The Merrick Ghost

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Was re-reading Falconer's Lure and was struck by Patrick's description of the family ghost that walks outside his bedroom - can someone who's read the historicals tell me whether the ghost appears (so to speak) in those? Or is the ghost one of the characters from the historicals?

Any help appreciated!

Comments

[coughingbear]

I'd never thought to connect them! 'The Anthony Merrick then' who doesn't get beatified is a character, but I don't know if he could be the ghost - he ends up in London, for one thing. As does Gilly Merrick. Will have to re-read, though I think Frankie has at least one of them at the moment.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you. I have vague fic ideas, but don't want to step on the toes of canon.

I honestly can't remember whether I've read the historicals long ago, or never at all - the school library had a copy of The Players And The Rebels (though, from the policies the place upheld, I imagine it's long since been pulped to make way for a po-faced novel about the trials of a one-legged teenage mother with Tourette's Syndrome) but I can't remember whether I ever took it out or not.

[owl]

a po-faced novel about the trials of a one-legged teenage mother with Tourette's Syndrome

Hee! I had a guy with that on the phone the other day. I'm not quite sure whether he actually didn't know his house number, road or postcode, or whther it was his speech difficulties....

[owl]

Gilly??

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Gilly's Anthony's cousin who is involved in the Lord Essex uprising, and who warns him against papacy. Unless you were asking something else, in which case I apologise for being patronising and missing the point!

[coughingbear]

He was real, too, though his name was probably Gelly rather than Gilly (which I always pronounce with a hard G, though I have no idea if that's right).

Goodness, I just googled and found a whole page on the origins of the surname Merrick. It's Welsh, they say, from Meuric.

[owl]

No, it's just that Rowan calls Giles 'Gilly'. Which looks like a girls' name to me, but never mind.

[coughingbear]

It does rather, though I always have Rowan use a hard G in my head too, so she isn't calling him Jilly. And justify it on the assumption she's doing one of their Sick-for-Psyche deliberate mispronunciations.

[owl]

she's doing one of their Sick-for-Psyche deliberate mispronunciations.

Ooh, that's a good explanation!

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

I've always thought that it was probably Anthony Merrick the Martyr but with the Merricks it could be anyone including Ambrose the Thug.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

It's probably a good thing on the whole that AM who died with great grace and courage wasn't canonised, then, what with the doctrine of papal infallibility to consider.

[liadnan]

Can anyone remind me why he gets left off the 40 martyrs list? A vague notion he's supposed to have had something to do with hte Babington Plot is floating around in my head but I may be making that up.

[coughingbear]

Babington's too early, isn't it? The books start in 1593 (Marlowe's death). Gilly Merrick tries to get Anthony involved in plotting with Essex, but he says no, and I don't think we're given any direct evidence about what he was doing in London. He's left off the 40 Martyrs because of a suspicion that he was involved with some plotters, but Patrick quotes him saying they were just 'chance-met'. Since he does say that he's the Queen's good subject in Player's Boy, I think we're meant to assume that he was a genuine martyr for the faith.

[liadnan]

Oh good point, Babington was 1586.
The canonisation process for the 40 martyrs did indeed take a careful look at whether people were to be classed as "political" rather than "pure" martyrs I believe.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Or one of Ambrose's unlucky victims...

[(Anonymous)]

I kind of thought it couldn't be Anthony the Martyr, because to me the whole Patrick falling off Leeper's Bluff thing after he confronts it suggests it's a bit nasty.

LittleMissLilley (http://lilleyvision.blogspot.com)

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

That's certainly true, though it might not be Anthony the Martyr's fault - just brushing too close to death not being healthy in general.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I have just read The Player's Boy last night, so I shall now babble on rather in a vain attempt to convince myself that it was appropriate to stay up til three reading. I always thought just a ghost, and I don't think AF intended it to be anyone we know (but that doesn't really matter). We don't really see the Merricks' home in the historicals, only the garden. Anthony Merrick could be the ghost, but he died in London (drawn, hanged, quartered, delivering a neck speech of Feeble's speech in whatever play it is about owing God a death). I don't know much about Catholicism (or indeed ghosts), but would a ghost have to be in purgatory to be ghost? In The Player's Boy Nick and Shakespeare talk about it, and Shakespeare says that if he were God, AM would be in heaven, having been newly shriven and dying for the Faith. Of course, Shakespeare may well not be God. And I could be wrong about ghosts. Come to think of it, I might "know" that from something to do with Hamlet.

