right worthy and worshipful knight, Sir Henry Bromlie; and the
proclamation delivered therewith, describing the features and
shapes of the men, for the better discovering them. He, not
neglecting so a weighty a business, horsing himself with a seemly
troop of his own attendants, and calling to his assistance so
many as in discretion was thought meet, having likewise in his
company Sir Edward Bromlie, on Monday, Jan. 20 last, by break
of day, did engirt and round beat the house of Mayster Thomas
Abbingdon, at Hindlip, near Worcester. Mr. Abbingdon, not being
then at home, but ridden abroad about some occasions best known
to himself; the house being goodlie, and of great receipt, it
required the more diligent labour and pains in the searching.
It appeared there was no want; and Mr. Abbingdon himself coming
home that night, the commission and proclamation being shown unto
him, he denied any such men to be in his house, and voluntarily
to die at his own gate, if any such were to be found in his house,
or in that shire. But this liberal or rather rash speech could
not cause the search so slightly to be given over; the cause
enforced more respect than words of that or any such like nature;
and proceeding on according to the trust reposed in him in the
gallery over the gate there were found two cunning and very
artificial conveyances in the main brick-wall, so ingeniously
framed, and with such art, as it cost much labour ere they could
be found. Three other secret places, contrived by no less skill
and industry, were found in and about the chimneys, in one whereof
two of the traitors were close concealed. These chimney-conveyances
being so strangely formed, having the entrances into them so
curiously covered over with brick, mortared and made fast to
planks of wood, and coloured black, like the other parts of the
chimney, that very diligent inquisition might well have passed