The Tower of London Ghosts
The History of the Tower of London is both bloody and cruel. Which is why the Tower of London is considered to have the most ghosts and hauntings of any castles in England. The Bloody Tower, Traitors Gate and the dungeon called the 'Little Ease' provide an indication of some of the events which may have taken place in the Tower of London and what has led to so many stories of ghosts and haunting.

What is a Ghost?
To determine why so many ghosts are reputed to haunt the Tower of London perhaps we should first determine what exactly the definition of a ghost and why a haunting might occur. A ghost is often defined as the spirit or soul of a person who has remained on Earth after death. When Ghosts appear, they are said to appear in bodily likeness to living persons and often haunt their former habitats. Ghosts are believed to have a surviving emotional memory typical of someone who has died violently, traumatically and tragically. The soul of a ghost is not able to rest in peace and they remain in old and familiar places, repeating the same acts indefinitely until they are released from their endless haunting.

Clues as to why the Tower of London has so many Ghosts
The definitions of ghosts explain why perhaps there have been so many sightings of ghosts in the Tower of London. The major functions of the Tower of London have been :

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A Prison housing some very important state prisoners
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A place of trials, execution and torture

An obvious location where hapless victims were placed in a violent, traumatic and tragic situation.

Famous Tower of London Ghosts
The people who were incarcerated in the Tower of London are famous people who played an important part in the history of England. Many were violently interrogated and tortured. Many were sentenced without a trial. Those who were executed had their lives ended with a violent, untimely and tragic death. Countless victims were executed on Tower Hill, just outside the Tower of London. Only seven people were executed inside the walls of the Tower of London on Tower Green. The seven people to be executed inside the Tower of London are detailed on the following list. Each of these famous people were killed by beheading. This barbaric form of execution was common in Medieval and Renaissance England and explains why so many ghosts are sighted in a headless state. Stories of ghosts incarcerated in dungeons explain the 'rattling of chains' and the terrified shrieks, groans, moans, wails and desperate cries of prisoners account for the noises associated with ghosts.
Date Name of Tower of London Prisoner 'privately' executed on Tower Green

13th June 1483


William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings (1431 - 1483)
Executed by beheading William Hastings fought to secure the throne for Edward IV and supported his sons the two little Princes in the Tower

19th May 1536


Anne Boleyn, Queen of England (1507- 1536)
Executed by beheading Anne Boleyn was the second wife of King Henry VIII falsely convicted of adultery, incest and treason

27th May 1541


Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury (1473-1541)
Executed by beheading the Countess of Salisbury was a frail 68 year old accused of treason by King Henry VIII for supporting his first Catholic wife Katherine of Aragon

13th February 1542


Catherine Howard, Queen of England (1524 - 1542)
Executed by beheading Catherine Howard was a foolish and wanton girl was killed for adultery when she was just 18 years old

13th February 1542


Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford (1505 - 1542)
Executed by beheading Jane Rochford was instrumental in bringing about the killing of the two Queens, and cousins, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard

12th February 1553


Lady Jane Grey, Queen of England (1537–1554)
Executed by beheading Lady Jane Grey was the puppet Queen who was manipulated by her ambitious family

25th February 1601


Robert Devereux 2nd Earl of Essex (1566 - 1601)
Executed by beheading Essex was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I who led a rebellion against her

Five of the seven famous people executed are reputed to haunt the Tower of London. All fit the perfect description and definition of ghosts. The five famous ghosts of people who were executed within the walls of the Tower of London were:

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The Ghost of Anne Boleyn
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The Ghost of the Countess of Salisbury
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The Ghost of Catherine Howard
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The Ghost of Jane Rochford
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The Ghost of Lady Jane Grey

All died violently, traumatically and tragically. There stories can be found by clicking any of the above links. Other famous ghosts were prisoners in the Tower of London and who were subsequently executed include:

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The Ghost of Guy Fawkes
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The Ghost of Sir Walter Raleigh

Other famous Tower of London ghosts include those who were murdered in the Tower. These murders are often mysterious but always violent, traumatic and tragic. These famous Tower of London ghosts who were murdered include:

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The Ghost of Thomas Becket
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The Ghost of King Henry VI
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The Ghosts of the two little Princes in the Tower

The Tower of London Anonymous Ghosts
Witnesses at the Tower of London have also reported 'anonymous' ghosts. These Tower of London Ghosts are simply referred to as the 'Gray Lady' and the 'White Lady'. Names which reflected the appearance of the apparition. The ghost of the ' Gray Lady' has been described as a woman in mourning garments. A black void is where her face should be. A phantom squad of ghost soldiers has also been sighted marching in the grounds of the Tower of London.

