Description: During the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I it was high treason, and therefore death, to be a Catholic priest in England. It was consequently vital that there be somewhere to hide when the pursuivants came battering at the door. One name is prominent in the construction of priest-holes that of Nicholas Owen. A very short and later crippled man, he built the majority of these shelters, so saving the lives of untold numbers of priests and fugitives. His early apprenticeship as a joiner and his knowledge of construction served him well as he burrowed into walls and constructed near-invisible entrance holes. Although a well known figure in Recusant studies, and almost invariably mentioned in histories of the Gunpowder Plot, this is his first detailed biography. --amazon.com.
