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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13918 ***
+
+[Illustration: MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE]
+
+
+
+
+SECRET CHAMBERS AND HIDING-PLACES
+
+
+HISTORIC, ROMANTIC, & LEGENDARY STORIES & TRADITIONS ABOUT
+HIDING-HOLES, SECRET CHAMBERS, ETC.
+
+
+BY ALLAN FEA
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE FLIGHT OF THE KING," "KING MONMOUTH," ETC.
+
+
+WITH EIGHTY ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+THIRD AND REVISED EDITION
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A GREAT DEVISER OF "PRIEST'S HOLES"
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HINDLIP HALL
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PRIEST-HUNTING AT BRADDOCKS
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE GUNPOWDER PLOT CONSPIRATORS
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HARVINGTON, UFTON, AND INGATESTONE
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+COMPTON WINYATES, SALFORD PRIOR, SAWSTON, OXBURGH, PARHAM, PAXHILL, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+KING-HUNTING: BOSCOBEL, MOSELEY, TRENT, AND HEALE
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CAVALIER-HUNTING, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES (_continued_): HAM HOUSE, AND "ABDICATION HOUSE"
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MYSTERIOUS ROOMS, DEADLY PITS, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+HIDING-PLACES IN JACOBITE DWELLINGS AND IN SCOTTISH CASTLES AND MANSIONS
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CONCEALED DOORS, SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGES, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MINIATURE HIDING-HOLES FOR VALUABLES, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+HIDING-PLACES OF SMUGGLERS AND THIEVES
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE SCOTTISH HIDING-PLACES OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE
+HINDLIP HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE
+BRADDOCKS, ESSEX
+FIREPLACE AT BRADDOCKS
+ASHBY ST. LEDGERS, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
+THE PLOT ROOM, ASHBY ST. LEDGERS
+HUDDINGTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE
+ENTRANCE PORCH, HUDDINGTON COURT
+ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," HARVINGTON HALL
+HARVINGTON HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE
+UFTON COURT, BERKSHIRE
+  "     "   GARDEN TERRACE, BERKSHIRE
+HIDING-PLACE, UFTON COURT
+      "         "     "
+INGATESTONE HALL, ESSEX
+      "      "      "
+"PRIEST'S HOLE," SAWSTON HALL
+SCOTNEY CASTLE, SUSSEX
+COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE
+THE MINSTRELS' GALLERY, COMPTON WINYATES
+SAWSTON HALL, CAMBRIDGESHIRE
+PICKERSLEIGH COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE
+SALFORD PRIOR HALL, WARWICKSHIRE
+   "      "    "         "
+HIDING-PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR
+SHOWING ENTRANCE TO HIDING PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR
+OXBURGH HALL, NORFOLK
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, PARHAM HALL
+PAXHILL, SUSSEX
+CLEEVE PRIOR MANOR HOUSE, WORCESTERSHIRE
+BADDESLEY CLINTON HALL, WARWICKSHIRE
+HIDING-PLACE BENEATH "THE CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL, SALOP
+HIDING-PLACE IN "THE SQUIRE'S BEDROOM," BOSCOBEL
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE IN THE GARRET, OR "CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL
+SECRET PANEL, TRENT HOUSE, SOMERSETSHIRE
+BOSCOBEL
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE
+HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE
+TRENT HOUSE IN 1864
+HEALE HOUSE, WILTSHIRE
+MADELEY COURT, SHROPSHIRE
+   "      "    THE COURTYARD, SHROPSHIRE
+   "      "    SHROPSHIRE
+ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," THE UPPER HOUSE, MADELEY, SHROPSHIRE
+INTERIOR OF "PRIEST'S HOLE," MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE
+SECRET PANEL AT SALISBURY
+SECRET CHAMBER, CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE
+OLD SUMMER HOUSE, SALISBURY
+CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE
+     "      FRONT ENTRANCE, OXFORDSHIRE
+BROUGHTON HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE
+ST. JOHN'S HOSPITAL, WARWICK
+STAIRCASE, BROUGHTON HALL
+SHIPTON COURT, OXFORDSHIRE
+BROUGHTON CASTLE, OXFORDSHIRE
+ENTRANCE GATE, BRADSHAWE HALL, DERBYSHIRE
+MOYLES COURT, HAMPSHIRE
+TODDINGTON MANOR HOUSE, BEDFORDSHIRE, IN 1806
+"RAT'S CASTLE," ELMLEY
+KING'S HILL FARM, ELMLEY, KENT
+ENTRANCE TO SECRET PASSAGE, "ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER
+"ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER
+MONUMENT OF SIR RICHARD HEAD
+"RESTORATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER
+ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE, WORCHESTERSHIRE
+ENTRANCE GATE, ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE
+WOODSTOCK PALACE, OXFORDSHIRE
+MARKYATE CELL, HERTFORDSHIRE
+BIRTSMORTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE
+PORCH AT CHELVEY COURT, SOMERSETSHIRE
+HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE, SUSSEX
+BOVEY HOUSE, SOUTH DEVON
+MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE
+     "        "         "
+ENTRANCE TO SECRET STAIRCASE, PARTINGDALE HOUSE, MILL HILL, MIDDLESEX
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+The secret chamber is unrivalled even by the haunted house for
+the mystery and romance surrounding it. Volumes have been written
+about the haunted house, while the secret chamber has found but
+few exponents. The ancestral ghost has had his day, and to all
+intents and purposes is dead, notwithstanding the existence of
+the Psychical Society and the investigations of Mr. Stead and
+the late Lord Bute. "Alas! poor ghost!" he is treated with scorn
+and derision by the multitude in these advanced days of modern
+enlightenment. The search-light of science has penetrated even
+into his sacred haunts, until, no longer having a leg to stand
+upon, he has fallen from the exalted position he occupied for
+centuries, and fallen moreover into ridicule!
+
+In the secret chamber, however, we have something tangible to deal
+with--a subject not only keenly interesting from an antiquarian
+point of view, but one deserving the attention of the general
+reader; for in exploring the gloomy hiding-holes, concealed
+apartments, passages, and staircases in our old halls and manor
+houses we probe, as it were, into the very groundwork of romance.
+We find actuality to support the weird and mysterious stories
+of fiction, which those of us who are honest enough to admit
+a lingering love of the marvellous must now doubly appreciate,
+from the fact that our school-day impressions of such things
+are not only revived, but are strengthened with the semblance
+of truth. Truly Bishop Copleston wrote: "If the things we hear
+told be avowedly fictitious, and yet curious or affecting or
+entertaining, we may indeed admire the author of the fiction, and
+may take pleasure in contemplating the exercise of his skill. But
+this is a pleasure of another kind--a pleasure wholly distinct from
+that which is derived from discovering what was _unknown_, or
+clearing up what was _doubtful_. And even when the narrative
+is in its own nature, such as to please us and to engage our
+attention, how, greatly is the interest increased if we place
+entire confidence in its _truth_! Who has not heard from
+a child when listening to a tale of deep interest--who has not
+often heard the artless and eager question, 'Is it true?'"
+
+From Horace Walpole, Mrs. Radcliffe, Scott, Victor Hugo, Dumas,
+Lytton, Ainsworth, Le Fanu, and Mrs. Henry Wood, down to the
+latest up-to-date novelists of to-day, the secret chamber (an
+ingenious _necessity_ of the "good old times") has afforded
+invaluable "property"--indeed, in many instances the whole vitality
+of a plot is, like its ingenious opening, hinged upon the masked
+wall, behind which lay concealed what hidden mysteries, what
+undreamed-of revelations! The thread of the story, like Fair
+Rosamond's silken clue, leads up to and at length reveals the
+buried secret, and (unlike the above comparison in this instance)
+all ends happily!
+
+Bulwer Lytton honestly confesses that the spirit of romance in his
+novels "was greatly due to their having been written at my ancestral
+home, Knebworth, Herts. How could I help writing romances," he
+says, "after living amongst the secret panels and hiding-places
+of our dear old home? How often have I trembled with fear at
+the sound of my own footsteps when I ventured into the picture
+gallery! How fearfully have I glanced at the faces of my ancestors
+as I peered into the shadowy abysses of the 'secret chamber.' It
+was years before I could venture inside without my hair literally
+bristling with terror."
+
+What would _Woodstock_ be without the mysterious picture,
+_Peveril of the Peak_ without the sliding panel, the Castlewood
+of _Esmond_ without Father Holt's concealed apartments,
+_Ninety-Three, Marguerite de Valois, The Tower of London, Guy
+Fawkes_, and countless other novels of the same type, without
+the convenient contrivances of which the _dramatis personæ_
+make such effectual use?
+
+Apart, however, from the importance of the secret chamber in
+fiction, it is closely associated with many an important historical
+event. The stories of the Gunpowder Plot, Charles II.'s escape
+from Worcester, the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745, and many
+another stirring episode in the annals of our country, speak
+of the service it rendered to fugitives in the last extremity
+of danger. When we inspect the actual walls of these confined
+spaces that saved the lives of our ancestors, how vividly we can
+realise the hardships they must have endured; and in wondering
+at the mingled ingenuity and simplicity of construction, there
+is also a certain amount of comfort to be derived from drawing
+a comparison between those troublous and our own more peaceful
+times.
+
+
+
+
+SECRET CHAMBERS AND HIDING-PLACES
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A GREAT DEVISER OF "PRIEST'S HOLES"
+
+
+During the deadly feuds which existed in the Middle Ages, when
+no man was secure from spies and traitors even within the walls
+of his own house, it is no matter of wonder that the castles and
+mansions of the powerful and wealthy were usually provided with
+some precaution in the event of a sudden surprise--_viz._
+a secret means of concealment or escape that could be used at
+a moment's notice; but the majority of secret chambers and
+hiding-places in our ancient buildings owe their origin to religious
+persecution, particularly during the reign of Elizabeth, when the
+most stringent laws and oppressive burdens were inflicted upon
+all persons who professed the tenets of the Church of Rome.
+
+In the first years of the virgin Queen's reign all who clung to
+the older forms of the Catholic faith were mercifully connived
+at, so long as they solemnised their own religious rites within
+their private dwelling-houses; but after the Roman Catholic rising
+in the north and numerous other Popish plots, the utmost severity
+of the law was enforced, particularly against seminarists, whose
+chief object was, as was generally believed, to stir up their
+disciples in England against the Protestant Queen. An Act was
+passed prohibiting a member of the Church of Rome from celebrating
+the rites of his religion on pain of forfeiture for the first
+offence, a year's imprisonment for the second, and imprisonment
+for life for the third.[1] All those who refused to take the
+Oath of Supremacy were called "recusants" and were guilty of
+high treason. A law was also enacted which provided that if any
+Papist should convert a Protestant to the Church of Rome, both
+should suffer death, as for high treason.
+
+[Footnote 1: In December, 1591, a priest was hanged before the
+door of a house in Gray's Inn Fields for having there said Mass
+the month previously.]
+
+The sanguinary laws against seminary priests and "recusants"
+were enforced with the greatest severity after the discovery of
+the Gunpowder Plot. These were revived for a period in Charles
+II.'s reign, when Oates's plot worked up a fanatical hatred against
+all professors of the ancient faith. In the mansions of the old
+Roman Catholic families we often find an apartment in a secluded
+part of the house or garret in the roof named "the chapel," where
+religious rites could be performed with the utmost privacy, and
+close handy was usually an artfully contrived hiding-place, not
+only for the officiating priest to slip into in case of emergency,
+but also where the vestments, sacred vessels, and altar furniture
+could be put away at a moment's notice.
+
+It appears from the writings of Father Tanner[1] that most of
+the hiding-places for priests, usually called "priests' holes,"
+were invented and constructed by the Jesuit Nicholas Owen, a
+servant of Father Garnet, who devoted the greater part of his
+life to constructing these places in the principal Roman Catholic
+houses all over England.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Vita et Mors_ (1675), p. 75.]
+
+"With incomparable skill," says an authority, "he knew how to
+conduct priests to a place of safety along subterranean passages,
+to hide them between walls and bury them in impenetrable recesses,
+and to entangle them in labyrinths and a thousand windings. But
+what was much more difficult of accomplishment, he so disguised
+the entrances to these as to make them most unlike what they
+really were. Moreover, he kept these places so close a secret
+with himself that he would never disclose to another the place
+of concealment of any Catholic. He alone was both their architect
+and their builder, working at them with inexhaustible industry
+and labour, for generally the thickest walls had to be broken
+into and large stones excavated, requiring stronger arms than
+were attached to a body so diminutive as to give him the nickname
+of 'Little John,' and by this his skill many priests were preserved
+from the prey of persecutors. Nor is it easy to find anyone who
+had not often been indebted for his life to Owen's hiding-places."
+
+How effectually "Little John's" peculiar ingenuity baffled the
+exhaustive searches of the "pursuivants," or priest-hunters,
+has been shown by contemporary accounts of the searches that
+took place frequently in suspected houses. Father Gerard, in
+his Autobiography, has handed down to us many curious details of
+the mode of procedure upon these occasions--how the search-party
+would bring with them skilled carpenters and masons and try every
+possible expedient, from systematic measurements and soundings to
+bodily tearing down the panelling and pulling up the floors. It
+was not an uncommon thing for a rigid search to last a fortnight
+and for the "pursuivants" to go away empty handed, while perhaps
+the object of the search was hidden the whole time within a wall's
+thickness of his pursuers, half starved, cramped and sore with
+prolonged confinement, and almost afraid to breathe, lest the
+least sound should throw suspicion upon the particular spot where
+he lay immured.
+
+After the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, "Little John" and
+his master, Father Garnet, were arrested at Hindlip Hall,
+Worcestershire, from information given to the Government by Catesby's
+servant Bates. Cecil, who was well aware of Owen's skill in
+constructing hiding-places, wrote exultingly: "Great joy was
+caused all through the kingdom by the arrest of Owen, knowing
+his skill in constructing hiding-places, and the innumerable
+number of these dark holes which he had schemed for hiding priests
+throughout the kingdom." He hoped that "great booty of priests"
+might be taken in consequence of the secrets Owen would be made
+to reveal, and directed that first he should "be coaxed if he
+be willing to contract for his life," but that "the secret is
+to be wrung from him." The horrors of the rack, however, failed
+in its purpose. His terrible death is thus briefly recorded by
+the Governor of the Tower at that time: "The man is dead--he
+died in our hands"; and perhaps it is as well the ghastly details
+did not transpire in his report.
+
+The curious old mansion Hindlip Hall (pulled down in the early
+part of the last century) was erected in 1572 by John Abingdon, or
+Habington, whose son Thomas (the brother-in-law of Lord Monteagle)
+was deeply involved in the numerous plots against the reformed
+religion. A long imprisonment in the Tower for his futile efforts
+to set Mary Queen of Scots at liberty, far from curing the dangerous
+schemes of this zealous partisan of the luckless Stuart heroine,
+only kept him out of mischief for a time. No sooner had he obtained
+his freedom than he set his mind to work to turn his house in
+Worcestershire into a harbour of refuge for the followers of
+the older rites. In the quaint irregularities of the masonry
+free scope was given to "Little John's" ingenuity; indeed, there
+is every proof that some of his masterpieces were constructed
+here. A few years before the "Powder Plot" was discovered, it
+was a hanging matter for a priest to be caught celebrating the
+Mass. Yet with the facilities at Hindlip he might do so with
+comfort, with every assurance that he had the means of evading
+the law. The walls of the mansion were literally riddled with
+secret chambers and passages. There was little fear of being
+run to earth with hidden exits everywhere. Wainscoting, solid
+brickwork, or stone hearth were equally accommodating, and would
+swallow up fugitives wholesale, and close over them, to "Open,
+Sesame!" again only at the hider's pleasure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HINDLIP HALL
+
+The capture of Father Garnet and "Little John" with two others,
+Hall and Chambers, at Hindlip, as detailed in a curious manuscript
+in the British Museum, gives us an insight into the search-proof
+merits of Abingdon's mansion. The document is headed: "_A true
+discovery of the service performed at Hindlip, the house of Mr.
+Thomas Abbingdon, for the apprehension of Mr. Henry Garnet, alias
+Wolley, provincial of the Jesuits, and other dangerous persons,
+there found in January last,_ 1605," and runs on:--
+
+"After the king's royal promise of bountiful reward to such as
+would apprehend the traitors concerned in the Powder Conspiracy,
+and much expectation of subject-like duty, but no return made
+thereof in so important a matter, a warrant was directed to the
+right worthy and worshipful knight, Sir Henry Bromlie; and the
+proclamation delivered therewith, describing the features and
+shapes of the men, for the better discovering them. He, not
+neglecting so a weighty a business, horsing himself with a seemly
+troop of his own attendants, and calling to his assistance so
+many as in discretion was thought meet, having likewise in his
+company Sir Edward Bromlie, on Monday, Jan. 20 last, by break
+of day, did engirt and round beat the house of Mayster Thomas
+Abbingdon, at Hindlip, near Worcester. Mr. Abbingdon, not being
+then at home, but ridden abroad about some occasions best known
+to himself; the house being goodlie, and of great receipt, it
+required the more diligent labour and pains in the searching.
+It appeared there was no want; and Mr. Abbingdon himself coming
+home that night, the commission and proclamation being shown unto
+him, he denied any such men to be in his house, and voluntarily
+to die at his own gate, if any such were to be found in his house,
+or in that shire. But this liberal or rather rash speech could
+not cause the search so slightly to be given over; the cause
+enforced more respect than words of that or any such like nature;
+and proceeding on according to the trust reposed in him in the
+gallery over the gate there were found two cunning and very
+artificial conveyances in the main brick-wall, so ingeniously
+framed, and with such art, as it cost much labour ere they could
+be found. Three other secret places, contrived by no less skill
+and industry, were found in and about the chimneys, in one whereof
+two of the traitors were close concealed. These chimney-conveyances
+being so strangely formed, having the entrances into them so
+curiously covered over with brick, mortared and made fast to
+planks of wood, and coloured black, like the other parts of the
+chimney, that very diligent inquisition might well have passed
+by, without throwing the least suspicion upon such unsuspicious
+places. And whereas divers funnels are usually made to chimneys
+according as they are combined together, and serve for necessary
+use in several rooms, so here were some that exceeded common
+expectation, seeming outwardly fit for carrying forth smoke;
+but being further examined and seen into, their service was to
+no such purpose but only to lend air and light downward into
+the concealments, where such as were concealed in them, at any
+time should be hidden. Eleven secret corners and conveyances
+were found in the said house, all of them having books, Massing
+stuff, and Popish trumpery in them, only two excepted, which
+appeared to have been found on former searches, and therefore
+had now the less credit given to them; but Mayster Abbingdon
+would take no knowledge of any of these places, nor that the
+books, or Massing stuff, were any of his, until at length the
+deeds of his lands being found in one of them, whose custody
+doubtless he would not commit to any place of neglect, or where
+he should have no intelligence of them, whereto he could [not]
+then devise any sufficient excuse.
+
+[Illustration: HINDLIP HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+Three days had been wholly spent, and no man found there all
+this while; but upon the fourth day, in the morning, from behind
+the wainscot in the galleries, came forth two men of their own
+voluntary accord, as being no longer able there to conceal
+themselves; for they confessed that they had but one apple between
+them, which was all the sustenance they had received during the
+time they were thus hidden. One of them was named Owen, who
+afterwards murdered himself in the Tower; and the other Chambers;
+but they would take no other knowledge of any other men's being
+in the house. On the eighth day the before-mentioned place in
+the chimney was found, according as they had all been at several
+times, one after another, though before set down together, for
+expressing the just number of them.
+
+"Forth of this secret and most cunning conveyance came Henry
+Garnet, the Jesuit, sought for, and another with him, named Hall;
+marmalade and other sweetmeats were found there lying by them;
+but their better maintenance had been by a quill or reed, through
+a little hole in the chimney that backed another chimney into
+the gentlewoman's chamber; and by that passage candles, broths,
+and warm drinks had been conveyed in unto them.
+
+"Now in regard the place was in so close... and did much annoy
+them that made entrance in upon them, to whom they confessed
+that they had not been able to hold out one whole day longer,
+but either they must have squeeled, or perished in the place.
+The whole service endured the space of eleven nights and twelve
+days, and no more persons being there found, in company with
+Mayster Abbingdon himself, Garnet, Hill [Hall], Owen, and Chambers,
+were brought up to London to understand further of his highness's
+pleasure."
+
+That the Government had good grounds for suspecting Hindlip and
+its numerous hiding-places may be gathered from the official
+instructions the Worcestershire Justice of the Peace and his
+search-party had to follow. The wainscoting in the east part of
+the parlour and in the dining-room, being suspected of screening
+"a vault" or passage, was to be removed, the walls and floors
+were to be pierced in all directions, comparative measurements
+were to be taken between the upper and the lower rooms, and in
+particular the chimneys, and the roof had to be minutely examined and
+measurements taken, which might bring to light some unaccounted-for
+space that had been turned to good account by the unfortunate
+inventor, who was eventually starved out of one of his clever
+contrivances.
+
+Only shortly before Owen had had a very narrow escape at Stoke
+Poges while engaged in constructing "priests' holes" at the Manor
+House. The secluded position of this building adapted it for
+the purpose for which a Roman Catholic zealot had taken it. But
+this was not the only advantage. The walls were of vast thickness
+and offered every facility for turning them to account. While
+"Little John" was busily engaged burrowing into the masonry the
+dreaded "pursuivants" arrived; but somehow or other he slipped
+between their fingers and got away under cover of the surrounding
+woods.
+
+The wing of this old mansion which has survived to see the twentieth
+century witnessed many strange events. It has welcomed good Queen
+Bess, guarded the Martyr King, and refused admittance to Dutch
+William. A couple of centuries after it had sheltered hunted
+Jesuits, a descendant of William Penn became possessed of it,
+and cleared away many of the massive walls, in some of which--who
+can tell?--were locked up secrets that the rack failed to
+reveal--secrets by which Owen "murdered himself" in the Tower!
+
+One of the hiding-places at Hindlip, it will be remembered, could
+be supplied with broth, wine, or any liquid nourishment through
+a small aperture in the wall of the adjoining room. A very good
+example of such an arrangement may still be seen at Irnham Hall, in
+Lincolnshire.[1] A large hiding-place could thus be accommodated,
+but detection of the narrow iron tube by which the imprisoned
+fugitive could be kept alive was practically impossible. A solid
+oak beam, forming a step between two bedrooms, concealed a panel
+into which the tube was cunningly fitted and the step was so
+arranged that it could be removed and replaced with the greatest
+ease.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: The fire which destroyed a wing of Irnham Hall a
+few years ago fortunately did not touch that part of the building
+containing a hiding-place.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Harvington Hall, mentioned hereafter, has a contrivance
+of this kind.]
+
+The hiding-place at Irnham (which measures eight feet by five,
+and about five feet six inches in height) was discovered by a
+tell-tale chimney that was not in the least blackened by soot
+or smoke. This originally gave the clue to the secret, and when
+the shaft of the chimney was examined, it was found to lead direct
+to the priest's hole, to which it afforded air and light.
+
+Had not the particular hiding-place in which Garnet and his
+companions sought shelter been discovered, they could well have
+held out the twelve days' search. As a rule, a small stock of
+provisions was kept in these places, as the visits of the search
+parties were necessarily very sudden and unexpected. The way down
+into these hidden quarters was from the floor above, through
+the hearth of a fireplace, which could be raised an lowered like
+a trap-door.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Fowlis's _Romish Treasons._]
+
+In a letter from Garnet to Ann Vaux, preserved in the Record
+Office, he thus describes his precarious situation: "After we
+had been in the hoale seven days and seven nights and some odd
+hours, every man may well think we were well wearyed, and indeed
+so it was, for we generally satte, save that some times we could
+half stretch ourselves, the place not being high eno', and we had
+our legges so straitened that we could not, sitting, find place
+for them, so that we both were in continuous paine of our legges,
+and both our legges, especially mine, were much swollen. We were
+very merry and content within, and heard the searchers every day
+most curious over us, which made me indeed think the place would
+be found. When we came forth we appeared like ghosts."[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: _State Papers_, Domestic (James I.).]
+
+There is an old timber-framed cottage near the modern mansion
+of Hindlip which is said to have had its share in sheltering the
+plotters. A room is pointed out where Digby and Catesby concealed
+themselves, and from one of the chimneys at some time or another
+a priest was captured and led to execution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PRIEST-HUNTING AT BRADDOCKS
+
+In the parish of Wimbish, about six miles from Saffron Walden,
+stand the remains of a fine old Tudor house named Broad Oaks,
+or Braddocks, which in Elizabeth's reign was a noted house for
+priest-hunting. Wandering through its ancient rooms, the imagination
+readily carries us back to the drama enacted here three centuries
+ago with a vividness as if the events recorded had happened
+yesterday. "The chapel" and priests' holes may still be seen, and
+a fine old stone fireplace that was stripped of its overmantel,
+etc., of carved oak by the "pursuivants" in their vain efforts
+when Father Gerard was concealed in the house.
+
+[Illustration: BRADDOCKS, ESSEX]
+
+[Illustration: FIREPLACE AT BRADDOCKS]
+
+The old Essex family of Wiseman of Braddocks were staunch Romanists,
+and their home, being a noted resort for priests, received from
+time to time sudden visits. The dreaded Topcliffe had upon one
+occasion nearly brought the head of the family, an aged widow lady,
+to the horrors of the press-yard, but her punishment eventually
+took the form of imprisonment. Searches at Braddocks had brought
+forth hiding-places, priests, compromising papers, and armour
+and weapons. Let us see with what success the house was explored
+in the Easter of the year 1594.
+
+Gerard gives his exciting experiences as follows[1]:--
+
+[Footnote 1: See Autobiography of Father John Gerard.]
+
+"The searchers broke down the door, and forcing their way in,
+spread through the house with great noise and racket.
+
+"Their first step was to lock up the mistress of the house[2] in
+her own room with her two daughters, and the Catholic servants
+they kept locked up in divers places in the same part of the
+house.
+
+[Footnote 2: Jane Wiseman, wife of William Wiseman. N.B.--The
+late Cardinal Wiseman was descended from a junior branch of this
+family. See Life of Father John Gerard, by John Morris.]
+
+"They then took to themselves the whole house, which was of a good
+size, and made a thorough search in every part, not forgetting
+even to look under the tiles of the roof. The darkest corners
+they examined with the help of candles. Finding nothing whatever
+they began to break down certain places that they suspected.
+They measured the walls with long rods, so that if they did not
+tally they might pierce the part not accounted for. Then they
+sounded the walls and all the floors to find out and break into
+any hollow places there might be.
+
+"They spent two days in this work without finding anything. Thinking
+therefore that I had gone on Easter Sunday, the two magistrates
+went away on the second day, leaving the pursuivants to take
+the mistress of the house and all her Catholic servants of both
+sexes to London to be examined and imprisoned. They meant to
+leave some who were not Catholics to keep the house, the traitor
+(one of the servants of the house) being one of them.
+
+"The good lady was pleased at this, for she hoped that he would
+be the means of freeing me and rescuing me from death; for she
+knew that I had made up my mind to suffer and die of starvation
+between two walls, rather than come forth and save my own life
+at the expense of others.
+
+"In fact, during those four days that I lay hid I had nothing
+to eat but a biscuit or two and a little quince jelly, which
+my hostess had at hand and gave me as I was going in.
+
+"She did not look for any more, as she supposed that the search
+would not last beyond a day. But now that two days were gone
+and she was to be carried off on the third with all her trusty
+servants, she began to be afraid of my dying of sheer hunger.
+She bethought herself then of the traitor who she heard was to
+be left behind. He had made a great fuss and show of eagerness in
+withstanding the searchers when they first forced their way in.
+For all that she would not have let him know of the hiding-places,
+had she not been in such straits. Thinking it better, however,
+to rescue me from certain death, even at some risk to herself,
+she charged him, when she was taken away and everyone had gone,
+to go into a certain room, call me by my wonted name, and tell
+me that the others had been taken to prison, but that he was left
+to deliver me. I would then answer, she said, from behind the
+lath and plaster where I lay concealed. The traitor promised to
+obey faithfully; but he was faithful only to the faithless, for
+he unfolded the whole matter to the ruffians who had remained
+behind.
+
+"No sooner had they heard it than they called back the magistrates
+who had departed. These returned early in the morning and renewed
+the search.
+
+"They measured and sounded everywhere much more carefully than
+before, especially in the chamber above mentioned, in order to
+find out some hollow place. But finding nothing whatever during
+the whole of the third day, they proposed on the morrow to strip
+off the wainscot of that room.
+
+"Meanwhile, they set guards in all the rooms about to watch all
+night, lest I should escape. I heard from my hiding-place the
+password which the captain of the band gave to his soldiers, and
+I might have got off by using it, were it not that they would
+have seen me issuing from my retreat, for there were two on guard
+in the chapel where I got into my hiding-place, and several also
+in the large wainscoted room which had been pointed out to them.
+
+"But mark the wonderful Providence of God. Here was I in my
+hiding-place. The way I got into it was by taking up the floor,
+made of wood and bricks, under the fireplace. The place was so
+constructed that a fire could not be lit in it without damaging
+the house; though we made a point of keeping wood there, as if
+it were meant for a fire.
+
+"Well, the men on the night watch lit a fire in this very grate
+and began chatting together close to it. Soon the bricks which
+had not bricks but wood underneath them got loose, and nearly
+fell out of their places as the wood gave way. On noticing this
+and probing the place with a stick, they found that the bottom
+was made of wood, whereupon they remarked that this was something
+curious. I thought that they were going there and then to break
+open the place and enter, but they made up their minds at last
+to put off further examination till next day.
+
+"Next morning, therefore, they renewed the search most carefully,
+everywhere except in the top chamber which served as a chapel,
+and in which the two watchmen had made a fire over my head and
+had noticed the strange make of the grate. God had blotted out
+of their memory all remembrance of the thing. Nay, none of the
+searchers entered the place the whole day, though it was the
+one that was most open to suspicion, and if they had entered,
+they would have found me without any search; rather, I should
+say, they would have seen me, for the fire had burnt a great
+hole in my hiding-place, and had I not got a little out of the
+way, the hot embers would have fallen on me.
+
+"The searchers, forgetting or not caring about this room, busied
+themselves in ransacking the rooms below, in one of which I was
+said to be. In fact, they found the other hiding-place which I
+thought of going into, as I mentioned before. It was not far
+off, so I could hear their shouts of joy when they first found
+it. But after joy comes grief; and so it was with them. The only
+thing that they found was a goodly store of provision laid up.
+Hence they may have thought that this was the place that the
+mistress of the house meant; in fact, an answer might have been
+given from it to the call of a person in the room mentioned by
+her.
+
+"They stuck to their purpose, however, of stripping off all the
+wainscot of the other large room. So they set a man to work near
+the ceiling, close to the place where I was: for the lower part
+of the walls was covered with tapestry, not with wainscot. So
+they stripped off the wainscot all round till they came again
+to the very place where I lay, and there they lost heart and
+gave up the search.
+
+"My hiding-place was in a thick wall of the chimney behind a
+finely inlaid and carved mantelpiece. They could not well take
+the carving down without risk of breaking it. Broken, however,
+it would have been, and that into a thousand pieces, had they
+any conception that I could be concealed behind it. But knowing
+that there were two flues, they did not think that there could
+be room enough there for a man.
+
+"Nay, before this, on the second day of the search, they had
+gone into the room above, and tried the fireplace through which
+I had got into my hole. They then got into the chimney by a ladder
+to sound with their hammers. One said to another in my hearing,
+'Might there not be a place here for a person to get down into
+the wall of the chimney below by lifting up this hearth?' 'No,'
+answered one of the pursuivants, whose voice I knew, 'you could
+not get down that way into the chimney underneath, but there
+might easily be an entrance at the back of this chimney.' So
+saying he gave the place a knock. I was afraid that he would hear
+the hollow sound of the hole where I was.
+
+"Seeing that their toil availed them nought, they thought that
+I had escaped somehow, and so they went away at the end of the
+four days, leaving the mistress and her servants free. The yet
+unbetrayed traitor stayed after the searchers were gone. As soon
+as the doors of the house were made fast, the mistress came to
+call me, another four days buried Lazarus, from what would have
+been my tomb, had the search continued a little longer. For I
+was all wasted and weakened as well with hunger as with want
+of sleep and with having to sit so long in such a narrow space.
+After coming out I was seen by the traitor, whose treachery was
+still unknown to us. He did nothing then, not even to send after
+the searchers, as he knew that I meant to be off before they
+could be recalled."
+
+The Wisemans had another house at North End, a few miles to the
+south-east of Dunmow. Here were also "priests' holes," one of
+which (in a chimney) secreted a certain Father Brewster during
+a rigid search in December, 1593.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _State Papers_, Dom. (Eliz.), December, 1593.
+See also Life of Father John Gerard, p. 138.]
+
+Great Harrowden, near Wellingborough, the ancient seat of the Vaux
+family, was another notorious sanctuary for persecuted recusants.
+Gerard spent much of his time here in apartments specially
+constructed for his use, and upon more than one occasion had to
+have recourse to the hiding-places. Some four or five years after
+his experiences at Braddocks he narrowly escaped his pursuers in
+this way; and in 1605, when the "pursuivants" were scouring the
+country for him, as he was supposed to be privy to the Gunpowder
+Plot, he owed his life to a secret chamber at Harrowden. The
+search-party remained for nine days. Night and day men were posted
+round the house, and every approach was guarded within a radius
+of three miles. With the hope of getting rid of her unwelcome
+guests, Lady Vaux revealed one of the "priests' holes" to prove
+there was nothing in her house beyond a few prohibited books;
+but this did not have the desired effect, so the unfortunate
+inmate of the hiding-place had to continue in a cramped position,
+there being no room to stand up, for four or five days more. His
+hostess, however, managed to bring him food, and moments were
+seized during the latter days of the search to get him out that
+he might warm his benumbed limbs by a fire. While these things
+were going on at Harrowden, another priest, little thinking into
+whose hands the well-known sanctuary had fallen, came thither
+to seek shelter; but was seized and carried to an inn, whence
+it was intended he should be removed to London on the following
+day. But he managed to outwit his captors. To evade suspicion
+he threw off his cloak and sword, and under a pretext of giving
+his horse drink at a stream close by the stable, seized a lucky
+moment, mounted, and dashed into the water, swam across, and
+galloped off to the nearest house that could offer the convenience
+of a hiding-place.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Life of John Gerard, p. 386.]
+
+At Hackney the Vaux family had another, residence with its chapel
+and "priest's hole," the latter having a masked entrance high
+up in the wall, which led to a space under a gable projection
+of the roof. For double security this contained yet an inner
+hiding-place. In the existing Brooke House are incorporated the
+modernised remains of this mansion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE GUNPOWDER PLOT CONSPIRATORS
+
+Lord Vaux of Harrowden, Sir William Catesby of Ashby St. Ledgers,
+and Sir Thomas Tresham of Rushton Hall (all in Northamptonshire)
+were upon more than one occasion arraigned before the Court of the
+Star Chamber for harbouring Jesuits. The old mansions Ashby St.
+Ledgers and Rushton fortunately still remain intact and preserve
+many traditions of Romanist plots. Sir William Catesby's son Robert,
+the chief conspirator, is said to have held secret meetings in the
+curious oak-panelled room over the gate-house of the former, which
+goes by the name of "the Plot Room." Once upon a time it was provided
+with a secret means of escape. At Rushton Hall a hiding-place was
+discovered in 1832 behind a lintel over a doorway; it was full
+of bundles of manuscripts, prohibited books, and incriminating
+correspondence of the conspirator Tresham. Another place of
+concealment was situated in the chimney of the great hall and in
+this Father Oldcorn was hidden for a time. Gayhurst, or Gothurst,
+in Buckinghamshire, the seat of Sir Everard Digby, also remains
+intact, one of the finest late Tudor buildings in the country;
+unfortunately, however, only recently a remarkable "priest's
+hole" that was here has been destroyed in consequence of modern
+improvements. It was a double hiding-place, one situated beneath
+the other; the lower one being so arranged as to receive light and
+air from the bottom portion of a large mullioned window--a most
+ingenious device. A secret passage in the hall had communication
+with it, and entrance was obtained through part of the flooring
+of an apartment, the movable part of the boards revolving upon
+pivots and sufficiently solid to vanquish any suspicion as to
+a hollow space beneath.
+
+[Illustration: ASHBY ST. LEDGERS, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: THE PLOT ROOM, ASHBY ST. LEGERS]
+
+As may be supposed, tradition says that at the time of Digby's
+arrest he was dragged forth from this hole, but history shows
+that he was taken prisoner at Holbeach House (where, it will be
+remembered, the conspirators Catesby and Percy were shot), and
+led to execution. For a time Digby sought security at Coughton
+Court, the seat of the Throckmortons, in Warwickshire. The house of
+this old Roman Catholic family, of course, had its hiding-holes,
+one of which remains to this day. Holbeach as well as Hagley
+Hall, the homes of the Litteltons, have been rebuilt. The latter
+was pulled down in the middle of the eighteenth century. Here
+it was that Stephen Littleton and Robert Winter were captured
+through the treachery of the cook. Grant's house, Norbrook, in
+Warwickshire, has also given way to a modern one.
+
+Ambrose Rookwood's seat, Coldham Hall, near Bury St. Edmunds,
+exists and retains its secret chapel and hiding-places. There are
+three of the latter; one of them, now a small withdrawing-room,
+is entered from the oak wainscoted hall. When the house was in
+the market a few years ago, the "priests' holes" duly figured in
+the advertisements with the rest of the apartments and offices.
+It read a little odd, this juxtaposition of modern conveniences
+with what is essentially romantic, and we simply mention the
+fact to show that the auctioneer is well aware of the monetary
+value of such things.
+
+At the time of the Gunpowder Conspiracy Rookwood rented Clopton
+Hall, near Stratford-on-Avon. This house also has its little
+chapel in the roof with adjacent "priests' holes," but many
+alterations have taken place from time to time. Who does not
+remember William Howitt's delightful description--or, to be correct,
+the description of a lady correspondent--of the old mansion before
+these restorations. "There was the old Catholic chapel," she wrote,
+"with a chaplain's room which had been walled up and forgotten till
+within the last few years. I went in on my hands and knees, for the
+entrance was very low. I recollect little in the chapel; but in
+the chaplain's room were old and I should think rare editions of
+many books, mostly folios. A large yellow paper copy of Dryden's
+_All for Love, or the World Well Lost_, date 1686, caught
+my eye, and is the only one I particularly remember."[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Howitt's _Visits to Remarkable Places_.]
+
+Huddington Court, the picturesque old home of the Winters (of
+whom Robert and Thomas lost their lives for their share in the
+Plot), stands a few miles from Droitwich. A considerable quantity
+of arms and ammunition were stored in the hiding-places here in
+1605 in readiness for general rising.
+
+[Illustration: HUDDINGTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE PORCH, HUDDINGTON COURT]
+
+Two other houses may be mentioned in connection with the memorable
+Plot--houses that were rented by the conspirators as convenient
+places of rendezvous an account of their hiding-places and masked
+exits for escape. One of them stood in the vicinity of the Strand,
+in the fields behind St. Clement's Inn. Father Gerard had taken
+it some time previous to the discovery of the Plot, and with
+Owen's aid some very secure hiding-places were arranged. This he
+had done with two or three other London residences, so that he
+and his brother priests might use them upon hazardous occasions;
+and to one of these he owed his life when the hue and cry after
+him was at its highest pitch. By removing from one to the other
+they avoided detection, though they had many narrow escapes. One
+priest was celebrating Mass when the Lord Mayor and constables
+suddenly burst in. But the surprise party was disappointed: nothing
+could be detected beyond the smoke of the extinguished candles;
+and in addition to the hole where the fugitive crouched there
+were two other secret chambers, neither of which was discovered.
+On another occasion a priest was left shut up in a wall; his
+friends were taken prisoners, and he was in danger of starvation,
+until at length he was rescued from his perilous position, carried
+to one of the other houses, and again immured in the vault or
+chimney.
+
+The other house was "White Webb's," on the confines of Enfield
+Chase. In the Record Office there is a document describing how,
+many Popish books and relics were discovered when the latter
+was searched. The building was full of trap-doors and secret
+passages. Some vestiges of the out-buildings of "White Webb's"
+may still be seen in a quaint little inn called "The King and
+Tinker."
+
+But of all the narrow escapes perhaps Father Blount's experiences
+at Scotney Castle were the most thrilling. This old house of
+the Darrells, situated on the border of Kent and Sussex, like
+Hindlip and Braddocks and most of the residences of the Roman
+Catholic gentry, contained the usual lurking-places for priests.
+The structure as it now stands is in the main modern, having
+undergone from time to time considerable alterations. A vivid
+account of Blount's hazardous escape here is preserved among the
+muniments at Stonyhurst--a transcript of the original formerly
+at St. Omers.
+
+One Christmas night towards the close of Elizabeth's reign the
+castle was seized by a party of priest-hunters, who, with their
+usual mode of procedure, locked up the members of the family securely
+before starting on their operations. In the inner quadrangle of
+the mansion was a very remarkable and ingenious device. A large
+stone of the solid wall could be pushed aside. Though of immense
+weight, it was so nicely balanced and adjusted that it required
+only a slight pressure upon one side to effect an entrance to
+the hiding-place within. Those who have visited the grounds at
+Chatsworth may remember a huge piece of solid rock which can be
+swung round in the same easy manner. Upon the approach of the
+enemy, Father Blount and his servant hastened to the courtyard
+and entered the vault; but in their hurry to close the weighty
+door a small portion of one of their girdles got jammed in, so
+that a part was visible from the outside. Fortunately for the
+fugitives, someone in the secret, in passing the spot, happened
+to catch sight of this tell-tale fragment and immediately cut
+it off; but as a particle still showed, they called gently to
+those within to endeavour to pull it in, which they eventually
+succeeded in doing.
+
+At this moment the pursuivants were at work in another part of
+the castle, but hearing the voice in the courtyard, rushed into
+it and commenced battering the walls, and at times upon the very
+door of the hiding-place, which would have given way had not
+those within put their combined weight against it to keep it
+from yielding. It was a pitchy dark night, and it was pelting
+with rain, so after a time, discouraged at finding nothing and
+wet to the skin, the soldiers put off further search until the
+following morning, and proceeded to dry and refresh themselves
+by the fire in the great hall.
+
+When all was at rest, Father Blount and his man, not caring to
+risk another day's hunting, cautiously crept forth bare-footed,
+and after managing to scale some high walls, dropt into the moat
+and swam across. And it was as well for them that they decided
+to quit their hiding-hole, for next morning it was discovered.
+
+The fugitives found temporary security at another recusant house
+a few miles from Scotney, possibly the old half-timber house of
+Twissenden, where a secret chapel and adjacent "priests' holes"
+are still pointed out.
+
+The original manuscript account of the search at Scotney was
+written by one of the Darrell family, who was in the castle at
+the time of the events recorded.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Morris's _Troubles of our Catholic
+Forefathers._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HARVINGTON, UFTON, AND INGATESTONE
+
+We will now go in search of some of the most curious hiding-places
+in existence. There are numerous known examples all over the
+country, and perhaps as many again exist, which will preserve
+their secret for ever. For more than three hundred years they
+have remained buried, and unless some accident reveals their
+locked-up mysteries, they will crumble away with the walls which
+contain them; unless, indeed, fire, the doom of so many of our
+ancestral halls, reduces them to ashes and swallows up the weird
+stories they might have told. In many cases not until an ancient
+building is pulled down are such strange discoveries made; but,
+alas! there are as many instances where structural alterations
+have wantonly destroyed these interesting historical landmarks.
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," HARVINGTON HALL]
+
+[Illustration: HARVINGTON HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+Unaccounted-for spaces, when detected, are readily utilised.
+Passages are bodily run through the heart of many a secret device,
+with little veneration for the mechanical ingenuity that has
+been displayed in their construction. The builder of to-day,
+as a rule, knows nothing of and cares less, for such things,
+and so they are swept away without a thought. To such vandals
+we can only emphasise the remarks we have already made about
+the market value of a "priest-hole" nowadays.
+
+A little to the right of the Kidderminster road, and about two
+miles from the pretty village of Chaddesley Corbet, with its old
+timber houses and inn, stands the ghostly old hall of Harvington.
+The ancient red-brick pile rises out of its reed-grown moat with
+that air of mystery which age and seeming neglect only can impart.
+Coming upon it unexpectedly, especially towards dusk, one is
+struck with the strange, dignified melancholy pervading it. Surely
+Hood's _Haunted House_ or Poe's _House of Usher_ stands
+before us, and we cannot get away from the impression that a
+mystery is wrapped within its walls. Harvington Hall dates from
+the reign of Henry VIII., but it has undergone various changes,
+so it is difficult to affix any particular period or style to
+its architecture; indeed, it is this medley of different styles
+which forms such a poetically picturesque outline. In its day
+Harvington could doubtless hold its own with the finest mansions
+in the country, but now it is forgotten, deserted, and crumbling
+to pieces. Its very history appears to be lost to the world, as
+those who go to the county histories and general topographical
+works for information will find.
+
+Inside the mansion, like the exterior, the hand of decay is
+perceptible on every side; the rooms are ruined, the windows
+broken, the floors unsafe (excepting, by the way, a small portion
+of the building which is habitable). A ponderous broad oak staircase
+leads to a dismantled state-room, shorn of the principal part of
+its panelling, carving, and chimney-pieces.[1] Other desolate
+apartments retain their names as if in mockery; "the drawing-room,"
+"the chapel," "Lady Yates's nursery," and so forth. At the top
+of the staircase, however, we must look around carefully, for
+beneath the stairs is a remarkable hiding-place.
+
+[Footnote 1: Most of the interior fittings were removed to Coughton
+Court, Warwickshire.]
+
+With a slight stretch of the imagination we can see an indistinct
+form stealthily remove the floorboard of one of the stairs and
+creep beneath it. This particular step of a short flight running
+from the landing into a garret is, upon closer inspection, indeed
+movable, and beneath gapes a dark cavity about five feet square, on
+the floor of which still remains the piece of sedge matting whereon
+a certain Father Wall rested his aching limbs a few days prior to
+his capture and execution in August, 1679. The unfortunate man
+was taken at Rushock Court, a few miles away where he was traced
+after leaving Harvington. There is a communication between the
+hiding-place and "the banqueting-room" through, a small concealed
+aperture in the wainscoting large enough to admit of a tube,
+through which a straw could be thrust for the unhappy occupant
+to suck up any liquid his friends might be able to supply.
+
+In a gloomy corridor leading from the tower to "the reception-room"
+is another "priest's hole" beneath the floor, and entered by a
+trap-door artfully hidden in the boards; this black recess is
+some seven feet in depth, and can be made secure from within.
+Supposing the searchers had tracked a fugitive priest as far
+as this corridor, the odds are in favour that they would have
+passed over his head in their haste to reach the tower, where
+they would make sure, in their own minds at least, of discovering
+him. Again, here there is a communication with the outside world.
+An oblong aperture in the top oak beam of the entrance gateway
+to the house, measuring about four inches across, is the secret
+opening--small enough to escape the most inquisitive eye, yet
+large enough to allow of a written note to pass between the captive
+and those upon the alert watching his interests.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: N.B.--In addition to the above hiding-places at
+Harvington, one was discovered so recently as 1894; at least,
+so we have been informed. This was some years after our visit
+to the old Hall.]
+
+A subterranean passage is said to run under the moat from a former
+hiding-place, but this is doubtful; at any rate, there are no
+evidences of it nowadays.
+
+[Illustration: UFTON COURT, BERKSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: GARDEN TERRACE, UFTON COURT]
+
+Altogether, Harvington is far from cheerful, even to a pond hard
+by called "Gallows Pool"! The tragic legend associated with this
+is beyond the province of the present work, so we will bid adieu
+to this weird old hall, and turn our attention to another obscure
+house situated in the south-east corner of Berkshire.
+
+The curious, many-gabled mansion Ufton Court both from its secluded
+situation and quaint internal construction, appears to have been
+peculiarly suitable for the secretion of persecuted priests. Here
+are ample means for concealment and escape into the surrounding
+woods; and so carefully have the ingenious bolts and locks of
+the various hiding-places been preserved, that one would almost
+imagine that there was still actual necessity for their use in
+these matter-of-fact days!
+
+A remarkable place for concealment exists in one of the gables
+close to the ceiling. It is triangular in shape, and is opened
+by a spring-bolt that can be unlatched by pulling a string which
+runs through a tiny hole pierced in the framework of the door of
+the adjoining room. The door of the hiding-place swings upon a
+pivot, and externally is thickly covered with plaster, so as to
+resemble the rest of the wall, and is so solid that when sounded
+there is no hollow sound from the cavity behind, where, no doubt
+the crucifix and sacred vessels were secreted.
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE, UFTON COURT]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING PLACE, UFTON COURT]
+
+Not far off, in an upper garret, is a hiding-place in the thickness
+of the wall, large enough to contain a man standing upright.
+Like the other, the door, or entrance, forms part of the plaster
+wall, intersected by thick oak beams, into which it exactly fits,
+disguising any appearance of an opening. Again, in one of the
+passages of this curious old mansion are further evidences of
+the hardships to which Romish priests were subjected--a trap in
+the floor, which can only be opened by pulling up what exteriorly
+appears to be the head of one of the nails of the flooring; by
+raising this a spring is released and a trap-door opened, revealing
+a large hole with a narrow ladder leading down into it. When
+this hiding-place was discovered in 1830, its contents were
+significant--_viz._ a crucifix and two ancient petronels.
+Apartments known as "the chapel" and "the priest's vestry" are
+still pointed out. The walls throughout the house appear to be
+intersected with passages and masked spaces, and old residents
+claim to have worked their way by these means right through from
+the garrets to the basement, though now the several hiding-places
+do not communicate one with another. There are said to be no
+less than twelve places of concealment in various parts of the
+building. A shaft in the cellar is supposed to be one of the
+means of exit from "the dining-room," and at the back of the
+house a subterranean passage may still be traced a considerable
+distance under the terrace.
+
+[Illustration: INGATESTONE HALL, ESSEX]
+
+[Illustration: INGATESTONE HALL]
+
+An interesting discovery was made some years ago at Ingatestone
+Hall, Essex, the ancient seat of the Petres. The late Rev. Canon
+Last, who had resided there as private chaplain for over sixty
+years, described to us the incidents of this curious "find," to
+which he was an eye-witness. Some of the floor-boards in the
+south-east corner of a small ante-room adjoining what was once
+"the host's bedroom," facing the south front, broke away, rotten
+with age, while some children were playing there. These being
+removed, a second layer of boards was brought to light within
+a foot of the old flooring, and in this a trap-door was found
+which, when opened, discovered a large "priest's hole," measuring
+fourteen feet long, ten feet high, and two feet wide. A twelve-step
+ladder led down into it, and the floor being on a level with the
+basement of the house was covered with a layer of dry sand to
+the depth of nearly a foot, so as to absorb any moisture from
+the ground.[1] In the sand a few bones of a bird were found,
+possibly the remains of food supplied to some unfortunate priest.
+Those who climb down into this hole will find much that is
+interesting to repay them their trouble. From the wall projects
+a candle-holder, rudely modelled out of clay. An examination of
+the brick-work in the interior of the "priest's hole" proves
+it to be of later construction than the rest of the house (which
+dates from the early part of the sixteenth century), so in all
+likelihood "Little John" was the manufacturer.
+
+[Footnote 1: At Moorcroft House, near Hillingdon, Middlesex,
+now modernised and occupied as a private lunatic asylum, ten
+priests were once concealed for four days in a hiding-place,
+the floor of which was covered some inches in water. This was
+one of the many comforts of a "priest's hole"!]
+
+Standing in the same position as when first opened, and supported
+by two blocks of oak, is an old chest or packing-case made of
+yew, covered with leather, and bound with bands of iron, wherein
+formerly the vestments, utensils, etc., for the Mass were kept.
+Upon it, in faded and antiquated writing, was the following
+direction: "For the Right Hon. the Lady Petre at Ingatestone
+Hall, in Essex." The Petres had quitted the old mansion as a
+residence for considerably over a century when the discovery was
+made.
+
+[Illustration: PRIEST'S HOLE, SAWSTON HALL]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+COMPTON WINYATES, SALFORD PRIOR, SAWSTON, OXBURGH, PARHAM, PAXHILL,
+ETC.
+
+Of all the ancient mansions in the United Kingdom, and there is
+still, happily, a large selection, none perhaps is so picturesque and
+quaintly original in its architecture as the secluded Warwickshire
+house Compton Winyates. The general impression of its vast
+complication of gable ends and twisted chimneys is that some
+enchanted palace has found its way out of one of the fairy-tale
+books of our early youth and concealed itself deep down in a
+sequestered hollow among the woods and hills. We say concealed
+itself, for indeed it is no easy matter to find it, for anything
+in the shape of a road seems rather to lead _away from_,
+than _to_ it; indeed, there is no direct road from anywhere,
+and if we are fortunate enough to alight upon a footpath, that
+also in a very short time fades away into oblivion! So solitary
+also is the valley in which the mansion lies and so shut in with
+thick clustering trees, that one unacquainted with the locality
+might pass within fifty yards of it over and over again without
+observing a trace of it. When, however, we do discover the beautiful
+old structure, we are well repaid for what trouble we may have
+encountered. To locate the spot within a couple of miles, we
+may state that Brailes is its nearest village; the nearest town
+is Banbury, some nine miles away to the east.
+
+Perhaps if we were to analyse the peculiar charm this venerable
+pile conveys, we should find that it is the wonderful _colour_,
+the harmonies of greys and greens and reds which pervade its
+countless chimney clusters and curious step-gables. We will be
+content, however, with the fascinating results, no matter how
+accomplished, without inquiring into the why and wherefore; and
+pondering over the possibilities of the marvellous in such a
+building see, if the interior can carry out such a supposition.
+
+[Illustration: SCOTNEY HALL, SUSSEX]
+
+[Illustration: COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE]
+
+Wending our way to the top of the house, past countless old-world
+rooms and corridors, we soon discover evidences of the days of
+priest-hunting. A "Protestant" chapel is on the ground floor
+(with a grotesquely carved screen of great beauty), but up in
+the roof we discover another--a "Popish" chapel. From this there
+are numerous ways of escape, by staircases and passages leading
+in all directions, for even in the almost impenetrable seclusion
+of this house the profoundest secrecy was necessary for those
+who wished to celebrate the rites of the forbidden religion.
+Should the priest be surprised and not have time to descend one
+of the many staircases and effect his escape by the ready means
+in the lower part of the house, there are secret closets between
+the timber beams of the roof and the wainscot into which he could
+creep.
+
+Curious rooms run along each side in the roof round the quadrangle,
+called "the barracks," into which it would be possible to pack
+away a whole regiment of soldiers. Not far away are "the false
+floors," a typical Amy Robsart death-trap!
+
+A place of security here, once upon a time, could only be reached
+by a ladder; later, however, it was made easier of access by a
+dark passage, but it was as secure as ever from intrusion. The
+fugitive had the ready means of isolating himself by removing
+a large portion of the floor-boards; supposing, therefore, his
+lurking-place had been traced, he had only to arrange this deadly
+gap, and his pursuers would run headlong to their fate.
+
+Many other strange rooms there are, not the least interesting
+of which is a tiny apartment away from everywhere called "the
+Devil's chamber," and another little chamber whose window is
+_invariably found open in the morning, though securely fastened
+on the previous night!_
+
+Various finds have been made from time to time at Compton Winyates.
+Not many years ago a bricked-up space was found in a wall containing
+a perfect skeleton!--at another an antique box full of papers
+belonging to the past history of the family (the Comptons) was
+discovered in a secret cavity beneath one of the windows.
+
+[Illustration: MINSTREL'S GALLERY, COMPTON WINYATES]
+
+The "false floors" to which we have alluded suggests a hiding-place
+that was put to very practical use by two old maiden ladies some
+years ago at an ancient building near Malvern, Pickersleigh Court.
+Each night before retiring to rest some floor-boards of a passage,
+originally the entrance to a "priest's hole," were removed. This
+passage led to their bedroom, so that they were protected much in
+the same way as the fugitive at Compton Winyates, by a yawning
+gap. Local tradition does not record how many would-be burglars
+were trapped in this way, but it is certain that should anyone
+ever have ventured along that passage, they would have been
+precipitated with more speed than ceremony into a cellar below.
+Pickersleigh, it may be pointed out, is erroneously shown in
+connection with the wanderings of Charles II. after the battle
+Worcester.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See _The Flight of the King._]
+
+Salford Prior Hall (otherwise known as "the Nunnery," or Abbots
+Salford), not far from Evesham, is another mansion remarkable
+for its picturesqueness as well as for its capacity for hiding.
+It not only has its Roman Catholic chapel, but a resident priest
+holds services there to this day. Up in the garret is the "priest's
+hole," ready, it would seem, for some present emergency, so well
+is it concealed and in such perfect working order; and even when
+its position is pointed out, nothing is to be seen but the most
+innocent-looking of cupboards. By removing a hidden peg, however,
+the whole back of it, shelves and all, swings backwards into a
+dismal recess some four feet in depth. This deceitful swing door
+may be secured on the inside by a stout wooden bolt provided
+for that purpose.
+
+[Illustration: COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: SAWSTON HALL, CAMBRIDGESHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: PICKERSLEIGH COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: SALFORD PRIOR HALL, WARWICKSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: SALFORD PRIOR HALL]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR (SHEWING ENTRANCE)]
+
+Another hiding place as artfully contrived and as little changed
+since the day it was manufactured is one at Sawston, the ancestral
+seat of the old family of Huddleston. Sawston Hall is a typical
+Elizabethan building. The one which preceded it was burnt to the
+ground by the adherents of Lady Jane Grey, as the Huddleston
+of that day, upon the death of King Edward VI., received his
+sister Mary under his protection, and contrived her escape to
+Framlingham Castle, where she was carried in disguise, riding
+pillion behind a servant.
+
+The secret chamber, as at Harvington, is on the top landing of
+the staircase, and the entrance is so cleverly arranged that
+it slants into the masonry of a circular tower without showing
+the least perceptible sign from the exterior of a space capable
+of holding a baby, far less a man. A particular board in the
+landing is raised, and beneath it, in a corner of the cavity,
+is found a stone slab containing a circular aperture, something
+after the manner of our modern urban receptacles for coal. From
+this hole a tunnel slants downwards at an angle into the adjacent
+wall, where there is an apartment some twelve feet in depth,
+and wide enough to contain half a dozen people--that is to say,
+not bulky ones, for the circular entrance is far from large.
+Blocks of oak fixed upon the inside of the movable floor-board
+fit with great nicety into their firm oak sockets in the beams,
+which run at right angles and support the landing, so that the
+opening is so massive and firm that, unless pointed out, the
+particular floor-board could never be detected, and when secured
+from the inside would defy a battering-ram.
+
+[Illustration: OXBURGH HALL, NORFOLK]
+
+The Huddlestons, or rather their connections the Thornboroughs,
+have an old house at Leyburn, in Yorkshire, named "The Grove,"
+which also contained its hiding-place, but unfortunately this is
+one of those instances where alterations and modern conveniences
+have destroyed what can never be replaced. The priest, Father
+John Huddleston (who aided King Charles II. to escape, and who,
+it will be remembered, was introduced to that monarch's death-bed
+by way of a _secret staircase_ in the palace of Whitehall),
+lived in this house some time during the seventeenth century.
+
+One of the most ingenious hiding-places extant is to be seen
+at Oxburgh Hall, near Stoke Ferry, the grand old moated mansion
+of the ancient Bedingfield family. In solidity and compactness
+it is unique. Up in one of the turrets of the entrance gateway
+is a tiny closet, the floor of which is composed of brickwork
+fixed into a wooden frame. Upon pressure being applied to one
+side of this floor, the opposite side heaves up with a groan at
+its own weight. Beneath lies a hollow, seven feet square, where
+a priest might lie concealed with the gratifying knowledge that,
+however the ponderous trap-door be hammered from above, there
+would be no tell-tale hollowness as a response. Having bolted
+himself in, he might to all intents and purposes be imbedded in
+a rock (though truly a toad so situated is not always safe from
+intrusion). Three centuries have rolled away and thirteen sovereigns
+have reigned since the construction of this hiding-place, but the
+mechanism of this masterpiece of ingenuity remains as perfect
+as if it had been made yesterday! Those who may be privileged
+with permission to inspect the interesting hall will find other
+surprises where least expected. An oak-panelled passage upon the
+basement of the aforesaid entrance gateway contains a secret
+door that gives admittance into the living-rooms in the most
+eccentric manner.
+
+A priest's hole beneath the floor of a small oratory adjoining
+"the chapel" (now a bedroom) at Borwick Hall, Lancashire, has an
+opening devised much in the same fashion as that at Oxburgh. By
+leaning his weight upon a certain portion of the boards, a fugitive
+could slide into a convenient gap, while the floor would adjust
+itself above his head and leave no trace of his where-abouts.
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, PARHAM HALL, SUSSEX]
+
+Window-seats not uncommonly formed the entrance to holes beneath
+the level of the floor. In the long gallery of Parham Hall, Sussex,
+an example of this may be seen. It is not far from "the chapel,"
+and the officiating priest in this instance would withdraw a
+panel whose position is now occupied by a door; but the entrance
+to the hiding-place within the projecting bay of the window is
+much the same as it ever was. After the failure of the Babington
+conspiracy one Charles Paget was concealed here for some days.
+
+The Tudor house of Tusmore, in Oxfordshire, also had a secret
+chamber, approached through a fixed settle in "the parlour" window.
+A tradition in the neighbourhood says that the great fish-pond
+near the site of the old house was dug by a priest and his servant
+in the days of religious persecution, constituting their daily
+occupation for twelve years!
+
+Paxhill, in Sussex, the ancient seat of the Bordes, has a priest's
+hole behind a window-shutter, and it is large enough to hold several
+persons; there is another large hiding-hole in the ceiling of a
+room on the ground floor, which is reached through a trap-door
+in the floor above. It is provided with a stone bench.
+
+In castles and even ecclesiastical buildings sections of massive
+stone columns have been found to rotate and reveal a hole in an
+adjacent wall--even an altar has occasionally been put to use
+for concealing purposes. At Naworth Castle, for instance, in
+"Lord William's Tower," there is an oratory behind the altar, in
+which fugitives not only could be hidden but could see anything
+that transpired in its vicinity. In Chichester Cathedral there is
+a room called Lollards' Prison, which is approached by a sliding
+panel in the old consistory-room situated over the south porch.
+The manor house of Great Chalfield, in Wiltshire, has a unique
+device by which any suspected person could be watched. The eye
+of a stone mask in the masonry is hollowed out and through this
+a suspicious lord of the manor could, unseen, be a witness to
+any treachery on the part of his retainers or guests.
+
+[Illustration: PAXHILL, SUSSEX]
+
+[Illustration: CLEEVE PRIOR MANOR HOUSE, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+The old moated hall Baddesley Clinton, in Warwickshire, the ancient
+seat of the Ferrers, has a stone well or shaft near "the chapel."
+There were formerly projections or steps by which a fugitive
+could reach a secret passage extending round nearly two sides
+of the house to a small water-gate by the moat, where a boat
+was kept in readiness. Adjoining the "banqueting-room" on the
+east side of the building is a secret chamber six feet square
+with a bench all round it. It is now walled up, but the narrow
+staircase, behind the wainscoting, leading up to it is unaltered.
+
+Cleeve Prior Manor House, in Worcestershire (though close upon
+the border of Warwickshire)) famous for its unique yew avenue,
+has a priest's hole, a cramped space five feet by two, in which
+it is necessary to lie down. As at Ingatestone, it is below the
+floor of a small chamber adjoining the principal bedroom, and
+is entered by removing one of the floor-boards.
+
+Wollas Hall, an Elizabethan mansion on Bredon Hill, near Pershore
+(held uninterruptedly by the Hanford family since the sixteenth
+century), has a chapel in the upper part of the house, and a
+secret chamber, or priest's hole, provided with a diminutive
+fire-place. When the officiating priest was about to celebrate
+Mass, it was the custom here to spread linen upon the hedges as
+a sign to those in the adjacent villages who wished to attend.
+
+A hiding-place at Treago, Herefordshire (an unique specimen of
+a thirteenth-century fortified mansion) inhabited by the Mynor
+family for more than four hundred years), has quite luxurious
+accommodation--a sleeping-place and a reading-desk. It is called
+"Pope's Hole." The walls on the south-east side of the house are
+of immense thickness, and there are many indications of secret
+passages within them.
+
+[Illustration: BADDESLEY CLINTON, WARWICKSHIRE]
+
+Some fifty years ago a hiding-hole was opened in a chimney adjoining
+"the chapel" of Lydiate Hall, Lancashire; and since then one
+was discovered behind the rafters of the roof. Another ancient
+house close by contained a priest's hole where were found some
+religious books and an old carved oak chair.
+
+Myddleton Lodge, near Ilkley, had a secret chapel in the roof,
+which is now divided up into several apartments. In the grounds
+is to be seen a curious maze of thickly planted evergreens in
+the shape of a cross. From the fact that at one end remain three
+wooden crosses, there is but little doubt that at the time of
+religious persecution the privacy of the maze was used for secret
+worship.
+
+When Slindon House, Sussex, was undergoing some restorations, a
+"priest's hole" communicating with the roof was discovered. It
+contained some ancient devotional books, and against the walls
+were hung stout leathern straps, by which a person could let
+himself down.
+
+The internal arrangements at Plowden Hall, Shropshire, give one
+a good idea of the feeling of insecurity that must have been
+so prevalent in those "good old days." Running from the top of
+the house there is in the thickness of the wall, a concealed
+circular shoot about a couple of feet in diameter, through which
+a person could lower himself, if necessary, to the ground floor
+by the aid of a rope. Here also, beneath the floor-boards of a
+cupboard in one of the bedrooms, is a concealed chamber with a
+fixed shelf, presumably provided to act as a sort of table for
+the unfortunate individual who was forced to occupy the narrow
+limits of the room. Years before this hiding-place was opened
+to the light of day (in the course of some alterations to the
+house), its existence and actual position was well known; still,
+strange to say, the way into it had never been discovered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+KING-HUNTING: BOSCOBEL, MOSELEY, TRENT, AND HEALE
+
+When the Civil War was raging, many a defeated cavalier owed
+his preservation to the "priests' holes" and secret chambers
+of the old Roman Catholic houses all over the country. Did not
+Charles II. himself owe his life to the conveniences offered
+at Boscobel, Moseley, Trent, and Heale? We have elsewhere[1]
+gone minutely into the young king's hair-breadth adventures;
+but the story is so closely connected with the present subject
+that we must record something of his sojourn at these four old
+houses, as from an historical point of view they are of exceptional
+interest, if one but considers how the order of things would have
+been changed had either of these hiding-places been discovered
+at the time "his Sacred Majesty" occupied them. It is vain to
+speculate upon the probabilities; still, there is no ignoring
+the fact that had Charles been captured he would have shared
+the fate of his father.
+
+[Footnote 1: See _The Flight of the King_.]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE BENEATH "THE CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL, SALOP]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE IN "THE GARRET" OR "CHAPEL,"
+BOSCOBEL]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE IN "THE SQUIRE'S BEDROOM," BOSCOBEL]
+
+[Illustration: SECRET PANEL, TRENT HOUSE, SOMERSETSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: BOSCOBEL, SALOP]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE]
+
+[Illustration: TRENT HOUSE IN 1864]
+
+[Illustration: HEALE HOUSE, WILTSHIRE]
+
+
+After the defeat of Wigan, the gallant Earl of Derby sought refuge
+at the isolated, wood-surrounded hunting-lodge of Boscobel, and
+after remaining there concealed for two days, proceeded to Gatacre
+Park, now rebuilt, but then and for long after famous for its
+secret chambers. Here he remained hidden prior to the disastrous
+battle of Worcester.
+
+Upon the close of that eventful third of September, 1651, the
+Earl, at the time that the King and his advisers knew not which
+way to turn for safety, recounted his recent experiences, and
+called attention to the loyalty of the brothers Penderel. It
+was speedily resolved, therefore, to hasten northwards towards
+Brewood Forest, upon the borders of Staffordshire and Salop.
+"As soon as I was disguised," says Charles, "I took with me a
+country fellow whose name was Richard Penderell.... He was a
+Roman Catholic, and I chose to trust them [the Penderells] because
+I knew they had hiding-holes for priests that I thought I might
+make use of in case of need." Before taking up his quarters in
+the house, however, the idea of escaping into Wales occured to
+Charles, so, when night set in, he quitted Boscobel Wood, where
+he had been hidden all the day, and started on foot with his
+rustic guide in a westerly direction with the object of getting
+over the river Severn, but various hardships and obstacles induced
+Penderel to suggest a halt at a house at Madeley, near the river,
+where they might rest during the day and continue the journey
+under cover of darkness on the following night; the house further
+had the attraction of "priests' holes." "We continued our way on
+to the village upon the Severn," resumes the King, "where the
+fellow told me there was an honest gentleman, one Mr. Woolfe,
+that lived in that town, where I might be with great safety, for
+he had hiding-holes for priests.... So I came into the house a
+back way, where I found Mr. Woolfe, an old gentleman, who told me
+he was very sorry to see me there, because there was two companies
+of the militia foot at that time in arms in the town, and kept a
+guard at the ferry, to examine everybody that came that way in
+expectation of catching some that might be making their escape
+that way; and that he durst not put me into any of the hiding-holes
+of his house, because they had been discovered, and consequently,
+if any search should be made, they would certainly repair to
+these holes, and that therefore I had no other way of security
+but to go into his barn and there lie behind his corn and hay."
+
+[Illustration: MADELEY COURT, SHROPSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: THE COURTYARD, MADELEY COURT]
+
+[Illustration: MADELEY COURT]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," THE UPPER HOUSE, MADELEY]
+
+The Madeley "priest's hole" which was considered unsafe is still
+extant. It is in one of the attics of "the Upper House," but
+the entrance is now very palpable. Those who are curious enough
+to climb up into this black hole will discover a rude wooden
+bench within it--a luxury compared with some hiding-places!
+
+The river Severn being strictly guarded everywhere, Charles and
+his companions retraced their steps the next night towards Boscobel.
+
+After a day spent up in the branches of the famous _Royal Oak_,
+the fugitive monarch made his resting-place the secret chamber
+behind the wainscoting of what is called "the Squire's Bedroom."
+There is another hiding-place, however, hard by in a garret which
+may have been the one selected. The latter lies beneath the floor
+of this garret, or "Popish chapel," as it was once termed. At the
+top of a flight of steps leading to it is a small trap-door, and
+when this is removed a step-ladder may be seen leading down into
+the recess.[1] The other place behind the wainscot is situated
+in a chimney stack and is more roomy in its proportions. Here
+again is an inner hiding-place, entered through a trap-door in
+the floor, with a narrow staircase leading to an exit in the
+basement. So much for Boscobel.
+
+[Footnote 1: The hiding-place in the garret measures about 5 feet
+2 inches in depth by 3-1/2 or 4-1/2 feet in width.]
+
+Moseley Hall is thus referred to by the King: "I... sent Penderell's
+brother to Mr. Pitchcroft's [Whitgreaves] to know whether my
+Lord Wilmot was there or no, and had word brought me by him at
+night that my lord was there, that there was a _very secure
+hiding-hole_ in Mr. Pitchcroft's house, and that he desired
+me to come thither to him."
+
+It was while at Moseley the King had a very narrow escape. A
+search-party arrived on the scene and demanded admittance. Charles's
+host himself gives the account of this adventure: "In the afternoon
+[the King] reposing himself on his bed in the parlour chamber
+and inclineing to sleep, as I was watching at the window, one of
+the neighbours I saw come running in, who told the maid soldiers
+were comeing to search, who thereupon presentlie came running to
+the staires head, and cried, 'Soldiers, soldiers are coming,'
+which his majestie hearing presentlie started out of his bedd and
+run to _his privacie, where I secured him the best I could_,
+and then leaving him, went forth into the street to meet the
+soldiers who were comeing to search, who as soon as they saw
+and knew who I was were readie to pull mee to pieces, and take
+me away with them, saying I was come from the Worcester fight;
+but after much dispute with them, and by the neighbours being
+informed of their false information that I was not there, being
+very ill a great while, they let mee goe; but till I saw them
+clearly all gone forth of the town I returned not; but as soon
+as they were, I returned to release him and did acquaint him
+with my stay, which hee thought long, and then hee began to bee
+very chearful again.
+
+In the interim, whilst I was disputing with the soldiers, one
+of them called Southall came in the ffould and asked a smith,
+as hee was shooing horses there, if he could tell where the King
+was, and he should have "a thousand pounds for his payns...."
+This Southall was a great priest-catcher.
+
+[Illustration: "PRIEST'S HOLE," MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE]
+
+The hiding-place is located beneath the floor of a cupboard,
+adjoining the quaint old panelled bedroom the King occupied while
+he was at Moseley. Even "the merry monarch" must have felt depressed
+in such a dismal hole as this, and we can picture his anxious
+expression, as he sat upon the rude seat of brick which occupies
+one end of it, awaiting the result of the sudden alarm. The cupboard
+orginally was screened with wainscoting, a panel of which could
+be opened and closed by a spring. Family tradition also says
+there was a outlet from the hiding-place in a brew-house chimney.
+Situated in a gable end of the building, near the old chapel,
+in a garret, there is another "priest's hole" large enough only
+to admit of a person lying down full length.
+
+Before the old seat of the Whitgreaves was restored some fifteen
+or twenty years ago it was one of the most picturesque half-timber
+houses, not only in Staffordshire, but in England. It had remained
+practically untouched since the day above alluded to (September
+9th, 1651).
+
+Before reaching Trent, in Somersetshire, the much sought-for king
+had many hardships to undergo and many strange experiences. We
+must, however, confine our remarks to those of the old buildings
+which offered him an asylum that could boast a hiding-place.
+
+Trent House was one of these. The very fact that it originally
+belonged to the recusant Gerard family is sufficient evidence.
+From the Gerards it passed by marriage to the Wyndhams, who were
+in residence in the year we speak of. That his Majesty spent much
+of his time in the actual hiding-place at Trent is very doubtful.
+Altogether he was safely housed here for over a fortnight, and
+during that time doubtless occasional alarms drove him, as at
+Moseley, into his sanctuary; but a secluded room was set apart
+for his use, where he had ample space to move about, and from
+which he could reach his hiding-place at a moment's notice. The
+black oak panelling and beams of this cosy apartment, with its
+deep window recesses, readily carries the mind back to the time
+when its royal inmate wiled away the weary hours by cooking his
+meals and amusing himself as best he could--indeed a hardship
+for one, such as he, so fond of outdoor exercise.
+
+Close to the fireplace are two small, square secret panels, at one
+time used for the secretion of sacred books or vessels, valuables
+or compromising deeds, but pointed out to visitors as a kind of
+buttery hatch through which Charles II. received his food. The
+King by day, also according to local tradition, is said to have
+kept up communication with his friends in the house by means
+of a string suspended in the kitchen chimney. That apartment is
+immediately beneath, and has a fireplace of huge dimensions.
+An old Tudor doorway leading into this part of the house is said
+to have been screened from observation by a load of hay.
+
+Now for the hiding-place. Between this and "my Lady Wyndham's
+chamber" (the aforesaid panelled room that was kept exclusively
+for Charles's use) was a small ante-room, long since demolished,
+its position being now occupied by a rudely constructed staircase,
+from the landing of which the hiding-place is now entered. The
+small secret apartment is approached through a triangular hole
+in the wall, something after the fashion of that at Ufton Court;
+but when one has squeezed through this aperture he will find
+plenty of room to stretch his limbs. The hole, which was close
+up against the rafters of the roof of the staircase landing,
+when viewed from the inside of the apartment, is situated at the
+base of a blocked-up stone Tudor doorway. Beneath the boards of
+the floor--as at Boscobel and Moseley--is an inner hiding-place,
+from which it was formerly possible to find an exit through the
+brew-house chimney.
+
+It was from Trent House that Charles visited the Dorsetshire
+coast in the hopes of getting clear of England; but a complication
+of misadventures induced him to hasten back with all speed to
+the pretty little village of Trent, to seek once, more shelter
+beneath the roof of the Royalist Colonel Wyndham.
+
+To resume the King's account:--
+
+"As soon as we came to Frank Windham's I sent away presently to
+Colonel Robert Philips [Phelips], who lived then at Salisbury, to
+see what he could do for the getting me a ship; which he undertook
+very willingly, and had got one at Southampton, but by misfortune
+she was amongst others prest to transport their soldiers to Jersey,
+by which she failed us also.
+
+"Upon this, I sent further into Sussex, where Robin Philips knew
+one Colonel Gunter, to see whether he could hire a ship anywhere
+upon that coast. And not thinking it convenient for me to stay
+much longer at Frank Windham's (where I had been in all about a
+fortnight, and was become known to very many), I went directly
+away to a widow gentlewoman's house, one Mrs. Hyde, some four
+or five miles from Salisbury, where I came into the house just
+as it was almost dark, with Robin Philips only, not intending
+at first to make myself known. But just as I alighted at the
+door, Mrs. Hyde knew me, though she had never seen me but once
+in her life, and that was with the king, my father, in the army,
+when we marched by Salisbury some years before, in the time of
+the war; but she, being a discreet woman, took no notice at that
+time of me, I passing only for a friend of Robin Philips', by
+whose advice I went thither.
+
+"At supper there was with us Frederick Hyde, since a judge, and
+his sister-in-law, a widow, Robin Philips, myself, and Dr. Henshaw
+[Henchman], since Bishop of London, whom I had appointed to meet
+me there.
+
+"While we were at slipper, I observed Mrs. Hyde and her brother
+Frederick to look a little earnestly at me, which led me to believe
+they might know me. But I was not at all startled by it, it having
+been my purpose to let her know who I was; and, accordingly,
+after supper Mrs. Hyde came to me, and I discovered myself to
+her, who told me she had a very safe place to hide me in, till
+we knew whether our ship was ready or no. But she said it was
+not safe for her to trust anybody but herself and her sister,
+and therefore advised me to take my horse next morning and make
+as if I quitted the house, and return again about night; for she
+would order it so that all her servants and everybody should
+be out of the house but herself and her sister, whose name I
+remember not.
+
+"So Robin Philips and I took our horses and went as far as
+Stonehenge; and there we staid looking upon the stones for some
+time, and returned back again to Hale [Heale] (the place where
+Mrs. Hyde lived) about the hour she appointed; where I went up
+into the hiding-hole, that was very convenient and safe, and
+staid there all alone (Robin Philips then going away to Salisbury)
+some four or five days."
+
+Both exterior and interior of Heale House as it stands to-day
+point to a later date than 1651, though there are here and there
+vestiges of architecture anterior to the middle of the seventeenth
+century; the hiding-place, however, is not among these, and looks
+nothing beyond a very deep cupboard adjoining one of the bedrooms,
+with nothing peculiar to distinguish it from ordinary cupboards.
+
+But for all its modern innovations there is something about Heale
+which suggests a house with a history. Whether it is its environment
+of winding river and ancient cedar-trees, its venerable stables
+and imposing entrance gate, or the fact that it is one of those
+distinguished houses that have saved the life of an English king,
+we will not undertake to fathom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CAVALIER-HUNTING, ETC.
+
+An old mansion in the precincts of the cathedral at Salisbury is
+said to have been a favourite hiding-place for fugitive cavaliers
+at the time of the Civil War. There is an inn immediately opposite
+this house, just outside the close, where the landlord (formerly a
+servant to the family who lived in the mansion) during the troublous
+times acted as a secret agent for those who were concealed, and
+proved invaluable by conveying messages and in other ways aiding
+those Royalists whose lives were in danger.
+
+[Illustration: SECRET PANEL AT SALISBURY]
+
+There are still certain "priests' holes" in the house, but the most
+interesting hiding-place is situated in the most innocent-looking
+of summer-houses in the grounds. The interior of this little
+structure is wainscoted round with large panels like most of
+the summer-houses, pavilions, or music-rooms of the seventeenth
+century, and nothing uncommon or mysterious was discovered until
+some twenty-five years ago. By the merest accident one of the
+panels was found to open, revealing what appeared to be an ordinary
+cupboard with shelves. Further investigations, however, proved
+its real object. By sliding one of the shelves out of the grooves
+into which it is fixed, a very narrow, disguised door, a little
+over a foot in width, in the side of the cupboard and in the
+thickness of the wall can be opened. This again reveals a narrow
+passage, or staircase, leading up to the joists above the ceiling,
+and thence to a recess situated immediately behind the carved
+ornamental facing over the entrance door of the summer-house.
+In this there is a narrow chink or peep-hole, from which the
+fugitive could keep on the look-out either for danger or for the
+friendly Royalist agent of the "King's Arms."
+
+When it was first discovered there were evidences of its last
+occupant--_viz._ a Jacobean horn tumbler, a mattress, and a
+handsomely worked velvet pillow; the last two articles, provided
+no doubt for the comfort of some hunted cavalier, upon being
+handled, fell to pieces. It may be mentioned that the inner door
+of the cupboard can be securely fastened from the inside by an
+iron hook and staple for that purpose.
+
+Hewitt, mine host of the "King's Arms," was not idle at the time
+transactions were in progress to transfer Charles II. from Trent
+to Heale, and received within his house Lord Wilmot, Colonel
+Phelips, and other of the King's friends who were actively engaged
+in making preparations for the memorable journey. This old inn,
+with its oak-panelled rooms and rambling corridors, makes a very
+suitable neighbour to the more dignified old brick mansion opposite,
+with which it is so closely associated.
+
+[Illustration: SECRET CHAMBER, CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: OLD SUMMER HOUSE, SALISBURY (SHEWING CARVING IN
+WHICH IS A PEEP-HOLE FOR HIDING-PLACE BEHIND)]
+
+Many are the exciting stories related of the defeated Royalists,
+especially after the Worcester fight. One of them, Lord Talbot,
+hastened to his paternal home of Longford, near Newport (Salop),
+and had just time to conceal himself ere his pursuers arrived,
+who, finding his horse saddled, concluded that the rider could
+not be far off. They therefore searched the house minutely for
+four or five days, and the fugitive would have perished for want
+of food, had not one of the servants contrived, at great personal
+risk, to pay him nocturnal visits and supply him with nourishment.
+
+The grey old Jacobean mansion Chastleton preserves in its
+oak-panelled hall the sword and portrait of the gallant cavalier
+Captain Arthur Jones, who, narrowly escaping from the battlefield,
+speeded homewards with some of Cromwell's soldiers at his heels;
+and his wife, a lady of great courage, had scarcely concealed
+him in the secret chamber when the enemy arrived to search the
+house.
+
+Little daunted, the lady, with great presence of mind, made no
+objection whatever--indeed, facilitated their operations by
+personally conducting them over the mansion. Here, as in so many
+other instances, the secret room was entered from the principal
+bedroom, and in inspecting the latter the suspicion of the Roundheads
+was in some way or another aroused, so here they determined to
+remain for the rest of the night.
+
+An ample supper and a good store of wine (which, by the way, had
+been carefully drugged) was sent up to the unwelcome visitors,
+and in due course the drink effected its purpose--its victims
+dropped off one by one, until the whole party lay like logs upon
+the floor. Mrs. Arthur Jones then crept in, having even to step
+over the bodies of the inanimate Roundheads, released her husband,
+and a fresh horse being in readiness, by the time the effects
+of the wine had worn off the Royalist captain was far beyond
+their reach.
+
+The secret room is located in the front of the building, and has
+now been converted into a very, comfortable little dressing-room,
+preserving its original oak panelling, and otherwise but little
+altered, with the exception of the entry to it, which is now
+an ordinary door.
+
+Chastleton is the beau ideal of an ancestral hall. The grand
+old gabled house, with its lofty square towers, its Jacobean
+entrance gateway and dovecote, and the fantastically clipped
+box-trees and sun-dial of its quaint old-fashioned garden, possesses
+a charm which few other ancient mansions can boast, and this
+charm lies in its perfectly unaltered state throughout, even
+to the minutest detail. Interior and exterior alike, everything
+presents an appearance exactly as it did when it was erected
+and furnished by Walter Jones, Esquire, between the years 1603
+and 1630. The estate originally was held by Robert Catesby, who
+sold the house to provide funds for carrying on the notorious
+conspiracy.
+
+Among its most valued relics is a Bible given by Charles I. when
+on the scaffold to Bishop Juxon, who lived at Little Compton manor
+house, near Chastleton. This Bible was always used by the bishop
+at the Divine services, which at one time were held in the great
+hall of the latter house. Other relics of the martyr-king used
+to be at Little Compton--_viz._ some beams of the Whitehall
+scaffold, whose exact position has occasioned so much controversy.
+The velvet armchair and footstool used by the King during his
+memorable trial were also preserved here, but of late years have
+found a home at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, some six miles away. Visitors
+to that interesting collection shown in London some years ago--the
+Stuart Exhibition--may remember this venerable armchair of such
+sad association.
+
+[Illustration: CHASTLETON]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE DOOR, CHASTLETON]
+
+It may be here stated that after Charles I.'s execution, Juxon
+lived for a time in Sussex at an old mansion still extant, Albourne
+Place, not far from Hurstpierpoint. We mention this from the
+fact that a priest's hole was discovered there some few years
+ago. It was found in opening a communication between two rooms,
+and originally it could only be reached by steps projecting from
+the inner walls of a chimney.
+
+Not many miles from Albourne stands Street Place, an Elizabethan
+Sussex house of some note. A remarkable story of cavalier-hunting
+is told here. A hiding-place is said to have existed in the wide
+open fireplace of the great hall. Tradition has it that a horseman,
+hard pressed by the Parliamentary troopers, galloped into this
+hall, but upon the arrival of his pursuers, no clue could be
+found of either man or horse!
+
+The gallant Prince Rupert himself, upon one occasion, is said
+to have had recourse to a hiding hole, at least so the story
+runs, at the beautiful old black-and-white timber mansion, Park
+Hall, near Oswestry. A certain "false floor" which led to it is
+pointed out in a cupboard of a bedroom, the hiding-place itself
+being situated immediately above the dining-room fireplace.
+
+A concealed chamber something after the same description is to
+be seen at the old seat of the Fenwicks, Wallington, in
+Northumberland--a small room eight feet long by sixteen feet high,
+situated at the back of the dining-room fireplace, and approached
+through the back of a cupboard.
+
+Behind one of the large panels of "the hall" of an old building
+in Warwick called St. John's Hospital is a hiding-place, and in
+a bedroom of the same house there is a little apartment, now
+converted into a dressing-room, which formerly could only be
+reached through a sliding panel over the fireplace.
+
+The manor house of Dinsdale-on-Tees, Durham, has another example,
+but to reach it it is necessary to pass through a trap-door in
+the attics, crawl along under the roof, and drop down into the,
+space in the wall behind a bedroom fireplace, where for extra
+security there is a second trap-door.
+
+[Illustration: BROUGHTON HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: ST. JOHN'S HOSPITAL, WARWICK]
+
+Full-length panel portraits of the Salwey family at Stanford Court,
+Worcestershire (unfortunately burned down in 1882), concealed hidden
+recesses and screened passages leading up to an exit in the leads
+of the roof. In one of these recesses curious seventeenth-century
+manuscripts were found, among them, the household book of a certain
+"Joyce Jeffereys" during the Civil War.
+
+The old Jacobean mansion Broughton Hall, Staffordshire, had a
+curious hiding-hole over a fireplace and situated in the wall
+between the dining-room and the great hall; over its entrance
+used to hang a portrait of a man in antique costume which went
+by the name of "Red Stockings."
+
+At Lyme Hall, Cheshire, the ancient seat of the Leghs, high up
+in the wall of the hall is a sombre portrait which by ingenious
+mechanism swings out of its frame, a fixture, and gives admittance
+to a room on the first floor, or rather affords a means of looking
+down into the hall.[1] We mention this portrait more especially
+because it has been supposed that Scott got his idea here of
+the ghostly picture which figures in _Woodstock_. A
+_bonĂ¢-fide_ hiding-place, however, is to be seen in another
+part of the mansion in a very haunted-looking bedroom called "the
+Knight's Chamber," entered through a trap-door in the floor of
+a cupboard, with a short flight of steps leading into it.
+
+[Footnote 1: A large panel in the long gallery of Hatfield can be
+pushed aside, giving a view into the great hall, and at Ockwells
+and other ancient mansions this device may also be seen.]
+
+Referring to Scott's novel, a word may be said about Fair Rosamond's
+famous "bower" at the old palace of Woodstock, surely the most
+elaborate and complicated hiding-place ever devised. The ruins
+of the labyrinth leading to the "bower" existed in Drayton's
+time, who described them as "vaults, arched and walled with stone
+and brick, almost inextricably wound within one another, by which,
+if at any time her [Rosamond's] lodging were laid about by the
+Queen, she might easily avoid peril imminent, and, if need be, by
+secret issues take the air abroad many furlongs about Woodstock."
+
+[Illustration: STAIRCASE, BROUGHTON HALL]
+
+In a survey taken in 1660, it is stated that foundation signs
+remained about a bow-shot southwest of the gate: "_The form
+and circuit both of the place and ruins show it to have been a
+house of one pile, and probably was filled with secret places
+of recess and avenues to hide or convey away such persons as
+were not willing to be found if narrowly sought after._"
+
+Ghostly gambols, such as those actually practised upon the
+Parliamentary Commissioners at the old palace of Woodstock, were
+for years carried on without detection by the servants at the old
+house of Hinton-Ampner, Hampshire; and when it was pulled down
+in the year 1797, it became very obvious how the mysteries, which
+gave the house the reputation of being haunted, were managed,
+for numerous secret stairs and passages, not known to exist were
+brought to light which had offered peculiar facilities for the
+deception. About the middle of the eighteenth century the mansion
+passed out of the hands of its old possessors, the Stewkeleys,
+and shortly afterwards became notorious for the unaccountable
+noises which disturbed the peace of mind of the new tenants.
+Not only were there violent knocks, hammerings, groanings, and
+sounds of footsteps in the ceilings and walls, out strange sights
+frightened the servants out of their wits. A ghostly visitant
+dressed in drab would appear and disappear mysteriously, a female
+figure was often seen to rush through the apartments, and other
+supernatural occurrences at length became so intolerable that the
+inmates of the house sought refuge in flight. Later successive
+tenants fared the same. A hundred pounds reward was offered to
+any who should run the ghosts to earth; but nothing resulted
+from it, and after thirty years or more of hauntings, the house
+was razed to the ground. Secret passages and chambers were then
+brought to light; but those who had carried on the deception
+for so long took the secret with them to their graves.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: A full account of the supernatural occurrences at
+Hinton-Ampner will be found in the Life of Richard Barham.]
+
+It is well known that the huge, carved oak bedsteads of the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries were often provided with secret
+accommodation for valuables. One particular instance we can call
+to mind of a hidden cupboard at the base of the bedpost which
+contained a short rapier. But of these small hiding-places we
+shall speak presently. It is with the head of the bed we have
+now to do, as it was sometimes used as an opening into the wall
+at the back. Occasionally, in old houses, unmeaning gaps and
+spaces are met with in the upper rooms midway between floor and
+ceiling, which possibly at one time were used as bed-head
+hiding-places. Shipton Court, Oxon, and Hill Hall, Essex, may
+be given as examples. Dunster Castle, Somersetshire, also, has
+at the back of a bedstead in one of the rooms a long, narrow
+place of concealment, extending the width of the apartment, and
+provided with a stone seat.
+
+Sir Ralph Verney, while in exile in France in 1645, wrote to his
+brother at Claydon House, Buckinghamshire, concerning "the odd
+things in the room my mother kept herself--_the iron chest in
+the little room between her bed's-head and the back stairs._"
+This old seat of the Verneys had another secret chamber in the
+middle storey, entered through a trap-door in "the muniment-room"
+at the top of the house. Here also was a small private staircase
+in the wall, possibly the "back stairs" mentioned in Sir Ralph's
+letters.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See _Memoirs of the Verney Family._]
+
+[Illustration: SHIPTON COURT, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: BROUGHTON CASTLE, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+Before the breaking out of the Civil War, Hampden, Pym, Lord
+Brooke, and other of the Parliamentary leaders, held secret meetings
+at Broughton Castle, oxon, the seat of Lord Saye and Sele, to
+organise a resistance to the arbitrary measures of the king. In
+this beautiful old fortified and moated mansion the secret stairs
+may yet be seen that led up to the little isolated chamber, with
+massive casemated walls for the exclusion of sound. Anthony Wood,
+alluding to the secret councils, says: "Several years before the
+Civil War began, Lord Saye, being looked upon as the godfather
+of that party, had meetings of them in his house at Broughton,
+where was a room and passage thereunto which his servants were
+prohibited to come near."[1] There is also a hiding-hole behind
+a window shutter in the wall of a corridor, with an air-hole
+ingeniously devised in the masonry.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Memorials of Hampden._]
+
+The old dower-house of Fawsley, not many miles to the north-east
+of Broughton, in the adjoining county of Northamptonshire, had
+a secret room over the hall, where a private press was kept for
+the purpose of printing political tracts at this time, when the
+country was working up into a state of turmoil.
+
+When the regicides were being hunted out in the early part of
+Charles II.'s reign, Judge Mayne[1] secreted himself at his house,
+Dinton Hall, Bucks, but eventually gave himself up. The hiding-hole
+at Dinton was beneath the staircase, and accessible by removing
+three of the steps. A narrow passage which led from it to a space
+behind the beams of the roof had its sides or walls thickly lined
+with cloth, so as to muffle all sound.
+
+[Footnote 1: There is a tradition that it was a servant of Mayne
+who acted as Charles I.'s executioner.]
+
+Bradshawe Hall, in north-west Derbyshire (once the seat of the
+family of that name of which the notorious President was a member),
+has or had a concealed chamber high up in the wall of a room on
+the ground floor which was capable of holding three persons.
+Of course tradition says the "wicked judge was hidden here."
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE GATE, BRADSHAWE HALL, DERBYSHIRE]
+
+The regicides Colonels Whalley and Goffe had many narrow escapes
+in America, whither they were traced. What is known as "Judge's
+Cave," in the West Rock some two miles from the town of New Haven,
+Conn., afforded them sanctuary. For some days they were concealed
+in an old house belonging to a certain Mrs. Eyers, in a secret
+chamber behind the wainscoting, the entrance to which was most
+ingeniously devised. The house was narrowly searched on May 14th,
+1661, at the time they were in hiding.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Stiles's _Judges_, p. 64]
+
+Upon the discovery of the Rye House Plot in 1683, suspicion falling
+upon one of the conspirators, William, third Lord Howard of Escrick,
+the Sergeant-at-Arms was despatched with a squadron of horse to
+his house at Knights-bridge, and after a long search he was
+discovered concealed in a hiding-place constructed in a chimney
+at the back of a tall cupboard, and the chances are that he would
+not have been arrested had it not been evident, by the warmth of
+his bed and his clothes scattered about, that he had only just
+risen and could not have got away unobserved, except to some
+concealed lurking-place. When discovered he had on no clothing
+beyond his shirt, so it may be imagined with what precipitate
+haste he had to hide himself upon the unexpected arrival of the
+soldiers.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Roger North's _Examen_.]
+
+Numerous other houses were searched for arms and suspicious papers,
+particularly in the counties of Cheshire and Lancashire, where
+the Duke of Monmouth was known to have many influential friends,
+marked enemies to the throne.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: See Oulton Hall MSS., Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iii. p.
+245.]
+
+Monmouth's lurking-place was known at Whitehall, and those who
+revealed it went the wrong way to work to win Court favour. Apart
+from the attractions of Lady Wentworth, whose companionship made
+the fugitive's enforced seclusion at Toddington, in Bedfordshire,
+far from tedious, the mansion was desirable at that particular
+time on account of its hiding facilities. An anonymous letter
+sent to the Secretary of State failed not to point out "that
+vastness and intricacy that without a most diligent search it's
+impossible to discover _all the lurking holes in it, there being
+severall trap dores on the leads and in closetts, into places to
+which there is no other access._"[1] The easy-going king had
+to make some external show towards an attempt to capture his
+erring son, therefore instructions were given with this purpose,
+but to a courtier and diplomatist who valued his own interests.
+Toddington Place, therefore, was _not_ explored.
+
+[Footnote 1: Vide King _Monmouth_.]
+
+[Illustration: MOYLES COURT, HAMPSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: TODDINGTON MANOR HOUSE, BEDFORDSHIRE, IN 1806 (FROM
+AN OLD DRAWING)]
+
+Few hiding-places are associated with so tragic a story as that
+at Moyles Court, Hants, where the venerable Lady Alice Lisle,
+in pure charity, hid two partisans of Monmouth, John Hickes and
+Richard Nelthorpe, after the battle of Sedgemoor, for which humane
+action she was condemned to be burned alive by Judge Jeffreys--a
+sentence commuted afterwards to beheading. It is difficult to
+associate this peaceful old Jacobean mansion, and the simple
+tomb in the churchyard hard by, with so terrible a history. A
+dark hole in the wall of the kitchen is traditionally said to be
+the place of concealment of the fugitives, who threw themselves
+on Lady Alice's mercy; but a dungeon-like cellar not unlike that
+represented in E. M. Ward's well-known picture looks a much more
+likely place.
+
+It was in an underground vault at Lady Place, Hurley, the old
+seat of the Lovelaces, that secret conferences were held by the
+adherents of the Prince of Orange. Three years after the execution
+of the Duke of Monmouth, his boon companion and supporter, John,
+third Lord Lovelace, organised treasonable meetings in this tomb-like
+chamber. Tradition asserts that certain important documents in
+favour of the Revolution were actually signed in the Hurley vault.
+Be this as it may, King William III. failed not, in after years,
+when visiting his former secret agent, to inspect the subterranean
+apartment with very tender regard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES
+
+We have spoken of the old houses associated with Charles II.'s
+escapes, let us see what history has to record of his unpopular
+brother James. The Stuarts seem to have been doomed, at one time
+or another, to evade their enemies by secret flight, and in some
+measure this may account for the romance always surrounding that
+ill-fated line of kings and queens.
+
+James V. of Scotland was wont to amuse himself by donning a disguise,
+but his successors appear to have been doomed by fate to follow
+his example, not for recreation, but to preserve their lives.
+
+Mary, Queen of Scots, upon one occasion had to impersonate a
+laundress. Her grandson and great-grandson both were forced to
+masquerade as servants, and her great-great-grandson Prince James
+Frederick Edward passed through France disguised as an abbé.
+
+The escapades of his son the "Bonnie Prince" will require our
+attention presently; we will, therefore, for the moment confine
+our thoughts to James II.
+
+With the surrender of Oxford the young Prince James found himself
+Fairfax's prisoner. His elder brother Charles had been more
+fortunate, having left the city shortly before for the western
+counties, and after effecting his escape to Scilly, he sought
+refuge in Jersey, whence he removed to the Hague. The Duke of
+Gloucester and the Princess Elizabeth already had been placed
+under the custody of the Earl of Northumberland at St. James's
+Palace, so the Duke of York was sent there also. This was in 1646.
+Some nine months elapsed, and James, after two ineffectual attempts
+to regain his liberty, eventually succeeded in the following
+manner.
+
+Though prisoners, the royal children were permitted to amuse
+themselves within the walls of the palace much as they pleased,
+and among the juvenile games with which they passed away the
+time, "hide-and-seek" was first favourite. James, doubtless with
+an eye to the future, soon acquired a reputation as an expert
+hider, and his brother and sister and the playmates with whom
+they associated would frequently search the odd nooks and corners
+of the old mansion in vain for an hour at a stretch. It was,
+therefore, no extraordinary occurrence on the night of April 20th,
+1647, that the Prince, after a prolonged search, was missing. The
+youngsters, more than usually perplexed, presently persuaded the
+adults of the prison establishment to join in the game, which,
+when their suspicions were aroused, they did in real earnest.
+But all in vain, and at length a messenger was despatched to
+Whitehall with the intelligence that James, Duke of York, had
+effected his escape. Everything was in a turmoil. Orders were
+hurriedly dispatched for all seaport towns to be on the alert,
+and every exit out of London was strictly watched; meanwhile,
+it is scarcely necessary to add, the young fugitive was well
+clear of the city, speeding on his way to the Continent.
+
+The plot had been skilfully planned. A key, or rather a duplicate
+key, had given admittance through the gardens into St. James's Park,
+where the Royalist, though outwardly professed Parliamentarian,
+Colonel Bamfield was in readiness with a periwig and cloak to
+effect a speedy disguise. When at length the fugitive made his
+appearance, minus his shoes and coat, he was hurried into a coach
+and conveyed to the Strand by Salisbury House, where the two
+alighted, and passing down Ivy Lane, reached the river, and after
+James's disguise had been perfected, boat was taken to Lyon Quay
+in Lower Thames Street, where a barge lay in readiness to carry
+them down stream.
+
+So far all went well, but on the way to Gravesend the master
+of the vessel, doubtless with a view to increasing his reward,
+raised some objections. The fugitive was now in female attire,
+and the objection was that nothing had been said about a woman
+coming aboard; but he was at length pacified, indeed ere long
+guessed the truth, for the Prince's lack of female decorum, as
+in the case of his grandson "the Bonnie Prince" nearly a century
+afterwards, made him guess how matters really stood. Beyond Gravesend
+the fugitives got aboard a Dutch vessel and were carried safely
+to Middleburg.
+
+We will now shift the scene to Whitehall in the year 1688, when,
+after a brief reign of three years, betrayed and deserted on
+all sides, the unhappy Stuart king was contemplating his second
+flight out of England. The weather-cock that had been set up on
+the banqueting hall to show when the wind "blew Protestant" had
+duly recorded the dreaded approach of Dutch William, who now was
+steadily advancing towards the capital. On Tuesday, December 10th,
+soon after midnight, James left the Palace by way of Chiffinch's
+secret stairs of notorious fame, and disguised as the servant
+of Sir Edward Hales, with Ralph Sheldon--La Badie--a page, and
+Dick Smith, a groom, attending him, crossed the river to Lambeth,
+dropping the great seal in the water on the way, and took horse,
+avoiding the main roads, towards Farnborough and thence to
+Chislehurst. Leaving Maidstone to the south-west, a brief halt
+was made at Pennenden Heath for refreshment. The old inn, "the
+Woolpack," where the party stopped for their hurried repast,
+remains, at least in name, for the building itself has of late
+years been replaced by a modern structure. Crossing the Dover
+road, the party now directed their course towards Milton Creek,
+to the north-east of Sittingbourne, where a small fishing-craft
+lay in readiness, which had been chartered by Sir Edward Hales,
+whose seat at Tunstall[1] was close by.
+
+[Footnote 1: The principal seat of the Hales, near Canterbury, is
+now occupied as a Jesuit College. The old manor house of Tunstall,
+Grove End Farm, presents both externally and internally many
+features of interest. The family was last represented by a maid
+lady who died a few years since.]
+
+One or two old buildings in the desolate marsh district of Elmley,
+claim the distinction of having received a visit of the deposed
+monarch prior to the mishaps which were shortly to follow. King's
+Hill Farm, once a house of some importance, preserves this tradition,
+as does also an ancient cottage, in the last stage of decay,
+known as "Rats' Castle."
+
+[Illustration: "RATS' CASTLE," ELMLEY, KENT]
+
+[Illustration: KING'S HILL FARM, ELMLEY, KENT]
+
+At Elmley Ferry, which crosses the river Swale, the king got
+aboard, but scarcely had the moorings been cast than further
+progress was arrested by a party of over-zealous fishermen on
+the look out for fugitive Jesuit priests. The story of the rough
+handling to which the poor king was subjected is a somewhat hackneyed
+school-book anecdote, but some interesting details have been handed
+down by one Captain Marsh, by James's natural son the Duke of
+Berwick, and by the Earl of Ailesbury.
+
+From these accounts we gather that in the disturbance that ensued
+a blow was aimed at the King, but that a Canterbury innkeeper named
+Platt threw himself in the way and received the blow himself. It
+is recorded, to James II.'s credit, that when he was recognised
+and his stolen money and jewels offered back to him, he declined
+the former, desiring that his health might be drunk by the mob.
+Among the valuables were the King's watch, his coronation ring,
+and medals commemorating the births of his son the Chevalier
+St. George and of his brother Charles II.
+
+The King was taken ashore at a spot called "the Stool," close
+to the little village of Oare, to the north-west of Faversham,
+to which town he was conveyed by coach, attended by a score of
+Kentish gentlemen on horseback. The royal prisoner was first
+carried to the "Queen's Arms Inn," which still exists under the
+name of the "Ship Hotel." From here he was taken to the mayor's
+house in Court Street (an old building recently pulled down to
+make way for a new brewery) and placed under a strict guard, and
+from the window of his prison the unfortunate King had to listen
+to the proclamation of the Prince of Orange, read by order of the
+mayor, who subsequently was rewarded for the zeal he displayed
+upon the occasion.
+
+The hardships of the last twenty-four hours had told severely upon
+James. He was sick and feeble and weakened by profuse bleeding
+of the nose, to which he, like his brother Charles, was subject
+when unduly excited. Sir Edward Hales, in the meantime, was lodged
+in the old Court Hall (since partially rebuilt), whence he was
+removed to Maidstone gaol, and to the Tower.
+
+Bishop Burnet was at Windsor with the Prince of Orange when two
+gentlemen arrived there from Faversham with the news of the King's
+capture. "They told me," he says, "of the accident at Faversham,
+and desired to know the Prince's pleasure upon it. I was affected
+with this dismal reverse of the fortunes of a great prince, more
+than I think fit to express. I went immediately to Bentinck and
+wakened him, and got him to go in to the Prince, and let him
+know what had happened, that some order might be presently given
+for the security of the King's person, and for taking him out
+of the hands of a rude multitude who said they would obey no
+orders but such as came from the Prince."
+
+Upon receiving the news, William at once directed that his
+father-in-law should have his liberty, and that assistance should
+be sent down to him immediately; but by this time the story had
+reached the metropolis, and a hurried meeting of the Council
+directed the Earl of Feversham to go to the rescue with a company
+of Life Guards. The faithful Earl of Ailesbury also hastened to
+the King's assistance. In five hours he accomplished the journey
+from London to Faversham. So rapidly had the reports been circulated
+of supposed ravages of the Irish Papists, that when the Earl
+reached Rochester, the entire town was in a state of panic, and
+the alarmed inhabitants were busily engaged in demolishing the
+bridge to prevent the dreaded incursion.
+
+But to return to James at Faversham. The mariners who had handled
+him so roughly now took his part--in addition to his property--and
+insisted upon sleeping in the adjoining room to that in which
+he was incarcerated, to protect him from further harm. Early
+on Saturday morning the Earl of Feversham made his appearance;
+and after some little hesitation on the King's side, he was at
+length persuaded to return to London. So he set out on horseback,
+breaking the journey at Rochester, where he slept on the Saturday
+night at Sir Richard Head's house. On the Sunday he rode on to
+Dartford, where he took coach to Southwark and Whitehall. A temporary
+reaction had now set in, and the cordial reception which greeted
+his reappearance revived his hopes and spirits. This reaction,
+however, was but short-lived, for no sooner had the poor King
+retired to the privacy of his bed-chamber at Whitehall Palace,
+than an imperious message from his son-in-law ordered him to
+remove without delay to Ham House, Petersham.
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO SECRET PASSAGE, "ABDICATION HOUSE,"
+ROCHESTER]
+
+[Illustration: "ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER]
+
+James objected strongly to this; the place, he said, was damp and
+unfurnished (which, by the way, was not the case if we may judge
+from Evelyn, who visited the mansion not long before, when it was
+"furnished like a great Prince's"--indeed, the same furniture
+remains intact to this day), and a message was sent back that if
+he must quit Whitehall he would prefer to retire to Rochester,
+which wish was readily accorded him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES (_continued_), HAM HOUSE, AND "ABDICATION
+HOUSE"
+
+Tradition, regardless of fact, associates the grand old seat
+of the Lauderdales and Dysarts with King James's escape from
+England. A certain secret staircase is still pointed out by which
+the dethroned monarch is said to have made his exit, and visitors
+to the Stuart Exhibition a few years ago will remember a sword
+which, with the King's hat and cloak, is said to have been left
+behind when he quitted the mansion. Now there existed, not many
+miles away, also close to the river Thames, _another_ Ham
+House, which was closely associated with James II., and it seems,
+therefore, possible, in fact probable, that the past associations
+of the one house have attached themselves to the other.
+
+In Ham House, Weybridge, lived for some years the King's discarded
+mistress Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester. At the actual
+time of James's abdication this lady was in France, but in the
+earlier part of his reign the King was a frequent visitor here.
+In Charles II.'s time the house belonged to Jane Bickerton, the
+mistress and afterwards wife of the sixth Duke of Norfolk. Evelyn
+dined there soon after this marriage had been solemnised. "The
+Duke," he says, "leading me about the house made no scruple of
+showing me all the hiding-places for the Popish priests and where
+they said Masse, for he was no bigoted Papist." At the Duke's
+death "the palace" was sold to the Countess of Dorchester, whose
+descendants pulled it down some fifty years ago. The oak-panelled
+rooms were richly parquetted with "cedar and cyprus." One of them
+until the last retained the name of "the King's Bedroom." It had a
+private communication with a little Roman Catholic chapel in the
+building. The attics, as at Compton Winyates, were called "the
+Barracks," tradition associating them with the King's guards, who
+are said to have been lodged there. Upon the walls hung portraits
+of the Duchesses of Leeds and Dorset, of Nell Gwyn and the Countess
+herself, and of Earl Portmore, who married her daughter. Here also
+formerly was Holbein's famous picture, Bluff King Hal and the
+Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk dancing a minuet with Anne Boleyn
+and the Dowager-Queens of France and Scotland. Evelyn saw the
+painting in August, 1678, and records "the sprightly motion"
+and "amorous countenances of the ladies." (This picture is now,
+or was recently, in the possession of Major-General Sotheby.)
+
+A few years after James's abdication, the Earl of Ailesbury rented
+the house from the Countess, who lived meanwhile in a small house
+adjacent, and was in the habit of coming into the gardens of the
+palace by a key of admittance she kept for that purpose. Upon
+one of these occasions the Earl and she had a disagreement about
+the lease, and so forcible were the lady's coarse expressions,
+for she never could restrain the licence of her tongue, that she
+had to be ejected from the premises, whereupon, says Ailesbury,
+"she bade me go to my----King James," with the assurance that
+"she would make King William spit on me."
+
+[Illustration: MONUMENT OF SIR RICHARD HEAD]
+
+[Illustration: "RESTORATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER]
+
+But to follow James II.'s ill-fortunes to Rochester, where he was
+conveyed on the Tuesday at noon by royal barge, with an escort of
+Dutch soldiers, with Lords Arran, Dumbarton, etc., in attendance--"a
+sad sight," says Evelyn, who witnessed the departure. The King
+recognised among those set to guard him an old lieutenant of the
+Horse who had fought under him, when Duke of York, at the battle
+of Dunkirk. Colonel Wycke, in command of the King's escort, was
+a nephew of the court painter Sir Peter Lely, who had owed his
+success to the patronage of Charles II. and his brother. The
+part the Colonel had to act was a painful one, and he begged the
+King's pardon. The royal prisoner was lodged for the night at
+Gravesend, at the house of a lawyer, and next morning the journey
+was continued to Rochester.
+
+The royalist Sir Richard Head again had the honour of acting
+as the King's host, and his guest was allowed to go in and out
+of the house as he pleased, for diplomatic William of Orange
+had arranged that no opportunity should be lost for James to
+make use of a passport which the Duke of Berwick had obtained
+for "a certain gentleman and two servants." James's movements,
+therefore, were hampered in no way. But the King, ever suspicious,
+planned his escape from Rochester with the greatest caution and
+secrecy, and many of his most attached and loyal adherents were
+kept in ignorance of his final departure. James's little court
+consisted of the Earls of Arran, Lichfield, Middleton, Dumbarton,
+and Ailesbury, the Duke of Berwick, Sir Stephen Fox, Major-General
+Sackville, Mr. Grahame, Fenton, and a few others.
+
+On the evening of the King's flight the company dispersed as was
+customary, when Ailesbury intimated, by removing his Majesty's
+stockings, that the King was about to seek his couch. The Earl
+of Dumbarton retired with James to his apartment, who, when the
+house was quiet for the night, got up, dressed, and "by way of
+the back stairs," according to the Stuart Papers, passed "through
+the garden, where Macdonald stayed for him, with the Duke of
+Berwick and Mr. Biddulph, to show him the way to Trevanion's
+boat. About twelve at night they rowed down to the smack, which
+was waiting without the fort at Sheerness. It blew so hard right
+ahead, and ebb tide being done before they got to the Salt Pans,
+that it was near six before they got to the smack. Captain Trevanion
+not being able to trust the officers of his ship, they got on
+board the _Eagle_ fireship, commanded by Captain Welford,
+on which, the wind and tide being against them, they stayed till
+daybreak, when the King went on board the smack." On Christmas
+Day James landed at Ambleteuse.
+
+Thus the old town of Rochester witnessed the departure of the
+last male representative of the Stuart line who wore a crown.
+Twenty-eight years before, every window and gable end had been
+gaily bedecked with many coloured ribbons, banners, and flowers
+to welcome in the restored monarch. The picturesque old red brick
+"Restoration House" still stands to carry us back to the eventful
+night when "his sacred Majesty" slept within its walls upon his
+way from Dover to London--a striking contrast to "Abdication
+House," the gloomy abode of Sir Richard Head, of more melancholy
+associations.
+
+Much altered and modernised, this old mansion also remains. It
+is in the High Street, and is now, or was recently, occupied as a
+draper's shop. Here may be seen the "presence-chamber" where the
+dethroned King heard Mass, and the royal bedchamber where, after
+his secret departure, a letter was found on the table addressed
+to Lord Middleton, for both he and Lord Ailesbury were kept in
+ignorance of James II.'s final movements. The old garden may
+be seen with the steps leading down to the river, much as it
+was a couple of centuries ago, though the river now no longer
+flows in near proximity, owing to the drainage of the marshes
+and the "subsequent improvements" of later days.
+
+The hidden passage in the staircase wall may also be seen, and
+the trap-door leading to it from the attics above. Tradition says
+the King made use of these; and if he did so, the probability is
+that it was done more to avoid his host's over-zealous neighbours,
+than from fear of arrest through the vigilance of the spies of
+his son-in-law.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: It may be of interest to state that the illustrations
+we give of the house were originally exhibited at the Stuart
+Exhibition by Sir Robert G. Head, the living representative of
+the old Royalist family]
+
+Exactly three months after James left England he made his
+reappearance at Kinsale and entered Dublin in triumphal state.
+The siege of Londonderry and the decisive battle of the Boyne
+followed, and for a third and last time James II. was a fugitive
+from his realms. The melancholy story is graphically told in Mr.
+A. C. Gow's dramatic picture, an engraving of which I understand
+has recently been published.
+
+How the unfortunate King rode from Dublin to Duncannon Fort,
+leaving his faithful followers and ill-fortunes behind him; got
+aboard the French vessel anchored there for his safety; and returned
+once more to the protection of the Grande Monarque at the palace
+of St. Germain, is an oft-told story of Stuart ingratitude.
+
+[Illustration: ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE GATE, ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MYSTERIOUS ROOMS, DEADLY PITS, ETC.
+
+At the "Restoration House" previously mentioned there is a secret
+passage in the wall of an upper room; but though the Merry Monarch
+is, according to popular tradition, credited with a monopoly of
+hiding-places all over England, it is more than doubtful whether
+he had recourse to these exploits, in which he was so successful
+in 1651, upon such a joyful occasion, except, indeed, through
+sheer force of habit.
+
+Even Cromwell's name is connected with hiding-places! But it
+is difficult to conjecture upon what occasions his Excellency
+found it convenient to secrete himself, unless it was in his
+later days, when he went about in fear of assassination.
+
+Hale House, Islington, pulled down in 1853, had a concealed recess
+behind the wainscot over the mantel-piece, formed by the curve
+of the chimney. In this, tradition says, the Lord Protector was
+hidden. Nor is this the solitary instance, for a dark hole in
+one of the gable ends of Cromwell House, Mortlake (taken down in
+1860), locally known as "Old Noll's Hole," is said to have afforded
+him temporary accommodation when his was life in danger.[1] The
+residence of his son-in-law Ireton (Cromwell House) at Highgate
+contained a large secret chamber at the back of a cupboard in
+one of the upper rooms, and extended back twelve or fourteen
+feet, but the cupboard has now been removed and the space at the
+back converted into a passage.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Faulkner's _History of Islington_.]
+
+The ancient manor house of Armscot, in an old-world corner of
+Worcestershire, contains in one of its gables a hiding-place
+entered through a narrow opening in the plaster wall, not unlike
+that at Ufton Court, and capable of holding many people. From the
+fact that George Fox was arrested in this house on October 17th,
+1673, when he was being persecuted by the county magistrates, the
+story has come down to the yokels of the neighbourhood that "old
+Guy Fawkes, the first Quaker," was hidden here! In his journal Fox
+mentions his arrest at Armscot after a "very large and precious
+meeting" in the barn close by; but we have no allusion to the
+hiding-place, for he appears to have been sitting in the parlour
+when Henry Parker, the Justice, arrived--indeed, George Fox was
+not the sort of man to have recourse to concealments, and owe
+his escape to a "priest's hole."
+
+The suggestion of a sudden reverse in religious persecution driving
+a Quaker to such an extremity calls to mind an old farmstead
+where a political change from monarchy to commonwealth forced
+Puritan and cavalier consecutively to seek refuge in the secret
+chamber. This narrow hiding-place, beside the spacious fire-place,
+is pointed out in an ancient house in the parish of Hinchford,
+in Eastern Essex.
+
+Even the notorious Judge Jeffreys had in his house facilities
+for concealment and escape. His old residence in Delahay Street,
+Westminster, demolished a few years ago, had its secret panel
+in the wainscoting, but in what way the cruel Lord Chancellor
+made use of it does not transpire; possibly it may have been
+utilised at the time of James II.'s flight from Whitehall.
+
+A remarkable discovery was made early in the last century at the
+Elizabethan manor house of Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire,
+only a portion of which remains incorporated in a modern structure.
+Upon removing some of the wallpaper of a passage on the second
+floor, the entrance to a room hitherto unknown was laid bare. It
+was a small apartment about eight feet square, and presented the
+appearance as if some occupant had just quitted it. A chair and
+a table within, each bore evidence of the last inmate. Over the
+back of the former hung a priest's black cassock, carelessly flung
+there a century or more ago, while on the table stood an antique
+tea-pot, cup, and silver spoon, the very tea leaves crumbled to
+dust with age. On the same storey were two rooms known as "the
+chapel" and the "priest's room," the names of which signify the
+former use of the concealed apartment.
+
+Sir Walter Scott records a curious "find," similar in many respects
+to that at Bourton. In the course of some structural alterations to
+an ancient house near Edinburgh three unknown rooms were brought to
+light, bearing testimony of their last inmate. One of them had been
+occupied as a bedroom. The clothing of the bed was disarranged,
+as if it had been slept in only a few hours previously, and close
+by was an antique dressing-gown. How interesting it would be to
+know some particulars of the sudden surprise which evidently
+drove the owner of the garment from his snug quarters--whether
+he effected his escape, or whether he was captured! The walls
+of this buried chamber, if they could speak, had some curious
+story to relate.
+
+Not many years ago the late squire of East Hendred House, Berkshire,
+discovered the existence of a secret chamber in casually glancing
+over some ancient papers belonging to the house. "The little
+room," as it was called, from its proximity to the chapel, had
+no doubt been turned to good account during the penal laws of
+Elizabeth's reign, as the chamber itself and other parts of the
+house date from a much earlier period.
+
+Long after the palatial Sussex mansion of Cowdray was burnt down,
+the habitable remains (the keeper's lodge, in the centre of the
+park) contained an ingenious hiding-place behind a fireplace in
+a bedroom, which was reached by a movable panel in a cupboard,
+communicating with the roof by a slender flight of steps. It
+was very high, reaching up two storeys, but extremely narrow,
+so much so that directly opposite a stone bench which stood in
+a recess for a seat, the wall was hollowed out to admit of the
+knees. When this secret chamber was discovered, it contained an
+iron chair, a quaint old brass lamp, and some manuscripts of
+the Montague family. The Cowdray tradition says that the fifth
+Viscount was concealed in this hiding-place for a considerable
+period, owing to some dark crime he is supposed to have committed,
+though he was generally believed to have fled abroad. Secret
+nocturnal interviews took place between Lord Montague and his
+wife in "My Lady's Walk," an isolated spot in Cowdray Park. The
+Montagues, now extinct, are said to have been very chary with
+reference to their Roman Catholic forefathers, and never allowed
+the secret chamber to be shown.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See _History of a Great English House_.]
+
+A weird story clings to the ruins of Minster Lovel Manor House,
+Oxfordshire, the ancient seat of the Lords Lovel. After the battle
+of Stoke, Francis, the last Viscount, who had sided with the
+cause of Simnel against King Henry VII., fled back to his house
+in disguise, but from the night of his return was never seen or
+heard of again, and for nearly two centuries his disappearance
+remained a mystery. In the meantime the manor house had been
+dismantled and the remains tenanted by a farmer; but a strange
+discovery was made in the year 1708. A concealed vault was found,
+and in it, seated before a table, with a prayer-book lying open
+upon it, was the entire skeleton of a man. In the secret chamber
+were certain barrels and jars which had contained food sufficient
+to last perhaps some weeks; but the mansion having been seized
+by the King, soon after the unfortunate Lord Lovel is supposed
+to have concealed himself, the probability is that, unable to
+regain his liberty, the neglect or treachery of a servant or
+tenant brought about this tragic end.
+
+A discovery of this nature was made in 1785 in a hidden vault
+at the foot of a stone staircase at Brandon Hall, Suffolk.
+
+Kingerby Hall, Lincolnshire, has a ghostly tradition of an
+unfortunate occupant of the hiding-hole near a fireplace being
+intentionally fastened in so that he was stifled with the heat and
+smoke; the skeleton was found years afterwards in this horrible
+death-chamber.
+
+Bayons Manor, in the same county, has some very curious arrangements
+for the sake of secretion and defence. There is a room in one of
+the barbican towers occupying its entire circumference, but so
+effectually hidden that its existence would never be suspected.
+In two of the towers are curious concealed stairs, and approaching
+"the Bishop's Tower" from the outer court or ballium, part of
+a flight of steps can be raised like a drawbridge to prevent
+sudden intrusion.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Burke's _Visitation of Seats_, vol. i.]
+
+A contributor to that excellent little journal _The Rambler_,
+unfortunately now extinct, mentions another very strange and
+weird device for security. "In the state-room of my castle,"
+says the owner of this death-trap, "is the family shield, which
+on a part being touched, revolves, and a flight of steps becomes
+visible. The first, third, fifth, and all odd steps are to be
+trusted, but to tread any of the others is to set in motion some
+concealed machinery which causes the staircase to collapse,
+disclosing a vault some seventy feet in depth, down which the
+unwary are precipitated."
+
+At Tyttenhanger House, Hertfordshire, and in the old manor house
+of Newport, Isle of Wight (where the captive King Charles I.
+spent some of his last melancholy days), there are rooms with
+passages in the walls running completely round them. Similar
+passages were found some years ago while making alterations to
+Highclere Castle Hampshire.
+
+The once magnificent Madeley Court, Salop[1] (now, alas! in the
+last stage of desolation and decay, surrounded by coal-fields and
+undermined by pits), is honeycombed with places for concealment
+and escape. A ruinous apartment at the top of the house, known
+as "the chapel" (only a few years ago wainscoted to the ceiling
+and divided by fine old oak screen), contained a secret chamber
+behind one of the panels. This could be fastened on the inside by
+a strong bolt. The walls of the mansion are of immense thickness,
+and the recesses and nooks noticeable everywhere were evidently at
+one time places of concealment; one long triangular recess extends
+between two ruinous chambers (mere skeletons of past grandeur),
+and was no doubt for the purpose of reaching the basement from
+the first floor other than by the staircases. In the upper part
+of the house a dismal pit or well extends to the ground level,
+where it slants off in an oblique direction below the building,
+and terminates in a large pool or lake, after the fashion of
+that already described at Baddesley Clinton, in Warwickshire.
+
+[Footnote 1: This house must not be confused with "the Upper House,"
+connected with Charles II.'s wanderings.]
+
+Everything points to the former magnificence of this mansion;
+the elaborate gate-house, the handsome stone porch, and even
+the colossal sundial, which last, for quaint design, can hold
+its own with those of the greatest baronial castles in Scotland.
+The arms of the Brooke family are to be seen emblazoned on the
+walls, a member of whom, Sir Basil, was he who christened the
+hunting-lodge of the Giffards "Boscobel," from the Italian words
+"bos co bello," on account of its woody situation. It is long
+since the Brookes migrated from Madeley--now close upon two
+centuries.
+
+The deadly looking pits occasionally seen in ancient buildings
+are dangerous, to say the least of it. They may be likened to
+the shaft of our modern lift, with the car at the bottom and
+nothing above to prevent one from taking a step into eternity!
+
+A friend at Twickenham sends us a curious account of a recent
+exploration of what was once the manor house, "Arragon Towers."
+We cannot do better than quote his words, written in answer to a
+request for particulars. "I did not," he says, "make sufficient
+examination of the hiding-place in the old manor house of Twickenham
+to give a detailed description of it, and I have no one here
+whom I could get to accompany me in exploring it now. It is not
+a thing to do by one's self, as one might make a false step,
+and have no one to assist in retrieving it. The entrance is in
+the top room of the one remaining turret by means of a movable
+panel in the wall opposite the window. The panel displaced, you
+see the top of a thick wall (almost on a line with the floor of
+the room). The width of the aperture is, I should think, nearly
+three feet; that of the wall-top about a foot and a half; the
+remaining space between the wall-top and the outer wall of the
+house is what you might perhaps term 'a chasm'--it is a sheer
+drop to the cellars of the house. I was told by the workmen that
+by walking the length of the wall-top (some fifteen feet) I should
+reach a stairway conducting to the vaults below, and that on
+reaching the bottom, a passage led off in the direction of the
+river, the tradition being that it actually went beneath the
+river to Ham House."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+HIDING-PLACES IN JACOBITE DWELLINGS AND IN SCOTTISH CASTLES AND
+MANSIONS
+
+During the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 some of the "priest's
+holes" in the old Roman Catholic houses, especially in the north
+of England and in Scotland, came into requisition not only for
+storing arms and ammunition, but, after the failure of each
+enterprise, for concealing adherents of the luckless House of
+Stuart.
+
+In the earlier mansion of Worksop, Nottinghamshire (burnt down
+in 1761), there was a large concealed chamber provided with a
+fireplace and a bed, which could only be entered by removing
+the sheets of lead forming the roofing. Beneath was a trap-door
+opening to a precipitous flight of narrow steps in the thickness
+of a wall. This led to a secret chamber, that had an inner
+hiding-place at the back of a sliding panel. A witness in a trial
+succeeding "the '45" declared to having seen a large quantity
+of arms there in readiness for the insurrection.
+
+The last days of the notorious Lord Lovat are associated with
+some of the old houses in the north. Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire,
+and Netherwhitton, in Northumberland, claim the honour of hiding
+this double-faced traitor prior to his arrest. At the former is a
+small chamber near the roof, and in the latter is a hiding-place
+measuring eight feet by three and ten feet high. Nor must be
+forgotten the tradition of Mistress Beatrice Cope, behind the
+walls of whose bedroom Lovat (so goes the story) was concealed,
+and the fugitive, being asthmatical, would have revealed his
+whereabouts to the soldiers in search of him, had not Mistress
+Cope herself kept up a persistent and violent fit of coughing
+to drown the noise.
+
+A secret room in the old Tudor house Ty Mawr, Monmouthshire,
+is associated with the Jacobite risings. It is at the back of
+"the parlour" fireplace, and is entered through a square stone
+slab at the foot of the staircase. The chamber is provided with a
+small fireplace, the flue of which is connected with the ordinary
+chimney, so as to conceal the smoke. The same sort of thing may
+be seen at Bisham Abbey, Berks.
+
+Early in the last century a large hiding-place was found at Danby
+Hall, Yorkshire. It contained a large quantity of swords and
+pistols. Upwards of fifty sets of harness of untanned leather of
+the early part of the eighteenth century were further discovered,
+all of them in so good a state of preservation that they were
+afterwards used as cart-horse gear upon the farm.
+
+No less than nine of the followers of "Bonnie Prince Charlie" are
+said to have been concealed in a secret chamber at Fetternear,
+Kemnay, Aberdeenshire, an old seat of the Leslys of Balquhane. It
+was situated in the wall behind a large bookcase with a glazed
+front, a fixture in the room, the back of which could be made
+to slide back and give admittance to the recess.
+
+Quite by accident an opening was discovered in a corner cupboard
+at an old house near Darlington. Certain alterations were in
+progress which necessitated the removal of the shelves, but upon
+this being attempted, they descended in some mysterious manner.
+The back of the cavity could then be pushed aside (that is to
+say, when the secret of its mechanism was discovered), and a
+hiding-place opened out to view. It contained some tawdry ornaments
+of Highland dress, which at one time, it was conjectured, belonged
+to an adherent of Prince Charlie.
+
+The old mansion of Stonyhurst, Lancashire, contained eight
+hiding-places. One of them, exactly like that at Fetternear,
+was at the back of a bookcase. A secret spring was discovered
+which opened a concealed door in the wall. In the space behind,
+a quantity of James II. guineas, a bed, a mattress, and a flask
+of rum were found. A former student of this famous Jesuit college,
+who was instrumental in the discovery of a "priest's hole," has
+provided us with the following particulars: "It would be too
+long to tell you how I first discovered that in the floor of
+my bedroom, in the recess of the huge Elizabethan bay window,
+was a trap-door concealed by a thin veneering of oak; suffice
+it say that with a companion I devoted a delightful half-holiday
+to stripping off the veneering and breaking the lock of the
+trap-door. Between my floor and the ceiling of the long gallery
+below, was contrived a small room about five feet in height and
+the size and shape of the bay window recess. In one corner of
+this hiding-hole was what seemed a walled-up doorway, and it
+occurred to my companion and myself that we had heard some vague
+old tradition that all this part of the house was riddled with
+secret passages leading from one concealed chamber to another,
+but we did not seek to explore any farther." In pulling down a
+portion of the college, a hollow beam was discovered that opened
+upon concealed hinges, used formerly for secreting articles of
+value or sacred books and vessels; and during some alterations
+to the central tower, over the main entrance to the mansion,
+a "priest's hole" was found, containing seven horse pistols,
+ready loaded and some of them richly ornamented with silver. A
+view could be obtained from the interior of the hiding-place,
+in the same manner as that which we have described in the old
+summer-house at Salisbury; a small hole being devised in the design
+of the Sherburn arms upon the marble shield over the gateway.
+This was the only provision for air and light.
+
+The quaint discovery of rum at Stonyhurst suggests the story
+of a hiding-place in an old house at Bishops Middleham, near
+Durham, mentioned by Southey in his _Commonplace Book_.
+The house was occupied for years by a supposed total abstainer;
+but a "priest's hole" in his bedroom, discovered after his death
+full of strong liquor, revealed the fact that by utilising the
+receptacle as a cellar he had been able to imbibe secretly to
+his heart's content.
+
+A large quantity or Georgian gold coins were found some years ago
+in a small hiding-place under the oaken sill of a bedroom window
+at Gawthorp Hall, Lancashire, placed there, it is supposed, for
+the use of Prince Charles's army in passing through the country
+in 1745.
+
+The laird of Belucraig (an old mansion in the parish of Aboyne,
+Aberdeenshire) was concealed after "the '45" in his own house,
+while his wife, like the hostess of Chastleton, hospitably
+entertained the soldiers who were in search of him. The secret
+chamber where he was concealed was found some years ago in making
+some alterations to the roof. In it were a quantity of Jacobite
+papers and a curious old arm-chair. The original entry was through
+a panel at the back of a "box bed" in the wainscot of a small,
+isolated bedroom at the top of the house. The room itself could
+only be reached by a secret staircase from a corridor below. The
+hiding-place was therefore doubly secure, and was a stronghold in
+case of greatest emergency. The Innes of Drumgersk and Belucraig were
+always staunch Roman Catholics and Jacobites. Their representatives
+lived in the old house until 1850.
+
+In another old Aberdeenshire mansion, Dalpersie House, a hiding-hole
+or recess may be seen in one of the upper chambers, where was
+arrested a Gordon, one of the last victims executed after "the
+45."
+
+The ancient castles of Fyvie, Elphinstone, and Kemnay House have
+their secret chambers. The first of these is, with the exception
+of Glamis, perhaps, the most picturesque example of the tall-roofed
+and cone-topped turret style of architecture introduced from
+France in the days of James VI. A small space marked "the armoury"
+in an old plan of the building could in no way be accounted for,
+it possessing neither door, window, nor fireplace; a trap-door,
+however, was at length found in the floor immediately above its
+supposed locality which led to its identification. At Kemnay
+(Aberdeenshire) the hiding-place is in the dining-room chimney;
+and at Elphinstone (East Lothian), in the bay of a window of
+the great hall, is a masked entrance to a narrow stair in the
+thickness of the wall leading to a little room situated in the
+northeast angle of the tower; it further has an exit through a
+trap-door in the floor of a passage in the upper part of the
+building.
+
+The now ruinous castle of Towie Barclay, near Banff, has evidences
+of secret ways and contrivances. Adjoining the fireplace of the
+great hall is a small room constructed for this purpose. In the
+wall of the same apartment is also a recess only to be reached by
+a narrow stairway in the thickness of the masonry, and approached
+from the flooring above the hall. A similar contrivance exists
+between the outer and inner walls of the dining hall of Carew
+Castle, Pembrokeshire.
+
+Coxton Tower, near Elgin, contains a singular provision for
+communication from the top of the building to the basement, perfectly
+independent of the staircase. In the centre of each floor is a
+square stone which, when removed, reveals an opening from the
+summit to the base of the tower, through which a person could
+be lowered.
+
+Another curious old Scottish mansion, famous for its secret chambers
+and passages, is Gordonstown. Here, in the pavement of a corridor
+in the west wing, a stone may be swung aside, beneath which is
+a narrow cell scooped out of one of the foundation walls. It
+may be followed to the adjoining angle, where it branches off
+into the next wall to an extent capable of holding fifty or sixty
+persons. Another large hiding-place is situated in one of the
+rooms at the back of a tall press or cupboard. The space in the
+wall is sufficiently large to contain eight or nine people, and
+entrance to it is effected by unloosing a spring bolt under the
+lower shelf, when the whole back of the press swings aside.
+
+Whether the mystery of the famous secret room at Glamis Castle,
+Forfarshire, has ever been solved or satisfactorily explained
+beyond the many legends and stories told in connection with it,
+we have not been able to determine. The walls in this remarkable
+old mansion are in parts over twelve feet thick, and in them are
+several curious recesses, notably near the windows of the "stone
+hall." The secret chamber, or "Fyvie-room," as it is sometimes
+called, is said to have a window, which nevertheless has not
+led to the identification of its situation. Sir Walter Scott
+once slept a night at Glamis, and has described the "wild and
+straggling arrangement of the accommodation within doors." "I
+was conducted," he says, "to my apartment in a distant corner
+of the building. I must own, as I heard door after door shut
+after my conductor had retired, I began to consider myself too
+far from the living and somewhat too near the dead--in a word,
+I experienced sensations which, though not remarkable either for
+timidity or superstition, did not fail to affect me to the point
+of being disagreeable." We have the great novelist's authority
+for saying that the entrance of the secret chamber (in his time,
+at any rate), by the law or custom of the family, could
+be known to three persons at once--_viz._ the Earl of
+Strathmore, his heir-apparent, and any third person whom they
+might take into their confidence.
+
+The great mystery of the secret chamber was imparted to the heir
+of Glamis, or the heir-presumptive, as the case might be, upon the
+eve of his arriving at his majority, and thus it passed into modern
+times from the dim and distant feudal days. That the secret should
+be thus handed down through centuries without being divulged is
+indeed remarkable, yet so is the story; and many a time a future
+lord of Glamis has boasted that he would reveal everything when
+he should come of age. Still, however, when that time _did_
+arrive, in every case the recipient of the deadly secret has
+solemnly refused point blank to speak a word upon the subject.
+
+There is a secret chamber at the old Cumberland seat of the ancient
+family of Senhouse. To this day its position is known only by
+the heir-at-law and the family solicitor. This room at Nether
+Hall is said to have no window, and has hitherto baffled every
+attempt of those not in the secret to discover its whereabouts.
+
+Remarkable as this may seem in these prosaic days, it has been
+confirmed by the present representative of the family, who, in a
+communication to us upon the subject, writes as follows: "It may
+be romantic, but still it is true that the secret has survived
+frequent searches of visitors. There is no one alive who has
+been in it, that I am aware, except myself." Brandeston Hall,
+Suffolk, is also said to have a hiding place known only to two
+or three persons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CONCEALED DOORS, SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGES, ETC.
+
+Numerous old houses possess secret doors, passages, and
+staircases--Franks, in Kent; Eshe Hall, Durham; Binns House,
+Scotland; Dannoty Hall, and Whatton Abbey, Yorkshire; are examples.
+The last of these has a narrow flight of steps leading down to
+the moat, as at Baddesley Clinton. The old house Marks, near
+Romford, pulled down in 1808 after many years of neglect and
+decay--as well as the ancient seat of the Tichbournes in Hampshire,
+pulled down in 1803--and the west side of Holme Hall, Lancashire,
+demolished in the last century, proved to have been riddled with
+hollow walls. Secret doors and panels are still pointed out at
+Bramshill, Hants (in the long gallery and billiard-room); the
+oak room, Bochym House, Cornwall; the King's bedchamber, Ford
+Castle, Northumberland; the plotting-parlour of the White Hart
+Hotel, Hull; Low Hall, Yeadon, Yorkshire; Sawston; the Queen's
+chamber at Kimbolton Castle, Huntingdonshire, etc., etc.
+
+A concealed door exists on the left-hand side of the fireplace
+of the gilt room of Holland House, Kensington, associated by
+tradition with the ghost of the first Lord Holland. Upon the
+authority of the Princess Lichtenstein, it appears there is,
+close by, a blood-stain which nothing can efface! It is to be
+hoped no enterprising person may be induced to try his skill here
+with the success that attended a similar attempt at Holyrood,
+as recorded by Scott![1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Vide_ Introduction to _The Fair Maid of
+Perth_]
+
+In the King's writing-closet at Hampton Court may be seen the
+"secret door" by which William III. left the palace when he wished
+to go out unobserved; but this is more of a _private_ exit
+than a _secret_ one.
+
+[Illustration: WOODSTOCK PALACE, OXFORDSHIRE (FROM AN OLD PRINT)]
+
+[Illustration: MARKYATE CELL, HERTFORDSHIRE]
+
+The old ChĂ¢teau du Puits, Guernsey, has a hiding-hole placed
+between two walls which form an acute angle; the one constituting
+part of the masonry of an inner courtyard, the other a wall on
+the eastern side of the main structure. The space between could
+be reached through the floor of an upper room.
