Henceforth, the Phillipsons had for their guests two skulls.  They were found at Christmas at the head of a staircase.  They were buried in a distant region, but they turned up in the old house again.  Again and again were the two skulls burned; they were brazed to dust and cast to the winds, and for several years they were cast in the lake, but the Phillipsons could never get rid of them.  In the meantime, Dorothy’s weird went steadily on to its fulfilment, until the family sank into poverty, and at length disappeared.[8]

As a more rational explanation of the matter, it is told by some local historians “that there formerly lived in the house a famous doctress, who had two skeletons by her for the usual purposes of her profession, and these skulls, happening to meet with better preservation than the rest of the bones, they were accidentally honoured” with this singular tradition.[9]

Wardley Hall, Lancashire, has its skull, which is supposed to be the witness of some tragedy committed in the past, and to have belonged to Roger Downes, the last male representative of his family, and who was one of the most abandoned courtiers of Charles ii.  Roby, in one of his “Traditions,” entitled “The Skull House,” has represented him as rushing forth “hot from the stews,” drawing his sword as he staggered along, and swearing that he would kill the first man he met.  Terrible to say, that fearful oath was fulfilled, for his victim was a poor tailor, whom he ran through with his weapon and killed on the spot.  He was apprehended for the crime, but his interest at Court quickly procured him a free pardon, and he soon continued his reckless course.  But one evening, as his sister and cousin Eleanor were chatting together at Wardley, the carrier from Manchester brought a wooden box, “which had come all the way from London by Antony’s waggon.”  Suspecting that there was something mysterious connected with this package, for the direction was “a quaint, crabbed hand,” she opened it in secret, when, to her amazement and horror, this writing attracted her notice: 

“Thy brother has at length paid the forfeit of his crimes.  The wages of sin is death!  And his head is before thee.  Heaven hath avenged the innocent blood he hath shed.  Last night, in the lusty vigour of a drunken debauch, passing over London Bridge, he encounters another brawl, wherein, having run at the watchmen with his rapier, one blow of the bill which they carried severed thy brother’s head from his trunk.  The latter was cast over the parapet into the river.  The head only remained, which an eye witness, if not a friend, hath sent to thee!” His sister tried at first to keep the story of her brother’s death a secret, and hid with all speed this ghastly memorial for ever, as she hoped, from the gaze and knowledge of the world.  It was her desire to conceal this foul stain upon the family name, but “the grave gives back its dead.  The charnel gapes.  The ghastly head