Owing to a want of accord among historians,
the searcher after historic truth in
our own day can hardly be quite sure
of the identity of the worthy lady who passed under
the above enchanting title. To later generations
the district of Camden Town—formerly a suburb
of London but now a fairly central part of it—is
best known through a public house, the Mother
Red-Cap. But before controversy can cease we
are called on to decide if Mother Red-Cap and
Mother Damnable were one and the same person.
A hundred years ago a writer who had made such
subjects his own, came to the conclusion that the
soubriquet Mother Damnable was synonymous with
Mother Black-Cap whom he spoke of as of local
fame. But in the century that has elapsed historical
research has been more scientifically organised
and the field from which conclusions can be
drawn has been enlarged as well as explored. The
fact is that a century ago the northern suburb had
two well-known public houses, Mother Red-Cap
and Mother Black-Cap. It is possible that both
the worthy vintners who offered “entertainment for
man and beast” meant one and the same person,
though who that person was remains to be seen.
The distinctive colour line of the two hostelries was
also possibly due to considerations of business
rather than of art. Red-cap and Black-cap are, as
names, drawn from these varying sign-boards; the
term Mother held in common is simply a title given
without any pretence of doing honour to the alleged
practices of the person whom it is intended to designate.
Of the two signs it seems probable that the black one is the older. After all, the main purpose of a sign-board is to catch the eye, and unless Titian and all who followed him are wrong, red has an attractive value beyond all other hues. The dictum of the great Italian is unassailable: “Red catches the eye; yellow holds it; blue gives distance.” A free-souled artist with the choice of the whole palette open to him might choose black since historical accuracy was a matter to be valued; but in a question of competition a painter would wisely choose red—especially when his rival had confined himself to black. So far as attractiveness is concerned, it must be borne in mind that the object of the painter and his patron was to bring customers to a London suburban public house in the days of George III. To-day there is a cult of horrors in Paris which has produced some choice specimens of decorative art, such for instance as the cafĂ© known as Le Rat Mort.
Such places lure their customers by curiosity and sheer horror; but the persons lured are from a class dominated by “Gallic effervescence” and attracted by anything that is bizarre, and not of the class of the stolid beer-drinking Briton. But even the most stolid of men is pleased by the beauty of a woman; so the sign-painter—who knows his art well, and has evolved from the ranks of his calling such a man as Franz Hals—we may be sure, when he wished to please, took for his model some gracious personality.
Now the artist of the lady of dark headgear let his imagination run free and produced a face typical of all the sins of the Decalogue. We may therefore take it on the ground of form as well as that of colour that priority of date is to be given to Mother Black-Cap. There is good ground for belief that this deduction is correct. Naturally the owner of the earliest public-house wished to make it as attractive as possible; and as Camden Town was a suburb through which the northern traffic passed on its way to and from London, it was wise to use for publicity and entertainment names that were familiar to north country ears. Before the railways were organised the great wheeled and horse-traffic between London and the North—especially Yorkshire which was one of the first Counties to take up manufacturing and had already most of the wool trade—went through Camden Town. So it was wise forethought to take as an inn sign a Yorkshire name. The name of Mother Shipton had been in men’s mouths and ears for about two hundred years, and as the times had so changed that the old stigma of witchcraft was not then understood, the association of the name with Knaresborough alone remained. And so Mother Shipton of Knaresborough was intended as the prototype of the inn portrait with black headgear at Camden Town. In the ordinary course of development and business one of the two inns succeeded and lasted better than the other. And as Mother Red-Cap has as a name supplanted Mother Damnable, we may with some understanding discuss who that lady was.
She was a well-known shrew of Kentish Town, daughter of one Jacob Bingham, a local brickmaker, who had married the daughter of a Scotch pedlar manifestly not of any high moral character as shown by her later acts and the general mistrust which attended them. They had one daughter, Jinny, who in wickedness outdid her parents. She was naturally warm-blooded and had a child when she was sixteen by a man of no account, George Coulter, known as Gipsy George. Whatever affection may have existed between them was cut short by his arrest—and subsequent execution at Tyburn—for sheepstealing. In her second quasi-matrimonial venture Jinny lived a cat-and-dog life with a man called Darby who spent his time in getting drunk and trying to get over it. Number Two’s end was also tragic. After a violent quarrel with his companion he disappeared. Then there was domestic calm for a while, possibly due to the fact that Bingham and his wife were being tried also on a charge of witchcraft, complicated with another capital charge of procuring the death of a young woman. They were both hanged and thereafter Jinny found time for another episode of love-making and took up with a man called Pitcher. He too disappeared, but his body, burned almost to a cinder, was discovered in a neighbouring oven. Jinny was tried for murder, but escaped on the plea that the man often took refuge in the oven when he wished to get beyond reach of the woman’s venomous tongue, to which fact witness was borne by certain staunch companions of Miss Bingham.
Jinny’s third venture towards happy companionship, though it lasted much longer, was attended with endless bitter quarrelling, and came to an equally tragic end, had at the beginning a spice of romance. This individual, whose name has seemingly not been recorded, being pursued in Commonwealth times for some unknown offence, had sought her aid in attempting to escape. This she had graciously accorded, with the consequence that they lived together some years in the greatest unhappiness.
At length he died—of poison, but by whom administered did not transpire at the inquest. For the rest of her life Miss Bingham, who was now old, lived under the suspicion of being a witch. Her ostensible occupation was as a teller of fortunes and a healer of odd diseases—occupations which singly or together make neither for personal esteem or general confidence. Her public appearances were usually attended by hounding and baiting by the rabble; and whenever anything went wrong in her neighbourhood the blame was, with overt violence of demeanour, attributed to her. She did not even receive any of the respect usually shown to a freeholder—which she was, having by her father’s death become owner of a house which he had built for himself with his own hands on waste ground. Her only protector was that usual favourite of witches, a black cat, whose devotion to her and whose savage nature, accompanied by the public fear shown for an animal which was deemed her “familiar,” caused the mob to flee before its appearance.
The tragedy and mystery of her life were even exceeded by those of her death. When, having been missed for some time, her house was entered she, attended only by her cat and with her crutch by her side, was found crouching beside the cold ashes of her extinct fire. In the tea-pot beside her was some liquid, seemingly brewed from herbs. Willing hands administered some of this to the black cat, whose hair, within a very short time, fell off. The cat forthwith died. Then the clamour began. Very many people suddenly remembered having seen, after her last appearance in public, the Devil entering her house. No one, however, had seen him come out again. What a pity it was that no veracious scribe or draughtsman was present in the crowd which had noticed the Devil’s entry to the house. In such case we might have got a real likeness of His Satanic Majesty—a thing which has long been wanted—and the opportunities of obtaining which are few.
One peculiar fact is recorded of Madame Damnable’s burial; her body was so stiff from the rigor mortis—or from some other cause—that the undertakers had to break her limbs before they could put her body in the coffin.
Article by Bram Stoker
Compiled from sources in the public domain.
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