+
+Cussans, in his _History of Hertfordshire_, gives a curious
+account of the discovery of an iron door up the kitchen chimney
+of the old house Markyate Cell, near Dunstable. A short flight
+of steps led from it to another door of stout oak, which opened
+by a secret spring, and led to an unknown chamber on the ground
+level. Local tradition says this was the favourite haunt of a
+certain "wicked Lady Ferrers," who, disguised in male attire,
+robbed travellers upon the highway, and being wounded in one
+of these exploits, was discovered lying dead outside the walls
+of the house; and the malignant nature of this lady's spectre
+is said to have had so firm a hold upon the villagers that no
+local labourer could be induced to work upon that particular
+part of the building.
+
+Beare Park, near Middleham, Yorkshire, had a hiding-hole entered
+from the kitchen chimney, as had also the Rookery Farm, near
+Cromer; West Coker Manor House; and The Chantry, at Ilminster,
+both in Somerset. At the last named, in another hiding-place in
+the room above, a bracket or credence-table was found, which
+is still preserved.
+
+Many weird stories are told about Bovey House, South Devon, situated
+near the once notorious smuggling villages of Beer and Branscombe.
+Upon removing some leads of the roof a secret room was found,
+furnished with a chair and table. The well here is remarkable,
+and similar to that at Carisbrooke, with the exception that two
+people take the place of the donkey! Thirty feet below the ground
+level there is said to have been a hiding-place--a large cavity
+cut in the solid rock. Many years ago a skeleton of a man was
+found at the bottom. Such dramatic material should suggest to some
+sensational novelist a tragic story, as the well and lime-walk at
+Ingatestone is said to have suggested _Lady Audley's Secret_.
+
+A hiding-place something after the same style existed in the now
+demolished manor house of Besils Leigh, Berks. Down the shaft
+of a chimney a cavity was scooped out of the brickwork, to which
+a refugee had to be lowered by a rope. One of the towers of the
+west gate of Bodiam Castle contains a narrow square well in the
+wall leading to the ground level, and, as the guide was wont
+to remark, "how much farther the Lord only knows"! This sort
+of thing may also be seen at Mancetter Manor, Warwickshire, and
+Ightham Moat, Kent, both approached by a staircase.
+
+A communication formerly ran from a secret chamber in the
+oak-panelled dining-room of Birtsmorton Court, Worcestershire,
+to a passage beneath the moat that surrounds the structure, and
+thence to an exit on the other side of the water. During the Wars
+of the Roses Sir John Oldcastle is said to have been concealed
+behind the secret panel; but now the romance is somewhat marred,
+for modern vandalism has converted the cupboard into a repository
+for provisions. The same indignity has taken place at that splendid
+old timber house in Cheshire, Moreton Hall, where a secret room,
+provided with a sleeping-compartment, situated over the kitchen,
+has been modernised into a repository for the storing of cheeses.
+From the hiding-place the moat could formerly be reached, down
+a narrow shaft in the wall.
+
+Chelvey Court, near Bristol, contained two hiding-places; one,
+at the top of the house, was formerly entered through a panel,
+the other (a narrow apartment having a little window, and an
+iron candle-holder projecting from the wall) through the floor
+of a cupboard.[1] Both the panel and the trap-door are now done
+away with, and the tradition of the existence of the secret rooms
+almost forgotten, though not long since we received a letter
+from an antiquarian who had seen them thirty years before, and
+who was actually entertaining the idea of making practical
+investigations with the aid of a carpenter or mason, to which,
+as suggested, we were to be a party; the idea, however, was never
+carried out.
+
+[Footnote 1: See _Notes and Queries_, September, 1855.]
+
+[Illustration: BIRTSMORTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: PORCH, CHELVEY COURT, SOMERSETSHIRE]
+
+Granchester Manor House, Cambridgeshire, until recently possessed
+three places of concealment. Madingley Hall, in the same
+neighbourhood, has two, one of them entered from a bedroom on the
+first floor, has a space in the thickness of the wall high enough
+for a man to stand upright in it. The manor house of Woodcote,
+Hants, also possessed two, which were each capable of holding from
+fifteen to twenty men, but these repositories are now opened
+out into passages. One was situated behind a stack of chimneys,
+and contained an inner hiding-place. The "priests' quarters"
+in connection with the hiding-places are still to be seen.
+
+Harborough Hall, Worcestershire, has two "priests' holes," one
+in the wall of the dining-room, the other behind a chimney in
+an upper room.
+
+The old mansion of the Brudenells, in Northamptonshire, Deene
+Park, has a large secret chamber at the back of the fireplace
+in the great hall, sufficiently capacious to hold a score of
+people. Here also a hidden door in the panelling leads towards
+a subterranean passage running in the direction of the ruinous
+hall of Kirby, a mile and a half distant. In a like manner a
+passage extended from the great hall of Warleigh, an Elizabethan
+house near Plymouth, to an outlet in a cliff some sixty yards
+away, at whose base the tidal river flows.
+
+Speke Hall, Lancashire (perhaps the finest specimen extant of
+the wood-and-plaster style of architecture nicknamed "Magpie "),
+formerly possessed a long underground communication extending
+from the house to the shore of the river Mersey; a member of
+the Norreys family concealed a priest named Richard Brittain
+here in the year 1586, who, by this means, effected his escape
+by boat.
+
+The famous secret passage of Nottingham Castle, by which the
+young King Edward III. and his loyal associates gained access
+to the fortress and captured the murderous regent and usurper
+Mortimer, Earl of March, is known to this day as "Mortimer's
+Hole." It runs up through the perpendicular rock upon which the
+castle stands, on the south-east side from a place called Brewhouse
+yard, and has an exit in what was originally the courtyard of the
+building. The Earl was seized in the midst of his adherents and
+retainers on the night of October 19th, 1330, and after a skirmish,
+notwithstanding the prayers and entreaties of his paramour Queen
+Isabella, he was bound and carried away through the passage in
+the rock, and shortly afterwards met his well-deserved death on
+the gallows at Smithfield.
+
+But what ancient castle, monastery, or hall has not its traditional
+subterranean passage? Certainly the majority are mythical; still,
+there are some well authenticated. Burnham Abbey, Buckinghamshire,
+for example, or Tenterden Hall, Hendon, had passages which have
+been traced for over fifty yards; and one at Vale Royal,
+Nottinghamshire, has been explored for nearly a mile. In the
+older portions in both of the great wards of Windsor Castle arched
+passages thread their way below the basement, through the chalk,
+and penetrate to some depth below the site of the castle ditch
+at the base of the walls.[1] In the neighbourhood of Ripon
+subterranean passages have been found from time to time--tunnels
+of finely moulded masonry supposed to have been connected at
+one time with Fountains Abbey.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Marquis of Lorne's (Duke of Argyll) _Governor's
+Guide to Windsor_.]
+
+A passage running from Arundel Castle in the direction of Amberley
+has also been traced for some considerable distance, and a man and
+a dog have been lost in following its windings, so the entrance
+is now stopped up. About three years ago a long underground way
+was discovered at Margate, reaching from the vicinity of Trinity
+Church to the smugglers' caves in the cliffs; also at Port Leven,
+near Helston, a long subterranean tunnel was discovered leading to
+the coast, no doubt very useful in the good old smuggling days.
+At Sunbury Park, Middlesex, was found a long vaulted passage some
+five feet high and running a long way under the grounds. Numerous
+other examples could be stated, among them at St. Radigund's
+Abbey, near Dover; Liddington Manor House, Wilts; the Bury,
+Rickmansworth; "Sir Harry Vane's House," Hampstead, etc., etc.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MINIATURE HIDING-HOLES FOR VALUABLES, ETC.
+
+Small hidden recesses for the concealment of valuables or
+compromising deeds, etc., behind the wainscoting of ancient houses,
+frequently come to light. Many a curious relic has been discovered
+from time to time, often telling a strange or pathetic story
+of the past. A certain Lady Hoby, who lived at Bisham Abbey,
+Berkshire, is said by tradition to have caused the death of her
+little boy by too severe corporal punishment for his obstinacy
+in learning to write, A grim sequel to the legend happened not
+long since. Behind a window shutter in a small secret cavity
+in the wall was found an ancient, tattered copy-book, which,
+from the blots and its general slovenly appearance, was no doubt
+the handiwork of the unfortunate little victim to Lady Hoby's
+wrath.
+
+When the old manor house of Wandsworth was pulled down recently,
+upon removing some old panelling a little cupboard was discovered,
+full of dusty phials and mouldy pill-boxes bearing the names of
+poor Queen Anne's numerous progeny who died in infancy.
+
+Richard Cromwell spent many of his later years at Hursley, near
+Winchester, an old house now pulled down. In the progress of
+demolition what appeared to be a piece of rusty metal was found
+in a small cavity in one of the walls, which turned out to be
+no less important a relic than the seal of the Commonwealth of
+England.
+
+Walford, in _Greater London_, mentions the discovery of
+some articles of dress of Elizabeth's time behind the wainscot
+of the old palace of Richmond, Surrey. Historical portraits have
+frequently been found in this way. Behind the panelling in a
+large room at the old manor house of Great Gaddesden, Herts,
+were a number of small aumbrys, or recesses. A most interesting
+panel-portrait of Queen Elizabeth was found in one of them, which
+was exhibited at the Tudor Exhibition. In 1896, when the house
+of John Wesley at Lewisham was pulled down, who should be found
+between the walls but the amorous Merry Monarch and a court beauty!
+The former is said to be Riley's work. Secretary Thurloe's MSS.,
+as is well known, were found embedded in a ceiling of his lodgings
+at Lincoln's Inn. In pulling down a block of old buildings in
+Newton Street, Holborn, a hidden space was found in one of the
+chimneys, and there, covered with the dust of a century, lay
+a silver watch, a silk guard attached, and seals bearing the
+Lovat crest. The relic was promptly claimed by Mr. John Fraser,
+the claimant to the long-disputed peerage.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: December 14th, 1895.]
+
+Small hiding-places have been found at the manor house of Chew
+Magna, Somerset, and Milton Priory, a Tudor mansion in Berkshire.
+In the latter a green shagreen case was found containing a
+seventeenth-century silver and ivory pocket knife and fork. A
+small hiding-place at Coughton Court, Warwickshire, brought to
+light a bundle of priest's clothes, hidden there in the days
+of religious persecution. In 1876 a small chamber was found at
+Sanderstead Court, Surrey, containing a small blue-and-white jar
+of Charles I.'s time. Three or four small secret repositories
+existed behind some elaborately carved oak panels in the great
+hall of the now ruinous Harden Hall, near Stockport. In similar
+recesses at Gawdy Hall, Suffolk, were discovered two ancient
+apostle spoons, a watch, and some Jacobean MSS. A pair of gloves
+and some jewels of seventeenth-century date were brought to light
+not many years ago in a secret recess at Woodham Mortimer Manor
+House, Essex. A very curious example of a hiding-place for valuables
+formerly existed at an old building known as Terpersie Castle,
+near Alford, Lincolnshire. The sides of it were lined with stone
+to preserve articles from damp, and it could be drawn out of
+the wall like a drawer.
+
+In the year 1861 a hidden receptacle was found at the Elizabethan
+college of Wedmore, Kent, containing Roman Catholic MSS. and
+books; and at Bromley Palace, close by, in a small aperture below
+the floor, was found the leathern sole of a pointed shoe of the
+Middle Ages! Small hiding-places of this nature existed in a
+wing, now pulled down, of the Abbey House, Whitby (in "Lady Anne's
+Room"). At Castle Ashby, Northants; Fountains Hall, near Ripon;
+Ashes House, near Preston; Trent House, Somerset; and Ockwells,
+Berks,[1] are panels opening upon pivots and screening small
+cavities in the walls.
+
+[Footnote 1: Another hiding-place is said to have existed behind
+the fireplace of the hall.]
+
+[Illustration: HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE, SUSSEX]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+HIDING-PLACES OF SMUGGLERS AND THIEVES
+
+Horsfield, in his _History of Sussex_, gives a curious account
+of the discovery in 1738 of an iron chest in a recess of a wall at
+the now magnificent ruin Hurstmonceaux Castle. In the thickness
+of the walls were many curious staircases communicating with the
+galleries. When the old castle was allowed to fall into ruin,
+the secret passages, etc., were used by smugglers as a convenient
+receptacle for contraband goods.
+
+Until recently there was an ingenious hiding-place behind a sliding
+panel at the old "Bell Inn" at Sandwich which had the reputation
+of having formerly been put to the same use; indeed, in many
+another old house near the coast were hiding-places utilised for
+a like purpose.
+
+In pulling down an old house at Erith in 1882 a vault was discovered
+with strong evidence that it had been extensively used for smuggling.
+The pretty village of Branscombe, on the Devonshire coast, was,
+like the adjacent village of Beer, a notorious place for smugglers.
+"The Clergy House," a picturesque, low-built Tudor building
+(condemned as being insecure and pulled down a few years ago),
+had many mysterious stories told of its former occupants, its
+underground chambers and hiding-places; indeed, the villagers
+went so far as to declare that there was _another house_
+beneath the foundations!
+
+A secret chamber was discovered at the back of a fireplace in an
+old house at Deal, from which a long underground passage extended
+to the beach. The house was used as a school, and the unearthly
+noises caused by the wind blowing up this smugglers' passage
+created much consternation among the young lady pupils. A lady
+of our acquaintance remembers, when a schoolgirl at Rochester,
+exploring part of a vaulted tunnel running in the direction of
+the castle from Eastgate House, which in those days was a school,
+and had not yet received the distinction of being the "Nun's
+House" of _Edwin Drood_. Some way along, the passage was
+blocked by the skeleton of a donkey! Our informant is not given
+to romancing, therefore we must accept the story in good faith.
+
+All round the coast-line of Kent once famous smuggling buildings
+are still pointed out. Movable hollow beams have been found
+supporting cottage ceilings, containing all kinds of contraband
+goods. In one case, so goes the story, a customs house officer
+in walking through a room knocked his head, and the tell-tale
+hollow sound (from the beam, not from his head, we will presume)
+brought a discovery. At Folkestone, tradition says, a long row
+of houses used for the purpose had the cellars connected one
+with the other right the way along, so that the revenue officers
+could be easily evaded in the case of pursuit.
+
+The modern utility of a convenient secret panel or trap-door
+occasionally is apparent from the police-court reports. The tenements
+in noted thieves' quarters are often found to have
+intercommunication; a masked door will lead from one house to
+the other, and trap-doors will enable a thief to vanish from
+the most keen-sighted detective, and nimbly thread his way over
+the roofs of the neighbouring houses. There was a case in the
+papers not long since; a man, being closely chased, was on the
+point of being seized, when, to the astonishment of his pursuers,
+he suddenly disappeared at a spot where apparently he had been
+closely hemmed in.
+
+Many old houses in Clerkenwell were, sixty or seventy years ago,
+notorious thieves' dens, and were noted for their hiding-places,
+trap-doors, etc., for evading the vigilance of the law. The name
+of Jack Sheppard, as may be supposed, had connection with the
+majority. One of these old buildings had been used in former
+years as a secret Jesuits' college, and the walls were threaded
+with masked passages and places of concealment; and when the old
+"Red Lion Inn" in West Street was pulled down in 1836, some artful
+traps and false floors were discovered which tarried well with
+its reputation as a place of rendezvous and safety for outlaws.
+The "Rising Sun" in Holywell Street is a curious example, there
+being many false doors and traps in various parts of the house;
+also in the before-mentioned Newton Street a panel could be raised
+by a pulley, through which a fugitive or outlaw could effect his
+escape on to the roof, and thence into the adjoining house.
+
+One of the simplest and most secure hiding-places perhaps ever
+devised by a law-breaker was that within a water-butt! A cone-shaped
+repository, entered from the bottom, would allow a man to sit
+within it; nevertheless, to all intents and purposes the butt
+was kept full of water, and could be apparently emptied from a
+tap at its base, which, of course, was raised from the ground
+to admit the fugitive. We understand such a butt is still in
+existence somewhere in Yorkshire.
+
+A "secret staircase" in Partingdale House, Mill Hill, is associated
+(by tradition) with the notorious Dick Turpin, perhaps because of
+its proximity to his haunts upon Finchley Common. As it exists
+now, however, there is no object for secrecy, the staircase leading
+merely to the attics, and its position can be seen; but the door
+is well disguised in a Corinthian column containing a secret
+spring. Various alterations have taken place in this house, so
+once upon a time it may have had a deeper meaning than is now
+perceptible.
+
+Another supposed resort of this famous highwayman is an old ivy-grown
+cottage at Thornton Heath. Narrow steps lead up from the open
+chimney towards a concealed door, from which again steps descend
+and lead to a subterranean passage having an exit in the garden.
+
+[Illustration: BOVEY HOUSE, SOUTH DEVON]
+
+[Illustration: MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+We do not intend to go into the matter of modern secret chambers,
+and there are such things, as some of our present architects and
+builders could tell us, for it is no uncommon thing to design
+hiding-places for the security of valuables. For instance, we
+know of a certain suburban residence, built not more than thirty
+years ago, where one of the rooms has capacities for swallowing
+up a man six feet high and broad in proportion. We have known such
+a person--or shall we say victim?--to appear after a temporary
+absence, of say, five minutes, with visible signs of discomfort;
+but as far as we are aware the secret is as safe in his keeping
+as is the famous mystery in the possession of the heir of Glamis.
+
+An example of a sliding panel in an old house in Essex (near
+Braintree) was used as a pattern for the entrance to a modern
+secret chamber;[1] and no doubt there are many similar instances
+where the ingenuity of our ancestors has thus been put to use
+for present-day requirements.
+
+[Footnote 1: According to the newspaper reports, the recently
+recovered "Duchess of Devonshire," by Gainsborough, was for some
+time secreted behind a secret panel in a sumptuous steam-launch
+up the river Thames, from whence it was removed to America in
+a trunk with a false bottom.]
+
+Our collection of houses with hiding-holes is now coming to an
+end. We will briefly summarise those that remain unrecorded.
+
+"New Building" at Thirsk has, or had, a secret chamber measuring
+three feet by six. Upon the outside wall on the east side of
+the house is a small aperture into which a stone fitted with
+such nicety that no sign of its being movable could possibly be
+detected; at the same time, it could be removed with the greatest
+ease in the event of its being necessary to supply a person in
+hiding with food.
+
+Catledge Hall, Cambridgeshire, has a small octangular closet
+adjoining a bedroom, from which formerly there was a secret way
+on to the leads of the roof.
+
+[Illustration: MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO SECRET STAIRCASE, PARTINGDALE HOUSE,
+MILL-HILL, MIDDLESEX]
+
+At Dunkirk Hall, near West Bromwich, is a "priest's hole" in the
+upper part of the house near "the chapel," which is now divided
+into separate rooms.
+
+Mapledurham House, axon, the old seat of the Blounts, contains
+a "priest's hole" in the attics, descent into which could be
+made by the aid of a rope suspended for that purpose.
+
+Upton Court, near Slough, possesses a "priest's hole," entered
+from a fireplace, provided with a double flue--one for smoke,
+the other for ventilation to the hiding-place.
+
+Knebworth House, Hertfordshire, formerly had a secret chamber
+known as "Hell Hole."
+
+Eastgate House, Rochester (before mentioned), has a hiding-place
+in one of the upstairs rooms. It has, however, been altered.
+
+Milsted Manor, Kent, is said to have a secret exit from the library;
+and Sharsted Court (some three miles distant) has a cleverly
+marked panel in the wainscoting of "the Tapestry Dressing-room,"
+which communicates by a very narrow and steep flight of steps
+in the thickness of the wall with "the Red Bedroom."
+
+The "Clough Inn," Chard, Somersetshire, is said by tradition to
+have possessed three secret rooms!
+
+Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire--a hiding-place formerly in "the tower."
+Bramhall Hall, Cheshire--two secret recesses were discovered
+not long ago during alterations. The following also contain
+hiding-places:--Hall-i'-the-wood, Bolling Hall, Mains Hall, and
+Huncoat Hall, all in Lancashire; Drayton House, Northants; Packington
+Old Hall, Warwickshire; Batsden Court, Salop; Melford Hall, Suffolk,
+Fyfield House, Wilts; "New Building," Southwater, Sussex; Barsham
+Rectory, Suffolk; Porter's Hall, Southend, Essex; Kirkby Knowle
+Castle and Barnborough Hall, Yorkshire; Ford House, Devon; Cothele,
+Cornwall; Hollingbourne Manor House, Kent (altered of late years);
+Salisbury Court, near Shenley, Herts.
+
+Of hiding-places and secret chambers in the ancient castles and
+mansions upon the Continent we know but little.
+
+Two are said to exist in an old house in the Hradschin in Prague--one
+communicating from the foundation to the roof "by a windlass or
+turnpike." A subterranean passage extends also from the house
+beneath the street and the cathedral, and is said to have its
+exit in the Hirch Graben, or vast natural moat which bounds the
+chĂ¢teau upon the north.
+
+A lady of our acquaintance remembers her feeling of awe when,
+as a school-girl, she was shown a hiding-place in an old mansion
+near Baden-Baden--a huge piece of stone masonry swinging aside
+upon a pivot and revealing a gloomy kind of dungeon behind.
+
+The old French chĂ¢teaux, according to Froisart, were rarely without
+secret means of escape. King Louis XVI., famous for his mechanical
+skill, manufactured a hiding-place in an inner corridor of his
+private apartments at the Palace of Versailles. The wall where
+it was situated was painted to imitate large stones, and the
+grooves of the opening were cleverly concealed in the shaded
+representations of the divisions. In this a vast collection of
+State papers was preserved prior to the Revolution.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Vide _The Memoirs of Madame Campan._]
+
+Mr. Lang tells us, in his admirable work _Pickle the Spy_,
+that Bonnie Prince Charlie, between the years 1749 and 1752,
+spent much of his time in the convent of St. Joseph in the Rue
+St. Dominique, in the Faubourg St. Germain, which under the late
+Empire (1863) was the hotel of the Minister of War. Here he appears
+to have been continually lurking behind the walls, and at night
+by a secret staircase visiting his protectress Madame de Vassés.
+Allusion is made in the same work to a secret cellar with a "dark
+stair" leading to James III.'s furtive audience-chamber at his
+residence in Rome.
+
+So recently as the year 1832 a hiding-place in an old French
+house was put to practical use by the Duchesse de Berry after
+the failure of her enterprise to raise the populace in favour of
+her son the Duc de Bordeaux. She had, however, to reveal herself
+in preference to suffocation, a fire, either intentionally or
+accidentally, having been ignited close to where she was hidden,
+recalling the terrible experiences of Father Gerard at "Braddocks."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE SCOTTISH HIDING-PLACES OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD
+
+The romantic escapes of Prince Charles Edward are somewhat beyond
+the province of this book, owing to the fact that the hiding-places
+in which he lived for the greater part of five months were not
+artificial but natural formations in the wild, mountainous country
+of the Western Highlands. Far less convenient and comfortable
+were these caves and fissures in the rocks than those secret
+places which preserved the life of the "young chevalier's"
+great-uncle Charles II. Altogether, the terrible hardships to
+which the last claimant to the Stuart throne was subjected were
+far greater in every way, and we can but admire the remarkable
+spirit, fortitude, and courage that carried him through his numerous
+dangers and trials.
+
+The wild and picturesque character not only of the Scotch scenery,
+but of the loyal Highlanders, who risked their all to save their
+King, gives the story of this remarkable escape a romantic colouring
+that surpasses any other of its kind, whether real or fictitious.
+
+This, therefore, is our excuse for giving a brief summary of the
+Prince's wanderings, if only to add to our other hiding-places
+a record of the names of the isolated spots which have become
+historical landmarks.
+
+In his flight from the fatal battlefield of Culloden the young
+Prince, when about four miles from Inverness, hastily determined
+to make the best of his way towards the western coast. The first
+halt was made at Castle Dounie, the seat of the crafty old traitor
+Lord Lovat. A hasty meal having been taken here, Charles and his
+little cavalcade of followers pushed on to Invergarry, where
+the chieftain, Macdonnell of Glengarry, otherwise "Pickle the
+Spy,"[1] being absent from home, an empty house was the only
+welcome, but the best was made of the situation. Here the bulk of
+the Prince's companions dispersed to look after their own safety,
+while he and one or two chosen friends continued the journey to
+Glenpean, the residence of the chieftain Donald Cameron. From
+Mewboll, which was reached the next night, the fugitives proceeded
+on foot to Oban, where a hovel was found for sleeping-quarters.
+In the village of Glenbiasdale, in Arisaig, near to where Charles
+had landed on his disastrous enterprise, he learned that a number
+of Royalist cruisers were upon the alert all along the coast,
+whereupon he determined to watch his opportunity and get across
+to the Western Isles, and remain concealed until a French vessel
+could be found to take him abroad.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Vide_ Andrew Lang's _Pickle the Spy_.]
+
+A boat was procured, and the little party safely embarked, but
+in the voyage encountered such heavy seas that the vessel very
+nearly foundered; a landing, however, being effected at a place
+called Roonish, in the Isle of Benbecula, a habitation had to
+be made out of a miserable hut. Two days being thus wretchedly
+spent, a move was made to the Island of Scalpa, where Charles
+was entertained for four days in the house of Donald Campbell.
+
+Meanwhile, a larger vessel was procured, the object being to
+reach Stornoway; but the inclemency of the weather induced Charles
+and his guide Donald Macleod to make the greater part of the
+journey by land. Arriving there hungry, worn out, and drenched
+to the skin, the Prince passed the night at Kildun, the house
+of Mrs. Mackenzie; an alarm of danger, however, forced him to
+sea again with a couple of companions, O'Sullivan and O'Neal;
+but shortly after they had embarked they sighted some men-of-war,
+so put to land once more at the Island of Jeffurt. Four days
+were passed away in this lonely spot, when the boat put out to
+sea once more, and after many adventures and privations the
+travellers landed at Loch Wiskaway, in Benbecula, and made their
+headquarters some two miles inland at a squalid hut scarcely
+bigger than a pigstye.
+
+The next move was to an isolated locality named Glencorodale,
+in the centre of South Uist, where in a hut of larger dimensions
+the Prince held his court in comparative luxury, his wants being
+well looked after by Sir Alexander and Lady Macdonald and other
+neighbouring Jacobites. With thirty thousand pounds reward offered
+for his capture, and the Western Isles practically surrounded
+by the enemy, it is difficult to imagine the much-sought-for
+prize coolly passing his weary hours in fishing and shooting,
+yet such was the case for the whole space of a month.
+
+An eye-witness describes Charles's costume at this time as "a
+tartan short coat and vest of the same, got from Lady Clanranald;
+his nightcap all patched with soot-drops, his shirt, hands, and
+face patched with the same; a short kilt, tartan hose, and Highland
+brogs."
+
+From South Uist the fugitive removed to the Island of Wia, where
+he was received by Ranald Macdonald; thence he visited places
+called Rossinish and Aikersideallich, and at the latter had to
+sleep in a fissure in the rocks. Returning once more to South
+Uist, Charles (accompanied by O'Neal and Mackechan) found a
+hiding-place up in the hills, as the militia appeared to be
+dangerously near, and at night tramped towards Benbecula, near
+to which another place of safety was found in the rocks.
+
+The memorable name of Flora Macdonald now appears upon the scene.
+After much scheming and many difficulties the meeting of the Prince
+and this noble lady was arranged in a squalid hut near Rosshiness.
+The hardships encountered upon the journey from Benbecula to this
+village were some of the worst experiences of the unfortunate
+wanderer; and when his destination was reached at last, he had to
+be hurried off again to a hiding-place by the sea-shore, which
+provided little or no protection from the driving torrents of
+rain. Early each morning this precaution had to be taken, as
+the Royalist soldiers, who were quartered only a quarter of a
+mile distant, repaired to the hut every morning to get milk from
+the woman who acted as Charles's hostess. Upon the third day after
+the Prince had arrived, Flora Macdonald joined him, bringing with
+her the disguise for the character he was to impersonate upon
+a proposed journey to the Isle of Skye--_viz._ "a flowered
+linen gown, a light-coloured quilted petticoat, a white apron,
+and a mantle of dun camlet, made after the Irish fashion, with
+a hood."
+
+A boat lay in readiness in a secluded nook on the coast, and
+"Betty Burke"--the pseudo servant-maid--Flora Macdonald, and
+Mackechan, as guide, embarked and got safely to Kilbride, in
+Skye. Not, however, without imminent dangers. A storm nearly
+swamped the boat; and upon reaching the western coast of the
+island they were about to land, when a number of militiamen were
+noticed on shore, close at hand, and as they recognised their
+peril, and pulled away with might and main, a volley of musketry
+would probably have had deadly effect, had not the fugitives
+thrown themselves at the bottom of the boat.
+
+At the house of the Macdonalds of Mugstat, whose representative
+dreaded the consequences of receiving Charles, another Macdonald
+was introduced as an accomplice by the merest accident. This
+staunch Jacobite at once took possession of "Betty," and hurried
+off towards his house of Kingsburgh. Upon the way the ungainly
+appearance of Flora's maid attracted the attention of a servant,
+who remarked that she had never seen such an impudent-looking
+woman. "See what long strides the jade takes!" she cried; "and how
+awkwardly she manages her petticoats!" And this was true enough,
+for in fording a little brook "Betty Burke" had to be severely
+reprimanded by her chaperon for her impropriety in lifting her
+skirts! Upon reaching the house, Macdonald's little girl caught
+sight of the strange woman, and ran away to tell her mother that
+her father had brought home "the most old, muckle, ill-shapen-up
+wife" she had ever seen. Startling news certainly for the lady
+of Kingsburgh!
+
+The old worn-out boots of the Prince's were discarded for new
+ones ere he departed, and fragments of the former were long
+afterwards worn in the bosoms of Jacobite ladies.
+
+The next step in this wonderful escape was to Portree, where
+temporary accommodation was found in a small public-house. Here
+Charles separated from his loyal companions Neil Mackechan and
+the immortal Flora. The "Betty Burke" disguise was discarded
+and burnt and a Highland dress donned. With new guides the young
+Chevalier now made his headquarters for a couple of days or so
+in a desolate shepherd's hut in the Isle of Raasay; thence he
+journeyed to the north coast of the Isle of Skye, and near Scorobreck
+housed himself in a cow-shed. At this stage of his journey Charles
+altered his disguise into that of a servant of his then companion
+Malcolm Macleod, and at the home of his next host (a Mackinnon of
+Ellagol) was introduced as "Lewie Caw," the son of a surgeon in
+the Highland army. By the advice of the Mackinnons, the fugitive
+decided to return, under their guidance, again to the mainland,
+and a parting supper having been held in a cave by the sea-shore,
+he bid adieu to the faithful Macleod. The crossing having been
+effected, not without innumerable dangers, once more Charles
+found himself near the locality of his first landing. For the
+next three days neither cave nor hut dwelling could be found
+that was considered safe; and upon the fourth day, in exploring
+the shores of Loch Nevis for a hiding-place, the fugitives ran
+their little craft right into a militia boat that was moored
+to and screened from view by a projecting rock. The soldiers
+on land immediately sprang on board and gave chase; but with
+his usual good luck Charles got clear away by leaping on land
+at a turn of the lake, where his retreat was covered by dense
+foliage.
+
+After this the Prince was under the care of the Macdonalds, one
+of which clan, Macdonald of Glenaladale, together with Donald
+Cameron of Glenpean, took the place of the Mackinnons.
+
+A brief stay was made at Morar Lake and at Borrodaile (both houses
+of the Macdonalds); after which a hut in a wood near the latter
+place and an artfully constructed hiding-place between two rocks
+with a roof of green turf did service as the Prince's palace.
+
+In this cave Charles received the alarming news that the Argyllshire
+Militia were on the scent, and were forming an impenetrable cordon
+completely round the district. Forced once more to seek refuge
+in flight, the unfortunate Stuart was hurried away through some
+of the wildest mountainous country he had yet been forced to
+traverse. A temporary hiding-place was found, and from this a
+search-party exploring the adjacent rocks and crags was watched
+with breathless interest.
+
+Still within the military circle, a desperate dash for liberty had
+now to be planned. Nearly starved and reduced to the last extremity
+of fatigue, Charles and his guides, Glenpean and Glenaladale,
+crept stealthily upon all-fours towards the watch-fires, and
+taking advantage of a favourable moment when the nearest sentry
+was in such a position that their approach could be screened
+by the projecting rocks, in breathless silence the three stole
+by, and offering up a prayer for their deliverance, continued
+their foot-sore journey until their legs would carry them no
+farther.
+
+The next four days Charles sought shelter in caves in the
+neighbourhood of Glenshiel, Strathcluanie, and Strathglass; but
+the most romantic episode in his remarkable adventures was the
+sojourn in the secret caves and hiding-places of the notorious
+robbers of Glenmoriston, under whose protection the royal fugitive
+placed himself. With these wild freebooters he continued for
+three weeks, during which time he made himself extremely popular
+by his freedom of intercourse with them.
+
+The wanderer left these dwellings of comparative luxury that
+he might join hands with other fugitive Jacobites, Macdonald
+of Lochgarry and Cameron of Clunes, and took up his quarters
+in the wood-surrounded huts near Loch Arkaig and Auchnacarry.
+
+The poor youth's appearance at this period is thus described by
+one of his adherents: "The Prince was at this time bare-footed,
+had an old black kilt-coat on, philabeg and waistcoat, a dirty
+shirt, and a long red beard, a gun in his hand, and a pistol
+and dirk by his side."
+
+Moving again to miserable hovels in the wild recesses of the
+mountain Benalder, the chieftains Lochiel and Cluny acted now
+as the main bodyguard. The former of these two had devised a
+very safe hiding-place in the mountain which went by the name
+of "the Cage," and while here welcome news was brought that two
+friendly vessels had arrived at Lochnanuagh, their mission being,
+if possible, to seek out and carry away the importunate heir to
+the Stuart throne.
+
+The last three or four days of Charles's memorable adventures
+were occupied in reaching Glencamger, halts being made on the
+day at Corvoy and Auchnacarry. On Saturday, September 20th, 1746,
+he was on board _L'Heureux_, and nine days later landed at
+Roscoff, near Morlaix.
+
+So ended the famous escapades of the young Chevalier Prince Charles
+Edward.
+
+Here is a fine field open to some enterprising artistic tourist.
+How interesting it would be to follow Prince Charles throughout
+his journeyings in the Western Highlands, and illustrate with
+pen and pencil each recorded landmark! Not long since Mr. Andrew
+Lang gave, in a weekly journal (_The Sketch_), illustrations
+of the most famous of all the Prince's hiding-places--_viz._
+the cave in Glenmoriston, Inverness-shire.[1] The cave, we are
+told, is "formed like a tumulus by tall boulders, but is clearly
+a conspicious object, and a good place wherein to hunt for a
+fugitive. But it served its turn, and as another cave in the same
+district two miles off is lost, perhaps it is not so conspicious
+as it seems." It is about twenty feet wide at the base, and the
+position of the hearth and the royal bed are still to be seen,
+with "the finest purling stream that could be, running by the
+bed-side." How handy for the morning "tub"!
+
+[Footnote 1: They appeared originally in Blaikie's _Itinerary
+of Prince Curies Stuart_ (Scottish History Society).]
+
+In that remarkable collection of Stuart relics on exhibition
+in 1889 were many pathetic mementoes of Charles's wanderings in
+the Highlands. Here could be seen not only the mittens but the
+chemise of "Betty Burke"; the punch-bowl over which the Prince
+and the host of Kingsburgh had a late carousal, and his Royal
+Highness's table-napkins used in the same hospitable house; a
+wooden coffee-mill, which provided many a welcome cup of coffee
+in the days of so many hardships; a silver dessert-spoon, given
+to Dr. Macleod by the fugitive when he left the Isle of Skye;
+the Prince's pocket-book, many of his pistols, and a piece of
+his Tartan disguise; a curious relic in the form of two lines
+of music, sent as a warning to one of his lurking-places--when
+folded in a particular way the following words become legible,
+"Conceal yourself; your foes look for you." There was also a
+letter from Charles saying he had "arrived safe aboard ye vessell"
+which carried him to France, and numerous little things which
+gave the history of the escape remarkable reality.
+
+The recent dispersal of the famous Culloden collection sent
+long-cherished Jacobite relics broadcast over the land. The ill-fated
+Stuart's bed and walking-stick were of course the plums of this
+sale; but they had no connection with the Highland wanderings
+after the battle. The only object that had any connection with
+the story was the gun of _L'Heureux_.
+
+We understand there is still a much-prized heirloom now in Glasgow--a
+rustic chair used by the Prince when in Skye. The story is that,
+secreted in one of his cave dwellings, he espied a lad in his
+immediate vicinity tending some cows. Hunger made him reveal
+himself, with the result that he was taken to the boy's home,
+a farm not far off, and had his fill of cream and oatcakes, a
+delicacy which did not often fall in his way. The visit naturally
+was repeated; and long afterwards, when the rank of his guest
+came to the knowledge of the good farmer, the royal chair was
+promoted from its old corner in the kitchen to an honored position
+worthy of such a valued possession.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+Bedfordshire:--
+  Toddington Place
+Berkshire:--
+  Besils Leigh
+  Bisham Abbey
+  East Hendred House
+  Hurley, Lady Place
+  Milton Priory
+  Ockwells
+  Ufton Court
+  Windsor Castle
+Buckinghamshire:--
+  Burnham Abbey
+  Claydon House
+  Dinton Hall
+  Gayhurst, or Gothurst
+  Slough, Upton Court
+  Stoke Poges Manor House
+
+Cambridgeshire:--
+  Catledge Hall
+  Granchester Manor House
+  Madingley Hall
+  Sawston Hall
+Cheshire:--
+  Bramhall Hall
+  Harden Hall
+  Lyme Hall
+  Moreton Hall
+Cornwall:--
+  Bochym House
+  Cothele
+  Port Leven
+Cumberland:--
+  Naworth Castle
+  Nether Hall
+
+Derbyshire:--
+  Bradshawe Hall
+Devonshire:--
+  Bovey House
+  Branscombe, "The Clergy House"
+  Ford House
+  Warleigh
+Durham:--
+  Bishops Middleham
+  Darlington
+  Dinsdale-on-Tees
+  Eshe Hall
+
+Essex:--
+  Braddocks, or Broad Oaks
+  Braintree
+  Dunmow, North End
+  Hill Hall
+  Hinchford
+  Ingatestone Hall
+  Romford, Marks
+  Southend, Porter's Hall
+  Woodham Mortimer Manor House
+
+Gloucestershire:--
+  Bourton-on-the-Water Manor House
+
+Hampshire:--
+  Bramshill
+  Highclere Castle
+  Hinton-Ampner
+  Hursley
+  Moyles Court
+  Tichbourne
+  Woodcote Manor House
+Herefordshire:--
+  Treago
+Hertfordshire:--
+  Great Gaddesden Manor House
+  Hatfield House
+  Knebworth House
+  Markyate Cell, Dunstable
+  Rickmansworth, The Bury
+  Shenley, Salisbury Court
+  Tyttenhanger House
+Huntingdonshire:--
+  Kimbolton Castle
+
+Kent:--
+  Bromley Palace
+  Deal
+  Dover, St. Radigund's Abbey
+  Erith
+  Folkestone
+  Franks
+  Hollingbourne Manor House
+  Ightham Moat
+  Lewisham, John Wesley's House
+  Margate
+  Milsted Manor
+  Rochester, Abdication House
+  Rochester, Eastgate House
+  Rochester, Restoration House
+  Sandwich, "Bell Inn"
+  Sharsted Court
+  Twissenden
+  Wedmore College
+
+Lancashire:--
+  Bolling Hall
+  Borwick Hall
+  Gawthorp Hall
+  Hall-i'-the-wood
+  Holme Hall
+  Huncoat Hall
+  Lydiate Hall
+  Mains Hall
+  Preston, Ashes House
+  Speke Hall
+  Stonyhurst
+Lincolnshire:--
+  Bayons Manor
+  Irnham Hall
+  Kingerby Hall
+  Terpersie Castle
+
+Middlesex:--
+  Enfield, White Webb's
+  Hackney, Brooke House
+  Hampstead, Sir Harry Vane's House
+  Hampton Court
+  Hendon, Tenterden Hall
+  Highgate, Cromwell House
+  Hillingdon, Moorcroft House
+  Islington, Hale House
+  Kensington, Holland House
+  Knightsbridge
+  London, Lincoln's Inn
+  London, Newton Street, Holborn
+  London, "Red Lion Inn," West Street, Clerkenwell
+  London, "Rising Sun," Holywell Street
+  Mill Hill, Partingdale House
+  Sunbury Park
+  Twickenham, Arragon Towers
+  Westminster, Delahay Street
+
+Norfolk:--
+  Cromer, Rookery Farm
+  Oxburgh Hall
+Northamptonshire:--
+  Ashby St. Ledgers
+  Castle Ashby
+  Deene Park
+  Drayton House
+  Fawsley
+  Great Harrowden
+  Rushton Hall
+Northumberland:--
+  Ford Castle
+  Netherwhitton
+  Wallington
+Nottinghamshire:--
+  Nottingham Castle
+  Vale Royal
+  Worksop
+
+Oxfordshire:--
+  Broughton Castle
+  Chastleton
+  Mapledurham House
+  Minster Lovel Manor House
+  Shipton Court
+  Tusmore House
+  Woodstock
+
+Shropshire:--
+  Batsden Court
+  Boscobel House
+  Gatacre Park
+  Longford, Newport
+  Madeley Court
+  Madeley, Upper House
+  Oswestry, Park Hall
+  Plowden Hall
+Somersetshire:--
+  Chard, "Clough Inn"
+  Chelvey Court
+  Chew Magna Manor House
+  Dunster Castle
+  Ilminster, The Chantry
+  Trent House
+  West Coker Manor House
+Staffordshire:--
+  Broughton Hall
+  Moseley Hall
+  West Bromwich, Dunkirk Hall
+Suffolk:--
+  Barsham Rectory
+  Brandeston Hall
+  Brandon Hall
+  Coldham Hall
+  Gawdy Hall
+  Melford Hall
+Surrey:--
+  Mortlake, Cromwell House
+  Petersham, Ham House
+  Richmond Palace
+  Sanderstead Court
+  Thornton Heath
+  Wandsworth Manor House
+  Weybridge, Ham House
+Sussex:--
+  Albourne Place
+  Arundel Castle
+  Bodiam Castle
+  Chichester Cathedral
+  Cowdray
+  Hurstmonceaux Castle
+  Parham Hall
+  Paxhill
+  Scotney Castle
+  Slindon House
+  Southwater, Horsham, "New Building"
+  Street Place
+
+Warwickshire:--
+  Baddesley Clinton
+  Clopton Hall
+  Compton Winyates
+  Coughton Court
+  Mancetter Manor
+  Packington Old Hall
+  Salford Prior Hall
+  Warwick, St. John's Hospital
+Wiltshire:--
+  Fyfield House
+  Great Chalfield
+  Heale House
+  Liddington Manor House
+  Salisbury
+Worcestershire:--
+  Armscot Manor House
+  Birtsmorton Court
+  Cleeve Prior Manor House
+  Harborough Hall
+  Harvington Hall
+  Hindlip Hall
+  Huddington Court
+  Malvern, Pickersleigh Court
+  Stanford Court
+  Wollas Hall
+
+Yorkshire:--
+  Bamborough Hall
+  Beare Park
+  Danby Hall
+  Dannoty Hall
+  Fountains Abbey
+  Fountains Hall
+  Hull, White Hart Hotel
+  Kirkby Knowle Castle
+  Leyburn, The Grove
+  Myddleton Lodge, Ilkley
+  Thirsk, "New Building"
+  Whatton Abbey
+  Whitby, Abbey House
+  Yeadon, Low Hall
+
+Aberdeenshire:--
+  Belucraig
+  Dalpersie House
+  Fetternear
+  Fyvie Castle
+  Gordonstown
+  Kemnay House
+
+Banffshire:--
+  Towie Barclay Castle
+
+Elginshire:--
+  Coxton Tower
+
+Forfarshire:--
+  Glamis Castle
+
+Haddingtonshire:--
+  Elphinstone Castle
+
+Linlithgowshire:--
+  Binns House
+
+Nairnshire:--
+  Cawdor Castle
+
+Monmouthshire:--
+  Ty Mywr
+
+Pembrokeshire:--
+  Carew Castle
+
+Isle of Wight:--
+  Newport Manor House
+
+Guernsey:--
+  ChĂ¢teau du Puits
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Secret Chambers and Hiding Places, by Allan Fea
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13918 ***
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+ <title>Secret Chambers and Hiding-Places</title>
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+ <meta name="author" content="Allan Fea">
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+   P.footnote   { font-size: smaller; }
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13918 ***</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig001.jpg" width="656" height="399" alt="Fig. 1"><br>
+MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<h1>SECRET CHAMBERS AND HIDING-PLACES</h1>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+HISTORIC, ROMANTIC, &amp; LEGENDARY STORIES &amp; TRADITIONS ABOUT
+HIDING-HOLES, SECRET CHAMBERS, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+BY ALLAN FEA
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+AUTHOR OF "THE FLIGHT OF THE KING," "KING MONMOUTH," ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+WITH EIGHTY ILLUSTRATIONS
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+THIRD AND REVISED EDITION
+</p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+<p><a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I</a></p>
+
+<p>
+A GREAT DEVISER OF "PRIEST'S HOLES"
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II</a></p>
+
+<p>
+HINDLIP HALL
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III</a></p>
+
+<p>
+PRIEST-HUNTING AT BRADDOCKS
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV</a></p>
+
+<p>
+THE GUNPOWDER PLOT CONSPIRATORS
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V</a></p>
+
+<p>
+HARVINGTON, UFTON, AND INGATESTONE
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI</a></p>
+
+<p>
+COMPTON WINYATES, SALFORD PRIOR, SAWSTON, OXBURGH, PARHAM, PAXHILL, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII</a></p>
+
+<p>
+KING-HUNTING: BOSCOBEL, MOSELEY, TRENT, AND HEALE
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII</a></p>
+
+<p>
+CAVALIER-HUNTING, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX</a></p>
+
+<p>
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X</a></p>
+
+<p>
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES (<i>continued</i>): HAM HOUSE, AND "ABDICATION HOUSE"
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI</a></p>
+
+<p>
+MYSTERIOUS ROOMS, DEADLY PITS, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII</a></p>
+
+<p>
+HIDING-PLACES IN JACOBITE DWELLINGS AND IN SCOTTISH CASTLES AND MANSIONS
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII</a></p>
+
+<p>
+CONCEALED DOORS, SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGES, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV</a></p>
+
+<p>
+MINIATURE HIDING-HOLES FOR VALUABLES, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV</a></p>
+
+<p>
+HIDING-PLACES OF SMUGGLERS AND THIEVES
+</p>
+
+
+<p><a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI</a></p>
+
+<p>
+THE SCOTTISH HIDING-PLACES OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD
+</p>
+
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<p>
+MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE<br>
+HINDLIP HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE<br>
+BRADDOCKS, ESSEX<br>
+FIREPLACE AT BRADDOCKS<br>
+ASHBY ST. LEDGERS, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE<br>
+THE PLOT ROOM, ASHBY ST. LEDGERS<br>
+HUDDINGTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE<br>
+ENTRANCE PORCH, HUDDINGTON COURT<br>
+ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," HARVINGTON HALL<br>
+HARVINGTON HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE<br>
+UFTON COURT, BERKSHIRE<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+GARDEN TERRACE, BERKSHIRE<br>
+HIDING-PLACE, UFTON COURT<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"<br>
+INGATESTONE HALL, ESSEX<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"<br>
+"PRIEST'S HOLE," SAWSTON HALL<br>
+SCOTNEY CASTLE, SUSSEX<br>
+COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE<br>
+THE MINSTRELS' GALLERY, COMPTON WINYATES<br>
+SAWSTON HALL, CAMBRIDGESHIRE<br>
+PICKERSLEIGH COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE<br>
+SALFORD PRIOR HALL, WARWICKSHIRE<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;"<br>
+HIDING-PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR<br>
+SHOWING ENTRANCE TO HIDING PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR<br>
+OXBURGH HALL, NORFOLK<br>
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, PARHAM HALL<br>
+PAXHILL, SUSSEX<br>
+CLEEVE PRIOR MANOR HOUSE, WORCESTERSHIRE<br>
+BADDESLEY CLINTON HALL, WARWICKSHIRE<br>
+HIDING-PLACE BENEATH "THE CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL, SALOP<br>
+HIDING-PLACE IN "THE SQUIRE'S BEDROOM," BOSCOBEL<br>
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE IN THE GARRET, OR "CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL<br>
+SECRET PANEL, TRENT HOUSE, SOMERSETSHIRE<br>
+BOSCOBEL<br>
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE<br>
+HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE<br>
+TRENT HOUSE IN 1864<br>
+HEALE HOUSE, WILTSHIRE<br>
+MADELEY COURT, SHROPSHIRE<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;THE COURTYARD, SHROPSHIRE<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;SHROPSHIRE<br>
+ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," THE UPPER HOUSE, MADELEY, SHROPSHIRE<br>
+INTERIOR OF "PRIEST'S HOLE," MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE<br>
+SECRET PANEL AT SALISBURY<br>
+SECRET CHAMBER, CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE<br>
+OLD SUMMER HOUSE, SALISBURY<br>
+CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+FRONT ENTRANCE, OXFORDSHIRE<br>
+BROUGHTON HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE<br>
+ST. JOHN'S HOSPITAL, WARWICK<br>
+STAIRCASE, BROUGHTON HALL<br>
+SHIPTON COURT, OXFORDSHIRE<br>
+BROUGHTON CASTLE, OXFORDSHIRE<br>
+ENTRANCE GATE, BRADSHAWE HALL, DERBYSHIRE<br>
+MOYLES COURT, HAMPSHIRE<br>
+TODDINGTON MANOR HOUSE, BEDFORDSHIRE, IN 1806<br>
+"RAT'S CASTLE," ELMLEY<br>
+KING'S HILL FARM, ELMLEY, KENT<br>
+ENTRANCE TO SECRET PASSAGE, "ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER<br>
+"ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER<br>
+MONUMENT OF SIR RICHARD HEAD<br>
+"RESTORATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER<br>
+ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE, WORCHESTERSHIRE<br>
+ENTRANCE GATE, ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE<br>
+WOODSTOCK PALACE, OXFORDSHIRE<br>
+MARKYATE CELL, HERTFORDSHIRE<br>
+BIRTSMORTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE<br>
+PORCH AT CHELVEY COURT, SOMERSETSHIRE<br>
+HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE, SUSSEX<br>
+BOVEY HOUSE, SOUTH DEVON<br>
+MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;"<br>
+ENTRANCE TO SECRET STAIRCASE, PARTINGDALE HOUSE, MILL HILL, MIDDLESEX
+</p>
+
+<h2>INTRODUCTION</h2>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The secret chamber is unrivalled even by the haunted house for
+the mystery and romance surrounding it. Volumes have been written
+about the haunted house, while the secret chamber has found but
+few exponents. The ancestral ghost has had his day, and to all
+intents and purposes is dead, notwithstanding the existence of
+the Psychical Society and the investigations of Mr. Stead and
+the late Lord Bute. "Alas! poor ghost!" he is treated with scorn
+and derision by the multitude in these advanced days of modern
+enlightenment. The search-light of science has penetrated even
+into his sacred haunts, until, no longer having a leg to stand
+upon, he has fallen from the exalted position he occupied for
+centuries, and fallen moreover into ridicule!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In the secret chamber, however, we have something tangible to deal
+with&mdash;a subject not only keenly interesting from an antiquarian
+point of view, but one deserving the attention of the general
+reader; for in exploring the gloomy hiding-holes, concealed
+apartments, passages, and staircases in our old halls and manor
+houses we probe, as it were, into the very groundwork of romance.
+We find actuality to support the weird and mysterious stories
+of fiction, which those of us who are honest enough to admit
+a lingering love of the marvellous must now doubly appreciate,
+from the fact that our school-day impressions of such things
+are not only revived, but are strengthened with the semblance
+of truth. Truly Bishop Copleston wrote: "If the things we hear
+told be avowedly fictitious, and yet curious or affecting or
+entertaining, we may indeed admire the author of the fiction, and
+may take pleasure in contemplating the exercise of his skill. But
+this is a pleasure of another kind&mdash;a pleasure wholly distinct from
+that which is derived from discovering what was <i>unknown</i>, or
+clearing up what was <i>doubtful</i>. And even when the narrative
+is in its own nature, such as to please us and to engage our
+attention, how, greatly is the interest increased if we place
+entire confidence in its <i>truth</i>! Who has not heard from
+a child when listening to a tale of deep interest&mdash;who has not
+often heard the artless and eager question, 'Is it true?'"
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+From Horace Walpole, Mrs. Radcliffe, Scott, Victor Hugo, Dumas,
+Lytton, Ainsworth, Le Fanu, and Mrs. Henry Wood, down to the
+latest up-to-date novelists of to-day, the secret chamber (an
+ingenious <i>necessity</i> of the "good old times") has afforded
+invaluable "property"&mdash;indeed, in many instances the whole vitality
+of a plot is, like its ingenious opening, hinged upon the masked
+wall, behind which lay concealed what hidden mysteries, what
+undreamed-of revelations! The thread of the story, like Fair
+Rosamond's silken clue, leads up to and at length reveals the
+buried secret, and (unlike the above comparison in this instance)
+all ends happily!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Bulwer Lytton honestly confesses that the spirit of romance in his
+novels "was greatly due to their having been written at my ancestral
+home, Knebworth, Herts. How could I help writing romances," he
+says, "after living amongst the secret panels and hiding-places
+of our dear old home? How often have I trembled with fear at
+the sound of my own footsteps when I ventured into the picture
+gallery! How fearfully have I glanced at the faces of my ancestors
+as I peered into the shadowy abysses of the 'secret chamber.' It
+was years before I could venture inside without my hair literally
+bristling with terror."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+What would <i>Woodstock</i> be without the mysterious picture,
+<i>Peveril of the Peak</i> without the sliding panel, the Castlewood
+of <i>Esmond</i> without Father Holt's concealed apartments,
+<i>Ninety-Three, Marguerite de Valois, The Tower of London, Guy
+Fawkes</i>, and countless other novels of the same type, without
+the convenient contrivances of which the <i>dramatis person&aelig;</i>
+make such effectual use?
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Apart, however, from the importance of the secret chamber in
+fiction, it is closely associated with many an important historical
+event. The stories of the Gunpowder Plot, Charles II.'s escape
+from Worcester, the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745, and many
+another stirring episode in the annals of our country, speak
+of the service it rendered to fugitives in the last extremity
+of danger. When we inspect the actual walls of these confined
+spaces that saved the lives of our ancestors, how vividly we can
+realise the hardships they must have endured; and in wondering
+at the mingled ingenuity and simplicity of construction, there
+is also a certain amount of comfort to be derived from drawing
+a comparison between those troublous and our own more peaceful
+times.
+</p>
+
+<h1>SECRET CHAMBERS AND HIDING-PLACES</h1>
+
+<h2><a name="chap01">CHAPTER I</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+A GREAT DEVISER OF "PRIEST'S HOLES"
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+During the deadly feuds which existed in the Middle Ages, when
+no man was secure from spies and traitors even within the walls
+of his own house, it is no matter of wonder that the castles and
+mansions of the powerful and wealthy were usually provided with
+some precaution in the event of a sudden surprise&mdash;<i>viz.</i>
+a secret means of concealment or escape that could be used at
+a moment's notice; but the majority of secret chambers and
+hiding-places in our ancient buildings owe their origin to religious
+persecution, particularly during the reign of Elizabeth, when the
+most stringent laws and oppressive burdens were inflicted upon
+all persons who professed the tenets of the Church of Rome.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In the first years of the virgin Queen's reign all who clung to
+the older forms of the Catholic faith were mercifully connived
+at, so long as they solemnised their own religious rites within
+their private dwelling-houses; but after the Roman Catholic rising
+in the north and numerous other Popish plots, the utmost severity
+of the law was enforced, particularly against seminarists, whose
+chief object was, as was generally believed, to stir up their
+disciples in England against the Protestant Queen. An Act was
+passed prohibiting a member of the Church of Rome from celebrating
+the rites of his religion on pain of forfeiture for the first
+offence, a year's imprisonment for the second, and imprisonment
+for life for the third.[1] All those who refused to take the
+Oath of Supremacy were called "recusants" and were guilty of
+high treason. A law was also enacted which provided that if any
+Papist should convert a Protestant to the Church of Rome, both
+should suffer death, as for high treason.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: In December, 1591, a priest was hanged before the
+door of a house in Gray's Inn Fields for having there said Mass
+the month previously.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The sanguinary laws against seminary priests and "recusants"
+were enforced with the greatest severity after the discovery of
+the Gunpowder Plot. These were revived for a period in Charles
+II.'s reign, when Oates's plot worked up a fanatical hatred against
+all professors of the ancient faith. In the mansions of the old
+Roman Catholic families we often find an apartment in a secluded
+part of the house or garret in the roof named "the chapel," where
+religious rites could be performed with the utmost privacy, and
+close handy was usually an artfully contrived hiding-place, not
+only for the officiating priest to slip into in case of emergency,
+but also where the vestments, sacred vessels, and altar furniture
+could be put away at a moment's notice.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It appears from the writings of Father Tanner[1] that most of
+the hiding-places for priests, usually called "priests' holes,"
+were invented and constructed by the Jesuit Nicholas Owen, a
+servant of Father Garnet, who devoted the greater part of his
+life to constructing these places in the principal Roman Catholic
+houses all over England.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: <i>Vita et Mors</i> (1675), p. 75.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"With incomparable skill," says an authority, "he knew how to
+conduct priests to a place of safety along subterranean passages,
+to hide them between walls and bury them in impenetrable recesses,
+and to entangle them in labyrinths and a thousand windings. But
+what was much more difficult of accomplishment, he so disguised
+the entrances to these as to make them most unlike what they
+really were. Moreover, he kept these places so close a secret
+with himself that he would never disclose to another the place
+of concealment of any Catholic. He alone was both their architect
+and their builder, working at them with inexhaustible industry
+and labour, for generally the thickest walls had to be broken
+into and large stones excavated, requiring stronger arms than
+were attached to a body so diminutive as to give him the nickname
+of 'Little John,' and by this his skill many priests were preserved
+from the prey of persecutors. Nor is it easy to find anyone who
+had not often been indebted for his life to Owen's hiding-places."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+How effectually "Little John's" peculiar ingenuity baffled the
+exhaustive searches of the "pursuivants," or priest-hunters,
+has been shown by contemporary accounts of the searches that
+took place frequently in suspected houses. Father Gerard, in
+his Autobiography, has handed down to us many curious details of
+the mode of procedure upon these occasions&mdash;how the search-party
+would bring with them skilled carpenters and masons and try every
+possible expedient, from systematic measurements and soundings to
+bodily tearing down the panelling and pulling up the floors. It
+was not an uncommon thing for a rigid search to last a fortnight
+and for the "pursuivants" to go away empty handed, while perhaps
+the object of the search was hidden the whole time within a wall's
+thickness of his pursuers, half starved, cramped and sore with
+prolonged confinement, and almost afraid to breathe, lest the
+least sound should throw suspicion upon the particular spot where
+he lay immured.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+After the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, "Little John" and
+his master, Father Garnet, were arrested at Hindlip Hall,
+Worcestershire, from information given to the Government by Catesby's
+servant Bates. Cecil, who was well aware of Owen's skill in
+constructing hiding-places, wrote exultingly: "Great joy was
+caused all through the kingdom by the arrest of Owen, knowing
+his skill in constructing hiding-places, and the innumerable
+number of these dark holes which he had schemed for hiding priests
+throughout the kingdom." He hoped that "great booty of priests"
+might be taken in consequence of the secrets Owen would be made
+to reveal, and directed that first he should "be coaxed if he
+be willing to contract for his life," but that "the secret is
+to be wrung from him." The horrors of the rack, however, failed
+in its purpose. His terrible death is thus briefly recorded by
+the Governor of the Tower at that time: "The man is dead&mdash;he
+died in our hands"; and perhaps it is as well the ghastly details
+did not transpire in his report.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The curious old mansion Hindlip Hall (pulled down in the early
+part of the last century) was erected in 1572 by John Abingdon, or
+Habington, whose son Thomas (the brother-in-law of Lord Monteagle)
+was deeply involved in the numerous plots against the reformed
+religion. A long imprisonment in the Tower for his futile efforts
+to set Mary Queen of Scots at liberty, far from curing the dangerous
+schemes of this zealous partisan of the luckless Stuart heroine,
+only kept him out of mischief for a time. No sooner had he obtained
+his freedom than he set his mind to work to turn his house in
+Worcestershire into a harbour of refuge for the followers of
+the older rites. In the quaint irregularities of the masonry
+free scope was given to "Little John's" ingenuity; indeed, there
+is every proof that some of his masterpieces were constructed
+here. A few years before the "Powder Plot" was discovered, it
+was a hanging matter for a priest to be caught celebrating the
+Mass. Yet with the facilities at Hindlip he might do so with
+comfort, with every assurance that he had the means of evading
+the law. The walls of the mansion were literally riddled with
+secret chambers and passages. There was little fear of being
+run to earth with hidden exits everywhere. Wainscoting, solid
+brickwork, or stone hearth were equally accommodating, and would
+swallow up fugitives wholesale, and close over them, to "Open,
+Sesame!" again only at the hider's pleasure.
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap02">CHAPTER II</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+HINDLIP HALL
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The capture of Father Garnet and "Little John" with two others,
+Hall and Chambers, at Hindlip, as detailed in a curious manuscript
+in the British Museum, gives us an insight into the search-proof
+merits of Abingdon's mansion. The document is headed: "<i>A true
+discovery of the service performed at Hindlip, the house of Mr.
+Thomas Abbingdon, for the apprehension of Mr. Henry Garnet, alias
+Wolley, provincial of the Jesuits, and other dangerous persons,
+there found in January last,</i> 1605," and runs on:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"After the king's royal promise of bountiful reward to such as
+would apprehend the traitors concerned in the Powder Conspiracy,
+and much expectation of subject-like duty, but no return made
+thereof in so important a matter, a warrant was directed to the
+right worthy and worshipful knight, Sir Henry Bromlie; and the
+proclamation delivered therewith, describing the features and
+shapes of the men, for the better discovering them. He, not
+neglecting so a weighty a business, horsing himself with a seemly
+troop of his own attendants, and calling to his assistance so
+many as in discretion was thought meet, having likewise in his
+company Sir Edward Bromlie, on Monday, Jan. 20 last, by break
+of day, did engirt and round beat the house of Mayster Thomas
+Abbingdon, at Hindlip, near Worcester. Mr. Abbingdon, not being
+then at home, but ridden abroad about some occasions best known
+to himself; the house being goodlie, and of great receipt, it
+required the more diligent labour and pains in the searching.
+It appeared there was no want; and Mr. Abbingdon himself coming
+home that night, the commission and proclamation being shown unto
+him, he denied any such men to be in his house, and voluntarily
+to die at his own gate, if any such were to be found in his house,
+or in that shire. But this liberal or rather rash speech could
+not cause the search so slightly to be given over; the cause
+enforced more respect than words of that or any such like nature;
+and proceeding on according to the trust reposed in him in the
+gallery over the gate there were found two cunning and very
+artificial conveyances in the main brick-wall, so ingeniously
+framed, and with such art, as it cost much labour ere they could
+be found. Three other secret places, contrived by no less skill
+and industry, were found in and about the chimneys, in one whereof
+two of the traitors were close concealed. These chimney-conveyances
+being so strangely formed, having the entrances into them so
+curiously covered over with brick, mortared and made fast to
+planks of wood, and coloured black, like the other parts of the
+chimney, that very diligent inquisition might well have passed
+by, without throwing the least suspicion upon such unsuspicious
+places. And whereas divers funnels are usually made to chimneys
+according as they are combined together, and serve for necessary
+use in several rooms, so here were some that exceeded common
+expectation, seeming outwardly fit for carrying forth smoke;
+but being further examined and seen into, their service was to
+no such purpose but only to lend air and light downward into
+the concealments, where such as were concealed in them, at any
+time should be hidden. Eleven secret corners and conveyances
+were found in the said house, all of them having books, Massing
+stuff, and Popish trumpery in them, only two excepted, which
+appeared to have been found on former searches, and therefore
+had now the less credit given to them; but Mayster Abbingdon
+would take no knowledge of any of these places, nor that the
+books, or Massing stuff, were any of his, until at length the
+deeds of his lands being found in one of them, whose custody
+doubtless he would not commit to any place of neglect, or where
+he should have no intelligence of them, whereto he could [not]
+then devise any sufficient excuse.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig002.jpg" width="647" height="379" alt="Fig. 2"><br>
+HINDLIP HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Three days had been wholly spent, and no man found there all
+this while; but upon the fourth day, in the morning, from behind
+the wainscot in the galleries, came forth two men of their own
+voluntary accord, as being no longer able there to conceal
+themselves; for they confessed that they had but one apple between
+them, which was all the sustenance they had received during the
+time they were thus hidden. One of them was named Owen, who
+afterwards murdered himself in the Tower; and the other Chambers;
+but they would take no other knowledge of any other men's being
+in the house. On the eighth day the before-mentioned place in
+the chimney was found, according as they had all been at several
+times, one after another, though before set down together, for
+expressing the just number of them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"Forth of this secret and most cunning conveyance came Henry
+Garnet, the Jesuit, sought for, and another with him, named Hall;
+marmalade and other sweetmeats were found there lying by them;
+but their better maintenance had been by a quill or reed, through
+a little hole in the chimney that backed another chimney into
+the gentlewoman's chamber; and by that passage candles, broths,
+and warm drinks had been conveyed in unto them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"Now in regard the place was in so close... and did much annoy
+them that made entrance in upon them, to whom they confessed
+that they had not been able to hold out one whole day longer,
+but either they must have squeeled, or perished in the place.
+The whole service endured the space of eleven nights and twelve
+days, and no more persons being there found, in company with
+Mayster Abbingdon himself, Garnet, Hill [Hall], Owen, and Chambers,
+were brought up to London to understand further of his highness's
+pleasure."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+That the Government had good grounds for suspecting Hindlip and
+its numerous hiding-places may be gathered from the official
+instructions the Worcestershire Justice of the Peace and his
+search-party had to follow. The wainscoting in the east part of
+the parlour and in the dining-room, being suspected of screening
+"a vault" or passage, was to be removed, the walls and floors
+were to be pierced in all directions, comparative measurements
+were to be taken between the upper and the lower rooms, and in
+particular the chimneys, and the roof had to be minutely examined and
+measurements taken, which might bring to light some unaccounted-for
+space that had been turned to good account by the unfortunate
+inventor, who was eventually starved out of one of his clever
+contrivances.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Only shortly before Owen had had a very narrow escape at Stoke
+Poges while engaged in constructing "priests' holes" at the Manor
+House. The secluded position of this building adapted it for
+the purpose for which a Roman Catholic zealot had taken it. But
+this was not the only advantage. The walls were of vast thickness
+and offered every facility for turning them to account. While
+"Little John" was busily engaged burrowing into the masonry the
+dreaded "pursuivants" arrived; but somehow or other he slipped
+between their fingers and got away under cover of the surrounding
+woods.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The wing of this old mansion which has survived to see the twentieth
+century witnessed many strange events. It has welcomed good Queen
+Bess, guarded the Martyr King, and refused admittance to Dutch
+William. A couple of centuries after it had sheltered hunted
+Jesuits, a descendant of William Penn became possessed of it,
+and cleared away many of the massive walls, in some of which&mdash;who
+can tell?&mdash;were locked up secrets that the rack failed to
+reveal&mdash;secrets by which Owen "murdered himself" in the Tower!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+One of the hiding-places at Hindlip, it will be remembered, could
+be supplied with broth, wine, or any liquid nourishment through
+a small aperture in the wall of the adjoining room. A very good
+example of such an arrangement may still be seen at Irnham Hall, in
+Lincolnshire.[1] A large hiding-place could thus be accommodated,
+but detection of the narrow iron tube by which the imprisoned
+fugitive could be kept alive was practically impossible. A solid
+oak beam, forming a step between two bedrooms, concealed a panel
+into which the tube was cunningly fitted and the step was so
+arranged that it could be removed and replaced with the greatest
+ease.[2]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: The fire which destroyed a wing of Irnham Hall a
+few years ago fortunately did not touch that part of the building
+containing a hiding-place.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 2: Harvington Hall, mentioned hereafter, has a contrivance
+of this kind.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The hiding-place at Irnham (which measures eight feet by five,
+and about five feet six inches in height) was discovered by a
+tell-tale chimney that was not in the least blackened by soot
+or smoke. This originally gave the clue to the secret, and when
+the shaft of the chimney was examined, it was found to lead direct
+to the priest's hole, to which it afforded air and light.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Had not the particular hiding-place in which Garnet and his
+companions sought shelter been discovered, they could well have
+held out the twelve days' search. As a rule, a small stock of
+provisions was kept in these places, as the visits of the search
+parties were necessarily very sudden and unexpected. The way down
+into these hidden quarters was from the floor above, through
+the hearth of a fireplace, which could be raised an lowered like
+a trap-door.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See Fowlis's <i>Romish Treasons.</i>]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In a letter from Garnet to Ann Vaux, preserved in the Record
+Office, he thus describes his precarious situation: "After we
+had been in the hoale seven days and seven nights and some odd
+hours, every man may well think we were well wearyed, and indeed
+so it was, for we generally satte, save that some times we could
+half stretch ourselves, the place not being high eno', and we had
+our legges so straitened that we could not, sitting, find place
+for them, so that we both were in continuous paine of our legges,
+and both our legges, especially mine, were much swollen. We were
+very merry and content within, and heard the searchers every day
+most curious over us, which made me indeed think the place would
+be found. When we came forth we appeared like ghosts."[2]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 2: <i>State Papers</i>, Domestic (James I.).]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+There is an old timber-framed cottage near the modern mansion
+of Hindlip which is said to have had its share in sheltering the
+plotters. A room is pointed out where Digby and Catesby concealed
+themselves, and from one of the chimneys at some time or another
+a priest was captured and led to execution.
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap03">CHAPTER III</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+PRIEST-HUNTING AT BRADDOCKS
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In the parish of Wimbish, about six miles from Saffron Walden,
+stand the remains of a fine old Tudor house named Broad Oaks,
+or Braddocks, which in Elizabeth's reign was a noted house for
+priest-hunting. Wandering through its ancient rooms, the imagination
+readily carries us back to the drama enacted here three centuries
+ago with a vividness as if the events recorded had happened
+yesterday. "The chapel" and priests' holes may still be seen, and
+a fine old stone fireplace that was stripped of its overmantel,
+etc., of carved oak by the "pursuivants" in their vain efforts
+when Father Gerard was concealed in the house.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig003.jpg" width="415" height="310" alt="Fig. 3"><br>
+BRADDOCKS, ESSEX
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig004.jpg" width="405" height="304" alt="Fig. 4"><br>
+FIREPLACE AT BRADDOCKS
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The old Essex family of Wiseman of Braddocks were staunch Romanists,
+and their home, being a noted resort for priests, received from
+time to time sudden visits. The dreaded Topcliffe had upon one
+occasion nearly brought the head of the family, an aged widow lady,
+to the horrors of the press-yard, but her punishment eventually
+took the form of imprisonment. Searches at Braddocks had brought
+forth hiding-places, priests, compromising papers, and armour
+and weapons. Let us see with what success the house was explored
+in the Easter of the year 1594.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Gerard gives his exciting experiences as follows[1]:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See Autobiography of Father John Gerard.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"The searchers broke down the door, and forcing their way in,
+spread through the house with great noise and racket.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"Their first step was to lock up the mistress of the house[2] in
+her own room with her two daughters, and the Catholic servants
+they kept locked up in divers places in the same part of the
+house.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 2: Jane Wiseman, wife of William Wiseman. N.B.&mdash;The
+late Cardinal Wiseman was descended from a junior branch of this
+family. See Life of Father John Gerard, by John Morris.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"They then took to themselves the whole house, which was of a good
+size, and made a thorough search in every part, not forgetting
+even to look under the tiles of the roof. The darkest corners
+they examined with the help of candles. Finding nothing whatever
+they began to break down certain places that they suspected.
+They measured the walls with long rods, so that if they did not
+tally they might pierce the part not accounted for. Then they
+sounded the walls and all the floors to find out and break into
+any hollow places there might be.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"They spent two days in this work without finding anything. Thinking
+therefore that I had gone on Easter Sunday, the two magistrates
+went away on the second day, leaving the pursuivants to take
+the mistress of the house and all her Catholic servants of both
+sexes to London to be examined and imprisoned. They meant to
+leave some who were not Catholics to keep the house, the traitor
+(one of the servants of the house) being one of them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"The good lady was pleased at this, for she hoped that he would
+be the means of freeing me and rescuing me from death; for she
+knew that I had made up my mind to suffer and die of starvation
+between two walls, rather than come forth and save my own life
+at the expense of others.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"In fact, during those four days that I lay hid I had nothing
+to eat but a biscuit or two and a little quince jelly, which
+my hostess had at hand and gave me as I was going in.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"She did not look for any more, as she supposed that the search
+would not last beyond a day. But now that two days were gone
+and she was to be carried off on the third with all her trusty
+servants, she began to be afraid of my dying of sheer hunger.
+She bethought herself then of the traitor who she heard was to
+be left behind. He had made a great fuss and show of eagerness in
+withstanding the searchers when they first forced their way in.
+For all that she would not have let him know of the hiding-places,
+had she not been in such straits. Thinking it better, however,
+to rescue me from certain death, even at some risk to herself,
+she charged him, when she was taken away and everyone had gone,
+to go into a certain room, call me by my wonted name, and tell
+me that the others had been taken to prison, but that he was left
+to deliver me. I would then answer, she said, from behind the
+lath and plaster where I lay concealed. The traitor promised to
+obey faithfully; but he was faithful only to the faithless, for
+he unfolded the whole matter to the ruffians who had remained
+behind.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"No sooner had they heard it than they called back the magistrates
+who had departed. These returned early in the morning and renewed
+the search.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"They measured and sounded everywhere much more carefully than
+before, especially in the chamber above mentioned, in order to
+find out some hollow place. But finding nothing whatever during
+the whole of the third day, they proposed on the morrow to strip
+off the wainscot of that room.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"Meanwhile, they set guards in all the rooms about to watch all
+night, lest I should escape. I heard from my hiding-place the
+password which the captain of the band gave to his soldiers, and
+I might have got off by using it, were it not that they would
+have seen me issuing from my retreat, for there were two on guard
+in the chapel where I got into my hiding-place, and several also
+in the large wainscoted room which had been pointed out to them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"But mark the wonderful Providence of God. Here was I in my
+hiding-place. The way I got into it was by taking up the floor,
+made of wood and bricks, under the fireplace. The place was so
+constructed that a fire could not be lit in it without damaging
+the house; though we made a point of keeping wood there, as if
+it were meant for a fire.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"Well, the men on the night watch lit a fire in this very grate
+and began chatting together close to it. Soon the bricks which
+had not bricks but wood underneath them got loose, and nearly
+fell out of their places as the wood gave way. On noticing this
+and probing the place with a stick, they found that the bottom
+was made of wood, whereupon they remarked that this was something
+curious. I thought that they were going there and then to break
+open the place and enter, but they made up their minds at last
+to put off further examination till next day.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"Next morning, therefore, they renewed the search most carefully,
+everywhere except in the top chamber which served as a chapel,
+and in which the two watchmen had made a fire over my head and
+had noticed the strange make of the grate. God had blotted out
+of their memory all remembrance of the thing. Nay, none of the
+searchers entered the place the whole day, though it was the
+one that was most open to suspicion, and if they had entered,
+they would have found me without any search; rather, I should
+say, they would have seen me, for the fire had burnt a great
+hole in my hiding-place, and had I not got a little out of the
+way, the hot embers would have fallen on me.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"The searchers, forgetting or not caring about this room, busied
+themselves in ransacking the rooms below, in one of which I was
+said to be. In fact, they found the other hiding-place which I
+thought of going into, as I mentioned before. It was not far
+off, so I could hear their shouts of joy when they first found
+it. But after joy comes grief; and so it was with them. The only
+thing that they found was a goodly store of provision laid up.
+Hence they may have thought that this was the place that the
+mistress of the house meant; in fact, an answer might have been
+given from it to the call of a person in the room mentioned by
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"They stuck to their purpose, however, of stripping off all the
+wainscot of the other large room. So they set a man to work near
+the ceiling, close to the place where I was: for the lower part
+of the walls was covered with tapestry, not with wainscot. So
+they stripped off the wainscot all round till they came again
+to the very place where I lay, and there they lost heart and
+gave up the search.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"My hiding-place was in a thick wall of the chimney behind a
+finely inlaid and carved mantelpiece. They could not well take
+the carving down without risk of breaking it. Broken, however,
+it would have been, and that into a thousand pieces, had they
+any conception that I could be concealed behind it. But knowing
+that there were two flues, they did not think that there could
+be room enough there for a man.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"Nay, before this, on the second day of the search, they had
+gone into the room above, and tried the fireplace through which
+I had got into my hole. They then got into the chimney by a ladder
+to sound with their hammers. One said to another in my hearing,
+'Might there not be a place here for a person to get down into
+the wall of the chimney below by lifting up this hearth?' 'No,'
+answered one of the pursuivants, whose voice I knew, 'you could
+not get down that way into the chimney underneath, but there
+might easily be an entrance at the back of this chimney.' So
+saying he gave the place a knock. I was afraid that he would hear
+the hollow sound of the hole where I was.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"Seeing that their toil availed them nought, they thought that
+I had escaped somehow, and so they went away at the end of the
+four days, leaving the mistress and her servants free. The yet
+unbetrayed traitor stayed after the searchers were gone. As soon
+as the doors of the house were made fast, the mistress came to
+call me, another four days buried Lazarus, from what would have
+been my tomb, had the search continued a little longer. For I
+was all wasted and weakened as well with hunger as with want
+of sleep and with having to sit so long in such a narrow space.
+After coming out I was seen by the traitor, whose treachery was
+still unknown to us. He did nothing then, not even to send after
+the searchers, as he knew that I meant to be off before they
+could be recalled."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The Wisemans had another house at North End, a few miles to the
+south-east of Dunmow. Here were also "priests' holes," one of
+which (in a chimney) secreted a certain Father Brewster during
+a rigid search in December, 1593.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: <i>State Papers</i>, Dom. (Eliz.), December, 1593.
+See also Life of Father John Gerard, p. 138.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Great Harrowden, near Wellingborough, the ancient seat of the Vaux
+family, was another notorious sanctuary for persecuted recusants.
+Gerard spent much of his time here in apartments specially
+constructed for his use, and upon more than one occasion had to
+have recourse to the hiding-places. Some four or five years after
+his experiences at Braddocks he narrowly escaped his pursuers in
+this way; and in 1605, when the "pursuivants" were scouring the
+country for him, as he was supposed to be privy to the Gunpowder
+Plot, he owed his life to a secret chamber at Harrowden. The
+search-party remained for nine days. Night and day men were posted
+round the house, and every approach was guarded within a radius
+of three miles. With the hope of getting rid of her unwelcome
+guests, Lady Vaux revealed one of the "priests' holes" to prove
+there was nothing in her house beyond a few prohibited books;
+but this did not have the desired effect, so the unfortunate
+inmate of the hiding-place had to continue in a cramped position,
+there being no room to stand up, for four or five days more. His
+hostess, however, managed to bring him food, and moments were
+seized during the latter days of the search to get him out that
+he might warm his benumbed limbs by a fire. While these things
+were going on at Harrowden, another priest, little thinking into
+whose hands the well-known sanctuary had fallen, came thither
+to seek shelter; but was seized and carried to an inn, whence
+it was intended he should be removed to London on the following
+day. But he managed to outwit his captors. To evade suspicion
+he threw off his cloak and sword, and under a pretext of giving
+his horse drink at a stream close by the stable, seized a lucky
+moment, mounted, and dashed into the water, swam across, and
+galloped off to the nearest house that could offer the convenience
+of a hiding-place.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See Life of John Gerard, p. 386.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+At Hackney the Vaux family had another, residence with its chapel
+and "priest's hole," the latter having a masked entrance high
+up in the wall, which led to a space under a gable projection
+of the roof. For double security this contained yet an inner
+hiding-place. In the existing Brooke House are incorporated the
+modernised remains of this mansion.
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap04">CHAPTER IV</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+THE GUNPOWDER PLOT CONSPIRATORS
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Lord Vaux of Harrowden, Sir William Catesby of Ashby St. Ledgers,
+and Sir Thomas Tresham of Rushton Hall (all in Northamptonshire)
+were upon more than one occasion arraigned before the Court of the
+Star Chamber for harbouring Jesuits. The old mansions Ashby St.
+Ledgers and Rushton fortunately still remain intact and preserve
+many traditions of Romanist plots. Sir William Catesby's son Robert,
+the chief conspirator, is said to have held secret meetings in the
+curious oak-panelled room over the gate-house of the former, which
+goes by the name of "the Plot Room." Once upon a time it was provided
+with a secret means of escape. At Rushton Hall a hiding-place was
+discovered in 1832 behind a lintel over a doorway; it was full
+of bundles of manuscripts, prohibited books, and incriminating
+correspondence of the conspirator Tresham. Another place of
+concealment was situated in the chimney of the great hall and in
+this Father Oldcorn was hidden for a time. Gayhurst, or Gothurst,
+in Buckinghamshire, the seat of Sir Everard Digby, also remains
+intact, one of the finest late Tudor buildings in the country;
+unfortunately, however, only recently a remarkable "priest's
+hole" that was here has been destroyed in consequence of modern
+improvements. It was a double hiding-place, one situated beneath
+the other; the lower one being so arranged as to receive light and
+air from the bottom portion of a large mullioned window&mdash;a most
+ingenious device. A secret passage in the hall had communication
+with it, and entrance was obtained through part of the flooring
+of an apartment, the movable part of the boards revolving upon
+pivots and sufficiently solid to vanquish any suspicion as to
+a hollow space beneath.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig005.jpg" width="406" height="320" alt="Fig. 5"><br>
+ASHBY ST. LEDGERS, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig006.jpg" width="401" height="285" alt="Fig. 6"><br>
+THE PLOT ROOM, ASHBY ST. LEGERS
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+As may be supposed, tradition says that at the time of Digby's
+arrest he was dragged forth from this hole, but history shows
+that he was taken prisoner at Holbeach House (where, it will be
+remembered, the conspirators Catesby and Percy were shot), and
+led to execution. For a time Digby sought security at Coughton
+Court, the seat of the Throckmortons, in Warwickshire. The house of
+this old Roman Catholic family, of course, had its hiding-holes,
+one of which remains to this day. Holbeach as well as Hagley
+Hall, the homes of the Litteltons, have been rebuilt. The latter
+was pulled down in the middle of the eighteenth century. Here
+it was that Stephen Littleton and Robert Winter were captured
+through the treachery of the cook. Grant's house, Norbrook, in
+Warwickshire, has also given way to a modern one.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Ambrose Rookwood's seat, Coldham Hall, near Bury St. Edmunds,
+exists and retains its secret chapel and hiding-places. There are
+three of the latter; one of them, now a small withdrawing-room,
+is entered from the oak wainscoted hall. When the house was in
+the market a few years ago, the "priests' holes" duly figured in
+the advertisements with the rest of the apartments and offices.
+It read a little odd, this juxtaposition of modern conveniences
+with what is essentially romantic, and we simply mention the
+fact to show that the auctioneer is well aware of the monetary
+value of such things.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+At the time of the Gunpowder Conspiracy Rookwood rented Clopton
+Hall, near Stratford-on-Avon. This house also has its little
+chapel in the roof with adjacent "priests' holes," but many
+alterations have taken place from time to time. Who does not
+remember William Howitt's delightful description&mdash;or, to be correct,
+the description of a lady correspondent&mdash;of the old mansion before
+these restorations. "There was the old Catholic chapel," she wrote,
+"with a chaplain's room which had been walled up and forgotten till
+within the last few years. I went in on my hands and knees, for the
+entrance was very low. I recollect little in the chapel; but in
+the chaplain's room were old and I should think rare editions of
+many books, mostly folios. A large yellow paper copy of Dryden's
+<i>All for Love, or the World Well Lost</i>, date 1686, caught
+my eye, and is the only one I particularly remember."[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: Howitt's <i>Visits to Remarkable Places</i>.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Huddington Court, the picturesque old home of the Winters (of
+whom Robert and Thomas lost their lives for their share in the
+Plot), stands a few miles from Droitwich. A considerable quantity
+of arms and ammunition were stored in the hiding-places here in
+1605 in readiness for general rising.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig007.jpg" width="395" height="314" alt="Fig. 7"><br>
+HUDDINGTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig008.jpg" width="384" height="332" alt="Fig. 8"><br>
+ENTRANCE PORCH, HUDDINGTON COURT
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Two other houses may be mentioned in connection with the memorable
+Plot&mdash;houses that were rented by the conspirators as convenient
+places of rendezvous an account of their hiding-places and masked
+exits for escape. One of them stood in the vicinity of the Strand,
+in the fields behind St. Clement's Inn. Father Gerard had taken
+it some time previous to the discovery of the Plot, and with
+Owen's aid some very secure hiding-places were arranged. This he
+had done with two or three other London residences, so that he
+and his brother priests might use them upon hazardous occasions;
+and to one of these he owed his life when the hue and cry after
+him was at its highest pitch. By removing from one to the other
+they avoided detection, though they had many narrow escapes. One
+priest was celebrating Mass when the Lord Mayor and constables
+suddenly burst in. But the surprise party was disappointed: nothing
+could be detected beyond the smoke of the extinguished candles;
+and in addition to the hole where the fugitive crouched there
+were two other secret chambers, neither of which was discovered.
+On another occasion a priest was left shut up in a wall; his
+friends were taken prisoners, and he was in danger of starvation,
+until at length he was rescued from his perilous position, carried
+to one of the other houses, and again immured in the vault or
+chimney.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The other house was "White Webb's," on the confines of Enfield
+Chase. In the Record Office there is a document describing how,
+many Popish books and relics were discovered when the latter
+was searched. The building was full of trap-doors and secret
+passages. Some vestiges of the out-buildings of "White Webb's"
+may still be seen in a quaint little inn called "The King and
+Tinker."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But of all the narrow escapes perhaps Father Blount's experiences
+at Scotney Castle were the most thrilling. This old house of
+the Darrells, situated on the border of Kent and Sussex, like
+Hindlip and Braddocks and most of the residences of the Roman
+Catholic gentry, contained the usual lurking-places for priests.
+The structure as it now stands is in the main modern, having
+undergone from time to time considerable alterations. A vivid
+account of Blount's hazardous escape here is preserved among the
+muniments at Stonyhurst&mdash;a transcript of the original formerly
+at St. Omers.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+One Christmas night towards the close of Elizabeth's reign the
+castle was seized by a party of priest-hunters, who, with their
+usual mode of procedure, locked up the members of the family securely
+before starting on their operations. In the inner quadrangle of
+the mansion was a very remarkable and ingenious device. A large
+stone of the solid wall could be pushed aside. Though of immense
+weight, it was so nicely balanced and adjusted that it required
+only a slight pressure upon one side to effect an entrance to
+the hiding-place within. Those who have visited the grounds at
+Chatsworth may remember a huge piece of solid rock which can be
+swung round in the same easy manner. Upon the approach of the
+enemy, Father Blount and his servant hastened to the courtyard
+and entered the vault; but in their hurry to close the weighty
+door a small portion of one of their girdles got jammed in, so
+that a part was visible from the outside. Fortunately for the
+fugitives, someone in the secret, in passing the spot, happened
+to catch sight of this tell-tale fragment and immediately cut
+it off; but as a particle still showed, they called gently to
+those within to endeavour to pull it in, which they eventually
+succeeded in doing.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+At this moment the pursuivants were at work in another part of
+the castle, but hearing the voice in the courtyard, rushed into
+it and commenced battering the walls, and at times upon the very
+door of the hiding-place, which would have given way had not
+those within put their combined weight against it to keep it
+from yielding. It was a pitchy dark night, and it was pelting
+with rain, so after a time, discouraged at finding nothing and
+wet to the skin, the soldiers put off further search until the
+following morning, and proceeded to dry and refresh themselves
+by the fire in the great hall.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When all was at rest, Father Blount and his man, not caring to
+risk another day's hunting, cautiously crept forth bare-footed,
+and after managing to scale some high walls, dropt into the moat
+and swam across. And it was as well for them that they decided
+to quit their hiding-hole, for next morning it was discovered.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The fugitives found temporary security at another recusant house
+a few miles from Scotney, possibly the old half-timber house of
+Twissenden, where a secret chapel and adjacent "priests' holes"
+are still pointed out.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The original manuscript account of the search at Scotney was
+written by one of the Darrell family, who was in the castle at
+the time of the events recorded.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See Morris's <i>Troubles of our Catholic
+Forefathers.</i>]
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap05">CHAPTER V</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+HARVINGTON, UFTON, AND INGATESTONE
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We will now go in search of some of the most curious hiding-places
+in existence. There are numerous known examples all over the
+country, and perhaps as many again exist, which will preserve
+their secret for ever. For more than three hundred years they
+have remained buried, and unless some accident reveals their
+locked-up mysteries, they will crumble away with the walls which
+contain them; unless, indeed, fire, the doom of so many of our
+ancestral halls, reduces them to ashes and swallows up the weird
+stories they might have told. In many cases not until an ancient
+building is pulled down are such strange discoveries made; but,
+alas! there are as many instances where structural alterations
+have wantonly destroyed these interesting historical landmarks.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig009.jpg" width="248" height="301" alt="Fig. 9"><br>
+ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," HARVINGTON HALL
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig010.jpg" width="408" height="310" alt="Fig. 10"><br>
+HARVINGTON HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Unaccounted-for spaces, when detected, are readily utilised.
+Passages are bodily run through the heart of many a secret device,
+with little veneration for the mechanical ingenuity that has
+been displayed in their construction. The builder of to-day,
+as a rule, knows nothing of and cares less, for such things,
+and so they are swept away without a thought. To such vandals
+we can only emphasise the remarks we have already made about
+the market value of a "priest-hole" nowadays.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A little to the right of the Kidderminster road, and about two
+miles from the pretty village of Chaddesley Corbet, with its old
+timber houses and inn, stands the ghostly old hall of Harvington.
+The ancient red-brick pile rises out of its reed-grown moat with
+that air of mystery which age and seeming neglect only can impart.
+Coming upon it unexpectedly, especially towards dusk, one is
+struck with the strange, dignified melancholy pervading it. Surely
+Hood's <i>Haunted House</i> or Poe's <i>House of Usher</i> stands
+before us, and we cannot get away from the impression that a
+mystery is wrapped within its walls. Harvington Hall dates from
+the reign of Henry VIII., but it has undergone various changes,
+so it is difficult to affix any particular period or style to
+its architecture; indeed, it is this medley of different styles
+which forms such a poetically picturesque outline. In its day
+Harvington could doubtless hold its own with the finest mansions
+in the country, but now it is forgotten, deserted, and crumbling
+to pieces. Its very history appears to be lost to the world, as
+those who go to the county histories and general topographical
+works for information will find.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Inside the mansion, like the exterior, the hand of decay is
+perceptible on every side; the rooms are ruined, the windows
+broken, the floors unsafe (excepting, by the way, a small portion
+of the building which is habitable). A ponderous broad oak staircase
+leads to a dismantled state-room, shorn of the principal part of
+its panelling, carving, and chimney-pieces.[1] Other desolate
+apartments retain their names as if in mockery; "the drawing-room,"
+"the chapel," "Lady Yates's nursery," and so forth. At the top
+of the staircase, however, we must look around carefully, for
+beneath the stairs is a remarkable hiding-place.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: Most of the interior fittings were removed to Coughton
+Court, Warwickshire.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+With a slight stretch of the imagination we can see an indistinct
+form stealthily remove the floorboard of one of the stairs and
+creep beneath it. This particular step of a short flight running
+from the landing into a garret is, upon closer inspection, indeed
+movable, and beneath gapes a dark cavity about five feet square, on
+the floor of which still remains the piece of sedge matting whereon
+a certain Father Wall rested his aching limbs a few days prior to
+his capture and execution in August, 1679. The unfortunate man
+was taken at Rushock Court, a few miles away where he was traced
+after leaving Harvington. There is a communication between the
+hiding-place and "the banqueting-room" through, a small concealed
+aperture in the wainscoting large enough to admit of a tube,
+through which a straw could be thrust for the unhappy occupant
+to suck up any liquid his friends might be able to supply.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In a gloomy corridor leading from the tower to "the reception-room"
+is another "priest's hole" beneath the floor, and entered by a
+trap-door artfully hidden in the boards; this black recess is
+some seven feet in depth, and can be made secure from within.
+Supposing the searchers had tracked a fugitive priest as far
+as this corridor, the odds are in favour that they would have
+passed over his head in their haste to reach the tower, where
+they would make sure, in their own minds at least, of discovering
+him. Again, here there is a communication with the outside world.
+An oblong aperture in the top oak beam of the entrance gateway
+to the house, measuring about four inches across, is the secret
+opening&mdash;small enough to escape the most inquisitive eye, yet
+large enough to allow of a written note to pass between the captive
+and those upon the alert watching his interests.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: N.B.&mdash;In addition to the above hiding-places at
+Harvington, one was discovered so recently as 1894; at least,
+so we have been informed. This was some years after our visit
+to the old Hall.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A subterranean passage is said to run under the moat from a former
+hiding-place, but this is doubtful; at any rate, there are no
+evidences of it nowadays.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig011.jpg" width="410" height="327" alt="Fig. 11"><br>
+UFTON COURT, BERKSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig012.jpg" width="409" height="324" alt="Fig. 12"><br>
+GARDEN TERRACE, UFTON COURT
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Altogether, Harvington is far from cheerful, even to a pond hard
+by called "Gallows Pool"! The tragic legend associated with this
+is beyond the province of the present work, so we will bid adieu
+to this weird old hall, and turn our attention to another obscure
+house situated in the south-east corner of Berkshire.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The curious, many-gabled mansion Ufton Court both from its secluded
+situation and quaint internal construction, appears to have been
+peculiarly suitable for the secretion of persecuted priests. Here
+are ample means for concealment and escape into the surrounding
+woods; and so carefully have the ingenious bolts and locks of
+the various hiding-places been preserved, that one would almost
+imagine that there was still actual necessity for their use in
+these matter-of-fact days!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A remarkable place for concealment exists in one of the gables
+close to the ceiling. It is triangular in shape, and is opened
+by a spring-bolt that can be unlatched by pulling a string which
+runs through a tiny hole pierced in the framework of the door of
+the adjoining room. The door of the hiding-place swings upon a
+pivot, and externally is thickly covered with plaster, so as to
+resemble the rest of the wall, and is so solid that when sounded
+there is no hollow sound from the cavity behind, where, no doubt
+the crucifix and sacred vessels were secreted.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig013.jpg" width="416" height="271" alt="Fig. 13"><br>
+HIDING-PLACE, UFTON COURT
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig014.jpg" width="269" height="363" alt="Fig. 14"><br>
+HIDING PLACE, UFTON COURT
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Not far off, in an upper garret, is a hiding-place in the thickness
+of the wall, large enough to contain a man standing upright.
+Like the other, the door, or entrance, forms part of the plaster
+wall, intersected by thick oak beams, into which it exactly fits,
+disguising any appearance of an opening. Again, in one of the
+passages of this curious old mansion are further evidences of
+the hardships to which Romish priests were subjected&mdash;a trap in
+the floor, which can only be opened by pulling up what exteriorly
+appears to be the head of one of the nails of the flooring; by
+raising this a spring is released and a trap-door opened, revealing
+a large hole with a narrow ladder leading down into it. When
+this hiding-place was discovered in 1830, its contents were
+significant&mdash;<i>viz.</i> a crucifix and two ancient petronels.
+Apartments known as "the chapel" and "the priest's vestry" are
+still pointed out. The walls throughout the house appear to be
+intersected with passages and masked spaces, and old residents
+claim to have worked their way by these means right through from
+the garrets to the basement, though now the several hiding-places
+do not communicate one with another. There are said to be no
+less than twelve places of concealment in various parts of the
+building. A shaft in the cellar is supposed to be one of the
+means of exit from "the dining-room," and at the back of the
+house a subterranean passage may still be traced a considerable
+distance under the terrace.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig015.jpg" width="411" height="287" alt="Fig. 15"><br>
+INGATESTONE HALL, ESSEX
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig016.jpg" width="409" height="276" alt="Fig. 16"><br>
+INGATESTONE HALL
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+An interesting discovery was made some years ago at Ingatestone
+Hall, Essex, the ancient seat of the Petres. The late Rev. Canon
+Last, who had resided there as private chaplain for over sixty
+years, described to us the incidents of this curious "find," to
+which he was an eye-witness. Some of the floor-boards in the
+south-east corner of a small ante-room adjoining what was once
+"the host's bedroom," facing the south front, broke away, rotten
+with age, while some children were playing there. These being
+removed, a second layer of boards was brought to light within
+a foot of the old flooring, and in this a trap-door was found
+which, when opened, discovered a large "priest's hole," measuring
+fourteen feet long, ten feet high, and two feet wide. A twelve-step
+ladder led down into it, and the floor being on a level with the
+basement of the house was covered with a layer of dry sand to
+the depth of nearly a foot, so as to absorb any moisture from
+the ground.[1] In the sand a few bones of a bird were found,
+possibly the remains of food supplied to some unfortunate priest.
+Those who climb down into this hole will find much that is
+interesting to repay them their trouble. From the wall projects
+a candle-holder, rudely modelled out of clay. An examination of
+the brick-work in the interior of the "priest's hole" proves
+it to be of later construction than the rest of the house (which
+dates from the early part of the sixteenth century), so in all
+likelihood "Little John" was the manufacturer.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: At Moorcroft House, near Hillingdon, Middlesex,
+now modernised and occupied as a private lunatic asylum, ten
+priests were once concealed for four days in a hiding-place,
+the floor of which was covered some inches in water. This was
+one of the many comforts of a "priest's hole"!]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Standing in the same position as when first opened, and supported
+by two blocks of oak, is an old chest or packing-case made of
+yew, covered with leather, and bound with bands of iron, wherein
+formerly the vestments, utensils, etc., for the Mass were kept.
+Upon it, in faded and antiquated writing, was the following
+direction: "For the Right Hon. the Lady Petre at Ingatestone
+Hall, in Essex." The Petres had quitted the old mansion as a
+residence for considerably over a century when the discovery was
+made.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig017.jpg" width="575" height="358" alt="Fig. 17"><br>
+PRIEST'S HOLE, SAWSTON HALL
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap06">CHAPTER VI</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+COMPTON WINYATES, SALFORD PRIOR, SAWSTON, OXBURGH, PARHAM, PAXHILL,
+ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Of all the ancient mansions in the United Kingdom, and there is
+still, happily, a large selection, none perhaps is so picturesque and
+quaintly original in its architecture as the secluded Warwickshire
+house Compton Winyates. The general impression of its vast
+complication of gable ends and twisted chimneys is that some
+enchanted palace has found its way out of one of the fairy-tale
+books of our early youth and concealed itself deep down in a
+sequestered hollow among the woods and hills. We say concealed
+itself, for indeed it is no easy matter to find it, for anything
+in the shape of a road seems rather to lead <i>away from</i>,
+than <i>to</i> it; indeed, there is no direct road from anywhere,
+and if we are fortunate enough to alight upon a footpath, that
+also in a very short time fades away into oblivion! So solitary
+also is the valley in which the mansion lies and so shut in with
+thick clustering trees, that one unacquainted with the locality
+might pass within fifty yards of it over and over again without
+observing a trace of it. When, however, we do discover the beautiful
+old structure, we are well repaid for what trouble we may have
+encountered. To locate the spot within a couple of miles, we
+may state that Brailes is its nearest village; the nearest town
+is Banbury, some nine miles away to the east.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Perhaps if we were to analyse the peculiar charm this venerable
+pile conveys, we should find that it is the wonderful <i>colour</i>,
+the harmonies of greys and greens and reds which pervade its
+countless chimney clusters and curious step-gables. We will be
+content, however, with the fascinating results, no matter how
+accomplished, without inquiring into the why and wherefore; and
+pondering over the possibilities of the marvellous in such a
+building see, if the interior can carry out such a supposition.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig018.jpg" width="395" height="201" alt="Fig. 18"><br>
+SCOTNEY HALL, SUSSEX
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig019.jpg" width="408" height="344" alt="Fig. 19"><br>
+COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Wending our way to the top of the house, past countless old-world
+rooms and corridors, we soon discover evidences of the days of
+priest-hunting. A "Protestant" chapel is on the ground floor
+(with a grotesquely carved screen of great beauty), but up in
+the roof we discover another&mdash;a "Popish" chapel. From this there
+are numerous ways of escape, by staircases and passages leading
+in all directions, for even in the almost impenetrable seclusion
+of this house the profoundest secrecy was necessary for those
+who wished to celebrate the rites of the forbidden religion.
+Should the priest be surprised and not have time to descend one
+of the many staircases and effect his escape by the ready means
+in the lower part of the house, there are secret closets between
+the timber beams of the roof and the wainscot into which he could
+creep.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Curious rooms run along each side in the roof round the quadrangle,
+called "the barracks," into which it would be possible to pack
+away a whole regiment of soldiers. Not far away are "the false
+floors," a typical Amy Robsart death-trap!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A place of security here, once upon a time, could only be reached
+by a ladder; later, however, it was made easier of access by a
+dark passage, but it was as secure as ever from intrusion. The
+fugitive had the ready means of isolating himself by removing
+a large portion of the floor-boards; supposing, therefore, his
+lurking-place had been traced, he had only to arrange this deadly
+gap, and his pursuers would run headlong to their fate.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Many other strange rooms there are, not the least interesting
+of which is a tiny apartment away from everywhere called "the
+Devil's chamber," and another little chamber whose window is
+<i>invariably found open in the morning, though securely fastened
+on the previous night!</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Various finds have been made from time to time at Compton Winyates.
+Not many years ago a bricked-up space was found in a wall containing
+a perfect skeleton!&mdash;at another an antique box full of papers
+belonging to the past history of the family (the Comptons) was
+discovered in a secret cavity beneath one of the windows.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig020.jpg" width="371" height="403" alt="Fig. 20"><br>
+MINSTREL'S GALLERY, COMPTON WINYATES
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The "false floors" to which we have alluded suggests a hiding-place
+that was put to very practical use by two old maiden ladies some
+years ago at an ancient building near Malvern, Pickersleigh Court.
+Each night before retiring to rest some floor-boards of a passage,
+originally the entrance to a "priest's hole," were removed. This
+passage led to their bedroom, so that they were protected much in
+the same way as the fugitive at Compton Winyates, by a yawning
+gap. Local tradition does not record how many would-be burglars
+were trapped in this way, but it is certain that should anyone
+ever have ventured along that passage, they would have been
+precipitated with more speed than ceremony into a cellar below.
+Pickersleigh, it may be pointed out, is erroneously shown in
+connection with the wanderings of Charles II. after the battle
+Worcester.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See <i>The Flight of the King.</i>]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Salford Prior Hall (otherwise known as "the Nunnery," or Abbots
+Salford), not far from Evesham, is another mansion remarkable
+for its picturesqueness as well as for its capacity for hiding.
+It not only has its Roman Catholic chapel, but a resident priest
+holds services there to this day. Up in the garret is the "priest's
+hole," ready, it would seem, for some present emergency, so well
+is it concealed and in such perfect working order; and even when
+its position is pointed out, nothing is to be seen but the most
+innocent-looking of cupboards. By removing a hidden peg, however,
+the whole back of it, shelves and all, swings backwards into a
+dismal recess some four feet in depth. This deceitful swing door
+may be secured on the inside by a stout wooden bolt provided
+for that purpose.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig021.jpg" width="347" height="269" alt="Fig. 21"><br>
+COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig022.jpg" width="409" height="285" alt="Fig. 22"><br>
+SAWSTON HALL, CAMBRIDGESHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig023.jpg" width="411" height="348" alt="Fig. 23"><br>
+PICKERSLEIGH COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig024.jpg" width="416" height="328" alt="Fig. 24"><br>
+SALFORD PRIOR HALL, WARWICKSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig025.jpg" width="409" height="321" alt="Fig. 25"><br>
+SALFORD PRIOR HALL
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig026.jpg" width="409" height="330" alt="Fig. 26"><br>
+HIDING-PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig027.jpg" width="413" height="309" alt="Fig. 27"><br>
+HIDING-PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR (SHEWING ENTRANCE)
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Another hiding place as artfully contrived and as little changed
+since the day it was manufactured is one at Sawston, the ancestral
+seat of the old family of Huddleston. Sawston Hall is a typical
+Elizabethan building. The one which preceded it was burnt to the
+ground by the adherents of Lady Jane Grey, as the Huddleston
+of that day, upon the death of King Edward VI., received his
+sister Mary under his protection, and contrived her escape to
+Framlingham Castle, where she was carried in disguise, riding
+pillion behind a servant.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The secret chamber, as at Harvington, is on the top landing of
+the staircase, and the entrance is so cleverly arranged that
+it slants into the masonry of a circular tower without showing
+the least perceptible sign from the exterior of a space capable
+of holding a baby, far less a man. A particular board in the
+landing is raised, and beneath it, in a corner of the cavity,
+is found a stone slab containing a circular aperture, something
+after the manner of our modern urban receptacles for coal. From
+this hole a tunnel slants downwards at an angle into the adjacent
+wall, where there is an apartment some twelve feet in depth,
+and wide enough to contain half a dozen people&mdash;that is to say,
+not bulky ones, for the circular entrance is far from large.
+Blocks of oak fixed upon the inside of the movable floor-board
+fit with great nicety into their firm oak sockets in the beams,
+which run at right angles and support the landing, so that the
+opening is so massive and firm that, unless pointed out, the
+particular floor-board could never be detected, and when secured
+from the inside would defy a battering-ram.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig028.jpg" width="438" height="582" alt="Fig. 28"><br>
+OXBURGH HALL, NORFOLK
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The Huddlestons, or rather their connections the Thornboroughs,
+have an old house at Leyburn, in Yorkshire, named "The Grove,"
+which also contained its hiding-place, but unfortunately this is
+one of those instances where alterations and modern conveniences
+have destroyed what can never be replaced. The priest, Father
+John Huddleston (who aided King Charles II. to escape, and who,
+it will be remembered, was introduced to that monarch's death-bed
+by way of a <i>secret staircase</i> in the palace of Whitehall),
+lived in this house some time during the seventeenth century.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+One of the most ingenious hiding-places extant is to be seen
+at Oxburgh Hall, near Stoke Ferry, the grand old moated mansion
+of the ancient Bedingfield family. In solidity and compactness
+it is unique. Up in one of the turrets of the entrance gateway
+is a tiny closet, the floor of which is composed of brickwork
+fixed into a wooden frame. Upon pressure being applied to one
+side of this floor, the opposite side heaves up with a groan at
+its own weight. Beneath lies a hollow, seven feet square, where
+a priest might lie concealed with the gratifying knowledge that,
+however the ponderous trap-door be hammered from above, there
+would be no tell-tale hollowness as a response. Having bolted
+himself in, he might to all intents and purposes be imbedded in
+a rock (though truly a toad so situated is not always safe from
+intrusion). Three centuries have rolled away and thirteen sovereigns
+have reigned since the construction of this hiding-place, but the
+mechanism of this masterpiece of ingenuity remains as perfect
+as if it had been made yesterday! Those who may be privileged
+with permission to inspect the interesting hall will find other
+surprises where least expected. An oak-panelled passage upon the
+basement of the aforesaid entrance gateway contains a secret
+door that gives admittance into the living-rooms in the most
+eccentric manner.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A priest's hole beneath the floor of a small oratory adjoining
+"the chapel" (now a bedroom) at Borwick Hall, Lancashire, has an
+opening devised much in the same fashion as that at Oxburgh. By
+leaning his weight upon a certain portion of the boards, a fugitive
+could slide into a convenient gap, while the floor would adjust
+itself above his head and leave no trace of his where-abouts.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig029.jpg" width="590" height="342" alt="Fig. 29"><br>
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, PARHAM HALL, SUSSEX
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Window-seats not uncommonly formed the entrance to holes beneath
+the level of the floor. In the long gallery of Parham Hall, Sussex,
+an example of this may be seen. It is not far from "the chapel,"
+and the officiating priest in this instance would withdraw a
+panel whose position is now occupied by a door; but the entrance
+to the hiding-place within the projecting bay of the window is
+much the same as it ever was. After the failure of the Babington
+conspiracy one Charles Paget was concealed here for some days.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The Tudor house of Tusmore, in Oxfordshire, also had a secret
+chamber, approached through a fixed settle in "the parlour" window.
+A tradition in the neighbourhood says that the great fish-pond
+near the site of the old house was dug by a priest and his servant
+in the days of religious persecution, constituting their daily
+occupation for twelve years!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Paxhill, in Sussex, the ancient seat of the Bordes, has a priest's
+hole behind a window-shutter, and it is large enough to hold several
+persons; there is another large hiding-hole in the ceiling of a
+room on the ground floor, which is reached through a trap-door
+in the floor above. It is provided with a stone bench.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In castles and even ecclesiastical buildings sections of massive
+stone columns have been found to rotate and reveal a hole in an
+adjacent wall&mdash;even an altar has occasionally been put to use
+for concealing purposes. At Naworth Castle, for instance, in
+"Lord William's Tower," there is an oratory behind the altar, in
+which fugitives not only could be hidden but could see anything
+that transpired in its vicinity. In Chichester Cathedral there is
+a room called Lollards' Prison, which is approached by a sliding
+panel in the old consistory-room situated over the south porch.
+The manor house of Great Chalfield, in Wiltshire, has a unique
+device by which any suspected person could be watched. The eye
+of a stone mask in the masonry is hollowed out and through this
+a suspicious lord of the manor could, unseen, be a witness to
+any treachery on the part of his retainers or guests.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig030.jpg" width="416" height="279" alt="Fig. 30"><br>
+PAXHILL, SUSSEX
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig031.jpg" width="401" height="306" alt="Fig. 31"><br>
+CLEEVE PRIOR MANOR HOUSE, WORCESTERSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The old moated hall Baddesley Clinton, in Warwickshire, the ancient
+seat of the Ferrers, has a stone well or shaft near "the chapel."
+There were formerly projections or steps by which a fugitive
+could reach a secret passage extending round nearly two sides
+of the house to a small water-gate by the moat, where a boat
+was kept in readiness. Adjoining the "banqueting-room" on the
+east side of the building is a secret chamber six feet square
+with a bench all round it. It is now walled up, but the narrow
+staircase, behind the wainscoting, leading up to it is unaltered.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Cleeve Prior Manor House, in Worcestershire (though close upon
+the border of Warwickshire)) famous for its unique yew avenue,
+has a priest's hole, a cramped space five feet by two, in which
+it is necessary to lie down. As at Ingatestone, it is below the
+floor of a small chamber adjoining the principal bedroom, and
+is entered by removing one of the floor-boards.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Wollas Hall, an Elizabethan mansion on Bredon Hill, near Pershore
+(held uninterruptedly by the Hanford family since the sixteenth
+century), has a chapel in the upper part of the house, and a
+secret chamber, or priest's hole, provided with a diminutive
+fire-place. When the officiating priest was about to celebrate
+Mass, it was the custom here to spread linen upon the hedges as
+a sign to those in the adjacent villages who wished to attend.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A hiding-place at Treago, Herefordshire (an unique specimen of
+a thirteenth-century fortified mansion) inhabited by the Mynor
+family for more than four hundred years), has quite luxurious
+accommodation&mdash;a sleeping-place and a reading-desk. It is called
+"Pope's Hole." The walls on the south-east side of the house are
+of immense thickness, and there are many indications of secret
+passages within them.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig032.jpg" width="363" height="456" alt="Fig. 32"><br>
+BADDESLEY CLINTON, WARWICKSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Some fifty years ago a hiding-hole was opened in a chimney adjoining
+"the chapel" of Lydiate Hall, Lancashire; and since then one
+was discovered behind the rafters of the roof. Another ancient
+house close by contained a priest's hole where were found some
+religious books and an old carved oak chair.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Myddleton Lodge, near Ilkley, had a secret chapel in the roof,
+which is now divided up into several apartments. In the grounds
+is to be seen a curious maze of thickly planted evergreens in
+the shape of a cross. From the fact that at one end remain three
+wooden crosses, there is but little doubt that at the time of
+religious persecution the privacy of the maze was used for secret
+worship.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When Slindon House, Sussex, was undergoing some restorations, a
+"priest's hole" communicating with the roof was discovered. It
+contained some ancient devotional books, and against the walls
+were hung stout leathern straps, by which a person could let
+himself down.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The internal arrangements at Plowden Hall, Shropshire, give one
+a good idea of the feeling of insecurity that must have been
+so prevalent in those "good old days." Running from the top of
+the house there is in the thickness of the wall, a concealed
+circular shoot about a couple of feet in diameter, through which
+a person could lower himself, if necessary, to the ground floor
+by the aid of a rope. Here also, beneath the floor-boards of a
+cupboard in one of the bedrooms, is a concealed chamber with a
+fixed shelf, presumably provided to act as a sort of table for
+the unfortunate individual who was forced to occupy the narrow
+limits of the room. Years before this hiding-place was opened
+to the light of day (in the course of some alterations to the
+house), its existence and actual position was well known; still,
+strange to say, the way into it had never been discovered.
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap07">CHAPTER VII</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+KING-HUNTING: BOSCOBEL, MOSELEY, TRENT, AND HEALE
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When the Civil War was raging, many a defeated cavalier owed
+his preservation to the "priests' holes" and secret chambers
+of the old Roman Catholic houses all over the country. Did not
+Charles II. himself owe his life to the conveniences offered
+at Boscobel, Moseley, Trent, and Heale? We have elsewhere[1]
+gone minutely into the young king's hair-breadth adventures;
+but the story is so closely connected with the present subject
+that we must record something of his sojourn at these four old
+houses, as from an historical point of view they are of exceptional
+interest, if one but considers how the order of things would have
+been changed had either of these hiding-places been discovered
+at the time "his Sacred Majesty" occupied them. It is vain to
+speculate upon the probabilities; still, there is no ignoring
+the fact that had Charles been captured he would have shared
+the fate of his father.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See <i>The Flight of the King</i>.]
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig033.jpg" width="429" height="663" alt="Fig. 33"><br>
+HIDING-PLACE BENEATH "THE CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL, SALOP
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig034.jpg" width="237" height="409" alt="Fig. 34"><br>
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE IN "THE GARRET" OR "CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig035.jpg" width="228" height="411" alt="Fig. 35"><br>
+HIDING-PLACE IN "THE SQUIRE'S BEDROOM," BOSCOBEL
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig036.jpg" width="398" height="354" alt="Fig. 36"><br>
+SECRET PANEL, TRENT HOUSE, SOMERSETSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig037.jpg" width="380" height="291" alt="Fig. 37"><br>
+BOSCOBEL, SALOP
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig038.jpg" width="266" height="415" alt="Fig. 38"><br>
+HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig039.jpg" width="411" height="373" alt="Fig. 39"><br>
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig040.jpg" width="413" height="282" alt="Fig. 40"><br>
+TRENT HOUSE IN 1864
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig041.jpg" width="415" height="334" alt="Fig. 41"><br>
+HEALE HOUSE, WILTSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+After the defeat of Wigan, the gallant Earl of Derby sought refuge
+at the isolated, wood-surrounded hunting-lodge of Boscobel, and
+after remaining there concealed for two days, proceeded to Gatacre
+Park, now rebuilt, but then and for long after famous for its
+secret chambers. Here he remained hidden prior to the disastrous
+battle of Worcester.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Upon the close of that eventful third of September, 1651, the
+Earl, at the time that the King and his advisers knew not which
+way to turn for safety, recounted his recent experiences, and
+called attention to the loyalty of the brothers Penderel. It
+was speedily resolved, therefore, to hasten northwards towards
+Brewood Forest, upon the borders of Staffordshire and Salop.
+"As soon as I was disguised," says Charles, "I took with me a
+country fellow whose name was Richard Penderell.... He was a
+Roman Catholic, and I chose to trust them [the Penderells] because
+I knew they had hiding-holes for priests that I thought I might
+make use of in case of need." Before taking up his quarters in
+the house, however, the idea of escaping into Wales occured to
+Charles, so, when night set in, he quitted Boscobel Wood, where
+he had been hidden all the day, and started on foot with his
+rustic guide in a westerly direction with the object of getting
+over the river Severn, but various hardships and obstacles induced
+Penderel to suggest a halt at a house at Madeley, near the river,
+where they might rest during the day and continue the journey
+under cover of darkness on the following night; the house further
+had the attraction of "priests' holes." "We continued our way on
+to the village upon the Severn," resumes the King, "where the
+fellow told me there was an honest gentleman, one Mr. Woolfe,
+that lived in that town, where I might be with great safety, for
+he had hiding-holes for priests.... So I came into the house a
+back way, where I found Mr. Woolfe, an old gentleman, who told me
+he was very sorry to see me there, because there was two companies
+of the militia foot at that time in arms in the town, and kept a
+guard at the ferry, to examine everybody that came that way in
+expectation of catching some that might be making their escape
+that way; and that he durst not put me into any of the hiding-holes
+of his house, because they had been discovered, and consequently,
+if any search should be made, they would certainly repair to
+these holes, and that therefore I had no other way of security
+but to go into his barn and there lie behind his corn and hay."
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig042.jpg" width="416" height="246" alt="Fig. 42"><br>
+MADELEY COURT, SHROPSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig043.jpg" width="413" height="347" alt="Fig. 43"><br>
+THE COURTYARD, MADELEY COURT
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig044.jpg" width="413" height="292" alt="Fig. 44"><br>
+MADELEY COURT
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig045.jpg" width="408" height="391" alt="Fig. 45"><br>
+ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," THE UPPER HOUSE, MADELEY
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The Madeley "priest's hole" which was considered unsafe is still
+extant. It is in one of the attics of "the Upper House," but
+the entrance is now very palpable. Those who are curious enough
+to climb up into this black hole will discover a rude wooden
+bench within it&mdash;a luxury compared with some hiding-places!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The river Severn being strictly guarded everywhere, Charles and
+his companions retraced their steps the next night towards Boscobel.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+After a day spent up in the branches of the famous <i>Royal Oak</i>,
+the fugitive monarch made his resting-place the secret chamber
+behind the wainscoting of what is called "the Squire's Bedroom."
+There is another hiding-place, however, hard by in a garret which
+may have been the one selected. The latter lies beneath the floor
+of this garret, or "Popish chapel," as it was once termed. At the
+top of a flight of steps leading to it is a small trap-door, and
+when this is removed a step-ladder may be seen leading down into
+the recess.[1] The other place behind the wainscot is situated
+in a chimney stack and is more roomy in its proportions. Here
+again is an inner hiding-place, entered through a trap-door in
+the floor, with a narrow staircase leading to an exit in the
+basement. So much for Boscobel.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: The hiding-place in the garret measures about 5 feet
+2 inches in depth by 3-1/2 or 4-1/2 feet in width.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Moseley Hall is thus referred to by the King: "I... sent Penderell's
+brother to Mr. Pitchcroft's [Whitgreaves] to know whether my
+Lord Wilmot was there or no, and had word brought me by him at
+night that my lord was there, that there was a <i>very secure
+hiding-hole</i> in Mr. Pitchcroft's house, and that he desired
+me to come thither to him."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It was while at Moseley the King had a very narrow escape. A
+search-party arrived on the scene and demanded admittance. Charles's
+host himself gives the account of this adventure: "In the afternoon
+[the King] reposing himself on his bed in the parlour chamber
+and inclineing to sleep, as I was watching at the window, one of
+the neighbours I saw come running in, who told the maid soldiers
+were comeing to search, who thereupon presentlie came running to
+the staires head, and cried, 'Soldiers, soldiers are coming,'
+which his majestie hearing presentlie started out of his bedd and
+run to <i>his privacie, where I secured him the best I could</i>,
+and then leaving him, went forth into the street to meet the
+soldiers who were comeing to search, who as soon as they saw
+and knew who I was were readie to pull mee to pieces, and take
+me away with them, saying I was come from the Worcester fight;
+but after much dispute with them, and by the neighbours being
+informed of their false information that I was not there, being
+very ill a great while, they let mee goe; but till I saw them
+clearly all gone forth of the town I returned not; but as soon
+as they were, I returned to release him and did acquaint him
+with my stay, which hee thought long, and then hee began to bee
+very chearful again.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"In the interim, whilst I was disputing with the soldiers, one
+of them called Southall came in the ffould and asked a smith,
+as hee was shooing horses there, if he could tell where the King
+was, and he should have "a thousand pounds for his payns....
+This Southall was a great priest-catcher.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig046.jpg" width="391" height="637" alt="Fig. 46"><br>
+"PRIEST'S HOLE," MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The hiding-place is located beneath the floor of a cupboard,
+adjoining the quaint old panelled bedroom the King occupied while
+he was at Moseley. Even "the merry monarch" must have felt depressed
+in such a dismal hole as this, and we can picture his anxious
+expression, as he sat upon the rude seat of brick which occupies
+one end of it, awaiting the result of the sudden alarm. The cupboard
+orginally was screened with wainscoting, a panel of which could
+be opened and closed by a spring. Family tradition also says
+there was a outlet from the hiding-place in a brew-house chimney.
+Situated in a gable end of the building, near the old chapel,
+in a garret, there is another "priest's hole" large enough only
+to admit of a person lying down full length.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Before the old seat of the Whitgreaves was restored some fifteen
+or twenty years ago it was one of the most picturesque half-timber
+houses, not only in Staffordshire, but in England. It had remained
+practically untouched since the day above alluded to (September
+9th, 1651).
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Before reaching Trent, in Somersetshire, the much sought-for king
+had many hardships to undergo and many strange experiences. We
+must, however, confine our remarks to those of the old buildings
+which offered him an asylum that could boast a hiding-place.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Trent House was one of these. The very fact that it originally
+belonged to the recusant Gerard family is sufficient evidence.
+From the Gerards it passed by marriage to the Wyndhams, who were
+in residence in the year we speak of. That his Majesty spent much
+of his time in the actual hiding-place at Trent is very doubtful.
+Altogether he was safely housed here for over a fortnight, and
+during that time doubtless occasional alarms drove him, as at
+Moseley, into his sanctuary; but a secluded room was set apart
+for his use, where he had ample space to move about, and from
+which he could reach his hiding-place at a moment's notice. The
+black oak panelling and beams of this cosy apartment, with its
+deep window recesses, readily carries the mind back to the time
+when its royal inmate wiled away the weary hours by cooking his
+meals and amusing himself as best he could&mdash;indeed a hardship
+for one, such as he, so fond of outdoor exercise.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Close to the fireplace are two small, square secret panels, at one
+time used for the secretion of sacred books or vessels, valuables
+or compromising deeds, but pointed out to visitors as a kind of
+buttery hatch through which Charles II. received his food. The
+King by day, also according to local tradition, is said to have
+kept up communication with his friends in the house by means
+of a string suspended in the kitchen chimney. That apartment is
+immediately beneath, and has a fireplace of huge dimensions.
+An old Tudor doorway leading into this part of the house is said
+to have been screened from observation by a load of hay.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Now for the hiding-place. Between this and "my Lady Wyndham's
+chamber" (the aforesaid panelled room that was kept exclusively
+for Charles's use) was a small ante-room, long since demolished,
+its position being now occupied by a rudely constructed staircase,
+from the landing of which the hiding-place is now entered. The
+small secret apartment is approached through a triangular hole
+in the wall, something after the fashion of that at Ufton Court;
+but when one has squeezed through this aperture he will find
+plenty of room to stretch his limbs. The hole, which was close
+up against the rafters of the roof of the staircase landing,
+when viewed from the inside of the apartment, is situated at the
+base of a blocked-up stone Tudor doorway. Beneath the boards of
+the floor&mdash;as at Boscobel and Moseley&mdash;is an inner hiding-place,
+from which it was formerly possible to find an exit through the
+brew-house chimney.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It was from Trent House that Charles visited the Dorsetshire
+coast in the hopes of getting clear of England; but a complication
+of misadventures induced him to hasten back with all speed to
+the pretty little village of Trent, to seek once, more shelter
+beneath the roof of the Royalist Colonel Wyndham.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+To resume the King's account:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"As soon as we came to Frank Windham's I sent away presently to
+Colonel Robert Philips [Phelips], who lived then at Salisbury, to
+see what he could do for the getting me a ship; which he undertook
+very willingly, and had got one at Southampton, but by misfortune
+she was amongst others prest to transport their soldiers to Jersey,
+by which she failed us also.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"Upon this, I sent further into Sussex, where Robin Philips knew
+one Colonel Gunter, to see whether he could hire a ship anywhere
+upon that coast. And not thinking it convenient for me to stay
+much longer at Frank Windham's (where I had been in all about a
+fortnight, and was become known to very many), I went directly
+away to a widow gentlewoman's house, one Mrs. Hyde, some four
+or five miles from Salisbury, where I came into the house just
+as it was almost dark, with Robin Philips only, not intending
+at first to make myself known. But just as I alighted at the
+door, Mrs. Hyde knew me, though she had never seen me but once
+in her life, and that was with the king, my father, in the army,
+when we marched by Salisbury some years before, in the time of
+the war; but she, being a discreet woman, took no notice at that
+time of me, I passing only for a friend of Robin Philips', by
+whose advice I went thither.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"At supper there was with us Frederick Hyde, since a judge, and
+his sister-in-law, a widow, Robin Philips, myself, and Dr. Henshaw
+[Henchman], since Bishop of London, whom I had appointed to meet
+me there.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"While we were at slipper, I observed Mrs. Hyde and her brother
+Frederick to look a little earnestly at me, which led me to believe
+they might know me. But I was not at all startled by it, it having
+been my purpose to let her know who I was; and, accordingly,
+after supper Mrs. Hyde came to me, and I discovered myself to
+her, who told me she had a very safe place to hide me in, till
+we knew whether our ship was ready or no. But she said it was
+not safe for her to trust anybody but herself and her sister,
+and therefore advised me to take my horse next morning and make
+as if I quitted the house, and return again about night; for she
+would order it so that all her servants and everybody should
+be out of the house but herself and her sister, whose name I
+remember not.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"So Robin Philips and I took our horses and went as far as
+Stonehenge; and there we staid looking upon the stones for some
+time, and returned back again to Hale [Heale] (the place where
+Mrs. Hyde lived) about the hour she appointed; where I went up
+into the hiding-hole, that was very convenient and safe, and
+staid there all alone (Robin Philips then going away to Salisbury)
+some four or five days."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Both exterior and interior of Heale House as it stands to-day
+point to a later date than 1651, though there are here and there
+vestiges of architecture anterior to the middle of the seventeenth
+century; the hiding-place, however, is not among these, and looks
+nothing beyond a very deep cupboard adjoining one of the bedrooms,
+with nothing peculiar to distinguish it from ordinary cupboards.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But for all its modern innovations there is something about Heale
+which suggests a house with a history. Whether it is its environment
+of winding river and ancient cedar-trees, its venerable stables
+and imposing entrance gate, or the fact that it is one of those
+distinguished houses that have saved the life of an English king,
+we will not undertake to fathom.
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap08">CHAPTER VIII</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+CAVALIER-HUNTING, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+An old mansion in the precincts of the cathedral at Salisbury is
+said to have been a favourite hiding-place for fugitive cavaliers
+at the time of the Civil War. There is an inn immediately opposite
+this house, just outside the close, where the landlord (formerly a
+servant to the family who lived in the mansion) during the troublous
+times acted as a secret agent for those who were concealed, and
+proved invaluable by conveying messages and in other ways aiding
+those Royalists whose lives were in danger.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig047.jpg" width="403" height="515" alt="Fig. 47"><br>
+SECRET PANEL AT SALISBURY
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+There are still certain "priests' holes" in the house, but the most
+interesting hiding-place is situated in the most innocent-looking
+of summer-houses in the grounds. The interior of this little
+structure is wainscoted round with large panels. like most of
+the summer-houses, pavilions, or music-rooms of the seventeenth
+century, and nothing uncommon or mysterious was discovered until
+some twenty-five years ago. By the merest accident one of the
+panels was found to open, revealing what appeared to be an ordinary
+cupboard with shelves. Further investigations, however, proved
+its real object. By sliding one of the shelves out of the grooves
+into which it is fixed, a very narrow, disguised door, a little
+over a foot in width, in the side of the cupboard and in the
+thickness of the wall can be opened. This again reveals a narrow
+passage, or staircase, leading up to the joists above the ceiling,
+and thence to a recess situated immediately behind the carved
+ornamental facing over the entrance door of the summer-house.
+In this there is a narrow chink or peep-hole, from which the
+fugitive could keep on the look-out either for danger or for the
+friendly Royalist agent of the "King's Arms."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When it was first discovered there were evidences of its last
+occupant&mdash;<i>viz.</i> a Jacobean horn tumbler, a mattress, and a
+handsomely worked velvet pillow; the last two articles, provided
+no doubt for the comfort of some hunted cavalier, upon being
+handled, fell to pieces. It may be mentioned that the inner door
+of the cupboard can be securely fastened from the inside by an
+iron hook and staple for that purpose.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Hewitt, mine host of the "King's Arms," was not idle at the time
+transactions were in progress to transfer Charles II. from Trent
+to Heale, and received within his house Lord Wilmot, Colonel
+Phelips, and other of the King's friends who were actively engaged
+in making preparations for the memorable journey. This old inn,
+with its oak-panelled rooms and rambling corridors, makes a very
+suitable neighbour to the more dignified old brick mansion opposite,
+with which it is so closely associated.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig048.jpg" width="279" height="408" alt="Fig. 48"><br>
+SECRET CHAMBER, CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig049.jpg" width="391" height="304" alt="Fig. 49"><br>
+OLD SUMMER HOUSE, SALISBURY (SHEWING CARVING IN WHICH IS A PEEP-HOLE
+FOR HIDING-PLACE BEHIND)
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Many are the exciting stories related of the defeated Royalists,
+especially after the Worcester fight. One of them, Lord Talbot,
+hastened to his paternal home of Longford, near Newport (Salop),
+and had just time to conceal himself ere his pursuers arrived,
+who, finding his horse saddled, concluded that the rider could
+not be far off. They therefore searched the house minutely for
+four or five days, and the fugitive would have perished for want
+of food, had not one of the servants contrived, at great personal
+risk, to pay him nocturnal visits and supply him with nourishment.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The grey old Jacobean mansion Chastleton preserves in its
+oak-panelled hall the sword and portrait of the gallant cavalier
+Captain Arthur Jones, who, narrowly escaping from the battlefield,
+speeded homewards with some of Cromwell's soldiers at his heels;
+and his wife, a lady of great courage, had scarcely concealed
+him in the secret chamber when the enemy arrived to search the
+house.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Little daunted, the lady, with great presence of mind, made no
+objection whatever&mdash;indeed, facilitated their operations by
+personally conducting them over the mansion. Here, as in so many
+other instances, the secret room was entered from the principal
+bedroom, and in inspecting the latter the suspicion of the Roundheads
+was in some way or another aroused, so here they determined to
+remain for the rest of the night.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+An ample supper and a good store of wine (which, by the way, had
+been carefully drugged) was sent up to the unwelcome visitors,
+and in due course the drink effected its purpose&mdash;its victims
+dropped off one by one, until the whole party lay like logs upon
+the floor. Mrs. Arthur Jones then crept in, having even to step
+over the bodies of the inanimate Roundheads, released her husband,
+and a fresh horse being in readiness, by the time the effects
+of the wine had worn off the Royalist captain was far beyond
+their reach.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The secret room is located in the front of the building, and has
+now been converted into a very, comfortable little dressing-room,
+preserving its original oak panelling, and otherwise but little
+altered, with the exception of the entry to it, which is now
+an ordinary door.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Chastleton is the beau ideal of an ancestral hall. The grand
+old gabled house, with its lofty square towers, its Jacobean
+entrance gateway and dovecote, and the fantastically clipped
+box-trees and sun-dial of its quaint old-fashioned garden, possesses
+a charm which few other ancient mansions can boast, and this
+charm lies in its perfectly unaltered state throughout, even
+to the minutest detail. Interior and exterior alike, everything
+presents an appearance exactly as it did when it was erected
+and furnished by Walter Jones, Esquire, between the years 1603
+and 1630. The estate originally was held by Robert Catesby, who
+sold the house to provide funds for carrying on the notorious
+conspiracy.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Among its most valued relics is a Bible given by Charles I. when
+on the scaffold to Bishop Juxon, who lived at Little Compton manor
+house, near Chastleton. This Bible was always used by the bishop
+at the Divine services, which at one time were held in the great
+hall of the latter house. Other relics of the martyr-king used
+to be at Little Compton&mdash;<i>viz.</i> some beams of the Whitehall
+scaffold, whose exact position has occasioned so much controversy.
+The velvet armchair and footstool used by the King during his
+memorable trial were also preserved here, but of late years have
+found a home at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, some six miles away. Visitors
+to that interesting collection shown in London some years ago&mdash;the
+Stuart Exhibition&mdash;may remember this venerable armchair of such
+sad association.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig050.jpg" width="358" height="269" alt="Fig. 50"><br>
+CHASTLETON
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig051.jpg" width="409" height="411" alt="Fig. 51"><br>
+ENTRANCE DOOR, CHASTLETON
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It may be here stated that after Charles I.'s execution, Juxon
+lived for a time in Sussex at an old mansion still extant, Albourne
+Place, not far from Hurstpierpoint. We mention this from the
+fact that a priest's hole was discovered there some few years
+ago. It was found in opening a communication between two rooms,
+and originally it could only be reached by steps projecting from
+the inner walls of a chimney.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Not many miles from Albourne stands Street Place, an Elizabethan
+Sussex house of some note. A remarkable story of cavalier-hunting
+is told here. A hiding-place is said to have existed in the wide
+open fireplace of the great hall. Tradition has it that a horseman,
+hard pressed by the Parliamentary troopers, galloped into this
+hall, but upon the arrival of his pursuers, no clue could be
+found of either man or horse!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The gallant Prince Rupert himself, upon one occasion, is said
+to have had recourse to a hiding hole, at least so the story
+runs, at the beautiful old black-and-white timber mansion, Park
+Hall, near Oswestry. A certain "false floor" which led to it is
+pointed out in a cupboard of a bedroom, the hiding-place itself
+being situated immediately above the dining-room fireplace.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A concealed chamber something after the same description is to
+be seen at the old seat of the Fenwicks, Wallington, in
+Northumberland&mdash;a small room eight feet long by sixteen feet high,
+situated at the back of the dining-room fireplace, and approached
+through the back of a cupboard.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Behind one of the large panels of "the hall" of an old building
+in Warwick called St. John's Hospital is a hiding-place, and in
+a bedroom of the same house there is a little apartment, now
+converted into a dressing-room, which formerly could only be
+reached through a sliding panel over the fireplace.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The manor house of Dinsdale-on-Tees, Durham, has another example,
+but to reach it it is necessary to pass through a trap-door in
+the attics, crawl along under the roof, and drop down into the,
+space in the wall behind a bedroom fireplace, where for extra
+security there is a second trap-door.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig052.jpg" width="407" height="312" alt="Fig. 52"><br>
+BROUGHTON HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig053.jpg" width="403" height="307" alt="Fig. 53"><br>
+ST. JOHN'S HOSPITAL, WARWICK
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Full-length panel portraits of the Salwey family at Stanford Court,
+Worcestershire (unfortunately burned down in 1882), concealed hidden
+recesses and screened passages leading up to an exit in the leads
+of the roof. In one of these recesses curious seventeenth-century
+manuscripts were found, among them, the household book of a certain
+"Joyce Jeffereys" during the Civil War.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The old Jacobean mansion Broughton Hall, Staffordshire, had a
+curious hiding-hole over a fireplace and situated in the wall
+between the dining-room and the great hall; over its entrance
+used to hang a portrait of a man in antique costume which went
+by the name of "Red Stockings."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+At Lyme Hall, Cheshire, the ancient seat of the Leghs, high up
+in the wall of the hall is a sombre portrait which by ingenious
+mechanism swings out of its frame, a fixture, and gives admittance
+to a room on the first floor, or rather affords a means of looking
+down into the hall.[1] We mention this portrait more especially
+because it has been supposed that Scott got his idea here of
+the ghostly picture which figures in <i>Woodstock</i>. A
+<i>bon&acirc;-fide</i> hiding-place, however, is to be seen in another
+part of the mansion in a very haunted-looking bedroom called "the
+Knight's Chamber," entered through a trap-door in the floor of
+a cupboard, with a short flight of steps leading into it.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: A large panel in the long gallery of Hatfield can be
+pushed aside, giving a view into the great hall, and at Ockwells
+and other ancient mansions this device may also be seen.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Referring to Scott's novel, a word may be said about Fair Rosamond's
+famous "bower" at the old palace of Woodstock, surely the most
+elaborate and complicated hiding-place ever devised. The ruins
+of the labyrinth leading to the "bower" existed in Drayton's
+time, who described them as "vaults, arched and walled with stone
+and brick, almost inextricably wound within one another, by which,
+if at any time her [Rosamond's] lodging were laid about by the
+Queen, she might easily avoid peril imminent, and, if need be, by
+secret issues take the air abroad many furlongs about Woodstock."
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig054.jpg" width="331" height="429" alt="Fig. 54"><br>
+STAIRCASE, BROUGHTON HALL
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In a survey taken in 1660, it is stated that foundation signs
+remained about a bow-shot southwest of the gate: "<i>The form
+and circuit both of the place and ruins show it to have been a
+house of one pile, and probably was filled with secret places
+of recess and avenues to hide or convey away such persons as
+were not willing to be found if narrowly sought after.</i>"
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Ghostly gambols, such as those actually practised upon the
+Parliamentary Commissioners at the old palace of Woodstock, were
+for years carried on without detection by the servants at the old
+house of Hinton-Ampner, Hampshire; and when it was pulled down
+in the year 1797, it became very obvious how the mysteries, which
+gave the house the reputation of being haunted, were managed,
+for numerous secret stairs and passages, not known to exist were
+brought to light which had offered peculiar facilities for the
+deception. About the middle of the eighteenth century the mansion
+passed out of the hands of its old possessors, the Stewkeleys,
+and shortly afterwards became notorious for the unaccountable
+noises which disturbed the peace of mind of the new tenants.
