¹ The phrase is that of Eudaemon-loannes, Andreas, Apologia pro R. P. Henrico Garneto (Cologne, 1610), p. 209.Google Scholar More, Henry, Historia Provinciae Anglicanae Societatis Iesu (St Omer, 1660), p. 31,Google Scholar calls him ‘conficiendarum domesticarum latebrarum peritissimus’.

² Gerard, John, Narrative of the Gunpowder Plot, ed. Morris, John (1872)Google Scholar as The Condition of Catholics under James I, p. 187: quoted below as Condition.

³ ‘Elizabethan Priest-Holes: I-VI’, Recusant History 11 (1971–72), pp. 279–98; 12 (1973–74), pp. 99–119, 171–97; 13 (1975–76), pp. 18–55, 254–79; 14 (1977–78), pp. 97–126. ‘A Topographical Index of Hiding-Places: I—III’, Recusant History 16 (1982–83), pp. 146–216; 24 (1998–99), pp. 1–54; 27 (2004–05), pp. 473–520. See also ‘Loca Secretiora in 1581’, Recusant History 19 (1988–89), pp. 386–95, and ‘The Owens of Oxford’, Recusant History 24 (1998–99), pp. 415–30.

⁴ Foley IV (1878), p. 215.

⁵ Hodgetts, Recusant History 13 (1973–74), pp. 184–94; 24 (1998–99), pp. 48–49.

⁶ Foley IV, pp. 259–61 (SP 14/216/192, 194, dated 26 February and 1 March 1606).

⁷ Caraman, Philip, Henry Garnet and the Gunpowder Plot (1964), pp. 217–8, 257.Google Scholar The first of these references is not in Caraman's index.

⁸ The Narrative forms the text (pp. 1–331) of Morris, The Condition of Catholics under James I. The introduction to it (pp. i-cclxiv) includes the substance of the Autobiography, with supporting documents. In 1881 the introduction was published separately with further additional documentation as The Life of Father John Gerard. A new translation of the Autobiography was published by Caraman in 1951, a second edition of which, with much fuller notes, appeared in 1956. The 1956 ed. is quoted below as Gerard, Autobiography.

⁹ Tanner, Matthias, Societas Iesu Militons, seu Vita et Mors eorum qui ex Societate…pro Fide Sublati sunt, pp. 73–79.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Foley IV, pp. 245–67.

¹¹ Gerard, Autobiography, pp. 5, 216, 237; Acts of the Privy Council, 14 August 1581.

¹² Condition, pp. 182, 183, 184.

¹³ Tanner, p. 75; cf Foley IV, pp. 247, 256; Fea, Allan, Secret Chambers and Hiding-Places (1901), pp. 20–21.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Aeneid V, 588–91; Metamorphoses VIII, 157–68; Georgie I, 183.

¹⁵ A few hides below ground are recorded: at Baddesley Clinton in Warwickshire, the Blackfriars Gatehouse in London, Grosmont Priory and Upsall Castle in Yorkshire, Sledwick in Co. Durham; possibly at Irnham in Lincolnshire. But these are exceptions.

¹⁶ Foley's account of Owen is in three sections. The first (pp. 245–58) is from Tanner, quoting Bartoli, with supplementary details from Gerard's Autobiography (the source for Tanner), and, on p. 246, aletter of 1580 from Mercurian to ‘our brother Nicholas’ (Nicholas Roscarrock?). Foley assumes that this was Nicholas Owen and uses the letter as evidence that Owen was a Jesuit brother by 1580. On p. 245 he says that Henry More ‘places [Owen] among the first English lay-brothers’, quoting Historia Prov. Angliae I, p. 31, though More's phrase, his addì potest, does not imply that. On p. 247 he quotes Tanner and Nadasi (no ref. given) for the date of Owen's death as 12 November 1606; on the same page he includes Tanner's reference to subterranean passages, labyrinths and a thousand windings. The second section (pp. 259–61) consists of Owen's two confessions of 26 February and 1 March 1606 (SP 14/216/ii/192, 194) and Salisbury's instructions to Coke for the trial of the Plotters (SP 14/19/94), which conclude: ‘You must remember to lay Owen as foul in this as you may’. This refers to Hugh Owen, the intelligencer in Flanders, but was taken by Foley as referring to Nicholas. The third section (pp. 261–7) is from Gerard's Narrative (via Morris, Condition), including (pp. 261–2) Gerard's triple statement that Owen was building hides for ‘seventeen or eighteen years’—which contradicts his previous statement based on Tanner.

