[image error] The fate of Lady Alice Lisle at the Bloody Assizes of Judge Jeffreys shows how dangerous it can be to hide fugitives in your house, even if you're doing it for all the right reasons.

Lady Alice had, indirectly, been closely linked to the main events of the English Civil War. Her husband, John Lisle, had been one of the signatories to Charles I's death warrant and a grateful Cromwell had elevated him to the upper house in his Commonwealth government. At the Restoration in 1660, naturally enough...