10 True Tales from the Tower of London’s 1,000-Year History

William the Conqueror seized the English crown in 1066 by defeating King Harold at the Battle of Hastings. He then built the Tower of London to secure his power over his new domain. Construction of the central keep, the White Tower, took about 20 years. Masons came from Normandy, and stone was brought from Caen in France.

William intended his mighty castle to dominate London’s skyline and the minds of its people. Over nearly 1,000 years, the Tower has been expanded and adapted, but it remains an imposing presence. It attracts millions of visitors each year. Here are ten of the most gripping tales from its history.

Related: 10 Shocking Facts About London Life Amid WWII’s Air Raids

10 Executions in the 20th Century

Public executions on Tower Hill ended in 1780, but executions inside the Tower resumed during the world wars. Between 1914 and 1916, 11 men convicted of spying were executed by firing squad within the Tower’s walls. The executions were carried out in secret, even as the fortress remained open to visitors.

The last person executed inside the Tower was Josef Jakobs, a German agent sent to England during World War II. After parachuting into the country in 1941, he injured himself on landing and was soon arrested. Convicted of spying, he was shot on August 15, 1941, at the Tower’s miniature rifle range—the same place now remembered as the site of the last execution there.^[1]

9 Torture at the Tower

Torture was used at the Tower during the 16th and 17th centuries, usually to force prisoners to reveal information or name alleged accomplices. It was not a routine punishment, and cases required authorization from royal authorities.

In 1546, Protestant writer and preacher Anne Askew was tortured on the rack after being charged with heresy. She was unable to walk afterward and had to be carried to the stake, where she was burned. She is the only woman known to have been tortured at the Tower.

In the 1590s, Jesuit priest John Gerard was suspended by his wrists in manacles during interrogations over his Catholic faith. He later described repeatedly fainting from the pain, only to be revived and subjected to it again. Gerard survived and eventually escaped.^[2]

8 Thomas Blood’s Attempt to Steal the Crown Jewels

In 1671, Irish adventurer Thomas Blood and several accomplices attempted to steal the Crown Jewels, which had been kept at the Tower since 1661. At the time, visitors could pay a fee to see the jewels—and even handle them—making the Jewel House easier to approach than it would be today.

Posing as a parson, Blood befriended Talbot Edwards, the Jewel House keeper, and arranged for his supposed nephew—actually his son—to court Edwards’s daughter. When Blood and his accomplices were finally shown the jewels, they attacked Edwards and seized the crown, orb, and scepter. They tried to escape, but Edwards’s son arrived and raised the alarm.

The thieves were caught after a desperate dash for their horses. Blood then boldly asked to meet King Charles II. The king granted the request and, astonishingly, pardoned Blood and gave him land in Ireland. The Crown Jewels remained at the Tower, now under armed guard.^[3]

7 Ranulf Flambard’s Escape

Ranulf Flambard, Bishop of Durham, became the Tower’s first prisoner—and its first known escapee. After Henry I took the throne in 1100, he imprisoned Flambard, who had served William the Conqueror and his son, William II.

Flambard’s escape plan depended on getting his guards drunk. An accomplice smuggled him a rope in a gallon of wine, which Flambard shared with the men watching him. Once they were incapacitated, he used the rope to climb out through a window in the White Tower and make his escape.^[4]

6 Lord Nithsdale’s Escape

After the failed Jacobite rising of 1715, William Maxwell, Earl of Nithsdale, was captured, tried, and sentenced to death. His wife, Winifred, knew the execution was near and arranged a daring disguise. With help from two women, she smuggled a dress and other disguises into the Tower.

Winifred first sent one companion out dressed as herself, then helped Nithsdale put on the other woman’s clothes. She used paint to disguise his eyebrows and beard and an artificial hairpiece to complete the transformation. He walked out with Winifred, keeping his face hidden behind a handkerchief.

She returned to his room and acted as though he were still there, even answering her own questions in his voice so the guards would hear a conversation. By the time she left the Tower, Nithsdale was already on his way to safety. The couple later lived in exile in France.^[5]

5 The Nine-Day Queen

When King Edward VI died in July 1553, his cousin Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen in an effort to prevent the Catholic Mary Tudor from taking the throne. Jane had married Lord Guildford Dudley only weeks earlier; his father, the powerful Duke of Northumberland, was a leading force behind the succession plan.

Jane entered the Tower by barge with her husband and court attendants to prepare for her coronation. But Mary’s support grew, and she was proclaimed queen just nine days after Jane. Jane and Guildford were tried for treason and initially given a reprieve. After Wyatt’s Rebellion in 1554, Mary’s advisers judged Jane too dangerous to keep alive. Guildford was executed publicly on Tower Hill, while Jane was beheaded privately inside the Tower. She was 17.

Jane’s final recorded words included: “I am come hither to die, and by a law I am condemned to the same.” ^[6]

4 The Executed Wives of Henry VIII

Henry VIII’s two wives executed at the Tower were Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. Anne, once a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon, married Henry in 1533. Three years later, she was tried on charges including adultery and incest and executed at the Tower. Historians have long questioned the accusations against her.

Catherine, Henry’s fifth wife, married him in 1540. She was accused of concealing sexual relationships from before the marriage and of adultery with Thomas Culpeper. Catherine was executed in 1542, aged 18 or 19.^[7]

3 The Princes in the Tower

Edward V became king in April 1483 after the death of his father, Edward IV. He was 12 years old, and his uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was appointed protector. Richard later claimed the crown for himself after Edward’s legitimacy was challenged. He became Richard III, while Edward and his younger brother, Richard, were lodged in the Tower.

The boys were seen less and less, and eventually disappeared from public view. In 1674, workmen found the skeletons of two children at the Tower. Charles II ordered them buried in Westminster Abbey, believing they might be the missing princes. A later examination found that the remains belonged to two boys around the same ages as Edward and Richard, but it could not prove their identities. Their fate—and who was responsible—remains unresolved.^[8]

2 The Royal Menagerie

For roughly six centuries, the Tower of London housed a royal menagerie. In 1235, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II reportedly sent Henry III three animals described as “leopards,” though they may have been lions. In 1252, the King of Norway sent a “white bear,” likely a polar bear, which was allowed to fish in the Thames while tethered to its keeper.

A few years later, Louis IX of France gave Henry an elephant. The animal died after only a few years in London. The collection continued to grow, and by the 17th century it included eagles, pumas, tigers, jackals, lions, and leopards.

The menagerie also inspired one of the earliest recorded April Fools’ jokes. In 1686, visitors were reportedly sent to the Tower to see the annual “washing of the lions”—a ceremony that did not exist.

In 1831, King William IV ordered the menagerie removed from the Tower. Many animals were transferred to Regent’s Park, where the London Zoo had recently opened.^[9]

1 Storming the Tower

During the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, rebels entered the Tower of London through its open gates. The uprising began amid anger over poll taxes and other economic pressures. As thousands of people marched into London, a group of rebels reached the Tower and seized Simon Sudbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the king’s chancellor, along with Robert Hales, the Lord High Treasurer.

The rebels dragged both men to nearby Tower Hill and beheaded them. One of the revolt’s leaders, Joanna Ferrour, was later accused of personally taking part in the attack and ordering their deaths. Sudbury’s execution took eight blows, and the event became one of the earliest recorded executions at Tower Hill, which later served as a major public execution ground.^[10]