Strange Pages from Family Papers | Page 9

in connection with his defeat and capture at
Hoxne, in Suffolk, on the banks of the Waveney not far from Eye. The
story, as told by Sir Francis Palgrave in his Anglo-Saxon History, is
this: "Being hotly pursued by his foes, the King fled to Hoxne, and
attempted to conceal himself by crouching beneath a bridge, now called
Goldbridge. The glittering of his golden spurs discovered him to a
newly-married couple, who were returning home by moonlight, and
they betrayed him to the Danes. Edmund, as he was dragged from his
hiding place, pronounced a malediction upon all who should afterwards
pass this bridge on their way to be married. So much regard was paid to
this tradition by the good folks of Hoxne that no bride or bridegroom
would venture along the forbidden path."
That inconstancy has not always escaped with impunity may be
gathered from the following painful story, one which, if it had not been
fully attested, would seem to belong to the domain of fiction rather than
truth: On April 28, 1795, a naval court-martial, which had lasted for
sixteen days, and created considerable excitement, was terminated. The

officer tried was Captain Anthony James Pye Molloy, of H.M. Ship
_Cæsar_ and the charge brought against him was that, in the
memorable battle of June 1, 1794, he did not bring his ship into action,
and exert himself to the utmost of his power. The decision of the court
was adverse to the Captain, but, "having found that on many previous
occasions Captain Molloy's courage had been unimpeachable," he was
sentenced to be dismissed his ship, instead of the penalty of death.
It is said that Captain Molloy had behaved dishonourably to a young
lady to whom he was betrothed. The friends of the lady wished to bring
an action for breach of promise against the Captain, but the lady
declined doing so, only remarking that God would punish him. Some
time afterwards the two accidentally met at Bath, when the lady
confronted her inconstant lover by saying: "Capt. Molloy, you are a bad
man. I wish you the greatest curse that can befall a British officer.
When the day of battle comes, may your false heart fail you!"
Her words were fully realised, his subsequent conduct and irremediable
disgrace forming the fulfilment of her wish.[4]
Another curse, which may be said to have a historic interest, has been
popularly designated the "Midwife's Curse." It appears that Colonel
Stephen Payne, who took a foremost part in striving to uphold the
tottering fortunes of the Stuarts, had wooed and won a fair wife amid
the battles of the Rebellion. The Duke of York promised to stand as
godfather to the first child if it should prove a boy; but when a daughter
was born, the Colonel in his mortification, it is said, "formally devoted,
in succession, his hapless wife, his infant daughter, himself and his
belongings, to the infernal deities."
But the story goes that the midwife, Douce Vardon, was commissioned
by the shade of Normandy's first duke to announce to her master that
not only would his daughter die in infancy, but that neither he nor
anyone descended from him would ever again be blessed with a
daughter's love. Not many days afterwards the child died, "whose
involuntary coming had been the cause of the Payne curse." Time
passed on, and that "Heaven is merciful," writes Sir Bernard Burke,[5]
Stephen Payne experienced in his own person, for his wife

subsequently presented him with a son, who was sponsored by the
Duke of York by proxy. "But six generations of the descendants of
Colonel Stephen Payne," it is added, "have come and gone since the
utterance of the midwife's curse, but they never yet have had a daughter
born to them." Such is the immutability of the decrees of Fate.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Harland's "Lancashire Legends" (1882), 4, 5.
[2] See Sir J. Bernard Burke's "Family Romance," 1853.
[3] "Popular Rhymes of Scotland" (1870), 217-18.
[4] See "Book of Days," I., 559.
[5] "The Rise of Great Families," 191-202.
CHAPTER II.
THE SCREAMING SKULL.
"Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall,
Its chambers desolate, its
portals foul;
Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall--
The dome of
thought, the palace of the soul."
BYRON.
There are told of certain houses, in different parts of the country, many
weird skull stories, the popular idea being that if any profane hand
should be bold enough to remove, or in any way tamper with, such
gruesome relics of the dead, misfortune will inevitably overtake the
family. Hence, for years past, there have been carefully preserved in
some of our country homes numerous skulls, all kinds of romantic
traditions accounting for their present isolated and unburied condition.
An old farmstead known as Bettiscombe, near Bridport, Dorsetshire,
has