In 1549 Badcoke must have been, as age went in the sixteenth century, an old man. His deprivation of office, the loss of his friend, and the abandonment of long treasured hopes for the restitution of the religious system to which his life had been devoted, plunged him in a settled despondency. The Fellows, who showed for him such sympathy as they dared, understood that between him and Harrison there passed a secret correspondence. But in course of years this source of consolation dried up. Harrison was dead, or he had travelled away from Louvain. With the other members of the College Badcoke wholly parted company, and lived a recluse in his unneighboured room. By the wood-yard gate, of which he still had a key, he could let himself out beyond the College walls, and sometimes by day, oftener after nightfall, he was to be seen wandering beneath his window in the Nuns’ graveyard, his old feet, like Friar Laurence’s, “stumbling at graves.” An occasional visitor, who was known to be his pensioner, was Adam Waller. But, though Waller was still at times employed in the service of the College, his character and condition had deteriorated with years. He was a sturdy beggar, a drunkard, sullen and dangerous in his cups, and Badcoke was heard to hint some terror of his presence. At last the Master learnt from the ex-Prior that he was about to quit the College, and none doubted that he would follow Harrison to Louvain. Shortly after this became known, Badcoke disappeared from College. He had lived in such seclusion that for a day or two it was not noticed that his door remained closed, and that he had not been seen in his customary walks. When the door was at last forced it was discovered that he had indeed gone, but, strangely, he had left behind him the whole of his effects. Adam Waller was the last person who was known to have entered his chamber, and, being questioned, he said that Badcoke had informed him of his intention to depart three days previously, but, for some unexplained reason, had desired him to keep his purpose secret, and had not imparted his destination. Badcoke’s life of seclusion, and his known connection with English Catholics beyond sea, gave colour to Waller’s story, and, so far as I am aware, no enquiries were made as to the subsequent fate of the ex-Prior. But a strange fact was commented on--that the floor of the so-called cupboard was strewn with bricks, and that in the place from which they had been dislodged was an arched recess of considerable size, which must have been made during Badcoke’s tenancy of the room. There was nothing in the recess. Another circumstance there was which called for no notice in the then dilapidated state of half the College rooms. Two boards were loose in the floor of the larger chamber. Thirty feet below the gap which their removal exposed, lay the dark impurities of the “kytchynge sinke ditch.” Adam Waller died a beggar as he had lived.