Stories about ghosts and ghosts are in a varying degree popular worldwide, however, not all seriously treat them. But if to ask the Englishman whether there are ghosts, he without fluctuating, will give the affirmative answer. Especially often ghosts in palaces and castles of Britain meet. In the Warwick castle, especially popular with tourists, is even organized night round on the castle during which it is possible to see a ghost. They say that in England in each more or less old castle or the big house surely there live the ghosts. The most mysterious castle in Britain Hampton Court Pelis is considered. It is the former residence of royal family storing memory of the ominous past. In 1525 the king Henry VIII decided to divorce the queen, Catherine of Aragon who was forty years old and she was five years more senior than the husband. She gave birth to the king to the only daughter, but he wanted the son. Henry asked for permission to divorce from the Father, but that refused. The king was scary angry on the Father, he stopped any contacts with Rome. In 1534 the parliament declared Henry VIII the head of Anglican church, he divorced Catherine of Aragon, having married young Anna Bulin. The king quickly grew cold to the young wife, besides Anna gave birth to him to the daughter too. It executed Anna on a charge of change and sorcery. The third and, obviously, the most beloved wife of the king, Jane Seymour, the sister of the Duke of Somerset, was in suite of the first wife of Henry. She gave rise at last to the king of the son Edward VI in 1537, but after the delivery she had complications, and she soon died. Catherine Howard married Henry VIII in 1540 at the age of nineteen years and was executed in the Tower of London two years after. Amazingly женолюбив this English king was also cruel. It killed or, at best, deleted the previous wife from a throne to marry following. Still ghosts of wives of Henry and him live in Hampton. In the big hall the big portrait of Anna Bulin hangs on the second floor of the castle. They say that those years when put its executions coincides with a full moon, the image on a portrait disappears, and in the castle the muffled plaints and shouts are heard. The attendants working in the castle on October 16, 1970 saw the ghost of the third wife of the king – Jane Seymour. It went on the internal court yard of apartments which is laid out by a cobble-stone in which she once lived. Attendants saw the beautiful young woman in long light clothes. She carried in hands a candle which weak spark lit only a figure and clothes of the queen, but not surrounding objects. As eyewitnesses testify, the mild smile lit Jane’s face. Having reached a stone wall of a court yard, Jane as though was dissolved in it. Catherine Howard’s ghost is in the covered gallery where she was arrested by royal guardsmen on a charge of an adultery. In 1978 two female tourists, having lagged behind group in gallery, suddenly crashed down in a faint. As the guide claims, it happened on that place where the plate designating hangs that here Catherine Howard asked to spare it life. Having recovered, women told that they suddenly felt sepulchral cold and felt that someone passed by. They saw the woman in white, running along gallery towards a chapel. Having run up to a massive metal door, she suddenly looked back. On Catherine’s face there was a despair, her shrill shout was distributed. The tourists and the guide who far left two lagged behind women claimed then that nothing was heard. It is considered that Catherine’s ghost is connected with that historical moment when she, having escaped from two guardsmen who arrested her, ran to the king in a chapel to ask about mercy. On April 16, 1980 the group of tourists expected the guide in a wing courtyard of Stewarts. On other end of the yard tourists noticed two knights in medieval clothes. Each of them had onions and a quiver with arrows. Knights laughed and joked. Then they left the yard. When the guide came, tourists reported to him that they saw two actors in suits of knights. What their surprise when the guide told that there are no actors in the castle was. The next year in the castle carried out repair work and Stewarts removed a cobbled covering of a courtyard. Two skeletons of young men were found in a superficial grave. The ominous secret of their death and remained unsolved. Perhaps, it is those guardsmen whose of hands Catherine Howard could escape what they also were punished for. In the evening on February 13, 1985 the police officer standing at the main gate of the castle Hampton is closer by midnight became the witness of the next phenomenon of ghosts. The officer noticed group of the men and women going in the direction of gate. Men were in tuxedos, and women in evening dresses. Without having reached the police officer about thirty meters, they as though were dissolved in air. The police officer after this case threw service in the castle. As historical chronicles testify, the nurse of prince Eduard Sivill of Pan died in 1562 and was buried in Hampton’s church. When the church was demolished in 1829, its remains were disturbed and its spirit came back to the room where it lived in the castle. Since then the sound of the working distaff wheel sometimes is heard in a southwest wing of the building. In 1950 when in the castle carried out pipes of a central heating, one of walls had to be destroyed. In it the spinning wheel was found. Since speak, the nurse continues to wander about halls and the covered galleries of the castle. The ghost of the king Henry VIII is considered the most terrible ghost of the castle. It appears only at night during a strong thunder-storm. Witnesses so describe its emergence: “In distant gallery booming steps were heard. They became louder, iron spurs knocked on a stone floor. The impression was made that the heavy giant walks. Here it entered the huge hall. Wind howled behind castle windows. Steps of the giant are closer and closer, his heavy breath is heard. Suddenly the lightning sparkled, its light lit the king’s figure. On his head there was a crown, he was chained in armor. His look burned with anger, as if he just convicted the next wife of change. With Henry’s approach we felt that from it heat proceeds as from an oven …” Dates and circumstances of emergence of ghosts in the castle Hampton are registered in the special book, since 1800. It is always shown to tourists. One of records is made by the Queen Victoria. In 1999 the physicist Richard Weismann got permission to carrying out researches in the castle. In gallery where saw Catherine Howard’s ghost, he installed the sensors taking temperature and pressure. By means of pressure sensors the scientist wanted to establish the direction of drafts which blow from under the doors hidden in walls from where enter and where ghosts leave. Weismann was skeptical about stories about ghosts very, but he considered that somewhere the hidden doors are really hidden in the castle. In the afternoon measurements could not be taken, visitors disturbed. The scientist spent ten sleepless nights in gallery. He did not find any changes of temperature and pressure and was already wanted to transfer sensors to other place of the castle. For the tenth night Weismann was overcome by a dream. Suddenly he was woken by terrible shout, Catherine Howard ran on gallery. Recorders of devices of Weismann showed sharp change of parameters. Unfortunately, hidden within the walls of doors the researcher did not find. Ghosts were not any more. The director of the museum viewed it as an omen of misfortune, he considered that presence of devices at the castle – blasphemy. Under the pretext of what Weismann’s works can damage to exhibits he achieved exile of the researcher from the castle. Which of them is right, the director of the museum or the scientist, it is hard to say. British think of ghosts still much, the same as of the queens and the lawns. Well, at each nation the whims.
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