Enigma of Borley Rectory

by Harry Ludlum

  I have related how the dining room side window was allegedly bricked up because the nun stared full-face at the family at meal times or, as suggested by Price, she was looking at the curious fireplace with its carvings of monks' heads.

  Readers will recall the extraordinary incident in 1900 when some of the Bull sisters came face to face with the nun in their garden. Then there was Fred Cartwright, the carpenter, who insisted that he had walked right past her as she stood by one of the Rectory gateways in 1927. She was seen on a number of occasions after that and there are those who even claim to have seen her face clearly enough to venture the opinion she had been crying.

  However one takes the reports about the nun, all seriously interested parties in the historical side of the Borley story, from Harry Price onwards, have voiced the obvious questions: Who was she? Why did she appear at Borley? What became of her, when and how?

  It is hardly surprising that the Borley Nun should be the focus of more than one spectacular story and a number of very plausible theories. Although some of these stories are incorrect in terms of historical accuracy they form a fascinating part of the Borley story and, for the interest of the newcomer to the episode, they bear retelling.

  The most spectacular and unlikely of all these stories is the one about the Novice of Bures, a story that varies from one account to the next.

  Basically, the background to the tale was that during the 13th century there was a monastery at Borley and a nunnery at Bures, which lies some six or seven miles from Borley. Both statements as such are, from available evidence, erroneous. However, supposedly a beautiful young novice from Bures became intimate with a lay brother at Borley, which would have incurred the most severe censure on the part of the monastic authorities, and the two eventually took it into their heads to elope.

  The lay brother supposedly enlisted the assistance of a fellow monk to have a carriage waiting in the woodland at Borley for the couple's escape. They were pursued at once, upon their escape being discovered, and caught. The party were taken back to Borley, where the lay brother and maybe the coachman were beheaded and the hapless novice condemned to be walled up alive somewhere in the monastery grounds. A thrilling tale indeed, and one that has shown itself since to be a yarn in the best tradition of English folklore, and it is just that!

  To begin with, the doubts about the Bures and Borley monastic establishments have already been stated, although as explained in the chapter on the monastery controversy, not without some qualification.

  Secondly, the carriage of the story is completely out of historical period. Carriages as such did not appear until the 15th century and at that very early date they were of the crudest kind and totally useless for the sort of escape or rapid travel of the kind envisaged in the story of the novice of Bures.

  Finally, it has long been the common opinion that English nuns were not punished for sins against their vows by being walled up alive, though there is some evidence to suggest that this act of cruelty was inflicted on nuns in some foreign countries.

  A much more plausible line of thought concerns the story of the Catholic sister of Le Havre, variations of which form probably the best known of all the more sensible theories about the Borley nun. Basically, this theory was arrived at on the basis of several factors, among which were the efforts of Canon Pythian Adams of Carlisle. He took as a starting point the wall writings at the Rectory, examples of the planchette results obtained by the Glanvilles and some of his own general knowledge of the various religious houses, and produced the fascinating following scenario.

  He considered that the story centred on a scandal in one of the religious houses of former times, possibly one associated with the Orders of Cambrai. His suggestion was that at a time when members of the Waldegrave family might be in France with their Catholic cousins, one of the men came into contact with a young woman in a convent in Le Havre, surreptitiously no doubt, as any open approach would surely have been rebuked by authority.

  By some means the girl was induced to leave the convent in the belief that she was soon to become young Waldegrave's wife. She was then supposedly brought to Borley, in secret, and there placed in the care of family servants at the old Borley Manor house that, according to tradition, stood on what later became the Rectory site, and which now seems fairly well established as having actually existed as a Rectory or chaplain's house.

  Supposedly, young Waldegrave then went away on other business, leaving his potential bride alone among strangers in what was to her a foreign land. She waited for his return, standing by the Rectory gate each day watching for his carriage, and growing increasingly sad and distraught. When eventually he did return, it was only for the young girl to discover that he had found a more profitable match, and that not only was this unfortunate French girl no longer wanted, but was indeed an obstruction to Waldegrave's plans.