+Not only were there violent knocks, hammerings, groanings, and
+sounds of footsteps in the ceilings and walls, out strange sights
+frightened the servants out of their wits. A ghostly visitant
+dressed in drab would appear and disappear mysteriously, a female
+figure was often seen to rush through the apartments, and other
+supernatural occurrences at length became so intolerable that the
+inmates of the house sought refuge in flight. Later successive
+tenants fared the same. A hundred pounds reward was offered to
+any who should run the ghosts to earth; but nothing resulted
+from it, and after thirty years or more of hauntings, the house
+was razed to the ground. Secret passages and chambers were then
+brought to light; but those who had carried on the deception
+for so long took the secret with them to their graves.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: A full account of the supernatural occurrences at
+Hinton-Ampner will be found in the Life of Richard Barham.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It is well known that the huge, carved oak bedsteads of the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries were often provided with secret
+accommodation for valuables. One particular instance we can call
+to mind of a hidden cupboard at the base of the bedpost which
+contained a short rapier. But of these small hiding-places we
+shall speak presently. It is with the head of the bed we have
+now to do, as it was sometimes used as an opening into the wall
+at the back. Occasionally, in old houses, unmeaning gaps and
+spaces are met with in the upper rooms midway between floor and
+ceiling, which possibly at one time were used as bed-head
+hiding-places. Shipton Court, Oxon, and Hill Hall, Essex, may
+be given as examples. Dunster Castle, Somersetshire, also, has
+at the back of a bedstead in one of the rooms a long, narrow
+place of concealment, extending the width of the apartment, and
+provided with a stone seat.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Sir Ralph Verney, while in exile in France in 1645, wrote to his
+brother at Claydon House, Buckinghamshire, concerning "the odd
+things in the room my mother kept herself&mdash;<i>the iron chest in
+the little room between her bed's-head and the back stairs.</i>"
+This old seat of the Verneys had another secret chamber in the
+middle storey, entered through a trap-door in "the muniment-room"
+at the top of the house. Here also was a small private staircase
+in the wall, possibly the "back stairs" mentioned in Sir Ralph's
+letters.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See <i>Memoirs of the Verney Family.</i>]
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig055.jpg" width="402" height="352" alt="Fig. 55"><br>
+SHIPTON COURT, OXFORDSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig056.jpg" width="405" height="311" alt="Fig. 56"><br>
+BROUGHTON CASTLE, OXFORDSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Before the breaking out of the Civil War, Hampden, Pym, Lord
+Brooke, and other of the Parliamentary leaders, held secret meetings
+at Broughton Castle, oxon, the seat of Lord Saye and Sele, to
+organise a resistance to the arbitrary measures of the king. In
+this beautiful old fortified and moated mansion the secret stairs
+may yet be seen that led up to the little isolated chamber, with
+massive casemated walls for the exclusion of sound. Anthony Wood,
+alluding to the secret councils, says: "Several years before the
+Civil War began, Lord Saye, being looked upon as the godfather
+of that party, had meetings of them in his house at Broughton,
+where was a room and passage thereunto which his servants were
+prohibited to come near."[1] There is also a hiding-hole behind
+a window shutter in the wall of a corridor, with an air-hole
+ingeniously devised in the masonry.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: <i>Memorials of Hampden.</i>]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The old dower-house of Fawsley, not many miles to the north-east
+of Broughton, in the adjoining county of Northamptonshire, had
+a secret room over the hall, where a private press was kept for
+the purpose of printing political tracts at this time, when the
+country was working up into a state of turmoil.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When the regicides were being hunted out in the early part of
+Charles II.'s reign, Judge Mayne[1] secreted himself at his house,
+Dinton Hall, Bucks, but eventually gave himself up. The hiding-hole
+at Dinton was beneath the staircase, and accessible by removing
+three of the steps. A narrow passage which led from it to a space
+behind the beams of the roof had its sides or walls thickly lined
+with cloth, so as to muffle all sound.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: There is a tradition that it was a servant of Mayne
+who acted as Charles I.'s executioner.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Bradshawe Hall, in north-west Derbyshire (once the seat of the
+family of that name of which the notorious President was a member),
+has or had a concealed chamber high up in the wall of a room on
+the ground floor which was capable of holding three persons.
+Of course tradition says the "wicked judge was hidden here."
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig057.jpg" width="411" height="545" alt="Fig. 57"><br>
+ENTRANCE GATE, BRADSHAWE HALL, DERBYSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The regicides Colonels Whalley and Goffe had many narrow escapes
+in America, whither they were traced. What is known as "Judge's
+Cave," in the West Rock some two miles from the town of New Haven,
+Conn., afforded them sanctuary. For some days they were concealed
+in an old house belonging to a certain Mrs. Eyers, in a secret
+chamber behind the wainscoting, the entrance to which was most
+ingeniously devised. The house was narrowly searched on May 14th,
+1661, at the time they were in hiding.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: Stiles's <i>Judges</i>, p. 64]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Upon the discovery of the Rye House Plot in 1683, suspicion falling
+upon one of the conspirators, William, third Lord Howard of Escrick,
+the Sergeant-at-Arms was despatched with a squadron of horse to
+his house at Knights-bridge, and after a long search he was
+discovered concealed in a hiding-place constructed in a chimney
+at the back of a tall cupboard, and the chances are that he would
+not have been arrested had it not been evident, by the warmth of
+his bed and his clothes scattered about, that he had only just
+risen and could not have got away unobserved, except to some
+concealed lurking-place. When discovered he had on no clothing
+beyond his shirt, so it may be imagined with what precipitate
+haste he had to hide himself upon the unexpected arrival of the
+soldiers.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See Roger North's <i>Examen</i>.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Numerous other houses were searched for arms and suspicious papers,
+particularly in the counties of Cheshire and Lancashire, where
+the Duke of Monmouth was known to have many influential friends,
+marked enemies to the throne.[2]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 2: See Oulton Hall MSS., Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iii. p. 245.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Monmouth's lurking-place was known at Whitehall, and those who
+revealed it went the wrong way to work to win Court favour. Apart
+from the attractions of Lady Wentworth, whose companionship made
+the fugitive's enforced seclusion at Toddington, in Bedfordshire,
+far from tedious, the mansion was desirable at that particular
+time on account of its hiding facilities. An anonymous letter
+sent to the Secretary of State failed not to point out "that
+vastness and intricacy that without a most diligent search it's
+impossible to discover <i>all the lurking holes in it, there being
+severall trap dores on the leads and in closetts, into places to
+which there is no other access.</i>"[1] The easy-going king had
+to make some external show towards an attempt to capture his
+erring son, therefore instructions were given with this purpose,
+but to a courtier and diplomatist who valued his own interests.
+Toddington Place, therefore, was <i>not</i> explored.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: Vide King <i>Monmouth</i>.]
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig058.jpg" width="404" height="311" alt="Fig. 58"><br>
+MOYLES COURT, HAMPSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig059.jpg" width="413" height="383" alt="Fig. 59"><br>
+TODDINGTON MANOR HOUSE, BEDFORDSHIRE, IN 1806 (FROM AN OLD DRAWING)
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Few hiding-places are associated with so tragic a story as that
+at Moyles Court, Hants, where the venerable Lady Alice Lisle,
+in pure charity, hid two partisans of Monmouth, John Hickes and
+Richard Nelthorpe, after the battle of Sedgemoor, for which humane
+action she was condemned to be burned alive by Judge Jeffreys&mdash;a
+sentence commuted afterwards to beheading. It is difficult to
+associate this peaceful old Jacobean mansion, and the simple
+tomb in the churchyard hard by, with so terrible a history. A
+dark hole in the wall of the kitchen is traditionally said to be
+the place of concealment of the fugitives, who threw themselves
+on Lady Alice's mercy; but a dungeon-like cellar not unlike that
+represented in E. M. Ward's well-known picture looks a much more
+likely place.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It was in an underground vault at Lady Place, Hurley, the old
+seat of the Lovelaces, that secret conferences were held by the
+adherents of the Prince of Orange. Three years after the execution
+of the Duke of Monmouth, his boon companion and supporter, John,
+third Lord Lovelace, organised treasonable meetings in this tomb-like
+chamber. Tradition asserts that certain important documents in
+favour of the Revolution were actually signed in the Hurley vault.
+Be this as it may, King William III. failed not, in after years,
+when visiting his former secret agent, to inspect the subterranean
+apartment with very tender regard.
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap09">CHAPTER IX</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We have spoken of the old houses associated with Charles II.'s
+escapes, let us see what history has to record of his unpopular
+brother James. The Stuarts seem to have been doomed, at one time
+or another, to evade their enemies by secret flight, and in some
+measure this may account for the romance always surrounding that
+ill-fated line of kings and queens.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+James V. of Scotland was wont to amuse himself by donning a disguise,
+but his successors appear to have been doomed by fate to follow
+his example, not for recreation, but to preserve their lives.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Mary, Queen of Scots, upon one occasion had to impersonate a
+laundress. Her grandson and great-grandson both were forced to
+masquerade as servants, and her great-great-grandson Prince James
+Frederick Edward passed through France disguised as an abb&aacute;.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The escapades of his son the "Bonnie Prince" will require our
+attention presently; we will, therefore, for the moment confine
+our thoughts to James II.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+With the surrender of Oxford the young Prince James found himself
+Fairfax's prisoner. His elder brother Charles had been more
+fortunate, having left the city shortly before for the western
+counties, and after effecting his escape to Scilly, he sought
+refuge in Jersey, whence he removed to the Hague. The Duke of
+Gloucester and the Princess Elizabeth already had been placed
+under the custody of the Earl of Northumberland at St. James's
+Palace, so the Duke of York was sent there also. This was in 1646.
+Some nine months elapsed, and James, after two ineffectual attempts
+to regain his liberty, eventually succeeded in the following
+manner.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Though prisoners, the royal children were permitted to amuse
+themselves within the walls of the palace much as they pleased,
+and among the juvenile games with which they passed away the
+time, "hide-and-seek" was first favourite. James, doubtless with
+an eye to the future, soon acquired a reputation as an expert
+hider, and his brother and sister and the playmates with whom
+they associated would frequently search the odd nooks and corners
+of the old mansion in vain for an hour at a stretch. It was,
+therefore, no extraordinary occurrence on the night of April 20th,
+1647, that the Prince, after a prolonged search, was missing. The
+youngsters, more than usually perplexed, presently persuaded the
+adults of the prison establishment to join in the game, which,
+when their suspicions were aroused, they did in real earnest.
+But all in vain, and at length a messenger was despatched to
+Whitehall with the intelligence that James, Duke of York, had
+effected his escape. Everything was in a turmoil. Orders were
+hurriedly dispatched for all seaport towns to be on the alert,
+and every exit out of London was strictly watched; meanwhile,
+it is scarcely necessary to add, the young fugitive was well
+clear of the city, speeding on his way to the Continent.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The plot had been skilfully planned. A key, or rather a duplicate
+key, had given admittance through the gardens into St. James's Park,
+where the Royalist, though outwardly professed Parliamentarian,
+Colonel Bamfield was in readiness with a periwig and cloak to
+effect a speedy disguise. When at length the fugitive made his
+appearance, minus his shoes and coat, he was hurried into a coach
+and conveyed to the Strand by Salisbury House, where the two
+alighted, and passing down Ivy Lane, reached the river, and after
+James's disguise had been perfected, boat was taken to Lyon Quay
+in Lower Thames Street, where a barge lay in readiness to carry
+them down stream.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+So far all went well, but on the way to Gravesend the master
+of the vessel, doubtless with a view to increasing his reward,
+raised some objections. The fugitive was now in female attire,
+and the objection was that nothing had been said about a woman
+coming aboard; but he was at length pacified, indeed ere long
+guessed the truth, for the Prince's lack of female decorum, as
+in the case of his grandson "the Bonnie Prince" nearly a century
+afterwards, made him guess how matters really stood. Beyond Gravesend
+the fugitives got aboard a Dutch vessel and were carried safely
+to Middleburg.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We will now shift the scene to Whitehall in the year 1688, when,
+after a brief reign of three years, betrayed and deserted on
+all sides, the unhappy Stuart king was contemplating his second
+flight out of England. The weather-cock that had been set up on
+the banqueting hall to show when the wind "blew Protestant" had
+duly recorded the dreaded approach of Dutch William, who now was
+steadily advancing towards the capital. On Tuesday, December 10th,
+soon after midnight, James left the Palace by way of Chiffinch's
+secret stairs of notorious fame, and disguised as the servant
+of Sir Edward Hales, with Ralph Sheldon&mdash;La Badie&mdash;a page, and
+Dick Smith, a groom, attending him, crossed the river to Lambeth,
+dropping the great seal in the water on the way, and took horse,
+avoiding the main roads, towards Farnborough and thence to
+Chislehurst. Leaving Maidstone to the south-west, a brief halt
+was made at Pennenden Heath for refreshment. The old inn, "the
+Woolpack," where the party stopped for their hurried repast,
+remains, at least in name, for the building itself has of late
+years been replaced by a modern structure. Crossing the Dover
+road, the party now directed their course towards Milton Creek,
+to the north-east of Sittingbourne, where a small fishing-craft
+lay in readiness, which had been chartered by Sir Edward Hales,
+whose seat at Tunstall[1] was close by.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: The principal seat of the Hales, near Canterbury, is
+now occupied as a Jesuit College. The old manor house of Tunstall,
+Grove End Farm, presents both externally and internally many
+features of interest. The family was last represented by a maid
+lady who died a few years since.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+One or two old buildings in the desolate marsh district of Elmley,
+claim the distinction of having received a visit of the deposed
+monarch prior to the mishaps which were shortly to follow. King's
+Hill Farm, once a house of some importance, preserves this tradition,
+as does also an ancient cottage, in the last stage of decay,
+known as "Rats' Castle."
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig060.jpg" width="283" height="279" alt="Fig. 60"><br>
+"RATS' CASTLE," ELMLEY, KENT
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig061.jpg" width="409" height="366" alt="Fig. 61"><br>
+KING'S HILL FARM, ELMLEY, KENT
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+At Elmley Ferry, which crosses the river Swale, the king got
+aboard, but scarcely had the moorings been cast than further
+progress was arrested by a party of over-zealous fishermen on
+the look out for fugitive Jesuit priests. The story of the rough
+handling to which the poor king was subjected is a somewhat hackneyed
+school-book anecdote, but some interesting details have been handed
+down by one Captain Marsh, by James's natural son the Duke of
+Berwick, and by the Earl of Ailesbury.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+From these accounts we gather that in the disturbance that ensued
+a blow was aimed at the King, but that a Canterbury innkeeper named
+Platt threw himself in the way and received the blow himself. It
+is recorded, to James II.'s credit, that when he was recognised
+and his stolen money and jewels offered back to him, he declined
+the former, desiring that his health might be drunk by the mob.
+Among the valuables were the King's watch, his coronation ring,
+and medals commemorating the births of his son the Chevalier
+St. George and of his brother Charles II.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The King was taken ashore at a spot called "the Stool," close
+to the little village of Oare, to the north-west of Faversham,
+to which town he was conveyed by coach, attended by a score of
+Kentish gentlemen on horseback. The royal prisoner was first
+carried to the "Queen's Arms Inn," which still exists under the
+name of the "Ship Hotel." From here he was taken to the mayor's
+house in Court Street (an old building recently pulled down to
+make way for a new brewery) and placed under a strict guard, and
+from the window of his prison the unfortunate King had to listen
+to the proclamation of the Prince of Orange, read by order of the
+mayor, who subsequently was rewarded for the zeal he displayed
+upon the occasion.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The hardships of the last twenty-four hours had told severely upon
+James. He was sick and feeble and weakened by profuse bleeding
+of the nose, to which he, like his brother Charles, was subject
+when unduly excited. Sir Edward Hales, in the meantime, was lodged
+in the old Court Hall (since partially rebuilt), whence he was
+removed to Maidstone gaol, and to the Tower.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Bishop Burnet was at Windsor with the Prince of Orange when two
+gentlemen arrived there from Faversham with the news of the King's
+capture. "They told me," he says, "of the accident at Faversham,
+and desired to know the Prince's pleasure upon it. I was affected
+with this dismal reverse of the fortunes of a great prince, more
+than I think fit to express. I went immediately to Bentinck and
+wakened him, and got him to go in to the Prince, and let him
+know what had happened, that some order might be presently given
+for the security of the King's person, and for taking him out
+of the hands of a rude multitude who said they would obey no
+orders but such as came from the Prince."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Upon receiving the news, William at once directed that his
+father-in-law should have his liberty, and that assistance should
+be sent down to him immediately; but by this time the story had
+reached the metropolis, and a hurried meeting of the Council
+directed the Earl of Feversham to go to the rescue with a company
+of Life Guards. The faithful Earl of Ailesbury also hastened to
+the King's assistance. In five hours he accomplished the journey
+from London to Faversham. So rapidly had the reports been circulated
+of supposed ravages of the Irish Papists, that when the Earl
+reached Rochester, the entire town was in a state of panic, and
+the alarmed inhabitants were busily engaged in demolishing the
+bridge to prevent the dreaded incursion.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But to return to James at Faversham. The mariners who had handled
+him so roughly now took his part&mdash;in addition to his property&mdash;and
+insisted upon sleeping in the adjoining room to that in which
+he was incarcerated, to protect him from further harm. Early
+on Saturday morning the Earl of Feversham made his appearance;
+and after some little hesitation on the King's side, he was at
+length persuaded to return to London. So he set out on horseback,
+breaking the journey at Rochester, where he slept on the Saturday
+night at Sir Richard Head's house. On the Sunday he rode on to
+Dartford, where he took coach to Southwark and Whitehall. A temporary
+reaction had now set in, and the cordial reception which greeted
+his reappearance revived his hopes and spirits. This reaction,
+however, was but short-lived, for no sooner had the poor King
+retired to the privacy of his bed-chamber at Whitehall Palace,
+than an imperious message from his son-in-law ordered him to
+remove without delay to Ham House, Petersham.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig062.jpg" width="327" height="362" alt="Fig. 62"><br>
+ENTRANCE TO SECRET PASSAGE, "ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig063.jpg" width="413" height="348" alt="Fig. 63"><br>
+"ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+James objected strongly to this; the place, he said, was damp and
+unfurnished (which, by the way, was not the case if we may judge
+from Evelyn, who visited the mansion not long before, when it was
+"furnished like a great Prince's"&mdash;indeed, the same furniture
+remains intact to this day), and a message was sent back that if
+he must quit Whitehall he would prefer to retire to Rochester,
+which wish was readily accorded him.
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap10">CHAPTER X</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES (<i>continued</i>), HAM HOUSE, AND "ABDICATION
+HOUSE"
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Tradition, regardless of fact, associates the grand old seat
+of the Lauderdales and Dysarts with King James's escape from
+England. A certain secret staircase is still pointed out by which
+the dethroned monarch is said to have made his exit, and visitors
+to the Stuart Exhibition a few years ago will remember a sword
+which, with the King's hat and cloak, is said to have been left
+behind when he quitted the mansion. Now there existed, not many
+miles away, also close to the river Thames, <i>another</i> Ham
+House, which was closely associated with James II., and it seems,
+therefore, possible, in fact probable, that the past associations
+of the one house have attached themselves to the other.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In Ham House, Weybridge, lived for some years the King's discarded
+mistress Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester. At the actual
+time of James's abdication this lady was in France, but in the
+earlier part of his reign the King was a frequent visitor here.
+In Charles II.'s time the house belonged to Jane Bickerton, the
+mistress and afterwards wife of the sixth Duke of Norfolk. Evelyn
+dined there soon after this marriage had been solemnised. "The
+Duke," he says, "leading me about the house made no scruple of
+showing me all the hiding-places for the Popish priests and where
+they said Masse, for he was no bigoted Papist." At the Duke's
+death "the palace" was sold to the Countess of Dorchester, whose
+descendants pulled it down some fifty years ago. The oak-panelled
+rooms were richly parquetted with "cedar and cyprus." One of them
+until the last retained the name of "the King's Bedroom." It had a
+private communication with a little Roman Catholic chapel in the
+building. The attics, as at Compton Winyates, were called "the
+Barracks," tradition associating them with the King's guards, who
+are said to have been lodged there. Upon the walls hung portraits
+of the Duchesses of Leeds and Dorset, of Nell Gwyn and the Countess
+herself, and of Earl Portmore, who married her daughter. Here also
+formerly was Holbein's famous picture, Bluff King Hal and the
+Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk dancing a minuet with Anne Boleyn
+and the Dowager-Queens of France and Scotland. Evelyn saw the
+painting in August, 1678, and records "the sprightly motion"
+and "amorous countenances of the ladies." (This picture is now,
+or was recently, in the possession of Major-General Sotheby.)
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A few years after James's abdication, the Earl of Ailesbury rented
+the house from the Countess, who lived meanwhile in a small house
+adjacent, and was in the habit of coming into the gardens of the
+palace by a key of admittance she kept for that purpose. Upon
+one of these occasions the Earl and she had a disagreement about
+the lease, and so forcible were the lady's coarse expressions,
+for she never could restrain the licence of her tongue, that she
+had to be ejected from the premises, whereupon, says Ailesbury,
+"she bade me go to my&mdash;&mdash;King James," with the assurance that
+"she would make King William spit on me."
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig064.jpg" width="391" height="337" alt="Fig. 64"><br>
+MONUMENT OF SIR RICHARD HEAD
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig065.jpg" width="397" height="261" alt="Fig. 65"><br>
+"RESTORATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But to follow James II.'s ill-fortunes to Rochester, where he was
+conveyed on the Tuesday at noon by royal barge, with an escort of
+Dutch soldiers, with Lords Arran, Dumbarton, etc., in attendance&mdash;"a
+sad sight," says Evelyn, who witnessed the departure. The King
+recognised among those set to guard him an old lieutenant of the
+Horse who had fought under him, when Duke of York, at the battle
+of Dunkirk. Colonel Wycke, in command of the King's escort, was
+a nephew of the court painter Sir Peter Lely, who had owed his
+success to the patronage of Charles II. and his brother. The
+part the Colonel had to act was a painful one, and he begged the
+King's pardon. The royal prisoner was lodged for the night at
+Gravesend, at the house of a lawyer, and next morning the journey
+was continued to Rochester.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The royalist Sir Richard Head again had the honour of acting
+as the King's host, and his guest was allowed to go in and out
+of the house as he pleased, for diplomatic William of Orange
+had arranged that no opportunity should be lost for James to
+make use of a passport which the Duke of Berwick had obtained
+for "a certain gentleman and two servants." James's movements,
+therefore, were hampered in no way. But the King, ever suspicious,
+planned his escape from Rochester with the greatest caution and
+secrecy, and many of his most attached and loyal adherents were
+kept in ignorance of his final departure. James's little court
+consisted of the Earls of Arran, Lichfield, Middleton, Dumbarton,
+and Ailesbury, the Duke of Berwick, Sir Stephen Fox, Major-General
+Sackville, Mr. Grahame, Fenton, and a few others.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+On the evening of the King's flight the company dispersed as was
+customary, when Ailesbury intimated, by removing his Majesty's
+stockings, that the King was about to seek his couch. The Earl
+of Dumbarton retired with James to his apartment, who, when the
+house was quiet for the night, got up, dressed, and "by way of
+the back stairs," according to the Stuart Papers, passed "through
+the garden, where Macdonald stayed for him, with the Duke of
+Berwick and Mr. Biddulph, to show him the way to Trevanion's
+boat. About twelve at night they rowed down to the smack, which
+was waiting without the fort at Sheerness. It blew so hard right
+ahead, and ebb tide being done before they got to the Salt Pans,
+that it was near six before they got to the smack. Captain Trevanion
+not being able to trust the officers of his ship, they got on
+board the <i>Eagle</i> fireship, commanded by Captain Welford,
+on which, the wind and tide being against them, they stayed till
+daybreak, when the King went on board the smack." On Christmas
+Day James landed at Ambleteuse.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Thus the old town of Rochester witnessed the departure of the
+last male representative of the Stuart line who wore a crown.
+Twenty-eight years before, every window and gable end had been
+gaily bedecked with many coloured ribbons, banners, and flowers
+to welcome in the restored monarch. The picturesque old red brick
+"Restoration House" still stands to carry us back to the eventful
+night when "his sacred Majesty" slept within its walls upon his
+way from Dover to London&mdash;a striking contrast to "Abdication
+House," the gloomy abode of Sir Richard Head, of more melancholy
+associations.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Much altered and modernised, this old mansion also remains. It
+is in the High Street, and is now, or was recently, occupied as a
+draper's shop. Here may be seen the "presence-chamber" where the
+dethroned King heard Mass, and the royal bedchamber where, after
+his secret departure, a letter was found on the table addressed
+to Lord Middleton, for both he and Lord Ailesbury were kept in
+ignorance of James II.'s final movements. The old garden may
+be seen with the steps leading down to the river, much as it
+was a couple of centuries ago, though the river now no longer
+flows in near proximity, owing to the drainage of the marshes
+and the "subsequent improvements" of later days.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The hidden passage in the staircase wall may also be seen, and
+the trap-door leading to it from the attics above. Tradition says
+the King made use of these; and if he did so, the probability is
+that it was done more to avoid his host's over-zealous neighbours,
+than from fear of arrest through the vigilance of the spies of
+his son-in-law.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: It may be of interest to state that the illustrations
+we give of the house were originally exhibited at the Stuart
+Exhibition by Sir Robert G. Head, the living representative of
+the old Royalist family]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Exactly three months after James left England he made his
+reappearance at Kinsale and entered Dublin in triumphal state.
+The siege of Londonderry and the decisive battle of the Boyne
+followed, and for a third and last time James II. was a fugitive
+from his realms. The melancholy story is graphically told in Mr.
+A. C. Gow's dramatic picture, an engraving of which I understand
+has recently been published.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+How the unfortunate King rode from Dublin to Duncannon Fort,
+leaving his faithful followers and ill-fortunes behind him; got
+aboard the French vessel anchored there for his safety; and returned
+once more to the protection of the Grande Monarque at the palace
+of St. Germain, is an oft-told story of Stuart ingratitude.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig066.jpg" width="407" height="302" alt="Fig. 66"><br>
+ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE, WORCESTERSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig067.jpg" width="400" height="330" alt="Fig. 67"><br>
+ENTRANCE GATE, ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap11">CHAPTER XI</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+MYSTERIOUS ROOMS, DEADLY PITS, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+At the "Restoration House" previously mentioned there is a secret
+passage in the wall of an upper room; but though the Merry Monarch
+is, according to popular tradition, credited with a monopoly of
+hiding-places all over England, it is more than doubtful whether
+he had recourse to these exploits, in which he was so successful
+in 1651, upon such a joyful occasion, except, indeed, through
+sheer force of habit.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Even Cromwell's name is connected with hiding-places! But it
+is difficult to conjecture upon what occasions his Excellency
+found it convenient to secrete himself, unless it was in his
+later days, when he went about in fear of assassination.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Hale House, Islington, pulled down in 1853, had a concealed recess
+behind the wainscot over the mantel-piece, formed by the curve
+of the chimney. In this, tradition says, the Lord Protector was
+hidden. Nor is this the solitary instance, for a dark hole in
+one of the gable ends of Cromwell House, Mortlake (taken down in
+1860), locally known as "Old Noll's Hole," is said to have afforded
+him temporary accommodation when his was life in danger.[1] The
+residence of his son-in-law Ireton (Cromwell House) at Highgate
+contained a large secret chamber at the back of a cupboard in
+one of the upper rooms, and extended back twelve or fourteen
+feet, but the cupboard has now been removed and the space at the
+back converted into a passage.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See Faulkner's <i>History of Islington</i>.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The ancient manor house of Armscot, in an old-world corner of
+Worcestershire, contains in one of its gables a hiding-place
+entered through a narrow opening in the plaster wall, not unlike
+that at Ufton Court, and capable of holding many people. From the
+fact that George Fox was arrested in this house on October 17th,
+1673, when he was being persecuted by the county magistrates, the
+story has come down to the yokels of the neighbourhood that "old
+Guy Fawkes, the first Quaker," was hidden here! In his journal Fox
+mentions his arrest at Armscot after a "very large and precious
+meeting" in the barn close by; but we have no allusion to the
+hiding-place, for he appears to have been sitting in the parlour
+when Henry Parker, the Justice, arrived&mdash;indeed, George Fox was
+not the sort of man to have recourse to concealments, and owe
+his escape to a "priest's hole."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The suggestion of a sudden reverse in religious persecution driving
+a Quaker to such an extremity calls to mind an old farmstead
+where a political change from monarchy to commonwealth forced
+Puritan and cavalier consecutively to seek refuge in the secret
+chamber. This narrow hiding-place, beside the spacious fire-place,
+is pointed out in an ancient house in the parish of Hinchford,
+in Eastern Essex.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Even the notorious Judge Jeffreys had in his house facilities
+for concealment and escape. His old residence in Delahay Street,
+Westminster, demolished a few years ago, had its secret panel
+in the wainscoting, but in what way the cruel Lord Chancellor
+made use of it does not transpire; possibly it may have been
+utilised at the time of James II.'s flight from Whitehall.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A remarkable discovery was made early in the last century at the
+Elizabethan manor house of Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire,
+only a portion of which remains incorporated in a modern structure.
+Upon removing some of the wallpaper of a passage on the second
+floor, the entrance to a room hitherto unknown was laid bare. It
+was a small apartment about eight feet square, and presented the
+appearance as if some occupant had just quitted it. A chair and
+a table within, each bore evidence of the last inmate. Over the
+back of the former hung a priest's black cassock, carelessly flung
+there a century or more ago, while on the table stood an antique
+tea-pot, cup, and silver spoon, the very tea leaves crumbled to
+dust with age. On the same storey were two rooms known as "the
+chapel" and the "priest's room," the names of which signify the
+former use of the concealed apartment.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Sir Walter Scott records a curious "find," similar in many respects
+to that at Bourton. In the course of some structural alterations to
+an ancient house near Edinburgh three unknown rooms were brought to
+light, bearing testimony of their last inmate. One of them had been
+occupied as a bedroom. The clothing of the bed was disarranged,
+as if it had been slept in only a few hours previously, and close
+by was an antique dressing-gown. How interesting it would be to
+know some particulars of the sudden surprise which evidently
+drove the owner of the garment from his snug quarters&mdash;whether
+he effected his escape, or whether he was captured! The walls
+of this buried chamber, if they could speak, had some curious
+story to relate.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Not many years ago the late squire of East Hendred House, Berkshire,
+discovered the existence of a secret chamber in casually glancing
+over some ancient papers belonging to the house. "The little
+room," as it was called, from its proximity to the chapel, had
+no doubt been turned to good account during the penal laws of
+Elizabeth's reign, as the chamber itself and other parts of the
+house date from a much earlier period.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Long after the palatial Sussex mansion of Cowdray was burnt down,
+the habitable remains (the keeper's lodge, in the centre of the
+park) contained an ingenious hiding-place behind a fireplace in
+a bedroom, which was reached by a movable panel in a cupboard,
+communicating with the roof by a slender flight of steps. It
+was very high, reaching up two storeys, but extremely narrow,
+so much so that directly opposite a stone bench which stood in
+a recess for a seat, the wall was hollowed out to admit of the
+knees. When this secret chamber was discovered, it contained an
+iron chair, a quaint old brass lamp, and some manuscripts of
+the Montague family. The Cowdray tradition says that the fifth
+Viscount was concealed in this hiding-place for a considerable
+period, owing to some dark crime he is supposed to have committed,
+though he was generally believed to have fled abroad. Secret
+nocturnal interviews took place between Lord Montague and his
+wife in "My Lady's Walk," an isolated spot in Cowdray Park. The
+Montagues, now extinct, are said to have been very chary with
+reference to their Roman Catholic forefathers, and never allowed
+the secret chamber to be shown.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See <i>History of a Great English House</i>.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A weird story clings to the ruins of Minster Lovel Manor House,
+Oxfordshire, the ancient seat of the Lords Lovel. After the battle
+of Stoke, Francis, the last Viscount, who had sided with the
+cause of Simnel against King Henry VII., fled back to his house
+in disguise, but from the night of his return was never seen or
+heard of again, and for nearly two centuries his disappearance
+remained a mystery. In the meantime the manor house had been
+dismantled and the remains tenanted by a farmer; but a strange
+discovery was made in the year 1708. A concealed vault was found,
+and in it, seated before a table, with a prayer-book lying open
+upon it, was the entire skeleton of a man. In the secret chamber
+were certain barrels and jars which had contained food sufficient
+to last perhaps some weeks; but the mansion having been seized
+by the King, soon after the unfortunate Lord Lovel is supposed
+to have concealed himself, the probability is that, unable to
+regain his liberty, the neglect or treachery of a servant or
+tenant brought about this tragic end.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A discovery of this nature was made in 1785 in a hidden vault
+at the foot of a stone staircase at Brandon Hall, Suffolk.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Kingerby Hall, Lincolnshire, has a ghostly tradition of an
+unfortunate occupant of the hiding-hole near a fireplace being
+intentionally fastened in so that he was stifled with the heat and
+smoke; the skeleton was found years afterwards in this horrible
+death-chamber.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Bayons Manor, in the same county, has some very curious arrangements
+for the sake of secretion and defence. There is a room in one of
+the barbican towers occupying its entire circumference, but so
+effectually hidden that its existence would never be suspected.
+In two of the towers are curious concealed stairs, and approaching
+"the Bishop's Tower" from the outer court or ballium, part of
+a flight of steps can be raised like a drawbridge to prevent
+sudden intrusion.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See Burke's <i>Visitation of Seats</i>, vol. i.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A contributor to that excellent little journal <i>The Rambler</i>,
+unfortunately now extinct, mentions another very strange and
+weird device for security. "In the state-room of my castle,"
+says the owner of this death-trap, "is the family shield, which
+on a part being touched, revolves, and a flight of steps becomes
+visible. The first, third, fifth, and all odd steps are to be
+trusted, but to tread any of the others is to set in motion some
+concealed machinery which causes the staircase to collapse,
+disclosing a vault some seventy feet in depth, down which the
+unwary are precipitated."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+At Tyttenhanger House, Hertfordshire, and in the old manor house
+of Newport, Isle of Wight (where the captive King Charles I.
+spent some of his last melancholy days), there are rooms with
+passages in the walls running completely round them. Similar
+passages were found some years ago while making alterations to
+Highclere Castle Hampshire.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The once magnificent Madeley Court, Salop[1] (now, alas! in the
+last stage of desolation and decay, surrounded by coal-fields and
+undermined by pits), is honeycombed with places for concealment
+and escape. A ruinous apartment at the top of the house, known
+as "the chapel" (only a few years ago wainscoted to the ceiling
+and divided by fine old oak screen), contained a secret chamber
+behind one of the panels. This could be fastened on the inside by
+a strong bolt. The walls of the mansion are of immense thickness,
+and the recesses and nooks noticeable everywhere were evidently at
+one time places of concealment; one long triangular recess extends
+between two ruinous chambers (mere skeletons of past grandeur),
+and was no doubt for the purpose of reaching the basement from
+the first floor other than by the staircases. In the upper part
+of the house a dismal pit or well extends to the ground level,
+where it slants off in an oblique direction below the building,
+and terminates in a large pool or lake, after the fashion of
+that already described at Baddesley Clinton, in Warwickshire.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: This house must not be confused with "the Upper House,"
+connected with Charles II.'s wanderings.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Everything points to the former magnificence of this mansion;
+the elaborate gate-house, the handsome stone porch, and even
+the colossal sundial, which last, for quaint design, can hold
+its own with those of the greatest baronial castles in Scotland.
+The arms of the Brooke family are to be seen emblazoned on the
+walls, a member of whom, Sir Basil, was he who christened the
+hunting-lodge of the Giffards "Boscobel," from the Italian words
+"bos co bello," on account of its woody situation. It is long
+since the Brookes migrated from Madeley&mdash;now close upon two
+centuries.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The deadly looking pits occasionally seen in ancient buildings
+are dangerous, to say the least of it. They may be likened to
+the shaft of our modern lift, with the car at the bottom and
+nothing above to prevent one from taking a step into eternity!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A friend at Twickenham sends us a curious account of a recent
+exploration of what was once the manor house, "Arragon Towers."
+We cannot do better than quote his words, written in answer to a
+request for particulars. "I did not," he says, "make sufficient
+examination of the hiding-place in the old manor house of Twickenham
+to give a detailed description of it, and I have no one here
+whom I could get to accompany me in exploring it now. It is not
+a thing to do by one's self, as one might make a false step,
+and have no one to assist in retrieving it. The entrance is in
+the top room of the one remaining turret by means of a movable
+panel in the wall opposite the window. The panel displaced, you
+see the top of a thick wall (almost on a line with the floor of
+the room). The width of the aperture is, I should think, nearly
+three feet; that of the wall-top about a foot and a half; the
+remaining space between the wall-top and the outer wall of the
+house is what you might perhaps term 'a chasm'&mdash;it is a sheer
+drop to the cellars of the house. I was told by the workmen that
+by walking the length of the wall-top (some fifteen feet) I should
+reach a stairway conducting to the vaults below, and that on
+reaching the bottom, a passage led off in the direction of the
+river, the tradition being that it actually went beneath the
+river to Ham House."
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap12">CHAPTER XII</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+HIDING-PLACES IN JACOBITE DWELLINGS AND IN SCOTTISH CASTLES AND
+MANSIONS
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+During the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 some of the "priest's
+holes" in the old Roman Catholic houses, especially in the north
+of England and in Scotland, came into requisition not only for
+storing arms and ammunition, but, after the failure of each
+enterprise, for concealing adherents of the luckless House of
+Stuart.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In the earlier mansion of Worksop, Nottinghamshire (burnt down
+in 1761), there was a large concealed chamber provided with a
+fireplace and a bed, which could only be entered by removing
+the sheets of lead forming the roofing. Beneath was a trap-door
+opening to a precipitous flight of narrow steps in the thickness
+of a wall. This led to a secret chamber, that had an inner
+hiding-place at the back of a sliding panel. A witness in a trial
+succeeding "the '45" declared to having seen a large quantity
+of arms there in readiness for the insurrection.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The last days of the notorious Lord Lovat are associated with
+some of the old houses in the north. Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire,
+and Netherwhitton, in Northumberland, claim the honour of hiding
+this double-faced traitor prior to his arrest. At the former is a
+small chamber near the roof, and in the latter is a hiding-place
+measuring eight feet by three and ten feet high. Nor must be
+forgotten the tradition of Mistress Beatrice Cope, behind the
+walls of whose bedroom Lovat (so goes the story) was concealed,
+and the fugitive, being asthmatical, would have revealed his
+whereabouts to the soldiers in search of him, had not Mistress
+Cope herself kept up a persistent and violent fit of coughing
+to drown the noise.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A secret room in the old Tudor house Ty Mawr, Monmouthshire,
+is associated with the Jacobite risings. It is at the back of
+"the parlour" fireplace, and is entered through a square stone
+slab at the foot of the staircase. The chamber is provided with a
+small fireplace, the flue of which is connected with the ordinary
+chimney, so as to conceal the smoke. The same sort of thing may
+be seen at Bisham Abbey, Berks.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Early in the last century a large hiding-place was found at Danby
+Hall, Yorkshire. It contained a large quantity of swords and
+pistols. Upwards of fifty sets of harness of untanned leather of
+the early part of the eighteenth century were further discovered,
+all of them in so good a state of preservation that they were
+afterwards used as cart-horse gear upon the farm.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+No less than nine of the followers of "Bonnie Prince Charlie" are
+said to have been concealed in a secret chamber at Fetternear,
+Kemnay, Aberdeenshire, an old seat of the Leslys of Balquhane. It
+was situated in the wall behind a large bookcase with a glazed
+front, a fixture in the room, the back of which could be made
+to slide back and give admittance to the recess.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Quite by accident an opening was discovered in a corner cupboard
+at an old house near Darlington. Certain alterations were in
+progress which necessitated the removal of the shelves, but upon
+this being attempted, they descended in some mysterious manner.
+The back of the cavity could then be pushed aside (that is to
+say, when the secret of its mechanism was discovered), and a
+hiding-place opened out to view. It contained some tawdry ornaments
+of Highland dress, which at one time, it was conjectured, belonged
+to an adherent of Prince Charlie.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The old mansion of Stonyhurst, Lancashire, contained eight
+hiding-places. One of them, exactly like that at Fetternear,
+was at the back of a bookcase. A secret spring was discovered
+which opened a concealed door in the wall. In the space behind,
+a quantity of James II. guineas, a bed, a mattress, and a flask
+of rum were found. A former student of this famous Jesuit college,
+who was instrumental in the discovery of a "priest's hole," has
+provided us with the following particulars: "It would be too
+long to tell you how I first discovered that in the floor of
+my bedroom, in the recess of the huge Elizabethan bay window,
+was a trap-door concealed by a thin veneering of oak; suffice
+it say that with a companion I devoted a delightful half-holiday
+to stripping off the veneering and breaking the lock of the
+trap-door. Between my floor and the ceiling of the long gallery
+below, was contrived a small room about five feet in height and
+the size and shape of the bay window recess. In one corner of
+this hiding-hole was what seemed a walled-up doorway, and it
+occurred to my companion and myself that we had heard some vague
+old tradition that all this part of the house was riddled with
+secret passages leading from one concealed chamber to another,
+but we did not seek to explore any farther." In pulling down a
+portion of the college, a hollow beam was discovered that opened
+upon concealed hinges, used formerly for secreting articles of
+value or sacred books and vessels; and during some alterations
+to the central tower, over the main entrance to the mansion,
+a "priest's hole" was found, containing seven horse pistols,
+ready loaded and some of them richly ornamented with silver. A
+view could be obtained from the interior of the hiding-place,
+in the same manner as that which we have described in the old
+summer-house at Salisbury; a small hole being devised in the design
+of the Sherburn arms upon the marble shield over the gateway.
+This was the only provision for air and light.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The quaint discovery of rum at Stonyhurst suggests the story
+of a hiding-place in an old house at Bishops Middleham, near
+Durham, mentioned by Southey in his <i>Commonplace Book</i>.
+The house was occupied for years by a supposed total abstainer;
+but a "priest's hole" in his bedroom, discovered after his death
+full of strong liquor, revealed the fact that by utilising the
+receptacle as a cellar he had been able to imbibe secretly to
+his heart's content.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A large quantity or Georgian gold coins were found some years ago
+in a small hiding-place under the oaken sill of a bedroom window
+at Gawthorp Hall, Lancashire, placed there, it is supposed, for
+the use of Prince Charles's army in passing through the country
+in 1745.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The laird of Belucraig (an old mansion in the parish of Aboyne,
+Aberdeenshire) was concealed after "the '45" in his own house,
+while his wife, like the hostess of Chastleton, hospitably
+entertained the soldiers who were in search of him. The secret
+chamber where he was concealed was found some years ago in making
+some alterations to the roof. In it were a quantity of Jacobite
+papers and a curious old arm-chair. The original entry was through
+a panel at the back of a "box bed" in the wainscot of a small,
+isolated bedroom at the top of the house. The room itself could
+only be reached by a secret staircase from a corridor below. The
+hiding-place was therefore doubly secure, and was a stronghold in
+case of greatest emergency. The Innes of Drumgersk and Belucraig were
+always staunch Roman Catholics and Jacobites. Their representatives
+lived in the old house until 1850.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In another old Aberdeenshire mansion, Dalpersie House, a hiding-hole
+or recess may be seen in one of the upper chambers, where was
+arrested a Gordon, one of the last victims executed after "the
+45."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The ancient castles of Fyvie, Elphinstone, and Kemnay House have
+their secret chambers. The first of these is, with the exception
+of Glamis, perhaps, the most picturesque example of the tall-roofed
+and cone-topped turret style of architecture introduced from
+France in the days of James VI. A small space marked "the armoury"
+in an old plan of the building could in no way be accounted for,
+it possessing neither door, window, nor fireplace; a trap-door,
+however, was at length found in the floor immediately above its
+supposed locality which led to its identification. At Kemnay
+(Aberdeenshire) the hiding-place is in the dining-room chimney;
+and at Elphinstone (East Lothian), in the bay of a window of
+the great hall, is a masked entrance to a narrow stair in the
+thickness of the wall leading to a little room situated in the
+northeast angle of the tower; it further has an exit through a
+trap-door in the floor of a passage in the upper part of the
+building.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The now ruinous castle of Towie Barclay, near Banff, has evidences
+of secret ways and contrivances. Adjoining the fireplace of the
+great hall is a small room constructed for this purpose. In the
+wall of the same apartment is also a recess only to be reached by
+a narrow stairway in the thickness of the masonry, and approached
+from the flooring above the hall. A similar contrivance exists
+between the outer and inner walls of the dining hall of Carew
+Castle, Pembrokeshire.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Coxton Tower, near Elgin, contains a singular provision for
+communication from the top of the building to the basement, perfectly
+independent of the staircase. In the centre of each floor is a
+square stone which, when removed, reveals an opening from the
+summit to the base of the tower, through which a person could
+be lowered.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Another curious old Scottish mansion, famous for its secret chambers
+and passages, is Gordonstown. Here, in the pavement of a corridor
+in the west wing, a stone may be swung aside, beneath which is
+a narrow cell scooped out of one of the foundation walls. It
+may be followed to the adjoining angle, where it branches off
+into the next wall to an extent capable of holding fifty or sixty
+persons. Another large hiding-place is situated in one of the
+rooms at the back of a tall press or cupboard. The space in the
+wall is sufficiently large to contain eight or nine people, and
+entrance to it is effected by unloosing a spring bolt under the
+lower shelf, when the whole back of the press swings aside.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Whether the mystery of the famous secret room at Glamis Castle,
+Forfarshire, has ever been solved or satisfactorily explained
+beyond the many legends and stories told in connection with it,
+we have not been able to determine. The walls in this remarkable
+old mansion are in parts over twelve feet thick, and in them are
+several curious recesses, notably near the windows of the "stone
+hall." The secret chamber, or "Fyvie-room," as it is sometimes
+called, is said to have a window, which nevertheless has not
+led to the identification of its situation. Sir Walter Scott
+once slept a night at Glamis, and has described the "wild and
+straggling arrangement of the accommodation within doors." "I
+was conducted," he says, "to my apartment in a distant corner
+of the building. I must own, as I heard door after door shut
+after my conductor had retired, I began to consider myself too
+far from the living and somewhat too near the dead&mdash;in a word,
+I experienced sensations which, though not remarkable either for
+timidity or superstition, did not fail to affect me to the point
+of being disagreeable." We have the great novelist's authority
+for saying that the entrance of the secret chamber (in his time,
+at any rate), by the law or custom of the family, could only
+be known to three persons at once&mdash;<i>viz.</i> the Earl of
+Strathmore, his heir-apparent, and any third person whom they
+might take into their confidence.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The great mystery of the secret chamber was imparted to the heir
+of Glamis, or the heir-presumptive, as the case might be, upon the
+eve of his arriving at his majority, and thus it passed into modern
+times from the dim and distant feudal days. That the secret should
+be thus handed down through centuries without being divulged is
+indeed remarkable, yet so is the story; and many a time a future
+lord of Glamis has boasted that he would reveal everything when
+he should come of age. Still, however, when that time <i>did</i>
+arrive, in every case the recipient of the deadly secret has
+solemnly refused point blank to speak a word upon the subject.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+There is a secret chamber at the old Cumberland seat of the ancient
+family of Senhouse. To this day its position is known only by
+the heir-at-law and the family solicitor. This room at Nether
+Hall is said to have no window, and has hitherto baffled every
+attempt of those not in the secret to discover its whereabouts.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Remarkable as this may seem in these prosaic days, it has been
+confirmed by the present representative of the family, who, in a
+communication to us upon the subject, writes as follows: "It may
+be romantic, but still it is true that the secret has survived
+frequent searches of visitors. There is no one alive who has
+been in it, that I am aware, except myself." Brandeston Hall,
+Suffolk, is also said to have a hiding place known only to two
+or three persons.
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap13">CHAPTER XIII</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+CONCEALED DOORS, SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGES, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Numerous old houses possess secret doors, passages, and
+staircases&mdash;Franks, in Kent; Eshe Hall, Durham; Binns House,
+Scotland; Dannoty Hall, and Whatton Abbey, Yorkshire; are examples.
+The last of these has a narrow flight of steps leading down to
+the moat, as at Baddesley Clinton. The old house Marks, near
+Romford, pulled down in 1808 after many years of neglect and
+decay&mdash;as well as the ancient seat of the Tichbournes in Hampshire,
+pulled down in 1803&mdash;and the west side of Holme Hall, Lancashire,
+demolished in the last century, proved to have been riddled with
+hollow walls. Secret doors and panels are still pointed out at
+Bramshill, Hants (in the long gallery and billiard-room); the
+oak room, Bochym House, Cornwall; the King's bedchamber, Ford
+Castle, Northumberland; the plotting-parlour of the White Hart
+Hotel, Hull; Low Hall, Yeadon, Yorkshire; Sawston; the Queen's
+chamber at Kimbolton Castle, Huntingdonshire, etc., etc.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A concealed door exists on the left-hand side of the fireplace
+of the gilt room of Holland House, Kensington, associated by
+tradition with the ghost of the first Lord Holland. Upon the
+authority of the Princess Lichtenstein, it appears there is,
+close by, a blood-stain which nothing can efface! It is to be
+hoped no enterprising person may be induced to try his skill here
+with the success that attended a similar attempt at Holyrood,
+as recorded by Scott![1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: <i>Vide</i> Introduction to <i>The Fair Maid of
+Perth</i>]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In the King's writing-closet at Hampton Court may be seen the
+"secret door" by which William III. left the palace when he wished
+to go out unobserved; but this is more of a <i>private</i> exit
+than a <i>secret</i> one.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig068.jpg" width="415" height="287" alt="Fig. 68"><br>
+WOODSTOCK PALACE, OXFORDSHIRE (FROM AN OLD PRINT)
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig069.jpg" width="394" height="262" alt="Fig. 69"><br>
+MARKYATE CELL, HERTFORDSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The old Ch&acirc;teau du Puits, Guernsey, has a hiding-hole placed
+between two walls which form an acute angle; the one constituting
+part of the masonry of an inner courtyard, the other a wall on
+the eastern side of the main structure. The space between could
+be reached through the floor of an upper room.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Cussans, in his <i>History of Hertfordshire</i>, gives a curious
+account of the discovery of an iron door up the kitchen chimney
+of the old house Markyate Cell, near Dunstable. A short flight
+of steps led from it to another door of stout oak, which opened
+by a secret spring, and led to an unknown chamber on the ground
+level. Local tradition says this was the favourite haunt of a
+certain "wicked Lady Ferrers," who, disguised in male attire,
+robbed travellers upon the highway, and being wounded in one
+of these exploits, was discovered lying dead outside the walls
+of the house; and the malignant nature of this lady's spectre
+is said to have had so firm a hold upon the villagers that no
+local labourer could be induced to work upon that particular
+part of the building.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Beare Park, near Middleham, Yorkshire, had a hiding-hole entered
+from the kitchen chimney, as had also the Rookery Farm, near
+Cromer; West Coker Manor House; and The Chantry, at Ilminster,
+both in Somerset. At the last named, in another hiding-place in
+the room above, a bracket or credence-table was found, which
+is still preserved.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Many weird stories are told about Bovey House, South Devon, situated
+near the once notorious smuggling villages of Beer and Branscombe.
+Upon removing some leads of the roof a secret room was found,
+furnished with a chair and table. The well here is remarkable,
+and similar to that at Carisbrooke, with the exception that two
+people take the place of the donkey! Thirty feet below the ground
+level there is said to have been a hiding-place&mdash;a large cavity
+cut in the solid rock. Many years ago a skeleton of a man was
+found at the bottom. Such dramatic material should suggest to some
+sensational novelist a tragic story, as the well and lime-walk at
+Ingatestone is said to have suggested <i>Lady Audley's Secret</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A hiding-place something after the same style existed in the now
+demolished manor house of Besils Leigh, Berks. Down the shaft
+of a chimney a cavity was scooped out of the brickwork, to which
+a refugee had to be lowered by a rope. One of the towers of the
+west gate of Bodiam Castle contains a narrow square well in the
+wall leading to the ground level, and, as the guide was wont
+to remark, "how much farther the Lord only knows"! This sort
+of thing may also be seen at Mancetter Manor, Warwickshire, and
+Ightham Moat, Kent, both approached by a staircase.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A communication formerly ran from a secret chamber in the
+oak-panelled dining-room of Birtsmorton Court, Worcestershire,
+to a passage beneath the moat that surrounds the structure, and
+thence to an exit on the other side of the water. During the Wars
+of the Roses Sir John Oldcastle is said to have been concealed
+behind the secret panel; but now the romance is somewhat marred,
+for modern vandalism has converted the cupboard into a repository
+for provisions. The same indignity has taken place at that splendid
+old timber house in Cheshire, Moreton Hall, where a secret room,
+provided with a sleeping-compartment, situated over the kitchen,
+has been modernised into a repository for the storing of cheeses.
+From the hiding-place the moat could formerly be reached, down
+a narrow shaft in the wall.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Chelvey Court, near Bristol, contained two hiding-places; one,
+at the top of the house, was formerly entered through a panel,
+the other (a narrow apartment having a little window, and an
+iron candle-holder projecting from the wall) through the floor
+of a cupboard.[1] Both the panel and the trap-door are now done
+away with, and the tradition of the existence of the secret rooms
+almost forgotten, though not long since we received a letter
+from an antiquarian who had seen them thirty years before, and
+who was actually entertaining the idea of making practical
+investigations with the aid of a carpenter or mason, to which,
+as suggested, we were to be a party; the idea, however, was never
+carried out.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See <i>Notes and Queries</i>, September, 1855.]
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig070.jpg" width="377" height="293" alt="Fig. 70"><br>
+BIRTSMORTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig071.jpg" width="293" height="375" alt="Fig. 71"><br>
+PORCH, CHELVEY COURT, SOMERSETSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Granchester Manor House, Cambridgeshire, until recently possessed
+three places of concealment. Madingley Hall, in the same
+neighbourhood, has two, one of them entered from a bedroom on the
+first floor, has a space in the thickness of the wall high enough
+for a man to stand upright in it. The manor house of Woodcote,
+Hants, also possessed two, which were each capable of holding from
+fifteen to twenty men, but these repositories are now opened
+out into passages. One was situated behind a stack of chimneys,
+and contained an inner hiding-place. The "priests' quarters"
+in connection with the hiding-places are still to be seen.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Harborough Hall, Worcestershire, has two "priests' holes," one
+in the wall of the dining-room, the other behind a chimney in
+an upper room.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The old mansion of the Brudenells, in Northamptonshire, Deene
+Park, has a large secret chamber at the back of the fireplace
+in the great hall, sufficiently capacious to hold a score of
+people. Here also a hidden door in the panelling leads towards
+a subterranean passage running in the direction of the ruinous
+hall of Kirby, a mile and a half distant. In a like manner a
+passage extended from the great hall of Warleigh, an Elizabethan
+house near Plymouth, to an outlet in a cliff some sixty yards
+away, at whose base the tidal river flows.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Speke Hall, Lancashire (perhaps the finest specimen extant of
+the wood-and-plaster style of architecture nicknamed "Magpie "),
+formerly possessed a long underground communication extending
+from the house to the shore of the river Mersey; a member of
+the Norreys family concealed a priest named Richard Brittain
+here in the year 1586, who, by this means, effected his escape
+by boat.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The famous secret passage of Nottingham Castle, by which the
+young King Edward III. and his loyal associates gained access
+to the fortress and captured the murderous regent and usurper
+Mortimer, Earl of March, is known to this day as "Mortimer's
+Hole." It runs up through the perpendicular rock upon which the
+castle stands, on the south-east side from a place called Brewhouse
+yard, and has an exit in what was originally the courtyard of the
+building. The Earl was seized in the midst of his adherents and
+retainers on the night of October 19th, 1330, and after a skirmish,
+notwithstanding the prayers and entreaties of his paramour Queen
+Isabella, he was bound and carried away through the passage in
+the rock, and shortly afterwards met his well-deserved death on
+the gallows at Smithfield.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But what ancient castle, monastery, or hall has not its traditional
+subterranean passage? Certainly the majority are mythical; still,
+there are some well authenticated. Burnham Abbey, Buckinghamshire,
+for example, or Tenterden Hall, Hendon, had passages which have
+been traced for over fifty yards; and one at Vale Royal,
+Nottinghamshire, has been explored for nearly a mile. In the
+older portions in both of the great wards of Windsor Castle arched
+passages thread their way below the basement, through the chalk,
+and penetrate to some depth below the site of the castle ditch
+at the base of the walls.[1] In the neighbourhood of Ripon
+subterranean passages have been found from time to time&mdash;tunnels
+of finely moulded masonry supposed to have been connected at
+one time with Fountains Abbey.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See Marquis of Lorne's (Duke of Argyll) <i>Governor's
+Guide to Windsor</i>.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A passage running from Arundel Castle in the direction of Amberley
+has also been traced for some considerable distance, and a man and
+a dog have been lost in following its windings, so the entrance
+is now stopped up. About three years ago a long underground way
+was discovered at Margate, reaching from the vicinity of Trinity
+Church to the smugglers' caves in the cliffs; also at Port Leven,
+near Helston, a long subterranean tunnel was discovered leading to
+the coast, no doubt very useful in the good old smuggling days.
+At Sunbury Park, Middlesex, was found a long vaulted passage some
+five feet high and running a long way under the grounds. Numerous
+other examples could be stated, among them at St. Radigund's
+Abbey, near Dover; Liddington Manor House, Wilts; the Bury,
+Rickmansworth; "Sir Harry Vane's House," Hampstead, etc., etc.
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap14">CHAPTER XIV</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+MINIATURE HIDING-HOLES FOR VALUABLES, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Small hidden recesses for the concealment of valuables or
+compromising deeds, etc., behind the wainscoting of ancient houses,
+frequently come to light. Many a curious relic has been discovered
+from time to time, often telling a strange or pathetic story
+of the past. A certain Lady Hoby, who lived at Bisham Abbey,
+Berkshire, is said by tradition to have caused the death of her
+little boy by too severe corporal punishment for his obstinacy
+in learning to write, A grim sequel to the legend happened not
+long since. Behind a window shutter in a small secret cavity
+in the wall was found an ancient, tattered copy-book, which,
+from the blots and its general slovenly appearance, was no doubt
+the handiwork of the unfortunate little victim to Lady Hoby's
+wrath.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When the old manor house of Wandsworth was pulled down recently,
+upon removing some old panelling a little cupboard was discovered,
+full of dusty phials and mouldy pill-boxes bearing the names of
+poor Queen Anne's numerous progeny who died in infancy.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Richard Cromwell spent many of his later years at Hursley, near
+Winchester, an old house now pulled down. In the progress of
+demolition what appeared to be a piece of rusty metal was found
+in a small cavity in one of the walls, which turned out to be
+no less important a relic than the seal of the Commonwealth of
+England.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Walford, in <i>Greater London</i>, mentions the discovery of
+some articles of dress of Elizabeth's time behind the wainscot
+of the old palace of Richmond, Surrey. Historical portraits have
+frequently been found in this way. Behind the panelling in a
+large room at the old manor house of Great Gaddesden, Herts,
+were a number of small aumbrys, or recesses. A most interesting
+panel-portrait of Queen Elizabeth was found in one of them, which
+was exhibited at the Tudor Exhibition. In 1896, when the house
+of John Wesley at Lewisham was pulled down, who should be found
+between the walls but the amorous Merry Monarch and a court beauty!
+The former is said to be Riley's work. Secretary Thurloe's MSS.,
+as is well known, were found embedded in a ceiling of his lodgings
+at Lincoln's Inn. In pulling down a block of old buildings in
+Newton Street, Holborn, a hidden space was found in one of the
+chimneys, and there, covered with the dust of a century, lay
+a silver watch, a silk guard attached, and seals bearing the
+Lovat crest. The relic was promptly claimed by Mr. John Fraser,
+the claimant to the long-disputed peerage.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: December 14th, 1895.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Small hiding-places have been found at the manor house of Chew
+Magna, Somerset, and Milton Priory, a Tudor mansion in Berkshire.
+In the latter a green shagreen case was found containing a
+seventeenth-century silver and ivory pocket knife and fork. A
+small hiding-place at Coughton Court, Warwickshire, brought to
+light a bundle of priest's clothes, hidden there in the days
+of religious persecution. In 1876 a small chamber was found at
+Sanderstead Court, Surrey, containing a small blue-and-white jar
+of Charles I.'s time. Three or four small secret repositories
+existed behind some elaborately carved oak panels in the great
+hall of the now ruinous Harden Hall, near Stockport. In similar
+recesses at Gawdy Hall, Suffolk, were discovered two ancient
+apostle spoons, a watch, and some Jacobean MSS. A pair of gloves
+and some jewels of seventeenth-century date were brought to light
+not many years ago in a secret recess at Woodham Mortimer Manor
+House, Essex. A very curious example of a hiding-place for valuables
+formerly existed at an old building known as Terpersie Castle,
+near Alford, Lincolnshire. The sides of it were lined with stone
+to preserve articles from damp, and it could be drawn out of
+the wall like a drawer.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In the year 1861 a hidden receptacle was found at the Elizabethan
+college of Wedmore, Kent, containing Roman Catholic MSS. and
+books; and at Bromley Palace, close by, in a small aperture below
+the floor, was found the leathern sole of a pointed shoe of the
+Middle Ages! Small hiding-places of this nature existed in a
+wing, now pulled down, of the Abbey House, Whitby (in "Lady Anne's
+Room"). At Castle Ashby, Northants; Fountains Hall, near Ripon;
+Ashes House, near Preston; Trent House, Somerset; and Ockwells,
+Berks,[1] are panels opening upon pivots and screening small
+cavities in the walls.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: Another hiding-place is said to have existed behind
+the fireplace of the hall.]
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig072.jpg" width="416" height="526" alt="Fig. 72"><br>
+HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE, SUSSEX
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap15">CHAPTER XV</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+HIDING-PLACES OF SMUGGLERS AND THIEVES
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Horsfield, in his <i>History of Sussex</i>, gives a curious account
+of the discovery in 1738 of an iron chest in a recess of a wall at
+the now magnificent ruin Hurstmonceaux Castle. In the thickness
+of the walls were many curious staircases communicating with the
+galleries. When the old castle was allowed to fall into ruin,
+the secret passages, etc., were used by smugglers as a convenient
+receptacle for contraband goods.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Until recently there was an ingenious hiding-place behind a sliding
+panel at the old "Bell Inn" at Sandwich which had the reputation
+of having formerly been put to the same use; indeed, in many
+another old house near the coast were hiding-places utilised for
+a like purpose.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In pulling down an old house at Erith in 1882 a vault was discovered
+with strong evidence that it had been extensively used for smuggling.
+The pretty village of Branscombe, on the Devonshire coast, was,
+like the adjacent village of Beer, a notorious place for smugglers.
+"The Clergy House," a picturesque, low-built Tudor building
+(condemned as being insecure and pulled down a few years ago),
+had many mysterious stories told of its former occupants, its
+underground chambers and hiding-places; indeed, the villagers
+went so far as to declare that there was <i>another house</i>
+beneath the foundations!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A secret chamber was discovered at the back of a fireplace in an
+old house at Deal, from which a long underground passage extended
+to the beach. The house was used as a school, and the unearthly
+noises caused by the wind blowing up this smugglers' passage
+created much consternation among the young lady pupils. A lady
+of our acquaintance remembers, when a schoolgirl at Rochester,
+exploring part of a vaulted tunnel running in the direction of
+the castle from Eastgate House, which in those days was a school,
+and had not yet received the distinction of being the "Nun's
+House" of <i>Edwin Drood</i>. Some way along, the passage was
+blocked by the skeleton of a donkey! Our informant is not given
+to romancing, therefore we must accept the story in good faith.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+All round the coast-line of Kent once famous smuggling buildings
+are still pointed out. Movable hollow beams have been found
+supporting cottage ceilings, containing all kinds of contraband
+goods. In one case, so goes the story, a customs house officer
+in walking through a room knocked his head, and the tell-tale
+hollow sound (from the beam, not from his head, we will presume)
+brought a discovery. At Folkestone, tradition says, a long row
+of houses used for the purpose had the cellars connected one
+with the other right the way along, so that the revenue officers
+could be easily evaded in the case of pursuit.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The modern utility of a convenient secret panel or trap-door
+occasionally is apparent from the police-court reports. The tenements
+in noted thieves' quarters are often found to have
+intercommunication; a masked door will lead from one house to
+the other, and trap-doors will enable a thief to vanish from
+the most keen-sighted detective, and nimbly thread his way over
+the roofs of the neighbouring houses. There was a case in the
+papers not long since; a man, being closely chased, was on the
+point of being seized, when, to the astonishment of his pursuers,
+he suddenly disappeared at a spot where apparently he had been
+closely hemmed in.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Many old houses in Clerkenwell were, sixty or seventy years ago,
+notorious thieves' dens, and were noted for their hiding-places,
+trap-doors, etc., for evading the vigilance of the law. The name
+of Jack Sheppard, as may be supposed, had connection with the
+majority. One of these old buildings had been used in former
+years as a secret Jesuits' college, and the walls were threaded
+with masked passages and places of concealment; and when the old
+"Red Lion Inn" in West Street was pulled down in 1836, some artful
+traps and false floors were discovered which tarried well with
+its reputation as a place of rendezvous and safety for outlaws.
+The "Rising Sun" in Holywell Street is a curious example, there
+being many false doors and traps in various parts of the house;
+also in the before-mentioned Newton Street a panel could be raised
+by a pulley, through which a fugitive or outlaw could effect his
+escape on to the roof, and thence into the adjoining house.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+One of the simplest and most secure hiding-places perhaps ever
+devised by a law-breaker was that within a water-butt! A cone-shaped
+repository, entered from the bottom, would allow a man to sit
+within it; nevertheless, to all intents and purposes the butt
+was kept full of water, and could be apparently emptied from a
+tap at its base, which, of course, was raised from the ground
+to admit the fugitive. We understand such a butt is still in
+existence somewhere in Yorkshire.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A "secret staircase" in Partingdale House, Mill Hill, is associated
+(by tradition) with the notorious Dick Turpin, perhaps because of
+its proximity to his haunts upon Finchley Common. As it exists
+now, however, there is no object for secrecy, the staircase leading
+merely to the attics, and its position can be seen; but the door
+is well disguised in a Corinthian column containing a secret
+spring. Various alterations have taken place in this house, so
+once upon a time it may have had a deeper meaning than is now
+perceptible.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Another supposed resort of this famous highwayman is an old ivy-grown
+cottage at Thornton Heath. Narrow steps lead up from the open
+chimney towards a concealed door, from which again steps descend
+and lead to a subterranean passage having an exit in the garden.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig073.jpg" width="403" height="295" alt="Fig. 73"><br>
+BOVEY HOUSE, SOUTH DEVON
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig074.jpg" width="409" height="312" alt="Fig. 74"><br>
+MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We do not intend to go into the matter of modern secret chambers,
+and there are such things, as some of our present architects and
+builders could tell us, for it is no uncommon thing to design
+hiding-places for the security of valuables. For instance, we
+know of a certain suburban residence, built not more than thirty
+years ago, where one of the rooms has capacities for swallowing
+up a man six feet high and broad in proportion. We have known such
+a person&mdash;or shall we say victim?&mdash;to appear after a temporary
+absence, of say, five minutes, with visible signs of discomfort;
+but as far as we are aware the secret is as safe in his keeping
+as is the famous mystery in the possession of the heir of Glamis.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+An example of a sliding panel in an old house in Essex (near
+Braintree) was used as a pattern for the entrance to a modern
+secret chamber;[1] and no doubt there are many similar instances
+where the ingenuity of our ancestors has thus been put to use
+for present-day requirements.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: According to the newspaper reports, the recently
+recovered "Duchess of Devonshire," by Gainsborough, was for some
+time secreted behind a secret panel in a sumptuous steam-launch
+up the river Thames, from whence it was removed to America in
+a trunk with a false bottom.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Our collection of houses with hiding-holes is now coming to an
+end. We will briefly summarise those that remain unrecorded.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"New Building" at Thirsk has, or had, a secret chamber measuring
+three feet by six. Upon the outside wall on the east side of
+the house is a small aperture into which a stone fitted with
+such nicety that no sign of its being movable could possibly be
+detected; at the same time, it could be removed with the greatest
+ease in the event of its being necessary to supply a person in
+hiding with food.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Catledge Hall, Cambridgeshire, has a small octangular closet
+adjoining a bedroom, from which formerly there was a secret way
+on to the leads of the roof.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig075.jpg" width="411" height="302" alt="Fig. 75"><br>
+MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig076.jpg" width="403" height="276" alt="Fig. 76"><br>
+ENTRANCE TO SECRET STAIRCASE, PARTINGDALE HOUSE, MILL-HILL, MIDDLESEX
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+At Dunkirk Hall, near West Bromwich, is a "priest's hole" in the
+upper part of the house near "the chapel," which is now divided
+into separate rooms.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Mapledurham House, axon, the old seat of the Blounts, contains
+a "priest's hole" in the attics, descent into which could be
+made by the aid of a rope suspended for that purpose.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Upton Court, near Slough, possesses a "priest's hole," entered
+from a fireplace, provided with a double flue&mdash;one for smoke,
+the other for ventilation to the hiding-place.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Knebworth House, Hertfordshire, formerly had a secret chamber
+known as "Hell Hole."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Eastgate House, Rochester (before mentioned), has a hiding-place
+in one of the upstairs rooms. It has, however, been altered.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Milsted Manor, Kent, is said to have a secret exit from the library;
+and Sharsted Court (some three miles distant) has a cleverly
+marked panel in the wainscoting of "the Tapestry Dressing-room,"
+which communicates by a very narrow and steep flight of steps
+in the thickness of the wall with "the Red Bedroom."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The "Clough Inn," Chard, Somersetshire, is said by tradition to
+have possessed three secret rooms!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire&mdash;a hiding-place formerly in "the tower."
+Bramhall Hall, Cheshire&mdash;two secret recesses were discovered
+not long ago during alterations. The following also contain
+hiding-places:&mdash;Hall-i'-the-wood, Bolling Hall, Mains Hall, and
+Huncoat Hall, all in Lancashire; Drayton House, Northants; Packington
+Old Hall, Warwickshire; Batsden Court, Salop; Melford Hall, Suffolk,
+Fyfield House, Wilts; "New Building," Southwater, Sussex; Barsham
+Rectory, Suffolk; Porter's Hall, Southend, Essex; Kirkby Knowle
+Castle and Barnborough Hall, Yorkshire; Ford House, Devon; Cothele,
+Cornwall; Hollingbourne Manor House, Kent (altered of late years);
+Salisbury Court, near Shenley, Herts.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Of hiding-places and secret chambers in the ancient castles and
+mansions upon the Continent we know but little.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Two are said to exist in an old house in the Hradschin in Prague&mdash;one
+communicating from the foundation to the roof "by a windlass or
+turnpike." A subterranean passage extends also from the house
+beneath the street and the cathedral, and is said to have its
+exit in the Hirch Graben, or vast natural moat which bounds the
+ch&acirc;teau upon the north.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A lady of our acquaintance remembers her feeling of awe when,
+as a school-girl, she was shown a hiding-place in an old mansion
+near Baden-Baden&mdash;a huge piece of stone masonry swinging aside
+upon a pivot and revealing a gloomy kind of dungeon behind.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The old French ch&acirc;teaux, according to Froisart, were rarely without
+secret means of escape. King Louis XVI., famous for his mechanical
+skill, manufactured a hiding-place in an inner corridor of his
+private apartments at the Palace of Versailles. The wall where
+it was situated was painted to imitate large stones, and the
+grooves of the opening were cleverly concealed in the shaded
+representations of the divisions. In this a vast collection of
+State papers was preserved prior to the Revolution.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: Vide <i>The Memoirs of Madame Campan.</i>]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Mr. Lang tells us, in his admirable work <i>Pickle the Spy</i>,
+that Bonnie Prince Charlie, between the years 1749 and 1752,
+spent much of his time in the convent of St. Joseph in the Rue
+St. Dominique, in the Faubourg St. Germain, which under the late
+Empire (1863) was the hotel of the Minister of War. Here he appears
+to have been continually lurking behind the walls, and at night by
+a secret staircase visiting his protectress Madame de Vass&eacute;s.
+Allusion is made in the same work to a secret cellar with a "dark
+stair" leading to James III.'s furtive audience-chamber at his
+residence in Rome.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+So recently as the year 1832 a hiding-place in an old French
+house was put to practical use by the Duchesse de Berry after
+the failure of her enterprise to raise the populace in favour of
+her son the Duc de Bordeaux. She had, however, to reveal herself
+in preference to suffocation, a fire, either intentionally or
+accidentally, having been ignited close to where she was hidden,
+recalling the terrible experiences of Father Gerard at "Braddocks."
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap16">CHAPTER XVI</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+THE SCOTTISH HIDING-PLACES OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The romantic escapes of Prince Charles Edward are somewhat beyond
+the province of this book, owing to the fact that the hiding-places
+in which he lived for the greater part of five months were not
+artificial but natural formations in the wild, mountainous country
+of the Western Highlands. Far less convenient and comfortable
+were these caves and fissures in the rocks than those secret
+places which preserved the life of the "young chevalier's"
+great-uncle Charles II. Altogether, the terrible hardships to
+which the last claimant to the Stuart throne was subjected were
+far greater in every way, and we can but admire the remarkable
+spirit, fortitude, and courage that carried him through his numerous
+dangers and trials.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The wild and picturesque character not only of the Scotch scenery,
+but of the loyal Highlanders, who risked their all to save their
+King, gives the story of this remarkable escape a romantic colouring
+that surpasses any other of its kind, whether real or fictitious.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+This, therefore, is our excuse for giving a brief summary of the
+Prince's wanderings, if only to add to our other hiding-places
+a record of the names of the isolated spots which have become
+historical landmarks.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In his flight from the fatal battlefield of Culloden the young
+Prince, when about four miles from Inverness, hastily determined
+to make the best of his way towards the western coast. The first
+halt was made at Castle Dounie, the seat of the crafty old traitor
+Lord Lovat. A hasty meal having been taken here, Charles and his
+little cavalcade of followers pushed on to Invergarry, where
+the chieftain, Macdonnell of Glengarry, otherwise "Pickle the
+Spy,"[1] being absent from home, an empty house was the only
+welcome, but the best was made of the situation. Here the bulk of
+the Prince's companions dispersed to look after their own safety,
+while he and one or two chosen friends continued the journey to
+Glenpean, the residence of the chieftain Donald Cameron. From
+Mewboll, which was reached the next night, the fugitives proceeded
+on foot to Oban, where a hovel was found for sleeping-quarters.
+In the village of Glenbiasdale, in Arisaig, near to where Charles
+had landed on his disastrous enterprise, he learned that a number
+of Royalist cruisers were upon the alert all along the coast,
+whereupon he determined to watch his opportunity and get across
+to the Western Isles, and remain concealed until a French vessel
+could be found to take him abroad.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: <i>Vide</i> Andrew Lang's <i>Pickle the Spy</i>.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A boat was procured, and the little party safely embarked, but
+in the voyage encountered such heavy seas that the vessel very
+nearly foundered; a landing, however, being effected at a place
+called Roonish, in the Isle of Benbecula, a habitation had to
+be made out of a miserable hut. Two days being thus wretchedly
+spent, a move was made to the Island of Scalpa, where Charles
+was entertained for four days in the house of Donald Campbell.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Meanwhile, a larger vessel was procured, the object being to
+reach Stornoway; but the inclemency of the weather induced Charles
+and his guide Donald Macleod to make the greater part of the
+journey by land. Arriving there hungry, worn out, and drenched
+to the skin, the Prince passed the night at Kildun, the house
+of Mrs. Mackenzie; an alarm of danger, however, forced him to
+sea again with a couple of companions, O'Sullivan and O'Neal;
+but shortly after they had embarked they sighted some men-of-war,
+so put to land once more at the Island of Jeffurt. Four days
+were passed away in this lonely spot, when the boat put out to
+sea once more, and after many adventures and privations the
+travellers landed at Loch Wiskaway, in Benbecula, and made their
+headquarters some two miles inland at a squalid hut scarcely
+bigger than a pigstye.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The next move was to an isolated locality named Glencorodale,
+in the centre of South Uist, where in a hut of larger dimensions
+the Prince held his court in comparative luxury, his wants being
+well looked after by Sir Alexander and Lady Macdonald and other
+neighbouring Jacobites. With thirty thousand pounds reward offered
+for his capture, and the Western Isles practically surrounded
+by the enemy, it is difficult to imagine the much-sought-for
+prize coolly passing his weary hours in fishing and shooting,
+yet such was the case for the whole space of a month.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+An eye-witness describes Charles's costume at this time as "a
+tartan short coat and vest of the same, got from Lady Clanranald;
+his nightcap all patched with soot-drops, his shirt, hands, and
+face patched with the same; a short kilt, tartan hose, and Highland
+brogs."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+From South Uist the fugitive removed to the Island of Wia, where
+he was received by Ranald Macdonald; thence he visited places
+called Rossinish and Aikersideallich, and at the latter had to
+sleep in a fissure in the rocks. Returning once more to South
+Uist, Charles (accompanied by O'Neal and Mackechan) found a
+hiding-place up in the hills, as the militia appeared to be
+dangerously near, and at night tramped towards Benbecula, near
+to which another place of safety was found in the rocks.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The memorable name of Flora Macdonald now appears upon the scene.
+After much scheming and many difficulties the meeting of the Prince
+and this noble lady was arranged in a squalid hut near Rosshiness.
+The hardships encountered upon the journey from Benbecula to this
+village were some of the worst experiences of the unfortunate
+wanderer; and when his destination was reached at last, he had to
+be hurried off again to a hiding-place by the sea-shore, which
+provided little or no protection from the driving torrents of
+rain. Early each morning this precaution had to be taken, as
+the Royalist soldiers, who were quartered only a quarter of a
+mile distant, repaired to the hut every morning to get milk from
+the woman who acted as Charles's hostess. Upon the third day after
+the Prince had arrived, Flora Macdonald joined him, bringing with
+her the disguise for the character he was to impersonate upon
+a proposed journey to the Isle of Skye&mdash;<i>viz.</i> "a flowered
+linen gown, a light-coloured quilted petticoat, a white apron,
+and a mantle of dun camlet, made after the Irish fashion, with
+a hood."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A boat lay in readiness in a secluded nook on the coast, and
+"Betty Burke"&mdash;the pseudo servant-maid&mdash;Flora Macdonald, and
+Mackechan, as guide, embarked and got safely to Kilbride, in
+Skye. Not, however, without imminent dangers. A storm nearly
+swamped the boat; and upon reaching the western coast of the
+island they were about to land, when a number of militiamen were
+noticed on shore, close at hand, and as they recognised their
+peril, and pulled away with might and main, a volley of musketry
+would probably have had deadly effect, had not the fugitives
+thrown themselves at the bottom of the boat.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+At the house of the Macdonalds of Mugstat, whose representative
+dreaded the consequences of receiving Charles, another Macdonald
+was introduced as an accomplice by the merest accident. This
+staunch Jacobite at once took possession of "Betty," and hurried
+off towards his house of Kingsburgh. Upon the way the ungainly
+appearance of Flora's maid attracted the attention of a servant,
+who remarked that she had never seen such an impudent-looking
+woman. "See what long strides the jade takes!" she cried; "and how
+awkwardly she manages her petticoats!" And this was true enough,
+for in fording a little brook "Betty Burke" had to be severely
+reprimanded by her chaperon for her impropriety in lifting her
+skirts! Upon reaching the house, Macdonald's little girl caught
+sight of the strange woman, and ran away to tell her mother that
+her father had brought home "the most old, muckle, ill-shapen-up
+wife" she had ever seen. Startling news certainly for the lady
+of Kingsburgh!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The old worn-out boots of the Prince's were discarded for new
+ones ere he departed, and fragments of the former were long
+afterwards worn in the bosoms of Jacobite ladies.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The next step in this wonderful escape was to Portree, where
+temporary accommodation was found in a small public-house. Here
+Charles separated from his loyal companions Neil Mackechan and
+the immortal Flora. The "Betty Burke" disguise was discarded
+and burnt and a Highland dress donned. With new guides the young
+Chevalier now made his headquarters for a couple of days or so
+in a desolate shepherd's hut in the Isle of Raasay; thence he
+journeyed to the north coast of the Isle of Skye, and near Scorobreck
+housed himself in a cow-shed. At this stage of his journey Charles
+altered his disguise into that of a servant of his then companion
+Malcolm Macleod, and at the home of his next host (a Mackinnon of
+Ellagol) was introduced as "Lewie Caw," the son of a surgeon in
+the Highland army. By the advice of the Mackinnons, the fugitive
+decided to return, under their guidance, again to the mainland,
+and a parting supper having been held in a cave by the sea-shore,
+he bid adieu to the faithful Macleod. The crossing having been
+effected, not without innumerable dangers, once more Charles
+found himself near the locality of his first landing. For the
+next three days neither cave nor hut dwelling could be found
+that was considered safe; and upon the fourth day, in exploring
+the shores of Loch Nevis for a hiding-place, the fugitives ran
+their little craft right into a militia boat that was moored
+to and screened from view by a projecting rock. The soldiers
+on land immediately sprang on board and gave chase; but with
+his usual good luck Charles got clear away by leaping on land
+at a turn of the lake, where his retreat was covered by dense
+foliage.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+After this the Prince was under the care of the Macdonalds, one
+of which clan, Macdonald of Glenaladale, together with Donald
+Cameron of Glenpean, took the place of the Mackinnons.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A brief stay was made at Morar Lake and at Borrodaile (both houses
+of the Macdonalds); after which a hut in a wood near the latter
+place and an artfully constructed hiding-place between two rocks
+with a roof of green turf did service as the Prince's palace.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In this cave Charles received the alarming news that the Argyllshire
+Militia were on the scent, and were forming an impenetrable cordon
+completely round the district. Forced once more to seek refuge
+in flight, the unfortunate Stuart was hurried away through some
+of the wildest mountainous country he had yet been forced to
+traverse. A temporary hiding-place was found, and from this a
+search-party exploring the adjacent rocks and crags was watched
+with breathless interest.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Still within the military circle, a desperate dash for liberty had
+now to be planned. Nearly starved and reduced to the last extremity
+of fatigue, Charles and his guides, Glenpean and Glenaladale,
+crept stealthily upon all-fours towards the watch-fires, and
+taking advantage of a favourable moment when the nearest sentry
+was in such a position that their approach could be screened
+by the projecting rocks, in breathless silence the three stole
+by, and offering up a prayer for their deliverance, continued
+their foot-sore journey until their legs would carry them no
+farther.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The next four days Charles sought shelter in caves in the
+neighbourhood of Glenshiel, Strathcluanie, and Strathglass; but
+the most romantic episode in his remarkable adventures was the
+sojourn in the secret caves and hiding-places of the notorious
+robbers of Glenmoriston, under whose protection the royal fugitive
+placed himself. With these wild freebooters he continued for
+three weeks, during which time he made himself extremely popular
+by his freedom of intercourse with them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The wanderer left these dwellings of comparative luxury that
+he might join hands with other fugitive Jacobites, Macdonald
+of Lochgarry and Cameron of Clunes, and took up his quarters
+in the wood-surrounded huts near Loch Arkaig and Auchnacarry.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The poor youth's appearance at this period is thus described by
+one of his adherents: "The Prince was at this time bare-footed,
+had an old black kilt-coat on, philabeg and waistcoat, a dirty
+shirt, and a long red beard, a gun in his hand, and a pistol
+and dirk by his side."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Moving again to miserable hovels in the wild recesses of the
+mountain Benalder, the chieftains Lochiel and Cluny acted now
+as the main bodyguard. The former of these two had devised a
+very safe hiding-place in the mountain which went by the name
+of "the Cage," and while here welcome news was brought that two
+friendly vessels had arrived at Lochnanuagh, their mission being,
+if possible, to seek out and carry away the importunate heir to
+the Stuart throne.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The last three or four days of Charles's memorable adventures
+were occupied in reaching Glencamger, halts being made on the
+day at Corvoy and Auchnacarry. On Saturday, September 20th, 1746,
+he was on board <i>L'Heureux</i>, and nine days later landed at
+Roscoff, near Morlaix.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+So ended the famous escapades of the young Chevalier Prince Charles
+Edward.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Here is a fine field open to some enterprising artistic tourist.
+How interesting it would be to follow Prince Charles throughout
+his journeyings in the Western Highlands, and illustrate with
+pen and pencil each recorded landmark! Not long since Mr. Andrew
+Lang gave, in a weekly journal (<i>The Sketch</i>), illustrations
+of the most famous of all the Prince's hiding-places&mdash;<i>viz.</i>
+the cave in Glenmoriston, Inverness-shire.[1] The cave, we are
+told, is "formed like a tumulus by tall boulders, but is clearly
+a conspicious object, and a good place wherein to hunt for a
+fugitive. But it served its turn, and as another cave in the same
+district two miles off is lost, perhaps it is not so conspicious
+as it seems." It is about twenty feet wide at the base, and the
+position of the hearth and the royal bed are still to be seen,
+with "the finest purling stream that could be, running by the
+bed-side." How handy for the morning "tub"!
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: They appeared originally in Blaikie's <i>Itinerary
+of Prince Curies Stuart</i> (Scottish History Society).]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In that remarkable collection of Stuart relics on exhibition
+in 1889 were many pathetic mementoes of Charles's wanderings in
+the Highlands. Here could be seen not only the mittens but the
+chemise of "Betty Burke"; the punch-bowl over which the Prince
+and the host of Kingsburgh had a late carousal, and his Royal
+Highness's table-napkins used in the same hospitable house; a
+wooden coffee-mill, which provided many a welcome cup of coffee
+in the days of so many hardships; a silver dessert-spoon, given
+to Dr. Macleod by the fugitive when he left the Isle of Skye;
+the Prince's pocket-book, many of his pistols, and a piece of
+his Tartan disguise; a curious relic in the form of two lines
+of music, sent as a warning to one of his lurking-places&mdash;when
+folded in a particular way the following words become legible,
+"Conceal yourself; your foes look for you." There was also a
+letter from Charles saying he had "arrived safe aboard ye vessell"
+which carried him to France, and numerous little things which
+gave the history of the escape remarkable reality.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The recent dispersal of the famous Culloden collection sent
+long-cherished Jacobite relics broadcast over the land. The ill-fated
+Stuart's bed and walking-stick were of course the plums of this
+sale; but they had no connection with the Highland wanderings
+after the battle. The only object that had any connection with
+the story was the gun of <i>L'Heureux</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We understand there is still a much-prized heirloom now in Glasgow&mdash;a
+rustic chair used by the Prince when in Skye. The story is that,
+secreted in one of his cave dwellings, he espied a lad in his
+immediate vicinity tending some cows. Hunger made him reveal
+himself, with the result that he was taken to the boy's home,
+a farm not far off, and had his fill of cream and oatcakes, a
+delicacy which did not often fall in his way. The visit naturally
+was repeated; and long afterwards, when the rank of his guest
+came to the knowledge of the good farmer, the royal chair was
+promoted from its old corner in the kitchen to an honored position
+worthy of such a valued possession.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+THE END.
+</p>
+
+<h2>INDEX</h2>
+
+<p>
+Bedfordshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Toddington Place<br>
+Berkshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Besils Leigh<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bisham Abbey<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;East Hendred House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hurley, Lady Place<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Milton Priory<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ockwells<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ufton Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Windsor Castle<br>
+Buckinghamshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Burnham Abbey<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Claydon House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Dinton Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Gayhurst, or Gothurst<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Slough, Upton Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Stoke Poges Manor House
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cambridgeshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Catledge Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Granchester Manor House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Madingley Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Sawston Hall<br>
+Cheshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bramhall Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Harden Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Lyme Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Moreton Hall<br>
+Cornwall:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bochym House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Cothele<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Port Leven<br>
+Cumberland:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Naworth Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Nether Hall
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Derbyshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bradshawe Hall<br>
+Devonshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bovey House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Branscombe, "The Clergy House"<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ford House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Warleigh<br>
+Durham:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bishops Middleham<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Darlington<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Dinsdale-on-Tees<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Eshe Hall
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Essex:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Braddocks, or Broad Oaks<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Braintree<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Dunmow, North End<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hill Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hinchford<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ingatestone Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Romford, Marks<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Southend, Porter's Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Woodham Mortimer Manor House
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gloucestershire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bourton-on-the-Water Manor House
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hampshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bramshill<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Highclere Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hinton-Ampner<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hursley<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Moyles Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Tichbourne<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Woodcote Manor House<br>
+Herefordshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Treago<br>
+Hertfordshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Great Gaddesden Manor House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hatfield House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Knebworth House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Markyate Cell, Dunstable<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Rickmansworth, The Bury<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Shenley, Salisbury Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Tyttenhanger House<br>
+Huntingdonshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Kimbolton Castle
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kent:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bromley Palace<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Deal<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Dover, St. Radigund's Abbey<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Erith<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Folkestone<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Franks<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hollingbourne Manor House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ightham Moat<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Lewisham, John Wesley's House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Margate<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Milsted Manor<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Rochester, Abdication House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Rochester, Eastgate House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Rochester, Restoration House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Sandwich, "Bell Inn"<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Sharsted Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Twissenden<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Wedmore College
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lancashire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bolling Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Borwick Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Gawthorp Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hall-i'-the-wood<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Holme Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Huncoat Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Lydiate Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Mains Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Preston, Ashes House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Speke Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Stonyhurst<br>
+Lincolnshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bayons Manor<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Irnham Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Kingerby Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Terpersie Castle
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Middlesex:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Enfield, White Webb's<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hackney, Brooke House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hampstead, Sir Harry Vane's House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hampton Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hendon, Tenterden Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Highgate, Cromwell House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hillingdon, Moorcroft House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Islington, Hale House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Kensington, Holland House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Knightsbridge<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;London, Lincoln's Inn<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;London, Newton Street, Holborn<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;London, "Red Lion Inn," West Street, Clerkenwell<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;London, "Rising Sun," Holywell Street<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Mill Hill, Partingdale House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Sunbury Park<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Twickenham, Arragon Towers<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Westminster, Delahay Street
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Norfolk:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Cromer, Rookery Farm<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Oxburgh Hall<br>
+Northamptonshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ashby St. Ledgers<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Castle Ashby<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Deene Park<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Drayton House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Fawsley<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Great Harrowden<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Rushton Hall<br>
+Northumberland:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ford Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Netherwhitton<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Wallington<br>
+Nottinghamshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Nottingham Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Vale Royal<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Worksop
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Oxfordshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Broughton Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Chastleton<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Mapledurham House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Minster Lovel Manor House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Shipton Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Tusmore House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Woodstock
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shropshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Batsden Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Boscobel House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Gatacre Park<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Longford, Newport<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Madeley Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Madeley, Upper House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Oswestry, Park Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Plowden Hall<br>
+Somersetshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Chard, "Clough Inn"<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Chelvey Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Chew Magna Manor House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Dunster Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ilminster, The Chantry<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Trent House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;West Coker Manor House<br>
+Staffordshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Broughton Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Moseley Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;West Bromwich, Dunkirk Hall<br>
+Suffolk:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Barsham Rectory<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Brandeston Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Brandon Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Coldham Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Gawdy Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Melford Hall<br>
+Surrey:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Mortlake, Cromwell House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Petersham, Ham House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Richmond Palace<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Sanderstead Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Thornton Heath<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Wandsworth Manor House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Weybridge, Ham House<br>
+Sussex:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Albourne Place<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Arundel Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bodiam Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Chichester Cathedral<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Cowdray<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hurstmonceaux Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Parham Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Paxhill<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Scotney Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Slindon House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Southwater, Horsham, "New Building"<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Street Place
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Warwickshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Baddesley Clinton<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Clopton Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Compton Winyates<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Coughton Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Mancetter Manor<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Packington Old Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Salford Prior Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Warwick, St. John's Hospital<br>
+Wiltshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Fyfield House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Great Chalfield<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Heale House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Liddington Manor House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Salisbury<br>
+Worcestershire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Armscot Manor House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Birtsmorton Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Cleeve Prior Manor House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Harborough Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Harvington Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hindlip Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Huddington Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Malvern, Pickersleigh Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Stanford Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Wollas Hall
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yorkshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bamborough Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Beare Park<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Danby Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Dannoty Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Fountains Abbey<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Fountains Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hull, White Hart Hotel<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Kirkby Knowle Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Leyburn, The Grove<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Myddleton Lodge, Ilkley<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Thirsk, "New Building"<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Whatton Abbey<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Whitby, Abbey House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Yeadon, Low Hall
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aberdeenshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Belucraig<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Dalpersie House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Fetternear<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Fyvie Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Gordonstown<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Kemnay House
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Banffshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Towie Barclay Castle
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elginshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Coxton Tower
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Forfarshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Glamis Castle
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Haddingtonshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Elphinstone Castle
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Linlithgowshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Binns House
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nairnshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Cawdor Castle
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Monmouthshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ty Mywr
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pembrokeshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Carew Castle
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Isle of Wight:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Newport Manor House
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Guernsey:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ch&acirc;teau du Puits
+</p>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13918 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #13918 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13918)
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+Project Gutenberg's Secret Chambers and Hiding Places, by Allan Fea
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Secret Chambers and Hiding Places
+       Historic, Romantic, & Legendary Stories & Traditions About
+       Hiding-Holes, Secret Chambers, Etc.
+       
+
+Author: Allan Fea
+
+Release Date: November 1, 2004 [EBook #13918]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECRET CHAMBERS AND HIDING PLACES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert J. Hall.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE]
+
+
+
+
+SECRET CHAMBERS AND HIDING-PLACES
+
+
+HISTORIC, ROMANTIC, & LEGENDARY STORIES & TRADITIONS ABOUT
+HIDING-HOLES, SECRET CHAMBERS, ETC.
+
+
+BY ALLAN FEA
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE FLIGHT OF THE KING," "KING MONMOUTH," ETC.
+
+
+WITH EIGHTY ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+THIRD AND REVISED EDITION
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A GREAT DEVISER OF "PRIEST'S HOLES"
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HINDLIP HALL
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PRIEST-HUNTING AT BRADDOCKS
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE GUNPOWDER PLOT CONSPIRATORS
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HARVINGTON, UFTON, AND INGATESTONE
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+COMPTON WINYATES, SALFORD PRIOR, SAWSTON, OXBURGH, PARHAM, PAXHILL, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+KING-HUNTING: BOSCOBEL, MOSELEY, TRENT, AND HEALE
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CAVALIER-HUNTING, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES (_continued_): HAM HOUSE, AND "ABDICATION HOUSE"
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MYSTERIOUS ROOMS, DEADLY PITS, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+HIDING-PLACES IN JACOBITE DWELLINGS AND IN SCOTTISH CASTLES AND MANSIONS
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CONCEALED DOORS, SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGES, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MINIATURE HIDING-HOLES FOR VALUABLES, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+HIDING-PLACES OF SMUGGLERS AND THIEVES
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE SCOTTISH HIDING-PLACES OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE
+HINDLIP HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE
+BRADDOCKS, ESSEX
+FIREPLACE AT BRADDOCKS
+ASHBY ST. LEDGERS, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
+THE PLOT ROOM, ASHBY ST. LEDGERS
+HUDDINGTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE
+ENTRANCE PORCH, HUDDINGTON COURT
+ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," HARVINGTON HALL
+HARVINGTON HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE
+UFTON COURT, BERKSHIRE
+  "     "   GARDEN TERRACE, BERKSHIRE
+HIDING-PLACE, UFTON COURT
+      "         "     "
+INGATESTONE HALL, ESSEX
+      "      "      "
+"PRIEST'S HOLE," SAWSTON HALL
+SCOTNEY CASTLE, SUSSEX
+COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE
+THE MINSTRELS' GALLERY, COMPTON WINYATES
+SAWSTON HALL, CAMBRIDGESHIRE
+PICKERSLEIGH COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE
+SALFORD PRIOR HALL, WARWICKSHIRE
+   "      "    "         "
+HIDING-PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR
+SHOWING ENTRANCE TO HIDING PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR
+OXBURGH HALL, NORFOLK
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, PARHAM HALL
+PAXHILL, SUSSEX
+CLEEVE PRIOR MANOR HOUSE, WORCESTERSHIRE
+BADDESLEY CLINTON HALL, WARWICKSHIRE
+HIDING-PLACE BENEATH "THE CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL, SALOP
+HIDING-PLACE IN "THE SQUIRE'S BEDROOM," BOSCOBEL
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE IN THE GARRET, OR "CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL
+SECRET PANEL, TRENT HOUSE, SOMERSETSHIRE
+BOSCOBEL
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE
+HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE
+TRENT HOUSE IN 1864
+HEALE HOUSE, WILTSHIRE
+MADELEY COURT, SHROPSHIRE
+   "      "    THE COURTYARD, SHROPSHIRE
+   "      "    SHROPSHIRE
+ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," THE UPPER HOUSE, MADELEY, SHROPSHIRE
+INTERIOR OF "PRIEST'S HOLE," MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE
+SECRET PANEL AT SALISBURY
+SECRET CHAMBER, CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE
+OLD SUMMER HOUSE, SALISBURY
+CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE
+     "      FRONT ENTRANCE, OXFORDSHIRE
+BROUGHTON HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE
+ST. JOHN'S HOSPITAL, WARWICK
+STAIRCASE, BROUGHTON HALL
+SHIPTON COURT, OXFORDSHIRE
+BROUGHTON CASTLE, OXFORDSHIRE
+ENTRANCE GATE, BRADSHAWE HALL, DERBYSHIRE
+MOYLES COURT, HAMPSHIRE
+TODDINGTON MANOR HOUSE, BEDFORDSHIRE, IN 1806
+"RAT'S CASTLE," ELMLEY
+KING'S HILL FARM, ELMLEY, KENT
+ENTRANCE TO SECRET PASSAGE, "ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER
+"ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER
+MONUMENT OF SIR RICHARD HEAD
+"RESTORATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER
+ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE, WORCHESTERSHIRE
+ENTRANCE GATE, ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE
+WOODSTOCK PALACE, OXFORDSHIRE
+MARKYATE CELL, HERTFORDSHIRE
+BIRTSMORTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE
+PORCH AT CHELVEY COURT, SOMERSETSHIRE
+HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE, SUSSEX
+BOVEY HOUSE, SOUTH DEVON
+MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE
+     "        "         "
+ENTRANCE TO SECRET STAIRCASE, PARTINGDALE HOUSE, MILL HILL, MIDDLESEX
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+The secret chamber is unrivalled even by the haunted house for
+the mystery and romance surrounding it. Volumes have been written
+about the haunted house, while the secret chamber has found but
+few exponents. The ancestral ghost has had his day, and to all
+intents and purposes is dead, notwithstanding the existence of
+the Psychical Society and the investigations of Mr. Stead and
+the late Lord Bute. "Alas! poor ghost!" he is treated with scorn
+and derision by the multitude in these advanced days of modern
+enlightenment. The search-light of science has penetrated even
+into his sacred haunts, until, no longer having a leg to stand
+upon, he has fallen from the exalted position he occupied for
+centuries, and fallen moreover into ridicule!
+
+In the secret chamber, however, we have something tangible to deal
+with--a subject not only keenly interesting from an antiquarian
+point of view, but one deserving the attention of the general
+reader; for in exploring the gloomy hiding-holes, concealed
+apartments, passages, and staircases in our old halls and manor
+houses we probe, as it were, into the very groundwork of romance.
+We find actuality to support the weird and mysterious stories
+of fiction, which those of us who are honest enough to admit
+a lingering love of the marvellous must now doubly appreciate,
+from the fact that our school-day impressions of such things
+are not only revived, but are strengthened with the semblance
+of truth. Truly Bishop Copleston wrote: "If the things we hear
+told be avowedly fictitious, and yet curious or affecting or
+entertaining, we may indeed admire the author of the fiction, and
+may take pleasure in contemplating the exercise of his skill. But
+this is a pleasure of another kind--a pleasure wholly distinct from
+that which is derived from discovering what was _unknown_, or
+clearing up what was _doubtful_. And even when the narrative
+is in its own nature, such as to please us and to engage our
+attention, how, greatly is the interest increased if we place
+entire confidence in its _truth_! Who has not heard from
+a child when listening to a tale of deep interest--who has not
+often heard the artless and eager question, 'Is it true?'"
+
+From Horace Walpole, Mrs. Radcliffe, Scott, Victor Hugo, Dumas,
+Lytton, Ainsworth, Le Fanu, and Mrs. Henry Wood, down to the
+latest up-to-date novelists of to-day, the secret chamber (an
+ingenious _necessity_ of the "good old times") has afforded
+invaluable "property"--indeed, in many instances the whole vitality
+of a plot is, like its ingenious opening, hinged upon the masked
+wall, behind which lay concealed what hidden mysteries, what
+undreamed-of revelations! The thread of the story, like Fair
+Rosamond's silken clue, leads up to and at length reveals the
+buried secret, and (unlike the above comparison in this instance)
+all ends happily!
+
+Bulwer Lytton honestly confesses that the spirit of romance in his
+novels "was greatly due to their having been written at my ancestral
+home, Knebworth, Herts. How could I help writing romances," he
+says, "after living amongst the secret panels and hiding-places
+of our dear old home? How often have I trembled with fear at
+the sound of my own footsteps when I ventured into the picture
+gallery! How fearfully have I glanced at the faces of my ancestors
+as I peered into the shadowy abysses of the 'secret chamber.' It
+was years before I could venture inside without my hair literally
+bristling with terror."
+
+What would _Woodstock_ be without the mysterious picture,
+_Peveril of the Peak_ without the sliding panel, the Castlewood
+of _Esmond_ without Father Holt's concealed apartments,
+_Ninety-Three, Marguerite de Valois, The Tower of London, Guy
+Fawkes_, and countless other novels of the same type, without
+the convenient contrivances of which the _dramatis personæ_
+make such effectual use?
+
+Apart, however, from the importance of the secret chamber in
+fiction, it is closely associated with many an important historical
+event. The stories of the Gunpowder Plot, Charles II.'s escape
+from Worcester, the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745, and many
+another stirring episode in the annals of our country, speak
+of the service it rendered to fugitives in the last extremity
+of danger. When we inspect the actual walls of these confined
+spaces that saved the lives of our ancestors, how vividly we can
+realise the hardships they must have endured; and in wondering
+at the mingled ingenuity and simplicity of construction, there
+is also a certain amount of comfort to be derived from drawing
+a comparison between those troublous and our own more peaceful
+times.
+
+
+
+
+SECRET CHAMBERS AND HIDING-PLACES
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A GREAT DEVISER OF "PRIEST'S HOLES"
+
+
+During the deadly feuds which existed in the Middle Ages, when
+no man was secure from spies and traitors even within the walls
+of his own house, it is no matter of wonder that the castles and
+mansions of the powerful and wealthy were usually provided with
+some precaution in the event of a sudden surprise--_viz._
+a secret means of concealment or escape that could be used at
+a moment's notice; but the majority of secret chambers and
+hiding-places in our ancient buildings owe their origin to religious
+persecution, particularly during the reign of Elizabeth, when the
+most stringent laws and oppressive burdens were inflicted upon
+all persons who professed the tenets of the Church of Rome.
+
+In the first years of the virgin Queen's reign all who clung to
+the older forms of the Catholic faith were mercifully connived
+at, so long as they solemnised their own religious rites within
+their private dwelling-houses; but after the Roman Catholic rising
+in the north and numerous other Popish plots, the utmost severity
+of the law was enforced, particularly against seminarists, whose
+chief object was, as was generally believed, to stir up their
+disciples in England against the Protestant Queen. An Act was
+passed prohibiting a member of the Church of Rome from celebrating
+the rites of his religion on pain of forfeiture for the first
+offence, a year's imprisonment for the second, and imprisonment
+for life for the third.[1] All those who refused to take the
+Oath of Supremacy were called "recusants" and were guilty of
+high treason. A law was also enacted which provided that if any
+Papist should convert a Protestant to the Church of Rome, both
+should suffer death, as for high treason.
+
+[Footnote 1: In December, 1591, a priest was hanged before the
+door of a house in Gray's Inn Fields for having there said Mass
+the month previously.]
+
+The sanguinary laws against seminary priests and "recusants"
+were enforced with the greatest severity after the discovery of
+the Gunpowder Plot. These were revived for a period in Charles
+II.'s reign, when Oates's plot worked up a fanatical hatred against
+all professors of the ancient faith. In the mansions of the old
+Roman Catholic families we often find an apartment in a secluded
+part of the house or garret in the roof named "the chapel," where
+religious rites could be performed with the utmost privacy, and
+close handy was usually an artfully contrived hiding-place, not
+only for the officiating priest to slip into in case of emergency,
+but also where the vestments, sacred vessels, and altar furniture
+could be put away at a moment's notice.
+
+It appears from the writings of Father Tanner[1] that most of
+the hiding-places for priests, usually called "priests' holes,"
+were invented and constructed by the Jesuit Nicholas Owen, a
+servant of Father Garnet, who devoted the greater part of his
+life to constructing these places in the principal Roman Catholic
+houses all over England.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Vita et Mors_ (1675), p. 75.]
+
+"With incomparable skill," says an authority, "he knew how to
+conduct priests to a place of safety along subterranean passages,
+to hide them between walls and bury them in impenetrable recesses,
+and to entangle them in labyrinths and a thousand windings. But
+what was much more difficult of accomplishment, he so disguised
+the entrances to these as to make them most unlike what they
+really were. Moreover, he kept these places so close a secret
+with himself that he would never disclose to another the place
+of concealment of any Catholic. He alone was both their architect
+and their builder, working at them with inexhaustible industry
+and labour, for generally the thickest walls had to be broken
+into and large stones excavated, requiring stronger arms than
+were attached to a body so diminutive as to give him the nickname
+of 'Little John,' and by this his skill many priests were preserved
+from the prey of persecutors. Nor is it easy to find anyone who
+had not often been indebted for his life to Owen's hiding-places."
+
+How effectually "Little John's" peculiar ingenuity baffled the
+exhaustive searches of the "pursuivants," or priest-hunters,
+has been shown by contemporary accounts of the searches that
+took place frequently in suspected houses. Father Gerard, in
+his Autobiography, has handed down to us many curious details of
+the mode of procedure upon these occasions--how the search-party
+would bring with them skilled carpenters and masons and try every
+possible expedient, from systematic measurements and soundings to
+bodily tearing down the panelling and pulling up the floors. It
+was not an uncommon thing for a rigid search to last a fortnight
+and for the "pursuivants" to go away empty handed, while perhaps
+the object of the search was hidden the whole time within a wall's
+thickness of his pursuers, half starved, cramped and sore with
+prolonged confinement, and almost afraid to breathe, lest the
+least sound should throw suspicion upon the particular spot where
+he lay immured.
+
+After the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, "Little John" and
+his master, Father Garnet, were arrested at Hindlip Hall,
+Worcestershire, from information given to the Government by Catesby's
+servant Bates. Cecil, who was well aware of Owen's skill in
+constructing hiding-places, wrote exultingly: "Great joy was
+caused all through the kingdom by the arrest of Owen, knowing
+his skill in constructing hiding-places, and the innumerable
+number of these dark holes which he had schemed for hiding priests
+throughout the kingdom." He hoped that "great booty of priests"
+might be taken in consequence of the secrets Owen would be made
+to reveal, and directed that first he should "be coaxed if he
+be willing to contract for his life," but that "the secret is
+to be wrung from him." The horrors of the rack, however, failed
+in its purpose. His terrible death is thus briefly recorded by
+the Governor of the Tower at that time: "The man is dead--he
+died in our hands"; and perhaps it is as well the ghastly details
+did not transpire in his report.
+
+The curious old mansion Hindlip Hall (pulled down in the early
+part of the last century) was erected in 1572 by John Abingdon, or
+Habington, whose son Thomas (the brother-in-law of Lord Monteagle)
+was deeply involved in the numerous plots against the reformed
+religion. A long imprisonment in the Tower for his futile efforts
+to set Mary Queen of Scots at liberty, far from curing the dangerous
+schemes of this zealous partisan of the luckless Stuart heroine,
+only kept him out of mischief for a time. No sooner had he obtained
+his freedom than he set his mind to work to turn his house in
+Worcestershire into a harbour of refuge for the followers of
+the older rites. In the quaint irregularities of the masonry
+free scope was given to "Little John's" ingenuity; indeed, there
+is every proof that some of his masterpieces were constructed
+here. A few years before the "Powder Plot" was discovered, it
+was a hanging matter for a priest to be caught celebrating the
+Mass. Yet with the facilities at Hindlip he might do so with
+comfort, with every assurance that he had the means of evading
+the law. The walls of the mansion were literally riddled with
+secret chambers and passages. There was little fear of being
+run to earth with hidden exits everywhere. Wainscoting, solid
+brickwork, or stone hearth were equally accommodating, and would
+swallow up fugitives wholesale, and close over them, to "Open,
+Sesame!" again only at the hider's pleasure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HINDLIP HALL
+
+The capture of Father Garnet and "Little John" with two others,
+Hall and Chambers, at Hindlip, as detailed in a curious manuscript
+in the British Museum, gives us an insight into the search-proof
+merits of Abingdon's mansion. The document is headed: "_A true
+discovery of the service performed at Hindlip, the house of Mr.
+Thomas Abbingdon, for the apprehension of Mr. Henry Garnet, alias
+Wolley, provincial of the Jesuits, and other dangerous persons,
+there found in January last,_ 1605," and runs on:--
+
+"After the king's royal promise of bountiful reward to such as
+would apprehend the traitors concerned in the Powder Conspiracy,
+and much expectation of subject-like duty, but no return made
+thereof in so important a matter, a warrant was directed to the
+right worthy and worshipful knight, Sir Henry Bromlie; and the
+proclamation delivered therewith, describing the features and
+shapes of the men, for the better discovering them. He, not
+neglecting so a weighty a business, horsing himself with a seemly
+troop of his own attendants, and calling to his assistance so
+many as in discretion was thought meet, having likewise in his
+company Sir Edward Bromlie, on Monday, Jan. 20 last, by break
+of day, did engirt and round beat the house of Mayster Thomas
+Abbingdon, at Hindlip, near Worcester. Mr. Abbingdon, not being
+then at home, but ridden abroad about some occasions best known
+to himself; the house being goodlie, and of great receipt, it
+required the more diligent labour and pains in the searching.
+It appeared there was no want; and Mr. Abbingdon himself coming
+home that night, the commission and proclamation being shown unto
+him, he denied any such men to be in his house, and voluntarily
+to die at his own gate, if any such were to be found in his house,
+or in that shire. But this liberal or rather rash speech could
+not cause the search so slightly to be given over; the cause
+enforced more respect than words of that or any such like nature;
+and proceeding on according to the trust reposed in him in the
+gallery over the gate there were found two cunning and very
+artificial conveyances in the main brick-wall, so ingeniously
+framed, and with such art, as it cost much labour ere they could
+be found. Three other secret places, contrived by no less skill
+and industry, were found in and about the chimneys, in one whereof
+two of the traitors were close concealed. These chimney-conveyances
+being so strangely formed, having the entrances into them so
+curiously covered over with brick, mortared and made fast to
+planks of wood, and coloured black, like the other parts of the
+chimney, that very diligent inquisition might well have passed
+by, without throwing the least suspicion upon such unsuspicious
+places. And whereas divers funnels are usually made to chimneys
+according as they are combined together, and serve for necessary
+use in several rooms, so here were some that exceeded common
+expectation, seeming outwardly fit for carrying forth smoke;
+but being further examined and seen into, their service was to
+no such purpose but only to lend air and light downward into
+the concealments, where such as were concealed in them, at any
+time should be hidden. Eleven secret corners and conveyances
+were found in the said house, all of them having books, Massing
+stuff, and Popish trumpery in them, only two excepted, which
+appeared to have been found on former searches, and therefore
+had now the less credit given to them; but Mayster Abbingdon
+would take no knowledge of any of these places, nor that the
+books, or Massing stuff, were any of his, until at length the
+deeds of his lands being found in one of them, whose custody
+doubtless he would not commit to any place of neglect, or where
+he should have no intelligence of them, whereto he could [not]
+then devise any sufficient excuse.
+
+[Illustration: HINDLIP HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+Three days had been wholly spent, and no man found there all
+this while; but upon the fourth day, in the morning, from behind
+the wainscot in the galleries, came forth two men of their own
+voluntary accord, as being no longer able there to conceal
+themselves; for they confessed that they had but one apple between
+them, which was all the sustenance they had received during the
+time they were thus hidden. One of them was named Owen, who
+afterwards murdered himself in the Tower; and the other Chambers;
+but they would take no other knowledge of any other men's being
+in the house. On the eighth day the before-mentioned place in
+the chimney was found, according as they had all been at several
+times, one after another, though before set down together, for
+expressing the just number of them.
+
+"Forth of this secret and most cunning conveyance came Henry
+Garnet, the Jesuit, sought for, and another with him, named Hall;
+marmalade and other sweetmeats were found there lying by them;
+but their better maintenance had been by a quill or reed, through
+a little hole in the chimney that backed another chimney into
+the gentlewoman's chamber; and by that passage candles, broths,
+and warm drinks had been conveyed in unto them.
+
+"Now in regard the place was in so close... and did much annoy
+them that made entrance in upon them, to whom they confessed
+that they had not been able to hold out one whole day longer,
+but either they must have squeeled, or perished in the place.
+The whole service endured the space of eleven nights and twelve
+days, and no more persons being there found, in company with
+Mayster Abbingdon himself, Garnet, Hill [Hall], Owen, and Chambers,
+were brought up to London to understand further of his highness's
+pleasure."
+
+That the Government had good grounds for suspecting Hindlip and
+its numerous hiding-places may be gathered from the official
+instructions the Worcestershire Justice of the Peace and his
+search-party had to follow. The wainscoting in the east part of
+the parlour and in the dining-room, being suspected of screening
+"a vault" or passage, was to be removed, the walls and floors
+were to be pierced in all directions, comparative measurements
+were to be taken between the upper and the lower rooms, and in
+particular the chimneys, and the roof had to be minutely examined and
+measurements taken, which might bring to light some unaccounted-for
+space that had been turned to good account by the unfortunate
+inventor, who was eventually starved out of one of his clever
+contrivances.
+
+Only shortly before Owen had had a very narrow escape at Stoke
+Poges while engaged in constructing "priests' holes" at the Manor
+House. The secluded position of this building adapted it for
+the purpose for which a Roman Catholic zealot had taken it. But
+this was not the only advantage. The walls were of vast thickness
+and offered every facility for turning them to account. While
+"Little John" was busily engaged burrowing into the masonry the
+dreaded "pursuivants" arrived; but somehow or other he slipped
+between their fingers and got away under cover of the surrounding
+woods.
+
+The wing of this old mansion which has survived to see the twentieth
+century witnessed many strange events. It has welcomed good Queen
+Bess, guarded the Martyr King, and refused admittance to Dutch
+William. A couple of centuries after it had sheltered hunted
+Jesuits, a descendant of William Penn became possessed of it,
+and cleared away many of the massive walls, in some of which--who
+can tell?--were locked up secrets that the rack failed to
+reveal--secrets by which Owen "murdered himself" in the Tower!
+
+One of the hiding-places at Hindlip, it will be remembered, could
+be supplied with broth, wine, or any liquid nourishment through
+a small aperture in the wall of the adjoining room. A very good
+example of such an arrangement may still be seen at Irnham Hall, in
+Lincolnshire.[1] A large hiding-place could thus be accommodated,
+but detection of the narrow iron tube by which the imprisoned
+fugitive could be kept alive was practically impossible. A solid
+oak beam, forming a step between two bedrooms, concealed a panel
+into which the tube was cunningly fitted and the step was so
+arranged that it could be removed and replaced with the greatest
+ease.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: The fire which destroyed a wing of Irnham Hall a
+few years ago fortunately did not touch that part of the building
+containing a hiding-place.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Harvington Hall, mentioned hereafter, has a contrivance
+of this kind.]
+
+The hiding-place at Irnham (which measures eight feet by five,
+and about five feet six inches in height) was discovered by a
+tell-tale chimney that was not in the least blackened by soot
+or smoke. This originally gave the clue to the secret, and when
+the shaft of the chimney was examined, it was found to lead direct
+to the priest's hole, to which it afforded air and light.
+
+Had not the particular hiding-place in which Garnet and his
+companions sought shelter been discovered, they could well have
+held out the twelve days' search. As a rule, a small stock of
+provisions was kept in these places, as the visits of the search
+parties were necessarily very sudden and unexpected. The way down
+into these hidden quarters was from the floor above, through
+the hearth of a fireplace, which could be raised an lowered like
+a trap-door.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Fowlis's _Romish Treasons._]
+
+In a letter from Garnet to Ann Vaux, preserved in the Record
+Office, he thus describes his precarious situation: "After we
+had been in the hoale seven days and seven nights and some odd
+hours, every man may well think we were well wearyed, and indeed
+so it was, for we generally satte, save that some times we could
+half stretch ourselves, the place not being high eno', and we had
+our legges so straitened that we could not, sitting, find place
+for them, so that we both were in continuous paine of our legges,
+and both our legges, especially mine, were much swollen. We were
+very merry and content within, and heard the searchers every day
+most curious over us, which made me indeed think the place would
+be found. When we came forth we appeared like ghosts."[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: _State Papers_, Domestic (James I.).]
+
+There is an old timber-framed cottage near the modern mansion
+of Hindlip which is said to have had its share in sheltering the
+plotters. A room is pointed out where Digby and Catesby concealed
+themselves, and from one of the chimneys at some time or another
+a priest was captured and led to execution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PRIEST-HUNTING AT BRADDOCKS
+
+In the parish of Wimbish, about six miles from Saffron Walden,
+stand the remains of a fine old Tudor house named Broad Oaks,
+or Braddocks, which in Elizabeth's reign was a noted house for
+priest-hunting. Wandering through its ancient rooms, the imagination
+readily carries us back to the drama enacted here three centuries
+ago with a vividness as if the events recorded had happened
+yesterday. "The chapel" and priests' holes may still be seen, and
+a fine old stone fireplace that was stripped of its overmantel,
+etc., of carved oak by the "pursuivants" in their vain efforts
+when Father Gerard was concealed in the house.
+
+[Illustration: BRADDOCKS, ESSEX]
+
+[Illustration: FIREPLACE AT BRADDOCKS]
+
+The old Essex family of Wiseman of Braddocks were staunch Romanists,
+and their home, being a noted resort for priests, received from
+time to time sudden visits. The dreaded Topcliffe had upon one
+occasion nearly brought the head of the family, an aged widow lady,
+to the horrors of the press-yard, but her punishment eventually
+took the form of imprisonment. Searches at Braddocks had brought
+forth hiding-places, priests, compromising papers, and armour
+and weapons. Let us see with what success the house was explored
+in the Easter of the year 1594.
+
+Gerard gives his exciting experiences as follows[1]:--
+
+[Footnote 1: See Autobiography of Father John Gerard.]
+
+"The searchers broke down the door, and forcing their way in,
+spread through the house with great noise and racket.
+
+"Their first step was to lock up the mistress of the house[2] in
+her own room with her two daughters, and the Catholic servants
+they kept locked up in divers places in the same part of the
+house.
+
+[Footnote 2: Jane Wiseman, wife of William Wiseman. N.B.--The
+late Cardinal Wiseman was descended from a junior branch of this
+family. See Life of Father John Gerard, by John Morris.]
+
+"They then took to themselves the whole house, which was of a good
+size, and made a thorough search in every part, not forgetting
+even to look under the tiles of the roof. The darkest corners
+they examined with the help of candles. Finding nothing whatever
+they began to break down certain places that they suspected.
+They measured the walls with long rods, so that if they did not
+tally they might pierce the part not accounted for. Then they
+sounded the walls and all the floors to find out and break into
+any hollow places there might be.
+
+"They spent two days in this work without finding anything. Thinking
+therefore that I had gone on Easter Sunday, the two magistrates
+went away on the second day, leaving the pursuivants to take
+the mistress of the house and all her Catholic servants of both
+sexes to London to be examined and imprisoned. They meant to
+leave some who were not Catholics to keep the house, the traitor
+(one of the servants of the house) being one of them.
+
+"The good lady was pleased at this, for she hoped that he would
+be the means of freeing me and rescuing me from death; for she
+knew that I had made up my mind to suffer and die of starvation
+between two walls, rather than come forth and save my own life
+at the expense of others.
+
+"In fact, during those four days that I lay hid I had nothing
+to eat but a biscuit or two and a little quince jelly, which
+my hostess had at hand and gave me as I was going in.
+
+"She did not look for any more, as she supposed that the search
+would not last beyond a day. But now that two days were gone
+and she was to be carried off on the third with all her trusty
+servants, she began to be afraid of my dying of sheer hunger.
+She bethought herself then of the traitor who she heard was to
+be left behind. He had made a great fuss and show of eagerness in
+withstanding the searchers when they first forced their way in.
+For all that she would not have let him know of the hiding-places,
+had she not been in such straits. Thinking it better, however,
+to rescue me from certain death, even at some risk to herself,
+she charged him, when she was taken away and everyone had gone,
+to go into a certain room, call me by my wonted name, and tell
+me that the others had been taken to prison, but that he was left
+to deliver me. I would then answer, she said, from behind the
+lath and plaster where I lay concealed. The traitor promised to
+obey faithfully; but he was faithful only to the faithless, for
+he unfolded the whole matter to the ruffians who had remained
+behind.
+
+"No sooner had they heard it than they called back the magistrates
+who had departed. These returned early in the morning and renewed
+the search.
+
+"They measured and sounded everywhere much more carefully than
+before, especially in the chamber above mentioned, in order to
+find out some hollow place. But finding nothing whatever during
+the whole of the third day, they proposed on the morrow to strip
+off the wainscot of that room.
+
+"Meanwhile, they set guards in all the rooms about to watch all
+night, lest I should escape. I heard from my hiding-place the
+password which the captain of the band gave to his soldiers, and
+I might have got off by using it, were it not that they would
+have seen me issuing from my retreat, for there were two on guard
+in the chapel where I got into my hiding-place, and several also
+in the large wainscoted room which had been pointed out to them.
+
+"But mark the wonderful Providence of God. Here was I in my
+hiding-place. The way I got into it was by taking up the floor,
+made of wood and bricks, under the fireplace. The place was so
+constructed that a fire could not be lit in it without damaging
+the house; though we made a point of keeping wood there, as if
+it were meant for a fire.
+
+"Well, the men on the night watch lit a fire in this very grate
+and began chatting together close to it. Soon the bricks which
+had not bricks but wood underneath them got loose, and nearly
+fell out of their places as the wood gave way. On noticing this
+and probing the place with a stick, they found that the bottom
+was made of wood, whereupon they remarked that this was something
+curious. I thought that they were going there and then to break
+open the place and enter, but they made up their minds at last
+to put off further examination till next day.
+
+"Next morning, therefore, they renewed the search most carefully,
+everywhere except in the top chamber which served as a chapel,
+and in which the two watchmen had made a fire over my head and
+had noticed the strange make of the grate. God had blotted out
+of their memory all remembrance of the thing. Nay, none of the
+searchers entered the place the whole day, though it was the
+one that was most open to suspicion, and if they had entered,
+they would have found me without any search; rather, I should
+say, they would have seen me, for the fire had burnt a great
+hole in my hiding-place, and had I not got a little out of the
+way, the hot embers would have fallen on me.
+
+"The searchers, forgetting or not caring about this room, busied
+themselves in ransacking the rooms below, in one of which I was
+said to be. In fact, they found the other hiding-place which I
+thought of going into, as I mentioned before. It was not far
+off, so I could hear their shouts of joy when they first found
+it. But after joy comes grief; and so it was with them. The only
+thing that they found was a goodly store of provision laid up.
+Hence they may have thought that this was the place that the
+mistress of the house meant; in fact, an answer might have been
+given from it to the call of a person in the room mentioned by
+her.
+
+"They stuck to their purpose, however, of stripping off all the
+wainscot of the other large room. So they set a man to work near
+the ceiling, close to the place where I was: for the lower part
+of the walls was covered with tapestry, not with wainscot. So
+they stripped off the wainscot all round till they came again
+to the very place where I lay, and there they lost heart and
+gave up the search.
+
+"My hiding-place was in a thick wall of the chimney behind a
+finely inlaid and carved mantelpiece. They could not well take
+the carving down without risk of breaking it. Broken, however,
+it would have been, and that into a thousand pieces, had they
+any conception that I could be concealed behind it. But knowing
+that there were two flues, they did not think that there could
+be room enough there for a man.
+
+"Nay, before this, on the second day of the search, they had
+gone into the room above, and tried the fireplace through which
+I had got into my hole. They then got into the chimney by a ladder
+to sound with their hammers. One said to another in my hearing,
+'Might there not be a place here for a person to get down into
+the wall of the chimney below by lifting up this hearth?' 'No,'
+answered one of the pursuivants, whose voice I knew, 'you could
+not get down that way into the chimney underneath, but there
+might easily be an entrance at the back of this chimney.' So
+saying he gave the place a knock. I was afraid that he would hear
+the hollow sound of the hole where I was.
+
+"Seeing that their toil availed them nought, they thought that
+I had escaped somehow, and so they went away at the end of the
+four days, leaving the mistress and her servants free. The yet
+unbetrayed traitor stayed after the searchers were gone. As soon
+as the doors of the house were made fast, the mistress came to
+call me, another four days buried Lazarus, from what would have
+been my tomb, had the search continued a little longer. For I
+was all wasted and weakened as well with hunger as with want
+of sleep and with having to sit so long in such a narrow space.
+After coming out I was seen by the traitor, whose treachery was
+still unknown to us. He did nothing then, not even to send after
+the searchers, as he knew that I meant to be off before they
+could be recalled."
+
+The Wisemans had another house at North End, a few miles to the
+south-east of Dunmow. Here were also "priests' holes," one of
+which (in a chimney) secreted a certain Father Brewster during
+a rigid search in December, 1593.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _State Papers_, Dom. (Eliz.), December, 1593.
+See also Life of Father John Gerard, p. 138.]
+
+Great Harrowden, near Wellingborough, the ancient seat of the Vaux
+family, was another notorious sanctuary for persecuted recusants.
+Gerard spent much of his time here in apartments specially
+constructed for his use, and upon more than one occasion had to
+have recourse to the hiding-places. Some four or five years after
+his experiences at Braddocks he narrowly escaped his pursuers in
+this way; and in 1605, when the "pursuivants" were scouring the
+country for him, as he was supposed to be privy to the Gunpowder
+Plot, he owed his life to a secret chamber at Harrowden. The
+search-party remained for nine days. Night and day men were posted
+round the house, and every approach was guarded within a radius
+of three miles. With the hope of getting rid of her unwelcome
+guests, Lady Vaux revealed one of the "priests' holes" to prove
+there was nothing in her house beyond a few prohibited books;
+but this did not have the desired effect, so the unfortunate
+inmate of the hiding-place had to continue in a cramped position,
+there being no room to stand up, for four or five days more. His
+hostess, however, managed to bring him food, and moments were
+seized during the latter days of the search to get him out that
+he might warm his benumbed limbs by a fire. While these things
+were going on at Harrowden, another priest, little thinking into
+whose hands the well-known sanctuary had fallen, came thither
+to seek shelter; but was seized and carried to an inn, whence
+it was intended he should be removed to London on the following
+day. But he managed to outwit his captors. To evade suspicion
+he threw off his cloak and sword, and under a pretext of giving
+his horse drink at a stream close by the stable, seized a lucky
+moment, mounted, and dashed into the water, swam across, and
+galloped off to the nearest house that could offer the convenience
+of a hiding-place.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Life of John Gerard, p. 386.]
+
+At Hackney the Vaux family had another, residence with its chapel
+and "priest's hole," the latter having a masked entrance high
+up in the wall, which led to a space under a gable projection
+of the roof. For double security this contained yet an inner
+hiding-place. In the existing Brooke House are incorporated the
+modernised remains of this mansion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE GUNPOWDER PLOT CONSPIRATORS
+
+Lord Vaux of Harrowden, Sir William Catesby of Ashby St. Ledgers,
+and Sir Thomas Tresham of Rushton Hall (all in Northamptonshire)
+were upon more than one occasion arraigned before the Court of the
+Star Chamber for harbouring Jesuits. The old mansions Ashby St.
+Ledgers and Rushton fortunately still remain intact and preserve
+many traditions of Romanist plots. Sir William Catesby's son Robert,
+the chief conspirator, is said to have held secret meetings in the
+curious oak-panelled room over the gate-house of the former, which
+goes by the name of "the Plot Room." Once upon a time it was provided
+with a secret means of escape. At Rushton Hall a hiding-place was
+discovered in 1832 behind a lintel over a doorway; it was full
+of bundles of manuscripts, prohibited books, and incriminating
+correspondence of the conspirator Tresham. Another place of
+concealment was situated in the chimney of the great hall and in
+this Father Oldcorn was hidden for a time. Gayhurst, or Gothurst,
+in Buckinghamshire, the seat of Sir Everard Digby, also remains
+intact, one of the finest late Tudor buildings in the country;
+unfortunately, however, only recently a remarkable "priest's
+hole" that was here has been destroyed in consequence of modern
+improvements. It was a double hiding-place, one situated beneath
+the other; the lower one being so arranged as to receive light and
+air from the bottom portion of a large mullioned window--a most
+ingenious device. A secret passage in the hall had communication
+with it, and entrance was obtained through part of the flooring
+of an apartment, the movable part of the boards revolving upon
+pivots and sufficiently solid to vanquish any suspicion as to
+a hollow space beneath.
+
+[Illustration: ASHBY ST. LEDGERS, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: THE PLOT ROOM, ASHBY ST. LEGERS]
+
+As may be supposed, tradition says that at the time of Digby's
+arrest he was dragged forth from this hole, but history shows
+that he was taken prisoner at Holbeach House (where, it will be
+remembered, the conspirators Catesby and Percy were shot), and
+led to execution. For a time Digby sought security at Coughton
+Court, the seat of the Throckmortons, in Warwickshire. The house of
+this old Roman Catholic family, of course, had its hiding-holes,
+one of which remains to this day. Holbeach as well as Hagley
+Hall, the homes of the Litteltons, have been rebuilt. The latter
+was pulled down in the middle of the eighteenth century. Here
+it was that Stephen Littleton and Robert Winter were captured
+through the treachery of the cook. Grant's house, Norbrook, in
+Warwickshire, has also given way to a modern one.
+
+Ambrose Rookwood's seat, Coldham Hall, near Bury St. Edmunds,
+exists and retains its secret chapel and hiding-places. There are
+three of the latter; one of them, now a small withdrawing-room,
+is entered from the oak wainscoted hall. When the house was in
+the market a few years ago, the "priests' holes" duly figured in
+the advertisements with the rest of the apartments and offices.
+It read a little odd, this juxtaposition of modern conveniences
+with what is essentially romantic, and we simply mention the
+fact to show that the auctioneer is well aware of the monetary
+value of such things.
+
+At the time of the Gunpowder Conspiracy Rookwood rented Clopton
+Hall, near Stratford-on-Avon. This house also has its little
+chapel in the roof with adjacent "priests' holes," but many
+alterations have taken place from time to time. Who does not
+remember William Howitt's delightful description--or, to be correct,
+the description of a lady correspondent--of the old mansion before
+these restorations. "There was the old Catholic chapel," she wrote,
+"with a chaplain's room which had been walled up and forgotten till
+within the last few years. I went in on my hands and knees, for the
+entrance was very low. I recollect little in the chapel; but in
+the chaplain's room were old and I should think rare editions of
+many books, mostly folios. A large yellow paper copy of Dryden's
+_All for Love, or the World Well Lost_, date 1686, caught
+my eye, and is the only one I particularly remember."[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Howitt's _Visits to Remarkable Places_.]
+
+Huddington Court, the picturesque old home of the Winters (of
+whom Robert and Thomas lost their lives for their share in the
+Plot), stands a few miles from Droitwich. A considerable quantity
+of arms and ammunition were stored in the hiding-places here in
+1605 in readiness for general rising.
+
+[Illustration: HUDDINGTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE PORCH, HUDDINGTON COURT]
+
+Two other houses may be mentioned in connection with the memorable
+Plot--houses that were rented by the conspirators as convenient
+places of rendezvous an account of their hiding-places and masked
+exits for escape. One of them stood in the vicinity of the Strand,
+in the fields behind St. Clement's Inn. Father Gerard had taken
+it some time previous to the discovery of the Plot, and with
+Owen's aid some very secure hiding-places were arranged. This he
+had done with two or three other London residences, so that he
+and his brother priests might use them upon hazardous occasions;
+and to one of these he owed his life when the hue and cry after
+him was at its highest pitch. By removing from one to the other
+they avoided detection, though they had many narrow escapes. One
+priest was celebrating Mass when the Lord Mayor and constables
+suddenly burst in. But the surprise party was disappointed: nothing
+could be detected beyond the smoke of the extinguished candles;
+and in addition to the hole where the fugitive crouched there
+were two other secret chambers, neither of which was discovered.
+On another occasion a priest was left shut up in a wall; his
+friends were taken prisoners, and he was in danger of starvation,
+until at length he was rescued from his perilous position, carried
+to one of the other houses, and again immured in the vault or
+chimney.
+
+The other house was "White Webb's," on the confines of Enfield
+Chase. In the Record Office there is a document describing how,
+many Popish books and relics were discovered when the latter
+was searched. The building was full of trap-doors and secret
+passages. Some vestiges of the out-buildings of "White Webb's"
+may still be seen in a quaint little inn called "The King and
+Tinker."
+
+But of all the narrow escapes perhaps Father Blount's experiences
+at Scotney Castle were the most thrilling. This old house of
+the Darrells, situated on the border of Kent and Sussex, like
+Hindlip and Braddocks and most of the residences of the Roman
+Catholic gentry, contained the usual lurking-places for priests.
+The structure as it now stands is in the main modern, having
+undergone from time to time considerable alterations. A vivid
+account of Blount's hazardous escape here is preserved among the
+muniments at Stonyhurst--a transcript of the original formerly
+at St. Omers.
+
+One Christmas night towards the close of Elizabeth's reign the
+castle was seized by a party of priest-hunters, who, with their
+usual mode of procedure, locked up the members of the family securely
+before starting on their operations. In the inner quadrangle of
+the mansion was a very remarkable and ingenious device. A large
+stone of the solid wall could be pushed aside. Though of immense
+weight, it was so nicely balanced and adjusted that it required
+only a slight pressure upon one side to effect an entrance to
+the hiding-place within. Those who have visited the grounds at
+Chatsworth may remember a huge piece of solid rock which can be
+swung round in the same easy manner. Upon the approach of the
+enemy, Father Blount and his servant hastened to the courtyard
+and entered the vault; but in their hurry to close the weighty
+door a small portion of one of their girdles got jammed in, so
+that a part was visible from the outside. Fortunately for the
+fugitives, someone in the secret, in passing the spot, happened
+to catch sight of this tell-tale fragment and immediately cut
+it off; but as a particle still showed, they called gently to
+those within to endeavour to pull it in, which they eventually
+succeeded in doing.
+
+At this moment the pursuivants were at work in another part of
+the castle, but hearing the voice in the courtyard, rushed into
+it and commenced battering the walls, and at times upon the very
+door of the hiding-place, which would have given way had not
+those within put their combined weight against it to keep it
+from yielding. It was a pitchy dark night, and it was pelting
+with rain, so after a time, discouraged at finding nothing and
+wet to the skin, the soldiers put off further search until the
+following morning, and proceeded to dry and refresh themselves
+by the fire in the great hall.
+
+When all was at rest, Father Blount and his man, not caring to
+risk another day's hunting, cautiously crept forth bare-footed,
+and after managing to scale some high walls, dropt into the moat
+and swam across. And it was as well for them that they decided
+to quit their hiding-hole, for next morning it was discovered.
+
+The fugitives found temporary security at another recusant house
+a few miles from Scotney, possibly the old half-timber house of
+Twissenden, where a secret chapel and adjacent "priests' holes"
+are still pointed out.
+
+The original manuscript account of the search at Scotney was
+written by one of the Darrell family, who was in the castle at
+the time of the events recorded.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Morris's _Troubles of our Catholic
+Forefathers._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HARVINGTON, UFTON, AND INGATESTONE
+
+We will now go in search of some of the most curious hiding-places
+in existence. There are numerous known examples all over the
+country, and perhaps as many again exist, which will preserve
+their secret for ever. For more than three hundred years they
+have remained buried, and unless some accident reveals their
+locked-up mysteries, they will crumble away with the walls which
+contain them; unless, indeed, fire, the doom of so many of our
+ancestral halls, reduces them to ashes and swallows up the weird
+stories they might have told. In many cases not until an ancient
+building is pulled down are such strange discoveries made; but,
+alas! there are as many instances where structural alterations
+have wantonly destroyed these interesting historical landmarks.
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," HARVINGTON HALL]
+
+[Illustration: HARVINGTON HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+Unaccounted-for spaces, when detected, are readily utilised.
+Passages are bodily run through the heart of many a secret device,
+with little veneration for the mechanical ingenuity that has
+been displayed in their construction. The builder of to-day,
+as a rule, knows nothing of and cares less, for such things,
+and so they are swept away without a thought. To such vandals
+we can only emphasise the remarks we have already made about
+the market value of a "priest-hole" nowadays.
+
+A little to the right of the Kidderminster road, and about two
+miles from the pretty village of Chaddesley Corbet, with its old
+timber houses and inn, stands the ghostly old hall of Harvington.
+The ancient red-brick pile rises out of its reed-grown moat with
+that air of mystery which age and seeming neglect only can impart.
+Coming upon it unexpectedly, especially towards dusk, one is
+struck with the strange, dignified melancholy pervading it. Surely
+Hood's _Haunted House_ or Poe's _House of Usher_ stands
+before us, and we cannot get away from the impression that a
+mystery is wrapped within its walls. Harvington Hall dates from
+the reign of Henry VIII., but it has undergone various changes,
+so it is difficult to affix any particular period or style to
+its architecture; indeed, it is this medley of different styles
+which forms such a poetically picturesque outline. In its day
+Harvington could doubtless hold its own with the finest mansions
+in the country, but now it is forgotten, deserted, and crumbling
+to pieces. Its very history appears to be lost to the world, as
+those who go to the county histories and general topographical
+works for information will find.
+
+Inside the mansion, like the exterior, the hand of decay is
+perceptible on every side; the rooms are ruined, the windows
+broken, the floors unsafe (excepting, by the way, a small portion
+of the building which is habitable). A ponderous broad oak staircase
+leads to a dismantled state-room, shorn of the principal part of
+its panelling, carving, and chimney-pieces.[1] Other desolate
+apartments retain their names as if in mockery; "the drawing-room,"
+"the chapel," "Lady Yates's nursery," and so forth. At the top
+of the staircase, however, we must look around carefully, for
+beneath the stairs is a remarkable hiding-place.
