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.