About the end of October 1662, Nathaniel Smith, a thrower (wood turner) from Hyde told a ghostly tale while staying in Henry Mather’s house in Openshaw, outside Manchester. The story soon landed him in hot water with the law for its ‘seditious & scandalous words’. According to Henry’s daughter, Sarah, Nathaniel claimed ‘the King [Charles II] should but reign three years & that he should Turn papist & be in danger to be murdered by one of his own house’. Yet as Nathaniel himself would depose, this prophecy was but part of a much stranger tale – one worthy of Halloween in its spooky subject matter.    

Depositions concerning the case were collected in early December 1662, in the house of esquire Nicholas Mosley of Ancoats. They were recorded in a notebook of judicial business related to Mosley’s duties as a justice of the peace (JP). Nicholas had inherited the book from his father, Oswald Mosley, and Nicholas’ grandson (another Oswald) would make use of it again in the 18^th century.¹ If the names of these JPs sound a bit familiar, it’s because they were the ancestors of notorious 20^th-century fascist Sir Oswald Mosley. While the notebook doesn’t contain anything quite so scary as fascism, the supernatural does make several appearances.

Nathaniel Smith’s deposition provides the most vivid example, worth repeating in full. According to him, Sarah Mather’s testimony was missing a few essential details:

…he told the said Henry Mather that there was an house where an innkeeper had lately lived, taken by another to live in and a maid of the house went to sweep the room. There came up loose moulds & as she was sweeping a knife fell out of her bosom into the place where the said loose moulds appeared. She stooped to take up the knife and felt a stave. She thereupon pulled up the stave and stooped down again to see what was in the place, supposing their might be some money hid there. She found dead man’s bones at which she was afraid.

Thereupon there appeared unto her a spirit in green colour & said it had been killed about 13 years & said there was three persons that did murder him, whereupon 2 was dead & one woman was alive. The spirit bade the said maid go to a Justice of peace & to make it known. She said she was but a woman & the Justice would take no notice of it because she wanted evidence. But the said spirit bade her go & she should not want for evidence. So she went & informed the Justice who sent for the said woman & she confessed all that the spirit had told.

The said spirit further told her that the King had two of his own servants that should turn papist & betray him. But denies that he said the King should reign but 3 years & that he should turn papist & be in danger to be murdered by one of his own house.²   

There’s so much striking and entertaining about this little ghost story, it’s hard to know where to begin: the spirit’s verdant shade, the bones under the boards, maid and ghost working together to crack a 13-year-old cold case. But what I find especially funny is how the spirit, after giving detailed instructions on how to ‘aveeenge meee!’, dropped a seemingly unrelated and last second prophecy of national importance, just for good measure: ‘Thanks for your help. Oh and btw, the king shall be betrayed. OK bye!’.

The prophecy’s incongruity with the rest of the ghost story might make sense in the context of Smith’s indictment for seditious words, which forecasted the king’s conversion to Catholicism and death. Perhaps Smith fabricated the ghost story to put as much distance between himself and the seditious speech as possible. Not only was Sarah Mather mistaken about what Smith had said, it wasn’t even really him who’d said it. No, no, no. He’d heard it from a maid, who said she’d heard it from the spirit of a man dead 13 years.  Why should Smith be blamed?

Yet this interpretation seems a bit too cynical, and cannot really account for (what seems to me) the most interesting thing about Smith’s story: it’s more concerned with the validity and accuracy of the green spirit than anything else. Indeed, only the last two lines of the deposition address the very serious crime with which Smith was accused.

The interactions between the maid and the spirit centre on matters of proof and believability. She fears that no justice of the peace will listen to her – because she ‘wanted evidence’ and because gender and low status weaken her credit. But the ghost’s words are proven accurate twice over: first when the maid’s testimony successfully sparks an investigation, and second when the accused murderess confesses ‘all that the spirit had told’.

