Vampires of Great Britain

by Tom Slemen

  A few years ago the chaplain of a certain illustrious lady, casting off mortality, was consigned to the tomb in that noble monastery which is called Melrose. This man, having little respect for the sacred order to which he belonged, was excessively secular in his pursuits, and - what especially blackens his reputation as a minister of the holy sacrament - so addicted to the vanity of the chase as to be designated by many by the infamous title of "Hundeprest" or the dog-priest; and this occupation, during his lifetime, was either laughed at by men, or considered in a worldly view; but after his death - as the event showed - the guiltiness of it was brought to light: for, issuing from the grave at night-time, he was prevented by the meritorious resistance of its holy inmates from injuring or terrifying any one with in the monastery itself; whereupon he wandered beyond the walls, and hovered chiefly, with loud groans and horrible murmurs, round the bedchamber of his former mistress. She, after this had frequently occurred, becoming exceedingly terrified, revealed her fears or danger to one of the friars who visited her about the business of the monastery; demanding with tears that prayers more earnest than usual should be poured out to the Lord in her behalf as for one in agony. With whose anxiety the friar -- for she appeared deserving of the best endeavours, on the part of the holy convent of that place, by her frequent donations to it -- piously and justly sympathized, and promised a speedy remedy through the mercy of the Most High Provider for all.

  Thereupon, returning to the monastery, he obtained the companionship of another friar, of equally determined spirit, and two powerful young men, with whom he intended with constant vigilance to keep guard over the cemetery where that miserable priest lay buried. These four, therefore, furnished with arms and animated with courage, passed the night in that place, safe in the assistance which each afforded to the other. Midnight had now passed by, and no monster appeared; upon which it came to pass that three of the party, leaving him only who had sought their company on the spot, departed into the nearest house, for the purpose, as they averred, of warming themselves, for the night was cold. As soon as this man was left alone in this place, the devil, imagining that he had found the right moment for breaking his courage, incontinently roused up his own chosen vessel, who appeared to have reposed longer than usual. Having beheld this from afar, he grew stiff with terror by reason of his being alone; but soon recovering his courage, and no place of refuge being at hand, he valiantly withstood the onset of the fiend, who came rushing upon him with a terrible noise, and he struck the axe which he wielded in his hand deep into his body. On receiving this wound, the monster groaned aloud, and turning his back, fled with a rapidity not at all interior to that with which he had advanced, while the admirable man urged his flying foe from behind, and compelled him to seek his own tomb again; which opening of its own accord, and receiving its guest from the advance of the pursuer, immediately appeared to close again with the same facility. In the meantime, they who, impatient of the coldness of the night, had retreated to the fire ran up, though somewhat too late, and, having heard what had happened, rendered needful assistance in digging up and removing from the midst of the tomb the accursed corpse at the earliest dawn. When they had divested it of the clay cast forth with it, they found the huge wound it had received, and a great quantity of gore which had flowed from it in the sepulchre; and so having carried it away beyond the walls of the monastery and burnt it, they scattered the ashes to the winds. These things I have explained in a simple narration, as I myself heard them recounted by religious men.

  Another event, also, not unlike this, but more pernicious in its effects, happened at the castle which is called Anantis, as I have heard from an aged monk who lived in honour and authority in those parts, and who related this event as having occurred in his own presence. A certain man of evil conduct flying, through fear of his enemies or the law, out of the province of York, to the lord of the before-named castle, took up his abode there, and having cast upon a service befitting his humour, laboured hard to increase rather than correct his own evil propensities. He married a wife, to his own ruin indeed, as it afterwards appeared; for, hearing certain rumours respecting her, he was vexed with the spirit of Jealousy. Anxious to ascertain the truth of these reports, he pretended to be going on a journey from which he would not return for some days; but coming back in the evening, he was privily introduced into his bedroom by a maidservant, who was in the secret, and lay hidden on a beam overhanging, his wife's chamber, that he might prove with his own eyes if anything were done to the dishonour of his marriage-bed. Thereupon beholding his wife in the act of fornication with a young man of the neighbourhood, and in his indignation forgetful of his purpose, he fell, and was dashed heavily to the ground, near where they were lying.

