The Derbyshire Times describes the best-known Haddon Hall ghost story as dating from the time of Henry VIII's elder brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales. During a stay at the hall, the paper says, Arthur saw a ghost who warned him that his new wife, Catherine of Aragon, had arrived from Spain and would be widowed early.
The paper continues that Arthur died just four months after the wedding, and that his last words were "O the vision of the cross at Haddon!". Arthur and Catherine married in November 1501 and Arthur died at Ludlow in April 1502, so the timing of the story broadly matches, but the claim that he stayed at Haddon, saw a ghost there or said those words is not supported by anything seen in this research.
It reads as a later tradition built on a famous early death, and the Derbyshire Times offers no source for it. It is recorded as a legend that Haddon Hall's ghost reputation carries, not as an event. The hall's other stories are covered in the Dorothy Vernon record.
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