In a sweetly sequestered spot, environed by patriarchal trees of luxuriant foliage, between the towns of Driffield and Beverley, nestles a Tudoresque building, which goes by the name of Watton Abbey, although it never was an abbey, but a Gilbertine Priory. It is now a private residence, and was occupied for many years as a school, the existing buildings apparently having been erected since the dissolution, and there are but few remains of the original convent, saving a portion of the nunnery, now converted into stables, a hollow square indicating the site of the kitchen and the moat which originally surrounded the entire enclosure. A couple of centuries ago there were extensive remains of the old priory, but they were removed for the purpose of repairing Beverley Minster. Moreover, the abbey has a haunted room, which, however, has no connection with the monastic times, although the ghost that haunts it is usually designated "The Headless Nun of Watton," but belongs to the civil war period of the seventeenth century. The fact is that story tellers of the legend confound two altogether different narratives—the one of a trangressing nun of the twelfth century, and the other of a murdered lady of the seventeenth, combining their two histories into one story, as if their persons were identical.

A nunnery was established here in a very early period of Anglo-Saxon Christianity, probably soon after its re-introduction into Northumbria by King Oswald, as we find St. John of Beverley performing a miracle there, which would be about the year 720, after he had resigned his Bishopric and retired to Beverley. It appears that he was an intimate friend of the Lady Prioress—Heribury—and made frequent visits to Watton to administer spiritual advice and ghostly consolation to the inmates under her charge. On one occasion when he went thither, he found the Prioress's daughter suffering great agony from a diseased and swollen arm, the result of unskilful bleeding, and was solicited to go to her chamber and give her his blessing, which might be the means of alleviating the pain. He inquired when she had been bled, and was told on the fourth day of the moon, which he said was a very inauspicious day, quoting Archbishop Theodore as his authority, and he feared his prayers would be of no avail. Nevertheless he went to her room, prayed for her restoration to health, gave her his blessing, and went down to dinner. They had, however, scarcely seated themselves when a servant came in, stating that all her pain had gone, her swollen arm had been reduced to its natural size, and that she was perfectly restored to health, and was dressing to come down and dine with them.

The nunnery was destroyed, it is presumed, by the Danes at the same time that the Monastery of Beverley perished at their hands, in the ninth century, and it lay waste and desolate until the twelfth century, although we find from the Domesday survey that there were then a church and priest in the village.

In 1148-9, Eustace Fitz John, Lord of Knaresborough, and a favourite of King Henry I., at the instance of Murdac, Archbishop of York, refounded the convent, in atonement for certain crimes he had committed. It was established for thirteen canons and thirty-six nuns of the new Gilbertine order, who were to live in the same block of buildings, but with a party wall for the separation of the sexes; the canons "to serve the nuns perpetually in terrene as well as in divine matters." He endowed it with the Lordship of Watton, with all its appurtenances in pure and perpetual alms for the salvation of his soul, and those of his wife, his father and mother, brothers and sisters, friends and servants.

Archbishop Murdac was at the time resident at Beverley, the gates of York having been shut against him; and it may be that the fact of his predecessor, St. John, the patron-saint of the town where he dwelt, having performed a great miracle there, was what influenced him in his desire to see a resuscitation of the monastery. He was a remarkable man, and had led a somewhat adventurous life. Archbishop Thurstan was his patron, and gave him some preferments in the church of York, which he resigned at the pressing invitation of St. Bernard, founder of the Cistercians, to become a monk at Clervaux. Soon after he was sent by his superior to found a Cistercian house at Vauclair, of which he was appointed the first abbot, in 1131, where he remained until 1143, when, at the recommendation of St. Bernard, he was elected Abbot of Fountains. Under his judicious and able government the abbey prospered and threw off not less than seven offshoots—those of Kirkstall, Lix, Meaux, Vaudy, and Woburn.

On the death of Archbishop Thurstan, King Stephen desired the canons to elect William Fitzherbert, his nephew and their treasurer, in his place, which they were willing to do, but the Cistercians, headed by Murdac, suspecting that undue influence had been made use of, vehemently opposed his election, and Pope Eugenius, on the appeal of St. Bernard, suspended Fitzherbert.

