Moseley Old Hall – Cryssa Bazos

Finding the Fugitive King (Part 3): Damsel saves the day

By the time Charles Stuart left Moseley Old Hall on September 9, 1651, Parliament had circulated a £1000 reward for his capture. This was no mean sum. To put this in perspective, a labourer made an average of £9 per year*, and it would have taken him over 110 years to earn the value of the reward. In today’s dollars, based on the average UK farmer’s salary** of £24,500 the reward would be approximately £545,000. The stakes were definitely high. Our old friend Thomas Whitgreave recommended the services of Colonel John Lane of Bentley Hall to Charles. The Colonel had…

Finding the Fugitive King (Part 2): Moseley Old Hall

September 30, 2014August 19, 2019 Categories: 17th centuryTags: Charles Stuart · Colonel Lane · English Civil War · Escape of King Charles II · Father Huddleston · Highwayman · King Charles II · Moseley Old Hall · Penderell · priest's hole · Thomas Whitgreave · Wilmot · Worcester10 Comments

The trusty Penderells (see Part 1) brought Charles to the next safe house five miles away in Wolverhampton. Moseley Old Hall was the home of Sir Thomas Whitgreave, a papist and former Royalist officer who had last fought at Naseby in 1645. The hour was midnight in the wee hours of Monday, the 8th of September. Thomas greeted Charles at the manor’s orchard door. On hand was the King’s friend, Lord Henry Wilmot (see below), and the Whitgreave’s priest, Father Huddleston. Introducing the King to a Catholic priest was a bit risqué considering that practicing Catholicism was against the law. But…