Mother Leakey and the Bishop: A Ghost StoryHalloween 1636: sightings of the ghost of an old woman begin to be reported in the small English coastal town of Minehead, and a royal commission is sent to investigate. December 1640: a disgraced Protestant bishop is hanged in the Irish capital, Dublin, after being convicted of an 'unspeakable' crime. In this remarkable piece of historical detective work, Peter Marshall sets out to uncover the intriguing links between these two seemingly unconnected events. The result is a compelling tale of dark family secrets, of efforts to suppress them, and of the ways in which they finally come to light. It is also the story of a shocking seventeenth-century Church scandal which cast its shadow over religion and politics in Britain and Ireland for the best part of three centuries, drawing in a host of well known and not-so-well-known characters along the way, including Jonathan Swift, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Walter Scott. A fascinating story in its own right, Mother Leakey and the Bishop is also a sparkling demonstration of how the telling of stories is central to the way we remember the past, and can become part of the fabric of history itself. |
Contents
A Haunting in Minehead I | 1 |
The World of the Leakeys | 9 |
The Leakeys Other World | 37 |
Copyright | |
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Anglican Apparition Evidence appeared Archbishop Athenian Barnstaple believed Bernard's Penitent Death Bishop Atherton bishop of Waterford Bramhall Bridgwater Catholic century child Christ Church Church of Ireland claimed clergy clergyman Clotworthy Coffee House County court crime culture Curll dead devil Devon diocese Dublin Dunton earl of Cork Early Modern Edmund Curll Elizabeth Leakey England English execution fact ghost stories Glanvill hanged haunted historians Huish Champflower incest infanticide Irish John Atherton John Bramhall John Dunton John Quick justices King later Laud Laud's letter living London Lord Deputy Minehead minister Mother Leakey murder narrative Nicholas Bernard ODNB offence Oxford pamphlet papists parish parliament persons political preaching printed Protestant puritan readers record rector Reformation Relation repentance reported rumours scandal seems sermon seventeenth seventeenth-century Society sodomy Somerset soul spirit Strafford supernatural Susan Leakey Taunton tell Thomas Wentworth town trial Waterford and Lismore William William Laud Witchcraft witches