Fitzherbert, out of revenge, went with his friends to Fountains, broke open the door, searched ineffectually for Murdac, then fired the abbey, and retired. This act caused a great sensation, and the Archbishop was deprived in 1147. The same year an assembly met at Richmond, and elected Murdac as Archbishop, who immediately went to Rome and obtained his pall from Pope Eugenius; but on his return found York barred against his entrance, upon which he retired to Beverley. Stephen, the King, refused to recognise him, sequestering the stalls of York, and fining the town of Beverley for harbouring him. It was at this time that he promoted the re-establishment of Watton, and placed within its walls a child of four years of age to be educated, with a view of taking the veil.

In retaliation, he excommunicated Puisnet, Treasurer of York, and laid the city under an interdict. Puisnet was afterwards elected Bishop of Durham, upon which Murdac excommunicated the Prior and Archdeacon, who came to Beverley to implore pardon, and could only obtain absolution on acknowledging their fault and submitting to scourging at the entrance to Beverley Minster. He died at Beverley in the same year (1153), and was buried in York Cathedral.

Elfleda, the child whom Murdac had placed in the convent, was a merry, vivacious little creature; and whilst but a child was a source of amusement to the sisterhood, who, although prim and demure in bearing, and some of them sour-tempered and acid in their tempers, were wont to smile at her youthful frolics and ringing laugh; but as she grew older, her outbursts of merriment, and the sallies of wit that began to animate her conversation, were checked, as being inconsistent with the character of a young lady who was now enrolled as novice, preparatory to taking the veil. As she advanced towards womanhood her form gradually developed into a most symmetrical figure; and her features became the perfection of beauty, set off with a transparent delicacy of complexion, such as would have rendered her a centre of attraction even among the beauties of a Royal Court. This excited the jealousy of the sisters, who were chiefly elderly and middle-aged spinsters, whose homely and somewhat coarse features had proved detrimental to their hopes of obtaining husbands. They began to treat her with scornful looks, chilling neglect, and petty persecutions; but when she, later on, evinced a manifest repugnance to convent life, ridiculed the ways of the holy sisters, and even satirised them, they charged her with entertaining rebellious and ungodly sentiments, and subjected her to penances and other modes of wholesome correction, such as they considered would subdue her worldly spirit.

Sprightly and light-hearted as she was, Elfleda was not happy, immured as she was within these detested walls, and condemned to assist in wearisome services, such as she thought might perhaps be congenial to the souls of her elder sisters, whose hopes of worldly happiness and conjugal endearment had been blighted, but which were altogether unsuited for one so beautiful (for she knew that she was fair, and was vain of her looks) and so cheerful-minded as herself; and she longed with intense desire to make her escape, mingle with the outer world, and have free intercourse with the other sex.

According to the charter of endowment, the lay brethren of the monastery were entrusted with the management of the secular affairs of the nunnery, which necessitated their admission within its portals on certain occasions for conference with the prioress. On these occasions Elfleda would cast furtive and very un-nunlike glances upon their persons. She was particularly attracted by one of them, a young man of prepossessing mien and seductive style of speech, and she felt her heart beat wildly whenever he came with the other visitors. He noticed her surreptitious glances, and saw that she was exceedingly beautiful, and his heart responded to the sentiment he felt that he had inspired in hers. They maintained this silent but eloquent language of love for some time, and soon found means of having stolen interviews under the darkness of night, when vows of everlasting love were interchanged, and led, eventually, to consequences which at the outset were not dreamt of by the erring pair.

Suspicion having been excited by her altered form, she was summoned before her superiors on a charge of "transgressing the conventual rules and violating one of the most stringent laws of monastic life," and as concealment was impossible, she boldly confessed her fault, adding that she had no vocation for a convent life, and desired to be banished from the community. This request could not be listened to for a moment. The culprit had brought a scandal and indelible stain upon the fair fame of the house, which must, at any cost, be concealed from the world; and her open avowal of her guilt raised in the breasts of the pious sisterhood a perfect fury of indignation, and a determination to inflict immediate and condign punishment on her. It was variously suggested that she should be burnt to death, that she should be walled up alive, that she should be flayed, that her flesh should be torn from her bones with red-hot pincers, that she should be roasted to death before a fire, etc.; but the more prudent and aged averted these extreme measures, and suggested some milder forms of punishment, which were at once carried out. The miserable object of their vengeance was stripped of her clothing, stretched on the floor, and scourged with rods until the blood trickled down profusely from her lacerated back. She was then cast into a noisome dungeon, without light, fettered by iron chains to the floor, and supplied with only bread and water, "which was administered with bitter taunts and reproaches."

