The conqueror was the captive then—
He bade the slave be free again.
Tradition states that one of his companions in the prison in Rome was St. Paul, who converted him to the Christian faith, with two of his fellow-countrymen, Linus and Claudia, who are mentioned in St. Paul's second Epistle to Timothy (iv. 21).
Descendants of Caradoc are still to be traced in England in the family of Craddock, whose shield to this day is emblazoned with the words: "Betrayed! Not conquered."
We awoke quite early in the morning—a fact which we attributed to the church clock, although we could not remember hearing it strike. My brother started the theory that we might have been wakened by some supernatural being coming through the open window, from the greensward beneath, where "lay the bones of the dead." Aldborough church was dedicated to St. Andrew, and the register dated from the year 1538—practically from the time when registers came into being. It contained a curious record of a little girl, a veritable "Nobody's child," who, as a foundling, was brought to the church and baptized in 1573 as "Elizabeth Nobody, of Nobody."
KNARESBOROUGH CASTLE.
Oliver Cromwell, about whom we were to hear so much in our further travels, was here described in the church book as "an impious Arch-Rebel," but this we afterwards found was open to doubt. He fought one of his great battles quite near Aldborough, and afterwards besieged Knaresborough Castle, about eight miles away. He lodged at an old-fashioned house in that town. In those days fireplaces in bedrooms were not very common, and even where they existed were seldom used, as the beds were warmed with flat-bottomed circular pans of copper or brass, called "warming-pans," in which were placed red-hot cinders of peat, wood, or coal. A long, round wooden handle, like a broomstick, was attached to the pan, by means of which it was passed repeatedly up and down the bed, under the bedclothes, until they became quite warm, both above and below. As this service was performed just before the people retired to rest, they found a warm bed waiting for them instead of a cold one. But of course this was in the "good old times." Afterwards, when people became more civilised (!), they got into bed between linen sheets that were icy cold, and after warming them with the heat of their bodies, if they chanced to move an inch or two during the night they were either awakened, or dreamed about icebergs or of being lost in the snow!
The young daughter of the house where Oliver Cromwell lodged at Knaresborough had the task of warming Oliver's bed for him, and in after years when she had grown up she wrote a letter in which she said: "When Cromwell came to lodge at our house I was then but a young girl, and having heard so much talk about the man, I looked at him with wonder. Being ordered to take a pan of coals and 'aire' his bed, I could not forbear peeping over my shoulders to see this extraordinary man, who was seated at the far side of the room untying his garters. Having aired the bed I went out, and shutting the door after me, I peeped through the keyhole, when I saw him rise from his seat, advance to the bed, and fall on his knees, in which attitude I left him for some time. When returning I found him still at prayer—-and this was his custom every night as long as he stayed at our house—I concluded he must be a good man, and this opinion I always maintained, though I heard him blamed and exceedingly abused."
Aldborough was walled round in the time of the Romans, and portions of the walls were still to be seen. So many Roman relics had been found here that Aldborough had earned the title of the Yorkshire Pompeii. So interested were we in its antiquities that we felt very thankful to the clerical dignitary at Ripon for having advised us to be sure to visit this ancient borough.