St Valentine's Day 2020
Of all the dates in the calendar, the one you least associate with the Tower of London is St Valentine's Day. At most royal palaces, red could be associated with hearts and roses. That is not the case here. The extensive ghost population would scoff at anyone not associating that colour with violent death!
As a group of us gathered on a chilly Friday evening, our phantom mistress of ceremonies materialised out of the ether. "Be ye all welcome! It is always good to welcome friends to our home…"
"It is great to see you too, Auntie Anne!" Harriet exclaimed. "I love making new friends!
"Who is that crying?" The sound of piteous sobbing was indeed coming from afar. Clearly the poor person was in some distress, whoever the individual in question might be
"That is Arbella Stuart, weeping for her lost love," Anne said. "She was fourth in line to the throne in the time of King James I and VI, her first cousin. After marrying William Seymour, Lord Beauchamp, without permission, she was arrested." Anne correctly pronounced Beauchamp as Beecham.
"Following a disastrous attempt to meet up with William and escape abroad, she was imprisoned here in 1611 and starved herself to death here on the 25th of September 1615. William, whose escape was successful, never contacted her again.
"What is it with this place and people dying of a broken heart?! Not only Arbella, but that accursed jester…" At that, poor Jack Point began to sing again the song of The Merryman and the Maid. "We need more Gryffindors! Oh, and Master Point, if I hear one more 'Heighdy! Heighdy!' I shall throw you into the bloody Thames!
"William was the sixth in line to the throne, through his descent from my accursed husband's younger sister Mary. Edward, William was your descendant…"
Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and once the Lord Protector of England on behalf of his nephew Edward VI (the son of Henry VIII and younger half-brother of Mary I and Elizabeth I), is a tall bearded ghost in his early 50's. An elder brother of Jane Seymour (the woman Henry VIII proposed to the day after Anne Boleyn's execution, the odious oik that he was), he was beheaded on ludicrous charges following a palace coup. His dear nephew recorded the execution of his uncle in his diary in much the same manner as he would note that it had rained slightly more heavily than usual. Ironically, Edward and Anne are firm friends these days. They bonded over mutual grumbling about how Tudor kings treated their nearest and dearest!
"Yes, Anne. My titles were forfeit on my execution, but my subsidiary titles of Earl of Hertford and Viscount Beauchamp of Hatch were later recreated for my son Edward. He secretly married Lady Katherine Grey, the granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary. With Queen Elizabeth I unmarried and childless, Lady Katherine was a potential claimant to the throne. They were both imprisoned here when Katherine became visibly pregnant with their son Edward. During their time here, some rather lax Yeomen Warders allowed the couple opportunities to have a second son, Thomas. After that, the marriage was annulled, and the two boys declared illegitimate. At Elizabeth's orders, Katherine was separated from her husband under a succession of house arrests, ending in her death at the age of twenty-seven from consumption. Edward married twice more, but had no more children, and his two sons were effectively rendered legitimate.
"After the trouble that Lady Katherine's elder sister, the Lady Jane, had caused Elizabeth's elder half-sister Mary I…"
"That was my parents and my parents-in-law's fault, Edward, as ye well know!" a ghost still in her mid-to-late teens announced primly. "I never wanted the throne, but the Duke of Northumberland told your dear nephew that he couldn't bypass his elder Catholic half-sister Mary's claim to the throne in favour of his younger half-sister Elizabeth. He could, however, use the annulments of both Henry VIII's first two marriages to make both half-sisters illegitimate and declare me the heir to the throne. The fact that he was marrying me to his youngest son, Lord Guildford Dudley, may have influenced the Duke's opinion.
"Whilst John Dudley had his good points, he was a proud and ambitious man…"
"We all were, Jane my dear. Hubris always invites Nemesis, however unjustly.
"It was John Dudley's faction behind my downfall, Jane. He was a capable administrator, but a poor ruler. To tell the truth, I was the same."
