The Green Stone

  The Green Stone

  Graham Phillips & Martin Keatman

  Stafford England

  The Green Stone

  by Graham Phillips & Martin Keatman

  © 1983, 2nd edition 2019, Ebook through KDP 2019

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  The rights of Graham Phillips and Martin Keatman to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Cover Design: Danielle Lainton/Storm Constantine

  Illustrations:

  Photographs of Harvington Hall wall paintings, The Swan’s Neck, Knights Pool, Dozmary Pool – Debbie Cartwright, Earthquest Photography

  Press collages and Dark Man illustration – Danielle Lainton

  All other photographs and illustrations are from the authors’ personal collections.

  A Megalithica Books Publication

  An imprint of Immanion Press

  Published through KDP

  info@immanion-press.com

  www.immanion-press.com

  Acknowledgements

  From the first edition

  We would like particularly to thank Jean Astle, without whose help and encouragement this book could not have been written. We should also like to thank the following: Alan Beard, Penny Blackwill, Andrew Collins, Jane McKenzie, Peter Marlow, Janet Morgan, Jenny Randles, Mike Ratcliff, Terry and Pat Shotton, Fred, Marion and Gaynor Sunderland, and all those – named and unnamed – who have assisted us in compiling this book.

  Contents

  Introduction to the 2019 Edition – Graham Phillips

  Author’s Note

  The Chosen

  New Beginnings

  Revelations

  Remember, Remember…

  The Nine Worthies

  Packington Logic

  The St George Parry

  The Silent Pool

  Meonia fore Marye

  Race Against Time

  A Sense of Evil

  Imbolc – Festival of Fear

  She That is With You

  The Reawakening

  The White Dragon

  Psychic Attack

  Confrontation

  Reflections

  Notes

  Appendix

  Appendix Notes

  Introduction to the 2019 Edition

  Graham Phillips

  In late 1979 a story broke in the British press concerning the finding of a short sword, which had been hidden in the foundations of an old bridge in central England for over three and a half centuries. It was not only that those who found it had done so by following a series of cryptic clues left in an Elizabethan manor that made the story so intriguing, but that the search had been aided by what can only be described as psychic messages received by those involved. But this was just the beginning. The finding of the so-called Meonia sword initiated what the press later dubbed “a remarkable true story of paranormal adventure.” The Green Stone, the book that provided a full account of the events, was first published in 1982 and has been out of print for more than three decades, becoming a cult classic, with second-hand copies selling online for hundreds of dollars. In response to popular demand for a reprint, this is a special edition with new material, published to mark the fortieth anniversary of the discovery of the sword and the mysterious green gemstone to which it led. For those unfamiliar with the Meonia mystery, in this introduction I will provide a brief outline of the events that began the adventure. The details, of course, are contained in the chapters that follow.

  The first time any of us saw the word “Meonia” was on the short sword discovered in the foundations of an old bridge back in 1979. Upon its blade were inscribed the words “Meonia for Mary.” In 1979, Andy Collins and I were part of a team working for a magazine called Strange Phenomena, whose office was a large Victorian building in the city of Wolverhampton in central England. The publication investigated a variety of mysteries, including unsolved historical enigmas, one concerning a secret society called the Rosicrucians. The Rosicrucians originated in the early 1600s, evidently inspired by the rare appearance of two new stars in a single generation: one in 1572 in the constellation of Cygnus the swan; the other in 1604 in the constellation of Serpentarius the serpent bearer. Today we know that they were in fact exploding stars, now referred to as supernovas. The flareup of these stellar explosions, visible from Earth for many weeks, outshone all the other stars in the Milky Way, making it seem as if new stars had appeared where none were visible before. So rare are such celestial events that none have since been observable with the naked eye. The Rosicrucians, it seems, regarded the “new stars” as portents of profound worldly changes, such as religious tolerance and advances in science, also regarding them as relevant to various mystical or supernatural matters.

  Strange Phenomena’s interest in the Rosicrucians began with a totally unrelated matter. As part of an ESP experiment at the magazine’s office, I agreed to be hypnotised and under hypnosis unexpectedly described events concerning the Rosicrucians that supposedly occurred in 1605. After the session, I had no memory of what had happened, and both Andy and I initially regarded the experience as purely imaginary. Under hypnosis, it is common for subjects to recount detailed experiences, often subconscious fantasy, afterwards having no memory of doing so. That was until we checked out the information I had related.

  I already knew a bit about the Rosicrucians, but the information I conveyed during the ESP experiment was entirely new to me, and much of it seemed historically unfeasible. Under hypnosis, I had said that in 1605 certain English Rosicrucians and oppressed Roman Catholics collaborated in the so-called Gunpowder Plot. Historically, this was an attempt by some extremist English Catholics, led by one Robert Catesby, to blow up King James I and his ministers at the state opening of parliament on November 5 of that year. The conspiracy was uncovered and one of Catesby’s accomplices, Guy Fawkes, was discovered just in time, waiting to light the fuses to barrels of gunpowder hidden in cellars beneath the Houses of Parliament. Catesby and his band of conspirators were hunted down and killed. All very true. But I had said that English Rosicrucians, led by the statesman Sir Walter Raleigh, had also been involved, although never implicated. On the face of it, this made no sense. Catesby and his band were zealous Catholics, desperate to see their faith restored as the state religion, while the Rosicrucians were either Protestants, or, as in Raleigh’s case, atheists. Both of which would not have fared well under a Catholic regime. Andy and I would probably have left it there had it not been for something else that I had mentioned during the session. I said that an important item that had once belonged to Mary Queen of Scots had been hidden after the Gunpowder Plot and still awaited discovery.