Meanwhile the young man, her paramour, had left the monastery, and as the nuns were desirous of inflicting some terrible punishment upon him for his horrible crime, they extorted from Elfleda, under promise that she should be released and given up to him, the confession that he was still in the neighbourhood in disguise, and that not knowing of the discovery that had been made, he would come to visit her, and make the usual signal of throwing a stone on the roof over her sleeping cell. The Prioress made this known to the brethren of the monastery, and arranged with them for his capture. The following night he came, looked cautiously round, and then threw the stone, when the monks rushed out of ambush, cudgelled him soundly, and then took him a prisoner into the house. "The younger part of the nuns, inflamed with a pious zeal, demanded the custody of the prisoner, on pretence of gaining further information. Their request was granted, and taking him to an unfrequented part of the convent, they committed on his person such brutal atrocities as cannot be translated without polluting the page on which they are written; and, to increase the horror, the lady was brought forth to be witness of the abominable scene." Whilst lying in her dungeon, Elfleda became penitent, and conscious of having committed a gross crime, and one night whilst sleeping in her fetters, Archbishop Murdac appeared to her and charged her with having cursed him. She replied that she certainly had cursed him for having placed her in so uncongenial a sphere. "Rather curse yourself," said he, "for having given way to temptation." "So I do," she answered, "and I regret having imputed the blame to you." He then exhorted her to repentance and the daily repetition of certain psalms, and then vanished,—a vision which afforded her much consolation.

The holy sisters were now much troubled on the question of what should be done with the infant which was expected daily, and preparations were made for its reception; when Elfleda was again visited by the Archbishop, accompanied by two women who, "with the holy aid of the Archbishop, safely delivered her of the infant, which they bore away in their arms, covered with a fair linen cloth." When the nuns came the next morning they found her in perfect health and restored to her youthful appearance, without any signs of the accouchement, and charged her with murdering the infant,—a very improbable idea, seeing that she was still chained to the floor. She narrated what had occurred, but was not believed. The next night all her fetters were miraculously removed, and when her cell was entered the following morning she was found standing free, and the chains not to be found.

The Father Superior of the convent was then called in, and he invited Alured, Abbot of Rievaulx, to assist him in the investigation of the case, who decided that it was a miraculous intervention, and the Abbot departed, saying, "What God hath cleansed call not thou common or unclean, and whom He hath loosed thou mayest not bind."

What afterwards became of Elfleda is not stated, but we may presume that after these miraculous events she would be admitted as a thrice holy member of the sisterhood, despite her little peccadillo.

Alured of Rievaulx, the monkish chronicler, narrates the substance of the above circumstances, and vouches for their truth. "Let no one," says he, "doubt the truth of this account, for I was an eye-witness to many of the facts, and the remainder were related to me by persons of such mature age and distinguished piety, that I cannot doubt the accuracy of the statement."

This is the story of the frail and unfortunate nun; the other, which is usually dovetailed on the former, is of much more recent date. In the present house there is a chamber wainscoted throughout with panelled oak, one of the panels forming a door, so accurately fitted that it cannot be distinguished from the other panels. It is opened by a secret spring, and communicates with a stone stair that goes down to the moat; it may be that the room was a hiding-place for the Jesuits or priests of the Catholic Church when they were so ruthlessly hunted down and barbarously executed in the Elizabethan and Jacobean reigns. The room is reputed to be haunted by the ghost of a headless lady with an infant in her arms, who comes, or came thither formerly, to sleep nightly, the bed-clothes being found the following morning in a disordered state, as they would be after a person had been sleeping in them. If by chance any person had daring enough to occupy the room, the ghost would come, minus the head, dressed in blood-stained garments, with her infant in her arms, and would stand motionless at the foot of the bed for a while, and then vanish. A visitor on one occasion, who knew nothing of the legend, was put to sleep in the chamber, who in the morning stated that his slumbers had been disturbed by a spectral visitant, in the form of a lady with bloody raiment and an infant, and that her features bore a strange resemblance to those of a lady whose portrait hung in the room; from which it would appear that on that special occasion she had donned her head.

