The approach of Halloween and plethora of pumpkins made it seem an appropriate time to discuss the infamous Cock Lane ghost, and what the bizarre saga tells us about law, power and religion, both historically and in the contemporary world.
The episode began with a tangled love story, starting in Norfolk rather than London. William Kent and Elizabeth Lynes had married, despite some disparity in the social status. Elizabeth was from gentry stock, whereas William’s family had only recently come into money, making them less respectable in Georgian eyes. Nevertheless, when Elizabeth became pregnant, her relatives had little choice but to accept the situation and arrange a wedding. The couple set up house together and Elizabeth’s younger sister Frances, or Fanny, joined them to provide help and support as the pregnancy advanced. Sadly, Elizabeth died very shortly after the birth of her son, and the baby only survived his mother by a few months. William and Fanny comforted each other in their grief, and fell in love.
Unfortunately for all concerned, the law of time did not permit a man to marry his deceased wife’s sister. The pair attempted to separate, but their mutual attraction proved so strong that they eventually plotted for Fanny to run away and meet William in his new London home. Fanny’s siblings were predictably enraged, and rather than hushing up the scandal, did everything they could to spread the news. The scandal got the couple kicked out of their lodgings, and sent them on a panicked search for accommodation. This meant that when they attended morning prayer at St Sepulchre’s Church, and got chatting to the officiating clerk, they were pleased to discover that he was looking for new lodgers in his house in Cock Lane. At first glance, it seemed like a happy coincidence for all concerned.
What neither William nor Fanny could have known at that stage, was that the clerk, Richard Parsons, was an alcoholic with a chaotic life and a chequered reputation. At first the families were on good terms, Fanny became especially attached to Richard’s young daughter Betty, and even asked if she would come and spend the night in her room when William was away on business. During this time, unexplained banging and scratching noises started to bother the household, and despite investigation, no cause was found. Domestic harmony was further disturbed when William lent Richard money, and Richard defaulted on the repayments. In the ensuing row, Richard made a clumsy attempt to blackmail William about his illicit relationship, which only escalated the situation. Richard flung William and Fanny’s belongings into the street, a decision which left them homeless and him without an income stream. It also set off a chain of events which ultimately landed him in the dock facing serious criminal charges, and egg on the face of various high-profile members of London’s intelligentsia, including Dr Johnson.
Shortly after moving out, Fanny died of small-pox, only weeks before her first child would have been born. To lose another partner and child must have been a devasting blow for William, but he did not find much sympathy amongst the Cock Lane locals. Strange noises were again heard in the Parsons’ house, and the family readily connected what they deemed to be supernatural activity with the immorality of their former tenants. At first the spirit was said to be Elizabeth Lynes, but after Fanny’s death, the noises were attributed to her distressed ghost. The disturbance seemed to focus around eleven year old Betty, with whom Fanny had been especially friendly. On only one occasion was the ghost actually seen by anyone, and this occurred when a figure in a white sheet passed by James Franzen, a friend of Richard’s who was visiting the Parsons’ home. It is worth noting that Franzen had just been told by Richard about the haunting, had been drinking at the time and was actively prevented by Betty from following the ghostly figure upstairs to investigate.
Richard consulted John Moore, assistant preacher at St Sepulchre’s church and asked for advice. Moore took Richard’s story seriously, and when visiting the home experienced the ghost for himself. Listening to the banging, Moore devised a system of yes and no taps for communication, and used this to question the spirit. The story emerged that that it was indeed Fanny, and that she had no died of illness, but been poisoned by her murderous husband. From this point onwards, rumour and local curiosity rapidly snowballed into a sensation which engulfed the metropolis. Accounts were published in the press, and visiting Cock Lane to hear the ghost soon became a fashionable evening activity, so much so that even royalty dropped in. Night after night, Betty and her sister were put to bed, and hoards of strangers crowded into their room to wait for the show to begin.
Some people, including Dr Johnson, were convinced by the experience. Others were a lot more sceptical, and pointed out the obvious potential for fraud in a darkened room. In the end, Richard Parsons’ exploitative focus on Betty was to prove his undoing. Since the ghost was allegedly tied to her, rather than the Cock Lane house, there were inevitably demands for her to be taken elsewhere. Richard could only resist so long, and when Betty was in the care of neutral observers, she was caught making the noises.
