Author’s Note
Author’s NoteWhen I came to live in Camfield Place, I found that there was a huge ancient oak tree in my garden, which had been planted in by Queen Elizabeth I when she was a prisoner at nearby Hatfield House.
Apparently she rode over from the Marquis of Salisbury’s estate, which borders with mine and shot her first stag in what is now part of my garden.
Presumably she shot it with a crossbow and, to commemorate her achievement, she planted an oak tree.
The oak tree is still standing and I learnt that locally it had a reputation of bringing people luck.
After I had been at Camfield for some time, I arranged for a friend of mine who was making special items for ancestral homes to dip the acorns from the tree in gold and also the leaves.
Everyone who has received one from me as a personal present has exclaimed with astonishment at the luck that it has brought them.
I would not like to count how many babies I have produced for people who have despaired of ever having one!
I was told in Scotland that a couple who had been married for fifteen years were longing to have a child, but, although the doctor had said that there was no reason why they should not have one, it never materialised.
I gave the wife vitamins and also one of the Magic Oak leaves to wear around her neck.
Last Christmas the baby arrived amid great rejoicing and she is now the champion baby of the County. I believe in magic of this sort and, naturally my friend, who dips the acorns and leaves from the tree, is a white witch.
When she was a little girl in Canada, an elderly witch, who was noted for the help and kindness that she gave to everybody, was dying.
She said to my friend,
“I am going to give you my powers.”
My friend, who was very young, said,
“I don’t want your powers.”
But the witch replied,
“You cannot refuse them.”
She says now that it is quite extraordinary, but, when she does anything for someone she loves and who is a friend, the magic happens and helps other people.
I have always believed that,
“There are more things in Heaven and earth,
Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy!”
When Queen Victoria opened the State rooms at Hampton Court Palace to the public in 1838, people were horrified.
They said that it was impossible to let ‘the common people’ into the grand house, as they would wreck it.
It was not until 1949 that the first Stately Home in England opened its doors to the public for the family’s gain.
This was Longleat, the magnificent and beautiful Elizabethan house belonging to the Marquis of Bath.
