The New Murrey and Blue blog

When Archbishop of York Richard Scrope was beheaded on 8 June 1405 he gained the distinction of being the first prelate of such high rank to be executed for treason. I can think of at least two more who should have suffered a similar fate, Thomas Arundel (Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury (1353-1414) (luminarium.org)) and John Morton (Wars of the Roses: Archbishop John Morton (c.1420-1500) (luminarium.org)). Both were  Archbishops of Canterbury no less, but for their many sins of treason they died in their beds!

I do not wish to go into the details of how and why Richard Scrope ended up on the block (which is all very well-known) because I’m concerned with a rather supernatural event connected to him, but if you wish to know his actual life story, try these links: https://www.historytoday.com/archive/archbishop-scrope-and-thomas-mowbray-executed and https://luminarium.org/encyclopedia/richardscrope.htm.

By the time of Scrope’s execution it had become apparent to most of England that being rid of Richard II in favour of Henry IV had not been a good idea after all. Henry was an odious man who had usurped his cousin Richard’s throne and then murdered him. In his later years Henry suffered considerably from ill health, which many regarded as justice for all the wrongs he’d done.

However, all that is beside the point for what I’m writing now. So, let us go to  Archbishop Scrope’s trial at his own palace of Bishopthorpe on the banks of the River Ouse, some three miles south of York. These proceedings at Bishopthorpe were little more than what we today would call a kangaroo court. I’ve written of beautiful Bishopthorpe before, concerning events that took place there some twenty years prior to the archbishop’s downfall. See here: What really happened in 1385, when the Earl of Stafford’s son and heir was killed on a Yorkshire road…? – murreyandblue.

Condemned, Archbishop Scrope was hauled off and “….taken to a field belonging to the nunnery of Clementhorpe which lay just under the walls of York, and before a great crowd were beheaded….” He was despatched together with his fellow rebel the Earl Marshal Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham, (see here https://luminarium.org/encyclopedia/thomasmowbray2.htm) and others involved in the insurrection. His head was displayed and he was interred at York Minster.

Right, all that said, I can come to the business of the archbishop’s ghost, which “….for many years walked the road to conduct his own funeral procession….” Here is an account of its appearance. It seems that on returning from a farm one night with some sheep, a man named Robert Johnson and the boy who was with him suddenly saw a coffin suspended in the air and moving slowly along in the direction of York. “….It [the coffin] tilted occasionally, as if borne on the shoulders of men who were thrown out of step by the rugged character of the roadway. The coffin was covered in a heavy black pall of velvet fringed with white silk, and was in size and appearance the resting-place of a full-grown man. Behind it, with measured tread, walked [the archbishop] in lawn, bearing on his hands a large open book, over which his head bent, but from his lips no sound came….the sheep kept pace and could not be driven past the strange sight….[which] came to the field where the archbishop was beheaded….then it disappeared as hastily as it had come….”

So terrified were Johnson and the boy that they took to their beds for days “….wrung in mind and body by the terrible shock….” Had they really witnessed Archbishop Scrope accompanying his own coffin to the scene of his bloody death? But as their story spread, it turned out that over the years other local people had also witnessed the same ghostly procession. It was said that a number of folk were frightened into sobriety by seeing the ghastly apparition….which clearly didn’t restrict itself to just one shocking performance!

The story can be found in British Folk Tales and Legends: A Sampler by Katharine Briggs, under the title “The Bishopsthorpe [sic] Ghost”. She gives as her sources County Folk-Lore, II, North Riding of Yorkshire and From Ouse to Naburn Locks by Camidge. You can also find it at http://www.bishopthorpe.net/bishnet/2008/. And if you go to https://www.archbishopofyork.org/history-bishopthorpe-palace you can read more about the palace itself.

I couldn’t find an image that truly captured the spirit (apologies) of the tale, but the one below seems uncanny enough to be used instead. I’ve had to brighten it considerably, otherwise very little could be made out. I know that if I were to be walking home in the dark and found myself confronted by such a sight, I’d be pretty shaken. To put it mildly.

The shade of Archbishop Scrope and his coffin is apparently no longer seen today. Or is someone just not admitting to witnessing it? A little like staying quiet about having been abducted by aliens!