+
+[Footnote 1: Most of the interior fittings were removed to Coughton
+Court, Warwickshire.]
+
+With a slight stretch of the imagination we can see an indistinct
+form stealthily remove the floorboard of one of the stairs and
+creep beneath it. This particular step of a short flight running
+from the landing into a garret is, upon closer inspection, indeed
+movable, and beneath gapes a dark cavity about five feet square, on
+the floor of which still remains the piece of sedge matting whereon
+a certain Father Wall rested his aching limbs a few days prior to
+his capture and execution in August, 1679. The unfortunate man
+was taken at Rushock Court, a few miles away where he was traced
+after leaving Harvington. There is a communication between the
+hiding-place and "the banqueting-room" through, a small concealed
+aperture in the wainscoting large enough to admit of a tube,
+through which a straw could be thrust for the unhappy occupant
+to suck up any liquid his friends might be able to supply.
+
+In a gloomy corridor leading from the tower to "the reception-room"
+is another "priest's hole" beneath the floor, and entered by a
+trap-door artfully hidden in the boards; this black recess is
+some seven feet in depth, and can be made secure from within.
+Supposing the searchers had tracked a fugitive priest as far
+as this corridor, the odds are in favour that they would have
+passed over his head in their haste to reach the tower, where
+they would make sure, in their own minds at least, of discovering
+him. Again, here there is a communication with the outside world.
+An oblong aperture in the top oak beam of the entrance gateway
+to the house, measuring about four inches across, is the secret
+opening--small enough to escape the most inquisitive eye, yet
+large enough to allow of a written note to pass between the captive
+and those upon the alert watching his interests.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: N.B.--In addition to the above hiding-places at
+Harvington, one was discovered so recently as 1894; at least,
+so we have been informed. This was some years after our visit
+to the old Hall.]
+
+A subterranean passage is said to run under the moat from a former
+hiding-place, but this is doubtful; at any rate, there are no
+evidences of it nowadays.
+
+[Illustration: UFTON COURT, BERKSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: GARDEN TERRACE, UFTON COURT]
+
+Altogether, Harvington is far from cheerful, even to a pond hard
+by called "Gallows Pool"! The tragic legend associated with this
+is beyond the province of the present work, so we will bid adieu
+to this weird old hall, and turn our attention to another obscure
+house situated in the south-east corner of Berkshire.
+
+The curious, many-gabled mansion Ufton Court both from its secluded
+situation and quaint internal construction, appears to have been
+peculiarly suitable for the secretion of persecuted priests. Here
+are ample means for concealment and escape into the surrounding
+woods; and so carefully have the ingenious bolts and locks of
+the various hiding-places been preserved, that one would almost
+imagine that there was still actual necessity for their use in
+these matter-of-fact days!
+
+A remarkable place for concealment exists in one of the gables
+close to the ceiling. It is triangular in shape, and is opened
+by a spring-bolt that can be unlatched by pulling a string which
+runs through a tiny hole pierced in the framework of the door of
+the adjoining room. The door of the hiding-place swings upon a
+pivot, and externally is thickly covered with plaster, so as to
+resemble the rest of the wall, and is so solid that when sounded
+there is no hollow sound from the cavity behind, where, no doubt
+the crucifix and sacred vessels were secreted.
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE, UFTON COURT]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING PLACE, UFTON COURT]
+
+Not far off, in an upper garret, is a hiding-place in the thickness
+of the wall, large enough to contain a man standing upright.
+Like the other, the door, or entrance, forms part of the plaster
+wall, intersected by thick oak beams, into which it exactly fits,
+disguising any appearance of an opening. Again, in one of the
+passages of this curious old mansion are further evidences of
+the hardships to which Romish priests were subjected--a trap in
+the floor, which can only be opened by pulling up what exteriorly
+appears to be the head of one of the nails of the flooring; by
+raising this a spring is released and a trap-door opened, revealing
+a large hole with a narrow ladder leading down into it. When
+this hiding-place was discovered in 1830, its contents were
+significant--_viz._ a crucifix and two ancient petronels.
+Apartments known as "the chapel" and "the priest's vestry" are
+still pointed out. The walls throughout the house appear to be
+intersected with passages and masked spaces, and old residents
+claim to have worked their way by these means right through from
+the garrets to the basement, though now the several hiding-places
+do not communicate one with another. There are said to be no
+less than twelve places of concealment in various parts of the
+building. A shaft in the cellar is supposed to be one of the
+means of exit from "the dining-room," and at the back of the
+house a subterranean passage may still be traced a considerable
+distance under the terrace.
+
+[Illustration: INGATESTONE HALL, ESSEX]
+
+[Illustration: INGATESTONE HALL]
+
+An interesting discovery was made some years ago at Ingatestone
+Hall, Essex, the ancient seat of the Petres. The late Rev. Canon
+Last, who had resided there as private chaplain for over sixty
+years, described to us the incidents of this curious "find," to
+which he was an eye-witness. Some of the floor-boards in the
+south-east corner of a small ante-room adjoining what was once
+"the host's bedroom," facing the south front, broke away, rotten
+with age, while some children were playing there. These being
+removed, a second layer of boards was brought to light within
+a foot of the old flooring, and in this a trap-door was found
+which, when opened, discovered a large "priest's hole," measuring
+fourteen feet long, ten feet high, and two feet wide. A twelve-step
+ladder led down into it, and the floor being on a level with the
+basement of the house was covered with a layer of dry sand to
+the depth of nearly a foot, so as to absorb any moisture from
+the ground.[1] In the sand a few bones of a bird were found,
+possibly the remains of food supplied to some unfortunate priest.
+Those who climb down into this hole will find much that is
+interesting to repay them their trouble. From the wall projects
+a candle-holder, rudely modelled out of clay. An examination of
+the brick-work in the interior of the "priest's hole" proves
+it to be of later construction than the rest of the house (which
+dates from the early part of the sixteenth century), so in all
+likelihood "Little John" was the manufacturer.
+
+[Footnote 1: At Moorcroft House, near Hillingdon, Middlesex,
+now modernised and occupied as a private lunatic asylum, ten
+priests were once concealed for four days in a hiding-place,
+the floor of which was covered some inches in water. This was
+one of the many comforts of a "priest's hole"!]
+
+Standing in the same position as when first opened, and supported
+by two blocks of oak, is an old chest or packing-case made of
+yew, covered with leather, and bound with bands of iron, wherein
+formerly the vestments, utensils, etc., for the Mass were kept.
+Upon it, in faded and antiquated writing, was the following
+direction: "For the Right Hon. the Lady Petre at Ingatestone
+Hall, in Essex." The Petres had quitted the old mansion as a
+residence for considerably over a century when the discovery was
+made.
+
+[Illustration: PRIEST'S HOLE, SAWSTON HALL]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+COMPTON WINYATES, SALFORD PRIOR, SAWSTON, OXBURGH, PARHAM, PAXHILL,
+ETC.
+
+Of all the ancient mansions in the United Kingdom, and there is
+still, happily, a large selection, none perhaps is so picturesque and
+quaintly original in its architecture as the secluded Warwickshire
+house Compton Winyates. The general impression of its vast
+complication of gable ends and twisted chimneys is that some
+enchanted palace has found its way out of one of the fairy-tale
+books of our early youth and concealed itself deep down in a
+sequestered hollow among the woods and hills. We say concealed
+itself, for indeed it is no easy matter to find it, for anything
+in the shape of a road seems rather to lead _away from_,
+than _to_ it; indeed, there is no direct road from anywhere,
+and if we are fortunate enough to alight upon a footpath, that
+also in a very short time fades away into oblivion! So solitary
+also is the valley in which the mansion lies and so shut in with
+thick clustering trees, that one unacquainted with the locality
+might pass within fifty yards of it over and over again without
+observing a trace of it. When, however, we do discover the beautiful
+old structure, we are well repaid for what trouble we may have
+encountered. To locate the spot within a couple of miles, we
+may state that Brailes is its nearest village; the nearest town
+is Banbury, some nine miles away to the east.
+
+Perhaps if we were to analyse the peculiar charm this venerable
+pile conveys, we should find that it is the wonderful _colour_,
+the harmonies of greys and greens and reds which pervade its
+countless chimney clusters and curious step-gables. We will be
+content, however, with the fascinating results, no matter how
+accomplished, without inquiring into the why and wherefore; and
+pondering over the possibilities of the marvellous in such a
+building see, if the interior can carry out such a supposition.
+
+[Illustration: SCOTNEY HALL, SUSSEX]
+
+[Illustration: COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE]
+
+Wending our way to the top of the house, past countless old-world
+rooms and corridors, we soon discover evidences of the days of
+priest-hunting. A "Protestant" chapel is on the ground floor
+(with a grotesquely carved screen of great beauty), but up in
+the roof we discover another--a "Popish" chapel. From this there
+are numerous ways of escape, by staircases and passages leading
+in all directions, for even in the almost impenetrable seclusion
+of this house the profoundest secrecy was necessary for those
+who wished to celebrate the rites of the forbidden religion.
+Should the priest be surprised and not have time to descend one
+of the many staircases and effect his escape by the ready means
+in the lower part of the house, there are secret closets between
+the timber beams of the roof and the wainscot into which he could
+creep.
+
+Curious rooms run along each side in the roof round the quadrangle,
+called "the barracks," into which it would be possible to pack
+away a whole regiment of soldiers. Not far away are "the false
+floors," a typical Amy Robsart death-trap!
+
+A place of security here, once upon a time, could only be reached
+by a ladder; later, however, it was made easier of access by a
+dark passage, but it was as secure as ever from intrusion. The
+fugitive had the ready means of isolating himself by removing
+a large portion of the floor-boards; supposing, therefore, his
+lurking-place had been traced, he had only to arrange this deadly
+gap, and his pursuers would run headlong to their fate.
+
+Many other strange rooms there are, not the least interesting
+of which is a tiny apartment away from everywhere called "the
+Devil's chamber," and another little chamber whose window is
+_invariably found open in the morning, though securely fastened
+on the previous night!_
+
+Various finds have been made from time to time at Compton Winyates.
+Not many years ago a bricked-up space was found in a wall containing
+a perfect skeleton!--at another an antique box full of papers
+belonging to the past history of the family (the Comptons) was
+discovered in a secret cavity beneath one of the windows.
+
+[Illustration: MINSTREL'S GALLERY, COMPTON WINYATES]
+
+The "false floors" to which we have alluded suggests a hiding-place
+that was put to very practical use by two old maiden ladies some
+years ago at an ancient building near Malvern, Pickersleigh Court.
+Each night before retiring to rest some floor-boards of a passage,
+originally the entrance to a "priest's hole," were removed. This
+passage led to their bedroom, so that they were protected much in
+the same way as the fugitive at Compton Winyates, by a yawning
+gap. Local tradition does not record how many would-be burglars
+were trapped in this way, but it is certain that should anyone
+ever have ventured along that passage, they would have been
+precipitated with more speed than ceremony into a cellar below.
+Pickersleigh, it may be pointed out, is erroneously shown in
+connection with the wanderings of Charles II. after the battle
+Worcester.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See _The Flight of the King._]
+
+Salford Prior Hall (otherwise known as "the Nunnery," or Abbots
+Salford), not far from Evesham, is another mansion remarkable
+for its picturesqueness as well as for its capacity for hiding.
+It not only has its Roman Catholic chapel, but a resident priest
+holds services there to this day. Up in the garret is the "priest's
+hole," ready, it would seem, for some present emergency, so well
+is it concealed and in such perfect working order; and even when
+its position is pointed out, nothing is to be seen but the most
+innocent-looking of cupboards. By removing a hidden peg, however,
+the whole back of it, shelves and all, swings backwards into a
+dismal recess some four feet in depth. This deceitful swing door
+may be secured on the inside by a stout wooden bolt provided
+for that purpose.
+
+[Illustration: COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: SAWSTON HALL, CAMBRIDGESHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: PICKERSLEIGH COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: SALFORD PRIOR HALL, WARWICKSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: SALFORD PRIOR HALL]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR (SHEWING ENTRANCE)]
+
+Another hiding place as artfully contrived and as little changed
+since the day it was manufactured is one at Sawston, the ancestral
+seat of the old family of Huddleston. Sawston Hall is a typical
+Elizabethan building. The one which preceded it was burnt to the
+ground by the adherents of Lady Jane Grey, as the Huddleston
+of that day, upon the death of King Edward VI., received his
+sister Mary under his protection, and contrived her escape to
+Framlingham Castle, where she was carried in disguise, riding
+pillion behind a servant.
+
+The secret chamber, as at Harvington, is on the top landing of
+the staircase, and the entrance is so cleverly arranged that
+it slants into the masonry of a circular tower without showing
+the least perceptible sign from the exterior of a space capable
+of holding a baby, far less a man. A particular board in the
+landing is raised, and beneath it, in a corner of the cavity,
+is found a stone slab containing a circular aperture, something
+after the manner of our modern urban receptacles for coal. From
+this hole a tunnel slants downwards at an angle into the adjacent
+wall, where there is an apartment some twelve feet in depth,
+and wide enough to contain half a dozen people--that is to say,
+not bulky ones, for the circular entrance is far from large.
+Blocks of oak fixed upon the inside of the movable floor-board
+fit with great nicety into their firm oak sockets in the beams,
+which run at right angles and support the landing, so that the
+opening is so massive and firm that, unless pointed out, the
+particular floor-board could never be detected, and when secured
+from the inside would defy a battering-ram.
+
+[Illustration: OXBURGH HALL, NORFOLK]
+
+The Huddlestons, or rather their connections the Thornboroughs,
+have an old house at Leyburn, in Yorkshire, named "The Grove,"
+which also contained its hiding-place, but unfortunately this is
+one of those instances where alterations and modern conveniences
+have destroyed what can never be replaced. The priest, Father
+John Huddleston (who aided King Charles II. to escape, and who,
+it will be remembered, was introduced to that monarch's death-bed
+by way of a _secret staircase_ in the palace of Whitehall),
+lived in this house some time during the seventeenth century.
+
+One of the most ingenious hiding-places extant is to be seen
+at Oxburgh Hall, near Stoke Ferry, the grand old moated mansion
+of the ancient Bedingfield family. In solidity and compactness
+it is unique. Up in one of the turrets of the entrance gateway
+is a tiny closet, the floor of which is composed of brickwork
+fixed into a wooden frame. Upon pressure being applied to one
+side of this floor, the opposite side heaves up with a groan at
+its own weight. Beneath lies a hollow, seven feet square, where
+a priest might lie concealed with the gratifying knowledge that,
+however the ponderous trap-door be hammered from above, there
+would be no tell-tale hollowness as a response. Having bolted
+himself in, he might to all intents and purposes be imbedded in
+a rock (though truly a toad so situated is not always safe from
+intrusion). Three centuries have rolled away and thirteen sovereigns
+have reigned since the construction of this hiding-place, but the
+mechanism of this masterpiece of ingenuity remains as perfect
+as if it had been made yesterday! Those who may be privileged
+with permission to inspect the interesting hall will find other
+surprises where least expected. An oak-panelled passage upon the
+basement of the aforesaid entrance gateway contains a secret
+door that gives admittance into the living-rooms in the most
+eccentric manner.
+
+A priest's hole beneath the floor of a small oratory adjoining
+"the chapel" (now a bedroom) at Borwick Hall, Lancashire, has an
+opening devised much in the same fashion as that at Oxburgh. By
+leaning his weight upon a certain portion of the boards, a fugitive
+could slide into a convenient gap, while the floor would adjust
+itself above his head and leave no trace of his where-abouts.
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, PARHAM HALL, SUSSEX]
+
+Window-seats not uncommonly formed the entrance to holes beneath
+the level of the floor. In the long gallery of Parham Hall, Sussex,
+an example of this may be seen. It is not far from "the chapel,"
+and the officiating priest in this instance would withdraw a
+panel whose position is now occupied by a door; but the entrance
+to the hiding-place within the projecting bay of the window is
+much the same as it ever was. After the failure of the Babington
+conspiracy one Charles Paget was concealed here for some days.
+
+The Tudor house of Tusmore, in Oxfordshire, also had a secret
+chamber, approached through a fixed settle in "the parlour" window.
+A tradition in the neighbourhood says that the great fish-pond
+near the site of the old house was dug by a priest and his servant
+in the days of religious persecution, constituting their daily
+occupation for twelve years!
+
+Paxhill, in Sussex, the ancient seat of the Bordes, has a priest's
+hole behind a window-shutter, and it is large enough to hold several
+persons; there is another large hiding-hole in the ceiling of a
+room on the ground floor, which is reached through a trap-door
+in the floor above. It is provided with a stone bench.
+
+In castles and even ecclesiastical buildings sections of massive
+stone columns have been found to rotate and reveal a hole in an
+adjacent wall--even an altar has occasionally been put to use
+for concealing purposes. At Naworth Castle, for instance, in
+"Lord William's Tower," there is an oratory behind the altar, in
+which fugitives not only could be hidden but could see anything
+that transpired in its vicinity. In Chichester Cathedral there is
+a room called Lollards' Prison, which is approached by a sliding
+panel in the old consistory-room situated over the south porch.
+The manor house of Great Chalfield, in Wiltshire, has a unique
+device by which any suspected person could be watched. The eye
+of a stone mask in the masonry is hollowed out and through this
+a suspicious lord of the manor could, unseen, be a witness to
+any treachery on the part of his retainers or guests.
+
+[Illustration: PAXHILL, SUSSEX]
+
+[Illustration: CLEEVE PRIOR MANOR HOUSE, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+The old moated hall Baddesley Clinton, in Warwickshire, the ancient
+seat of the Ferrers, has a stone well or shaft near "the chapel."
+There were formerly projections or steps by which a fugitive
+could reach a secret passage extending round nearly two sides
+of the house to a small water-gate by the moat, where a boat
+was kept in readiness. Adjoining the "banqueting-room" on the
+east side of the building is a secret chamber six feet square
+with a bench all round it. It is now walled up, but the narrow
+staircase, behind the wainscoting, leading up to it is unaltered.
+
+Cleeve Prior Manor House, in Worcestershire (though close upon
+the border of Warwickshire)) famous for its unique yew avenue,
+has a priest's hole, a cramped space five feet by two, in which
+it is necessary to lie down. As at Ingatestone, it is below the
+floor of a small chamber adjoining the principal bedroom, and
+is entered by removing one of the floor-boards.
+
+Wollas Hall, an Elizabethan mansion on Bredon Hill, near Pershore
+(held uninterruptedly by the Hanford family since the sixteenth
+century), has a chapel in the upper part of the house, and a
+secret chamber, or priest's hole, provided with a diminutive
+fire-place. When the officiating priest was about to celebrate
+Mass, it was the custom here to spread linen upon the hedges as
+a sign to those in the adjacent villages who wished to attend.
+
+A hiding-place at Treago, Herefordshire (an unique specimen of
+a thirteenth-century fortified mansion) inhabited by the Mynor
+family for more than four hundred years), has quite luxurious
+accommodation--a sleeping-place and a reading-desk. It is called
+"Pope's Hole." The walls on the south-east side of the house are
+of immense thickness, and there are many indications of secret
+passages within them.
+
+[Illustration: BADDESLEY CLINTON, WARWICKSHIRE]
+
+Some fifty years ago a hiding-hole was opened in a chimney adjoining
+"the chapel" of Lydiate Hall, Lancashire; and since then one
+was discovered behind the rafters of the roof. Another ancient
+house close by contained a priest's hole where were found some
+religious books and an old carved oak chair.
+
+Myddleton Lodge, near Ilkley, had a secret chapel in the roof,
+which is now divided up into several apartments. In the grounds
+is to be seen a curious maze of thickly planted evergreens in
+the shape of a cross. From the fact that at one end remain three
+wooden crosses, there is but little doubt that at the time of
+religious persecution the privacy of the maze was used for secret
+worship.
+
+When Slindon House, Sussex, was undergoing some restorations, a
+"priest's hole" communicating with the roof was discovered. It
+contained some ancient devotional books, and against the walls
+were hung stout leathern straps, by which a person could let
+himself down.
+
+The internal arrangements at Plowden Hall, Shropshire, give one
+a good idea of the feeling of insecurity that must have been
+so prevalent in those "good old days." Running from the top of
+the house there is in the thickness of the wall, a concealed
+circular shoot about a couple of feet in diameter, through which
+a person could lower himself, if necessary, to the ground floor
+by the aid of a rope. Here also, beneath the floor-boards of a
+cupboard in one of the bedrooms, is a concealed chamber with a
+fixed shelf, presumably provided to act as a sort of table for
+the unfortunate individual who was forced to occupy the narrow
+limits of the room. Years before this hiding-place was opened
+to the light of day (in the course of some alterations to the
+house), its existence and actual position was well known; still,
+strange to say, the way into it had never been discovered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+KING-HUNTING: BOSCOBEL, MOSELEY, TRENT, AND HEALE
+
+When the Civil War was raging, many a defeated cavalier owed
+his preservation to the "priests' holes" and secret chambers
+of the old Roman Catholic houses all over the country. Did not
+Charles II. himself owe his life to the conveniences offered
+at Boscobel, Moseley, Trent, and Heale? We have elsewhere[1]
+gone minutely into the young king's hair-breadth adventures;
+but the story is so closely connected with the present subject
+that we must record something of his sojourn at these four old
+houses, as from an historical point of view they are of exceptional
+interest, if one but considers how the order of things would have
+been changed had either of these hiding-places been discovered
+at the time "his Sacred Majesty" occupied them. It is vain to
+speculate upon the probabilities; still, there is no ignoring
+the fact that had Charles been captured he would have shared
+the fate of his father.
+
+[Footnote 1: See _The Flight of the King_.]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE BENEATH "THE CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL, SALOP]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE IN "THE GARRET" OR "CHAPEL,"
+BOSCOBEL]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE IN "THE SQUIRE'S BEDROOM," BOSCOBEL]
+
+[Illustration: SECRET PANEL, TRENT HOUSE, SOMERSETSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: BOSCOBEL, SALOP]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE]
+
+[Illustration: TRENT HOUSE IN 1864]
+
+[Illustration: HEALE HOUSE, WILTSHIRE]
+
+
+After the defeat of Wigan, the gallant Earl of Derby sought refuge
+at the isolated, wood-surrounded hunting-lodge of Boscobel, and
+after remaining there concealed for two days, proceeded to Gatacre
+Park, now rebuilt, but then and for long after famous for its
+secret chambers. Here he remained hidden prior to the disastrous
+battle of Worcester.
+
+Upon the close of that eventful third of September, 1651, the
+Earl, at the time that the King and his advisers knew not which
+way to turn for safety, recounted his recent experiences, and
+called attention to the loyalty of the brothers Penderel. It
+was speedily resolved, therefore, to hasten northwards towards
+Brewood Forest, upon the borders of Staffordshire and Salop.
+"As soon as I was disguised," says Charles, "I took with me a
+country fellow whose name was Richard Penderell.... He was a
+Roman Catholic, and I chose to trust them [the Penderells] because
+I knew they had hiding-holes for priests that I thought I might
+make use of in case of need." Before taking up his quarters in
+the house, however, the idea of escaping into Wales occured to
+Charles, so, when night set in, he quitted Boscobel Wood, where
+he had been hidden all the day, and started on foot with his
+rustic guide in a westerly direction with the object of getting
+over the river Severn, but various hardships and obstacles induced
+Penderel to suggest a halt at a house at Madeley, near the river,
+where they might rest during the day and continue the journey
+under cover of darkness on the following night; the house further
+had the attraction of "priests' holes." "We continued our way on
+to the village upon the Severn," resumes the King, "where the
+fellow told me there was an honest gentleman, one Mr. Woolfe,
+that lived in that town, where I might be with great safety, for
+he had hiding-holes for priests.... So I came into the house a
+back way, where I found Mr. Woolfe, an old gentleman, who told me
+he was very sorry to see me there, because there was two companies
+of the militia foot at that time in arms in the town, and kept a
+guard at the ferry, to examine everybody that came that way in
+expectation of catching some that might be making their escape
+that way; and that he durst not put me into any of the hiding-holes
+of his house, because they had been discovered, and consequently,
+if any search should be made, they would certainly repair to
+these holes, and that therefore I had no other way of security
+but to go into his barn and there lie behind his corn and hay."
+
+[Illustration: MADELEY COURT, SHROPSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: THE COURTYARD, MADELEY COURT]
+
+[Illustration: MADELEY COURT]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," THE UPPER HOUSE, MADELEY]
+
+The Madeley "priest's hole" which was considered unsafe is still
+extant. It is in one of the attics of "the Upper House," but
+the entrance is now very palpable. Those who are curious enough
+to climb up into this black hole will discover a rude wooden
+bench within it--a luxury compared with some hiding-places!
+
+The river Severn being strictly guarded everywhere, Charles and
+his companions retraced their steps the next night towards Boscobel.
+
+After a day spent up in the branches of the famous _Royal Oak_,
+the fugitive monarch made his resting-place the secret chamber
+behind the wainscoting of what is called "the Squire's Bedroom."
+There is another hiding-place, however, hard by in a garret which
+may have been the one selected. The latter lies beneath the floor
+of this garret, or "Popish chapel," as it was once termed. At the
+top of a flight of steps leading to it is a small trap-door, and
+when this is removed a step-ladder may be seen leading down into
+the recess.[1] The other place behind the wainscot is situated
+in a chimney stack and is more roomy in its proportions. Here
+again is an inner hiding-place, entered through a trap-door in
+the floor, with a narrow staircase leading to an exit in the
+basement. So much for Boscobel.
+
+[Footnote 1: The hiding-place in the garret measures about 5 feet
+2 inches in depth by 3-1/2 or 4-1/2 feet in width.]
+
+Moseley Hall is thus referred to by the King: "I... sent Penderell's
+brother to Mr. Pitchcroft's [Whitgreaves] to know whether my
+Lord Wilmot was there or no, and had word brought me by him at
+night that my lord was there, that there was a _very secure
+hiding-hole_ in Mr. Pitchcroft's house, and that he desired
+me to come thither to him."
+
+It was while at Moseley the King had a very narrow escape. A
+search-party arrived on the scene and demanded admittance. Charles's
+host himself gives the account of this adventure: "In the afternoon
+[the King] reposing himself on his bed in the parlour chamber
+and inclineing to sleep, as I was watching at the window, one of
+the neighbours I saw come running in, who told the maid soldiers
+were comeing to search, who thereupon presentlie came running to
+the staires head, and cried, 'Soldiers, soldiers are coming,'
+which his majestie hearing presentlie started out of his bedd and
+run to _his privacie, where I secured him the best I could_,
+and then leaving him, went forth into the street to meet the
+soldiers who were comeing to search, who as soon as they saw
+and knew who I was were readie to pull mee to pieces, and take
+me away with them, saying I was come from the Worcester fight;
+but after much dispute with them, and by the neighbours being
+informed of their false information that I was not there, being
+very ill a great while, they let mee goe; but till I saw them
+clearly all gone forth of the town I returned not; but as soon
+as they were, I returned to release him and did acquaint him
+with my stay, which hee thought long, and then hee began to bee
+very chearful again.
+
+In the interim, whilst I was disputing with the soldiers, one
+of them called Southall came in the ffould and asked a smith,
+as hee was shooing horses there, if he could tell where the King
+was, and he should have "a thousand pounds for his payns...."
+This Southall was a great priest-catcher.
+
+[Illustration: "PRIEST'S HOLE," MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE]
+
+The hiding-place is located beneath the floor of a cupboard,
+adjoining the quaint old panelled bedroom the King occupied while
+he was at Moseley. Even "the merry monarch" must have felt depressed
+in such a dismal hole as this, and we can picture his anxious
+expression, as he sat upon the rude seat of brick which occupies
+one end of it, awaiting the result of the sudden alarm. The cupboard
+orginally was screened with wainscoting, a panel of which could
+be opened and closed by a spring. Family tradition also says
+there was a outlet from the hiding-place in a brew-house chimney.
+Situated in a gable end of the building, near the old chapel,
+in a garret, there is another "priest's hole" large enough only
+to admit of a person lying down full length.
+
+Before the old seat of the Whitgreaves was restored some fifteen
+or twenty years ago it was one of the most picturesque half-timber
+houses, not only in Staffordshire, but in England. It had remained
+practically untouched since the day above alluded to (September
+9th, 1651).
+
+Before reaching Trent, in Somersetshire, the much sought-for king
+had many hardships to undergo and many strange experiences. We
+must, however, confine our remarks to those of the old buildings
+which offered him an asylum that could boast a hiding-place.
+
+Trent House was one of these. The very fact that it originally
+belonged to the recusant Gerard family is sufficient evidence.
+From the Gerards it passed by marriage to the Wyndhams, who were
+in residence in the year we speak of. That his Majesty spent much
+of his time in the actual hiding-place at Trent is very doubtful.
+Altogether he was safely housed here for over a fortnight, and
+during that time doubtless occasional alarms drove him, as at
+Moseley, into his sanctuary; but a secluded room was set apart
+for his use, where he had ample space to move about, and from
+which he could reach his hiding-place at a moment's notice. The
+black oak panelling and beams of this cosy apartment, with its
+deep window recesses, readily carries the mind back to the time
+when its royal inmate wiled away the weary hours by cooking his
+meals and amusing himself as best he could--indeed a hardship
+for one, such as he, so fond of outdoor exercise.
+
+Close to the fireplace are two small, square secret panels, at one
+time used for the secretion of sacred books or vessels, valuables
+or compromising deeds, but pointed out to visitors as a kind of
+buttery hatch through which Charles II. received his food. The
+King by day, also according to local tradition, is said to have
+kept up communication with his friends in the house by means
+of a string suspended in the kitchen chimney. That apartment is
+immediately beneath, and has a fireplace of huge dimensions.
+An old Tudor doorway leading into this part of the house is said
+to have been screened from observation by a load of hay.
+
+Now for the hiding-place. Between this and "my Lady Wyndham's
+chamber" (the aforesaid panelled room that was kept exclusively
+for Charles's use) was a small ante-room, long since demolished,
+its position being now occupied by a rudely constructed staircase,
+from the landing of which the hiding-place is now entered. The
+small secret apartment is approached through a triangular hole
+in the wall, something after the fashion of that at Ufton Court;
+but when one has squeezed through this aperture he will find
+plenty of room to stretch his limbs. The hole, which was close
+up against the rafters of the roof of the staircase landing,
+when viewed from the inside of the apartment, is situated at the
+base of a blocked-up stone Tudor doorway. Beneath the boards of
+the floor--as at Boscobel and Moseley--is an inner hiding-place,
+from which it was formerly possible to find an exit through the
+brew-house chimney.
+
+It was from Trent House that Charles visited the Dorsetshire
+coast in the hopes of getting clear of England; but a complication
+of misadventures induced him to hasten back with all speed to
+the pretty little village of Trent, to seek once, more shelter
+beneath the roof of the Royalist Colonel Wyndham.
+
+To resume the King's account:--
+
+"As soon as we came to Frank Windham's I sent away presently to
+Colonel Robert Philips [Phelips], who lived then at Salisbury, to
+see what he could do for the getting me a ship; which he undertook
+very willingly, and had got one at Southampton, but by misfortune
+she was amongst others prest to transport their soldiers to Jersey,
+by which she failed us also.
+
+"Upon this, I sent further into Sussex, where Robin Philips knew
+one Colonel Gunter, to see whether he could hire a ship anywhere
+upon that coast. And not thinking it convenient for me to stay
+much longer at Frank Windham's (where I had been in all about a
+fortnight, and was become known to very many), I went directly
+away to a widow gentlewoman's house, one Mrs. Hyde, some four
+or five miles from Salisbury, where I came into the house just
+as it was almost dark, with Robin Philips only, not intending
+at first to make myself known. But just as I alighted at the
+door, Mrs. Hyde knew me, though she had never seen me but once
+in her life, and that was with the king, my father, in the army,
+when we marched by Salisbury some years before, in the time of
+the war; but she, being a discreet woman, took no notice at that
+time of me, I passing only for a friend of Robin Philips', by
+whose advice I went thither.
+
+"At supper there was with us Frederick Hyde, since a judge, and
+his sister-in-law, a widow, Robin Philips, myself, and Dr. Henshaw
+[Henchman], since Bishop of London, whom I had appointed to meet
+me there.
+
+"While we were at slipper, I observed Mrs. Hyde and her brother
+Frederick to look a little earnestly at me, which led me to believe
+they might know me. But I was not at all startled by it, it having
+been my purpose to let her know who I was; and, accordingly,
+after supper Mrs. Hyde came to me, and I discovered myself to
+her, who told me she had a very safe place to hide me in, till
+we knew whether our ship was ready or no. But she said it was
+not safe for her to trust anybody but herself and her sister,
+and therefore advised me to take my horse next morning and make
+as if I quitted the house, and return again about night; for she
+would order it so that all her servants and everybody should
+be out of the house but herself and her sister, whose name I
+remember not.
+
+"So Robin Philips and I took our horses and went as far as
+Stonehenge; and there we staid looking upon the stones for some
+time, and returned back again to Hale [Heale] (the place where
+Mrs. Hyde lived) about the hour she appointed; where I went up
+into the hiding-hole, that was very convenient and safe, and
+staid there all alone (Robin Philips then going away to Salisbury)
+some four or five days."
+
+Both exterior and interior of Heale House as it stands to-day
+point to a later date than 1651, though there are here and there
+vestiges of architecture anterior to the middle of the seventeenth
+century; the hiding-place, however, is not among these, and looks
+nothing beyond a very deep cupboard adjoining one of the bedrooms,
+with nothing peculiar to distinguish it from ordinary cupboards.
+
+But for all its modern innovations there is something about Heale
+which suggests a house with a history. Whether it is its environment
+of winding river and ancient cedar-trees, its venerable stables
+and imposing entrance gate, or the fact that it is one of those
+distinguished houses that have saved the life of an English king,
+we will not undertake to fathom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CAVALIER-HUNTING, ETC.
+
+An old mansion in the precincts of the cathedral at Salisbury is
+said to have been a favourite hiding-place for fugitive cavaliers
+at the time of the Civil War. There is an inn immediately opposite
+this house, just outside the close, where the landlord (formerly a
+servant to the family who lived in the mansion) during the troublous
+times acted as a secret agent for those who were concealed, and
+proved invaluable by conveying messages and in other ways aiding
+those Royalists whose lives were in danger.
+
+[Illustration: SECRET PANEL AT SALISBURY]
+
+There are still certain "priests' holes" in the house, but the most
+interesting hiding-place is situated in the most innocent-looking
+of summer-houses in the grounds. The interior of this little
+structure is wainscoted round with large panels like most of
+the summer-houses, pavilions, or music-rooms of the seventeenth
+century, and nothing uncommon or mysterious was discovered until
+some twenty-five years ago. By the merest accident one of the
+panels was found to open, revealing what appeared to be an ordinary
+cupboard with shelves. Further investigations, however, proved
+its real object. By sliding one of the shelves out of the grooves
+into which it is fixed, a very narrow, disguised door, a little
+over a foot in width, in the side of the cupboard and in the
+thickness of the wall can be opened. This again reveals a narrow
+passage, or staircase, leading up to the joists above the ceiling,
+and thence to a recess situated immediately behind the carved
+ornamental facing over the entrance door of the summer-house.
+In this there is a narrow chink or peep-hole, from which the
+fugitive could keep on the look-out either for danger or for the
+friendly Royalist agent of the "King's Arms."
+
+When it was first discovered there were evidences of its last
+occupant--_viz._ a Jacobean horn tumbler, a mattress, and a
+handsomely worked velvet pillow; the last two articles, provided
+no doubt for the comfort of some hunted cavalier, upon being
+handled, fell to pieces. It may be mentioned that the inner door
+of the cupboard can be securely fastened from the inside by an
+iron hook and staple for that purpose.
+
+Hewitt, mine host of the "King's Arms," was not idle at the time
+transactions were in progress to transfer Charles II. from Trent
+to Heale, and received within his house Lord Wilmot, Colonel
+Phelips, and other of the King's friends who were actively engaged
+in making preparations for the memorable journey. This old inn,
+with its oak-panelled rooms and rambling corridors, makes a very
+suitable neighbour to the more dignified old brick mansion opposite,
+with which it is so closely associated.
+
+[Illustration: SECRET CHAMBER, CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: OLD SUMMER HOUSE, SALISBURY (SHEWING CARVING IN
+WHICH IS A PEEP-HOLE FOR HIDING-PLACE BEHIND)]
+
+Many are the exciting stories related of the defeated Royalists,
+especially after the Worcester fight. One of them, Lord Talbot,
+hastened to his paternal home of Longford, near Newport (Salop),
+and had just time to conceal himself ere his pursuers arrived,
+who, finding his horse saddled, concluded that the rider could
+not be far off. They therefore searched the house minutely for
+four or five days, and the fugitive would have perished for want
+of food, had not one of the servants contrived, at great personal
+risk, to pay him nocturnal visits and supply him with nourishment.
+
+The grey old Jacobean mansion Chastleton preserves in its
+oak-panelled hall the sword and portrait of the gallant cavalier
+Captain Arthur Jones, who, narrowly escaping from the battlefield,
+speeded homewards with some of Cromwell's soldiers at his heels;
+and his wife, a lady of great courage, had scarcely concealed
+him in the secret chamber when the enemy arrived to search the
+house.
+
+Little daunted, the lady, with great presence of mind, made no
+objection whatever--indeed, facilitated their operations by
+personally conducting them over the mansion. Here, as in so many
+other instances, the secret room was entered from the principal
+bedroom, and in inspecting the latter the suspicion of the Roundheads
+was in some way or another aroused, so here they determined to
+remain for the rest of the night.
+
+An ample supper and a good store of wine (which, by the way, had
+been carefully drugged) was sent up to the unwelcome visitors,
+and in due course the drink effected its purpose--its victims
+dropped off one by one, until the whole party lay like logs upon
+the floor. Mrs. Arthur Jones then crept in, having even to step
+over the bodies of the inanimate Roundheads, released her husband,
+and a fresh horse being in readiness, by the time the effects
+of the wine had worn off the Royalist captain was far beyond
+their reach.
+
+The secret room is located in the front of the building, and has
+now been converted into a very, comfortable little dressing-room,
+preserving its original oak panelling, and otherwise but little
+altered, with the exception of the entry to it, which is now
+an ordinary door.
+
+Chastleton is the beau ideal of an ancestral hall. The grand
+old gabled house, with its lofty square towers, its Jacobean
+entrance gateway and dovecote, and the fantastically clipped
+box-trees and sun-dial of its quaint old-fashioned garden, possesses
+a charm which few other ancient mansions can boast, and this
+charm lies in its perfectly unaltered state throughout, even
+to the minutest detail. Interior and exterior alike, everything
+presents an appearance exactly as it did when it was erected
+and furnished by Walter Jones, Esquire, between the years 1603
+and 1630. The estate originally was held by Robert Catesby, who
+sold the house to provide funds for carrying on the notorious
+conspiracy.
+
+Among its most valued relics is a Bible given by Charles I. when
+on the scaffold to Bishop Juxon, who lived at Little Compton manor
+house, near Chastleton. This Bible was always used by the bishop
+at the Divine services, which at one time were held in the great
+hall of the latter house. Other relics of the martyr-king used
+to be at Little Compton--_viz._ some beams of the Whitehall
+scaffold, whose exact position has occasioned so much controversy.
+The velvet armchair and footstool used by the King during his
+memorable trial were also preserved here, but of late years have
+found a home at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, some six miles away. Visitors
+to that interesting collection shown in London some years ago--the
+Stuart Exhibition--may remember this venerable armchair of such
+sad association.
+
+[Illustration: CHASTLETON]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE DOOR, CHASTLETON]
+
+It may be here stated that after Charles I.'s execution, Juxon
+lived for a time in Sussex at an old mansion still extant, Albourne
+Place, not far from Hurstpierpoint. We mention this from the
+fact that a priest's hole was discovered there some few years
+ago. It was found in opening a communication between two rooms,
+and originally it could only be reached by steps projecting from
+the inner walls of a chimney.
+
+Not many miles from Albourne stands Street Place, an Elizabethan
+Sussex house of some note. A remarkable story of cavalier-hunting
+is told here. A hiding-place is said to have existed in the wide
+open fireplace of the great hall. Tradition has it that a horseman,
+hard pressed by the Parliamentary troopers, galloped into this
+hall, but upon the arrival of his pursuers, no clue could be
+found of either man or horse!
+
+The gallant Prince Rupert himself, upon one occasion, is said
+to have had recourse to a hiding hole, at least so the story
+runs, at the beautiful old black-and-white timber mansion, Park
+Hall, near Oswestry. A certain "false floor" which led to it is
+pointed out in a cupboard of a bedroom, the hiding-place itself
+being situated immediately above the dining-room fireplace.
+
+A concealed chamber something after the same description is to
+be seen at the old seat of the Fenwicks, Wallington, in
+Northumberland--a small room eight feet long by sixteen feet high,
+situated at the back of the dining-room fireplace, and approached
+through the back of a cupboard.
+
+Behind one of the large panels of "the hall" of an old building
+in Warwick called St. John's Hospital is a hiding-place, and in
+a bedroom of the same house there is a little apartment, now
+converted into a dressing-room, which formerly could only be
+reached through a sliding panel over the fireplace.
+
+The manor house of Dinsdale-on-Tees, Durham, has another example,
+but to reach it it is necessary to pass through a trap-door in
+the attics, crawl along under the roof, and drop down into the,
+space in the wall behind a bedroom fireplace, where for extra
+security there is a second trap-door.
+
+[Illustration: BROUGHTON HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: ST. JOHN'S HOSPITAL, WARWICK]
+
+Full-length panel portraits of the Salwey family at Stanford Court,
+Worcestershire (unfortunately burned down in 1882), concealed hidden
+recesses and screened passages leading up to an exit in the leads
+of the roof. In one of these recesses curious seventeenth-century
+manuscripts were found, among them, the household book of a certain
+"Joyce Jeffereys" during the Civil War.
+
+The old Jacobean mansion Broughton Hall, Staffordshire, had a
+curious hiding-hole over a fireplace and situated in the wall
+between the dining-room and the great hall; over its entrance
+used to hang a portrait of a man in antique costume which went
+by the name of "Red Stockings."
+
+At Lyme Hall, Cheshire, the ancient seat of the Leghs, high up
+in the wall of the hall is a sombre portrait which by ingenious
+mechanism swings out of its frame, a fixture, and gives admittance
+to a room on the first floor, or rather affords a means of looking
+down into the hall.[1] We mention this portrait more especially
+because it has been supposed that Scott got his idea here of
+the ghostly picture which figures in _Woodstock_. A
+_bonĂ¢-fide_ hiding-place, however, is to be seen in another
+part of the mansion in a very haunted-looking bedroom called "the
+Knight's Chamber," entered through a trap-door in the floor of
+a cupboard, with a short flight of steps leading into it.
+
+[Footnote 1: A large panel in the long gallery of Hatfield can be
+pushed aside, giving a view into the great hall, and at Ockwells
+and other ancient mansions this device may also be seen.]
+
+Referring to Scott's novel, a word may be said about Fair Rosamond's
+famous "bower" at the old palace of Woodstock, surely the most
+elaborate and complicated hiding-place ever devised. The ruins
+of the labyrinth leading to the "bower" existed in Drayton's
+time, who described them as "vaults, arched and walled with stone
+and brick, almost inextricably wound within one another, by which,
+if at any time her [Rosamond's] lodging were laid about by the
+Queen, she might easily avoid peril imminent, and, if need be, by
+secret issues take the air abroad many furlongs about Woodstock."
+
+[Illustration: STAIRCASE, BROUGHTON HALL]
+
+In a survey taken in 1660, it is stated that foundation signs
+remained about a bow-shot southwest of the gate: "_The form
+and circuit both of the place and ruins show it to have been a
+house of one pile, and probably was filled with secret places
+of recess and avenues to hide or convey away such persons as
+were not willing to be found if narrowly sought after._"
+
+Ghostly gambols, such as those actually practised upon the
+Parliamentary Commissioners at the old palace of Woodstock, were
+for years carried on without detection by the servants at the old
+house of Hinton-Ampner, Hampshire; and when it was pulled down
+in the year 1797, it became very obvious how the mysteries, which
+gave the house the reputation of being haunted, were managed,
+for numerous secret stairs and passages, not known to exist were
+brought to light which had offered peculiar facilities for the
+deception. About the middle of the eighteenth century the mansion
+passed out of the hands of its old possessors, the Stewkeleys,
+and shortly afterwards became notorious for the unaccountable
+noises which disturbed the peace of mind of the new tenants.
+Not only were there violent knocks, hammerings, groanings, and
+sounds of footsteps in the ceilings and walls, out strange sights
+frightened the servants out of their wits. A ghostly visitant
+dressed in drab would appear and disappear mysteriously, a female
+figure was often seen to rush through the apartments, and other
+supernatural occurrences at length became so intolerable that the
+inmates of the house sought refuge in flight. Later successive
+tenants fared the same. A hundred pounds reward was offered to
+any who should run the ghosts to earth; but nothing resulted
+from it, and after thirty years or more of hauntings, the house
+was razed to the ground. Secret passages and chambers were then
+brought to light; but those who had carried on the deception
+for so long took the secret with them to their graves.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: A full account of the supernatural occurrences at
+Hinton-Ampner will be found in the Life of Richard Barham.]
+
+It is well known that the huge, carved oak bedsteads of the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries were often provided with secret
+accommodation for valuables. One particular instance we can call
+to mind of a hidden cupboard at the base of the bedpost which
+contained a short rapier. But of these small hiding-places we
+shall speak presently. It is with the head of the bed we have
+now to do, as it was sometimes used as an opening into the wall
+at the back. Occasionally, in old houses, unmeaning gaps and
+spaces are met with in the upper rooms midway between floor and
+ceiling, which possibly at one time were used as bed-head
+hiding-places. Shipton Court, Oxon, and Hill Hall, Essex, may
+be given as examples. Dunster Castle, Somersetshire, also, has
+at the back of a bedstead in one of the rooms a long, narrow
+place of concealment, extending the width of the apartment, and
+provided with a stone seat.
+
+Sir Ralph Verney, while in exile in France in 1645, wrote to his
+brother at Claydon House, Buckinghamshire, concerning "the odd
+things in the room my mother kept herself--_the iron chest in
+the little room between her bed's-head and the back stairs._"
+This old seat of the Verneys had another secret chamber in the
+middle storey, entered through a trap-door in "the muniment-room"
+at the top of the house. Here also was a small private staircase
+in the wall, possibly the "back stairs" mentioned in Sir Ralph's
+letters.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See _Memoirs of the Verney Family._]
+
+[Illustration: SHIPTON COURT, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: BROUGHTON CASTLE, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+Before the breaking out of the Civil War, Hampden, Pym, Lord
+Brooke, and other of the Parliamentary leaders, held secret meetings
+at Broughton Castle, oxon, the seat of Lord Saye and Sele, to
+organise a resistance to the arbitrary measures of the king. In
+this beautiful old fortified and moated mansion the secret stairs
+may yet be seen that led up to the little isolated chamber, with
+massive casemated walls for the exclusion of sound. Anthony Wood,
+alluding to the secret councils, says: "Several years before the
+Civil War began, Lord Saye, being looked upon as the godfather
+of that party, had meetings of them in his house at Broughton,
+where was a room and passage thereunto which his servants were
+prohibited to come near."[1] There is also a hiding-hole behind
+a window shutter in the wall of a corridor, with an air-hole
+ingeniously devised in the masonry.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Memorials of Hampden._]
+
+The old dower-house of Fawsley, not many miles to the north-east
+of Broughton, in the adjoining county of Northamptonshire, had
+a secret room over the hall, where a private press was kept for
+the purpose of printing political tracts at this time, when the
+country was working up into a state of turmoil.
+
+When the regicides were being hunted out in the early part of
+Charles II.'s reign, Judge Mayne[1] secreted himself at his house,
+Dinton Hall, Bucks, but eventually gave himself up. The hiding-hole
+at Dinton was beneath the staircase, and accessible by removing
+three of the steps. A narrow passage which led from it to a space
+behind the beams of the roof had its sides or walls thickly lined
+with cloth, so as to muffle all sound.
+
+[Footnote 1: There is a tradition that it was a servant of Mayne
+who acted as Charles I.'s executioner.]
+
+Bradshawe Hall, in north-west Derbyshire (once the seat of the
+family of that name of which the notorious President was a member),
+has or had a concealed chamber high up in the wall of a room on
+the ground floor which was capable of holding three persons.
+Of course tradition says the "wicked judge was hidden here."
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE GATE, BRADSHAWE HALL, DERBYSHIRE]
+
+The regicides Colonels Whalley and Goffe had many narrow escapes
+in America, whither they were traced. What is known as "Judge's
+Cave," in the West Rock some two miles from the town of New Haven,
+Conn., afforded them sanctuary. For some days they were concealed
+in an old house belonging to a certain Mrs. Eyers, in a secret
+chamber behind the wainscoting, the entrance to which was most
+ingeniously devised. The house was narrowly searched on May 14th,
+1661, at the time they were in hiding.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Stiles's _Judges_, p. 64]
+
+Upon the discovery of the Rye House Plot in 1683, suspicion falling
+upon one of the conspirators, William, third Lord Howard of Escrick,
+the Sergeant-at-Arms was despatched with a squadron of horse to
+his house at Knights-bridge, and after a long search he was
+discovered concealed in a hiding-place constructed in a chimney
+at the back of a tall cupboard, and the chances are that he would
+not have been arrested had it not been evident, by the warmth of
+his bed and his clothes scattered about, that he had only just
+risen and could not have got away unobserved, except to some
+concealed lurking-place. When discovered he had on no clothing
+beyond his shirt, so it may be imagined with what precipitate
+haste he had to hide himself upon the unexpected arrival of the
+soldiers.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Roger North's _Examen_.]
+
+Numerous other houses were searched for arms and suspicious papers,
+particularly in the counties of Cheshire and Lancashire, where
+the Duke of Monmouth was known to have many influential friends,
+marked enemies to the throne.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: See Oulton Hall MSS., Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iii. p.
+245.]
+
+Monmouth's lurking-place was known at Whitehall, and those who
+revealed it went the wrong way to work to win Court favour. Apart
+from the attractions of Lady Wentworth, whose companionship made
+the fugitive's enforced seclusion at Toddington, in Bedfordshire,
+far from tedious, the mansion was desirable at that particular
+time on account of its hiding facilities. An anonymous letter
+sent to the Secretary of State failed not to point out "that
+vastness and intricacy that without a most diligent search it's
+impossible to discover _all the lurking holes in it, there being
+severall trap dores on the leads and in closetts, into places to
+which there is no other access._"[1] The easy-going king had
+to make some external show towards an attempt to capture his
+erring son, therefore instructions were given with this purpose,
+but to a courtier and diplomatist who valued his own interests.
+Toddington Place, therefore, was _not_ explored.
+
+[Footnote 1: Vide King _Monmouth_.]
+
+[Illustration: MOYLES COURT, HAMPSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: TODDINGTON MANOR HOUSE, BEDFORDSHIRE, IN 1806 (FROM
+AN OLD DRAWING)]
+
+Few hiding-places are associated with so tragic a story as that
+at Moyles Court, Hants, where the venerable Lady Alice Lisle,
+in pure charity, hid two partisans of Monmouth, John Hickes and
+Richard Nelthorpe, after the battle of Sedgemoor, for which humane
+action she was condemned to be burned alive by Judge Jeffreys--a
+sentence commuted afterwards to beheading. It is difficult to
+associate this peaceful old Jacobean mansion, and the simple
+tomb in the churchyard hard by, with so terrible a history. A
+dark hole in the wall of the kitchen is traditionally said to be
+the place of concealment of the fugitives, who threw themselves
+on Lady Alice's mercy; but a dungeon-like cellar not unlike that
+represented in E. M. Ward's well-known picture looks a much more
+likely place.
+
+It was in an underground vault at Lady Place, Hurley, the old
+seat of the Lovelaces, that secret conferences were held by the
+adherents of the Prince of Orange. Three years after the execution
+of the Duke of Monmouth, his boon companion and supporter, John,
+third Lord Lovelace, organised treasonable meetings in this tomb-like
+chamber. Tradition asserts that certain important documents in
+favour of the Revolution were actually signed in the Hurley vault.
+Be this as it may, King William III. failed not, in after years,
+when visiting his former secret agent, to inspect the subterranean
+apartment with very tender regard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES
+
+We have spoken of the old houses associated with Charles II.'s
+escapes, let us see what history has to record of his unpopular
+brother James. The Stuarts seem to have been doomed, at one time
+or another, to evade their enemies by secret flight, and in some
+measure this may account for the romance always surrounding that
+ill-fated line of kings and queens.
+
+James V. of Scotland was wont to amuse himself by donning a disguise,
+but his successors appear to have been doomed by fate to follow
+his example, not for recreation, but to preserve their lives.
+
+Mary, Queen of Scots, upon one occasion had to impersonate a
+laundress. Her grandson and great-grandson both were forced to
+masquerade as servants, and her great-great-grandson Prince James
+Frederick Edward passed through France disguised as an abbé.
+
+The escapades of his son the "Bonnie Prince" will require our
+attention presently; we will, therefore, for the moment confine
+our thoughts to James II.
+
+With the surrender of Oxford the young Prince James found himself
+Fairfax's prisoner. His elder brother Charles had been more
+fortunate, having left the city shortly before for the western
+counties, and after effecting his escape to Scilly, he sought
+refuge in Jersey, whence he removed to the Hague. The Duke of
+Gloucester and the Princess Elizabeth already had been placed
+under the custody of the Earl of Northumberland at St. James's
+Palace, so the Duke of York was sent there also. This was in 1646.
+Some nine months elapsed, and James, after two ineffectual attempts
+to regain his liberty, eventually succeeded in the following
+manner.
+
+Though prisoners, the royal children were permitted to amuse
+themselves within the walls of the palace much as they pleased,
+and among the juvenile games with which they passed away the
+time, "hide-and-seek" was first favourite. James, doubtless with
+an eye to the future, soon acquired a reputation as an expert
+hider, and his brother and sister and the playmates with whom
+they associated would frequently search the odd nooks and corners
+of the old mansion in vain for an hour at a stretch. It was,
+therefore, no extraordinary occurrence on the night of April 20th,
+1647, that the Prince, after a prolonged search, was missing. The
+youngsters, more than usually perplexed, presently persuaded the
+adults of the prison establishment to join in the game, which,
+when their suspicions were aroused, they did in real earnest.
+But all in vain, and at length a messenger was despatched to
+Whitehall with the intelligence that James, Duke of York, had
+effected his escape. Everything was in a turmoil. Orders were
+hurriedly dispatched for all seaport towns to be on the alert,
+and every exit out of London was strictly watched; meanwhile,
+it is scarcely necessary to add, the young fugitive was well
+clear of the city, speeding on his way to the Continent.
+
+The plot had been skilfully planned. A key, or rather a duplicate
+key, had given admittance through the gardens into St. James's Park,
+where the Royalist, though outwardly professed Parliamentarian,
+Colonel Bamfield was in readiness with a periwig and cloak to
+effect a speedy disguise. When at length the fugitive made his
+appearance, minus his shoes and coat, he was hurried into a coach
+and conveyed to the Strand by Salisbury House, where the two
+alighted, and passing down Ivy Lane, reached the river, and after
+James's disguise had been perfected, boat was taken to Lyon Quay
+in Lower Thames Street, where a barge lay in readiness to carry
+them down stream.
+
+So far all went well, but on the way to Gravesend the master
+of the vessel, doubtless with a view to increasing his reward,
+raised some objections. The fugitive was now in female attire,
+and the objection was that nothing had been said about a woman
+coming aboard; but he was at length pacified, indeed ere long
+guessed the truth, for the Prince's lack of female decorum, as
+in the case of his grandson "the Bonnie Prince" nearly a century
+afterwards, made him guess how matters really stood. Beyond Gravesend
+the fugitives got aboard a Dutch vessel and were carried safely
+to Middleburg.
+
+We will now shift the scene to Whitehall in the year 1688, when,
+after a brief reign of three years, betrayed and deserted on
+all sides, the unhappy Stuart king was contemplating his second
+flight out of England. The weather-cock that had been set up on
+the banqueting hall to show when the wind "blew Protestant" had
+duly recorded the dreaded approach of Dutch William, who now was
+steadily advancing towards the capital. On Tuesday, December 10th,
+soon after midnight, James left the Palace by way of Chiffinch's
+secret stairs of notorious fame, and disguised as the servant
+of Sir Edward Hales, with Ralph Sheldon--La Badie--a page, and
+Dick Smith, a groom, attending him, crossed the river to Lambeth,
+dropping the great seal in the water on the way, and took horse,
+avoiding the main roads, towards Farnborough and thence to
+Chislehurst. Leaving Maidstone to the south-west, a brief halt
+was made at Pennenden Heath for refreshment. The old inn, "the
+Woolpack," where the party stopped for their hurried repast,
+remains, at least in name, for the building itself has of late
+years been replaced by a modern structure. Crossing the Dover
+road, the party now directed their course towards Milton Creek,
+to the north-east of Sittingbourne, where a small fishing-craft
+lay in readiness, which had been chartered by Sir Edward Hales,
+whose seat at Tunstall[1] was close by.
+
+[Footnote 1: The principal seat of the Hales, near Canterbury, is
+now occupied as a Jesuit College. The old manor house of Tunstall,
+Grove End Farm, presents both externally and internally many
+features of interest. The family was last represented by a maid
+lady who died a few years since.]
+
+One or two old buildings in the desolate marsh district of Elmley,
+claim the distinction of having received a visit of the deposed
+monarch prior to the mishaps which were shortly to follow. King's
+Hill Farm, once a house of some importance, preserves this tradition,
+as does also an ancient cottage, in the last stage of decay,
+known as "Rats' Castle."
+
+[Illustration: "RATS' CASTLE," ELMLEY, KENT]
+
+[Illustration: KING'S HILL FARM, ELMLEY, KENT]
+
+At Elmley Ferry, which crosses the river Swale, the king got
+aboard, but scarcely had the moorings been cast than further
+progress was arrested by a party of over-zealous fishermen on
+the look out for fugitive Jesuit priests. The story of the rough
+handling to which the poor king was subjected is a somewhat hackneyed
+school-book anecdote, but some interesting details have been handed
+down by one Captain Marsh, by James's natural son the Duke of
+Berwick, and by the Earl of Ailesbury.
+
+From these accounts we gather that in the disturbance that ensued
+a blow was aimed at the King, but that a Canterbury innkeeper named
+Platt threw himself in the way and received the blow himself. It
+is recorded, to James II.'s credit, that when he was recognised
+and his stolen money and jewels offered back to him, he declined
+the former, desiring that his health might be drunk by the mob.
+Among the valuables were the King's watch, his coronation ring,
+and medals commemorating the births of his son the Chevalier
+St. George and of his brother Charles II.
+
+The King was taken ashore at a spot called "the Stool," close
+to the little village of Oare, to the north-west of Faversham,
+to which town he was conveyed by coach, attended by a score of
+Kentish gentlemen on horseback. The royal prisoner was first
+carried to the "Queen's Arms Inn," which still exists under the
+name of the "Ship Hotel." From here he was taken to the mayor's
+house in Court Street (an old building recently pulled down to
+make way for a new brewery) and placed under a strict guard, and
+from the window of his prison the unfortunate King had to listen
+to the proclamation of the Prince of Orange, read by order of the
+mayor, who subsequently was rewarded for the zeal he displayed
+upon the occasion.
+
+The hardships of the last twenty-four hours had told severely upon
+James. He was sick and feeble and weakened by profuse bleeding
+of the nose, to which he, like his brother Charles, was subject
+when unduly excited. Sir Edward Hales, in the meantime, was lodged
+in the old Court Hall (since partially rebuilt), whence he was
+removed to Maidstone gaol, and to the Tower.
+
+Bishop Burnet was at Windsor with the Prince of Orange when two
+gentlemen arrived there from Faversham with the news of the King's
+capture. "They told me," he says, "of the accident at Faversham,
+and desired to know the Prince's pleasure upon it. I was affected
+with this dismal reverse of the fortunes of a great prince, more
+than I think fit to express. I went immediately to Bentinck and
+wakened him, and got him to go in to the Prince, and let him
+know what had happened, that some order might be presently given
+for the security of the King's person, and for taking him out
+of the hands of a rude multitude who said they would obey no
+orders but such as came from the Prince."
+
+Upon receiving the news, William at once directed that his
+father-in-law should have his liberty, and that assistance should
+be sent down to him immediately; but by this time the story had
+reached the metropolis, and a hurried meeting of the Council
+directed the Earl of Feversham to go to the rescue with a company
+of Life Guards. The faithful Earl of Ailesbury also hastened to
+the King's assistance. In five hours he accomplished the journey
+from London to Faversham. So rapidly had the reports been circulated
+of supposed ravages of the Irish Papists, that when the Earl
+reached Rochester, the entire town was in a state of panic, and
+the alarmed inhabitants were busily engaged in demolishing the
+bridge to prevent the dreaded incursion.
+
+But to return to James at Faversham. The mariners who had handled
+him so roughly now took his part--in addition to his property--and
+insisted upon sleeping in the adjoining room to that in which
+he was incarcerated, to protect him from further harm. Early
+on Saturday morning the Earl of Feversham made his appearance;
+and after some little hesitation on the King's side, he was at
+length persuaded to return to London. So he set out on horseback,
+breaking the journey at Rochester, where he slept on the Saturday
+night at Sir Richard Head's house. On the Sunday he rode on to
+Dartford, where he took coach to Southwark and Whitehall. A temporary
+reaction had now set in, and the cordial reception which greeted
+his reappearance revived his hopes and spirits. This reaction,
+however, was but short-lived, for no sooner had the poor King
+retired to the privacy of his bed-chamber at Whitehall Palace,
+than an imperious message from his son-in-law ordered him to
+remove without delay to Ham House, Petersham.
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO SECRET PASSAGE, "ABDICATION HOUSE,"
+ROCHESTER]
+
+[Illustration: "ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER]
+
+James objected strongly to this; the place, he said, was damp and
+unfurnished (which, by the way, was not the case if we may judge
+from Evelyn, who visited the mansion not long before, when it was
+"furnished like a great Prince's"--indeed, the same furniture
+remains intact to this day), and a message was sent back that if
+he must quit Whitehall he would prefer to retire to Rochester,
+which wish was readily accorded him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES (_continued_), HAM HOUSE, AND "ABDICATION
+HOUSE"
+
+Tradition, regardless of fact, associates the grand old seat
+of the Lauderdales and Dysarts with King James's escape from
+England. A certain secret staircase is still pointed out by which
+the dethroned monarch is said to have made his exit, and visitors
+to the Stuart Exhibition a few years ago will remember a sword
+which, with the King's hat and cloak, is said to have been left
+behind when he quitted the mansion. Now there existed, not many
+miles away, also close to the river Thames, _another_ Ham
+House, which was closely associated with James II., and it seems,
+therefore, possible, in fact probable, that the past associations
+of the one house have attached themselves to the other.
+
+In Ham House, Weybridge, lived for some years the King's discarded
+mistress Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester. At the actual
+time of James's abdication this lady was in France, but in the
+earlier part of his reign the King was a frequent visitor here.
+In Charles II.'s time the house belonged to Jane Bickerton, the
+mistress and afterwards wife of the sixth Duke of Norfolk. Evelyn
+dined there soon after this marriage had been solemnised. "The
+Duke," he says, "leading me about the house made no scruple of
+showing me all the hiding-places for the Popish priests and where
+they said Masse, for he was no bigoted Papist." At the Duke's
+death "the palace" was sold to the Countess of Dorchester, whose
+descendants pulled it down some fifty years ago. The oak-panelled
+rooms were richly parquetted with "cedar and cyprus." One of them
+until the last retained the name of "the King's Bedroom." It had a
+private communication with a little Roman Catholic chapel in the
+building. The attics, as at Compton Winyates, were called "the
+Barracks," tradition associating them with the King's guards, who
+are said to have been lodged there. Upon the walls hung portraits
+of the Duchesses of Leeds and Dorset, of Nell Gwyn and the Countess
+herself, and of Earl Portmore, who married her daughter. Here also
+formerly was Holbein's famous picture, Bluff King Hal and the
+Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk dancing a minuet with Anne Boleyn
+and the Dowager-Queens of France and Scotland. Evelyn saw the
+painting in August, 1678, and records "the sprightly motion"
+and "amorous countenances of the ladies." (This picture is now,
+or was recently, in the possession of Major-General Sotheby.)
+
+A few years after James's abdication, the Earl of Ailesbury rented
+the house from the Countess, who lived meanwhile in a small house
+adjacent, and was in the habit of coming into the gardens of the
+palace by a key of admittance she kept for that purpose. Upon
+one of these occasions the Earl and she had a disagreement about
+the lease, and so forcible were the lady's coarse expressions,
+for she never could restrain the licence of her tongue, that she
+had to be ejected from the premises, whereupon, says Ailesbury,
+"she bade me go to my----King James," with the assurance that
+"she would make King William spit on me."
+
+[Illustration: MONUMENT OF SIR RICHARD HEAD]
+
+[Illustration: "RESTORATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER]
+
+But to follow James II.'s ill-fortunes to Rochester, where he was
+conveyed on the Tuesday at noon by royal barge, with an escort of
+Dutch soldiers, with Lords Arran, Dumbarton, etc., in attendance--"a
+sad sight," says Evelyn, who witnessed the departure. The King
+recognised among those set to guard him an old lieutenant of the
+Horse who had fought under him, when Duke of York, at the battle
+of Dunkirk. Colonel Wycke, in command of the King's escort, was
+a nephew of the court painter Sir Peter Lely, who had owed his
+success to the patronage of Charles II. and his brother. The
+part the Colonel had to act was a painful one, and he begged the
+King's pardon. The royal prisoner was lodged for the night at
+Gravesend, at the house of a lawyer, and next morning the journey
+was continued to Rochester.
+
+The royalist Sir Richard Head again had the honour of acting
+as the King's host, and his guest was allowed to go in and out
+of the house as he pleased, for diplomatic William of Orange
+had arranged that no opportunity should be lost for James to
+make use of a passport which the Duke of Berwick had obtained
+for "a certain gentleman and two servants." James's movements,
+therefore, were hampered in no way. But the King, ever suspicious,
+planned his escape from Rochester with the greatest caution and
+secrecy, and many of his most attached and loyal adherents were
+kept in ignorance of his final departure. James's little court
+consisted of the Earls of Arran, Lichfield, Middleton, Dumbarton,
+and Ailesbury, the Duke of Berwick, Sir Stephen Fox, Major-General
+Sackville, Mr. Grahame, Fenton, and a few others.
+
+On the evening of the King's flight the company dispersed as was
+customary, when Ailesbury intimated, by removing his Majesty's
+stockings, that the King was about to seek his couch. The Earl
+of Dumbarton retired with James to his apartment, who, when the
+house was quiet for the night, got up, dressed, and "by way of
+the back stairs," according to the Stuart Papers, passed "through
+the garden, where Macdonald stayed for him, with the Duke of
+Berwick and Mr. Biddulph, to show him the way to Trevanion's
+boat. About twelve at night they rowed down to the smack, which
+was waiting without the fort at Sheerness. It blew so hard right
+ahead, and ebb tide being done before they got to the Salt Pans,
+that it was near six before they got to the smack. Captain Trevanion
+not being able to trust the officers of his ship, they got on
+board the _Eagle_ fireship, commanded by Captain Welford,
+on which, the wind and tide being against them, they stayed till
+daybreak, when the King went on board the smack." On Christmas
+Day James landed at Ambleteuse.
+
+Thus the old town of Rochester witnessed the departure of the
+last male representative of the Stuart line who wore a crown.
+Twenty-eight years before, every window and gable end had been
+gaily bedecked with many coloured ribbons, banners, and flowers
+to welcome in the restored monarch. The picturesque old red brick
+"Restoration House" still stands to carry us back to the eventful
+night when "his sacred Majesty" slept within its walls upon his
+way from Dover to London--a striking contrast to "Abdication
+House," the gloomy abode of Sir Richard Head, of more melancholy
+associations.
+
+Much altered and modernised, this old mansion also remains. It
+is in the High Street, and is now, or was recently, occupied as a
+draper's shop. Here may be seen the "presence-chamber" where the
+dethroned King heard Mass, and the royal bedchamber where, after
+his secret departure, a letter was found on the table addressed
+to Lord Middleton, for both he and Lord Ailesbury were kept in
+ignorance of James II.'s final movements. The old garden may
+be seen with the steps leading down to the river, much as it
+was a couple of centuries ago, though the river now no longer
+flows in near proximity, owing to the drainage of the marshes
+and the "subsequent improvements" of later days.
+
+The hidden passage in the staircase wall may also be seen, and
+the trap-door leading to it from the attics above. Tradition says
+the King made use of these; and if he did so, the probability is
+that it was done more to avoid his host's over-zealous neighbours,
+than from fear of arrest through the vigilance of the spies of
+his son-in-law.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: It may be of interest to state that the illustrations
+we give of the house were originally exhibited at the Stuart
+Exhibition by Sir Robert G. Head, the living representative of
+the old Royalist family]
+
+Exactly three months after James left England he made his
+reappearance at Kinsale and entered Dublin in triumphal state.
+The siege of Londonderry and the decisive battle of the Boyne
+followed, and for a third and last time James II. was a fugitive
+from his realms. The melancholy story is graphically told in Mr.
+A. C. Gow's dramatic picture, an engraving of which I understand
+has recently been published.
+
+How the unfortunate King rode from Dublin to Duncannon Fort,
+leaving his faithful followers and ill-fortunes behind him; got
+aboard the French vessel anchored there for his safety; and returned
+once more to the protection of the Grande Monarque at the palace
+of St. Germain, is an oft-told story of Stuart ingratitude.
+
+[Illustration: ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE GATE, ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MYSTERIOUS ROOMS, DEADLY PITS, ETC.
+
+At the "Restoration House" previously mentioned there is a secret
+passage in the wall of an upper room; but though the Merry Monarch
+is, according to popular tradition, credited with a monopoly of
+hiding-places all over England, it is more than doubtful whether
+he had recourse to these exploits, in which he was so successful
+in 1651, upon such a joyful occasion, except, indeed, through
+sheer force of habit.
+
+Even Cromwell's name is connected with hiding-places! But it
+is difficult to conjecture upon what occasions his Excellency
+found it convenient to secrete himself, unless it was in his
+later days, when he went about in fear of assassination.
+
+Hale House, Islington, pulled down in 1853, had a concealed recess
+behind the wainscot over the mantel-piece, formed by the curve
+of the chimney. In this, tradition says, the Lord Protector was
+hidden. Nor is this the solitary instance, for a dark hole in
+one of the gable ends of Cromwell House, Mortlake (taken down in
+1860), locally known as "Old Noll's Hole," is said to have afforded
+him temporary accommodation when his was life in danger.[1] The
+residence of his son-in-law Ireton (Cromwell House) at Highgate
+contained a large secret chamber at the back of a cupboard in
+one of the upper rooms, and extended back twelve or fourteen
+feet, but the cupboard has now been removed and the space at the
+back converted into a passage.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Faulkner's _History of Islington_.]
+
+The ancient manor house of Armscot, in an old-world corner of
+Worcestershire, contains in one of its gables a hiding-place
+entered through a narrow opening in the plaster wall, not unlike
+that at Ufton Court, and capable of holding many people. From the
+fact that George Fox was arrested in this house on October 17th,
+1673, when he was being persecuted by the county magistrates, the
+story has come down to the yokels of the neighbourhood that "old
+Guy Fawkes, the first Quaker," was hidden here! In his journal Fox
+mentions his arrest at Armscot after a "very large and precious
+meeting" in the barn close by; but we have no allusion to the
+hiding-place, for he appears to have been sitting in the parlour
+when Henry Parker, the Justice, arrived--indeed, George Fox was
+not the sort of man to have recourse to concealments, and owe
+his escape to a "priest's hole."
+
+The suggestion of a sudden reverse in religious persecution driving
+a Quaker to such an extremity calls to mind an old farmstead
+where a political change from monarchy to commonwealth forced
+Puritan and cavalier consecutively to seek refuge in the secret
+chamber. This narrow hiding-place, beside the spacious fire-place,
+is pointed out in an ancient house in the parish of Hinchford,
+in Eastern Essex.
+
+Even the notorious Judge Jeffreys had in his house facilities
+for concealment and escape. His old residence in Delahay Street,
+Westminster, demolished a few years ago, had its secret panel
+in the wainscoting, but in what way the cruel Lord Chancellor
+made use of it does not transpire; possibly it may have been
+utilised at the time of James II.'s flight from Whitehall.
+
+A remarkable discovery was made early in the last century at the
+Elizabethan manor house of Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire,
+only a portion of which remains incorporated in a modern structure.
+Upon removing some of the wallpaper of a passage on the second
+floor, the entrance to a room hitherto unknown was laid bare. It
+was a small apartment about eight feet square, and presented the
+appearance as if some occupant had just quitted it. A chair and
+a table within, each bore evidence of the last inmate. Over the
+back of the former hung a priest's black cassock, carelessly flung
+there a century or more ago, while on the table stood an antique
+tea-pot, cup, and silver spoon, the very tea leaves crumbled to
+dust with age. On the same storey were two rooms known as "the
+chapel" and the "priest's room," the names of which signify the
+former use of the concealed apartment.
+
+Sir Walter Scott records a curious "find," similar in many respects
+to that at Bourton. In the course of some structural alterations to
+an ancient house near Edinburgh three unknown rooms were brought to
+light, bearing testimony of their last inmate. One of them had been
+occupied as a bedroom. The clothing of the bed was disarranged,
+as if it had been slept in only a few hours previously, and close
+by was an antique dressing-gown. How interesting it would be to
+know some particulars of the sudden surprise which evidently
+drove the owner of the garment from his snug quarters--whether
+he effected his escape, or whether he was captured! The walls
+of this buried chamber, if they could speak, had some curious
+story to relate.
+
+Not many years ago the late squire of East Hendred House, Berkshire,
+discovered the existence of a secret chamber in casually glancing
+over some ancient papers belonging to the house. "The little
+room," as it was called, from its proximity to the chapel, had
+no doubt been turned to good account during the penal laws of
+Elizabeth's reign, as the chamber itself and other parts of the
+house date from a much earlier period.
+
+Long after the palatial Sussex mansion of Cowdray was burnt down,
+the habitable remains (the keeper's lodge, in the centre of the
+park) contained an ingenious hiding-place behind a fireplace in
+a bedroom, which was reached by a movable panel in a cupboard,
+communicating with the roof by a slender flight of steps. It
+was very high, reaching up two storeys, but extremely narrow,
+so much so that directly opposite a stone bench which stood in
+a recess for a seat, the wall was hollowed out to admit of the
+knees. When this secret chamber was discovered, it contained an
+iron chair, a quaint old brass lamp, and some manuscripts of
+the Montague family. The Cowdray tradition says that the fifth
+Viscount was concealed in this hiding-place for a considerable
+period, owing to some dark crime he is supposed to have committed,
+though he was generally believed to have fled abroad. Secret
+nocturnal interviews took place between Lord Montague and his
+wife in "My Lady's Walk," an isolated spot in Cowdray Park. The
+Montagues, now extinct, are said to have been very chary with
+reference to their Roman Catholic forefathers, and never allowed
+the secret chamber to be shown.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See _History of a Great English House_.]
+
+A weird story clings to the ruins of Minster Lovel Manor House,
+Oxfordshire, the ancient seat of the Lords Lovel. After the battle
+of Stoke, Francis, the last Viscount, who had sided with the
+cause of Simnel against King Henry VII., fled back to his house
+in disguise, but from the night of his return was never seen or
+heard of again, and for nearly two centuries his disappearance
+remained a mystery. In the meantime the manor house had been
+dismantled and the remains tenanted by a farmer; but a strange
+discovery was made in the year 1708. A concealed vault was found,
+and in it, seated before a table, with a prayer-book lying open
+upon it, was the entire skeleton of a man. In the secret chamber
+were certain barrels and jars which had contained food sufficient
+to last perhaps some weeks; but the mansion having been seized
+by the King, soon after the unfortunate Lord Lovel is supposed
+to have concealed himself, the probability is that, unable to
+regain his liberty, the neglect or treachery of a servant or
+tenant brought about this tragic end.
+
+A discovery of this nature was made in 1785 in a hidden vault
+at the foot of a stone staircase at Brandon Hall, Suffolk.
+
+Kingerby Hall, Lincolnshire, has a ghostly tradition of an
+unfortunate occupant of the hiding-hole near a fireplace being
+intentionally fastened in so that he was stifled with the heat and
+smoke; the skeleton was found years afterwards in this horrible
+death-chamber.
+
+Bayons Manor, in the same county, has some very curious arrangements
+for the sake of secretion and defence. There is a room in one of
+the barbican towers occupying its entire circumference, but so
+effectually hidden that its existence would never be suspected.
+In two of the towers are curious concealed stairs, and approaching
+"the Bishop's Tower" from the outer court or ballium, part of
+a flight of steps can be raised like a drawbridge to prevent
+sudden intrusion.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Burke's _Visitation of Seats_, vol. i.]
+
+A contributor to that excellent little journal _The Rambler_,
+unfortunately now extinct, mentions another very strange and
+weird device for security. "In the state-room of my castle,"
+says the owner of this death-trap, "is the family shield, which
+on a part being touched, revolves, and a flight of steps becomes
+visible. The first, third, fifth, and all odd steps are to be
+trusted, but to tread any of the others is to set in motion some
+concealed machinery which causes the staircase to collapse,
+disclosing a vault some seventy feet in depth, down which the
+unwary are precipitated."
+
+At Tyttenhanger House, Hertfordshire, and in the old manor house
+of Newport, Isle of Wight (where the captive King Charles I.
+spent some of his last melancholy days), there are rooms with
+passages in the walls running completely round them. Similar
+passages were found some years ago while making alterations to
+Highclere Castle Hampshire.
+
+The once magnificent Madeley Court, Salop[1] (now, alas! in the
+last stage of desolation and decay, surrounded by coal-fields and
+undermined by pits), is honeycombed with places for concealment
+and escape. A ruinous apartment at the top of the house, known
+as "the chapel" (only a few years ago wainscoted to the ceiling
+and divided by fine old oak screen), contained a secret chamber
+behind one of the panels. This could be fastened on the inside by
+a strong bolt. The walls of the mansion are of immense thickness,
+and the recesses and nooks noticeable everywhere were evidently at
+one time places of concealment; one long triangular recess extends
+between two ruinous chambers (mere skeletons of past grandeur),
+and was no doubt for the purpose of reaching the basement from
+the first floor other than by the staircases. In the upper part
+of the house a dismal pit or well extends to the ground level,
+where it slants off in an oblique direction below the building,
+and terminates in a large pool or lake, after the fashion of
+that already described at Baddesley Clinton, in Warwickshire.
+
+[Footnote 1: This house must not be confused with "the Upper House,"
+connected with Charles II.'s wanderings.]
+
+Everything points to the former magnificence of this mansion;
+the elaborate gate-house, the handsome stone porch, and even
+the colossal sundial, which last, for quaint design, can hold
+its own with those of the greatest baronial castles in Scotland.
+The arms of the Brooke family are to be seen emblazoned on the
+walls, a member of whom, Sir Basil, was he who christened the
+hunting-lodge of the Giffards "Boscobel," from the Italian words
+"bos co bello," on account of its woody situation. It is long
+since the Brookes migrated from Madeley--now close upon two
+centuries.
+
+The deadly looking pits occasionally seen in ancient buildings
+are dangerous, to say the least of it. They may be likened to
+the shaft of our modern lift, with the car at the bottom and
+nothing above to prevent one from taking a step into eternity!
+
+A friend at Twickenham sends us a curious account of a recent
+exploration of what was once the manor house, "Arragon Towers."
+We cannot do better than quote his words, written in answer to a
+request for particulars. "I did not," he says, "make sufficient
+examination of the hiding-place in the old manor house of Twickenham
+to give a detailed description of it, and I have no one here
+whom I could get to accompany me in exploring it now. It is not
+a thing to do by one's self, as one might make a false step,
+and have no one to assist in retrieving it. The entrance is in
+the top room of the one remaining turret by means of a movable
+panel in the wall opposite the window. The panel displaced, you
+see the top of a thick wall (almost on a line with the floor of
+the room). The width of the aperture is, I should think, nearly
+three feet; that of the wall-top about a foot and a half; the
+remaining space between the wall-top and the outer wall of the
+house is what you might perhaps term 'a chasm'--it is a sheer
+drop to the cellars of the house. I was told by the workmen that
+by walking the length of the wall-top (some fifteen feet) I should
+reach a stairway conducting to the vaults below, and that on
+reaching the bottom, a passage led off in the direction of the
+river, the tradition being that it actually went beneath the
+river to Ham House."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+HIDING-PLACES IN JACOBITE DWELLINGS AND IN SCOTTISH CASTLES AND
+MANSIONS
+
+During the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 some of the "priest's
+holes" in the old Roman Catholic houses, especially in the north
+of England and in Scotland, came into requisition not only for
+storing arms and ammunition, but, after the failure of each
+enterprise, for concealing adherents of the luckless House of
+Stuart.
+
+In the earlier mansion of Worksop, Nottinghamshire (burnt down
+in 1761), there was a large concealed chamber provided with a
+fireplace and a bed, which could only be entered by removing
+the sheets of lead forming the roofing. Beneath was a trap-door
+opening to a precipitous flight of narrow steps in the thickness
+of a wall. This led to a secret chamber, that had an inner
+hiding-place at the back of a sliding panel. A witness in a trial
+succeeding "the '45" declared to having seen a large quantity
+of arms there in readiness for the insurrection.
+
+The last days of the notorious Lord Lovat are associated with
+some of the old houses in the north. Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire,
+and Netherwhitton, in Northumberland, claim the honour of hiding
+this double-faced traitor prior to his arrest. At the former is a
+small chamber near the roof, and in the latter is a hiding-place
+measuring eight feet by three and ten feet high. Nor must be
+forgotten the tradition of Mistress Beatrice Cope, behind the
+walls of whose bedroom Lovat (so goes the story) was concealed,
+and the fugitive, being asthmatical, would have revealed his
+whereabouts to the soldiers in search of him, had not Mistress
+Cope herself kept up a persistent and violent fit of coughing
+to drown the noise.
+
+A secret room in the old Tudor house Ty Mawr, Monmouthshire,
+is associated with the Jacobite risings. It is at the back of
+"the parlour" fireplace, and is entered through a square stone
+slab at the foot of the staircase. The chamber is provided with a
+small fireplace, the flue of which is connected with the ordinary
+chimney, so as to conceal the smoke. The same sort of thing may
+be seen at Bisham Abbey, Berks.
+
+Early in the last century a large hiding-place was found at Danby
+Hall, Yorkshire. It contained a large quantity of swords and
+pistols. Upwards of fifty sets of harness of untanned leather of
+the early part of the eighteenth century were further discovered,
+all of them in so good a state of preservation that they were
+afterwards used as cart-horse gear upon the farm.
+
+No less than nine of the followers of "Bonnie Prince Charlie" are
+said to have been concealed in a secret chamber at Fetternear,
+Kemnay, Aberdeenshire, an old seat of the Leslys of Balquhane. It
+was situated in the wall behind a large bookcase with a glazed
+front, a fixture in the room, the back of which could be made
+to slide back and give admittance to the recess.
+
+Quite by accident an opening was discovered in a corner cupboard
+at an old house near Darlington. Certain alterations were in
+progress which necessitated the removal of the shelves, but upon
+this being attempted, they descended in some mysterious manner.
+The back of the cavity could then be pushed aside (that is to
+say, when the secret of its mechanism was discovered), and a
+hiding-place opened out to view. It contained some tawdry ornaments
+of Highland dress, which at one time, it was conjectured, belonged
+to an adherent of Prince Charlie.
+
+The old mansion of Stonyhurst, Lancashire, contained eight
+hiding-places. One of them, exactly like that at Fetternear,
+was at the back of a bookcase. A secret spring was discovered
+which opened a concealed door in the wall. In the space behind,
+a quantity of James II. guineas, a bed, a mattress, and a flask
+of rum were found. A former student of this famous Jesuit college,
+who was instrumental in the discovery of a "priest's hole," has
+provided us with the following particulars: "It would be too
+long to tell you how I first discovered that in the floor of
+my bedroom, in the recess of the huge Elizabethan bay window,
+was a trap-door concealed by a thin veneering of oak; suffice
+it say that with a companion I devoted a delightful half-holiday
+to stripping off the veneering and breaking the lock of the
+trap-door. Between my floor and the ceiling of the long gallery
+below, was contrived a small room about five feet in height and
+the size and shape of the bay window recess. In one corner of
+this hiding-hole was what seemed a walled-up doorway, and it
+occurred to my companion and myself that we had heard some vague
+old tradition that all this part of the house was riddled with
+secret passages leading from one concealed chamber to another,
+but we did not seek to explore any farther." In pulling down a
+portion of the college, a hollow beam was discovered that opened
+upon concealed hinges, used formerly for secreting articles of
+value or sacred books and vessels; and during some alterations
+to the central tower, over the main entrance to the mansion,
+a "priest's hole" was found, containing seven horse pistols,
+ready loaded and some of them richly ornamented with silver. A
+view could be obtained from the interior of the hiding-place,
+in the same manner as that which we have described in the old
+summer-house at Salisbury; a small hole being devised in the design
+of the Sherburn arms upon the marble shield over the gateway.
+This was the only provision for air and light.
+
+The quaint discovery of rum at Stonyhurst suggests the story
+of a hiding-place in an old house at Bishops Middleham, near
+Durham, mentioned by Southey in his _Commonplace Book_.
+The house was occupied for years by a supposed total abstainer;
+but a "priest's hole" in his bedroom, discovered after his death
+full of strong liquor, revealed the fact that by utilising the
+receptacle as a cellar he had been able to imbibe secretly to
+his heart's content.
+
+A large quantity or Georgian gold coins were found some years ago
+in a small hiding-place under the oaken sill of a bedroom window
+at Gawthorp Hall, Lancashire, placed there, it is supposed, for
+the use of Prince Charles's army in passing through the country
+in 1745.
+
+The laird of Belucraig (an old mansion in the parish of Aboyne,
+Aberdeenshire) was concealed after "the '45" in his own house,
+while his wife, like the hostess of Chastleton, hospitably
+entertained the soldiers who were in search of him. The secret
+chamber where he was concealed was found some years ago in making
+some alterations to the roof. In it were a quantity of Jacobite
+papers and a curious old arm-chair. The original entry was through
+a panel at the back of a "box bed" in the wainscot of a small,
+isolated bedroom at the top of the house. The room itself could
+only be reached by a secret staircase from a corridor below. The
+hiding-place was therefore doubly secure, and was a stronghold in
+case of greatest emergency. The Innes of Drumgersk and Belucraig were
+always staunch Roman Catholics and Jacobites. Their representatives
+lived in the old house until 1850.
+
+In another old Aberdeenshire mansion, Dalpersie House, a hiding-hole
+or recess may be seen in one of the upper chambers, where was
+arrested a Gordon, one of the last victims executed after "the
+45."
+
+The ancient castles of Fyvie, Elphinstone, and Kemnay House have
+their secret chambers. The first of these is, with the exception
+of Glamis, perhaps, the most picturesque example of the tall-roofed
+and cone-topped turret style of architecture introduced from
+France in the days of James VI. A small space marked "the armoury"
+in an old plan of the building could in no way be accounted for,
+it possessing neither door, window, nor fireplace; a trap-door,
+however, was at length found in the floor immediately above its
+supposed locality which led to its identification. At Kemnay
+(Aberdeenshire) the hiding-place is in the dining-room chimney;
+and at Elphinstone (East Lothian), in the bay of a window of
+the great hall, is a masked entrance to a narrow stair in the
+thickness of the wall leading to a little room situated in the
+northeast angle of the tower; it further has an exit through a
+trap-door in the floor of a passage in the upper part of the
+building.
+
+The now ruinous castle of Towie Barclay, near Banff, has evidences
+of secret ways and contrivances. Adjoining the fireplace of the
+great hall is a small room constructed for this purpose. In the
+wall of the same apartment is also a recess only to be reached by
+a narrow stairway in the thickness of the masonry, and approached
+from the flooring above the hall. A similar contrivance exists
+between the outer and inner walls of the dining hall of Carew
+Castle, Pembrokeshire.
+
+Coxton Tower, near Elgin, contains a singular provision for
+communication from the top of the building to the basement, perfectly
+independent of the staircase. In the centre of each floor is a
+square stone which, when removed, reveals an opening from the
+summit to the base of the tower, through which a person could
+be lowered.
+
+Another curious old Scottish mansion, famous for its secret chambers
+and passages, is Gordonstown. Here, in the pavement of a corridor
+in the west wing, a stone may be swung aside, beneath which is
+a narrow cell scooped out of one of the foundation walls. It
+may be followed to the adjoining angle, where it branches off
+into the next wall to an extent capable of holding fifty or sixty
+persons. Another large hiding-place is situated in one of the
+rooms at the back of a tall press or cupboard. The space in the
+wall is sufficiently large to contain eight or nine people, and
+entrance to it is effected by unloosing a spring bolt under the
+lower shelf, when the whole back of the press swings aside.
+
+Whether the mystery of the famous secret room at Glamis Castle,
+Forfarshire, has ever been solved or satisfactorily explained
+beyond the many legends and stories told in connection with it,
+we have not been able to determine. The walls in this remarkable
+old mansion are in parts over twelve feet thick, and in them are
+several curious recesses, notably near the windows of the "stone
+hall." The secret chamber, or "Fyvie-room," as it is sometimes
+called, is said to have a window, which nevertheless has not
+led to the identification of its situation. Sir Walter Scott
+once slept a night at Glamis, and has described the "wild and
+straggling arrangement of the accommodation within doors." "I
+was conducted," he says, "to my apartment in a distant corner
+of the building. I must own, as I heard door after door shut
+after my conductor had retired, I began to consider myself too
+far from the living and somewhat too near the dead--in a word,
+I experienced sensations which, though not remarkable either for
+timidity or superstition, did not fail to affect me to the point
+of being disagreeable." We have the great novelist's authority
+for saying that the entrance of the secret chamber (in his time,
+at any rate), by the law or custom of the family, could
+be known to three persons at once--_viz._ the Earl of
+Strathmore, his heir-apparent, and any third person whom they
+might take into their confidence.
+
+The great mystery of the secret chamber was imparted to the heir
+of Glamis, or the heir-presumptive, as the case might be, upon the
+eve of his arriving at his majority, and thus it passed into modern
+times from the dim and distant feudal days. That the secret should
+be thus handed down through centuries without being divulged is
+indeed remarkable, yet so is the story; and many a time a future
+lord of Glamis has boasted that he would reveal everything when
+he should come of age. Still, however, when that time _did_
+arrive, in every case the recipient of the deadly secret has
+solemnly refused point blank to speak a word upon the subject.
+
+There is a secret chamber at the old Cumberland seat of the ancient
+family of Senhouse. To this day its position is known only by
+the heir-at-law and the family solicitor. This room at Nether
+Hall is said to have no window, and has hitherto baffled every
+attempt of those not in the secret to discover its whereabouts.
+
+Remarkable as this may seem in these prosaic days, it has been
+confirmed by the present representative of the family, who, in a
+communication to us upon the subject, writes as follows: "It may
+be romantic, but still it is true that the secret has survived
+frequent searches of visitors. There is no one alive who has
+been in it, that I am aware, except myself." Brandeston Hall,
+Suffolk, is also said to have a hiding place known only to two
+or three persons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CONCEALED DOORS, SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGES, ETC.
+
+Numerous old houses possess secret doors, passages, and
+staircases--Franks, in Kent; Eshe Hall, Durham; Binns House,
+Scotland; Dannoty Hall, and Whatton Abbey, Yorkshire; are examples.
+The last of these has a narrow flight of steps leading down to
+the moat, as at Baddesley Clinton. The old house Marks, near
+Romford, pulled down in 1808 after many years of neglect and
+decay--as well as the ancient seat of the Tichbournes in Hampshire,
+pulled down in 1803--and the west side of Holme Hall, Lancashire,
+demolished in the last century, proved to have been riddled with
+hollow walls. Secret doors and panels are still pointed out at
+Bramshill, Hants (in the long gallery and billiard-room); the
+oak room, Bochym House, Cornwall; the King's bedchamber, Ford
+Castle, Northumberland; the plotting-parlour of the White Hart
+Hotel, Hull; Low Hall, Yeadon, Yorkshire; Sawston; the Queen's
+chamber at Kimbolton Castle, Huntingdonshire, etc., etc.
+
+A concealed door exists on the left-hand side of the fireplace
+of the gilt room of Holland House, Kensington, associated by
+tradition with the ghost of the first Lord Holland. Upon the
+authority of the Princess Lichtenstein, it appears there is,
+close by, a blood-stain which nothing can efface! It is to be
+hoped no enterprising person may be induced to try his skill here
+with the success that attended a similar attempt at Holyrood,
+as recorded by Scott![1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Vide_ Introduction to _The Fair Maid of
+Perth_]
+
+In the King's writing-closet at Hampton Court may be seen the
+"secret door" by which William III. left the palace when he wished
+to go out unobserved; but this is more of a _private_ exit
+than a _secret_ one.
+
+[Illustration: WOODSTOCK PALACE, OXFORDSHIRE (FROM AN OLD PRINT)]
+
+[Illustration: MARKYATE CELL, HERTFORDSHIRE]
+
+The old ChĂ¢teau du Puits, Guernsey, has a hiding-hole placed
+between two walls which form an acute angle; the one constituting
+part of the masonry of an inner courtyard, the other a wall on
+the eastern side of the main structure. The space between could
+be reached through the floor of an upper room.
+
+Cussans, in his _History of Hertfordshire_, gives a curious
+account of the discovery of an iron door up the kitchen chimney
+of the old house Markyate Cell, near Dunstable. A short flight
+of steps led from it to another door of stout oak, which opened
+by a secret spring, and led to an unknown chamber on the ground
+level. Local tradition says this was the favourite haunt of a
+certain "wicked Lady Ferrers," who, disguised in male attire,
+robbed travellers upon the highway, and being wounded in one
+of these exploits, was discovered lying dead outside the walls
+of the house; and the malignant nature of this lady's spectre
+is said to have had so firm a hold upon the villagers that no
+local labourer could be induced to work upon that particular
+part of the building.
+
+Beare Park, near Middleham, Yorkshire, had a hiding-hole entered
+from the kitchen chimney, as had also the Rookery Farm, near
+Cromer; West Coker Manor House; and The Chantry, at Ilminster,
+both in Somerset. At the last named, in another hiding-place in
+the room above, a bracket or credence-table was found, which
+is still preserved.
+
+Many weird stories are told about Bovey House, South Devon, situated
+near the once notorious smuggling villages of Beer and Branscombe.
+Upon removing some leads of the roof a secret room was found,
+furnished with a chair and table. The well here is remarkable,
+and similar to that at Carisbrooke, with the exception that two
+people take the place of the donkey! Thirty feet below the ground
+level there is said to have been a hiding-place--a large cavity
+cut in the solid rock. Many years ago a skeleton of a man was
+found at the bottom. Such dramatic material should suggest to some
+sensational novelist a tragic story, as the well and lime-walk at
+Ingatestone is said to have suggested _Lady Audley's Secret_.
+
+A hiding-place something after the same style existed in the now
+demolished manor house of Besils Leigh, Berks. Down the shaft
+of a chimney a cavity was scooped out of the brickwork, to which
+a refugee had to be lowered by a rope. One of the towers of the
+west gate of Bodiam Castle contains a narrow square well in the
+wall leading to the ground level, and, as the guide was wont
+to remark, "how much farther the Lord only knows"! This sort
+of thing may also be seen at Mancetter Manor, Warwickshire, and
+Ightham Moat, Kent, both approached by a staircase.
+
+A communication formerly ran from a secret chamber in the
+oak-panelled dining-room of Birtsmorton Court, Worcestershire,
+to a passage beneath the moat that surrounds the structure, and
+thence to an exit on the other side of the water. During the Wars
+of the Roses Sir John Oldcastle is said to have been concealed
+behind the secret panel; but now the romance is somewhat marred,
+for modern vandalism has converted the cupboard into a repository
+for provisions. The same indignity has taken place at that splendid
+old timber house in Cheshire, Moreton Hall, where a secret room,
+provided with a sleeping-compartment, situated over the kitchen,
+has been modernised into a repository for the storing of cheeses.
+From the hiding-place the moat could formerly be reached, down
+a narrow shaft in the wall.
+
+Chelvey Court, near Bristol, contained two hiding-places; one,
+at the top of the house, was formerly entered through a panel,
+the other (a narrow apartment having a little window, and an
+iron candle-holder projecting from the wall) through the floor
+of a cupboard.[1] Both the panel and the trap-door are now done
+away with, and the tradition of the existence of the secret rooms
+almost forgotten, though not long since we received a letter
+from an antiquarian who had seen them thirty years before, and
+who was actually entertaining the idea of making practical
+investigations with the aid of a carpenter or mason, to which,
+as suggested, we were to be a party; the idea, however, was never
+carried out.
+
+[Footnote 1: See _Notes and Queries_, September, 1855.]
+
+[Illustration: BIRTSMORTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: PORCH, CHELVEY COURT, SOMERSETSHIRE]
+
+Granchester Manor House, Cambridgeshire, until recently possessed
+three places of concealment. Madingley Hall, in the same
+neighbourhood, has two, one of them entered from a bedroom on the
+first floor, has a space in the thickness of the wall high enough
+for a man to stand upright in it. The manor house of Woodcote,
+Hants, also possessed two, which were each capable of holding from
+fifteen to twenty men, but these repositories are now opened
+out into passages. One was situated behind a stack of chimneys,
+and contained an inner hiding-place. The "priests' quarters"
+in connection with the hiding-places are still to be seen.
+
+Harborough Hall, Worcestershire, has two "priests' holes," one
+in the wall of the dining-room, the other behind a chimney in
+an upper room.
+
+The old mansion of the Brudenells, in Northamptonshire, Deene
+Park, has a large secret chamber at the back of the fireplace
+in the great hall, sufficiently capacious to hold a score of
+people. Here also a hidden door in the panelling leads towards
+a subterranean passage running in the direction of the ruinous
+hall of Kirby, a mile and a half distant. In a like manner a
+passage extended from the great hall of Warleigh, an Elizabethan
+house near Plymouth, to an outlet in a cliff some sixty yards
+away, at whose base the tidal river flows.
+
+Speke Hall, Lancashire (perhaps the finest specimen extant of
+the wood-and-plaster style of architecture nicknamed "Magpie "),
+formerly possessed a long underground communication extending
+from the house to the shore of the river Mersey; a member of
+the Norreys family concealed a priest named Richard Brittain
+here in the year 1586, who, by this means, effected his escape
+by boat.
+
+The famous secret passage of Nottingham Castle, by which the
+young King Edward III. and his loyal associates gained access
+to the fortress and captured the murderous regent and usurper
+Mortimer, Earl of March, is known to this day as "Mortimer's
+Hole." It runs up through the perpendicular rock upon which the
+castle stands, on the south-east side from a place called Brewhouse
+yard, and has an exit in what was originally the courtyard of the
+building. The Earl was seized in the midst of his adherents and
+retainers on the night of October 19th, 1330, and after a skirmish,
+notwithstanding the prayers and entreaties of his paramour Queen
+Isabella, he was bound and carried away through the passage in
+the rock, and shortly afterwards met his well-deserved death on
+the gallows at Smithfield.
+
+But what ancient castle, monastery, or hall has not its traditional
+subterranean passage? Certainly the majority are mythical; still,
+there are some well authenticated. Burnham Abbey, Buckinghamshire,
+for example, or Tenterden Hall, Hendon, had passages which have
+been traced for over fifty yards; and one at Vale Royal,
+Nottinghamshire, has been explored for nearly a mile. In the
+older portions in both of the great wards of Windsor Castle arched
+passages thread their way below the basement, through the chalk,
+and penetrate to some depth below the site of the castle ditch
+at the base of the walls.[1] In the neighbourhood of Ripon
+subterranean passages have been found from time to time--tunnels
+of finely moulded masonry supposed to have been connected at
+one time with Fountains Abbey.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Marquis of Lorne's (Duke of Argyll) _Governor's
+Guide to Windsor_.]
+
+A passage running from Arundel Castle in the direction of Amberley
+has also been traced for some considerable distance, and a man and
+a dog have been lost in following its windings, so the entrance
+is now stopped up. About three years ago a long underground way
+was discovered at Margate, reaching from the vicinity of Trinity
+Church to the smugglers' caves in the cliffs; also at Port Leven,
+near Helston, a long subterranean tunnel was discovered leading to
+the coast, no doubt very useful in the good old smuggling days.
+At Sunbury Park, Middlesex, was found a long vaulted passage some
+five feet high and running a long way under the grounds. Numerous
+other examples could be stated, among them at St. Radigund's
+Abbey, near Dover; Liddington Manor House, Wilts; the Bury,
+Rickmansworth; "Sir Harry Vane's House," Hampstead, etc., etc.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MINIATURE HIDING-HOLES FOR VALUABLES, ETC.
+
+Small hidden recesses for the concealment of valuables or
+compromising deeds, etc., behind the wainscoting of ancient houses,
+frequently come to light. Many a curious relic has been discovered
+from time to time, often telling a strange or pathetic story
+of the past. A certain Lady Hoby, who lived at Bisham Abbey,
+Berkshire, is said by tradition to have caused the death of her
+little boy by too severe corporal punishment for his obstinacy
+in learning to write, A grim sequel to the legend happened not
+long since. Behind a window shutter in a small secret cavity
+in the wall was found an ancient, tattered copy-book, which,
+from the blots and its general slovenly appearance, was no doubt
+the handiwork of the unfortunate little victim to Lady Hoby's
+wrath.
+
+When the old manor house of Wandsworth was pulled down recently,
+upon removing some old panelling a little cupboard was discovered,
+full of dusty phials and mouldy pill-boxes bearing the names of
+poor Queen Anne's numerous progeny who died in infancy.
+
+Richard Cromwell spent many of his later years at Hursley, near
+Winchester, an old house now pulled down. In the progress of
+demolition what appeared to be a piece of rusty metal was found
+in a small cavity in one of the walls, which turned out to be
+no less important a relic than the seal of the Commonwealth of
+England.
+
+Walford, in _Greater London_, mentions the discovery of
+some articles of dress of Elizabeth's time behind the wainscot
+of the old palace of Richmond, Surrey. Historical portraits have
+frequently been found in this way. Behind the panelling in a
+large room at the old manor house of Great Gaddesden, Herts,
+were a number of small aumbrys, or recesses. A most interesting
+panel-portrait of Queen Elizabeth was found in one of them, which
+was exhibited at the Tudor Exhibition. In 1896, when the house
+of John Wesley at Lewisham was pulled down, who should be found
+between the walls but the amorous Merry Monarch and a court beauty!
+The former is said to be Riley's work. Secretary Thurloe's MSS.,
+as is well known, were found embedded in a ceiling of his lodgings
+at Lincoln's Inn. In pulling down a block of old buildings in
+Newton Street, Holborn, a hidden space was found in one of the
+chimneys, and there, covered with the dust of a century, lay
+a silver watch, a silk guard attached, and seals bearing the
+Lovat crest. The relic was promptly claimed by Mr. John Fraser,
+the claimant to the long-disputed peerage.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: December 14th, 1895.]
+
+Small hiding-places have been found at the manor house of Chew
+Magna, Somerset, and Milton Priory, a Tudor mansion in Berkshire.
+In the latter a green shagreen case was found containing a
+seventeenth-century silver and ivory pocket knife and fork. A
+small hiding-place at Coughton Court, Warwickshire, brought to
+light a bundle of priest's clothes, hidden there in the days
+of religious persecution. In 1876 a small chamber was found at
+Sanderstead Court, Surrey, containing a small blue-and-white jar
+of Charles I.'s time. Three or four small secret repositories
+existed behind some elaborately carved oak panels in the great
+hall of the now ruinous Harden Hall, near Stockport. In similar
+recesses at Gawdy Hall, Suffolk, were discovered two ancient
+apostle spoons, a watch, and some Jacobean MSS. A pair of gloves
+and some jewels of seventeenth-century date were brought to light
+not many years ago in a secret recess at Woodham Mortimer Manor
+House, Essex. A very curious example of a hiding-place for valuables
+formerly existed at an old building known as Terpersie Castle,
+near Alford, Lincolnshire. The sides of it were lined with stone
+to preserve articles from damp, and it could be drawn out of
+the wall like a drawer.
+
+In the year 1861 a hidden receptacle was found at the Elizabethan
+college of Wedmore, Kent, containing Roman Catholic MSS. and
+books; and at Bromley Palace, close by, in a small aperture below
+the floor, was found the leathern sole of a pointed shoe of the
+Middle Ages! Small hiding-places of this nature existed in a
+wing, now pulled down, of the Abbey House, Whitby (in "Lady Anne's
+Room"). At Castle Ashby, Northants; Fountains Hall, near Ripon;
+Ashes House, near Preston; Trent House, Somerset; and Ockwells,
+Berks,[1] are panels opening upon pivots and screening small
+cavities in the walls.
+
+[Footnote 1: Another hiding-place is said to have existed behind
+the fireplace of the hall.]
+
+[Illustration: HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE, SUSSEX]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+HIDING-PLACES OF SMUGGLERS AND THIEVES
+
+Horsfield, in his _History of Sussex_, gives a curious account
+of the discovery in 1738 of an iron chest in a recess of a wall at
+the now magnificent ruin Hurstmonceaux Castle. In the thickness
+of the walls were many curious staircases communicating with the
+galleries. When the old castle was allowed to fall into ruin,
+the secret passages, etc., were used by smugglers as a convenient
+receptacle for contraband goods.
+
+Until recently there was an ingenious hiding-place behind a sliding
+panel at the old "Bell Inn" at Sandwich which had the reputation
+of having formerly been put to the same use; indeed, in many
+another old house near the coast were hiding-places utilised for
+a like purpose.
+
+In pulling down an old house at Erith in 1882 a vault was discovered
+with strong evidence that it had been extensively used for smuggling.
+The pretty village of Branscombe, on the Devonshire coast, was,
+like the adjacent village of Beer, a notorious place for smugglers.
+"The Clergy House," a picturesque, low-built Tudor building
+(condemned as being insecure and pulled down a few years ago),
+had many mysterious stories told of its former occupants, its
+underground chambers and hiding-places; indeed, the villagers
+went so far as to declare that there was _another house_
+beneath the foundations!
+
+A secret chamber was discovered at the back of a fireplace in an
+old house at Deal, from which a long underground passage extended
+to the beach. The house was used as a school, and the unearthly
+noises caused by the wind blowing up this smugglers' passage
+created much consternation among the young lady pupils. A lady
+of our acquaintance remembers, when a schoolgirl at Rochester,
+exploring part of a vaulted tunnel running in the direction of
+the castle from Eastgate House, which in those days was a school,
+and had not yet received the distinction of being the "Nun's
+House" of _Edwin Drood_. Some way along, the passage was
+blocked by the skeleton of a donkey! Our informant is not given
+to romancing, therefore we must accept the story in good faith.
+
+All round the coast-line of Kent once famous smuggling buildings
+are still pointed out. Movable hollow beams have been found
+supporting cottage ceilings, containing all kinds of contraband
+goods. In one case, so goes the story, a customs house officer
+in walking through a room knocked his head, and the tell-tale
+hollow sound (from the beam, not from his head, we will presume)
+brought a discovery. At Folkestone, tradition says, a long row
+of houses used for the purpose had the cellars connected one
+with the other right the way along, so that the revenue officers
+could be easily evaded in the case of pursuit.
+
+The modern utility of a convenient secret panel or trap-door
+occasionally is apparent from the police-court reports. The tenements
+in noted thieves' quarters are often found to have
+intercommunication; a masked door will lead from one house to
+the other, and trap-doors will enable a thief to vanish from
+the most keen-sighted detective, and nimbly thread his way over
+the roofs of the neighbouring houses. There was a case in the
+papers not long since; a man, being closely chased, was on the
+point of being seized, when, to the astonishment of his pursuers,
+he suddenly disappeared at a spot where apparently he had been
+closely hemmed in.
+
+Many old houses in Clerkenwell were, sixty or seventy years ago,
+notorious thieves' dens, and were noted for their hiding-places,
+trap-doors, etc., for evading the vigilance of the law. The name
+of Jack Sheppard, as may be supposed, had connection with the
+majority. One of these old buildings had been used in former
+years as a secret Jesuits' college, and the walls were threaded
+with masked passages and places of concealment; and when the old
+"Red Lion Inn" in West Street was pulled down in 1836, some artful
+traps and false floors were discovered which tarried well with
+its reputation as a place of rendezvous and safety for outlaws.
+The "Rising Sun" in Holywell Street is a curious example, there
+being many false doors and traps in various parts of the house;
+also in the before-mentioned Newton Street a panel could be raised
+by a pulley, through which a fugitive or outlaw could effect his
+escape on to the roof, and thence into the adjoining house.
+
+One of the simplest and most secure hiding-places perhaps ever
+devised by a law-breaker was that within a water-butt! A cone-shaped
+repository, entered from the bottom, would allow a man to sit
+within it; nevertheless, to all intents and purposes the butt
+was kept full of water, and could be apparently emptied from a
+tap at its base, which, of course, was raised from the ground
+to admit the fugitive. We understand such a butt is still in
+existence somewhere in Yorkshire.
+
+A "secret staircase" in Partingdale House, Mill Hill, is associated
+(by tradition) with the notorious Dick Turpin, perhaps because of
+its proximity to his haunts upon Finchley Common. As it exists
+now, however, there is no object for secrecy, the staircase leading
+merely to the attics, and its position can be seen; but the door
+is well disguised in a Corinthian column containing a secret
+spring. Various alterations have taken place in this house, so
+once upon a time it may have had a deeper meaning than is now
+perceptible.
+
+Another supposed resort of this famous highwayman is an old ivy-grown
+cottage at Thornton Heath. Narrow steps lead up from the open
+chimney towards a concealed door, from which again steps descend
+and lead to a subterranean passage having an exit in the garden.
+
+[Illustration: BOVEY HOUSE, SOUTH DEVON]
+
+[Illustration: MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+We do not intend to go into the matter of modern secret chambers,
+and there are such things, as some of our present architects and
+builders could tell us, for it is no uncommon thing to design
+hiding-places for the security of valuables. For instance, we
+know of a certain suburban residence, built not more than thirty
+years ago, where one of the rooms has capacities for swallowing
+up a man six feet high and broad in proportion. We have known such
+a person--or shall we say victim?--to appear after a temporary
+absence, of say, five minutes, with visible signs of discomfort;
+but as far as we are aware the secret is as safe in his keeping
+as is the famous mystery in the possession of the heir of Glamis.
+
+An example of a sliding panel in an old house in Essex (near
+Braintree) was used as a pattern for the entrance to a modern
+secret chamber;[1] and no doubt there are many similar instances
+where the ingenuity of our ancestors has thus been put to use
+for present-day requirements.
+
+[Footnote 1: According to the newspaper reports, the recently
+recovered "Duchess of Devonshire," by Gainsborough, was for some
+time secreted behind a secret panel in a sumptuous steam-launch
+up the river Thames, from whence it was removed to America in
+a trunk with a false bottom.]
+
+Our collection of houses with hiding-holes is now coming to an
+end. We will briefly summarise those that remain unrecorded.
+
+"New Building" at Thirsk has, or had, a secret chamber measuring
+three feet by six. Upon the outside wall on the east side of
+the house is a small aperture into which a stone fitted with
+such nicety that no sign of its being movable could possibly be
+detected; at the same time, it could be removed with the greatest
+ease in the event of its being necessary to supply a person in
+hiding with food.
+
+Catledge Hall, Cambridgeshire, has a small octangular closet
+adjoining a bedroom, from which formerly there was a secret way
+on to the leads of the roof.
+
+[Illustration: MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO SECRET STAIRCASE, PARTINGDALE HOUSE,
+MILL-HILL, MIDDLESEX]
+
+At Dunkirk Hall, near West Bromwich, is a "priest's hole" in the
+upper part of the house near "the chapel," which is now divided
+into separate rooms.
+
+Mapledurham House, axon, the old seat of the Blounts, contains
+a "priest's hole" in the attics, descent into which could be
+made by the aid of a rope suspended for that purpose.
+
+Upton Court, near Slough, possesses a "priest's hole," entered
+from a fireplace, provided with a double flue--one for smoke,
+the other for ventilation to the hiding-place.
+
+Knebworth House, Hertfordshire, formerly had a secret chamber
+known as "Hell Hole."
+
+Eastgate House, Rochester (before mentioned), has a hiding-place
+in one of the upstairs rooms. It has, however, been altered.
+
+Milsted Manor, Kent, is said to have a secret exit from the library;
+and Sharsted Court (some three miles distant) has a cleverly
+marked panel in the wainscoting of "the Tapestry Dressing-room,"
+which communicates by a very narrow and steep flight of steps
+in the thickness of the wall with "the Red Bedroom."
+
+The "Clough Inn," Chard, Somersetshire, is said by tradition to
+have possessed three secret rooms!
+
+Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire--a hiding-place formerly in "the tower."
+Bramhall Hall, Cheshire--two secret recesses were discovered
+not long ago during alterations. The following also contain
+hiding-places:--Hall-i'-the-wood, Bolling Hall, Mains Hall, and
+Huncoat Hall, all in Lancashire; Drayton House, Northants; Packington
+Old Hall, Warwickshire; Batsden Court, Salop; Melford Hall, Suffolk,
+Fyfield House, Wilts; "New Building," Southwater, Sussex; Barsham
+Rectory, Suffolk; Porter's Hall, Southend, Essex; Kirkby Knowle
+Castle and Barnborough Hall, Yorkshire; Ford House, Devon; Cothele,
+Cornwall; Hollingbourne Manor House, Kent (altered of late years);
+Salisbury Court, near Shenley, Herts.
+
+Of hiding-places and secret chambers in the ancient castles and
+mansions upon the Continent we know but little.
+
+Two are said to exist in an old house in the Hradschin in Prague--one
+communicating from the foundation to the roof "by a windlass or
+turnpike." A subterranean passage extends also from the house
+beneath the street and the cathedral, and is said to have its
+exit in the Hirch Graben, or vast natural moat which bounds the
+chĂ¢teau upon the north.
+
+A lady of our acquaintance remembers her feeling of awe when,
+as a school-girl, she was shown a hiding-place in an old mansion
+near Baden-Baden--a huge piece of stone masonry swinging aside
+upon a pivot and revealing a gloomy kind of dungeon behind.
+
+The old French chĂ¢teaux, according to Froisart, were rarely without
+secret means of escape. King Louis XVI., famous for his mechanical
+skill, manufactured a hiding-place in an inner corridor of his
+private apartments at the Palace of Versailles. The wall where
+it was situated was painted to imitate large stones, and the
+grooves of the opening were cleverly concealed in the shaded
+representations of the divisions. In this a vast collection of
+State papers was preserved prior to the Revolution.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Vide _The Memoirs of Madame Campan._]
+
+Mr. Lang tells us, in his admirable work _Pickle the Spy_,
+that Bonnie Prince Charlie, between the years 1749 and 1752,
+spent much of his time in the convent of St. Joseph in the Rue
+St. Dominique, in the Faubourg St. Germain, which under the late
+Empire (1863) was the hotel of the Minister of War. Here he appears
+to have been continually lurking behind the walls, and at night
+by a secret staircase visiting his protectress Madame de Vassés.
+Allusion is made in the same work to a secret cellar with a "dark
+stair" leading to James III.'s furtive audience-chamber at his
+residence in Rome.
+
+So recently as the year 1832 a hiding-place in an old French
+house was put to practical use by the Duchesse de Berry after
+the failure of her enterprise to raise the populace in favour of
+her son the Duc de Bordeaux. She had, however, to reveal herself
+in preference to suffocation, a fire, either intentionally or
+accidentally, having been ignited close to where she was hidden,
+recalling the terrible experiences of Father Gerard at "Braddocks."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE SCOTTISH HIDING-PLACES OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD
+
+The romantic escapes of Prince Charles Edward are somewhat beyond
+the province of this book, owing to the fact that the hiding-places
+in which he lived for the greater part of five months were not
+artificial but natural formations in the wild, mountainous country
+of the Western Highlands. Far less convenient and comfortable
+were these caves and fissures in the rocks than those secret
+places which preserved the life of the "young chevalier's"
+great-uncle Charles II. Altogether, the terrible hardships to
+which the last claimant to the Stuart throne was subjected were
+far greater in every way, and we can but admire the remarkable
+spirit, fortitude, and courage that carried him through his numerous
+dangers and trials.
+
+The wild and picturesque character not only of the Scotch scenery,
+but of the loyal Highlanders, who risked their all to save their
+King, gives the story of this remarkable escape a romantic colouring
+that surpasses any other of its kind, whether real or fictitious.
+
+This, therefore, is our excuse for giving a brief summary of the
+Prince's wanderings, if only to add to our other hiding-places
+a record of the names of the isolated spots which have become
+historical landmarks.
+
+In his flight from the fatal battlefield of Culloden the young
+Prince, when about four miles from Inverness, hastily determined
+to make the best of his way towards the western coast. The first
+halt was made at Castle Dounie, the seat of the crafty old traitor
+Lord Lovat. A hasty meal having been taken here, Charles and his
+little cavalcade of followers pushed on to Invergarry, where
+the chieftain, Macdonnell of Glengarry, otherwise "Pickle the
+Spy,"[1] being absent from home, an empty house was the only
+welcome, but the best was made of the situation. Here the bulk of
+the Prince's companions dispersed to look after their own safety,
+while he and one or two chosen friends continued the journey to
+Glenpean, the residence of the chieftain Donald Cameron. From
+Mewboll, which was reached the next night, the fugitives proceeded
+on foot to Oban, where a hovel was found for sleeping-quarters.
+In the village of Glenbiasdale, in Arisaig, near to where Charles
+had landed on his disastrous enterprise, he learned that a number
+of Royalist cruisers were upon the alert all along the coast,
+whereupon he determined to watch his opportunity and get across
+to the Western Isles, and remain concealed until a French vessel
+could be found to take him abroad.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Vide_ Andrew Lang's _Pickle the Spy_.]
+
+A boat was procured, and the little party safely embarked, but
+in the voyage encountered such heavy seas that the vessel very
+nearly foundered; a landing, however, being effected at a place
+called Roonish, in the Isle of Benbecula, a habitation had to
+be made out of a miserable hut. Two days being thus wretchedly
+spent, a move was made to the Island of Scalpa, where Charles
+was entertained for four days in the house of Donald Campbell.
+
+Meanwhile, a larger vessel was procured, the object being to
+reach Stornoway; but the inclemency of the weather induced Charles
+and his guide Donald Macleod to make the greater part of the
+journey by land. Arriving there hungry, worn out, and drenched
+to the skin, the Prince passed the night at Kildun, the house
+of Mrs. Mackenzie; an alarm of danger, however, forced him to
+sea again with a couple of companions, O'Sullivan and O'Neal;
+but shortly after they had embarked they sighted some men-of-war,
+so put to land once more at the Island of Jeffurt. Four days
+were passed away in this lonely spot, when the boat put out to
+sea once more, and after many adventures and privations the
+travellers landed at Loch Wiskaway, in Benbecula, and made their
+headquarters some two miles inland at a squalid hut scarcely
+bigger than a pigstye.
+
+The next move was to an isolated locality named Glencorodale,
+in the centre of South Uist, where in a hut of larger dimensions
+the Prince held his court in comparative luxury, his wants being
+well looked after by Sir Alexander and Lady Macdonald and other
+neighbouring Jacobites. With thirty thousand pounds reward offered
+for his capture, and the Western Isles practically surrounded
+by the enemy, it is difficult to imagine the much-sought-for
+prize coolly passing his weary hours in fishing and shooting,
+yet such was the case for the whole space of a month.
+
+An eye-witness describes Charles's costume at this time as "a
+tartan short coat and vest of the same, got from Lady Clanranald;
+his nightcap all patched with soot-drops, his shirt, hands, and
+face patched with the same; a short kilt, tartan hose, and Highland
+brogs."
+
+From South Uist the fugitive removed to the Island of Wia, where
+he was received by Ranald Macdonald; thence he visited places
+called Rossinish and Aikersideallich, and at the latter had to
+sleep in a fissure in the rocks. Returning once more to South
+Uist, Charles (accompanied by O'Neal and Mackechan) found a
+hiding-place up in the hills, as the militia appeared to be
+dangerously near, and at night tramped towards Benbecula, near
+to which another place of safety was found in the rocks.
+
+The memorable name of Flora Macdonald now appears upon the scene.
+After much scheming and many difficulties the meeting of the Prince
+and this noble lady was arranged in a squalid hut near Rosshiness.
+The hardships encountered upon the journey from Benbecula to this
+village were some of the worst experiences of the unfortunate
+wanderer; and when his destination was reached at last, he had to
+be hurried off again to a hiding-place by the sea-shore, which
+provided little or no protection from the driving torrents of
+rain. Early each morning this precaution had to be taken, as
+the Royalist soldiers, who were quartered only a quarter of a
+mile distant, repaired to the hut every morning to get milk from
+the woman who acted as Charles's hostess. Upon the third day after
+the Prince had arrived, Flora Macdonald joined him, bringing with
+her the disguise for the character he was to impersonate upon
+a proposed journey to the Isle of Skye--_viz._ "a flowered
+linen gown, a light-coloured quilted petticoat, a white apron,
+and a mantle of dun camlet, made after the Irish fashion, with
+a hood."
+
+A boat lay in readiness in a secluded nook on the coast, and
+"Betty Burke"--the pseudo servant-maid--Flora Macdonald, and
+Mackechan, as guide, embarked and got safely to Kilbride, in
+Skye. Not, however, without imminent dangers. A storm nearly
+swamped the boat; and upon reaching the western coast of the
+island they were about to land, when a number of militiamen were
+noticed on shore, close at hand, and as they recognised their
+peril, and pulled away with might and main, a volley of musketry
+would probably have had deadly effect, had not the fugitives
+thrown themselves at the bottom of the boat.
+
+At the house of the Macdonalds of Mugstat, whose representative
+dreaded the consequences of receiving Charles, another Macdonald
+was introduced as an accomplice by the merest accident. This
+staunch Jacobite at once took possession of "Betty," and hurried
+off towards his house of Kingsburgh. Upon the way the ungainly
+appearance of Flora's maid attracted the attention of a servant,
+who remarked that she had never seen such an impudent-looking
+woman. "See what long strides the jade takes!" she cried; "and how
+awkwardly she manages her petticoats!" And this was true enough,
+for in fording a little brook "Betty Burke" had to be severely
+reprimanded by her chaperon for her impropriety in lifting her
+skirts! Upon reaching the house, Macdonald's little girl caught
+sight of the strange woman, and ran away to tell her mother that
+her father had brought home "the most old, muckle, ill-shapen-up
+wife" she had ever seen. Startling news certainly for the lady
+of Kingsburgh!
+
+The old worn-out boots of the Prince's were discarded for new
+ones ere he departed, and fragments of the former were long
+afterwards worn in the bosoms of Jacobite ladies.
+
+The next step in this wonderful escape was to Portree, where
+temporary accommodation was found in a small public-house. Here
+Charles separated from his loyal companions Neil Mackechan and
+the immortal Flora. The "Betty Burke" disguise was discarded
+and burnt and a Highland dress donned. With new guides the young
+Chevalier now made his headquarters for a couple of days or so
+in a desolate shepherd's hut in the Isle of Raasay; thence he
+journeyed to the north coast of the Isle of Skye, and near Scorobreck
+housed himself in a cow-shed. At this stage of his journey Charles
+altered his disguise into that of a servant of his then companion
+Malcolm Macleod, and at the home of his next host (a Mackinnon of
+Ellagol) was introduced as "Lewie Caw," the son of a surgeon in
+the Highland army. By the advice of the Mackinnons, the fugitive
+decided to return, under their guidance, again to the mainland,
+and a parting supper having been held in a cave by the sea-shore,
+he bid adieu to the faithful Macleod. The crossing having been
+effected, not without innumerable dangers, once more Charles
+found himself near the locality of his first landing. For the
+next three days neither cave nor hut dwelling could be found
+that was considered safe; and upon the fourth day, in exploring
+the shores of Loch Nevis for a hiding-place, the fugitives ran
+their little craft right into a militia boat that was moored
+to and screened from view by a projecting rock. The soldiers
+on land immediately sprang on board and gave chase; but with
+his usual good luck Charles got clear away by leaping on land
+at a turn of the lake, where his retreat was covered by dense
+foliage.
+
+After this the Prince was under the care of the Macdonalds, one
+of which clan, Macdonald of Glenaladale, together with Donald
+Cameron of Glenpean, took the place of the Mackinnons.
+
+A brief stay was made at Morar Lake and at Borrodaile (both houses
+of the Macdonalds); after which a hut in a wood near the latter
+place and an artfully constructed hiding-place between two rocks
+with a roof of green turf did service as the Prince's palace.
+
+In this cave Charles received the alarming news that the Argyllshire
+Militia were on the scent, and were forming an impenetrable cordon
+completely round the district. Forced once more to seek refuge
+in flight, the unfortunate Stuart was hurried away through some
+of the wildest mountainous country he had yet been forced to
+traverse. A temporary hiding-place was found, and from this a
+search-party exploring the adjacent rocks and crags was watched
+with breathless interest.
+
+Still within the military circle, a desperate dash for liberty had
+now to be planned. Nearly starved and reduced to the last extremity
+of fatigue, Charles and his guides, Glenpean and Glenaladale,
+crept stealthily upon all-fours towards the watch-fires, and
+taking advantage of a favourable moment when the nearest sentry
+was in such a position that their approach could be screened
+by the projecting rocks, in breathless silence the three stole
+by, and offering up a prayer for their deliverance, continued
+their foot-sore journey until their legs would carry them no
+farther.
+
+The next four days Charles sought shelter in caves in the
+neighbourhood of Glenshiel, Strathcluanie, and Strathglass; but
+the most romantic episode in his remarkable adventures was the
+sojourn in the secret caves and hiding-places of the notorious
+robbers of Glenmoriston, under whose protection the royal fugitive
+placed himself. With these wild freebooters he continued for
+three weeks, during which time he made himself extremely popular
+by his freedom of intercourse with them.
+
+The wanderer left these dwellings of comparative luxury that
+he might join hands with other fugitive Jacobites, Macdonald
+of Lochgarry and Cameron of Clunes, and took up his quarters
+in the wood-surrounded huts near Loch Arkaig and Auchnacarry.
+
+The poor youth's appearance at this period is thus described by
+one of his adherents: "The Prince was at this time bare-footed,
+had an old black kilt-coat on, philabeg and waistcoat, a dirty
+shirt, and a long red beard, a gun in his hand, and a pistol
+and dirk by his side."
+
+Moving again to miserable hovels in the wild recesses of the
+mountain Benalder, the chieftains Lochiel and Cluny acted now
+as the main bodyguard. The former of these two had devised a
+very safe hiding-place in the mountain which went by the name
+of "the Cage," and while here welcome news was brought that two
+friendly vessels had arrived at Lochnanuagh, their mission being,
+if possible, to seek out and carry away the importunate heir to
+the Stuart throne.
+
+The last three or four days of Charles's memorable adventures
+were occupied in reaching Glencamger, halts being made on the
+day at Corvoy and Auchnacarry. On Saturday, September 20th, 1746,
+he was on board _L'Heureux_, and nine days later landed at
+Roscoff, near Morlaix.
+
+So ended the famous escapades of the young Chevalier Prince Charles
+Edward.
+
+Here is a fine field open to some enterprising artistic tourist.
+How interesting it would be to follow Prince Charles throughout
+his journeyings in the Western Highlands, and illustrate with
+pen and pencil each recorded landmark! Not long since Mr. Andrew
+Lang gave, in a weekly journal (_The Sketch_), illustrations
+of the most famous of all the Prince's hiding-places--_viz._
+the cave in Glenmoriston, Inverness-shire.[1] The cave, we are
+told, is "formed like a tumulus by tall boulders, but is clearly
+a conspicious object, and a good place wherein to hunt for a
+fugitive. But it served its turn, and as another cave in the same
+district two miles off is lost, perhaps it is not so conspicious
+as it seems." It is about twenty feet wide at the base, and the
+position of the hearth and the royal bed are still to be seen,
+with "the finest purling stream that could be, running by the
+bed-side." How handy for the morning "tub"!
+
+[Footnote 1: They appeared originally in Blaikie's _Itinerary
+of Prince Curies Stuart_ (Scottish History Society).]
+
+In that remarkable collection of Stuart relics on exhibition
+in 1889 were many pathetic mementoes of Charles's wanderings in
+the Highlands. Here could be seen not only the mittens but the
+chemise of "Betty Burke"; the punch-bowl over which the Prince
+and the host of Kingsburgh had a late carousal, and his Royal
+Highness's table-napkins used in the same hospitable house; a
+wooden coffee-mill, which provided many a welcome cup of coffee
+in the days of so many hardships; a silver dessert-spoon, given
+to Dr. Macleod by the fugitive when he left the Isle of Skye;
+the Prince's pocket-book, many of his pistols, and a piece of
+his Tartan disguise; a curious relic in the form of two lines
+of music, sent as a warning to one of his lurking-places--when
+folded in a particular way the following words become legible,
+"Conceal yourself; your foes look for you." There was also a
+letter from Charles saying he had "arrived safe aboard ye vessell"
+which carried him to France, and numerous little things which
+gave the history of the escape remarkable reality.
+
+The recent dispersal of the famous Culloden collection sent
+long-cherished Jacobite relics broadcast over the land. The ill-fated
+Stuart's bed and walking-stick were of course the plums of this
+sale; but they had no connection with the Highland wanderings
+after the battle. The only object that had any connection with
+the story was the gun of _L'Heureux_.
+
+We understand there is still a much-prized heirloom now in Glasgow--a
+rustic chair used by the Prince when in Skye. The story is that,
+secreted in one of his cave dwellings, he espied a lad in his
+immediate vicinity tending some cows. Hunger made him reveal
+himself, with the result that he was taken to the boy's home,
+a farm not far off, and had his fill of cream and oatcakes, a
+delicacy which did not often fall in his way. The visit naturally
+was repeated; and long afterwards, when the rank of his guest
+came to the knowledge of the good farmer, the royal chair was
+promoted from its old corner in the kitchen to an honored position
+worthy of such a valued possession.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+Bedfordshire:--
+  Toddington Place
+Berkshire:--
+  Besils Leigh
+  Bisham Abbey
+  East Hendred House
+  Hurley, Lady Place
+  Milton Priory
+  Ockwells
+  Ufton Court
+  Windsor Castle
+Buckinghamshire:--
+  Burnham Abbey
+  Claydon House
+  Dinton Hall
+  Gayhurst, or Gothurst
+  Slough, Upton Court
+  Stoke Poges Manor House
+
+Cambridgeshire:--
+  Catledge Hall
+  Granchester Manor House
+  Madingley Hall
+  Sawston Hall
+Cheshire:--
+  Bramhall Hall
+  Harden Hall
+  Lyme Hall
+  Moreton Hall
+Cornwall:--
+  Bochym House
+  Cothele
+  Port Leven
+Cumberland:--
+  Naworth Castle
+  Nether Hall
+
+Derbyshire:--
+  Bradshawe Hall
+Devonshire:--
+  Bovey House
+  Branscombe, "The Clergy House"
+  Ford House
+  Warleigh
+Durham:--
+  Bishops Middleham
+  Darlington
+  Dinsdale-on-Tees
+  Eshe Hall
+
+Essex:--
+  Braddocks, or Broad Oaks
+  Braintree
+  Dunmow, North End
+  Hill Hall
+  Hinchford
+  Ingatestone Hall
+  Romford, Marks
+  Southend, Porter's Hall
+  Woodham Mortimer Manor House
+
+Gloucestershire:--
+  Bourton-on-the-Water Manor House
+
+Hampshire:--
+  Bramshill
+  Highclere Castle
+  Hinton-Ampner
+  Hursley
+  Moyles Court
+  Tichbourne
+  Woodcote Manor House
+Herefordshire:--
+  Treago
+Hertfordshire:--
+  Great Gaddesden Manor House
+  Hatfield House
+  Knebworth House
+  Markyate Cell, Dunstable
+  Rickmansworth, The Bury
+  Shenley, Salisbury Court
+  Tyttenhanger House
+Huntingdonshire:--
+  Kimbolton Castle
+
+Kent:--
+  Bromley Palace
+  Deal
+  Dover, St. Radigund's Abbey
+  Erith
+  Folkestone
+  Franks
+  Hollingbourne Manor House
+  Ightham Moat
+  Lewisham, John Wesley's House
+  Margate
+  Milsted Manor
+  Rochester, Abdication House
+  Rochester, Eastgate House
+  Rochester, Restoration House
+  Sandwich, "Bell Inn"
+  Sharsted Court
+  Twissenden
+  Wedmore College
+
+Lancashire:--
+  Bolling Hall
+  Borwick Hall
+  Gawthorp Hall
+  Hall-i'-the-wood
+  Holme Hall
+  Huncoat Hall
+  Lydiate Hall
+  Mains Hall
+  Preston, Ashes House
+  Speke Hall
+  Stonyhurst
+Lincolnshire:--
+  Bayons Manor
+  Irnham Hall
+  Kingerby Hall
+  Terpersie Castle
+
+Middlesex:--
+  Enfield, White Webb's
+  Hackney, Brooke House
+  Hampstead, Sir Harry Vane's House
+  Hampton Court
+  Hendon, Tenterden Hall
+  Highgate, Cromwell House
+  Hillingdon, Moorcroft House
+  Islington, Hale House
+  Kensington, Holland House
+  Knightsbridge
+  London, Lincoln's Inn
+  London, Newton Street, Holborn
+  London, "Red Lion Inn," West Street, Clerkenwell
+  London, "Rising Sun," Holywell Street
+  Mill Hill, Partingdale House
+  Sunbury Park
+  Twickenham, Arragon Towers
+  Westminster, Delahay Street
+
+Norfolk:--
+  Cromer, Rookery Farm
+  Oxburgh Hall
+Northamptonshire:--
+  Ashby St. Ledgers
+  Castle Ashby
+  Deene Park
+  Drayton House
+  Fawsley
+  Great Harrowden
+  Rushton Hall
+Northumberland:--
+  Ford Castle
+  Netherwhitton
+  Wallington
+Nottinghamshire:--
+  Nottingham Castle
+  Vale Royal
+  Worksop
+
+Oxfordshire:--
+  Broughton Castle
+  Chastleton
+  Mapledurham House
+  Minster Lovel Manor House
+  Shipton Court
+  Tusmore House
+  Woodstock
+
+Shropshire:--
+  Batsden Court
+  Boscobel House
+  Gatacre Park
+  Longford, Newport
+  Madeley Court
+  Madeley, Upper House
+  Oswestry, Park Hall
+  Plowden Hall
+Somersetshire:--
+  Chard, "Clough Inn"
+  Chelvey Court
+  Chew Magna Manor House
+  Dunster Castle
+  Ilminster, The Chantry
+  Trent House
+  West Coker Manor House
+Staffordshire:--
+  Broughton Hall
+  Moseley Hall
+  West Bromwich, Dunkirk Hall
+Suffolk:--
+  Barsham Rectory
+  Brandeston Hall
+  Brandon Hall
+  Coldham Hall
+  Gawdy Hall
+  Melford Hall
+Surrey:--
+  Mortlake, Cromwell House
+  Petersham, Ham House
+  Richmond Palace
+  Sanderstead Court
+  Thornton Heath
+  Wandsworth Manor House
+  Weybridge, Ham House
+Sussex:--
+  Albourne Place
+  Arundel Castle
+  Bodiam Castle
+  Chichester Cathedral
+  Cowdray
+  Hurstmonceaux Castle
+  Parham Hall
+  Paxhill
+  Scotney Castle
+  Slindon House
+  Southwater, Horsham, "New Building"
+  Street Place
+
+Warwickshire:--
+  Baddesley Clinton
+  Clopton Hall
+  Compton Winyates
+  Coughton Court
+  Mancetter Manor
+  Packington Old Hall
+  Salford Prior Hall
+  Warwick, St. John's Hospital
+Wiltshire:--
+  Fyfield House
+  Great Chalfield
+  Heale House
+  Liddington Manor House
+  Salisbury
+Worcestershire:--
+  Armscot Manor House
+  Birtsmorton Court
+  Cleeve Prior Manor House
+  Harborough Hall
+  Harvington Hall
+  Hindlip Hall
+  Huddington Court
+  Malvern, Pickersleigh Court
+  Stanford Court
+  Wollas Hall
+
+Yorkshire:--
+  Bamborough Hall
+  Beare Park
+  Danby Hall
+  Dannoty Hall
+  Fountains Abbey
+  Fountains Hall
+  Hull, White Hart Hotel
+  Kirkby Knowle Castle
+  Leyburn, The Grove
+  Myddleton Lodge, Ilkley
+  Thirsk, "New Building"
+  Whatton Abbey
+  Whitby, Abbey House
+  Yeadon, Low Hall
+
+Aberdeenshire:--
+  Belucraig
+  Dalpersie House
+  Fetternear
+  Fyvie Castle
+  Gordonstown
+  Kemnay House
+
+Banffshire:--
+  Towie Barclay Castle
+
+Elginshire:--
+  Coxton Tower
+
+Forfarshire:--
+  Glamis Castle
+
+Haddingtonshire:--
+  Elphinstone Castle
+
+Linlithgowshire:--
+  Binns House
+
+Nairnshire:--
+  Cawdor Castle
+
+Monmouthshire:--
+  Ty Mywr
+
+Pembrokeshire:--
+  Carew Castle
+
+Isle of Wight:--
+  Newport Manor House
+
+Guernsey:--
+  ChĂ¢teau du Puits
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Secret Chambers and Hiding Places, by Allan Fea
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+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
+<html lang="en">
+
+<head>
+ <title>Secret Chambers and Hiding-Places</title>
+ <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
+ <meta name="keywords" content="secret chamber hiding place">
+ <meta name="author" content="Allan Fea">
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+   P.subtitle   { text-align: center; font-size: large; }
+   P.center     { text-align: center; }
+   H1           { text-align: center; margin-top: 2em; }
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Secret Chambers and Hiding Places, by Allan Fea
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Secret Chambers and Hiding Places
+       Historic, Romantic, & Legendary Stories & Traditions About
+              Hiding-Holes, Secret Chambers, Etc.
+              
+
+Author: Allan Fea
+
+Release Date: November 1, 2004 [EBook #13918]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECRET CHAMBERS AND HIDING PLACES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert J. Hall.