  The adulterer himself leaped up and escaped; but the wife, cunningly dissembling the fact, busied herself in gently raising her fallen husband from the earth. As soon as he had partially recovered, he upbraided her with her adultery, and threatened punishment; but she answering, "Explain yourself, my lord," said she; "you are speaking unbecomingly which must be imputed not to you, but to the sickness with which you are troubled." Being much shaken by the fall, and his whole body stupefied, he was attacked with a disease, insomuch that the man whom I have mentioned as having related these facts to me visiting him in the pious discharge of his duties, admonished him to make confession of his sins, and receive the Christian Eucharist in proper form: but as he was occupied in thinking about what had happened to him, and what his wife had said, put off the wholesome advice until the morrow -- that morrow which in this world he was fated never to behold! -- for the next night, destitute of Christian grace, and a prey to his well-earned misfortunes, he shared the deep slumber of death. A Christian burial, indeed, he received, though unworthy of it; but it did not much benefit him: for issuing, by the handiwork of Satan, from his grave at night-time, and pursued by a pack of dogs with horrible barkings, he wandered through the courts and around the houses while all men made fast their doors, and did not dare to go abroad on any errand whatever from the beginning of the night until the sunrise, for fear of meeting and being beaten black and blue by this vagrant monster. But those precautions were of no avail; for the atmosphere, poisoned by the vagaries of this foul carcass, filled every house with disease and death by its pestiferous breath.

  Already did the town, which but a short time ago was populous, appear almost deserted; while those of its inhabitants who had escaped destruction migrated to other parts of the country, lest they too should die. The man from whose mouth I heard these things, sorrowing over this desolation of his parish, applied himself to summon a meeting of wise and religious men on that sacred day which is called Palm Sunday, in order that they might impart healthful counsel in so great a dilemma, and refresh the spirits of the miserable remnant of the people with consolation, however imperfect. Having delivered a discourse to the inhabitants, after the solemn ceremonies of the holy day had been properly performed, he invited his clerical guests, together with the other persons of honour who were present, to his table. While they were thus banqueting, two young men (brothers), who had lost their father by this plague, mutually encouraging one another, said, "This monster has already destroyed our father, and will speedily destroy us also, unless we take steps to prevent it. Let us, therefore, do some bold action which will at once ensure our own safety and revenge our father's death. There is no one to hinder us; for in the priest's house a feast is in progress, and the whole town is as silent as if deserted. Let us dig up this baneful pest, and burn it with fire."

  Thereupon snatching up a spade of but indifferent sharpness of edge, and hastening to the cemetery, they began to dig; and whilst they were thinking that they would have to dig to a greater depth, they suddenly, before much of the earth had been removed, laid bare the corpse, swollen to an enormous corpulence, with its countenance beyond measure turgid and suffused with blood; while the napkin in which it had been wrapped appeared nearly torn to pieces. The young men, however, s
purred on by wrath, feared not, and inflicted a wound upon the senseless carcass, out of which incontinently flowed such a stream of blood, that it might have been taken for a leech filled with the blood of many persons. Then, dragging it beyond the village, they speedily constructed a funeral pile; and upon one of them saying that the pestilential body would not burn unless its heart were torn out, the other laid open its side by repeated blows of the blunted spade, and, thrusting in his hand, dragged out the accursed heart. This being torn piecemeal, and the body now consigned to the flames, it was announced to the guests what was going on, who, running thither, enabled themselves to testify henceforth to the circumstances. When that infernal hell-hound had thus been destroyed, the pestilence which was rife among the people ceased, as if the air, which had been corrupted by the contagious motions of the dreadful corpse, were already purified by the fire which had consumed it.

