Ours is the Age of Enlightenment, where logic and reason are thought to have won an eternal victory against their foes, or so we like to delude ourselves. The truth is that the walls holding us back from primal madness are thin, low, and in constant danger of breach. Forces that we dismiss as being mere superstition regularly endeavor to tip us over, both individually and collectively. What follows is my account of the phenomena I encountered in the winter of 1788-89 during my service as His Majesty's physician. I, Francis Willis, assert that everything in the following pages is wholly true and written with the utmost care and sobriety.
As a former clergyman, I understand all too well that we are called by God to serve our fellow man in ways that are burdensome and at times that are inconvenient. When His Majesty’s Equerry, Captain Robert Greville, arrived at my asylum in Lincolnshire, it was indeed a most inconvenient time when my burdens were already considerable.
I had recently taken under my care fully two dozen lunatics who were all deemed untreatable by other “mad doctors,” as the townsfolk are liable to call us. Rarely do I consider anyone untreatable, the intractably mad Mrs. Caldwell notwithstanding, but these cases are invariably difficult nonetheless. My sons, Robert, Thomas, and John, assist me in my work to lighten the load and each of them bring their own range of talents. John has his strength, Robert his wits, and Thomas, well, is a blessing in his own way.
In any case, I put my patients to work repairing a barn on the farm next to their lodgings. It is my opinion that those laboring under severe burdens of the mind can put aside the nonsense batting about their heads when they are being constructive. Good habits form good thoughts and on the virtuous cycle goes. Mr. Greville arrived at the precise moment at which we were just about to finish the barn’s front doors, December 2nd, 1788.
“Good morning. You are Doctor Willis?” Greville asked, straightening his fine red officer’s coat. It stood out that day against the cold gray sky and the rows of frozen farm soil. He was a handsome lad in his mid-30s I should think, though with his heavily-powdered wig it was difficult to tell.
“I am,” I said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
He proceeded to explain, in a ponderous style of address, his position as His Majesty, King George III’s equerry. The precise words he used elude me, but that was the essence of it. Formalities related to royal protocol have never once interested me.
“You have heard that His Majesty is ill, yes?” he asked after the formalities.
I motioned for him to keep his voice down so as to not upset my patients. I always struggled to ensure that they would not be burdened with antagonizing news of the outside world.
“I have heard this,” I muttered.
“I’m afraid to say that the circumstances are a good deal worse than any rumors or official bulletins would have led you to believe,” he said with a grim countenance. One of my patients waved at him and smiled giddily. He simply tipped his hat at her and proceeded to ignore her after that.
A chill came over me, and not merely because of the incipient winter winds. If His Majesty’s equerry was coming to me, it was obvious something had gone terribly wrong. I remember looking out over my lunatics, attempting to imagine which of them would be the most appropriate proxy for His Majesty. I had encountered such a vast array of maladies in my time that would prepare me, or so I thought, for His Majesty’s ailment.
“I presume, sir, that because you have come here to my facility His Majesty labours under a distortion of the mind?” I inquired.
Greville pursed his lips and simply stared at the ground for some seconds. I shall always remember the ashen look on his face at that moment.
“His Majesty’s mind is troubled, yes, Doctor Willis. We have begun to suspect that there may be a fouler cause. Her Majesty, the Queen, had heard from one of her attendants, the Lady Pembrooke, that you are skilled in some more unconventional treatments from your time in the Church,” he probed mischievously. I must have made some startled expression as Greville became perplexed. “That is correct, is it not?”
It was true, for what it was worth, that I had experience in my time as a clergyman in vanquishing influences that most people presume to not exist. In the interests of snuffing out wild superstitions, we do not discuss such matters openly. I will not recount in detail all that I have done as it would be far too lengthy of a digression. It is sufficient to say that my works include the suppression of pagan rituals that have produced astonishing and queer phenomena, unnatural to our world and an affront to God. These instances have arisen only irregularly and only a precious few doctors and clergymen have trained in the relevant arts.
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“That is not my primary area of practice as a doctor, nor was it as a clergyman,” I said, trying to dismiss his insinuation.
“But it was or even is an area of practice?”
“Yes.”
“I understand your reluctance,” Greville grumbled. “His Majesty’s survival and the survival of the whole realm depend upon your help. You must understand this.”
