So, usually vampires and witches are more my speed, but I must confess—seeing as it’s Halloween and all—to a low-level obsession with ghosts.
There’s just something about a good ghost story, amirite?
Well, as it so happens, Oxford has those a plenty. I went a-diving through the internet to dig up a few interesting ones just for you, and unsurprisingly there were quite a few. Particularly, there were a lot centring around one period of British history.
Did you know that Oxford was once the capital of England?
Apologies to those poor souls who attended school in Ol’ Blighty, and are now being forced to dredge up bad memories of their truly dreadful primary school history teachers!
Let’s rewind to the English Civil War… It’s 1642, and King Charles I has just got himself in a sticky situation with his parliament. Why? Because he wanted money, but according to his agreement with the parliament, he had to ask their permission to use taxpayer money. Then the Scottish attacked, and parliament (sympathising with the Scottish desire for religious freedom) didn’t give Charlie the money to fight them off.
Hmmm.
So he had them arrested, which went badly. London chased him out, and he hopped on over to Oxford, where he lived in Christ Church College until 1646. New College became storage for ammunitions, St. Peter’s College was the royal mint, and Christ Church’s great hall served as the parliament meeting place.
Eventually, Charles left Oxford, and after various machinations and back-and-forths, found himself tried for treason and beheaded. But that wasn’t the end! Rumour has it that his spirit continues to wonder Oxford, along with several of his loyal supporters…
The much-lauded William Laud
Laud’s ghost sure does get around. After being exorcised from Merton College’s library, he’s popped up in St. John’s, where he has reportedly been seen playing bowling with a rather unusual ball…
William Laud was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by King Charles I in 1633, and was correspondingly an avid supporter of the king. This saw him arrested in 1640 and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Like other denizens of the tower, he met a bloody end via beheading in 1645. His body was brought back to St. John’s College, where he’d been a student and fellow, for burial.
Eyewitness accounts say that he can be seen in the library, kicking and throwing his severed head. Obviously, none of these sightings have been linked to stress during exam time.
Colonel WHOOOOO?
Oh Francis, oh Francis…
Colonel Francis Windebank was a promising young man, recently married, when he met his end in 1645. Loyal to the king, he had enlisted as a royalist colonel when the war broke out. He was appointed governor of Bletchingdon Hall, a country home near Oxford—by all accounts a rather boring position for such an up-and-coming man. To liven things up, he threw a ball. The parliamentarians got wind of the affair and attacked the house, whereupon the good colonel (sensibly, some might argue) surrendered in order to protect his new wife and daughter.
The royalists, finding this to be not in keeping with their ethos, court marshalled him. He was found guilty of treason, and executed by firing squad against the length of the town wall behind Merton College. This is where his ghost can be found to this day, wandering knee-deep in the ground. Why not on ground level? Because at some point the Oxfordians raised the level of the path.
Interestingly, on a totally unrelated note, this stretch of pathway is called Dead Man’s Walk. It used to be the route of medieval Jewish funeral processions.
Obadiah Walks Again
Every time I hear the name Obadiah, I think of Iron Man. Oh, wait, you’re here for the ghost stories. Right!
Obadiah Walker is, according to official University College sources, one of their most famous Masters*. He was initially a fellow from 1635 to 1648. After some bother with the parliamentarians, he was deprived of that position—politicians, honestly—only reinstated again in 1660. So, I suppose that one thing remains consistent in the UK over centuries: no one can ever make up their minds. He became Master in 1676, advising the King on matters in Oxford.
So caught up in his worship of King James II (successor to the unlucky Charles I) was he that he made public his conversion to Roman Catholicism. Unfortunately, Jamie was deposed in 1688 and fled to France. Walker tried to follow him, but was picked up in Kent. Like many before him, he landed up in the Tower of London, though he dodged the death penalty. He spent the last years of his life back in Oxford, though without his former job, and eventually died miserably in University College, which he still haunts to this day.
*Master, in this case, refers to the position of head of the college, not to the degree.
A Wandering Spirit
Another ghost that’s doing the rounds… King Charles I’s ghost seems to be popping up everywhere. Eyewitness accounts have put him in Painswick Court House (Gloucestershire), Chavenage House (also Gloucestershire), and Christ Church College (Oxfordshire). Oxford eyewitnesses say they’ve seen him both with and without the head that he lost during his sticky end in 1649, though fortunately, he doesn’t seem inclined to play football with it. Will this restless spirit ever find peace? Hey, maybe he just really likes holidaying in the Cotswolds!
He’s also been seen causing havoc in the Bodleian Library. Denied the right to take books out in 1645, he can now be seen in the Upper Reading Room, pulling books out at random and reading a single line.
Bonus: A Cavalier Attitude
It’s Halloween and, okay, the last one was kind of a cop-out. Here, have another story!
The Old Bank Hotel is, you guessed it, an old bank. We’re so creative at naming things in England. (Oxford, from Oxnaford, literally “place where oxen cross the river”.) The bank has been through a few incarnations: stately home, mercers and drapers, bank, hotel… But this isn’t a story about urban reinvention and capitalism.
