famous imposter 20

famous imposter 20

Kelley having worked on Dee’s feelings sufficiently to secure his

acquiescence, procured that Laski should be allowed to aid in such

operations and experiments as appealed to him. The result was that the

Palatine took the two men with him, promising a free field for them

both, each according to his bent. At Prague, in 1583, Laski presented

Dee and his companion to the Emperor Rudolph II. Encouraged by the

royal approval, Dee looked for a longer sojourn in eastern Europe, and

brought thither his wife and children from Poland, where he had left

them at Laskoe, the seat of the Palatine. Later on, in 1585,--again

through the influence of the credulous Laski--Dee with his companion

was presented to Stephen, King of Poland. Stephen was much interested,

and attended a _séance_ that he might see the spirits of which he

had heard so much. He saw too much, however, as far as Kelley was

concerned, for he penetrated the imposture. Thereupon Kelley, unequal

to carrying on the business single-handed, for he dared not let Dee’s

eyes be opened and he knew he could not induce him to be other than

a blind partner, contrived that a new confederate should be added to

the firm. This was one Francis Pucci, a Florentine, possessed of all

the address and subtlety of his race. But after the experience of a

year he was removed on suspicion of bad faith. Before that year was

out, the Bishop of Piacenza, Apostolic Nuncio at the Emperor’s Court,

had a decree issued that the two Englishmen should quit Prague within

six days. From Prague they went to Erfurt, in Thuringia; but despite

letters of recommendation from high quarters the Municipal Authorities

would not allow them to remain. So they moved on to Hesse-Cassel and

thence to Tribau in Bohemia, where the fraud of making spirits appear

was renewed. In 1586, it was intimated to Dee that the Emperor of

Russia wished to receive him in that country. He would receive a fee of

two thousand pounds per annum and would be treated with honour; but the

scholar did not see his way to accept the flattering offer. At Tribau,

Kelley experimented, but unsuccessfully, with some powder found at

Glastonbury, Dee’s young son being the medium. It was noticeable that

whenever Dee or his family failed in these experiments, Kelley always

succeeded. At this stage Kelley, who was a man of evil life, fell madly

in love with Dee’s wife. He was married himself, but that did not seem

to matter. His own wife was ugly and unattractive, whereas the second

Mrs. Dee was well-favoured and winning. In the madness of his lust

he tried to work on the husband’s credulity by telling him that it

had been conveyed to him through angels that it was the Divine wish

that the two men should hold their wives in common. Dee was naturally

sceptical and annoyed, and his wife was furious. Kelley, however, was

persistent, and stuck to his point so stedfastly that after a while

the woman’s resolution began to give way, and for a time some sort of

working arrangement came about. Kelley’s story, as elaborated to his

partner, was that at Tribau, in 1587, the crystal showed him a vision

of a naked woman who conveyed to him the divine message. To Dee’s

unhinged mind this seemed all natural and correct--probably even to

the suitable costume adopted by the angelic messenger: so the worthy

doctor gave way. After a time however the matron recovered her sanity,

and the vulture and the pigeon parted. Dee gave up to his late partner

all the “tools of trade” and “properties” of the fraud, and the two

never met again.

 

Kelley went to Prague where he was thrown into prison in 1589. He

remained in durance for four years after which he was released. From

thence on till 1595, he became a vagabond as well as a rogue, and

wandered about Germany. He again fell into the hands of Rudolph, to be

again imprisoned by him. He was killed whilst making a desperate effort

to escape.

 

There seems to be no record of Edward Kelley--or Talbot--having been

knighted, no authority save his own wish for the use of the title. It

may of course be possible that he was knighted by the Emperor in some

moment of absurd credulity; but there is no record of it. He had no

children.

 

 

 

 

E. MOTHER DAMNABLE

 

 

Owing to a want of accord among historians, the searcher after historic

truth in our own day can hardly be quite sure of the identity of the

worthy lady who passed under the above enchanting title. To later

generations the district of Camden Town--formerly a suburb of London

but now a fairly central part of it--is best known through a public

house, the _Mother Red-Cap_. But before controversy can cease we are

called on to decide if Mother Red-Cap and Mother Damnable were one

and the same person. A hundred years ago a writer who had made such

subjects his own, came to the conclusion that the soubriquet Mother

Damnable was synonymous with Mother Black-Cap whom he spoke of as of

local fame. But in the century that has elapsed historical research has

been more scientifically organised and the field from which conclusions

can be drawn has been enlarged as well as explored. The fact is that

a century ago the northern suburb had two well-known public houses,

_Mother Red-Cap_ and _Mother Black-Cap_. It is possible that both the

worthy vintners who offered “entertainment for man and beast” meant one

and the same person, though who that person was remains to be seen.

The distinctive colour line of the two hostelries was also possibly

due to considerations of business rather than of art. _Red-cap_ and

_Black-cap_ are, as names, drawn from these varying sign-boards; the

term _Mother_ held in common is simply a title given without any

pretence of doing honour to the alleged practices of the person whom it

is intended to designate.

 

There were in fact two notorious witches, either of whom might have

been in the mind of either artistic designer. One was of Yorkshire

fame in the time of Henry VII. The other was of very much later date

and of purely local notoriety. The two publicans who exploited these

identities under pictorial garb were open and avowed trade rivals.