Uproar and indignation ensued. The sceptical voices like Horace Walpole gloated and preened themselves for the rationality and sophistication, whilst those who had believed in the spirit fumed at the scam. (London was still smarting from the Elizabeth Canning saga, when a woman had successfully convinced a lot of people, including some doctors, that she was giving birth to rabbits. These kind of incidents were an affront to elite self-perception that Georgian Britain was an enlightened society). William Kent was of course especially unhappy, not only had he has all of his dirty laundry aired in public in terms of two extra-marital pregnancies and an illicit cohabitation, he had been at serious risk of a trial for a capital crime. Lots of people wanted payback.
Richard Parsons was tried for conspiracy, along with his wife (another Elizabeth) and Mary Fraser, a local woman who had taken part in the charade. They were joined by the Rev’d Mr John Moore and fellow clergyman and Methodist Richard James, who were also held publicly accountable for their involvement. There was a social and political dimension to charging the clergy involved, Methodism at this time was seen as an uncomfortable threat by many orthodox Church of England voices. There was unease about a movement which galvanised and addressed the socially deprived, and which explicitly critiqued the hypocrisy and indifference of many clergy within the Established Church. One form of push-back was to dismiss Methodist sympathisers as irrational or credulous, believing in absurd claims of signs and wonders. There was a strong element of class prejudice in this line of argument, the poor were ridiculed and upbraided for believing in ghosts and superstition, but gentlemen were expected to have more knowledge and rational understanding. Not only was it disruptive for Church of England clergy to be helping to whip up rumours of the supernatural, in the eyes of many, it was effectively a betrayal of their class and the norms of behaviour expected of them.
Consequently, the response of the authorities and legal system in putting both Parsons and the clergy involved on trial, was a public, ritual reassertion of elite expectations. The law was being used to enforce and assert societal values. It was an affront for the lower classes to deceive, embarrass and even corrupt those above them in the social hierarchy, and it was a transgression of boundaries for gentleman clergy to affirm the superstitious claims of the poor. The fact that so many from the upper echelons of society had flirted with the possible reality of the ghost, demonstrated that the frontiers between the culture and values of different classes were more permeable than was comfortable. The trial was an opportunity for the authorities to redraw those lines.
In light of all of this, it is not surprising that all defendants were found guilty. The clergy were able to buy their way out of further prison time or physical punishment, but their co-defendants were not so lucky. The women were incarcerated and Richard was sentenced to the pillory in addition to prison. Interestingly however, the crowds had more pity on Richard than the sentencing judge. When chained up in public, he was not pelted with refuse and excrement, but was given donations of money from sympathisers.
The whole incident illustrates how complicated justice can be, and how the law can never be a neutral instrument. The clergymen who faced trial were almost certainly sincere believers in the ghost, and were made an example of largely due to wider anxieties around the social and political implications of the Methodist movement. In contrast, Richard Parsons, his wife and family friend Mary Fraser were almost certainly involved in a deliberate fraud. On the one hand, spreading vindictive rumours about William and Fanny are difficult to overlook; even in an era when sin was expected to lead to a dismal end, baselessly accusing a grieving husband of murder was extremely cruel. On the other, it appears very possible that they never intended the haunting to take on the life that it did. It is likely that there really were unexplained sounds, caused by rodents or the creaking of a ramshackle house. It is easy to imagine how a mixture of boredom, genuine beliefs in spirits and a simmering resentment towards William Kent, could coalesces bit by bit into a juicy tale for gossip. No doubt they initially enjoyed the attention and money it brought, and then panicked when the situation got bigger than their wildest dreams or worst nightmares. The Cock Lane haunting only became the phenomenon that it did because hoards of privileged people kept fuelling the fire, mainly with the motive of seeking entertainment.
The truth is that a lot of people were enjoying the excitement and the theatre of the ghost story whilst it lasted, but the law came down heavily on the marginalised when the bubble burst. It is worth considering how often our contemporary modern political and legal system might operate in a similar way.
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