It really wasn’t that long ago when it was a treasonable offence for a Catholic priest to even enter England. In the 16th century, ‘priest hunters’ or ‘pursuivants’ were employed to gather information about priests and then to root them out. The fate of captured priests was prison, torture and then to be put to death.
Baddesley Clinton in Warwickshire, home to the Ferrers family since the 16th century, was a safe house for outlawed Catholic priests. The house is best known for being the home for 14 years of the Jesuit priest, Fr Henry Garnet, who was executed for his complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The house is also well known for having three ’priest holes’ built by Nicholas Owen, a lay brother of the Jesuits. St Nicholas Owen built many priest holes during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He was arrested and tortured to death in 1606 in the Tower of London. In 1970, he was canonized by Pope Paul VI. |
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