  As such, Waldegrave then decided that as she might well protest at her betrayal, she must be done away with, whereupon he had her strangled and her corpse thrown down a well in the grounds.

  Among many things that led Canon Adams to this extraordinary view of what might have happened were the results of several sessions by Helen Glanville, her brother Roger and Sidney Glanville with a planchette and table tipping experiments at Borley Rectory and, on one occasion, at Helen's home in south London.

  During the course of these sessions, it is reported that contact had been made with the spirit of a young French novice, Marie Lairre. Her story was a very confused one. She claimed to have come from Le Havre, to have been a nun at Bures and to have been killed by 'Waldegrave', and/or by someone called Henry at Borley on May 17, 1667, when she was 19 years of age. She said she had been buried in the grounds.

  Both the above theories, that of Canon Pythian Adams and the planchette revelations of Marie Lairre, seem now to be historically more plausible, especially in respect of the coach and horses, which make no sense at all of the 13th-century tale of the novice of Bures, but does make some sense of Marie Lairre of Le Havre, assuming of course that the carriage and its reputedly headless driver relates to the nun at all. At this state, I wonder whether the coach and horses is a pointer to something that happened much later. That we have still to try to discover.

  The name that emerged during those sessions in 1937 has remained ever since and the Borley nun is always known as Marie Lairre. The name has also been applied, by some sections of the popular press, to the seemingly impossible 13th-century novice of Bures.

  In 1947, in a letter of February 17, a Mr G. S. Taylor told Harry Price that he had received a message from 'beyond' that Marie Lairre was born on September 27, 1647 in either Caudibec or Caldibec and that she had entered a nunnery of St Francois de Sales in Le Havre. Unfortunately, the name 'Caldibec' had appeared in the planchette messages, extracts of which appeared in both The Most Haunted House in England and The End of Borley Rectory, written by Harry Price. The former was published in 1940 and the latter in 1946, so Mr Taylor would have had ample opportunity to see both books.

  If the nun had in fact been received into a convent in Le Havre, then the proper name of the town from which she supposedly came would have been Caudebec, or to give it its full title, Caudebec en Caux, on the Seine between Havre and Rouen in Normandy.

  Personal enquiries made in Caudebec en Caux revealed the biggest barrier to unearthing any evidence about the case of the Borley nun in France. This obstacle was the result of the Nazi occupation, for like so many other Normandy towns, including Le Havre and Caen, Caudebec en Caux was all but flattened during the fighting, with most of the town's archives, housed in the Town Hall, being destroyed.

  All that survives about the details of Caudebec's past is now in the care of the regional archives of Seine Maritime, at Cours Clemenceau in Rouen. The results of subsequent investigation there were that there was nothing to substantiate Taylor's theory about the nun Marie Lairre having originated from Caudebec in 1647 or at any other time. It also revealed that there was no proof
of the existence of a convent of St Francois de Sales in Le Havre.

  I then consulted the municipal archives of Le Havre itself, which showed that St Francois was a small parish church and that the name 'Lairre' was commonplace in Normandy in the 17th century. Le Havre did have one order of nuns at that time, namely the Sisters of St Thomas de Villeneuve. As I discovered later, no foreign order had any connection with the houses that we refer to as the Sisters of Mercy in Britain and, as far as can be discovered, the nuns of Le Havre were not of this order either.

  A local historian, Mrs Georgina Dawson, claimed sometime before the war to have found evidence that the Borley nun was neither from Bures nor Le Havre, but was in fact an obscure member of the Waldegrave family, whose life was something of a puzzle because while most of the Waldegrave daughters can be accounted for, seemingly one of them vanished without trace.

  According to Mrs Dawson, Arabella Waldegrave as a baby was taken to France with her family when they followed the deposed King James II to the continent as loyal Catholics. In due course she was placed in a convent at Pontoise, and allegedly, several years later, she was expelled for some misdemeanour. After that, all trace of her was lost, but one suggestion was that she had been enlisted as a spy for the Stuarts and by some course of events came to Borley and was killed there. There are allegations that her mother, Henrietta, was also thrown out of the French court, supposedly for spying.