In many respects, Smith’s tale reflects tropes common to the early modern ghost stories circulating in popular printed media of the time. Apparitions often came back from the dead to right wrongs, exact vengeance and offer prophesy; women were often key mediators and contacts. But the fixation on evidence was more typically a feature of learned writing on ghosts. During the 1600s, intellectuals (clergymen in particular) compiled examples of supernatural phenomena and ‘adopted experimental methods to prove the existence of spirits’. They did so to counteract a perceived erosion in supernatural belief and religiosity as ideas of natural and mechanical philosophy gained traction.³  

This is partly what makes Smith’s account so fascinating: Smith was a craftsman of rural and presumably humble origins. Yet in many ways his story reads like a ‘sensible proof of spirits’ found in the collections of contemporary intelligentsia.⁴

Nor is this the only example in Mosely’s justicing book of ordinary folk taking critical, empirical approaches to the supernatural.  

Sir Edward Mosley (a cousin of Nicholas) died at Hough End in late October 1665. Soon after, Mary Fletcher of Didsbury reportedly claimed that the knight ‘being then dead was come again & had ridden his old horse Jordy to the death’. Several depositions investigated the truth of this spectral rider, all of which hinged on the condition of Jordy the horse. Rebecca Chorlton, the wife of a husbandman from Withington, doubted Fletcher’s tale specifically because Jordy was not dead at the time of its telling. But another witness from the town, John Holt, claimed that Jordy was indeed dead by that time. Furthermore, he added that Lady Mosley (Edward’s widow) was ‘frighted with going into a chamber in Hough End Hall’, presumably because of the whole uncanny ordeal.⁵

Apart from the undead knight’s appalling disdain for animal welfare, this episode further underscores a couple of things about early modern belief in ghosts. It was not limited to ‘the folk’, nor was verification of supernatural experiences through logic and observation limited to elites. Reading thousands of quarter sessions depositions from collections throughout England has left me with similar impressions. Witches, cunning folk, spectres and devils haunt the pages of these testimonies, especially in northern counties like Lancashire, Cheshire and Yorkshire.

Certainly, such records warrant further study, especially since much supernatural history has relied on elite perspectives.⁶ Although mediated by the judicial process, these depositions give unrivalled insight into deeply held folk beliefs.  Moreover, they can illuminate ordinary people’s attempts to interrogate those beliefs and vet their uncanny experiences. Layfolk’s aims and purposes in doing so were not the same as clergymen’s – they were not interested in supporting ‘the whole edifice of religion’ with their proofs.  Nonetheless, early modern men and women were invested in discerning the truth of spectral experiences, the reliability of prophecies, or the efficacy of cunning folks’ cures.

Will all this in mind, Smith’s story appears much more than an attempt to distance himself from seditious speech. Maybe he wished to show his words were not mere scandalous rumour. Nay, they were a fair and dutiful warning to the crown from a credible source – a supernatural source but one proven to be real and trustworthy.

And in the end, who are we to question the green spirit’s credentials? True, he was not right about Charles II’s fate. But maybe he was just a bit confused about what year and reign it was. Being dead for 13 years might do that to a person. Perhaps he meant Charles II’s brother and successor instead? After all, James VII and II did ‘reign but three years’; he did ‘turn papist’; and he was put in danger (and deposed) by ‘one of his own house’.

Spooky stuff indeed. 

1. Manchester Central Library, GB127.MS f 347 96 M2. Part of the justicing notebook (covering the first seven years) has been published in Manchester Sessions. Notes of Proceedings before Oswald Mosley (1616-1630), Nicholas Mosley (1661-1672), and Sir Oswald Mosely (1731-1739) and Other Magistrates. Vol. I 1616-1622/3, ed. Ernest Axon, (The Record Society for the Publication of Original Documents relating to Lancashire and Cheshire, Vol. XLII, 1901). The rest of the book has never been published. MCL holds the transcripts, which I have been working from here.      ↩︎
2. MCL, GB127.MS f 347 96 M2, pp. 178-9.  I’ve modernised the spelling and added some punctuation for ease of reading. ↩︎
3. Quote is from Laura Sangha, ‘The Social, Personal, and Spiritual Dynamics of Ghost Stories in Early Modern England’, The Historical Journal, 63, 2 (2020), pp. 339-359, at p. 343. On ghost belief more broadly see also Owen Davies, The haunted: a social history of ghosts (Basingstoke, 2007). ↩︎
4. For more on early modern elite interests in ‘proving’ supernatural phenomena, see Jo Bath and John Newton, ‘”Sensible proof of spirits”: ghost belief during the later seventeenth-century’, Folklore, 117 (2006), pp. 1-14; Michael Hunter, ‘The decline of magic: challenge and response in early Enlightenment England’, The Historical Journal, 55 (2012), pp. 399-425. ↩︎
5. MCL, GB127.MS f 347 96 M2, pp. 199-200. ↩︎
6. Bath and Newton (2006), for example, ‘concentrate on elite attitudes to the phenomena…since it is largely through such sources that accounts of ghosts have filtered through to us’ (p. 2). They point to the potential of legal records as evidence of folk belief, but opine that ‘very little information on spectres has been found in the legal records so far’ (p.9). ↩︎

