Windsor Forest.
THE GHOST OF BISHAM ABBEY.
This legend begins with the story of a rather dull little boy who found his lessons very trying—and, perhaps, the glistening Thames, which he could see from his schoolroom window, very attractive—in the days when Tudor sovereigns reigned in England. His name was Hobby, and his home was Bisham Abbey, which still stands by the riverside just opposite Great Marlow. And because the child could not write in his copy-book without making blots, he was whipped so severely that, as the old tale goes, he died. But that is only the beginning of the story.
It was his mother, Lady Hobby, who chastised the child. When you see her portrait, as you still may at Bisham, you cannot believe she meant to be so cruel. She must have been sorry for her harshness; at any rate she has been punished for it, for she can find no rest in death. Though over three hundred years have passed since they placed her in her grave, her ghost still floats through the panelled chambers of Bisham, so they say.
It is a queer apparition this. It is that of a stately woman dressed in coif, weeds and wimple, with grave face and long thin hands, in front of which a basin, suspended by no visible means, always appears. The lady is forever trying to wash her hands in the basin, but it always moves from her before she can achieve her desire. Not until she can cleanse those delicate hands, can she find repose, they will tell you.
And a curious thing about the ghost is that it appears as a “negative,” to use a photographer’s term. What in life was white is in the spirit black; and what was black, now white. The wraith is seen with black face and hands, black coif and wimple; the basin is black. But the sable gown is white, the shoes white. White eyes look mournfully from the dark face.
You may not credit this strange story, for few people living have seen the wandering lady. Yet undeniable records will tell you that eighty odd years since, when they were doing some repairs to the old building, a window shutter was removed in the room in which tradition asserted the unhappy boy was taught. Pushed in between shutter and wall, were a number of children’s copy-books of the Elizabethan time. One of them, yellow and soiled with age, corresponded exactly with the copy-book of the story. There was not a single line which was not blotted.
Bisham Abbey is a wonderful old place; its history starts with the Knights Templars in the reign of King Stephen of turbulent memory. Later it became an Augustine priory, and later still, when it had passed from the monks, poor harassed Princess Elizabeth was there, a prisoner in charge of Sir Thomas Hobby, in those times when no one could guess that she was to become the great and glorious Queen Elizabeth.