The Hayfield Resurrection of 1745

[JamesWhitehead]

The History of Derbyshire by John Pendleton, published in 1886, contains the following extraordinary paragraph (here divided for easier reading):

"Dr James Clegg, a Presbyterian, who resided at Chapel-en-le-Frith in the middle of the eighteenth century, gives an account of this extraordinary occurrence in a letter to his friend, the Rev. Ebenezer Latham, then principal of the Findern Academy.

‘I know’ he wrote ‘you are pleased with anything curious and uncommon by nature, and if what follows would appear such. I can assure you there are eye witnesses of the truth in every particular. In a church about three miles from us the indecent custom still prevails of burying the dead in the place set apart for the devotion of the living. Still, the parish not being very populous, one could scarcely imagine that the inhabitants of the grave could be straightened for want of room.

Yet it would seem so for on the last day of August several hundreds of bodies rose out of the grave, in the open day, in the church, to the great astonishment and terror of several spectators. They deserted their coffins, and arising out of their graves, immediately ascended toward heaven, singing in one concert all along as they mounted through the air. They wore no winding sheets about them, nor were they naked. But their vesture seemed streaked with gold, interlaced with sable, and skirted with white, yet thought to be exceedingly light by the agility of their motions and the swiftness of their ascent.

They left a most fragrant and delicious odour about them, and were quickly out of sight. What has become of them, or to what distant regions of this vast system they have since fixed their residence, no mortal can tell. The church is in Hayfield three miles from Chapel-en-le-Frith. 1745’

Versions of this can be found Here and Here.

According to the Wikipedia page for the town, the letter was to the Glossopdale Chronicle, which seems to conflict with the information above. In fact, a letter to the paper recounted the story over a century later - see below.

It would seem an odd subject for a clergyman to be jesting about. Was it an outburst of visionary enthusiasm or an ironic commentary on the practice of interring bodies inside the church?

If it is a simple account of the truth, we do not appear to have other witnesses.

Edit 26.09.2016, 12.05 pm

Pendleton's History of Derbyshire can be downloaded here!

It is not one of the heavier 19th Century County Histories, which usually ran to several substantial volumes; Pendleton's work is a more easily-digested miscellany of historical curiosities and anecdotes for the general reader, derived from earlier published sources. Cited in several places as the source of the Hayfield Resurrection story, Pendleton is nearly a century-and-a-half distant and compiling a diverting rather than a scholarly volume. Apart from some minor differences of spelling, the text is as given above.

Edit, 02.30 pm

This webpage helps with Pendleton's immediate source. The Glossopdale Chronicle recounted the story in a letter printed in its edition of Saturday, 1st September, 1860. We are still over a century removed from the alleged event.

This page about Clegg's own tomb states he was a Presbyterian Minister for 53 years until 1755. The picture does not load for me on that page but it can be seen here.

Chinley Chapel was where Clegg preached but it was not the site of the Resurrection. Photos are on the page.

From information on this page:
"The congregation at Malcoff was by now strong enough to need a resident pastor and in the July following the Apostle’s death a young Lancashire man about twenty-three years of age, James Clegg, “was called to preach an approbation sermon and in the following month he settled there after a very unanimous call the people gave me”.

Clegg was born in 1679, making him sixty-six years of age in 1745 with another ten years to serve as minister. He died at 76 in 1755.

Presbyterian beliefs about the resurrection are outlined on this page.

"Presbyterians believe in the return of Jesus Christ "to judge men and angels at the end of the world." Until He comes, we believe that the souls of those who die in Him depart to be with Him "where they behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies." At the last day, we believe that the dead shall be resurrected and the living shall be changed: Christ's elect "unto honor...and everlasting life," but the reprobates "unto dishonor...and punishment with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power."

Clegg's vision would appear to anticipate that bodily resurrection. It is akin to that enthusiasm for "The Rapture," which is widespread today in America.

The dark side of Presbyterianism is reflected in the doctrine of Total Depravity - as given in the same source:

"Human beings are not only sinful, they are also helplessly sinful. We are spiritually dead in our sins, bound under the guilt and penalty of sin and unable to do anything to please God. None of our works are pure and therefore pleasing to God. All our righteousness is as filthy rags. We do not even have it in us to turn to Him that we may be cleansed and healed."