  Mary Queen of Scots, although first in line to the English throne, had been a Roman Catholic, which ultimately led to her execution on the orders of her Protestant cousin Elizabeth I in 1587. (Strictly speaking, it was Mary’s supposed involvement with a conspiracy to assassinate the queen for which she was beheaded.) If what I had related during the hypnosis session was to be believed, because it had belonged to the martyred queen, the precious item was regarded as something of a holy relic by certain English Catholics, and by 1605 it was in the possession of Robert Catesby. When the Gunpowder Plot failed, it was passed on to a sympathiser who hid it and left clues to its whereabouts. Although I did not say what the item was, I did provide certain details regarding its hiding. The person to whom it had been given while the Gunpowder Plotters were fleeing across the Midland county of Worcestershire, hotly pursued by the King’s men, was Gertrude Wintour, wife of one of the conspirators, while
they stayed overnight at her home, Huddington Court. She then passed it to a fellow Worcestershire Catholic named Humphrey Pakington of nearby Harvington Hall, and it was he who hid the relic and left the cryptic clues in his home. The idea, it seems, was for a supporter who would understand the message to later retrieve it, but that never transpired.

  I assured Andy that my knowledge of the Gunpowder Plot was sketchy. I had never heard of Huddington Court, or Gertrude Wintour; Harvington Hall existed and I had visited the place years before but could recall no details of the building or its owners. Researching at the local library (remember, there was no internet back then), Andy and I discovered that Huddington Court was also a real place, and still survived, and a Gertrude Wintour had been the lady of the house in 1605. Moreover, the Gunpowder Plotters had stayed overnight in the building while fleeing the authorities. Furthermore, the owner of Harvington Hall had been one Humphrey Pakington at the time of the Gunpowder Plot. Although totally mystified as to why I should have related such an account under hypnosis, I freely admitted that I may well have read about these incidents at some point and they had remained buried in my subconscious.

  Although some of the events could be historically verified, our research uncovered no mention of a lost relic associated with the Gunpowder Plot or with Harvington Hall. The incident that finally persuaded Andy and me to visit the locations involved was when another member of the Strange Phenomena team, Alan Beard, who had been told nothing of my hypnosis session, felt impelled to tell us of a vivid dream he had experienced concerning a green stone – the kind which would fit into a large ring – that he thought was hidden and should be found. This certainly seemed to be more than a coincidence. Could this be the item I had spoken of? It was odd that I, who did not consider myself psychic in any way, should have come up with such a coherent account of a lost relic; it was even stranger that someone else should have independently experienced a vivid dream about a hidden gemstone that he too thought we should find.

  Visiting Harvington Hall, Andy and I did indeed find something that could, just possibly, be a cryptic message dating from the time of the Gunpowder Plot. It was a mural painted on the wall of an upstairs corridor, deliberately boarded over with wood panelling during Humphrey Pakington’s lifetime, and recently rediscovered during renovations. It certainly seemed strange that Pakington had gone to such trouble to have the mural painted, only to then have covered it up. Referred to as ‘The Nine Worthies’, it portrayed nine heroic characters from history, scripture, and legend, such as Alexander the Great, Sampson, and the centrepiece, the youthful King Arthur wielding Excalibur. It was the Arthur image that ultimately led us to visit a nearby landmark. Behind the young king were depicted his knights gathered on a hill, and a few miles from Harvington Hall there was a hill called Knights Hill. Was this just a coincidence?

  Once again, it was our colleague Alan Beard who persuaded us to take matters further. Before Andy and I had time to inform anyone of our visit to Harvington Hall, Alan called us at the office to relate a further strange dream. He was sure that two items had been hidden, the stone and a sword, and it was the clues to the location of the sword we were presently following. In his dream he had seen a holly bush beneath which he was sure the sword was hidden. He hadn’t seen the sword, he told us, the idea had come into his mind during the lucid dream, as had the notion of there being two relics involved. Once more, Alan’s dream seemed to tie up with what we were doing: the King Arthur figure in the mural had been wielding a sword. It was all too coincidental. Andy and I set off immediately for Knights Hill.

