Every year on May 19, a terrifying ghost supposedly appears at Blickling Hall in Norfolk, England, the former home of the Boleyn family. A horse carriage gallops down the road, guided by a headless driver (fortunately, horses have heads). Inside the car, a young woman glowing red sits holding her bleeding head in her lap. A cool blue light follows the car, which is sometimes seen dragging a headless male corpse and a group of screaming demons behind it. This happened on this day in 1536, when her husband, King Henry VIII. It is said to be the ghost car of Anne Boleyn, who was murdered by Henry VIII. Headless corpse? His brother George was also executed by Henry VIII.

The tragic Anne of a Thousand Days (a reference to the length of her reign as Queen of England before she was beheaded by King Henry) is no surprise that she is the holy grail of British royal apparitions, as her spirit is claimed to have been seen all over England. According to the investigation book The Most Haunted Castles, He is also seen at Hever Castle, another former Boleyn estate, where he is seen pounding his fists and scratching at a window.

Given that royal figures loom so large in history and culture—their lives public, their deaths infamous—it makes sense that many rulers felt cursed by the ancient palaces and castles in which they lived. Empress Josephine, Napoleon’s wife, once told her daughter how much she hated sleeping in Marie Antoinette’s old bedroom in the Tuileries Palace. “I have dark suspicions” he said. “I feel as if the queen’s shadow is asking me what I’m doing in her bed.”

The other royals are at peace with their ghostly ancestors. in 2017 Queen Silvia of Sweden There are ghosts in Stockholm’s UNESCO-listed Drottningholm Palace, he cheerfully admitted. “There are little friends…ghosts.” he said. “They are all very friendly but sometimes you feel like you are not completely alone. “It’s really exciting.”

sister-in-law Princess Christina agreed. “There’s a lot of energy in this house. It would be weird if it wasn’t disguised,” he said. “All old houses have stories about ghosts. They’ve been filled with people over the centuries. The energies remain.”

Stoic Queen II. Even Elizabeth is said to have encountered the paranormal on more than one occasion. Accordingly british royal expert Hilary Fordwich, “Both the late Princess Margaret and Queen Elizabeth II reported that their late ancestor, Queen Elizabeth I, had witnessed paranormal activity there.” This spirit of the Virgin Queen, said to walk through the library at Windsor Castle, was also reportedly seen by Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter, Princess Vicky. Other ghosts seen at Windsor include Mad King George III, who mutters “what” over and over, and King Henry VIII, who moans and groans over his ulcerated leg.

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth was also said to have sensed the presence of the ghost of John Brown, Queen Victoria’s beloved Scottish servant, who was seen in his kilt at Balmoral Estate. “Our dear late queen always said there were ghosts, and ‘I would never go to Allt-na-Giubhsaich – Glassalt, the cottage by the lake. balmoral – without corgis because Corgis Feel it before I do. They get goosebumps and start growling, so I never go without them and I never spend the night there’” butler Paul Burrell recalled. “Queen Victoria used to spend the night there with John Brown.”

Sightings of royal ghosts are a worldwide phenomenon. The ghost of Aztec emperor Moctezuma II is said to haunt the Mexican National Palace. The ghosts of two 16th-century women at the beautiful Château de Chenonceau in France’s Loire Valley^ThisCentury King II. The life of Henry VIII, his wife Catherine de’ Medici, and his mistress Diane de Poitiers can only be seen during the full moon, when Catherine is combing the hair of her husband’s lover. In Russia, Peter the Great walks purposefully around the theater of his hermitage in his heavy boots.

The Tower of London alone has seen enough ghost sightings to fill an apartment complex. The headless Anne Boleyn was seen leading a procession of dignitaries to the execution site. Lady Jane Gray and Sir Walter Raleigh, as well as the two lost little Princes of the Tower, appear huddled together in their white nightgowns, holding hands. There’s even the ghost of a bear, probably from the days when the tower housed the royal zoo.