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig001.jpg" width="656" height="399" alt="Fig. 1"><br>
+MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<h1>SECRET CHAMBERS AND HIDING-PLACES</h1>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+HISTORIC, ROMANTIC, &amp; LEGENDARY STORIES &amp; TRADITIONS ABOUT
+HIDING-HOLES, SECRET CHAMBERS, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+BY ALLAN FEA
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+AUTHOR OF "THE FLIGHT OF THE KING," "KING MONMOUTH," ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+WITH EIGHTY ILLUSTRATIONS
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+THIRD AND REVISED EDITION
+</p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+<p><a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I</a></p>
+
+<p>
+A GREAT DEVISER OF "PRIEST'S HOLES"
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II</a></p>
+
+<p>
+HINDLIP HALL
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III</a></p>
+
+<p>
+PRIEST-HUNTING AT BRADDOCKS
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV</a></p>
+
+<p>
+THE GUNPOWDER PLOT CONSPIRATORS
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V</a></p>
+
+<p>
+HARVINGTON, UFTON, AND INGATESTONE
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI</a></p>
+
+<p>
+COMPTON WINYATES, SALFORD PRIOR, SAWSTON, OXBURGH, PARHAM, PAXHILL, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII</a></p>
+
+<p>
+KING-HUNTING: BOSCOBEL, MOSELEY, TRENT, AND HEALE
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII</a></p>
+
+<p>
+CAVALIER-HUNTING, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX</a></p>
+
+<p>
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X</a></p>
+
+<p>
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES (<i>continued</i>): HAM HOUSE, AND "ABDICATION HOUSE"
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI</a></p>
+
+<p>
+MYSTERIOUS ROOMS, DEADLY PITS, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII</a></p>
+
+<p>
+HIDING-PLACES IN JACOBITE DWELLINGS AND IN SCOTTISH CASTLES AND MANSIONS
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII</a></p>
+
+<p>
+CONCEALED DOORS, SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGES, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV</a></p>
+
+<p>
+MINIATURE HIDING-HOLES FOR VALUABLES, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p><a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV</a></p>
+
+<p>
+HIDING-PLACES OF SMUGGLERS AND THIEVES
+</p>
+
+
+<p><a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI</a></p>
+
+<p>
+THE SCOTTISH HIDING-PLACES OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD
+</p>
+
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<p>
+MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE<br>
+HINDLIP HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE<br>
+BRADDOCKS, ESSEX<br>
+FIREPLACE AT BRADDOCKS<br>
+ASHBY ST. LEDGERS, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE<br>
+THE PLOT ROOM, ASHBY ST. LEDGERS<br>
+HUDDINGTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE<br>
+ENTRANCE PORCH, HUDDINGTON COURT<br>
+ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," HARVINGTON HALL<br>
+HARVINGTON HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE<br>
+UFTON COURT, BERKSHIRE<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+GARDEN TERRACE, BERKSHIRE<br>
+HIDING-PLACE, UFTON COURT<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"<br>
+INGATESTONE HALL, ESSEX<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"<br>
+"PRIEST'S HOLE," SAWSTON HALL<br>
+SCOTNEY CASTLE, SUSSEX<br>
+COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE<br>
+THE MINSTRELS' GALLERY, COMPTON WINYATES<br>
+SAWSTON HALL, CAMBRIDGESHIRE<br>
+PICKERSLEIGH COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE<br>
+SALFORD PRIOR HALL, WARWICKSHIRE<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;"<br>
+HIDING-PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR<br>
+SHOWING ENTRANCE TO HIDING PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR<br>
+OXBURGH HALL, NORFOLK<br>
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, PARHAM HALL<br>
+PAXHILL, SUSSEX<br>
+CLEEVE PRIOR MANOR HOUSE, WORCESTERSHIRE<br>
+BADDESLEY CLINTON HALL, WARWICKSHIRE<br>
+HIDING-PLACE BENEATH "THE CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL, SALOP<br>
+HIDING-PLACE IN "THE SQUIRE'S BEDROOM," BOSCOBEL<br>
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE IN THE GARRET, OR "CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL<br>
+SECRET PANEL, TRENT HOUSE, SOMERSETSHIRE<br>
+BOSCOBEL<br>
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE<br>
+HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE<br>
+TRENT HOUSE IN 1864<br>
+HEALE HOUSE, WILTSHIRE<br>
+MADELEY COURT, SHROPSHIRE<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;THE COURTYARD, SHROPSHIRE<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;SHROPSHIRE<br>
+ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," THE UPPER HOUSE, MADELEY, SHROPSHIRE<br>
+INTERIOR OF "PRIEST'S HOLE," MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE<br>
+SECRET PANEL AT SALISBURY<br>
+SECRET CHAMBER, CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE<br>
+OLD SUMMER HOUSE, SALISBURY<br>
+CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+FRONT ENTRANCE, OXFORDSHIRE<br>
+BROUGHTON HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE<br>
+ST. JOHN'S HOSPITAL, WARWICK<br>
+STAIRCASE, BROUGHTON HALL<br>
+SHIPTON COURT, OXFORDSHIRE<br>
+BROUGHTON CASTLE, OXFORDSHIRE<br>
+ENTRANCE GATE, BRADSHAWE HALL, DERBYSHIRE<br>
+MOYLES COURT, HAMPSHIRE<br>
+TODDINGTON MANOR HOUSE, BEDFORDSHIRE, IN 1806<br>
+"RAT'S CASTLE," ELMLEY<br>
+KING'S HILL FARM, ELMLEY, KENT<br>
+ENTRANCE TO SECRET PASSAGE, "ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER<br>
+"ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER<br>
+MONUMENT OF SIR RICHARD HEAD<br>
+"RESTORATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER<br>
+ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE, WORCHESTERSHIRE<br>
+ENTRANCE GATE, ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE<br>
+WOODSTOCK PALACE, OXFORDSHIRE<br>
+MARKYATE CELL, HERTFORDSHIRE<br>
+BIRTSMORTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE<br>
+PORCH AT CHELVEY COURT, SOMERSETSHIRE<br>
+HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE, SUSSEX<br>
+BOVEY HOUSE, SOUTH DEVON<br>
+MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;"<br>
+ENTRANCE TO SECRET STAIRCASE, PARTINGDALE HOUSE, MILL HILL, MIDDLESEX
+</p>
+
+<h2>INTRODUCTION</h2>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The secret chamber is unrivalled even by the haunted house for
+the mystery and romance surrounding it. Volumes have been written
+about the haunted house, while the secret chamber has found but
+few exponents. The ancestral ghost has had his day, and to all
+intents and purposes is dead, notwithstanding the existence of
+the Psychical Society and the investigations of Mr. Stead and
+the late Lord Bute. "Alas! poor ghost!" he is treated with scorn
+and derision by the multitude in these advanced days of modern
+enlightenment. The search-light of science has penetrated even
+into his sacred haunts, until, no longer having a leg to stand
+upon, he has fallen from the exalted position he occupied for
+centuries, and fallen moreover into ridicule!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In the secret chamber, however, we have something tangible to deal
+with&mdash;a subject not only keenly interesting from an antiquarian
+point of view, but one deserving the attention of the general
+reader; for in exploring the gloomy hiding-holes, concealed
+apartments, passages, and staircases in our old halls and manor
+houses we probe, as it were, into the very groundwork of romance.
+We find actuality to support the weird and mysterious stories
+of fiction, which those of us who are honest enough to admit
+a lingering love of the marvellous must now doubly appreciate,
+from the fact that our school-day impressions of such things
+are not only revived, but are strengthened with the semblance
+of truth. Truly Bishop Copleston wrote: "If the things we hear
+told be avowedly fictitious, and yet curious or affecting or
+entertaining, we may indeed admire the author of the fiction, and
+may take pleasure in contemplating the exercise of his skill. But
+this is a pleasure of another kind&mdash;a pleasure wholly distinct from
+that which is derived from discovering what was <i>unknown</i>, or
+clearing up what was <i>doubtful</i>. And even when the narrative
+is in its own nature, such as to please us and to engage our
+attention, how, greatly is the interest increased if we place
+entire confidence in its <i>truth</i>! Who has not heard from
+a child when listening to a tale of deep interest&mdash;who has not
+often heard the artless and eager question, 'Is it true?'"
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+From Horace Walpole, Mrs. Radcliffe, Scott, Victor Hugo, Dumas,
+Lytton, Ainsworth, Le Fanu, and Mrs. Henry Wood, down to the
+latest up-to-date novelists of to-day, the secret chamber (an
+ingenious <i>necessity</i> of the "good old times") has afforded
+invaluable "property"&mdash;indeed, in many instances the whole vitality
+of a plot is, like its ingenious opening, hinged upon the masked
+wall, behind which lay concealed what hidden mysteries, what
+undreamed-of revelations! The thread of the story, like Fair
+Rosamond's silken clue, leads up to and at length reveals the
+buried secret, and (unlike the above comparison in this instance)
+all ends happily!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Bulwer Lytton honestly confesses that the spirit of romance in his
+novels "was greatly due to their having been written at my ancestral
+home, Knebworth, Herts. How could I help writing romances," he
+says, "after living amongst the secret panels and hiding-places
+of our dear old home? How often have I trembled with fear at
+the sound of my own footsteps when I ventured into the picture
+gallery! How fearfully have I glanced at the faces of my ancestors
+as I peered into the shadowy abysses of the 'secret chamber.' It
+was years before I could venture inside without my hair literally
+bristling with terror."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+What would <i>Woodstock</i> be without the mysterious picture,
+<i>Peveril of the Peak</i> without the sliding panel, the Castlewood
+of <i>Esmond</i> without Father Holt's concealed apartments,
+<i>Ninety-Three, Marguerite de Valois, The Tower of London, Guy
+Fawkes</i>, and countless other novels of the same type, without
+the convenient contrivances of which the <i>dramatis person&aelig;</i>
+make such effectual use?
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Apart, however, from the importance of the secret chamber in
+fiction, it is closely associated with many an important historical
+event. The stories of the Gunpowder Plot, Charles II.'s escape
+from Worcester, the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745, and many
+another stirring episode in the annals of our country, speak
+of the service it rendered to fugitives in the last extremity
+of danger. When we inspect the actual walls of these confined
+spaces that saved the lives of our ancestors, how vividly we can
+realise the hardships they must have endured; and in wondering
+at the mingled ingenuity and simplicity of construction, there
+is also a certain amount of comfort to be derived from drawing
+a comparison between those troublous and our own more peaceful
+times.
+</p>
+
+<h1>SECRET CHAMBERS AND HIDING-PLACES</h1>
+
+<h2><a name="chap01">CHAPTER I</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+A GREAT DEVISER OF "PRIEST'S HOLES"
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+During the deadly feuds which existed in the Middle Ages, when
+no man was secure from spies and traitors even within the walls
+of his own house, it is no matter of wonder that the castles and
+mansions of the powerful and wealthy were usually provided with
+some precaution in the event of a sudden surprise&mdash;<i>viz.</i>
+a secret means of concealment or escape that could be used at
+a moment's notice; but the majority of secret chambers and
+hiding-places in our ancient buildings owe their origin to religious
+persecution, particularly during the reign of Elizabeth, when the
+most stringent laws and oppressive burdens were inflicted upon
+all persons who professed the tenets of the Church of Rome.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In the first years of the virgin Queen's reign all who clung to
+the older forms of the Catholic faith were mercifully connived
+at, so long as they solemnised their own religious rites within
+their private dwelling-houses; but after the Roman Catholic rising
+in the north and numerous other Popish plots, the utmost severity
+of the law was enforced, particularly against seminarists, whose
+chief object was, as was generally believed, to stir up their
+disciples in England against the Protestant Queen. An Act was
+passed prohibiting a member of the Church of Rome from celebrating
+the rites of his religion on pain of forfeiture for the first
+offence, a year's imprisonment for the second, and imprisonment
+for life for the third.[1] All those who refused to take the
+Oath of Supremacy were called "recusants" and were guilty of
+high treason. A law was also enacted which provided that if any
+Papist should convert a Protestant to the Church of Rome, both
+should suffer death, as for high treason.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: In December, 1591, a priest was hanged before the
+door of a house in Gray's Inn Fields for having there said Mass
+the month previously.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The sanguinary laws against seminary priests and "recusants"
+were enforced with the greatest severity after the discovery of
+the Gunpowder Plot. These were revived for a period in Charles
+II.'s reign, when Oates's plot worked up a fanatical hatred against
+all professors of the ancient faith. In the mansions of the old
+Roman Catholic families we often find an apartment in a secluded
+part of the house or garret in the roof named "the chapel," where
+religious rites could be performed with the utmost privacy, and
+close handy was usually an artfully contrived hiding-place, not
+only for the officiating priest to slip into in case of emergency,
+but also where the vestments, sacred vessels, and altar furniture
+could be put away at a moment's notice.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It appears from the writings of Father Tanner[1] that most of
+the hiding-places for priests, usually called "priests' holes,"
+were invented and constructed by the Jesuit Nicholas Owen, a
+servant of Father Garnet, who devoted the greater part of his
+life to constructing these places in the principal Roman Catholic
+houses all over England.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: <i>Vita et Mors</i> (1675), p. 75.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"With incomparable skill," says an authority, "he knew how to
+conduct priests to a place of safety along subterranean passages,
+to hide them between walls and bury them in impenetrable recesses,
+and to entangle them in labyrinths and a thousand windings. But
+what was much more difficult of accomplishment, he so disguised
+the entrances to these as to make them most unlike what they
+really were. Moreover, he kept these places so close a secret
+with himself that he would never disclose to another the place
+of concealment of any Catholic. He alone was both their architect
+and their builder, working at them with inexhaustible industry
+and labour, for generally the thickest walls had to be broken
+into and large stones excavated, requiring stronger arms than
+were attached to a body so diminutive as to give him the nickname
+of 'Little John,' and by this his skill many priests were preserved
+from the prey of persecutors. Nor is it easy to find anyone who
+had not often been indebted for his life to Owen's hiding-places."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+How effectually "Little John's" peculiar ingenuity baffled the
+exhaustive searches of the "pursuivants," or priest-hunters,
+has been shown by contemporary accounts of the searches that
+took place frequently in suspected houses. Father Gerard, in
+his Autobiography, has handed down to us many curious details of
+the mode of procedure upon these occasions&mdash;how the search-party
+would bring with them skilled carpenters and masons and try every
+possible expedient, from systematic measurements and soundings to
+bodily tearing down the panelling and pulling up the floors. It
+was not an uncommon thing for a rigid search to last a fortnight
+and for the "pursuivants" to go away empty handed, while perhaps
+the object of the search was hidden the whole time within a wall's
+thickness of his pursuers, half starved, cramped and sore with
+prolonged confinement, and almost afraid to breathe, lest the
+least sound should throw suspicion upon the particular spot where
+he lay immured.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+After the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, "Little John" and
+his master, Father Garnet, were arrested at Hindlip Hall,
+Worcestershire, from information given to the Government by Catesby's
+servant Bates. Cecil, who was well aware of Owen's skill in
+constructing hiding-places, wrote exultingly: "Great joy was
+caused all through the kingdom by the arrest of Owen, knowing
+his skill in constructing hiding-places, and the innumerable
+number of these dark holes which he had schemed for hiding priests
+throughout the kingdom." He hoped that "great booty of priests"
+might be taken in consequence of the secrets Owen would be made
+to reveal, and directed that first he should "be coaxed if he
+be willing to contract for his life," but that "the secret is
+to be wrung from him." The horrors of the rack, however, failed
+in its purpose. His terrible death is thus briefly recorded by
+the Governor of the Tower at that time: "The man is dead&mdash;he
+died in our hands"; and perhaps it is as well the ghastly details
+did not transpire in his report.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The curious old mansion Hindlip Hall (pulled down in the early
+part of the last century) was erected in 1572 by John Abingdon, or
+Habington, whose son Thomas (the brother-in-law of Lord Monteagle)
+was deeply involved in the numerous plots against the reformed
+religion. A long imprisonment in the Tower for his futile efforts
+to set Mary Queen of Scots at liberty, far from curing the dangerous
+schemes of this zealous partisan of the luckless Stuart heroine,
+only kept him out of mischief for a time. No sooner had he obtained
+his freedom than he set his mind to work to turn his house in
+Worcestershire into a harbour of refuge for the followers of
+the older rites. In the quaint irregularities of the masonry
+free scope was given to "Little John's" ingenuity; indeed, there
+is every proof that some of his masterpieces were constructed
+here. A few years before the "Powder Plot" was discovered, it
+was a hanging matter for a priest to be caught celebrating the
+Mass. Yet with the facilities at Hindlip he might do so with
+comfort, with every assurance that he had the means of evading
+the law. The walls of the mansion were literally riddled with
+secret chambers and passages. There was little fear of being
+run to earth with hidden exits everywhere. Wainscoting, solid
+brickwork, or stone hearth were equally accommodating, and would
+swallow up fugitives wholesale, and close over them, to "Open,
+Sesame!" again only at the hider's pleasure.
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap02">CHAPTER II</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+HINDLIP HALL
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The capture of Father Garnet and "Little John" with two others,
+Hall and Chambers, at Hindlip, as detailed in a curious manuscript
+in the British Museum, gives us an insight into the search-proof
+merits of Abingdon's mansion. The document is headed: "<i>A true
+discovery of the service performed at Hindlip, the house of Mr.
+Thomas Abbingdon, for the apprehension of Mr. Henry Garnet, alias
+Wolley, provincial of the Jesuits, and other dangerous persons,
+there found in January last,</i> 1605," and runs on:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"After the king's royal promise of bountiful reward to such as
+would apprehend the traitors concerned in the Powder Conspiracy,
+and much expectation of subject-like duty, but no return made
+thereof in so important a matter, a warrant was directed to the
+right worthy and worshipful knight, Sir Henry Bromlie; and the
+proclamation delivered therewith, describing the features and
+shapes of the men, for the better discovering them. He, not
+neglecting so a weighty a business, horsing himself with a seemly
+troop of his own attendants, and calling to his assistance so
+many as in discretion was thought meet, having likewise in his
+company Sir Edward Bromlie, on Monday, Jan. 20 last, by break
+of day, did engirt and round beat the house of Mayster Thomas
+Abbingdon, at Hindlip, near Worcester. Mr. Abbingdon, not being
+then at home, but ridden abroad about some occasions best known
+to himself; the house being goodlie, and of great receipt, it
+required the more diligent labour and pains in the searching.
+It appeared there was no want; and Mr. Abbingdon himself coming
+home that night, the commission and proclamation being shown unto
+him, he denied any such men to be in his house, and voluntarily
+to die at his own gate, if any such were to be found in his house,
+or in that shire. But this liberal or rather rash speech could
+not cause the search so slightly to be given over; the cause
+enforced more respect than words of that or any such like nature;
+and proceeding on according to the trust reposed in him in the
+gallery over the gate there were found two cunning and very
+artificial conveyances in the main brick-wall, so ingeniously
+framed, and with such art, as it cost much labour ere they could
+be found. Three other secret places, contrived by no less skill
+and industry, were found in and about the chimneys, in one whereof
+two of the traitors were close concealed. These chimney-conveyances
+being so strangely formed, having the entrances into them so
+curiously covered over with brick, mortared and made fast to
+planks of wood, and coloured black, like the other parts of the
+chimney, that very diligent inquisition might well have passed
+by, without throwing the least suspicion upon such unsuspicious
+places. And whereas divers funnels are usually made to chimneys
+according as they are combined together, and serve for necessary
+use in several rooms, so here were some that exceeded common
+expectation, seeming outwardly fit for carrying forth smoke;
+but being further examined and seen into, their service was to
+no such purpose but only to lend air and light downward into
+the concealments, where such as were concealed in them, at any
+time should be hidden. Eleven secret corners and conveyances
+were found in the said house, all of them having books, Massing
+stuff, and Popish trumpery in them, only two excepted, which
+appeared to have been found on former searches, and therefore
+had now the less credit given to them; but Mayster Abbingdon
+would take no knowledge of any of these places, nor that the
+books, or Massing stuff, were any of his, until at length the
+deeds of his lands being found in one of them, whose custody
+doubtless he would not commit to any place of neglect, or where
+he should have no intelligence of them, whereto he could [not]
+then devise any sufficient excuse.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig002.jpg" width="647" height="379" alt="Fig. 2"><br>
+HINDLIP HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Three days had been wholly spent, and no man found there all
+this while; but upon the fourth day, in the morning, from behind
+the wainscot in the galleries, came forth two men of their own
+voluntary accord, as being no longer able there to conceal
+themselves; for they confessed that they had but one apple between
+them, which was all the sustenance they had received during the
+time they were thus hidden. One of them was named Owen, who
+afterwards murdered himself in the Tower; and the other Chambers;
+but they would take no other knowledge of any other men's being
+in the house. On the eighth day the before-mentioned place in
+the chimney was found, according as they had all been at several
+times, one after another, though before set down together, for
+expressing the just number of them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"Forth of this secret and most cunning conveyance came Henry
+Garnet, the Jesuit, sought for, and another with him, named Hall;
+marmalade and other sweetmeats were found there lying by them;
+but their better maintenance had been by a quill or reed, through
+a little hole in the chimney that backed another chimney into
+the gentlewoman's chamber; and by that passage candles, broths,
+and warm drinks had been conveyed in unto them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"Now in regard the place was in so close... and did much annoy
+them that made entrance in upon them, to whom they confessed
+that they had not been able to hold out one whole day longer,
+but either they must have squeeled, or perished in the place.
+The whole service endured the space of eleven nights and twelve
+days, and no more persons being there found, in company with
+Mayster Abbingdon himself, Garnet, Hill [Hall], Owen, and Chambers,
+were brought up to London to understand further of his highness's
+pleasure."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+That the Government had good grounds for suspecting Hindlip and
+its numerous hiding-places may be gathered from the official
+instructions the Worcestershire Justice of the Peace and his
+search-party had to follow. The wainscoting in the east part of
+the parlour and in the dining-room, being suspected of screening
+"a vault" or passage, was to be removed, the walls and floors
+were to be pierced in all directions, comparative measurements
+were to be taken between the upper and the lower rooms, and in
+particular the chimneys, and the roof had to be minutely examined and
+measurements taken, which might bring to light some unaccounted-for
+space that had been turned to good account by the unfortunate
+inventor, who was eventually starved out of one of his clever
+contrivances.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Only shortly before Owen had had a very narrow escape at Stoke
+Poges while engaged in constructing "priests' holes" at the Manor
+House. The secluded position of this building adapted it for
+the purpose for which a Roman Catholic zealot had taken it. But
+this was not the only advantage. The walls were of vast thickness
+and offered every facility for turning them to account. While
+"Little John" was busily engaged burrowing into the masonry the
+dreaded "pursuivants" arrived; but somehow or other he slipped
+between their fingers and got away under cover of the surrounding
+woods.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The wing of this old mansion which has survived to see the twentieth
+century witnessed many strange events. It has welcomed good Queen
+Bess, guarded the Martyr King, and refused admittance to Dutch
+William. A couple of centuries after it had sheltered hunted
+Jesuits, a descendant of William Penn became possessed of it,
+and cleared away many of the massive walls, in some of which&mdash;who
+can tell?&mdash;were locked up secrets that the rack failed to
+reveal&mdash;secrets by which Owen "murdered himself" in the Tower!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+One of the hiding-places at Hindlip, it will be remembered, could
+be supplied with broth, wine, or any liquid nourishment through
+a small aperture in the wall of the adjoining room. A very good
+example of such an arrangement may still be seen at Irnham Hall, in
+Lincolnshire.[1] A large hiding-place could thus be accommodated,
+but detection of the narrow iron tube by which the imprisoned
+fugitive could be kept alive was practically impossible. A solid
+oak beam, forming a step between two bedrooms, concealed a panel
+into which the tube was cunningly fitted and the step was so
+arranged that it could be removed and replaced with the greatest
+ease.[2]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: The fire which destroyed a wing of Irnham Hall a
+few years ago fortunately did not touch that part of the building
+containing a hiding-place.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 2: Harvington Hall, mentioned hereafter, has a contrivance
+of this kind.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The hiding-place at Irnham (which measures eight feet by five,
+and about five feet six inches in height) was discovered by a
+tell-tale chimney that was not in the least blackened by soot
+or smoke. This originally gave the clue to the secret, and when
+the shaft of the chimney was examined, it was found to lead direct
+to the priest's hole, to which it afforded air and light.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Had not the particular hiding-place in which Garnet and his
+companions sought shelter been discovered, they could well have
+held out the twelve days' search. As a rule, a small stock of
+provisions was kept in these places, as the visits of the search
+parties were necessarily very sudden and unexpected. The way down
+into these hidden quarters was from the floor above, through
+the hearth of a fireplace, which could be raised an lowered like
+a trap-door.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See Fowlis's <i>Romish Treasons.</i>]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In a letter from Garnet to Ann Vaux, preserved in the Record
+Office, he thus describes his precarious situation: "After we
+had been in the hoale seven days and seven nights and some odd
+hours, every man may well think we were well wearyed, and indeed
+so it was, for we generally satte, save that some times we could
+half stretch ourselves, the place not being high eno', and we had
+our legges so straitened that we could not, sitting, find place
+for them, so that we both were in continuous paine of our legges,
+and both our legges, especially mine, were much swollen. We were
+very merry and content within, and heard the searchers every day
+most curious over us, which made me indeed think the place would
+be found. When we came forth we appeared like ghosts."[2]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 2: <i>State Papers</i>, Domestic (James I.).]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+There is an old timber-framed cottage near the modern mansion
+of Hindlip which is said to have had its share in sheltering the
+plotters. A room is pointed out where Digby and Catesby concealed
+themselves, and from one of the chimneys at some time or another
+a priest was captured and led to execution.
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap03">CHAPTER III</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+PRIEST-HUNTING AT BRADDOCKS
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In the parish of Wimbish, about six miles from Saffron Walden,
+stand the remains of a fine old Tudor house named Broad Oaks,
+or Braddocks, which in Elizabeth's reign was a noted house for
+priest-hunting. Wandering through its ancient rooms, the imagination
+readily carries us back to the drama enacted here three centuries
+ago with a vividness as if the events recorded had happened
+yesterday. "The chapel" and priests' holes may still be seen, and
+a fine old stone fireplace that was stripped of its overmantel,
+etc., of carved oak by the "pursuivants" in their vain efforts
+when Father Gerard was concealed in the house.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig003.jpg" width="415" height="310" alt="Fig. 3"><br>
+BRADDOCKS, ESSEX
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig004.jpg" width="405" height="304" alt="Fig. 4"><br>
+FIREPLACE AT BRADDOCKS
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The old Essex family of Wiseman of Braddocks were staunch Romanists,
+and their home, being a noted resort for priests, received from
+time to time sudden visits. The dreaded Topcliffe had upon one
+occasion nearly brought the head of the family, an aged widow lady,
+to the horrors of the press-yard, but her punishment eventually
+took the form of imprisonment. Searches at Braddocks had brought
+forth hiding-places, priests, compromising papers, and armour
+and weapons. Let us see with what success the house was explored
+in the Easter of the year 1594.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Gerard gives his exciting experiences as follows[1]:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See Autobiography of Father John Gerard.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"The searchers broke down the door, and forcing their way in,
+spread through the house with great noise and racket.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"Their first step was to lock up the mistress of the house[2] in
+her own room with her two daughters, and the Catholic servants
+they kept locked up in divers places in the same part of the
+house.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 2: Jane Wiseman, wife of William Wiseman. N.B.&mdash;The
+late Cardinal Wiseman was descended from a junior branch of this
+family. See Life of Father John Gerard, by John Morris.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"They then took to themselves the whole house, which was of a good
+size, and made a thorough search in every part, not forgetting
+even to look under the tiles of the roof. The darkest corners
+they examined with the help of candles. Finding nothing whatever
+they began to break down certain places that they suspected.
+They measured the walls with long rods, so that if they did not
+tally they might pierce the part not accounted for. Then they
+sounded the walls and all the floors to find out and break into
+any hollow places there might be.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"They spent two days in this work without finding anything. Thinking
+therefore that I had gone on Easter Sunday, the two magistrates
+went away on the second day, leaving the pursuivants to take
+the mistress of the house and all her Catholic servants of both
+sexes to London to be examined and imprisoned. They meant to
+leave some who were not Catholics to keep the house, the traitor
+(one of the servants of the house) being one of them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"The good lady was pleased at this, for she hoped that he would
+be the means of freeing me and rescuing me from death; for she
+knew that I had made up my mind to suffer and die of starvation
+between two walls, rather than come forth and save my own life
+at the expense of others.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"In fact, during those four days that I lay hid I had nothing
+to eat but a biscuit or two and a little quince jelly, which
+my hostess had at hand and gave me as I was going in.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"She did not look for any more, as she supposed that the search
+would not last beyond a day. But now that two days were gone
+and she was to be carried off on the third with all her trusty
+servants, she began to be afraid of my dying of sheer hunger.
+She bethought herself then of the traitor who she heard was to
+be left behind. He had made a great fuss and show of eagerness in
+withstanding the searchers when they first forced their way in.
+For all that she would not have let him know of the hiding-places,
+had she not been in such straits. Thinking it better, however,
+to rescue me from certain death, even at some risk to herself,
+she charged him, when she was taken away and everyone had gone,
+to go into a certain room, call me by my wonted name, and tell
+me that the others had been taken to prison, but that he was left
+to deliver me. I would then answer, she said, from behind the
+lath and plaster where I lay concealed. The traitor promised to
+obey faithfully; but he was faithful only to the faithless, for
+he unfolded the whole matter to the ruffians who had remained
+behind.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"No sooner had they heard it than they called back the magistrates
+who had departed. These returned early in the morning and renewed
+the search.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"They measured and sounded everywhere much more carefully than
+before, especially in the chamber above mentioned, in order to
+find out some hollow place. But finding nothing whatever during
+the whole of the third day, they proposed on the morrow to strip
+off the wainscot of that room.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"Meanwhile, they set guards in all the rooms about to watch all
+night, lest I should escape. I heard from my hiding-place the
+password which the captain of the band gave to his soldiers, and
+I might have got off by using it, were it not that they would
+have seen me issuing from my retreat, for there were two on guard
+in the chapel where I got into my hiding-place, and several also
+in the large wainscoted room which had been pointed out to them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"But mark the wonderful Providence of God. Here was I in my
+hiding-place. The way I got into it was by taking up the floor,
+made of wood and bricks, under the fireplace. The place was so
+constructed that a fire could not be lit in it without damaging
+the house; though we made a point of keeping wood there, as if
+it were meant for a fire.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"Well, the men on the night watch lit a fire in this very grate
+and began chatting together close to it. Soon the bricks which
+had not bricks but wood underneath them got loose, and nearly
+fell out of their places as the wood gave way. On noticing this
+and probing the place with a stick, they found that the bottom
+was made of wood, whereupon they remarked that this was something
+curious. I thought that they were going there and then to break
+open the place and enter, but they made up their minds at last
+to put off further examination till next day.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"Next morning, therefore, they renewed the search most carefully,
+everywhere except in the top chamber which served as a chapel,
+and in which the two watchmen had made a fire over my head and
+had noticed the strange make of the grate. God had blotted out
+of their memory all remembrance of the thing. Nay, none of the
+searchers entered the place the whole day, though it was the
+one that was most open to suspicion, and if they had entered,
+they would have found me without any search; rather, I should
+say, they would have seen me, for the fire had burnt a great
+hole in my hiding-place, and had I not got a little out of the
+way, the hot embers would have fallen on me.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"The searchers, forgetting or not caring about this room, busied
+themselves in ransacking the rooms below, in one of which I was
+said to be. In fact, they found the other hiding-place which I
+thought of going into, as I mentioned before. It was not far
+off, so I could hear their shouts of joy when they first found
+it. But after joy comes grief; and so it was with them. The only
+thing that they found was a goodly store of provision laid up.
+Hence they may have thought that this was the place that the
+mistress of the house meant; in fact, an answer might have been
+given from it to the call of a person in the room mentioned by
+her.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"They stuck to their purpose, however, of stripping off all the
+wainscot of the other large room. So they set a man to work near
+the ceiling, close to the place where I was: for the lower part
+of the walls was covered with tapestry, not with wainscot. So
+they stripped off the wainscot all round till they came again
+to the very place where I lay, and there they lost heart and
+gave up the search.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"My hiding-place was in a thick wall of the chimney behind a
+finely inlaid and carved mantelpiece. They could not well take
+the carving down without risk of breaking it. Broken, however,
+it would have been, and that into a thousand pieces, had they
+any conception that I could be concealed behind it. But knowing
+that there were two flues, they did not think that there could
+be room enough there for a man.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"Nay, before this, on the second day of the search, they had
+gone into the room above, and tried the fireplace through which
+I had got into my hole. They then got into the chimney by a ladder
+to sound with their hammers. One said to another in my hearing,
+'Might there not be a place here for a person to get down into
+the wall of the chimney below by lifting up this hearth?' 'No,'
+answered one of the pursuivants, whose voice I knew, 'you could
+not get down that way into the chimney underneath, but there
+might easily be an entrance at the back of this chimney.' So
+saying he gave the place a knock. I was afraid that he would hear
+the hollow sound of the hole where I was.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"Seeing that their toil availed them nought, they thought that
+I had escaped somehow, and so they went away at the end of the
+four days, leaving the mistress and her servants free. The yet
+unbetrayed traitor stayed after the searchers were gone. As soon
+as the doors of the house were made fast, the mistress came to
+call me, another four days buried Lazarus, from what would have
+been my tomb, had the search continued a little longer. For I
+was all wasted and weakened as well with hunger as with want
+of sleep and with having to sit so long in such a narrow space.
+After coming out I was seen by the traitor, whose treachery was
+still unknown to us. He did nothing then, not even to send after
+the searchers, as he knew that I meant to be off before they
+could be recalled."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The Wisemans had another house at North End, a few miles to the
+south-east of Dunmow. Here were also "priests' holes," one of
+which (in a chimney) secreted a certain Father Brewster during
+a rigid search in December, 1593.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: <i>State Papers</i>, Dom. (Eliz.), December, 1593.
+See also Life of Father John Gerard, p. 138.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Great Harrowden, near Wellingborough, the ancient seat of the Vaux
+family, was another notorious sanctuary for persecuted recusants.
+Gerard spent much of his time here in apartments specially
+constructed for his use, and upon more than one occasion had to
+have recourse to the hiding-places. Some four or five years after
+his experiences at Braddocks he narrowly escaped his pursuers in
+this way; and in 1605, when the "pursuivants" were scouring the
+country for him, as he was supposed to be privy to the Gunpowder
+Plot, he owed his life to a secret chamber at Harrowden. The
+search-party remained for nine days. Night and day men were posted
+round the house, and every approach was guarded within a radius
+of three miles. With the hope of getting rid of her unwelcome
+guests, Lady Vaux revealed one of the "priests' holes" to prove
+there was nothing in her house beyond a few prohibited books;
+but this did not have the desired effect, so the unfortunate
+inmate of the hiding-place had to continue in a cramped position,
+there being no room to stand up, for four or five days more. His
+hostess, however, managed to bring him food, and moments were
+seized during the latter days of the search to get him out that
+he might warm his benumbed limbs by a fire. While these things
+were going on at Harrowden, another priest, little thinking into
+whose hands the well-known sanctuary had fallen, came thither
+to seek shelter; but was seized and carried to an inn, whence
+it was intended he should be removed to London on the following
+day. But he managed to outwit his captors. To evade suspicion
+he threw off his cloak and sword, and under a pretext of giving
+his horse drink at a stream close by the stable, seized a lucky
+moment, mounted, and dashed into the water, swam across, and
+galloped off to the nearest house that could offer the convenience
+of a hiding-place.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See Life of John Gerard, p. 386.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+At Hackney the Vaux family had another, residence with its chapel
+and "priest's hole," the latter having a masked entrance high
+up in the wall, which led to a space under a gable projection
+of the roof. For double security this contained yet an inner
+hiding-place. In the existing Brooke House are incorporated the
+modernised remains of this mansion.
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap04">CHAPTER IV</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+THE GUNPOWDER PLOT CONSPIRATORS
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Lord Vaux of Harrowden, Sir William Catesby of Ashby St. Ledgers,
+and Sir Thomas Tresham of Rushton Hall (all in Northamptonshire)
+were upon more than one occasion arraigned before the Court of the
+Star Chamber for harbouring Jesuits. The old mansions Ashby St.
+Ledgers and Rushton fortunately still remain intact and preserve
+many traditions of Romanist plots. Sir William Catesby's son Robert,
+the chief conspirator, is said to have held secret meetings in the
+curious oak-panelled room over the gate-house of the former, which
+goes by the name of "the Plot Room." Once upon a time it was provided
+with a secret means of escape. At Rushton Hall a hiding-place was
+discovered in 1832 behind a lintel over a doorway; it was full
+of bundles of manuscripts, prohibited books, and incriminating
+correspondence of the conspirator Tresham. Another place of
+concealment was situated in the chimney of the great hall and in
+this Father Oldcorn was hidden for a time. Gayhurst, or Gothurst,
+in Buckinghamshire, the seat of Sir Everard Digby, also remains
+intact, one of the finest late Tudor buildings in the country;
+unfortunately, however, only recently a remarkable "priest's
+hole" that was here has been destroyed in consequence of modern
+improvements. It was a double hiding-place, one situated beneath
+the other; the lower one being so arranged as to receive light and
+air from the bottom portion of a large mullioned window&mdash;a most
+ingenious device. A secret passage in the hall had communication
+with it, and entrance was obtained through part of the flooring
+of an apartment, the movable part of the boards revolving upon
+pivots and sufficiently solid to vanquish any suspicion as to
+a hollow space beneath.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig005.jpg" width="406" height="320" alt="Fig. 5"><br>
+ASHBY ST. LEDGERS, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig006.jpg" width="401" height="285" alt="Fig. 6"><br>
+THE PLOT ROOM, ASHBY ST. LEGERS
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+As may be supposed, tradition says that at the time of Digby's
+arrest he was dragged forth from this hole, but history shows
+that he was taken prisoner at Holbeach House (where, it will be
+remembered, the conspirators Catesby and Percy were shot), and
+led to execution. For a time Digby sought security at Coughton
+Court, the seat of the Throckmortons, in Warwickshire. The house of
+this old Roman Catholic family, of course, had its hiding-holes,
+one of which remains to this day. Holbeach as well as Hagley
+Hall, the homes of the Litteltons, have been rebuilt. The latter
+was pulled down in the middle of the eighteenth century. Here
+it was that Stephen Littleton and Robert Winter were captured
+through the treachery of the cook. Grant's house, Norbrook, in
+Warwickshire, has also given way to a modern one.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Ambrose Rookwood's seat, Coldham Hall, near Bury St. Edmunds,
+exists and retains its secret chapel and hiding-places. There are
+three of the latter; one of them, now a small withdrawing-room,
+is entered from the oak wainscoted hall. When the house was in
+the market a few years ago, the "priests' holes" duly figured in
+the advertisements with the rest of the apartments and offices.
+It read a little odd, this juxtaposition of modern conveniences
+with what is essentially romantic, and we simply mention the
+fact to show that the auctioneer is well aware of the monetary
+value of such things.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+At the time of the Gunpowder Conspiracy Rookwood rented Clopton
+Hall, near Stratford-on-Avon. This house also has its little
+chapel in the roof with adjacent "priests' holes," but many
+alterations have taken place from time to time. Who does not
+remember William Howitt's delightful description&mdash;or, to be correct,
+the description of a lady correspondent&mdash;of the old mansion before
+these restorations. "There was the old Catholic chapel," she wrote,
+"with a chaplain's room which had been walled up and forgotten till
+within the last few years. I went in on my hands and knees, for the
+entrance was very low. I recollect little in the chapel; but in
+the chaplain's room were old and I should think rare editions of
+many books, mostly folios. A large yellow paper copy of Dryden's
+<i>All for Love, or the World Well Lost</i>, date 1686, caught
+my eye, and is the only one I particularly remember."[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: Howitt's <i>Visits to Remarkable Places</i>.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Huddington Court, the picturesque old home of the Winters (of
+whom Robert and Thomas lost their lives for their share in the
+Plot), stands a few miles from Droitwich. A considerable quantity
+of arms and ammunition were stored in the hiding-places here in
+1605 in readiness for general rising.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig007.jpg" width="395" height="314" alt="Fig. 7"><br>
+HUDDINGTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig008.jpg" width="384" height="332" alt="Fig. 8"><br>
+ENTRANCE PORCH, HUDDINGTON COURT
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Two other houses may be mentioned in connection with the memorable
+Plot&mdash;houses that were rented by the conspirators as convenient
+places of rendezvous an account of their hiding-places and masked
+exits for escape. One of them stood in the vicinity of the Strand,
+in the fields behind St. Clement's Inn. Father Gerard had taken
+it some time previous to the discovery of the Plot, and with
+Owen's aid some very secure hiding-places were arranged. This he
+had done with two or three other London residences, so that he
+and his brother priests might use them upon hazardous occasions;
+and to one of these he owed his life when the hue and cry after
+him was at its highest pitch. By removing from one to the other
+they avoided detection, though they had many narrow escapes. One
+priest was celebrating Mass when the Lord Mayor and constables
+suddenly burst in. But the surprise party was disappointed: nothing
+could be detected beyond the smoke of the extinguished candles;
+and in addition to the hole where the fugitive crouched there
+were two other secret chambers, neither of which was discovered.
+On another occasion a priest was left shut up in a wall; his
+friends were taken prisoners, and he was in danger of starvation,
+until at length he was rescued from his perilous position, carried
+to one of the other houses, and again immured in the vault or
+chimney.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The other house was "White Webb's," on the confines of Enfield
+Chase. In the Record Office there is a document describing how,
+many Popish books and relics were discovered when the latter
+was searched. The building was full of trap-doors and secret
+passages. Some vestiges of the out-buildings of "White Webb's"
+may still be seen in a quaint little inn called "The King and
+Tinker."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But of all the narrow escapes perhaps Father Blount's experiences
+at Scotney Castle were the most thrilling. This old house of
+the Darrells, situated on the border of Kent and Sussex, like
+Hindlip and Braddocks and most of the residences of the Roman
+Catholic gentry, contained the usual lurking-places for priests.
+The structure as it now stands is in the main modern, having
+undergone from time to time considerable alterations. A vivid
+account of Blount's hazardous escape here is preserved among the
+muniments at Stonyhurst&mdash;a transcript of the original formerly
+at St. Omers.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+One Christmas night towards the close of Elizabeth's reign the
+castle was seized by a party of priest-hunters, who, with their
+usual mode of procedure, locked up the members of the family securely
+before starting on their operations. In the inner quadrangle of
+the mansion was a very remarkable and ingenious device. A large
+stone of the solid wall could be pushed aside. Though of immense
+weight, it was so nicely balanced and adjusted that it required
+only a slight pressure upon one side to effect an entrance to
+the hiding-place within. Those who have visited the grounds at
+Chatsworth may remember a huge piece of solid rock which can be
+swung round in the same easy manner. Upon the approach of the
+enemy, Father Blount and his servant hastened to the courtyard
+and entered the vault; but in their hurry to close the weighty
+door a small portion of one of their girdles got jammed in, so
+that a part was visible from the outside. Fortunately for the
+fugitives, someone in the secret, in passing the spot, happened
+to catch sight of this tell-tale fragment and immediately cut
+it off; but as a particle still showed, they called gently to
+those within to endeavour to pull it in, which they eventually
+succeeded in doing.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+At this moment the pursuivants were at work in another part of
+the castle, but hearing the voice in the courtyard, rushed into
+it and commenced battering the walls, and at times upon the very
+door of the hiding-place, which would have given way had not
+those within put their combined weight against it to keep it
+from yielding. It was a pitchy dark night, and it was pelting
+with rain, so after a time, discouraged at finding nothing and
+wet to the skin, the soldiers put off further search until the
+following morning, and proceeded to dry and refresh themselves
+by the fire in the great hall.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When all was at rest, Father Blount and his man, not caring to
+risk another day's hunting, cautiously crept forth bare-footed,
+and after managing to scale some high walls, dropt into the moat
+and swam across. And it was as well for them that they decided
+to quit their hiding-hole, for next morning it was discovered.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The fugitives found temporary security at another recusant house
+a few miles from Scotney, possibly the old half-timber house of
+Twissenden, where a secret chapel and adjacent "priests' holes"
+are still pointed out.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The original manuscript account of the search at Scotney was
+written by one of the Darrell family, who was in the castle at
+the time of the events recorded.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See Morris's <i>Troubles of our Catholic
+Forefathers.</i>]
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap05">CHAPTER V</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+HARVINGTON, UFTON, AND INGATESTONE
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We will now go in search of some of the most curious hiding-places
+in existence. There are numerous known examples all over the
+country, and perhaps as many again exist, which will preserve
+their secret for ever. For more than three hundred years they
+have remained buried, and unless some accident reveals their
+locked-up mysteries, they will crumble away with the walls which
+contain them; unless, indeed, fire, the doom of so many of our
+ancestral halls, reduces them to ashes and swallows up the weird
+stories they might have told. In many cases not until an ancient
+building is pulled down are such strange discoveries made; but,
+alas! there are as many instances where structural alterations
+have wantonly destroyed these interesting historical landmarks.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig009.jpg" width="248" height="301" alt="Fig. 9"><br>
+ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," HARVINGTON HALL
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig010.jpg" width="408" height="310" alt="Fig. 10"><br>
+HARVINGTON HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Unaccounted-for spaces, when detected, are readily utilised.
+Passages are bodily run through the heart of many a secret device,
+with little veneration for the mechanical ingenuity that has
+been displayed in their construction. The builder of to-day,
+as a rule, knows nothing of and cares less, for such things,
+and so they are swept away without a thought. To such vandals
+we can only emphasise the remarks we have already made about
+the market value of a "priest-hole" nowadays.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A little to the right of the Kidderminster road, and about two
+miles from the pretty village of Chaddesley Corbet, with its old
+timber houses and inn, stands the ghostly old hall of Harvington.
+The ancient red-brick pile rises out of its reed-grown moat with
+that air of mystery which age and seeming neglect only can impart.
+Coming upon it unexpectedly, especially towards dusk, one is
+struck with the strange, dignified melancholy pervading it. Surely
+Hood's <i>Haunted House</i> or Poe's <i>House of Usher</i> stands
+before us, and we cannot get away from the impression that a
+mystery is wrapped within its walls. Harvington Hall dates from
+the reign of Henry VIII., but it has undergone various changes,
+so it is difficult to affix any particular period or style to
+its architecture; indeed, it is this medley of different styles
+which forms such a poetically picturesque outline. In its day
+Harvington could doubtless hold its own with the finest mansions
+in the country, but now it is forgotten, deserted, and crumbling
+to pieces. Its very history appears to be lost to the world, as
+those who go to the county histories and general topographical
+works for information will find.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Inside the mansion, like the exterior, the hand of decay is
+perceptible on every side; the rooms are ruined, the windows
+broken, the floors unsafe (excepting, by the way, a small portion
+of the building which is habitable). A ponderous broad oak staircase
+leads to a dismantled state-room, shorn of the principal part of
+its panelling, carving, and chimney-pieces.[1] Other desolate
+apartments retain their names as if in mockery; "the drawing-room,"
+"the chapel," "Lady Yates's nursery," and so forth. At the top
+of the staircase, however, we must look around carefully, for
+beneath the stairs is a remarkable hiding-place.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: Most of the interior fittings were removed to Coughton
+Court, Warwickshire.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+With a slight stretch of the imagination we can see an indistinct
+form stealthily remove the floorboard of one of the stairs and
+creep beneath it. This particular step of a short flight running
+from the landing into a garret is, upon closer inspection, indeed
+movable, and beneath gapes a dark cavity about five feet square, on
+the floor of which still remains the piece of sedge matting whereon
+a certain Father Wall rested his aching limbs a few days prior to
+his capture and execution in August, 1679. The unfortunate man
+was taken at Rushock Court, a few miles away where he was traced
+after leaving Harvington. There is a communication between the
+hiding-place and "the banqueting-room" through, a small concealed
+aperture in the wainscoting large enough to admit of a tube,
+through which a straw could be thrust for the unhappy occupant
+to suck up any liquid his friends might be able to supply.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In a gloomy corridor leading from the tower to "the reception-room"
+is another "priest's hole" beneath the floor, and entered by a
+trap-door artfully hidden in the boards; this black recess is
+some seven feet in depth, and can be made secure from within.
+Supposing the searchers had tracked a fugitive priest as far
+as this corridor, the odds are in favour that they would have
+passed over his head in their haste to reach the tower, where
+they would make sure, in their own minds at least, of discovering
+him. Again, here there is a communication with the outside world.
+An oblong aperture in the top oak beam of the entrance gateway
+to the house, measuring about four inches across, is the secret
+opening&mdash;small enough to escape the most inquisitive eye, yet
+large enough to allow of a written note to pass between the captive
+and those upon the alert watching his interests.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: N.B.&mdash;In addition to the above hiding-places at
+Harvington, one was discovered so recently as 1894; at least,
+so we have been informed. This was some years after our visit
+to the old Hall.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A subterranean passage is said to run under the moat from a former
+hiding-place, but this is doubtful; at any rate, there are no
+evidences of it nowadays.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig011.jpg" width="410" height="327" alt="Fig. 11"><br>
+UFTON COURT, BERKSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig012.jpg" width="409" height="324" alt="Fig. 12"><br>
+GARDEN TERRACE, UFTON COURT
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Altogether, Harvington is far from cheerful, even to a pond hard
+by called "Gallows Pool"! The tragic legend associated with this
+is beyond the province of the present work, so we will bid adieu
+to this weird old hall, and turn our attention to another obscure
+house situated in the south-east corner of Berkshire.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The curious, many-gabled mansion Ufton Court both from its secluded
+situation and quaint internal construction, appears to have been
+peculiarly suitable for the secretion of persecuted priests. Here
+are ample means for concealment and escape into the surrounding
+woods; and so carefully have the ingenious bolts and locks of
+the various hiding-places been preserved, that one would almost
+imagine that there was still actual necessity for their use in
+these matter-of-fact days!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A remarkable place for concealment exists in one of the gables
+close to the ceiling. It is triangular in shape, and is opened
+by a spring-bolt that can be unlatched by pulling a string which
+runs through a tiny hole pierced in the framework of the door of
+the adjoining room. The door of the hiding-place swings upon a
+pivot, and externally is thickly covered with plaster, so as to
+resemble the rest of the wall, and is so solid that when sounded
+there is no hollow sound from the cavity behind, where, no doubt
+the crucifix and sacred vessels were secreted.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig013.jpg" width="416" height="271" alt="Fig. 13"><br>
+HIDING-PLACE, UFTON COURT
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig014.jpg" width="269" height="363" alt="Fig. 14"><br>
+HIDING PLACE, UFTON COURT
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Not far off, in an upper garret, is a hiding-place in the thickness
+of the wall, large enough to contain a man standing upright.
+Like the other, the door, or entrance, forms part of the plaster
+wall, intersected by thick oak beams, into which it exactly fits,
+disguising any appearance of an opening. Again, in one of the
+passages of this curious old mansion are further evidences of
+the hardships to which Romish priests were subjected&mdash;a trap in
+the floor, which can only be opened by pulling up what exteriorly
+appears to be the head of one of the nails of the flooring; by
+raising this a spring is released and a trap-door opened, revealing
+a large hole with a narrow ladder leading down into it. When
+this hiding-place was discovered in 1830, its contents were
+significant&mdash;<i>viz.</i> a crucifix and two ancient petronels.
+Apartments known as "the chapel" and "the priest's vestry" are
+still pointed out. The walls throughout the house appear to be
+intersected with passages and masked spaces, and old residents
+claim to have worked their way by these means right through from
+the garrets to the basement, though now the several hiding-places
+do not communicate one with another. There are said to be no
+less than twelve places of concealment in various parts of the
+building. A shaft in the cellar is supposed to be one of the
+means of exit from "the dining-room," and at the back of the
+house a subterranean passage may still be traced a considerable
+distance under the terrace.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig015.jpg" width="411" height="287" alt="Fig. 15"><br>
+INGATESTONE HALL, ESSEX
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig016.jpg" width="409" height="276" alt="Fig. 16"><br>
+INGATESTONE HALL
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+An interesting discovery was made some years ago at Ingatestone
+Hall, Essex, the ancient seat of the Petres. The late Rev. Canon
+Last, who had resided there as private chaplain for over sixty
+years, described to us the incidents of this curious "find," to
+which he was an eye-witness. Some of the floor-boards in the
+south-east corner of a small ante-room adjoining what was once
+"the host's bedroom," facing the south front, broke away, rotten
+with age, while some children were playing there. These being
+removed, a second layer of boards was brought to light within
+a foot of the old flooring, and in this a trap-door was found
+which, when opened, discovered a large "priest's hole," measuring
+fourteen feet long, ten feet high, and two feet wide. A twelve-step
+ladder led down into it, and the floor being on a level with the
+basement of the house was covered with a layer of dry sand to
+the depth of nearly a foot, so as to absorb any moisture from
+the ground.[1] In the sand a few bones of a bird were found,
+possibly the remains of food supplied to some unfortunate priest.
+Those who climb down into this hole will find much that is
+interesting to repay them their trouble. From the wall projects
+a candle-holder, rudely modelled out of clay. An examination of
+the brick-work in the interior of the "priest's hole" proves
+it to be of later construction than the rest of the house (which
+dates from the early part of the sixteenth century), so in all
+likelihood "Little John" was the manufacturer.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: At Moorcroft House, near Hillingdon, Middlesex,
+now modernised and occupied as a private lunatic asylum, ten
+priests were once concealed for four days in a hiding-place,
+the floor of which was covered some inches in water. This was
+one of the many comforts of a "priest's hole"!]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Standing in the same position as when first opened, and supported
+by two blocks of oak, is an old chest or packing-case made of
+yew, covered with leather, and bound with bands of iron, wherein
+formerly the vestments, utensils, etc., for the Mass were kept.
+Upon it, in faded and antiquated writing, was the following
+direction: "For the Right Hon. the Lady Petre at Ingatestone
+Hall, in Essex." The Petres had quitted the old mansion as a
+residence for considerably over a century when the discovery was
+made.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig017.jpg" width="575" height="358" alt="Fig. 17"><br>
+PRIEST'S HOLE, SAWSTON HALL
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap06">CHAPTER VI</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+COMPTON WINYATES, SALFORD PRIOR, SAWSTON, OXBURGH, PARHAM, PAXHILL,
+ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Of all the ancient mansions in the United Kingdom, and there is
+still, happily, a large selection, none perhaps is so picturesque and
+quaintly original in its architecture as the secluded Warwickshire
+house Compton Winyates. The general impression of its vast
+complication of gable ends and twisted chimneys is that some
+enchanted palace has found its way out of one of the fairy-tale
+books of our early youth and concealed itself deep down in a
+sequestered hollow among the woods and hills. We say concealed
+itself, for indeed it is no easy matter to find it, for anything
+in the shape of a road seems rather to lead <i>away from</i>,
+than <i>to</i> it; indeed, there is no direct road from anywhere,
+and if we are fortunate enough to alight upon a footpath, that
+also in a very short time fades away into oblivion! So solitary
+also is the valley in which the mansion lies and so shut in with
+thick clustering trees, that one unacquainted with the locality
+might pass within fifty yards of it over and over again without
+observing a trace of it. When, however, we do discover the beautiful
+old structure, we are well repaid for what trouble we may have
+encountered. To locate the spot within a couple of miles, we
+may state that Brailes is its nearest village; the nearest town
+is Banbury, some nine miles away to the east.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Perhaps if we were to analyse the peculiar charm this venerable
+pile conveys, we should find that it is the wonderful <i>colour</i>,
+the harmonies of greys and greens and reds which pervade its
+countless chimney clusters and curious step-gables. We will be
+content, however, with the fascinating results, no matter how
+accomplished, without inquiring into the why and wherefore; and
+pondering over the possibilities of the marvellous in such a
+building see, if the interior can carry out such a supposition.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig018.jpg" width="395" height="201" alt="Fig. 18"><br>
+SCOTNEY HALL, SUSSEX
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig019.jpg" width="408" height="344" alt="Fig. 19"><br>
+COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Wending our way to the top of the house, past countless old-world
+rooms and corridors, we soon discover evidences of the days of
+priest-hunting. A "Protestant" chapel is on the ground floor
+(with a grotesquely carved screen of great beauty), but up in
+the roof we discover another&mdash;a "Popish" chapel. From this there
+are numerous ways of escape, by staircases and passages leading
+in all directions, for even in the almost impenetrable seclusion
+of this house the profoundest secrecy was necessary for those
+who wished to celebrate the rites of the forbidden religion.
+Should the priest be surprised and not have time to descend one
+of the many staircases and effect his escape by the ready means
+in the lower part of the house, there are secret closets between
+the timber beams of the roof and the wainscot into which he could
+creep.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Curious rooms run along each side in the roof round the quadrangle,
+called "the barracks," into which it would be possible to pack
+away a whole regiment of soldiers. Not far away are "the false
+floors," a typical Amy Robsart death-trap!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A place of security here, once upon a time, could only be reached
+by a ladder; later, however, it was made easier of access by a
+dark passage, but it was as secure as ever from intrusion. The
+fugitive had the ready means of isolating himself by removing
+a large portion of the floor-boards; supposing, therefore, his
+lurking-place had been traced, he had only to arrange this deadly
+gap, and his pursuers would run headlong to their fate.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Many other strange rooms there are, not the least interesting
+of which is a tiny apartment away from everywhere called "the
+Devil's chamber," and another little chamber whose window is
+<i>invariably found open in the morning, though securely fastened
+on the previous night!</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Various finds have been made from time to time at Compton Winyates.
+Not many years ago a bricked-up space was found in a wall containing
+a perfect skeleton!&mdash;at another an antique box full of papers
+belonging to the past history of the family (the Comptons) was
+discovered in a secret cavity beneath one of the windows.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig020.jpg" width="371" height="403" alt="Fig. 20"><br>
+MINSTREL'S GALLERY, COMPTON WINYATES
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The "false floors" to which we have alluded suggests a hiding-place
+that was put to very practical use by two old maiden ladies some
+years ago at an ancient building near Malvern, Pickersleigh Court.
+Each night before retiring to rest some floor-boards of a passage,
+originally the entrance to a "priest's hole," were removed. This
+passage led to their bedroom, so that they were protected much in
+the same way as the fugitive at Compton Winyates, by a yawning
+gap. Local tradition does not record how many would-be burglars
+were trapped in this way, but it is certain that should anyone
+ever have ventured along that passage, they would have been
+precipitated with more speed than ceremony into a cellar below.
+Pickersleigh, it may be pointed out, is erroneously shown in
+connection with the wanderings of Charles II. after the battle
+Worcester.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See <i>The Flight of the King.</i>]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Salford Prior Hall (otherwise known as "the Nunnery," or Abbots
+Salford), not far from Evesham, is another mansion remarkable
+for its picturesqueness as well as for its capacity for hiding.
+It not only has its Roman Catholic chapel, but a resident priest
+holds services there to this day. Up in the garret is the "priest's
+hole," ready, it would seem, for some present emergency, so well
+is it concealed and in such perfect working order; and even when
+its position is pointed out, nothing is to be seen but the most
+innocent-looking of cupboards. By removing a hidden peg, however,
+the whole back of it, shelves and all, swings backwards into a
+dismal recess some four feet in depth. This deceitful swing door
+may be secured on the inside by a stout wooden bolt provided
+for that purpose.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig021.jpg" width="347" height="269" alt="Fig. 21"><br>
+COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig022.jpg" width="409" height="285" alt="Fig. 22"><br>
+SAWSTON HALL, CAMBRIDGESHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig023.jpg" width="411" height="348" alt="Fig. 23"><br>
+PICKERSLEIGH COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig024.jpg" width="416" height="328" alt="Fig. 24"><br>
+SALFORD PRIOR HALL, WARWICKSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig025.jpg" width="409" height="321" alt="Fig. 25"><br>
+SALFORD PRIOR HALL
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig026.jpg" width="409" height="330" alt="Fig. 26"><br>
+HIDING-PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig027.jpg" width="413" height="309" alt="Fig. 27"><br>
+HIDING-PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR (SHEWING ENTRANCE)
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Another hiding place as artfully contrived and as little changed
+since the day it was manufactured is one at Sawston, the ancestral
+seat of the old family of Huddleston. Sawston Hall is a typical
+Elizabethan building. The one which preceded it was burnt to the
+ground by the adherents of Lady Jane Grey, as the Huddleston
+of that day, upon the death of King Edward VI., received his
+sister Mary under his protection, and contrived her escape to
+Framlingham Castle, where she was carried in disguise, riding
+pillion behind a servant.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The secret chamber, as at Harvington, is on the top landing of
+the staircase, and the entrance is so cleverly arranged that
+it slants into the masonry of a circular tower without showing
+the least perceptible sign from the exterior of a space capable
+of holding a baby, far less a man. A particular board in the
+landing is raised, and beneath it, in a corner of the cavity,
+is found a stone slab containing a circular aperture, something
+after the manner of our modern urban receptacles for coal. From
+this hole a tunnel slants downwards at an angle into the adjacent
+wall, where there is an apartment some twelve feet in depth,
+and wide enough to contain half a dozen people&mdash;that is to say,
+not bulky ones, for the circular entrance is far from large.
+Blocks of oak fixed upon the inside of the movable floor-board
+fit with great nicety into their firm oak sockets in the beams,
+which run at right angles and support the landing, so that the
+opening is so massive and firm that, unless pointed out, the
+particular floor-board could never be detected, and when secured
+from the inside would defy a battering-ram.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig028.jpg" width="438" height="582" alt="Fig. 28"><br>
+OXBURGH HALL, NORFOLK
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The Huddlestons, or rather their connections the Thornboroughs,
+have an old house at Leyburn, in Yorkshire, named "The Grove,"
+which also contained its hiding-place, but unfortunately this is
+one of those instances where alterations and modern conveniences
+have destroyed what can never be replaced. The priest, Father
+John Huddleston (who aided King Charles II. to escape, and who,
+it will be remembered, was introduced to that monarch's death-bed
+by way of a <i>secret staircase</i> in the palace of Whitehall),
+lived in this house some time during the seventeenth century.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+One of the most ingenious hiding-places extant is to be seen
+at Oxburgh Hall, near Stoke Ferry, the grand old moated mansion
+of the ancient Bedingfield family. In solidity and compactness
+it is unique. Up in one of the turrets of the entrance gateway
+is a tiny closet, the floor of which is composed of brickwork
+fixed into a wooden frame. Upon pressure being applied to one
+side of this floor, the opposite side heaves up with a groan at
+its own weight. Beneath lies a hollow, seven feet square, where
+a priest might lie concealed with the gratifying knowledge that,
+however the ponderous trap-door be hammered from above, there
+would be no tell-tale hollowness as a response. Having bolted
+himself in, he might to all intents and purposes be imbedded in
+a rock (though truly a toad so situated is not always safe from
+intrusion). Three centuries have rolled away and thirteen sovereigns
+have reigned since the construction of this hiding-place, but the
+mechanism of this masterpiece of ingenuity remains as perfect
+as if it had been made yesterday! Those who may be privileged
+with permission to inspect the interesting hall will find other
+surprises where least expected. An oak-panelled passage upon the
+basement of the aforesaid entrance gateway contains a secret
+door that gives admittance into the living-rooms in the most
+eccentric manner.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A priest's hole beneath the floor of a small oratory adjoining
+"the chapel" (now a bedroom) at Borwick Hall, Lancashire, has an
+opening devised much in the same fashion as that at Oxburgh. By
+leaning his weight upon a certain portion of the boards, a fugitive
+could slide into a convenient gap, while the floor would adjust
+itself above his head and leave no trace of his where-abouts.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig029.jpg" width="590" height="342" alt="Fig. 29"><br>
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, PARHAM HALL, SUSSEX
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Window-seats not uncommonly formed the entrance to holes beneath
+the level of the floor. In the long gallery of Parham Hall, Sussex,
+an example of this may be seen. It is not far from "the chapel,"
+and the officiating priest in this instance would withdraw a
+panel whose position is now occupied by a door; but the entrance
+to the hiding-place within the projecting bay of the window is
+much the same as it ever was. After the failure of the Babington
+conspiracy one Charles Paget was concealed here for some days.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The Tudor house of Tusmore, in Oxfordshire, also had a secret
+chamber, approached through a fixed settle in "the parlour" window.
+A tradition in the neighbourhood says that the great fish-pond
+near the site of the old house was dug by a priest and his servant
+in the days of religious persecution, constituting their daily
+occupation for twelve years!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Paxhill, in Sussex, the ancient seat of the Bordes, has a priest's
+hole behind a window-shutter, and it is large enough to hold several
+persons; there is another large hiding-hole in the ceiling of a
+room on the ground floor, which is reached through a trap-door
+in the floor above. It is provided with a stone bench.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In castles and even ecclesiastical buildings sections of massive
+stone columns have been found to rotate and reveal a hole in an
+adjacent wall&mdash;even an altar has occasionally been put to use
+for concealing purposes. At Naworth Castle, for instance, in
+"Lord William's Tower," there is an oratory behind the altar, in
+which fugitives not only could be hidden but could see anything
+that transpired in its vicinity. In Chichester Cathedral there is
+a room called Lollards' Prison, which is approached by a sliding
+panel in the old consistory-room situated over the south porch.
+The manor house of Great Chalfield, in Wiltshire, has a unique
+device by which any suspected person could be watched. The eye
+of a stone mask in the masonry is hollowed out and through this
+a suspicious lord of the manor could, unseen, be a witness to
+any treachery on the part of his retainers or guests.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig030.jpg" width="416" height="279" alt="Fig. 30"><br>
+PAXHILL, SUSSEX
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig031.jpg" width="401" height="306" alt="Fig. 31"><br>
+CLEEVE PRIOR MANOR HOUSE, WORCESTERSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The old moated hall Baddesley Clinton, in Warwickshire, the ancient
+seat of the Ferrers, has a stone well or shaft near "the chapel."
+There were formerly projections or steps by which a fugitive
+could reach a secret passage extending round nearly two sides
+of the house to a small water-gate by the moat, where a boat
+was kept in readiness. Adjoining the "banqueting-room" on the
+east side of the building is a secret chamber six feet square
+with a bench all round it. It is now walled up, but the narrow
+staircase, behind the wainscoting, leading up to it is unaltered.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Cleeve Prior Manor House, in Worcestershire (though close upon
+the border of Warwickshire)) famous for its unique yew avenue,
+has a priest's hole, a cramped space five feet by two, in which
+it is necessary to lie down. As at Ingatestone, it is below the
+floor of a small chamber adjoining the principal bedroom, and
+is entered by removing one of the floor-boards.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Wollas Hall, an Elizabethan mansion on Bredon Hill, near Pershore
+(held uninterruptedly by the Hanford family since the sixteenth
+century), has a chapel in the upper part of the house, and a
+secret chamber, or priest's hole, provided with a diminutive
+fire-place. When the officiating priest was about to celebrate
+Mass, it was the custom here to spread linen upon the hedges as
+a sign to those in the adjacent villages who wished to attend.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A hiding-place at Treago, Herefordshire (an unique specimen of
+a thirteenth-century fortified mansion) inhabited by the Mynor
+family for more than four hundred years), has quite luxurious
+accommodation&mdash;a sleeping-place and a reading-desk. It is called
+"Pope's Hole." The walls on the south-east side of the house are
+of immense thickness, and there are many indications of secret
+passages within them.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig032.jpg" width="363" height="456" alt="Fig. 32"><br>
+BADDESLEY CLINTON, WARWICKSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Some fifty years ago a hiding-hole was opened in a chimney adjoining
+"the chapel" of Lydiate Hall, Lancashire; and since then one
+was discovered behind the rafters of the roof. Another ancient
+house close by contained a priest's hole where were found some
+religious books and an old carved oak chair.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Myddleton Lodge, near Ilkley, had a secret chapel in the roof,
+which is now divided up into several apartments. In the grounds
+is to be seen a curious maze of thickly planted evergreens in
+the shape of a cross. From the fact that at one end remain three
+wooden crosses, there is but little doubt that at the time of
+religious persecution the privacy of the maze was used for secret
+worship.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When Slindon House, Sussex, was undergoing some restorations, a
+"priest's hole" communicating with the roof was discovered. It
+contained some ancient devotional books, and against the walls
+were hung stout leathern straps, by which a person could let
+himself down.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The internal arrangements at Plowden Hall, Shropshire, give one
+a good idea of the feeling of insecurity that must have been
+so prevalent in those "good old days." Running from the top of
+the house there is in the thickness of the wall, a concealed
+circular shoot about a couple of feet in diameter, through which
+a person could lower himself, if necessary, to the ground floor
+by the aid of a rope. Here also, beneath the floor-boards of a
+cupboard in one of the bedrooms, is a concealed chamber with a
+fixed shelf, presumably provided to act as a sort of table for
+the unfortunate individual who was forced to occupy the narrow
+limits of the room. Years before this hiding-place was opened
+to the light of day (in the course of some alterations to the
+house), its existence and actual position was well known; still,
+strange to say, the way into it had never been discovered.
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap07">CHAPTER VII</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+KING-HUNTING: BOSCOBEL, MOSELEY, TRENT, AND HEALE
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When the Civil War was raging, many a defeated cavalier owed
+his preservation to the "priests' holes" and secret chambers
+of the old Roman Catholic houses all over the country. Did not
+Charles II. himself owe his life to the conveniences offered
+at Boscobel, Moseley, Trent, and Heale? We have elsewhere[1]
+gone minutely into the young king's hair-breadth adventures;
+but the story is so closely connected with the present subject
+that we must record something of his sojourn at these four old
+houses, as from an historical point of view they are of exceptional
+interest, if one but considers how the order of things would have
+been changed had either of these hiding-places been discovered
+at the time "his Sacred Majesty" occupied them. It is vain to
+speculate upon the probabilities; still, there is no ignoring
+the fact that had Charles been captured he would have shared
+the fate of his father.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See <i>The Flight of the King</i>.]
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig033.jpg" width="429" height="663" alt="Fig. 33"><br>
+HIDING-PLACE BENEATH "THE CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL, SALOP
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig034.jpg" width="237" height="409" alt="Fig. 34"><br>
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE IN "THE GARRET" OR "CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig035.jpg" width="228" height="411" alt="Fig. 35"><br>
+HIDING-PLACE IN "THE SQUIRE'S BEDROOM," BOSCOBEL
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig036.jpg" width="398" height="354" alt="Fig. 36"><br>
+SECRET PANEL, TRENT HOUSE, SOMERSETSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig037.jpg" width="380" height="291" alt="Fig. 37"><br>
+BOSCOBEL, SALOP
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig038.jpg" width="266" height="415" alt="Fig. 38"><br>
+HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig039.jpg" width="411" height="373" alt="Fig. 39"><br>
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig040.jpg" width="413" height="282" alt="Fig. 40"><br>
+TRENT HOUSE IN 1864
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig041.jpg" width="415" height="334" alt="Fig. 41"><br>
+HEALE HOUSE, WILTSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+After the defeat of Wigan, the gallant Earl of Derby sought refuge
+at the isolated, wood-surrounded hunting-lodge of Boscobel, and
+after remaining there concealed for two days, proceeded to Gatacre
+Park, now rebuilt, but then and for long after famous for its
+secret chambers. Here he remained hidden prior to the disastrous
+battle of Worcester.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Upon the close of that eventful third of September, 1651, the
+Earl, at the time that the King and his advisers knew not which
+way to turn for safety, recounted his recent experiences, and
+called attention to the loyalty of the brothers Penderel. It
+was speedily resolved, therefore, to hasten northwards towards
+Brewood Forest, upon the borders of Staffordshire and Salop.
+"As soon as I was disguised," says Charles, "I took with me a
+country fellow whose name was Richard Penderell.... He was a
+Roman Catholic, and I chose to trust them [the Penderells] because
+I knew they had hiding-holes for priests that I thought I might
+make use of in case of need." Before taking up his quarters in
+the house, however, the idea of escaping into Wales occured to
+Charles, so, when night set in, he quitted Boscobel Wood, where
+he had been hidden all the day, and started on foot with his
+rustic guide in a westerly direction with the object of getting
+over the river Severn, but various hardships and obstacles induced
+Penderel to suggest a halt at a house at Madeley, near the river,
+where they might rest during the day and continue the journey
+under cover of darkness on the following night; the house further
+had the attraction of "priests' holes." "We continued our way on
+to the village upon the Severn," resumes the King, "where the
+fellow told me there was an honest gentleman, one Mr. Woolfe,
+that lived in that town, where I might be with great safety, for
+he had hiding-holes for priests.... So I came into the house a
+back way, where I found Mr. Woolfe, an old gentleman, who told me
+he was very sorry to see me there, because there was two companies
+of the militia foot at that time in arms in the town, and kept a
+guard at the ferry, to examine everybody that came that way in
+expectation of catching some that might be making their escape
+that way; and that he durst not put me into any of the hiding-holes
+of his house, because they had been discovered, and consequently,
+if any search should be made, they would certainly repair to
+these holes, and that therefore I had no other way of security
+but to go into his barn and there lie behind his corn and hay."
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig042.jpg" width="416" height="246" alt="Fig. 42"><br>
+MADELEY COURT, SHROPSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig043.jpg" width="413" height="347" alt="Fig. 43"><br>
+THE COURTYARD, MADELEY COURT
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig044.jpg" width="413" height="292" alt="Fig. 44"><br>
+MADELEY COURT
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig045.jpg" width="408" height="391" alt="Fig. 45"><br>
+ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," THE UPPER HOUSE, MADELEY
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The Madeley "priest's hole" which was considered unsafe is still
+extant. It is in one of the attics of "the Upper House," but
+the entrance is now very palpable. Those who are curious enough
+to climb up into this black hole will discover a rude wooden
+bench within it&mdash;a luxury compared with some hiding-places!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The river Severn being strictly guarded everywhere, Charles and
+his companions retraced their steps the next night towards Boscobel.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+After a day spent up in the branches of the famous <i>Royal Oak</i>,
+the fugitive monarch made his resting-place the secret chamber
+behind the wainscoting of what is called "the Squire's Bedroom."
+There is another hiding-place, however, hard by in a garret which
+may have been the one selected. The latter lies beneath the floor
+of this garret, or "Popish chapel," as it was once termed. At the
+top of a flight of steps leading to it is a small trap-door, and
+when this is removed a step-ladder may be seen leading down into
+the recess.[1] The other place behind the wainscot is situated
+in a chimney stack and is more roomy in its proportions. Here
+again is an inner hiding-place, entered through a trap-door in
+the floor, with a narrow staircase leading to an exit in the
+basement. So much for Boscobel.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: The hiding-place in the garret measures about 5 feet
+2 inches in depth by 3-1/2 or 4-1/2 feet in width.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Moseley Hall is thus referred to by the King: "I... sent Penderell's
+brother to Mr. Pitchcroft's [Whitgreaves] to know whether my
+Lord Wilmot was there or no, and had word brought me by him at
+night that my lord was there, that there was a <i>very secure
+hiding-hole</i> in Mr. Pitchcroft's house, and that he desired
+me to come thither to him."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It was while at Moseley the King had a very narrow escape. A
+search-party arrived on the scene and demanded admittance. Charles's
+host himself gives the account of this adventure: "In the afternoon
+[the King] reposing himself on his bed in the parlour chamber
+and inclineing to sleep, as I was watching at the window, one of
+the neighbours I saw come running in, who told the maid soldiers
+were comeing to search, who thereupon presentlie came running to
+the staires head, and cried, 'Soldiers, soldiers are coming,'
+which his majestie hearing presentlie started out of his bedd and
+run to <i>his privacie, where I secured him the best I could</i>,
+and then leaving him, went forth into the street to meet the
+soldiers who were comeing to search, who as soon as they saw
+and knew who I was were readie to pull mee to pieces, and take
+me away with them, saying I was come from the Worcester fight;
+but after much dispute with them, and by the neighbours being
+informed of their false information that I was not there, being
+very ill a great while, they let mee goe; but till I saw them
+clearly all gone forth of the town I returned not; but as soon
+as they were, I returned to release him and did acquaint him
+with my stay, which hee thought long, and then hee began to bee
+very chearful again.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"In the interim, whilst I was disputing with the soldiers, one
+of them called Southall came in the ffould and asked a smith,
+as hee was shooing horses there, if he could tell where the King
+was, and he should have "a thousand pounds for his payns....
+This Southall was a great priest-catcher.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig046.jpg" width="391" height="637" alt="Fig. 46"><br>
+"PRIEST'S HOLE," MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The hiding-place is located beneath the floor of a cupboard,
+adjoining the quaint old panelled bedroom the King occupied while
+he was at Moseley. Even "the merry monarch" must have felt depressed
+in such a dismal hole as this, and we can picture his anxious
+expression, as he sat upon the rude seat of brick which occupies
+one end of it, awaiting the result of the sudden alarm. The cupboard
+orginally was screened with wainscoting, a panel of which could
+be opened and closed by a spring. Family tradition also says
+there was a outlet from the hiding-place in a brew-house chimney.
+Situated in a gable end of the building, near the old chapel,
+in a garret, there is another "priest's hole" large enough only
+to admit of a person lying down full length.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Before the old seat of the Whitgreaves was restored some fifteen
+or twenty years ago it was one of the most picturesque half-timber
+houses, not only in Staffordshire, but in England. It had remained
+practically untouched since the day above alluded to (September
+9th, 1651).
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Before reaching Trent, in Somersetshire, the much sought-for king
+had many hardships to undergo and many strange experiences. We
+must, however, confine our remarks to those of the old buildings
+which offered him an asylum that could boast a hiding-place.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Trent House was one of these. The very fact that it originally
+belonged to the recusant Gerard family is sufficient evidence.
+From the Gerards it passed by marriage to the Wyndhams, who were
+in residence in the year we speak of. That his Majesty spent much
+of his time in the actual hiding-place at Trent is very doubtful.
+Altogether he was safely housed here for over a fortnight, and
+during that time doubtless occasional alarms drove him, as at
+Moseley, into his sanctuary; but a secluded room was set apart
+for his use, where he had ample space to move about, and from
+which he could reach his hiding-place at a moment's notice. The
+black oak panelling and beams of this cosy apartment, with its
+deep window recesses, readily carries the mind back to the time
+when its royal inmate wiled away the weary hours by cooking his
+meals and amusing himself as best he could&mdash;indeed a hardship
+for one, such as he, so fond of outdoor exercise.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Close to the fireplace are two small, square secret panels, at one
+time used for the secretion of sacred books or vessels, valuables
+or compromising deeds, but pointed out to visitors as a kind of
+buttery hatch through which Charles II. received his food. The
+King by day, also according to local tradition, is said to have
+kept up communication with his friends in the house by means
+of a string suspended in the kitchen chimney. That apartment is
+immediately beneath, and has a fireplace of huge dimensions.
+An old Tudor doorway leading into this part of the house is said
+to have been screened from observation by a load of hay.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Now for the hiding-place. Between this and "my Lady Wyndham's
+chamber" (the aforesaid panelled room that was kept exclusively
+for Charles's use) was a small ante-room, long since demolished,
+its position being now occupied by a rudely constructed staircase,
+from the landing of which the hiding-place is now entered. The
+small secret apartment is approached through a triangular hole
+in the wall, something after the fashion of that at Ufton Court;
+but when one has squeezed through this aperture he will find
+plenty of room to stretch his limbs. The hole, which was close
+up against the rafters of the roof of the staircase landing,
+when viewed from the inside of the apartment, is situated at the
+base of a blocked-up stone Tudor doorway. Beneath the boards of
+the floor&mdash;as at Boscobel and Moseley&mdash;is an inner hiding-place,
+from which it was formerly possible to find an exit through the
+brew-house chimney.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It was from Trent House that Charles visited the Dorsetshire
+coast in the hopes of getting clear of England; but a complication
+of misadventures induced him to hasten back with all speed to
+the pretty little village of Trent, to seek once, more shelter
+beneath the roof of the Royalist Colonel Wyndham.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+To resume the King's account:&mdash;
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"As soon as we came to Frank Windham's I sent away presently to
+Colonel Robert Philips [Phelips], who lived then at Salisbury, to
+see what he could do for the getting me a ship; which he undertook
+very willingly, and had got one at Southampton, but by misfortune
+she was amongst others prest to transport their soldiers to Jersey,
+by which she failed us also.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"Upon this, I sent further into Sussex, where Robin Philips knew
+one Colonel Gunter, to see whether he could hire a ship anywhere
+upon that coast. And not thinking it convenient for me to stay
+much longer at Frank Windham's (where I had been in all about a
+fortnight, and was become known to very many), I went directly
+away to a widow gentlewoman's house, one Mrs. Hyde, some four
+or five miles from Salisbury, where I came into the house just
+as it was almost dark, with Robin Philips only, not intending
+at first to make myself known. But just as I alighted at the
+door, Mrs. Hyde knew me, though she had never seen me but once
+in her life, and that was with the king, my father, in the army,
+when we marched by Salisbury some years before, in the time of
+the war; but she, being a discreet woman, took no notice at that
+time of me, I passing only for a friend of Robin Philips', by
+whose advice I went thither.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"At supper there was with us Frederick Hyde, since a judge, and
+his sister-in-law, a widow, Robin Philips, myself, and Dr. Henshaw
+[Henchman], since Bishop of London, whom I had appointed to meet
+me there.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"While we were at slipper, I observed Mrs. Hyde and her brother
+Frederick to look a little earnestly at me, which led me to believe
+they might know me. But I was not at all startled by it, it having
+been my purpose to let her know who I was; and, accordingly,
+after supper Mrs. Hyde came to me, and I discovered myself to
+her, who told me she had a very safe place to hide me in, till
+we knew whether our ship was ready or no. But she said it was
+not safe for her to trust anybody but herself and her sister,
+and therefore advised me to take my horse next morning and make
+as if I quitted the house, and return again about night; for she
+would order it so that all her servants and everybody should
+be out of the house but herself and her sister, whose name I
+remember not.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"So Robin Philips and I took our horses and went as far as
+Stonehenge; and there we staid looking upon the stones for some
+time, and returned back again to Hale [Heale] (the place where
+Mrs. Hyde lived) about the hour she appointed; where I went up
+into the hiding-hole, that was very convenient and safe, and
+staid there all alone (Robin Philips then going away to Salisbury)
+some four or five days."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Both exterior and interior of Heale House as it stands to-day
+point to a later date than 1651, though there are here and there
+vestiges of architecture anterior to the middle of the seventeenth
+century; the hiding-place, however, is not among these, and looks
+nothing beyond a very deep cupboard adjoining one of the bedrooms,
+with nothing peculiar to distinguish it from ordinary cupboards.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But for all its modern innovations there is something about Heale
+which suggests a house with a history. Whether it is its environment
+of winding river and ancient cedar-trees, its venerable stables
+and imposing entrance gate, or the fact that it is one of those
+distinguished houses that have saved the life of an English king,
+we will not undertake to fathom.
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap08">CHAPTER VIII</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+CAVALIER-HUNTING, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+An old mansion in the precincts of the cathedral at Salisbury is
+said to have been a favourite hiding-place for fugitive cavaliers
+at the time of the Civil War. There is an inn immediately opposite
+this house, just outside the close, where the landlord (formerly a
+servant to the family who lived in the mansion) during the troublous
+times acted as a secret agent for those who were concealed, and
+proved invaluable by conveying messages and in other ways aiding
+those Royalists whose lives were in danger.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig047.jpg" width="403" height="515" alt="Fig. 47"><br>
+SECRET PANEL AT SALISBURY
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+There are still certain "priests' holes" in the house, but the most
+interesting hiding-place is situated in the most innocent-looking
+of summer-houses in the grounds. The interior of this little
+structure is wainscoted round with large panels. like most of
+the summer-houses, pavilions, or music-rooms of the seventeenth
+century, and nothing uncommon or mysterious was discovered until
+some twenty-five years ago. By the merest accident one of the
+panels was found to open, revealing what appeared to be an ordinary
+cupboard with shelves. Further investigations, however, proved
+its real object. By sliding one of the shelves out of the grooves
+into which it is fixed, a very narrow, disguised door, a little
+over a foot in width, in the side of the cupboard and in the
+thickness of the wall can be opened. This again reveals a narrow
+passage, or staircase, leading up to the joists above the ceiling,
+and thence to a recess situated immediately behind the carved
+ornamental facing over the entrance door of the summer-house.
+In this there is a narrow chink or peep-hole, from which the
+fugitive could keep on the look-out either for danger or for the
+friendly Royalist agent of the "King's Arms."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When it was first discovered there were evidences of its last
+occupant&mdash;<i>viz.</i> a Jacobean horn tumbler, a mattress, and a
+handsomely worked velvet pillow; the last two articles, provided
+no doubt for the comfort of some hunted cavalier, upon being
+handled, fell to pieces. It may be mentioned that the inner door
+of the cupboard can be securely fastened from the inside by an
+iron hook and staple for that purpose.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Hewitt, mine host of the "King's Arms," was not idle at the time
+transactions were in progress to transfer Charles II. from Trent
+to Heale, and received within his house Lord Wilmot, Colonel
+Phelips, and other of the King's friends who were actively engaged
+in making preparations for the memorable journey. This old inn,
+with its oak-panelled rooms and rambling corridors, makes a very
+suitable neighbour to the more dignified old brick mansion opposite,
+with which it is so closely associated.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig048.jpg" width="279" height="408" alt="Fig. 48"><br>
+SECRET CHAMBER, CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig049.jpg" width="391" height="304" alt="Fig. 49"><br>
+OLD SUMMER HOUSE, SALISBURY (SHEWING CARVING IN WHICH IS A PEEP-HOLE
+FOR HIDING-PLACE BEHIND)
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Many are the exciting stories related of the defeated Royalists,
+especially after the Worcester fight. One of them, Lord Talbot,
+hastened to his paternal home of Longford, near Newport (Salop),
+and had just time to conceal himself ere his pursuers arrived,
+who, finding his horse saddled, concluded that the rider could
+not be far off. They therefore searched the house minutely for
+four or five days, and the fugitive would have perished for want
+of food, had not one of the servants contrived, at great personal
+risk, to pay him nocturnal visits and supply him with nourishment.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The grey old Jacobean mansion Chastleton preserves in its
+oak-panelled hall the sword and portrait of the gallant cavalier
+Captain Arthur Jones, who, narrowly escaping from the battlefield,
+speeded homewards with some of Cromwell's soldiers at his heels;
+and his wife, a lady of great courage, had scarcely concealed
+him in the secret chamber when the enemy arrived to search the
+house.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Little daunted, the lady, with great presence of mind, made no
+objection whatever&mdash;indeed, facilitated their operations by
+personally conducting them over the mansion. Here, as in so many
+other instances, the secret room was entered from the principal
+bedroom, and in inspecting the latter the suspicion of the Roundheads
+was in some way or another aroused, so here they determined to
+remain for the rest of the night.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+An ample supper and a good store of wine (which, by the way, had
+been carefully drugged) was sent up to the unwelcome visitors,
+and in due course the drink effected its purpose&mdash;its victims
+dropped off one by one, until the whole party lay like logs upon
+the floor. Mrs. Arthur Jones then crept in, having even to step
+over the bodies of the inanimate Roundheads, released her husband,
+and a fresh horse being in readiness, by the time the effects
+of the wine had worn off the Royalist captain was far beyond
+their reach.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The secret room is located in the front of the building, and has
+now been converted into a very, comfortable little dressing-room,
+preserving its original oak panelling, and otherwise but little
+altered, with the exception of the entry to it, which is now
+an ordinary door.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Chastleton is the beau ideal of an ancestral hall. The grand
+old gabled house, with its lofty square towers, its Jacobean
+entrance gateway and dovecote, and the fantastically clipped
+box-trees and sun-dial of its quaint old-fashioned garden, possesses
+a charm which few other ancient mansions can boast, and this
+charm lies in its perfectly unaltered state throughout, even
+to the minutest detail. Interior and exterior alike, everything
+presents an appearance exactly as it did when it was erected
+and furnished by Walter Jones, Esquire, between the years 1603
+and 1630. The estate originally was held by Robert Catesby, who
+sold the house to provide funds for carrying on the notorious
+conspiracy.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Among its most valued relics is a Bible given by Charles I. when
+on the scaffold to Bishop Juxon, who lived at Little Compton manor
+house, near Chastleton. This Bible was always used by the bishop
+at the Divine services, which at one time were held in the great
+hall of the latter house. Other relics of the martyr-king used
+to be at Little Compton&mdash;<i>viz.</i> some beams of the Whitehall
+scaffold, whose exact position has occasioned so much controversy.
+The velvet armchair and footstool used by the King during his
+memorable trial were also preserved here, but of late years have
+found a home at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, some six miles away. Visitors
+to that interesting collection shown in London some years ago&mdash;the
+Stuart Exhibition&mdash;may remember this venerable armchair of such
+sad association.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig050.jpg" width="358" height="269" alt="Fig. 50"><br>
+CHASTLETON
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig051.jpg" width="409" height="411" alt="Fig. 51"><br>
+ENTRANCE DOOR, CHASTLETON
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It may be here stated that after Charles I.'s execution, Juxon
+lived for a time in Sussex at an old mansion still extant, Albourne
+Place, not far from Hurstpierpoint. We mention this from the
+fact that a priest's hole was discovered there some few years
+ago. It was found in opening a communication between two rooms,
+and originally it could only be reached by steps projecting from
+the inner walls of a chimney.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Not many miles from Albourne stands Street Place, an Elizabethan
+Sussex house of some note. A remarkable story of cavalier-hunting
+is told here. A hiding-place is said to have existed in the wide
+open fireplace of the great hall. Tradition has it that a horseman,
+hard pressed by the Parliamentary troopers, galloped into this
+hall, but upon the arrival of his pursuers, no clue could be
+found of either man or horse!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The gallant Prince Rupert himself, upon one occasion, is said
+to have had recourse to a hiding hole, at least so the story
+runs, at the beautiful old black-and-white timber mansion, Park
+Hall, near Oswestry. A certain "false floor" which led to it is
+pointed out in a cupboard of a bedroom, the hiding-place itself
+being situated immediately above the dining-room fireplace.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A concealed chamber something after the same description is to
+be seen at the old seat of the Fenwicks, Wallington, in
+Northumberland&mdash;a small room eight feet long by sixteen feet high,
+situated at the back of the dining-room fireplace, and approached
+through the back of a cupboard.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Behind one of the large panels of "the hall" of an old building
+in Warwick called St. John's Hospital is a hiding-place, and in
+a bedroom of the same house there is a little apartment, now
+converted into a dressing-room, which formerly could only be
+reached through a sliding panel over the fireplace.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The manor house of Dinsdale-on-Tees, Durham, has another example,
+but to reach it it is necessary to pass through a trap-door in
+the attics, crawl along under the roof, and drop down into the,
+space in the wall behind a bedroom fireplace, where for extra
+security there is a second trap-door.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig052.jpg" width="407" height="312" alt="Fig. 52"><br>
+BROUGHTON HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig053.jpg" width="403" height="307" alt="Fig. 53"><br>
+ST. JOHN'S HOSPITAL, WARWICK
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Full-length panel portraits of the Salwey family at Stanford Court,
+Worcestershire (unfortunately burned down in 1882), concealed hidden
+recesses and screened passages leading up to an exit in the leads
+of the roof. In one of these recesses curious seventeenth-century
+manuscripts were found, among them, the household book of a certain
+"Joyce Jeffereys" during the Civil War.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The old Jacobean mansion Broughton Hall, Staffordshire, had a
+curious hiding-hole over a fireplace and situated in the wall
+between the dining-room and the great hall; over its entrance
+used to hang a portrait of a man in antique costume which went
+by the name of "Red Stockings."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+At Lyme Hall, Cheshire, the ancient seat of the Leghs, high up
+in the wall of the hall is a sombre portrait which by ingenious
+mechanism swings out of its frame, a fixture, and gives admittance
+to a room on the first floor, or rather affords a means of looking
+down into the hall.[1] We mention this portrait more especially
+because it has been supposed that Scott got his idea here of
+the ghostly picture which figures in <i>Woodstock</i>. A
+<i>bon&acirc;-fide</i> hiding-place, however, is to be seen in another
+part of the mansion in a very haunted-looking bedroom called "the
+Knight's Chamber," entered through a trap-door in the floor of
+a cupboard, with a short flight of steps leading into it.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: A large panel in the long gallery of Hatfield can be
+pushed aside, giving a view into the great hall, and at Ockwells
+and other ancient mansions this device may also be seen.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Referring to Scott's novel, a word may be said about Fair Rosamond's
+famous "bower" at the old palace of Woodstock, surely the most
+elaborate and complicated hiding-place ever devised. The ruins
+of the labyrinth leading to the "bower" existed in Drayton's
+time, who described them as "vaults, arched and walled with stone
+and brick, almost inextricably wound within one another, by which,
+if at any time her [Rosamond's] lodging were laid about by the
+Queen, she might easily avoid peril imminent, and, if need be, by
+secret issues take the air abroad many furlongs about Woodstock."
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig054.jpg" width="331" height="429" alt="Fig. 54"><br>
+STAIRCASE, BROUGHTON HALL
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In a survey taken in 1660, it is stated that foundation signs
+remained about a bow-shot southwest of the gate: "<i>The form
+and circuit both of the place and ruins show it to have been a
+house of one pile, and probably was filled with secret places
+of recess and avenues to hide or convey away such persons as
+were not willing to be found if narrowly sought after.</i>"
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Ghostly gambols, such as those actually practised upon the
+Parliamentary Commissioners at the old palace of Woodstock, were
+for years carried on without detection by the servants at the old
+house of Hinton-Ampner, Hampshire; and when it was pulled down
+in the year 1797, it became very obvious how the mysteries, which
+gave the house the reputation of being haunted, were managed,
+for numerous secret stairs and passages, not known to exist were
+brought to light which had offered peculiar facilities for the
+deception. About the middle of the eighteenth century the mansion
+passed out of the hands of its old possessors, the Stewkeleys,
+and shortly afterwards became notorious for the unaccountable
+noises which disturbed the peace of mind of the new tenants.
+Not only were there violent knocks, hammerings, groanings, and
+sounds of footsteps in the ceilings and walls, out strange sights
+frightened the servants out of their wits. A ghostly visitant
+dressed in drab would appear and disappear mysteriously, a female
+figure was often seen to rush through the apartments, and other
+supernatural occurrences at length became so intolerable that the
+inmates of the house sought refuge in flight. Later successive
+tenants fared the same. A hundred pounds reward was offered to
+any who should run the ghosts to earth; but nothing resulted
+from it, and after thirty years or more of hauntings, the house
+was razed to the ground. Secret passages and chambers were then
+brought to light; but those who had carried on the deception
+for so long took the secret with them to their graves.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: A full account of the supernatural occurrences at
+Hinton-Ampner will be found in the Life of Richard Barham.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It is well known that the huge, carved oak bedsteads of the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries were often provided with secret
+accommodation for valuables. One particular instance we can call
+to mind of a hidden cupboard at the base of the bedpost which
+contained a short rapier. But of these small hiding-places we
+shall speak presently. It is with the head of the bed we have
+now to do, as it was sometimes used as an opening into the wall
+at the back. Occasionally, in old houses, unmeaning gaps and
+spaces are met with in the upper rooms midway between floor and
+ceiling, which possibly at one time were used as bed-head
+hiding-places. Shipton Court, Oxon, and Hill Hall, Essex, may
+be given as examples. Dunster Castle, Somersetshire, also, has
+at the back of a bedstead in one of the rooms a long, narrow
+place of concealment, extending the width of the apartment, and
+provided with a stone seat.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Sir Ralph Verney, while in exile in France in 1645, wrote to his
+brother at Claydon House, Buckinghamshire, concerning "the odd
+things in the room my mother kept herself&mdash;<i>the iron chest in
+the little room between her bed's-head and the back stairs.</i>"
+This old seat of the Verneys had another secret chamber in the
+middle storey, entered through a trap-door in "the muniment-room"
+at the top of the house. Here also was a small private staircase
+in the wall, possibly the "back stairs" mentioned in Sir Ralph's
+letters.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See <i>Memoirs of the Verney Family.</i>]
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig055.jpg" width="402" height="352" alt="Fig. 55"><br>
+SHIPTON COURT, OXFORDSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig056.jpg" width="405" height="311" alt="Fig. 56"><br>
+BROUGHTON CASTLE, OXFORDSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Before the breaking out of the Civil War, Hampden, Pym, Lord
+Brooke, and other of the Parliamentary leaders, held secret meetings
+at Broughton Castle, oxon, the seat of Lord Saye and Sele, to
+organise a resistance to the arbitrary measures of the king. In
+this beautiful old fortified and moated mansion the secret stairs
+may yet be seen that led up to the little isolated chamber, with
+massive casemated walls for the exclusion of sound. Anthony Wood,
+alluding to the secret councils, says: "Several years before the
+Civil War began, Lord Saye, being looked upon as the godfather
+of that party, had meetings of them in his house at Broughton,
+where was a room and passage thereunto which his servants were
+prohibited to come near."[1] There is also a hiding-hole behind
+a window shutter in the wall of a corridor, with an air-hole
+ingeniously devised in the masonry.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: <i>Memorials of Hampden.</i>]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The old dower-house of Fawsley, not many miles to the north-east
+of Broughton, in the adjoining county of Northamptonshire, had
+a secret room over the hall, where a private press was kept for
+the purpose of printing political tracts at this time, when the
+country was working up into a state of turmoil.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When the regicides were being hunted out in the early part of
+Charles II.'s reign, Judge Mayne[1] secreted himself at his house,
+Dinton Hall, Bucks, but eventually gave himself up. The hiding-hole
+at Dinton was beneath the staircase, and accessible by removing
+three of the steps. A narrow passage which led from it to a space
+behind the beams of the roof had its sides or walls thickly lined
+with cloth, so as to muffle all sound.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: There is a tradition that it was a servant of Mayne
+who acted as Charles I.'s executioner.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Bradshawe Hall, in north-west Derbyshire (once the seat of the
+family of that name of which the notorious President was a member),
+has or had a concealed chamber high up in the wall of a room on
+the ground floor which was capable of holding three persons.
+Of course tradition says the "wicked judge was hidden here."
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig057.jpg" width="411" height="545" alt="Fig. 57"><br>
+ENTRANCE GATE, BRADSHAWE HALL, DERBYSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The regicides Colonels Whalley and Goffe had many narrow escapes
+in America, whither they were traced. What is known as "Judge's
+Cave," in the West Rock some two miles from the town of New Haven,
+Conn., afforded them sanctuary. For some days they were concealed
+in an old house belonging to a certain Mrs. Eyers, in a secret
+chamber behind the wainscoting, the entrance to which was most
+ingeniously devised. The house was narrowly searched on May 14th,
+1661, at the time they were in hiding.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: Stiles's <i>Judges</i>, p. 64]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Upon the discovery of the Rye House Plot in 1683, suspicion falling
+upon one of the conspirators, William, third Lord Howard of Escrick,
+the Sergeant-at-Arms was despatched with a squadron of horse to
+his house at Knights-bridge, and after a long search he was
+discovered concealed in a hiding-place constructed in a chimney
+at the back of a tall cupboard, and the chances are that he would
+not have been arrested had it not been evident, by the warmth of
+his bed and his clothes scattered about, that he had only just
+risen and could not have got away unobserved, except to some
+concealed lurking-place. When discovered he had on no clothing
+beyond his shirt, so it may be imagined with what precipitate
+haste he had to hide himself upon the unexpected arrival of the
+soldiers.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See Roger North's <i>Examen</i>.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Numerous other houses were searched for arms and suspicious papers,
+particularly in the counties of Cheshire and Lancashire, where
+the Duke of Monmouth was known to have many influential friends,
+marked enemies to the throne.[2]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 2: See Oulton Hall MSS., Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iii. p. 245.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Monmouth's lurking-place was known at Whitehall, and those who
+revealed it went the wrong way to work to win Court favour. Apart
+from the attractions of Lady Wentworth, whose companionship made
+the fugitive's enforced seclusion at Toddington, in Bedfordshire,
+far from tedious, the mansion was desirable at that particular
+time on account of its hiding facilities. An anonymous letter
+sent to the Secretary of State failed not to point out "that
+vastness and intricacy that without a most diligent search it's
+impossible to discover <i>all the lurking holes in it, there being
+severall trap dores on the leads and in closetts, into places to
+which there is no other access.</i>"[1] The easy-going king had
+to make some external show towards an attempt to capture his
+erring son, therefore instructions were given with this purpose,
+but to a courtier and diplomatist who valued his own interests.
+Toddington Place, therefore, was <i>not</i> explored.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: Vide King <i>Monmouth</i>.]
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig058.jpg" width="404" height="311" alt="Fig. 58"><br>
+MOYLES COURT, HAMPSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig059.jpg" width="413" height="383" alt="Fig. 59"><br>
+TODDINGTON MANOR HOUSE, BEDFORDSHIRE, IN 1806 (FROM AN OLD DRAWING)
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Few hiding-places are associated with so tragic a story as that
+at Moyles Court, Hants, where the venerable Lady Alice Lisle,
+in pure charity, hid two partisans of Monmouth, John Hickes and
+Richard Nelthorpe, after the battle of Sedgemoor, for which humane
+action she was condemned to be burned alive by Judge Jeffreys&mdash;a
+sentence commuted afterwards to beheading. It is difficult to
+associate this peaceful old Jacobean mansion, and the simple
+tomb in the churchyard hard by, with so terrible a history. A
+dark hole in the wall of the kitchen is traditionally said to be
+the place of concealment of the fugitives, who threw themselves
+on Lady Alice's mercy; but a dungeon-like cellar not unlike that
+represented in E. M. Ward's well-known picture looks a much more
+likely place.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+It was in an underground vault at Lady Place, Hurley, the old
+seat of the Lovelaces, that secret conferences were held by the
+adherents of the Prince of Orange. Three years after the execution
+of the Duke of Monmouth, his boon companion and supporter, John,
+third Lord Lovelace, organised treasonable meetings in this tomb-like
+chamber. Tradition asserts that certain important documents in
+favour of the Revolution were actually signed in the Hurley vault.
+Be this as it may, King William III. failed not, in after years,
+when visiting his former secret agent, to inspect the subterranean
+apartment with very tender regard.
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap09">CHAPTER IX</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We have spoken of the old houses associated with Charles II.'s
+escapes, let us see what history has to record of his unpopular
+brother James. The Stuarts seem to have been doomed, at one time
+or another, to evade their enemies by secret flight, and in some
+measure this may account for the romance always surrounding that
+ill-fated line of kings and queens.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+James V. of Scotland was wont to amuse himself by donning a disguise,
+but his successors appear to have been doomed by fate to follow
+his example, not for recreation, but to preserve their lives.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Mary, Queen of Scots, upon one occasion had to impersonate a
+laundress. Her grandson and great-grandson both were forced to
+masquerade as servants, and her great-great-grandson Prince James
+Frederick Edward passed through France disguised as an abb&aacute;.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The escapades of his son the "Bonnie Prince" will require our
+attention presently; we will, therefore, for the moment confine
+our thoughts to James II.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+With the surrender of Oxford the young Prince James found himself
+Fairfax's prisoner. His elder brother Charles had been more
+fortunate, having left the city shortly before for the western
+counties, and after effecting his escape to Scilly, he sought
+refuge in Jersey, whence he removed to the Hague. The Duke of
+Gloucester and the Princess Elizabeth already had been placed
+under the custody of the Earl of Northumberland at St. James's
+Palace, so the Duke of York was sent there also. This was in 1646.
+Some nine months elapsed, and James, after two ineffectual attempts
+to regain his liberty, eventually succeeded in the following
+manner.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Though prisoners, the royal children were permitted to amuse
+themselves within the walls of the palace much as they pleased,
+and among the juvenile games with which they passed away the
+time, "hide-and-seek" was first favourite. James, doubtless with
+an eye to the future, soon acquired a reputation as an expert
+hider, and his brother and sister and the playmates with whom
+they associated would frequently search the odd nooks and corners
+of the old mansion in vain for an hour at a stretch. It was,
+therefore, no extraordinary occurrence on the night of April 20th,
+1647, that the Prince, after a prolonged search, was missing. The
+youngsters, more than usually perplexed, presently persuaded the
+adults of the prison establishment to join in the game, which,
+when their suspicions were aroused, they did in real earnest.
+But all in vain, and at length a messenger was despatched to
+Whitehall with the intelligence that James, Duke of York, had
+effected his escape. Everything was in a turmoil. Orders were
+hurriedly dispatched for all seaport towns to be on the alert,
+and every exit out of London was strictly watched; meanwhile,
+it is scarcely necessary to add, the young fugitive was well
+clear of the city, speeding on his way to the Continent.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The plot had been skilfully planned. A key, or rather a duplicate
+key, had given admittance through the gardens into St. James's Park,
+where the Royalist, though outwardly professed Parliamentarian,
+Colonel Bamfield was in readiness with a periwig and cloak to
+effect a speedy disguise. When at length the fugitive made his
+appearance, minus his shoes and coat, he was hurried into a coach
+and conveyed to the Strand by Salisbury House, where the two
+alighted, and passing down Ivy Lane, reached the river, and after
+James's disguise had been perfected, boat was taken to Lyon Quay
+in Lower Thames Street, where a barge lay in readiness to carry
+them down stream.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+So far all went well, but on the way to Gravesend the master
+of the vessel, doubtless with a view to increasing his reward,
+raised some objections. The fugitive was now in female attire,
+and the objection was that nothing had been said about a woman
+coming aboard; but he was at length pacified, indeed ere long
+guessed the truth, for the Prince's lack of female decorum, as
+in the case of his grandson "the Bonnie Prince" nearly a century
+afterwards, made him guess how matters really stood. Beyond Gravesend
+the fugitives got aboard a Dutch vessel and were carried safely
+to Middleburg.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We will now shift the scene to Whitehall in the year 1688, when,
+after a brief reign of three years, betrayed and deserted on
+all sides, the unhappy Stuart king was contemplating his second
+flight out of England. The weather-cock that had been set up on
+the banqueting hall to show when the wind "blew Protestant" had
+duly recorded the dreaded approach of Dutch William, who now was
+steadily advancing towards the capital. On Tuesday, December 10th,
+soon after midnight, James left the Palace by way of Chiffinch's
+secret stairs of notorious fame, and disguised as the servant
+of Sir Edward Hales, with Ralph Sheldon&mdash;La Badie&mdash;a page, and
+Dick Smith, a groom, attending him, crossed the river to Lambeth,
+dropping the great seal in the water on the way, and took horse,
+avoiding the main roads, towards Farnborough and thence to
+Chislehurst. Leaving Maidstone to the south-west, a brief halt
+was made at Pennenden Heath for refreshment. The old inn, "the
+Woolpack," where the party stopped for their hurried repast,
+remains, at least in name, for the building itself has of late
+years been replaced by a modern structure. Crossing the Dover
+road, the party now directed their course towards Milton Creek,
+to the north-east of Sittingbourne, where a small fishing-craft
+lay in readiness, which had been chartered by Sir Edward Hales,
+whose seat at Tunstall[1] was close by.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: The principal seat of the Hales, near Canterbury, is
+now occupied as a Jesuit College. The old manor house of Tunstall,
+Grove End Farm, presents both externally and internally many
+features of interest. The family was last represented by a maid
+lady who died a few years since.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+One or two old buildings in the desolate marsh district of Elmley,
+claim the distinction of having received a visit of the deposed
+monarch prior to the mishaps which were shortly to follow. King's
+Hill Farm, once a house of some importance, preserves this tradition,
+as does also an ancient cottage, in the last stage of decay,
+known as "Rats' Castle."
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig060.jpg" width="283" height="279" alt="Fig. 60"><br>
+"RATS' CASTLE," ELMLEY, KENT
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig061.jpg" width="409" height="366" alt="Fig. 61"><br>
+KING'S HILL FARM, ELMLEY, KENT
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+At Elmley Ferry, which crosses the river Swale, the king got
+aboard, but scarcely had the moorings been cast than further
+progress was arrested by a party of over-zealous fishermen on
+the look out for fugitive Jesuit priests. The story of the rough
+handling to which the poor king was subjected is a somewhat hackneyed
+school-book anecdote, but some interesting details have been handed
+down by one Captain Marsh, by James's natural son the Duke of
+Berwick, and by the Earl of Ailesbury.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+From these accounts we gather that in the disturbance that ensued
+a blow was aimed at the King, but that a Canterbury innkeeper named
+Platt threw himself in the way and received the blow himself. It
+is recorded, to James II.'s credit, that when he was recognised
+and his stolen money and jewels offered back to him, he declined
+the former, desiring that his health might be drunk by the mob.
+Among the valuables were the King's watch, his coronation ring,
+and medals commemorating the births of his son the Chevalier
+St. George and of his brother Charles II.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The King was taken ashore at a spot called "the Stool," close
+to the little village of Oare, to the north-west of Faversham,
+to which town he was conveyed by coach, attended by a score of
+Kentish gentlemen on horseback. The royal prisoner was first
+carried to the "Queen's Arms Inn," which still exists under the
+name of the "Ship Hotel." From here he was taken to the mayor's
+house in Court Street (an old building recently pulled down to
+make way for a new brewery) and placed under a strict guard, and
+from the window of his prison the unfortunate King had to listen
+to the proclamation of the Prince of Orange, read by order of the
+mayor, who subsequently was rewarded for the zeal he displayed
+upon the occasion.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The hardships of the last twenty-four hours had told severely upon
+James. He was sick and feeble and weakened by profuse bleeding
+of the nose, to which he, like his brother Charles, was subject
+when unduly excited. Sir Edward Hales, in the meantime, was lodged
+in the old Court Hall (since partially rebuilt), whence he was
+removed to Maidstone gaol, and to the Tower.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Bishop Burnet was at Windsor with the Prince of Orange when two
+gentlemen arrived there from Faversham with the news of the King's
+capture. "They told me," he says, "of the accident at Faversham,
+and desired to know the Prince's pleasure upon it. I was affected
+with this dismal reverse of the fortunes of a great prince, more
+than I think fit to express. I went immediately to Bentinck and
+wakened him, and got him to go in to the Prince, and let him
+know what had happened, that some order might be presently given
+for the security of the King's person, and for taking him out
+of the hands of a rude multitude who said they would obey no
+orders but such as came from the Prince."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Upon receiving the news, William at once directed that his
+father-in-law should have his liberty, and that assistance should
+be sent down to him immediately; but by this time the story had
+reached the metropolis, and a hurried meeting of the Council
+directed the Earl of Feversham to go to the rescue with a company
+of Life Guards. The faithful Earl of Ailesbury also hastened to
+the King's assistance. In five hours he accomplished the journey
+from London to Faversham. So rapidly had the reports been circulated
+of supposed ravages of the Irish Papists, that when the Earl
+reached Rochester, the entire town was in a state of panic, and
+the alarmed inhabitants were busily engaged in demolishing the
+bridge to prevent the dreaded incursion.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But to return to James at Faversham. The mariners who had handled
+him so roughly now took his part&mdash;in addition to his property&mdash;and
+insisted upon sleeping in the adjoining room to that in which
+he was incarcerated, to protect him from further harm. Early
+on Saturday morning the Earl of Feversham made his appearance;
+and after some little hesitation on the King's side, he was at
+length persuaded to return to London. So he set out on horseback,
+breaking the journey at Rochester, where he slept on the Saturday
+night at Sir Richard Head's house. On the Sunday he rode on to
+Dartford, where he took coach to Southwark and Whitehall. A temporary
+reaction had now set in, and the cordial reception which greeted
+his reappearance revived his hopes and spirits. This reaction,
+however, was but short-lived, for no sooner had the poor King
+retired to the privacy of his bed-chamber at Whitehall Palace,
+than an imperious message from his son-in-law ordered him to
+remove without delay to Ham House, Petersham.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig062.jpg" width="327" height="362" alt="Fig. 62"><br>
+ENTRANCE TO SECRET PASSAGE, "ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig063.jpg" width="413" height="348" alt="Fig. 63"><br>
+"ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+James objected strongly to this; the place, he said, was damp and
+unfurnished (which, by the way, was not the case if we may judge
+from Evelyn, who visited the mansion not long before, when it was
+"furnished like a great Prince's"&mdash;indeed, the same furniture
+remains intact to this day), and a message was sent back that if
+he must quit Whitehall he would prefer to retire to Rochester,
+which wish was readily accorded him.
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap10">CHAPTER X</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES (<i>continued</i>), HAM HOUSE, AND "ABDICATION
+HOUSE"
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Tradition, regardless of fact, associates the grand old seat
+of the Lauderdales and Dysarts with King James's escape from
+England. A certain secret staircase is still pointed out by which
+the dethroned monarch is said to have made his exit, and visitors
+to the Stuart Exhibition a few years ago will remember a sword
+which, with the King's hat and cloak, is said to have been left
+behind when he quitted the mansion. Now there existed, not many
+miles away, also close to the river Thames, <i>another</i> Ham
+House, which was closely associated with James II., and it seems,
+therefore, possible, in fact probable, that the past associations
+of the one house have attached themselves to the other.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In Ham House, Weybridge, lived for some years the King's discarded
+mistress Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester. At the actual
+time of James's abdication this lady was in France, but in the
+earlier part of his reign the King was a frequent visitor here.
+In Charles II.'s time the house belonged to Jane Bickerton, the
+mistress and afterwards wife of the sixth Duke of Norfolk. Evelyn
+dined there soon after this marriage had been solemnised. "The
+Duke," he says, "leading me about the house made no scruple of
+showing me all the hiding-places for the Popish priests and where
+they said Masse, for he was no bigoted Papist." At the Duke's
+death "the palace" was sold to the Countess of Dorchester, whose
+descendants pulled it down some fifty years ago. The oak-panelled
+rooms were richly parquetted with "cedar and cyprus." One of them
+until the last retained the name of "the King's Bedroom." It had a
+private communication with a little Roman Catholic chapel in the
+building. The attics, as at Compton Winyates, were called "the
+Barracks," tradition associating them with the King's guards, who
+are said to have been lodged there. Upon the walls hung portraits
+of the Duchesses of Leeds and Dorset, of Nell Gwyn and the Countess
+herself, and of Earl Portmore, who married her daughter. Here also
+formerly was Holbein's famous picture, Bluff King Hal and the
+Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk dancing a minuet with Anne Boleyn
+and the Dowager-Queens of France and Scotland. Evelyn saw the
+painting in August, 1678, and records "the sprightly motion"
+and "amorous countenances of the ladies." (This picture is now,
+or was recently, in the possession of Major-General Sotheby.)
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A few years after James's abdication, the Earl of Ailesbury rented
+the house from the Countess, who lived meanwhile in a small house
+adjacent, and was in the habit of coming into the gardens of the
+palace by a key of admittance she kept for that purpose. Upon
+one of these occasions the Earl and she had a disagreement about
+the lease, and so forcible were the lady's coarse expressions,
+for she never could restrain the licence of her tongue, that she
+had to be ejected from the premises, whereupon, says Ailesbury,
+"she bade me go to my&mdash;&mdash;King James," with the assurance that
+"she would make King William spit on me."
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig064.jpg" width="391" height="337" alt="Fig. 64"><br>
+MONUMENT OF SIR RICHARD HEAD
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig065.jpg" width="397" height="261" alt="Fig. 65"><br>
+"RESTORATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But to follow James II.'s ill-fortunes to Rochester, where he was
+conveyed on the Tuesday at noon by royal barge, with an escort of
+Dutch soldiers, with Lords Arran, Dumbarton, etc., in attendance&mdash;"a
+sad sight," says Evelyn, who witnessed the departure. The King
+recognised among those set to guard him an old lieutenant of the
+Horse who had fought under him, when Duke of York, at the battle
+of Dunkirk. Colonel Wycke, in command of the King's escort, was
+a nephew of the court painter Sir Peter Lely, who had owed his
+success to the patronage of Charles II. and his brother. The
+part the Colonel had to act was a painful one, and he begged the
+King's pardon. The royal prisoner was lodged for the night at
+Gravesend, at the house of a lawyer, and next morning the journey
+was continued to Rochester.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The royalist Sir Richard Head again had the honour of acting
+as the King's host, and his guest was allowed to go in and out
+of the house as he pleased, for diplomatic William of Orange
+had arranged that no opportunity should be lost for James to
+make use of a passport which the Duke of Berwick had obtained
+for "a certain gentleman and two servants." James's movements,
+therefore, were hampered in no way. But the King, ever suspicious,
+planned his escape from Rochester with the greatest caution and
+secrecy, and many of his most attached and loyal adherents were
+kept in ignorance of his final departure. James's little court
+consisted of the Earls of Arran, Lichfield, Middleton, Dumbarton,
+and Ailesbury, the Duke of Berwick, Sir Stephen Fox, Major-General
+Sackville, Mr. Grahame, Fenton, and a few others.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+On the evening of the King's flight the company dispersed as was
+customary, when Ailesbury intimated, by removing his Majesty's
+stockings, that the King was about to seek his couch. The Earl
+of Dumbarton retired with James to his apartment, who, when the
+house was quiet for the night, got up, dressed, and "by way of
+the back stairs," according to the Stuart Papers, passed "through
+the garden, where Macdonald stayed for him, with the Duke of
+Berwick and Mr. Biddulph, to show him the way to Trevanion's
+boat. About twelve at night they rowed down to the smack, which
+was waiting without the fort at Sheerness. It blew so hard right
+ahead, and ebb tide being done before they got to the Salt Pans,
+that it was near six before they got to the smack. Captain Trevanion
+not being able to trust the officers of his ship, they got on
+board the <i>Eagle</i> fireship, commanded by Captain Welford,
+on which, the wind and tide being against them, they stayed till
+daybreak, when the King went on board the smack." On Christmas
+Day James landed at Ambleteuse.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Thus the old town of Rochester witnessed the departure of the
+last male representative of the Stuart line who wore a crown.
+Twenty-eight years before, every window and gable end had been
+gaily bedecked with many coloured ribbons, banners, and flowers
+to welcome in the restored monarch. The picturesque old red brick
+"Restoration House" still stands to carry us back to the eventful
+night when "his sacred Majesty" slept within its walls upon his
+way from Dover to London&mdash;a striking contrast to "Abdication
+House," the gloomy abode of Sir Richard Head, of more melancholy
+associations.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Much altered and modernised, this old mansion also remains. It
+is in the High Street, and is now, or was recently, occupied as a
+draper's shop. Here may be seen the "presence-chamber" where the
+dethroned King heard Mass, and the royal bedchamber where, after
+his secret departure, a letter was found on the table addressed
+to Lord Middleton, for both he and Lord Ailesbury were kept in
+ignorance of James II.'s final movements. The old garden may
+be seen with the steps leading down to the river, much as it
+was a couple of centuries ago, though the river now no longer
+flows in near proximity, owing to the drainage of the marshes
+and the "subsequent improvements" of later days.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The hidden passage in the staircase wall may also be seen, and
+the trap-door leading to it from the attics above. Tradition says
+the King made use of these; and if he did so, the probability is
+that it was done more to avoid his host's over-zealous neighbours,
+than from fear of arrest through the vigilance of the spies of
+his son-in-law.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: It may be of interest to state that the illustrations
+we give of the house were originally exhibited at the Stuart
+Exhibition by Sir Robert G. Head, the living representative of
+the old Royalist family]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Exactly three months after James left England he made his
+reappearance at Kinsale and entered Dublin in triumphal state.
+The siege of Londonderry and the decisive battle of the Boyne
+followed, and for a third and last time James II. was a fugitive
+from his realms. The melancholy story is graphically told in Mr.
+A. C. Gow's dramatic picture, an engraving of which I understand
+has recently been published.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+How the unfortunate King rode from Dublin to Duncannon Fort,
+leaving his faithful followers and ill-fortunes behind him; got
+aboard the French vessel anchored there for his safety; and returned
+once more to the protection of the Grande Monarque at the palace
+of St. Germain, is an oft-told story of Stuart ingratitude.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig066.jpg" width="407" height="302" alt="Fig. 66"><br>
+ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE, WORCESTERSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig067.jpg" width="400" height="330" alt="Fig. 67"><br>
+ENTRANCE GATE, ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap11">CHAPTER XI</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+MYSTERIOUS ROOMS, DEADLY PITS, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+At the "Restoration House" previously mentioned there is a secret
+passage in the wall of an upper room; but though the Merry Monarch
+is, according to popular tradition, credited with a monopoly of
+hiding-places all over England, it is more than doubtful whether
+he had recourse to these exploits, in which he was so successful
+in 1651, upon such a joyful occasion, except, indeed, through
+sheer force of habit.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Even Cromwell's name is connected with hiding-places! But it
+is difficult to conjecture upon what occasions his Excellency
+found it convenient to secrete himself, unless it was in his
+later days, when he went about in fear of assassination.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Hale House, Islington, pulled down in 1853, had a concealed recess
+behind the wainscot over the mantel-piece, formed by the curve
+of the chimney. In this, tradition says, the Lord Protector was
+hidden. Nor is this the solitary instance, for a dark hole in
+one of the gable ends of Cromwell House, Mortlake (taken down in
+1860), locally known as "Old Noll's Hole," is said to have afforded
+him temporary accommodation when his was life in danger.[1] The
+residence of his son-in-law Ireton (Cromwell House) at Highgate
+contained a large secret chamber at the back of a cupboard in
+one of the upper rooms, and extended back twelve or fourteen
+feet, but the cupboard has now been removed and the space at the
+back converted into a passage.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See Faulkner's <i>History of Islington</i>.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The ancient manor house of Armscot, in an old-world corner of
+Worcestershire, contains in one of its gables a hiding-place
+entered through a narrow opening in the plaster wall, not unlike
+that at Ufton Court, and capable of holding many people. From the
+fact that George Fox was arrested in this house on October 17th,
+1673, when he was being persecuted by the county magistrates, the
+story has come down to the yokels of the neighbourhood that "old
+Guy Fawkes, the first Quaker," was hidden here! In his journal Fox
+mentions his arrest at Armscot after a "very large and precious
+meeting" in the barn close by; but we have no allusion to the
+hiding-place, for he appears to have been sitting in the parlour
+when Henry Parker, the Justice, arrived&mdash;indeed, George Fox was
+not the sort of man to have recourse to concealments, and owe
+his escape to a "priest's hole."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The suggestion of a sudden reverse in religious persecution driving
+a Quaker to such an extremity calls to mind an old farmstead
+where a political change from monarchy to commonwealth forced
+Puritan and cavalier consecutively to seek refuge in the secret
+chamber. This narrow hiding-place, beside the spacious fire-place,
+is pointed out in an ancient house in the parish of Hinchford,
+in Eastern Essex.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Even the notorious Judge Jeffreys had in his house facilities
+for concealment and escape. His old residence in Delahay Street,
+Westminster, demolished a few years ago, had its secret panel
+in the wainscoting, but in what way the cruel Lord Chancellor
+made use of it does not transpire; possibly it may have been
+utilised at the time of James II.'s flight from Whitehall.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A remarkable discovery was made early in the last century at the
+Elizabethan manor house of Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire,
+only a portion of which remains incorporated in a modern structure.
+Upon removing some of the wallpaper of a passage on the second
+floor, the entrance to a room hitherto unknown was laid bare. It
+was a small apartment about eight feet square, and presented the
+appearance as if some occupant had just quitted it. A chair and
+a table within, each bore evidence of the last inmate. Over the
+back of the former hung a priest's black cassock, carelessly flung
+there a century or more ago, while on the table stood an antique
+tea-pot, cup, and silver spoon, the very tea leaves crumbled to
+dust with age. On the same storey were two rooms known as "the
+chapel" and the "priest's room," the names of which signify the
+former use of the concealed apartment.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Sir Walter Scott records a curious "find," similar in many respects
+to that at Bourton. In the course of some structural alterations to
+an ancient house near Edinburgh three unknown rooms were brought to
+light, bearing testimony of their last inmate. One of them had been
+occupied as a bedroom. The clothing of the bed was disarranged,
+as if it had been slept in only a few hours previously, and close
+by was an antique dressing-gown. How interesting it would be to
+know some particulars of the sudden surprise which evidently
+drove the owner of the garment from his snug quarters&mdash;whether
+he effected his escape, or whether he was captured! The walls
+of this buried chamber, if they could speak, had some curious
+story to relate.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Not many years ago the late squire of East Hendred House, Berkshire,
+discovered the existence of a secret chamber in casually glancing
+over some ancient papers belonging to the house. "The little
+room," as it was called, from its proximity to the chapel, had
+no doubt been turned to good account during the penal laws of
+Elizabeth's reign, as the chamber itself and other parts of the
+house date from a much earlier period.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Long after the palatial Sussex mansion of Cowdray was burnt down,
+the habitable remains (the keeper's lodge, in the centre of the
+park) contained an ingenious hiding-place behind a fireplace in
+a bedroom, which was reached by a movable panel in a cupboard,
+communicating with the roof by a slender flight of steps. It
+was very high, reaching up two storeys, but extremely narrow,
+so much so that directly opposite a stone bench which stood in
+a recess for a seat, the wall was hollowed out to admit of the
+knees. When this secret chamber was discovered, it contained an
+iron chair, a quaint old brass lamp, and some manuscripts of
+the Montague family. The Cowdray tradition says that the fifth
+Viscount was concealed in this hiding-place for a considerable
+period, owing to some dark crime he is supposed to have committed,
+though he was generally believed to have fled abroad. Secret
+nocturnal interviews took place between Lord Montague and his
+wife in "My Lady's Walk," an isolated spot in Cowdray Park. The
+Montagues, now extinct, are said to have been very chary with
+reference to their Roman Catholic forefathers, and never allowed
+the secret chamber to be shown.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See <i>History of a Great English House</i>.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A weird story clings to the ruins of Minster Lovel Manor House,
+Oxfordshire, the ancient seat of the Lords Lovel. After the battle
+of Stoke, Francis, the last Viscount, who had sided with the
+cause of Simnel against King Henry VII., fled back to his house
+in disguise, but from the night of his return was never seen or
+heard of again, and for nearly two centuries his disappearance
+remained a mystery. In the meantime the manor house had been
+dismantled and the remains tenanted by a farmer; but a strange
+discovery was made in the year 1708. A concealed vault was found,
+and in it, seated before a table, with a prayer-book lying open
+upon it, was the entire skeleton of a man. In the secret chamber
+were certain barrels and jars which had contained food sufficient
+to last perhaps some weeks; but the mansion having been seized
+by the King, soon after the unfortunate Lord Lovel is supposed
+to have concealed himself, the probability is that, unable to
+regain his liberty, the neglect or treachery of a servant or
+tenant brought about this tragic end.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A discovery of this nature was made in 1785 in a hidden vault
+at the foot of a stone staircase at Brandon Hall, Suffolk.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Kingerby Hall, Lincolnshire, has a ghostly tradition of an
+unfortunate occupant of the hiding-hole near a fireplace being
+intentionally fastened in so that he was stifled with the heat and
+smoke; the skeleton was found years afterwards in this horrible
+death-chamber.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Bayons Manor, in the same county, has some very curious arrangements
+for the sake of secretion and defence. There is a room in one of
+the barbican towers occupying its entire circumference, but so
+effectually hidden that its existence would never be suspected.
+In two of the towers are curious concealed stairs, and approaching
+"the Bishop's Tower" from the outer court or ballium, part of
+a flight of steps can be raised like a drawbridge to prevent
+sudden intrusion.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See Burke's <i>Visitation of Seats</i>, vol. i.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A contributor to that excellent little journal <i>The Rambler</i>,
+unfortunately now extinct, mentions another very strange and
+weird device for security. "In the state-room of my castle,"
+says the owner of this death-trap, "is the family shield, which
+on a part being touched, revolves, and a flight of steps becomes
+visible. The first, third, fifth, and all odd steps are to be
+trusted, but to tread any of the others is to set in motion some
+concealed machinery which causes the staircase to collapse,
+disclosing a vault some seventy feet in depth, down which the
+unwary are precipitated."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+At Tyttenhanger House, Hertfordshire, and in the old manor house
+of Newport, Isle of Wight (where the captive King Charles I.
+spent some of his last melancholy days), there are rooms with
+passages in the walls running completely round them. Similar
+passages were found some years ago while making alterations to
+Highclere Castle Hampshire.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The once magnificent Madeley Court, Salop[1] (now, alas! in the
+last stage of desolation and decay, surrounded by coal-fields and
+undermined by pits), is honeycombed with places for concealment
+and escape. A ruinous apartment at the top of the house, known
+as "the chapel" (only a few years ago wainscoted to the ceiling
+and divided by fine old oak screen), contained a secret chamber
+behind one of the panels. This could be fastened on the inside by
+a strong bolt. The walls of the mansion are of immense thickness,
+and the recesses and nooks noticeable everywhere were evidently at
+one time places of concealment; one long triangular recess extends
+between two ruinous chambers (mere skeletons of past grandeur),
+and was no doubt for the purpose of reaching the basement from
+the first floor other than by the staircases. In the upper part
+of the house a dismal pit or well extends to the ground level,
+where it slants off in an oblique direction below the building,
+and terminates in a large pool or lake, after the fashion of
+that already described at Baddesley Clinton, in Warwickshire.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: This house must not be confused with "the Upper House,"
+connected with Charles II.'s wanderings.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Everything points to the former magnificence of this mansion;
+the elaborate gate-house, the handsome stone porch, and even
+the colossal sundial, which last, for quaint design, can hold
+its own with those of the greatest baronial castles in Scotland.
+The arms of the Brooke family are to be seen emblazoned on the
+walls, a member of whom, Sir Basil, was he who christened the
+hunting-lodge of the Giffards "Boscobel," from the Italian words
+"bos co bello," on account of its woody situation. It is long
+since the Brookes migrated from Madeley&mdash;now close upon two
+centuries.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The deadly looking pits occasionally seen in ancient buildings
+are dangerous, to say the least of it. They may be likened to
+the shaft of our modern lift, with the car at the bottom and
+nothing above to prevent one from taking a step into eternity!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A friend at Twickenham sends us a curious account of a recent
+exploration of what was once the manor house, "Arragon Towers."
+We cannot do better than quote his words, written in answer to a
+request for particulars. "I did not," he says, "make sufficient
+examination of the hiding-place in the old manor house of Twickenham
+to give a detailed description of it, and I have no one here
+whom I could get to accompany me in exploring it now. It is not
+a thing to do by one's self, as one might make a false step,
+and have no one to assist in retrieving it. The entrance is in
+the top room of the one remaining turret by means of a movable
+panel in the wall opposite the window. The panel displaced, you
+see the top of a thick wall (almost on a line with the floor of
+the room). The width of the aperture is, I should think, nearly
+three feet; that of the wall-top about a foot and a half; the
+remaining space between the wall-top and the outer wall of the
+house is what you might perhaps term 'a chasm'&mdash;it is a sheer
+drop to the cellars of the house. I was told by the workmen that
+by walking the length of the wall-top (some fifteen feet) I should
+reach a stairway conducting to the vaults below, and that on
+reaching the bottom, a passage led off in the direction of the
+river, the tradition being that it actually went beneath the
+river to Ham House."
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap12">CHAPTER XII</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+HIDING-PLACES IN JACOBITE DWELLINGS AND IN SCOTTISH CASTLES AND
+MANSIONS
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+During the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 some of the "priest's
+holes" in the old Roman Catholic houses, especially in the north
+of England and in Scotland, came into requisition not only for
+storing arms and ammunition, but, after the failure of each
+enterprise, for concealing adherents of the luckless House of
+Stuart.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In the earlier mansion of Worksop, Nottinghamshire (burnt down
+in 1761), there was a large concealed chamber provided with a
+fireplace and a bed, which could only be entered by removing
+the sheets of lead forming the roofing. Beneath was a trap-door
+opening to a precipitous flight of narrow steps in the thickness
+of a wall. This led to a secret chamber, that had an inner
+hiding-place at the back of a sliding panel. A witness in a trial
+succeeding "the '45" declared to having seen a large quantity
+of arms there in readiness for the insurrection.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The last days of the notorious Lord Lovat are associated with
+some of the old houses in the north. Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire,
+and Netherwhitton, in Northumberland, claim the honour of hiding
+this double-faced traitor prior to his arrest. At the former is a
+small chamber near the roof, and in the latter is a hiding-place
+measuring eight feet by three and ten feet high. Nor must be
+forgotten the tradition of Mistress Beatrice Cope, behind the
+walls of whose bedroom Lovat (so goes the story) was concealed,
+and the fugitive, being asthmatical, would have revealed his
+whereabouts to the soldiers in search of him, had not Mistress
+Cope herself kept up a persistent and violent fit of coughing
+to drown the noise.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A secret room in the old Tudor house Ty Mawr, Monmouthshire,
+is associated with the Jacobite risings. It is at the back of
+"the parlour" fireplace, and is entered through a square stone
+slab at the foot of the staircase. The chamber is provided with a
+small fireplace, the flue of which is connected with the ordinary
+chimney, so as to conceal the smoke. The same sort of thing may
+be seen at Bisham Abbey, Berks.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Early in the last century a large hiding-place was found at Danby
+Hall, Yorkshire. It contained a large quantity of swords and
+pistols. Upwards of fifty sets of harness of untanned leather of
+the early part of the eighteenth century were further discovered,
+all of them in so good a state of preservation that they were
+afterwards used as cart-horse gear upon the farm.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+No less than nine of the followers of "Bonnie Prince Charlie" are
+said to have been concealed in a secret chamber at Fetternear,
+Kemnay, Aberdeenshire, an old seat of the Leslys of Balquhane. It
+was situated in the wall behind a large bookcase with a glazed
+front, a fixture in the room, the back of which could be made
+to slide back and give admittance to the recess.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Quite by accident an opening was discovered in a corner cupboard
+at an old house near Darlington. Certain alterations were in
+progress which necessitated the removal of the shelves, but upon
+this being attempted, they descended in some mysterious manner.
+The back of the cavity could then be pushed aside (that is to
+say, when the secret of its mechanism was discovered), and a
+hiding-place opened out to view. It contained some tawdry ornaments
+of Highland dress, which at one time, it was conjectured, belonged
+to an adherent of Prince Charlie.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The old mansion of Stonyhurst, Lancashire, contained eight
+hiding-places. One of them, exactly like that at Fetternear,
+was at the back of a bookcase. A secret spring was discovered
+which opened a concealed door in the wall. In the space behind,
+a quantity of James II. guineas, a bed, a mattress, and a flask
+of rum were found. A former student of this famous Jesuit college,
+who was instrumental in the discovery of a "priest's hole," has
+provided us with the following particulars: "It would be too
+long to tell you how I first discovered that in the floor of
+my bedroom, in the recess of the huge Elizabethan bay window,
+was a trap-door concealed by a thin veneering of oak; suffice
+it say that with a companion I devoted a delightful half-holiday
+to stripping off the veneering and breaking the lock of the
+trap-door. Between my floor and the ceiling of the long gallery
+below, was contrived a small room about five feet in height and
+the size and shape of the bay window recess. In one corner of
+this hiding-hole was what seemed a walled-up doorway, and it
+occurred to my companion and myself that we had heard some vague
+old tradition that all this part of the house was riddled with
+secret passages leading from one concealed chamber to another,
+but we did not seek to explore any farther." In pulling down a
+portion of the college, a hollow beam was discovered that opened
+upon concealed hinges, used formerly for secreting articles of
+value or sacred books and vessels; and during some alterations
+to the central tower, over the main entrance to the mansion,
+a "priest's hole" was found, containing seven horse pistols,
+ready loaded and some of them richly ornamented with silver. A
+view could be obtained from the interior of the hiding-place,
+in the same manner as that which we have described in the old
+summer-house at Salisbury; a small hole being devised in the design
+of the Sherburn arms upon the marble shield over the gateway.
+This was the only provision for air and light.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The quaint discovery of rum at Stonyhurst suggests the story
+of a hiding-place in an old house at Bishops Middleham, near
+Durham, mentioned by Southey in his <i>Commonplace Book</i>.
