CHAPTER 12
Great Escapes

The Tower was well guarded, with strong, high stone walls and a moat. It looked like it would be impossible to escape from. But people did.

John Gerard and John Arden were locked in the Tower in 1597. They were waiting to be executed for plotting to make England a Catholic country again.

Gerard wrote a letter to a friend outside. Part of it was written in orange juice, so that the writing became invisible once it dried. His friend knew he could make the ink appear by heating the paper.

Gerard asked his guard to smuggle the letter out for him. The guard looked at the letter and saw that it didn’t say anything wrong, so he agreed. The guard couldn’t see the invisible orange juice writing.

Gerard and Arden managed to loosen a bolt on a door leading to the roof. They climbed to the roof of the Tower. Their friends were waiting in a boat on the river. The prisoners had brought a rope that they stretched down from the Tower roof, over the wall, and to the river. Gerard and Arden had to climb down the rope. This was especially hard for Gerard, because he had been tortured, and his hands were injured. Even so, they both made it down and escaped. Gerard survived for another forty years, and lived to be seventy-three.

Lord Nithsdale and his wife

An especially risky escape plan was carried out by the wife of the Earl of Nithsdale. Nithsdale had been condemned to death for his part in an uprising against King George I in 1715. His wife arranged to visit him in the Tower with a group of women. One very slender woman secretly wore an extra set of clothing.

In the Tower, they dressed Lord Nithsdale in the extra women’s clothing. They put makeup and a wig on him. There wasn’t time to shave his beard off, so they painted it white. When the group of ladies left, Nithsdale was in the middle of their group. He walked with his head bowed as though he were crying, so no one could see his face.

Lady Nithsdale stayed behind in the cell. She carried on a fake conversation as though her husband were still there. When she thought enough time had passed, she left the cell. She asked the guards not to disturb her husband because he was praying. Lord Nithsdale was never captured, and spent the rest of his life in France.

Torture

The Tower of London was not designed to be a dungeon. Most of the prisoners in the Tower of London were not tortured. However, the Tudor rulers did use torture when they wanted to force someone to confess. The most common method was the rack. This was used on both men and women. A person was stretched out with their hands and feet tied to the corners of the rack. Then the rack was tightened so their body was pulled more and more. Eventually this would tear their limbs out of their sockets.

The other common method was manacles. People were hung up by their wrists so their feet didn’t touch the ground. This was extremely painful, and after a while it could do permanent harm to the hands and arms.

The rack