Otherworld North East Research Society Journal 01 | Page 16

Otherworld North East

given the same sentence, was later reprieved and in a venture that has nearly as much
folklore surrounding it as it has history, Charles Radcliffe and Thomas Forster escaped
from gaol and fled to France. James III then set up a court in Rome and lived there for the
rest of his life.
In 1745, James III’s eldest son, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, known as ‘Bonnie Prince
Charlie’, sailed to Scotland and led the second Jacobite uprising. Opposed by the English
General Pope at Dunbar in the September of that year, the Jacobites won a decisive
victory and moved south to within 130 miles of London before it is said dissention arose in
the Jacobite ranks. Once again, the promised French reinforcements didn’t show up, and
the Jacobite forces were repelled at Derby. The Jacobite forces moved back north and
took a final stand at Culloden where they were defeated by the English Army. Bonnie
Prince Charlie escaped, but the English chose to make an example of the Highlands, with
brutal slaughter and suppression reported.
The wearing of kilts and the Tartan was outlawed and the Jacobite cause was lost. The
Prince himself lived to the age of 67 in Rome, where he died reportedly an alcoholic.
Again, this uprising was suppressed, the Battle of Culloden in 1746 seeing the defeat of the
Jacobite army and the slaughter of those suspected in adhering to the Jacobite cause.
Needless to say, the Jacobite Rebellion has left its mark in Ghost Stories around the
North-East, the most famous one probably being the ghosts of Dilston Castle.
Dilston, or ‘Historic Dilston’ as the landscape has come to be known, is situated on the
southern bank of the Devilswater (near Corbridge) in the county of Northumberland. In
1888, the Reverend Heslop wrote in the ‘Monthly Chronicle’:
“The Hall is behind us, and its tragic story haunts the place. It is but a generation
since the trampling of hoofs and the clatter of harness was heard on the brink
of the steep here, revealing to that trembling listener that ‘the Earl’ yet galloped
with spectral troops across the haugh. Undisturbed, as the reverent hands of his
people had laid him and his severed head, the Earl himself had rested hardly in
the little vault for a whole century; yet the troops have been seen by the country
people over and over again as they swept and swerved through the dim mist of
the hollow dene.”
Over recent years, the grounds of Dilston Castle and Chapel, now in the grounds of the
MENCAP college (Dilston Hall) near to Corbridge have seen a number of possibly
paranormal occurances, from a man being seen staring out وۙHوH