Something of that contrast between the "indecent" bodies in the Church and their "fragrant" resurrection can be detected in Clegg's language.

I had originally taken the letter to recount a vision in Clegg's own chapel but he is plainly disapproving of the "indecent" practice of the Anglican church three miles away, where the dead are interred within the building. His "vision" - intended for the eyes of another clergyman - was ironic and encoded.

These were times when the bones of old crypts were cleaned out, especially when "effluvia" from human remains began to impact on the comfort of worshippers. Could Clegg have been adverting to some such recent activity? It may not be so much a heavenly whisper as a choice piece of gossip, since the clearance of old bones may have been carried out in secret and without the approval of relatives!

Edit 06.30 pm:

From a 1909 History of Hayfield Parish Church:

John Wesley's Diary for 1748 refers to an awful flood which hit Hayfield in July. The account he had was from local preacher John Bennet.:

"On Saturday, the 23rd of July last, here fell for about three hours in and about Hayfield in Derbyshire, a very heavy rain which caused such a flood as had not been seen by any now living in these parts. The rocks were loosened from the mountains; one field was covered with huge stones from side to side. several watermills were clean swept away, without any remains. the trees were torn up by the roots, and whirled away like stubble. Two women of a loose character were swept away from their own door and drowned. One of them was found near the place the other was carried seven of eight miles.

"Hayfield Church was all torn up, and the dead bodies swept out of their graves; when the flood abated they were found in many places. Some were hanging on trees, others left in meadows or grounds, some partly eaten by dogs, or wanting one or more of their members."

This was three years after Clegg's tale of resurrection but it demonstrates the vulnerability of the Parish Church to flood-waters and the likely charnel-house effect of interment there.

****
Sable is a word that we may associate with fur coats but its Biblical meaning - unknown to Wikipedia - would have been known to Clegg:***

***Sable was the coarsest of cloth and mourners dressed in this sackcloth to mimic the dead, whose shrouds were of the same stuff.***

Wrong - see below!

Edit 27.09.2016, 12.45 am
An interesting date!

1745 was the year of the Jacobite Rebellion: Charles Stuart had landed in Eriskay on the 23rd July that year and the first engagement of British forces against the Jacobites had taken place on the 16th of the following month. King George returned from Hanover to London to face the crisis on the last day of August - the day of the Hayfield resurrection.

An Excerpt from Clegg's Diary, three months after the Resurrection:
Nov 30 1745: sent two men to assist in making trenches to obstruct the roads around Waley but in my thought it could not Answer any good purpose but was very bad for travellers (to delay the advancing soldiers of the Jacobite Rebellion)

For further study:
Clegg's Diary has been edited by Vanessa S. Doe, for the Derbyshire Record Society. Volume One, covering the years 1708 to 1736 was published in 1978.

The Wikipedia page on Clegg is derived from the old DNB and makes no mention of his resurrection letter.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

The above post has to be continued here as it is passing the word-limit:

Edit 29.09.2016

I see that Westwood & Simpson in The Lore of the Land, 2005*, mention another source, S. O. Addy's Household Tales of 1895. Addy talks of a Sixteenth Century tradition that the dead had arisen from the cemetery ajoining Hayfield. Westwood & Simpson correct his date by giving an erroneous one of their own: 1754 instead of 1745 for the Clegg letter. They also state the resurrection was from "the communal grave of flood victims" but which flood and what is their authority? They quote the letter but leave out the section which refers to interment in the church. It is all a real muddle but the association of the church with floods seems well-established.

*Much the same account appears in Westwood's Haunted England, 2010

Now Addy's volume can be downloaded here.

He has only the following tantalizing reference - on Page 56:

"There is an ancient chapel at Hayfield, in the parish of Glossop. It is said that in the sixteenth century all the dead in the cemetery which surrounds the chapel rose from their sleep clothed in golden raiment."

No source is given. I'm inclined to think that Addy was just recording a hazy memory of the Clegg letter.

This leaves Westwood & Simpson's reference to "the communal grave of flood victims" without authority.

