The Great Escape- day one

You could call the Holiday weekend tour the Great Escape or Where did the Catholics go?

The Great Escape was the flight of King Charles II in September of 1651 after he lost the battle of Worcester about 40 miles away and we followed his flight through the West Midlands. All the places we visited were also prominant recusant catholic families and the great houses had a number of Priest holes, where Priests and the King himself were hidden when the troops came crashing in the door.

Pausing in Wolverhampton on the way to see Monty Python's Spamalot live on stage,(a peculiarly British sense of humour) we also saw the house where one of the signatories to the US Declaration of Independence lived, a Mr Button Gwinnet who represented Georgia, an odd name but he lived there none the less as there is a blue plaque on the wall.

The first place on our trip to find out where the Catholics went, was Baddesley Clinton, a very peculiar name, but is the name of the village and near Warwick 7 miles away. The house is a stone built, fully moated square manor house dating back to the 1300's and was in the Ferrer family ownership for 500 years up to the 1920's. It has a beautiful and peaceful inner courtyard with the building on three sides and the fourth side open to the moat giving a supeb view out over the farmland.

Baddesley Clinton has no less than 3 priest holes hidden around the house, the last one was used for real in 1591, the Elizabethan Era. A numer of recusant families in the area secretly paid for priests to be educated abroad and travel about secretly administering to the flock. Danger of discovery was ever present and the priest holes were literally life savers.

The House also has a large tapestry hanging in a upstairs room that is said to be the scene from the Summer of 1575 at Kenilworth about 8 miles away, when Robert Dudley entertained Queen Elizabeth on that glorious grand progress. It shows Dudley and Elizabeth walking around the privy garden that he created to try and persuade her to marry him.

A most foul murder was committed here in 1485, the blood stains are still on the floorboards. The owner came home to see his wife having rather too close attention paid to her by the local clergyman. A good story and a place well worth a visit.

www.tudorhistorytours.com