294 SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 



SECRET CHAMBERS 



The Secretary of State for Foreign Affaire is _the 

 responsible adviser of the crown in all communica- 

 tions between tin- government and foreign powers. 

 He negotiates trcati.--. cithct directly with ili<> 

 foreign ministers resident in the country, or through 

 the BritU minister* abroad. It is his duty to 

 in<iuirt> into the complaint* of British subjects 

 residing in foreign countries, to afford them pro- 

 tection, nnil to demand redress for then grievances. 

 The Foreign Secretary recommends to the sove- 

 reign all ambassadors, ministers, and consuls to 

 represent this country abroad. He grants Pass- 

 porte (q.v.) to Uritihh'suhjecUi travelling abroad. 



The Secretary for the Colonial Department lias 

 the supervision of the laws and customs of the 

 colonies and dependencies ( except India ), watches 

 over their interests, apportions the imperial troops 

 necessary for their defence or police, appoints 

 governors, and sanctions or disallows laws reserved 

 ior his consideration by colonial governors. The 

 i--poii,ihilitics of the colonial office in regard to 

 tin- greater colonies have been much decreased 

 by the extension of responsible government (see 

 COLONY). 



Each of these secretaries of state is assisted by 

 two under-secretaries of state one permanent, 

 while the other is a political otticer dependent on 

 the administration in power. 



The Secretary of State for India, whose office 

 dates from the abolition in 1858 of the double 

 government of India by the Court of East India 

 Directors and Board of Control, has the same con- 

 trol over the government of India which was for- 

 merly exercised by these bodies, and countersigns 

 all warrants and* orders under the sign-manual 

 relating to India. He is assisted by an under- 

 secretary, who is also a member of the legislature 

 and loses ollice with the cabinet, and by a perman- 

 ent nnder-secretary anil assistant-secretary, as also 

 by a council of fifteen niemliers, over whom he pre- 

 sides. Every order sent to India must be signed 

 by the secretary, and all despatches from govern- 

 ments and presidencies in India must be addressed 

 to the secretary. 



The Secretary of State for War has the superin- 

 tendence of all matters connected with the army, 

 assisted by the comniander-in-chief, and is respons- 

 ible for the amount of the military establishment. 

 He prepares for the royal signature and counter- 

 signs commissions in the army, and recommends to 

 the sovereign for the order of Knighthood of the 

 Bath. Down to the Crimean war there was also 

 a Secretary-at-war, a high officer of tin- ministry, 

 who had the control of the financial arrangements 

 of the army, and was the re|>onsib]c medium for 

 parliamentary SUJM-I vision in military affairs. He 

 wan miite independent, of the Secretary of State 

 and ol the military authorities. 



The Chief secretary to the Lord-lieutenant of 

 Ireland and the Secretary for Scotland do not rank 

 as secretaries of state, though they mav be members 

 of the cabinet. For a full account of the secretarial 

 departments, see Todd's Parliamentary Government 

 in Knijlnnil C2>\ ed. 1H89). 



In the cabinet of the United States there is one 

 Secretary of State, who is x|>ecially charged with 

 foreign affairs. 



Serrelary of the Navy, now called the 

 Secretary to the. Admiralty, is the conventional 

 title of the parliamentary secretary to the Board of 

 Admiralty. This |>ost is conferred on a ministerial 

 snp|Mirter in the llou-e of ('ominous, in which 

 when the Firt I/ird of the Admiralty is a peer he 

 is the exponent of naval policy ; and he is also 

 mainly reixinsib]e for the financial administration 

 of the sen-ice. He changes of course with the 

 ministry, of which he is a sulmrdinate menilici. 

 and receives ft salary of 2000 a year. Thui<- i- 



also a permanent secretary, generally a naval officer, 

 who holds office for life, and receives 1700 a year. 

 Hi' :- responsible for the discipline of the Admiralty 

 8, This appointment is of long standing, and 

 was held by the celebrated Samuel Pepys. 