In its artwork and design, the invitation to Charles III’s coronation on 6 May 2023 deliberately evokes the seasonal setting of the celebration. According to the official website of the royal family, the central motifs of flowers, foliage and Green Man are ‘symbolic of spring and rebirth, to celebrate the new reign’. Yet, while the occasion of modern coronations is an important factor in practical and symbolic terms, it was of central significance to medieval and early modern monarchs throughout Europe. We can see this from as early as Charlemagne’s coronation as Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day, 800 AD. But English kings and queens (and their advisors) were particularly keen to pair occasions of political priority with ones of liturgical and popular resonance.

The Liber Regalis, compiled in the late fourteenth century, specified that English monarchs must be crowned ‘always on a Sunday or some Holy-day’. Looking at the long-term history of the coronation ceremony suggests that this rule merely codified ancient custom. As the table below shows, from Edward the Confessor’s ceremony on Easter Sunday in 1043, through to Anne’s on St. George’s Day in 1702, forty-eight out of fifty coronations took place on a Sunday or Holy Day.

Table of English Coronation Dates. Sunday or Holy Days in bold. Coronations not following this tradition (2 total) are shown in blue. Dates collected from the ODNB.

Picking the right festive occasion for a coronation was an enduring matter of strategy, symbolism and affective piety. While we are rarely privy to the planning and decision making process behind medieval and early modern coronations, this is clearly evident in some of the dates chosen over nearly seven centuries. At one end, William the Conqueror followed in Charlemagne’s footsteps, cementing his newly won rule with a coronation on Christmas Day 1066. At the other, late Stuart monarchs Charles II, James II and Anne all staged their English coronations on the feast day of England’s patron saint, George – a mini-tradition which came to an end, ironically, with Georgian rule.

The custom existed, though was less strong, in Scotland as well. James IV, for example, was crowned on Midsummer’s Day 1488, which was also the anniversary of the great Scottish victory over the English at Bannockburn 1314. James IV’s eventual brother-in-law Henry VIII would also be crowned on Midsummer (1509). It’s not difficult to see the appeal of this feast of bonfires and Summer Lords to two youthful Renaissance princes.

The careful selection of an ideal festive occasion seems to have obtained under various political circumstances. Stephen (26 December 1135) and James I (25 July 1604) were both crowned on the feast days of their respective saintly namesakes. Yet James had over a year to plan his spectacle on St James’ Day, after acceding to the throne in March 1603 without much overt challenge. Stephen, on the other hand, seized the throne on 22 December during a dynastic crisis. He was crowned only four days later, but on a sacred occasion which he may have hoped lent intercessory and legitimizing value.

Similar tactics can be spied at other moments of dynastic unrest. When Henry IV was crowned only days after usurping the throne from Richard II, the coronation took place on the Translation of Edward the Confessor (13 October 1399). In the words of historian Chris Given-Wilson, the new king was ‘appropriating the saint who had become the talisman of English monarchy’, and one especially important to Richard II. Not for nothing, the day also marked the anniversary of Henry’s exile by Richard one year previously. During the height of the Wars of the Roses, in October 1470, the Kingmaker Earl of Warwick would likewise choose the Translation of Edward the Confessor as the occasion for a hasty re-crowning of Henry VI.

