"...we should pass over all biographies of 'the good and the great,' while we search carefully the slight records of wretches who died in prison, in Bedlam, or upon the gallows."
~Edgar Allan Poe

Friday, April 29, 2016

Weekend Link Dump



This week's Link Dump is sponsored by Strange Company HQ staffer Kate, world-renowned as the Amazing Boneless Wonder!







What the hell is this hair in a coffin?

Watch out for those American dragons!

Watch out for the Midnight Terror Cave of Belize!

The Land of Missing Persons.

Audubon, master hoaxer.

The Pythagorean Sayings, or why you need to watch out for the sun when you urinate.

There's a village in Spain that's been cursed for the last 500 years. Hell on the real estate values, I'd guess.

The million-dollar poodle.

One really freaking expensive tulip.

The mad dogs of London.

Eye-eye... Ay!

The Finnish Witch of the North.

The man who taught the East India Company how to speak Burmese.

A museum honoring the last European woman executed for witchcraft.

The Wendigo Hunters.

Victorian aerial daredevils.

The woman who was one of the leading Anglo-Saxon warriors.

Britain's most famous witch.

When fashion foiled the fiend.

William Brereton, tragic tragidian.

The sisterhood of Jackie and Lee.

The rise of the Howard Dynasty.

Shorter version:  We're all gonna die.  Happy weekend.

A terrible accident in a cemetery, 1838.

The role of hashish in assassinations.

Say "Happy Birthday" to the world's oldest tree.  Wherever it is

Working women in the Victorian era.

Doing the laundry, Georgian style.

Victorian jobs you would not want to have.

Fat-shaming in the Victorian era.

The "puerperal derangement" of Elizabeth Potter.

The officer and the Anzac.

Did they hang Jack the Ripper?

The momentous fall of Troy.

William Kidd, the pirate who was framed.

Belgrade's Nikola Tesla museum.

A bullet in the archives.

Frances Thompson, unsuccessful forger.

The tragedy of the White Ship.

World War I and the wrist watch.

19th century animal welfare.

18th century Parisian fortune tellers.

17th century Swedish sin.

The palace of the King of Rome.

The folklore of St. George's Day.

And, finally, what better way to kick off the weekend than with this wonderful ancient mosaic?



And there we go for this week. See you on Monday, when we'll be talking medieval Irish witchcraft. And poison. In the meantime, here be trumpets:




Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Book Clipping of the Day

Orford Castle in 1600

Some weeks ago, I reprinted a 15th century legend involving a mermaid. As it happens, Orford Castle in Suffolk has an oddly similar tradition about an amphibian "wild man":
A curious story relating to Orford is told by Ralph of Coggeshall (abbot of the monastery there in the early part of the 13th century). Some fishermen on this coast (A.D. 1161) caught in their nets one stormy day a monster resembling a man in size and form, baldheaded, but with a long beard. It was taken to the Governor of Orford Castle, and kept for some time, being fed on raw flesh and fish, which it "pressed with its hands" before eating. The soldiers in the Castle used to torture the unhappy monster in divers fashions "to make him speak;" and on one occasion, when it was taken to the sea to disport itself therein, it broke through a triple barrier of nets and escaped. Strange to say, not long afterwards it returned of its own accord to its captivity; but at last, "being wearied of living alone, it stole away to sea and was never more heard of." A tradition of this monster, known as "the wild man of Orford," still exists in the village.
~Publications of the Folk-Lore Society, Volume 37 (1895) citing Francis Grose, "Antiquities of England and Wales," Volume 3.

Monday, April 25, 2016

The Fatal Fame of Mary Blandy



"Alas! the record of her page will tell
That one thus madden'd, lov'd, and guilty fell.
Who hath not heard of Blandy's fatal fame,
Deplor'd her fate, and sorrow'd o'er her shame?"
~"Henley," anonymous 1827 poem

In the year 1720, Mary Blandy was born into a notably comfortable and pleasant mileau. Her father, Francis Blandy, was an attorney in the pretty town of Henley-upon-Thames, in Oxfordshire. He was a skillful and reputable lawyer with a busy practice that left him both wealthy and respected. Mary's mother, who also came from a "good family," was eulogized as "an emblem of chastity and virtue; graceful in person, in mind elevated." The little family (Mary was an only child,) was a well-liked part of the local gentry. Mary grew up into an intelligent, charming, and pampered child, who seemed set for a dull, but fortunate life.

No doubt this aura of placid respectability explains why Mary's eventual murder trial was one of the great scandals of the 18th century.

As Mary grew into young womanhood, her parents naturally anticipated finding her a suitable husband. She was no beauty, but her fine mind, pleasing manner, and--last but by no means least--her dowry of a reputed ten thousand pounds, made her an object of great fascination to the eligible young men of her circle.

However, the local beaus were not good enough for Francis Blandy. He doted on his daughter, and dreamed of her making a more brilliant match than she could find in the relative backwater of Henley. Mary's parents took her to spend a season at Bath, famed for being Britain's leading matrimonial shopping center. She made the acquaintance of a number of young men who would have been happy to propose to her, and whom she herself would have happily accepted. Although most parents of Blandy's station in life would have found any of them entirely acceptable, Francis still was not satisfied. Her suitors were all "in trade," or not wealthy enough for his liking. Mr. Blandy's insistence about finding Mary the husband of his dreams was leaving her in danger of never finding a husband at all.

By 1746, Mary was a 26-year-old spinster. She was well into the age when a young lady was considered "on the shelf" and she was getting increasingly frustrated about it. This sense of time running out undoubtedly contributed to the attraction she instantly felt to a man she met at a dinner party, a 32-year-old Scottish soldier named William Henry Cranstoun.

Cranstoun seemed an unlikely sort to sweep any woman off her feet. A contemporary bluntly but eloquently described him as "remarkably ordinary, his stature is low, his face freckled and pitted with the smallpox,his eyes small and weak, his eyebrows sandy, and his shape no ways genteel; his legs are clumsy, and he has nothing in the least elegant in his manner." If you are imagining that the Scot had a character and charm that made up for his lack of conventional male beauty, think again. This same biographer commented that "He has a turn for gallantry, but Nature has denied him the proper gifts; he is fond of play, but his cunning always renders him suspected."