During the Civil War, this was the home of a young lady name Prudence Burcote, Puritan and supporter of Oliver Cromwell and his parliamentarians. To her misfortune, she discovered what every romance novel protagonist can tell you: the heart cares not for politics or religion. She fell in love with the most terrible sort of all, a royalist cavalier. Allegedly, her displeased parents banished her from the family home. She stayed with her lover until his royal duties drew him away, whereupon she returned to her parents’ home to await him… only he never returned.
The story goes that Prudence died of a broken heart. Today, she still roams the building, waiting for her lover.
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Further resources:
For all manner of supernatural stories: https://www.darkoxfordshire.co.uk/
Lots of pictures: https://the-history-girls.blogspot.com/2018/08/ghostly-oxford.html
Vampires have been a mainstay of paranormal fiction and TV for generations, from Dracula to Twilight to The Vampire Diaries. We all know and (mostly) love them. Who wouldn’t want a sexy bad boy feasting on their blood?
The origins of vampires aren’t exactly shrouded in mystery—unless you count the fact that there are so many “origin stories” that things have become a bit confused. Bram Stoker borrowed a real-life person (Vlad the Impaler) as the inspiration for his story, and since then we’ve seen any number of different variations on vampires. But is it any wonder that there’s a lot of confusion (do vampires burn in sunlight? Or do they glitter?) when they appear in the folklore of every country and language under the sun, and people used to believe they really existed?
That’s right, there is real-life evidence that people believed in vampires. How do we know this? Because they used to exhume corpses that were suspected of vampirism and deface them: cut off limbs, stake them, or otherwise take measures to prevent them from rising from the grave.
But where did this very real fear of vampires actually come from? Would it surprise you to find out that it may have had its roots in medical diseases? Probably not—these days everyone’s probably heard of porphyria, which had symptoms remarkably similar to the modern conception of vampirism. But in fact, porphyria is not alone in inspiring the vampire mythos. Here are four illnesses that contributed to rising paranoia about vampires in the eighteenth century.
Vampirism: Symptoms and Signs
But first, what is a vampire?
Developed a sudden allergy to sunlight? Hate the smell of garlic? Feel a sudden, burning desire to chow down on someone’s neck? You may be a vampire. Here’s a handy checklist of symptoms to look out for:
Disclaimer: This is by far not an exhaustive list. Consult your doctor if concerns persist.
Got any of these? Probably nothing to worry about. Here are four other illnesses that explain these symptoms.
1. Porphyria
Porphyria is an illness affecting the production of heme, a part of the haemoglobin in our blood. Although today severe cases are fairly rare, and treatable (albeit not curable), at the height of the vampire hysteria in Europe it may have been particularly common in rural areas with limited gene pools. The symptoms include skin blistering when exposed to sunlight, gums receding (which would have made teeth appear more prominent and fang-like), and urine turning reddish-brown (the same colour as blood). Interestingly, one of the prescribed treatments was drinking animal blood to replenish their own.
2. Rabies
Rabies is a disease which has been linked both to the vampire and the werewolf mythos. Although there is now a vaccination, it used to be fairly common in Europe. Conferred by bite or blood-to-blood contact from animals to humans, it caused symptoms such as aversion to light, aggressive/delusional behaviour, and biting. Many early tales about vampires, particularly in Slavic folklore, refer to them as having beastlike behaviour, rushing at their victims, and biting them. Interestingly, there was also a major outbreak of rabies in eastern Europe around the time that the vampire was gaining traction in folklore.
3. The Plague
Even with modern medical understand, pandemics are scary things. In the past, with limited knowledge of the spread and treatment of diseases, they were even more terrifying. It’s not surprising, therefore, that vampire scares often coincided with waves of the Plague, which spread around Europe in the 1300s and 1400s. Humans contracted it from rats, and would develop symptoms such as fevers, chills, and weakness. Although it extremely rare today, the disease is still fatal if left untreated.
Suffers of the plague would often develop lesions around the mouth or emit a black purge fluid from their mouths after death. This led to the belief that they were drinking blood to keep themselves alive. Archaeologists have uncovered bodies amongst plague victims who had been buried with bricks in their mouths. This is thought to have been a method of preventing them from climbing out of their graves to drink the blood of the living.
4. Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (also known as consumption or TB) is a virus which destroys the tissue of the lungs. Although there is a vaccine, and it can be treated with modern antibiotics, the illness is fatal if untreated. It could be transmitted from person to person by air and spread particularly in poorer communities in the 19th century.
Tuberculosis suffers exhibited symptoms such as physical weakness, coughing up blood, and fevers. If one person in a household became sick, they would often infect the other family members. Because people at the time didn’t understand how diseases spread, it wasn’t a leap of logic to believe that a recently deceased relative was draining the life out of their family members, like a vampire would. The most famous case of this belief was Mercy Brown, in New England, USA… But that’s a story for another day!
Evidence of belief in vampires in Slavic folklore dates back to the 9th century, with notable periods of vampire hysteria over the centuries following that. These periods are often linked to the spread of highly infectious diseases. The vampire has been used as a symbol for all sorts of things over the centuries, often representing the unknown or the foreign, but it may well have found its origin as an early attempt to understand what we now explain through science and medicine.
Sources:
Sledzik and Bellantoni: Bioarcheological and Biocultural Evidence for the NewEngland Vampire Folk Belief (http://www.yorku.ca/kdenning/+++2150%202007-8/sledzik%20vampire.pdf)
