A few miles to the south-west, within the boundary of the once wild district, Malvern Chase, is another remarkable old house, Birtsmorton Court, a moated and fortified manor-house in a singularly good state of preservation. Though quiet and peaceful enough, its embattled gateway has a formidable look, showing the teeth of its portcullis, like a bull-dog on the alert for intruders. The drawbridge is also there, and walls of immense thickness, both speaking of the insecurity of the days when it was built. The "parlour," with windows looking out upon the moat, is richly panelled with the various quarterings of the ancient lords, the Nanfans, executed in colours around the cornice. The arms and crest also occur upon the elaborately carved oak fireplace. On the left-hand side of this fireplace there was formerly the entrance to a hiding-place concealed in the wainscoting, but there is nothing now but a very visible cupboard which leads nowhere. Tradition asserts that Henry V.'s old associate, Sir John Oldcastle, sought refuge here before he was captured and burned as a Lollard. But as that happened in 1417, the date does not tally with the period to which the room belongs, namely, a century later. But the original apartments have been divided (some are dilapidated chambers, now used as a storeroom for Gloucester cheeses), so that it is difficult to trace how they were placed. There is also a story of a passage running beneath the moat into the adjacent woods; but whether Sir John got so far, or whether after his escape from the Tower he even got farther than his own castle of Cowling in Kent, when he was hunted down by orders of his former boon companions, we cannot say. By local report Edward IV. and Margaret of Anjou as well as the little Lancastrian Prince of Wales sought shelter at Birtsmorton. But for Margaret another house nearer Tewkesbury claims the honour of offering a refuge from the battlefield. This is an old timber-framed building with carved barge-boards, near the village of Bushley, called Payne's Place, or Yew Tree Farm, which once belonged to Thomas Payne and Ursula his wife, whose brasses may be seen in the church. In the eastern wing of this old house Queen Margaret's bedroom is pointed out. The hall with open timber roof is still intact but divided, and upon the oak beams a century after the battle of Tewkesbury the following lines were painted on a frieze: "To lyve as wee shoulde alwayes dye it were a goodly trade, To change lowe Death for Lyfe so hye, no better change is made; For all our worldly thynges are vayne, in them is there no truste, Wee see all states awhyle remayne, and then they turn to duste." Had the lines existed then, would the poor queen have derived comfort when the news reached her of her son's death on the battlefield?