On Wednesday, 1 June 1692, a young man, about fifteen years of age, went to his bed. He had no sooner lain down than he heard ‘a Hand sweeping on the wall’. Then it came ‘with a rushing noise on his beds-head’ and ‘stroaked him over the face twice very gently’. Opening his eyes he saw before him ‘an apparition of a woman cloathed in black apparel’. Following this eerie encounter, other members of his family reported seeing the apparition ‘in the same room with a lighted candle’. Perplexed by these unexplained visits, the mistress of this ‘Civiliz'd Family’ wrote to the editors of the bi-weekly periodical the Athenian Mercury. She desired to know ‘what should be the occasion of the disturbance’ and ‘whether it be advisable to ask the question of the apparition?’. Samuel Wesley (father of John), Church of England minister and co-editor of the Mercury, advised the woman to speak to the ghost, find out its purpose and discover how it might be satisfied.

We already know that the status of ghosts was highly contested in the religious polemic of post-Reformation England, so Samuel Wesley's advice might appear surprising. His interest in this haunting, however, neatly epitomizes a rehabilitation of ghost stories in Restoration England that peaked in the 1690s, and which forms the subject of this chapter. The years 1660–1700 saw ghost beliefs and ghost stories elevated to public prominence thanks to their congruence with the religious, political, intellectual and social imperatives that followed Charles II's return to the throne. Although the reality of returning ghosts was not universally accepted, the Restoration period produced the most energetic and public defence of ghost beliefs and ghost stories that Protestant England had ever seen.

The distinctive importance of ghost stories in this period will be described under three main headings. First, the increasingly common adoption of ghost stories by Anglican, and especially latitudinarian, ministers will be examined to show how and why these narratives became so relevant to the religious ideologies of the newly-restored Church.