At first, Francis Blandy was inclined to brush aside Mary's newest suitor as quickly as he had dismissed all the earlier contestants. But then, he learned that Cranstoun had blue blood in his inelegant veins. He was the grand-nephew of General Lord Mark Kerr, a leading Scottish patrician, and was the fifth son of William, fifth Lord Cranstoun.

Francis Blandy was, unfortunately, a complete snob. Unattractive and impecunious as William might have been, the idea of Mary landing a husband connected by blood to a good portion of the Scottish aristocracy absolutely enchanted her father. When Cranstoun made a formal offer for Miss Blandy's hand, her parents were joyfully ready to give it. Even when Cranstoun confided to Mary that he had a previous romantic entanglement, with a Scottish woman who was--completely falsely, of course!--claiming to be his wife, it did nothing to dampen the Blandy ardor for this highborn captain.

All was romantic bliss up until the moment when Lord Mark Kerr heard of the engagement. He wrote Francis to give the disconcerting news that young Cranstoun already had a quite bindingly legal wife and child back in Scotland.

Oh, dear.

When the Blandys confronted the captain with this revelation, Cranstoun waved it off with a quite epic effrontery. He admitted that the lady, Anne Murray, had been his mistress. However, he had only agreed to marry her if she renounced her Catholicism and joined the Presbyterian faith. As she refused to do so, he felt entirely justified in breaking their engagement. When it was pointed out to him that he had previously admitted that Anne was his wife, he coolly replied that he had only done so to "amuse" her family. The question of the disputed marriage was currently before the Scottish courts, where, Cranstoun assured the Blandys, he would soon be vindicated.

Francis Blandy reacted with all the outrage of someone who had thought they had struck gold, only to find they were saddled with plated tin. He was all for throwing the mendacious fellow out of the house and locking the door behind him. Mary's mother, however, had become genuinely charmed by the Scot, which just proves that old adage about never accounting for taste. She was more than willing to believe any alibi Cranstoun offered, no matter how feeble. And as for Mary herself, she was by now so anxious to avoid eternal spinsterhood that she was even more loath to let go of what she secretly feared would be her last chance at matrimony. Francis' womenfolk managed to convince him to let the conditional engagement stand.

In the spring of 1748, Cranstoun went off to London, where he was to remain until that happy day when the Scottish legal system would declare him to be a free man. In the meantime, he and Mary kept up a correspondence that would eventually lead them into true crime history.

On March 1, 1748, the Commissary Court delivered Cranstoun--and Mary--some very bad news. It decreed that he and Anne Murray were legally married, and ordered the captain to pay his wronged lady an annuity of forty pounds, plus ten pounds child support. Cranstoun also had to pay all the legal expenses involved, which amounted to some hundred pounds. Cranstoun appealed the decision, but this effort was soon dismissed. The captain was now not only in quite a financial hole, but his despicable treatment of his wife left him an object of public scorn.

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, really.

Despite these setbacks, Mary and her mother still stubbornly clung to Cranstoun. When Mrs. Blandy fell terminally ill in September 1749, practically her last act was to tell her husband, "Mary has set her heart upon Cranstoun; when I am gone, let no one set you against the match." Despite this deathbed appeal, Francis Blandy had come to the conclusion that Mary's Scottish suitor was much more trouble than he was worth. He would have been even more pessimistic if he was aware that Mary had learned still more uncomfortable news about her betrothed: Not only had Cranstoun fathered a child by a "Miss Capel," he was currently keeping a mistress. It is some measure of Mary's love--or, rather, desperation--that not even these revelations could dissuade her from doing everything in her power to marry this man.

Cranstoun confided to his lady-love that he had a plan for dealing with her father's negative attitude. He told her of a Mrs. Morgan, a "cunning-woman" who had provided him with certain wondrous "love powders." If a bit of this powder was mixed into something Mr. Blandy ate or drank, his attitude towards Cranstoun would be miraculously transformed from antipathy into affection!

In November 1750, Cranstoun returned to Scotland--carrying with him a generous sum Mary had given him to relieve the more pressing of his debts. Before departing, his stay had been made unpleasant by seeing a ghost in his room, which was accompanied by unsettling spectral music and knockings. Mary sadly told the servants that Cranstoun informed her that he feared this ghost was a messenger of death. She did not think her father would live very much longer.

Once Cranstoun left Henley, Mr. Blandy finally put his foot down. He ordered his daughter to write to her suitor, telling him not to show his face to them again until his matrimonial entanglements were "quite decided." Mary did write Cranstoun, but, unfortunately, we are unaware of how she communicated her father's ultimatum--or how Cranstoun replied. We do know, however, something that Mr. Blandy did not know: that Cranstoun's efforts to have his marriage dissolved had failed. He was bound to his wife "till death do they part." The lovers were greatly anxious that Mr. Blandy never find this out. If he did, the promised £10,000 dowry would undoubtedly be withheld. He might even write Mary out of his will altogether!

This was a highly uncomfortable situation, and clearly not one that could last forever.

In the summer of 1751, Cranstoun sent Mary a supply of the "love powder" he had obtained from Mrs. Morgan, along with some "Scotch pebbles" (a variety of agate that was a popular jewelry item of the day.) He instructed her to mix the powder in her father's tea. She did so, although she professed to feel doubts about its efficacy. As it was his habit to have his tea served in a different dish from the rest of the household, it was easy to see that he, and he alone, received the "love powder."

Soon, after this, Mr. Blandy began to suffer bouts of serious stomach pain and vomiting. One morning, a servant drank his untouched tea. She immediately became very sick for about a week after. On another occasion, his leftover tea was given to an elderly charwoman employed by the family. It was a gift that nearly killed her.

In early August, Mary prepared some gruel for her father. One of the maids noted that Mary performed the curious act of taking some of the gruel in a spoon and rubbing it between her fingers. After drinking this gruel, Mr. Blandy became ill--so much so, that the family apothecary was summoned. This medical man, a Mr. Norton, assumed the patient was merely suffering "a fit of colic." When he asked Mary what her father had been eating, she said nothing about the gruel, merely that he had had "some peas on the Saturday night before." After Norton left, Mary brought her father more gruel, which brought on another violent vomiting fit.

