The Ingoldsby Legends
| “ | Of poor Lady Hatton, it's needless to say, No traces have ever been found to this day, |
” |
Before Dickens, the courtyard was best known for its appearance in R.H. Barham's The Ingoldsby Legends, a collection of poems and stories first published in Bentley's Miscellany beginning in 1837.
In one of the stories, The House-Warming: A Legend Of Bleeding-Heart Yard, Lady Hatton, wife of Sir Christopher Hatton, makes a pact with the devil to secure wealth, position, and a mansion in Holborn. During the housewarming of the mansion, the devil dances with her, then tears out her heart, which is found, still beating, in the courtyard the next morning. It is from this legend, together with a case of mistaken identity, that the myth of Lady Elizabeth Hatton's murder — wife, not of Christopher, but of William Hatton — was born.
Read more about this topic: Bleeding Heart Yard