¹⁷ Coughton and Harvington (IV, p. 34n) from C. A. Buckler; Lydiate (V, p. 375) from Gibson, T. E., Lydiate Hall and its Associations (1876); Oxburgh (V, p. 565n)Google Scholar from the Orthodox Journal of February 1833; Sawston (V, p. 583n) from ‘a descendant of the Sawston line’; West Grinstead (III, p. 538n) from the Abbé Jean-Marie Denis; cf McCann, Timothy, ‘West Grinstead: A Centre of Catholicism in Sussex, 1671–1814’, Sussex Archaeological Collections 124 (1986), pp. 193–212.Google Scholar

¹⁸ C.R.S. 5, p. 133 (SP 12/206/77); Index I, nos. 5 (Ufton), 133 (Michelgrove); II, no. 279 (Slindon); III, no. 316 (Warblington).

¹⁹ Fairclough, Oliver, The Grand Old Mansion: The Holies and their Successors at Aston Hall. 1618–1864 (1984), p. 68;Google Scholar see also Hodgetts, ‘The Holtes of Aston Hall, Birmingham’ Midland Catholic History 9 (2002–3), pp. 13–26.Google Scholar

²⁰ Wood, Bernard, Secret Britain (1968), pp. 104–8;Google Scholar Fea, Rooms of Mystery and Romance (1931), pp. 123–4.

²¹ Squiers, pp. 278–83.

²² Squiers, Moseley Old Hall (J. & J. Wiggin Ltd, Bloxwich, Wolverhampton, 1950), pp. ii + 34;Google Scholar Pepys MS 2141, now printed in Matthews, William, Charles H's Escape from Worcester (1967), pp. 100–114.Google Scholar The British Library copy of Moseley Old Hall is 07822. p.91.

²³ Squiers, p. 203; cf Squiers, , Broadoaks: The Story of an Essex Manor House (The Dryden Press, J. Davy& Sons Ltd, 8–9 Frith St, London W1 (1933), pp. 24),Google Scholar pp. 19–20. The British Library copy of Broadoaks is 010360.bbb.58; I have autographed copies both of it and of Secret Hiding-Places.

²⁴ Waugh, Margaret, Blessed Nicholas Owen (Office of the Vice-Postulation, 1961, pp. 24).Google Scholar She also used Fea 1901, though, fortunately, not Fea 1931.

²⁵ On this see Hodgetts, ‘The Godly Garret, 1560–1660’, in Rowlands, Marie B. ed., Catholics of Parishand Town, 1558–1778 (C.R.S. Monograph 5/Wolverhampton University, 1999), pp. 36–60;Google Scholar and the introduction to my Index, Part III (Recusant History 27 (2004–05), pp. 476–8). To the evidence cited there, add the incident in London in July 1599 when Mrs Haywood diverted the searchers away from the room in which Gerard and John Lillie were trapped by saying, ‘Perhaps the servant who sleep shere has taken away the key: I'll go and look’ (Gerard, Autobiography, pp. 152, 251). Both priests and servants slept on the top floor, but means would have to be found to keep them apart; cf Index III, no. 332.