The next morning, when the remains of Mr. Blandy's gruel was brought down to the kitchen, their charwoman--who, after the tea incident, should surely have known to be wary about Blandy family leftovers--ate it. And, yes, she again became dreadfully ill.

It began to occur to the Blandy servants that something odd was going on. They examined the pan that had been used to make the gruel, and noticed a white, gritty substance at the bottom. They locked up the pan overnight, then took it to Norton the apothecary for professional examination.

Meanwhile, Francis' brother-in-law, the Rev. Mr. Stevens, arrived on the scene. The maids confided to him their suspicions about what was behind Mr. Blandy's alarming and mysterious illness. He advised them to bring their fears to Blandy himself.

The next morning, they broke the news to their master that they believed he was being poisoned by his own daughter. It is significant that Francis Blandy expressed no disbelief in the idea that Mary might try to kill him. He only questioned where she could have gotten the poison. When Cranstoun was proposed as a source, everything suddenly became dreadfully clear. "Oh, that villain!" Francis cried. "That ever he came to my house!"

Mr. Blandy went down to the breakfast table. Mary was already there, along with Francis' clerk, Robert Littleton. Littleton noted that his employer appeared to be "in great agony, and complained very much," which was surely justifiable under the circumstances. When Mary handed her father his tea, he tasted it gingerly. He stared at his daughter. The drink had a bad, gritty taste, he observed. Might she have put something in it?

Mary became very flustered and fled the room.

In a blind panic, Mary collected all of Cranstoun's letters and whatever remained of the "love powder," and dashed to the kitchen. She threw the bundle into the fireplace and "stirred it down with a stick." As soon as her back was turned, the maids--now thoroughly into their roles as amateur detectives--fished out from the grate what they could. They were able to retrieve a paper packet where Cranstoun had written the suggestive words, "The powder to clean the pebbles with." It still contained a small amount of white powder, which they handed over to Mr. Norton.

The next day, Mr. Blandy took a turn for the worse. Anthony Addington, a leading doctor of the day, was summoned. When he arrived, a brief consultation with the patient was all he needed to convince him that Blandy was being poisoned. Dr. Addington asked Mary if her father had any enemies. "Impossible!" she exclaimed. "He is at peace with all the world and all the world is at peace with him." She gave her opinion that her parent was merely suffering from "colic and heartburn."

Before Addington left, Norton gave him the sediment from the pan and the white powder retrieved by the maids. The doctor told Mary bluntly that if her father died, she would certainly be blamed.

This warning caused Mary's incredibly reckless behavior to cross over into sheer suicidal stupidity. She wrote to Cranstoun, advising him of her father's serious illness, and warning "Dear Willy" to "take care what you write," lest any accident happened to his letters.

Mary gave this letter to Robert Littleton to post. Instead, he opened the letter, read it, and promptly showed it to his employer. Blandy merely smiled wanly and said, "Poor love-sick girl! What won't a girl do for a man she loves?"

Although the household had decided that Mary should be barred from her father's bedside, Francis insisted on sending her word "that he was ready to forgive her if she would but endeavour to bring that villain to justice." When she was brought to see him, Mary begged his forgiveness, promising that she would never have anything to do with Cranstoun again. "I forgive thee, my dear," Francis replied, "and I hope God will forgive thee; but thou shouldst have considered better than to have attempted anything against thy father." Mary protested her innocence. Yes, she had put powder in his gruel, "but it was given me with another intent."

"Oh, such a villain!" cried Francis. "To come to my house, eat and drink of the best my house could afford, and then to take away my life and ruin my daughter! Oh, my dear, thou must hate that man, must hate the ground he treads on, thou canst not help it!" When a tearful--and, one hopes, sincerely repentant--Mary begged her father not to curse her, Francis replied, "Nay, I bless thee, and hope God will bless thee also and amend thy life." He advised his daughter to leave and say no more, "lest thou shouldst say anything to thine own prejudice."

If it's amazing to think what a girl might do "for a man she loves," it's even more incredible to contemplate what an indulgent father might do for his daughter.

In the meantime, Dr. Addington performed tests on the white powder Mary had employed. Relatively crude as the scientific methods of the day may have been, he had no trouble immediately identifying the substance as white arsenic.

Mary was immediately confined to her room, and all of her papers, as well as "all instruments wherewith she could hurt either herself or any other person" were taken away from her. She continued to insist that she was nothing more than Cranstoun's dupe. She had believed that the "white powder" would merely make her father "kind" towards Cranstoun. She had no idea it was poison "till she had seen its effects." Even to her own ears, it must have been a remarkably unconvincing defense.

Francis Blandy grew steadily weaker, until he finally died on August 14, 1751. Mary's reaction to the news was to try to persuade one of the servants into helping her escape to the Continent.

It will be no great surprise that the coroner's jury had little difficulty ruling that Francis Blandy died from ingesting arsenic, and that his daughter "did poison and murder" him. A warrant was issued to apprehend Cranstoun, who was believed to be in Berwick, but it was too late. Mary's evil genius had disappeared. His relatives, not wishing to see a hanging soil their otherwise illustrious family tree, had arranged to have him smuggled into France.

While in jail awaiting her trial, Mary received some news. As her father had died intestate, she was his sole heiress. Alas, it turned out that Francis' fortune amounted to less than £4,000. The promised £10,000 dowry that had inspired Cranstoun's courtship, and led Mary down the road to murder, proved to be nothing more than a figment of Francis Blandy's boastful imagination.

A novelist would never dare invent such a grimly ironic twist.

Mary stood trial on March 3, 1752. It has gone down in judicial history as the first murder trial where solid scientific proof of poisoning was given, but it's doubtful the defendant appreciated the honor.