Edit 05.00pm
A copy of the Clegg letter was among the papers of Mary Wollstonecraft around 1774.

 

[Frideswide]

need more than a Like for this James!

fascinating and hopefully we will be able to add to it?

was there any sort of "revival" happening in the area? I have a memory of visions akin to this being part of the great Welsh revival over a century later.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Edit 27.09.2016, 12.45 am
An interesting date!

1745 was the year of the Jacobite Rebellion: Charles Stuart had landed in Eriskay on the 23rd July that year and the first engagement of British forces against the Jacobites had taken place on the 16th of the following month. King George returned from Hanover to London to face the crisis on the last day of August - the day of the Hayfield resurrection. ...

Could it be that Clegg's anomalous letter represented some sort of coded communication concerning the rebellion-related events?

 

[Frideswide]

Could it be that Clegg's anomalous letter represented some sort of coded communication concerning the rebellion-related events?

oooooooooh!!!!!!!!

 

[JamesWhitehead]

I wondered about it but it's an odd code that would attract such attention.

Both Clegg and Latham were staunchly non-conformist but support for the Jacobite cause was very thin.

As we see, later that year, Clegg was doing his bit to obstruct the rebels.

 

[Frideswide]

As we see, later that year, Clegg was doing his bit to obstruct the rebels.

not going to let the idea go without a fight!

this just means that he was on the OTHER side and telegraphing a message!

 

[JamesWhitehead]

was there any sort of "revival" happening in the area?

The problem is that the letter seems to stand on its own, despite Clegg's assertion that there were witnesses.

I detect a tone of parody in some of the details but I need to look closely at doctrinal matters to be sure.

Edit 05.40pm

The Wikipedia Page on Clegg is mentioned above and it contains nothing about the resurrection letter. It does paint a picture of Clegg as a learned man who combined the rôles of Medic and Preacher in the area. He was a Whig in politics and is described as having an interest in "differences about matters of faith among the various Dissenting groups of the time - especially Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Wesleyans (Clegg discussed directly with Wesley)"

His evident disapproval of burial within churches may have been as much on medical grounds as doctrinal. The belief of the time was that "effluvia" - bad smells - carried disease. There are plenty of horrible tales from the crypt throughout the 18th and 19th Centuries.

06.30pm
The key Protestant text on the doctrine of Resurrection is likely to be Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, Chapter 15. which asserts that incarnation is the prerequisite of resurrection, though the resurrected body is changed.

Hard to read the following without hearing Handel (interestingly, Messiah dates from 1741)
It was revived in London in 1745 but its importance as a staple of the church festival circuits did not take off until the following decade. Clegg was almost certainly not alluding to a performance in Hayfield that year!

51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

 

[Frideswide]

 

[EnolaGaia]

I wondered about it but it's an odd code that would attract such attention. ...

There's another connection that's made me wonder about the 'true intention' behind the letter.

In the course of my online rummaging (some days ago ... ) I found multiple sources noting that Clegg's son was a student at Latham's school / academy / whatever at the time the letter was written. It made me wonder whether the letter was some sort of oblique communication relating to the son, Latham's handling of some schooling matter, etc.

Similarly, I found multiple sources citing the letter that commented it wasn't clear Clegg was reporting a literal resurrection event (i.e., that the intended 'message' was something other than the text at face value). At least one such source suggested it may have involved something like an in-joke whose significance was lost.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

At least one such source suggested it may have involved something like an in-joke whose significance was lost.

I have not found these earlier commentaries but I'm sure there must have been some. Can you quote?

 

[EnolaGaia]

I didn't record any notes. This was days ago, and my searching led me to some of the same sources you've already mentioned. I don't recall running across the Addy / flood angle, and I'm positive I didn't see anything about the rebellion angle. In the absence of those two interesting factoids, I just let it go ...

 

[JamesWhitehead]

There is a reference in this book. Paul Gater: Ghost Reporter: The Files, in a chapter about corpse lights etc.

"Opinion has it that he had probably invented the story in order to emphasise the Resurrection of the Body. It could also be a more theatrical account of what happens when, put into a shallow, hastily prepared mass grave, the bodies of flood victims, bloated with water, may return to the surface of the ground."

