Oxfordshire Folktales (21 page)

What would befall her? What would befall the child?

She was twenty-two years of age, strong-limbed, fleshy, some would say plain, but that was not enough to deter the grandson of her employer, Sir Thomas Read of Dun Tews, Oxfordshire, from seducing her. For Mr Geoffrey Read, Anne was an easy conquest; a quick fumble in the broom cupboard, an afternoon’s distraction, but to Anne the consequences were devastating. Over the coming weeks, as Geoffrey’s casual ardour cooled, her body grew hot and she felt strange until finally, one morning, she realised what she had feared and suspected. She carried his child.

But alas, her chores did not relent – down on her knees every day, scrubbing, kneading dough, sweeping, clearing the grates and laying the fires, beating out carpets; the list was endless. Her swelling belly was well-hidden beneath the folds of her uniform, but her body could not lie and one morning she keeled over in pain. She managed to rush to her room without being spotted with blood trickling down her leg. There, in her small maid’s room at the top of the house, on her hard, narrow bed, she gave birth to her child. She stifled her screams to avoid discovery, but when, exhausted, she drew the child to her, she saw a fearful sight. The tiny infant boy was still and silent. Grief-stricken, she hid the little body in a bundle of her dirty linen; but when it was discovered by the other servants there was a great commotion. When they asked her if it was her child she nodded. She was kept in her room until the authorities arrived. There were a lot of questions. Her head swirled. The household watched her leave in cold silence, their terrible stares freezing her. She wanted to protest her innocence but what was the point. Yes, the child was hers and in a way she was to blame; it was punishment for her moment’s indiscretion. The Reads glowered down at her, a united front. Geoffrey could not look her in the eye.

Anne was taken into custody and placed in a cold cell in Oxford Gaol. There she waited for three weeks, with no word of explanation, until the next sessions were held in the city. She was brought before the judge and found guilty of the murder of an innocent child and sentenced to death. No one came forward to defend her, certainly not the Reads. She was a poor maidservant, of lowly origin. What chance did she have of justice? On Saturday, 14th of December 1650, she was taken from her cell to the county gallows in the cattle yard in Oxford – where a great crowd had gathered. Her hands were tied behind her back and she wore a simple woollen shift. Her hair was down and she wished they would let her brush it. There was a light frost on the ground, scattered with steaming dung and bright red berries. The trees were skeletal hands, held up, placatingly to the iron sky. Her breath froze before her in white clouds. She experienced it as though in a waking dream – as though it was happening to someone else. In grim silence Anne was led to the gallows, where a robed priest and a cloaked hangman awaited. A psalm was sung, the melody sending her into a trance. Someone spoke up – a friend, one of the servants – against the Reads, for whom she had worked so loyally; who had used her so ill. There were murmurs of anger in the crowd. Others shouted ‘hang her’.

She was led to the ladder. Her knees trembled and she nearly stumbled, but the hangman kindly gave her his hand, massive, rough and firm. Anne gazed out over the solemn crowd. Why was this happening to her? She saw the sorrow in their faces and wanted to tell them not to mind for her. She would soon be with her boy and beyond all suffering. Before she could speak, a hood was placed over her head and all was hot darkness. There was only her breathing, but even that grew restricted as she felt a noose being tightened about her neck. Then, the ladder was kicked away. She flailed. White pain flared in her brain, convulsed through her body. It was as though the tap of life had been turned off.

She hung for half an hour, during which time some of her friends thumped her on the breast, ‘others hanging with all their weight upon her legs,’ as it was described afterwards, ‘sometimes lifting her up, and then pulling her down again with a sudden jerk, thereby the sooner to despatch her out of her pain.’ At this point the Under Sheriff required them to desist, lest they should break the rope. When everyone thought she was dead, the body was taken down and put in a coffin and carried to the private house where Dr William Petty, a reader in anatomy at Oxford, lodged. He and his colleague, Thomas Willis, were delighted with this fresh corpse to study and made ready to conduct an autopsy.

There, a true wonder took place.

When the coffin was opened, the poor broken body of Anne was observed to make a breath and a rattle was heard in her throat. William Petty and Thomas Willis, his colleague, abandoned all thoughts of a dissection and proceeded to revive their patient. They held her up in the coffin and then, wrenching open her teeth, they poured some hot cordial into her mouth, which caused her to cough more. They then rubbed and chafed her fingers, hands, arms and feet, and, after a quarter of an hour of this, poured more cordial into her mouth and tickled her throat with a feather; she opened her eyes momentarily.