While an ideal sacred and festive occasion might lend legitimacy to a new reign, it was of course not always the top priority of a new monarch and their advisors. This was particularly true during times of domestic instability, or when a child acceded to the throne. Both scenarios were in play when nine-year-old Henry III was crowned on 28 October 1216, amid the chaos of the First Barons’ War and only nine days after the death of his father John. Yet due to the slapdash nature of the ceremony, another coronation was held in the more stable climate of 1220, this time on one of the chief celebrations of the Christian year: Pentecost.

Pentecost or Whitsunday was a consistently popular occasion for coronations. Three Whitsun coronations took place over the centuries (1068, 1220, 1533), equalled in prevalence only by St George’s Day (1661, 1685, 1702), and Shrove Sunday (1308, 1403, 1547). Shrove Sunday, the Sunday before Shrove Tuesday (or Carnival) was a popular occasion for coronations elsewhere in Europe as well. Henry III of France, for example, was crowned not once but twice on Shrove Sunday within the span of two years (1574-5), first as the elected king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and then as king of France. Carnival speaks to the fact that coronations were not just sacred rituals, but also public and popular spectacles. When the boy-king Edward VI was crowned on Shrove Sunday 1547, the celebrations coincided with the public merriness of Shrovetide (a festival especially associated with childhood); masques, plays and jousts extended onto Shrove Monday and Tuesday.

Certain feast days had clear symbolic or practical advantages, but sacred days (whether Sundays or Holy Days) were also thought by many to hold innate ritual power during this period. Perhaps the most compelling evidence of this comes from the reign of King John. The regnal years of English monarchs were usually calculated from the date of their accession (when they came to the throne) rather than their coronation. But due to dynastic dispute, John’s reign did not begin until his crowning on Thursday 27 May 1199, the Feast of the Ascension. Suggestive of the power of sacred time, it was the feast day, rather than the calendar date of 27 May, which marked the beginning of each new regnal year. And since Ascension was a moveable feast falling forty days after Easter, this meant each year varied in length according to when the holy day occurred. In this special case, the festive occasion of a coronation literally warped time.

It is difficult to say how long this metaphysical outlook on sacred or ritual time maintained, but it is clear that English monarchs continued to plan coronations in conference with festivals well into the early modern period. The time-honoured tradition was finally broken when the Hanoverians came to the throne. And though occasion and season have remained relevant, British coronations of the last three centuries have made far less use of the ritual, symbolic and social power available in the festive calendar.

Some Sources on the History of English Coronations

L. G. W. Legg (ed.), English Coronation Records (London: Archibald Constable & Co., 1901).

P. E. Schramm, A History of the English Coronation, trans. L. G. W. Legg (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1937)

A. Hunt, The Drama of Coronation Medieval Ceremony in Early Modern England (Cambridge: CUP, 2008).

R. Strong, Coronation: A History of the British Monarchy (Harper Collins, 2022).

See also http://kingscoronation.com/ for blog posts describing individual coronations.

In 1563 the English Parliament passed the ‘Statute of Artificers’ (aka ‘the Statute’), which sought to regulate wage labour and ‘banish idleness, advance husbandry and yield unto the hired person both in time of scarcity and in the time of plenty a convenient proportion of wages’. Such a lofty aim was to be achieved through three main mechanisms, enforced primarily through the county-level criminal courts (quarter sessions):   

1. Compulsory service for much of the labouring population, with control and oversight of contracts.
2. Control of wages through the regular assessment and setting of maximum rates.
3. Mandated and regulated apprenticeship amongst craftsmen and merchants.

This sprawling suite of legislation built upon and replaced various labour laws enacted since the Black Death, and it would remain the backbone of the country’s labour code until the early 19^th century.

When examined through the lens of ‘freedom or unfreedom’, the Statute appears to underpin an obviously coercive system restricting workers’ agency. Yet, to what extent did this curtailment of freedom extend beyond the law books to reality? This blog post is principally concerned with this question of effective enforcement, a longstanding topic within labour laws historiography. Here I seek to further complicate the debate, by surveying the many levels of labour law enforcement to show just how diffuse mechanisms of enforcement could be, and just how bound the question of ‘effective enforcement’ remains to the survival of certain sources.

Read the full post on the Forms of Labour Conference Blog