Whose "opinion?" Why was Clegg expounding this doctrine to a co-religionist and teacher? Where is there anything in the letter which suggests bloating? Where is there anything about a return to the surface? The bodies rise into the air!

It does underline the way floods have been associated with the case a long time before I made the connection. So far, however, the only detailed account of a flood comes from three years after the resurrection!

 

[JamesWhitehead]

some sort of oblique communication relating to the son, Latham's handling of some schooling matter

In 1745, Latham was moving on from Findern Academy to Derby and both he and Clegg were fairly elderly, though Clegg had married a widow, so maybe there was a son still in education at this period.

I had assumed that the men were in harmony but the notion of some underlying dispute and ironic intention behind the letter could be the missing contextual key!

 

[Ermintruder]

Similarly, I found multiple sources citing the letter that commented it wasn't clear Clegg was reporting a literal resurrection event (i.e., that the intended 'message' was something other than the text at face value).

This adds yet another fascinating dimension to what is an already-weird story.

Is there an implication that in the era in question (perhaps I mean late 1600s through to mid 1700s) there were frequent instances of written allegorical resurrections? This would surely make very little sense (I'm prepared to be convinced to the contrary, though, as my view of that time is bound to be inaccurate).

At that time, why would such an action not be considered totally sacrilegious? A literal report of having (mistakenly or otherwise) witnessed what appeared to have been a resurrection seems (to my mind) almost a more likely scenario than poetic metaphor. How could 18th century Christian commentators permit themselves the societal luxury of using End Times iconography to comment upon contemporary events? Was that actually ever done?

 

[EnolaGaia]

... Is there an implication that in the era in question (perhaps I mean late 1600s through to mid 1700s) there were frequent instances of written allegorical resurrections? This would surely make very little sense (I'm prepared to be convinced to the contrary, though, as my view of that time is bound to be inaccurate).

I don't know whether there were other similar claims during that period.

At that time, why would such an action not be considered totally sacrilegious? A literal report of having (mistakenly or otherwise) witnessed what appeared to have been a resurrection seems (to my mind) almost a more likely scenario than poetic metaphor. How could 18th century Christian commentators permit themselves the societal luxury of using End Times iconography to comment upon contemporary events? Was that actually ever done?

Clegg's text is (carefully?) phrased to avoid suggesting he personally witnessed the alleged event. It happened at a church other than his own, and references to witnesses are uniformly third-person (at face value).

His arm's-length distancing of the story from himself is one of the reasons I suspect the letter's intended 'message' wasn't the resurrection story per se.

One would think such a report would be 'big news' rather than something no one else would read about for over a century. This is another reason I suspect the thrust of the letter was something other than its literal text.

 

[Ermintruder]

Sable is a word that we may associate with fur coats but its Biblical meaning - unknown to Wikipedia - would have been known to Clegg:

Can you expand, please, upon what you interpret as being the biblical meaning of sable.

Perhaps it will converge with what I'm about to say, but for me, during and long before that century, the word refers to a shaded tone or dark colour rather than a specific cloth.

Sable is one of the 'heraldic tinctures':https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sable_(heraldry) meaning black or darkened, and I assert it would've had that popular meaning to readers (in an appositional sense to gold or golden) within the curate's curious tale. Sackcloth can be dark, yes, but the previous mention of absent 'winding cloth' to me would already have covered the emotive notion of what they were covered by.

To me, it's a key part of the paradoxical narrative. If he speaks, dangerously, in metaphor, what ever is both black and gold?

One would think such a report would be 'big news' rather than something no one else would read about for over a century. This is another reason I suspect the thrust of the letter was something other than its literal text.

Precisely. Unless it was such a shocking analogy (or, perhaps, witness testimony) it became as buried itself as the souls arisen from the crypt...

 

[Graylien]

How reliable is John Pendleton? And how did he get hold of this century old letter?

 

[JamesWhitehead]

And how did he get hold of this century old letter?

His source seems to have been the 1860 letter to the Glossopdale Chronicle*. If the full text of that can be found, we may be one small step closer.