  Eventually it was reasoned that if you should stand in the position of the Arthur figure, in relation to the hill behind him in the painting, you would find yourself on an old bridge, which crossed a stream feeding a lake immediately below Knights Hill. In fact, the stone bridge did date from the Elizabethan era and so had been there in Humphrey Pakington’s day. In the painting, the Arthur figure is gazing down and to his left, and by standing on the bridge and doing the same you would be looking at the foundation stones to the left of the bridge facing the lake. Astonishingly, once more, Alan Beard’s dream seemed significant. He had told us that a large holly bush grew directly over where the sword was hidden; a single holly tree was indeed growing from the bank, partially covering the relevant section of the bridge’s foundation stones. It was Andy who eventually decided that, as the number nine was involved with the Harvington murals – they were called The Nine Worthies – we should try nine stones across and nine stones down from the centre of the bridge. (Nine down and nine across wouldn’t work, as there were not nine stones below the bridge arch.) The specific stone was located and removed, and in a narrow recess behind it there lay a short sword or long dagger heavily encrusted with years of sediment. To say that Andy and I were shocked would be an understatement. We were absolutely dumbfounded. We had located a hidden artefact by interpreting a cryptic message left in a Tudor manor house almost four centuries before. Also, the search had been initiated and aided by apparently psychic messages and dreams. As far as any of the Strange Phenomena team knew, this was the first time such a thing had ever happened.

  The sword was cleaned and found to have been encased in some type of resin, presumably to protect it, and examined by experts at the Grosvenor Museum in the city of Chester. Made from a single casting of steel, it was around twenty inches long, the blade about two thirds of that length, separated from the hilt by a short, two-inch crossguard. The nearest comparison the museum could find was a dirk, a long thrusting dagger, the personal weapon of naval officers during the age of sailing ships. However, as it had a rounded tip, it was thought to be an ornamental item rather than something intended for use in battle. It was the decoration on the sword that further tied the artefact to my hypnosis account. On one side of the middle of the crossguard was an unidentifiable image that seemed to have been damaged, but on the other was what was identified as the personal coat of arms of Mary Queen of Scots. If this was the item that I had spoken of under hypnosis, then it might indeed have belonged to her, just as I had said.

  Being the cousin of the childless Queen Elizabeth in the late sixteenth century, Mary Stuart had been heir to the English throne. Between 1542 and 1567 she had been queen of Scotland, but was deposed and forced to flee to England, hoping Elizabeth would grant her asylum. However, Europe was gripped by the Reformation, during which Catholics and Protestants vied for power, and while Mary was a Catholic, Elizabeth was Protestant. Elizabeth ordered that her cousin - generally referred to as Mary Queen of Scots – be held under house arrest, where she remained for nineteen years in various castles and manor houses throughout England. Although England was a Protestant country, a significant part of the population wanted a return to Catholic rule. If, when Elizabeth died, Mary became queen then their hopes would be realised. But this was not to be.

  After her death, Mary became a symbol of resistance for the English Catholics, and it was expected that the Pope would canonise her (proclaim her a saint) for dying as a martyr to her faith. However, to be canonised would require that miracles be accredited to her, and if any of her belongings were to have marvels attributed to them it would constitute a case for canonisation. To prevent her personal possessions from becoming regarded as holy relics, the Queen’s chief minister, Francis Walsingham, ordered them all destroyed upon her death. Could the short sword found in the bridge have been one such item that had managed to evade Walsingham’s grasp? It would certainly explain why it had been hidden and the elaborate clues left for some future sympathiser to find. But there was something else on the sword that appeared to tie the artefact to the Queen of Scots: the words “Meonia for Mary,” spelt Meonia fore Marye, were inscribed upon the blade. The unusual spelling would have been common before the standardisation of English spelling in the eighteenth century. Presumably, the Mary in question was Mary Stuart, but what about “Meonia”? What did it mean? For the time being this was to remain a mystery.

  Unfo
rtunately, it was impossible to date the sword. If it had been extracted from the bridge by archaeologists, they might have been able to date the earth around it by radiocarbon dating, but the chance had been lost. Andy and I have often since wished we had contacted archaeologists before removing the sword, but it was a case of youthful enthusiasm, both of us being in our early twenties. All that could be said with certainty was that the bridge had been there at the time of the Gunpowder Plot. The sword had been found on land belonging to Croome Court, the ancestral home of the earls of Coventry, but in 1979 it was in the hands of the Hare Krishna movement, which used it as a meditation centre. Andy and I took the sword to them and told them of the discovery. Although they were fascinated by the story, they had no interest in the item itself and told us we could keep it.

  But what about - for want of a better term – the apparently psychic messages received by Alan and me? Both of us shared an interest in the paranormal, but neither of us had experienced anything like it before. People having dreams involving knowledge of which they were seemingly unaware is not unknown. Many have claimed to possess what is commonly called clairvoyance. But my hypnosis session was something new entirely. Throughout the session I had spoken in a whispering voice that did not claim to be a spirit or some other kind of entity, such as are said to speak through channelers or spirit mediums, but a living person. It claimed to be someone called Joanna whom I had once known at college. When the woman was traced, she seems to have remembered seeing Andy Collin’s face and the Wolverhampton office in her dreams but was unaware of anything to do with the content of the whispered messages. What was going on? Joanna and I had never been in a relationship and I had even forgotten who she was. Just why my unconscious should have chosen to say that the messages were coming via an old acquaintance I had not seen for years was a complete mystery. This, as you will see, was just the first of an entire series of strange events that were to occur that can only be described as bizarre.