In the time of the Civil War Charles I was brought to Ripon by his
captors, and lodged for two nights in a house where he was sumptuously
entertained, and was so well pleased with the way he had been treated
that his ghost was said to have visited the house after his death. The
good old lady who lived there in those troubled times was the very
essence of loyalty and was a great admirer of the murdered monarch. In
spite of Cromwell she kept a well-furnished wine-cellar, where bottles
were continually being found emptied of their contents and turned upside
down. But when she examined her servants about this strange phenomenon,
she was always told that whenever the ghost of King Charles appeared,
the rats twisted their tails round the corks of the bottles and
extracted them as cleverly as the lady's experienced butler could have
done himself, and that they presented their generous contents in
brimming goblets to the parched lips of His Majesty, who had been so
cruelly murdered. This reply was always considered satisfactory and no
further investigation was made! "Let me suffer loss," said the old lady,
"rather than be thought a rebel and add to the calamities of a murdered
king! King Charles is quite welcome!"
[Illustration: RIPON MINSTER.
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