There are those saints we have never heard of, those we know exist yet know little about, those we are drawn to (whether by their example or for their intercession), and then there are those to whom we respond on a much deeper level. Many of the saints who appeal to me come from the era of the Reformation.
Priest Holes
I grew up in the northwest of England, part of the world thick with stories of the persecution of Catholics, priest holes, recusants (a word meaning refusal to attend Anglican services), and ancient Catholic families. I remember visiting old houses like Townley Hall in Burnley and Salmesbury Hall near Preston and being fascinated by the rich histories of these places, going back to medieval times. Both are big houses of the type often seen in period dramas involving aristocratic English families. For much of their history, the aristocratic families were Catholic, and that identity was woven into the fabric of the buildings. Not only in the chapels where mass would be held but (as we will see) in the structure of the walls themselves.
Both buildings are very old and both have stories of ghosts. TV crews have turned up on occasion to film those strange programmes where presenters spend the night running around an old building in the dark scaring themselves half to death. I remember as a child being told the story that sometimes you could hear the boots of Oliver Cromwell’s roundheads marching up the drive to arrest a member of the family at Townley, and of course, there is the compulsory ‘white lady’ who is said to wander the battlements above the main entrance.
Salmesbury Hall is a favourite for ghost hunters and fans of the paranormal, allegedly being one of the most haunted places in Lancashire. It certainly gives off an aura. From the outside, it looks like your classic Tudor building, with a black timber and white plaster effect. Yet it is in fact far older, dating from the fourteenth century. Walking through the front door, you walk into history. There are even a few suits of armour to complete the picture, standing guard over the past and watch on the present. But it is not fanciful stories of paranormal activity or spooky goings-on which makes these places special. It’s ghosts of a different kind, those of memory and faith and the stories of people who are now long forgotten to history.
If you were lucky or asked permission ahead of your visit, you might be allowed to visit some dark windowless, airless, rooms on your tour. Peering in through the gloom, there are no suits of armour in these rooms, nor are there family portraits or crests adorning the wall. Nothing ornaments these little dark, damp crevices except history. They were not dungeons hung with chains, nor were they the cells of monks imitating the desert fathers. They were the hiding place for men determined to provide nourishment to those clinging to the old Faith of England. Men on the run from the state, the ideology of the era, and their fellow countrymen. These little rooms were priest holes. In 16th and 17th century England to be a Catholic was difficult, often those who tried to follow the Faith often faced punishments such as fines or ostracization.
Catholic Priests Tortured to Death
To be a Catholic priest was to be a traitor, and their punishment was torture and death. A traitor’s death at the time was to be hung, drawn, and quartered. This involved being hung by the neck until nearly dead, then cut down and revived. Next, the stomach would be cut open and the internal organs ‘drawn’ or pulled out (the idea was to keep the victim alive as long as possible whilst this was happening), before finally the body would be chopped, or ‘quartered’ into numerous pieces. Many English Catholic priests were to die of this method, a significant number of whom are now are canonised saints.
As persecution increased the hiding holes were built into the walls of big Catholic houses, where priests could hide if the priest hunters came looking. Some of these rooms were so well designed that government agents could virtually knock a building to pieces in their search, yet still fail to find the priest holes. Catholic landowners provided the cover for Catholic priests, but also for the local people to follow the faith of their ancestors. I would imagine my ancestors hearing on the recusant grapevine that a priest was being sheltered in one of the big houses and making their way over the fields to receive the sacraments.
Whilst servants might be asked to construct the holes, there were a number of expert builders who travelled the country creating these places of refuge. In particular, one man built large numbers of priest holes and was so skilled in their design and construction he became a legend in his own time. As an assistant to a priest, Nicholas Owen went from one big house to another building these little rooms of the sanctuary. Imagine the weight of responsibility on those creating these rooms, of knowing how many there were and where they were. You would have information stored in your head that if revealed could allow the authorities to leisurely capture priest after priest.
