The Drummer of Tedworth

John Mompesson was a magistrate in Tedworth, Wiltshire. In March 1661, he had a vagrant drummer named William Drury arrested for collecting money under forged papers. The drum was confiscated. Drury was sent to Gloucester Gaol.

The drumming started at Mompesson’s house almost immediately.

The Phenomena

The disturbances lasted roughly two years and escalated in phases. First came nocturnal bangs on the exterior walls and drumming on the roof. After a month, the sounds moved indoors. Mompesson chased the noise from room to room with a drawn pistol and found nothing.

The phenomena settled in the children’s bedroom. Something with “iron talons” scratched beneath the beds. Children were lifted and shaken. Chairs walked across rooms. Objects tumbled downstairs “as if a chain were dragged after them.” A sulfurous smell hung in the air. The drumming followed military patterns: “a roundhead and then a cuckold” and “the tattoo and several other points of warre.”

The Investigation

Joseph Glanvill, a Fellow of the Royal Society, visited in January 1663. He stayed one night. He heard scratching “as loud as one with long nails could make upon a bolster” behind the children’s beds. Both children’s hands were visible above the covers. He reached under the bed and felt something move. He grabbed at it and caught nothing.

Charles II sent a royal commission. They arrived during a lull and witnessed nothing.

The Trial

William Drury was tried at Salisbury under the Witchcraft Act of 1604. He had reportedly boasted from gaol that he had “plagued” Mompesson for taking his drum. He was sentenced to transportation to the American colonies.

Glanvill published the case in 1668, and it became part of his posthumous Saducismus Triumphatus (1681). His argument: denying spirits meant denying the soul, which meant denying God. The Drummer of Tedworth was his evidence. Samuel Pepys mentioned the case in his diary on Christmas Day 1667.

The skeptical reading, offered by Addington Bruce in 1908, pointed to Mompesson’s eldest daughter as the likely source. The phenomena centered on the children’s bedroom and resembled pranks. Mompesson himself was later accused of fabrication. He denied it but admitted the affair had “much disturbed” his reputation.