Tower of London 'Sent to the Tower' Miniature Sheet

'Prisoners of the Tower'

Tower of London served as a prison for many notable figures. From the 12th century onwards, it housed high-profile prisoners such as Anne Boleyn, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Lady Jane Grey all of whom feature in the Miniature Sheet, alongside the ‘Princes in the Tower’, Edward & Richard.

DID YOU KNOW
While the Tower was originally built as a fortress and symbol of royal power, it was also a notorious state prison. For more than 800 years, anyone posing a serious threat to national security – from monarchs and priests to lords and commoners – was incarcerated there. The Tower’s first prisoner, Ranulf Flambard, the Bishop of Durham, was also its first escapee. In 1101, while imprisoned in the White Tower on the orders of Henry I, Flambard climbed through a window using a rope smuggled inside a barrel of wine. Many of the most important figures in British history were subsequently ‘sent to the Tower’, including Henry VIII’s chancellor, Sir Thomas More, in 1534, the future Elizabeth I in 1554 and, in 1605, political conspirator Guy Fawkes, who was interrogated and tortured at the Tower before being sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered at Old Palace Yard, Westminster. In more recent times, Rudolf Hess, deputy leader of the Nazi Party, was held there during the Second World War, while East End gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray became the last prisoners to be held at the Tower, in 1952.