The proceedings contained no suspense. There was no question that Francis Blandy died of arsenic poisoning, that arsenic was present in the gruel prepared by his daughter, and that arsenic was in the powder Mary had in her possession. Servants in the Blandy household testified that Mary often spoke of her father as "an old villain," and that if only her father were dead, she "would go to Scotland and live with lady Cranstoun." Even more charmingly, the defendant was quoted as remarking, "Who would grudge to send an old father to hell for £10,000?"

Obviously seeing the futility of trying to refute the evidence against her, Mary merely presented herself as a victim. She continued to insist that she had believed the powder Cranstoun sent her was "an inoffensive thing," that would do nothing more than make her father more amenable to her proposed marriage. It was a weak defense, to be sure, but it was the only one she could employ. She made no effort to try to explain why, after she saw that the gruel she gave her father had made him dreadfully ill, she attempted to serve him more of the same.

In his closing address to the jury, the judge summarized the entire case in one sentence: "What you are to try is reduced to this single question, whether the prisoner, at the time she gave it to her father, knew that it was poison, and what effect it would be?"

After consulting among themselves for five minutes, the jurors returned a verdict of guilty.

Mary retained the unsettlingly impassive demeanor she had shown ever since her arrest. Upon hearing that she was to be hanged, she merely asked the judge to "allow me a little time till I can settle my affairs and make my peace with God." Showing a good deal more emotion than the condemned woman, the judge assured her this would be done.

When Mary returned to her cell, she found the keeper and his family in tears at the news of the verdict. "Don't mind it," Mary told them coolly. "What does it signify? I am very hungry; pray, let me have something for supper as speedily as possible."

In the six weeks she was granted before her execution, Mary maintained her role as an innocent victim of Cranstoun's sinister deception. She wrote a "Narrative," giving her questionable version of events. It was a huge publishing success, spawning a flood of pamphlets either defending "The Fair Parricide," or excoriating her. Thanks to the power of the printing press, this otherwise commonplace poisoner became an 18th century literary sensation.

Mary's execution took place on April 6th. On the gallows, she swore to the last that she had never meant to kill her father. The 19th century Chief Justice, Lord Campbell, scoffed that this merely proved "the worthlessness of the dying declarations of criminals, and the absurdity of the practice of trying to induce them to confess." As she climbed the ladder, her last words were to ask the executioner, "do not hang me high, for the sake of decency." The following day, Mary was, at her own request, buried between her mother and father.

As for the man who instigated this domestic tragedy, while William Cranstoun paid no legal price for his sins, it is somewhat satisfying to report that he did not exactly escape punishment, either. The fugitive had taken lodgings in Flanders, where, on December 2, 1752, he died after a short but extremely painful illness. His small store of personal belongings, "consisting chiefly of Laced and Embroidered Waistcoats," was sold to pay his debts. As he had converted to Roman Catholicism on his deathbed, he was buried in the Cathedral Church, "in great solemnity...and a grand Mass was said over the corpse."

His was certainly a soul that needed all the prayers it could get.

Friday, April 22, 2016

Weekend Link Dump



This week's Link Dump is brought to you by the International Feline Laundry Workers' Union!






What the hell are the Nasca Holes?  Now we know?

What the hell was the "Wow Signal?"  Now we know?

What the hell caused the Great Vowel Shift?  Now we know?

What the hell happened in Woodside, NY in 1894?  Sorry, can't help you there.

Watch out for those nose worms!

Watch out for those William Tell fans!

Watch out for the Rabbit of Doom!

Watch out for Black Vaughan!

Watch out for the Holden Rag!

The much-buried Paul von Hindenburg.

The much-photographed Buzzer the Cat.

The life of a 17th century actress.

The Naked Woman of Duart Castle.

The execution of a murderer and her witch.

Life at a London police office, 1828.

That time magicians conspired to kill Edward II.

Hard times for an 18th century regiment.

Of Welshmen and mermaids.

That time an Irish island disappeared.

The last flight of the Glider King.

Dealing with 19th century burnout.

Why the Soulbury Stone never loses.

Seems legit.

Joseph Crouch, body-snatcher.

Napoleonic soldier turned Greek hero.

Edward Ashford, a very unlucky baker.

Alexander Stewart, a very unlucky "first."

Why Benedict Arnold turned traitor.

Louis-Marie Prudhomme, Revolutionary author and journalist.

England's "wondrous, violent motion."

A banshee of the Titanic.

Boxing with Byron.

When you go down in history as "Half-Hangit Maggie," you know you've led quite a life.

When you go down in history as "Ethelred the Unready," prepare for 1,000 years of bad press.

A child's lonely death in 1891 is still memorialized.

The librarian who thwarted al Qaeda.

The northernmost town on earth.

A coded message and a lost civilization.

Elizabeth Richardson, who went to her death because of jealousy.

The strange death of a Sherlock Holmes scholar.

Mysterious ancient societies in Bulgaria.

The legendary land of Hy-Brasil.

An early 19th century serial killer.

Speaking severed heads.

The Isle of Mull's beautiful burial grounds.

The complicated marital history of King Philip II Augustus.

Dorothy Levitt, "the fastest girl on earth."

A murderer who possibly inspired Edgar Allan Poe.

A case of fratricide.

How Maupassant collaborated with himself.

Arthur Conan Doyle and the mediumistic maid.

Two famed "Nut" comedians.

Ann Wood of the East India Company.

A president's secret wedding.

Fighting over sea monkeys.

The significance of the Battle of Culloden.

Animals who were named in wills.

The magic hares of Pendle.

The history of Salic Law.

A string of unsolved murders in Japan.

The dangerous vanity of a necromancer.

The Ant Whisperer.

The strange death of Yuri Gargarin.

Interesting look at how modern-day trackers are being used to interpret ancient footprints.

An ancient dog pound.

A horse who made an excellent mailman.

Coca Wine, anyone?

And we're done! See you next week, when we'll be looking at one of the 18th century's most notorious poisoners. In the meantime, here's some country-rock I remember fondly from back in the day.