He was right, of course, about my reluctance. As a proper servant of the Crown, I could not refuse forever His Majesty’s equerry and ultimately succumbed to his pressures. I arranged for the nearest church in Lincolnshire to look after those lunatics at my asylum while I traveled south with my three boys to Windsor Castle.
As all proper Englishmen would sympathize, I was awestruck the first time I visited Windsor Castle to tend to the King. In the winter it is particularly beautiful as it rises out of those dreary snow covered fields. I remember looking out my carriage window at the sprawling grey stone edifice and uttering my amazement aloud. It is a worthy structure to have housed the torments that resided inside.
Meandering through the corridors to where I was to meet His Majesty was a confusing experience. I was left to wonder how many royal attendants had been dismissed in short order for failing to learn the labyrinthine halls. Windsor Castle struck me as a place filled with chronic despair and apprehensions, which was an entirely different air than I had assumed before entering.
I finally was brought to a strange red room where the walls had been stripped bare. The several paintings one would have expected to see on the walls were removed. There was nothing. The windows were barred, too. I was left alone for a moment to examine my surroundings. Then, a man in exquisite garb opened the doors and announced an unexpected honored guest.
“Doctor Willis, the Prime Minister,” the herald declared.
Into the room stepped Prime Minister William Pitt, often called Pitt the Younger to distinguish him from his father. He was a lean man, well-appointed, young, handsome, with burgundy clothes and a magnificent wig. Mr. Pitt had the expression of a very serious man, almost utterly humorless. I bowed slightly toward him to acknowledge his presence.
“Doctor Willis, I’ve heard great things about your care for the sick,” Pitt said, his voice smooth and almost seductive. I reasoned that such an intonation was a skill he developed for his already accomplished political life.
“I am honored, Prime Minister,” I thanked him, bowing again. “I understand I—”
“His Majesty is deeply troubled, Doctor Willis,” Pitt interrupted me. “I have been privy to his deterioration for the past three months and it’s gotten worse and worse, despite the doctors.”
“I am sure they have done all they can,” I offered.
“That is precisely it, Doctor Willis. They have,” Pitt said, drawing close to me. “Are you familiar with what befell my father?”
It was of course an awkward query from the Prime Minister. Everyone who was remotely informed of the political happenings of our great country knew that William Pitt, or Pitt the Elder as some took to calling him once his son arose, had suffered from a serious malady. Through various circles, I had heard some of the broad strokes of the pertinent information.
“It has been relayed to me that your father, God watch over his soul, went mad,” I replied.
Pitt stared blankly at me. It was a peculiar expression. I had rarely seen anything like it, but then again one rarely comes across Prime Ministers who are under the age of thirty.
“That is precisely the issue, Doctor Willis,” he said, mouth scarcely moving. “That assumption isn’t true.”
I stepped back from him as his voice became more mysterious.
“It… It is—”
“I have never been able to prove it definitively, but I carry in my pocket a letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury,” he declared, patting his right pocket. “He believed that my father had been afflicted by a peculiar curse, a druidic ritual that robbed him of his senses. I must tell you that believing such a thing did not come easily to me.”
“Were all medical explanations ruled out?” I asked.
“Not one medical treatment had even the slightest positive effect,” Pitt said mournfully. “As I am sure you remember, he left office eighteen years ago and at that time he was still mad. His malady abated very shortly thereafter and the doctors credited an attack of gout for bringing him to his senses.”
“Gout?”
“Yes, doctor. Gout.”
“Prime Minister, forgive me for saying so, but that is absurd,” I said angrily.
“Indeed, doctor,” Pitt said with a raised eyebrow. “In truth, a small detachment of priests had detected that there was something far different at work, what they referred to as a ‘flimsy hex’ that had fallen upon my father. The Archbishop himself managed to excise it.”
“And you think His Majesty is suffering from—”
“Precisely, but far worse,” Pitt confirmed what I was going to ask. “The difficulty is that the three doctors we have consulted seem to have ruled this out. Except for Sir Lucas Pepys, I should say.”
“Sir Lucas is one of the realm’s most respected physicians. I would take what he says quite seriously.”
The Prime Minister formed the closest thing to a smile that I would ever see out of him.
“I can see I was right to send for you,” he said with a happy sigh. “If His Majesty is to survive, and indeed the whole realm is to survive, we will need open minds.”