HAUNTINGS at HAMPTON COURT

Hampton Court Palace in Greater London is a magnificient Tudor building built br Cardinal Wolsey in the sixteenth ceantury.  It has become world famous for not only being the home of Charles I and II, Elizabeth I and Henry Vlll, but also for its ghosts, which have been seen frequentely in the interior of the palace and in the surrounding grounds.

Jane Seymour, Henry Vlll`s third wife, died at the palace twelve days after giving birth to her son, who later became Edward Vl of England.  She is often seen along the Clock Court or in the Silver Stick gallery, wearing a white robe and carrying a candle.       

                                                                                                                                                        

                                                              Jane Seymour

The ghost of Lady Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry Vlll, is beleived to walk what is now known as the Haunted Gallery.  This haunting is thought by many to be a re-enactment of an actual historical event.   Catherine Howard married an elderly henry in 1540, despite the fact that she had not even reached her twentieth birthday.  The queen was accused of having affairs with younger men, which was classed as high treason, and was sentenced to death for her crime.  When the queen heard newsof the sentence, she ran through the corridors of Hampton Court to her husband`s chapel where he was attending mass, screaming and pleading for her life to be spared.  The king cose to ignore her pleas, and she was beheaded at the Tower of London in February, 1542.  her ghostly screams are heard by some visitors to the palace, and some have seen a shadowy figure run through the Haunted Gallery.        

                                                          

                                                                            Catherine Howard

There is a ghost of a `Gray Lady` at Hampton Court who is thought to be Mrs. Sibell Penn, nurse to Henry VllL`s children.  She died of smallpox in 1562, but her spirit rested in peace until the remains of her body were recovered from St. Mary`s Church, Hampton, after the church was storm damaged in 1892.  Residents at Hampton Court began to hear voices and the whirring sound of a spinning wheel.   A wall was removed close to where the noise was heard, revealing a sealed chamber containing a spinning wheel.  It is thought to be the wheel that belonged to Mrs Penn.  The ghost continued to be seen despite this, and her apparition has been spotted by many separate witnesses.

Also, amongst the strange occurences at the Court are ghostly cavaliers, pageboys and children dressed in Tudor costume.