What must she have thought at this moment – these two gentlemen leaning over her, attending to her every need and comfort? Their accents and manners were so refined, the clothes and lodgings so elegant. Was she in some kind of strange heaven?

What they did next perhaps dispelled that illusion. The doctors opened a vein and bled Anne of five ounces of blood; they then continued administering the cordial and rubbing her arms and legs. Compressing bandages were applied to her limbs. Heating plasters were put to her chest and another was apparently inserted as an enema, ‘to give heat and warmth to her bowels.’ They then placed her in a warm bed with another woman, to lie with her and keep her warm for she truly looked like death warmed up.

After twelve hours she began to speak and twenty-four hours after her revival, she was answering questions freely. After two days her memory was normal – apart from the period of the execution and the resuscitation. At four days she was eating solid food and, one month after the event, she was fully recovered – except for the period of amnesia that had been noted at two weeks. There were frequent observations of the state of the pulse; her colour was observed closely; and soon after her revival her face was noted to be sweating, swelling, and very red – particularly near the place where the knot of the rope had been fastened. There were frequent tests of her sight and her hearing and also of her understanding of questions. Even when she was mute, she was asked to move her hand or open an eye if she could hear the question. Her memory was frequently tested by specific questions. When her memory returned after two days, the following description was made: ‘Her memory was like a clock whose weights had been taken off a while and afterwards hung on again.’ At two weeks there was the interesting observation of the slight return of her memory of the execution. She remembered ‘a fellow in a blanket’, who could only have been the executioner in his cloak. What she had seen beyond the veil, if anything, she kept to herself – but there was a strange light in her eyes and a certain feyness in her manner. Some remarked that there was a spiritual light about her. Indeed, some thought her now holy and certainly innocent of her former crime.

The Under Sheriff of Oxford solicited the governor of Oxford Gaol and the Justices of the Peace for her reprieve. The Justices decided that the hand of God had preserved her and they wished to co-operate with divine providence in granting her a reprieve, pending the time that a pardon might be obtained – which was subsequently granted. Many people in Oxford had seen her during her recovery and it seems that her father charged for admission. This collection and a subsequent financial appeal on her behalf produced many pounds, which paid the bill of the apothecary, her food and lodging, and the legal expenses of her pardon.

Anne Green’s fame continued after her full recovery when she returned to some friends in the country, taking with her the coffin in which she had lain. Yet her famous execution and resuscitation was more than a Nine-day Wonder. Life continued and, it seemed, even a heart can recover and find love again.

Anne met a man who treated her well. She married, bore him three children and lived for a full fifteen years beyond her ‘death’.

What did Anne see on the ‘other side’? Did her memory ever return? If it did, she kept the secrets of the grave with her up until she met the Grim Reaper a second time.

When Sir Robert Pye of Faringdon House remarried, his new wife took an immediate disliking to Hampden – Sir Robert’s son from his previous marriage. Whatever he did it could not please her, and she used her influence to turn Sir Robert’s opinion against him also. Slowly, stealthily, she poisoned her husband’s heart against his own son. He was a good-for-nothing wastrel. What did he do with his wealth, his privileges? Nothing! He liked to idle his days in the local taverns – whoring and gambling and drinking. Surely Sir Robert deserved a more fitting heir? So, when Lady Pye found herself pregnant it seemed fate had smiled. There was only one thing in the way of her only flesh and blood inheriting Faringdon House and Sir Robert’s fortune – Hampden Pye.

With this new babe on the scene, Hampden’s life was becoming unbearable – and not because of a wailing baby in the house. His stepmother watched him like a hawk and controlled his comings and goings. This drove him from the stifling atmosphere of the house and back to the local taverns, again and again. Soon he found solace in a particularly charming barmaid. When he announced he was going to marry her, his parents were horrified. Did this not confirm how wayward their son had become? He had allowed a local slut to inveigle herself into his heart – attracted by the strong aphrodisiac of wealth, their wealth! If she bore him a son … it didn’t bear thinking about. Something had to be done!

Lady Pye took matters in hand. She arranged for her stepson to be shanghaied onto a Naval ship. While he was out drinking in the local tavern, a press-gang came in. They dropped the King’s Shilling in his tankard while he was relieving himself outside. When he returned to finish his ale, he discovered the coin in the bottom and knew what it meant. Suddenly, there was a group of mean-looking thugs in front of him. He waved a purse in their faces but they roughly dragged him out of the tavern and bundled him into a carriage. He was tied-up and taken apace all the way to Plymouth.