Part 5 (1/2)
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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 pa.s.sage, 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 c.h.i.n.k 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 a.s.sociated.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SECRET CHAMBER, CHASTLETON, OXFORDs.h.i.+RE]
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 princ.i.p.al 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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 a.s.sociation.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CHASTLETON]
[Ill.u.s.tration: ENTRANCE DOOR, CHASTLETON]
It may be here stated that after Charles I.'s execution, Juxon lived for a time in Suss.e.x 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 Suss.e.x 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 pa.s.s through a trap-door in the attics, crawl along under the roof, and drop down into the, s.p.a.ce in the wall behind a bedroom fireplace, where for extra security there is a second trap-door.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BROUGHTON HALL, STAFFORDs.h.i.+RE]
[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. JOHN'S HOSPITAL, WARWICK]
Full-length panel portraits of the Salwey family at Stanford Court, Worcesters.h.i.+re (unfortunately burned down in 1882), concealed hidden recesses and screened pa.s.sages leading up to an exit in the leads of the roof. In one of these recesses curious seventeenth-century ma.n.u.scripts were found, among them, the household book of a certain ”Joyce Jeffereys” during the Civil War.