The Tower of London Ghosts
Interesting facts and information about the ghosts who are reputed to haunt the Tower of London...

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Menger Hotel 2005
Menger Hotel 1865

The Menger Hotel, located in downtown San Antonio, Texas, was built in 1859 (23 years after the fall of the adjacent Alamo) by German immigrant William Menger. In 1898, Theodore Roosevelt used the bar to recruit Rough Riders which fought in Cuba in the Spanish-American War.

The Menger was San Antonio's most popular hotel in the 19th Century. O. Henry, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mae West, Babe Ruth, Oscar Wilde and others were known to frequent the bar and hotel, which was periodically enlarged and remodelled to accommodate more guests.

In 1876, the first public demonstration of barbed wire ever was held outside the Menger and orders taken afterwards inside. In 1885, Richard King, the south Texas entrepreneur and founder of the King Ranch, died at the Menger. In 1907, the San Antonio section of the National Council of Jewish Women was organized at the Menger.

In the late 1920s the hotel was acquired by Galveston banker and insurance man, William Lewis Moody, Jr., who added it to his portfolio of hotels under the National Hotel Company.[1]

The hotel also holds the unofficial title of "The Most Haunted Hotel in Texas." The Menger claims to host 32 different spirits including Richard King and Sallie White, a maid at the Menger who was murdered by her husband and buried at the hotel's expense.[2]

The Menger is currently owned by Galveston, Texas-based 1859 Historic Hotels, Inc.[3]
PS Ludwig was kinda hot!
Saige

Ludwig II (Ludwig Friedrich Wilhelm; sometimes rendered as Louis II in English) (25 August 1845 – 13 June 1886) was king of Bavaria from 1864 until shortly before his death. He is sometimes referred to as the Swan King in English and der Märchenkönig (the Fairy tale King) in German.
Ludwig is sometimes referred to as Mad King Ludwig, though the accuracy of that label has been disputed. Because Ludwig was deposed on grounds of mental illness without any medical examination, and died a day later under mysterious circumstances, questions about the medical "diagnosis" remain controversial.[1]

Ludwig is best known as an eccentric whose legacy is intertwined with the history of art and architecture, as he commissioned the construction of several extravagant fantasy castles (the most famous being Neuschwanstein) and was a devoted patron of the composer Richard Wagner.
Born in Nymphenburg Palace (today located in suburban Munich), he was the eldest son of Maximilian II of Bavaria and his wife Princess Marie of Prussia. His parents intended to name him Otto, but his grandfather, Ludwig I of Bavaria, insisted his grandson was to be named after him, since they shared a common birthday and 24 August is the day of Saint Louis, patron saint of Bavaria. A younger brother, born three years later, was named Otto.

Like many young heirs in an age when Kings governed most of Europe, Ludwig was continually reminded during childhood of his royal status. King Maximilian wanted to instruct both of his sons in the burdens of royal duty from an early age.[2] Ludwig was extremely indulged and yet severely controlled by his tutors, and subjected to a strict regimen of study and exercise. There are some who point to these stresses of growing up in a royal family as the causes for much of his odd behavior as an adult. Ludwig was not close with either of his parents. King Maximilian's advisers had suggested that on his daily walks he might like to at times be accompanied by his future successor. The King replied, "But what am I to say to him? After all, my son takes no interest in what other people tell him."[3] Ludwig referred to his mother as "my predecessor's consort".[3] He was far closer to his grandfather, the deposed and notorious King Ludwig I, who came from a family of eccentrics.

