The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-03-25
SEcRETs OF ENoLFSH CASTLES.
Death OF Minister Lovel--Goldeu Treasure
OF skenTrith.

OF skenrrith.
The strange discovery in Ireland the
other day Of q vaulted suhterranean
chamber under an ancient castle reviveS
the belief In the undiscovered secrets that
still await the explorer Of our medieval
s~trongholds.
Romantic ~novelists hav been largely
responsible for the general indifference to
the very real mysteries and tragedies OF
these grim castles, for their tales Of hidden
wrong and violence have come to be re.
Rarded as merely efforts Of the imagination,
having no existence In fact. How very
wide OF the mark this is let the following
few instances show:
A discovery almost precisely identical
with that in County Roscommon u few
DAYS since was made In 1925, during the
restoration works in the ancient chapel
attached 10 the castle Of st. Michael's Mount,
in Cornwall, which dates back to the four
tenth century. The workmen, says the
London Daily Mail, In removing a wooden
platform discovered q walled up door In
the south wall, and opening it a narrow
flight of stone stops was revealed, leading
down into a grim stone cell six feet square,
without any window or other opening than
the door by which they had entered.
They were Mortified by stumbling In the
darkness Of that dreadful place upon what
rroved to be the skeleton Of a man Of ex.
traordinary height. What unfortunate
wretch was thrust into this living tomb to
| die OF starvation 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 constructed
this particular example beneath the chapel
floor is worthy of remark. While the
doomed man lay there in the agony Of star
walton above him the pious castelar, and
his fellow villains we're praising God.
The ruined castellated manor house OF
Minister Lovel, in OXfordshlre, Kept ltS
! ira gc secret some two hundred and twenty
| years.
This is one OF the most romantic places
in England, both in the circumstance Of
its situation and of its story. 1t came to
Francis, Viscount Lowell, 10 the time of
| Richard LII. He it was whose name was
| one of the sui jects Of a political rhyme
then current in the land:
The Get, the Rat and Lovel the Dog
Rule all England. under the Hog.
The cat was Catesby. the rat Radcliffe
and tire hog King Richard himself. whose
~favorite badge was the blue boar. The
charact erization Of Lowell as the dog.
sounds like the expression of a very special
| batrei and contempt OF him, but II 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
for he had deserted their cause for that
of the Yorkists.
Wien the Lancastrians triumphed and
Henry VII. reigned Lovel, to save. his
with the invading expedite ion of the i'm.
postor, Lambert Simnel. At the battle Of
Stoke, when Simnel was defeated, Lowell
myst eriously disappeared. By some he
was thought to have fallen on the field.
him in flight, attemptin n to swim his horse
across the broad channel Of the River
Trent.
He was never again heard of until l7os,
when, in the course Of some alterations In
what had been his old manor house Of
Minister Lowell, a large underground vault
was discovered. When the workmen acct
dentally broke into it they were astounded
at the grisly sight Of the skeleton OF a man
port ing a shrivelled countenance, dried,
b~archmeutlike. over the skull. Before him
lay a cap, mouldered and decayed, with an
orer book. paper and pen. Empty barrels
and some gnawed bone were also found.
The discovery explained the mysterious
Disappearance of Lord Lowell. He had fed
from that fatal field to his old home in the
rea oeful water meadows by the winding
Nl1OTGSn ana ndu lbll tucI0 III COICoJi~
me1t, fer removed from host lie notice.
in this secret room, whose existence waS
known to only one confident ial servant.
He had been furnished with provisions
then been locked in against such time as
it would be possible once more to- escape
abroad. Whether the servant yielded to
tire" cherry, or was killed, or died, will never
be known. Only the feet remains that the
unfortunate Lord Lowell, having exhausted
bia sfock IF food WAS starved To death In
his secret hiding plnc &c.
Nowadays the great house Of Minister
Iovel is no more than a maze OF tall, ruined
walls, from whose mids the traveller sees
in the distant view. Many supernatural
legends belong to old castles. That Of
Skenfrith, Monmouthshire, was the subject
Of such a one 80 far back as the time Of
Queen Elizabeth, when it wa said: THE
voyoe Of the county goeth there is a dwell
and his dame, one sits upon a hogshed Of
gold, the other upon a hogshed Of silver
The writer Of this sta rtling news petitioned
in the Tower Of London that he might be
set at liberty to go and find this treasure
for the Queens Majesty, probably thinking
that even an, encounter with guardian
But we do not near that they let him go.
A secret Of. the supernatural sort Is ira
ditionally said to belong to Rochester Castle.
According to the marvellous legend, a
mysterious, crypt exists, crammed full of
untold gold.
To find it you must seek with a hand Of
glory rather a diff cult thing to obtain in
These days. To prepare this magic article
you cut of the dried guilty hand Of a hanged
and gibbeted murderer, wrap it in a wind
ing sheet, count seven, name the seven
planets, and after a number of exceedingly
nasty rites take some Of the murderer's
fat and some Of his hair and twist the MKT
ure on the fingers of the hand, making them,
in fact, into so many candles. Lighting
them, the approved method, according 10
the "lngoldsby Legends is to cnant.
Now OF en-. lock.
To The | cad Mans knock.
Thy boil, and bar. and bandit
Nor move, nor sU erye
Joint. mus lie. OF nerve.
At the spell OF the Dsai NJ ms hand.
Sleep all who sic d, W ike all " 10 wake,