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Book Clipping of the Day

La Danse du Sabbat, P. Christian, 1884


This account of demonic domestic disruptions in 1718 comes from "Domestic Annals of Scotland: 1689-1748" (1890):
"At this time the house of the Rev. Mr. M'Gill, minister of Kinross, was represented as troubled with spirits. The first fact that excited attention, was the disappearance of some silver spoons and knives, which were soon after found in the barn, stuck up in straw, with a big dish all nipped in pieces. Next it was found that no meat was brought to table but what was stuck full of pins. The minister found one in an egg. His wife, to make sure against trick, cooked some meat herself; but behold, when presented at table, there were several pins in it, particularly a big pin the minister used for his gown. Another day, there was a pair of sheets put to the green, among other people's, which were all nipped to pieces, and none of the linens belonging to others troubled. A certain night several went to watch the house, and as one was praying, down falls the press, wherein was abundance of lime-vessels, all broke to pieces; also at one other time the spirits, as they call them, not only tore the clothes that were locked up in a coffer, to pieces, but the very laps of a gentlewoman's hood, as she was walking along the floor, were clipped away, as also a woman's gown-tail and many other things not proper to mention. A certain girl, eating some meat, turned so very sick, that, being necessitate to vomit, she cast up five pins. A stone thrown down the chimney wambled a space on the floor, and then took a flight out at the window. There was thrown in the fire the minister's Bible, which would not burn; but a plate and two silver spoons melted immediately. What bread is fired, were the meal never so fine, it's all made useless. Is it not very sad that such a godly family, that employ their time no otherwise but by praying, reading, and serious meditation, should be so molested, while others who are wicked livers, and in a manner avowedly serve the Wicked One, are never troubled?"

"Wodrow, who relates these particulars, soon after enters in his note-book: 'I hear of a woman in Carstairs parish, that has been for some time troubled with apparitions, and needs much sympathy.'"
Never a dull moment in 18th century Scotland.

Monday, April 18, 2016

The Lieutenant Nun

"Why have you made me manly and strong like my brothers, only to compel me now that I am fifteen to do nothing but mumble a lot of interminable prayers?"
~From the autobiography of Catalina de Erauso.



This week, we look at the story of how an once-obscure 17th century woman became one of the toughest men in the Spanish army.

Unfortunately, a good deal of what we know of Catalina de Erauso has become encrusted in exaggeration and mythology, but the bare, relatively unvarnished known facts about her life are quite remarkable enough. De Erauso was born sometime in 1592, in San Sebastian, Spain. At the age of four, her parents placed her in a nunnery, likely to spare themselves the expense of raising her rather than any sense the girl had any religious aptitude.

This proved to be a spectacularly wrong-headed career move. When Catalina was fifteen, she fled the convent before taking her final vows, determined to seek a life of adventure, not contemplation. Realizing that women warriors were not well received in her day, she disguised herself as a man, took on the grand name of “Alonso Diaz Ramirez de Guzman,” and eventually made her way to South America, where she enlisted in the army. While the tall, strongly-built de Erauso was not a terribly successful woman, the newly-christened Alonso made for a perfectly splendid man. The ex-novice had finally found her true calling.

The soldier-formerly-known-as-Catalina served in Chile and Peru, battling the local Indians. Among her commanders was her own brother, Miguel de Erauso, who never dreamed of the true identity of this dashing young fighter. (In fact, Miguel once gave her a beating after he caught her visiting his girlfriend.)  De Guzman proved to be a brave and skillful soldier, soon reaching the rank of Lieutenant.

“Alonso” was an extroverted sort with a quick temper and an itchy trigger finger. Inevitably, she found herself fighting her share of duels. In one fight, she found herself acting as a second. Serving as second to the rival fighter was her still-oblivious brother. The duel wound up getting very much out of hand, leading to her accidentally killing Miguel. Catalina was so appalled by what she had done that she deserted the army and turned traveling outlaw, thieving, gambling, and brawling with the best of them. One fight wound up nearly killing her. On what was believed to be a deathbed, Catalina, to the shock of everyone present, admitted that “he” was a “she.” Embarrassingly enough, she recuperated, after which she tactfully—and quickly—moved on.

By this point, Catalina had become notorious throughout the New World—as much for her unruly activities as for her gender—forcing her to seek protection from a Peruvian bishop. When this scandalized worthy heard her life story, he persuaded her to re-enter the cloister and do penance for her unconventionality.

News of this highly unusual fighting wom…uh, man, soon spread. De Erauso became famed throughout Europe as “The Lieutenant Nun,” and this newly-minted celebrity was eventually summoned home. She arrived in Spain in 1624, after a journey that included her usual series of adventures.

Despite the lingering grumblings in the Church, she returned to find that she had become a popular hero. Not only did the King grant her an army pension, but after she made a triumphal tour of Rome, the Pope gave her a special dispensation to wear men’s clothes. It was during this period, in 1626, that we have the only detailed contemporary description of de Erauso. The writer Pietro Della Valle described her as “Tall and sturdy of stature, masculine in appearance, she has no more bosom than a little girl. She told me she had applied I don't know what method to make it disappear. I believe it was a plaster administered by an Italian; the effect was painful but much to her liking. She is not bad looking, but well worn by the years. She has the look of a Spanish gentleman and wears her sword as big as life, tightly belted. Only by her hands can one tell that she is a woman as they are full and fleshy, although large and strong, and occasionally gesture effeminately.”

Catalina/Alonso was, however, too restless a soul to accept any sort of comfortable retirement forever. By 1645, she had hit the road again, eventually settling in what is now Mexico. There, she gained a reputation as “a very valiant and capable individual,” working as a mule driver (under the name of “Antonio de Erauso,”) until her death in 1650.

Although various plays and pamphlets about the life of the “Lieutenant Nun” began to appear as early as 1625, it was not until 1829 that her “autobiography” was published. The memoir reads like an early Dumas swashbuckler, full of accounts of her acts of heroism in battle, duels-of-honor, and love affairs with beautiful women. (“My taste…was always the pretty faces.”) It is a document as entertaining and ingratiating as it is dubious historically. (No authentic manuscript from the hand of Catalina herself is known to exist.) However, enough of the narrative has been corroborated to prove that de Erauso did exist, and was almost—if perhaps not completely—as extraordinary a character as this book claimed.

