Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1906-04-24
SECRETS OF ENGLISH CASTLES.
Death Of Minister Lovel-Golder
Treasure of Skenfrith.

| plOrer OF our mlQlaeVal StTOHBnOluS.
Romantic novelists have been very
largely responsible for the general in
difference to the very real mysteries
and tragedies of these grim castles,
for their tales of hidden wrong and
violence have come to be regarded as
merely efforts Of the imagination,
having no existence in fact. How
very wide of the mark this is let the
following instances show:
A. discovery almost precisely identi-
cal with that in County Roscommon
few days since, was made in 1925,
during the restoration works in the
ancient chapel attached to the castle
of st. Michael's Mount, In Cornwall,
which dates back to the fourteenth
century. The workmen, says the Lon
don Daily Mail, in removing a wooden
in the south WALL and opening 1t
narrow flight Of stone steps was re-
vealed, leading down into a grim stone
cell six feet square, without any win
/
by which they had entered.
| They were Mortified by stumbling In
the darkness Of that dreadful place
upon what proved to be the skeleton
of a man Of extraordinary height.
What unfortunate wretch was thrust
into this living tomb to die of starva-
ton has never been discovered. Such
dungeons as these, in which you flung
your victim and then forgot" him,
were known as "oubliettes."
The appalling cynicism that con-
structed this particular example be-
meath the chapel floor Is worthy of re-
mark. While the doomed man lay
there In the agony Of starvation, above
him the pious castellan and his fellow
villains were praising God.
| The ruined, castellated manor house
Of Minister Lovel, in Oxfordshire,
kept its tragic secret some 220 years
This is one Of the most romantic
places in England, both in the circum-
stances Of its situation and OF Its
story. 1t came to Francis, Viscount
Lovel, in the time Of Richard III. He
1t was whose name was one Of the
subjects OF a political rhyme then cur
rent in the land:
| The Cat, the Rat and Lovel the Dog
Fule all England, under the Hog.
| The cat was Catesby, the rat Rad
cliffe and the hog King Richard him.
self, whose favorite badge was the
blue boar The Characterization Of
Lovel as "the dog" sounds like the ex-
preston Of a very special hatred and
contempt Of him, but 1t was merely a
play upon his ancestral crest, that Of
a hound, or, in heraldic language, a
"talbot" Still he was the object Of
much hatred on the part Of the Lam
castrians, for he had deserted their
cause for that of the Yorkists.
When the Lancastrians triumphed
and Henry VII reigned, Lovel, to save
his head, fed the country, but return
ed later with the invading expedition
of the impostor, Lambert Simnel. At
the battle Of Stoke, when Simnel was
defeated, Lovel mysteriously disap-
peared. BY some he was thought to
have fallen on the field, while others
declared that they had seen him In
flight, attempting to swim his horse
across the broad channel of the river
Trent.
He was never again heard Of until
1908, when, in The course Of some al
terations in what had been his old
manor house of Minister Lovel, a
large underground vault was discov-
cred. When the workmen accidentally
broke into 1t they were astounded at
the grisly sight Of the skeleton Of a
man seated at a table, his bony hand
still supporting a shrivelled counte-
nance, dried, parchmentlike, over the
skull. Before him lay cap, moulder-
ed and decayed, with an open book,
paper and pen. Empty barrels and
some gnawed bones were also found.
The discovery explained the myste-
rious disappearance Of Lord Lowell.
He had fed from that fatal field to
his old home In the peaceful water
meadows by the winding Windrush,
and had lain there in concealment, far
removed from hostile notice, in this
secret room, whose existence was
known to only one confidential serv-
ant
He had been furnished with provis-
| ions to last some time, in case of need,
and had been locked in against such
| time as 1t would be possible once more
to escape abroad. Whether the serv-
ant yielded to treachery, or was kill
ed, or died, will never be known. Only
the fact remains that the unfortunate
Lord Lovel, having exhausted his
stock of food, was starved to death in
his secret hiding place.
| Nowadays the great house of Minis
ter Lovel is no more than a maze Of
tall, ruined walls, from whose midst
the traveller sees the parish church
rising picturesquely in the distant
view. Many supernatural legends be-
long to old castles. That Of Sken-
| firth, Monmouthshire, was the subject
of such a one so far back as the time
of Queen Elizabeth, when 1t was said:
THE voyce Of the county goeth there
is dwell and his dame, one sits upon
hogshed Of gold. the other upon a
hogshed of silver"
The writer of this startling news pc
titioned the Queens Ministers from
his dungeon cell in the Tower Of Lon
don that he might be set at liberty to