Secret Chambers and Hiding Places

ddocks, which in Elizabeth's reign was a noted house for priest-hunting. Wandering through its ancient rooms, the imagination readi

place that was stripped of its overmantel, etc., of carved oak by the "pursu

OCKS,

CE AT B

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. Searche

exciting experien

utobiography of Fa

d forcing their way in, spread through

her own room with her two daughters, and the Catholic servants th

late Cardinal Wiseman was descended from a junior branch of

est 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

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 a

d rescuing me from death; for she knew that I had made up my mind to suffer and die of starva

ing to eat but a biscuit or two and a little quince jelly,

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 roo

ck the magistrates who had departed. These retur

r above mentioned, in order to find out some hollow place. But finding nothing whatever during

ain 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 the

the floor, made of wood and bricks, under the fireplace. The place was so constructed that a fire could not be li

arly 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

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

o, 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

ceiling, close to the place where I was: for the lower part of the walls was covered with tapestry, not with wainscot. So they stri

down without risk of breaking it. Broken, however, it would have been, and that into a thousand pieces, had they any conception that I

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

e 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 w

of Dunmow. Here were also "priests' holes," one of which (in a chimney) sec

liz.), December, 1593. See also Li

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

e Life of John

trance high up in the wall, which led to a space under a gable projection of the roof. For double security this cont