Secret Chambers were mostly of post- 

 Ketormation const met ion, designed as 'priest's 

 holes, 'or hiding-places for trafficking mass-priests,' 

 in the days when to say mass wits either high- 

 treason or felony. They might also, of course, 

 conceal Jacobite or other conspirators; and that 

 of Dauby Hall, the seat of the Scropes, was found, 

 on its rediscovery about 1800, to contain arms 

 and saddlery for forty or fifty troopers, stored up, 

 it would seem, against some intended rising. 

 Brother Nicholas Owen, S.J., alias ' Little .lohn,' 

 who with Father Garnet (q.v.) was arrested at 

 Ilindlip Hall, and who is termed that useful cun- 

 ning joiner of those times,' was a chief contriver of 

 these secret chambers, and after his capture ' was 

 divers times hung upon aTopcliff rack in the Tower 

 of London to compel him to betray the hiding- 

 places he had made up and down the land.' They 

 were oftenest fonneu in the thickness of a wall, 

 and the entrance to them might be through a 

 panel, behind a hinged picture, beneath a hearth- 

 stone, up a chimney, &c. About a century since 

 at Irnham Hall, Lincolnshire, it was noticed that 

 one of the" chimneys of a cluster was unhlackencd, 

 and it proved to be really a shaft to give light and 

 air to a priest's hole, the entrance to which was 

 gained by removing a single step between two 

 servants' "bedrooms. You then come to a panel, 

 with a very small iron tube let into it. through 

 which any message could be conveyed to the occu- 

 pant This panel removed, a ladder of four steps 

 leads down to the secret chamber, which is 8 feet 

 long, 5 broad, and just high enough to stand upright 

 in. Another at Ingatestone Hall, the old seat of 

 the Petres, is 14 feet long and 1(1 high, but only 

 2 wide ; this contains an old chest for vestments. 

 How cunningly these chambers were contrived 

 may lie seen in the fact that at Ilindlip the minut- 

 est search was made ten whole days in vain, till 

 Garnet came forth himself, forced by want of fresh 

 air, not of food, for marmalade and other sweet- 

 meats were lying by him, and 'broths and warm 

 drinks had been passed to him by a reed through a 

 little hole in a chimney that hacked another chimney 

 into a gentlewoman's chamber. Smugglers during 

 the iMli century had sometimes secret chambers 

 of a sort, for the storage of ' nin ' goods, at farm- 

 houses a few miles inland ; nav, so late as 18CO 

 one such was used for illicit malting in a Suffolk 

 village, till the excise officer detected its where- 

 al touts by pouring water over the floor above. But 

 for the last historical instance of their use we must 

 look abroad, to Nantes, where in 1832 the Duchess 

 de Herri (ij.v.l, a corpulent lady, was, with two 

 gentlemen, roasted out of a secret chamber at 

 the back of a fireplace, after sixteen hours' patient 

 endurance. 



The following is a lint of gome of the best-known secret 

 chambers, arranged under counties in alphabetical order, 

 with the date sometimes of the erection f the mansion 

 ( not necessarily, of course, of the priest's hole ) or of its 

 demolition, and with the names of traditional occupants : 

 Berlahirt, Lyford ; Milton, near Abingdon ; Watoomb. 

 Iludu, Dinton (regicide Mayne). liertciek, Bemersyde. 

 Cambridut, Sawston. Chtfhire, Bollington ; I.yme Hall, 

 near Disley. Cornwall, Bochym. Cumberland, Nether- 

 hall, near Maryport. Derby, Bradshaw Hall, near 

 < 'liapel-en-le-Frith ; Hallam. /iiirlumi. Bishop Middle- 

 ham (in which a 'teetotaller drank himself to death 

 with brnndy.' Soathey's Commonplace , Book, 4th series, 

 .".Ml. Eton, Ingatestone Hemp. Henry VKL). Forfar, 

 (tUinis Castle (the Toad-headed Monster). Olouceiter, 

 I 1 .. iiiti,ii-on the- Water (demolished 1834). Hants, Hinton- 

 . ..pi'-r; Maplcdurham, Moyles Court (Lady Lule'a 



