Haunted Castles (Beaver Books) - Softcover

Mark Ronson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0600204812 ISBN 13: 9780600204817

Publisher: Hamlyn Pbs., 1982

Synopsis

One survey puts the number of reported hauntings in the United Kingdom at ten thousand. Supernatural sites range from modern council houses to old churches and abbeys, but, as one would expect, our oldest and grandest ghosts Inhabit castles. This is because they are our most ancient buildings, all have seen their share of dark deeds, and from the time of the prehistoric hillfort up to the Civil War, castles dominated the lives of the people. After the hillforts came the great Roman castles, and after them the massive frowning fortresses built by the Normans to control the country.

As time passed the people frequently found castles to be places of refuge in times of trouble, and the baron's knights and men-at-arms often became the peasants' only protection against outlaw bands. But in times of civil war or when the king's rule broke down, masters of castles could behave in any way they wished.

The results were sometimes terrible, as in the strife-ridden reign of King Stephen when, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:
"Every powerful man built his castles and held them against him [the king] and they filled the country full of castles.... When the castles were built they filled them with devils and with wicked men. Then both by night and by day they took those people they thought had any goods, both men and women, put them in prison and tortured them with indescribable torture to extort gold and silver. No martyrs were ever tortured as they were. They hung by the thumbs or by the heads and corslets were hung on their feet. Knotted ropes were put round their heads and twisted till they penetrated to the brain. I have neither the ability nor the power to tell all the horrors or all the torments then inflicted upon the wretched people in this country."

About this edition

• Publisher: Hamlyn Pbs.
• Publication date: 1982
• ISBN 10: 0600204812
• ISBN 13: 9780600204817
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 159