When the Civil War was raging, many a defeated cavalier owed his preservation to the "priests' holes" and secret chambers of the old Roman Catholic houses all over the country. Did not Charles II. himself owe his life to the conveniences offered at Boscobel, Moseley, Trent, and Heale? We have elsewhere[1] gone minutely into the young king's hair-breadth adventures; but the story is so closely connected with the present subject that we must record something of his sojourn at these four old houses, as from an historical point of view they are of exceptional interest, if one but considers how the order of things would have been changed had either of these hiding-places been discovered at the time "his Sacred Majesty" occupied them. It is vain to speculate upon the probabilities; still, there is no ignoring the fact that had Charles been captured he would have shared the fate of his father.
[Footnote 1: See The Flight of the King.]
HIDING-PLACE BENEATH "THE CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL, SALOP
ENTRANCE TO HIDING-PLACE IN "THE GARRET" OR "CHAPEL," BOSCOBEL
HIDING-PLACE IN "THE SQUIRE'S BEDROOM," BOSCOBEL
SECRET PANEL, TRENT HOUSE, SOMERSETSHIRE