"In any event, Queen Mary was more popular with the public and we were defeated and sent to the Tower. The Duke was beheaded on Tower Hill and Guildford and I were sentenced to death. Cousin Mary initially was inclined to show us mercy. My father, the Duke of Sussex, then threw in his lot with Thomas Wyatt the Younger's rebellion. My husband and I were now considered too dangerous to be allowed to live. On 12 February 1554, nearly nine months after my nine-day reign as Queen of England had ended, we were executed, Guildford on Tower Hill and me here on Tower Green. He was not yet twenty and I was a couple of years younger still. Whilst more friends than lovers in life, we are happy together in death. I have never been more content.
"My two younger sisters Katherine and Mary Grey were treated with respect by Queen Mary and then by Queen Elizabeth. Both incurred the latter's wrath by marrying without her consent. Whilst Mary was eventually restored to favour, Katherine was the only one of us to have issue."
"How do you all know things that happened after your deaths?" Luna asked. "It must be the Nargles…"
"Most of the great and the not-so good ended up here at some point or another," Edward told her. "After that, it has continued to be a military base. Anything of importance tends to quickly reach us ghosts.
"Remember, my dear Mistress Scamander, that Archbishop Laud and the Earl of Strafford died more than two decades after Arbella, though centuries before you were born. It gives us spectres of the Tower a certain perspective on Time.
"My son died in 1621, and his grandson William succeeded him as the Earl of Hertford. That was after Arbella's death in 1615. He had since remarried and later had children.
"Originally an opponent of King Charles I, he later switched sides and fought for the Royalists during the Civil War. By that time created the Marquess of Hertford, he was the King's most prominent supporter during his imprisonment and at his execution. William died in late 1660, a few months after the newly restored King Charles II had recreated my Dukedom of Somerset for him. In fact, he was styled as the Second Duke of the Fourth Creation, with me now posthumously restored as the First. The title is currently held by John Seymour, the Nineteenth Duke and my direct descendant.
"Thanks to those kindly Victorians, my grave bears my title of Duke of Somerset. Anne's identifies her as Queen Anne Boleyn. Not one of us is described as a felon, yet alone a traitor. Small consolation, perhaps, for our deaths, but greatly appreciated none the less.
"Oh, and Luna, a UNIT soldier showed me what he called a 'print-out' listing the succession of the Dukes of Somerset.
"Could somebody please go and comfort poor Arbella? The poor soul is known for her mournful cries. Tis a great tale, no doubt, and my great-grandson was a coward and a cad to use and desert her so. It still grieves my heart full sore to hear her weep and wail so."
"I'll go," Jane offered. "Arbella's great-grandmother was Henry VIII's elder sister Margaret, widow of King James IV of Scotland and mother of his son James V. After James IV was killed fighting the English at Flodden, Margaret married Archibald Douglas, the Earl of Angus. Their daughter Margaret Lennox nee Douglas had two surviving sons by her husband Matthew Stewart, the Earl of Lennox. Their eldest son, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, married his first cousin, Mary Queen of Scots and fathered James VI and I, whilst the younger son Charles Stuart was Arbella's father.
"As such, we are kinswomen. She may have been born some twenty years after my death and by malnutrition and not the axe, but we still suffered and died here for being a rival to the throne."
"Arbella was only a potential claimant, my darling," said a clean-shaven ghost in his late teens. This was Guildford Dudley. "Like your sisters, she never seemed interested in becoming Queen. It was the fear that somebody else might, particularly if she had children with a man with a claim to the throne in his own right."
"True," Jane smiled. She slipped her arm around his waist. "Once I have seen to Arbella, my love, how about spending a couple of hours by ourselves celebrating the occasion?"
"Petrified Paintpots! St Valentine's Day is a rather Papist celebration for a pair of Puritans to observe!" Jigger was joking, by the way. Seriously, though, he had a point.
"We were beheaded when we had scarce thirty-seven years between us, my good Master Johnson," Jane sighed. "So much time was wasted on a perishable crown and petty squabbles over matters that mattered little to our Lord anyway. In death, I discovered that the husband I had been forced to marry was all that I had ever wanted, not a few ounces of gold and jewels placed on my head.
"Catholic, Protestant, God loves us all. Tonight, I want to share my love with my Valentine.
"Fare ye well, all of ye. See you soon, my beloved." With that, the Nine-Day Queen went off to attend to her kinswoman, after giving her sweetheart a tender kiss.