The earlier established of the two had evidently commissioned a

painter to create a striking sign-board on a given subject, and the

artist had fulfilled his task by an alleged portrait of sufficiently

fearsome import to fix the attention of the passer-by, at the same time

conveying to him some hint of the calling of the archetype on which

her fame was based. Prosperity in the venture begot rivalry; and the

owner of the new house of refreshment, wishing to outshine his rival

in trade whilst at the same time availing himself of the publicity and

local fame already achieved, commissioned another artist to commit

another pictorial atrocity under the name of art. So far as the purpose

of publicity went, the ideas were similar; the only differences

being in the colour scheme and the measure of attractiveness of the

alleged prototype. From the indications thus given one may form some

opinion--based solely on probability--as to which was the earlier and

which the later artistic creation, for it is by this means--and this

means only--that we may after the lapse of at least a century bring

tradition to our aid, and guess at the original of Mother Damnable.

 

Of the two signs it seems probable that the black one is the older.

After all, the main purpose of a sign-board is to catch the eye,

and unless Titian and all who followed him are wrong, red has an

attractive value beyond all other hues. The dictum of the great Italian

is unassailable: “Red catches the eye; yellow holds it; blue gives

distance.” A free-souled artist with the choice of the whole palette

open to him might choose black since historical accuracy was a matter

to be valued; but in a question of competition a painter would wisely

choose red--especially when his rival had confined himself to black.

So far as attractiveness is concerned, it must be borne in mind that

the object of the painter and his patron was to bring customers to a

London suburban public house in the days of George III. To-day there is

a cult of horrors in Paris which has produced some choice specimens of

decorative art, such for instance as the café known as _Le Rat Mort_.

 

Such places lure their customers by curiosity and sheer horror; but the

persons lured are from a class dominated by “Gallic effervescence” and

attracted by anything that is _bizarre_, and not of the class of the

stolid beer-drinking Briton. But even the most stolid of men is pleased

by the beauty of a woman; so the sign-painter--who knows his art well,

and has evolved from the ranks of his calling such a man as Franz

Hals--we may be sure, when he wished to please, took for his model some

gracious personality.

 

Now the artist of the lady of dark headgear let his imagination run

free and produced a face typical of all the sins of the Decalogue. We

may therefore take it on the ground of form as well as that of colour

that priority of date is to be given to Mother Black-Cap. There is

good ground for belief that this deduction is correct. Naturally the

owner of the earliest public-house wished to make it as attractive as

possible; and as Camden Town was a suburb through which the northern

traffic passed on its way to and from London, it was wise to use

for publicity and entertainment names that were familiar to north

country ears. Before the railways were organised the great wheeled

and horse-traffic between London and the North--especially Yorkshire

which was one of the first Counties to take up manufacturing and had

already most of the wool trade--went through Camden Town. So it was

wise forethought to take as an inn sign a Yorkshire name. The name

of Mother Shipton had been in men’s mouths and ears for about two

hundred years, and as the times had so changed that the old stigma of

witchcraft was not then understood, the association of the name with

Knaresborough alone remained. And so Mother Shipton of Knaresborough

was intended as the prototype of the inn portrait with black headgear

at Camden Town. In the ordinary course of development and business one

of the two inns succeeded and lasted better than the other. And as

Mother Red-Cap has as a name supplanted Mother Damnable, we may with

some understanding discuss who that lady was.

 

She was a well-known shrew of Kentish Town, daughter of one Jacob

Bingham, a local brickmaker, who had married the daughter of a Scotch

pedlar manifestly not of any high moral character as shown by her

later acts and the general mistrust which attended them. They had

one daughter, Jinny, who in wickedness outdid her parents. She was

naturally warm-blooded and had a child when she was sixteen by a man of

no account, George Coulter, known as Gipsy George. Whatever affection

may have existed between them was cut short by his arrest--and

subsequent execution at Tyburn--for sheepstealing. In her second

quasi-matrimonial venture Jinny lived a cat-and-dog life with a man

called Darby who spent his time in getting drunk and trying to get

over it. Number Two’s end was also tragic. After a violent quarrel

with his companion he disappeared. Then there was domestic calm for a

while, possibly due to the fact that Bingham and his wife were being

tried also on a charge of witchcraft, complicated with another capital

charge of procuring the death of a young woman. They were both hanged

and thereafter Jinny found time for another episode of love-making and

took up with a man called Pitcher. He too disappeared, but his body,

burned almost to a cinder, was discovered in a neighbouring oven. Jinny

was tried for murder, but escaped on the plea that the man often took

refuge in the oven when he wished to get beyond reach of the woman’s

venomous tongue, to which fact witness was borne by certain staunch

companions of Miss Bingham.

 

Jinny’s third venture towards happy companionship, though it lasted

much longer, was attended with endless bitter quarrelling, and came

to an equally tragic end, had at the beginning a spice of romance.

This individual, whose name has seemingly not been recorded, being

pursued in Commonwealth times for some unknown offence, had sought her

aid in attempting to escape. This she had graciously accorded, with

the consequence that they lived together some years in the greatest unhappiness.