Opening out of one of the panelled sleeping chambers in the upper part of the house is a small closet; a cunningly concealed trap-door in the floor of this gives access to a small hiding-hole, and from this hiding-hole is a secret stairway (or rather was, for it is closed up now) contrived in part of the big chimney-stack; this stairway led down to a concealed door at the foot of the chimney and so out into the garden, forming a way of escape from the hiding-hole should it be discovered. It was down this stairway that Charles II. made his escape into the woods when one of the brothers Penderel (four of whom were keeping constant and tireless watch on the roads around) gave the alarm that soldiers were approaching, and it was deemed safer for the king to hide in the woods than to remain in the house. So selecting a thick-leaved oak, some distance off, with a tall straight trunk that no one could imagine that a man could climb, Charles II. mounted into its upper branches by means of a ladder carried there by the faithful Richard Penderel, who hurriedly carried it back to an outhouse before the soldiers arrived. In connection with the familiar story of the king's hiding in this oak my guide related to me an incident that I had not heard before. It appears that the king took with him into the tree two pigeons in a bag, as had been arranged he should, and that when the soldiers rode past below, he released these pigeons as though the soldiers had disturbed them, this to show that no one could be concealed there. The story of the pigeons is told in a quaint carving on the top of an old oak box that is kept in one of the rooms of the house, and is so far confirmed. The carving gives a bold representation of the Royal Oak in full leaf with the two pigeons flying from it, and the soldiers in search below.
Whilst the soldiers were searching the woods Dame Joan went out ostensibly to gather sticks for the fire; she engaged the soldiers in conversation, and so diverted their attention from the neighbourhood of the special oak where the king was. You may always trust a woman whose heart is in her task to fool any man.
Alone in a field not far from the house and surrounded by an iron railing stands a flourishing and fair-sized old oak, known as the Royal Oak. Though this is doubtless on, or close to, the spot where the historic tree grew, it can hardly be the one in which the king hid; some authorities, however, blinking hard facts, boldly avow their belief in it. Now for these hard facts, though romance suffers thereby, and you may not hint such things at Boscobel, Dr. Stukeley, the antiquary, writing in 1713, declares that then the old tree was "almost all cut away by travellers whose curiosity leads them to see it," and John Evelyn in his day writes that when he saw it "relic-hunters had reduced the original tree to a mere stump." Moreover, the king in his own account of his hiding said that he got into a tree that had been polled and was very bushy at the top. Now the present oak has never been polled, which is surely sufficient proof that it is not the original one. If I may judge from the various chests and other articles I have seen, and which are said to be made out of the wood of the original Royal Oak, it must have been the largest tree that ever grew; but the wise traveller does not take all such relics seriously. An ancient writer indeed declares that at one time in European churches there were shown to pious pilgrims portions of the true Cross which if collected together would be sufficient to load a big ship. Even the clerk of Tong told me that he owned a large oak chest made out of wood from the Royal Oak, and he is but one of many who own chests that have this reputation, to say nothing of chairs, tables, stools, and countless snuff-boxes, all made, and carved, from the wood of that wonderful tree—the tree
Wherein the younger Charles abode
Till all the paths were dim,
And far below the Roundhead rode,
And humm'd a surly hymn.
Upstairs in the house, beneath what was formerly a cheese attic, is another hiding-place, a dark small hole at the top of the stair and entered by a trap-door in the floor, and here it was that Charles II. spent one uncomfortable night, cheeses being rolled over the trap-door for the better concealment of it. So my guide told me. Now the puzzling thing about this is, why, especially at night when the house was carefully locked and guarded, should it have been thought needful for the king to secrete himself in this cramped place? Surely he might have slept comfortably in bed, for there ought to have been ample time, when the soldiers knocked at the door and the alarm was given, and whilst the door was being slowly opened, for the king to have secreted himself; as it was he spent a most uncomfortable night to no purpose. Now when Charles II. was afterwards sheltered in Moseley Hall and was resting on a couch in a chamber (it chanced to be one afternoon), some soldiers made a surprise visit there, but on the servants rushing upstairs crying "The soldiers are coming," the king found ample time to reach his hiding-place, where he lay concealed in safety till the soldiers departed baffled. It speaks much for the cleverness of the contrivers of the hiding-holes both at Boscobel and Moseley that none of these holes, though carefully searched for, were ever discovered. Still it must have been a very unpleasant experience for the king, hidden away in a dark and dismal hole all the while the soldiers were busily searching the house, not knowing but that he might at any moment be discovered. Indeed, when his host had seen the soldiers safely away and came to release the king, the king exclaimed to him "he thought the time very long"—and little wonder; so might any one in so unfortunate a position. It is said that Charles II. was the last person to be secreted in the hiding-holes at Boscobel. Possibly Boscobel was not so diligently searched as other houses were, owing to its being solely in the care of servants at the time, so less suspicion fell on it.
Boscobel in its woods calls to my mind a saying of that quaint old worthy Thomas Fuller: "It is pleasant as well as profitable to see a house cased with trees. The worst is, where a place is bald of wood no art can make it a periwig."