't believe that I am talking to a beatified martyr of our Faith."
"You should address her as Lady Salisbury, darling, not Countess! Only a Duchess or Princess should be addressed by her rank and not as Lady Whatever or Wherever."
"Quite right," Lady Salisbury approved. "The Countess is correct in the third person, but not in the second.
"Call me Margaret anyway. Anne here is right. Whatever titles we may have held in life, they are at best courtesies in death.
"What about the mysterious tube or the young soldier who died of fright after claiming to see the ghost of a bear? Those are stories worth the telling."
"A number of hardened soldiers have fainted after seeing me," Anne admitted cheerfully. "There is nothing like a good haunting!" Anne Boleyn would be a natural for Rentaghost…
"In any event, let the revelries commence!" With those words, Anne grabbed the nearest male ghost and began a stately pavane.
"This looks like fun, mi amada esposa," Linda grinned, those dark Hispanic eyes flashing with passion. If anyone can rival my honorary younger sister Luna Scamander in constant cheeriness no matter what the circumstances, it is Linda Dana-Craig! Our fun feisty senorita of the saddle is an essential part of our family unit. She and the irrepressible Jean Dana-Craig are a joyous match. I couldn't be happier to call them my sisters-in-law.
"A dance of Italian origins popular in Spain," I mused, "so no wonder our Linda's enjoying herself. A few Jacobite Scottish and North East English peers were beheaded here following the 1715 and 1745 risings. Perhaps there might be jigs and reels for the Scottish side of Linda's heritage? For that matter, since Dana and Milligan are both Irish surnames, we must have some Celtic blood too.
"In any event, darling, shall we follow Jean and Linda's example and join yon swirling throng of spectral dancers?"
"Of course, my love." With that, Louise took my hand and we joined the dance. Harriet, Lorcan and Lysander merely shrugged and returned to playing with King Edward and Prince Richard. Formal balls are not their scene!
After a couple of hours of dancing, we were once more gathered around the bonfire. "What happens now?" Luna asked. "Do we sweep the ground with besom brooms, bury apples or place a cauldron on a Samhain altar with apples, nuts, berries and black candles. Alternatively, we could dance wildly round the bonfire in the nude. That would be…"
"Jolly chilly in October!" I fired back. "Crystallised Cheesecakes! Don't be an addle-pated clodpoll, Sis! I've heard some beetle-brained ideas in my time, but that might take the biscuit.
"That said, somebody suggested ghost stories earlier. Anne, could you remind us of the first of those two stories that you mentioned earlier please? Thank you."
"Certainly, Rex. Gather round me and I'll tell you a tale of London's Tower.
"In the 1800's, a man named Edmund Swifte was Keeper of the Crown Jewels. He and his wife dwelt in the Martin Tower. One day, in the Year of our Lord 1817, they supped in their lodgings when they beheld a sight unearthly. Before their very eyes appeared a cylinder full of some sort of blue liquid. When his wife shouted that something had grabbed her, Swifte hurled a chair at the dread apparition. The chair passed straight through it and presently thereafter it vanished from sight. So far as we know, whatever it was has never been seen since.
"The previous year, a sentry on guard outside the Jewel House of the time was found quaking with terror. He claimed to have seen a spectral bear lumbering towards him. Within a few days, he had expired, 'tis said from sheer terror.
"The Tower of London was used as a Royal Menagerie until as late as 1835. Several bears were kept here over the centuries, including a polar bear centuries before even my earthly lifetime that was said to catch its own fish swimming in the Thames, attached to the shore with a long chain. Had that poor man seen the ghost of one of them? Well, if you want an answer…" Anne pointed to the courtyard, where a phantom bear was indeed shuffling about. "Max was an old pet of that damnable cur that I was married to. He has been known to dance to Mark's lute when in a good mood." Mark Smeaton, our lutenist, was beheaded on Tower Hill as one of Anne Boleyn's "lovers," which was a list comprising entirely of Henry VIII in reality.
"I assume you mean Max dances, and not Henry VIII," Jean interrupted.
"That damnable wretch is not welcome here!" Anne spat, her dark eyes flashing. "I did mean Max, who is much lighter on his feet than Henry was in his later years." She doesn't like her ex much. Can you blame her?!
"The man does seem to have suffered considerably from the Wrackspurts," Luna commented.
"I rather think it was gout and a gangrenous ulcer of the leg, Luna. Still, I can't say that I am sorry for the man, after what he had done to me.
"Well, the hour is late. I believe that the children have school tomorrow. Shall we meet again, at Yule if not before?"
"Of course," Luna agreed. "How do ghosts celebrate Christmas?"
"With much merrymaking, Luna my dear. Come along this year and see for yourself. Ye are all always welcome in the Tower of London."