8th of September, 1876 Notes and Queries 10, 2nd S. (245)p.192
GHOST IN THE TOWER
I have often purposed to leave behind me a faithful record of all that I personally know of this strange story; and K.B.'s inquiry now puts me upon consigning it to the general repertory of "N. & Q." Forty-three years have passed, and its impression is as vividly before me as on the moment of its occurrence. Anecdotage, said Wilkes, is an old man's dotage, and at eighty-three I may be suspected of lapsing into omissions or exaggerations; but there are yet survivors who can testify that I have not at any time either amplified or abridged my ghostly experiences.
In 1814 I was appointed Keeper of the Crown Jewels in the Tower, where I resided with my family till my retirement in 1852. One Saturday night in October, 1817, about "the witching hour," I was at supper with my then wife, our little boy, and her sister, in the sitting-room of the Jewel House, which - then comparatively modernized - is said to have been the "doleful prison" of Anna Boleyn, and of the ten bishops whom Oliver Cromwell piously accommodated therein. For an accurate picture of the locus in quo my scene is laid, I refer to George Cruikshank's wood-cut in p. 384 of Ainsworth's Tower of London; and I am persuaded that my gallant successor in office, Colonel Wyndham, will not refuse its collation with my statement.
The room was - as it still is - irregularly shaped, having three doors and two windows, which last are cut nearly nine feet deep into the outer wall; between these is a chimney-piece projecting far into the room, and (then) surmounted with a large oil picture. On the night in question, the doors were all closed, heavy and dark cloth curtains were let down over the windows, and the only light in the room was that of two candles on the table. I sat at the foot of the table, my son on my right hand, his mother fronting the chimney-piece, and her sister on the opposite side. I had offered a glass of wine and water to my wife, when, on putting it to her lips, she paused, and exclaimed, "Good God! what is that?" I looked up, and saw a cylindrical figure, like a glass tube, seemingly about the thickness of my arm, and hovering between the ceiling and the table: its contents appeared to be a dense fluid, white and pale azure, like to the gathering of a summer cloud, and incessantly rolling and mingling within the cylinder. This lasted about two minutes; when it began slowly to move before my sister-in-law; then, following the oblong shape of the table, before my son and myself; passing behind my wife, it paused for a moment over her right shoulder (observe, there was no mirror opposite to her in which she could then behold it). Instantly she crouched down, and with both hands covering her shoulder, she shrieked out, "Oh, Christ! it has seized me!" Even now, while writing, I feel the fresh horror of that moment. I caught up my chair, struck at the wainscot behind her, rushed up stairs to the other children's room, and told the terrified nurse what I had seen. Meanwhile, the other domestics had hurried into the parlour, where their mistress recounted to them the scene, even as I was detailing it above stairs.
The marvel - some will say the absurdity - of all this is enhanced by the fact that neither my sister-in-law nor my son beheld this "appearance," - as K. B. rightly terms it, though to their mortal vision it was as "apparent" as to my wife's and mine. When I the next morning related the night's horrors to our chaplain, after the service in the Tower church, he asked me, might not one person have his natural senses deceived? And if one, why not two? My answer was, if two, why not two thousand? an argument which would reduce history, secular or sacred, to a fable. But why should I here discuss things not dreamed of in our philosophy?
I am bound to add, that, shortly before this strange event, some young lady-residents in the Tower had been, I know not wherefore, suspected of making phantasmagorial experiments in their windows, which, be it observed, had no command whatever on any windows in my dwelling. An additional sentry was accordingly posted, so as to overlook any such attempt.
Happen, however, as it might, following hard at heel the visitation of my household, one of the night sentries at the Jewel Office was, as he said, alarmed by a figure like a huge bear issuing from underneath the door; he thrust at it with his bayonet, which struck in the door, even as my chair dinted the wainscot; he dropped in a fit, and was carried senseless to the guard-room. His fellow-sentry declared that the man was neither asleep nor drunk, he himself having seen him the moment before awake and sober. Of all this, I avouch nothing more than that I saw the poor man in the guard-house prostrated with terror, and that in two or three days the "fatal result," be it of fact or of fancy, was - that he died.
My story may claim more space than "N. & Q." can afford: desiring to be circumstantial, I have been diffuse. This I leave to the Editor's discretion: let it only be understood, that to all which I have herein set forth as seen by myself, I absolutely pledge my faith and my honour.
EDMUND LENTHAL SWIFTE.