“And then the ghost and his lady toast
To their churchyard beds take flight,
With a kiss perhaps on her lantern chaps
And a grisly, grim ‘Good-night!’”
The visitor to Campden church is told that the black marble doors disclosing these figures and now fixed permanently open, against the wall, were generally closed during the lifetime of the widow, and were opened at her decease. The long epitaphs tell us in detail about her, her husband, and her family. On the left-hand is that to the husband—
“This monument is erected to preserve the memory and pourtrait of the Right Honourable Sr. Edward Noel, Viscount Campden, Baron Noel of Ridlington and Hicks of Ilmington. He was Knight Banneret in the warrs of Ireland, being young, and then created Baronet anno 1611. He was afterwards made Baron of Ridlington. The other titles came unto him by right of Dame Juliana, his wife, who stands collaterall to him in this monument, a lady of extraordinary great endowments, both of vertue and fortune. This goodly lord died at Oxford at ye beginning of the late fatall civil warrs, whither he went to serve and assist his sovverain Prince Charles the First, and so was exalted to the Kingdom of Glory, 8° Martii 1642.”
The right hand door is inscribed with the lady’s own description, and of her children’s fortunes—
“The Lady Juliana, eldest daughter and co-heire (of that mirror of his time) Sr. Baptist Hicks, Viscount Campden. She was married to that noble Lord who is here engraven by her, by whom she had Baptist, Lord Viscount Campden, now living (who is blessed with a numerous and gallant issue). Henry, her second son, died a prisoner for his loyalty to his Prince. Her eldest daughter, Elizabeth, was married to John Viscount Chaworth: Mary, her second daughter, to the very noble Knight, Sr Erasmus de la Fontaine. Penelope, her youngest daughter, died a mayd.
“This excellent lady, for the pious and unparallel’d affections she retained to the memory of her deceased lord, caused this stately monument to be erected in her lifetime, in September Anno Dom. 1664.”
A very charming mural monument to the Lady Penelope shows a delicately-sculptured bust. She is seen wearing a dress with deep Vandyck lace collar. As with the other monuments, it is clearly from the hands of the Stone family. The Lady Penelope, who died young in 1633, is traditionally said to have died from the effects of pricking her finger when working in coloured silks. The position of the hand is said to be in allusion to the accident. A companion figure is that to the Lady Anne Noel, wife of the Lady Penelope’s brother, Baptist. She died 1636.
The “Campden Wonder,” at which people in 1662 marvelled, is still an unsolved mystery, and ever likely to remain so. The story of it began in 1660, on August 16th, when William Harrison, a staid elderly man of about sixty years, who had been trusted for many years as the steward of the widowed Juliana, Viscountess Campden, went to Charingworth, three miles away, to collect some rents. When night had come and he had not returned, his wife sent a servant, John Perry, in search. By morning, when he too had not come back, Mrs. Harrison grew more alarmed and sent her son, Edward, who met Perry returning, without having seen anything of his master. Young Harrison persuaded the man to go to Ebrington with him and to raise further inquiries. There they heard that William Harrison had called the evening before and rested, and that he had then left. He had then about £23 on him.
On their way back to Campden, young Harrison and Perry met a woman who handed them a bloodstained comb and band which that morning she had found in the furze on the road between Ebrington and Charingworth. They were those of the missing man, but of him no trace could be found. It did not take long to come to the conclusion that Perry must have had a hand in his master’s disappearance, and he was arrested on suspicion of murder. He had told so many contradictory tales that he was rightly suspected, and after a week’s imprisonment he had yet another story. He now “confessed” that his mother, Joan Perry, and his brother Richard had long urged him to rob his master, and that at last they had on this occasion waylaid and robbed him, afterwards strangling him and throwing the body into the great mill-sink of the neighbouring Wallington’s Mill. The comb and band had been put on the road by himself.
John Perry’s mother and brother were accordingly arrested and the three were tried at Gloucester and convicted, notwithstanding the fact that no body had been found, and in spite of the piteous protestations of innocence by Joan Perry and Richard, and in face of the avowal by John that he must have been mad when he “confessed.” He now declared he knew nothing of Harrison’s death; but in spite of all these doubts, the three were executed, on Broadway Hill. Joan was hanged first, and Robert next. John calmly saw them die and listened to their last appeals to him to confess and to exonerate them. He was hanged last, protesting that he had never known anything of his master’s death, or even if he were dead. But, he added, they might hereafter possibly hear.