Excerpt from Forgotten Shrines: An Account of Some Old Catholic Halls and Families in England and of Relics and Memorials of the English Martyrs NO longer the Catholic Church in the country; nay, no longer, I may say a Catholic community but a few adherents Of the Old Religion, moving silently and sorrowfully about, as memorials of what had been. There, perhaps, an elderly person, seen walking in the streets, grave and solitary, and strange, though noble in bearing, and said to be of good family and a 'roman Catholic.' An Old-fashioned house of gloomy appearance, closed in with high walls, with an iron gate and yews, and the report attaching to it that Roman Catholics lived there but who they were, or what was meant by calling them Roman Catholics, no one could tell though it had an unpleasant sound and told of form and superstition. I have attempted in this book to tell the story of some of those ancient manor houses which became the last refuges of the ancient faith, when it was proscribed and persecuted throughout the land. The air of mystery and romance which seems to exhale from the crumbling walls of these Old houses, irresistibly moves those who come across them to curiosity if not to reverence. And this is an attempt to satisfy such legitimate curiosity. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.