  We now leave the medieval era and move forward in time as we continue our search for more English vampires…

  The Doggett Vampire Case

  Dorset is the home of the headless phantom of the Duke of Monmouth, so the ghost-hunters and folklorists say. The so-called Monmouth Ash Tree, standing between the villages of Woodlands and Horton, is said to mark the spot where the Duke was captured after his escape from the swamps of Sedgemoor in July 1685, and the grisly phantom of the long-dead Duke has been seen in the locality, minus his head. He met a gruesome end in the Tower of London for his rebellion, and it took several blows of the executioner’s axe to chop the head off completely. The Monmouth Ash Tree, under which the Duke was apprehended, became a shrine to him after his death, with many of his friends and admirers visiting the tree over the years to carve their initials into its trunk. The family of the woman who betrayed the Duke was detested and cursed. She herself was said to have been afflicted with a horrific wasting disease, and members of her family died from mysterious illnesses within months of one another. The cottage the family had inhabited collapsed not long after these uncanny deaths, and a strange tall man in black was said to prowl the ruins after dark. The general consensus was that the figure was that of a vampire. A vagrant sleeping in the ruins of the cottage awakened one morning with blood pouring from a neck wound that refused to clot for hours. Days later, a young lady passing the cottage to rendezvous with her secret lover had her necks and breasts bitten by a tall dark stranger in a flowing cloak When she screamed for help he seemed to vanish into the night. Travellers passing the cottage ruins wore talismans and gypsy charms to protect themselves from the entity, which seemed to be most active on nights of the full moon. The face of the alleged vampire was chalk-white, his eyes were deep red, and his breath was said to be ‘plague-ridden’. In all of the reports he is described as wearing a long cape, similar to an opera cloak. Seven miles north-east of the Monmouth Ash Tree lies the sleepy little village of Tarrant Gunville, situated at the head of the Tarrant Valley, close to the mysterious Neolithic earthwork known as the Dorset Cursus, which runs over six miles across the chalk downland of Cranborne Chase. To the east of Tarrant Gunville stands the surviving west pavilion of a stately Georgian home named Eastbury House, built by George Doddington, a Lord of the Admiralty, in the early 18th century. Doddington died in 1720 with Eastbury House unfinished. He bequeathed the unfinished mansion, along with thirty-thousand pounds to a corpulent dandy of a nephew named George Bubb. In the last year of Bubb’s life, he became the Baron Melcombe of Melcombe Regis when King George III granted him a peerage. The cost of running such a large residence as Eastbury House was prohibitive to the two people who inherited it after the death of Melcombe in 1762. Richard, Earl Temple was the first of these, and he in turn to George, second Earl Temple. He was prepared to offer anyone £200 per annum if they would live at Eastbury House and look after the place, but had no takers. In the end, as Earl Temple was living at his retreat in Italy (for health reasons), his loyal steward, William Doggett, was given the responsibility of dealing with the white elephant property, and acting in what he imagined to be his master’s best interests, he decided to demolish the south wing of Eastbury House and sold the rare building materials to make money for himself. Lord Temple returned from Italy and Doggett, full of guilt and shame, decided to shoot himself through the head. He died instantly and the stain left from the pool of blood around his head soaked through the carpet and floorboards and proved impossible to remove. Surprisingly, Doggett’s body was buried in the consecrated ground of Tarrant Gunville Churchyard; in those days, the Church arranged for all suicide victims to be buried in unconsecrated ground, often at crossroads with a stake hammered through their mid-sections to prevent them from rising and walking. However, it seems William Doggett still ‘walked’ after his death, despite being interred in the sanctified soil of a churchyard. Three days after his funeral, William Doggett walked the earth again as a vampiric predator, wearing a long dark violet coat, his wig, and knee breeches tied with his distinctive yellow silk ribbon. Those unlucky enough to encounter him from close quarters saw that his eyes were lifeless and sunken, and his mouth was a frowning crescent from which long pointed teeth protruded. He prowled near the gates of Eastbury House for several nights, and was later seen peering into the windows of his former home. Poachers in the area were allegedly attacked by him one moonless night, and one of them was seriously wounded by a deep bite-wound to his forearm. The poacher is said to have died days later under a hedgerow, foaming at the mouth as he went into convulsions. That poacher was burned by his friends in a clearing of a local wood to prevent him returning to life as one of the ‘undead’. Months later, a young man from the nearby village of Witchampton was fooling around whilst thatching a cottage one day and tragically fell and broke his neck. A wake was held and he was placed in a polished elm coffin and put on display in the front room of his home. During the night, noises were heard in that front room and the father of the household investigated and found a ghastly-looking man sucking the neck of his dead son – who was now sitting upright in the coffin with blank white eyes. The father was confused and horrified, and he went to fetch a sword he kept upstairs at his bedside. When he returned, the bloodsucking ghoul had gone, and his son was lying in his coffin as normal again, only there were two deep puncture marks on the throat. The son was duly buried days later, but his solid-looking ghost was seen on many occasions, and it often stalked two girls who had known the dead son when he was alive. A Catholic priest is said to have visited the local churchyard in the end, to exhume the son’s body and exorcise the evil spirit that had turned it into a vampire. When the son’s corpse was examined, fresh blood was found on the lips, and the face had a rosy complexion. Sliding the eyelids back, the priest saw that the eyes were red and flecked with gold. An exorcism was performed immediately, and before the coffin lid was replaced, a rosary was strung around the neck of the corpse. After that, the son’s apparition was seen no more, but the vampire Doggett remained at large for many years, until he too was exhumed in the year 1845. The body bore not a trace of decomposition, but looked fresh and in the best of health. Some say Doggett’s eyes opened with a look of terror before a vampire-hunter hammered a hawthorn stake through his heart, finally ending his reign of terror.