Saint Nicholas Owen
In one contemporary account, it is claimed Nicholas must have saved hundreds of lives through the use of his priest-holes. As we might expect, the secret nature of his work means no one knows how many of these hideaways he built. There are only two with documentary evidence that he constructed them. One at a place known as Braddocks, another at Baddesley Clinton. But if you go to an old English country house, there is a good chance there will be a priest hole somewhere. And maybe, just maybe, it was built by Nicolas Owen. Whilst there are many different styles of priest holes, Owen would often excavate the walls of the house (these walls could be up to two metres thick), and devise some ingenious way of disguising the entrance. It’s likely there are undiscovered priest holes scattered around England’s old houses, awaiting an unsuspecting builder to find his way in.
Whilst the priests lived in the shadows, moving imperceptibly from house to house to offer the sacraments, Owen had a different role. Not only did he need to be invisible to those who wished ill of the Faith and its priests, but he was also a commoner working in the houses of the gentry. Of course, the bond of Catholicism was much stronger than the divisions of class, especially in an era when the gentry lived much more closely to the people who tilled the land and worked in the towns than they were to do in later centuries.
A Working Man
Yet this did not hide the fact that he was not a man of high breeding, he was a working man. He was a carpenter, a man who worked with his hands and had no formal education other than his apprenticeship. But he was a man of faith, a man whose brothers were to become priests yet whose vocation lay elsewhere. Known by several names, including ‘Little John,’ he lived a life with the threat of capture, torture, and death his constant companion. Alongside the emotional and mental strains, a hernia caused him incessant pain, probably a consequence of the heavy manual labour, and a limp marked his step, caused by a horse falling on him and breaking his leg.
The events that led to Owen’s death were an example of how the trials and tribulations of persecution can lead to a kaleidoscope of different reactions from those who are suffering. During the maltreatments that came during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, some Catholics abandoned their faith, whilst others tried to live it the best that they could. A few younger, angry Catholics decided that assassination was the only solution to the terrible oppressions that they saw. Their actions were to lead to the death not only of Owen but of other innocent Catholics. In 1603 James I had become king after the long reign of Elizabeth I.
Rounding Up Catholics
Naive hopes of a more liberal religious settlement for Catholics evaporated quickly, and by 1605 some of those angered by the years of oppression tried to blow up the king, his advisors, and Parliament itself in the ‘Gunpowder Plot’. The failure of this venture is still celebrated in England to this day as ‘Bonfire Night’. Traditionally an effigy of one of the plotters ‘Guy Fawkes’ is burnt on the top of a bonfire and fireworks are set off. Since my childhood thirty years ago, where bonfires were everywhere and effigies burnt regularly on November 5th, there seem to be fewer bonfires and the night has focussed more on the firework displays. Though I would not like to speculate on what the recent change in emphasis means!
After the plot failed, a major round-up of priests and important Catholics began. As appalled as most Catholics were by the plot it did not stop the full force of the government from coming for them with renewed determination. Owen was caught up in the dragnet that swept through the recusant communities. Overjoyed when they realised whom they had caught, the priest hunters wasted no time in trying to extract the locations of his many priest holes. Torture was piled on torture.
Yet he did not reveal the information they were so desperate to prise out of him, even though his last days were so brutal that Nicholas eventually died from the cruel treatment. The weight of the state killed him, horribly and painfully, but this brave and invisible man took his secrets with him. Canonised by Pope Paul VI, St Nicholas Owen was a martyr who gave his life in a lay apostolate that was as risky and as important as any apostolate can be. An ordinary Englishman who lived in extraordinary times, and who lived up to the demands the era and his faith made of him.
Owen’s Legacy
Owen is a reminder that there are trials and tribulations for every generation, but that some generations seem to have the toughest of crosses to bear. His story shows that in every era there are as many different reactions to events as there are people and that those who profess to follow the same Faith can often be the ones who cause other believers the most suffering. This is something I find worth thinking about occasionally. After all, history is full of people who do evil things because they believe their actions to be for a good cause, yet as we look back at the past it is those who managed to do good despite the overwhelming pressure not to whom we remember with respect. As Catholics, we recognise many of them as saints.
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