Ludwig's childhood years did have happy moments. He lived for much of the time at Castle Hohenschwangau, a fantasy castle his father had built near the Schwansee (Swan Lake) near Füssen. It was decorated in the gothic style with countless frescoes on the walls depicting heroic German sagas. He also visited Lake Starnberg with his family. As an adolescent, Ludwig became best friends with his aide de camp, the Prince Paul Maximilian Lamoral of Thurn and Taxis of Bavaria's wealthy Thurn and Taxis family. The two young men rode together, read poetry aloud, and staged scenes from the Romantic operas of Richard Wagner. The friendship ended when Paul became engaged in 1866. During his youth Ludwig also initiated a lifelong friendship with his half-first cousin once removed, Duchess Elisabeth in Bavaria, later Empress of Austria. They loved nature and poetry; Elisabeth called Ludwig "Eagle" and he called her "Dove."
[edit] Early reign and wars
Ludwig II just after his accession to the throne of Bavaria

Ludwig had just turned 18 when Maximilian II died after a three-day illness, and the Crown Prince ascended the Bavarian throne.[3] Although he was still not fully prepared for high office, his youth and brooding good looks made him popular in Bavaria and elsewhere. One of the first acts of his reign was to summon composer Richard Wagner to his court in Munich.[4] Wagner had a notorious reputation as a revolutionary and was constantly on the run from creditors. But Ludwig had admired Wagner since first seeing his opera, Lohengrin. Wagner's operas appealed to the king's fantasy-filled imagination. On 5 May 1864, the 51-year-old Wagner met Ludwig in the Royal Palace in Munich; later the composer wrote of his first meeting with Ludwig, "Alas, he is so handsome and wise, soulful and lovely, that I fear that his life must melt away in this vulgar world like a fleeting dream of the gods."[4] The king was likely the saviour of Wagner's career. Without Ludwig, it is doubted that Wagner's subsequent operas would have been composed, much less prestigiously premiered.

A year after meeting the king, Wagner presented his latest work, Tristan und Isolde, in Munich, to great acclaim. But the composer’s extravagant and notorious behavior in the capital was unsettling for the conservative people of Bavaria, and the king asked Wagner to leave the city six months later.

The greatest stresses of Ludwig's early reign were pressure to produce an heir, and relations with militant Prussia. Both issues came to the forefront in 1867.
Ludwig II and Duchess Sophie in Bavaria

Ludwig became engaged to Duchess Sophie in Bavaria, his cousin and the youngest sister of his dear friend, Empress Elisabeth of Austria. The engagement was publicized on 22 January 1867, but after repeatedly postponing the wedding date, Ludwig finally cancelled the engagement in October. A few days before the engagement had been announced, Sophie had received a letter from the king telling her what she already knew: "The main substance of our relationship has always been ... Richard Wagner's remarkable and deeply moving destiny."[5] After the engagement was broken off, Ludwig wrote to his former fiancee, "My beloved Elsa! Your cruel father has torn us apart. Eternally yours, Heinrich" (the names Elsa and Heinrich came from characters from Wagner operas)[5] Ludwig never married, but Sophie later married Ferdinand d'Orléans, duc d'Alençon (1844–1910).

Relations with Prussia took center stage starting in 1866. During the Seven Weeks' War, which began in July, Ludwig agreed (as did several other German principalities) to take the side of Austria against Prussia. When the two sides negotiated the war’s settlement, the terms required that Ludwig accept a mutual defense treaty with Prussia.

This treaty placed Bavaria back on the firing line three years later, when the Franco-Prussian War broke out. Prussia and her allies prevailed in this conflict, and an emboldened Prussia now finished her campaign to unify all of the minor German kingdoms into one German Empire under the rule of King Wilhelm I of Prussia, who would now be declared Emperor, or Kaiser.

At the request of Prussian Minister President Bismarck (and in exchange for certain financial concessions), Ludwig wrote a letter (the so-called Kaiserbrief) in December 1870 endorsing the creation of the German Empire. With the creation of the Empire, Bavaria lost its status as an independent kingdom and became another state in the empire. Ludwig attempted to protest these alterations by refusing to attend the ceremony where Wilhelm I was proclaimed the first Kaiser.[6]

After the creation of the greater Germany, Ludwig increasingly withdrew from politics, and devoted himself to his personal creative projects, most famously his castles.
[edit] Ludwig’s castles
The coat of arms of King Ludwig over the entrance to Schloss Neuschwanstein.

Ludwig was notably eccentric in ways that made serving as Bavaria’s head of state problematic. He disliked large public functions and avoided formal social events whenever possible, and preferred a life of fantasy that he pursued with various creative projects. These idiosyncrasies caused tension with the king's government ministers, but did not cost him popularity among common Bavarians. The king enjoyed traveling in the Bavarian countryside and chatting with farmers and laborers he met along the way. He also delighted in rewarding those who were hospitable to him during his travels with lavish gifts. He is still remembered in Bavaria as Unser Kini, which means "our darling king" in the Bavarian dialect.