+The house was occupied for years by a supposed total abstainer;
+but a "priest's hole" in his bedroom, discovered after his death
+full of strong liquor, revealed the fact that by utilising the
+receptacle as a cellar he had been able to imbibe secretly to
+his heart's content.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A large quantity or Georgian gold coins were found some years ago
+in a small hiding-place under the oaken sill of a bedroom window
+at Gawthorp Hall, Lancashire, placed there, it is supposed, for
+the use of Prince Charles's army in passing through the country
+in 1745.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The laird of Belucraig (an old mansion in the parish of Aboyne,
+Aberdeenshire) was concealed after "the '45" in his own house,
+while his wife, like the hostess of Chastleton, hospitably
+entertained the soldiers who were in search of him. The secret
+chamber where he was concealed was found some years ago in making
+some alterations to the roof. In it were a quantity of Jacobite
+papers and a curious old arm-chair. The original entry was through
+a panel at the back of a "box bed" in the wainscot of a small,
+isolated bedroom at the top of the house. The room itself could
+only be reached by a secret staircase from a corridor below. The
+hiding-place was therefore doubly secure, and was a stronghold in
+case of greatest emergency. The Innes of Drumgersk and Belucraig were
+always staunch Roman Catholics and Jacobites. Their representatives
+lived in the old house until 1850.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In another old Aberdeenshire mansion, Dalpersie House, a hiding-hole
+or recess may be seen in one of the upper chambers, where was
+arrested a Gordon, one of the last victims executed after "the
+45."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The ancient castles of Fyvie, Elphinstone, and Kemnay House have
+their secret chambers. The first of these is, with the exception
+of Glamis, perhaps, the most picturesque example of the tall-roofed
+and cone-topped turret style of architecture introduced from
+France in the days of James VI. A small space marked "the armoury"
+in an old plan of the building could in no way be accounted for,
+it possessing neither door, window, nor fireplace; a trap-door,
+however, was at length found in the floor immediately above its
+supposed locality which led to its identification. At Kemnay
+(Aberdeenshire) the hiding-place is in the dining-room chimney;
+and at Elphinstone (East Lothian), in the bay of a window of
+the great hall, is a masked entrance to a narrow stair in the
+thickness of the wall leading to a little room situated in the
+northeast angle of the tower; it further has an exit through a
+trap-door in the floor of a passage in the upper part of the
+building.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The now ruinous castle of Towie Barclay, near Banff, has evidences
+of secret ways and contrivances. Adjoining the fireplace of the
+great hall is a small room constructed for this purpose. In the
+wall of the same apartment is also a recess only to be reached by
+a narrow stairway in the thickness of the masonry, and approached
+from the flooring above the hall. A similar contrivance exists
+between the outer and inner walls of the dining hall of Carew
+Castle, Pembrokeshire.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Coxton Tower, near Elgin, contains a singular provision for
+communication from the top of the building to the basement, perfectly
+independent of the staircase. In the centre of each floor is a
+square stone which, when removed, reveals an opening from the
+summit to the base of the tower, through which a person could
+be lowered.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Another curious old Scottish mansion, famous for its secret chambers
+and passages, is Gordonstown. Here, in the pavement of a corridor
+in the west wing, a stone may be swung aside, beneath which is
+a narrow cell scooped out of one of the foundation walls. It
+may be followed to the adjoining angle, where it branches off
+into the next wall to an extent capable of holding fifty or sixty
+persons. Another large hiding-place is situated in one of the
+rooms at the back of a tall press or cupboard. The space in the
+wall is sufficiently large to contain eight or nine people, and
+entrance to it is effected by unloosing a spring bolt under the
+lower shelf, when the whole back of the press swings aside.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Whether the mystery of the famous secret room at Glamis Castle,
+Forfarshire, has ever been solved or satisfactorily explained
+beyond the many legends and stories told in connection with it,
+we have not been able to determine. The walls in this remarkable
+old mansion are in parts over twelve feet thick, and in them are
+several curious recesses, notably near the windows of the "stone
+hall." The secret chamber, or "Fyvie-room," as it is sometimes
+called, is said to have a window, which nevertheless has not
+led to the identification of its situation. Sir Walter Scott
+once slept a night at Glamis, and has described the "wild and
+straggling arrangement of the accommodation within doors." "I
+was conducted," he says, "to my apartment in a distant corner
+of the building. I must own, as I heard door after door shut
+after my conductor had retired, I began to consider myself too
+far from the living and somewhat too near the dead&mdash;in a word,
+I experienced sensations which, though not remarkable either for
+timidity or superstition, did not fail to affect me to the point
+of being disagreeable." We have the great novelist's authority
+for saying that the entrance of the secret chamber (in his time,
+at any rate), by the law or custom of the family, could only
+be known to three persons at once&mdash;<i>viz.</i> the Earl of
+Strathmore, his heir-apparent, and any third person whom they
+might take into their confidence.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The great mystery of the secret chamber was imparted to the heir
+of Glamis, or the heir-presumptive, as the case might be, upon the
+eve of his arriving at his majority, and thus it passed into modern
+times from the dim and distant feudal days. That the secret should
+be thus handed down through centuries without being divulged is
+indeed remarkable, yet so is the story; and many a time a future
+lord of Glamis has boasted that he would reveal everything when
+he should come of age. Still, however, when that time <i>did</i>
+arrive, in every case the recipient of the deadly secret has
+solemnly refused point blank to speak a word upon the subject.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+There is a secret chamber at the old Cumberland seat of the ancient
+family of Senhouse. To this day its position is known only by
+the heir-at-law and the family solicitor. This room at Nether
+Hall is said to have no window, and has hitherto baffled every
+attempt of those not in the secret to discover its whereabouts.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Remarkable as this may seem in these prosaic days, it has been
+confirmed by the present representative of the family, who, in a
+communication to us upon the subject, writes as follows: "It may
+be romantic, but still it is true that the secret has survived
+frequent searches of visitors. There is no one alive who has
+been in it, that I am aware, except myself." Brandeston Hall,
+Suffolk, is also said to have a hiding place known only to two
+or three persons.
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap13">CHAPTER XIII</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+CONCEALED DOORS, SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGES, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Numerous old houses possess secret doors, passages, and
+staircases&mdash;Franks, in Kent; Eshe Hall, Durham; Binns House,
+Scotland; Dannoty Hall, and Whatton Abbey, Yorkshire; are examples.
+The last of these has a narrow flight of steps leading down to
+the moat, as at Baddesley Clinton. The old house Marks, near
+Romford, pulled down in 1808 after many years of neglect and
+decay&mdash;as well as the ancient seat of the Tichbournes in Hampshire,
+pulled down in 1803&mdash;and the west side of Holme Hall, Lancashire,
+demolished in the last century, proved to have been riddled with
+hollow walls. Secret doors and panels are still pointed out at
+Bramshill, Hants (in the long gallery and billiard-room); the
+oak room, Bochym House, Cornwall; the King's bedchamber, Ford
+Castle, Northumberland; the plotting-parlour of the White Hart
+Hotel, Hull; Low Hall, Yeadon, Yorkshire; Sawston; the Queen's
+chamber at Kimbolton Castle, Huntingdonshire, etc., etc.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A concealed door exists on the left-hand side of the fireplace
+of the gilt room of Holland House, Kensington, associated by
+tradition with the ghost of the first Lord Holland. Upon the
+authority of the Princess Lichtenstein, it appears there is,
+close by, a blood-stain which nothing can efface! It is to be
+hoped no enterprising person may be induced to try his skill here
+with the success that attended a similar attempt at Holyrood,
+as recorded by Scott![1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: <i>Vide</i> Introduction to <i>The Fair Maid of
+Perth</i>]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In the King's writing-closet at Hampton Court may be seen the
+"secret door" by which William III. left the palace when he wished
+to go out unobserved; but this is more of a <i>private</i> exit
+than a <i>secret</i> one.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig068.jpg" width="415" height="287" alt="Fig. 68"><br>
+WOODSTOCK PALACE, OXFORDSHIRE (FROM AN OLD PRINT)
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig069.jpg" width="394" height="262" alt="Fig. 69"><br>
+MARKYATE CELL, HERTFORDSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The old Ch&acirc;teau du Puits, Guernsey, has a hiding-hole placed
+between two walls which form an acute angle; the one constituting
+part of the masonry of an inner courtyard, the other a wall on
+the eastern side of the main structure. The space between could
+be reached through the floor of an upper room.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Cussans, in his <i>History of Hertfordshire</i>, gives a curious
+account of the discovery of an iron door up the kitchen chimney
+of the old house Markyate Cell, near Dunstable. A short flight
+of steps led from it to another door of stout oak, which opened
+by a secret spring, and led to an unknown chamber on the ground
+level. Local tradition says this was the favourite haunt of a
+certain "wicked Lady Ferrers," who, disguised in male attire,
+robbed travellers upon the highway, and being wounded in one
+of these exploits, was discovered lying dead outside the walls
+of the house; and the malignant nature of this lady's spectre
+is said to have had so firm a hold upon the villagers that no
+local labourer could be induced to work upon that particular
+part of the building.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Beare Park, near Middleham, Yorkshire, had a hiding-hole entered
+from the kitchen chimney, as had also the Rookery Farm, near
+Cromer; West Coker Manor House; and The Chantry, at Ilminster,
+both in Somerset. At the last named, in another hiding-place in
+the room above, a bracket or credence-table was found, which
+is still preserved.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Many weird stories are told about Bovey House, South Devon, situated
+near the once notorious smuggling villages of Beer and Branscombe.
+Upon removing some leads of the roof a secret room was found,
+furnished with a chair and table. The well here is remarkable,
+and similar to that at Carisbrooke, with the exception that two
+people take the place of the donkey! Thirty feet below the ground
+level there is said to have been a hiding-place&mdash;a large cavity
+cut in the solid rock. Many years ago a skeleton of a man was
+found at the bottom. Such dramatic material should suggest to some
+sensational novelist a tragic story, as the well and lime-walk at
+Ingatestone is said to have suggested <i>Lady Audley's Secret</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A hiding-place something after the same style existed in the now
+demolished manor house of Besils Leigh, Berks. Down the shaft
+of a chimney a cavity was scooped out of the brickwork, to which
+a refugee had to be lowered by a rope. One of the towers of the
+west gate of Bodiam Castle contains a narrow square well in the
+wall leading to the ground level, and, as the guide was wont
+to remark, "how much farther the Lord only knows"! This sort
+of thing may also be seen at Mancetter Manor, Warwickshire, and
+Ightham Moat, Kent, both approached by a staircase.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A communication formerly ran from a secret chamber in the
+oak-panelled dining-room of Birtsmorton Court, Worcestershire,
+to a passage beneath the moat that surrounds the structure, and
+thence to an exit on the other side of the water. During the Wars
+of the Roses Sir John Oldcastle is said to have been concealed
+behind the secret panel; but now the romance is somewhat marred,
+for modern vandalism has converted the cupboard into a repository
+for provisions. The same indignity has taken place at that splendid
+old timber house in Cheshire, Moreton Hall, where a secret room,
+provided with a sleeping-compartment, situated over the kitchen,
+has been modernised into a repository for the storing of cheeses.
+From the hiding-place the moat could formerly be reached, down
+a narrow shaft in the wall.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Chelvey Court, near Bristol, contained two hiding-places; one,
+at the top of the house, was formerly entered through a panel,
+the other (a narrow apartment having a little window, and an
+iron candle-holder projecting from the wall) through the floor
+of a cupboard.[1] Both the panel and the trap-door are now done
+away with, and the tradition of the existence of the secret rooms
+almost forgotten, though not long since we received a letter
+from an antiquarian who had seen them thirty years before, and
+who was actually entertaining the idea of making practical
+investigations with the aid of a carpenter or mason, to which,
+as suggested, we were to be a party; the idea, however, was never
+carried out.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See <i>Notes and Queries</i>, September, 1855.]
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig070.jpg" width="377" height="293" alt="Fig. 70"><br>
+BIRTSMORTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig071.jpg" width="293" height="375" alt="Fig. 71"><br>
+PORCH, CHELVEY COURT, SOMERSETSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Granchester Manor House, Cambridgeshire, until recently possessed
+three places of concealment. Madingley Hall, in the same
+neighbourhood, has two, one of them entered from a bedroom on the
+first floor, has a space in the thickness of the wall high enough
+for a man to stand upright in it. The manor house of Woodcote,
+Hants, also possessed two, which were each capable of holding from
+fifteen to twenty men, but these repositories are now opened
+out into passages. One was situated behind a stack of chimneys,
+and contained an inner hiding-place. The "priests' quarters"
+in connection with the hiding-places are still to be seen.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Harborough Hall, Worcestershire, has two "priests' holes," one
+in the wall of the dining-room, the other behind a chimney in
+an upper room.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The old mansion of the Brudenells, in Northamptonshire, Deene
+Park, has a large secret chamber at the back of the fireplace
+in the great hall, sufficiently capacious to hold a score of
+people. Here also a hidden door in the panelling leads towards
+a subterranean passage running in the direction of the ruinous
+hall of Kirby, a mile and a half distant. In a like manner a
+passage extended from the great hall of Warleigh, an Elizabethan
+house near Plymouth, to an outlet in a cliff some sixty yards
+away, at whose base the tidal river flows.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Speke Hall, Lancashire (perhaps the finest specimen extant of
+the wood-and-plaster style of architecture nicknamed "Magpie "),
+formerly possessed a long underground communication extending
+from the house to the shore of the river Mersey; a member of
+the Norreys family concealed a priest named Richard Brittain
+here in the year 1586, who, by this means, effected his escape
+by boat.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The famous secret passage of Nottingham Castle, by which the
+young King Edward III. and his loyal associates gained access
+to the fortress and captured the murderous regent and usurper
+Mortimer, Earl of March, is known to this day as "Mortimer's
+Hole." It runs up through the perpendicular rock upon which the
+castle stands, on the south-east side from a place called Brewhouse
+yard, and has an exit in what was originally the courtyard of the
+building. The Earl was seized in the midst of his adherents and
+retainers on the night of October 19th, 1330, and after a skirmish,
+notwithstanding the prayers and entreaties of his paramour Queen
+Isabella, he was bound and carried away through the passage in
+the rock, and shortly afterwards met his well-deserved death on
+the gallows at Smithfield.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+But what ancient castle, monastery, or hall has not its traditional
+subterranean passage? Certainly the majority are mythical; still,
+there are some well authenticated. Burnham Abbey, Buckinghamshire,
+for example, or Tenterden Hall, Hendon, had passages which have
+been traced for over fifty yards; and one at Vale Royal,
+Nottinghamshire, has been explored for nearly a mile. In the
+older portions in both of the great wards of Windsor Castle arched
+passages thread their way below the basement, through the chalk,
+and penetrate to some depth below the site of the castle ditch
+at the base of the walls.[1] In the neighbourhood of Ripon
+subterranean passages have been found from time to time&mdash;tunnels
+of finely moulded masonry supposed to have been connected at
+one time with Fountains Abbey.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: See Marquis of Lorne's (Duke of Argyll) <i>Governor's
+Guide to Windsor</i>.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A passage running from Arundel Castle in the direction of Amberley
+has also been traced for some considerable distance, and a man and
+a dog have been lost in following its windings, so the entrance
+is now stopped up. About three years ago a long underground way
+was discovered at Margate, reaching from the vicinity of Trinity
+Church to the smugglers' caves in the cliffs; also at Port Leven,
+near Helston, a long subterranean tunnel was discovered leading to
+the coast, no doubt very useful in the good old smuggling days.
+At Sunbury Park, Middlesex, was found a long vaulted passage some
+five feet high and running a long way under the grounds. Numerous
+other examples could be stated, among them at St. Radigund's
+Abbey, near Dover; Liddington Manor House, Wilts; the Bury,
+Rickmansworth; "Sir Harry Vane's House," Hampstead, etc., etc.
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap14">CHAPTER XIV</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+MINIATURE HIDING-HOLES FOR VALUABLES, ETC.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Small hidden recesses for the concealment of valuables or
+compromising deeds, etc., behind the wainscoting of ancient houses,
+frequently come to light. Many a curious relic has been discovered
+from time to time, often telling a strange or pathetic story
+of the past. A certain Lady Hoby, who lived at Bisham Abbey,
+Berkshire, is said by tradition to have caused the death of her
+little boy by too severe corporal punishment for his obstinacy
+in learning to write, A grim sequel to the legend happened not
+long since. Behind a window shutter in a small secret cavity
+in the wall was found an ancient, tattered copy-book, which,
+from the blots and its general slovenly appearance, was no doubt
+the handiwork of the unfortunate little victim to Lady Hoby's
+wrath.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+When the old manor house of Wandsworth was pulled down recently,
+upon removing some old panelling a little cupboard was discovered,
+full of dusty phials and mouldy pill-boxes bearing the names of
+poor Queen Anne's numerous progeny who died in infancy.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Richard Cromwell spent many of his later years at Hursley, near
+Winchester, an old house now pulled down. In the progress of
+demolition what appeared to be a piece of rusty metal was found
+in a small cavity in one of the walls, which turned out to be
+no less important a relic than the seal of the Commonwealth of
+England.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Walford, in <i>Greater London</i>, mentions the discovery of
+some articles of dress of Elizabeth's time behind the wainscot
+of the old palace of Richmond, Surrey. Historical portraits have
+frequently been found in this way. Behind the panelling in a
+large room at the old manor house of Great Gaddesden, Herts,
+were a number of small aumbrys, or recesses. A most interesting
+panel-portrait of Queen Elizabeth was found in one of them, which
+was exhibited at the Tudor Exhibition. In 1896, when the house
+of John Wesley at Lewisham was pulled down, who should be found
+between the walls but the amorous Merry Monarch and a court beauty!
+The former is said to be Riley's work. Secretary Thurloe's MSS.,
+as is well known, were found embedded in a ceiling of his lodgings
+at Lincoln's Inn. In pulling down a block of old buildings in
+Newton Street, Holborn, a hidden space was found in one of the
+chimneys, and there, covered with the dust of a century, lay
+a silver watch, a silk guard attached, and seals bearing the
+Lovat crest. The relic was promptly claimed by Mr. John Fraser,
+the claimant to the long-disputed peerage.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: December 14th, 1895.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Small hiding-places have been found at the manor house of Chew
+Magna, Somerset, and Milton Priory, a Tudor mansion in Berkshire.
+In the latter a green shagreen case was found containing a
+seventeenth-century silver and ivory pocket knife and fork. A
+small hiding-place at Coughton Court, Warwickshire, brought to
+light a bundle of priest's clothes, hidden there in the days
+of religious persecution. In 1876 a small chamber was found at
+Sanderstead Court, Surrey, containing a small blue-and-white jar
+of Charles I.'s time. Three or four small secret repositories
+existed behind some elaborately carved oak panels in the great
+hall of the now ruinous Harden Hall, near Stockport. In similar
+recesses at Gawdy Hall, Suffolk, were discovered two ancient
+apostle spoons, a watch, and some Jacobean MSS. A pair of gloves
+and some jewels of seventeenth-century date were brought to light
+not many years ago in a secret recess at Woodham Mortimer Manor
+House, Essex. A very curious example of a hiding-place for valuables
+formerly existed at an old building known as Terpersie Castle,
+near Alford, Lincolnshire. The sides of it were lined with stone
+to preserve articles from damp, and it could be drawn out of
+the wall like a drawer.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In the year 1861 a hidden receptacle was found at the Elizabethan
+college of Wedmore, Kent, containing Roman Catholic MSS. and
+books; and at Bromley Palace, close by, in a small aperture below
+the floor, was found the leathern sole of a pointed shoe of the
+Middle Ages! Small hiding-places of this nature existed in a
+wing, now pulled down, of the Abbey House, Whitby (in "Lady Anne's
+Room"). At Castle Ashby, Northants; Fountains Hall, near Ripon;
+Ashes House, near Preston; Trent House, Somerset; and Ockwells,
+Berks,[1] are panels opening upon pivots and screening small
+cavities in the walls.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: Another hiding-place is said to have existed behind
+the fireplace of the hall.]
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig072.jpg" width="416" height="526" alt="Fig. 72"><br>
+HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE, SUSSEX
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="chap15">CHAPTER XV</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+HIDING-PLACES OF SMUGGLERS AND THIEVES
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Horsfield, in his <i>History of Sussex</i>, gives a curious account
+of the discovery in 1738 of an iron chest in a recess of a wall at
+the now magnificent ruin Hurstmonceaux Castle. In the thickness
+of the walls were many curious staircases communicating with the
+galleries. When the old castle was allowed to fall into ruin,
+the secret passages, etc., were used by smugglers as a convenient
+receptacle for contraband goods.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Until recently there was an ingenious hiding-place behind a sliding
+panel at the old "Bell Inn" at Sandwich which had the reputation
+of having formerly been put to the same use; indeed, in many
+another old house near the coast were hiding-places utilised for
+a like purpose.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In pulling down an old house at Erith in 1882 a vault was discovered
+with strong evidence that it had been extensively used for smuggling.
+The pretty village of Branscombe, on the Devonshire coast, was,
+like the adjacent village of Beer, a notorious place for smugglers.
+"The Clergy House," a picturesque, low-built Tudor building
+(condemned as being insecure and pulled down a few years ago),
+had many mysterious stories told of its former occupants, its
+underground chambers and hiding-places; indeed, the villagers
+went so far as to declare that there was <i>another house</i>
+beneath the foundations!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A secret chamber was discovered at the back of a fireplace in an
+old house at Deal, from which a long underground passage extended
+to the beach. The house was used as a school, and the unearthly
+noises caused by the wind blowing up this smugglers' passage
+created much consternation among the young lady pupils. A lady
+of our acquaintance remembers, when a schoolgirl at Rochester,
+exploring part of a vaulted tunnel running in the direction of
+the castle from Eastgate House, which in those days was a school,
+and had not yet received the distinction of being the "Nun's
+House" of <i>Edwin Drood</i>. Some way along, the passage was
+blocked by the skeleton of a donkey! Our informant is not given
+to romancing, therefore we must accept the story in good faith.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+All round the coast-line of Kent once famous smuggling buildings
+are still pointed out. Movable hollow beams have been found
+supporting cottage ceilings, containing all kinds of contraband
+goods. In one case, so goes the story, a customs house officer
+in walking through a room knocked his head, and the tell-tale
+hollow sound (from the beam, not from his head, we will presume)
+brought a discovery. At Folkestone, tradition says, a long row
+of houses used for the purpose had the cellars connected one
+with the other right the way along, so that the revenue officers
+could be easily evaded in the case of pursuit.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The modern utility of a convenient secret panel or trap-door
+occasionally is apparent from the police-court reports. The tenements
+in noted thieves' quarters are often found to have
+intercommunication; a masked door will lead from one house to
+the other, and trap-doors will enable a thief to vanish from
+the most keen-sighted detective, and nimbly thread his way over
+the roofs of the neighbouring houses. There was a case in the
+papers not long since; a man, being closely chased, was on the
+point of being seized, when, to the astonishment of his pursuers,
+he suddenly disappeared at a spot where apparently he had been
+closely hemmed in.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Many old houses in Clerkenwell were, sixty or seventy years ago,
+notorious thieves' dens, and were noted for their hiding-places,
+trap-doors, etc., for evading the vigilance of the law. The name
+of Jack Sheppard, as may be supposed, had connection with the
+majority. One of these old buildings had been used in former
+years as a secret Jesuits' college, and the walls were threaded
+with masked passages and places of concealment; and when the old
+"Red Lion Inn" in West Street was pulled down in 1836, some artful
+traps and false floors were discovered which tarried well with
+its reputation as a place of rendezvous and safety for outlaws.
+The "Rising Sun" in Holywell Street is a curious example, there
+being many false doors and traps in various parts of the house;
+also in the before-mentioned Newton Street a panel could be raised
+by a pulley, through which a fugitive or outlaw could effect his
+escape on to the roof, and thence into the adjoining house.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+One of the simplest and most secure hiding-places perhaps ever
+devised by a law-breaker was that within a water-butt! A cone-shaped
+repository, entered from the bottom, would allow a man to sit
+within it; nevertheless, to all intents and purposes the butt
+was kept full of water, and could be apparently emptied from a
+tap at its base, which, of course, was raised from the ground
+to admit the fugitive. We understand such a butt is still in
+existence somewhere in Yorkshire.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A "secret staircase" in Partingdale House, Mill Hill, is associated
+(by tradition) with the notorious Dick Turpin, perhaps because of
+its proximity to his haunts upon Finchley Common. As it exists
+now, however, there is no object for secrecy, the staircase leading
+merely to the attics, and its position can be seen; but the door
+is well disguised in a Corinthian column containing a secret
+spring. Various alterations have taken place in this house, so
+once upon a time it may have had a deeper meaning than is now
+perceptible.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Another supposed resort of this famous highwayman is an old ivy-grown
+cottage at Thornton Heath. Narrow steps lead up from the open
+chimney towards a concealed door, from which again steps descend
+and lead to a subterranean passage having an exit in the garden.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig073.jpg" width="403" height="295" alt="Fig. 73"><br>
+BOVEY HOUSE, SOUTH DEVON
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig074.jpg" width="409" height="312" alt="Fig. 74"><br>
+MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We do not intend to go into the matter of modern secret chambers,
+and there are such things, as some of our present architects and
+builders could tell us, for it is no uncommon thing to design
+hiding-places for the security of valuables. For instance, we
+know of a certain suburban residence, built not more than thirty
+years ago, where one of the rooms has capacities for swallowing
+up a man six feet high and broad in proportion. We have known such
+a person&mdash;or shall we say victim?&mdash;to appear after a temporary
+absence, of say, five minutes, with visible signs of discomfort;
+but as far as we are aware the secret is as safe in his keeping
+as is the famous mystery in the possession of the heir of Glamis.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+An example of a sliding panel in an old house in Essex (near
+Braintree) was used as a pattern for the entrance to a modern
+secret chamber;[1] and no doubt there are many similar instances
+where the ingenuity of our ancestors has thus been put to use
+for present-day requirements.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: According to the newspaper reports, the recently
+recovered "Duchess of Devonshire," by Gainsborough, was for some
+time secreted behind a secret panel in a sumptuous steam-launch
+up the river Thames, from whence it was removed to America in
+a trunk with a false bottom.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Our collection of houses with hiding-holes is now coming to an
+end. We will briefly summarise those that remain unrecorded.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+"New Building" at Thirsk has, or had, a secret chamber measuring
+three feet by six. Upon the outside wall on the east side of
+the house is a small aperture into which a stone fitted with
+such nicety that no sign of its being movable could possibly be
+detected; at the same time, it could be removed with the greatest
+ease in the event of its being necessary to supply a person in
+hiding with food.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Catledge Hall, Cambridgeshire, has a small octangular closet
+adjoining a bedroom, from which formerly there was a secret way
+on to the leads of the roof.
+</p>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig075.jpg" width="411" height="302" alt="Fig. 75"><br>
+MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE
+</div>
+
+<div class="image">
+<img src="images/fig076.jpg" width="403" height="276" alt="Fig. 76"><br>
+ENTRANCE TO SECRET STAIRCASE, PARTINGDALE HOUSE, MILL-HILL, MIDDLESEX
+</div>
+
+<p class="indent">
+At Dunkirk Hall, near West Bromwich, is a "priest's hole" in the
+upper part of the house near "the chapel," which is now divided
+into separate rooms.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Mapledurham House, axon, the old seat of the Blounts, contains
+a "priest's hole" in the attics, descent into which could be
+made by the aid of a rope suspended for that purpose.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Upton Court, near Slough, possesses a "priest's hole," entered
+from a fireplace, provided with a double flue&mdash;one for smoke,
+the other for ventilation to the hiding-place.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Knebworth House, Hertfordshire, formerly had a secret chamber
+known as "Hell Hole."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Eastgate House, Rochester (before mentioned), has a hiding-place
+in one of the upstairs rooms. It has, however, been altered.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Milsted Manor, Kent, is said to have a secret exit from the library;
+and Sharsted Court (some three miles distant) has a cleverly
+marked panel in the wainscoting of "the Tapestry Dressing-room,"
+which communicates by a very narrow and steep flight of steps
+in the thickness of the wall with "the Red Bedroom."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The "Clough Inn," Chard, Somersetshire, is said by tradition to
+have possessed three secret rooms!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire&mdash;a hiding-place formerly in "the tower."
+Bramhall Hall, Cheshire&mdash;two secret recesses were discovered
+not long ago during alterations. The following also contain
+hiding-places:&mdash;Hall-i'-the-wood, Bolling Hall, Mains Hall, and
+Huncoat Hall, all in Lancashire; Drayton House, Northants; Packington
+Old Hall, Warwickshire; Batsden Court, Salop; Melford Hall, Suffolk,
+Fyfield House, Wilts; "New Building," Southwater, Sussex; Barsham
+Rectory, Suffolk; Porter's Hall, Southend, Essex; Kirkby Knowle
+Castle and Barnborough Hall, Yorkshire; Ford House, Devon; Cothele,
+Cornwall; Hollingbourne Manor House, Kent (altered of late years);
+Salisbury Court, near Shenley, Herts.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Of hiding-places and secret chambers in the ancient castles and
+mansions upon the Continent we know but little.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Two are said to exist in an old house in the Hradschin in Prague&mdash;one
+communicating from the foundation to the roof "by a windlass or
+turnpike." A subterranean passage extends also from the house
+beneath the street and the cathedral, and is said to have its
+exit in the Hirch Graben, or vast natural moat which bounds the
+ch&acirc;teau upon the north.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A lady of our acquaintance remembers her feeling of awe when,
+as a school-girl, she was shown a hiding-place in an old mansion
+near Baden-Baden&mdash;a huge piece of stone masonry swinging aside
+upon a pivot and revealing a gloomy kind of dungeon behind.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The old French ch&acirc;teaux, according to Froisart, were rarely without
+secret means of escape. King Louis XVI., famous for his mechanical
+skill, manufactured a hiding-place in an inner corridor of his
+private apartments at the Palace of Versailles. The wall where
+it was situated was painted to imitate large stones, and the
+grooves of the opening were cleverly concealed in the shaded
+representations of the divisions. In this a vast collection of
+State papers was preserved prior to the Revolution.[1]
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: Vide <i>The Memoirs of Madame Campan.</i>]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Mr. Lang tells us, in his admirable work <i>Pickle the Spy</i>,
+that Bonnie Prince Charlie, between the years 1749 and 1752,
+spent much of his time in the convent of St. Joseph in the Rue
+St. Dominique, in the Faubourg St. Germain, which under the late
+Empire (1863) was the hotel of the Minister of War. Here he appears
+to have been continually lurking behind the walls, and at night by
+a secret staircase visiting his protectress Madame de Vass&eacute;s.
+Allusion is made in the same work to a secret cellar with a "dark
+stair" leading to James III.'s furtive audience-chamber at his
+residence in Rome.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+So recently as the year 1832 a hiding-place in an old French
+house was put to practical use by the Duchesse de Berry after
+the failure of her enterprise to raise the populace in favour of
+her son the Duc de Bordeaux. She had, however, to reveal herself
+in preference to suffocation, a fire, either intentionally or
+accidentally, having been ignited close to where she was hidden,
+recalling the terrible experiences of Father Gerard at "Braddocks."
+</p>
+
+<h2><a name="chap16">CHAPTER XVI</a></h2>
+
+<p class="subtitle">
+THE SCOTTISH HIDING-PLACES OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The romantic escapes of Prince Charles Edward are somewhat beyond
+the province of this book, owing to the fact that the hiding-places
+in which he lived for the greater part of five months were not
+artificial but natural formations in the wild, mountainous country
+of the Western Highlands. Far less convenient and comfortable
+were these caves and fissures in the rocks than those secret
+places which preserved the life of the "young chevalier's"
+great-uncle Charles II. Altogether, the terrible hardships to
+which the last claimant to the Stuart throne was subjected were
+far greater in every way, and we can but admire the remarkable
+spirit, fortitude, and courage that carried him through his numerous
+dangers and trials.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The wild and picturesque character not only of the Scotch scenery,
+but of the loyal Highlanders, who risked their all to save their
+King, gives the story of this remarkable escape a romantic colouring
+that surpasses any other of its kind, whether real or fictitious.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+This, therefore, is our excuse for giving a brief summary of the
+Prince's wanderings, if only to add to our other hiding-places
+a record of the names of the isolated spots which have become
+historical landmarks.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In his flight from the fatal battlefield of Culloden the young
+Prince, when about four miles from Inverness, hastily determined
+to make the best of his way towards the western coast. The first
+halt was made at Castle Dounie, the seat of the crafty old traitor
+Lord Lovat. A hasty meal having been taken here, Charles and his
+little cavalcade of followers pushed on to Invergarry, where
+the chieftain, Macdonnell of Glengarry, otherwise "Pickle the
+Spy,"[1] being absent from home, an empty house was the only
+welcome, but the best was made of the situation. Here the bulk of
+the Prince's companions dispersed to look after their own safety,
+while he and one or two chosen friends continued the journey to
+Glenpean, the residence of the chieftain Donald Cameron. From
+Mewboll, which was reached the next night, the fugitives proceeded
+on foot to Oban, where a hovel was found for sleeping-quarters.
+In the village of Glenbiasdale, in Arisaig, near to where Charles
+had landed on his disastrous enterprise, he learned that a number
+of Royalist cruisers were upon the alert all along the coast,
+whereupon he determined to watch his opportunity and get across
+to the Western Isles, and remain concealed until a French vessel
+could be found to take him abroad.
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: <i>Vide</i> Andrew Lang's <i>Pickle the Spy</i>.]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A boat was procured, and the little party safely embarked, but
+in the voyage encountered such heavy seas that the vessel very
+nearly foundered; a landing, however, being effected at a place
+called Roonish, in the Isle of Benbecula, a habitation had to
+be made out of a miserable hut. Two days being thus wretchedly
+spent, a move was made to the Island of Scalpa, where Charles
+was entertained for four days in the house of Donald Campbell.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Meanwhile, a larger vessel was procured, the object being to
+reach Stornoway; but the inclemency of the weather induced Charles
+and his guide Donald Macleod to make the greater part of the
+journey by land. Arriving there hungry, worn out, and drenched
+to the skin, the Prince passed the night at Kildun, the house
+of Mrs. Mackenzie; an alarm of danger, however, forced him to
+sea again with a couple of companions, O'Sullivan and O'Neal;
+but shortly after they had embarked they sighted some men-of-war,
+so put to land once more at the Island of Jeffurt. Four days
+were passed away in this lonely spot, when the boat put out to
+sea once more, and after many adventures and privations the
+travellers landed at Loch Wiskaway, in Benbecula, and made their
+headquarters some two miles inland at a squalid hut scarcely
+bigger than a pigstye.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The next move was to an isolated locality named Glencorodale,
+in the centre of South Uist, where in a hut of larger dimensions
+the Prince held his court in comparative luxury, his wants being
+well looked after by Sir Alexander and Lady Macdonald and other
+neighbouring Jacobites. With thirty thousand pounds reward offered
+for his capture, and the Western Isles practically surrounded
+by the enemy, it is difficult to imagine the much-sought-for
+prize coolly passing his weary hours in fishing and shooting,
+yet such was the case for the whole space of a month.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+An eye-witness describes Charles's costume at this time as "a
+tartan short coat and vest of the same, got from Lady Clanranald;
+his nightcap all patched with soot-drops, his shirt, hands, and
+face patched with the same; a short kilt, tartan hose, and Highland
+brogs."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+From South Uist the fugitive removed to the Island of Wia, where
+he was received by Ranald Macdonald; thence he visited places
+called Rossinish and Aikersideallich, and at the latter had to
+sleep in a fissure in the rocks. Returning once more to South
+Uist, Charles (accompanied by O'Neal and Mackechan) found a
+hiding-place up in the hills, as the militia appeared to be
+dangerously near, and at night tramped towards Benbecula, near
+to which another place of safety was found in the rocks.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The memorable name of Flora Macdonald now appears upon the scene.
+After much scheming and many difficulties the meeting of the Prince
+and this noble lady was arranged in a squalid hut near Rosshiness.
+The hardships encountered upon the journey from Benbecula to this
+village were some of the worst experiences of the unfortunate
+wanderer; and when his destination was reached at last, he had to
+be hurried off again to a hiding-place by the sea-shore, which
+provided little or no protection from the driving torrents of
+rain. Early each morning this precaution had to be taken, as
+the Royalist soldiers, who were quartered only a quarter of a
+mile distant, repaired to the hut every morning to get milk from
+the woman who acted as Charles's hostess. Upon the third day after
+the Prince had arrived, Flora Macdonald joined him, bringing with
+her the disguise for the character he was to impersonate upon
+a proposed journey to the Isle of Skye&mdash;<i>viz.</i> "a flowered
+linen gown, a light-coloured quilted petticoat, a white apron,
+and a mantle of dun camlet, made after the Irish fashion, with
+a hood."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A boat lay in readiness in a secluded nook on the coast, and
+"Betty Burke"&mdash;the pseudo servant-maid&mdash;Flora Macdonald, and
+Mackechan, as guide, embarked and got safely to Kilbride, in
+Skye. Not, however, without imminent dangers. A storm nearly
+swamped the boat; and upon reaching the western coast of the
+island they were about to land, when a number of militiamen were
+noticed on shore, close at hand, and as they recognised their
+peril, and pulled away with might and main, a volley of musketry
+would probably have had deadly effect, had not the fugitives
+thrown themselves at the bottom of the boat.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+At the house of the Macdonalds of Mugstat, whose representative
+dreaded the consequences of receiving Charles, another Macdonald
+was introduced as an accomplice by the merest accident. This
+staunch Jacobite at once took possession of "Betty," and hurried
+off towards his house of Kingsburgh. Upon the way the ungainly
+appearance of Flora's maid attracted the attention of a servant,
+who remarked that she had never seen such an impudent-looking
+woman. "See what long strides the jade takes!" she cried; "and how
+awkwardly she manages her petticoats!" And this was true enough,
+for in fording a little brook "Betty Burke" had to be severely
+reprimanded by her chaperon for her impropriety in lifting her
+skirts! Upon reaching the house, Macdonald's little girl caught
+sight of the strange woman, and ran away to tell her mother that
+her father had brought home "the most old, muckle, ill-shapen-up
+wife" she had ever seen. Startling news certainly for the lady
+of Kingsburgh!
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The old worn-out boots of the Prince's were discarded for new
+ones ere he departed, and fragments of the former were long
+afterwards worn in the bosoms of Jacobite ladies.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The next step in this wonderful escape was to Portree, where
+temporary accommodation was found in a small public-house. Here
+Charles separated from his loyal companions Neil Mackechan and
+the immortal Flora. The "Betty Burke" disguise was discarded
+and burnt and a Highland dress donned. With new guides the young
+Chevalier now made his headquarters for a couple of days or so
+in a desolate shepherd's hut in the Isle of Raasay; thence he
+journeyed to the north coast of the Isle of Skye, and near Scorobreck
+housed himself in a cow-shed. At this stage of his journey Charles
+altered his disguise into that of a servant of his then companion
+Malcolm Macleod, and at the home of his next host (a Mackinnon of
+Ellagol) was introduced as "Lewie Caw," the son of a surgeon in
+the Highland army. By the advice of the Mackinnons, the fugitive
+decided to return, under their guidance, again to the mainland,
+and a parting supper having been held in a cave by the sea-shore,
+he bid adieu to the faithful Macleod. The crossing having been
+effected, not without innumerable dangers, once more Charles
+found himself near the locality of his first landing. For the
+next three days neither cave nor hut dwelling could be found
+that was considered safe; and upon the fourth day, in exploring
+the shores of Loch Nevis for a hiding-place, the fugitives ran
+their little craft right into a militia boat that was moored
+to and screened from view by a projecting rock. The soldiers
+on land immediately sprang on board and gave chase; but with
+his usual good luck Charles got clear away by leaping on land
+at a turn of the lake, where his retreat was covered by dense
+foliage.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+After this the Prince was under the care of the Macdonalds, one
+of which clan, Macdonald of Glenaladale, together with Donald
+Cameron of Glenpean, took the place of the Mackinnons.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+A brief stay was made at Morar Lake and at Borrodaile (both houses
+of the Macdonalds); after which a hut in a wood near the latter
+place and an artfully constructed hiding-place between two rocks
+with a roof of green turf did service as the Prince's palace.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In this cave Charles received the alarming news that the Argyllshire
+Militia were on the scent, and were forming an impenetrable cordon
+completely round the district. Forced once more to seek refuge
+in flight, the unfortunate Stuart was hurried away through some
+of the wildest mountainous country he had yet been forced to
+traverse. A temporary hiding-place was found, and from this a
+search-party exploring the adjacent rocks and crags was watched
+with breathless interest.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Still within the military circle, a desperate dash for liberty had
+now to be planned. Nearly starved and reduced to the last extremity
+of fatigue, Charles and his guides, Glenpean and Glenaladale,
+crept stealthily upon all-fours towards the watch-fires, and
+taking advantage of a favourable moment when the nearest sentry
+was in such a position that their approach could be screened
+by the projecting rocks, in breathless silence the three stole
+by, and offering up a prayer for their deliverance, continued
+their foot-sore journey until their legs would carry them no
+farther.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The next four days Charles sought shelter in caves in the
+neighbourhood of Glenshiel, Strathcluanie, and Strathglass; but
+the most romantic episode in his remarkable adventures was the
+sojourn in the secret caves and hiding-places of the notorious
+robbers of Glenmoriston, under whose protection the royal fugitive
+placed himself. With these wild freebooters he continued for
+three weeks, during which time he made himself extremely popular
+by his freedom of intercourse with them.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The wanderer left these dwellings of comparative luxury that
+he might join hands with other fugitive Jacobites, Macdonald
+of Lochgarry and Cameron of Clunes, and took up his quarters
+in the wood-surrounded huts near Loch Arkaig and Auchnacarry.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The poor youth's appearance at this period is thus described by
+one of his adherents: "The Prince was at this time bare-footed,
+had an old black kilt-coat on, philabeg and waistcoat, a dirty
+shirt, and a long red beard, a gun in his hand, and a pistol
+and dirk by his side."
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Moving again to miserable hovels in the wild recesses of the
+mountain Benalder, the chieftains Lochiel and Cluny acted now
+as the main bodyguard. The former of these two had devised a
+very safe hiding-place in the mountain which went by the name
+of "the Cage," and while here welcome news was brought that two
+friendly vessels had arrived at Lochnanuagh, their mission being,
+if possible, to seek out and carry away the importunate heir to
+the Stuart throne.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The last three or four days of Charles's memorable adventures
+were occupied in reaching Glencamger, halts being made on the
+day at Corvoy and Auchnacarry. On Saturday, September 20th, 1746,
+he was on board <i>L'Heureux</i>, and nine days later landed at
+Roscoff, near Morlaix.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+So ended the famous escapades of the young Chevalier Prince Charles
+Edward.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+Here is a fine field open to some enterprising artistic tourist.
+How interesting it would be to follow Prince Charles throughout
+his journeyings in the Western Highlands, and illustrate with
+pen and pencil each recorded landmark! Not long since Mr. Andrew
+Lang gave, in a weekly journal (<i>The Sketch</i>), illustrations
+of the most famous of all the Prince's hiding-places&mdash;<i>viz.</i>
+the cave in Glenmoriston, Inverness-shire.[1] The cave, we are
+told, is "formed like a tumulus by tall boulders, but is clearly
+a conspicious object, and a good place wherein to hunt for a
+fugitive. But it served its turn, and as another cave in the same
+district two miles off is lost, perhaps it is not so conspicious
+as it seems." It is about twenty feet wide at the base, and the
+position of the hearth and the royal bed are still to be seen,
+with "the finest purling stream that could be, running by the
+bed-side." How handy for the morning "tub"!
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">
+[Footnote 1: They appeared originally in Blaikie's <i>Itinerary
+of Prince Curies Stuart</i> (Scottish History Society).]
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+In that remarkable collection of Stuart relics on exhibition
+in 1889 were many pathetic mementoes of Charles's wanderings in
+the Highlands. Here could be seen not only the mittens but the
+chemise of "Betty Burke"; the punch-bowl over which the Prince
+and the host of Kingsburgh had a late carousal, and his Royal
+Highness's table-napkins used in the same hospitable house; a
+wooden coffee-mill, which provided many a welcome cup of coffee
+in the days of so many hardships; a silver dessert-spoon, given
+to Dr. Macleod by the fugitive when he left the Isle of Skye;
+the Prince's pocket-book, many of his pistols, and a piece of
+his Tartan disguise; a curious relic in the form of two lines
+of music, sent as a warning to one of his lurking-places&mdash;when
+folded in a particular way the following words become legible,
+"Conceal yourself; your foes look for you." There was also a
+letter from Charles saying he had "arrived safe aboard ye vessell"
+which carried him to France, and numerous little things which
+gave the history of the escape remarkable reality.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+The recent dispersal of the famous Culloden collection sent
+long-cherished Jacobite relics broadcast over the land. The ill-fated
+Stuart's bed and walking-stick were of course the plums of this
+sale; but they had no connection with the Highland wanderings
+after the battle. The only object that had any connection with
+the story was the gun of <i>L'Heureux</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent">
+We understand there is still a much-prized heirloom now in Glasgow&mdash;a
+rustic chair used by the Prince when in Skye. The story is that,
+secreted in one of his cave dwellings, he espied a lad in his
+immediate vicinity tending some cows. Hunger made him reveal
+himself, with the result that he was taken to the boy's home,
+a farm not far off, and had his fill of cream and oatcakes, a
+delicacy which did not often fall in his way. The visit naturally
+was repeated; and long afterwards, when the rank of his guest
+came to the knowledge of the good farmer, the royal chair was
+promoted from its old corner in the kitchen to an honored position
+worthy of such a valued possession.
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+THE END.
+</p>
+
+<h2>INDEX</h2>
+
+<p>
+Bedfordshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Toddington Place<br>
+Berkshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Besils Leigh<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bisham Abbey<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;East Hendred House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hurley, Lady Place<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Milton Priory<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ockwells<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ufton Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Windsor Castle<br>
+Buckinghamshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Burnham Abbey<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Claydon House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Dinton Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Gayhurst, or Gothurst<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Slough, Upton Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Stoke Poges Manor House
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Cambridgeshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Catledge Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Granchester Manor House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Madingley Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Sawston Hall<br>
+Cheshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bramhall Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Harden Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Lyme Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Moreton Hall<br>
+Cornwall:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bochym House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Cothele<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Port Leven<br>
+Cumberland:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Naworth Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Nether Hall
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Derbyshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bradshawe Hall<br>
+Devonshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bovey House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Branscombe, "The Clergy House"<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ford House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Warleigh<br>
+Durham:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bishops Middleham<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Darlington<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Dinsdale-on-Tees<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Eshe Hall
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Essex:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Braddocks, or Broad Oaks<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Braintree<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Dunmow, North End<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hill Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hinchford<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ingatestone Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Romford, Marks<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Southend, Porter's Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Woodham Mortimer Manor House
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Gloucestershire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bourton-on-the-Water Manor House
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Hampshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bramshill<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Highclere Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hinton-Ampner<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hursley<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Moyles Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Tichbourne<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Woodcote Manor House<br>
+Herefordshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Treago<br>
+Hertfordshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Great Gaddesden Manor House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hatfield House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Knebworth House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Markyate Cell, Dunstable<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Rickmansworth, The Bury<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Shenley, Salisbury Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Tyttenhanger House<br>
+Huntingdonshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Kimbolton Castle
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Kent:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bromley Palace<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Deal<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Dover, St. Radigund's Abbey<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Erith<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Folkestone<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Franks<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hollingbourne Manor House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ightham Moat<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Lewisham, John Wesley's House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Margate<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Milsted Manor<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Rochester, Abdication House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Rochester, Eastgate House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Rochester, Restoration House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Sandwich, "Bell Inn"<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Sharsted Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Twissenden<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Wedmore College
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lancashire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bolling Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Borwick Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Gawthorp Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hall-i'-the-wood<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Holme Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Huncoat Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Lydiate Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Mains Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Preston, Ashes House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Speke Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Stonyhurst<br>
+Lincolnshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bayons Manor<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Irnham Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Kingerby Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Terpersie Castle
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Middlesex:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Enfield, White Webb's<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hackney, Brooke House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hampstead, Sir Harry Vane's House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hampton Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hendon, Tenterden Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Highgate, Cromwell House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hillingdon, Moorcroft House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Islington, Hale House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Kensington, Holland House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Knightsbridge<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;London, Lincoln's Inn<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;London, Newton Street, Holborn<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;London, "Red Lion Inn," West Street, Clerkenwell<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;London, "Rising Sun," Holywell Street<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Mill Hill, Partingdale House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Sunbury Park<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Twickenham, Arragon Towers<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Westminster, Delahay Street
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Norfolk:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Cromer, Rookery Farm<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Oxburgh Hall<br>
+Northamptonshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ashby St. Ledgers<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Castle Ashby<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Deene Park<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Drayton House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Fawsley<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Great Harrowden<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Rushton Hall<br>
+Northumberland:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ford Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Netherwhitton<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Wallington<br>
+Nottinghamshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Nottingham Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Vale Royal<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Worksop
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Oxfordshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Broughton Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Chastleton<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Mapledurham House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Minster Lovel Manor House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Shipton Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Tusmore House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Woodstock
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Shropshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Batsden Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Boscobel House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Gatacre Park<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Longford, Newport<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Madeley Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Madeley, Upper House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Oswestry, Park Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Plowden Hall<br>
+Somersetshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Chard, "Clough Inn"<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Chelvey Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Chew Magna Manor House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Dunster Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ilminster, The Chantry<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Trent House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;West Coker Manor House<br>
+Staffordshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Broughton Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Moseley Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;West Bromwich, Dunkirk Hall<br>
+Suffolk:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Barsham Rectory<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Brandeston Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Brandon Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Coldham Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Gawdy Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Melford Hall<br>
+Surrey:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Mortlake, Cromwell House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Petersham, Ham House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Richmond Palace<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Sanderstead Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Thornton Heath<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Wandsworth Manor House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Weybridge, Ham House<br>
+Sussex:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Albourne Place<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Arundel Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bodiam Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Chichester Cathedral<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Cowdray<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hurstmonceaux Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Parham Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Paxhill<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Scotney Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Slindon House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Southwater, Horsham, "New Building"<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Street Place
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Warwickshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Baddesley Clinton<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Clopton Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Compton Winyates<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Coughton Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Mancetter Manor<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Packington Old Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Salford Prior Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Warwick, St. John's Hospital<br>
+Wiltshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Fyfield House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Great Chalfield<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Heale House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Liddington Manor House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Salisbury<br>
+Worcestershire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Armscot Manor House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Birtsmorton Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Cleeve Prior Manor House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Harborough Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Harvington Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hindlip Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Huddington Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Malvern, Pickersleigh Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Stanford Court<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Wollas Hall
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yorkshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Bamborough Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Beare Park<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Danby Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Dannoty Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Fountains Abbey<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Fountains Hall<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Hull, White Hart Hotel<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Kirkby Knowle Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Leyburn, The Grove<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Myddleton Lodge, Ilkley<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Thirsk, "New Building"<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Whatton Abbey<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Whitby, Abbey House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Yeadon, Low Hall
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Aberdeenshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Belucraig<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Dalpersie House<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Fetternear<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Fyvie Castle<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Gordonstown<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Kemnay House
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Banffshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Towie Barclay Castle
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Elginshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Coxton Tower
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Forfarshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Glamis Castle
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Haddingtonshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Elphinstone Castle
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Linlithgowshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Binns House
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nairnshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Cawdor Castle
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Monmouthshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ty Mywr
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pembrokeshire:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Carew Castle
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Isle of Wight:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Newport Manor House
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Guernsey:&mdash;<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;Ch&acirc;teau du Puits
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Secret Chambers and Hiding Places, by Allan Fea
+
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
+
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@@ -0,0 +1,4653 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Secret Chambers and Hiding Places, by Allan Fea
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Secret Chambers and Hiding Places
+       Historic, Romantic, & Legendary Stories & Traditions About
+       Hiding-Holes, Secret Chambers, Etc.
+       
+
+Author: Allan Fea
+
+Release Date: November 1, 2004 [EBook #13918]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECRET CHAMBERS AND HIDING PLACES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert J. Hall.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE]
+
+
+
+
+SECRET CHAMBERS AND HIDING-PLACES
+
+
+HISTORIC, ROMANTIC, & LEGENDARY STORIES & TRADITIONS ABOUT
+HIDING-HOLES, SECRET CHAMBERS, ETC.
+
+
+BY ALLAN FEA
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE FLIGHT OF THE KING," "KING MONMOUTH," ETC.
+
+
+WITH EIGHTY ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+THIRD AND REVISED EDITION
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A GREAT DEVISER OF "PRIEST'S HOLES"
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HINDLIP HALL
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PRIEST-HUNTING AT BRADDOCKS
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE GUNPOWDER PLOT CONSPIRATORS
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HARVINGTON, UFTON, AND INGATESTONE
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+COMPTON WINYATES, SALFORD PRIOR, SAWSTON, OXBURGH, PARHAM, PAXHILL, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+KING-HUNTING: BOSCOBEL, MOSELEY, TRENT, AND HEALE
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CAVALIER-HUNTING, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES (_continued_): HAM HOUSE, AND "ABDICATION HOUSE"
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MYSTERIOUS ROOMS, DEADLY PITS, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+HIDING-PLACES IN JACOBITE DWELLINGS AND IN SCOTTISH CASTLES AND MANSIONS
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CONCEALED DOORS, SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGES, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MINIATURE HIDING-HOLES FOR VALUABLES, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+HIDING-PLACES OF SMUGGLERS AND THIEVES
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE SCOTTISH HIDING-PLACES OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE
+HINDLIP HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE
+BRADDOCKS, ESSEX
+FIREPLACE AT BRADDOCKS
+ASHBY ST. LEDGERS, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
+THE PLOT ROOM, ASHBY ST. LEDGERS
+HUDDINGTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE
+ENTRANCE PORCH, HUDDINGTON COURT
+ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," HARVINGTON HALL
+HARVINGTON HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE
+UFTON COURT, BERKSHIRE
+  "     "   GARDEN TERRACE, BERKSHIRE
+HIDING-PLACE, UFTON COURT
+      "         "     "
+INGATESTONE HALL, ESSEX
+      "      "      "
+"PRIEST'S HOLE," SAWSTON HALL
+SCOTNEY CASTLE, SUSSEX
+COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE
+THE MINSTRELS' GALLERY, COMPTON WINYATES
+SAWSTON HALL, CAMBRIDGESHIRE
+PICKERSLEIGH COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE
+SALFORD PRIOR HALL, WARWICKSHIRE
+   "      "    "         "
+HIDING-PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR
+SHOWING ENTRANCE TO HIDING PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR
+OXBURGH HALL, NORFOLK
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, PARHAM HALL
+PAXHILL, SUSSEX
+CLEEVE PRIOR MANOR HOUSE, WORCESTERSHIRE
+BADDESLEY CLINTON HALL, WARWICKSHIRE
+HIDING-PLACE BENEATH "THE CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL, SALOP
+HIDING-PLACE IN "THE SQUIRE'S BEDROOM," BOSCOBEL
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE IN THE GARRET, OR "CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL
+SECRET PANEL, TRENT HOUSE, SOMERSETSHIRE
+BOSCOBEL
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE
+HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE
+TRENT HOUSE IN 1864
+HEALE HOUSE, WILTSHIRE
+MADELEY COURT, SHROPSHIRE
+   "      "    THE COURTYARD, SHROPSHIRE
+   "      "    SHROPSHIRE
+ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," THE UPPER HOUSE, MADELEY, SHROPSHIRE
+INTERIOR OF "PRIEST'S HOLE," MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE
+SECRET PANEL AT SALISBURY
+SECRET CHAMBER, CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE
+OLD SUMMER HOUSE, SALISBURY
+CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE
+     "      FRONT ENTRANCE, OXFORDSHIRE
+BROUGHTON HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE
+ST. JOHN'S HOSPITAL, WARWICK
+STAIRCASE, BROUGHTON HALL
+SHIPTON COURT, OXFORDSHIRE
+BROUGHTON CASTLE, OXFORDSHIRE
+ENTRANCE GATE, BRADSHAWE HALL, DERBYSHIRE
+MOYLES COURT, HAMPSHIRE
+TODDINGTON MANOR HOUSE, BEDFORDSHIRE, IN 1806
+"RAT'S CASTLE," ELMLEY
+KING'S HILL FARM, ELMLEY, KENT
+ENTRANCE TO SECRET PASSAGE, "ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER
+"ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER
+MONUMENT OF SIR RICHARD HEAD
+"RESTORATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER
+ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE, WORCHESTERSHIRE
+ENTRANCE GATE, ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE
+WOODSTOCK PALACE, OXFORDSHIRE
+MARKYATE CELL, HERTFORDSHIRE
+BIRTSMORTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE
+PORCH AT CHELVEY COURT, SOMERSETSHIRE
+HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE, SUSSEX
+BOVEY HOUSE, SOUTH DEVON
+MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE
+     "        "         "
+ENTRANCE TO SECRET STAIRCASE, PARTINGDALE HOUSE, MILL HILL, MIDDLESEX
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+The secret chamber is unrivalled even by the haunted house for
+the mystery and romance surrounding it. Volumes have been written
+about the haunted house, while the secret chamber has found but
+few exponents. The ancestral ghost has had his day, and to all
+intents and purposes is dead, notwithstanding the existence of
+the Psychical Society and the investigations of Mr. Stead and
+the late Lord Bute. "Alas! poor ghost!" he is treated with scorn
+and derision by the multitude in these advanced days of modern
+enlightenment. The search-light of science has penetrated even
+into his sacred haunts, until, no longer having a leg to stand
+upon, he has fallen from the exalted position he occupied for
+centuries, and fallen moreover into ridicule!
+
+In the secret chamber, however, we have something tangible to deal
+with--a subject not only keenly interesting from an antiquarian
+point of view, but one deserving the attention of the general
+reader; for in exploring the gloomy hiding-holes, concealed
+apartments, passages, and staircases in our old halls and manor
+houses we probe, as it were, into the very groundwork of romance.
+We find actuality to support the weird and mysterious stories
+of fiction, which those of us who are honest enough to admit
+a lingering love of the marvellous must now doubly appreciate,
+from the fact that our school-day impressions of such things
+are not only revived, but are strengthened with the semblance
+of truth. Truly Bishop Copleston wrote: "If the things we hear
+told be avowedly fictitious, and yet curious or affecting or
+entertaining, we may indeed admire the author of the fiction, and
+may take pleasure in contemplating the exercise of his skill. But
+this is a pleasure of another kind--a pleasure wholly distinct from
+that which is derived from discovering what was _unknown_, or
+clearing up what was _doubtful_. And even when the narrative
+is in its own nature, such as to please us and to engage our
+attention, how, greatly is the interest increased if we place
+entire confidence in its _truth_! Who has not heard from
+a child when listening to a tale of deep interest--who has not
+often heard the artless and eager question, 'Is it true?'"
+
+From Horace Walpole, Mrs. Radcliffe, Scott, Victor Hugo, Dumas,
+Lytton, Ainsworth, Le Fanu, and Mrs. Henry Wood, down to the
+latest up-to-date novelists of to-day, the secret chamber (an
+ingenious _necessity_ of the "good old times") has afforded
+invaluable "property"--indeed, in many instances the whole vitality
+of a plot is, like its ingenious opening, hinged upon the masked
+wall, behind which lay concealed what hidden mysteries, what
+undreamed-of revelations! The thread of the story, like Fair
+Rosamond's silken clue, leads up to and at length reveals the
+buried secret, and (unlike the above comparison in this instance)
+all ends happily!
+
+Bulwer Lytton honestly confesses that the spirit of romance in his
+novels "was greatly due to their having been written at my ancestral
+home, Knebworth, Herts. How could I help writing romances," he
+says, "after living amongst the secret panels and hiding-places
+of our dear old home? How often have I trembled with fear at
+the sound of my own footsteps when I ventured into the picture
+gallery! How fearfully have I glanced at the faces of my ancestors
+as I peered into the shadowy abysses of the 'secret chamber.' It
+was years before I could venture inside without my hair literally
+bristling with terror."
+
+What would _Woodstock_ be without the mysterious picture,
+_Peveril of the Peak_ without the sliding panel, the Castlewood
+of _Esmond_ without Father Holt's concealed apartments,
+_Ninety-Three, Marguerite de Valois, The Tower of London, Guy
+Fawkes_, and countless other novels of the same type, without
+the convenient contrivances of which the _dramatis personæ_
+make such effectual use?
+
+Apart, however, from the importance of the secret chamber in
+fiction, it is closely associated with many an important historical
+event. The stories of the Gunpowder Plot, Charles II.'s escape
+from Worcester, the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745, and many
+another stirring episode in the annals of our country, speak
+of the service it rendered to fugitives in the last extremity
+of danger. When we inspect the actual walls of these confined
+spaces that saved the lives of our ancestors, how vividly we can
+realise the hardships they must have endured; and in wondering
+at the mingled ingenuity and simplicity of construction, there
+is also a certain amount of comfort to be derived from drawing
+a comparison between those troublous and our own more peaceful
+times.
+
+
+
+
+SECRET CHAMBERS AND HIDING-PLACES
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A GREAT DEVISER OF "PRIEST'S HOLES"
+
+
+During the deadly feuds which existed in the Middle Ages, when
+no man was secure from spies and traitors even within the walls
+of his own house, it is no matter of wonder that the castles and
+mansions of the powerful and wealthy were usually provided with
+some precaution in the event of a sudden surprise--_viz._
+a secret means of concealment or escape that could be used at
+a moment's notice; but the majority of secret chambers and
+hiding-places in our ancient buildings owe their origin to religious
+persecution, particularly during the reign of Elizabeth, when the
+most stringent laws and oppressive burdens were inflicted upon
+all persons who professed the tenets of the Church of Rome.
+
+In the first years of the virgin Queen's reign all who clung to
+the older forms of the Catholic faith were mercifully connived
+at, so long as they solemnised their own religious rites within
+their private dwelling-houses; but after the Roman Catholic rising
+in the north and numerous other Popish plots, the utmost severity
+of the law was enforced, particularly against seminarists, whose
+chief object was, as was generally believed, to stir up their
+disciples in England against the Protestant Queen. An Act was
+passed prohibiting a member of the Church of Rome from celebrating
+the rites of his religion on pain of forfeiture for the first
+offence, a year's imprisonment for the second, and imprisonment
+for life for the third.[1] All those who refused to take the
+Oath of Supremacy were called "recusants" and were guilty of
+high treason. A law was also enacted which provided that if any
+Papist should convert a Protestant to the Church of Rome, both
+should suffer death, as for high treason.
+
+[Footnote 1: In December, 1591, a priest was hanged before the
+door of a house in Gray's Inn Fields for having there said Mass
+the month previously.]
+
+The sanguinary laws against seminary priests and "recusants"
+were enforced with the greatest severity after the discovery of
+the Gunpowder Plot. These were revived for a period in Charles
+II.'s reign, when Oates's plot worked up a fanatical hatred against
+all professors of the ancient faith. In the mansions of the old
+Roman Catholic families we often find an apartment in a secluded
+part of the house or garret in the roof named "the chapel," where
+religious rites could be performed with the utmost privacy, and
+close handy was usually an artfully contrived hiding-place, not
+only for the officiating priest to slip into in case of emergency,
+but also where the vestments, sacred vessels, and altar furniture
+could be put away at a moment's notice.
+
+It appears from the writings of Father Tanner[1] that most of
+the hiding-places for priests, usually called "priests' holes,"
+were invented and constructed by the Jesuit Nicholas Owen, a
+servant of Father Garnet, who devoted the greater part of his
+life to constructing these places in the principal Roman Catholic
+houses all over England.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Vita et Mors_ (1675), p. 75.]
+
+"With incomparable skill," says an authority, "he knew how to
+conduct priests to a place of safety along subterranean passages,
+to hide them between walls and bury them in impenetrable recesses,
+and to entangle them in labyrinths and a thousand windings. But
+what was much more difficult of accomplishment, he so disguised
+the entrances to these as to make them most unlike what they
+really were. Moreover, he kept these places so close a secret
+with himself that he would never disclose to another the place
+of concealment of any Catholic. He alone was both their architect
+and their builder, working at them with inexhaustible industry
+and labour, for generally the thickest walls had to be broken
+into and large stones excavated, requiring stronger arms than
+were attached to a body so diminutive as to give him the nickname
+of 'Little John,' and by this his skill many priests were preserved
+from the prey of persecutors. Nor is it easy to find anyone who
+had not often been indebted for his life to Owen's hiding-places."
+
+How effectually "Little John's" peculiar ingenuity baffled the
+exhaustive searches of the "pursuivants," or priest-hunters,
+has been shown by contemporary accounts of the searches that
+took place frequently in suspected houses. Father Gerard, in
+his Autobiography, has handed down to us many curious details of
+the mode of procedure upon these occasions--how the search-party
+would bring with them skilled carpenters and masons and try every
+possible expedient, from systematic measurements and soundings to
+bodily tearing down the panelling and pulling up the floors. It
+was not an uncommon thing for a rigid search to last a fortnight
+and for the "pursuivants" to go away empty handed, while perhaps
+the object of the search was hidden the whole time within a wall's
+thickness of his pursuers, half starved, cramped and sore with
+prolonged confinement, and almost afraid to breathe, lest the
+least sound should throw suspicion upon the particular spot where
+he lay immured.
+
+After the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, "Little John" and
+his master, Father Garnet, were arrested at Hindlip Hall,
+Worcestershire, from information given to the Government by Catesby's
+servant Bates. Cecil, who was well aware of Owen's skill in
+constructing hiding-places, wrote exultingly: "Great joy was
+caused all through the kingdom by the arrest of Owen, knowing
+his skill in constructing hiding-places, and the innumerable
+number of these dark holes which he had schemed for hiding priests
+throughout the kingdom." He hoped that "great booty of priests"
+might be taken in consequence of the secrets Owen would be made
+to reveal, and directed that first he should "be coaxed if he
+be willing to contract for his life," but that "the secret is
+to be wrung from him." The horrors of the rack, however, failed
+in its purpose. His terrible death is thus briefly recorded by
+the Governor of the Tower at that time: "The man is dead--he
+died in our hands"; and perhaps it is as well the ghastly details
+did not transpire in his report.
+
+The curious old mansion Hindlip Hall (pulled down in the early
+part of the last century) was erected in 1572 by John Abingdon, or
+Habington, whose son Thomas (the brother-in-law of Lord Monteagle)
+was deeply involved in the numerous plots against the reformed
+religion. A long imprisonment in the Tower for his futile efforts
+to set Mary Queen of Scots at liberty, far from curing the dangerous
+schemes of this zealous partisan of the luckless Stuart heroine,
+only kept him out of mischief for a time. No sooner had he obtained
+his freedom than he set his mind to work to turn his house in
+Worcestershire into a harbour of refuge for the followers of
+the older rites. In the quaint irregularities of the masonry
+free scope was given to "Little John's" ingenuity; indeed, there
+is every proof that some of his masterpieces were constructed
+here. A few years before the "Powder Plot" was discovered, it
+was a hanging matter for a priest to be caught celebrating the
+Mass. Yet with the facilities at Hindlip he might do so with
+comfort, with every assurance that he had the means of evading
+the law. The walls of the mansion were literally riddled with
+secret chambers and passages. There was little fear of being
+run to earth with hidden exits everywhere. Wainscoting, solid
+brickwork, or stone hearth were equally accommodating, and would
+swallow up fugitives wholesale, and close over them, to "Open,
+Sesame!" again only at the hider's pleasure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HINDLIP HALL
+
+The capture of Father Garnet and "Little John" with two others,
+Hall and Chambers, at Hindlip, as detailed in a curious manuscript
+in the British Museum, gives us an insight into the search-proof
+merits of Abingdon's mansion. The document is headed: "_A true
+discovery of the service performed at Hindlip, the house of Mr.
+Thomas Abbingdon, for the apprehension of Mr. Henry Garnet, alias
+Wolley, provincial of the Jesuits, and other dangerous persons,
+there found in January last,_ 1605," and runs on:--
+
+"After the king's royal promise of bountiful reward to such as
+would apprehend the traitors concerned in the Powder Conspiracy,
+and much expectation of subject-like duty, but no return made
+thereof in so important a matter, a warrant was directed to the
+right worthy and worshipful knight, Sir Henry Bromlie; and the
+proclamation delivered therewith, describing the features and
+shapes of the men, for the better discovering them. He, not
+neglecting so a weighty a business, horsing himself with a seemly
+troop of his own attendants, and calling to his assistance so
+many as in discretion was thought meet, having likewise in his
+company Sir Edward Bromlie, on Monday, Jan. 20 last, by break
+of day, did engirt and round beat the house of Mayster Thomas
+Abbingdon, at Hindlip, near Worcester. Mr. Abbingdon, not being
+then at home, but ridden abroad about some occasions best known
+to himself; the house being goodlie, and of great receipt, it
+required the more diligent labour and pains in the searching.
+It appeared there was no want; and Mr. Abbingdon himself coming
+home that night, the commission and proclamation being shown unto
+him, he denied any such men to be in his house, and voluntarily
+to die at his own gate, if any such were to be found in his house,
+or in that shire. But this liberal or rather rash speech could
+not cause the search so slightly to be given over; the cause
+enforced more respect than words of that or any such like nature;
+and proceeding on according to the trust reposed in him in the
+gallery over the gate there were found two cunning and very
+artificial conveyances in the main brick-wall, so ingeniously
+framed, and with such art, as it cost much labour ere they could
+be found. Three other secret places, contrived by no less skill
+and industry, were found in and about the chimneys, in one whereof
+two of the traitors were close concealed. These chimney-conveyances
+being so strangely formed, having the entrances into them so
+curiously covered over with brick, mortared and made fast to
+planks of wood, and coloured black, like the other parts of the
+chimney, that very diligent inquisition might well have passed
+by, without throwing the least suspicion upon such unsuspicious
+places. And whereas divers funnels are usually made to chimneys
+according as they are combined together, and serve for necessary
+use in several rooms, so here were some that exceeded common
+expectation, seeming outwardly fit for carrying forth smoke;
+but being further examined and seen into, their service was to
+no such purpose but only to lend air and light downward into
+the concealments, where such as were concealed in them, at any
+time should be hidden. Eleven secret corners and conveyances
+were found in the said house, all of them having books, Massing
+stuff, and Popish trumpery in them, only two excepted, which
+appeared to have been found on former searches, and therefore
+had now the less credit given to them; but Mayster Abbingdon
+would take no knowledge of any of these places, nor that the
+books, or Massing stuff, were any of his, until at length the
+deeds of his lands being found in one of them, whose custody
+doubtless he would not commit to any place of neglect, or where
+he should have no intelligence of them, whereto he could [not]
+then devise any sufficient excuse.
+
+[Illustration: HINDLIP HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+Three days had been wholly spent, and no man found there all
+this while; but upon the fourth day, in the morning, from behind
+the wainscot in the galleries, came forth two men of their own
+voluntary accord, as being no longer able there to conceal
+themselves; for they confessed that they had but one apple between
+them, which was all the sustenance they had received during the
+time they were thus hidden. One of them was named Owen, who
+afterwards murdered himself in the Tower; and the other Chambers;
+but they would take no other knowledge of any other men's being
+in the house. On the eighth day the before-mentioned place in
+the chimney was found, according as they had all been at several
+times, one after another, though before set down together, for
+expressing the just number of them.
+
+"Forth of this secret and most cunning conveyance came Henry
+Garnet, the Jesuit, sought for, and another with him, named Hall;
+marmalade and other sweetmeats were found there lying by them;
+but their better maintenance had been by a quill or reed, through
+a little hole in the chimney that backed another chimney into
+the gentlewoman's chamber; and by that passage candles, broths,
+and warm drinks had been conveyed in unto them.
+
+"Now in regard the place was in so close... and did much annoy
+them that made entrance in upon them, to whom they confessed
+that they had not been able to hold out one whole day longer,
+but either they must have squeeled, or perished in the place.
+The whole service endured the space of eleven nights and twelve
+days, and no more persons being there found, in company with
+Mayster Abbingdon himself, Garnet, Hill [Hall], Owen, and Chambers,
+were brought up to London to understand further of his highness's
+pleasure."
+
+That the Government had good grounds for suspecting Hindlip and
+its numerous hiding-places may be gathered from the official
+instructions the Worcestershire Justice of the Peace and his
+search-party had to follow. The wainscoting in the east part of
+the parlour and in the dining-room, being suspected of screening
+"a vault" or passage, was to be removed, the walls and floors
+were to be pierced in all directions, comparative measurements
+were to be taken between the upper and the lower rooms, and in
+particular the chimneys, and the roof had to be minutely examined and
+measurements taken, which might bring to light some unaccounted-for
+space that had been turned to good account by the unfortunate
+inventor, who was eventually starved out of one of his clever
+contrivances.
+
+Only shortly before Owen had had a very narrow escape at Stoke
+Poges while engaged in constructing "priests' holes" at the Manor
+House. The secluded position of this building adapted it for
+the purpose for which a Roman Catholic zealot had taken it. But
+this was not the only advantage. The walls were of vast thickness
+and offered every facility for turning them to account. While
+"Little John" was busily engaged burrowing into the masonry the
+dreaded "pursuivants" arrived; but somehow or other he slipped
+between their fingers and got away under cover of the surrounding
+woods.
+
+The wing of this old mansion which has survived to see the twentieth
+century witnessed many strange events. It has welcomed good Queen
+Bess, guarded the Martyr King, and refused admittance to Dutch
+William. A couple of centuries after it had sheltered hunted
+Jesuits, a descendant of William Penn became possessed of it,
+and cleared away many of the massive walls, in some of which--who
+can tell?--were locked up secrets that the rack failed to
+reveal--secrets by which Owen "murdered himself" in the Tower!
+
+One of the hiding-places at Hindlip, it will be remembered, could
+be supplied with broth, wine, or any liquid nourishment through
+a small aperture in the wall of the adjoining room. A very good
+example of such an arrangement may still be seen at Irnham Hall, in
+Lincolnshire.[1] A large hiding-place could thus be accommodated,
+but detection of the narrow iron tube by which the imprisoned
+fugitive could be kept alive was practically impossible. A solid
+oak beam, forming a step between two bedrooms, concealed a panel
+into which the tube was cunningly fitted and the step was so
+arranged that it could be removed and replaced with the greatest
+ease.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: The fire which destroyed a wing of Irnham Hall a
+few years ago fortunately did not touch that part of the building
+containing a hiding-place.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Harvington Hall, mentioned hereafter, has a contrivance
+of this kind.]
+
+The hiding-place at Irnham (which measures eight feet by five,
+and about five feet six inches in height) was discovered by a
+tell-tale chimney that was not in the least blackened by soot
+or smoke. This originally gave the clue to the secret, and when
+the shaft of the chimney was examined, it was found to lead direct
+to the priest's hole, to which it afforded air and light.
+
+Had not the particular hiding-place in which Garnet and his
+companions sought shelter been discovered, they could well have
+held out the twelve days' search. As a rule, a small stock of
+provisions was kept in these places, as the visits of the search
+parties were necessarily very sudden and unexpected. The way down
+into these hidden quarters was from the floor above, through
+the hearth of a fireplace, which could be raised an lowered like
+a trap-door.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Fowlis's _Romish Treasons._]
+
+In a letter from Garnet to Ann Vaux, preserved in the Record
+Office, he thus describes his precarious situation: "After we
+had been in the hoale seven days and seven nights and some odd
+hours, every man may well think we were well wearyed, and indeed
+so it was, for we generally satte, save that some times we could
+half stretch ourselves, the place not being high eno', and we had
+our legges so straitened that we could not, sitting, find place
+for them, so that we both were in continuous paine of our legges,
+and both our legges, especially mine, were much swollen. We were
+very merry and content within, and heard the searchers every day
+most curious over us, which made me indeed think the place would
+be found. When we came forth we appeared like ghosts."[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: _State Papers_, Domestic (James I.).]
+
+There is an old timber-framed cottage near the modern mansion
+of Hindlip which is said to have had its share in sheltering the
+plotters. A room is pointed out where Digby and Catesby concealed
+themselves, and from one of the chimneys at some time or another
+a priest was captured and led to execution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PRIEST-HUNTING AT BRADDOCKS
+
+In the parish of Wimbish, about six miles from Saffron Walden,
+stand the remains of a fine old Tudor house named Broad Oaks,
+or Braddocks, which in Elizabeth's reign was a noted house for
+priest-hunting. Wandering through its ancient rooms, the imagination
+readily carries us back to the drama enacted here three centuries
+ago with a vividness as if the events recorded had happened
+yesterday. "The chapel" and priests' holes may still be seen, and
+a fine old stone fireplace that was stripped of its overmantel,
+etc., of carved oak by the "pursuivants" in their vain efforts
+when Father Gerard was concealed in the house.
+
+[Illustration: BRADDOCKS, ESSEX]
+
+[Illustration: FIREPLACE AT BRADDOCKS]
+
+The old Essex family of Wiseman of Braddocks were staunch Romanists,
+and their home, being a noted resort for priests, received from
+time to time sudden visits. The dreaded Topcliffe had upon one
+occasion nearly brought the head of the family, an aged widow lady,
+to the horrors of the press-yard, but her punishment eventually
+took the form of imprisonment. Searches at Braddocks had brought
+forth hiding-places, priests, compromising papers, and armour
+and weapons. Let us see with what success the house was explored
+in the Easter of the year 1594.
+
+Gerard gives his exciting experiences as follows[1]:--
+
+[Footnote 1: See Autobiography of Father John Gerard.]
+
+"The searchers broke down the door, and forcing their way in,
+spread through the house with great noise and racket.
+
+"Their first step was to lock up the mistress of the house[2] in
+her own room with her two daughters, and the Catholic servants
+they kept locked up in divers places in the same part of the
+house.
+
+[Footnote 2: Jane Wiseman, wife of William Wiseman. N.B.--The
+late Cardinal Wiseman was descended from a junior branch of this
+family. See Life of Father John Gerard, by John Morris.]
+
+"They then took to themselves the whole house, which was of a good
+size, and made a thorough search in every part, not forgetting
+even to look under the tiles of the roof. The darkest corners
+they examined with the help of candles. Finding nothing whatever
+they began to break down certain places that they suspected.
+They measured the walls with long rods, so that if they did not
+tally they might pierce the part not accounted for. Then they
+sounded the walls and all the floors to find out and break into
+any hollow places there might be.
+
+"They spent two days in this work without finding anything. Thinking
+therefore that I had gone on Easter Sunday, the two magistrates
+went away on the second day, leaving the pursuivants to take
+the mistress of the house and all her Catholic servants of both
+sexes to London to be examined and imprisoned. They meant to
+leave some who were not Catholics to keep the house, the traitor
+(one of the servants of the house) being one of them.
+
+"The good lady was pleased at this, for she hoped that he would
+be the means of freeing me and rescuing me from death; for she
+knew that I had made up my mind to suffer and die of starvation
+between two walls, rather than come forth and save my own life
+at the expense of others.
+
+"In fact, during those four days that I lay hid I had nothing
+to eat but a biscuit or two and a little quince jelly, which
+my hostess had at hand and gave me as I was going in.
+
+"She did not look for any more, as she supposed that the search
+would not last beyond a day. But now that two days were gone
+and she was to be carried off on the third with all her trusty
+servants, she began to be afraid of my dying of sheer hunger.
+She bethought herself then of the traitor who she heard was to
+be left behind. He had made a great fuss and show of eagerness in
+withstanding the searchers when they first forced their way in.
+For all that she would not have let him know of the hiding-places,
+had she not been in such straits. Thinking it better, however,
+to rescue me from certain death, even at some risk to herself,
+she charged him, when she was taken away and everyone had gone,
+to go into a certain room, call me by my wonted name, and tell
+me that the others had been taken to prison, but that he was left
+to deliver me. I would then answer, she said, from behind the
+lath and plaster where I lay concealed. The traitor promised to
+obey faithfully; but he was faithful only to the faithless, for
+he unfolded the whole matter to the ruffians who had remained
+behind.
+
+"No sooner had they heard it than they called back the magistrates
+who had departed. These returned early in the morning and renewed
+the search.
+
+"They measured and sounded everywhere much more carefully than
+before, especially in the chamber above mentioned, in order to
+find out some hollow place. But finding nothing whatever during
+the whole of the third day, they proposed on the morrow to strip
+off the wainscot of that room.
+
+"Meanwhile, they set guards in all the rooms about to watch all
+night, lest I should escape. I heard from my hiding-place the
+password which the captain of the band gave to his soldiers, and
+I might have got off by using it, were it not that they would
+have seen me issuing from my retreat, for there were two on guard
+in the chapel where I got into my hiding-place, and several also
+in the large wainscoted room which had been pointed out to them.
+
+"But mark the wonderful Providence of God. Here was I in my
+hiding-place. The way I got into it was by taking up the floor,
+made of wood and bricks, under the fireplace. The place was so
+constructed that a fire could not be lit in it without damaging
+the house; though we made a point of keeping wood there, as if
+it were meant for a fire.
+
+"Well, the men on the night watch lit a fire in this very grate
+and began chatting together close to it. Soon the bricks which
+had not bricks but wood underneath them got loose, and nearly
+fell out of their places as the wood gave way. On noticing this
+and probing the place with a stick, they found that the bottom
+was made of wood, whereupon they remarked that this was something
+curious. I thought that they were going there and then to break
+open the place and enter, but they made up their minds at last
+to put off further examination till next day.
+
+"Next morning, therefore, they renewed the search most carefully,
+everywhere except in the top chamber which served as a chapel,
+and in which the two watchmen had made a fire over my head and
+had noticed the strange make of the grate. God had blotted out
+of their memory all remembrance of the thing. Nay, none of the
+searchers entered the place the whole day, though it was the
+one that was most open to suspicion, and if they had entered,
+they would have found me without any search; rather, I should
+say, they would have seen me, for the fire had burnt a great
+hole in my hiding-place, and had I not got a little out of the
+way, the hot embers would have fallen on me.
+
+"The searchers, forgetting or not caring about this room, busied
+themselves in ransacking the rooms below, in one of which I was
+said to be. In fact, they found the other hiding-place which I
+thought of going into, as I mentioned before. It was not far
+off, so I could hear their shouts of joy when they first found
+it. But after joy comes grief; and so it was with them. The only
+thing that they found was a goodly store of provision laid up.
+Hence they may have thought that this was the place that the
+mistress of the house meant; in fact, an answer might have been
+given from it to the call of a person in the room mentioned by
+her.
+
+"They stuck to their purpose, however, of stripping off all the
+wainscot of the other large room. So they set a man to work near
+the ceiling, close to the place where I was: for the lower part
+of the walls was covered with tapestry, not with wainscot. So
+they stripped off the wainscot all round till they came again
+to the very place where I lay, and there they lost heart and
+gave up the search.
+
+"My hiding-place was in a thick wall of the chimney behind a
+finely inlaid and carved mantelpiece. They could not well take
+the carving down without risk of breaking it. Broken, however,
+it would have been, and that into a thousand pieces, had they
+any conception that I could be concealed behind it. But knowing
+that there were two flues, they did not think that there could
+be room enough there for a man.
+
+"Nay, before this, on the second day of the search, they had
+gone into the room above, and tried the fireplace through which
+I had got into my hole. They then got into the chimney by a ladder
+to sound with their hammers. One said to another in my hearing,
+'Might there not be a place here for a person to get down into
+the wall of the chimney below by lifting up this hearth?' 'No,'
+answered one of the pursuivants, whose voice I knew, 'you could
+not get down that way into the chimney underneath, but there
+might easily be an entrance at the back of this chimney.' So
+saying he gave the place a knock. I was afraid that he would hear
+the hollow sound of the hole where I was.
+
+"Seeing that their toil availed them nought, they thought that
+I had escaped somehow, and so they went away at the end of the
+four days, leaving the mistress and her servants free. The yet
+unbetrayed traitor stayed after the searchers were gone. As soon
+as the doors of the house were made fast, the mistress came to
+call me, another four days buried Lazarus, from what would have
+been my tomb, had the search continued a little longer. For I
+was all wasted and weakened as well with hunger as with want
+of sleep and with having to sit so long in such a narrow space.
+After coming out I was seen by the traitor, whose treachery was
+still unknown to us. He did nothing then, not even to send after
+the searchers, as he knew that I meant to be off before they
+could be recalled."
+
+The Wisemans had another house at North End, a few miles to the
+south-east of Dunmow. Here were also "priests' holes," one of
+which (in a chimney) secreted a certain Father Brewster during
+a rigid search in December, 1593.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _State Papers_, Dom. (Eliz.), December, 1593.
+See also Life of Father John Gerard, p. 138.]
+
+Great Harrowden, near Wellingborough, the ancient seat of the Vaux
+family, was another notorious sanctuary for persecuted recusants.
+Gerard spent much of his time here in apartments specially
+constructed for his use, and upon more than one occasion had to
+have recourse to the hiding-places. Some four or five years after
+his experiences at Braddocks he narrowly escaped his pursuers in
+this way; and in 1605, when the "pursuivants" were scouring the
+country for him, as he was supposed to be privy to the Gunpowder
+Plot, he owed his life to a secret chamber at Harrowden. The
+search-party remained for nine days. Night and day men were posted
+round the house, and every approach was guarded within a radius
+of three miles. With the hope of getting rid of her unwelcome
+guests, Lady Vaux revealed one of the "priests' holes" to prove
+there was nothing in her house beyond a few prohibited books;
+but this did not have the desired effect, so the unfortunate
+inmate of the hiding-place had to continue in a cramped position,
+there being no room to stand up, for four or five days more. His
+hostess, however, managed to bring him food, and moments were
+seized during the latter days of the search to get him out that
+he might warm his benumbed limbs by a fire. While these things
+were going on at Harrowden, another priest, little thinking into
+whose hands the well-known sanctuary had fallen, came thither
+to seek shelter; but was seized and carried to an inn, whence
+it was intended he should be removed to London on the following
+day. But he managed to outwit his captors. To evade suspicion
+he threw off his cloak and sword, and under a pretext of giving
+his horse drink at a stream close by the stable, seized a lucky
+moment, mounted, and dashed into the water, swam across, and
+galloped off to the nearest house that could offer the convenience
+of a hiding-place.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Life of John Gerard, p. 386.]
+
+At Hackney the Vaux family had another, residence with its chapel
+and "priest's hole," the latter having a masked entrance high
+up in the wall, which led to a space under a gable projection
+of the roof. For double security this contained yet an inner
+hiding-place. In the existing Brooke House are incorporated the
+modernised remains of this mansion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE GUNPOWDER PLOT CONSPIRATORS
+
+Lord Vaux of Harrowden, Sir William Catesby of Ashby St. Ledgers,
+and Sir Thomas Tresham of Rushton Hall (all in Northamptonshire)
+were upon more than one occasion arraigned before the Court of the
+Star Chamber for harbouring Jesuits. The old mansions Ashby St.
+Ledgers and Rushton fortunately still remain intact and preserve
+many traditions of Romanist plots. Sir William Catesby's son Robert,
+the chief conspirator, is said to have held secret meetings in the
+curious oak-panelled room over the gate-house of the former, which
+goes by the name of "the Plot Room." Once upon a time it was provided
+with a secret means of escape. At Rushton Hall a hiding-place was
+discovered in 1832 behind a lintel over a doorway; it was full
+of bundles of manuscripts, prohibited books, and incriminating
+correspondence of the conspirator Tresham. Another place of
+concealment was situated in the chimney of the great hall and in
+this Father Oldcorn was hidden for a time. Gayhurst, or Gothurst,
+in Buckinghamshire, the seat of Sir Everard Digby, also remains
+intact, one of the finest late Tudor buildings in the country;
+unfortunately, however, only recently a remarkable "priest's
+hole" that was here has been destroyed in consequence of modern
+improvements. It was a double hiding-place, one situated beneath
+the other; the lower one being so arranged as to receive light and
+air from the bottom portion of a large mullioned window--a most
+ingenious device. A secret passage in the hall had communication
+with it, and entrance was obtained through part of the flooring
+of an apartment, the movable part of the boards revolving upon
+pivots and sufficiently solid to vanquish any suspicion as to
+a hollow space beneath.
+
+[Illustration: ASHBY ST. LEDGERS, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: THE PLOT ROOM, ASHBY ST. LEGERS]
+
+As may be supposed, tradition says that at the time of Digby's
+arrest he was dragged forth from this hole, but history shows
+that he was taken prisoner at Holbeach House (where, it will be
+remembered, the conspirators Catesby and Percy were shot), and
+led to execution. For a time Digby sought security at Coughton
+Court, the seat of the Throckmortons, in Warwickshire. The house of
+this old Roman Catholic family, of course, had its hiding-holes,
+one of which remains to this day. Holbeach as well as Hagley
+Hall, the homes of the Litteltons, have been rebuilt. The latter
+was pulled down in the middle of the eighteenth century. Here
+it was that Stephen Littleton and Robert Winter were captured
+through the treachery of the cook. Grant's house, Norbrook, in
+Warwickshire, has also given way to a modern one.
+
+Ambrose Rookwood's seat, Coldham Hall, near Bury St. Edmunds,
+exists and retains its secret chapel and hiding-places. There are
+three of the latter; one of them, now a small withdrawing-room,
+is entered from the oak wainscoted hall. When the house was in
+the market a few years ago, the "priests' holes" duly figured in
+the advertisements with the rest of the apartments and offices.
+It read a little odd, this juxtaposition of modern conveniences
+with what is essentially romantic, and we simply mention the
+fact to show that the auctioneer is well aware of the monetary
+value of such things.
+
+At the time of the Gunpowder Conspiracy Rookwood rented Clopton
+Hall, near Stratford-on-Avon. This house also has its little
+chapel in the roof with adjacent "priests' holes," but many
+alterations have taken place from time to time. Who does not
+remember William Howitt's delightful description--or, to be correct,
+the description of a lady correspondent--of the old mansion before
+these restorations. "There was the old Catholic chapel," she wrote,
+"with a chaplain's room which had been walled up and forgotten till
+within the last few years. I went in on my hands and knees, for the
+entrance was very low. I recollect little in the chapel; but in
+the chaplain's room were old and I should think rare editions of
+many books, mostly folios. A large yellow paper copy of Dryden's
+_All for Love, or the World Well Lost_, date 1686, caught
+my eye, and is the only one I particularly remember."[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Howitt's _Visits to Remarkable Places_.]
+
+Huddington Court, the picturesque old home of the Winters (of
+whom Robert and Thomas lost their lives for their share in the
+Plot), stands a few miles from Droitwich. A considerable quantity
+of arms and ammunition were stored in the hiding-places here in
+1605 in readiness for general rising.
+
+[Illustration: HUDDINGTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE PORCH, HUDDINGTON COURT]
+
+Two other houses may be mentioned in connection with the memorable
+Plot--houses that were rented by the conspirators as convenient
+places of rendezvous an account of their hiding-places and masked
+exits for escape. One of them stood in the vicinity of the Strand,
+in the fields behind St. Clement's Inn. Father Gerard had taken
+it some time previous to the discovery of the Plot, and with
+Owen's aid some very secure hiding-places were arranged. This he
+had done with two or three other London residences, so that he
+and his brother priests might use them upon hazardous occasions;
+and to one of these he owed his life when the hue and cry after
+him was at its highest pitch. By removing from one to the other
+they avoided detection, though they had many narrow escapes. One
+priest was celebrating Mass when the Lord Mayor and constables
+suddenly burst in. But the surprise party was disappointed: nothing
+could be detected beyond the smoke of the extinguished candles;
+and in addition to the hole where the fugitive crouched there
+were two other secret chambers, neither of which was discovered.
+On another occasion a priest was left shut up in a wall; his
+friends were taken prisoners, and he was in danger of starvation,
+until at length he was rescued from his perilous position, carried
+to one of the other houses, and again immured in the vault or
+chimney.
+
+The other house was "White Webb's," on the confines of Enfield
+Chase. In the Record Office there is a document describing how,
+many Popish books and relics were discovered when the latter
+was searched. The building was full of trap-doors and secret
+passages. Some vestiges of the out-buildings of "White Webb's"
+may still be seen in a quaint little inn called "The King and
+Tinker."
+
+But of all the narrow escapes perhaps Father Blount's experiences
+at Scotney Castle were the most thrilling. This old house of
+the Darrells, situated on the border of Kent and Sussex, like
+Hindlip and Braddocks and most of the residences of the Roman
+Catholic gentry, contained the usual lurking-places for priests.
+The structure as it now stands is in the main modern, having
+undergone from time to time considerable alterations. A vivid
+account of Blount's hazardous escape here is preserved among the
+muniments at Stonyhurst--a transcript of the original formerly
+at St. Omers.
+
+One Christmas night towards the close of Elizabeth's reign the
+castle was seized by a party of priest-hunters, who, with their
+usual mode of procedure, locked up the members of the family securely
+before starting on their operations. In the inner quadrangle of
+the mansion was a very remarkable and ingenious device. A large
+stone of the solid wall could be pushed aside. Though of immense
+weight, it was so nicely balanced and adjusted that it required
+only a slight pressure upon one side to effect an entrance to
+the hiding-place within. Those who have visited the grounds at
+Chatsworth may remember a huge piece of solid rock which can be
+swung round in the same easy manner. Upon the approach of the
+enemy, Father Blount and his servant hastened to the courtyard
+and entered the vault; but in their hurry to close the weighty
+door a small portion of one of their girdles got jammed in, so
+that a part was visible from the outside. Fortunately for the
+fugitives, someone in the secret, in passing the spot, happened
+to catch sight of this tell-tale fragment and immediately cut
+it off; but as a particle still showed, they called gently to
+those within to endeavour to pull it in, which they eventually
+succeeded in doing.
+
+At this moment the pursuivants were at work in another part of
+the castle, but hearing the voice in the courtyard, rushed into
+it and commenced battering the walls, and at times upon the very
+door of the hiding-place, which would have given way had not
+those within put their combined weight against it to keep it
+from yielding. It was a pitchy dark night, and it was pelting
+with rain, so after a time, discouraged at finding nothing and
+wet to the skin, the soldiers put off further search until the
+following morning, and proceeded to dry and refresh themselves
+by the fire in the great hall.
+
+When all was at rest, Father Blount and his man, not caring to
+risk another day's hunting, cautiously crept forth bare-footed,
+and after managing to scale some high walls, dropt into the moat
+and swam across. And it was as well for them that they decided
+to quit their hiding-hole, for next morning it was discovered.
+
+The fugitives found temporary security at another recusant house
+a few miles from Scotney, possibly the old half-timber house of
+Twissenden, where a secret chapel and adjacent "priests' holes"
+are still pointed out.
+
+The original manuscript account of the search at Scotney was
+written by one of the Darrell family, who was in the castle at
+the time of the events recorded.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Morris's _Troubles of our Catholic
+Forefathers._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HARVINGTON, UFTON, AND INGATESTONE
+
+We will now go in search of some of the most curious hiding-places
+in existence. There are numerous known examples all over the
+country, and perhaps as many again exist, which will preserve
+their secret for ever. For more than three hundred years they
+have remained buried, and unless some accident reveals their
+locked-up mysteries, they will crumble away with the walls which
+contain them; unless, indeed, fire, the doom of so many of our
+ancestral halls, reduces them to ashes and swallows up the weird
+stories they might have told. In many cases not until an ancient
+building is pulled down are such strange discoveries made; but,
+alas! there are as many instances where structural alterations
+have wantonly destroyed these interesting historical landmarks.
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," HARVINGTON HALL]
+
+[Illustration: HARVINGTON HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+Unaccounted-for spaces, when detected, are readily utilised.
+Passages are bodily run through the heart of many a secret device,
+with little veneration for the mechanical ingenuity that has
+been displayed in their construction. The builder of to-day,
+as a rule, knows nothing of and cares less, for such things,
+and so they are swept away without a thought. To such vandals
+we can only emphasise the remarks we have already made about
+the market value of a "priest-hole" nowadays.
+
+A little to the right of the Kidderminster road, and about two
+miles from the pretty village of Chaddesley Corbet, with its old
+timber houses and inn, stands the ghostly old hall of Harvington.
+The ancient red-brick pile rises out of its reed-grown moat with
+that air of mystery which age and seeming neglect only can impart.
+Coming upon it unexpectedly, especially towards dusk, one is
+struck with the strange, dignified melancholy pervading it. Surely
+Hood's _Haunted House_ or Poe's _House of Usher_ stands
+before us, and we cannot get away from the impression that a
+mystery is wrapped within its walls. Harvington Hall dates from
+the reign of Henry VIII., but it has undergone various changes,
+so it is difficult to affix any particular period or style to
+its architecture; indeed, it is this medley of different styles
+which forms such a poetically picturesque outline. In its day
+Harvington could doubtless hold its own with the finest mansions
+in the country, but now it is forgotten, deserted, and crumbling
+to pieces. Its very history appears to be lost to the world, as
+those who go to the county histories and general topographical
+works for information will find.
+
+Inside the mansion, like the exterior, the hand of decay is
+perceptible on every side; the rooms are ruined, the windows
+broken, the floors unsafe (excepting, by the way, a small portion
+of the building which is habitable). A ponderous broad oak staircase
+leads to a dismantled state-room, shorn of the principal part of
+its panelling, carving, and chimney-pieces.[1] Other desolate
+apartments retain their names as if in mockery; "the drawing-room,"
+"the chapel," "Lady Yates's nursery," and so forth. At the top
+of the staircase, however, we must look around carefully, for
+beneath the stairs is a remarkable hiding-place.
+
+[Footnote 1: Most of the interior fittings were removed to Coughton
+Court, Warwickshire.]
+
+With a slight stretch of the imagination we can see an indistinct
+form stealthily remove the floorboard of one of the stairs and
+creep beneath it. This particular step of a short flight running
+from the landing into a garret is, upon closer inspection, indeed
+movable, and beneath gapes a dark cavity about five feet square, on
+the floor of which still remains the piece of sedge matting whereon
+a certain Father Wall rested his aching limbs a few days prior to
+his capture and execution in August, 1679. The unfortunate man
+was taken at Rushock Court, a few miles away where he was traced
+after leaving Harvington. There is a communication between the
+hiding-place and "the banqueting-room" through, a small concealed
+aperture in the wainscoting large enough to admit of a tube,
+through which a straw could be thrust for the unhappy occupant
+to suck up any liquid his friends might be able to supply.
+
+In a gloomy corridor leading from the tower to "the reception-room"
+is another "priest's hole" beneath the floor, and entered by a
+trap-door artfully hidden in the boards; this black recess is
+some seven feet in depth, and can be made secure from within.
+Supposing the searchers had tracked a fugitive priest as far
+as this corridor, the odds are in favour that they would have
+passed over his head in their haste to reach the tower, where
+they would make sure, in their own minds at least, of discovering
+him. Again, here there is a communication with the outside world.
+An oblong aperture in the top oak beam of the entrance gateway
+to the house, measuring about four inches across, is the secret
+opening--small enough to escape the most inquisitive eye, yet
+large enough to allow of a written note to pass between the captive
+and those upon the alert watching his interests.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: N.B.--In addition to the above hiding-places at
+Harvington, one was discovered so recently as 1894; at least,
+so we have been informed. This was some years after our visit
+to the old Hall.]
+
+A subterranean passage is said to run under the moat from a former
+hiding-place, but this is doubtful; at any rate, there are no
+evidences of it nowadays.
+
+[Illustration: UFTON COURT, BERKSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: GARDEN TERRACE, UFTON COURT]
+
+Altogether, Harvington is far from cheerful, even to a pond hard
+by called "Gallows Pool"! The tragic legend associated with this
+is beyond the province of the present work, so we will bid adieu
+to this weird old hall, and turn our attention to another obscure
+house situated in the south-east corner of Berkshire.
+
+The curious, many-gabled mansion Ufton Court both from its secluded
+situation and quaint internal construction, appears to have been
+peculiarly suitable for the secretion of persecuted priests. Here
+are ample means for concealment and escape into the surrounding
+woods; and so carefully have the ingenious bolts and locks of
+the various hiding-places been preserved, that one would almost
+imagine that there was still actual necessity for their use in
+these matter-of-fact days!
+
+A remarkable place for concealment exists in one of the gables
+close to the ceiling. It is triangular in shape, and is opened
+by a spring-bolt that can be unlatched by pulling a string which
+runs through a tiny hole pierced in the framework of the door of
+the adjoining room. The door of the hiding-place swings upon a
+pivot, and externally is thickly covered with plaster, so as to
+resemble the rest of the wall, and is so solid that when sounded
+there is no hollow sound from the cavity behind, where, no doubt
+the crucifix and sacred vessels were secreted.
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE, UFTON COURT]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING PLACE, UFTON COURT]
+
+Not far off, in an upper garret, is a hiding-place in the thickness
+of the wall, large enough to contain a man standing upright.
+Like the other, the door, or entrance, forms part of the plaster
+wall, intersected by thick oak beams, into which it exactly fits,
+disguising any appearance of an opening. Again, in one of the
+passages of this curious old mansion are further evidences of
+the hardships to which Romish priests were subjected--a trap in
+the floor, which can only be opened by pulling up what exteriorly
+appears to be the head of one of the nails of the flooring; by
+raising this a spring is released and a trap-door opened, revealing
+a large hole with a narrow ladder leading down into it. When
+this hiding-place was discovered in 1830, its contents were
+significant--_viz._ a crucifix and two ancient petronels.
+Apartments known as "the chapel" and "the priest's vestry" are
+still pointed out. The walls throughout the house appear to be
+intersected with passages and masked spaces, and old residents
+claim to have worked their way by these means right through from
+the garrets to the basement, though now the several hiding-places
+do not communicate one with another. There are said to be no
+less than twelve places of concealment in various parts of the
+building. A shaft in the cellar is supposed to be one of the
+means of exit from "the dining-room," and at the back of the
+house a subterranean passage may still be traced a considerable
+distance under the terrace.
+
+[Illustration: INGATESTONE HALL, ESSEX]
+
+[Illustration: INGATESTONE HALL]
+
+An interesting discovery was made some years ago at Ingatestone
+Hall, Essex, the ancient seat of the Petres. The late Rev. Canon
+Last, who had resided there as private chaplain for over sixty
+years, described to us the incidents of this curious "find," to
+which he was an eye-witness. Some of the floor-boards in the
+south-east corner of a small ante-room adjoining what was once
+"the host's bedroom," facing the south front, broke away, rotten
+with age, while some children were playing there. These being
+removed, a second layer of boards was brought to light within
+a foot of the old flooring, and in this a trap-door was found
+which, when opened, discovered a large "priest's hole," measuring
+fourteen feet long, ten feet high, and two feet wide. A twelve-step
+ladder led down into it, and the floor being on a level with the
+basement of the house was covered with a layer of dry sand to
+the depth of nearly a foot, so as to absorb any moisture from
+the ground.[1] In the sand a few bones of a bird were found,
+possibly the remains of food supplied to some unfortunate priest.
+Those who climb down into this hole will find much that is
+interesting to repay them their trouble. From the wall projects
+a candle-holder, rudely modelled out of clay. An examination of
+the brick-work in the interior of the "priest's hole" proves
+it to be of later construction than the rest of the house (which
+dates from the early part of the sixteenth century), so in all
+likelihood "Little John" was the manufacturer.
+
+[Footnote 1: At Moorcroft House, near Hillingdon, Middlesex,
+now modernised and occupied as a private lunatic asylum, ten
+priests were once concealed for four days in a hiding-place,
+the floor of which was covered some inches in water. This was
+one of the many comforts of a "priest's hole"!]
+
+Standing in the same position as when first opened, and supported
+by two blocks of oak, is an old chest or packing-case made of
+yew, covered with leather, and bound with bands of iron, wherein
+formerly the vestments, utensils, etc., for the Mass were kept.
+Upon it, in faded and antiquated writing, was the following
+direction: "For the Right Hon. the Lady Petre at Ingatestone
+Hall, in Essex." The Petres had quitted the old mansion as a
+residence for considerably over a century when the discovery was
+made.
+
+[Illustration: PRIEST'S HOLE, SAWSTON HALL]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+COMPTON WINYATES, SALFORD PRIOR, SAWSTON, OXBURGH, PARHAM, PAXHILL,
+ETC.
+
+Of all the ancient mansions in the United Kingdom, and there is
+still, happily, a large selection, none perhaps is so picturesque and
+quaintly original in its architecture as the secluded Warwickshire
+house Compton Winyates. The general impression of its vast
+complication of gable ends and twisted chimneys is that some
+enchanted palace has found its way out of one of the fairy-tale
+books of our early youth and concealed itself deep down in a
+sequestered hollow among the woods and hills. We say concealed
+itself, for indeed it is no easy matter to find it, for anything
+in the shape of a road seems rather to lead _away from_,
+than _to_ it; indeed, there is no direct road from anywhere,
+and if we are fortunate enough to alight upon a footpath, that
+also in a very short time fades away into oblivion! So solitary
+also is the valley in which the mansion lies and so shut in with
+thick clustering trees, that one unacquainted with the locality
+might pass within fifty yards of it over and over again without
+observing a trace of it. When, however, we do discover the beautiful
+old structure, we are well repaid for what trouble we may have
+encountered. To locate the spot within a couple of miles, we
+may state that Brailes is its nearest village; the nearest town
+is Banbury, some nine miles away to the east.
+
+Perhaps if we were to analyse the peculiar charm this venerable
+pile conveys, we should find that it is the wonderful _colour_,
+the harmonies of greys and greens and reds which pervade its
+countless chimney clusters and curious step-gables. We will be
+content, however, with the fascinating results, no matter how
+accomplished, without inquiring into the why and wherefore; and
+pondering over the possibilities of the marvellous in such a
+building see, if the interior can carry out such a supposition.
+
+[Illustration: SCOTNEY HALL, SUSSEX]
+
+[Illustration: COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE]
+
+Wending our way to the top of the house, past countless old-world
+rooms and corridors, we soon discover evidences of the days of
+priest-hunting. A "Protestant" chapel is on the ground floor
+(with a grotesquely carved screen of great beauty), but up in
+the roof we discover another--a "Popish" chapel. From this there
+are numerous ways of escape, by staircases and passages leading
+in all directions, for even in the almost impenetrable seclusion
+of this house the profoundest secrecy was necessary for those
+who wished to celebrate the rites of the forbidden religion.
+Should the priest be surprised and not have time to descend one
+of the many staircases and effect his escape by the ready means
+in the lower part of the house, there are secret closets between
+the timber beams of the roof and the wainscot into which he could
+creep.
+
+Curious rooms run along each side in the roof round the quadrangle,
+called "the barracks," into which it would be possible to pack
+away a whole regiment of soldiers. Not far away are "the false
+floors," a typical Amy Robsart death-trap!
+
+A place of security here, once upon a time, could only be reached
+by a ladder; later, however, it was made easier of access by a
+dark passage, but it was as secure as ever from intrusion. The
+fugitive had the ready means of isolating himself by removing
+a large portion of the floor-boards; supposing, therefore, his
+lurking-place had been traced, he had only to arrange this deadly
+gap, and his pursuers would run headlong to their fate.
+
+Many other strange rooms there are, not the least interesting
+of which is a tiny apartment away from everywhere called "the
+Devil's chamber," and another little chamber whose window is
+_invariably found open in the morning, though securely fastened
+on the previous night!_
+
+Various finds have been made from time to time at Compton Winyates.
+Not many years ago a bricked-up space was found in a wall containing
+a perfect skeleton!--at another an antique box full of papers
+belonging to the past history of the family (the Comptons) was
+discovered in a secret cavity beneath one of the windows.
+
+[Illustration: MINSTREL'S GALLERY, COMPTON WINYATES]
+
+The "false floors" to which we have alluded suggests a hiding-place
+that was put to very practical use by two old maiden ladies some
+years ago at an ancient building near Malvern, Pickersleigh Court.
+Each night before retiring to rest some floor-boards of a passage,
+originally the entrance to a "priest's hole," were removed. This
+passage led to their bedroom, so that they were protected much in
+the same way as the fugitive at Compton Winyates, by a yawning
+gap. Local tradition does not record how many would-be burglars
+were trapped in this way, but it is certain that should anyone
+ever have ventured along that passage, they would have been
+precipitated with more speed than ceremony into a cellar below.
+Pickersleigh, it may be pointed out, is erroneously shown in
+connection with the wanderings of Charles II. after the battle
+Worcester.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See _The Flight of the King._]
+
+Salford Prior Hall (otherwise known as "the Nunnery," or Abbots
+Salford), not far from Evesham, is another mansion remarkable
+for its picturesqueness as well as for its capacity for hiding.
+It not only has its Roman Catholic chapel, but a resident priest
+holds services there to this day. Up in the garret is the "priest's
+hole," ready, it would seem, for some present emergency, so well
+is it concealed and in such perfect working order; and even when
+its position is pointed out, nothing is to be seen but the most
+innocent-looking of cupboards. By removing a hidden peg, however,
+the whole back of it, shelves and all, swings backwards into a
+dismal recess some four feet in depth. This deceitful swing door
+may be secured on the inside by a stout wooden bolt provided
+for that purpose.
+
+[Illustration: COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: SAWSTON HALL, CAMBRIDGESHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: PICKERSLEIGH COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: SALFORD PRIOR HALL, WARWICKSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: SALFORD PRIOR HALL]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR (SHEWING ENTRANCE)]
+
+Another hiding place as artfully contrived and as little changed
+since the day it was manufactured is one at Sawston, the ancestral
+seat of the old family of Huddleston. Sawston Hall is a typical
+Elizabethan building. The one which preceded it was burnt to the
+ground by the adherents of Lady Jane Grey, as the Huddleston
+of that day, upon the death of King Edward VI., received his
+sister Mary under his protection, and contrived her escape to
+Framlingham Castle, where she was carried in disguise, riding
+pillion behind a servant.
+
+The secret chamber, as at Harvington, is on the top landing of
+the staircase, and the entrance is so cleverly arranged that
+it slants into the masonry of a circular tower without showing
+the least perceptible sign from the exterior of a space capable
+of holding a baby, far less a man. A particular board in the
+landing is raised, and beneath it, in a corner of the cavity,
+is found a stone slab containing a circular aperture, something
+after the manner of our modern urban receptacles for coal. From
+this hole a tunnel slants downwards at an angle into the adjacent
+wall, where there is an apartment some twelve feet in depth,
+and wide enough to contain half a dozen people--that is to say,
+not bulky ones, for the circular entrance is far from large.
+Blocks of oak fixed upon the inside of the movable floor-board
+fit with great nicety into their firm oak sockets in the beams,
+which run at right angles and support the landing, so that the
+opening is so massive and firm that, unless pointed out, the
+particular floor-board could never be detected, and when secured
+from the inside would defy a battering-ram.
+
+[Illustration: OXBURGH HALL, NORFOLK]
+
+The Huddlestons, or rather their connections the Thornboroughs,
+have an old house at Leyburn, in Yorkshire, named "The Grove,"
+which also contained its hiding-place, but unfortunately this is
+one of those instances where alterations and modern conveniences
+have destroyed what can never be replaced. The priest, Father
+John Huddleston (who aided King Charles II. to escape, and who,
+it will be remembered, was introduced to that monarch's death-bed
+by way of a _secret staircase_ in the palace of Whitehall),
+lived in this house some time during the seventeenth century.
+
+One of the most ingenious hiding-places extant is to be seen
+at Oxburgh Hall, near Stoke Ferry, the grand old moated mansion
+of the ancient Bedingfield family. In solidity and compactness
+it is unique. Up in one of the turrets of the entrance gateway
+is a tiny closet, the floor of which is composed of brickwork
+fixed into a wooden frame. Upon pressure being applied to one
+side of this floor, the opposite side heaves up with a groan at
+its own weight. Beneath lies a hollow, seven feet square, where
+a priest might lie concealed with the gratifying knowledge that,
+however the ponderous trap-door be hammered from above, there
+would be no tell-tale hollowness as a response. Having bolted
+himself in, he might to all intents and purposes be imbedded in
+a rock (though truly a toad so situated is not always safe from
+intrusion). Three centuries have rolled away and thirteen sovereigns
+have reigned since the construction of this hiding-place, but the
+mechanism of this masterpiece of ingenuity remains as perfect
+as if it had been made yesterday! Those who may be privileged
+with permission to inspect the interesting hall will find other
+surprises where least expected. An oak-panelled passage upon the
+basement of the aforesaid entrance gateway contains a secret
+door that gives admittance into the living-rooms in the most
+eccentric manner.
+
+A priest's hole beneath the floor of a small oratory adjoining
+"the chapel" (now a bedroom) at Borwick Hall, Lancashire, has an
+opening devised much in the same fashion as that at Oxburgh. By
+leaning his weight upon a certain portion of the boards, a fugitive
+could slide into a convenient gap, while the floor would adjust
+itself above his head and leave no trace of his where-abouts.
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, PARHAM HALL, SUSSEX]
+
+Window-seats not uncommonly formed the entrance to holes beneath
+the level of the floor. In the long gallery of Parham Hall, Sussex,
+an example of this may be seen. It is not far from "the chapel,"
+and the officiating priest in this instance would withdraw a
+panel whose position is now occupied by a door; but the entrance
+to the hiding-place within the projecting bay of the window is
+much the same as it ever was. After the failure of the Babington
+conspiracy one Charles Paget was concealed here for some days.
+
+The Tudor house of Tusmore, in Oxfordshire, also had a secret
+chamber, approached through a fixed settle in "the parlour" window.
+A tradition in the neighbourhood says that the great fish-pond
+near the site of the old house was dug by a priest and his servant
+in the days of religious persecution, constituting their daily
+occupation for twelve years!
+
+Paxhill, in Sussex, the ancient seat of the Bordes, has a priest's
+hole behind a window-shutter, and it is large enough to hold several
+persons; there is another large hiding-hole in the ceiling of a
+room on the ground floor, which is reached through a trap-door
+in the floor above. It is provided with a stone bench.
+
+In castles and even ecclesiastical buildings sections of massive
+stone columns have been found to rotate and reveal a hole in an
+adjacent wall--even an altar has occasionally been put to use
+for concealing purposes. At Naworth Castle, for instance, in
+"Lord William's Tower," there is an oratory behind the altar, in
+which fugitives not only could be hidden but could see anything
+that transpired in its vicinity. In Chichester Cathedral there is
+a room called Lollards' Prison, which is approached by a sliding
+panel in the old consistory-room situated over the south porch.
+The manor house of Great Chalfield, in Wiltshire, has a unique
+device by which any suspected person could be watched. The eye
+of a stone mask in the masonry is hollowed out and through this
+a suspicious lord of the manor could, unseen, be a witness to
+any treachery on the part of his retainers or guests.
+
+[Illustration: PAXHILL, SUSSEX]
+
+[Illustration: CLEEVE PRIOR MANOR HOUSE, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+The old moated hall Baddesley Clinton, in Warwickshire, the ancient
+seat of the Ferrers, has a stone well or shaft near "the chapel."
+There were formerly projections or steps by which a fugitive
+could reach a secret passage extending round nearly two sides
+of the house to a small water-gate by the moat, where a boat
+was kept in readiness. Adjoining the "banqueting-room" on the
+east side of the building is a secret chamber six feet square
+with a bench all round it. It is now walled up, but the narrow
+staircase, behind the wainscoting, leading up to it is unaltered.
+
+Cleeve Prior Manor House, in Worcestershire (though close upon
+the border of Warwickshire)) famous for its unique yew avenue,
+has a priest's hole, a cramped space five feet by two, in which
+it is necessary to lie down. As at Ingatestone, it is below the
+floor of a small chamber adjoining the principal bedroom, and
+is entered by removing one of the floor-boards.
+
+Wollas Hall, an Elizabethan mansion on Bredon Hill, near Pershore
+(held uninterruptedly by the Hanford family since the sixteenth
+century), has a chapel in the upper part of the house, and a
+secret chamber, or priest's hole, provided with a diminutive
+fire-place. When the officiating priest was about to celebrate
+Mass, it was the custom here to spread linen upon the hedges as
+a sign to those in the adjacent villages who wished to attend.
+
+A hiding-place at Treago, Herefordshire (an unique specimen of
+a thirteenth-century fortified mansion) inhabited by the Mynor
+family for more than four hundred years), has quite luxurious
+accommodation--a sleeping-place and a reading-desk. It is called
+"Pope's Hole." The walls on the south-east side of the house are
+of immense thickness, and there are many indications of secret
+passages within them.
+
+[Illustration: BADDESLEY CLINTON, WARWICKSHIRE]
+
+Some fifty years ago a hiding-hole was opened in a chimney adjoining
+"the chapel" of Lydiate Hall, Lancashire; and since then one
+was discovered behind the rafters of the roof. Another ancient
+house close by contained a priest's hole where were found some
+religious books and an old carved oak chair.
+
+Myddleton Lodge, near Ilkley, had a secret chapel in the roof,
+which is now divided up into several apartments. In the grounds
+is to be seen a curious maze of thickly planted evergreens in
+the shape of a cross. From the fact that at one end remain three
+wooden crosses, there is but little doubt that at the time of
+religious persecution the privacy of the maze was used for secret
+worship.
+
+When Slindon House, Sussex, was undergoing some restorations, a
+"priest's hole" communicating with the roof was discovered. It
+contained some ancient devotional books, and against the walls
+were hung stout leathern straps, by which a person could let
+himself down.
+
+The internal arrangements at Plowden Hall, Shropshire, give one
+a good idea of the feeling of insecurity that must have been
+so prevalent in those "good old days." Running from the top of
+the house there is in the thickness of the wall, a concealed
+circular shoot about a couple of feet in diameter, through which
+a person could lower himself, if necessary, to the ground floor
+by the aid of a rope. Here also, beneath the floor-boards of a
+cupboard in one of the bedrooms, is a concealed chamber with a
+fixed shelf, presumably provided to act as a sort of table for
+the unfortunate individual who was forced to occupy the narrow
+limits of the room. Years before this hiding-place was opened
+to the light of day (in the course of some alterations to the
+house), its existence and actual position was well known; still,
+strange to say, the way into it had never been discovered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+KING-HUNTING: BOSCOBEL, MOSELEY, TRENT, AND HEALE
+
+When the Civil War was raging, many a defeated cavalier owed
+his preservation to the "priests' holes" and secret chambers
+of the old Roman Catholic houses all over the country. Did not
+Charles II. himself owe his life to the conveniences offered
+at Boscobel, Moseley, Trent, and Heale? We have elsewhere[1]
+gone minutely into the young king's hair-breadth adventures;
+but the story is so closely connected with the present subject
+that we must record something of his sojourn at these four old
+houses, as from an historical point of view they are of exceptional
+interest, if one but considers how the order of things would have
+been changed had either of these hiding-places been discovered
+at the time "his Sacred Majesty" occupied them. It is vain to
+speculate upon the probabilities; still, there is no ignoring
+the fact that had Charles been captured he would have shared
+the fate of his father.
+
+[Footnote 1: See _The Flight of the King_.]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE BENEATH "THE CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL, SALOP]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE IN "THE GARRET" OR "CHAPEL,"
+BOSCOBEL]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE IN "THE SQUIRE'S BEDROOM," BOSCOBEL]
+
+[Illustration: SECRET PANEL, TRENT HOUSE, SOMERSETSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: BOSCOBEL, SALOP]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE]
+
+[Illustration: TRENT HOUSE IN 1864]
+
+[Illustration: HEALE HOUSE, WILTSHIRE]
+
+
+After the defeat of Wigan, the gallant Earl of Derby sought refuge
+at the isolated, wood-surrounded hunting-lodge of Boscobel, and
+after remaining there concealed for two days, proceeded to Gatacre
+Park, now rebuilt, but then and for long after famous for its
+secret chambers. Here he remained hidden prior to the disastrous
+battle of Worcester.
+
+Upon the close of that eventful third of September, 1651, the
+Earl, at the time that the King and his advisers knew not which
+way to turn for safety, recounted his recent experiences, and
+called attention to the loyalty of the brothers Penderel. It
+was speedily resolved, therefore, to hasten northwards towards
+Brewood Forest, upon the borders of Staffordshire and Salop.
+"As soon as I was disguised," says Charles, "I took with me a
+country fellow whose name was Richard Penderell.... He was a
+Roman Catholic, and I chose to trust them [the Penderells] because
+I knew they had hiding-holes for priests that I thought I might
+make use of in case of need." Before taking up his quarters in
+the house, however, the idea of escaping into Wales occured to
+Charles, so, when night set in, he quitted Boscobel Wood, where
+he had been hidden all the day, and started on foot with his
+rustic guide in a westerly direction with the object of getting
+over the river Severn, but various hardships and obstacles induced
+Penderel to suggest a halt at a house at Madeley, near the river,
+where they might rest during the day and continue the journey
+under cover of darkness on the following night; the house further
+had the attraction of "priests' holes." "We continued our way on
+to the village upon the Severn," resumes the King, "where the
+fellow told me there was an honest gentleman, one Mr. Woolfe,
+that lived in that town, where I might be with great safety, for
+he had hiding-holes for priests.... So I came into the house a
+back way, where I found Mr. Woolfe, an old gentleman, who told me
+he was very sorry to see me there, because there was two companies
+of the militia foot at that time in arms in the town, and kept a
+guard at the ferry, to examine everybody that came that way in
+expectation of catching some that might be making their escape
+that way; and that he durst not put me into any of the hiding-holes
+of his house, because they had been discovered, and consequently,
+if any search should be made, they would certainly repair to
+these holes, and that therefore I had no other way of security
+but to go into his barn and there lie behind his corn and hay."
+
+[Illustration: MADELEY COURT, SHROPSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: THE COURTYARD, MADELEY COURT]
+
+[Illustration: MADELEY COURT]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," THE UPPER HOUSE, MADELEY]
+
+The Madeley "priest's hole" which was considered unsafe is still
+extant. It is in one of the attics of "the Upper House," but
+the entrance is now very palpable. Those who are curious enough
+to climb up into this black hole will discover a rude wooden
+bench within it--a luxury compared with some hiding-places!
+
+The river Severn being strictly guarded everywhere, Charles and
+his companions retraced their steps the next night towards Boscobel.
+
+After a day spent up in the branches of the famous _Royal Oak_,
+the fugitive monarch made his resting-place the secret chamber
+behind the wainscoting of what is called "the Squire's Bedroom."
+There is another hiding-place, however, hard by in a garret which
+may have been the one selected. The latter lies beneath the floor
+of this garret, or "Popish chapel," as it was once termed. At the
+top of a flight of steps leading to it is a small trap-door, and
+when this is removed a step-ladder may be seen leading down into
+the recess.[1] The other place behind the wainscot is situated
+in a chimney stack and is more roomy in its proportions. Here
+again is an inner hiding-place, entered through a trap-door in
+the floor, with a narrow staircase leading to an exit in the
+basement. So much for Boscobel.
+
+[Footnote 1: The hiding-place in the garret measures about 5 feet
+2 inches in depth by 3-1/2 or 4-1/2 feet in width.]
+
+Moseley Hall is thus referred to by the King: "I... sent Penderell's
+brother to Mr. Pitchcroft's [Whitgreaves] to know whether my
+Lord Wilmot was there or no, and had word brought me by him at
+night that my lord was there, that there was a _very secure
+hiding-hole_ in Mr. Pitchcroft's house, and that he desired
+me to come thither to him."
+
+It was while at Moseley the King had a very narrow escape. A
+search-party arrived on the scene and demanded admittance. Charles's
+host himself gives the account of this adventure: "In the afternoon
+[the King] reposing himself on his bed in the parlour chamber
+and inclineing to sleep, as I was watching at the window, one of
+the neighbours I saw come running in, who told the maid soldiers
+were comeing to search, who thereupon presentlie came running to
+the staires head, and cried, 'Soldiers, soldiers are coming,'
+which his majestie hearing presentlie started out of his bedd and
+run to _his privacie, where I secured him the best I could_,
+and then leaving him, went forth into the street to meet the
+soldiers who were comeing to search, who as soon as they saw
+and knew who I was were readie to pull mee to pieces, and take
+me away with them, saying I was come from the Worcester fight;
+but after much dispute with them, and by the neighbours being
+informed of their false information that I was not there, being
+very ill a great while, they let mee goe; but till I saw them
+clearly all gone forth of the town I returned not; but as soon
+as they were, I returned to release him and did acquaint him
+with my stay, which hee thought long, and then hee began to bee
+very chearful again.
+
+In the interim, whilst I was disputing with the soldiers, one
+of them called Southall came in the ffould and asked a smith,
+as hee was shooing horses there, if he could tell where the King
+was, and he should have "a thousand pounds for his payns...."
+This Southall was a great priest-catcher.
+
+[Illustration: "PRIEST'S HOLE," MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE]
+
+The hiding-place is located beneath the floor of a cupboard,
+adjoining the quaint old panelled bedroom the King occupied while
+he was at Moseley. Even "the merry monarch" must have felt depressed
+in such a dismal hole as this, and we can picture his anxious
+expression, as he sat upon the rude seat of brick which occupies
+one end of it, awaiting the result of the sudden alarm. The cupboard
+orginally was screened with wainscoting, a panel of which could
+be opened and closed by a spring. Family tradition also says
+there was a outlet from the hiding-place in a brew-house chimney.
+Situated in a gable end of the building, near the old chapel,
+in a garret, there is another "priest's hole" large enough only
+to admit of a person lying down full length.
+
+Before the old seat of the Whitgreaves was restored some fifteen
+or twenty years ago it was one of the most picturesque half-timber
+houses, not only in Staffordshire, but in England. It had remained
+practically untouched since the day above alluded to (September
+9th, 1651).
+
+Before reaching Trent, in Somersetshire, the much sought-for king
+had many hardships to undergo and many strange experiences. We
+must, however, confine our remarks to those of the old buildings
+which offered him an asylum that could boast a hiding-place.
+
+Trent House was one of these. The very fact that it originally
+belonged to the recusant Gerard family is sufficient evidence.
+From the Gerards it passed by marriage to the Wyndhams, who were
+in residence in the year we speak of. That his Majesty spent much
+of his time in the actual hiding-place at Trent is very doubtful.
+Altogether he was safely housed here for over a fortnight, and
+during that time doubtless occasional alarms drove him, as at
+Moseley, into his sanctuary; but a secluded room was set apart
+for his use, where he had ample space to move about, and from
+which he could reach his hiding-place at a moment's notice. The
+black oak panelling and beams of this cosy apartment, with its
+deep window recesses, readily carries the mind back to the time
+when its royal inmate wiled away the weary hours by cooking his
+meals and amusing himself as best he could--indeed a hardship
+for one, such as he, so fond of outdoor exercise.
+
+Close to the fireplace are two small, square secret panels, at one
+time used for the secretion of sacred books or vessels, valuables
+or compromising deeds, but pointed out to visitors as a kind of
+buttery hatch through which Charles II. received his food. The
+King by day, also according to local tradition, is said to have
+kept up communication with his friends in the house by means
+of a string suspended in the kitchen chimney. That apartment is
+immediately beneath, and has a fireplace of huge dimensions.
+An old Tudor doorway leading into this part of the house is said
+to have been screened from observation by a load of hay.
+
+Now for the hiding-place. Between this and "my Lady Wyndham's
+chamber" (the aforesaid panelled room that was kept exclusively
+for Charles's use) was a small ante-room, long since demolished,
+its position being now occupied by a rudely constructed staircase,
+from the landing of which the hiding-place is now entered. The
+small secret apartment is approached through a triangular hole
+in the wall, something after the fashion of that at Ufton Court;
+but when one has squeezed through this aperture he will find
+plenty of room to stretch his limbs. The hole, which was close
+up against the rafters of the roof of the staircase landing,
+when viewed from the inside of the apartment, is situated at the
+base of a blocked-up stone Tudor doorway. Beneath the boards of
+the floor--as at Boscobel and Moseley--is an inner hiding-place,
+from which it was formerly possible to find an exit through the
+brew-house chimney.
+
+It was from Trent House that Charles visited the Dorsetshire
+coast in the hopes of getting clear of England; but a complication
+of misadventures induced him to hasten back with all speed to
+the pretty little village of Trent, to seek once, more shelter
+beneath the roof of the Royalist Colonel Wyndham.
+
+To resume the King's account:--
+
+"As soon as we came to Frank Windham's I sent away presently to
+Colonel Robert Philips [Phelips], who lived then at Salisbury, to
+see what he could do for the getting me a ship; which he undertook
+very willingly, and had got one at Southampton, but by misfortune
+she was amongst others prest to transport their soldiers to Jersey,
+by which she failed us also.
+
+"Upon this, I sent further into Sussex, where Robin Philips knew
+one Colonel Gunter, to see whether he could hire a ship anywhere
+upon that coast. And not thinking it convenient for me to stay
+much longer at Frank Windham's (where I had been in all about a
+fortnight, and was become known to very many), I went directly
+away to a widow gentlewoman's house, one Mrs. Hyde, some four
+or five miles from Salisbury, where I came into the house just
+as it was almost dark, with Robin Philips only, not intending
+at first to make myself known. But just as I alighted at the
+door, Mrs. Hyde knew me, though she had never seen me but once
+in her life, and that was with the king, my father, in the army,
+when we marched by Salisbury some years before, in the time of
+the war; but she, being a discreet woman, took no notice at that
+time of me, I passing only for a friend of Robin Philips', by
+whose advice I went thither.
+
+"At supper there was with us Frederick Hyde, since a judge, and
+his sister-in-law, a widow, Robin Philips, myself, and Dr. Henshaw
+[Henchman], since Bishop of London, whom I had appointed to meet
+me there.
+
+"While we were at slipper, I observed Mrs. Hyde and her brother
+Frederick to look a little earnestly at me, which led me to believe
+they might know me. But I was not at all startled by it, it having
+been my purpose to let her know who I was; and, accordingly,
+after supper Mrs. Hyde came to me, and I discovered myself to
+her, who told me she had a very safe place to hide me in, till
+we knew whether our ship was ready or no. But she said it was
+not safe for her to trust anybody but herself and her sister,
+and therefore advised me to take my horse next morning and make
+as if I quitted the house, and return again about night; for she
+would order it so that all her servants and everybody should
+be out of the house but herself and her sister, whose name I
+remember not.
+
+"So Robin Philips and I took our horses and went as far as
+Stonehenge; and there we staid looking upon the stones for some
+time, and returned back again to Hale [Heale] (the place where
+Mrs. Hyde lived) about the hour she appointed; where I went up
+into the hiding-hole, that was very convenient and safe, and
+staid there all alone (Robin Philips then going away to Salisbury)
+some four or five days."
+
+Both exterior and interior of Heale House as it stands to-day
+point to a later date than 1651, though there are here and there
+vestiges of architecture anterior to the middle of the seventeenth
+century; the hiding-place, however, is not among these, and looks
+nothing beyond a very deep cupboard adjoining one of the bedrooms,
+with nothing peculiar to distinguish it from ordinary cupboards.
+
+But for all its modern innovations there is something about Heale
+which suggests a house with a history. Whether it is its environment
+of winding river and ancient cedar-trees, its venerable stables
+and imposing entrance gate, or the fact that it is one of those
+distinguished houses that have saved the life of an English king,
+we will not undertake to fathom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CAVALIER-HUNTING, ETC.
+
+An old mansion in the precincts of the cathedral at Salisbury is
+said to have been a favourite hiding-place for fugitive cavaliers
+at the time of the Civil War. There is an inn immediately opposite
+this house, just outside the close, where the landlord (formerly a
+servant to the family who lived in the mansion) during the troublous
+times acted as a secret agent for those who were concealed, and
+proved invaluable by conveying messages and in other ways aiding
+those Royalists whose lives were in danger.
+
+[Illustration: SECRET PANEL AT SALISBURY]
+
+There are still certain "priests' holes" in the house, but the most
+interesting hiding-place is situated in the most innocent-looking
+of summer-houses in the grounds. The interior of this little
+structure is wainscoted round with large panels like most of
+the summer-houses, pavilions, or music-rooms of the seventeenth
+century, and nothing uncommon or mysterious was discovered until
+some twenty-five years ago. By the merest accident one of the
+panels was found to open, revealing what appeared to be an ordinary
+cupboard with shelves. Further investigations, however, proved
+its real object. By sliding one of the shelves out of the grooves
+into which it is fixed, a very narrow, disguised door, a little
+over a foot in width, in the side of the cupboard and in the
+thickness of the wall can be opened. This again reveals a narrow
+passage, or staircase, leading up to the joists above the ceiling,
+and thence to a recess situated immediately behind the carved
+ornamental facing over the entrance door of the summer-house.
+In this there is a narrow chink or peep-hole, from which the
+fugitive could keep on the look-out either for danger or for the
+friendly Royalist agent of the "King's Arms."
+
+When it was first discovered there were evidences of its last
+occupant--_viz._ a Jacobean horn tumbler, a mattress, and a
+handsomely worked velvet pillow; the last two articles, provided
+no doubt for the comfort of some hunted cavalier, upon being
+handled, fell to pieces. It may be mentioned that the inner door
+of the cupboard can be securely fastened from the inside by an
+iron hook and staple for that purpose.
+
+Hewitt, mine host of the "King's Arms," was not idle at the time
+transactions were in progress to transfer Charles II. from Trent
+to Heale, and received within his house Lord Wilmot, Colonel
+Phelips, and other of the King's friends who were actively engaged
+in making preparations for the memorable journey. This old inn,
+with its oak-panelled rooms and rambling corridors, makes a very
+suitable neighbour to the more dignified old brick mansion opposite,
+with which it is so closely associated.
+
+[Illustration: SECRET CHAMBER, CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: OLD SUMMER HOUSE, SALISBURY (SHEWING CARVING IN
+WHICH IS A PEEP-HOLE FOR HIDING-PLACE BEHIND)]
+
+Many are the exciting stories related of the defeated Royalists,
+especially after the Worcester fight. One of them, Lord Talbot,
+hastened to his paternal home of Longford, near Newport (Salop),
+and had just time to conceal himself ere his pursuers arrived,
+who, finding his horse saddled, concluded that the rider could
+not be far off. They therefore searched the house minutely for
+four or five days, and the fugitive would have perished for want
+of food, had not one of the servants contrived, at great personal
+risk, to pay him nocturnal visits and supply him with nourishment.
+
+The grey old Jacobean mansion Chastleton preserves in its
+oak-panelled hall the sword and portrait of the gallant cavalier
+Captain Arthur Jones, who, narrowly escaping from the battlefield,
+speeded homewards with some of Cromwell's soldiers at his heels;
+and his wife, a lady of great courage, had scarcely concealed
+him in the secret chamber when the enemy arrived to search the
+house.
+
+Little daunted, the lady, with great presence of mind, made no
+objection whatever--indeed, facilitated their operations by
+personally conducting them over the mansion. Here, as in so many
+other instances, the secret room was entered from the principal
+bedroom, and in inspecting the latter the suspicion of the Roundheads
+was in some way or another aroused, so here they determined to
+remain for the rest of the night.
+
+An ample supper and a good store of wine (which, by the way, had
+been carefully drugged) was sent up to the unwelcome visitors,
+and in due course the drink effected its purpose--its victims
+dropped off one by one, until the whole party lay like logs upon
+the floor. Mrs. Arthur Jones then crept in, having even to step
+over the bodies of the inanimate Roundheads, released her husband,
+and a fresh horse being in readiness, by the time the effects
+of the wine had worn off the Royalist captain was far beyond
+their reach.
+
+The secret room is located in the front of the building, and has
+now been converted into a very, comfortable little dressing-room,
+preserving its original oak panelling, and otherwise but little
+altered, with the exception of the entry to it, which is now
+an ordinary door.
+
+Chastleton is the beau ideal of an ancestral hall. The grand
+old gabled house, with its lofty square towers, its Jacobean
+entrance gateway and dovecote, and the fantastically clipped
+box-trees and sun-dial of its quaint old-fashioned garden, possesses
+a charm which few other ancient mansions can boast, and this
+charm lies in its perfectly unaltered state throughout, even
+to the minutest detail. Interior and exterior alike, everything
+presents an appearance exactly as it did when it was erected
+and furnished by Walter Jones, Esquire, between the years 1603
+and 1630. The estate originally was held by Robert Catesby, who
+sold the house to provide funds for carrying on the notorious
+conspiracy.
+
+Among its most valued relics is a Bible given by Charles I. when
+on the scaffold to Bishop Juxon, who lived at Little Compton manor
+house, near Chastleton. This Bible was always used by the bishop
+at the Divine services, which at one time were held in the great
+hall of the latter house. Other relics of the martyr-king used
+to be at Little Compton--_viz._ some beams of the Whitehall
+scaffold, whose exact position has occasioned so much controversy.
+The velvet armchair and footstool used by the King during his
+memorable trial were also preserved here, but of late years have
+found a home at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, some six miles away. Visitors
+to that interesting collection shown in London some years ago--the
+Stuart Exhibition--may remember this venerable armchair of such
+sad association.
+
+[Illustration: CHASTLETON]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE DOOR, CHASTLETON]
+
+It may be here stated that after Charles I.'s execution, Juxon
+lived for a time in Sussex at an old mansion still extant, Albourne
+Place, not far from Hurstpierpoint. We mention this from the
+fact that a priest's hole was discovered there some few years
+ago. It was found in opening a communication between two rooms,
+and originally it could only be reached by steps projecting from
+the inner walls of a chimney.
+
+Not many miles from Albourne stands Street Place, an Elizabethan
+Sussex house of some note. A remarkable story of cavalier-hunting
+is told here. A hiding-place is said to have existed in the wide
+open fireplace of the great hall. Tradition has it that a horseman,
+hard pressed by the Parliamentary troopers, galloped into this
+hall, but upon the arrival of his pursuers, no clue could be
+found of either man or horse!
+
+The gallant Prince Rupert himself, upon one occasion, is said
+to have had recourse to a hiding hole, at least so the story
+runs, at the beautiful old black-and-white timber mansion, Park
+Hall, near Oswestry. A certain "false floor" which led to it is
+pointed out in a cupboard of a bedroom, the hiding-place itself
+being situated immediately above the dining-room fireplace.
+
+A concealed chamber something after the same description is to
+be seen at the old seat of the Fenwicks, Wallington, in
+Northumberland--a small room eight feet long by sixteen feet high,
+situated at the back of the dining-room fireplace, and approached
+through the back of a cupboard.
+
+Behind one of the large panels of "the hall" of an old building
+in Warwick called St. John's Hospital is a hiding-place, and in
+a bedroom of the same house there is a little apartment, now
+converted into a dressing-room, which formerly could only be
+reached through a sliding panel over the fireplace.
+
+The manor house of Dinsdale-on-Tees, Durham, has another example,
+but to reach it it is necessary to pass through a trap-door in
+the attics, crawl along under the roof, and drop down into the,
+space in the wall behind a bedroom fireplace, where for extra
+security there is a second trap-door.
+
+[Illustration: BROUGHTON HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: ST. JOHN'S HOSPITAL, WARWICK]
+
+Full-length panel portraits of the Salwey family at Stanford Court,
+Worcestershire (unfortunately burned down in 1882), concealed hidden
+recesses and screened passages leading up to an exit in the leads
+of the roof. In one of these recesses curious seventeenth-century
+manuscripts were found, among them, the household book of a certain
+"Joyce Jeffereys" during the Civil War.
+
+The old Jacobean mansion Broughton Hall, Staffordshire, had a
+curious hiding-hole over a fireplace and situated in the wall
+between the dining-room and the great hall; over its entrance
+used to hang a portrait of a man in antique costume which went
+by the name of "Red Stockings."
+
+At Lyme Hall, Cheshire, the ancient seat of the Leghs, high up
+in the wall of the hall is a sombre portrait which by ingenious
+mechanism swings out of its frame, a fixture, and gives admittance
+to a room on the first floor, or rather affords a means of looking
+down into the hall.[1] We mention this portrait more especially
+because it has been supposed that Scott got his idea here of
+the ghostly picture which figures in _Woodstock_. A
+_bonâ-fide_ hiding-place, however, is to be seen in another
+part of the mansion in a very haunted-looking bedroom called "the
+Knight's Chamber," entered through a trap-door in the floor of
+a cupboard, with a short flight of steps leading into it.
+
+[Footnote 1: A large panel in the long gallery of Hatfield can be
+pushed aside, giving a view into the great hall, and at Ockwells
+and other ancient mansions this device may also be seen.]
+
+Referring to Scott's novel, a word may be said about Fair Rosamond's
+famous "bower" at the old palace of Woodstock, surely the most
+elaborate and complicated hiding-place ever devised. The ruins
+of the labyrinth leading to the "bower" existed in Drayton's
+time, who described them as "vaults, arched and walled with stone
+and brick, almost inextricably wound within one another, by which,
+if at any time her [Rosamond's] lodging were laid about by the
+Queen, she might easily avoid peril imminent, and, if need be, by
+secret issues take the air abroad many furlongs about Woodstock."
+
+[Illustration: STAIRCASE, BROUGHTON HALL]
+
+In a survey taken in 1660, it is stated that foundation signs
+remained about a bow-shot southwest of the gate: "_The form
+and circuit both of the place and ruins show it to have been a
+house of one pile, and probably was filled with secret places
+of recess and avenues to hide or convey away such persons as
+were not willing to be found if narrowly sought after._"
+
+Ghostly gambols, such as those actually practised upon the
+Parliamentary Commissioners at the old palace of Woodstock, were
+for years carried on without detection by the servants at the old
+house of Hinton-Ampner, Hampshire; and when it was pulled down
+in the year 1797, it became very obvious how the mysteries, which
+gave the house the reputation of being haunted, were managed,
+for numerous secret stairs and passages, not known to exist were
+brought to light which had offered peculiar facilities for the
+deception. About the middle of the eighteenth century the mansion
+passed out of the hands of its old possessors, the Stewkeleys,
+and shortly afterwards became notorious for the unaccountable
+noises which disturbed the peace of mind of the new tenants.
