https://gothictexts.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/phantom-coach

Okehampton Castle is a medieval motte and bailey castle in Devon, England. It was built between 1068 and 1086 by Balwin FitzGilbert following a revolt in Devon against Norman rule and forming the centre of the Honour of Okehampton, guarding a crossing point across the Wesy Okement River. *

For all intent and purpose, it is relatively quiet except for one thing - the curse of a penance that must be fulfilled  the spectre and nightly journney it must take.

Note the following:

"My ladye hath a sable coach,
And horses two and four;
My ladye hath a black blood-hound
That runneth on before.
My ladye's coach hath nodding plumes,
The driver hath no head;
My ladye is an ashen white,
As one that long is dead." **

This describes the nightly trauma and torment of Lady Mary Howard whose punishment must be acrried out until every balde of grass has been plucked by the castle dog, a red eyed hound in most accounts, from the castle mound.

Lady Mary is described as a white sheeted spectre riding in a coach made of bones driven by a skeletal coachman with no head. The coach is drawn by four black horses and accompanied by a bloodhound. Sometimes she takes the form of a huge black dog with a single burning eye in the middle of its forehead. Why was she being punished? It was for killing her four husbands. Why did she do it?

Some researchers say it is because she was insane and had been so since age nine when her father committed suicide at age 30 and she was later forced into marriage at age 12 with the first of her four husbands, to Sir Allen Percy brother to King James I (who was after her family fortune). This seemed to be a theme for her until she died - that appeal for money. Now there is some discrepancy with the tale as historians say in death, however, she has become confused with Lady Frances Howard - a notorious poisoner – and legend has defamed her memory by attributing the murders of four  of her husbands to her. Either way the penance will be fulfilled.

Imagine if you will:

a young farmhand is walking back along the old Okehampton road after his hard day’s toil that kept him busy until well after sundown. He’s headed for the local inn for a bowl of hot broth and a seat beside the open fire. The chill of winter is in the air, a frost is gathering, and the moon is veiled by an eerie mist. He hears something behind him, the approaching sound of horse hooves and carriage-wheels; most unusual for this time of night? He begins to step back from the carriageway fearing the driver may not see him but then freezes – stock-still.

He lays eyes on the unworldly sight that now fast approaches. Louder grows the clatter of hooves and carriage-wheels but still he is frozen by the fearsome vision that descends upon him. And then, in the nick of time, his wits return to him, diving from the track as the unholy procession, in its spectral glow, thunders past; led by a huge black hound with hellish red eyes, then deathly, black horses pulling a reeking carriage driven by a headless coachman whose cracking whip fills the air with the stench of rotting flesh.

The young farmhand feels the warm trickle of water pass down his trouser leg and then he runs, scared out of his mind, into the mire; his cries lost to the night as the mud pulls him deeper, and deeper; his strength failing as he begins to accept his grisly fate.

He would survive to tell his tale, saved by a farmer who heard his fading cries. Sat with a blanket around him, in front of a glowing hearth, he recounts his frightful encounter. Taking a mouthful of blackberry wine, he feels the farmer’s hand on his shoulder: “Don’t fret my buck, tis an unholy sight you speak of, but what you’ve seen is real. She rides the moors on the coldest, bleakest nights, headed for Okehampton Castle. Tis the Lady Mary, trapped in purgatory in her carriage of rot and bones.” ***

* http://wikipedia.com

** https://www.toadhallcottages.co.uk/blog/ghastly-mary-howard/

*** https://www.toadhallcottages.co.uk/blog/ghastly-mary-howard/