²⁶ Squiers's thirteen are: Baddesley Clinton (p. 31); Hindlip (p. 34); Billesley (p. 39: ‘not unlike Owen's work’); Huddington (p. 64); Thrumpton (p. 83); Ufton (p. 97: ‘conceivably’); Boscobel (p. 170: ‘quite possible’; cf Moseley); Braddocks (pp. 195–203); Felsted (p. 206); Sawston (p. 211); Kirby (p. 226: not then identified); Trent (p. 240: ‘the hiding-places certainly have the Owen touch’); and Little Santon (p. 259). Of these, Thrumpton was not built until 1608, the house at Felsted has still not been identified, and the place at Little Santon has since been destroyed. To Squiers's list Margaret Waugh added eight: Coughton, Clopton (a mistake for Sledwick), Rushton, Coldham, Gayhurst, Ingatestone, Northend, and Gerard's house in St Clement's Lane, London. (The last two of these no longer exist.) She omitted three of those listed by Squiers: Kirby, Little Santon and Trent. So her total was eighteen instead of thirteen: both she and Squiers omitted Harvington, Oxburgh and Scotney. Some from both their lists are discussed below; the Owen hide at Sawston was that shown in Simon Schama's programme, as a contrast to the great wool-church at Long Melford.

²⁷ Staffordshire Historical Collections, N.S. 5 (1902), pp. 168–9 (in George Wrottesley, ‘The Giffards from the Conquest to the Present Day’, pp. 1–232). The lengthy restoration by English Heritage did not result in a precise dating. But I suspect that Boscobel was the ‘College of Blessed Aloysius Gonzaga’ in Staffordshire mentioned in 1622: McCoog, Thomas M., ‘The Establishment of the English Province of the Society of Jesus’, Recusant History 17 (1983–84), pp. 121–39, esp. pp. 135–6.Google Scholar

²⁸ Mathew, David, Catholicism in England, 1535–1935 (1936), p. 47.Google Scholar

²⁹ Country Life 131 (1962), pp. 662–3. At Hodgkinson, Harvington H. R. noted in 1938: ‘The remaining two hiding-places [apart from the swinging beam and the hide under the Great Staircase] are of a more ordinary type’: ‘Recent Discoveries at Harvington Hall’, Birmingham Archaeological Society Transactions 62 (1938), p. 15.Google Scholar But he did not draw the inference that these hides were therefore by another, and earlier, builder.

³⁰ Gerard refers to the use in 1606 of ‘the most safe secret places they had’, which implies that some wereless cunning than others: Condition, p. 151.

³¹ Condition, p. 184.

³² Condition, p. 37. The whole of this paragraph on the technique of searching is worth close study.

³³ SP 12/271/71; for full details of the search see Recusant History 13 (1973–74), pp. 262–6.

³⁴ Condition, p. 182.

³⁵ Squiers, pp. 26–27.

³⁶ Squiers, p. 65; cf. his remark on Little Santon (p. 259) that ‘one side of this gap is framed by that well-loved device of Nicholas Owen's, a chamfered beam’.

³⁷ Squiers, p. 73.

³⁸ Condition, p. 184.

³⁹ Gerard, Autobiography, pp. 158–9. ‘They had been proved trustworthy time and again; in fact, they were to be the only two persons, apart from ourselves, to know where our hiding-places were.’ This might imply that Sheldon had worked on hides with Owen before.

⁴⁰ Squiers, pp. 133–7; Hodgetts, Recusant History 13 (1975–76), pp. 256–66; Hodgetts, Secret Hiding-Places, pp. 119–27, 184–5. (Grosmont is not in Squiers.)

⁴¹ Gerard, Autobiography, p. 205.

⁴² Squiers, p. 26.

⁴³ British Library, MS Harleian 360, f. 101; Condition, pp. 152–3.

⁴⁴ Gerard, Autobiography, pp. 160–1. Anstruther, Vaux of Harrowden, p. 243, thought that this was the north wing of the present house, which is early Georgian with some earlier features. But this is not certain, and it is not mentioned in Pevsner & Cherry, The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire (1973), pp. 234–5.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Hodgetts, Secret Hiding-Places, pp. 89–99; Recusant History 13 (1975–76), pp. 36–50.Google ScholarPubMed

⁴⁶ Devlin, Christopher, The Life of Robert Southwell, Poet and Martyr (1956), pp. 131–5.Google Scholar The last five words are important: in houses where the danger lasted for only a couple of hours a month, there was little need of priest-holes.

