Blenheim Palace was built in the early 18th century close to the site of a previous house, Woodstock Manor, also known as Woodstock Palace. Today the site of the older house is can be found marked with a plaque on the north side of Blenheim lake. Although the Manor was used for a time as a base by King Charles, by 1649 the Roundheads had seized control of the Manor and it was occupied by a group of Parliamentary Commissioners.

Knowing that their new billet had been highly prized by the king, the occupying Roundheads took pleasure in converting Charles's bedroom into a kitchen and the former Royalist council rooms into a brewery.

The final straw seems to have been when they chopped down an old oak tree in the grounds, known as the King's Oak, and used it for firewood.

This seems to have been the trigger for a terrifying supernatural assault on the Manor, which Christina Hole recounts in her 1941 book Haunted England.

The incident reportedly began on 17 October 1649, when something resembling a dog or bear was seen entering the Manor. After this beds were violently thrown up and down, injuring their occupants. The firewood cut from the King's Oak was found scattered around the house and furniture was overturned.

For the next three weeks the building was nightly disturbed by objects being thrown about the rooms, candles being blown out, curtains pulled down and bed clothes pulled off beds. Servants were showered with 'stinking ditchwater' and broken glass was thrown around the rooms.

Walls were shaken, windows broken and loud noises described as 'dismal thunderings' were heard. These noises were said to have been so loud that they scared away the local poachers hunting for rabbits in the nearby park.

The haunting seems to have come to a head appropriately at around midnight on 31 October, when the Commissioners reported having been awakened by a rapping on all sides. They were then assaulted as they cowered under their blankets by a number of objects, including stones, a warming-pan, and the shoulder-blade of a dead horse! One of the Commissioners reported seeing the the 'hinder parts' of a spectral horse appear and kick out all the candles and fires in the room.

The day after this ordeal, the Commissioners moved their lodgings to a room about the gate house, and the day after that left Woodstock Manor for good.

The legend of the 'Royalist Devil' of Woodstock was popularised by novelist Walter Scott, who included a fictionalised account of the haunting in his novel Woodstock; or, The Cavalier, but the legend originated in a pamphlet published in 1660 with the excellent title The Just Devil of Woodstock, or a true Narrative of several Apparitions, the Frights, and Punishments, inflicted upon the Rumpish Commissioners Sent Thither To Survey The Manors And Houses Belonging To His Majestie.

In this pamphlet, the author Thomas Widdows (1612-1655) makes no attempt to hide his Royalist sympathies as he gleefully gives a detailed day-by-day account of the haunting. He describes the actions of the commissioners as worse than anything the Devil could have planned, and the terrifying extended ordeal that they were put though as no more than they deserved.

In his introduction to Woodstock; or The Cavalier, Walter Scott refers to another pamphlet called The Secret History of the Good Devil of Woodstock by Joseph Collins. In this tell-all pamphlet, Collins claims that all the events of the haunting were nothing more than practical jokes carried out by Collins himself, with the aid of two accomplices.

Collins claims that he took on the false name of Giles Sharp in order to get a job as a servant at the manor. He goes into great detail about how the individual nocturnal pranks that made up the haunting were achieved, mostly by the use of trapdoors, gunpowder and in some cases, a dog who had recently given birth!