that verily I think no man can be said to have done more good of all those that laboured in the English Vineyard. For, first, he was the immediate occasion of saving the lives [1] of many hundreds of persons, both ecclesiastical and secular, and of the estates also of these seculars, which had been lost and forfeited many times over if the priests had been taken in their houses; of which some have escaped, not once but many times, in several searches that have come to the same house, and sometimes five or six priests together at the same time. Myself have been one of the seven that have escaped the danger at one time in a secret place of his making. . . . One reason that made him so much desired by Catholics of account, who might have had other workmen enough to make conveyances in their houses, was a known and tried care he had of secrecy, not only from such as would of malice be inquisitive, but from all others to whom it belonged not to know; in which he was so careful that you should never hear him speak of any houses or places where he had made such hides. . . .'
Owen is also said to have planned Father Gerard's extraordinary escape from the Tower of London in 1597.
Thomas Abington, the owner of Hendlip, was, like his guest Owen, a very remarkable person. He had been for over five years imprisoned in
- ↑ He may perhaps have saved the life of King Charles II., who (after the flight from Worcester) may have found safety from his pursuers in a priests'-hole, attributed to Owen's skill for its construction, for both at Boscobel and at Trent House, where Charles hid, were 'holes' contrived by Owen.