Edit:
Or Jewitt's Reliquary article of that same year.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

Can you expand, please, upon what you interpret as being the biblical meaning of sable.

I am guilty of muddying the waters on the definition of "sable." It is not in the Bible!

I had found several references to the coarse cloth of shrouds in collocation with the word, which appeared to be definitions. It was clear that the term did not refer to the luxurious fur. Knowing shrouds to be white, I missed the dark colouring - which turns out to be poetical licence.

Notes & Queries in 1898 had some examples of sable used in connection with shrouds, chiefly in English poetry.

It also features in Poe's Fanny, which makes the darkness explicit:

Like sunburst through the ebon cloud,
Which veils the solemn midnight sky,
Piercing cold evening's sable shroud,
Thus came the first glance of that eye;

This Dictionary of Early English suggests that sable is essentially a poetic association of the shroud with the colour or mourning.[/url]

The original post will not accept further text but I have indicated that a correction is needed:

****
Sable is a word that we may associate with fur coats but its Biblical meaning - unknown to Wikipedia - would have been known to Clegg:***

***Sable was the coarsest of cloth and mourners dressed in this sackcloth to mimic the dead, whose shrouds were of the same stuff.***

My reference to the mourners apeing the dead was drawn from this page of mourning customs.

NO! My reading of sable as indicating sackcloth was erroneous. It indicates the dark colour or mourning and is widely used in poetry from Milton to Poe. Applied to shrouds, it is poetic licence, as they were white. Clegg's shrouds are merely "interlaced with sable" but also "streaked with gold" and "skirted with white." His assurance that they were not naked suggests they wore essentially see-through garments with discreet trimmings!

"Interlaced with sable" as a search reveals* that this is very much the language of heraldry! Was any particular coat of arms intended?

*Ermintrude's post above made the heraldic connection before I did.


Edit 04.00pm

Since, for the time being, we have only the text to guide us, I am sure some words and phrases had more resonance for Clegg and Latham than they do for lay readers today.

Clegg's phrase "eye witnesses of the truth" seems to have some importance in considering the doctrine of Special Revelation:

See its frequent use in this online Creationist article in relation to the miracle at Cana - page 9.

Also on this page of Bible Studies, here, we read:

"In the Christian life, we are called to live by faith, and not by sight. This is not, however, a blind faith, but a well-founded trust in the eye-witnesses of the truth of Christ, who now guide us to become His followers. Like columns that rest firmly on rock, they support authoritatively our faith: they are the Apostles Peter, James and John, to which it was granted, (as later it was for Paul), to stand before the majesty of the risen Christ, that which is hidden to human eyes."

Edit 04.15pm

"Straightened" or "Straitened"?

Next, we have to consider the opposition of the Non-Conformists to the Established Church. Chapels were not allowed to be sited within five miles of Parish Churches, as if they feared contamination. Clegg retaliates with his reference to the "indecent custom . . . of burying the dead in the place set apart for the devotion of the living."

There is dry comedy in his amazement that, in such a small parish, "the inhabitants of the grave could be straightened (sic) for want of room."

The spelling of homophones "straitened" and "straightened" may have been freer at the time Clegg wrote - if indeed we have his spelling*. He must surely mean the former in the sense of the dead being "subject to distress, privation or deficiency" (Merriam-Webster) at the lack of room.

Now the phrase "straitened for want of room" occurs in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, Chapter 12: "Ye are not straitened for want of room in my heart, but ye are straitened in your own affections." James MacKnight*'s New Literal Translation appeared, however, in 1795 (*1721 - 1800) Did the phrase circulate in non-conformist circles before this time?

Johnson's Dictionary cites John Ray (1627 - 1705) Wisdom of God, 1691 as containing the phrase. Johnson's work, of course, post-dates Clegg!

*The version found among Mary Wollstonecraft's papers gives "straitened" - so I am inclined to think the unhelpful "straightened" is a modern error.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

Somewhat belatedly, I can now give the letter in the context of a volume devoted to Clegg.