+Not only were there violent knocks, hammerings, groanings, and
+sounds of footsteps in the ceilings and walls, out strange sights
+frightened the servants out of their wits. A ghostly visitant
+dressed in drab would appear and disappear mysteriously, a female
+figure was often seen to rush through the apartments, and other
+supernatural occurrences at length became so intolerable that the
+inmates of the house sought refuge in flight. Later successive
+tenants fared the same. A hundred pounds reward was offered to
+any who should run the ghosts to earth; but nothing resulted
+from it, and after thirty years or more of hauntings, the house
+was razed to the ground. Secret passages and chambers were then
+brought to light; but those who had carried on the deception
+for so long took the secret with them to their graves.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: A full account of the supernatural occurrences at
+Hinton-Ampner will be found in the Life of Richard Barham.]
+
+It is well known that the huge, carved oak bedsteads of the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries were often provided with secret
+accommodation for valuables. One particular instance we can call
+to mind of a hidden cupboard at the base of the bedpost which
+contained a short rapier. But of these small hiding-places we
+shall speak presently. It is with the head of the bed we have
+now to do, as it was sometimes used as an opening into the wall
+at the back. Occasionally, in old houses, unmeaning gaps and
+spaces are met with in the upper rooms midway between floor and
+ceiling, which possibly at one time were used as bed-head
+hiding-places. Shipton Court, Oxon, and Hill Hall, Essex, may
+be given as examples. Dunster Castle, Somersetshire, also, has
+at the back of a bedstead in one of the rooms a long, narrow
+place of concealment, extending the width of the apartment, and
+provided with a stone seat.
+
+Sir Ralph Verney, while in exile in France in 1645, wrote to his
+brother at Claydon House, Buckinghamshire, concerning "the odd
+things in the room my mother kept herself--_the iron chest in
+the little room between her bed's-head and the back stairs._"
+This old seat of the Verneys had another secret chamber in the
+middle storey, entered through a trap-door in "the muniment-room"
+at the top of the house. Here also was a small private staircase
+in the wall, possibly the "back stairs" mentioned in Sir Ralph's
+letters.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See _Memoirs of the Verney Family._]
+
+[Illustration: SHIPTON COURT, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: BROUGHTON CASTLE, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+Before the breaking out of the Civil War, Hampden, Pym, Lord
+Brooke, and other of the Parliamentary leaders, held secret meetings
+at Broughton Castle, oxon, the seat of Lord Saye and Sele, to
+organise a resistance to the arbitrary measures of the king. In
+this beautiful old fortified and moated mansion the secret stairs
+may yet be seen that led up to the little isolated chamber, with
+massive casemated walls for the exclusion of sound. Anthony Wood,
+alluding to the secret councils, says: "Several years before the
+Civil War began, Lord Saye, being looked upon as the godfather
+of that party, had meetings of them in his house at Broughton,
+where was a room and passage thereunto which his servants were
+prohibited to come near."[1] There is also a hiding-hole behind
+a window shutter in the wall of a corridor, with an air-hole
+ingeniously devised in the masonry.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Memorials of Hampden._]
+
+The old dower-house of Fawsley, not many miles to the north-east
+of Broughton, in the adjoining county of Northamptonshire, had
+a secret room over the hall, where a private press was kept for
+the purpose of printing political tracts at this time, when the
+country was working up into a state of turmoil.
+
+When the regicides were being hunted out in the early part of
+Charles II.'s reign, Judge Mayne[1] secreted himself at his house,
+Dinton Hall, Bucks, but eventually gave himself up. The hiding-hole
+at Dinton was beneath the staircase, and accessible by removing
+three of the steps. A narrow passage which led from it to a space
+behind the beams of the roof had its sides or walls thickly lined
+with cloth, so as to muffle all sound.
+
+[Footnote 1: There is a tradition that it was a servant of Mayne
+who acted as Charles I.'s executioner.]
+
+Bradshawe Hall, in north-west Derbyshire (once the seat of the
+family of that name of which the notorious President was a member),
+has or had a concealed chamber high up in the wall of a room on
+the ground floor which was capable of holding three persons.
+Of course tradition says the "wicked judge was hidden here."
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE GATE, BRADSHAWE HALL, DERBYSHIRE]
+
+The regicides Colonels Whalley and Goffe had many narrow escapes
+in America, whither they were traced. What is known as "Judge's
+Cave," in the West Rock some two miles from the town of New Haven,
+Conn., afforded them sanctuary. For some days they were concealed
+in an old house belonging to a certain Mrs. Eyers, in a secret
+chamber behind the wainscoting, the entrance to which was most
+ingeniously devised. The house was narrowly searched on May 14th,
+1661, at the time they were in hiding.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Stiles's _Judges_, p. 64]
+
+Upon the discovery of the Rye House Plot in 1683, suspicion falling
+upon one of the conspirators, William, third Lord Howard of Escrick,
+the Sergeant-at-Arms was despatched with a squadron of horse to
+his house at Knights-bridge, and after a long search he was
+discovered concealed in a hiding-place constructed in a chimney
+at the back of a tall cupboard, and the chances are that he would
+not have been arrested had it not been evident, by the warmth of
+his bed and his clothes scattered about, that he had only just
+risen and could not have got away unobserved, except to some
+concealed lurking-place. When discovered he had on no clothing
+beyond his shirt, so it may be imagined with what precipitate
+haste he had to hide himself upon the unexpected arrival of the
+soldiers.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Roger North's _Examen_.]
+
+Numerous other houses were searched for arms and suspicious papers,
+particularly in the counties of Cheshire and Lancashire, where
+the Duke of Monmouth was known to have many influential friends,
+marked enemies to the throne.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: See Oulton Hall MSS., Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iii. p.
+245.]
+
+Monmouth's lurking-place was known at Whitehall, and those who
+revealed it went the wrong way to work to win Court favour. Apart
+from the attractions of Lady Wentworth, whose companionship made
+the fugitive's enforced seclusion at Toddington, in Bedfordshire,
+far from tedious, the mansion was desirable at that particular
+time on account of its hiding facilities. An anonymous letter
+sent to the Secretary of State failed not to point out "that
+vastness and intricacy that without a most diligent search it's
+impossible to discover _all the lurking holes in it, there being
+severall trap dores on the leads and in closetts, into places to
+which there is no other access._"[1] The easy-going king had
+to make some external show towards an attempt to capture his
+erring son, therefore instructions were given with this purpose,
+but to a courtier and diplomatist who valued his own interests.
+Toddington Place, therefore, was _not_ explored.
+
+[Footnote 1: Vide King _Monmouth_.]
+
+[Illustration: MOYLES COURT, HAMPSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: TODDINGTON MANOR HOUSE, BEDFORDSHIRE, IN 1806 (FROM
+AN OLD DRAWING)]
+
+Few hiding-places are associated with so tragic a story as that
+at Moyles Court, Hants, where the venerable Lady Alice Lisle,
+in pure charity, hid two partisans of Monmouth, John Hickes and
+Richard Nelthorpe, after the battle of Sedgemoor, for which humane
+action she was condemned to be burned alive by Judge Jeffreys--a
+sentence commuted afterwards to beheading. It is difficult to
+associate this peaceful old Jacobean mansion, and the simple
+tomb in the churchyard hard by, with so terrible a history. A
+dark hole in the wall of the kitchen is traditionally said to be
+the place of concealment of the fugitives, who threw themselves
+on Lady Alice's mercy; but a dungeon-like cellar not unlike that
+represented in E. M. Ward's well-known picture looks a much more
+likely place.
+
+It was in an underground vault at Lady Place, Hurley, the old
+seat of the Lovelaces, that secret conferences were held by the
+adherents of the Prince of Orange. Three years after the execution
+of the Duke of Monmouth, his boon companion and supporter, John,
+third Lord Lovelace, organised treasonable meetings in this tomb-like
+chamber. Tradition asserts that certain important documents in
+favour of the Revolution were actually signed in the Hurley vault.
+Be this as it may, King William III. failed not, in after years,
+when visiting his former secret agent, to inspect the subterranean
+apartment with very tender regard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES
+
+We have spoken of the old houses associated with Charles II.'s
+escapes, let us see what history has to record of his unpopular
+brother James. The Stuarts seem to have been doomed, at one time
+or another, to evade their enemies by secret flight, and in some
+measure this may account for the romance always surrounding that
+ill-fated line of kings and queens.
+
+James V. of Scotland was wont to amuse himself by donning a disguise,
+but his successors appear to have been doomed by fate to follow
+his example, not for recreation, but to preserve their lives.
+
+Mary, Queen of Scots, upon one occasion had to impersonate a
+laundress. Her grandson and great-grandson both were forced to
+masquerade as servants, and her great-great-grandson Prince James
+Frederick Edward passed through France disguised as an abbé.
+
+The escapades of his son the "Bonnie Prince" will require our
+attention presently; we will, therefore, for the moment confine
+our thoughts to James II.
+
+With the surrender of Oxford the young Prince James found himself
+Fairfax's prisoner. His elder brother Charles had been more
+fortunate, having left the city shortly before for the western
+counties, and after effecting his escape to Scilly, he sought
+refuge in Jersey, whence he removed to the Hague. The Duke of
+Gloucester and the Princess Elizabeth already had been placed
+under the custody of the Earl of Northumberland at St. James's
+Palace, so the Duke of York was sent there also. This was in 1646.
+Some nine months elapsed, and James, after two ineffectual attempts
+to regain his liberty, eventually succeeded in the following
+manner.
+
+Though prisoners, the royal children were permitted to amuse
+themselves within the walls of the palace much as they pleased,
+and among the juvenile games with which they passed away the
+time, "hide-and-seek" was first favourite. James, doubtless with
+an eye to the future, soon acquired a reputation as an expert
+hider, and his brother and sister and the playmates with whom
+they associated would frequently search the odd nooks and corners
+of the old mansion in vain for an hour at a stretch. It was,
+therefore, no extraordinary occurrence on the night of April 20th,
+1647, that the Prince, after a prolonged search, was missing. The
+youngsters, more than usually perplexed, presently persuaded the
+adults of the prison establishment to join in the game, which,
+when their suspicions were aroused, they did in real earnest.
+But all in vain, and at length a messenger was despatched to
+Whitehall with the intelligence that James, Duke of York, had
+effected his escape. Everything was in a turmoil. Orders were
+hurriedly dispatched for all seaport towns to be on the alert,
+and every exit out of London was strictly watched; meanwhile,
+it is scarcely necessary to add, the young fugitive was well
+clear of the city, speeding on his way to the Continent.
+
+The plot had been skilfully planned. A key, or rather a duplicate
+key, had given admittance through the gardens into St. James's Park,
+where the Royalist, though outwardly professed Parliamentarian,
+Colonel Bamfield was in readiness with a periwig and cloak to
+effect a speedy disguise. When at length the fugitive made his
+appearance, minus his shoes and coat, he was hurried into a coach
+and conveyed to the Strand by Salisbury House, where the two
+alighted, and passing down Ivy Lane, reached the river, and after
+James's disguise had been perfected, boat was taken to Lyon Quay
+in Lower Thames Street, where a barge lay in readiness to carry
+them down stream.
+
+So far all went well, but on the way to Gravesend the master
+of the vessel, doubtless with a view to increasing his reward,
+raised some objections. The fugitive was now in female attire,
+and the objection was that nothing had been said about a woman
+coming aboard; but he was at length pacified, indeed ere long
+guessed the truth, for the Prince's lack of female decorum, as
+in the case of his grandson "the Bonnie Prince" nearly a century
+afterwards, made him guess how matters really stood. Beyond Gravesend
+the fugitives got aboard a Dutch vessel and were carried safely
+to Middleburg.
+
+We will now shift the scene to Whitehall in the year 1688, when,
+after a brief reign of three years, betrayed and deserted on
+all sides, the unhappy Stuart king was contemplating his second
+flight out of England. The weather-cock that had been set up on
+the banqueting hall to show when the wind "blew Protestant" had
+duly recorded the dreaded approach of Dutch William, who now was
+steadily advancing towards the capital. On Tuesday, December 10th,
+soon after midnight, James left the Palace by way of Chiffinch's
+secret stairs of notorious fame, and disguised as the servant
+of Sir Edward Hales, with Ralph Sheldon--La Badie--a page, and
+Dick Smith, a groom, attending him, crossed the river to Lambeth,
+dropping the great seal in the water on the way, and took horse,
+avoiding the main roads, towards Farnborough and thence to
+Chislehurst. Leaving Maidstone to the south-west, a brief halt
+was made at Pennenden Heath for refreshment. The old inn, "the
+Woolpack," where the party stopped for their hurried repast,
+remains, at least in name, for the building itself has of late
+years been replaced by a modern structure. Crossing the Dover
+road, the party now directed their course towards Milton Creek,
+to the north-east of Sittingbourne, where a small fishing-craft
+lay in readiness, which had been chartered by Sir Edward Hales,
+whose seat at Tunstall[1] was close by.
+
+[Footnote 1: The principal seat of the Hales, near Canterbury, is
+now occupied as a Jesuit College. The old manor house of Tunstall,
+Grove End Farm, presents both externally and internally many
+features of interest. The family was last represented by a maid
+lady who died a few years since.]
+
+One or two old buildings in the desolate marsh district of Elmley,
+claim the distinction of having received a visit of the deposed
+monarch prior to the mishaps which were shortly to follow. King's
+Hill Farm, once a house of some importance, preserves this tradition,
+as does also an ancient cottage, in the last stage of decay,
+known as "Rats' Castle."
+
+[Illustration: "RATS' CASTLE," ELMLEY, KENT]
+
+[Illustration: KING'S HILL FARM, ELMLEY, KENT]
+
+At Elmley Ferry, which crosses the river Swale, the king got
+aboard, but scarcely had the moorings been cast than further
+progress was arrested by a party of over-zealous fishermen on
+the look out for fugitive Jesuit priests. The story of the rough
+handling to which the poor king was subjected is a somewhat hackneyed
+school-book anecdote, but some interesting details have been handed
+down by one Captain Marsh, by James's natural son the Duke of
+Berwick, and by the Earl of Ailesbury.
+
+From these accounts we gather that in the disturbance that ensued
+a blow was aimed at the King, but that a Canterbury innkeeper named
+Platt threw himself in the way and received the blow himself. It
+is recorded, to James II.'s credit, that when he was recognised
+and his stolen money and jewels offered back to him, he declined
+the former, desiring that his health might be drunk by the mob.
+Among the valuables were the King's watch, his coronation ring,
+and medals commemorating the births of his son the Chevalier
+St. George and of his brother Charles II.
+
+The King was taken ashore at a spot called "the Stool," close
+to the little village of Oare, to the north-west of Faversham,
+to which town he was conveyed by coach, attended by a score of
+Kentish gentlemen on horseback. The royal prisoner was first
+carried to the "Queen's Arms Inn," which still exists under the
+name of the "Ship Hotel." From here he was taken to the mayor's
+house in Court Street (an old building recently pulled down to
+make way for a new brewery) and placed under a strict guard, and
+from the window of his prison the unfortunate King had to listen
+to the proclamation of the Prince of Orange, read by order of the
+mayor, who subsequently was rewarded for the zeal he displayed
+upon the occasion.
+
+The hardships of the last twenty-four hours had told severely upon
+James. He was sick and feeble and weakened by profuse bleeding
+of the nose, to which he, like his brother Charles, was subject
+when unduly excited. Sir Edward Hales, in the meantime, was lodged
+in the old Court Hall (since partially rebuilt), whence he was
+removed to Maidstone gaol, and to the Tower.
+
+Bishop Burnet was at Windsor with the Prince of Orange when two
+gentlemen arrived there from Faversham with the news of the King's
+capture. "They told me," he says, "of the accident at Faversham,
+and desired to know the Prince's pleasure upon it. I was affected
+with this dismal reverse of the fortunes of a great prince, more
+than I think fit to express. I went immediately to Bentinck and
+wakened him, and got him to go in to the Prince, and let him
+know what had happened, that some order might be presently given
+for the security of the King's person, and for taking him out
+of the hands of a rude multitude who said they would obey no
+orders but such as came from the Prince."
+
+Upon receiving the news, William at once directed that his
+father-in-law should have his liberty, and that assistance should
+be sent down to him immediately; but by this time the story had
+reached the metropolis, and a hurried meeting of the Council
+directed the Earl of Feversham to go to the rescue with a company
+of Life Guards. The faithful Earl of Ailesbury also hastened to
+the King's assistance. In five hours he accomplished the journey
+from London to Faversham. So rapidly had the reports been circulated
+of supposed ravages of the Irish Papists, that when the Earl
+reached Rochester, the entire town was in a state of panic, and
+the alarmed inhabitants were busily engaged in demolishing the
+bridge to prevent the dreaded incursion.
+
+But to return to James at Faversham. The mariners who had handled
+him so roughly now took his part--in addition to his property--and
+insisted upon sleeping in the adjoining room to that in which
+he was incarcerated, to protect him from further harm. Early
+on Saturday morning the Earl of Feversham made his appearance;
+and after some little hesitation on the King's side, he was at
+length persuaded to return to London. So he set out on horseback,
+breaking the journey at Rochester, where he slept on the Saturday
+night at Sir Richard Head's house. On the Sunday he rode on to
+Dartford, where he took coach to Southwark and Whitehall. A temporary
+reaction had now set in, and the cordial reception which greeted
+his reappearance revived his hopes and spirits. This reaction,
+however, was but short-lived, for no sooner had the poor King
+retired to the privacy of his bed-chamber at Whitehall Palace,
+than an imperious message from his son-in-law ordered him to
+remove without delay to Ham House, Petersham.
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO SECRET PASSAGE, "ABDICATION HOUSE,"
+ROCHESTER]
+
+[Illustration: "ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER]
+
+James objected strongly to this; the place, he said, was damp and
+unfurnished (which, by the way, was not the case if we may judge
+from Evelyn, who visited the mansion not long before, when it was
+"furnished like a great Prince's"--indeed, the same furniture
+remains intact to this day), and a message was sent back that if
+he must quit Whitehall he would prefer to retire to Rochester,
+which wish was readily accorded him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES (_continued_), HAM HOUSE, AND "ABDICATION
+HOUSE"
+
+Tradition, regardless of fact, associates the grand old seat
+of the Lauderdales and Dysarts with King James's escape from
+England. A certain secret staircase is still pointed out by which
+the dethroned monarch is said to have made his exit, and visitors
+to the Stuart Exhibition a few years ago will remember a sword
+which, with the King's hat and cloak, is said to have been left
+behind when he quitted the mansion. Now there existed, not many
+miles away, also close to the river Thames, _another_ Ham
+House, which was closely associated with James II., and it seems,
+therefore, possible, in fact probable, that the past associations
+of the one house have attached themselves to the other.
+
+In Ham House, Weybridge, lived for some years the King's discarded
+mistress Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester. At the actual
+time of James's abdication this lady was in France, but in the
+earlier part of his reign the King was a frequent visitor here.
+In Charles II.'s time the house belonged to Jane Bickerton, the
+mistress and afterwards wife of the sixth Duke of Norfolk. Evelyn
+dined there soon after this marriage had been solemnised. "The
+Duke," he says, "leading me about the house made no scruple of
+showing me all the hiding-places for the Popish priests and where
+they said Masse, for he was no bigoted Papist." At the Duke's
+death "the palace" was sold to the Countess of Dorchester, whose
+descendants pulled it down some fifty years ago. The oak-panelled
+rooms were richly parquetted with "cedar and cyprus." One of them
+until the last retained the name of "the King's Bedroom." It had a
+private communication with a little Roman Catholic chapel in the
+building. The attics, as at Compton Winyates, were called "the
+Barracks," tradition associating them with the King's guards, who
+are said to have been lodged there. Upon the walls hung portraits
+of the Duchesses of Leeds and Dorset, of Nell Gwyn and the Countess
+herself, and of Earl Portmore, who married her daughter. Here also
+formerly was Holbein's famous picture, Bluff King Hal and the
+Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk dancing a minuet with Anne Boleyn
+and the Dowager-Queens of France and Scotland. Evelyn saw the
+painting in August, 1678, and records "the sprightly motion"
+and "amorous countenances of the ladies." (This picture is now,
+or was recently, in the possession of Major-General Sotheby.)
+
+A few years after James's abdication, the Earl of Ailesbury rented
+the house from the Countess, who lived meanwhile in a small house
+adjacent, and was in the habit of coming into the gardens of the
+palace by a key of admittance she kept for that purpose. Upon
+one of these occasions the Earl and she had a disagreement about
+the lease, and so forcible were the lady's coarse expressions,
+for she never could restrain the licence of her tongue, that she
+had to be ejected from the premises, whereupon, says Ailesbury,
+"she bade me go to my----King James," with the assurance that
+"she would make King William spit on me."
+
+[Illustration: MONUMENT OF SIR RICHARD HEAD]
+
+[Illustration: "RESTORATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER]
+
+But to follow James II.'s ill-fortunes to Rochester, where he was
+conveyed on the Tuesday at noon by royal barge, with an escort of
+Dutch soldiers, with Lords Arran, Dumbarton, etc., in attendance--"a
+sad sight," says Evelyn, who witnessed the departure. The King
+recognised among those set to guard him an old lieutenant of the
+Horse who had fought under him, when Duke of York, at the battle
+of Dunkirk. Colonel Wycke, in command of the King's escort, was
+a nephew of the court painter Sir Peter Lely, who had owed his
+success to the patronage of Charles II. and his brother. The
+part the Colonel had to act was a painful one, and he begged the
+King's pardon. The royal prisoner was lodged for the night at
+Gravesend, at the house of a lawyer, and next morning the journey
+was continued to Rochester.
+
+The royalist Sir Richard Head again had the honour of acting
+as the King's host, and his guest was allowed to go in and out
+of the house as he pleased, for diplomatic William of Orange
+had arranged that no opportunity should be lost for James to
+make use of a passport which the Duke of Berwick had obtained
+for "a certain gentleman and two servants." James's movements,
+therefore, were hampered in no way. But the King, ever suspicious,
+planned his escape from Rochester with the greatest caution and
+secrecy, and many of his most attached and loyal adherents were
+kept in ignorance of his final departure. James's little court
+consisted of the Earls of Arran, Lichfield, Middleton, Dumbarton,
+and Ailesbury, the Duke of Berwick, Sir Stephen Fox, Major-General
+Sackville, Mr. Grahame, Fenton, and a few others.
+
+On the evening of the King's flight the company dispersed as was
+customary, when Ailesbury intimated, by removing his Majesty's
+stockings, that the King was about to seek his couch. The Earl
+of Dumbarton retired with James to his apartment, who, when the
+house was quiet for the night, got up, dressed, and "by way of
+the back stairs," according to the Stuart Papers, passed "through
+the garden, where Macdonald stayed for him, with the Duke of
+Berwick and Mr. Biddulph, to show him the way to Trevanion's
+boat. About twelve at night they rowed down to the smack, which
+was waiting without the fort at Sheerness. It blew so hard right
+ahead, and ebb tide being done before they got to the Salt Pans,
+that it was near six before they got to the smack. Captain Trevanion
+not being able to trust the officers of his ship, they got on
+board the _Eagle_ fireship, commanded by Captain Welford,
+on which, the wind and tide being against them, they stayed till
+daybreak, when the King went on board the smack." On Christmas
+Day James landed at Ambleteuse.
+
+Thus the old town of Rochester witnessed the departure of the
+last male representative of the Stuart line who wore a crown.
+Twenty-eight years before, every window and gable end had been
+gaily bedecked with many coloured ribbons, banners, and flowers
+to welcome in the restored monarch. The picturesque old red brick
+"Restoration House" still stands to carry us back to the eventful
+night when "his sacred Majesty" slept within its walls upon his
+way from Dover to London--a striking contrast to "Abdication
+House," the gloomy abode of Sir Richard Head, of more melancholy
+associations.
+
+Much altered and modernised, this old mansion also remains. It
+is in the High Street, and is now, or was recently, occupied as a
+draper's shop. Here may be seen the "presence-chamber" where the
+dethroned King heard Mass, and the royal bedchamber where, after
+his secret departure, a letter was found on the table addressed
+to Lord Middleton, for both he and Lord Ailesbury were kept in
+ignorance of James II.'s final movements. The old garden may
+be seen with the steps leading down to the river, much as it
+was a couple of centuries ago, though the river now no longer
+flows in near proximity, owing to the drainage of the marshes
+and the "subsequent improvements" of later days.
+
+The hidden passage in the staircase wall may also be seen, and
+the trap-door leading to it from the attics above. Tradition says
+the King made use of these; and if he did so, the probability is
+that it was done more to avoid his host's over-zealous neighbours,
+than from fear of arrest through the vigilance of the spies of
+his son-in-law.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: It may be of interest to state that the illustrations
+we give of the house were originally exhibited at the Stuart
+Exhibition by Sir Robert G. Head, the living representative of
+the old Royalist family]
+
+Exactly three months after James left England he made his
+reappearance at Kinsale and entered Dublin in triumphal state.
+The siege of Londonderry and the decisive battle of the Boyne
+followed, and for a third and last time James II. was a fugitive
+from his realms. The melancholy story is graphically told in Mr.
+A. C. Gow's dramatic picture, an engraving of which I understand
+has recently been published.
+
+How the unfortunate King rode from Dublin to Duncannon Fort,
+leaving his faithful followers and ill-fortunes behind him; got
+aboard the French vessel anchored there for his safety; and returned
+once more to the protection of the Grande Monarque at the palace
+of St. Germain, is an oft-told story of Stuart ingratitude.
+
+[Illustration: ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE GATE, ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MYSTERIOUS ROOMS, DEADLY PITS, ETC.
+
+At the "Restoration House" previously mentioned there is a secret
+passage in the wall of an upper room; but though the Merry Monarch
+is, according to popular tradition, credited with a monopoly of
+hiding-places all over England, it is more than doubtful whether
+he had recourse to these exploits, in which he was so successful
+in 1651, upon such a joyful occasion, except, indeed, through
+sheer force of habit.
+
+Even Cromwell's name is connected with hiding-places! But it
+is difficult to conjecture upon what occasions his Excellency
+found it convenient to secrete himself, unless it was in his
+later days, when he went about in fear of assassination.
+
+Hale House, Islington, pulled down in 1853, had a concealed recess
+behind the wainscot over the mantel-piece, formed by the curve
+of the chimney. In this, tradition says, the Lord Protector was
+hidden. Nor is this the solitary instance, for a dark hole in
+one of the gable ends of Cromwell House, Mortlake (taken down in
+1860), locally known as "Old Noll's Hole," is said to have afforded
+him temporary accommodation when his was life in danger.[1] The
+residence of his son-in-law Ireton (Cromwell House) at Highgate
+contained a large secret chamber at the back of a cupboard in
+one of the upper rooms, and extended back twelve or fourteen
+feet, but the cupboard has now been removed and the space at the
+back converted into a passage.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Faulkner's _History of Islington_.]
+
+The ancient manor house of Armscot, in an old-world corner of
+Worcestershire, contains in one of its gables a hiding-place
+entered through a narrow opening in the plaster wall, not unlike
+that at Ufton Court, and capable of holding many people. From the
+fact that George Fox was arrested in this house on October 17th,
+1673, when he was being persecuted by the county magistrates, the
+story has come down to the yokels of the neighbourhood that "old
+Guy Fawkes, the first Quaker," was hidden here! In his journal Fox
+mentions his arrest at Armscot after a "very large and precious
+meeting" in the barn close by; but we have no allusion to the
+hiding-place, for he appears to have been sitting in the parlour
+when Henry Parker, the Justice, arrived--indeed, George Fox was
+not the sort of man to have recourse to concealments, and owe
+his escape to a "priest's hole."
+
+The suggestion of a sudden reverse in religious persecution driving
+a Quaker to such an extremity calls to mind an old farmstead
+where a political change from monarchy to commonwealth forced
+Puritan and cavalier consecutively to seek refuge in the secret
+chamber. This narrow hiding-place, beside the spacious fire-place,
+is pointed out in an ancient house in the parish of Hinchford,
+in Eastern Essex.
+
+Even the notorious Judge Jeffreys had in his house facilities
+for concealment and escape. His old residence in Delahay Street,
+Westminster, demolished a few years ago, had its secret panel
+in the wainscoting, but in what way the cruel Lord Chancellor
+made use of it does not transpire; possibly it may have been
+utilised at the time of James II.'s flight from Whitehall.
+
+A remarkable discovery was made early in the last century at the
+Elizabethan manor house of Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire,
+only a portion of which remains incorporated in a modern structure.
+Upon removing some of the wallpaper of a passage on the second
+floor, the entrance to a room hitherto unknown was laid bare. It
+was a small apartment about eight feet square, and presented the
+appearance as if some occupant had just quitted it. A chair and
+a table within, each bore evidence of the last inmate. Over the
+back of the former hung a priest's black cassock, carelessly flung
+there a century or more ago, while on the table stood an antique
+tea-pot, cup, and silver spoon, the very tea leaves crumbled to
+dust with age. On the same storey were two rooms known as "the
+chapel" and the "priest's room," the names of which signify the
+former use of the concealed apartment.
+
+Sir Walter Scott records a curious "find," similar in many respects
+to that at Bourton. In the course of some structural alterations to
+an ancient house near Edinburgh three unknown rooms were brought to
+light, bearing testimony of their last inmate. One of them had been
+occupied as a bedroom. The clothing of the bed was disarranged,
+as if it had been slept in only a few hours previously, and close
+by was an antique dressing-gown. How interesting it would be to
+know some particulars of the sudden surprise which evidently
+drove the owner of the garment from his snug quarters--whether
+he effected his escape, or whether he was captured! The walls
+of this buried chamber, if they could speak, had some curious
+story to relate.
+
+Not many years ago the late squire of East Hendred House, Berkshire,
+discovered the existence of a secret chamber in casually glancing
+over some ancient papers belonging to the house. "The little
+room," as it was called, from its proximity to the chapel, had
+no doubt been turned to good account during the penal laws of
+Elizabeth's reign, as the chamber itself and other parts of the
+house date from a much earlier period.
+
+Long after the palatial Sussex mansion of Cowdray was burnt down,
+the habitable remains (the keeper's lodge, in the centre of the
+park) contained an ingenious hiding-place behind a fireplace in
+a bedroom, which was reached by a movable panel in a cupboard,
+communicating with the roof by a slender flight of steps. It
+was very high, reaching up two storeys, but extremely narrow,
+so much so that directly opposite a stone bench which stood in
+a recess for a seat, the wall was hollowed out to admit of the
+knees. When this secret chamber was discovered, it contained an
+iron chair, a quaint old brass lamp, and some manuscripts of
+the Montague family. The Cowdray tradition says that the fifth
+Viscount was concealed in this hiding-place for a considerable
+period, owing to some dark crime he is supposed to have committed,
+though he was generally believed to have fled abroad. Secret
+nocturnal interviews took place between Lord Montague and his
+wife in "My Lady's Walk," an isolated spot in Cowdray Park. The
+Montagues, now extinct, are said to have been very chary with
+reference to their Roman Catholic forefathers, and never allowed
+the secret chamber to be shown.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See _History of a Great English House_.]
+
+A weird story clings to the ruins of Minster Lovel Manor House,
+Oxfordshire, the ancient seat of the Lords Lovel. After the battle
+of Stoke, Francis, the last Viscount, who had sided with the
+cause of Simnel against King Henry VII., fled back to his house
+in disguise, but from the night of his return was never seen or
+heard of again, and for nearly two centuries his disappearance
+remained a mystery. In the meantime the manor house had been
+dismantled and the remains tenanted by a farmer; but a strange
+discovery was made in the year 1708. A concealed vault was found,
+and in it, seated before a table, with a prayer-book lying open
+upon it, was the entire skeleton of a man. In the secret chamber
+were certain barrels and jars which had contained food sufficient
+to last perhaps some weeks; but the mansion having been seized
+by the King, soon after the unfortunate Lord Lovel is supposed
+to have concealed himself, the probability is that, unable to
+regain his liberty, the neglect or treachery of a servant or
+tenant brought about this tragic end.
+
+A discovery of this nature was made in 1785 in a hidden vault
+at the foot of a stone staircase at Brandon Hall, Suffolk.
+
+Kingerby Hall, Lincolnshire, has a ghostly tradition of an
+unfortunate occupant of the hiding-hole near a fireplace being
+intentionally fastened in so that he was stifled with the heat and
+smoke; the skeleton was found years afterwards in this horrible
+death-chamber.
+
+Bayons Manor, in the same county, has some very curious arrangements
+for the sake of secretion and defence. There is a room in one of
+the barbican towers occupying its entire circumference, but so
+effectually hidden that its existence would never be suspected.
+In two of the towers are curious concealed stairs, and approaching
+"the Bishop's Tower" from the outer court or ballium, part of
+a flight of steps can be raised like a drawbridge to prevent
+sudden intrusion.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Burke's _Visitation of Seats_, vol. i.]
+
+A contributor to that excellent little journal _The Rambler_,
+unfortunately now extinct, mentions another very strange and
+weird device for security. "In the state-room of my castle,"
+says the owner of this death-trap, "is the family shield, which
+on a part being touched, revolves, and a flight of steps becomes
+visible. The first, third, fifth, and all odd steps are to be
+trusted, but to tread any of the others is to set in motion some
+concealed machinery which causes the staircase to collapse,
+disclosing a vault some seventy feet in depth, down which the
+unwary are precipitated."
+
+At Tyttenhanger House, Hertfordshire, and in the old manor house
+of Newport, Isle of Wight (where the captive King Charles I.
+spent some of his last melancholy days), there are rooms with
+passages in the walls running completely round them. Similar
+passages were found some years ago while making alterations to
+Highclere Castle Hampshire.
+
+The once magnificent Madeley Court, Salop[1] (now, alas! in the
+last stage of desolation and decay, surrounded by coal-fields and
+undermined by pits), is honeycombed with places for concealment
+and escape. A ruinous apartment at the top of the house, known
+as "the chapel" (only a few years ago wainscoted to the ceiling
+and divided by fine old oak screen), contained a secret chamber
+behind one of the panels. This could be fastened on the inside by
+a strong bolt. The walls of the mansion are of immense thickness,
+and the recesses and nooks noticeable everywhere were evidently at
+one time places of concealment; one long triangular recess extends
+between two ruinous chambers (mere skeletons of past grandeur),
+and was no doubt for the purpose of reaching the basement from
+the first floor other than by the staircases. In the upper part
+of the house a dismal pit or well extends to the ground level,
+where it slants off in an oblique direction below the building,
+and terminates in a large pool or lake, after the fashion of
+that already described at Baddesley Clinton, in Warwickshire.
+
+[Footnote 1: This house must not be confused with "the Upper House,"
+connected with Charles II.'s wanderings.]
+
+Everything points to the former magnificence of this mansion;
+the elaborate gate-house, the handsome stone porch, and even
+the colossal sundial, which last, for quaint design, can hold
+its own with those of the greatest baronial castles in Scotland.
+The arms of the Brooke family are to be seen emblazoned on the
+walls, a member of whom, Sir Basil, was he who christened the
+hunting-lodge of the Giffards "Boscobel," from the Italian words
+"bos co bello," on account of its woody situation. It is long
+since the Brookes migrated from Madeley--now close upon two
+centuries.
+
+The deadly looking pits occasionally seen in ancient buildings
+are dangerous, to say the least of it. They may be likened to
+the shaft of our modern lift, with the car at the bottom and
+nothing above to prevent one from taking a step into eternity!
+
+A friend at Twickenham sends us a curious account of a recent
+exploration of what was once the manor house, "Arragon Towers."
+We cannot do better than quote his words, written in answer to a
+request for particulars. "I did not," he says, "make sufficient
+examination of the hiding-place in the old manor house of Twickenham
+to give a detailed description of it, and I have no one here
+whom I could get to accompany me in exploring it now. It is not
+a thing to do by one's self, as one might make a false step,
+and have no one to assist in retrieving it. The entrance is in
+the top room of the one remaining turret by means of a movable
+panel in the wall opposite the window. The panel displaced, you
+see the top of a thick wall (almost on a line with the floor of
+the room). The width of the aperture is, I should think, nearly
+three feet; that of the wall-top about a foot and a half; the
+remaining space between the wall-top and the outer wall of the
+house is what you might perhaps term 'a chasm'--it is a sheer
+drop to the cellars of the house. I was told by the workmen that
+by walking the length of the wall-top (some fifteen feet) I should
+reach a stairway conducting to the vaults below, and that on
+reaching the bottom, a passage led off in the direction of the
+river, the tradition being that it actually went beneath the
+river to Ham House."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+HIDING-PLACES IN JACOBITE DWELLINGS AND IN SCOTTISH CASTLES AND
+MANSIONS
+
+During the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 some of the "priest's
+holes" in the old Roman Catholic houses, especially in the north
+of England and in Scotland, came into requisition not only for
+storing arms and ammunition, but, after the failure of each
+enterprise, for concealing adherents of the luckless House of
+Stuart.
+
+In the earlier mansion of Worksop, Nottinghamshire (burnt down
+in 1761), there was a large concealed chamber provided with a
+fireplace and a bed, which could only be entered by removing
+the sheets of lead forming the roofing. Beneath was a trap-door
+opening to a precipitous flight of narrow steps in the thickness
+of a wall. This led to a secret chamber, that had an inner
+hiding-place at the back of a sliding panel. A witness in a trial
+succeeding "the '45" declared to having seen a large quantity
+of arms there in readiness for the insurrection.
+
+The last days of the notorious Lord Lovat are associated with
+some of the old houses in the north. Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire,
+and Netherwhitton, in Northumberland, claim the honour of hiding
+this double-faced traitor prior to his arrest. At the former is a
+small chamber near the roof, and in the latter is a hiding-place
+measuring eight feet by three and ten feet high. Nor must be
+forgotten the tradition of Mistress Beatrice Cope, behind the
+walls of whose bedroom Lovat (so goes the story) was concealed,
+and the fugitive, being asthmatical, would have revealed his
+whereabouts to the soldiers in search of him, had not Mistress
+Cope herself kept up a persistent and violent fit of coughing
+to drown the noise.
+
+A secret room in the old Tudor house Ty Mawr, Monmouthshire,
+is associated with the Jacobite risings. It is at the back of
+"the parlour" fireplace, and is entered through a square stone
+slab at the foot of the staircase. The chamber is provided with a
+small fireplace, the flue of which is connected with the ordinary
+chimney, so as to conceal the smoke. The same sort of thing may
+be seen at Bisham Abbey, Berks.
+
+Early in the last century a large hiding-place was found at Danby
+Hall, Yorkshire. It contained a large quantity of swords and
+pistols. Upwards of fifty sets of harness of untanned leather of
+the early part of the eighteenth century were further discovered,
+all of them in so good a state of preservation that they were
+afterwards used as cart-horse gear upon the farm.
+
+No less than nine of the followers of "Bonnie Prince Charlie" are
+said to have been concealed in a secret chamber at Fetternear,
+Kemnay, Aberdeenshire, an old seat of the Leslys of Balquhane. It
+was situated in the wall behind a large bookcase with a glazed
+front, a fixture in the room, the back of which could be made
+to slide back and give admittance to the recess.
+
+Quite by accident an opening was discovered in a corner cupboard
+at an old house near Darlington. Certain alterations were in
+progress which necessitated the removal of the shelves, but upon
+this being attempted, they descended in some mysterious manner.
+The back of the cavity could then be pushed aside (that is to
+say, when the secret of its mechanism was discovered), and a
+hiding-place opened out to view. It contained some tawdry ornaments
+of Highland dress, which at one time, it was conjectured, belonged
+to an adherent of Prince Charlie.
+
+The old mansion of Stonyhurst, Lancashire, contained eight
+hiding-places. One of them, exactly like that at Fetternear,
+was at the back of a bookcase. A secret spring was discovered
+which opened a concealed door in the wall. In the space behind,
+a quantity of James II. guineas, a bed, a mattress, and a flask
+of rum were found. A former student of this famous Jesuit college,
+who was instrumental in the discovery of a "priest's hole," has
+provided us with the following particulars: "It would be too
+long to tell you how I first discovered that in the floor of
+my bedroom, in the recess of the huge Elizabethan bay window,
+was a trap-door concealed by a thin veneering of oak; suffice
+it say that with a companion I devoted a delightful half-holiday
+to stripping off the veneering and breaking the lock of the
+trap-door. Between my floor and the ceiling of the long gallery
+below, was contrived a small room about five feet in height and
+the size and shape of the bay window recess. In one corner of
+this hiding-hole was what seemed a walled-up doorway, and it
+occurred to my companion and myself that we had heard some vague
+old tradition that all this part of the house was riddled with
+secret passages leading from one concealed chamber to another,
+but we did not seek to explore any farther." In pulling down a
+portion of the college, a hollow beam was discovered that opened
+upon concealed hinges, used formerly for secreting articles of
+value or sacred books and vessels; and during some alterations
+to the central tower, over the main entrance to the mansion,
+a "priest's hole" was found, containing seven horse pistols,
+ready loaded and some of them richly ornamented with silver. A
+view could be obtained from the interior of the hiding-place,
+in the same manner as that which we have described in the old
+summer-house at Salisbury; a small hole being devised in the design
+of the Sherburn arms upon the marble shield over the gateway.
+This was the only provision for air and light.
+
+The quaint discovery of rum at Stonyhurst suggests the story
+of a hiding-place in an old house at Bishops Middleham, near
+Durham, mentioned by Southey in his _Commonplace Book_.
+The house was occupied for years by a supposed total abstainer;
+but a "priest's hole" in his bedroom, discovered after his death
+full of strong liquor, revealed the fact that by utilising the
+receptacle as a cellar he had been able to imbibe secretly to
+his heart's content.
+
+A large quantity or Georgian gold coins were found some years ago
+in a small hiding-place under the oaken sill of a bedroom window
+at Gawthorp Hall, Lancashire, placed there, it is supposed, for
+the use of Prince Charles's army in passing through the country
+in 1745.
+
+The laird of Belucraig (an old mansion in the parish of Aboyne,
+Aberdeenshire) was concealed after "the '45" in his own house,
+while his wife, like the hostess of Chastleton, hospitably
+entertained the soldiers who were in search of him. The secret
+chamber where he was concealed was found some years ago in making
+some alterations to the roof. In it were a quantity of Jacobite
+papers and a curious old arm-chair. The original entry was through
+a panel at the back of a "box bed" in the wainscot of a small,
+isolated bedroom at the top of the house. The room itself could
+only be reached by a secret staircase from a corridor below. The
+hiding-place was therefore doubly secure, and was a stronghold in
+case of greatest emergency. The Innes of Drumgersk and Belucraig were
+always staunch Roman Catholics and Jacobites. Their representatives
+lived in the old house until 1850.
+
+In another old Aberdeenshire mansion, Dalpersie House, a hiding-hole
+or recess may be seen in one of the upper chambers, where was
+arrested a Gordon, one of the last victims executed after "the
+45."
+
+The ancient castles of Fyvie, Elphinstone, and Kemnay House have
+their secret chambers. The first of these is, with the exception
+of Glamis, perhaps, the most picturesque example of the tall-roofed
+and cone-topped turret style of architecture introduced from
+France in the days of James VI. A small space marked "the armoury"
+in an old plan of the building could in no way be accounted for,
+it possessing neither door, window, nor fireplace; a trap-door,
+however, was at length found in the floor immediately above its
+supposed locality which led to its identification. At Kemnay
+(Aberdeenshire) the hiding-place is in the dining-room chimney;
+and at Elphinstone (East Lothian), in the bay of a window of
+the great hall, is a masked entrance to a narrow stair in the
+thickness of the wall leading to a little room situated in the
+northeast angle of the tower; it further has an exit through a
+trap-door in the floor of a passage in the upper part of the
+building.
+
+The now ruinous castle of Towie Barclay, near Banff, has evidences
+of secret ways and contrivances. Adjoining the fireplace of the
+great hall is a small room constructed for this purpose. In the
+wall of the same apartment is also a recess only to be reached by
+a narrow stairway in the thickness of the masonry, and approached
+from the flooring above the hall. A similar contrivance exists
+between the outer and inner walls of the dining hall of Carew
+Castle, Pembrokeshire.
+
+Coxton Tower, near Elgin, contains a singular provision for
+communication from the top of the building to the basement, perfectly
+independent of the staircase. In the centre of each floor is a
+square stone which, when removed, reveals an opening from the
+summit to the base of the tower, through which a person could
+be lowered.
+
+Another curious old Scottish mansion, famous for its secret chambers
+and passages, is Gordonstown. Here, in the pavement of a corridor
+in the west wing, a stone may be swung aside, beneath which is
+a narrow cell scooped out of one of the foundation walls. It
+may be followed to the adjoining angle, where it branches off
+into the next wall to an extent capable of holding fifty or sixty
+persons. Another large hiding-place is situated in one of the
+rooms at the back of a tall press or cupboard. The space in the
+wall is sufficiently large to contain eight or nine people, and
+entrance to it is effected by unloosing a spring bolt under the
+lower shelf, when the whole back of the press swings aside.
+
+Whether the mystery of the famous secret room at Glamis Castle,
+Forfarshire, has ever been solved or satisfactorily explained
+beyond the many legends and stories told in connection with it,
+we have not been able to determine. The walls in this remarkable
+old mansion are in parts over twelve feet thick, and in them are
+several curious recesses, notably near the windows of the "stone
+hall." The secret chamber, or "Fyvie-room," as it is sometimes
+called, is said to have a window, which nevertheless has not
+led to the identification of its situation. Sir Walter Scott
+once slept a night at Glamis, and has described the "wild and
+straggling arrangement of the accommodation within doors." "I
+was conducted," he says, "to my apartment in a distant corner
+of the building. I must own, as I heard door after door shut
+after my conductor had retired, I began to consider myself too
+far from the living and somewhat too near the dead--in a word,
+I experienced sensations which, though not remarkable either for
+timidity or superstition, did not fail to affect me to the point
+of being disagreeable." We have the great novelist's authority
+for saying that the entrance of the secret chamber (in his time,
+at any rate), by the law or custom of the family, could
+be known to three persons at once--_viz._ the Earl of
+Strathmore, his heir-apparent, and any third person whom they
+might take into their confidence.
+
+The great mystery of the secret chamber was imparted to the heir
+of Glamis, or the heir-presumptive, as the case might be, upon the
+eve of his arriving at his majority, and thus it passed into modern
+times from the dim and distant feudal days. That the secret should
+be thus handed down through centuries without being divulged is
+indeed remarkable, yet so is the story; and many a time a future
+lord of Glamis has boasted that he would reveal everything when
+he should come of age. Still, however, when that time _did_
+arrive, in every case the recipient of the deadly secret has
+solemnly refused point blank to speak a word upon the subject.
+
+There is a secret chamber at the old Cumberland seat of the ancient
+family of Senhouse. To this day its position is known only by
+the heir-at-law and the family solicitor. This room at Nether
+Hall is said to have no window, and has hitherto baffled every
+attempt of those not in the secret to discover its whereabouts.
+
+Remarkable as this may seem in these prosaic days, it has been
+confirmed by the present representative of the family, who, in a
+communication to us upon the subject, writes as follows: "It may
+be romantic, but still it is true that the secret has survived
+frequent searches of visitors. There is no one alive who has
+been in it, that I am aware, except myself." Brandeston Hall,
+Suffolk, is also said to have a hiding place known only to two
+or three persons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CONCEALED DOORS, SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGES, ETC.
+
+Numerous old houses possess secret doors, passages, and
+staircases--Franks, in Kent; Eshe Hall, Durham; Binns House,
+Scotland; Dannoty Hall, and Whatton Abbey, Yorkshire; are examples.
+The last of these has a narrow flight of steps leading down to
+the moat, as at Baddesley Clinton. The old house Marks, near
+Romford, pulled down in 1808 after many years of neglect and
+decay--as well as the ancient seat of the Tichbournes in Hampshire,
+pulled down in 1803--and the west side of Holme Hall, Lancashire,
+demolished in the last century, proved to have been riddled with
+hollow walls. Secret doors and panels are still pointed out at
+Bramshill, Hants (in the long gallery and billiard-room); the
+oak room, Bochym House, Cornwall; the King's bedchamber, Ford
+Castle, Northumberland; the plotting-parlour of the White Hart
+Hotel, Hull; Low Hall, Yeadon, Yorkshire; Sawston; the Queen's
+chamber at Kimbolton Castle, Huntingdonshire, etc., etc.
+
+A concealed door exists on the left-hand side of the fireplace
+of the gilt room of Holland House, Kensington, associated by
+tradition with the ghost of the first Lord Holland. Upon the
+authority of the Princess Lichtenstein, it appears there is,
+close by, a blood-stain which nothing can efface! It is to be
+hoped no enterprising person may be induced to try his skill here
+with the success that attended a similar attempt at Holyrood,
+as recorded by Scott![1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Vide_ Introduction to _The Fair Maid of
+Perth_]
+
+In the King's writing-closet at Hampton Court may be seen the
+"secret door" by which William III. left the palace when he wished
+to go out unobserved; but this is more of a _private_ exit
+than a _secret_ one.
+
+[Illustration: WOODSTOCK PALACE, OXFORDSHIRE (FROM AN OLD PRINT)]
+
+[Illustration: MARKYATE CELL, HERTFORDSHIRE]
+
+The old Château du Puits, Guernsey, has a hiding-hole placed
+between two walls which form an acute angle; the one constituting
+part of the masonry of an inner courtyard, the other a wall on
+the eastern side of the main structure. The space between could
+be reached through the floor of an upper room.
+
+Cussans, in his _History of Hertfordshire_, gives a curious
+account of the discovery of an iron door up the kitchen chimney
+of the old house Markyate Cell, near Dunstable. A short flight
+of steps led from it to another door of stout oak, which opened
+by a secret spring, and led to an unknown chamber on the ground
+level. Local tradition says this was the favourite haunt of a
+certain "wicked Lady Ferrers," who, disguised in male attire,
+robbed travellers upon the highway, and being wounded in one
+of these exploits, was discovered lying dead outside the walls
+of the house; and the malignant nature of this lady's spectre
+is said to have had so firm a hold upon the villagers that no
+local labourer could be induced to work upon that particular
+part of the building.
+
+Beare Park, near Middleham, Yorkshire, had a hiding-hole entered
+from the kitchen chimney, as had also the Rookery Farm, near
+Cromer; West Coker Manor House; and The Chantry, at Ilminster,
+both in Somerset. At the last named, in another hiding-place in
+the room above, a bracket or credence-table was found, which
+is still preserved.
+
+Many weird stories are told about Bovey House, South Devon, situated
+near the once notorious smuggling villages of Beer and Branscombe.
+Upon removing some leads of the roof a secret room was found,
+furnished with a chair and table. The well here is remarkable,
+and similar to that at Carisbrooke, with the exception that two
+people take the place of the donkey! Thirty feet below the ground
+level there is said to have been a hiding-place--a large cavity
+cut in the solid rock. Many years ago a skeleton of a man was
+found at the bottom. Such dramatic material should suggest to some
+sensational novelist a tragic story, as the well and lime-walk at
+Ingatestone is said to have suggested _Lady Audley's Secret_.
+
+A hiding-place something after the same style existed in the now
+demolished manor house of Besils Leigh, Berks. Down the shaft
+of a chimney a cavity was scooped out of the brickwork, to which
+a refugee had to be lowered by a rope. One of the towers of the
+west gate of Bodiam Castle contains a narrow square well in the
+wall leading to the ground level, and, as the guide was wont
+to remark, "how much farther the Lord only knows"! This sort
+of thing may also be seen at Mancetter Manor, Warwickshire, and
+Ightham Moat, Kent, both approached by a staircase.
+
+A communication formerly ran from a secret chamber in the
+oak-panelled dining-room of Birtsmorton Court, Worcestershire,
+to a passage beneath the moat that surrounds the structure, and
+thence to an exit on the other side of the water. During the Wars
+of the Roses Sir John Oldcastle is said to have been concealed
+behind the secret panel; but now the romance is somewhat marred,
+for modern vandalism has converted the cupboard into a repository
+for provisions. The same indignity has taken place at that splendid
+old timber house in Cheshire, Moreton Hall, where a secret room,
+provided with a sleeping-compartment, situated over the kitchen,
+has been modernised into a repository for the storing of cheeses.
+From the hiding-place the moat could formerly be reached, down
+a narrow shaft in the wall.
+
+Chelvey Court, near Bristol, contained two hiding-places; one,
+at the top of the house, was formerly entered through a panel,
+the other (a narrow apartment having a little window, and an
+iron candle-holder projecting from the wall) through the floor
+of a cupboard.[1] Both the panel and the trap-door are now done
+away with, and the tradition of the existence of the secret rooms
+almost forgotten, though not long since we received a letter
+from an antiquarian who had seen them thirty years before, and
+who was actually entertaining the idea of making practical
+investigations with the aid of a carpenter or mason, to which,
+as suggested, we were to be a party; the idea, however, was never
+carried out.
+
+[Footnote 1: See _Notes and Queries_, September, 1855.]
+
+[Illustration: BIRTSMORTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: PORCH, CHELVEY COURT, SOMERSETSHIRE]
+
+Granchester Manor House, Cambridgeshire, until recently possessed
+three places of concealment. Madingley Hall, in the same
+neighbourhood, has two, one of them entered from a bedroom on the
+first floor, has a space in the thickness of the wall high enough
+for a man to stand upright in it. The manor house of Woodcote,
+Hants, also possessed two, which were each capable of holding from
+fifteen to twenty men, but these repositories are now opened
+out into passages. One was situated behind a stack of chimneys,
+and contained an inner hiding-place. The "priests' quarters"
+in connection with the hiding-places are still to be seen.
+
+Harborough Hall, Worcestershire, has two "priests' holes," one
+in the wall of the dining-room, the other behind a chimney in
+an upper room.
+
+The old mansion of the Brudenells, in Northamptonshire, Deene
+Park, has a large secret chamber at the back of the fireplace
+in the great hall, sufficiently capacious to hold a score of
+people. Here also a hidden door in the panelling leads towards
+a subterranean passage running in the direction of the ruinous
+hall of Kirby, a mile and a half distant. In a like manner a
+passage extended from the great hall of Warleigh, an Elizabethan
+house near Plymouth, to an outlet in a cliff some sixty yards
+away, at whose base the tidal river flows.
+
+Speke Hall, Lancashire (perhaps the finest specimen extant of
+the wood-and-plaster style of architecture nicknamed "Magpie "),
+formerly possessed a long underground communication extending
+from the house to the shore of the river Mersey; a member of
+the Norreys family concealed a priest named Richard Brittain
+here in the year 1586, who, by this means, effected his escape
+by boat.
+
+The famous secret passage of Nottingham Castle, by which the
+young King Edward III. and his loyal associates gained access
+to the fortress and captured the murderous regent and usurper
+Mortimer, Earl of March, is known to this day as "Mortimer's
+Hole." It runs up through the perpendicular rock upon which the
+castle stands, on the south-east side from a place called Brewhouse
+yard, and has an exit in what was originally the courtyard of the
+building. The Earl was seized in the midst of his adherents and
+retainers on the night of October 19th, 1330, and after a skirmish,
+notwithstanding the prayers and entreaties of his paramour Queen
+Isabella, he was bound and carried away through the passage in
+the rock, and shortly afterwards met his well-deserved death on
+the gallows at Smithfield.
+
+But what ancient castle, monastery, or hall has not its traditional
+subterranean passage? Certainly the majority are mythical; still,
+there are some well authenticated. Burnham Abbey, Buckinghamshire,
+for example, or Tenterden Hall, Hendon, had passages which have
+been traced for over fifty yards; and one at Vale Royal,
+Nottinghamshire, has been explored for nearly a mile. In the
+older portions in both of the great wards of Windsor Castle arched
+passages thread their way below the basement, through the chalk,
+and penetrate to some depth below the site of the castle ditch
+at the base of the walls.[1] In the neighbourhood of Ripon
+subterranean passages have been found from time to time--tunnels
+of finely moulded masonry supposed to have been connected at
+one time with Fountains Abbey.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Marquis of Lorne's (Duke of Argyll) _Governor's
+Guide to Windsor_.]
+
+A passage running from Arundel Castle in the direction of Amberley
+has also been traced for some considerable distance, and a man and
+a dog have been lost in following its windings, so the entrance
+is now stopped up. About three years ago a long underground way
+was discovered at Margate, reaching from the vicinity of Trinity
+Church to the smugglers' caves in the cliffs; also at Port Leven,
+near Helston, a long subterranean tunnel was discovered leading to
+the coast, no doubt very useful in the good old smuggling days.
+At Sunbury Park, Middlesex, was found a long vaulted passage some
+five feet high and running a long way under the grounds. Numerous
+other examples could be stated, among them at St. Radigund's
+Abbey, near Dover; Liddington Manor House, Wilts; the Bury,
+Rickmansworth; "Sir Harry Vane's House," Hampstead, etc., etc.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MINIATURE HIDING-HOLES FOR VALUABLES, ETC.
+
+Small hidden recesses for the concealment of valuables or
+compromising deeds, etc., behind the wainscoting of ancient houses,
+frequently come to light. Many a curious relic has been discovered
+from time to time, often telling a strange or pathetic story
+of the past. A certain Lady Hoby, who lived at Bisham Abbey,
+Berkshire, is said by tradition to have caused the death of her
+little boy by too severe corporal punishment for his obstinacy
+in learning to write, A grim sequel to the legend happened not
+long since. Behind a window shutter in a small secret cavity
+in the wall was found an ancient, tattered copy-book, which,
+from the blots and its general slovenly appearance, was no doubt
+the handiwork of the unfortunate little victim to Lady Hoby's
+wrath.
+
+When the old manor house of Wandsworth was pulled down recently,
+upon removing some old panelling a little cupboard was discovered,
+full of dusty phials and mouldy pill-boxes bearing the names of
+poor Queen Anne's numerous progeny who died in infancy.
+
+Richard Cromwell spent many of his later years at Hursley, near
+Winchester, an old house now pulled down. In the progress of
+demolition what appeared to be a piece of rusty metal was found
+in a small cavity in one of the walls, which turned out to be
+no less important a relic than the seal of the Commonwealth of
+England.
+
+Walford, in _Greater London_, mentions the discovery of
+some articles of dress of Elizabeth's time behind the wainscot
+of the old palace of Richmond, Surrey. Historical portraits have
+frequently been found in this way. Behind the panelling in a
+large room at the old manor house of Great Gaddesden, Herts,
+were a number of small aumbrys, or recesses. A most interesting
+panel-portrait of Queen Elizabeth was found in one of them, which
+was exhibited at the Tudor Exhibition. In 1896, when the house
+of John Wesley at Lewisham was pulled down, who should be found
+between the walls but the amorous Merry Monarch and a court beauty!
+The former is said to be Riley's work. Secretary Thurloe's MSS.,
+as is well known, were found embedded in a ceiling of his lodgings
+at Lincoln's Inn. In pulling down a block of old buildings in
+Newton Street, Holborn, a hidden space was found in one of the
+chimneys, and there, covered with the dust of a century, lay
+a silver watch, a silk guard attached, and seals bearing the
+Lovat crest. The relic was promptly claimed by Mr. John Fraser,
+the claimant to the long-disputed peerage.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: December 14th, 1895.]
+
+Small hiding-places have been found at the manor house of Chew
+Magna, Somerset, and Milton Priory, a Tudor mansion in Berkshire.
+In the latter a green shagreen case was found containing a
+seventeenth-century silver and ivory pocket knife and fork. A
+small hiding-place at Coughton Court, Warwickshire, brought to
+light a bundle of priest's clothes, hidden there in the days
+of religious persecution. In 1876 a small chamber was found at
+Sanderstead Court, Surrey, containing a small blue-and-white jar
+of Charles I.'s time. Three or four small secret repositories
+existed behind some elaborately carved oak panels in the great
+hall of the now ruinous Harden Hall, near Stockport. In similar
+recesses at Gawdy Hall, Suffolk, were discovered two ancient
+apostle spoons, a watch, and some Jacobean MSS. A pair of gloves
+and some jewels of seventeenth-century date were brought to light
+not many years ago in a secret recess at Woodham Mortimer Manor
+House, Essex. A very curious example of a hiding-place for valuables
+formerly existed at an old building known as Terpersie Castle,
+near Alford, Lincolnshire. The sides of it were lined with stone
+to preserve articles from damp, and it could be drawn out of
+the wall like a drawer.
+
+In the year 1861 a hidden receptacle was found at the Elizabethan
+college of Wedmore, Kent, containing Roman Catholic MSS. and
+books; and at Bromley Palace, close by, in a small aperture below
+the floor, was found the leathern sole of a pointed shoe of the
+Middle Ages! Small hiding-places of this nature existed in a
+wing, now pulled down, of the Abbey House, Whitby (in "Lady Anne's
+Room"). At Castle Ashby, Northants; Fountains Hall, near Ripon;
+Ashes House, near Preston; Trent House, Somerset; and Ockwells,
+Berks,[1] are panels opening upon pivots and screening small
+cavities in the walls.
+
+[Footnote 1: Another hiding-place is said to have existed behind
+the fireplace of the hall.]
+
+[Illustration: HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE, SUSSEX]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+HIDING-PLACES OF SMUGGLERS AND THIEVES
+
+Horsfield, in his _History of Sussex_, gives a curious account
+of the discovery in 1738 of an iron chest in a recess of a wall at
+the now magnificent ruin Hurstmonceaux Castle. In the thickness
+of the walls were many curious staircases communicating with the
+galleries. When the old castle was allowed to fall into ruin,
+the secret passages, etc., were used by smugglers as a convenient
+receptacle for contraband goods.
+
+Until recently there was an ingenious hiding-place behind a sliding
+panel at the old "Bell Inn" at Sandwich which had the reputation
+of having formerly been put to the same use; indeed, in many
+another old house near the coast were hiding-places utilised for
+a like purpose.
+
+In pulling down an old house at Erith in 1882 a vault was discovered
+with strong evidence that it had been extensively used for smuggling.
+The pretty village of Branscombe, on the Devonshire coast, was,
+like the adjacent village of Beer, a notorious place for smugglers.
+"The Clergy House," a picturesque, low-built Tudor building
+(condemned as being insecure and pulled down a few years ago),
+had many mysterious stories told of its former occupants, its
+underground chambers and hiding-places; indeed, the villagers
+went so far as to declare that there was _another house_
+beneath the foundations!
+
+A secret chamber was discovered at the back of a fireplace in an
+old house at Deal, from which a long underground passage extended
+to the beach. The house was used as a school, and the unearthly
+noises caused by the wind blowing up this smugglers' passage
+created much consternation among the young lady pupils. A lady
+of our acquaintance remembers, when a schoolgirl at Rochester,
+exploring part of a vaulted tunnel running in the direction of
+the castle from Eastgate House, which in those days was a school,
+and had not yet received the distinction of being the "Nun's
+House" of _Edwin Drood_. Some way along, the passage was
+blocked by the skeleton of a donkey! Our informant is not given
+to romancing, therefore we must accept the story in good faith.
+
+All round the coast-line of Kent once famous smuggling buildings
+are still pointed out. Movable hollow beams have been found
+supporting cottage ceilings, containing all kinds of contraband
+goods. In one case, so goes the story, a customs house officer
+in walking through a room knocked his head, and the tell-tale
+hollow sound (from the beam, not from his head, we will presume)
+brought a discovery. At Folkestone, tradition says, a long row
+of houses used for the purpose had the cellars connected one
+with the other right the way along, so that the revenue officers
+could be easily evaded in the case of pursuit.
+
+The modern utility of a convenient secret panel or trap-door
+occasionally is apparent from the police-court reports. The tenements
+in noted thieves' quarters are often found to have
+intercommunication; a masked door will lead from one house to
+the other, and trap-doors will enable a thief to vanish from
+the most keen-sighted detective, and nimbly thread his way over
+the roofs of the neighbouring houses. There was a case in the
+papers not long since; a man, being closely chased, was on the
+point of being seized, when, to the astonishment of his pursuers,
+he suddenly disappeared at a spot where apparently he had been
+closely hemmed in.
+
+Many old houses in Clerkenwell were, sixty or seventy years ago,
+notorious thieves' dens, and were noted for their hiding-places,
+trap-doors, etc., for evading the vigilance of the law. The name
+of Jack Sheppard, as may be supposed, had connection with the
+majority. One of these old buildings had been used in former
+years as a secret Jesuits' college, and the walls were threaded
+with masked passages and places of concealment; and when the old
+"Red Lion Inn" in West Street was pulled down in 1836, some artful
+traps and false floors were discovered which tarried well with
+its reputation as a place of rendezvous and safety for outlaws.
+The "Rising Sun" in Holywell Street is a curious example, there
+being many false doors and traps in various parts of the house;
+also in the before-mentioned Newton Street a panel could be raised
+by a pulley, through which a fugitive or outlaw could effect his
+escape on to the roof, and thence into the adjoining house.
+
+One of the simplest and most secure hiding-places perhaps ever
+devised by a law-breaker was that within a water-butt! A cone-shaped
+repository, entered from the bottom, would allow a man to sit
+within it; nevertheless, to all intents and purposes the butt
+was kept full of water, and could be apparently emptied from a
+tap at its base, which, of course, was raised from the ground
+to admit the fugitive. We understand such a butt is still in
+existence somewhere in Yorkshire.
+
+A "secret staircase" in Partingdale House, Mill Hill, is associated
+(by tradition) with the notorious Dick Turpin, perhaps because of
+its proximity to his haunts upon Finchley Common. As it exists
+now, however, there is no object for secrecy, the staircase leading
+merely to the attics, and its position can be seen; but the door
+is well disguised in a Corinthian column containing a secret
+spring. Various alterations have taken place in this house, so
+once upon a time it may have had a deeper meaning than is now
+perceptible.
+
+Another supposed resort of this famous highwayman is an old ivy-grown
+cottage at Thornton Heath. Narrow steps lead up from the open
+chimney towards a concealed door, from which again steps descend
+and lead to a subterranean passage having an exit in the garden.
+
+[Illustration: BOVEY HOUSE, SOUTH DEVON]
+
+[Illustration: MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+We do not intend to go into the matter of modern secret chambers,
+and there are such things, as some of our present architects and
+builders could tell us, for it is no uncommon thing to design
+hiding-places for the security of valuables. For instance, we
+know of a certain suburban residence, built not more than thirty
+years ago, where one of the rooms has capacities for swallowing
+up a man six feet high and broad in proportion. We have known such
+a person--or shall we say victim?--to appear after a temporary
+absence, of say, five minutes, with visible signs of discomfort;
+but as far as we are aware the secret is as safe in his keeping
+as is the famous mystery in the possession of the heir of Glamis.
+
+An example of a sliding panel in an old house in Essex (near
+Braintree) was used as a pattern for the entrance to a modern
+secret chamber;[1] and no doubt there are many similar instances
+where the ingenuity of our ancestors has thus been put to use
+for present-day requirements.
+
+[Footnote 1: According to the newspaper reports, the recently
+recovered "Duchess of Devonshire," by Gainsborough, was for some
+time secreted behind a secret panel in a sumptuous steam-launch
+up the river Thames, from whence it was removed to America in
+a trunk with a false bottom.]
+
+Our collection of houses with hiding-holes is now coming to an
+end. We will briefly summarise those that remain unrecorded.
+
+"New Building" at Thirsk has, or had, a secret chamber measuring
+three feet by six. Upon the outside wall on the east side of
+the house is a small aperture into which a stone fitted with
+such nicety that no sign of its being movable could possibly be
+detected; at the same time, it could be removed with the greatest
+ease in the event of its being necessary to supply a person in
+hiding with food.
+
+Catledge Hall, Cambridgeshire, has a small octangular closet
+adjoining a bedroom, from which formerly there was a secret way
+on to the leads of the roof.
+
+[Illustration: MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO SECRET STAIRCASE, PARTINGDALE HOUSE,
+MILL-HILL, MIDDLESEX]
+
+At Dunkirk Hall, near West Bromwich, is a "priest's hole" in the
+upper part of the house near "the chapel," which is now divided
+into separate rooms.
+
+Mapledurham House, axon, the old seat of the Blounts, contains
+a "priest's hole" in the attics, descent into which could be
+made by the aid of a rope suspended for that purpose.
+
+Upton Court, near Slough, possesses a "priest's hole," entered
+from a fireplace, provided with a double flue--one for smoke,
+the other for ventilation to the hiding-place.
+
+Knebworth House, Hertfordshire, formerly had a secret chamber
+known as "Hell Hole."
+
+Eastgate House, Rochester (before mentioned), has a hiding-place
+in one of the upstairs rooms. It has, however, been altered.
+
+Milsted Manor, Kent, is said to have a secret exit from the library;
+and Sharsted Court (some three miles distant) has a cleverly
+marked panel in the wainscoting of "the Tapestry Dressing-room,"
+which communicates by a very narrow and steep flight of steps
+in the thickness of the wall with "the Red Bedroom."
+
+The "Clough Inn," Chard, Somersetshire, is said by tradition to
+have possessed three secret rooms!
+
+Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire--a hiding-place formerly in "the tower."
+Bramhall Hall, Cheshire--two secret recesses were discovered
+not long ago during alterations. The following also contain
+hiding-places:--Hall-i'-the-wood, Bolling Hall, Mains Hall, and
+Huncoat Hall, all in Lancashire; Drayton House, Northants; Packington
+Old Hall, Warwickshire; Batsden Court, Salop; Melford Hall, Suffolk,
+Fyfield House, Wilts; "New Building," Southwater, Sussex; Barsham
+Rectory, Suffolk; Porter's Hall, Southend, Essex; Kirkby Knowle
+Castle and Barnborough Hall, Yorkshire; Ford House, Devon; Cothele,
+Cornwall; Hollingbourne Manor House, Kent (altered of late years);
+Salisbury Court, near Shenley, Herts.
+
+Of hiding-places and secret chambers in the ancient castles and
+mansions upon the Continent we know but little.
+
+Two are said to exist in an old house in the Hradschin in Prague--one
+communicating from the foundation to the roof "by a windlass or
+turnpike." A subterranean passage extends also from the house
+beneath the street and the cathedral, and is said to have its
+exit in the Hirch Graben, or vast natural moat which bounds the
+château upon the north.
+
+A lady of our acquaintance remembers her feeling of awe when,
+as a school-girl, she was shown a hiding-place in an old mansion
+near Baden-Baden--a huge piece of stone masonry swinging aside
+upon a pivot and revealing a gloomy kind of dungeon behind.
+
+The old French châteaux, according to Froisart, were rarely without
+secret means of escape. King Louis XVI., famous for his mechanical
+skill, manufactured a hiding-place in an inner corridor of his
+private apartments at the Palace of Versailles. The wall where
+it was situated was painted to imitate large stones, and the
+grooves of the opening were cleverly concealed in the shaded
+representations of the divisions. In this a vast collection of
+State papers was preserved prior to the Revolution.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Vide _The Memoirs of Madame Campan._]
+
+Mr. Lang tells us, in his admirable work _Pickle the Spy_,
+that Bonnie Prince Charlie, between the years 1749 and 1752,
+spent much of his time in the convent of St. Joseph in the Rue
+St. Dominique, in the Faubourg St. Germain, which under the late
+Empire (1863) was the hotel of the Minister of War. Here he appears
+to have been continually lurking behind the walls, and at night
+by a secret staircase visiting his protectress Madame de Vassés.
+Allusion is made in the same work to a secret cellar with a "dark
+stair" leading to James III.'s furtive audience-chamber at his
+residence in Rome.
+
+So recently as the year 1832 a hiding-place in an old French
+house was put to practical use by the Duchesse de Berry after
+the failure of her enterprise to raise the populace in favour of
+her son the Duc de Bordeaux. She had, however, to reveal herself
+in preference to suffocation, a fire, either intentionally or
+accidentally, having been ignited close to where she was hidden,
+recalling the terrible experiences of Father Gerard at "Braddocks."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE SCOTTISH HIDING-PLACES OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD
+
+The romantic escapes of Prince Charles Edward are somewhat beyond
+the province of this book, owing to the fact that the hiding-places
+in which he lived for the greater part of five months were not
+artificial but natural formations in the wild, mountainous country
+of the Western Highlands. Far less convenient and comfortable
+were these caves and fissures in the rocks than those secret
+places which preserved the life of the "young chevalier's"
+great-uncle Charles II. Altogether, the terrible hardships to
+which the last claimant to the Stuart throne was subjected were
+far greater in every way, and we can but admire the remarkable
+spirit, fortitude, and courage that carried him through his numerous
+dangers and trials.
+
+The wild and picturesque character not only of the Scotch scenery,
+but of the loyal Highlanders, who risked their all to save their
+King, gives the story of this remarkable escape a romantic colouring
+that surpasses any other of its kind, whether real or fictitious.
+
+This, therefore, is our excuse for giving a brief summary of the
+Prince's wanderings, if only to add to our other hiding-places
+a record of the names of the isolated spots which have become
+historical landmarks.
+
+In his flight from the fatal battlefield of Culloden the young
+Prince, when about four miles from Inverness, hastily determined
+to make the best of his way towards the western coast. The first
+halt was made at Castle Dounie, the seat of the crafty old traitor
+Lord Lovat. A hasty meal having been taken here, Charles and his
+little cavalcade of followers pushed on to Invergarry, where
+the chieftain, Macdonnell of Glengarry, otherwise "Pickle the
+Spy,"[1] being absent from home, an empty house was the only
+welcome, but the best was made of the situation. Here the bulk of
+the Prince's companions dispersed to look after their own safety,
+while he and one or two chosen friends continued the journey to
+Glenpean, the residence of the chieftain Donald Cameron. From
+Mewboll, which was reached the next night, the fugitives proceeded
+on foot to Oban, where a hovel was found for sleeping-quarters.
+In the village of Glenbiasdale, in Arisaig, near to where Charles
+had landed on his disastrous enterprise, he learned that a number
+of Royalist cruisers were upon the alert all along the coast,
+whereupon he determined to watch his opportunity and get across
+to the Western Isles, and remain concealed until a French vessel
+could be found to take him abroad.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Vide_ Andrew Lang's _Pickle the Spy_.]
+
+A boat was procured, and the little party safely embarked, but
+in the voyage encountered such heavy seas that the vessel very
+nearly foundered; a landing, however, being effected at a place
+called Roonish, in the Isle of Benbecula, a habitation had to
+be made out of a miserable hut. Two days being thus wretchedly
+spent, a move was made to the Island of Scalpa, where Charles
+was entertained for four days in the house of Donald Campbell.
+
+Meanwhile, a larger vessel was procured, the object being to
+reach Stornoway; but the inclemency of the weather induced Charles
+and his guide Donald Macleod to make the greater part of the
+journey by land. Arriving there hungry, worn out, and drenched
+to the skin, the Prince passed the night at Kildun, the house
+of Mrs. Mackenzie; an alarm of danger, however, forced him to
+sea again with a couple of companions, O'Sullivan and O'Neal;
+but shortly after they had embarked they sighted some men-of-war,
+so put to land once more at the Island of Jeffurt. Four days
+were passed away in this lonely spot, when the boat put out to
+sea once more, and after many adventures and privations the
+travellers landed at Loch Wiskaway, in Benbecula, and made their
+headquarters some two miles inland at a squalid hut scarcely
+bigger than a pigstye.
+
+The next move was to an isolated locality named Glencorodale,
+in the centre of South Uist, where in a hut of larger dimensions
+the Prince held his court in comparative luxury, his wants being
+well looked after by Sir Alexander and Lady Macdonald and other
+neighbouring Jacobites. With thirty thousand pounds reward offered
+for his capture, and the Western Isles practically surrounded
+by the enemy, it is difficult to imagine the much-sought-for
+prize coolly passing his weary hours in fishing and shooting,
+yet such was the case for the whole space of a month.
+
+An eye-witness describes Charles's costume at this time as "a
+tartan short coat and vest of the same, got from Lady Clanranald;
+his nightcap all patched with soot-drops, his shirt, hands, and
+face patched with the same; a short kilt, tartan hose, and Highland
+brogs."
+
+From South Uist the fugitive removed to the Island of Wia, where
+he was received by Ranald Macdonald; thence he visited places
+called Rossinish and Aikersideallich, and at the latter had to
+sleep in a fissure in the rocks. Returning once more to South
+Uist, Charles (accompanied by O'Neal and Mackechan) found a
+hiding-place up in the hills, as the militia appeared to be
+dangerously near, and at night tramped towards Benbecula, near
+to which another place of safety was found in the rocks.
+
+The memorable name of Flora Macdonald now appears upon the scene.
+After much scheming and many difficulties the meeting of the Prince
+and this noble lady was arranged in a squalid hut near Rosshiness.
+The hardships encountered upon the journey from Benbecula to this
+village were some of the worst experiences of the unfortunate
+wanderer; and when his destination was reached at last, he had to
+be hurried off again to a hiding-place by the sea-shore, which
+provided little or no protection from the driving torrents of
+rain. Early each morning this precaution had to be taken, as
+the Royalist soldiers, who were quartered only a quarter of a
+mile distant, repaired to the hut every morning to get milk from
+the woman who acted as Charles's hostess. Upon the third day after
+the Prince had arrived, Flora Macdonald joined him, bringing with
+her the disguise for the character he was to impersonate upon
+a proposed journey to the Isle of Skye--_viz._ "a flowered
+linen gown, a light-coloured quilted petticoat, a white apron,
+and a mantle of dun camlet, made after the Irish fashion, with
+a hood."
+
+A boat lay in readiness in a secluded nook on the coast, and
+"Betty Burke"--the pseudo servant-maid--Flora Macdonald, and
+Mackechan, as guide, embarked and got safely to Kilbride, in
+Skye. Not, however, without imminent dangers. A storm nearly
+swamped the boat; and upon reaching the western coast of the
+island they were about to land, when a number of militiamen were
+noticed on shore, close at hand, and as they recognised their
+peril, and pulled away with might and main, a volley of musketry
+would probably have had deadly effect, had not the fugitives
+thrown themselves at the bottom of the boat.
+
+At the house of the Macdonalds of Mugstat, whose representative
+dreaded the consequences of receiving Charles, another Macdonald
+was introduced as an accomplice by the merest accident. This
+staunch Jacobite at once took possession of "Betty," and hurried
+off towards his house of Kingsburgh. Upon the way the ungainly
+appearance of Flora's maid attracted the attention of a servant,
+who remarked that she had never seen such an impudent-looking
+woman. "See what long strides the jade takes!" she cried; "and how
+awkwardly she manages her petticoats!" And this was true enough,
+for in fording a little brook "Betty Burke" had to be severely
+reprimanded by her chaperon for her impropriety in lifting her
+skirts! Upon reaching the house, Macdonald's little girl caught
+sight of the strange woman, and ran away to tell her mother that
+her father had brought home "the most old, muckle, ill-shapen-up
+wife" she had ever seen. Startling news certainly for the lady
+of Kingsburgh!
+
+The old worn-out boots of the Prince's were discarded for new
+ones ere he departed, and fragments of the former were long
+afterwards worn in the bosoms of Jacobite ladies.
+
+The next step in this wonderful escape was to Portree, where
+temporary accommodation was found in a small public-house. Here
+Charles separated from his loyal companions Neil Mackechan and
+the immortal Flora. The "Betty Burke" disguise was discarded
+and burnt and a Highland dress donned. With new guides the young
+Chevalier now made his headquarters for a couple of days or so
+in a desolate shepherd's hut in the Isle of Raasay; thence he
+journeyed to the north coast of the Isle of Skye, and near Scorobreck
+housed himself in a cow-shed. At this stage of his journey Charles
+altered his disguise into that of a servant of his then companion
+Malcolm Macleod, and at the home of his next host (a Mackinnon of
+Ellagol) was introduced as "Lewie Caw," the son of a surgeon in
+the Highland army. By the advice of the Mackinnons, the fugitive
+decided to return, under their guidance, again to the mainland,
+and a parting supper having been held in a cave by the sea-shore,
+he bid adieu to the faithful Macleod. The crossing having been
+effected, not without innumerable dangers, once more Charles
+found himself near the locality of his first landing. For the
+next three days neither cave nor hut dwelling could be found
+that was considered safe; and upon the fourth day, in exploring
+the shores of Loch Nevis for a hiding-place, the fugitives ran
+their little craft right into a militia boat that was moored
+to and screened from view by a projecting rock. The soldiers
+on land immediately sprang on board and gave chase; but with
+his usual good luck Charles got clear away by leaping on land
+at a turn of the lake, where his retreat was covered by dense
+foliage.
+
+After this the Prince was under the care of the Macdonalds, one
+of which clan, Macdonald of Glenaladale, together with Donald
+Cameron of Glenpean, took the place of the Mackinnons.
+
+A brief stay was made at Morar Lake and at Borrodaile (both houses
+of the Macdonalds); after which a hut in a wood near the latter
+place and an artfully constructed hiding-place between two rocks
+with a roof of green turf did service as the Prince's palace.
+
+In this cave Charles received the alarming news that the Argyllshire
+Militia were on the scent, and were forming an impenetrable cordon
+completely round the district. Forced once more to seek refuge
+in flight, the unfortunate Stuart was hurried away through some
+of the wildest mountainous country he had yet been forced to
+traverse. A temporary hiding-place was found, and from this a
+search-party exploring the adjacent rocks and crags was watched
+with breathless interest.
+
+Still within the military circle, a desperate dash for liberty had
+now to be planned. Nearly starved and reduced to the last extremity
+of fatigue, Charles and his guides, Glenpean and Glenaladale,
+crept stealthily upon all-fours towards the watch-fires, and
+taking advantage of a favourable moment when the nearest sentry
+was in such a position that their approach could be screened
+by the projecting rocks, in breathless silence the three stole
+by, and offering up a prayer for their deliverance, continued
+their foot-sore journey until their legs would carry them no
+farther.
+
+The next four days Charles sought shelter in caves in the
+neighbourhood of Glenshiel, Strathcluanie, and Strathglass; but
+the most romantic episode in his remarkable adventures was the
+sojourn in the secret caves and hiding-places of the notorious
+robbers of Glenmoriston, under whose protection the royal fugitive
+placed himself. With these wild freebooters he continued for
+three weeks, during which time he made himself extremely popular
+by his freedom of intercourse with them.
+
+The wanderer left these dwellings of comparative luxury that
+he might join hands with other fugitive Jacobites, Macdonald
+of Lochgarry and Cameron of Clunes, and took up his quarters
+in the wood-surrounded huts near Loch Arkaig and Auchnacarry.
+
+The poor youth's appearance at this period is thus described by
+one of his adherents: "The Prince was at this time bare-footed,
+had an old black kilt-coat on, philabeg and waistcoat, a dirty
+shirt, and a long red beard, a gun in his hand, and a pistol
+and dirk by his side."
+
+Moving again to miserable hovels in the wild recesses of the
+mountain Benalder, the chieftains Lochiel and Cluny acted now
+as the main bodyguard. The former of these two had devised a
+very safe hiding-place in the mountain which went by the name
+of "the Cage," and while here welcome news was brought that two
+friendly vessels had arrived at Lochnanuagh, their mission being,
+if possible, to seek out and carry away the importunate heir to
+the Stuart throne.
+
+The last three or four days of Charles's memorable adventures
+were occupied in reaching Glencamger, halts being made on the
+day at Corvoy and Auchnacarry. On Saturday, September 20th, 1746,
+he was on board _L'Heureux_, and nine days later landed at
+Roscoff, near Morlaix.
+
+So ended the famous escapades of the young Chevalier Prince Charles
+Edward.
+
+Here is a fine field open to some enterprising artistic tourist.
+How interesting it would be to follow Prince Charles throughout
+his journeyings in the Western Highlands, and illustrate with
+pen and pencil each recorded landmark! Not long since Mr. Andrew
+Lang gave, in a weekly journal (_The Sketch_), illustrations
+of the most famous of all the Prince's hiding-places--_viz._
+the cave in Glenmoriston, Inverness-shire.[1] The cave, we are
+told, is "formed like a tumulus by tall boulders, but is clearly
+a conspicious object, and a good place wherein to hunt for a
+fugitive. But it served its turn, and as another cave in the same
+district two miles off is lost, perhaps it is not so conspicious
+as it seems." It is about twenty feet wide at the base, and the
+position of the hearth and the royal bed are still to be seen,
+with "the finest purling stream that could be, running by the
+bed-side." How handy for the morning "tub"!
+
+[Footnote 1: They appeared originally in Blaikie's _Itinerary
+of Prince Curies Stuart_ (Scottish History Society).]
+
+In that remarkable collection of Stuart relics on exhibition
+in 1889 were many pathetic mementoes of Charles's wanderings in
+the Highlands. Here could be seen not only the mittens but the
+chemise of "Betty Burke"; the punch-bowl over which the Prince
+and the host of Kingsburgh had a late carousal, and his Royal
+Highness's table-napkins used in the same hospitable house; a
+wooden coffee-mill, which provided many a welcome cup of coffee
+in the days of so many hardships; a silver dessert-spoon, given
+to Dr. Macleod by the fugitive when he left the Isle of Skye;
+the Prince's pocket-book, many of his pistols, and a piece of
+his Tartan disguise; a curious relic in the form of two lines
+of music, sent as a warning to one of his lurking-places--when
+folded in a particular way the following words become legible,
+"Conceal yourself; your foes look for you." There was also a
+letter from Charles saying he had "arrived safe aboard ye vessell"
+which carried him to France, and numerous little things which
+gave the history of the escape remarkable reality.
+
+The recent dispersal of the famous Culloden collection sent
+long-cherished Jacobite relics broadcast over the land. The ill-fated
+Stuart's bed and walking-stick were of course the plums of this
+sale; but they had no connection with the Highland wanderings
+after the battle. The only object that had any connection with
+the story was the gun of _L'Heureux_.
+
+We understand there is still a much-prized heirloom now in Glasgow--a
+rustic chair used by the Prince when in Skye. The story is that,
+secreted in one of his cave dwellings, he espied a lad in his
+immediate vicinity tending some cows. Hunger made him reveal
+himself, with the result that he was taken to the boy's home,
+a farm not far off, and had his fill of cream and oatcakes, a
+delicacy which did not often fall in his way. The visit naturally
+was repeated; and long afterwards, when the rank of his guest
+came to the knowledge of the good farmer, the royal chair was
+promoted from its old corner in the kitchen to an honored position
+worthy of such a valued possession.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+Bedfordshire:--
+  Toddington Place
+Berkshire:--
+  Besils Leigh
+  Bisham Abbey
+  East Hendred House
+  Hurley, Lady Place
+  Milton Priory
+  Ockwells
+  Ufton Court
+  Windsor Castle
+Buckinghamshire:--
+  Burnham Abbey
+  Claydon House
+  Dinton Hall
+  Gayhurst, or Gothurst
+  Slough, Upton Court
+  Stoke Poges Manor House
+
+Cambridgeshire:--
+  Catledge Hall
+  Granchester Manor House
+  Madingley Hall
+  Sawston Hall
+Cheshire:--
+  Bramhall Hall
+  Harden Hall
+  Lyme Hall
+  Moreton Hall
+Cornwall:--
+  Bochym House
+  Cothele
+  Port Leven
+Cumberland:--
+  Naworth Castle
+  Nether Hall
+
+Derbyshire:--
+  Bradshawe Hall
+Devonshire:--
+  Bovey House
+  Branscombe, "The Clergy House"
+  Ford House
+  Warleigh
+Durham:--
+  Bishops Middleham
+  Darlington
+  Dinsdale-on-Tees
+  Eshe Hall
+
+Essex:--
+  Braddocks, or Broad Oaks
+  Braintree
+  Dunmow, North End
+  Hill Hall
+  Hinchford
+  Ingatestone Hall
+  Romford, Marks
+  Southend, Porter's Hall
+  Woodham Mortimer Manor House
+
+Gloucestershire:--
+  Bourton-on-the-Water Manor House
+
+Hampshire:--
+  Bramshill
+  Highclere Castle
+  Hinton-Ampner
+  Hursley
+  Moyles Court
+  Tichbourne
+  Woodcote Manor House
+Herefordshire:--
+  Treago
+Hertfordshire:--
+  Great Gaddesden Manor House
+  Hatfield House
+  Knebworth House
+  Markyate Cell, Dunstable
+  Rickmansworth, The Bury
+  Shenley, Salisbury Court
+  Tyttenhanger House
+Huntingdonshire:--
+  Kimbolton Castle
+
+Kent:--
+  Bromley Palace
+  Deal
+  Dover, St. Radigund's Abbey
+  Erith
+  Folkestone
+  Franks
+  Hollingbourne Manor House
+  Ightham Moat
+  Lewisham, John Wesley's House
+  Margate
+  Milsted Manor
+  Rochester, Abdication House
+  Rochester, Eastgate House
+  Rochester, Restoration House
+  Sandwich, "Bell Inn"
+  Sharsted Court
+  Twissenden
+  Wedmore College
+
+Lancashire:--
+  Bolling Hall
+  Borwick Hall
+  Gawthorp Hall
+  Hall-i'-the-wood
+  Holme Hall
+  Huncoat Hall
+  Lydiate Hall
+  Mains Hall
+  Preston, Ashes House
+  Speke Hall
+  Stonyhurst
+Lincolnshire:--
+  Bayons Manor
+  Irnham Hall
+  Kingerby Hall
+  Terpersie Castle
+
+Middlesex:--
+  Enfield, White Webb's
+  Hackney, Brooke House
+  Hampstead, Sir Harry Vane's House
+  Hampton Court
+  Hendon, Tenterden Hall
+  Highgate, Cromwell House
+  Hillingdon, Moorcroft House
+  Islington, Hale House
+  Kensington, Holland House
+  Knightsbridge
+  London, Lincoln's Inn
+  London, Newton Street, Holborn
+  London, "Red Lion Inn," West Street, Clerkenwell
+  London, "Rising Sun," Holywell Street
+  Mill Hill, Partingdale House
+  Sunbury Park
+  Twickenham, Arragon Towers
+  Westminster, Delahay Street
+
+Norfolk:--
+  Cromer, Rookery Farm
+  Oxburgh Hall
+Northamptonshire:--
+  Ashby St. Ledgers
+  Castle Ashby
+  Deene Park
+  Drayton House
+  Fawsley
+  Great Harrowden
+  Rushton Hall
+Northumberland:--
+  Ford Castle
+  Netherwhitton
+  Wallington
+Nottinghamshire:--
+  Nottingham Castle
+  Vale Royal
+  Worksop
+
+Oxfordshire:--
+  Broughton Castle
+  Chastleton
+  Mapledurham House
+  Minster Lovel Manor House
+  Shipton Court
+  Tusmore House
+  Woodstock
+
+Shropshire:--
+  Batsden Court
+  Boscobel House
+  Gatacre Park
+  Longford, Newport
+  Madeley Court
+  Madeley, Upper House
+  Oswestry, Park Hall
+  Plowden Hall
+Somersetshire:--
+  Chard, "Clough Inn"
+  Chelvey Court
+  Chew Magna Manor House
+  Dunster Castle
+  Ilminster, The Chantry
+  Trent House
+  West Coker Manor House
+Staffordshire:--
+  Broughton Hall
+  Moseley Hall
+  West Bromwich, Dunkirk Hall
+Suffolk:--
+  Barsham Rectory
+  Brandeston Hall
+  Brandon Hall
+  Coldham Hall
+  Gawdy Hall
+  Melford Hall
+Surrey:--
+  Mortlake, Cromwell House
+  Petersham, Ham House
+  Richmond Palace
+  Sanderstead Court
+  Thornton Heath
+  Wandsworth Manor House
+  Weybridge, Ham House
+Sussex:--
+  Albourne Place
+  Arundel Castle
+  Bodiam Castle
+  Chichester Cathedral
+  Cowdray
+  Hurstmonceaux Castle
+  Parham Hall
+  Paxhill
+  Scotney Castle
+  Slindon House
+  Southwater, Horsham, "New Building"
+  Street Place
+
+Warwickshire:--
+  Baddesley Clinton
+  Clopton Hall
+  Compton Winyates
+  Coughton Court
+  Mancetter Manor
+  Packington Old Hall
+  Salford Prior Hall
+  Warwick, St. John's Hospital
+Wiltshire:--
+  Fyfield House
+  Great Chalfield
+  Heale House
+  Liddington Manor House
+  Salisbury
+Worcestershire:--
+  Armscot Manor House
+  Birtsmorton Court
+  Cleeve Prior Manor House
+  Harborough Hall
+  Harvington Hall
+  Hindlip Hall
+  Huddington Court
+  Malvern, Pickersleigh Court
+  Stanford Court
+  Wollas Hall
+
+Yorkshire:--
+  Bamborough Hall
+  Beare Park
+  Danby Hall
+  Dannoty Hall
+  Fountains Abbey
+  Fountains Hall
+  Hull, White Hart Hotel
+  Kirkby Knowle Castle
+  Leyburn, The Grove
+  Myddleton Lodge, Ilkley
+  Thirsk, "New Building"
+  Whatton Abbey
+  Whitby, Abbey House
+  Yeadon, Low Hall
+
+Aberdeenshire:--
+  Belucraig
+  Dalpersie House
+  Fetternear
+  Fyvie Castle
+  Gordonstown
+  Kemnay House
+
+Banffshire:--
+  Towie Barclay Castle
+
+Elginshire:--
+  Coxton Tower
+
+Forfarshire:--
+  Glamis Castle
+
+Haddingtonshire:--
+  Elphinstone Castle
+
+Linlithgowshire:--
+  Binns House
+
+Nairnshire:--
+  Cawdor Castle
+
+Monmouthshire:--
+  Ty Mywr
+
+Pembrokeshire:--
+  Carew Castle
+
+Isle of Wight:--
+  Newport Manor House
+
+Guernsey:--
+  Château du Puits
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Secret Chambers and Hiding Places, by Allan Fea
+
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+Project Gutenberg's Secret Chambers and Hiding Places, by Allan Fea
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Secret Chambers and Hiding Places
+       Historic, Romantic, & Legendary Stories & Traditions About
+       Hiding-Holes, Secret Chambers, Etc.
+
+
+Author: Allan Fea
+
+Release Date: November 1, 2004 [EBook #13918]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECRET CHAMBERS AND HIDING PLACES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert J. Hall.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE]
+
+
+
+
+SECRET CHAMBERS AND HIDING-PLACES
+
+
+HISTORIC, ROMANTIC, & LEGENDARY STORIES & TRADITIONS ABOUT
+HIDING-HOLES, SECRET CHAMBERS, ETC.
+
+
+BY ALLAN FEA
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE FLIGHT OF THE KING," "KING MONMOUTH," ETC.
+
+
+WITH EIGHTY ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+THIRD AND REVISED EDITION
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A GREAT DEVISER OF "PRIEST'S HOLES"
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HINDLIP HALL
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PRIEST-HUNTING AT BRADDOCKS
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE GUNPOWDER PLOT CONSPIRATORS
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HARVINGTON, UFTON, AND INGATESTONE
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+COMPTON WINYATES, SALFORD PRIOR, SAWSTON, OXBURGH, PARHAM, PAXHILL, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+KING-HUNTING: BOSCOBEL, MOSELEY, TRENT, AND HEALE
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CAVALIER-HUNTING, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES (_continued_): HAM HOUSE, AND "ABDICATION HOUSE"
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MYSTERIOUS ROOMS, DEADLY PITS, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+HIDING-PLACES IN JACOBITE DWELLINGS AND IN SCOTTISH CASTLES AND MANSIONS
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CONCEALED DOORS, SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGES, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MINIATURE HIDING-HOLES FOR VALUABLES, ETC.
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+HIDING-PLACES OF SMUGGLERS AND THIEVES
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE SCOTTISH HIDING-PLACES OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE
+HINDLIP HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE
+BRADDOCKS, ESSEX
+FIREPLACE AT BRADDOCKS
+ASHBY ST. LEDGERS, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
+THE PLOT ROOM, ASHBY ST. LEDGERS
+HUDDINGTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE
+ENTRANCE PORCH, HUDDINGTON COURT
+ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," HARVINGTON HALL
+HARVINGTON HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE
+UFTON COURT, BERKSHIRE
+  "     "   GARDEN TERRACE, BERKSHIRE
+HIDING-PLACE, UFTON COURT
+      "         "     "
+INGATESTONE HALL, ESSEX
+      "      "      "
+"PRIEST'S HOLE," SAWSTON HALL
+SCOTNEY CASTLE, SUSSEX
+COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE
+THE MINSTRELS' GALLERY, COMPTON WINYATES
+SAWSTON HALL, CAMBRIDGESHIRE
+PICKERSLEIGH COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE
+SALFORD PRIOR HALL, WARWICKSHIRE
+   "      "    "         "
+HIDING-PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR
+SHOWING ENTRANCE TO HIDING PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR
+OXBURGH HALL, NORFOLK
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, PARHAM HALL
+PAXHILL, SUSSEX
+CLEEVE PRIOR MANOR HOUSE, WORCESTERSHIRE
+BADDESLEY CLINTON HALL, WARWICKSHIRE
+HIDING-PLACE BENEATH "THE CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL, SALOP
+HIDING-PLACE IN "THE SQUIRE'S BEDROOM," BOSCOBEL
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE IN THE GARRET, OR "CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL
+SECRET PANEL, TRENT HOUSE, SOMERSETSHIRE
+BOSCOBEL
+ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE
+HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE
+TRENT HOUSE IN 1864
+HEALE HOUSE, WILTSHIRE
+MADELEY COURT, SHROPSHIRE
+   "      "    THE COURTYARD, SHROPSHIRE
+   "      "    SHROPSHIRE
+ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," THE UPPER HOUSE, MADELEY, SHROPSHIRE
+INTERIOR OF "PRIEST'S HOLE," MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE
+SECRET PANEL AT SALISBURY
+SECRET CHAMBER, CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE
+OLD SUMMER HOUSE, SALISBURY
+CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE
+     "      FRONT ENTRANCE, OXFORDSHIRE
+BROUGHTON HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE
+ST. JOHN'S HOSPITAL, WARWICK
+STAIRCASE, BROUGHTON HALL
+SHIPTON COURT, OXFORDSHIRE
+BROUGHTON CASTLE, OXFORDSHIRE
+ENTRANCE GATE, BRADSHAWE HALL, DERBYSHIRE
+MOYLES COURT, HAMPSHIRE
+TODDINGTON MANOR HOUSE, BEDFORDSHIRE, IN 1806
+"RAT'S CASTLE," ELMLEY
+KING'S HILL FARM, ELMLEY, KENT
+ENTRANCE TO SECRET PASSAGE, "ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER
+"ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER
+MONUMENT OF SIR RICHARD HEAD
+"RESTORATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER
+ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE, WORCHESTERSHIRE
+ENTRANCE GATE, ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE
+WOODSTOCK PALACE, OXFORDSHIRE
+MARKYATE CELL, HERTFORDSHIRE
+BIRTSMORTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE
+PORCH AT CHELVEY COURT, SOMERSETSHIRE
+HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE, SUSSEX
+BOVEY HOUSE, SOUTH DEVON
+MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE
+     "        "         "
+ENTRANCE TO SECRET STAIRCASE, PARTINGDALE HOUSE, MILL HILL, MIDDLESEX
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+The secret chamber is unrivalled even by the haunted house for
+the mystery and romance surrounding it. Volumes have been written
+about the haunted house, while the secret chamber has found but
+few exponents. The ancestral ghost has had his day, and to all
+intents and purposes is dead, notwithstanding the existence of
+the Psychical Society and the investigations of Mr. Stead and
+the late Lord Bute. "Alas! poor ghost!" he is treated with scorn
+and derision by the multitude in these advanced days of modern
+enlightenment. The search-light of science has penetrated even
+into his sacred haunts, until, no longer having a leg to stand
+upon, he has fallen from the exalted position he occupied for
+centuries, and fallen moreover into ridicule!
+
+In the secret chamber, however, we have something tangible to deal
+with--a subject not only keenly interesting from an antiquarian
+point of view, but one deserving the attention of the general
+reader; for in exploring the gloomy hiding-holes, concealed
+apartments, passages, and staircases in our old halls and manor
+houses we probe, as it were, into the very groundwork of romance.
+We find actuality to support the weird and mysterious stories
+of fiction, which those of us who are honest enough to admit
+a lingering love of the marvellous must now doubly appreciate,
+from the fact that our school-day impressions of such things
+are not only revived, but are strengthened with the semblance
+of truth. Truly Bishop Copleston wrote: "If the things we hear
+told be avowedly fictitious, and yet curious or affecting or
+entertaining, we may indeed admire the author of the fiction, and
+may take pleasure in contemplating the exercise of his skill. But
+this is a pleasure of another kind--a pleasure wholly distinct from
+that which is derived from discovering what was _unknown_, or
+clearing up what was _doubtful_. And even when the narrative
+is in its own nature, such as to please us and to engage our
+attention, how, greatly is the interest increased if we place
+entire confidence in its _truth_! Who has not heard from
+a child when listening to a tale of deep interest--who has not
+often heard the artless and eager question, 'Is it true?'"
+
+From Horace Walpole, Mrs. Radcliffe, Scott, Victor Hugo, Dumas,
+Lytton, Ainsworth, Le Fanu, and Mrs. Henry Wood, down to the
+latest up-to-date novelists of to-day, the secret chamber (an
+ingenious _necessity_ of the "good old times") has afforded
+invaluable "property"--indeed, in many instances the whole vitality
+of a plot is, like its ingenious opening, hinged upon the masked
+wall, behind which lay concealed what hidden mysteries, what
+undreamed-of revelations! The thread of the story, like Fair
+Rosamond's silken clue, leads up to and at length reveals the
+buried secret, and (unlike the above comparison in this instance)
+all ends happily!
+
+Bulwer Lytton honestly confesses that the spirit of romance in his
+novels "was greatly due to their having been written at my ancestral
+home, Knebworth, Herts. How could I help writing romances," he
+says, "after living amongst the secret panels and hiding-places
+of our dear old home? How often have I trembled with fear at
+the sound of my own footsteps when I ventured into the picture
+gallery! How fearfully have I glanced at the faces of my ancestors
+as I peered into the shadowy abysses of the 'secret chamber.' It
+was years before I could venture inside without my hair literally
+bristling with terror."
+
+What would _Woodstock_ be without the mysterious picture,
+_Peveril of the Peak_ without the sliding panel, the Castlewood
+of _Esmond_ without Father Holt's concealed apartments,
+_Ninety-Three, Marguerite de Valois, The Tower of London, Guy
+Fawkes_, and countless other novels of the same type, without
+the convenient contrivances of which the _dramatis personae_
+make such effectual use?
+
+Apart, however, from the importance of the secret chamber in
+fiction, it is closely associated with many an important historical
+event. The stories of the Gunpowder Plot, Charles II.'s escape
+from Worcester, the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745, and many
+another stirring episode in the annals of our country, speak
+of the service it rendered to fugitives in the last extremity
+of danger. When we inspect the actual walls of these confined
+spaces that saved the lives of our ancestors, how vividly we can
+realise the hardships they must have endured; and in wondering
+at the mingled ingenuity and simplicity of construction, there
+is also a certain amount of comfort to be derived from drawing
+a comparison between those troublous and our own more peaceful
+times.
+
+
+
+
+SECRET CHAMBERS AND HIDING-PLACES
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A GREAT DEVISER OF "PRIEST'S HOLES"
+
+
+During the deadly feuds which existed in the Middle Ages, when
+no man was secure from spies and traitors even within the walls
+of his own house, it is no matter of wonder that the castles and
+mansions of the powerful and wealthy were usually provided with
+some precaution in the event of a sudden surprise--_viz._
+a secret means of concealment or escape that could be used at
+a moment's notice; but the majority of secret chambers and
+hiding-places in our ancient buildings owe their origin to religious
+persecution, particularly during the reign of Elizabeth, when the
+most stringent laws and oppressive burdens were inflicted upon
+all persons who professed the tenets of the Church of Rome.
+
+In the first years of the virgin Queen's reign all who clung to
+the older forms of the Catholic faith were mercifully connived
+at, so long as they solemnised their own religious rites within
+their private dwelling-houses; but after the Roman Catholic rising
+in the north and numerous other Popish plots, the utmost severity
+of the law was enforced, particularly against seminarists, whose
+chief object was, as was generally believed, to stir up their
+disciples in England against the Protestant Queen. An Act was
+passed prohibiting a member of the Church of Rome from celebrating
+the rites of his religion on pain of forfeiture for the first
+offence, a year's imprisonment for the second, and imprisonment
+for life for the third.[1] All those who refused to take the
+Oath of Supremacy were called "recusants" and were guilty of
+high treason. A law was also enacted which provided that if any
+Papist should convert a Protestant to the Church of Rome, both
+should suffer death, as for high treason.
+
+[Footnote 1: In December, 1591, a priest was hanged before the
+door of a house in Gray's Inn Fields for having there said Mass
+the month previously.]
+
+The sanguinary laws against seminary priests and "recusants"
+were enforced with the greatest severity after the discovery of
+the Gunpowder Plot. These were revived for a period in Charles
+II.'s reign, when Oates's plot worked up a fanatical hatred against
+all professors of the ancient faith. In the mansions of the old
+Roman Catholic families we often find an apartment in a secluded
+part of the house or garret in the roof named "the chapel," where
+religious rites could be performed with the utmost privacy, and
+close handy was usually an artfully contrived hiding-place, not
+only for the officiating priest to slip into in case of emergency,
+but also where the vestments, sacred vessels, and altar furniture
+could be put away at a moment's notice.
+
+It appears from the writings of Father Tanner[1] that most of
+the hiding-places for priests, usually called "priests' holes,"
+were invented and constructed by the Jesuit Nicholas Owen, a
+servant of Father Garnet, who devoted the greater part of his
+life to constructing these places in the principal Roman Catholic
+houses all over England.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Vita et Mors_ (1675), p. 75.]
+
+"With incomparable skill," says an authority, "he knew how to
+conduct priests to a place of safety along subterranean passages,
+to hide them between walls and bury them in impenetrable recesses,
+and to entangle them in labyrinths and a thousand windings. But
+what was much more difficult of accomplishment, he so disguised
+the entrances to these as to make them most unlike what they
+really were. Moreover, he kept these places so close a secret
+with himself that he would never disclose to another the place
+of concealment of any Catholic. He alone was both their architect
+and their builder, working at them with inexhaustible industry
+and labour, for generally the thickest walls had to be broken
+into and large stones excavated, requiring stronger arms than
+were attached to a body so diminutive as to give him the nickname
+of 'Little John,' and by this his skill many priests were preserved
+from the prey of persecutors. Nor is it easy to find anyone who
+had not often been indebted for his life to Owen's hiding-places."
+
+How effectually "Little John's" peculiar ingenuity baffled the
+exhaustive searches of the "pursuivants," or priest-hunters,
+has been shown by contemporary accounts of the searches that
+took place frequently in suspected houses. Father Gerard, in
+his Autobiography, has handed down to us many curious details of
+the mode of procedure upon these occasions--how the search-party
+would bring with them skilled carpenters and masons and try every
+possible expedient, from systematic measurements and soundings to
+bodily tearing down the panelling and pulling up the floors. It
+was not an uncommon thing for a rigid search to last a fortnight
+and for the "pursuivants" to go away empty handed, while perhaps
+the object of the search was hidden the whole time within a wall's
+thickness of his pursuers, half starved, cramped and sore with
+prolonged confinement, and almost afraid to breathe, lest the
+least sound should throw suspicion upon the particular spot where
+he lay immured.
+
+After the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, "Little John" and
+his master, Father Garnet, were arrested at Hindlip Hall,
+Worcestershire, from information given to the Government by Catesby's
+servant Bates. Cecil, who was well aware of Owen's skill in
+constructing hiding-places, wrote exultingly: "Great joy was
+caused all through the kingdom by the arrest of Owen, knowing
+his skill in constructing hiding-places, and the innumerable
+number of these dark holes which he had schemed for hiding priests
+throughout the kingdom." He hoped that "great booty of priests"
+might be taken in consequence of the secrets Owen would be made
+to reveal, and directed that first he should "be coaxed if he
+be willing to contract for his life," but that "the secret is
+to be wrung from him." The horrors of the rack, however, failed
+in its purpose. His terrible death is thus briefly recorded by
+the Governor of the Tower at that time: "The man is dead--he
+died in our hands"; and perhaps it is as well the ghastly details
+did not transpire in his report.
+
+The curious old mansion Hindlip Hall (pulled down in the early
+part of the last century) was erected in 1572 by John Abingdon, or
+Habington, whose son Thomas (the brother-in-law of Lord Monteagle)
+was deeply involved in the numerous plots against the reformed
+religion. A long imprisonment in the Tower for his futile efforts
+to set Mary Queen of Scots at liberty, far from curing the dangerous
+schemes of this zealous partisan of the luckless Stuart heroine,
+only kept him out of mischief for a time. No sooner had he obtained
+his freedom than he set his mind to work to turn his house in
+Worcestershire into a harbour of refuge for the followers of
+the older rites. In the quaint irregularities of the masonry
+free scope was given to "Little John's" ingenuity; indeed, there
+is every proof that some of his masterpieces were constructed
+here. A few years before the "Powder Plot" was discovered, it
+was a hanging matter for a priest to be caught celebrating the
+Mass. Yet with the facilities at Hindlip he might do so with
+comfort, with every assurance that he had the means of evading
+the law. The walls of the mansion were literally riddled with
+secret chambers and passages. There was little fear of being
+run to earth with hidden exits everywhere. Wainscoting, solid
+brickwork, or stone hearth were equally accommodating, and would
+swallow up fugitives wholesale, and close over them, to "Open,
+Sesame!" again only at the hider's pleasure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HINDLIP HALL
+
+The capture of Father Garnet and "Little John" with two others,
+Hall and Chambers, at Hindlip, as detailed in a curious manuscript
+in the British Museum, gives us an insight into the search-proof
+merits of Abingdon's mansion. The document is headed: "_A true
+discovery of the service performed at Hindlip, the house of Mr.
+Thomas Abbingdon, for the apprehension of Mr. Henry Garnet, alias
+Wolley, provincial of the Jesuits, and other dangerous persons,
+there found in January last,_ 1605," and runs on:--
+
+"After the king's royal promise of bountiful reward to such as
+would apprehend the traitors concerned in the Powder Conspiracy,
+and much expectation of subject-like duty, but no return made
+thereof in so important a matter, a warrant was directed to the
+right worthy and worshipful knight, Sir Henry Bromlie; and the
+proclamation delivered therewith, describing the features and
+shapes of the men, for the better discovering them. He, not
+neglecting so a weighty a business, horsing himself with a seemly
+troop of his own attendants, and calling to his assistance so
+many as in discretion was thought meet, having likewise in his
+company Sir Edward Bromlie, on Monday, Jan. 20 last, by break
+of day, did engirt and round beat the house of Mayster Thomas
+Abbingdon, at Hindlip, near Worcester. Mr. Abbingdon, not being
+then at home, but ridden abroad about some occasions best known
+to himself; the house being goodlie, and of great receipt, it
+required the more diligent labour and pains in the searching.
+It appeared there was no want; and Mr. Abbingdon himself coming
+home that night, the commission and proclamation being shown unto
+him, he denied any such men to be in his house, and voluntarily
+to die at his own gate, if any such were to be found in his house,
+or in that shire. But this liberal or rather rash speech could
+not cause the search so slightly to be given over; the cause
+enforced more respect than words of that or any such like nature;
+and proceeding on according to the trust reposed in him in the
+gallery over the gate there were found two cunning and very
+artificial conveyances in the main brick-wall, so ingeniously
+framed, and with such art, as it cost much labour ere they could
+be found. Three other secret places, contrived by no less skill
+and industry, were found in and about the chimneys, in one whereof
+two of the traitors were close concealed. These chimney-conveyances
+being so strangely formed, having the entrances into them so
+curiously covered over with brick, mortared and made fast to
+planks of wood, and coloured black, like the other parts of the
+chimney, that very diligent inquisition might well have passed
+by, without throwing the least suspicion upon such unsuspicious
+places. And whereas divers funnels are usually made to chimneys
+according as they are combined together, and serve for necessary
+use in several rooms, so here were some that exceeded common
+expectation, seeming outwardly fit for carrying forth smoke;
+but being further examined and seen into, their service was to
+no such purpose but only to lend air and light downward into
+the concealments, where such as were concealed in them, at any
+time should be hidden. Eleven secret corners and conveyances
+were found in the said house, all of them having books, Massing
+stuff, and Popish trumpery in them, only two excepted, which
+appeared to have been found on former searches, and therefore
+had now the less credit given to them; but Mayster Abbingdon
+would take no knowledge of any of these places, nor that the
+books, or Massing stuff, were any of his, until at length the
+deeds of his lands being found in one of them, whose custody
+doubtless he would not commit to any place of neglect, or where
+he should have no intelligence of them, whereto he could [not]
+then devise any sufficient excuse.
+
+[Illustration: HINDLIP HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+Three days had been wholly spent, and no man found there all
+this while; but upon the fourth day, in the morning, from behind
+the wainscot in the galleries, came forth two men of their own
+voluntary accord, as being no longer able there to conceal
+themselves; for they confessed that they had but one apple between
+them, which was all the sustenance they had received during the
+time they were thus hidden. One of them was named Owen, who
+afterwards murdered himself in the Tower; and the other Chambers;
+but they would take no other knowledge of any other men's being
+in the house. On the eighth day the before-mentioned place in
+the chimney was found, according as they had all been at several
+times, one after another, though before set down together, for
+expressing the just number of them.
+
+"Forth of this secret and most cunning conveyance came Henry
+Garnet, the Jesuit, sought for, and another with him, named Hall;
+marmalade and other sweetmeats were found there lying by them;
+but their better maintenance had been by a quill or reed, through
+a little hole in the chimney that backed another chimney into
+the gentlewoman's chamber; and by that passage candles, broths,
+and warm drinks had been conveyed in unto them.
+
+"Now in regard the place was in so close... and did much annoy
+them that made entrance in upon them, to whom they confessed
+that they had not been able to hold out one whole day longer,
+but either they must have squeeled, or perished in the place.
+The whole service endured the space of eleven nights and twelve
+days, and no more persons being there found, in company with
+Mayster Abbingdon himself, Garnet, Hill [Hall], Owen, and Chambers,
+were brought up to London to understand further of his highness's
+pleasure."
+
+That the Government had good grounds for suspecting Hindlip and
+its numerous hiding-places may be gathered from the official
+instructions the Worcestershire Justice of the Peace and his
+search-party had to follow. The wainscoting in the east part of
+the parlour and in the dining-room, being suspected of screening
+"a vault" or passage, was to be removed, the walls and floors
+were to be pierced in all directions, comparative measurements
+were to be taken between the upper and the lower rooms, and in
+particular the chimneys, and the roof had to be minutely examined and
+measurements taken, which might bring to light some unaccounted-for
+space that had been turned to good account by the unfortunate
+inventor, who was eventually starved out of one of his clever
+contrivances.
+
+Only shortly before Owen had had a very narrow escape at Stoke
+Poges while engaged in constructing "priests' holes" at the Manor
+House. The secluded position of this building adapted it for
+the purpose for which a Roman Catholic zealot had taken it. But
+this was not the only advantage. The walls were of vast thickness
+and offered every facility for turning them to account. While
+"Little John" was busily engaged burrowing into the masonry the
+dreaded "pursuivants" arrived; but somehow or other he slipped
+between their fingers and got away under cover of the surrounding
+woods.
+
+The wing of this old mansion which has survived to see the twentieth
+century witnessed many strange events. It has welcomed good Queen
+Bess, guarded the Martyr King, and refused admittance to Dutch
+William. A couple of centuries after it had sheltered hunted
+Jesuits, a descendant of William Penn became possessed of it,
+and cleared away many of the massive walls, in some of which--who
+can tell?--were locked up secrets that the rack failed to
+reveal--secrets by which Owen "murdered himself" in the Tower!
+
+One of the hiding-places at Hindlip, it will be remembered, could
+be supplied with broth, wine, or any liquid nourishment through
+a small aperture in the wall of the adjoining room. A very good
+example of such an arrangement may still be seen at Irnham Hall, in
+Lincolnshire.[1] A large hiding-place could thus be accommodated,
+but detection of the narrow iron tube by which the imprisoned
+fugitive could be kept alive was practically impossible. A solid
+oak beam, forming a step between two bedrooms, concealed a panel
+into which the tube was cunningly fitted and the step was so
+arranged that it could be removed and replaced with the greatest
+ease.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: The fire which destroyed a wing of Irnham Hall a
+few years ago fortunately did not touch that part of the building
+containing a hiding-place.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Harvington Hall, mentioned hereafter, has a contrivance
+of this kind.]
+
+The hiding-place at Irnham (which measures eight feet by five,
+and about five feet six inches in height) was discovered by a
+tell-tale chimney that was not in the least blackened by soot
+or smoke. This originally gave the clue to the secret, and when
+the shaft of the chimney was examined, it was found to lead direct
+to the priest's hole, to which it afforded air and light.
+
+Had not the particular hiding-place in which Garnet and his
+companions sought shelter been discovered, they could well have
+held out the twelve days' search. As a rule, a small stock of
+provisions was kept in these places, as the visits of the search
+parties were necessarily very sudden and unexpected. The way down
+into these hidden quarters was from the floor above, through
+the hearth of a fireplace, which could be raised an lowered like
+a trap-door.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Fowlis's _Romish Treasons._]
+
+In a letter from Garnet to Ann Vaux, preserved in the Record
+Office, he thus describes his precarious situation: "After we
+had been in the hoale seven days and seven nights and some odd
+hours, every man may well think we were well wearyed, and indeed
+so it was, for we generally satte, save that some times we could
+half stretch ourselves, the place not being high eno', and we had
+our legges so straitened that we could not, sitting, find place
+for them, so that we both were in continuous paine of our legges,
+and both our legges, especially mine, were much swollen. We were
+very merry and content within, and heard the searchers every day
+most curious over us, which made me indeed think the place would
+be found. When we came forth we appeared like ghosts."[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: _State Papers_, Domestic (James I.).]
+
+There is an old timber-framed cottage near the modern mansion
+of Hindlip which is said to have had its share in sheltering the
+plotters. A room is pointed out where Digby and Catesby concealed
+themselves, and from one of the chimneys at some time or another
+a priest was captured and led to execution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PRIEST-HUNTING AT BRADDOCKS
+
+In the parish of Wimbish, about six miles from Saffron Walden,
+stand the remains of a fine old Tudor house named Broad Oaks,
+or Braddocks, which in Elizabeth's reign was a noted house for
+priest-hunting. Wandering through its ancient rooms, the imagination
+readily carries us back to the drama enacted here three centuries
+ago with a vividness as if the events recorded had happened
+yesterday. "The chapel" and priests' holes may still be seen, and
+a fine old stone fireplace that was stripped of its overmantel,
+etc., of carved oak by the "pursuivants" in their vain efforts
+when Father Gerard was concealed in the house.
+
+[Illustration: BRADDOCKS, ESSEX]
+
+[Illustration: FIREPLACE AT BRADDOCKS]
+
+The old Essex family of Wiseman of Braddocks were staunch Romanists,
+and their home, being a noted resort for priests, received from
+time to time sudden visits. The dreaded Topcliffe had upon one
+occasion nearly brought the head of the family, an aged widow lady,
+to the horrors of the press-yard, but her punishment eventually
+took the form of imprisonment. Searches at Braddocks had brought
+forth hiding-places, priests, compromising papers, and armour
+and weapons. Let us see with what success the house was explored
+in the Easter of the year 1594.
+
+Gerard gives his exciting experiences as follows[1]:--
+
+[Footnote 1: See Autobiography of Father John Gerard.]
+
+"The searchers broke down the door, and forcing their way in,
+spread through the house with great noise and racket.
+
+"Their first step was to lock up the mistress of the house[2] in
+her own room with her two daughters, and the Catholic servants
+they kept locked up in divers places in the same part of the
+house.
+
+[Footnote 2: Jane Wiseman, wife of William Wiseman. N.B.--The
+late Cardinal Wiseman was descended from a junior branch of this
+family. See Life of Father John Gerard, by John Morris.]
+
+"They then took to themselves the whole house, which was of a good
+size, and made a thorough search in every part, not forgetting
+even to look under the tiles of the roof. The darkest corners
+they examined with the help of candles. Finding nothing whatever
+they began to break down certain places that they suspected.
+They measured the walls with long rods, so that if they did not
+tally they might pierce the part not accounted for. Then they
+sounded the walls and all the floors to find out and break into
+any hollow places there might be.
+
+"They spent two days in this work without finding anything. Thinking
+therefore that I had gone on Easter Sunday, the two magistrates
+went away on the second day, leaving the pursuivants to take
+the mistress of the house and all her Catholic servants of both
+sexes to London to be examined and imprisoned. They meant to
+leave some who were not Catholics to keep the house, the traitor
+(one of the servants of the house) being one of them.
+
+"The good lady was pleased at this, for she hoped that he would
+be the means of freeing me and rescuing me from death; for she
+knew that I had made up my mind to suffer and die of starvation
+between two walls, rather than come forth and save my own life
+at the expense of others.
+
+"In fact, during those four days that I lay hid I had nothing
+to eat but a biscuit or two and a little quince jelly, which
+my hostess had at hand and gave me as I was going in.
+
+"She did not look for any more, as she supposed that the search
+would not last beyond a day. But now that two days were gone
+and she was to be carried off on the third with all her trusty
+servants, she began to be afraid of my dying of sheer hunger.
+She bethought herself then of the traitor who she heard was to
+be left behind. He had made a great fuss and show of eagerness in
+withstanding the searchers when they first forced their way in.
+For all that she would not have let him know of the hiding-places,
+had she not been in such straits. Thinking it better, however,
+to rescue me from certain death, even at some risk to herself,
+she charged him, when she was taken away and everyone had gone,
+to go into a certain room, call me by my wonted name, and tell
+me that the others had been taken to prison, but that he was left
+to deliver me. I would then answer, she said, from behind the
+lath and plaster where I lay concealed. The traitor promised to
+obey faithfully; but he was faithful only to the faithless, for
+he unfolded the whole matter to the ruffians who had remained
+behind.
+
+"No sooner had they heard it than they called back the magistrates
+who had departed. These returned early in the morning and renewed
+the search.
+
+"They measured and sounded everywhere much more carefully than
+before, especially in the chamber above mentioned, in order to
+find out some hollow place. But finding nothing whatever during
+the whole of the third day, they proposed on the morrow to strip
+off the wainscot of that room.
+
+"Meanwhile, they set guards in all the rooms about to watch all
+night, lest I should escape. I heard from my hiding-place the
+password which the captain of the band gave to his soldiers, and
+I might have got off by using it, were it not that they would
+have seen me issuing from my retreat, for there were two on guard
+in the chapel where I got into my hiding-place, and several also
+in the large wainscoted room which had been pointed out to them.
+
+"But mark the wonderful Providence of God. Here was I in my
+hiding-place. The way I got into it was by taking up the floor,
+made of wood and bricks, under the fireplace. The place was so
+constructed that a fire could not be lit in it without damaging
+the house; though we made a point of keeping wood there, as if
+it were meant for a fire.
+
+"Well, the men on the night watch lit a fire in this very grate
+and began chatting together close to it. Soon the bricks which
+had not bricks but wood underneath them got loose, and nearly
+fell out of their places as the wood gave way. On noticing this
+and probing the place with a stick, they found that the bottom
+was made of wood, whereupon they remarked that this was something
+curious. I thought that they were going there and then to break
+open the place and enter, but they made up their minds at last
+to put off further examination till next day.
+
+"Next morning, therefore, they renewed the search most carefully,
+everywhere except in the top chamber which served as a chapel,
+and in which the two watchmen had made a fire over my head and
+had noticed the strange make of the grate. God had blotted out
+of their memory all remembrance of the thing. Nay, none of the
+searchers entered the place the whole day, though it was the
+one that was most open to suspicion, and if they had entered,
+they would have found me without any search; rather, I should
+say, they would have seen me, for the fire had burnt a great
+hole in my hiding-place, and had I not got a little out of the
+way, the hot embers would have fallen on me.
+
+"The searchers, forgetting or not caring about this room, busied
+themselves in ransacking the rooms below, in one of which I was
+said to be. In fact, they found the other hiding-place which I
+thought of going into, as I mentioned before. It was not far
+off, so I could hear their shouts of joy when they first found
+it. But after joy comes grief; and so it was with them. The only
+thing that they found was a goodly store of provision laid up.
+Hence they may have thought that this was the place that the
+mistress of the house meant; in fact, an answer might have been
+given from it to the call of a person in the room mentioned by
+her.
+
+"They stuck to their purpose, however, of stripping off all the
+wainscot of the other large room. So they set a man to work near
+the ceiling, close to the place where I was: for the lower part
+of the walls was covered with tapestry, not with wainscot. So
+they stripped off the wainscot all round till they came again
+to the very place where I lay, and there they lost heart and
+gave up the search.
+
+"My hiding-place was in a thick wall of the chimney behind a
+finely inlaid and carved mantelpiece. They could not well take
+the carving down without risk of breaking it. Broken, however,
+it would have been, and that into a thousand pieces, had they
+any conception that I could be concealed behind it. But knowing
+that there were two flues, they did not think that there could
+be room enough there for a man.
+
+"Nay, before this, on the second day of the search, they had
+gone into the room above, and tried the fireplace through which
+I had got into my hole. They then got into the chimney by a ladder
+to sound with their hammers. One said to another in my hearing,
+'Might there not be a place here for a person to get down into
+the wall of the chimney below by lifting up this hearth?' 'No,'
+answered one of the pursuivants, whose voice I knew, 'you could
+not get down that way into the chimney underneath, but there
+might easily be an entrance at the back of this chimney.' So
+saying he gave the place a knock. I was afraid that he would hear
+the hollow sound of the hole where I was.
+
+"Seeing that their toil availed them nought, they thought that
+I had escaped somehow, and so they went away at the end of the
+four days, leaving the mistress and her servants free. The yet
+unbetrayed traitor stayed after the searchers were gone. As soon
+as the doors of the house were made fast, the mistress came to
+call me, another four days buried Lazarus, from what would have
+been my tomb, had the search continued a little longer. For I
+was all wasted and weakened as well with hunger as with want
+of sleep and with having to sit so long in such a narrow space.
+After coming out I was seen by the traitor, whose treachery was
+still unknown to us. He did nothing then, not even to send after
+the searchers, as he knew that I meant to be off before they
+could be recalled."
+
+The Wisemans had another house at North End, a few miles to the
+south-east of Dunmow. Here were also "priests' holes," one of
+which (in a chimney) secreted a certain Father Brewster during
+a rigid search in December, 1593.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _State Papers_, Dom. (Eliz.), December, 1593.
+See also Life of Father John Gerard, p. 138.]
+
+Great Harrowden, near Wellingborough, the ancient seat of the Vaux
+family, was another notorious sanctuary for persecuted recusants.
+Gerard spent much of his time here in apartments specially
+constructed for his use, and upon more than one occasion had to
+have recourse to the hiding-places. Some four or five years after
+his experiences at Braddocks he narrowly escaped his pursuers in
+this way; and in 1605, when the "pursuivants" were scouring the
+country for him, as he was supposed to be privy to the Gunpowder
+Plot, he owed his life to a secret chamber at Harrowden. The
+search-party remained for nine days. Night and day men were posted
+round the house, and every approach was guarded within a radius
+of three miles. With the hope of getting rid of her unwelcome
+guests, Lady Vaux revealed one of the "priests' holes" to prove
+there was nothing in her house beyond a few prohibited books;
+but this did not have the desired effect, so the unfortunate
+inmate of the hiding-place had to continue in a cramped position,
+there being no room to stand up, for four or five days more. His
+hostess, however, managed to bring him food, and moments were
+seized during the latter days of the search to get him out that
+he might warm his benumbed limbs by a fire. While these things
+were going on at Harrowden, another priest, little thinking into
+whose hands the well-known sanctuary had fallen, came thither
+to seek shelter; but was seized and carried to an inn, whence
+it was intended he should be removed to London on the following
+day. But he managed to outwit his captors. To evade suspicion
+he threw off his cloak and sword, and under a pretext of giving
+his horse drink at a stream close by the stable, seized a lucky
+moment, mounted, and dashed into the water, swam across, and
+galloped off to the nearest house that could offer the convenience
+of a hiding-place.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Life of John Gerard, p. 386.]
+
+At Hackney the Vaux family had another, residence with its chapel
+and "priest's hole," the latter having a masked entrance high
+up in the wall, which led to a space under a gable projection
+of the roof. For double security this contained yet an inner
+hiding-place. In the existing Brooke House are incorporated the
+modernised remains of this mansion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE GUNPOWDER PLOT CONSPIRATORS
+
+Lord Vaux of Harrowden, Sir William Catesby of Ashby St. Ledgers,
+and Sir Thomas Tresham of Rushton Hall (all in Northamptonshire)
+were upon more than one occasion arraigned before the Court of the
+Star Chamber for harbouring Jesuits. The old mansions Ashby St.
+Ledgers and Rushton fortunately still remain intact and preserve
+many traditions of Romanist plots. Sir William Catesby's son Robert,
+the chief conspirator, is said to have held secret meetings in the
+curious oak-panelled room over the gate-house of the former, which
+goes by the name of "the Plot Room." Once upon a time it was provided
+with a secret means of escape. At Rushton Hall a hiding-place was
+discovered in 1832 behind a lintel over a doorway; it was full
+of bundles of manuscripts, prohibited books, and incriminating
+correspondence of the conspirator Tresham. Another place of
+concealment was situated in the chimney of the great hall and in
+this Father Oldcorn was hidden for a time. Gayhurst, or Gothurst,
+in Buckinghamshire, the seat of Sir Everard Digby, also remains
+intact, one of the finest late Tudor buildings in the country;
+unfortunately, however, only recently a remarkable "priest's
+hole" that was here has been destroyed in consequence of modern
+improvements. It was a double hiding-place, one situated beneath
+the other; the lower one being so arranged as to receive light and
+air from the bottom portion of a large mullioned window--a most
+ingenious device. A secret passage in the hall had communication
+with it, and entrance was obtained through part of the flooring
+of an apartment, the movable part of the boards revolving upon
+pivots and sufficiently solid to vanquish any suspicion as to
+a hollow space beneath.
+
+[Illustration: ASHBY ST. LEDGERS, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: THE PLOT ROOM, ASHBY ST. LEGERS]
+
+As may be supposed, tradition says that at the time of Digby's
+arrest he was dragged forth from this hole, but history shows
+that he was taken prisoner at Holbeach House (where, it will be
+remembered, the conspirators Catesby and Percy were shot), and
+led to execution. For a time Digby sought security at Coughton
+Court, the seat of the Throckmortons, in Warwickshire. The house of
+this old Roman Catholic family, of course, had its hiding-holes,
+one of which remains to this day. Holbeach as well as Hagley
+Hall, the homes of the Litteltons, have been rebuilt. The latter
+was pulled down in the middle of the eighteenth century. Here
+it was that Stephen Littleton and Robert Winter were captured
+through the treachery of the cook. Grant's house, Norbrook, in
+Warwickshire, has also given way to a modern one.
+
+Ambrose Rookwood's seat, Coldham Hall, near Bury St. Edmunds,
+exists and retains its secret chapel and hiding-places. There are
+three of the latter; one of them, now a small withdrawing-room,
+is entered from the oak wainscoted hall. When the house was in
+the market a few years ago, the "priests' holes" duly figured in
+the advertisements with the rest of the apartments and offices.
+It read a little odd, this juxtaposition of modern conveniences
+with what is essentially romantic, and we simply mention the
+fact to show that the auctioneer is well aware of the monetary
+value of such things.
+
+At the time of the Gunpowder Conspiracy Rookwood rented Clopton
+Hall, near Stratford-on-Avon. This house also has its little
+chapel in the roof with adjacent "priests' holes," but many
+alterations have taken place from time to time. Who does not
+remember William Howitt's delightful description--or, to be correct,
+the description of a lady correspondent--of the old mansion before
+these restorations. "There was the old Catholic chapel," she wrote,
+"with a chaplain's room which had been walled up and forgotten till
+within the last few years. I went in on my hands and knees, for the
+entrance was very low. I recollect little in the chapel; but in
+the chaplain's room were old and I should think rare editions of
+many books, mostly folios. A large yellow paper copy of Dryden's
+_All for Love, or the World Well Lost_, date 1686, caught
+my eye, and is the only one I particularly remember."[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Howitt's _Visits to Remarkable Places_.]
+
+Huddington Court, the picturesque old home of the Winters (of
+whom Robert and Thomas lost their lives for their share in the
+Plot), stands a few miles from Droitwich. A considerable quantity
+of arms and ammunition were stored in the hiding-places here in
+1605 in readiness for general rising.
+
+[Illustration: HUDDINGTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE PORCH, HUDDINGTON COURT]
+
+Two other houses may be mentioned in connection with the memorable
+Plot--houses that were rented by the conspirators as convenient
+places of rendezvous an account of their hiding-places and masked
+exits for escape. One of them stood in the vicinity of the Strand,
+in the fields behind St. Clement's Inn. Father Gerard had taken
+it some time previous to the discovery of the Plot, and with
+Owen's aid some very secure hiding-places were arranged. This he
+had done with two or three other London residences, so that he
+and his brother priests might use them upon hazardous occasions;
+and to one of these he owed his life when the hue and cry after
+him was at its highest pitch. By removing from one to the other
+they avoided detection, though they had many narrow escapes. One
+priest was celebrating Mass when the Lord Mayor and constables
+suddenly burst in. But the surprise party was disappointed: nothing
+could be detected beyond the smoke of the extinguished candles;
+and in addition to the hole where the fugitive crouched there
+were two other secret chambers, neither of which was discovered.
+On another occasion a priest was left shut up in a wall; his
+friends were taken prisoners, and he was in danger of starvation,
+until at length he was rescued from his perilous position, carried
+to one of the other houses, and again immured in the vault or
+chimney.
+
+The other house was "White Webb's," on the confines of Enfield
+Chase. In the Record Office there is a document describing how,
+many Popish books and relics were discovered when the latter
+was searched. The building was full of trap-doors and secret
+passages. Some vestiges of the out-buildings of "White Webb's"
+may still be seen in a quaint little inn called "The King and
+Tinker."
+
+But of all the narrow escapes perhaps Father Blount's experiences
+at Scotney Castle were the most thrilling. This old house of
+the Darrells, situated on the border of Kent and Sussex, like
+Hindlip and Braddocks and most of the residences of the Roman
+Catholic gentry, contained the usual lurking-places for priests.
+The structure as it now stands is in the main modern, having
+undergone from time to time considerable alterations. A vivid
+account of Blount's hazardous escape here is preserved among the
+muniments at Stonyhurst--a transcript of the original formerly
+at St. Omers.
+
+One Christmas night towards the close of Elizabeth's reign the
+castle was seized by a party of priest-hunters, who, with their
+usual mode of procedure, locked up the members of the family securely
+before starting on their operations. In the inner quadrangle of
+the mansion was a very remarkable and ingenious device. A large
+stone of the solid wall could be pushed aside. Though of immense
+weight, it was so nicely balanced and adjusted that it required
+only a slight pressure upon one side to effect an entrance to
+the hiding-place within. Those who have visited the grounds at
+Chatsworth may remember a huge piece of solid rock which can be
+swung round in the same easy manner. Upon the approach of the
+enemy, Father Blount and his servant hastened to the courtyard
+and entered the vault; but in their hurry to close the weighty
+door a small portion of one of their girdles got jammed in, so
+that a part was visible from the outside. Fortunately for the
+fugitives, someone in the secret, in passing the spot, happened
+to catch sight of this tell-tale fragment and immediately cut
+it off; but as a particle still showed, they called gently to
+those within to endeavour to pull it in, which they eventually
+succeeded in doing.
+
+At this moment the pursuivants were at work in another part of
+the castle, but hearing the voice in the courtyard, rushed into
+it and commenced battering the walls, and at times upon the very
+door of the hiding-place, which would have given way had not
+those within put their combined weight against it to keep it
+from yielding. It was a pitchy dark night, and it was pelting
+with rain, so after a time, discouraged at finding nothing and
+wet to the skin, the soldiers put off further search until the
+following morning, and proceeded to dry and refresh themselves
+by the fire in the great hall.
+
+When all was at rest, Father Blount and his man, not caring to
+risk another day's hunting, cautiously crept forth bare-footed,
+and after managing to scale some high walls, dropt into the moat
+and swam across. And it was as well for them that they decided
+to quit their hiding-hole, for next morning it was discovered.
+
+The fugitives found temporary security at another recusant house
+a few miles from Scotney, possibly the old half-timber house of
+Twissenden, where a secret chapel and adjacent "priests' holes"
+are still pointed out.
+
+The original manuscript account of the search at Scotney was
+written by one of the Darrell family, who was in the castle at
+the time of the events recorded.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Morris's _Troubles of our Catholic
+Forefathers._]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+HARVINGTON, UFTON, AND INGATESTONE
+
+We will now go in search of some of the most curious hiding-places
+in existence. There are numerous known examples all over the
+country, and perhaps as many again exist, which will preserve
+their secret for ever. For more than three hundred years they
+have remained buried, and unless some accident reveals their
+locked-up mysteries, they will crumble away with the walls which
+contain them; unless, indeed, fire, the doom of so many of our
+ancestral halls, reduces them to ashes and swallows up the weird
+stories they might have told. In many cases not until an ancient
+building is pulled down are such strange discoveries made; but,
+alas! there are as many instances where structural alterations
+have wantonly destroyed these interesting historical landmarks.
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," HARVINGTON HALL]
+
+[Illustration: HARVINGTON HALL, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+Unaccounted-for spaces, when detected, are readily utilised.
+Passages are bodily run through the heart of many a secret device,
+with little veneration for the mechanical ingenuity that has
+been displayed in their construction. The builder of to-day,
+as a rule, knows nothing of and cares less, for such things,
+and so they are swept away without a thought. To such vandals
+we can only emphasise the remarks we have already made about
+the market value of a "priest-hole" nowadays.
+
+A little to the right of the Kidderminster road, and about two
+miles from the pretty village of Chaddesley Corbet, with its old
+timber houses and inn, stands the ghostly old hall of Harvington.
+The ancient red-brick pile rises out of its reed-grown moat with
+that air of mystery which age and seeming neglect only can impart.
+Coming upon it unexpectedly, especially towards dusk, one is
+struck with the strange, dignified melancholy pervading it. Surely
+Hood's _Haunted House_ or Poe's _House of Usher_ stands
+before us, and we cannot get away from the impression that a
+mystery is wrapped within its walls. Harvington Hall dates from
+the reign of Henry VIII., but it has undergone various changes,
+so it is difficult to affix any particular period or style to
+its architecture; indeed, it is this medley of different styles
+which forms such a poetically picturesque outline. In its day
+Harvington could doubtless hold its own with the finest mansions
+in the country, but now it is forgotten, deserted, and crumbling
+to pieces. Its very history appears to be lost to the world, as
+those who go to the county histories and general topographical
+works for information will find.
