Ever since I ventured into the world of guiding, St. James’s Palace has always held a special fascination for me, and it’s often the first stop on my highlights tours of London.
Thanks to one of our excellent guides, Susan, I was alerted to the fact that they were opening up the palace for guided tours on a very limited basis, for the first time since 1947.
So I turned up on a very dark, wet, and stormy night, queuing into St. James’s Palace, which is regarded as the most senior royal palace in the country.
Security was very tight, as it’s still a royal residence, and photography was strictly forbidden, unfortunately.
Unfortunately because we were led through some of the most fascinating rooms I’ve ever visited in a royal palace: a mixture of grandeur with incredibly bright reception rooms and some very dark and mysterious corridors.
This is where the Royal Collection is stored, a mixture of paintings, fine furniture, the King’s Throne – a chair that’s been used by nine consecutive monarchs – and an array of weapons from the Tudor period.
We were led out into a large cobbled courtyard, where on one side, the great Tudor Gatehouse (identified by its red octagonal towers) allowed access into Colour Court : this is where the King’s Colour was established. His regiments are defined today by the plume that can be seen in the bearskins of the King’s Guard.
The British Army’s bearskin hats have a long and storied history. They were first worn by the 1st Foot Guards in 1815, after they defeated Napoleon’s French Grenadier Guards at the Battle of Waterloo. The bearskin hats were a trophy of victory, and the 1st Foot Guards adopted them as a permanent part of their uniform.
Today, five regiments in the British Army wear bearskin hats: the Grenadier Guards, the Coldstream Guards, the Scots Guards, the Irish Guards, and the Welsh Guards.
The dark, moody towers, the array of dark windows, was more than a bit creepy, and they catapulted me back to a time where, in the 1970s, I’d watch a program called Hammer House of Horror.
The Grizzly Past of St James’s Palace
Nothing could really have prepared me for its shocking, dark, and terrifying past, starting back in the 11th century, where on this site was a hospital for leprous women, a flesh-eating, highly contagious disease. The patients would live in solitary confinement, and the building would be named after St. James, the lesser one of Christ’s disciples. It is said that their bodies lay buried in unmarked graves close to the building under the beautiful royal park known as Green Park.
In the early 16th century, the Tudor king Henry VIII would build his hunting lodge, then a nursery for his second wife, Anne Boleyn, on top of the ruins. Poor Anne would meet her fate at the Tower of London, being beheaded in 1536 for acts of adultery, incest, and witchcraft!
from Old and New London by E Walford (1878)
Another haunted spot in the palace is the Chapel Royal. This beautiful chapel is said to be home to the ghost of Mary Tudor, also known as Bloody Mary.
Daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, she would live and die in the palace. A tale has been told of her body being embalmed (a procedure meant to preserve the body after her death) in the Chapel Royal of the palace, that her heart was placed under the choir stalls in the Chapel Royal, and that sometimes her ghost can be seen walking through the chapel, her eyes filled with sadness and regret.
In 2010, essential repairs were being carried out in the chapel. X-rays taken underneath the altar showed a wooden box. Could it be Mary’s heart?
The Murder (or Suicide?) of Joseph Sellis
Let’s fast-forward to the events of May 31, 1810. Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, was woken in the early hours of the morning by two light blows to the head. He climbed from his bed to investigate and was then attacked, receiving slashes across his thigh by his own sabre. Falling to the ground, he cried to his valet, Neal: “I am murdered!”
Prince Ernest Augustus, the fifth son of King George III and Queen Charlotte, was a complex and controversial figure. He was a skilled military commander, but he was also known for his extreme political and religious views, as well as his abusive and erratic behaviour.
His valet, Neal, was shocked by how much blood was covering the Duke, and saw his bloody sabre tossed to one corner of the room. The Duke claimed that an intruder had entered his room and attacked him!
However, Neal observed that the wound to the Duke was not that serious, and he tended it as best he could, then went to fetch the Duke’s other valet, Joseph Sellis. To his horror, he found Sellis lying on his bed with his head virtually cut from his body, and a bloody razor in his lifeless hand!
An immediate search of the palace for an intruder was instigated, but no one was ever found. The subsequent inquest ruled that Sallis had, for some unknown reason, attacked his master, and in remorse, had committed suicide.
Court gossip, however, whispered that the Duke had seduced Joseph’s daughter, and that when confronted by Sellis, the Duke had responded by murdering Sellis in a fit of rage.
It is said that on occasion, when the old palace settles at night, the ghost of Sellis walks its corridors and rooms, a gaping wound across his throat and the sickly metallic smell of fresh blood trailing in his wake.
There is one corridor deep in the palace, known as the haunted corridor, where it has been reported that icy cold spots are known to linger, sending chills up the spines of those that walk through them.
If you’re ever lucky enough to visit this iconic palace, be sure to keep an eye out for the ghosts that haunt its corridors.
Tony P.
Joseph Sellis is my 6th Great Grandfather. Been researching into him over the years. They is on extract I think is was from a captain of a ship who needed to send the Dukes message to someone else and he admitted to killing Joseph Sellis. As to why, lots of possible reasons we can only still guess to this day. But, considering Sellis’ daughters where born after 1800, did noncey behaviour if the duke tried to seduce any of them like. One of his daughters is my 5th Great Grandmother called Charlotte Sellis born in 1805 who married into the Foden family as they all got kicked out of the palace and moved north of the country.