These “memoirs,” it should be said, carefully noted that her love affairs were all platonic. Modern-day historians, of course, take this claim with a great many skeptical snorts, but the erstwhile Catalina de Erauso insisted that she remained a virgin till her dying day.

After all, she wouldn’t want to offend the proprieties.

Friday, April 15, 2016

Weekend Link Dump


This week's Link Dump is pleased to announce that we are again sponsored by one of our very favorite organizations, the International Federation of Lucky Black Cats!






How the hell did Shakespeare die?

What the hell happened to Eleanor C. Parker?

What the hell is this Bosnian sphere?

What the hell is The Hum?

What the hell were Anne Boleyn's last words?

Watch out for the Devil Woman of Benares!

Watch out for the Dobbie of Furness!

Watch out for those May/December marriages!

Watch out for those Bum Courts!

Witchcraft in Italy, 1908.

Hard times for a young soldier's wife.

Japan now has a hedgehog cafe, which doesn't surprise me in the least.

From our ongoing, "Enjoy your eternity in Hell, ISIS fighters" file.

What not to do with a beetroot.  Or a half-pint flask, for that matter.

Elizabeth de Burgh, the lesser-known captive Queen of Scots.

A young 19th century woman turns con artist, soon regrets it.

A grim tale uncovered in the UK National Archives.

A 16th century female Italian poet.

Safeguarding your home, supernatural style.

How Eusapia Palladino talked to the dead.

The ghost of Mary Surratt.

An analysis of the French, 1773.

A real Doctor Frankenstein.

The Jack Sheppard of Gloucestershire.

The ghost of Lieutenant Wynyard's brother.

The Bible may be older than we thought.

PTSD in Regency England.

The mother of modern witchcraft.

What we don't know about King Tut's tomb.  Which turns out to be quite a lot.

A nice piece about the love affair between cats and bookstores.  Featuring Tiny the Usurper!

As a side note, every cat should have "the Usurper" added to their name.



In related news, here's a look at Post Office Cats.

Murder in 18th century Lincolnshire.

Richard Burleson:  From executed criminal to restaurant placemat.

Infant ghosts.

Recreating Akhenaten's lost city.

The ancient woman with a seashell ear.

The strange case of Susie McKinnon.

The Running of the Sheep.

The Knitting Women of the Guillotine.

What 18th century sailors ate.

Walter Scott reviews Jane Austen.

Life insurance and the Woodmen of the World.

The Wards of Old London.

The practice of Witch Bottles.

The Westmorland Thunderstones.

That time the Queen of England visited Pakistan.

The end of the Tiger Woman.

The art of the landscape garden.

The perils of being a careless miller.

The perils of marrying James Eldredge.

The perils of encountering Fra Diavolo.

New York's first female crime boss.

19th century rules for courtship.

The Cat Lady of Spitalfields.

That time the Earl of Surrey met Frankenstein.

The Pall Mall Monkey and the Bengali Hospital.

The busy career of a late 18th century forger.

The history of a Texas pioneer.

Prophetic fiction.

Poverty in Victorian London.

Female prisoners in Victorian England.

Classical music cats.

And we're outta here!  See you on Monday, when--as was resolved in a poll I took on my Facebook page--we'll meet one of the 17th century's leading female badasses.  In the meantime, here's some Little Feat:

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Magazine Clipping of the Day

"A Sea Ghost," George Frederick Watts


This brief but tantalizing ghost legend was recorded in the "Journal of the Folklore Society," Volume 9 (1898)
A few years ago there was a certain man living in the parish of Durness, in Sutherland, close to the sea, where ships were very often lost . This man found some things belonging to a ship that went to pieces on the rocks, and took them home with him. A night or two after this, what came but a ghost in the dress of a sailor, which walked back and forward through the house, and after a long time disappeared from sight. Next night the ghost returned, and kept throwing the furniture here and there. Each night it stayed longer than on the night before, and was always growing bolder. 
The poor man was in great fear; he thought that it came after the things he had taken from the beach, but he had so many of these that he did not know which of them the ghost wanted. He went to the minister, who advised him to rise when the ghost came again, and to ask of it what it wanted. This was a difficult matter, for people believed that if any man spoke to a ghost he would not live long after it. Finally, the man had to summon up courage and ask the ghost for what reason it kept coming to his house. The ghost answered by pointing with its finger to the door, and asking the man to walk with it towards the beach. He did so, and they talked together all the time until they came within view of the sea, when the ghost disappeared and caused no more trouble to the house. 
The man returned home and went to bed, after reading his Bible. He refused to tell what had happened between himself and the ghost, but if they asked him on his death-bed he would tell them all that had taken place. Those who were round his death-bed had not the courage to ask him, and never got to know what had happened between them. This man was alive many years after talking with the ghost, and when he died he was an old man, which showed that there was no truth at all in what people think, that a man would die if he spoke with a spirit.

Monday, April 11, 2016

The Many Loves of Jane Digby

”Falling in love again
Never wanted to
What am I to do?
I can't help it

Love's always been my game
Play it how I may
I was made that way
I can't help it

Men cluster to me
Like moths around a flame
And if their wings burn
I know I'm not to blame.”
-“Falling in Love Again,” Frederick Hollander & Sammy Lerner


Even the most respectable old, aristocratic family trees occasionally produced some strange fruit, but it’s hard to think of any more startling than Jane Elizabeth Digby. As eccentric as many well-bred 19th century Englishwomen may have been, there weren’t too many who wound up in Damascus as the wife of a Bedouin sheik.

Digby was born into a wealthy, high-born milieu on April 3, 1807. Her father was a famed Admiral, Henry Digby, and her mother was Jane Elizabeth Coke, a daughter of the Earl of Leicester.  From the beginning, Jane showed an impulsive, uncontrollable bent that alternatively puzzled and horrified her relatives. By the time she was thirteen, a family conclave resolved that the lovely girl should be married off as soon as possible, in the hope that it would “tame her.” When she was seventeen, she wedded Edward Law, Lord Ellenborough. He was a cold fish twice her age, which her loved ones presumably thought would have a sobering effect on her high spirits.

Jane, Lady Ellenborough. Painting by William Charles Ross.