It could be a Marlow ghost who was messed around by a proto-Patrick and is biding its time waiting for revenge.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

It could be a Marlow ghost who was messed around by a proto-Patrick and is biding its time waiting for revenge.

Bwahahaha! Or, indeed, three different Marlow sisters, in shifts.

"It is your turn tonight, Nan."

"Nan shall let me have her turn, will you not, sweeting? All summer he spoke to me softly and read to me from French books, and then in the autumn when I returned from our aunt in London he looked upon no one but Eleanor."

"You were gone to London to be a fine lady, and Nan and I left to help with the haying!'

"Oh, and I trow you hated that, him without his shirt and you with your kirtle tucked up into your belt and your legs all bare, bringing him ale every hour! And London stank and so did my aunt, and besides was full of Lollards and men pissing up the walls."

"Peace, peace! Moll shall have my turn an she wishes it."

"Oh, stop being such a Patient Griselda, Nan!"

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

*huge beam*

[(Anonymous)]

Slightly off-topic - but I always found the mention of this ghost fairly strange, in that no-one seems to fundamentally question its existence. It reminds me of the Dorothy Sayers book (is it Busman's Honeymoon?) in which Harriet meets the ghosts of Peter's family. This too always struck me as incongruous.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's incongruous for the characters involved. In Peter's Room Nick asks Rowan to check if the cows are kneeling at midnight, and Rowan funks it, and Nick knows she would have too, and Peter thinks that the farthings are bewitched. So I think the supernatural is something that they are happy to believe, or at least to pretend to themselves that they do, and they have the slightly arch way of family jokes etc, so that they wouldn't question Patrick's beliefs.

[liadnan]

You know, the Busman's Honeymoon episode is quite inextricably linked in my head with the Merrick ghost.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, when reading about the Merrick ghost I immediately thought "But that's just like the Wimsey ghost - and that disturbed me too!". I don't have a problem with the protagonists believing in ghosts; its the authors' seemingly uncritical acceptance that these beliefs are justified that I find difficult to swallow. After all, we are not talking about intangible and undefinable spiritual presences here; we have identifiable former family members walking around the place as spooks!

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Actually, I've more problem with Busman's Honeymoon where Harriet - who is a pov character and very clear headed sees something very very definite, and Peter and the Dowager talk also about something very corporeal, and the Merrick ghost, where ghostly footsteps are much like other reports I've heard from spooky houses. But clanwilliam's your woman for spook stories.

[(Anonymous)]

It reminds me of the Dorothy Sayers book (is it Busman's Honeymoon?) in which Harriet meets the ghosts of Peter's family. This too always struck me as incongruous.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

It reminds me of the Dorothy Sayers book (is it Busman's Honeymoon?) in which Harriet meets the ghosts of Peter's family. This too always struck me as incongruous

Too too prematurely Chatsworth?
Seriously, "Debo" Devonshire said something in a TV interview that sounded exactly like the Denver family attitude - and I couldnt work out whether she'd pinched it from Sayers - or whether families in ancient houses do get blase about the possibility. The Petres at Ingatestone talk in the same way.

[liadnan]

A check of my very ancient copy of the "Catholic Dictionary" refers to the Summa, "According to the natural course of things no soul can leave heaven or hell even for a time, or quit purgatory till its purification is completedGod may permit departed souls to appear on earth for many wise reasons eg that the saints may help men; that the sight of lost souls may warn them; that the spirits in purgatory may obtain prayers."
The traditional notion of a ghost seems to fit best with the latter two. But frankly the church is pretty down on becoming too interested in spiritualism/the occult/etc

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

Ha! I always wondered about this too. A bit sad that there doesn't seem to be a direct link with one of the historical novels: I liked that bit.