  Decades before Doggett was born, another vampire is said to have stalked the Dorset countryside, but information on this bloodsucker is very scarce. Sometime in the 17th century, two drunken robbers of Evershot decided to attack an old man who was thought to be carrying a bag of gold coins. The robbers ambushed the elderly man as he returned from an inn, searched him, found the gold, and then sadistically beat him up before inflicting a terrible blow to his head with a large stone. The oldster was found at the roadside shortly afterwards, groaning unconsciously as his brains spilled from his skull like the yoke from a cracked egg. The old man died soon after, and his killers were subsequently brought to justice after a landlord heard them joking about their sadistic act in his inn. The murderers were fastened alive in iron cages similar to the gibbets hanged
men were displayed in. The men were left in the cages that were chained either side of an oak tree on branches, and there they were left to die of thirst, starvation and exposure to the inclement weather. The doomed duo begged food and drink from passers by, but even the most sympathetic person who heard their cries dared not help them or he or she would be punished by the law. One of the men bit into his own hand and arm to consume his own flesh and wet his dried throat with his own blood, and within days the miscreants became so weak and despondent, they gave up all hope and waited for death. A heavy shower roused the hungry men and quenched their first for a short while, but when night fell, they shivered in their soaked clothes. One night, as the lives of the dangling men ebbed away in their cages, something terrifying and unearthly took place. A shadowy figure of a man approached in the moonlight and stopped beneath the cages. He wore a flowing cape and his face was ashen. He glanced up at the caged murderers, then flew up to one of their cages like a bird. He reached between the bars of the cage and pulled out the arm of one of the men, then bit his wrist. A night watchman witnessed this and ran to the village to raise the alarm, for he knew the flying caped man was a vampire who had been on the prowl for many years in the area. When the watchman and several men returned, they saw that one of the murderers had somehow escaped from his cage. The bars had been wrenched apart. The other caged killer died that night as he was quizzed over his friend’s incredible escape. That same night, the landlord of the inn who had been responsible for the killer’s detection and arrest was attacked in his bed by an intruder who tore the flesh from his face with his clawed hands. The landlord was also bitten on the neck and arms as he tried to defend himself. He fought back at the assailant, swinging a poker he kept under his bed, and was astonished to see the intruder flee to the open bedroom window and dive suicidally into the street. The eerie attacker suffered no harm when he landed on the cobbled road, but ran off at a phenomenal speed into the darkness. The landlord became very ill, and began to suffer from strange hallucinations. He began to suffer from incessant palpitations of the heart which made sleeping impossible, and so he decided to end his life by plunging a knife through his heart.