+
+Inside the mansion, like the exterior, the hand of decay is
+perceptible on every side; the rooms are ruined, the windows
+broken, the floors unsafe (excepting, by the way, a small portion
+of the building which is habitable). A ponderous broad oak staircase
+leads to a dismantled state-room, shorn of the principal part of
+its panelling, carving, and chimney-pieces.[1] Other desolate
+apartments retain their names as if in mockery; "the drawing-room,"
+"the chapel," "Lady Yates's nursery," and so forth. At the top
+of the staircase, however, we must look around carefully, for
+beneath the stairs is a remarkable hiding-place.
+
+[Footnote 1: Most of the interior fittings were removed to Coughton
+Court, Warwickshire.]
+
+With a slight stretch of the imagination we can see an indistinct
+form stealthily remove the floorboard of one of the stairs and
+creep beneath it. This particular step of a short flight running
+from the landing into a garret is, upon closer inspection, indeed
+movable, and beneath gapes a dark cavity about five feet square, on
+the floor of which still remains the piece of sedge matting whereon
+a certain Father Wall rested his aching limbs a few days prior to
+his capture and execution in August, 1679. The unfortunate man
+was taken at Rushock Court, a few miles away where he was traced
+after leaving Harvington. There is a communication between the
+hiding-place and "the banqueting-room" through, a small concealed
+aperture in the wainscoting large enough to admit of a tube,
+through which a straw could be thrust for the unhappy occupant
+to suck up any liquid his friends might be able to supply.
+
+In a gloomy corridor leading from the tower to "the reception-room"
+is another "priest's hole" beneath the floor, and entered by a
+trap-door artfully hidden in the boards; this black recess is
+some seven feet in depth, and can be made secure from within.
+Supposing the searchers had tracked a fugitive priest as far
+as this corridor, the odds are in favour that they would have
+passed over his head in their haste to reach the tower, where
+they would make sure, in their own minds at least, of discovering
+him. Again, here there is a communication with the outside world.
+An oblong aperture in the top oak beam of the entrance gateway
+to the house, measuring about four inches across, is the secret
+opening--small enough to escape the most inquisitive eye, yet
+large enough to allow of a written note to pass between the captive
+and those upon the alert watching his interests.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: N.B.--In addition to the above hiding-places at
+Harvington, one was discovered so recently as 1894; at least,
+so we have been informed. This was some years after our visit
+to the old Hall.]
+
+A subterranean passage is said to run under the moat from a former
+hiding-place, but this is doubtful; at any rate, there are no
+evidences of it nowadays.
+
+[Illustration: UFTON COURT, BERKSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: GARDEN TERRACE, UFTON COURT]
+
+Altogether, Harvington is far from cheerful, even to a pond hard
+by called "Gallows Pool"! The tragic legend associated with this
+is beyond the province of the present work, so we will bid adieu
+to this weird old hall, and turn our attention to another obscure
+house situated in the south-east corner of Berkshire.
+
+The curious, many-gabled mansion Ufton Court both from its secluded
+situation and quaint internal construction, appears to have been
+peculiarly suitable for the secretion of persecuted priests. Here
+are ample means for concealment and escape into the surrounding
+woods; and so carefully have the ingenious bolts and locks of
+the various hiding-places been preserved, that one would almost
+imagine that there was still actual necessity for their use in
+these matter-of-fact days!
+
+A remarkable place for concealment exists in one of the gables
+close to the ceiling. It is triangular in shape, and is opened
+by a spring-bolt that can be unlatched by pulling a string which
+runs through a tiny hole pierced in the framework of the door of
+the adjoining room. The door of the hiding-place swings upon a
+pivot, and externally is thickly covered with plaster, so as to
+resemble the rest of the wall, and is so solid that when sounded
+there is no hollow sound from the cavity behind, where, no doubt
+the crucifix and sacred vessels were secreted.
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE, UFTON COURT]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING PLACE, UFTON COURT]
+
+Not far off, in an upper garret, is a hiding-place in the thickness
+of the wall, large enough to contain a man standing upright.
+Like the other, the door, or entrance, forms part of the plaster
+wall, intersected by thick oak beams, into which it exactly fits,
+disguising any appearance of an opening. Again, in one of the
+passages of this curious old mansion are further evidences of
+the hardships to which Romish priests were subjected--a trap in
+the floor, which can only be opened by pulling up what exteriorly
+appears to be the head of one of the nails of the flooring; by
+raising this a spring is released and a trap-door opened, revealing
+a large hole with a narrow ladder leading down into it. When
+this hiding-place was discovered in 1830, its contents were
+significant--_viz._ a crucifix and two ancient petronels.
+Apartments known as "the chapel" and "the priest's vestry" are
+still pointed out. The walls throughout the house appear to be
+intersected with passages and masked spaces, and old residents
+claim to have worked their way by these means right through from
+the garrets to the basement, though now the several hiding-places
+do not communicate one with another. There are said to be no
+less than twelve places of concealment in various parts of the
+building. A shaft in the cellar is supposed to be one of the
+means of exit from "the dining-room," and at the back of the
+house a subterranean passage may still be traced a considerable
+distance under the terrace.
+
+[Illustration: INGATESTONE HALL, ESSEX]
+
+[Illustration: INGATESTONE HALL]
+
+An interesting discovery was made some years ago at Ingatestone
+Hall, Essex, the ancient seat of the Petres. The late Rev. Canon
+Last, who had resided there as private chaplain for over sixty
+years, described to us the incidents of this curious "find," to
+which he was an eye-witness. Some of the floor-boards in the
+south-east corner of a small ante-room adjoining what was once
+"the host's bedroom," facing the south front, broke away, rotten
+with age, while some children were playing there. These being
+removed, a second layer of boards was brought to light within
+a foot of the old flooring, and in this a trap-door was found
+which, when opened, discovered a large "priest's hole," measuring
+fourteen feet long, ten feet high, and two feet wide. A twelve-step
+ladder led down into it, and the floor being on a level with the
+basement of the house was covered with a layer of dry sand to
+the depth of nearly a foot, so as to absorb any moisture from
+the ground.[1] In the sand a few bones of a bird were found,
+possibly the remains of food supplied to some unfortunate priest.
+Those who climb down into this hole will find much that is
+interesting to repay them their trouble. From the wall projects
+a candle-holder, rudely modelled out of clay. An examination of
+the brick-work in the interior of the "priest's hole" proves
+it to be of later construction than the rest of the house (which
+dates from the early part of the sixteenth century), so in all
+likelihood "Little John" was the manufacturer.
+
+[Footnote 1: At Moorcroft House, near Hillingdon, Middlesex,
+now modernised and occupied as a private lunatic asylum, ten
+priests were once concealed for four days in a hiding-place,
+the floor of which was covered some inches in water. This was
+one of the many comforts of a "priest's hole"!]
+
+Standing in the same position as when first opened, and supported
+by two blocks of oak, is an old chest or packing-case made of
+yew, covered with leather, and bound with bands of iron, wherein
+formerly the vestments, utensils, etc., for the Mass were kept.
+Upon it, in faded and antiquated writing, was the following
+direction: "For the Right Hon. the Lady Petre at Ingatestone
+Hall, in Essex." The Petres had quitted the old mansion as a
+residence for considerably over a century when the discovery was
+made.
+
+[Illustration: PRIEST'S HOLE, SAWSTON HALL]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+COMPTON WINYATES, SALFORD PRIOR, SAWSTON, OXBURGH, PARHAM, PAXHILL,
+ETC.
+
+Of all the ancient mansions in the United Kingdom, and there is
+still, happily, a large selection, none perhaps is so picturesque and
+quaintly original in its architecture as the secluded Warwickshire
+house Compton Winyates. The general impression of its vast
+complication of gable ends and twisted chimneys is that some
+enchanted palace has found its way out of one of the fairy-tale
+books of our early youth and concealed itself deep down in a
+sequestered hollow among the woods and hills. We say concealed
+itself, for indeed it is no easy matter to find it, for anything
+in the shape of a road seems rather to lead _away from_,
+than _to_ it; indeed, there is no direct road from anywhere,
+and if we are fortunate enough to alight upon a footpath, that
+also in a very short time fades away into oblivion! So solitary
+also is the valley in which the mansion lies and so shut in with
+thick clustering trees, that one unacquainted with the locality
+might pass within fifty yards of it over and over again without
+observing a trace of it. When, however, we do discover the beautiful
+old structure, we are well repaid for what trouble we may have
+encountered. To locate the spot within a couple of miles, we
+may state that Brailes is its nearest village; the nearest town
+is Banbury, some nine miles away to the east.
+
+Perhaps if we were to analyse the peculiar charm this venerable
+pile conveys, we should find that it is the wonderful _colour_,
+the harmonies of greys and greens and reds which pervade its
+countless chimney clusters and curious step-gables. We will be
+content, however, with the fascinating results, no matter how
+accomplished, without inquiring into the why and wherefore; and
+pondering over the possibilities of the marvellous in such a
+building see, if the interior can carry out such a supposition.
+
+[Illustration: SCOTNEY HALL, SUSSEX]
+
+[Illustration: COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE]
+
+Wending our way to the top of the house, past countless old-world
+rooms and corridors, we soon discover evidences of the days of
+priest-hunting. A "Protestant" chapel is on the ground floor
+(with a grotesquely carved screen of great beauty), but up in
+the roof we discover another--a "Popish" chapel. From this there
+are numerous ways of escape, by staircases and passages leading
+in all directions, for even in the almost impenetrable seclusion
+of this house the profoundest secrecy was necessary for those
+who wished to celebrate the rites of the forbidden religion.
+Should the priest be surprised and not have time to descend one
+of the many staircases and effect his escape by the ready means
+in the lower part of the house, there are secret closets between
+the timber beams of the roof and the wainscot into which he could
+creep.
+
+Curious rooms run along each side in the roof round the quadrangle,
+called "the barracks," into which it would be possible to pack
+away a whole regiment of soldiers. Not far away are "the false
+floors," a typical Amy Robsart death-trap!
+
+A place of security here, once upon a time, could only be reached
+by a ladder; later, however, it was made easier of access by a
+dark passage, but it was as secure as ever from intrusion. The
+fugitive had the ready means of isolating himself by removing
+a large portion of the floor-boards; supposing, therefore, his
+lurking-place had been traced, he had only to arrange this deadly
+gap, and his pursuers would run headlong to their fate.
+
+Many other strange rooms there are, not the least interesting
+of which is a tiny apartment away from everywhere called "the
+Devil's chamber," and another little chamber whose window is
+_invariably found open in the morning, though securely fastened
+on the previous night!_
+
+Various finds have been made from time to time at Compton Winyates.
+Not many years ago a bricked-up space was found in a wall containing
+a perfect skeleton!--at another an antique box full of papers
+belonging to the past history of the family (the Comptons) was
+discovered in a secret cavity beneath one of the windows.
+
+[Illustration: MINSTREL'S GALLERY, COMPTON WINYATES]
+
+The "false floors" to which we have alluded suggests a hiding-place
+that was put to very practical use by two old maiden ladies some
+years ago at an ancient building near Malvern, Pickersleigh Court.
+Each night before retiring to rest some floor-boards of a passage,
+originally the entrance to a "priest's hole," were removed. This
+passage led to their bedroom, so that they were protected much in
+the same way as the fugitive at Compton Winyates, by a yawning
+gap. Local tradition does not record how many would-be burglars
+were trapped in this way, but it is certain that should anyone
+ever have ventured along that passage, they would have been
+precipitated with more speed than ceremony into a cellar below.
+Pickersleigh, it may be pointed out, is erroneously shown in
+connection with the wanderings of Charles II. after the battle
+Worcester.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See _The Flight of the King._]
+
+Salford Prior Hall (otherwise known as "the Nunnery," or Abbots
+Salford), not far from Evesham, is another mansion remarkable
+for its picturesqueness as well as for its capacity for hiding.
+It not only has its Roman Catholic chapel, but a resident priest
+holds services there to this day. Up in the garret is the "priest's
+hole," ready, it would seem, for some present emergency, so well
+is it concealed and in such perfect working order; and even when
+its position is pointed out, nothing is to be seen but the most
+innocent-looking of cupboards. By removing a hidden peg, however,
+the whole back of it, shelves and all, swings backwards into a
+dismal recess some four feet in depth. This deceitful swing door
+may be secured on the inside by a stout wooden bolt provided
+for that purpose.
+
+[Illustration: COMPTON WINYATES, WARWICKSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: SAWSTON HALL, CAMBRIDGESHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: PICKERSLEIGH COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: SALFORD PRIOR HALL, WARWICKSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: SALFORD PRIOR HALL]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE, SALFORD PRIOR (SHEWING ENTRANCE)]
+
+Another hiding place as artfully contrived and as little changed
+since the day it was manufactured is one at Sawston, the ancestral
+seat of the old family of Huddleston. Sawston Hall is a typical
+Elizabethan building. The one which preceded it was burnt to the
+ground by the adherents of Lady Jane Grey, as the Huddleston
+of that day, upon the death of King Edward VI., received his
+sister Mary under his protection, and contrived her escape to
+Framlingham Castle, where she was carried in disguise, riding
+pillion behind a servant.
+
+The secret chamber, as at Harvington, is on the top landing of
+the staircase, and the entrance is so cleverly arranged that
+it slants into the masonry of a circular tower without showing
+the least perceptible sign from the exterior of a space capable
+of holding a baby, far less a man. A particular board in the
+landing is raised, and beneath it, in a corner of the cavity,
+is found a stone slab containing a circular aperture, something
+after the manner of our modern urban receptacles for coal. From
+this hole a tunnel slants downwards at an angle into the adjacent
+wall, where there is an apartment some twelve feet in depth,
+and wide enough to contain half a dozen people--that is to say,
+not bulky ones, for the circular entrance is far from large.
+Blocks of oak fixed upon the inside of the movable floor-board
+fit with great nicety into their firm oak sockets in the beams,
+which run at right angles and support the landing, so that the
+opening is so massive and firm that, unless pointed out, the
+particular floor-board could never be detected, and when secured
+from the inside would defy a battering-ram.
+
+[Illustration: OXBURGH HALL, NORFOLK]
+
+The Huddlestons, or rather their connections the Thornboroughs,
+have an old house at Leyburn, in Yorkshire, named "The Grove,"
+which also contained its hiding-place, but unfortunately this is
+one of those instances where alterations and modern conveniences
+have destroyed what can never be replaced. The priest, Father
+John Huddleston (who aided King Charles II. to escape, and who,
+it will be remembered, was introduced to that monarch's death-bed
+by way of a _secret staircase_ in the palace of Whitehall),
+lived in this house some time during the seventeenth century.
+
+One of the most ingenious hiding-places extant is to be seen
+at Oxburgh Hall, near Stoke Ferry, the grand old moated mansion
+of the ancient Bedingfield family. In solidity and compactness
+it is unique. Up in one of the turrets of the entrance gateway
+is a tiny closet, the floor of which is composed of brickwork
+fixed into a wooden frame. Upon pressure being applied to one
+side of this floor, the opposite side heaves up with a groan at
+its own weight. Beneath lies a hollow, seven feet square, where
+a priest might lie concealed with the gratifying knowledge that,
+however the ponderous trap-door be hammered from above, there
+would be no tell-tale hollowness as a response. Having bolted
+himself in, he might to all intents and purposes be imbedded in
+a rock (though truly a toad so situated is not always safe from
+intrusion). Three centuries have rolled away and thirteen sovereigns
+have reigned since the construction of this hiding-place, but the
+mechanism of this masterpiece of ingenuity remains as perfect
+as if it had been made yesterday! Those who may be privileged
+with permission to inspect the interesting hall will find other
+surprises where least expected. An oak-panelled passage upon the
+basement of the aforesaid entrance gateway contains a secret
+door that gives admittance into the living-rooms in the most
+eccentric manner.
+
+A priest's hole beneath the floor of a small oratory adjoining
+"the chapel" (now a bedroom) at Borwick Hall, Lancashire, has an
+opening devised much in the same fashion as that at Oxburgh. By
+leaning his weight upon a certain portion of the boards, a fugitive
+could slide into a convenient gap, while the floor would adjust
+itself above his head and leave no trace of his where-abouts.
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, PARHAM HALL, SUSSEX]
+
+Window-seats not uncommonly formed the entrance to holes beneath
+the level of the floor. In the long gallery of Parham Hall, Sussex,
+an example of this may be seen. It is not far from "the chapel,"
+and the officiating priest in this instance would withdraw a
+panel whose position is now occupied by a door; but the entrance
+to the hiding-place within the projecting bay of the window is
+much the same as it ever was. After the failure of the Babington
+conspiracy one Charles Paget was concealed here for some days.
+
+The Tudor house of Tusmore, in Oxfordshire, also had a secret
+chamber, approached through a fixed settle in "the parlour" window.
+A tradition in the neighbourhood says that the great fish-pond
+near the site of the old house was dug by a priest and his servant
+in the days of religious persecution, constituting their daily
+occupation for twelve years!
+
+Paxhill, in Sussex, the ancient seat of the Bordes, has a priest's
+hole behind a window-shutter, and it is large enough to hold several
+persons; there is another large hiding-hole in the ceiling of a
+room on the ground floor, which is reached through a trap-door
+in the floor above. It is provided with a stone bench.
+
+In castles and even ecclesiastical buildings sections of massive
+stone columns have been found to rotate and reveal a hole in an
+adjacent wall--even an altar has occasionally been put to use
+for concealing purposes. At Naworth Castle, for instance, in
+"Lord William's Tower," there is an oratory behind the altar, in
+which fugitives not only could be hidden but could see anything
+that transpired in its vicinity. In Chichester Cathedral there is
+a room called Lollards' Prison, which is approached by a sliding
+panel in the old consistory-room situated over the south porch.
+The manor house of Great Chalfield, in Wiltshire, has a unique
+device by which any suspected person could be watched. The eye
+of a stone mask in the masonry is hollowed out and through this
+a suspicious lord of the manor could, unseen, be a witness to
+any treachery on the part of his retainers or guests.
+
+[Illustration: PAXHILL, SUSSEX]
+
+[Illustration: CLEEVE PRIOR MANOR HOUSE, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+The old moated hall Baddesley Clinton, in Warwickshire, the ancient
+seat of the Ferrers, has a stone well or shaft near "the chapel."
+There were formerly projections or steps by which a fugitive
+could reach a secret passage extending round nearly two sides
+of the house to a small water-gate by the moat, where a boat
+was kept in readiness. Adjoining the "banqueting-room" on the
+east side of the building is a secret chamber six feet square
+with a bench all round it. It is now walled up, but the narrow
+staircase, behind the wainscoting, leading up to it is unaltered.
+
+Cleeve Prior Manor House, in Worcestershire (though close upon
+the border of Warwickshire)) famous for its unique yew avenue,
+has a priest's hole, a cramped space five feet by two, in which
+it is necessary to lie down. As at Ingatestone, it is below the
+floor of a small chamber adjoining the principal bedroom, and
+is entered by removing one of the floor-boards.
+
+Wollas Hall, an Elizabethan mansion on Bredon Hill, near Pershore
+(held uninterruptedly by the Hanford family since the sixteenth
+century), has a chapel in the upper part of the house, and a
+secret chamber, or priest's hole, provided with a diminutive
+fire-place. When the officiating priest was about to celebrate
+Mass, it was the custom here to spread linen upon the hedges as
+a sign to those in the adjacent villages who wished to attend.
+
+A hiding-place at Treago, Herefordshire (an unique specimen of
+a thirteenth-century fortified mansion) inhabited by the Mynor
+family for more than four hundred years), has quite luxurious
+accommodation--a sleeping-place and a reading-desk. It is called
+"Pope's Hole." The walls on the south-east side of the house are
+of immense thickness, and there are many indications of secret
+passages within them.
+
+[Illustration: BADDESLEY CLINTON, WARWICKSHIRE]
+
+Some fifty years ago a hiding-hole was opened in a chimney adjoining
+"the chapel" of Lydiate Hall, Lancashire; and since then one
+was discovered behind the rafters of the roof. Another ancient
+house close by contained a priest's hole where were found some
+religious books and an old carved oak chair.
+
+Myddleton Lodge, near Ilkley, had a secret chapel in the roof,
+which is now divided up into several apartments. In the grounds
+is to be seen a curious maze of thickly planted evergreens in
+the shape of a cross. From the fact that at one end remain three
+wooden crosses, there is but little doubt that at the time of
+religious persecution the privacy of the maze was used for secret
+worship.
+
+When Slindon House, Sussex, was undergoing some restorations, a
+"priest's hole" communicating with the roof was discovered. It
+contained some ancient devotional books, and against the walls
+were hung stout leathern straps, by which a person could let
+himself down.
+
+The internal arrangements at Plowden Hall, Shropshire, give one
+a good idea of the feeling of insecurity that must have been
+so prevalent in those "good old days." Running from the top of
+the house there is in the thickness of the wall, a concealed
+circular shoot about a couple of feet in diameter, through which
+a person could lower himself, if necessary, to the ground floor
+by the aid of a rope. Here also, beneath the floor-boards of a
+cupboard in one of the bedrooms, is a concealed chamber with a
+fixed shelf, presumably provided to act as a sort of table for
+the unfortunate individual who was forced to occupy the narrow
+limits of the room. Years before this hiding-place was opened
+to the light of day (in the course of some alterations to the
+house), its existence and actual position was well known; still,
+strange to say, the way into it had never been discovered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+KING-HUNTING: BOSCOBEL, MOSELEY, TRENT, AND HEALE
+
+When the Civil War was raging, many a defeated cavalier owed
+his preservation to the "priests' holes" and secret chambers
+of the old Roman Catholic houses all over the country. Did not
+Charles II. himself owe his life to the conveniences offered
+at Boscobel, Moseley, Trent, and Heale? We have elsewhere[1]
+gone minutely into the young king's hair-breadth adventures;
+but the story is so closely connected with the present subject
+that we must record something of his sojourn at these four old
+houses, as from an historical point of view they are of exceptional
+interest, if one but considers how the order of things would have
+been changed had either of these hiding-places been discovered
+at the time "his Sacred Majesty" occupied them. It is vain to
+speculate upon the probabilities; still, there is no ignoring
+the fact that had Charles been captured he would have shared
+the fate of his father.
+
+[Footnote 1: See _The Flight of the King_.]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE BENEATH "THE CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL, SALOP]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE IN "THE GARRET" OR "CHAPEL,"
+BOSCOBEL]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE IN "THE SQUIRE'S BEDROOM," BOSCOBEL]
+
+[Illustration: SECRET PANEL, TRENT HOUSE, SOMERSETSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: BOSCOBEL, SALOP]
+
+[Illustration: HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE, TRENT HOUSE]
+
+[Illustration: TRENT HOUSE IN 1864]
+
+[Illustration: HEALE HOUSE, WILTSHIRE]
+
+
+After the defeat of Wigan, the gallant Earl of Derby sought refuge
+at the isolated, wood-surrounded hunting-lodge of Boscobel, and
+after remaining there concealed for two days, proceeded to Gatacre
+Park, now rebuilt, but then and for long after famous for its
+secret chambers. Here he remained hidden prior to the disastrous
+battle of Worcester.
+
+Upon the close of that eventful third of September, 1651, the
+Earl, at the time that the King and his advisers knew not which
+way to turn for safety, recounted his recent experiences, and
+called attention to the loyalty of the brothers Penderel. It
+was speedily resolved, therefore, to hasten northwards towards
+Brewood Forest, upon the borders of Staffordshire and Salop.
+"As soon as I was disguised," says Charles, "I took with me a
+country fellow whose name was Richard Penderell.... He was a
+Roman Catholic, and I chose to trust them [the Penderells] because
+I knew they had hiding-holes for priests that I thought I might
+make use of in case of need." Before taking up his quarters in
+the house, however, the idea of escaping into Wales occured to
+Charles, so, when night set in, he quitted Boscobel Wood, where
+he had been hidden all the day, and started on foot with his
+rustic guide in a westerly direction with the object of getting
+over the river Severn, but various hardships and obstacles induced
+Penderel to suggest a halt at a house at Madeley, near the river,
+where they might rest during the day and continue the journey
+under cover of darkness on the following night; the house further
+had the attraction of "priests' holes." "We continued our way on
+to the village upon the Severn," resumes the King, "where the
+fellow told me there was an honest gentleman, one Mr. Woolfe,
+that lived in that town, where I might be with great safety, for
+he had hiding-holes for priests.... So I came into the house a
+back way, where I found Mr. Woolfe, an old gentleman, who told me
+he was very sorry to see me there, because there was two companies
+of the militia foot at that time in arms in the town, and kept a
+guard at the ferry, to examine everybody that came that way in
+expectation of catching some that might be making their escape
+that way; and that he durst not put me into any of the hiding-holes
+of his house, because they had been discovered, and consequently,
+if any search should be made, they would certainly repair to
+these holes, and that therefore I had no other way of security
+but to go into his barn and there lie behind his corn and hay."
+
+[Illustration: MADELEY COURT, SHROPSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: THE COURTYARD, MADELEY COURT]
+
+[Illustration: MADELEY COURT]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO "PRIEST'S HOLE," THE UPPER HOUSE, MADELEY]
+
+The Madeley "priest's hole" which was considered unsafe is still
+extant. It is in one of the attics of "the Upper House," but
+the entrance is now very palpable. Those who are curious enough
+to climb up into this black hole will discover a rude wooden
+bench within it--a luxury compared with some hiding-places!
+
+The river Severn being strictly guarded everywhere, Charles and
+his companions retraced their steps the next night towards Boscobel.
+
+After a day spent up in the branches of the famous _Royal Oak_,
+the fugitive monarch made his resting-place the secret chamber
+behind the wainscoting of what is called "the Squire's Bedroom."
+There is another hiding-place, however, hard by in a garret which
+may have been the one selected. The latter lies beneath the floor
+of this garret, or "Popish chapel," as it was once termed. At the
+top of a flight of steps leading to it is a small trap-door, and
+when this is removed a step-ladder may be seen leading down into
+the recess.[1] The other place behind the wainscot is situated
+in a chimney stack and is more roomy in its proportions. Here
+again is an inner hiding-place, entered through a trap-door in
+the floor, with a narrow staircase leading to an exit in the
+basement. So much for Boscobel.
+
+[Footnote 1: The hiding-place in the garret measures about 5 feet
+2 inches in depth by 3-1/2 or 4-1/2 feet in width.]
+
+Moseley Hall is thus referred to by the King: "I... sent Penderell's
+brother to Mr. Pitchcroft's [Whitgreaves] to know whether my
+Lord Wilmot was there or no, and had word brought me by him at
+night that my lord was there, that there was a _very secure
+hiding-hole_ in Mr. Pitchcroft's house, and that he desired
+me to come thither to him."
+
+It was while at Moseley the King had a very narrow escape. A
+search-party arrived on the scene and demanded admittance. Charles's
+host himself gives the account of this adventure: "In the afternoon
+[the King] reposing himself on his bed in the parlour chamber
+and inclineing to sleep, as I was watching at the window, one of
+the neighbours I saw come running in, who told the maid soldiers
+were comeing to search, who thereupon presentlie came running to
+the staires head, and cried, 'Soldiers, soldiers are coming,'
+which his majestie hearing presentlie started out of his bedd and
+run to _his privacie, where I secured him the best I could_,
+and then leaving him, went forth into the street to meet the
+soldiers who were comeing to search, who as soon as they saw
+and knew who I was were readie to pull mee to pieces, and take
+me away with them, saying I was come from the Worcester fight;
+but after much dispute with them, and by the neighbours being
+informed of their false information that I was not there, being
+very ill a great while, they let mee goe; but till I saw them
+clearly all gone forth of the town I returned not; but as soon
+as they were, I returned to release him and did acquaint him
+with my stay, which hee thought long, and then hee began to bee
+very chearful again.
+
+In the interim, whilst I was disputing with the soldiers, one
+of them called Southall came in the ffould and asked a smith,
+as hee was shooing horses there, if he could tell where the King
+was, and he should have "a thousand pounds for his payns...."
+This Southall was a great priest-catcher.
+
+[Illustration: "PRIEST'S HOLE," MOSELEY HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE]
+
+The hiding-place is located beneath the floor of a cupboard,
+adjoining the quaint old panelled bedroom the King occupied while
+he was at Moseley. Even "the merry monarch" must have felt depressed
+in such a dismal hole as this, and we can picture his anxious
+expression, as he sat upon the rude seat of brick which occupies
+one end of it, awaiting the result of the sudden alarm. The cupboard
+orginally was screened with wainscoting, a panel of which could
+be opened and closed by a spring. Family tradition also says
+there was a outlet from the hiding-place in a brew-house chimney.
+Situated in a gable end of the building, near the old chapel,
+in a garret, there is another "priest's hole" large enough only
+to admit of a person lying down full length.
+
+Before the old seat of the Whitgreaves was restored some fifteen
+or twenty years ago it was one of the most picturesque half-timber
+houses, not only in Staffordshire, but in England. It had remained
+practically untouched since the day above alluded to (September
+9th, 1651).
+
+Before reaching Trent, in Somersetshire, the much sought-for king
+had many hardships to undergo and many strange experiences. We
+must, however, confine our remarks to those of the old buildings
+which offered him an asylum that could boast a hiding-place.
+
+Trent House was one of these. The very fact that it originally
+belonged to the recusant Gerard family is sufficient evidence.
+From the Gerards it passed by marriage to the Wyndhams, who were
+in residence in the year we speak of. That his Majesty spent much
+of his time in the actual hiding-place at Trent is very doubtful.
+Altogether he was safely housed here for over a fortnight, and
+during that time doubtless occasional alarms drove him, as at
+Moseley, into his sanctuary; but a secluded room was set apart
+for his use, where he had ample space to move about, and from
+which he could reach his hiding-place at a moment's notice. The
+black oak panelling and beams of this cosy apartment, with its
+deep window recesses, readily carries the mind back to the time
+when its royal inmate wiled away the weary hours by cooking his
+meals and amusing himself as best he could--indeed a hardship
+for one, such as he, so fond of outdoor exercise.
+
+Close to the fireplace are two small, square secret panels, at one
+time used for the secretion of sacred books or vessels, valuables
+or compromising deeds, but pointed out to visitors as a kind of
+buttery hatch through which Charles II. received his food. The
+King by day, also according to local tradition, is said to have
+kept up communication with his friends in the house by means
+of a string suspended in the kitchen chimney. That apartment is
+immediately beneath, and has a fireplace of huge dimensions.
+An old Tudor doorway leading into this part of the house is said
+to have been screened from observation by a load of hay.
+
+Now for the hiding-place. Between this and "my Lady Wyndham's
+chamber" (the aforesaid panelled room that was kept exclusively
+for Charles's use) was a small ante-room, long since demolished,
+its position being now occupied by a rudely constructed staircase,
+from the landing of which the hiding-place is now entered. The
+small secret apartment is approached through a triangular hole
+in the wall, something after the fashion of that at Ufton Court;
+but when one has squeezed through this aperture he will find
+plenty of room to stretch his limbs. The hole, which was close
+up against the rafters of the roof of the staircase landing,
+when viewed from the inside of the apartment, is situated at the
+base of a blocked-up stone Tudor doorway. Beneath the boards of
+the floor--as at Boscobel and Moseley--is an inner hiding-place,
+from which it was formerly possible to find an exit through the
+brew-house chimney.
+
+It was from Trent House that Charles visited the Dorsetshire
+coast in the hopes of getting clear of England; but a complication
+of misadventures induced him to hasten back with all speed to
+the pretty little village of Trent, to seek once, more shelter
+beneath the roof of the Royalist Colonel Wyndham.
+
+To resume the King's account:--
+
+"As soon as we came to Frank Windham's I sent away presently to
+Colonel Robert Philips [Phelips], who lived then at Salisbury, to
+see what he could do for the getting me a ship; which he undertook
+very willingly, and had got one at Southampton, but by misfortune
+she was amongst others prest to transport their soldiers to Jersey,
+by which she failed us also.
+
+"Upon this, I sent further into Sussex, where Robin Philips knew
+one Colonel Gunter, to see whether he could hire a ship anywhere
+upon that coast. And not thinking it convenient for me to stay
+much longer at Frank Windham's (where I had been in all about a
+fortnight, and was become known to very many), I went directly
+away to a widow gentlewoman's house, one Mrs. Hyde, some four
+or five miles from Salisbury, where I came into the house just
+as it was almost dark, with Robin Philips only, not intending
+at first to make myself known. But just as I alighted at the
+door, Mrs. Hyde knew me, though she had never seen me but once
+in her life, and that was with the king, my father, in the army,
+when we marched by Salisbury some years before, in the time of
+the war; but she, being a discreet woman, took no notice at that
+time of me, I passing only for a friend of Robin Philips', by
+whose advice I went thither.
+
+"At supper there was with us Frederick Hyde, since a judge, and
+his sister-in-law, a widow, Robin Philips, myself, and Dr. Henshaw
+[Henchman], since Bishop of London, whom I had appointed to meet
+me there.
+
+"While we were at slipper, I observed Mrs. Hyde and her brother
+Frederick to look a little earnestly at me, which led me to believe
+they might know me. But I was not at all startled by it, it having
+been my purpose to let her know who I was; and, accordingly,
+after supper Mrs. Hyde came to me, and I discovered myself to
+her, who told me she had a very safe place to hide me in, till
+we knew whether our ship was ready or no. But she said it was
+not safe for her to trust anybody but herself and her sister,
+and therefore advised me to take my horse next morning and make
+as if I quitted the house, and return again about night; for she
+would order it so that all her servants and everybody should
+be out of the house but herself and her sister, whose name I
+remember not.
+
+"So Robin Philips and I took our horses and went as far as
+Stonehenge; and there we staid looking upon the stones for some
+time, and returned back again to Hale [Heale] (the place where
+Mrs. Hyde lived) about the hour she appointed; where I went up
+into the hiding-hole, that was very convenient and safe, and
+staid there all alone (Robin Philips then going away to Salisbury)
+some four or five days."
+
+Both exterior and interior of Heale House as it stands to-day
+point to a later date than 1651, though there are here and there
+vestiges of architecture anterior to the middle of the seventeenth
+century; the hiding-place, however, is not among these, and looks
+nothing beyond a very deep cupboard adjoining one of the bedrooms,
+with nothing peculiar to distinguish it from ordinary cupboards.
+
+But for all its modern innovations there is something about Heale
+which suggests a house with a history. Whether it is its environment
+of winding river and ancient cedar-trees, its venerable stables
+and imposing entrance gate, or the fact that it is one of those
+distinguished houses that have saved the life of an English king,
+we will not undertake to fathom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+CAVALIER-HUNTING, ETC.
+
+An old mansion in the precincts of the cathedral at Salisbury is
+said to have been a favourite hiding-place for fugitive cavaliers
+at the time of the Civil War. There is an inn immediately opposite
+this house, just outside the close, where the landlord (formerly a
+servant to the family who lived in the mansion) during the troublous
+times acted as a secret agent for those who were concealed, and
+proved invaluable by conveying messages and in other ways aiding
+those Royalists whose lives were in danger.
+
+[Illustration: SECRET PANEL AT SALISBURY]
+
+There are still certain "priests' holes" in the house, but the most
+interesting hiding-place is situated in the most innocent-looking
+of summer-houses in the grounds. The interior of this little
+structure is wainscoted round with large panels like most of
+the summer-houses, pavilions, or music-rooms of the seventeenth
+century, and nothing uncommon or mysterious was discovered until
+some twenty-five years ago. By the merest accident one of the
+panels was found to open, revealing what appeared to be an ordinary
+cupboard with shelves. Further investigations, however, proved
+its real object. By sliding one of the shelves out of the grooves
+into which it is fixed, a very narrow, disguised door, a little
+over a foot in width, in the side of the cupboard and in the
+thickness of the wall can be opened. This again reveals a narrow
+passage, or staircase, leading up to the joists above the ceiling,
+and thence to a recess situated immediately behind the carved
+ornamental facing over the entrance door of the summer-house.
+In this there is a narrow chink or peep-hole, from which the
+fugitive could keep on the look-out either for danger or for the
+friendly Royalist agent of the "King's Arms."
+
+When it was first discovered there were evidences of its last
+occupant--_viz._ a Jacobean horn tumbler, a mattress, and a
+handsomely worked velvet pillow; the last two articles, provided
+no doubt for the comfort of some hunted cavalier, upon being
+handled, fell to pieces. It may be mentioned that the inner door
+of the cupboard can be securely fastened from the inside by an
+iron hook and staple for that purpose.
+
+Hewitt, mine host of the "King's Arms," was not idle at the time
+transactions were in progress to transfer Charles II. from Trent
+to Heale, and received within his house Lord Wilmot, Colonel
+Phelips, and other of the King's friends who were actively engaged
+in making preparations for the memorable journey. This old inn,
+with its oak-panelled rooms and rambling corridors, makes a very
+suitable neighbour to the more dignified old brick mansion opposite,
+with which it is so closely associated.
+
+[Illustration: SECRET CHAMBER, CHASTLETON, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: OLD SUMMER HOUSE, SALISBURY (SHEWING CARVING IN
+WHICH IS A PEEP-HOLE FOR HIDING-PLACE BEHIND)]
+
+Many are the exciting stories related of the defeated Royalists,
+especially after the Worcester fight. One of them, Lord Talbot,
+hastened to his paternal home of Longford, near Newport (Salop),
+and had just time to conceal himself ere his pursuers arrived,
+who, finding his horse saddled, concluded that the rider could
+not be far off. They therefore searched the house minutely for
+four or five days, and the fugitive would have perished for want
+of food, had not one of the servants contrived, at great personal
+risk, to pay him nocturnal visits and supply him with nourishment.
+
+The grey old Jacobean mansion Chastleton preserves in its
+oak-panelled hall the sword and portrait of the gallant cavalier
+Captain Arthur Jones, who, narrowly escaping from the battlefield,
+speeded homewards with some of Cromwell's soldiers at his heels;
+and his wife, a lady of great courage, had scarcely concealed
+him in the secret chamber when the enemy arrived to search the
+house.
+
+Little daunted, the lady, with great presence of mind, made no
+objection whatever--indeed, facilitated their operations by
+personally conducting them over the mansion. Here, as in so many
+other instances, the secret room was entered from the principal
+bedroom, and in inspecting the latter the suspicion of the Roundheads
+was in some way or another aroused, so here they determined to
+remain for the rest of the night.
+
+An ample supper and a good store of wine (which, by the way, had
+been carefully drugged) was sent up to the unwelcome visitors,
+and in due course the drink effected its purpose--its victims
+dropped off one by one, until the whole party lay like logs upon
+the floor. Mrs. Arthur Jones then crept in, having even to step
+over the bodies of the inanimate Roundheads, released her husband,
+and a fresh horse being in readiness, by the time the effects
+of the wine had worn off the Royalist captain was far beyond
+their reach.
+
+The secret room is located in the front of the building, and has
+now been converted into a very, comfortable little dressing-room,
+preserving its original oak panelling, and otherwise but little
+altered, with the exception of the entry to it, which is now
+an ordinary door.
+
+Chastleton is the beau ideal of an ancestral hall. The grand
+old gabled house, with its lofty square towers, its Jacobean
+entrance gateway and dovecote, and the fantastically clipped
+box-trees and sun-dial of its quaint old-fashioned garden, possesses
+a charm which few other ancient mansions can boast, and this
+charm lies in its perfectly unaltered state throughout, even
+to the minutest detail. Interior and exterior alike, everything
+presents an appearance exactly as it did when it was erected
+and furnished by Walter Jones, Esquire, between the years 1603
+and 1630. The estate originally was held by Robert Catesby, who
+sold the house to provide funds for carrying on the notorious
+conspiracy.
+
+Among its most valued relics is a Bible given by Charles I. when
+on the scaffold to Bishop Juxon, who lived at Little Compton manor
+house, near Chastleton. This Bible was always used by the bishop
+at the Divine services, which at one time were held in the great
+hall of the latter house. Other relics of the martyr-king used
+to be at Little Compton--_viz._ some beams of the Whitehall
+scaffold, whose exact position has occasioned so much controversy.
+The velvet armchair and footstool used by the King during his
+memorable trial were also preserved here, but of late years have
+found a home at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, some six miles away. Visitors
+to that interesting collection shown in London some years ago--the
+Stuart Exhibition--may remember this venerable armchair of such
+sad association.
+
+[Illustration: CHASTLETON]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE DOOR, CHASTLETON]
+
+It may be here stated that after Charles I.'s execution, Juxon
+lived for a time in Sussex at an old mansion still extant, Albourne
+Place, not far from Hurstpierpoint. We mention this from the
+fact that a priest's hole was discovered there some few years
+ago. It was found in opening a communication between two rooms,
+and originally it could only be reached by steps projecting from
+the inner walls of a chimney.
+
+Not many miles from Albourne stands Street Place, an Elizabethan
+Sussex house of some note. A remarkable story of cavalier-hunting
+is told here. A hiding-place is said to have existed in the wide
+open fireplace of the great hall. Tradition has it that a horseman,
+hard pressed by the Parliamentary troopers, galloped into this
+hall, but upon the arrival of his pursuers, no clue could be
+found of either man or horse!
+
+The gallant Prince Rupert himself, upon one occasion, is said
+to have had recourse to a hiding hole, at least so the story
+runs, at the beautiful old black-and-white timber mansion, Park
+Hall, near Oswestry. A certain "false floor" which led to it is
+pointed out in a cupboard of a bedroom, the hiding-place itself
+being situated immediately above the dining-room fireplace.
+
+A concealed chamber something after the same description is to
+be seen at the old seat of the Fenwicks, Wallington, in
+Northumberland--a small room eight feet long by sixteen feet high,
+situated at the back of the dining-room fireplace, and approached
+through the back of a cupboard.
+
+Behind one of the large panels of "the hall" of an old building
+in Warwick called St. John's Hospital is a hiding-place, and in
+a bedroom of the same house there is a little apartment, now
+converted into a dressing-room, which formerly could only be
+reached through a sliding panel over the fireplace.
+
+The manor house of Dinsdale-on-Tees, Durham, has another example,
+but to reach it it is necessary to pass through a trap-door in
+the attics, crawl along under the roof, and drop down into the,
+space in the wall behind a bedroom fireplace, where for extra
+security there is a second trap-door.
+
+[Illustration: BROUGHTON HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: ST. JOHN'S HOSPITAL, WARWICK]
+
+Full-length panel portraits of the Salwey family at Stanford Court,
+Worcestershire (unfortunately burned down in 1882), concealed hidden
+recesses and screened passages leading up to an exit in the leads
+of the roof. In one of these recesses curious seventeenth-century
+manuscripts were found, among them, the household book of a certain
+"Joyce Jeffereys" during the Civil War.
+
+The old Jacobean mansion Broughton Hall, Staffordshire, had a
+curious hiding-hole over a fireplace and situated in the wall
+between the dining-room and the great hall; over its entrance
+used to hang a portrait of a man in antique costume which went
+by the name of "Red Stockings."
+
+At Lyme Hall, Cheshire, the ancient seat of the Leghs, high up
+in the wall of the hall is a sombre portrait which by ingenious
+mechanism swings out of its frame, a fixture, and gives admittance
+to a room on the first floor, or rather affords a means of looking
+down into the hall.[1] We mention this portrait more especially
+because it has been supposed that Scott got his idea here of
+the ghostly picture which figures in _Woodstock_. A
+_bona-fide_ hiding-place, however, is to be seen in another
+part of the mansion in a very haunted-looking bedroom called "the
+Knight's Chamber," entered through a trap-door in the floor of
+a cupboard, with a short flight of steps leading into it.
+
+[Footnote 1: A large panel in the long gallery of Hatfield can be
+pushed aside, giving a view into the great hall, and at Ockwells
+and other ancient mansions this device may also be seen.]
+
+Referring to Scott's novel, a word may be said about Fair Rosamond's
+famous "bower" at the old palace of Woodstock, surely the most
+elaborate and complicated hiding-place ever devised. The ruins
+of the labyrinth leading to the "bower" existed in Drayton's
+time, who described them as "vaults, arched and walled with stone
+and brick, almost inextricably wound within one another, by which,
+if at any time her [Rosamond's] lodging were laid about by the
+Queen, she might easily avoid peril imminent, and, if need be, by
+secret issues take the air abroad many furlongs about Woodstock."
+
+[Illustration: STAIRCASE, BROUGHTON HALL]
+
+In a survey taken in 1660, it is stated that foundation signs
+remained about a bow-shot southwest of the gate: "_The form
+and circuit both of the place and ruins show it to have been a
+house of one pile, and probably was filled with secret places
+of recess and avenues to hide or convey away such persons as
+were not willing to be found if narrowly sought after._"
+
+Ghostly gambols, such as those actually practised upon the
+Parliamentary Commissioners at the old palace of Woodstock, were
+for years carried on without detection by the servants at the old
+house of Hinton-Ampner, Hampshire; and when it was pulled down
+in the year 1797, it became very obvious how the mysteries, which
+gave the house the reputation of being haunted, were managed,
+for numerous secret stairs and passages, not known to exist were
+brought to light which had offered peculiar facilities for the
+deception. About the middle of the eighteenth century the mansion
+passed out of the hands of its old possessors, the Stewkeleys,
+and shortly afterwards became notorious for the unaccountable
+noises which disturbed the peace of mind of the new tenants.
+Not only were there violent knocks, hammerings, groanings, and
+sounds of footsteps in the ceilings and walls, out strange sights
+frightened the servants out of their wits. A ghostly visitant
+dressed in drab would appear and disappear mysteriously, a female
+figure was often seen to rush through the apartments, and other
+supernatural occurrences at length became so intolerable that the
+inmates of the house sought refuge in flight. Later successive
+tenants fared the same. A hundred pounds reward was offered to
+any who should run the ghosts to earth; but nothing resulted
+from it, and after thirty years or more of hauntings, the house
+was razed to the ground. Secret passages and chambers were then
+brought to light; but those who had carried on the deception
+for so long took the secret with them to their graves.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: A full account of the supernatural occurrences at
+Hinton-Ampner will be found in the Life of Richard Barham.]
+
+It is well known that the huge, carved oak bedsteads of the sixteenth
+and seventeenth centuries were often provided with secret
+accommodation for valuables. One particular instance we can call
+to mind of a hidden cupboard at the base of the bedpost which
+contained a short rapier. But of these small hiding-places we
+shall speak presently. It is with the head of the bed we have
+now to do, as it was sometimes used as an opening into the wall
+at the back. Occasionally, in old houses, unmeaning gaps and
+spaces are met with in the upper rooms midway between floor and
+ceiling, which possibly at one time were used as bed-head
+hiding-places. Shipton Court, Oxon, and Hill Hall, Essex, may
+be given as examples. Dunster Castle, Somersetshire, also, has
+at the back of a bedstead in one of the rooms a long, narrow
+place of concealment, extending the width of the apartment, and
+provided with a stone seat.
+
+Sir Ralph Verney, while in exile in France in 1645, wrote to his
+brother at Claydon House, Buckinghamshire, concerning "the odd
+things in the room my mother kept herself--_the iron chest in
+the little room between her bed's-head and the back stairs._"
+This old seat of the Verneys had another secret chamber in the
+middle storey, entered through a trap-door in "the muniment-room"
+at the top of the house. Here also was a small private staircase
+in the wall, possibly the "back stairs" mentioned in Sir Ralph's
+letters.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See _Memoirs of the Verney Family._]
+
+[Illustration: SHIPTON COURT, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: BROUGHTON CASTLE, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+Before the breaking out of the Civil War, Hampden, Pym, Lord
+Brooke, and other of the Parliamentary leaders, held secret meetings
+at Broughton Castle, oxon, the seat of Lord Saye and Sele, to
+organise a resistance to the arbitrary measures of the king. In
+this beautiful old fortified and moated mansion the secret stairs
+may yet be seen that led up to the little isolated chamber, with
+massive casemated walls for the exclusion of sound. Anthony Wood,
+alluding to the secret councils, says: "Several years before the
+Civil War began, Lord Saye, being looked upon as the godfather
+of that party, had meetings of them in his house at Broughton,
+where was a room and passage thereunto which his servants were
+prohibited to come near."[1] There is also a hiding-hole behind
+a window shutter in the wall of a corridor, with an air-hole
+ingeniously devised in the masonry.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Memorials of Hampden._]
+
+The old dower-house of Fawsley, not many miles to the north-east
+of Broughton, in the adjoining county of Northamptonshire, had
+a secret room over the hall, where a private press was kept for
+the purpose of printing political tracts at this time, when the
+country was working up into a state of turmoil.
+
+When the regicides were being hunted out in the early part of
+Charles II.'s reign, Judge Mayne[1] secreted himself at his house,
+Dinton Hall, Bucks, but eventually gave himself up. The hiding-hole
+at Dinton was beneath the staircase, and accessible by removing
+three of the steps. A narrow passage which led from it to a space
+behind the beams of the roof had its sides or walls thickly lined
+with cloth, so as to muffle all sound.
+
+[Footnote 1: There is a tradition that it was a servant of Mayne
+who acted as Charles I.'s executioner.]
+
+Bradshawe Hall, in north-west Derbyshire (once the seat of the
+family of that name of which the notorious President was a member),
+has or had a concealed chamber high up in the wall of a room on
+the ground floor which was capable of holding three persons.
+Of course tradition says the "wicked judge was hidden here."
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE GATE, BRADSHAWE HALL, DERBYSHIRE]
+
+The regicides Colonels Whalley and Goffe had many narrow escapes
+in America, whither they were traced. What is known as "Judge's
+Cave," in the West Rock some two miles from the town of New Haven,
+Conn., afforded them sanctuary. For some days they were concealed
+in an old house belonging to a certain Mrs. Eyers, in a secret
+chamber behind the wainscoting, the entrance to which was most
+ingeniously devised. The house was narrowly searched on May 14th,
+1661, at the time they were in hiding.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Stiles's _Judges_, p. 64]
+
+Upon the discovery of the Rye House Plot in 1683, suspicion falling
+upon one of the conspirators, William, third Lord Howard of Escrick,
+the Sergeant-at-Arms was despatched with a squadron of horse to
+his house at Knights-bridge, and after a long search he was
+discovered concealed in a hiding-place constructed in a chimney
+at the back of a tall cupboard, and the chances are that he would
+not have been arrested had it not been evident, by the warmth of
+his bed and his clothes scattered about, that he had only just
+risen and could not have got away unobserved, except to some
+concealed lurking-place. When discovered he had on no clothing
+beyond his shirt, so it may be imagined with what precipitate
+haste he had to hide himself upon the unexpected arrival of the
+soldiers.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Roger North's _Examen_.]
+
+Numerous other houses were searched for arms and suspicious papers,
+particularly in the counties of Cheshire and Lancashire, where
+the Duke of Monmouth was known to have many influential friends,
+marked enemies to the throne.[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: See Oulton Hall MSS., Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iii. p.
+245.]
+
+Monmouth's lurking-place was known at Whitehall, and those who
+revealed it went the wrong way to work to win Court favour. Apart
+from the attractions of Lady Wentworth, whose companionship made
+the fugitive's enforced seclusion at Toddington, in Bedfordshire,
+far from tedious, the mansion was desirable at that particular
+time on account of its hiding facilities. An anonymous letter
+sent to the Secretary of State failed not to point out "that
+vastness and intricacy that without a most diligent search it's
+impossible to discover _all the lurking holes in it, there being
+severall trap dores on the leads and in closetts, into places to
+which there is no other access._"[1] The easy-going king had
+to make some external show towards an attempt to capture his
+erring son, therefore instructions were given with this purpose,
+but to a courtier and diplomatist who valued his own interests.
+Toddington Place, therefore, was _not_ explored.
+
+[Footnote 1: Vide King _Monmouth_.]
+
+[Illustration: MOYLES COURT, HAMPSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: TODDINGTON MANOR HOUSE, BEDFORDSHIRE, IN 1806 (FROM
+AN OLD DRAWING)]
+
+Few hiding-places are associated with so tragic a story as that
+at Moyles Court, Hants, where the venerable Lady Alice Lisle,
+in pure charity, hid two partisans of Monmouth, John Hickes and
+Richard Nelthorpe, after the battle of Sedgemoor, for which humane
+action she was condemned to be burned alive by Judge Jeffreys--a
+sentence commuted afterwards to beheading. It is difficult to
+associate this peaceful old Jacobean mansion, and the simple
+tomb in the churchyard hard by, with so terrible a history. A
+dark hole in the wall of the kitchen is traditionally said to be
+the place of concealment of the fugitives, who threw themselves
+on Lady Alice's mercy; but a dungeon-like cellar not unlike that
+represented in E. M. Ward's well-known picture looks a much more
+likely place.
+
+It was in an underground vault at Lady Place, Hurley, the old
+seat of the Lovelaces, that secret conferences were held by the
+adherents of the Prince of Orange. Three years after the execution
+of the Duke of Monmouth, his boon companion and supporter, John,
+third Lord Lovelace, organised treasonable meetings in this tomb-like
+chamber. Tradition asserts that certain important documents in
+favour of the Revolution were actually signed in the Hurley vault.
+Be this as it may, King William III. failed not, in after years,
+when visiting his former secret agent, to inspect the subterranean
+apartment with very tender regard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES
+
+We have spoken of the old houses associated with Charles II.'s
+escapes, let us see what history has to record of his unpopular
+brother James. The Stuarts seem to have been doomed, at one time
+or another, to evade their enemies by secret flight, and in some
+measure this may account for the romance always surrounding that
+ill-fated line of kings and queens.
+
+James V. of Scotland was wont to amuse himself by donning a disguise,
+but his successors appear to have been doomed by fate to follow
+his example, not for recreation, but to preserve their lives.
+
+Mary, Queen of Scots, upon one occasion had to impersonate a
+laundress. Her grandson and great-grandson both were forced to
+masquerade as servants, and her great-great-grandson Prince James
+Frederick Edward passed through France disguised as an abbe.
+
+The escapades of his son the "Bonnie Prince" will require our
+attention presently; we will, therefore, for the moment confine
+our thoughts to James II.
+
+With the surrender of Oxford the young Prince James found himself
+Fairfax's prisoner. His elder brother Charles had been more
+fortunate, having left the city shortly before for the western
+counties, and after effecting his escape to Scilly, he sought
+refuge in Jersey, whence he removed to the Hague. The Duke of
+Gloucester and the Princess Elizabeth already had been placed
+under the custody of the Earl of Northumberland at St. James's
+Palace, so the Duke of York was sent there also. This was in 1646.
+Some nine months elapsed, and James, after two ineffectual attempts
+to regain his liberty, eventually succeeded in the following
+manner.
+
+Though prisoners, the royal children were permitted to amuse
+themselves within the walls of the palace much as they pleased,
+and among the juvenile games with which they passed away the
+time, "hide-and-seek" was first favourite. James, doubtless with
+an eye to the future, soon acquired a reputation as an expert
+hider, and his brother and sister and the playmates with whom
+they associated would frequently search the odd nooks and corners
+of the old mansion in vain for an hour at a stretch. It was,
+therefore, no extraordinary occurrence on the night of April 20th,
+1647, that the Prince, after a prolonged search, was missing. The
+youngsters, more than usually perplexed, presently persuaded the
+adults of the prison establishment to join in the game, which,
+when their suspicions were aroused, they did in real earnest.
+But all in vain, and at length a messenger was despatched to
+Whitehall with the intelligence that James, Duke of York, had
+effected his escape. Everything was in a turmoil. Orders were
+hurriedly dispatched for all seaport towns to be on the alert,
+and every exit out of London was strictly watched; meanwhile,
+it is scarcely necessary to add, the young fugitive was well
+clear of the city, speeding on his way to the Continent.
+
+The plot had been skilfully planned. A key, or rather a duplicate
+key, had given admittance through the gardens into St. James's Park,
+where the Royalist, though outwardly professed Parliamentarian,
+Colonel Bamfield was in readiness with a periwig and cloak to
+effect a speedy disguise. When at length the fugitive made his
+appearance, minus his shoes and coat, he was hurried into a coach
+and conveyed to the Strand by Salisbury House, where the two
+alighted, and passing down Ivy Lane, reached the river, and after
+James's disguise had been perfected, boat was taken to Lyon Quay
+in Lower Thames Street, where a barge lay in readiness to carry
+them down stream.
+
+So far all went well, but on the way to Gravesend the master
+of the vessel, doubtless with a view to increasing his reward,
+raised some objections. The fugitive was now in female attire,
+and the objection was that nothing had been said about a woman
+coming aboard; but he was at length pacified, indeed ere long
+guessed the truth, for the Prince's lack of female decorum, as
+in the case of his grandson "the Bonnie Prince" nearly a century
+afterwards, made him guess how matters really stood. Beyond Gravesend
+the fugitives got aboard a Dutch vessel and were carried safely
+to Middleburg.
+
+We will now shift the scene to Whitehall in the year 1688, when,
+after a brief reign of three years, betrayed and deserted on
+all sides, the unhappy Stuart king was contemplating his second
+flight out of England. The weather-cock that had been set up on
+the banqueting hall to show when the wind "blew Protestant" had
+duly recorded the dreaded approach of Dutch William, who now was
+steadily advancing towards the capital. On Tuesday, December 10th,
+soon after midnight, James left the Palace by way of Chiffinch's
+secret stairs of notorious fame, and disguised as the servant
+of Sir Edward Hales, with Ralph Sheldon--La Badie--a page, and
+Dick Smith, a groom, attending him, crossed the river to Lambeth,
+dropping the great seal in the water on the way, and took horse,
+avoiding the main roads, towards Farnborough and thence to
+Chislehurst. Leaving Maidstone to the south-west, a brief halt
+was made at Pennenden Heath for refreshment. The old inn, "the
+Woolpack," where the party stopped for their hurried repast,
+remains, at least in name, for the building itself has of late
+years been replaced by a modern structure. Crossing the Dover
+road, the party now directed their course towards Milton Creek,
+to the north-east of Sittingbourne, where a small fishing-craft
+lay in readiness, which had been chartered by Sir Edward Hales,
+whose seat at Tunstall[1] was close by.
+
+[Footnote 1: The principal seat of the Hales, near Canterbury, is
+now occupied as a Jesuit College. The old manor house of Tunstall,
+Grove End Farm, presents both externally and internally many
+features of interest. The family was last represented by a maid
+lady who died a few years since.]
+
+One or two old buildings in the desolate marsh district of Elmley,
+claim the distinction of having received a visit of the deposed
+monarch prior to the mishaps which were shortly to follow. King's
+Hill Farm, once a house of some importance, preserves this tradition,
+as does also an ancient cottage, in the last stage of decay,
+known as "Rats' Castle."
+
+[Illustration: "RATS' CASTLE," ELMLEY, KENT]
+
+[Illustration: KING'S HILL FARM, ELMLEY, KENT]
+
+At Elmley Ferry, which crosses the river Swale, the king got
+aboard, but scarcely had the moorings been cast than further
+progress was arrested by a party of over-zealous fishermen on
+the look out for fugitive Jesuit priests. The story of the rough
+handling to which the poor king was subjected is a somewhat hackneyed
+school-book anecdote, but some interesting details have been handed
+down by one Captain Marsh, by James's natural son the Duke of
+Berwick, and by the Earl of Ailesbury.
+
+From these accounts we gather that in the disturbance that ensued
+a blow was aimed at the King, but that a Canterbury innkeeper named
+Platt threw himself in the way and received the blow himself. It
+is recorded, to James II.'s credit, that when he was recognised
+and his stolen money and jewels offered back to him, he declined
+the former, desiring that his health might be drunk by the mob.
+Among the valuables were the King's watch, his coronation ring,
+and medals commemorating the births of his son the Chevalier
+St. George and of his brother Charles II.
+
+The King was taken ashore at a spot called "the Stool," close
+to the little village of Oare, to the north-west of Faversham,
+to which town he was conveyed by coach, attended by a score of
+Kentish gentlemen on horseback. The royal prisoner was first
+carried to the "Queen's Arms Inn," which still exists under the
+name of the "Ship Hotel." From here he was taken to the mayor's
+house in Court Street (an old building recently pulled down to
+make way for a new brewery) and placed under a strict guard, and
+from the window of his prison the unfortunate King had to listen
+to the proclamation of the Prince of Orange, read by order of the
+mayor, who subsequently was rewarded for the zeal he displayed
+upon the occasion.
+
+The hardships of the last twenty-four hours had told severely upon
+James. He was sick and feeble and weakened by profuse bleeding
+of the nose, to which he, like his brother Charles, was subject
+when unduly excited. Sir Edward Hales, in the meantime, was lodged
+in the old Court Hall (since partially rebuilt), whence he was
+removed to Maidstone gaol, and to the Tower.
+
+Bishop Burnet was at Windsor with the Prince of Orange when two
+gentlemen arrived there from Faversham with the news of the King's
+capture. "They told me," he says, "of the accident at Faversham,
+and desired to know the Prince's pleasure upon it. I was affected
+with this dismal reverse of the fortunes of a great prince, more
+than I think fit to express. I went immediately to Bentinck and
+wakened him, and got him to go in to the Prince, and let him
+know what had happened, that some order might be presently given
+for the security of the King's person, and for taking him out
+of the hands of a rude multitude who said they would obey no
+orders but such as came from the Prince."
+
+Upon receiving the news, William at once directed that his
+father-in-law should have his liberty, and that assistance should
+be sent down to him immediately; but by this time the story had
+reached the metropolis, and a hurried meeting of the Council
+directed the Earl of Feversham to go to the rescue with a company
+of Life Guards. The faithful Earl of Ailesbury also hastened to
+the King's assistance. In five hours he accomplished the journey
+from London to Faversham. So rapidly had the reports been circulated
+of supposed ravages of the Irish Papists, that when the Earl
+reached Rochester, the entire town was in a state of panic, and
+the alarmed inhabitants were busily engaged in demolishing the
+bridge to prevent the dreaded incursion.
+
+But to return to James at Faversham. The mariners who had handled
+him so roughly now took his part--in addition to his property--and
+insisted upon sleeping in the adjoining room to that in which
+he was incarcerated, to protect him from further harm. Early
+on Saturday morning the Earl of Feversham made his appearance;
+and after some little hesitation on the King's side, he was at
+length persuaded to return to London. So he set out on horseback,
+breaking the journey at Rochester, where he slept on the Saturday
+night at Sir Richard Head's house. On the Sunday he rode on to
+Dartford, where he took coach to Southwark and Whitehall. A temporary
+reaction had now set in, and the cordial reception which greeted
+his reappearance revived his hopes and spirits. This reaction,
+however, was but short-lived, for no sooner had the poor King
+retired to the privacy of his bed-chamber at Whitehall Palace,
+than an imperious message from his son-in-law ordered him to
+remove without delay to Ham House, Petersham.
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO SECRET PASSAGE, "ABDICATION HOUSE,"
+ROCHESTER]
+
+[Illustration: "ABDICATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER]
+
+James objected strongly to this; the place, he said, was damp and
+unfurnished (which, by the way, was not the case if we may judge
+from Evelyn, who visited the mansion not long before, when it was
+"furnished like a great Prince's"--indeed, the same furniture
+remains intact to this day), and a message was sent back that if
+he must quit Whitehall he would prefer to retire to Rochester,
+which wish was readily accorded him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+JAMES II.'S ESCAPES (_continued_), HAM HOUSE, AND "ABDICATION
+HOUSE"
+
+Tradition, regardless of fact, associates the grand old seat
+of the Lauderdales and Dysarts with King James's escape from
+England. A certain secret staircase is still pointed out by which
+the dethroned monarch is said to have made his exit, and visitors
+to the Stuart Exhibition a few years ago will remember a sword
+which, with the King's hat and cloak, is said to have been left
+behind when he quitted the mansion. Now there existed, not many
+miles away, also close to the river Thames, _another_ Ham
+House, which was closely associated with James II., and it seems,
+therefore, possible, in fact probable, that the past associations
+of the one house have attached themselves to the other.
+
+In Ham House, Weybridge, lived for some years the King's discarded
+mistress Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester. At the actual
+time of James's abdication this lady was in France, but in the
+earlier part of his reign the King was a frequent visitor here.
+In Charles II.'s time the house belonged to Jane Bickerton, the
+mistress and afterwards wife of the sixth Duke of Norfolk. Evelyn
+dined there soon after this marriage had been solemnised. "The
+Duke," he says, "leading me about the house made no scruple of
+showing me all the hiding-places for the Popish priests and where
+they said Masse, for he was no bigoted Papist." At the Duke's
+death "the palace" was sold to the Countess of Dorchester, whose
+descendants pulled it down some fifty years ago. The oak-panelled
+rooms were richly parquetted with "cedar and cyprus." One of them
+until the last retained the name of "the King's Bedroom." It had a
+private communication with a little Roman Catholic chapel in the
+building. The attics, as at Compton Winyates, were called "the
+Barracks," tradition associating them with the King's guards, who
+are said to have been lodged there. Upon the walls hung portraits
+of the Duchesses of Leeds and Dorset, of Nell Gwyn and the Countess
+herself, and of Earl Portmore, who married her daughter. Here also
+formerly was Holbein's famous picture, Bluff King Hal and the
+Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk dancing a minuet with Anne Boleyn
+and the Dowager-Queens of France and Scotland. Evelyn saw the
+painting in August, 1678, and records "the sprightly motion"
+and "amorous countenances of the ladies." (This picture is now,
+or was recently, in the possession of Major-General Sotheby.)
+
+A few years after James's abdication, the Earl of Ailesbury rented
+the house from the Countess, who lived meanwhile in a small house
+adjacent, and was in the habit of coming into the gardens of the
+palace by a key of admittance she kept for that purpose. Upon
+one of these occasions the Earl and she had a disagreement about
+the lease, and so forcible were the lady's coarse expressions,
+for she never could restrain the licence of her tongue, that she
+had to be ejected from the premises, whereupon, says Ailesbury,
+"she bade me go to my----King James," with the assurance that
+"she would make King William spit on me."
+
+[Illustration: MONUMENT OF SIR RICHARD HEAD]
+
+[Illustration: "RESTORATION HOUSE," ROCHESTER]
+
+But to follow James II.'s ill-fortunes to Rochester, where he was
+conveyed on the Tuesday at noon by royal barge, with an escort of
+Dutch soldiers, with Lords Arran, Dumbarton, etc., in attendance--"a
+sad sight," says Evelyn, who witnessed the departure. The King
+recognised among those set to guard him an old lieutenant of the
+Horse who had fought under him, when Duke of York, at the battle
+of Dunkirk. Colonel Wycke, in command of the King's escort, was
+a nephew of the court painter Sir Peter Lely, who had owed his
+success to the patronage of Charles II. and his brother. The
+part the Colonel had to act was a painful one, and he begged the
+King's pardon. The royal prisoner was lodged for the night at
+Gravesend, at the house of a lawyer, and next morning the journey
+was continued to Rochester.
+
+The royalist Sir Richard Head again had the honour of acting
+as the King's host, and his guest was allowed to go in and out
+of the house as he pleased, for diplomatic William of Orange
+had arranged that no opportunity should be lost for James to
+make use of a passport which the Duke of Berwick had obtained
+for "a certain gentleman and two servants." James's movements,
+therefore, were hampered in no way. But the King, ever suspicious,
+planned his escape from Rochester with the greatest caution and
+secrecy, and many of his most attached and loyal adherents were
+kept in ignorance of his final departure. James's little court
+consisted of the Earls of Arran, Lichfield, Middleton, Dumbarton,
+and Ailesbury, the Duke of Berwick, Sir Stephen Fox, Major-General
+Sackville, Mr. Grahame, Fenton, and a few others.
+
+On the evening of the King's flight the company dispersed as was
+customary, when Ailesbury intimated, by removing his Majesty's
+stockings, that the King was about to seek his couch. The Earl
+of Dumbarton retired with James to his apartment, who, when the
+house was quiet for the night, got up, dressed, and "by way of
+the back stairs," according to the Stuart Papers, passed "through
+the garden, where Macdonald stayed for him, with the Duke of
+Berwick and Mr. Biddulph, to show him the way to Trevanion's
+boat. About twelve at night they rowed down to the smack, which
+was waiting without the fort at Sheerness. It blew so hard right
+ahead, and ebb tide being done before they got to the Salt Pans,
+that it was near six before they got to the smack. Captain Trevanion
+not being able to trust the officers of his ship, they got on
+board the _Eagle_ fireship, commanded by Captain Welford,
+on which, the wind and tide being against them, they stayed till
+daybreak, when the King went on board the smack." On Christmas
+Day James landed at Ambleteuse.
+
+Thus the old town of Rochester witnessed the departure of the
+last male representative of the Stuart line who wore a crown.
+Twenty-eight years before, every window and gable end had been
+gaily bedecked with many coloured ribbons, banners, and flowers
+to welcome in the restored monarch. The picturesque old red brick
+"Restoration House" still stands to carry us back to the eventful
+night when "his sacred Majesty" slept within its walls upon his
+way from Dover to London--a striking contrast to "Abdication
+House," the gloomy abode of Sir Richard Head, of more melancholy
+associations.
+
+Much altered and modernised, this old mansion also remains. It
+is in the High Street, and is now, or was recently, occupied as a
+draper's shop. Here may be seen the "presence-chamber" where the
+dethroned King heard Mass, and the royal bedchamber where, after
+his secret departure, a letter was found on the table addressed
+to Lord Middleton, for both he and Lord Ailesbury were kept in
+ignorance of James II.'s final movements. The old garden may
+be seen with the steps leading down to the river, much as it
+was a couple of centuries ago, though the river now no longer
+flows in near proximity, owing to the drainage of the marshes
+and the "subsequent improvements" of later days.
+
+The hidden passage in the staircase wall may also be seen, and
+the trap-door leading to it from the attics above. Tradition says
+the King made use of these; and if he did so, the probability is
+that it was done more to avoid his host's over-zealous neighbours,
+than from fear of arrest through the vigilance of the spies of
+his son-in-law.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: It may be of interest to state that the illustrations
+we give of the house were originally exhibited at the Stuart
+Exhibition by Sir Robert G. Head, the living representative of
+the old Royalist family]
+
+Exactly three months after James left England he made his
+reappearance at Kinsale and entered Dublin in triumphal state.
+The siege of Londonderry and the decisive battle of the Boyne
+followed, and for a third and last time James II. was a fugitive
+from his realms. The melancholy story is graphically told in Mr.
+A. C. Gow's dramatic picture, an engraving of which I understand
+has recently been published.
+
+How the unfortunate King rode from Dublin to Duncannon Fort,
+leaving his faithful followers and ill-fortunes behind him; got
+aboard the French vessel anchored there for his safety; and returned
+once more to the protection of the Grande Monarque at the palace
+of St. Germain, is an oft-told story of Stuart ingratitude.
+
+[Illustration: ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE GATE, ARMSCOT MANOR HOUSE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+MYSTERIOUS ROOMS, DEADLY PITS, ETC.
+
+At the "Restoration House" previously mentioned there is a secret
+passage in the wall of an upper room; but though the Merry Monarch
+is, according to popular tradition, credited with a monopoly of
+hiding-places all over England, it is more than doubtful whether
+he had recourse to these exploits, in which he was so successful
+in 1651, upon such a joyful occasion, except, indeed, through
+sheer force of habit.
+
+Even Cromwell's name is connected with hiding-places! But it
+is difficult to conjecture upon what occasions his Excellency
+found it convenient to secrete himself, unless it was in his
+later days, when he went about in fear of assassination.
+
+Hale House, Islington, pulled down in 1853, had a concealed recess
+behind the wainscot over the mantel-piece, formed by the curve
+of the chimney. In this, tradition says, the Lord Protector was
+hidden. Nor is this the solitary instance, for a dark hole in
+one of the gable ends of Cromwell House, Mortlake (taken down in
+1860), locally known as "Old Noll's Hole," is said to have afforded
+him temporary accommodation when his was life in danger.[1] The
+residence of his son-in-law Ireton (Cromwell House) at Highgate
+contained a large secret chamber at the back of a cupboard in
+one of the upper rooms, and extended back twelve or fourteen
+feet, but the cupboard has now been removed and the space at the
+back converted into a passage.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Faulkner's _History of Islington_.]
+
+The ancient manor house of Armscot, in an old-world corner of
+Worcestershire, contains in one of its gables a hiding-place
+entered through a narrow opening in the plaster wall, not unlike
+that at Ufton Court, and capable of holding many people. From the
+fact that George Fox was arrested in this house on October 17th,
+1673, when he was being persecuted by the county magistrates, the
+story has come down to the yokels of the neighbourhood that "old
+Guy Fawkes, the first Quaker," was hidden here! In his journal Fox
+mentions his arrest at Armscot after a "very large and precious
+meeting" in the barn close by; but we have no allusion to the
+hiding-place, for he appears to have been sitting in the parlour
+when Henry Parker, the Justice, arrived--indeed, George Fox was
+not the sort of man to have recourse to concealments, and owe
+his escape to a "priest's hole."
+
+The suggestion of a sudden reverse in religious persecution driving
+a Quaker to such an extremity calls to mind an old farmstead
+where a political change from monarchy to commonwealth forced
+Puritan and cavalier consecutively to seek refuge in the secret
+chamber. This narrow hiding-place, beside the spacious fire-place,
+is pointed out in an ancient house in the parish of Hinchford,
+in Eastern Essex.
+
+Even the notorious Judge Jeffreys had in his house facilities
+for concealment and escape. His old residence in Delahay Street,
+Westminster, demolished a few years ago, had its secret panel
+in the wainscoting, but in what way the cruel Lord Chancellor
+made use of it does not transpire; possibly it may have been
+utilised at the time of James II.'s flight from Whitehall.
+
+A remarkable discovery was made early in the last century at the
+Elizabethan manor house of Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire,
+only a portion of which remains incorporated in a modern structure.
+Upon removing some of the wallpaper of a passage on the second
+floor, the entrance to a room hitherto unknown was laid bare. It
+was a small apartment about eight feet square, and presented the
+appearance as if some occupant had just quitted it. A chair and
+a table within, each bore evidence of the last inmate. Over the
+back of the former hung a priest's black cassock, carelessly flung
+there a century or more ago, while on the table stood an antique
+tea-pot, cup, and silver spoon, the very tea leaves crumbled to
+dust with age. On the same storey were two rooms known as "the
+chapel" and the "priest's room," the names of which signify the
+former use of the concealed apartment.
+
+Sir Walter Scott records a curious "find," similar in many respects
+to that at Bourton. In the course of some structural alterations to
+an ancient house near Edinburgh three unknown rooms were brought to
+light, bearing testimony of their last inmate. One of them had been
+occupied as a bedroom. The clothing of the bed was disarranged,
+as if it had been slept in only a few hours previously, and close
+by was an antique dressing-gown. How interesting it would be to
+know some particulars of the sudden surprise which evidently
+drove the owner of the garment from his snug quarters--whether
+he effected his escape, or whether he was captured! The walls
+of this buried chamber, if they could speak, had some curious
+story to relate.
+
+Not many years ago the late squire of East Hendred House, Berkshire,
+discovered the existence of a secret chamber in casually glancing
+over some ancient papers belonging to the house. "The little
+room," as it was called, from its proximity to the chapel, had
+no doubt been turned to good account during the penal laws of
+Elizabeth's reign, as the chamber itself and other parts of the
+house date from a much earlier period.
+
+Long after the palatial Sussex mansion of Cowdray was burnt down,
+the habitable remains (the keeper's lodge, in the centre of the
+park) contained an ingenious hiding-place behind a fireplace in
+a bedroom, which was reached by a movable panel in a cupboard,
+communicating with the roof by a slender flight of steps. It
+was very high, reaching up two storeys, but extremely narrow,
+so much so that directly opposite a stone bench which stood in
+a recess for a seat, the wall was hollowed out to admit of the
+knees. When this secret chamber was discovered, it contained an
+iron chair, a quaint old brass lamp, and some manuscripts of
+the Montague family. The Cowdray tradition says that the fifth
+Viscount was concealed in this hiding-place for a considerable
+period, owing to some dark crime he is supposed to have committed,
+though he was generally believed to have fled abroad. Secret
+nocturnal interviews took place between Lord Montague and his
+wife in "My Lady's Walk," an isolated spot in Cowdray Park. The
+Montagues, now extinct, are said to have been very chary with
+reference to their Roman Catholic forefathers, and never allowed
+the secret chamber to be shown.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See _History of a Great English House_.]
+
+A weird story clings to the ruins of Minster Lovel Manor House,
+Oxfordshire, the ancient seat of the Lords Lovel. After the battle
+of Stoke, Francis, the last Viscount, who had sided with the
+cause of Simnel against King Henry VII., fled back to his house
+in disguise, but from the night of his return was never seen or
+heard of again, and for nearly two centuries his disappearance
+remained a mystery. In the meantime the manor house had been
+dismantled and the remains tenanted by a farmer; but a strange
+discovery was made in the year 1708. A concealed vault was found,
+and in it, seated before a table, with a prayer-book lying open
+upon it, was the entire skeleton of a man. In the secret chamber
+were certain barrels and jars which had contained food sufficient
+to last perhaps some weeks; but the mansion having been seized
+by the King, soon after the unfortunate Lord Lovel is supposed
+to have concealed himself, the probability is that, unable to
+regain his liberty, the neglect or treachery of a servant or
+tenant brought about this tragic end.
+
+A discovery of this nature was made in 1785 in a hidden vault
+at the foot of a stone staircase at Brandon Hall, Suffolk.
+
+Kingerby Hall, Lincolnshire, has a ghostly tradition of an
+unfortunate occupant of the hiding-hole near a fireplace being
+intentionally fastened in so that he was stifled with the heat and
+smoke; the skeleton was found years afterwards in this horrible
+death-chamber.
+
+Bayons Manor, in the same county, has some very curious arrangements
+for the sake of secretion and defence. There is a room in one of
+the barbican towers occupying its entire circumference, but so
+effectually hidden that its existence would never be suspected.
+In two of the towers are curious concealed stairs, and approaching
+"the Bishop's Tower" from the outer court or ballium, part of
+a flight of steps can be raised like a drawbridge to prevent
+sudden intrusion.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See Burke's _Visitation of Seats_, vol. i.]
+
+A contributor to that excellent little journal _The Rambler_,
+unfortunately now extinct, mentions another very strange and
+weird device for security. "In the state-room of my castle,"
+says the owner of this death-trap, "is the family shield, which
+on a part being touched, revolves, and a flight of steps becomes
+visible. The first, third, fifth, and all odd steps are to be
+trusted, but to tread any of the others is to set in motion some
+concealed machinery which causes the staircase to collapse,
+disclosing a vault some seventy feet in depth, down which the
+unwary are precipitated."
+
+At Tyttenhanger House, Hertfordshire, and in the old manor house
+of Newport, Isle of Wight (where the captive King Charles I.
+spent some of his last melancholy days), there are rooms with
+passages in the walls running completely round them. Similar
+passages were found some years ago while making alterations to
+Highclere Castle Hampshire.
+
+The once magnificent Madeley Court, Salop[1] (now, alas! in the
+last stage of desolation and decay, surrounded by coal-fields and
+undermined by pits), is honeycombed with places for concealment
+and escape. A ruinous apartment at the top of the house, known
+as "the chapel" (only a few years ago wainscoted to the ceiling
+and divided by fine old oak screen), contained a secret chamber
+behind one of the panels. This could be fastened on the inside by
+a strong bolt. The walls of the mansion are of immense thickness,
+and the recesses and nooks noticeable everywhere were evidently at
+one time places of concealment; one long triangular recess extends
+between two ruinous chambers (mere skeletons of past grandeur),
+and was no doubt for the purpose of reaching the basement from
+the first floor other than by the staircases. In the upper part
+of the house a dismal pit or well extends to the ground level,
+where it slants off in an oblique direction below the building,
+and terminates in a large pool or lake, after the fashion of
+that already described at Baddesley Clinton, in Warwickshire.
+
+[Footnote 1: This house must not be confused with "the Upper House,"
+connected with Charles II.'s wanderings.]
+
+Everything points to the former magnificence of this mansion;
+the elaborate gate-house, the handsome stone porch, and even
+the colossal sundial, which last, for quaint design, can hold
+its own with those of the greatest baronial castles in Scotland.
+The arms of the Brooke family are to be seen emblazoned on the
+walls, a member of whom, Sir Basil, was he who christened the
+hunting-lodge of the Giffards "Boscobel," from the Italian words
+"bos co bello," on account of its woody situation. It is long
+since the Brookes migrated from Madeley--now close upon two
+centuries.
+
+The deadly looking pits occasionally seen in ancient buildings
+are dangerous, to say the least of it. They may be likened to
+the shaft of our modern lift, with the car at the bottom and
+nothing above to prevent one from taking a step into eternity!
+
+A friend at Twickenham sends us a curious account of a recent
+exploration of what was once the manor house, "Arragon Towers."
+We cannot do better than quote his words, written in answer to a
+request for particulars. "I did not," he says, "make sufficient
+examination of the hiding-place in the old manor house of Twickenham
+to give a detailed description of it, and I have no one here
+whom I could get to accompany me in exploring it now. It is not
+a thing to do by one's self, as one might make a false step,
+and have no one to assist in retrieving it. The entrance is in
+the top room of the one remaining turret by means of a movable
+panel in the wall opposite the window. The panel displaced, you
+see the top of a thick wall (almost on a line with the floor of
+the room). The width of the aperture is, I should think, nearly
+three feet; that of the wall-top about a foot and a half; the
+remaining space between the wall-top and the outer wall of the
+house is what you might perhaps term 'a chasm'--it is a sheer
+drop to the cellars of the house. I was told by the workmen that
+by walking the length of the wall-top (some fifteen feet) I should
+reach a stairway conducting to the vaults below, and that on
+reaching the bottom, a passage led off in the direction of the
+river, the tradition being that it actually went beneath the
+river to Ham House."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+HIDING-PLACES IN JACOBITE DWELLINGS AND IN SCOTTISH CASTLES AND
+MANSIONS
+
+During the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 some of the "priest's
+holes" in the old Roman Catholic houses, especially in the north
+of England and in Scotland, came into requisition not only for
+storing arms and ammunition, but, after the failure of each
+enterprise, for concealing adherents of the luckless House of
+Stuart.
+
+In the earlier mansion of Worksop, Nottinghamshire (burnt down
+in 1761), there was a large concealed chamber provided with a
+fireplace and a bed, which could only be entered by removing
+the sheets of lead forming the roofing. Beneath was a trap-door
+opening to a precipitous flight of narrow steps in the thickness
+of a wall. This led to a secret chamber, that had an inner
+hiding-place at the back of a sliding panel. A witness in a trial
+succeeding "the '45" declared to having seen a large quantity
+of arms there in readiness for the insurrection.
+
+The last days of the notorious Lord Lovat are associated with
+some of the old houses in the north. Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire,
+and Netherwhitton, in Northumberland, claim the honour of hiding
+this double-faced traitor prior to his arrest. At the former is a
+small chamber near the roof, and in the latter is a hiding-place
+measuring eight feet by three and ten feet high. Nor must be
+forgotten the tradition of Mistress Beatrice Cope, behind the
+walls of whose bedroom Lovat (so goes the story) was concealed,
+and the fugitive, being asthmatical, would have revealed his
+whereabouts to the soldiers in search of him, had not Mistress
+Cope herself kept up a persistent and violent fit of coughing
+to drown the noise.
+
+A secret room in the old Tudor house Ty Mawr, Monmouthshire,
+is associated with the Jacobite risings. It is at the back of
+"the parlour" fireplace, and is entered through a square stone
+slab at the foot of the staircase. The chamber is provided with a
+small fireplace, the flue of which is connected with the ordinary
+chimney, so as to conceal the smoke. The same sort of thing may
+be seen at Bisham Abbey, Berks.
+
+Early in the last century a large hiding-place was found at Danby
+Hall, Yorkshire. It contained a large quantity of swords and
+pistols. Upwards of fifty sets of harness of untanned leather of
+the early part of the eighteenth century were further discovered,
+all of them in so good a state of preservation that they were
+afterwards used as cart-horse gear upon the farm.
+
+No less than nine of the followers of "Bonnie Prince Charlie" are
+said to have been concealed in a secret chamber at Fetternear,
+Kemnay, Aberdeenshire, an old seat of the Leslys of Balquhane. It
+was situated in the wall behind a large bookcase with a glazed
+front, a fixture in the room, the back of which could be made
+to slide back and give admittance to the recess.
+
+Quite by accident an opening was discovered in a corner cupboard
+at an old house near Darlington. Certain alterations were in
+progress which necessitated the removal of the shelves, but upon
+this being attempted, they descended in some mysterious manner.
+The back of the cavity could then be pushed aside (that is to
+say, when the secret of its mechanism was discovered), and a
+hiding-place opened out to view. It contained some tawdry ornaments
+of Highland dress, which at one time, it was conjectured, belonged
+to an adherent of Prince Charlie.
+
+The old mansion of Stonyhurst, Lancashire, contained eight
+hiding-places. One of them, exactly like that at Fetternear,
+was at the back of a bookcase. A secret spring was discovered
+which opened a concealed door in the wall. In the space behind,
+a quantity of James II. guineas, a bed, a mattress, and a flask
+of rum were found. A former student of this famous Jesuit college,
+who was instrumental in the discovery of a "priest's hole," has
+provided us with the following particulars: "It would be too
+long to tell you how I first discovered that in the floor of
+my bedroom, in the recess of the huge Elizabethan bay window,
+was a trap-door concealed by a thin veneering of oak; suffice
+it say that with a companion I devoted a delightful half-holiday
+to stripping off the veneering and breaking the lock of the
+trap-door. Between my floor and the ceiling of the long gallery
+below, was contrived a small room about five feet in height and
+the size and shape of the bay window recess. In one corner of
+this hiding-hole was what seemed a walled-up doorway, and it
+occurred to my companion and myself that we had heard some vague
+old tradition that all this part of the house was riddled with
+secret passages leading from one concealed chamber to another,
+but we did not seek to explore any farther." In pulling down a
+portion of the college, a hollow beam was discovered that opened
+upon concealed hinges, used formerly for secreting articles of
+value or sacred books and vessels; and during some alterations
+to the central tower, over the main entrance to the mansion,
+a "priest's hole" was found, containing seven horse pistols,
+ready loaded and some of them richly ornamented with silver. A
+view could be obtained from the interior of the hiding-place,
+in the same manner as that which we have described in the old
+summer-house at Salisbury; a small hole being devised in the design
+of the Sherburn arms upon the marble shield over the gateway.
+This was the only provision for air and light.
+
+The quaint discovery of rum at Stonyhurst suggests the story
+of a hiding-place in an old house at Bishops Middleham, near
+Durham, mentioned by Southey in his _Commonplace Book_.
+The house was occupied for years by a supposed total abstainer;
+but a "priest's hole" in his bedroom, discovered after his death
+full of strong liquor, revealed the fact that by utilising the
+receptacle as a cellar he had been able to imbibe secretly to
+his heart's content.
+
+A large quantity or Georgian gold coins were found some years ago
+in a small hiding-place under the oaken sill of a bedroom window
+at Gawthorp Hall, Lancashire, placed there, it is supposed, for
+the use of Prince Charles's army in passing through the country
+in 1745.
+
+The laird of Belucraig (an old mansion in the parish of Aboyne,
+Aberdeenshire) was concealed after "the '45" in his own house,
+while his wife, like the hostess of Chastleton, hospitably
+entertained the soldiers who were in search of him. The secret
+chamber where he was concealed was found some years ago in making
+some alterations to the roof. In it were a quantity of Jacobite
+papers and a curious old arm-chair. The original entry was through
+a panel at the back of a "box bed" in the wainscot of a small,
+isolated bedroom at the top of the house. The room itself could
+only be reached by a secret staircase from a corridor below. The
+hiding-place was therefore doubly secure, and was a stronghold in
+case of greatest emergency. The Innes of Drumgersk and Belucraig were
+always staunch Roman Catholics and Jacobites. Their representatives
+lived in the old house until 1850.
+
+In another old Aberdeenshire mansion, Dalpersie House, a hiding-hole
+or recess may be seen in one of the upper chambers, where was
+arrested a Gordon, one of the last victims executed after "the
+45."
+
+The ancient castles of Fyvie, Elphinstone, and Kemnay House have
+their secret chambers. The first of these is, with the exception
+of Glamis, perhaps, the most picturesque example of the tall-roofed
+and cone-topped turret style of architecture introduced from
+France in the days of James VI. A small space marked "the armoury"
+in an old plan of the building could in no way be accounted for,
+it possessing neither door, window, nor fireplace; a trap-door,
+however, was at length found in the floor immediately above its
+supposed locality which led to its identification. At Kemnay
+(Aberdeenshire) the hiding-place is in the dining-room chimney;
+and at Elphinstone (East Lothian), in the bay of a window of
+the great hall, is a masked entrance to a narrow stair in the
+thickness of the wall leading to a little room situated in the
+northeast angle of the tower; it further has an exit through a
+trap-door in the floor of a passage in the upper part of the
+building.
+
+The now ruinous castle of Towie Barclay, near Banff, has evidences
+of secret ways and contrivances. Adjoining the fireplace of the
+great hall is a small room constructed for this purpose. In the
+wall of the same apartment is also a recess only to be reached by
+a narrow stairway in the thickness of the masonry, and approached
+from the flooring above the hall. A similar contrivance exists
+between the outer and inner walls of the dining hall of Carew
+Castle, Pembrokeshire.
+
+Coxton Tower, near Elgin, contains a singular provision for
+communication from the top of the building to the basement, perfectly
+independent of the staircase. In the centre of each floor is a
+square stone which, when removed, reveals an opening from the
+summit to the base of the tower, through which a person could
+be lowered.
+
+Another curious old Scottish mansion, famous for its secret chambers
+and passages, is Gordonstown. Here, in the pavement of a corridor
+in the west wing, a stone may be swung aside, beneath which is
+a narrow cell scooped out of one of the foundation walls. It
+may be followed to the adjoining angle, where it branches off
+into the next wall to an extent capable of holding fifty or sixty
+persons. Another large hiding-place is situated in one of the
+rooms at the back of a tall press or cupboard. The space in the
+wall is sufficiently large to contain eight or nine people, and
+entrance to it is effected by unloosing a spring bolt under the
+lower shelf, when the whole back of the press swings aside.
+
+Whether the mystery of the famous secret room at Glamis Castle,
+Forfarshire, has ever been solved or satisfactorily explained
+beyond the many legends and stories told in connection with it,
+we have not been able to determine. The walls in this remarkable
+old mansion are in parts over twelve feet thick, and in them are
+several curious recesses, notably near the windows of the "stone
+hall." The secret chamber, or "Fyvie-room," as it is sometimes
+called, is said to have a window, which nevertheless has not
+led to the identification of its situation. Sir Walter Scott
+once slept a night at Glamis, and has described the "wild and
+straggling arrangement of the accommodation within doors." "I
+was conducted," he says, "to my apartment in a distant corner
+of the building. I must own, as I heard door after door shut
+after my conductor had retired, I began to consider myself too
+far from the living and somewhat too near the dead--in a word,
+I experienced sensations which, though not remarkable either for
+timidity or superstition, did not fail to affect me to the point
+of being disagreeable." We have the great novelist's authority
+for saying that the entrance of the secret chamber (in his time,
+at any rate), by the law or custom of the family, could
+be known to three persons at once--_viz._ the Earl of
+Strathmore, his heir-apparent, and any third person whom they
+might take into their confidence.
+
+The great mystery of the secret chamber was imparted to the heir
+of Glamis, or the heir-presumptive, as the case might be, upon the
+eve of his arriving at his majority, and thus it passed into modern
+times from the dim and distant feudal days. That the secret should
+be thus handed down through centuries without being divulged is
+indeed remarkable, yet so is the story; and many a time a future
+lord of Glamis has boasted that he would reveal everything when
+he should come of age. Still, however, when that time _did_
+arrive, in every case the recipient of the deadly secret has
+solemnly refused point blank to speak a word upon the subject.
+
+There is a secret chamber at the old Cumberland seat of the ancient
+family of Senhouse. To this day its position is known only by
+the heir-at-law and the family solicitor. This room at Nether
+Hall is said to have no window, and has hitherto baffled every
+attempt of those not in the secret to discover its whereabouts.
+
+Remarkable as this may seem in these prosaic days, it has been
+confirmed by the present representative of the family, who, in a
+communication to us upon the subject, writes as follows: "It may
+be romantic, but still it is true that the secret has survived
+frequent searches of visitors. There is no one alive who has
+been in it, that I am aware, except myself." Brandeston Hall,
+Suffolk, is also said to have a hiding place known only to two
+or three persons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+CONCEALED DOORS, SUBTERRANEAN PASSAGES, ETC.
+
+Numerous old houses possess secret doors, passages, and
+staircases--Franks, in Kent; Eshe Hall, Durham; Binns House,
+Scotland; Dannoty Hall, and Whatton Abbey, Yorkshire; are examples.
+The last of these has a narrow flight of steps leading down to
+the moat, as at Baddesley Clinton. The old house Marks, near
+Romford, pulled down in 1808 after many years of neglect and
+decay--as well as the ancient seat of the Tichbournes in Hampshire,
+pulled down in 1803--and the west side of Holme Hall, Lancashire,
+demolished in the last century, proved to have been riddled with
+hollow walls. Secret doors and panels are still pointed out at
+Bramshill, Hants (in the long gallery and billiard-room); the
+oak room, Bochym House, Cornwall; the King's bedchamber, Ford
+Castle, Northumberland; the plotting-parlour of the White Hart
+Hotel, Hull; Low Hall, Yeadon, Yorkshire; Sawston; the Queen's
+chamber at Kimbolton Castle, Huntingdonshire, etc., etc.
+
+A concealed door exists on the left-hand side of the fireplace
+of the gilt room of Holland House, Kensington, associated by
+tradition with the ghost of the first Lord Holland. Upon the
+authority of the Princess Lichtenstein, it appears there is,
+close by, a blood-stain which nothing can efface! It is to be
+hoped no enterprising person may be induced to try his skill here
+with the success that attended a similar attempt at Holyrood,
+as recorded by Scott![1]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Vide_ Introduction to _The Fair Maid of
+Perth_]
+
+In the King's writing-closet at Hampton Court may be seen the
+"secret door" by which William III. left the palace when he wished
+to go out unobserved; but this is more of a _private_ exit
+than a _secret_ one.
+
+[Illustration: WOODSTOCK PALACE, OXFORDSHIRE (FROM AN OLD PRINT)]
+
+[Illustration: MARKYATE CELL, HERTFORDSHIRE]
+
+The old Chateau du Puits, Guernsey, has a hiding-hole placed
+between two walls which form an acute angle; the one constituting
+part of the masonry of an inner courtyard, the other a wall on
+the eastern side of the main structure. The space between could
+be reached through the floor of an upper room.
+
+Cussans, in his _History of Hertfordshire_, gives a curious
+account of the discovery of an iron door up the kitchen chimney
+of the old house Markyate Cell, near Dunstable. A short flight
+of steps led from it to another door of stout oak, which opened
+by a secret spring, and led to an unknown chamber on the ground
+level. Local tradition says this was the favourite haunt of a
+certain "wicked Lady Ferrers," who, disguised in male attire,
+robbed travellers upon the highway, and being wounded in one
+of these exploits, was discovered lying dead outside the walls
+of the house; and the malignant nature of this lady's spectre
+is said to have had so firm a hold upon the villagers that no
+local labourer could be induced to work upon that particular
+part of the building.
+
+Beare Park, near Middleham, Yorkshire, had a hiding-hole entered
+from the kitchen chimney, as had also the Rookery Farm, near
+Cromer; West Coker Manor House; and The Chantry, at Ilminster,
+both in Somerset. At the last named, in another hiding-place in
+the room above, a bracket or credence-table was found, which
+is still preserved.
+
+Many weird stories are told about Bovey House, South Devon, situated
+near the once notorious smuggling villages of Beer and Branscombe.
+Upon removing some leads of the roof a secret room was found,
+furnished with a chair and table. The well here is remarkable,
+and similar to that at Carisbrooke, with the exception that two
+people take the place of the donkey! Thirty feet below the ground
+level there is said to have been a hiding-place--a large cavity
+cut in the solid rock. Many years ago a skeleton of a man was
+found at the bottom. Such dramatic material should suggest to some
+sensational novelist a tragic story, as the well and lime-walk at
+Ingatestone is said to have suggested _Lady Audley's Secret_.
+
+A hiding-place something after the same style existed in the now
+demolished manor house of Besils Leigh, Berks. Down the shaft
+of a chimney a cavity was scooped out of the brickwork, to which
+a refugee had to be lowered by a rope. One of the towers of the
+west gate of Bodiam Castle contains a narrow square well in the
+wall leading to the ground level, and, as the guide was wont
+to remark, "how much farther the Lord only knows"! This sort
+of thing may also be seen at Mancetter Manor, Warwickshire, and
+Ightham Moat, Kent, both approached by a staircase.
+
+A communication formerly ran from a secret chamber in the
+oak-panelled dining-room of Birtsmorton Court, Worcestershire,
+to a passage beneath the moat that surrounds the structure, and
+thence to an exit on the other side of the water. During the Wars
+of the Roses Sir John Oldcastle is said to have been concealed
+behind the secret panel; but now the romance is somewhat marred,
+for modern vandalism has converted the cupboard into a repository
+for provisions. The same indignity has taken place at that splendid
+old timber house in Cheshire, Moreton Hall, where a secret room,
+provided with a sleeping-compartment, situated over the kitchen,
+has been modernised into a repository for the storing of cheeses.
+From the hiding-place the moat could formerly be reached, down
+a narrow shaft in the wall.
+
+Chelvey Court, near Bristol, contained two hiding-places; one,
+at the top of the house, was formerly entered through a panel,
+the other (a narrow apartment having a little window, and an
+iron candle-holder projecting from the wall) through the floor
+of a cupboard.[1] Both the panel and the trap-door are now done
+away with, and the tradition of the existence of the secret rooms
+almost forgotten, though not long since we received a letter
+from an antiquarian who had seen them thirty years before, and
+who was actually entertaining the idea of making practical
+investigations with the aid of a carpenter or mason, to which,
+as suggested, we were to be a party; the idea, however, was never
+carried out.
+
+[Footnote 1: See _Notes and Queries_, September, 1855.]
+
+[Illustration: BIRTSMORTON COURT, WORCESTERSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: PORCH, CHELVEY COURT, SOMERSETSHIRE]
+
+Granchester Manor House, Cambridgeshire, until recently possessed
+three places of concealment. Madingley Hall, in the same
+neighbourhood, has two, one of them entered from a bedroom on the
+first floor, has a space in the thickness of the wall high enough
+for a man to stand upright in it. The manor house of Woodcote,
+Hants, also possessed two, which were each capable of holding from
+fifteen to twenty men, but these repositories are now opened
+out into passages. One was situated behind a stack of chimneys,
+and contained an inner hiding-place. The "priests' quarters"
+in connection with the hiding-places are still to be seen.
+
+Harborough Hall, Worcestershire, has two "priests' holes," one
+in the wall of the dining-room, the other behind a chimney in
+an upper room.
+
+The old mansion of the Brudenells, in Northamptonshire, Deene
+Park, has a large secret chamber at the back of the fireplace
+in the great hall, sufficiently capacious to hold a score of
+people. Here also a hidden door in the panelling leads towards
+a subterranean passage running in the direction of the ruinous
+hall of Kirby, a mile and a half distant. In a like manner a
+passage extended from the great hall of Warleigh, an Elizabethan
+house near Plymouth, to an outlet in a cliff some sixty yards
+away, at whose base the tidal river flows.
+
+Speke Hall, Lancashire (perhaps the finest specimen extant of
+the wood-and-plaster style of architecture nicknamed "Magpie "),
+formerly possessed a long underground communication extending
+from the house to the shore of the river Mersey; a member of
+the Norreys family concealed a priest named Richard Brittain
+here in the year 1586, who, by this means, effected his escape
+by boat.
+
+The famous secret passage of Nottingham Castle, by which the
+young King Edward III. and his loyal associates gained access
+to the fortress and captured the murderous regent and usurper
+Mortimer, Earl of March, is known to this day as "Mortimer's
+Hole." It runs up through the perpendicular rock upon which the
+castle stands, on the south-east side from a place called Brewhouse
+yard, and has an exit in what was originally the courtyard of the
+building. The Earl was seized in the midst of his adherents and
+retainers on the night of October 19th, 1330, and after a skirmish,
+notwithstanding the prayers and entreaties of his paramour Queen
+Isabella, he was bound and carried away through the passage in
+the rock, and shortly afterwards met his well-deserved death on
+the gallows at Smithfield.
+
+But what ancient castle, monastery, or hall has not its traditional
+subterranean passage? Certainly the majority are mythical; still,
+there are some well authenticated. Burnham Abbey, Buckinghamshire,
+for example, or Tenterden Hall, Hendon, had passages which have
+been traced for over fifty yards; and one at Vale Royal,
+Nottinghamshire, has been explored for nearly a mile. In the
+older portions in both of the great wards of Windsor Castle arched
+passages thread their way below the basement, through the chalk,
+and penetrate to some depth below the site of the castle ditch
+at the base of the walls.[1] In the neighbourhood of Ripon
+subterranean passages have been found from time to time--tunnels
+of finely moulded masonry supposed to have been connected at
+one time with Fountains Abbey.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Marquis of Lorne's (Duke of Argyll) _Governor's
+Guide to Windsor_.]
+
+A passage running from Arundel Castle in the direction of Amberley
+has also been traced for some considerable distance, and a man and
+a dog have been lost in following its windings, so the entrance
+is now stopped up. About three years ago a long underground way
+was discovered at Margate, reaching from the vicinity of Trinity
+Church to the smugglers' caves in the cliffs; also at Port Leven,
+near Helston, a long subterranean tunnel was discovered leading to
+the coast, no doubt very useful in the good old smuggling days.
+At Sunbury Park, Middlesex, was found a long vaulted passage some
+five feet high and running a long way under the grounds. Numerous
+other examples could be stated, among them at St. Radigund's
+Abbey, near Dover; Liddington Manor House, Wilts; the Bury,
+Rickmansworth; "Sir Harry Vane's House," Hampstead, etc., etc.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MINIATURE HIDING-HOLES FOR VALUABLES, ETC.
+
+Small hidden recesses for the concealment of valuables or
+compromising deeds, etc., behind the wainscoting of ancient houses,
+frequently come to light. Many a curious relic has been discovered
+from time to time, often telling a strange or pathetic story
+of the past. A certain Lady Hoby, who lived at Bisham Abbey,
+Berkshire, is said by tradition to have caused the death of her
+little boy by too severe corporal punishment for his obstinacy
+in learning to write, A grim sequel to the legend happened not
+long since. Behind a window shutter in a small secret cavity
+in the wall was found an ancient, tattered copy-book, which,
+from the blots and its general slovenly appearance, was no doubt
+the handiwork of the unfortunate little victim to Lady Hoby's
+wrath.
+
+When the old manor house of Wandsworth was pulled down recently,
+upon removing some old panelling a little cupboard was discovered,
+full of dusty phials and mouldy pill-boxes bearing the names of
+poor Queen Anne's numerous progeny who died in infancy.
+
+Richard Cromwell spent many of his later years at Hursley, near
+Winchester, an old house now pulled down. In the progress of
+demolition what appeared to be a piece of rusty metal was found
+in a small cavity in one of the walls, which turned out to be
+no less important a relic than the seal of the Commonwealth of
+England.
+
+Walford, in _Greater London_, mentions the discovery of
+some articles of dress of Elizabeth's time behind the wainscot
+of the old palace of Richmond, Surrey. Historical portraits have
+frequently been found in this way. Behind the panelling in a
+large room at the old manor house of Great Gaddesden, Herts,
+were a number of small aumbrys, or recesses. A most interesting
+panel-portrait of Queen Elizabeth was found in one of them, which
+was exhibited at the Tudor Exhibition. In 1896, when the house
+of John Wesley at Lewisham was pulled down, who should be found
+between the walls but the amorous Merry Monarch and a court beauty!
+The former is said to be Riley's work. Secretary Thurloe's MSS.,
+as is well known, were found embedded in a ceiling of his lodgings
+at Lincoln's Inn. In pulling down a block of old buildings in
+Newton Street, Holborn, a hidden space was found in one of the
+chimneys, and there, covered with the dust of a century, lay
+a silver watch, a silk guard attached, and seals bearing the
+Lovat crest. The relic was promptly claimed by Mr. John Fraser,
+the claimant to the long-disputed peerage.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: December 14th, 1895.]
+
+Small hiding-places have been found at the manor house of Chew
+Magna, Somerset, and Milton Priory, a Tudor mansion in Berkshire.
+In the latter a green shagreen case was found containing a
+seventeenth-century silver and ivory pocket knife and fork. A
+small hiding-place at Coughton Court, Warwickshire, brought to
+light a bundle of priest's clothes, hidden there in the days
+of religious persecution. In 1876 a small chamber was found at
+Sanderstead Court, Surrey, containing a small blue-and-white jar
+of Charles I.'s time. Three or four small secret repositories
+existed behind some elaborately carved oak panels in the great
+hall of the now ruinous Harden Hall, near Stockport. In similar
+recesses at Gawdy Hall, Suffolk, were discovered two ancient
+apostle spoons, a watch, and some Jacobean MSS. A pair of gloves
+and some jewels of seventeenth-century date were brought to light
+not many years ago in a secret recess at Woodham Mortimer Manor
+House, Essex. A very curious example of a hiding-place for valuables
+formerly existed at an old building known as Terpersie Castle,
+near Alford, Lincolnshire. The sides of it were lined with stone
+to preserve articles from damp, and it could be drawn out of
+the wall like a drawer.
+
+In the year 1861 a hidden receptacle was found at the Elizabethan
+college of Wedmore, Kent, containing Roman Catholic MSS. and
+books; and at Bromley Palace, close by, in a small aperture below
+the floor, was found the leathern sole of a pointed shoe of the
+Middle Ages! Small hiding-places of this nature existed in a
+wing, now pulled down, of the Abbey House, Whitby (in "Lady Anne's
+Room"). At Castle Ashby, Northants; Fountains Hall, near Ripon;
+Ashes House, near Preston; Trent House, Somerset; and Ockwells,
+Berks,[1] are panels opening upon pivots and screening small
+cavities in the walls.
+
+[Footnote 1: Another hiding-place is said to have existed behind
+the fireplace of the hall.]
+
+[Illustration: HURSTMONCEAUX CASTLE, SUSSEX]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+HIDING-PLACES OF SMUGGLERS AND THIEVES
+
+Horsfield, in his _History of Sussex_, gives a curious account
+of the discovery in 1738 of an iron chest in a recess of a wall at
+the now magnificent ruin Hurstmonceaux Castle. In the thickness
+of the walls were many curious staircases communicating with the
+galleries. When the old castle was allowed to fall into ruin,
+the secret passages, etc., were used by smugglers as a convenient
+receptacle for contraband goods.
+
+Until recently there was an ingenious hiding-place behind a sliding
+panel at the old "Bell Inn" at Sandwich which had the reputation
+of having formerly been put to the same use; indeed, in many
+another old house near the coast were hiding-places utilised for
+a like purpose.
+
+In pulling down an old house at Erith in 1882 a vault was discovered
+with strong evidence that it had been extensively used for smuggling.
+The pretty village of Branscombe, on the Devonshire coast, was,
+like the adjacent village of Beer, a notorious place for smugglers.
+"The Clergy House," a picturesque, low-built Tudor building
+(condemned as being insecure and pulled down a few years ago),
+had many mysterious stories told of its former occupants, its
+underground chambers and hiding-places; indeed, the villagers
+went so far as to declare that there was _another house_
+beneath the foundations!
+
+A secret chamber was discovered at the back of a fireplace in an
+old house at Deal, from which a long underground passage extended
+to the beach. The house was used as a school, and the unearthly
+noises caused by the wind blowing up this smugglers' passage
+created much consternation among the young lady pupils. A lady
+of our acquaintance remembers, when a schoolgirl at Rochester,
+exploring part of a vaulted tunnel running in the direction of
+the castle from Eastgate House, which in those days was a school,
+and had not yet received the distinction of being the "Nun's
+House" of _Edwin Drood_. Some way along, the passage was
+blocked by the skeleton of a donkey! Our informant is not given
+to romancing, therefore we must accept the story in good faith.
+
+All round the coast-line of Kent once famous smuggling buildings
+are still pointed out. Movable hollow beams have been found
+supporting cottage ceilings, containing all kinds of contraband
+goods. In one case, so goes the story, a customs house officer
+in walking through a room knocked his head, and the tell-tale
+hollow sound (from the beam, not from his head, we will presume)
+brought a discovery. At Folkestone, tradition says, a long row
+of houses used for the purpose had the cellars connected one
+with the other right the way along, so that the revenue officers
+could be easily evaded in the case of pursuit.
+
+The modern utility of a convenient secret panel or trap-door
+occasionally is apparent from the police-court reports. The tenements
+in noted thieves' quarters are often found to have
+intercommunication; a masked door will lead from one house to
+the other, and trap-doors will enable a thief to vanish from
+the most keen-sighted detective, and nimbly thread his way over
+the roofs of the neighbouring houses. There was a case in the
+papers not long since; a man, being closely chased, was on the
+point of being seized, when, to the astonishment of his pursuers,
+he suddenly disappeared at a spot where apparently he had been
+closely hemmed in.
+
+Many old houses in Clerkenwell were, sixty or seventy years ago,
+notorious thieves' dens, and were noted for their hiding-places,
+trap-doors, etc., for evading the vigilance of the law. The name
+of Jack Sheppard, as may be supposed, had connection with the
+majority. One of these old buildings had been used in former
+years as a secret Jesuits' college, and the walls were threaded
+with masked passages and places of concealment; and when the old
+"Red Lion Inn" in West Street was pulled down in 1836, some artful
+traps and false floors were discovered which tarried well with
+its reputation as a place of rendezvous and safety for outlaws.
+The "Rising Sun" in Holywell Street is a curious example, there
+being many false doors and traps in various parts of the house;
+also in the before-mentioned Newton Street a panel could be raised
+by a pulley, through which a fugitive or outlaw could effect his
+escape on to the roof, and thence into the adjoining house.
+
+One of the simplest and most secure hiding-places perhaps ever
+devised by a law-breaker was that within a water-butt! A cone-shaped
+repository, entered from the bottom, would allow a man to sit
+within it; nevertheless, to all intents and purposes the butt
+was kept full of water, and could be apparently emptied from a
+tap at its base, which, of course, was raised from the ground
+to admit the fugitive. We understand such a butt is still in
+existence somewhere in Yorkshire.
+
+A "secret staircase" in Partingdale House, Mill Hill, is associated
+(by tradition) with the notorious Dick Turpin, perhaps because of
+its proximity to his haunts upon Finchley Common. As it exists
+now, however, there is no object for secrecy, the staircase leading
+merely to the attics, and its position can be seen; but the door
+is well disguised in a Corinthian column containing a secret
+spring. Various alterations have taken place in this house, so
+once upon a time it may have had a deeper meaning than is now
+perceptible.
+
+Another supposed resort of this famous highwayman is an old ivy-grown
+cottage at Thornton Heath. Narrow steps lead up from the open
+chimney towards a concealed door, from which again steps descend
+and lead to a subterranean passage having an exit in the garden.
+
+[Illustration: BOVEY HOUSE, SOUTH DEVON]
+
+[Illustration: MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+We do not intend to go into the matter of modern secret chambers,
+and there are such things, as some of our present architects and
+builders could tell us, for it is no uncommon thing to design
+hiding-places for the security of valuables. For instance, we
+know of a certain suburban residence, built not more than thirty
+years ago, where one of the rooms has capacities for swallowing
+up a man six feet high and broad in proportion. We have known such
+a person--or shall we say victim?--to appear after a temporary
+absence, of say, five minutes, with visible signs of discomfort;
+but as far as we are aware the secret is as safe in his keeping
+as is the famous mystery in the possession of the heir of Glamis.
+
+An example of a sliding panel in an old house in Essex (near
+Braintree) was used as a pattern for the entrance to a modern
+secret chamber;[1] and no doubt there are many similar instances
+where the ingenuity of our ancestors has thus been put to use
+for present-day requirements.
+
+[Footnote 1: According to the newspaper reports, the recently
+recovered "Duchess of Devonshire," by Gainsborough, was for some
+time secreted behind a secret panel in a sumptuous steam-launch
+up the river Thames, from whence it was removed to America in
+a trunk with a false bottom.]
+
+Our collection of houses with hiding-holes is now coming to an
+end. We will briefly summarise those that remain unrecorded.
+
+"New Building" at Thirsk has, or had, a secret chamber measuring
+three feet by six. Upon the outside wall on the east side of
+the house is a small aperture into which a stone fitted with
+such nicety that no sign of its being movable could possibly be
+detected; at the same time, it could be removed with the greatest
+ease in the event of its being necessary to supply a person in
+hiding with food.
+
+Catledge Hall, Cambridgeshire, has a small octangular closet
+adjoining a bedroom, from which formerly there was a secret way
+on to the leads of the roof.
+
+[Illustration: MAPLEDURHAM HOUSE, OXFORDSHIRE]
+
+[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO SECRET STAIRCASE, PARTINGDALE HOUSE,
+MILL-HILL, MIDDLESEX]
+
+At Dunkirk Hall, near West Bromwich, is a "priest's hole" in the
+upper part of the house near "the chapel," which is now divided
+into separate rooms.
+
+Mapledurham House, axon, the old seat of the Blounts, contains
+a "priest's hole" in the attics, descent into which could be
+made by the aid of a rope suspended for that purpose.
+
+Upton Court, near Slough, possesses a "priest's hole," entered
+from a fireplace, provided with a double flue--one for smoke,
+the other for ventilation to the hiding-place.
+
+Knebworth House, Hertfordshire, formerly had a secret chamber
+known as "Hell Hole."
+
+Eastgate House, Rochester (before mentioned), has a hiding-place
+in one of the upstairs rooms. It has, however, been altered.
+
+Milsted Manor, Kent, is said to have a secret exit from the library;
+and Sharsted Court (some three miles distant) has a cleverly
+marked panel in the wainscoting of "the Tapestry Dressing-room,"
+which communicates by a very narrow and steep flight of steps
+in the thickness of the wall with "the Red Bedroom."
+
+The "Clough Inn," Chard, Somersetshire, is said by tradition to
+have possessed three secret rooms!
+
+Cawdor Castle, Nairnshire--a hiding-place formerly in "the tower."
+Bramhall Hall, Cheshire--two secret recesses were discovered
+not long ago during alterations. The following also contain
+hiding-places:--Hall-i'-the-wood, Bolling Hall, Mains Hall, and
+Huncoat Hall, all in Lancashire; Drayton House, Northants; Packington
+Old Hall, Warwickshire; Batsden Court, Salop; Melford Hall, Suffolk,
+Fyfield House, Wilts; "New Building," Southwater, Sussex; Barsham
+Rectory, Suffolk; Porter's Hall, Southend, Essex; Kirkby Knowle
+Castle and Barnborough Hall, Yorkshire; Ford House, Devon; Cothele,
+Cornwall; Hollingbourne Manor House, Kent (altered of late years);
+Salisbury Court, near Shenley, Herts.
+
+Of hiding-places and secret chambers in the ancient castles and
+mansions upon the Continent we know but little.
+
+Two are said to exist in an old house in the Hradschin in Prague--one
+communicating from the foundation to the roof "by a windlass or
+turnpike." A subterranean passage extends also from the house
+beneath the street and the cathedral, and is said to have its
+exit in the Hirch Graben, or vast natural moat which bounds the
+chateau upon the north.
+
+A lady of our acquaintance remembers her feeling of awe when,
+as a school-girl, she was shown a hiding-place in an old mansion
+near Baden-Baden--a huge piece of stone masonry swinging aside
+upon a pivot and revealing a gloomy kind of dungeon behind.
+
+The old French chateaux, according to Froisart, were rarely without
+secret means of escape. King Louis XVI., famous for his mechanical
+skill, manufactured a hiding-place in an inner corridor of his
+private apartments at the Palace of Versailles. The wall where
+it was situated was painted to imitate large stones, and the
+grooves of the opening were cleverly concealed in the shaded
+representations of the divisions. In this a vast collection of
+State papers was preserved prior to the Revolution.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Vide _The Memoirs of Madame Campan._]
+
+Mr. Lang tells us, in his admirable work _Pickle the Spy_,
+that Bonnie Prince Charlie, between the years 1749 and 1752,
+spent much of his time in the convent of St. Joseph in the Rue
+St. Dominique, in the Faubourg St. Germain, which under the late
+Empire (1863) was the hotel of the Minister of War. Here he appears
+to have been continually lurking behind the walls, and at night
+by a secret staircase visiting his protectress Madame de Vasses.
+Allusion is made in the same work to a secret cellar with a "dark
+stair" leading to James III.'s furtive audience-chamber at his
+residence in Rome.
+
+So recently as the year 1832 a hiding-place in an old French
+house was put to practical use by the Duchesse de Berry after
+the failure of her enterprise to raise the populace in favour of
+her son the Duc de Bordeaux. She had, however, to reveal herself
+in preference to suffocation, a fire, either intentionally or
+accidentally, having been ignited close to where she was hidden,
+recalling the terrible experiences of Father Gerard at "Braddocks."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE SCOTTISH HIDING-PLACES OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD
+
+The romantic escapes of Prince Charles Edward are somewhat beyond
+the province of this book, owing to the fact that the hiding-places
+in which he lived for the greater part of five months were not
+artificial but natural formations in the wild, mountainous country
+of the Western Highlands. Far less convenient and comfortable
+were these caves and fissures in the rocks than those secret
+places which preserved the life of the "young chevalier's"
+great-uncle Charles II. Altogether, the terrible hardships to
+which the last claimant to the Stuart throne was subjected were
+far greater in every way, and we can but admire the remarkable
+spirit, fortitude, and courage that carried him through his numerous
+dangers and trials.
+
+The wild and picturesque character not only of the Scotch scenery,
+but of the loyal Highlanders, who risked their all to save their
+King, gives the story of this remarkable escape a romantic colouring
+that surpasses any other of its kind, whether real or fictitious.
+
+This, therefore, is our excuse for giving a brief summary of the
+Prince's wanderings, if only to add to our other hiding-places
+a record of the names of the isolated spots which have become
+historical landmarks.
+
+In his flight from the fatal battlefield of Culloden the young
+Prince, when about four miles from Inverness, hastily determined
+to make the best of his way towards the western coast. The first
+halt was made at Castle Dounie, the seat of the crafty old traitor
+Lord Lovat. A hasty meal having been taken here, Charles and his
+little cavalcade of followers pushed on to Invergarry, where
+the chieftain, Macdonnell of Glengarry, otherwise "Pickle the
+Spy,"[1] being absent from home, an empty house was the only
+welcome, but the best was made of the situation. Here the bulk of
+the Prince's companions dispersed to look after their own safety,
+while he and one or two chosen friends continued the journey to
+Glenpean, the residence of the chieftain Donald Cameron. From
+Mewboll, which was reached the next night, the fugitives proceeded
+on foot to Oban, where a hovel was found for sleeping-quarters.
+In the village of Glenbiasdale, in Arisaig, near to where Charles
+had landed on his disastrous enterprise, he learned that a number
+of Royalist cruisers were upon the alert all along the coast,
+whereupon he determined to watch his opportunity and get across
+to the Western Isles, and remain concealed until a French vessel
+could be found to take him abroad.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Vide_ Andrew Lang's _Pickle the Spy_.]
+
+A boat was procured, and the little party safely embarked, but
+in the voyage encountered such heavy seas that the vessel very
+nearly foundered; a landing, however, being effected at a place
+called Roonish, in the Isle of Benbecula, a habitation had to
+be made out of a miserable hut. Two days being thus wretchedly
+spent, a move was made to the Island of Scalpa, where Charles
+was entertained for four days in the house of Donald Campbell.
+
+Meanwhile, a larger vessel was procured, the object being to
+reach Stornoway; but the inclemency of the weather induced Charles
+and his guide Donald Macleod to make the greater part of the
+journey by land. Arriving there hungry, worn out, and drenched
+to the skin, the Prince passed the night at Kildun, the house
+of Mrs. Mackenzie; an alarm of danger, however, forced him to
+sea again with a couple of companions, O'Sullivan and O'Neal;
+but shortly after they had embarked they sighted some men-of-war,
+so put to land once more at the Island of Jeffurt. Four days
+were passed away in this lonely spot, when the boat put out to
+sea once more, and after many adventures and privations the
+travellers landed at Loch Wiskaway, in Benbecula, and made their
+headquarters some two miles inland at a squalid hut scarcely
+bigger than a pigstye.
+
+The next move was to an isolated locality named Glencorodale,
+in the centre of South Uist, where in a hut of larger dimensions
+the Prince held his court in comparative luxury, his wants being
+well looked after by Sir Alexander and Lady Macdonald and other
+neighbouring Jacobites. With thirty thousand pounds reward offered
+for his capture, and the Western Isles practically surrounded
+by the enemy, it is difficult to imagine the much-sought-for
+prize coolly passing his weary hours in fishing and shooting,
+yet such was the case for the whole space of a month.
+
+An eye-witness describes Charles's costume at this time as "a
+tartan short coat and vest of the same, got from Lady Clanranald;
+his nightcap all patched with soot-drops, his shirt, hands, and
+face patched with the same; a short kilt, tartan hose, and Highland
+brogs."
+
+From South Uist the fugitive removed to the Island of Wia, where
+he was received by Ranald Macdonald; thence he visited places
+called Rossinish and Aikersideallich, and at the latter had to
+sleep in a fissure in the rocks. Returning once more to South
+Uist, Charles (accompanied by O'Neal and Mackechan) found a
+hiding-place up in the hills, as the militia appeared to be
+dangerously near, and at night tramped towards Benbecula, near
+to which another place of safety was found in the rocks.
+
+The memorable name of Flora Macdonald now appears upon the scene.
+After much scheming and many difficulties the meeting of the Prince
+and this noble lady was arranged in a squalid hut near Rosshiness.
+The hardships encountered upon the journey from Benbecula to this
+village were some of the worst experiences of the unfortunate
+wanderer; and when his destination was reached at last, he had to
+be hurried off again to a hiding-place by the sea-shore, which
+provided little or no protection from the driving torrents of
+rain. Early each morning this precaution had to be taken, as
+the Royalist soldiers, who were quartered only a quarter of a
+mile distant, repaired to the hut every morning to get milk from
+the woman who acted as Charles's hostess. Upon the third day after
+the Prince had arrived, Flora Macdonald joined him, bringing with
+her the disguise for the character he was to impersonate upon
+a proposed journey to the Isle of Skye--_viz._ "a flowered
+linen gown, a light-coloured quilted petticoat, a white apron,
+and a mantle of dun camlet, made after the Irish fashion, with
+a hood."
+
+A boat lay in readiness in a secluded nook on the coast, and
+"Betty Burke"--the pseudo servant-maid--Flora Macdonald, and
+Mackechan, as guide, embarked and got safely to Kilbride, in
+Skye. Not, however, without imminent dangers. A storm nearly
+swamped the boat; and upon reaching the western coast of the
+island they were about to land, when a number of militiamen were
+noticed on shore, close at hand, and as they recognised their
+peril, and pulled away with might and main, a volley of musketry
+would probably have had deadly effect, had not the fugitives
+thrown themselves at the bottom of the boat.
+
+At the house of the Macdonalds of Mugstat, whose representative
+dreaded the consequences of receiving Charles, another Macdonald
+was introduced as an accomplice by the merest accident. This
+staunch Jacobite at once took possession of "Betty," and hurried
+off towards his house of Kingsburgh. Upon the way the ungainly
+appearance of Flora's maid attracted the attention of a servant,
+who remarked that she had never seen such an impudent-looking
+woman. "See what long strides the jade takes!" she cried; "and how
+awkwardly she manages her petticoats!" And this was true enough,
+for in fording a little brook "Betty Burke" had to be severely
+reprimanded by her chaperon for her impropriety in lifting her
+skirts! Upon reaching the house, Macdonald's little girl caught
+sight of the strange woman, and ran away to tell her mother that
+her father had brought home "the most old, muckle, ill-shapen-up
+wife" she had ever seen. Startling news certainly for the lady
+of Kingsburgh!
+
+The old worn-out boots of the Prince's were discarded for new
+ones ere he departed, and fragments of the former were long
+afterwards worn in the bosoms of Jacobite ladies.
+
+The next step in this wonderful escape was to Portree, where
+temporary accommodation was found in a small public-house. Here
+Charles separated from his loyal companions Neil Mackechan and
+the immortal Flora. The "Betty Burke" disguise was discarded
+and burnt and a Highland dress donned. With new guides the young
+Chevalier now made his headquarters for a couple of days or so
+in a desolate shepherd's hut in the Isle of Raasay; thence he
+journeyed to the north coast of the Isle of Skye, and near Scorobreck
+housed himself in a cow-shed. At this stage of his journey Charles
+altered his disguise into that of a servant of his then companion
+Malcolm Macleod, and at the home of his next host (a Mackinnon of
+Ellagol) was introduced as "Lewie Caw," the son of a surgeon in
+the Highland army. By the advice of the Mackinnons, the fugitive
+decided to return, under their guidance, again to the mainland,
+and a parting supper having been held in a cave by the sea-shore,
+he bid adieu to the faithful Macleod. The crossing having been
+effected, not without innumerable dangers, once more Charles
+found himself near the locality of his first landing. For the
+next three days neither cave nor hut dwelling could be found
+that was considered safe; and upon the fourth day, in exploring
+the shores of Loch Nevis for a hiding-place, the fugitives ran
+their little craft right into a militia boat that was moored
+to and screened from view by a projecting rock. The soldiers
+on land immediately sprang on board and gave chase; but with
+his usual good luck Charles got clear away by leaping on land
+at a turn of the lake, where his retreat was covered by dense
+foliage.
+
+After this the Prince was under the care of the Macdonalds, one
+of which clan, Macdonald of Glenaladale, together with Donald
+Cameron of Glenpean, took the place of the Mackinnons.
+
+A brief stay was made at Morar Lake and at Borrodaile (both houses
+of the Macdonalds); after which a hut in a wood near the latter
+place and an artfully constructed hiding-place between two rocks
+with a roof of green turf did service as the Prince's palace.
+
+In this cave Charles received the alarming news that the Argyllshire
+Militia were on the scent, and were forming an impenetrable cordon
+completely round the district. Forced once more to seek refuge
+in flight, the unfortunate Stuart was hurried away through some
+of the wildest mountainous country he had yet been forced to
+traverse. A temporary hiding-place was found, and from this a
+search-party exploring the adjacent rocks and crags was watched
+with breathless interest.
+
+Still within the military circle, a desperate dash for liberty had
+now to be planned. Nearly starved and reduced to the last extremity
+of fatigue, Charles and his guides, Glenpean and Glenaladale,
+crept stealthily upon all-fours towards the watch-fires, and
+taking advantage of a favourable moment when the nearest sentry
+was in such a position that their approach could be screened
+by the projecting rocks, in breathless silence the three stole
+by, and offering up a prayer for their deliverance, continued
+their foot-sore journey until their legs would carry them no
+farther.
+
+The next four days Charles sought shelter in caves in the
+neighbourhood of Glenshiel, Strathcluanie, and Strathglass; but
+the most romantic episode in his remarkable adventures was the
+sojourn in the secret caves and hiding-places of the notorious
+robbers of Glenmoriston, under whose protection the royal fugitive
+placed himself. With these wild freebooters he continued for
+three weeks, during which time he made himself extremely popular
+by his freedom of intercourse with them.
+
+The wanderer left these dwellings of comparative luxury that
+he might join hands with other fugitive Jacobites, Macdonald
+of Lochgarry and Cameron of Clunes, and took up his quarters
+in the wood-surrounded huts near Loch Arkaig and Auchnacarry.
+
+The poor youth's appearance at this period is thus described by
+one of his adherents: "The Prince was at this time bare-footed,
+had an old black kilt-coat on, philabeg and waistcoat, a dirty
+shirt, and a long red beard, a gun in his hand, and a pistol
+and dirk by his side."
+
+Moving again to miserable hovels in the wild recesses of the
+mountain Benalder, the chieftains Lochiel and Cluny acted now
+as the main bodyguard. The former of these two had devised a
+very safe hiding-place in the mountain which went by the name
+of "the Cage," and while here welcome news was brought that two
+friendly vessels had arrived at Lochnanuagh, their mission being,
+if possible, to seek out and carry away the importunate heir to
+the Stuart throne.
+
+The last three or four days of Charles's memorable adventures
+were occupied in reaching Glencamger, halts being made on the
+day at Corvoy and Auchnacarry. On Saturday, September 20th, 1746,
+he was on board _L'Heureux_, and nine days later landed at
+Roscoff, near Morlaix.
+
+So ended the famous escapades of the young Chevalier Prince Charles
+Edward.
+
+Here is a fine field open to some enterprising artistic tourist.
+How interesting it would be to follow Prince Charles throughout
+his journeyings in the Western Highlands, and illustrate with
+pen and pencil each recorded landmark! Not long since Mr. Andrew
+Lang gave, in a weekly journal (_The Sketch_), illustrations
+of the most famous of all the Prince's hiding-places--_viz._
+the cave in Glenmoriston, Inverness-shire.[1] The cave, we are
+told, is "formed like a tumulus by tall boulders, but is clearly
+a conspicious object, and a good place wherein to hunt for a
+fugitive. But it served its turn, and as another cave in the same
+district two miles off is lost, perhaps it is not so conspicious
+as it seems." It is about twenty feet wide at the base, and the
+position of the hearth and the royal bed are still to be seen,
+with "the finest purling stream that could be, running by the
+bed-side." How handy for the morning "tub"!
+
+[Footnote 1: They appeared originally in Blaikie's _Itinerary
+of Prince Curies Stuart_ (Scottish History Society).]
+
+In that remarkable collection of Stuart relics on exhibition
+in 1889 were many pathetic mementoes of Charles's wanderings in
+the Highlands. Here could be seen not only the mittens but the
+chemise of "Betty Burke"; the punch-bowl over which the Prince
+and the host of Kingsburgh had a late carousal, and his Royal
+Highness's table-napkins used in the same hospitable house; a
+wooden coffee-mill, which provided many a welcome cup of coffee
+in the days of so many hardships; a silver dessert-spoon, given
+to Dr. Macleod by the fugitive when he left the Isle of Skye;
+the Prince's pocket-book, many of his pistols, and a piece of
+his Tartan disguise; a curious relic in the form of two lines
+of music, sent as a warning to one of his lurking-places--when
+folded in a particular way the following words become legible,
+"Conceal yourself; your foes look for you." There was also a
+letter from Charles saying he had "arrived safe aboard ye vessell"
+which carried him to France, and numerous little things which
+gave the history of the escape remarkable reality.
+
+The recent dispersal of the famous Culloden collection sent
+long-cherished Jacobite relics broadcast over the land. The ill-fated
+Stuart's bed and walking-stick were of course the plums of this
+sale; but they had no connection with the Highland wanderings
+after the battle. The only object that had any connection with
+the story was the gun of _L'Heureux_.
+
+We understand there is still a much-prized heirloom now in Glasgow--a
+rustic chair used by the Prince when in Skye. The story is that,
+secreted in one of his cave dwellings, he espied a lad in his
+immediate vicinity tending some cows. Hunger made him reveal
+himself, with the result that he was taken to the boy's home,
+a farm not far off, and had his fill of cream and oatcakes, a
+delicacy which did not often fall in his way. The visit naturally
+was repeated; and long afterwards, when the rank of his guest
+came to the knowledge of the good farmer, the royal chair was
+promoted from its old corner in the kitchen to an honored position
+worthy of such a valued possession.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+Bedfordshire:--
+  Toddington Place
+Berkshire:--
+  Besils Leigh
+  Bisham Abbey
+  East Hendred House
+  Hurley, Lady Place
+  Milton Priory
+  Ockwells
+  Ufton Court
+  Windsor Castle
+Buckinghamshire:--
+  Burnham Abbey
+  Claydon House
+  Dinton Hall
+  Gayhurst, or Gothurst
+  Slough, Upton Court
+  Stoke Poges Manor House
+
+Cambridgeshire:--
+  Catledge Hall
+  Granchester Manor House
+  Madingley Hall
+  Sawston Hall
+Cheshire:--
+  Bramhall Hall
+  Harden Hall
+  Lyme Hall
+  Moreton Hall
+Cornwall:--
+  Bochym House
+  Cothele
+  Port Leven
+Cumberland:--
+  Naworth Castle
+  Nether Hall
+
+Derbyshire:--
+  Bradshawe Hall
+Devonshire:--
+  Bovey House
+  Branscombe, "The Clergy House"
+  Ford House
+  Warleigh
+Durham:--
+  Bishops Middleham
+  Darlington
+  Dinsdale-on-Tees
+  Eshe Hall
+
+Essex:--
+  Braddocks, or Broad Oaks
+  Braintree
+  Dunmow, North End
+  Hill Hall
+  Hinchford
+  Ingatestone Hall
+  Romford, Marks
+  Southend, Porter's Hall
+  Woodham Mortimer Manor House
+
+Gloucestershire:--
+  Bourton-on-the-Water Manor House
+
+Hampshire:--
+  Bramshill
+  Highclere Castle
+  Hinton-Ampner
+  Hursley
+  Moyles Court
+  Tichbourne
+  Woodcote Manor House
+Herefordshire:--
+  Treago
+Hertfordshire:--
+  Great Gaddesden Manor House
+  Hatfield House
+  Knebworth House
+  Markyate Cell, Dunstable
+  Rickmansworth, The Bury
+  Shenley, Salisbury Court
+  Tyttenhanger House
+Huntingdonshire:--
+  Kimbolton Castle
+
+Kent:--
+  Bromley Palace
+  Deal
+  Dover, St. Radigund's Abbey
+  Erith
+  Folkestone
+  Franks
+  Hollingbourne Manor House
+  Ightham Moat
+  Lewisham, John Wesley's House
+  Margate
+  Milsted Manor
+  Rochester, Abdication House
+  Rochester, Eastgate House
+  Rochester, Restoration House
+  Sandwich, "Bell Inn"
+  Sharsted Court
+  Twissenden
+  Wedmore College
+
+Lancashire:--
+  Bolling Hall
+  Borwick Hall
+  Gawthorp Hall
+  Hall-i'-the-wood
+  Holme Hall
+  Huncoat Hall
+  Lydiate Hall
+  Mains Hall
+  Preston, Ashes House
+  Speke Hall
+  Stonyhurst
+Lincolnshire:--
+  Bayons Manor
+  Irnham Hall
+  Kingerby Hall
+  Terpersie Castle
+
+Middlesex:--
+  Enfield, White Webb's
+  Hackney, Brooke House
+  Hampstead, Sir Harry Vane's House
+  Hampton Court
+  Hendon, Tenterden Hall
+  Highgate, Cromwell House
+  Hillingdon, Moorcroft House
+  Islington, Hale House
+  Kensington, Holland House
+  Knightsbridge
+  London, Lincoln's Inn
+  London, Newton Street, Holborn
+  London, "Red Lion Inn," West Street, Clerkenwell
+  London, "Rising Sun," Holywell Street
+  Mill Hill, Partingdale House
+  Sunbury Park
+  Twickenham, Arragon Towers
+  Westminster, Delahay Street
+
+Norfolk:--
+  Cromer, Rookery Farm
+  Oxburgh Hall
+Northamptonshire:--
+  Ashby St. Ledgers
+  Castle Ashby
+  Deene Park
+  Drayton House
+  Fawsley
+  Great Harrowden
+  Rushton Hall
+Northumberland:--
+  Ford Castle
+  Netherwhitton
+  Wallington
+Nottinghamshire:--
+  Nottingham Castle
+  Vale Royal
+  Worksop
+
+Oxfordshire:--
+  Broughton Castle
+  Chastleton
+  Mapledurham House
+  Minster Lovel Manor House
+  Shipton Court
+  Tusmore House
+  Woodstock
+
+Shropshire:--
+  Batsden Court
+  Boscobel House
+  Gatacre Park
+  Longford, Newport
+  Madeley Court
+  Madeley, Upper House
+  Oswestry, Park Hall
+  Plowden Hall
+Somersetshire:--
+  Chard, "Clough Inn"
+  Chelvey Court
+  Chew Magna Manor House
+  Dunster Castle
+  Ilminster, The Chantry
+  Trent House
+  West Coker Manor House
+Staffordshire:--
+  Broughton Hall
+  Moseley Hall
+  West Bromwich, Dunkirk Hall
+Suffolk:--
+  Barsham Rectory
+  Brandeston Hall
+  Brandon Hall
+  Coldham Hall
+  Gawdy Hall
+  Melford Hall
+Surrey:--
+  Mortlake, Cromwell House
+  Petersham, Ham House
+  Richmond Palace
+  Sanderstead Court
+  Thornton Heath
+  Wandsworth Manor House
+  Weybridge, Ham House
+Sussex:--
+  Albourne Place
+  Arundel Castle
+  Bodiam Castle
+  Chichester Cathedral
+  Cowdray
+  Hurstmonceaux Castle
+  Parham Hall
+  Paxhill
+  Scotney Castle
+  Slindon House
+  Southwater, Horsham, "New Building"
+  Street Place
+
+Warwickshire:--
+  Baddesley Clinton
+  Clopton Hall
+  Compton Winyates
+  Coughton Court
+  Mancetter Manor
+  Packington Old Hall
+  Salford Prior Hall
+  Warwick, St. John's Hospital
+Wiltshire:--
+  Fyfield House
+  Great Chalfield
+  Heale House
+  Liddington Manor House
+  Salisbury
+Worcestershire:--
+  Armscot Manor House
+  Birtsmorton Court
+  Cleeve Prior Manor House
+  Harborough Hall
+  Harvington Hall
+  Hindlip Hall
+  Huddington Court
+  Malvern, Pickersleigh Court
+  Stanford Court
+  Wollas Hall
+
+Yorkshire:--
+  Bamborough Hall
+  Beare Park
+  Danby Hall
+  Dannoty Hall
+  Fountains Abbey
+  Fountains Hall
+  Hull, White Hart Hotel
+  Kirkby Knowle Castle
+  Leyburn, The Grove
+  Myddleton Lodge, Ilkley
+  Thirsk, "New Building"
+  Whatton Abbey
+  Whitby, Abbey House
+  Yeadon, Low Hall
+
+Aberdeenshire:--
+  Belucraig
+  Dalpersie House
+  Fetternear
+  Fyvie Castle
+  Gordonstown
+  Kemnay House
+
+Banffshire:--
+  Towie Barclay Castle
+
+Elginshire:--
+  Coxton Tower
+
+Forfarshire:--
+  Glamis Castle
+
+Haddingtonshire:--
+  Elphinstone Castle
+
+Linlithgowshire:--
+  Binns House
+
+Nairnshire:--
+  Cawdor Castle
+
+Monmouthshire:--
+  Ty Mywr
+
+Pembrokeshire:--
+  Carew Castle
+
+Isle of Wight:--
+  Newport Manor House
+
+Guernsey:--
+  Chateau du Puits
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Secret Chambers and Hiding Places, by Allan Fea
+
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