According to the legend, a lady of distinction who then occupied the house was a devoted Royalist in the great civil war which resulted in the death of King Charles. It was after the battle of Marston Moor, which was a death-blow to the Royalists north of the Humber, and when the Parliamentarians dominated the broad lands of Yorkshire, that a party of fanatical Roundheads came into the neighbourhood of Watton, "breathing out threatenings and slaughter" against the "malignants," and especially against such as still clung to the "vile rags of the whore of Babylon," vowing to put all such to the sword. The Lady of Watton, who was a devout Catholic, heard of this band of Puritan soldiers, who were "rampaging" over the Wolds, and of the barbarous murders of which they had been guilty. Her husband was away fighting in the ranks of the King down Oxford way, and she was left without any protector excepting a handful of servants, male and female, who would be of no use against a band of armed soldiers, and it was with great fear and trembling that she heard of their arrival at Driffield, some three or four miles distant, where they had been plundering and maltreating "the Philistines;" fearing more for her infant than herself, as she believed the prevalent exaggerated rumour, that it was a favourite amusement with them to toss babies up in the air and catch them on the points of their pikes.

At length news was brought that the marauders were on the march to Watton, for the purpose of plundering it, as the home of a malignant, and the lady, for better security, shut herself, with her child and her jewels, in the wainscoted room, hoping in case of extremity to escape by means of a secret stair, and in the meanwhile committed herself and child to the care of the Virgin Mother. It was not long ere the band of soldiers arrived and hammered at the door, calling aloud for admittance, but met with no response. They were about breaking down the door, and went in search of implements for the purpose, when they caught sight of a low archway opening upon the moat, which they guessed to be a side entrance to the house, and crossing the moat, they found the stair, which they ascended and came to the panel, which they concluded was a disguised door. A few blows sufficed to dash it open, and they came into the presence of the lady, who was prostrate before a crucifix. Rising up, she demanded what they wanted, and wherefore this rude intrusion. They replied that they had come to despoil the "Egyptian" who owned the mansion, and if he had been present, to smite him to death as a worshipper of idols and an abomination in the eyes of God.

An angry altercation ensued, the lady, who possessed a high spirit, making a free use of her tongue in upbraidings and reproaches for their dastardly conduct on the Wolds, of which she had heard, to which they listened very impatiently, and replied in coarse language not fit for a lady's ears, at the same time demanding the plate and other valuables of the house. She scornfully refused to give them up, and told them that if they wanted them they must find them for themselves, and at length so provoked them by her taunts that they cried, "Hew down with the sword the woman of Belial and the spawn of the malignant," and suiting the action to the word, they caught her child from her arms, dashed its brains out against the wall, and then cut her down and "hewed" off her head, after which they plundered the house and departed with their spoil.

It must not be supposed that these ruffians were a fair specimen of the brave, God-fearing men who fought under Fairfax, and put Newcastle and Rupert to flight at Marston Moor, who fought with the sword in one hand and the Bible in the other, who laid the axe at the root of Royal abitrary prerogative, and were the real authors of the civil and religious liberty which we now enjoy. But, as in all times of civil commotion, there were evil-minded wretches who, for purpose of plunder, assumed the garb and adopted the phraseology of the noble-minded soldiers of Fairfax and Hampden, and the Ironsides of Cromwell, out-Puritaned them in their hypocritical cant, bringing disgrace and scandal upon the armies with which they associated themselves. And such were the villains who despoiled Watton, and slew so barbarously the poor lady and her infant; and from that time the ghost of the lady has haunted the room in which the deed was perpetrated.

In the year 1780, Mr. Bethell, the then occupier of the house, was giving a dinner-party in the dining-room, which adjoined the haunted apartment. When they were seated over their wine the host related the story of the ghost, and had scarcely finished it when an unearthly sound issued from the floor beneath their feet. Consternation seized on the party. They concluded that it was the ghost, and to their imagination the candles began to emit a blue, ghostly light. It seemed to be a confirmation of the truth of the story; but they summoned up courage enough to make an examination, and although it was approaching the "witching hour of night," they sent for a carpenter, who took up some planks of the floor, and found—not the ghost, but the nest of an otter from the moat, who had made there a home for her progeny, whose cries had alarmed them; and thus was dissipated what might otherwise have been deemed a veritable supernatural visitation.