Legend
In 1713, Lord Townshend married Robert Walpole's prettiest sister, Dorothy. She was his second wife, and is reputed in the gossip of the time to have been previously the mistress of Lord Wharton, "whose character was so infamous, and his lady's complaisant subserviency so notorious, that no young woman could be four and twenty hours under their roof with safety to her reputation."
Lady Townshend was buried in 1726. But there is a tradition that she did not die in that year and that the funeral was a mock interment.
Instead, she is rumoured to have been locked up in the house by her husband. This is why the ghost of "Dolly" Townshend, the "little brown lady of Raynham," is said still to haunt the oak staircase of the house in the twilight.
Read more about this topic: Raynham Hall
Famous quotes containing the word legend:
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Newspaperman: He’s become almost a legend already. He’s the hero of every schoolboy in America.”
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—Hugo Ball (1886–1927)