The marriage proved to be the ultimate in respectable tedium, and Jane reacted in a highly unsurprising fashion. She began to take lovers. She had a son, commonly accepted as legitimate, although Jane herself believed the true father was her cousin, George Anson. (The child died in infancy.) In 1828, her life became decidedly more complicated when she became infatuated with an Austrian envoy, Prince Felix Schwarzenberg. Their liaison was so scandalously obvious that Prince Esterhazy, the Austrian Ambassador, became nervous. He feared that if the lady’s husband found out, Ellenborough might decide to start quite the little international incident. Schwarzenberg took the hint and promptly took up with another woman.

As it happened, Esterhazy’s efforts to avoid scandal backfired on everyone. Jane, who was by then pregnant with Schwarzenberg’s child, reacted by loudly wailing to everyone within earshot about her outrage over being dumped by her lover. She also announced her determination to leave her husband and follow Schwarzenberg back to Vienna.

It dawned on the diplomat that in sleeping with Jane, he had bitten off a good deal more than he could chew. He frantically pleaded with her to reconcile with her husband and fled for the nearest ship. Ellenborough, meanwhile, seems to have only now paid any attention to his wife’s activities. Anxious to salvage his political career, he decided there was nothing for it but to divorce this walking scandal machine he had married.

The Digbys were horrified at the prospect of their previously impeccable lineage being soiled by a divorce. Like Schwarzenberg, they begged Jane to seek Ellenborough’s forgiveness.

Jane told the whole lot of them to get lost.

Schwarzenberg, meanwhile, was being bombarded with ardent messages from his troublesome ex-mistress. Eventually realizing that Jane was more of a man than he would ever be and further resistance was useless, he finally agreed to let her join him. In August 1829 she and her baby left England. The next year, Ellenborough obtained a divorce (which required a private act of Parliament,) but granted her a large allowance. It is not clear if he did this out of magnanimity or pure relief to be free of her.

Jane’s daughter Mathilde was born in November 1829. She and Schwarzenberg had a second child, Felix (who died shortly after birth,) but their relationship was doomed from the start. By early 1831, the envoy walked out on her and marched back home to Bavaria. Jane, left in the lurch in Paris, sought advice from her mother, Lady Andover. Her long-suffering parent suggested she start anew in Germany, where the Digbys had connections. She made it clear, however, that whatever she did, Jane was not to return to England. If she was going to make a public spectacle of herself, the Digbys reasoned, far better she should do it well out of their sight.

In Munich, she made her most illustrious conquest to date, in the person of King Ludwig of Bavaria. As the two needed to keep their affair private, she used a rich landowner, Baron Karl Venningen, as her “public” lover. When she became pregnant—it is anyone’s guess who the father was—the enamored Baron proposed to her. She accepted, solely because in her condition, she felt the need for a certain amount of stability in her life.

Her second marriage soon proved to be no more of a success than her first. Jane had no real feelings for Venningen, and quickly tired of him. In any case, once she met Count Spiridion Theotoky, both her Baron and her king were quickly eclipsed.

Theotoky was a twenty-four year old Greek, hot-blooded, reckless, and beautiful. It was almost inevitable that he and Jane would quickly fall into a passionate affair. Before long, the pair tried to elope, but Venningen caught up with them. He challenged his rival to a duel, where Theotoky received a slight wound. Somehow, Jane’s marriage held more-or-less together until 1839, when she and her Count made another dash for it, escaping successfully to Paris. “The misfortune of my nature is to consider love is all in all,” she wrote Ludwig, a comment that surely has to rank as one of history’s great understatements.

This latest escapade caused the Digbys, with the exception of Lady Andover, to disown Jane entirely. There seems little reason to believe she cared.

In 1840, Jane gave birth to Theotoky’s child, a son she called Leonidas. Although she had, to date, been an indifferent mother (her other children were deposited with various relatives,) this newest baby seemed to finally awaken some maternal tenderness in her. In 1841, the couple moved to Theotoky’s family estates in Corfu. Before leaving, they had the Greek Orthodox Church dissolve her marriage to Venningen, and they then probably went through an Orthodox wedding ceremony.

The new Countess Theotoky lived happily enough with her Count for three years, until King Otto summoned them to the Athens court. It seems that Jane could not enter any high society without producing her own particular form of mayhem. Otto immediately became infatuated with the dashing Englishwoman, which produced a predictable hostility from his Queen. Theotoky, meanwhile, chose to take offense at the King’s too-open admiration of his wife, salving his pride with a series of equally blatant affairs.

Then, as Jane’s once-charmed existence in Greece continued to unravel, disaster struck. In 1846, little Leonidas accidentally fell off a balcony at the family’s summer villa. He plummeted to his death practically at his mother’s feet.

Although Jane was a mother of five, Leonidas was the only one she really loved. Her grief was compounded by a haunting sense that his death was a punishment for how she had abandoned her other children. This was the first real tragedy of her self-involved, pampered, hedonistic life, and it was difficult for her to learn how to deal with sorrow and regret. She and Theotoky ended their increasingly unhappy relationship, and Jane went into relative seclusion.

By 1849, she rejoined Athens society, and the last, most remarkable stage of her hectic life soon got underway when she met King Otto’s new aide-de-camp, General Cristodoulos Hadji-Petros. The General was a brigand, renowned as the fiercest of Greece’s many tough mountain men. Before long, Jane decided she was head-over-heels in love with this seventy-year-old, but still impressively virile, swashbuckler.

She certainly had come a long way from the staid Lord Ellenborough.

When her newest true love was made governor of Lamia, she eagerly followed him to this primitive mountain outpost, where she found a world as foreign to her as Mars. She wore coarse cotton clothes, slept in the open wilderness, ate the simplest food.

She loved it.

Unfortunately, after only a few months, it became obvious that Jane was chasing yet another romantic illusion. King Otto’s wife Amalia, who had always hated her, finally saw her chance for a little payback. She demanded that the General be fired for openly keeping a mistress. Old Cristo responded by playing the weasel. Whatever the 19th century Greek equivalent of “bus” was, he promptly threw his lover under it. He wrote his queen a cringing (not to mention cringe-inducing) letter explaining that he was only after Jane for her money. (It is curious how Jane consistently attracted men with no effort whatsoever, only to lose them with equal alacrity.) Amalia, unable to contain her glee, instantly had the letter made public. Jane might have been able to forgive this ungallant act, but when the General compounded his betrayal by dallying with other, much younger women, she finally had enough. She left Athens for good.