Pages 14 and 15 are part of the editor's introductory chapter, considering the character of Clegg. The letter had evidently gained some notoriety, having circulated in manuscript form. Kirke does not reprint the letter elsewhere in the volume and it does not appear the resurrection featured in the diary or autobiography. The editor does, however, consider there are entries in the diary which were not "above the superstitions common at the time." Pages 83 and 84 of the text deal with the year 1745. We hear that Clegg was thrown from his horse and suffered a serious blow to his head back in May that year. He seems to have resumed his duties however. There are no diary entries between August 19th and September 3rd. His observations on the Jacobite Rebellion are lively and betray no sympathy for the Pretender.

Extracts From the Diary and Autobiography of the Rev. James Clegg, as edited by Henry Kirke, 1899

Dr. Clegg does not appear to have been above the superstitions common at his time, as may be noticed from several entries in his Diary. The following curious letter was addressed by him to his friend Dr. Latham, who presided over the celebrated Dissenting Academy at Finderne, in Derbyshire and who was the author of several controversial and other works. The Finderne Academy was one of considerable note, and many learned writers were pupils of Dr.Latham. Dr.Clegg's youngest son Benjamin was educated there. The following is the letter:

"I know you are pleased with anything curious and uncommon in Nature and if what follows shall appear such, I can assure you from eye witnesses of the Truth of every particular. In a Church about 3 miles distance from us, the indecent Custom still prevails of burying the dead in the place set apart for the Devotions of the living: Yet the parish not being very populous, one would scarce imagine the Inhabitants of the grave could be strai'tned for want of room: yet it should seem so, for on the last of Aug'st, several Hundreds of Bodies rose out of the Grave in the open day in that Church, to the great astonishment and Terror of several spectators. They deserted the Coffins and arising out of the graves, immediately ascended directly towards Heaven, singing in Concert all along as they mounted thro' the Air; they had no winding sheets about them, yet did not appear quite naked, their Vesture seemed streaked with gold, interlaced with sable, skirted with white, yet thought to be exceeding light, by the agility of their motions, and the swiftness of their ascent; They left a most fragrant and delicious Odour behind them, but were quickly out of sight, and what is become of them or in what Distant Regions of this vast System they have since fixed their Residence, no Mortal can tell.

The Church is in Heafield, three miles from Chappell frith. 1745."

This extraordinary letter, which has given rise to considerable controversy, was published in "The Reliquary," 1860, by Mr. Llewellyn Jewitt, F.S.A.,from a M.S. copy in his own possession. Its authenticity has been doubted; but granting its genuineness, may it not have been an illustration of the credulity of the people of Hayfield, and an example of the delusions which at times impose upon otherwise sensible people. This view was taken by the well-known novelist T. Adolphus Trollope, who writes "It seems to me, on carefully considering Dr. Clegg's letter, that he certainly did not mean to give his friend any idea that he (Clegg) believed that such an occurrence had taken place, but that he DID mean to tell him that such an assertion had been made at Hayfield. I fancy that he thought he was making a curious and valuable contribution to the history of the VALUE of TESTIMONY; and so he was if he would only have made his meaning a little clearer. If it can be shewn that a number of people at Hayfield did assert that they had seen such a phenomenon it would be on the ground I have stated a fact well worth having. And it would be an useful addition to the list of delusions indicating THE CONTAGIOUS nature of such. A fact of this kind could be paralleled and illustrated by sundry very similar stories; one of a ship's crew who ALL stated, on oath, that they saw the body of 'Old Booty,' a Wapping baker, much hated by them, thrown by the devil into the volcano Stromboli, then in eruption, as their ship passed it." (T. Adolphus Trollope to W. H. G. Bagshawe, 1892.)

 

[EnolaGaia]

Somewhat belatedly, I can now give the letter in the context of a volume devoted to Clegg. ...

Thanks for posting that ... I recognize the bits about Trollope and "... authenticity has been doubted ...", so I must have run across this, or a derivative, text in my earlier rummaging.

I wonder if there was something contextual in the letter's publication in The Reliquary that prompted Trollope to zero in on the letter as pertaining more to popular delusions than an actual event.

The bit about Clegg's head blow only a few months earlier is new to me.

Another angle occurred to me ... How much do we know about this Lleyellyn Jewitt, with whom the letter ended up as of 1860? I don't recall seeing any clear explanation for how he became the letter's owner. Maybe digging around on him and his history would provide additional clues ...