⁴⁷ Gerard, Autobiography, pp. 54–55, 232; Foley I, p. 488 (SP 12/248/31).

⁴⁸ Ibidem., pp. 64–65, 234.

⁴⁹ Ibidem., p. 169.

⁵⁰ Condition, pp. 182–3.

⁵¹ Garnet to Aquaviva, 16 April 1596, in Caraman, Henry Garnet, pp. 217–8. This reference is not in Caraman's index. (‘Apart from’ clearly means ‘not only’, not ‘except’.)

⁵² Oldcorne's work from Hindlip extended into Wales: Foley IV, pp. 215, 271–5; cf Index no. 298 (Powis Castle).

⁵³ Boom, Corrie ten, The Hiding-Place (1972), pp. 83–85.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Edwards, Francis S.J., tr., The Gunpowder Plot: The Narrative of Oswald Tesimond alias Greenway (Folio Society, 1973), p. 196.Google Scholar I am grateful to Fr Edwards for the Italian text of Tesimond's autograph copy (Stonyhurst A.IV.4, f. 113r), which runs: ‘… dando egli a queste sue fatiche sempre santissimo principio, confessandosi et communicandosi ogni volta che cominciasse la opra (il che anco egli faceva di ordinario due o tre volte la settimana)’. In his letter to me, Fr Edwards pertinently added: ‘Was healways, then, within earshot of a priest for his confession and communion?’

⁵⁵ Squiers, p. 25.

⁵⁶ The film, entitled Broad Oaks, was made in 1932. It was not shot on location but on (very convincing) sets built in Squiers's back garden in Buck Lane, NW9. An 8 mm copy of it was loaned to Farm Street on 24 July 1961 by his widow, Mrs Louise Squiers, and taken there by me, together with a 35 mm copy of his film of Secret Hiding-Places.

⁵⁷ On this, and on the same problem with the French tunnel at Colditz Castle in 1942–3, see Recusant History 13 (1975–76), pp. 41–42.

⁵⁸ C.R.S. 21, p. 37.

⁵⁹ Sawston Hall (English Life Publications, Derby, n.d. [c. 1955], 16 pp.), p. [12].

⁶⁰ Gerard, Autobiography, pp. 54–55, 158, 205.

⁶¹ Ibidem., p. 158. ‘Receptacle’ was the government term for major centres of recusancy. Like the Latin receptaculum, as in Tacitus XIV. 29 on Anglesey, the word implied ‘dens of thieves’.

⁶² Squiers, pp. 25, 195.

⁶³ Tanner, Mathias, Societas Iesu Militans (1675), p. 73.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Condition, pp. 182–3.

⁶⁵ Simpson, Richard, Edmund Campion (1896 Google Scholar ed., ‘Reprinted from a copy corrected by the learned author before his death’), pp. 232–3, 239–43.

⁶⁶ Simpson, pp. 231, 236, 305. For Compton Wynyates see Hodgetts, Secret Hiding-Places, pp. 35–36; Recusant History 12 (1973–74), pp. 116–117; and Index I, no. 138; for Acton, Iron, Trappes-Lomax, T. B., ‘The Family of Poyntz and its Catholic Associations’, Recusant History 6 (1961–62), pp. 68–79;Google Scholar for Baldon, Toot and Leigh, North, V.C.H. Oxfordshire V, pp. 52–53;Google Scholar C.R.S. 22, p. 111; C.R.S. 60, p. 223.

⁶⁷ Hodgetts, ‘Loca Secretiora in 1581’, Recusant History 19 (1988–89), pp. 386–95.

⁶⁸ Squiers, p. 74.

⁶⁹ Squiers, p. 36.

⁷⁰ Squiers, p. 113.

⁷¹ Hodgetts, ‘The Chimney Hide at Mapledurham’, Midland Catholic History 11 (2005), pp. 4–30.Google Scholar