"Jinkies! Did anyone leave this place with their head still on their neck?"
"The ghosts here never got their Happily Ever After, that's for sure!" Zelena said, agreeing with Velma.
"I don't know, mis amigos," Linda mused. "Those two found their True Loves, by the look of it. Isn't that the ultimate Fairy Tale Happily Ever After, Zelena?"
"Auntie Linda's right, Auntie Zelena," Harriet piped up. "True Love Conquers All!"
"You have been spending too much time with my nephew, my little flying monkey!" Zelena smiled at Harriet, showing that she thoroughly agreed with the sentiment. She is a Fairy Tale at the end of the day. We in the Former Younger Adventurer camp use the phrase 'From Loyalty to Love!' If you stay true to each other through thick and thin, love romantic or filial tends to develop naturally.
"I am happy for them, truly, but…" Anne sighed. "Not all of us won in love. My Beloved had my head cut off!"
"Arbella was abandoned by my caddish, cowardly great-grandson," Edward agreed. "I caught my own first wife in bed with my father. No wonder I had the marriage annulled shortly thereafter.
"The Tower of London was an insatiable vampire for misery, hopelessness and cruelty, Anne. Happy Endings are not generally associated with prisons and scaffolds at the end of the day."
Edward was of course right. Abandon hope all ye that enter here! Well, that was the case in his day. Today, you can pay £24.70 for a fun day out, with guided tours by Yeoman Warders, seeing the Crown Jewels and the ravens, historical re-enactments and even Twilight Tours for hardy souls. The ghosts have competitions as to who can scare the most nocturnal visitors. Anne, Jane, Edward and the other senior ghosts make a point of keeping Max the bear out of the way, not wanting a repeat of the fate of that unfortunate sentry in 1816.
"Ned's right, dear sister," George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford agreed. He was beheaded on Tower Hill two days before his sister's execution, falsely accused of being her lover. Honestly, I ask you…? Henry VIII and his Chief Minister Thomas Cromwell excelled themselves with that creative gem!
"As Guildford and Jane show, sweetheart, post-mortem Happy Endings are possible," Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford, reminded him. She was decapitated on Tower Green in 1542, nearly six years after her husband and sister-in-law were put to death, alongside Katherine Howard, Henry VIII's fifth wife and Anne Boleyn's first cousin. Jane was executed despite being diagnosed as insane, after Henry had ordered the law to be changed to allow a mad person to be put to death. Her "crime" was to have acted as a go-between during Katherine's "affair" with Henry's groom Thomas Culpeper. Katherine never actually slept with her beau, but Henry felt aggrieved that a girl of not yet twenty would prefer a young man over an obese man of fifty with an ulcerous leg. Honestly, odious oik doesn't quite do the man justice!
"Being accused of being mine and Anne's betrayer must hurt you, dearest. The only charge at those farcical trials that had anything to do with you was you remembering us mocking King Henry's virility. Even that was terrified out of you. It might not be being accused of incest, but you never had anything to do with those charges.
"A comment of Anne's about the Countess of Worcester making up allegations against us to get out of repaying money that Anne had lent her was falsely interpreted as against you. Never did we blame you for our deaths. After your beheading, Anne greeted you with a fond hug and I kissed you with all the passion that I could muster."
"At your arrest," Jane Boleyn noted, "all my clothes were listed as being gaily coloured. At my arrest, I was only listed as having black clothes in my wardrobe. Given that I had been lady-in-waiting to all three of his queens during that period, I was taking my life into my hands reminding King Henry that I was a widow. If we were unhappily married as history says, I would never have been that foolish.
"My fellow Jane was right. I have everything that I ever wanted in life right here!" The couple shared a long kiss, before pulling Anne in for a fond family hug.
"With that, I think that we need to be off home," Louise suggested, slipping her arm into mine. "After all, once Harriet is tucked up in bed, I want a romantic night with my Valentine!" She kissed me, before we pulled Harriet, Jean and Linda in close. "Family hug!"
"Well, see ye all soon," Anne called. "Fare ye all well. I hope to see ye all again ere long."