 

[JamesWhitehead]

Jewitt was a antiquarian and a bit of a polymath.

The letter seems to have circulated much earlier in the 19th Century, as Mary Wollstonecraft also owned a copy. Jewitt, however, had Derbyshire connections and had compiled a volume of Ballad & Songs from the county.

The Reliquary version of the letter can be seen here.

1860 was also the year of the letter to the Glossopshire Chronicle and seems to be the year the letter first reached print. It could be that a subscriber to The Antiquary alerted local people to the story, unless Jewitt himself did!

 

[JamesWhitehead]

By confusing Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 - 1797) with her daughter, I was missing the fact that the earliest reference we have to the Clegg letter is as an enclosure in a letter of Mary to her friend Jane Arden of Beverley in 1773 - "only" some 18 years after Clegg's death. The context appears to be their study of the "globes" ie the planets. The notion of resurrection seems to have engaged them less than the conclusion of Clegg's letter:

"What has become of them, or to what distant regions of this vast system they have since fixed their residence, no mortal can tell."

It sounds like the portentous voice-over of a science fiction film!

The trouble is that the letter does not say why Clegg's epistle was enclosed!

Having absorbed Clegg's diaries - more interesting than we might expect - I can rule out a number of things.

More on that when I get a moment. The solution to the mystery may lie in the complete history of his correspondence with Latham but that seems out-of-reach for now.

I think we can all rule out the notion that the letter is to be taken as a simple record of the truth.

Edit 08.55 pm

1: We can entirely rule out the notion of Clegg as Jacobite - evidence? Read the Diary.

2: He was not really - by the standards of the time - superstitious, though his editor thinks he gave in to this.

There are records of natural phenomena such as eclipses and even earthquakes. He may take these and other good or bad omens as signs of God's pleasure of displeasure. He even buys an Irish Lottery Ticket, quite late in life and seems to feel that his luck may determine how much he has to spend on his own ailing health.

Clegg is not a Puritan, he admonishes himself in the Protestant manner for his failures - often of temper but sometimes of drinking too much. There is, however, nothing in his diaries about ghosts, phantoms, poltergeists, boggarts, imps, fairies, dobbies etc. etc.

3: The resurrection of the dead at Hayfield Church comes out of the blue. Nothing in the Autobiography/Diaries prepares us for it.

 

[rynner2]

If he speaks, dangerously, in metaphor, what ever is both black and gold?

The Cornish Rugby shirt!

http://www.thecornishtshirtfactory.com/www.thecornishtshirtfactory.coms/info.php?p=23

 

[eburacum]

I know I've been post-rationalising Fortean events for a long time on this board, sometimes with very little factual justification. But I think I might have a working theory for this one.

The first part of Clegg's letter is a complaint about the 'indecent custom' of burying the dead inside the church, in the 'place set apart for the devotion of the living'. The second part describes the removal of those bodies to some other place. Clegg has simply romanticised the act of removal (which would have been a noisome process) into a fragrant elevation; his correspondent (Latham) would almost certainly be familiar with this sort of rehumation, and perhaps found the allegory amusing.

Or maybe not. But clergy often have a sense of humour all their own. In short - you had to be there.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

But I think I might have a working theory for this one.

Thanks - though it was proposed in my initial post!

One additional piece of information gleaned from the Clegg Diary and confirmed elsewhere is that the last week of August was traditionally the time of rush-bearing ceremonies. Replacing the sweet-smelling rushes of the church floor with new ones was a community occasion in Chapel-en-le-Frith, Hayfield and many other Northern towns. It could - and did - spill over into boozy celebrations - even wanton vandalism at times. Clegg's own wives' grave was damaged during one such mischief-night.

It was certainly the time for purification of the air in the Parish Churches.

The dry humour of chuchmen in private correspondence is a point well made and I tend to agree. It is odd, however, that it forms the whole matter of this letter.

 

[eburacum]

It's the 'dry humour' that forms the main point of my theory. These two august gentlemen of the cloth were sharing an in-joke, or so it seems to me. It might just have been about the smell.