Judit Thüringer

Judit Thüringer, as portrayed by Alexa Chung

Judit Thüringer [YOU-dit TWO-ringer] was born a woman in the 17th century, disguising herself as a male soldier in order to fight against the Parliamentarian Roundheads in the First English Civil War.

In 1644, during shooting practice, a misfire caused her musket to explode wildly, killing both her and her horse. Following her death, through contacting the Landgrave George II of Hesse-Darmstadt, it was discovered she had lied about her identity and was thus denied a Catholic burial.

Her ghost haunts the grounds and manor of Button House, astride her horse and clutching her ruined musket.

## Appearance

### **Physical Appearance**

Judit is a tall woman with a long face and sallow skin. She has short, cropped dark hair that was covered by a long, ringleted wig when she was alive. The explosion knocked her wig and hat off, showing her natural hair as a ghost. She wears her Cavalier gear of lace collar, leather overcoat, red sash etc. Her face shows the wounds of her death, which ripped half her jaw off and shows open wounds on the rest of the right half of her face. Her ghost is always seen riding a large, dark brown horse.

### **Inventory**

Judit wears a rapier in a sheath at her side, and holds her ruined, short-barrelled musket/arquebus.

## Personality

Judit speaks with a low voice, with 17th century-mannerisms and affectations. She’s quite full of herself. She very much acts first and thinks later, if at all. Judit is a pathological liar and has claimed, amongst other things, to be a master musician, painter and swordman, none of which are true. A lot of times she will reflexively lie to cover up mistakes on her part rather than own up to them.

Since her death, Judit hasn’t had too much interaction with the other Button House ghosts, remaining further out in the field (despite being able to come into the house) due to her embarrassment at dying due to her own incompetence.

## History

Following the break-out of the Thirty-Years War in Europe, the Protestant Thüringer family fled to England to escape the religious conflict. Marten and Petra Thüringer had two sons, Luther and Johannes before Judit was born. As tensions between Charles I and the Protestant population rose, the Thüringers made it clear which side they were on; the Protestants. As such, they turned their backs on the King, and his relations with the Roman Catholic Queen Henrietta Maria and William Laud, which labelled him 'practically a Papist'. Except for Judit, who secretly found herself in the Catholic faith, and in support of the King.

Married to the Presbyterian Earl of Blackwater in 1635, Judit put up with the advantageous marriage of convenience. Having been a noble family in Germany, relinquishing the land had meant a dip in the Thüringers' social standing. Lord Blackwater suffered somewhat financially, which made the union advantageous to both sides. She held no love or desire for the older man and made sure to never bear him children. However, she was witness to many of the dealings between the Thüringer-Blackwaters and various anti-Royalist MPs. Following the collapse of the Short and Long Parliaments in 1640, Judit was witness to the financial and political backing of John Pym and his followers by her family, and as the conflict came to a head in 1642, she collected personal funds, bought a horse and clothing and abandoned her marriage, leaving no trace or note.

Judit disguised herself as a man and made her way to the house of Richard Sackville, 5th Earl of Dorset, where she claimed to be Ignatius Wilhelm Hesse-Darmstadt, son of Louis V of Hesse-Darmstadt , once again on the run from the fallout of Germany's on-going religious conflict, as well as the family conflict between the four Hesse branches. Sackville, a Royalist supporter, believed her claims, seeing her accent, noble-upbringing and willingness to join the Royalist cause, and introduced her as such. With the fast-rising tension in England, nobody had the time to make such enquiries abroad.

Judit, now Ignatius, took part in many of the smaller battles and skirmishes, learning to fight more or less in the thick of it. He became handy with the rapier, and had to learn to fight dirty after the first few times being pulled off his horse by the opposition. He was stabbed in the left shoulder by a pikeman at Adwalton Moor, which healed, but left his shoulder troubled. He fought in the Battle of Marston Moor but barely escaped with his life, leading to him seeking to adopt the short arquebus/musket for another line of defence.

Learning to wield a weapon like the musket proved more difficult than the rapier for him, so, whilst stationed at the Royalist garrison (hosted by the then-Lord of the Manor of Button House, a member of Charles I's court), Ignatius suited up and rode out on a quiet, misty September morning to the tree line on the edge of the field. Setting up a target, he shot twice from horseback with bad accuracy, sending lead balls splintering tree trunks all around. The third time, an ill-prepared cartridge double-loaded the barrel, blocking it. As the musket fired, the blockage caused the pan to explode, sending shrapnel flying into Ignatius' face and brain, killing him, whilst the lead balls were expelled in pieces from the end of the barrel and into the horse's neck, also killing it.

