Halloween Countdown, Day 29
Oct. 29th, 2013 06:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eldritchhobbitTastyTrix is back with the last October installment of her Halloween-friendly "Serial Killer Suppers" series. Learn some spine-chilling culinary history here: "Breakfast with the Murder Demon: the Last Meal of H.H. Holmes, America's First Serial Killer." (Check out the earlier posts in this deliciously creepy series here: "Schnitzel, Fried Potatoes, and White Wine: the Last Meal of the Dusseldorf Ripper"; "The Poisoner's Cake: The Blonde Borgia"; and "The Butcher of Rostov's Last Meal.")
*****
Now it's time for one last "spooky history" update for this year's countdown.
On this day in 1618, Sir Walter Raleigh -- English aristocrat, author, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer -- was beheaded in the Old Palace Yard at the Palace of Westminster on the order of King James.
It was reported that he made a request of the executioner: "Let us dispatch. At this hour my ague comes upon me. I would not have my enemies think I quaked from fear." Upon seeing the axe that would behead him, he said, "This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries." According to many biographers, Raleigh's final words as he waited for the axe to fall were "Strike, man, strike!"
Raleigh's head was embalmed and given to his wife. "The Lords," she wrote, "have given me his dead body, though they have denied me his life. God hold me in my wits." According to legend, Lady Raleigh kept her husband's head in a velvet bag until her death 29 years later. Then it was returned to his tomb and interred with the rest of his body at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster.
Raleigh had been held in the Tower of London for 12 years, and claims that he haunts Byward Tower (shown above), Seven Tower Green, and other related areas are ubiquitous. He represents one of the most commonly reported Tower of London ghosts.
I can't say that I saw him when I visited, but the wonderful ravens ("the guardians of the Tower") made up for it!
For further reading:
* "History of the Tower" from the official Tower of London website (PDF)
* "Seven Tower Green" from "The Tower of London - Ghost Stories" at Camelot International (This is quite a detailed page! Well worth a look.)
* "Tower of London Ghosts" from Real British Ghosts
* "The Tower of London Ghosts and Legends" from ParanormalDatabase.com
*****
Now it's time for one last "spooky history" update for this year's countdown.
On this day in 1618, Sir Walter Raleigh -- English aristocrat, author, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer -- was beheaded in the Old Palace Yard at the Palace of Westminster on the order of King James.
It was reported that he made a request of the executioner: "Let us dispatch. At this hour my ague comes upon me. I would not have my enemies think I quaked from fear." Upon seeing the axe that would behead him, he said, "This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries." According to many biographers, Raleigh's final words as he waited for the axe to fall were "Strike, man, strike!"
Raleigh's head was embalmed and given to his wife. "The Lords," she wrote, "have given me his dead body, though they have denied me his life. God hold me in my wits." According to legend, Lady Raleigh kept her husband's head in a velvet bag until her death 29 years later. Then it was returned to his tomb and interred with the rest of his body at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster.
Raleigh had been held in the Tower of London for 12 years, and claims that he haunts Byward Tower (shown above), Seven Tower Green, and other related areas are ubiquitous. He represents one of the most commonly reported Tower of London ghosts.
I can't say that I saw him when I visited, but the wonderful ravens ("the guardians of the Tower") made up for it!
For further reading:
* "History of the Tower" from the official Tower of London website (PDF)
* "Seven Tower Green" from "The Tower of London - Ghost Stories" at Camelot International (This is quite a detailed page! Well worth a look.)
* "Tower of London Ghosts" from Real British Ghosts
* "The Tower of London Ghosts and Legends" from ParanormalDatabase.com
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no subject
Date: 2013-10-29 11:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-29 07:40 pm (UTC)Funny how people forget that it was the Tudors and Stuarts who made the Tower of London bloody. Before that it was a royal residence.
Great point!
no subject
Date: 2013-10-29 12:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-29 07:41 pm (UTC)And I thought rock and roll was the only avenue in which you could actively display your insanity with impunity. Apparently the royals claimed that spot ages ago.
Ha! Well said.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-29 06:13 pm (UTC)Horrifying.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-29 07:49 pm (UTC)Whether we agree with it now or not, the thought at the time of these executions was that the sheer public nature of it, the opportunity to discuss it and consider it, offered both a moral lesson and a kind of cultural catharsis.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-11 08:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-29 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-30 11:00 am (UTC)Yikes! I recall thinking they looked huge, but that's crazy!