  Arabella Waldegrave and Marie Lairre were brought together in a rather fascinating theory put forward by Mary Lycett of Surbiton, Surrey, who wrote of her ideas on August 17, 1952. So, to quote from her letter:

  The Borley Nun

  'Arabella Waldegrave, the grand-daughter of James II by his natural daughter Henrietta Waldegrave, married to Baron Waldegrave of Chewton, Devon. (Here Mary has made an error, the Waldegrave seat of Chewton Mendip being in Somerset. IB.) In 1668 she is taken by her parents to France, where as loyal subjects, they follow James II. She is placed by her impecunious parents in the convent of Pontoise to be educated.

  Although an English order, French is the main language spoken by the pupils, consequently Arabella is more French than English, which language she speaks and writes as a foreigner.

  Against her inclination she is destined by her family to become a nun. Her novitiate commences in a Parisian convent and she takes the name of 'Soeur Marie Lairre' (could it be Lazarre? ML) and ceases to be Arabella Waldegrave.

  Somewhere, she has met her handsome cousin Henry Waldegrave, son of Philip, Lord Waldegrave of Borley. They are in love. Marie Lairre is removed to a convent near Le Havre but before her vows are taken Henry Waldegrave effects her escape and they make for a port to board a ship to England.

  By mere chance they meet Marie's mother, Henrietta Waldegrave, now an active spy for the Hanoverian party. She has become embittered by poverty and the fact of James II's neglect to recognise her claim to relationship. Marie implores her mother for help, but this is given only on condition that she will assist her mother's plans.

  Marie promises, without fully realising what these are, and Henrietta entrusts valuable documents to her to take to London. Marie is sworn to secrecy. The lovers are married and sail for England, arriving at the little port of Langenhoe in Essex.

  Henry places Marie in the care of old Amos, his wife and a young servant maid, Janen, at the old disused Rectory of Borley. Eventually he tells his father of his marriage and a terrible scene follows and Henry is sent away. Marie is kept in strict seclusion, nobody is aware of her existence and Lord Waldegrave prepares to send her back to France.

  The poor girl pines in solitude. Grief and remorse torment her. She goes to the gate each evening, longing for the coach to bring Henry and effect her release. She has the documents to deliver and this she must do without Henry's knowledge, for he must know nothing of Henrietta Waldegrave's plans.

  The faithful Janen helps her, and persuades her sweetheart, Enoch, to obtain a coach to take Marie to London. One dark night Enoch drives the coach to the old Rectory and waits for Marie and Janen, but just as they are getting in, Lord Waldegrave, Henry and Amos spring out of the bushes and surround them. Enoch is stabbed to death by Henry in a jealous fury, and Marie is imprisoned in a small priest's cell in the old crypt, approached only by a secret passage.

  The horrified Waldegraves find the documents and discover the act of treachery by one of their family. Poor Janen is murdered to silence her, and buried hurriedly in the old plague pit. Marie is harshly treated, starved and taunted. Finally even water is denied to her to induce her to confess. Henry, infuriated by her obstinacy, strangles her and her body is carried at the dead of night and thrown into the deepest part of the stream.

  Later, fearing discovery, the Waldegraves dredge the stream and scatter Marie's bones under the floor of the now completely deserted Rectory, which is closed for over 100 years.

  The Waldegraves have performed, in their eyes, an act of justice on their fair but frail relation, Marie Arabella Lairre or Waldegrave, who they imagine to have tarnished the family honour and to have betrayed both her religion and her king.'

  * * *

  I must offer a note of caution. If one studies the Pythian Adams scenario and then Georgina Dawson's apparent revelations concerning Arabella Waldegrave, and takes into account some of the ideas resulting from the planchette experiments, it becomes apparent that Mary Lycett's theory is something of a mix of the two.

