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Updated: June 15, 2025
The proposal was a cruel one, but the squire was so utterly destitute of consideration or delicacy of feeling that we do not think he ever once reflected upon the painful position in which it placed his daughter. "Come," he proceeded, "here is prosperity to Captain Smellpriest and priest-hunting!"*
"Who are pursuing you? Sir Robert Whitecraft eh?" "No, sir, Captain Smellpriest and his gang." "Ay, out of the frying pan into the fire; although I don't know that, either. They say Smellpriest can do a generous thing sometimes but the other, when priest-hunting, never. What's your name?" "I'll tell you, without hesitation, sir Macguire; I'm of the Macguires of Fermanagh."
Now the difference between Smellpriest and Whitecraft was this Smellpriest was not a magistrate, as Whitecraft was, and in his priest-hunting expeditions only acted upon warrants issued by some bigoted and persecuting magistrate or other who lived in the district.
A room is pointed out where Digby and Catesby concealed themselves, and from one of the chimneys at some time or another a priest was captured and led to execution. In the parish of Wimbish, about six miles from Saffron Walden, stand the remains of a fine old Tudor house named Broad Oaks, or Braddocks, which in Elizabeth's reign was a noted house for priest-hunting.
He went out last night a priest-hunting, like a godly sportsman of the Church, as he was, and on his return from an unsuccessful chase fell off his horse while in the act of singing that far-famed melody called 'Lillibullero, and sustained such severe injuries that he died on that very night, expressing a very ungodly penitence for his loyalty in persecuting so many treasonable Popish priests."
Whitecraft, who was ignorant of it, but sufficiently aware of the milder measures which the new Administration had adopted, finding that the trade of priest-hunting and persecution was, for the present, at an end, resolved to accelerate his marriage with Miss Folliard, and for this purpose he waited upon her father, in order to secure his consent.
Wending our way to the top of the house, past countless old-world rooms and corridors, we soon discover evidences of the days of priest-hunting.
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