Ludwig also used his personal fortune to fund the construction of a series of elaborate castles. In 1861 he visited Viollet-le-Duc's work at Pierrefonds, in France, which largely influenced the style of their construction. These projects provided many laborers employment and brought a considerable flow of money to the regions where his castles were built.

In 1868, Ludwig commissioned the first drawings for two of his buildings. The first was Schloss Neuschwanstein, or "New Swanstone Castle", a dramatic Romanesque fortress with soaring fairy-tale towers. The second was Herrenchiemsee, a replica of the central section of the palace at Versailles, France, Herrenchiemsee which was to be sited on the Herren Island in the middle of the Chiemsee Lake, was meant to outdo its predecessor in scale and opulence.

The following year, he finished the construction of the royal apartment in the Residenz Palace in Munich, which was followed three years later by the addition of an opulent conservatory or Winter Garden on the palace roof. It featured an ornamental lake with gardens and painted frescoes, and was roofed over using a technically advanced metal and glass construction.[7]
An 1890s photochrom print of Schloss Neuschwanstein.

In 1869, Ludwig oversaw the laying of the cornerstone for Schloss Neuschwanstein on a breathtaking mountaintop site overlooking his childhood home, the castle his father had built at Hohenschwangau. The walls of Neuschwanstein are decorated with frescoes depicting scenes from many of Wagner's operas, including the somewhat less than mystic Meistersinger.

In 1872, he began construction for a special festival theater dedicated to the works of Richard Wagner, in the town of Bayreuth. A few years later, he watched early versions of Wagner’s Ring Cycle operas there, though he avoided the public performances. In 1878, construction was completed on Ludwig’s Schloss Linderhof, an ornate palace in neo-French Rococo style, with handsome formal gardens. The grounds contained a Venus grotto lit by electricity, where opera singers performed while Ludwig was rowed in a boat shaped like a shell. In the grounds a romantic woodsman's hut was also built around an artificial tree. The hut, referred to as Hundings Hut, is a reference to a similar structure in der Ring des Niebelungen. There is a sword embedded in the tree. In Walküre, Siegfried's father Siegmund, pulls the sword from the tree. Inside the palace, iconography reflected Ludwig's fascination with the absolutist government of Ancien Régime France. Ludwig saw himself as the "Moon King", a romantic shadow of the earlier "Sun King", Louis XIV of France. From Linderhof, Ludwig enjoyed moonlit sleigh rides in an elaborate eighteenth century sleigh, complete with footmen in eighteenth century livery. Also in 1878, construction began on his Versailles-derived Herrenchiemsee.

In 1879 he travelled to England and visited Sir Richard Wallace, to whom he had written for advice on England's medieval architecture[8]. Wallace advised Ludwig to take a tour of the English countryside in order to survey a variety of ecclesiastical buildings, that he might draw inspiration from them for future building projects. In a letter to Wallace, Ludwig expressed particular admiration for the buildings of Hertfordshire, which he toured extensively.

In the 1880s, Ludwig’s plans proceeded undimmed. He planned construction of a new castle on the Falkenstein near Pfronten in the Allgäu (based on the the tower of St Mary's Church, Baldock)[9], a Byzantine palace in the Graswangtal and a Chinese summer palace in Tyrol. By 1885, demolition for the beginning of the Falkenstein project was underway, and the road to the site had been graded.
[edit] Controversy and struggle for power

Although the king had paid for his pet projects out of his own funds and not the state coffers,[10] that did not necessarily spare Bavaria from financial fallout. By 1885, the king was 14 million marks in debt, had borrowed heavily from his family, and rather than economizing, as his financial ministers advised him, he undertook new opulence and new designs without pause. He demanded that loans be sought from all of Europe’s royalty, and remained aloof from matters of state. Feeling harassed and irritated by his ministers, he considered dismissing the entire cabinet and replacing them with fresh faces. The cabinet decided to act first.

Seeking a cause to depose Ludwig by constitutional means, the rebelling ministers decided on the rationale that he was mentally ill, and unable to rule. They asked Ludwig's uncle, Prince Luitpold, to step into the royal vacancy once Ludwig was deposed. Luitpold agreed, so long as the conspirators produced reliable proof that the king was in fact helplessly insane.