  Canon Pythian Adams' suggested chain of events and the apparent course of the life of Arabella Waldegrave were both detailed in The End of Borley Rectory, by Harry Price, published in 1946. It is rather a pity that Mary Lycett's theory came to light after and not before Price's publication, for had the latter been the case, it might have carried more clout as a possible train of events.

  A number of questions arise from her ideas though.

  Firstly, assuming that any of the theories about the mystery of the nun have a basis in reality, was she a novice or professed nun?

  If she was a nun, was a request to be released from her vows submitted to the cardinals in Rome for their consideration?

  If that was not done, did she leave the convent willingly or was she abducted?

  There seems to be one possible answer, however. Towards the end of the 17th century, there arose among religious orders on the Continent, a dispute over the matter of confessors. According to the archives of Darlington Carmel, this resulted in a great upheaval among the exiled English nuns in France and the Low Countries. The opinion expressed to me was that some associated incident could be connected with the Borley nun. The upshot of this dispute was that Rome imposed secular clergy, which was not without its darker moments.

  Herein lies the possibility that the character of the Borley nun is a ghost of conscience, due to some possible involvement in this upheaval in her lifetime, and not the ghost of a victim of murder or some other unfortunate event. In this connection, one's attention is turned perhaps to the two daughters of Sir Nicholas Waldegrave of Borley, and of them there will be more to tell.

  During a search through Sir William Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicinum (London, 1817), a check was made of the few foreign houses listed, including French establishments. Included among these was a short entry concerning a small monastery at Lyre in Normandy. The writer was struck with the similarity of the name Lyre, as compared with Lairre, the name of the supposed Borley nun.

  It seemed doubtful that such an error could occur in the interpretation of the French language in France itself, but in England, where so many words once of Norman French origin have been corrupted, it seemed at least possible that the name Lairre had arisen out of a misinterpretation, either by the planchette users at Borley or even earlier.

  Was it possible that the name Lairre, so long accepted as being the name of a person, was in fact a corruption of the name of a place? For example, had the name progressed: Lyre-Lire-Lirre-Lairre? If so, then what of the other names from the planchette? Fadenoch or Father Enoch for exam
ple. Should it have been read as Fadeneau or Fadeneux? - a French monk or cardinal perhaps?

  Lyre, or to give it its full name, La Nouveau Lyre (the New Lyre) is a tiny, almost unknown town on the River Risle, lying roughly in an area bounded by the cities and towns of Evreux, Conche and L'Aigle. In fact the small community consists of two scattered parts: the New Lyre and La Viexille Lyre, the latter place being about a mile from Lyre proper and being a scattered village, not unlike Borley.

  As recorded in Dugdale, Lyre lay within the diocese of Evreux and, in 1046, William Fitzosbern, Senechal of Normandy, founded the monastery at Lyre. Its foundation was recorded by the French historian, William of Jumieges, and in the Nuestra Pia list 27 Abbots of Lyre are named.

  Lyre monastery was still in existence in 1650 and the supposed date of the murder of Marie Lairre at Borley was 1667, 17 years later. More questions now reared their heads.

  Firstly, was it possible that there might be a link between the names of Lyre and Lairre and, secondly, did Lyre monastery have any connection with East Anglia, particularly in relation to either Borley or Bures?

  Also, did Lyre monastery have an attachment of nuns, particularly in the mid to late 1600s?

  I made numerous enquiries and found nothing to connect Lyre with Marie Lairre, and Lyre monastery was host to no nuns. So the involvement of Lyre as a possible source of this elusive young nun who seemed to be so often pleading for help from the occupants of Borley Rectory faded away.

  However, the disposal of Lyre did not necessarily mean an end to the possibilities of an interconnected place mix-up. In Belgium there is another town with the same name, though in this case it is spelt Lier. The case for Lier, near Brussels, seems to be stronger.

  The salient point here is that daughters from among the Waldegrave family became nuns with the Brussels Benedictines. Arabella Fitzjames, said to be the youngest child of King James II by Arabella Churchill, whose family had links with the Waldegraves, started as a novice on April 16, 1689 and was professed a nun on April 30, 1690, at the age of 16.