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.