Written by James Elliott

A few days before I wrote the 'White Lady' essay in 2002, I created the picture

"Imprisoned by the Darkness of her Own Shadow".

Quite coincidentally.

Like much of my Art, at the time of creation I don't really know what I am creating. I have often described my approach as being 'Like a somnambulist in a casino who constantly keeps hitting the jackpot.' The title for this piece came to mind automatically without any forethought, as it gave me the feeling of a Queen imprisoned in a dark tower awaiting her execution. I thought maybe Jayne Seymour or something. A very dark and haunting feeling of resigned abandon with an assumed air of defiance. Dignity in defeat. I realised much later it was another image based on the legend of Margaret Pomeroy. I also attempted to change the title several times because I thought it was meaningless, before suddenly realising that the 'dark shadow' meant Margaret's sister Eleanor (by whom she had been imprisoned).

A month later I was checking to see if the page on Lady Margaret was showing up on the internet search engines, when an item caught my eye.

"....the castle was built by the Pomeroys in the 12th Century and the family occupied it until 1547 when it was bought by Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset. Around 1700 the Seymours moved to their Wiltshire estate and the castle fell to ruins. Some say there was a fire..... The castle remained in Pomeroy hands until the late 1540's, when the castle was bought or acquired by other means by the influential Sir Edward Seymour. Edward was the Lord Protector and the brother of Jayne Seymour,
third wife to Henry VIII.

Interesting coincidence.

Growing up and living in Devon as I did, I am well aware of the indigenous population's love of a good mystical legend. The human race has always loved any tale of the supernatural. Possibly because life itself is a mystery. Who knows? I keep an open mind about these things. Some say the legend emanated from a Gothic novel published in 1806 entitled 'The Castle Of Berry Pomeroy' in which the protagonist was called Matilda and this was later somehow changed to Margaret. This almost sounds as far fetched as the legend. 'Matilda' to 'Lady Margaret' and then 'Saint Margaret's Tower' is a fair bit of leap frogging. Possible, though quite unlikely. But then, many think the bible was mostly lifted from 'The Epic Of Gilgamesh'. It certainly appears so and yet for millennia this was called 'God's Book'. I always suspected God could not possibly be anything as lowly as a writer. Shakespeare can't spin the planets. There will always be cynics, believers and fools. Somewhere in the mix, probably lies the truth. Assuming philosophically that there is any such thing as the truth.

If you want my own take on it, I think the legend is probably apocryphal at least in part, but only because all history has to be.

History is a work of fiction written by the victors.

And constantly rewritten by the money.

All fact contains a little fiction and all fiction contains a little fact.

One thing is known. They were extremely violent times. This is why it is a castle and not a manor house, as clearly the location intended it to be the latter. Devon at that time was the most lawless part of Southern England. There were violent feuds between rival landowners. Fortification was not optional for people as rich as the Pomeroys. You couldn't just flaunt your bling in those days. You had to defend it as well. Still partly true today, I know.

All I can tell you is that when I discovered the castle early in 1977 it had this incredible atmosphere, that you could feel in your soul. It was a crumbling ruins. My timing was immaculate. My masterpiece 'White Lady In Ruins' was created early in 1977 as evidenced by absence of leaves on the trees. I moved to London in the Spring, so it could not have been shot later in the year. The castle was then, as now, still owned by The Duke Of Somerset . Later in 1977 it was handed over for guardianship to what is now English Heritage. And they cleaned it up, completely changing the colour of the stone. They also removed all the ivy and overgrowth. And along with it, of course, all the atmosphere. The masterpiece would have been impossible had I delayed even a matter of weeks. Somehow the word 'Gothic' implies abandonment, crumbling ruins and overgrown decay.

What is interesting is that these legends - apocryphal or otherwise - exist around this castle and not the others. 'Most haunted house in England' probably doesn't spring out of nowhere. And accolade or curse, I'm sure it is based on something!

Whether or not I believe in ghosts (which I don't).

After all, the mystery of the world still exists, whether or not I believe in the Gods (which I do in a non anthropomorphic metaphysical kind of way).

Even though I would defer to Montaigne's poignant quip "Man is quite insane. He couldn't create a maggot and yet he creates Gods by the dozen."

A directory of Gods published decades ago listed 35,000 Gods, that had existed at one time or another.

Clearly, both God and the Devil are personifications of good and evil.

G(o)od and the (D)evil.

But I don't see Jesus spinning the Earth any more than the old myth of Atlas. Yet SOME power does. And please don't say 'Nature' or I'll laugh.

What is fascinating here, is not whether one believes in Gods or Ghosts but rather the question as to why humans feel the need to invent them. There is an innate, profound desire in humans to hold a belief in phenomena beyond the bounds of physicality. And this is unlikely to exist for no reason. It may well be just an acquired inability to accept our own mortality. After all, the concept that all human life is without meaning, that it exists for no reason - is this not baffling?!

So whatever the degree of truth in the legend, 'White Lady In Ruins' is a masterpiece regardless.

What remains fascinating, is the fact that I created exactly the right image, in exactly the right place, at exactly the right time, without any knowledge of the legend. The picture appeals to that part of us, that wants to believe in the magical and the mystical. Huge coincidences may well be the laws of probabilitiy reversing themselves, but another school of thought says that coincidence is when you just didn't see the other half of what happened.

In fact in one sense, doesn't the ambivalence surrounding the legend just add to the intrigue?

Most legends become myths in the end. Although most were believed true at the time.

Perhaps with time, the facts become exaggerated and distorted.

And what truth there was, becomes incredulous and unbelievable.

Fact becomes Legend. Legend becomes Myth.

The past is almost as mythological as the future.

There is and ever has been, only a now continuum.

Everything else is of our own imagining.

The final chapter in all this came in all these mysterious occurences came in 2002, when Further amazing conincidences were discovered.

Aparently, there was a 'Blue Lady' ghost and I was thinking about how fact becomes famous becomes legend becomes myth becomes fiction.

Stories become stale with repetition, less exciting, so they have to sex it up a bit, like 'The Fisherman's Tale' - I tell you it was THIS big!' So people start to exagerate and what we end with is a complete work of fantasy, sometimes with scant regard for the facts.

Someone once asked Dali why he was was inclined to exagerate. He replied "Because like fake diamonds they sparkle a bit more...." And so they do.

I wondered whether this is what happened with the bible. After all, the miracles were not there intitially.

I called this fifth and final elegy: 'The Spirit Of Physicality.'

12th Aug 2012
Abbey Road, London

1400 words