Moyles Court was the home of Lady Alice Lisle before she married Lord Lisle, and the home to which she returned after the assassination of her husband in Switzerland in 1664. She lived there until her arrest, on a charge of harbouring fugitives from the Monmouth Rebellion in 1685. During the course of her trial at Winchester in August, 1685, no evidence was brought against her to prove that she knew she was actually harbouring fugitives. She was always under the impression that they were dissenting ministers of religion. The jury were trying to bring in a verdict of Not Guilty, until swayed by the infamous Judge Jeffreys. A sentence of death by burning was stayed and she was finally beheaded at Winchester in September, 1685. The verdict was finally squashed in 1689. She was 71 years of age when she died.
The sound of her silken dress, and the tapping of her feet, were heard long afterwards in the corridors of Moyles Court, and she was also seen on several occasions riding down Ellingham Lane in a driverless coach.
Although Lady Lisle has not been observed in recent years at Moyles Court, the sound of the coach and horses has been heard in recent times, riding up the drive to the house. Lady Lisle also haunts the Eclipse Inn, at Winchester, where she spent the last few days of her life whilst awaiting execution |