Jane, who was now forty-six, hoped to forget this latest heartbreak and settle into a quiet middle age by making a tour of the Middle East. As it happened, she got no further than Syria. In Beirut, she met a Bedouin sheik young enough to be her son named Saleh. Jane—pardon me for being repetitive—fell desperately in love. She decided quiet middle age would just have to wait.

She instantly began dreaming dreams of a perfect life by his side in the desert, but before she could embrace the life of a Bedouin Arab, she found there was one unexpected complication: Her new lover expected her to share him with another woman, a beautiful girl named Sabla who was scarcely more than a child.

Jane, at long last, decided that was the last straw. She had given up on men, for good. Who needed them? Not her!

By this point in our story, you can probably guess what happened next.

In Damascus, she again made the acquaintance of Sheik Abdul Medjuel el Mezrab. Earlier, he had served as her escort on a trip she made to Palmyra. During their expedition, the young man had fallen for Jane, but at the time, she was too wrapped up in thoughts of Saleh to pay him any serious attention. Now, however, she studied the handsome, suave, well-educated young aristocrat of the desert and decided she was on to a very good thing indeed. Rudolph Valentino’s sheik had nothing on Medjuel. A few months later—after he put aside his wife Mascha, the mother of his two children--they were married in a Muslim ceremony, although she never converted to the religion.

         Sheik Medjuel, painting by Carl Haag, 1859.


In 1856, she made her first visit to England in many years. There was a reconciliation of sorts with her surviving relatives, but their world was by now utterly foreign to her. She knew she now belonged in the Arab desert, and with Medjuel. After six months, she was more than happy to leave her homeland forever.

Jane in 1859. Painting by Carl Haag


She spent the rest of her days alternating between living in her luxurious villa in Damascus and camping out in the desert as a true Bedouin wife. She even dyed her blonde hair black. Her life in Syria, although undoubtedly happier and more stable than anything she had known before, was still far from idyllic. As she grew older Jane became increasingly worried about the great age difference between her and Medjuel, causing her to often be obsessively jealous, clingy, and temperamental. Jane always remained a love-obsessed, boy-crazy teenager at heart. Medjuel's frequent absences left her fearful of losing him to other women, most notably his two previous wives—fears that were not altogether fanciful. Still, although her final love was not the perfect fairy-tale ending she always longed for, the couple remained genuinely devoted to each other. (Although one can’t help but note that Medjuel was quite content to spend half the year far away from her, attending to his various duties. Perhaps, paradoxically, these long separations were what held their marriage together.)

When Jane was seventy-four, she developed a serious case of dysentery, which killed her on August 11, 1881. After her funeral in Damascus’ Protestant cemetery, her husband went out in the desert and sacrificed a fine camel in her memory.

Friday, April 8, 2016

Weekend Link Dump



This week's Link Dump is sponsored by the Feline Olympic Swim Team!






What the hell was the Wago Owanhan?

Who the hell shot Dan Markel?

Watch out for the Spirit of Pen Park Hole!

Watch out for the Flying Fiend of Guadalupe!

Watch out for the Boggart of Spaw!

Watch out for those Finnish candies!

Watch out for those electric ghosts!

Watch out for those curse tablets!

Watch out for the Walking Gallows!

A Victorian Flea Circus.

Well, here's a lovely deathbed scene.

An 18th century warning against French servants.

Myth and the murder of Kitty Genovese.

The Case of the Pigeons in the Workhouse.

The Case of the Bigamous Dane.

The Case of Mark Twain and the Venice Lion.

Graveyard security and Resurrection Men.

The mystery of the "Three Hares" motif.

An "extraordinary" Welsh ghost story.

The "surprising genius" of John Bagford.

Educating Jefferson's grandson.

How to care for your pet mongoose.

18th century longevity.

A terrible 19th century case of parental violence.

"Going for a soldier," 18th century style.

An ancient Chinese tomb tells the story of a family's execution.

A Chinese female pirate who led 80,000 outlaws.  If that headline isn't for you, you've wandered into the wrong blog.

19th century New York's worst streets, before and after.

A Cornish museum with a heck of a lot of dragons.

Kim Philby talks.

Nicknames of the French royals.

John the Good vs. Charles the Bad.

A brief history of sleep.

A brief history of the escalator.

The pioneering Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

The Beverly Hills of the Dead.

Bogus holy leeches.

A mysterious Chinese cave.

The Great Stink of London.

Photos of 19th century Cairo.

One very tough mom.

Napoleon's second wedding.

Are we overrating Galileo?

The "Offenses against the person" act of 1861.

Writing tablets from ancient Palmyra.

More on the history of Vikings in North America.

How a family road trip turned into Europe's strangest disappearance.

The Poison Squad:  The world's most sickening club.

A murder victim visits a seance.

Marie Antoinette goes on a boar hunt.

Thomas De Quincey and the mad, mad world of 19th century magazines.

That time Martians visited Gettysburg.

A "heathenish murder."

New images of what ISIS did to Palmyra.

The story behind one of Bob Dylan's most famous songs.

The story behind Hans Christian Anderson.

The story behind H.L. Mencken getting arrested.

The story behind the South Pole's most mysterious death.

How to do April Fool's Day, ancient Roman style.

A love triangle in Alta California goes extremely wrong.

This week in Russian Weird:  How to drink vodka like a pro!

If you've been looking for the key of Hell, here you go.

If you've been looking for how to talk to birds, step right here.

The Rebel Countess.

I found this video both weirdly enchanting and oddly haunting:  Footage from a 1901 cricket match.



And, finally, a radio ad for Wheaties, 1926.  It's believed to be the first advertising jingle.

That wraps it up for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll learn how one 19th century woman went from English aristocrat to Queen of the Desert.  In the meantime, here's a lovely moment from Beethoven's "Fidelio":