Who was the Real Lady Howard

Back in the 1600s, a man named John Fitz inherited a large amount of money when he turned 21. This man made that money disappear very quickly. With his money dwindling fast, he was also growing a list of enemies just as fast. During this time John had his daughter, Mary who grew up at the Fitzford House near Tavistock. When Mary was 9 years old her father John went totally insane and committed suicide. This Means Mary inherited what was left of the family fortune, which attracted many greedy eyes. King James the first intervened and sold Mary to the Earl Of Northumberland who married her off to his brother, Sir Alan Percy. Women had no say in the money back in those times and this means her fortune was no longer hers. It moved over to Percy and Earl.

Sir Percy never lived long enough to enjoy the money from Mary, on a hunting trip he caught a fever and passed away.

Now Mary was free, free to find her own true love, Thomas Darcy. They ran off in the night so they could elope. Her second marriage also ended in tragedy when Thomas also died.

By the time she decided to get married for the third time she secured her wealth in such a way that no man could get to it. Which made her third husband argue all the time about the money with her but he also died of unknown causes.

After all the rumors surrounded her about all the dead men that followed her. She still married for the third time and this married must have been a better one than the last three since she gave birth to a boy named George. Then not too long after George was born her fourth husband also died.

Mary decided to get away from all the scandal and move back to the family Fitz home which had been falling apart since it had been abandoned for so long. Then not long after moving in her son had also gotten sick and passed away. Heartbroken over her son's death a few weeks after his passing, she passed away.

Since she seemed such an evil woman while alive many had said to see her ghost. Some say that she had to do penance for her evil deeds. They say she was given the task of traveling from Fitz house to Okehampton castle with a huge black dog with red eyes and huge fangs. She would travel by carriage made from the bones of her four dead husbands and driven by a headless driver. When they arrive at the castle, the black dog picks a single blade of grass from the castle mound. Then the dog gets back on the carriage and the bones rattle all the way back to Fitz house. The grass is laid on a slab of granite and after all the grass has been removed from the castle is only when Mary can rest in peace which will be a long time away. Ghostly tales also say that if the carriage stops anyone on the road or stops at any other house that person will surely die.

Witnesses who claimed to have seen the carriage say you hear the loud rattling of the bones and then see the black dog with his blood-red eyes. Looking at the carriage you see four skulls on each corner of the carriage for each of the four husbands. The headless driver lashes the horses with a bloodstained whip. Reports tend to be different some say the driver and the horses are all headless. A ghostly white lady sits in the back and if she turns her head you can see her eyeless sockets sunk deep into her face. The carriage smells like rotting flesh also some say.

The true background of who Mary really was is not that she was an evil person. She did have a nasty father who did kill two men. His behavior got the family detested in the Tavistock area and he did commit suicide. Mary's 3rd husband did die and her fourth husband treated her terribly bad so they got a divorce, he did not die. She did have many children and died on October 17th, 1671 at the old age of 75.