Ignatius' body was found by his commanding officer two hours later.

A letter was sent to the then-landgrave George II of Hesse-Darmstadt to inform him of his brother's death, but the reply revealed Ignatius to be an impostor. Following this, his identity unknown, he was denied a Catholic burial and buried in an unmarked grave near the tree-line.

## Strengths and Weaknesses

Despite Judit's often times arrogant and disdainful outlook on life and people, when she puts her mind to it, she can be charming and convincing. She doesn't often feel guilty for manipulating others, rather shifting the blame than honourably apologising.

She gets frustrated with her inability to do things quite quickly, leading her to have passable, but not quite Good skills in many areas. She has abandoned many pastimes such as watercolours, writing and playing the violin, simply because it takes too much time to become good at them. She is also very susceptible to embarrassment, and inevitably lashes out when humiliated.

She has a very good memory, especially for the written word, and although she has not had much chance to show them off in public, has excellent oratory skills. Had she been a man, she would have likely made a great MP herself.

Unsurprisingly, she doesn't do well with sudden, loud noises, like gunshots or misfiring car engines. She also doesn't like to think too much about how many years have passed, and how many people she knows have died since she passed on. She gets anxiety when thinking about how she might go on for infinity or how quickly new technology is passing her by.

She believes part of the reason she's stuck as a spirit is because she abandoned her Catholic duty of being a good wife to her husband and giving him children.

## Relationships with the canon Ghosts

Like all the other ghosts, when she *does* interact with the others, she at times likes and dislikes them all.

With Pat, she mistakes his kind nature for condescension, so often ignores his advice or calls him ‘little man’. Whilst initially respecting the Captain as a fellow soldier, upon hearing tales of tanks and planes, she thinks of that as ‘soft’ warfare, since its not running straight into a wall of pikes or arquebuses. As a result, they often disagree on matters of tactics and resolutions. She also finds it difficult to relinquish authority to him, believing herself to be subject only to Cavalier commanders, the King, and God. Judit sees Julian as representative of the downfall of Parliament following the Cromwell administration, despite the fact that Julian has nothing to do with Cromwell, or religious/regent tensions. Judit likes to push Thomas around, finding him easy to wind up and finding it amusing when he storms off in a huff. As an easily frustrated person, Judit finds Robin’s company especially draining, finding it hard – and therefor automatically frustrating – to follow his speech. Robin is also one of the few people who can, and does, sneak up to scare her, to which her automatic reaction is to try and run him through with
her sword.

As for the ladies, Judit mostly ignores Fanny, or doesn’t try to hide her irritation at the woman’s mannerisms. Judit tries really hard to be irritated by Kitty, but finds it impossible, and could be easily manipulated by Kitty, if Kitty so chose. She has no problem with Mary, excepting if she’s in a question asking mood; Judit doesn’t have the patience Pat has, and so loses her temper quite easily.

If she were to chose any of them to hang out with, it would probably be Humphrey, as he (so far) seems like the most level-headed (heh heh). If she does make the rare trip to the House, she will pick up Humphrey’s head and deposit it with his body, despite recognising it to be a losing battle.

Judit isn’t an easy individual to get along with, and most of the ghosts are quite irritated by her braggadocious manners and her short fuse. Fanny and Thomas are the most easily offended and if they hear the ghorse’s hooves coming, will most likely vacate the rooms to avoid meeting with her. For some reason Pat and Kitty are always glad to see her ‘come in’. The others are mostly ambivalent until Judit inevitable does Something Rude. Mary just really likes to pet the ghorse.

## Special Ability

She can be seen out of the corner of your eye, but vanished when you try to look at her properly.

The ghorse can sometimes be heard by living people, its hooves clopping on stone or flooring for a few seconds before fading away. The ghorse can be interacted with by other ghosts, and can be seen by at least dogs.

## Skills

Ignatius know how to fight with a sword, fight dirty hand to hand, use a musket and ride a horse. He can read and write English, German and passable French, Latin and Greek.

## Trivia

* Judit/Ignatius uses him/her/they pronouns, whichever.
* Judit has ADD, but was obviously never diagnosed.
* The portrait I'm using as an image of Judit is actually a portrait by Gerard von Hanthorst of Prince Rupert of the Rhine, a German Cavalier commander.
* Despite the strong religious/political background of this character, I, Gaz, am an atheist liberal. Judit will not use slurs or persecute other characters for their beliefs. I just wanted to play around with the absolute NUTs political climate of 17th century Europe.