William Kempe of Spains Hall married Philippa Gunter in 1588. According to the story told about him ever since, he later flew into a rage at his wife over an accusation of infidelity, only to discover almost immediately that the accusation was baseless. Overcome with guilt at having wronged her, Kempe is said to have vowed never to speak another word, and to have kept that vow for seven years, digging one pond on the estate to mark the passing of each year of his silence.
The legend holds that Kempe's resolve did not break even for his wife's death, nor when he became aware, purely by listening, that a gang of burglars was planning to break into Spains Hall. Unable to speak to raise the alarm directly, he is said to have written a warning note and sent his groom racing across the flooded River Blackwater to deliver it, only for the message to be washed illegible before it arrived. The household's valuables were reportedly thrown into one of Kempe's memorial ponds by the burglars, or by the household itself in a hurried attempt to hide them, accounts differ on this detail.
Kempe's seven-year vow ended only shortly before his death at the age of seventy-three. The story's final and most striking detail is that when he finally tried to speak again after so long, he found he no longer could, and that the shock of this failure is what killed him. Whatever the truth of the specific events, the vow itself appears to be a real and locally remembered piece of family history rather than invented legend. It is commemorated by a memorial tablet to Kempe still visible at the estate, and continues to be told as an explanation both for his character and for his death.
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