The Tower
Prisoners
The most infamous function of the Tower of London has been its role as a state prison. Imprisonment does feature highly in the history of the fortress, beginning at the turn of the 12th century and continuing until the 20th.
However, certain facts are important to place this in perspective. There was never a time when the Tower was only used as prison, and there were long periods when there were no prisoners at all. The most intensive period of internment was between the mid-16th and mid-17th centuries. Within the castle, there are no purpose-built 'prison cells'; prisoners have been kept in whatever space could be found for them.
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The first prisoner, Rannulf Flambard, bishop of Durham, was sent to the Tower in 1100 on the orders of Henry I, accused of unjust taxation. The regime under which he was imprisoned was an extremely lax form of house-arrest – he was allowed visitors from outside, with whom he held lavish banquets.
During one of these, according to the chronicler Orderic Vitalis, he made his guards drunk and escaped through one of the White Tower's windows, using a rope smuggled into him in a wine barrel. This story, though far-fetched, appears to be true in outline: Rannulf certainly did escape, and his gaoler was heavily fined for negligence.
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Among the last prisoners in the Tower were the East End gang leaders Ronnie and Reggie Kray, who in 1952 were briefly held in twin cells in the Waterloo Barracks. They had failed to report to the Tower when called up for National Service in the 1st Battalion Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), and were brought by the police to the Tower as the local regimental depot.
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One of the most detailed descriptions of imprisonment under the Tudors was written by the Jesuit priest John Gerard, who was tortured in the Tower in 1597 and later escaped to the Low Countries. Since his account of the cruelties of Protestant England was written some time later for a Roman Catholic audience, there are suspicions that he may have exaggerated. However, some of the details can be confirmed, such as his description of graffiti in his room in the Salt Tower.
He also writes that he was taken in a solemn procession to an underground chamber to be tortured. This has led several writers to suppose that there was a tunnel leading from the Salt Tower into the White Tower's basement. In fact, his text only suggests that the torture room was underground, not the route of the procession.
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For prisoners of the highest rank, imprisonment in the Tower could be very luxurious indeed. In 1360, John II of France brought a large retinue into the Tower with him, including chamberlains, a chaplain and 'Master John the Fool', his jester.
Still more comfortable was the regime for King John Balliol of Scotland, prisoner of Edward I in 1296. Documents list a household of: two squires, a huntsman, a pledge-man, a barber, Master William the chaplain, Henry the chapel clerk and several assistants to the clerk, two grooms, at least two chamberlains, Master Andrew the tailor, a laundress, three pages and a pack of two greyhounds and 10 other hunting-dogs. With his pledge-man standing surety in the Tower, King John was allowed to ride out hunting anywhere within a 21-mile radius of the Tower.
Consideration for high-ranking prisoners can still be detected in the stonework of the Bloody Tower. Here, in 1603, an extra floor was added to make room for Sir Walter Ralegh's family, who voluntarily shared his captivity in the Tower.
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Prisoners have escaped from the Tower by a variety of means. Several break-outs, successful and unsuccessful, have involved ropes to climb down from high towers or to cross the moat. Other escapees have adopted disguises – most famously, William Maxwell, Lord Nithsdale, who in 1716 disguised himself as a woman, using clothes smuggled into him by his wife.
Several attempts have relied on the help of the yeoman warders: the Jesuit John Gerard was supplied with oranges by his gaoler, unaware that the prisoner was using the juice to send messages in 'invisible ink'. Most daring, and possibly only a legend, was the junior officer who, awaiting court-martial in the early 20th century, saluted his way out of the Tower past the sentries, enjoyed a night out in London and saluted his way back into the guard-house in the morning.
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Before her accession, Elizabeth I had been a prisoner in the Tower in 1554, suspected of plotting to overthrow her half-sister Mary I. There are several versions of the story of how she entered the Tower, where she was confined and how she was treated.
One of the most detailed accounts is contained in a diary of a Tower resident, whose identity remains unknown. He tells how Elizabeth landed by boat 'at the drawbridge'. This cannot be the building called 'Traitors' Gate', but makes more sense since another river-entrance, the Byward Postern, was connected to the Tower wharf by a drawbridge. As a prisoner, Elizabeth was allowed to take exercise in the palace gardens, and there are hints in historic documents that she lived in the Lanthorn Tower (demolished in the 18th century).
The experience of being imprisoned in the Tower seems to have stayed with her. Elizabeth committed a great many prisoners to the fortress, but apart from a stay before her coronation, she herself never visited the place again.
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There are no 'dungeons' at the Tower. People have been imprisoned in a variety of locations, including the towers of the castle's defences, various houses, stables and cellars. One of the strangest prisons is known from a documentary reference of 1279 to 'a certain woman in the elephant-house' – a building measuring 40 feet (12 metres) by 20ft (6m) provided in 1255 for Henry III's pet elephant in the royal menagerie (the elephant died three years later).
It is hard to be sure whether luridly named prisons such as 'the dungeon with the rats' were real or, if so, where they were. One notorious cell that seems to have been genuine but whose location has been lost was called 'Little Ease', a space so cramped that a prisoner could neither stand up nor lie down in it.
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In the 16th and 17th centuries, it became common for prisoners to carve inscriptions on the walls, giving some indication of the places where imprisonment was particularly intensive. Some of the best collections can be found in the Beauchamp Tower, the Salt Tower and the Martin Tower.
The Bloody Tower, which provided some of the most important accommodation for prisoners, also contains some inscriptions. However, in 1911, the Office of Works complained that 'a former occupant used to amuse himself when drunk by hacking at them with an axe, and several are presently defaced.'
