Tudor Priest-Holes
Persecution of Roman Catholics in Elizabethan England
Conditions for priests that took refuge in hiding-places were horrific, but threat of punishment for their beliefs was worse. Why did they suffer these conditions?
The priest-hole that occupies the space in the wall between the hot oven below and the smelly toilet to the side of it is hot and dark. There is a priest inside it suffering from cramp and hunger. He has been hiding in here for four days, with very little to eat and he doesn’t know how the search is going in the house. He is scared, not knowing whether or not he is about to be discovered and ultimately executed. Why was he forced to take refuge in a priest-hole? How were these hides so well hidden that a ten-day search of a house did not necessarily betray their secrets?
Background
When Queen Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558 she wanted people to adopt her Protestant beliefs. Despite this wish, Elizabeth was thought by many other Protestants to be too lenient with Roman Catholics. This was to change when Elizabeth’s cousin, Mary Stuart (Mary Queen of Scots) was taken prisoner in England. Mary Stuart was Roman Catholic; hence the Catholics in England wanted to see Elizabeth overthrown and Mary Stuart placed on the throne. It was because of this threat and a general resurgence of Catholicism that Elizabeth became determined to ban Roman Catholic priests from preaching in England. Rather than renounce their faith, many priests chose instead to continue their preaching, but hide away when Elizabeth’s men came to search them out. They used priest-holes in which to hide.
Hiding-places
The hides took on many different guises, such as trapdoors, false wall panels or fake chimneys. In some houses the obvious trap-door hides were built in the hope that they would be searched and found to be empty. The searchers would then go away, missing the more subtle hides, such as the false panels. There were also smaller hides built for vestments, which could be quickly stashed away, when a search was about to begin.
Elizabethan Houses
Aspects of the architecture of Elizabethan houses also helped to protect priests from discovery. Moats would often surround the house. The time it would take for a search party to cross over the moat would be instrumental in giving the priests enough time to hide themselves and their vestments. It was in the interests of the Catholic families harbouring the priests to ensure that the men they were hiding were not discovered. If the priests were found, the family often paid a high price too. The architecture of the house would often have been haphazard, so as to confuse the searchers. They would find it difficult to correlate the house they had seen from the outside to that they were walking around inside. A spiral staircase would often be put into the house to confuse the searchers still further.
Many priests that hid in the priest-holes were discovered. This was not just due to the hides being found, but sometimes the priests had to give themselves up due to hunger, as members of the household hiding them found it difficult to sneak food into the hides during a search. Despite this, the hides certainly played their part in saving at least some lives.
Sources
Hodgetts, M. Harvington Hall., Severnside Printers Limited, Worcestershire, 1998.
Somerset, A. Elizabeth I, Phoenix, London, 1997.
