Five More Notable Tower of London Prisoners

Princess Elizabeth (1554)

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The Tower of London guards were kept pretty busy during Tudor times and the family of Queen Elizabeth I were no strangers to the prison’s dubious charms.  Elizabeth’s own mother, Anne Boleyn, had been imprisoned there before being executed on Tower Green, and her stepmother, Henry’s fifth wife Katherine Howard, suffered a similar fate at just 18 years old.  

Implicated in the Wyatt Rebellion against her sister, the Catholic Queen Mary, the young Princess who was later to become one of England’s most famous monarchs was imprisoned in the Tower between March and May of 1554. During her time there, she was permitted to take walks along the battlements between Beauchamp and Bell Towers.  This walkway is still named Elizabeth’s Walk.

Guy Fawkes (1606)

Furious with the failure of King James I to relax anti-Catholic laws, the creators of the Gunpowder Plot managed to come startlingly close to wiping out the King and all of his ministers by hiding a huge stash of gunpowder in a cellar conveniently positioned right under the spot where the State Opening of Parliament was to take place.

Suspicions were aroused when one of the plotters sent an anonymous letter to his relation, Lord Monteagle, warning him to stay away, and the resulting search uncovered a pile of wood, behind which were 36 barrels of gunpowder. Guy Fawkes was arrested and encouraged (i.e. tortured) to reveal the names of his co-conspirators before being hung, drawn and quartered.

To this day, the basements of the Houses of Parliament are ceremoniously searched on the day of the State Opening of Parliament.

Henry Laurens (1780-1)

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Bearing the dubious honour of being the Tower’s only American prisoner, Henry Laurens was a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, serving for a time as its president.  Having successfully negotiated Dutch support for the American War of Independence, Laurens’s ship was intercepted by the British navy on its return journey in 1780.  Laurens was sent to England and imprisoned in the Tower but was released as part of a prisoner exchange scheme in 1781.  TheAmericans got Laurens; the British got Lord Cornwallis, famous for surrendering at the Siege of Yorktown. When he finally got back to his native Charleston in 1784, it was only to find that his house had been burned down by British forces.

Rudolph Hess (1942)

The Tower was used for German prisoners of war during both world wars.  In World War I, eleven German spies were imprisoned there before being executed by firing squad.  Perhaps the most famous wartime prisoner held in the Tower was Hitler’s deputy, Rudolph Hess, who was imprisoned there for four days in 1942. 

Even such a high-profile prisoner was not exempt from suffering a few indignities in the Tower.  For one thing, he didn’t even get a cell of his own.  His cellmate was RAF Wing Commander George Salaman who was disguised as a Luftwaffe officer in order to spy on him.

The Kray twins (1952)

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Identical twin brothers Ronnie and Reggie dominated the organised crime scene of London’s East End during the 50s and 60s and were involved in armed robberies, arson, protection rackets, assaults and murders.  Despite this they were seen by some as celebrities, even owning a West End night club that was frequented by many famous names of the time including Diana Dors, Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland.

Their stay in the Tower was brief.  Their National Service regiment was based at Waterloo Barracks at the Tower, and they were detained there for one night after assaulting a police officer while AWOL.  It wasn’t until 1968 that the Krays were finally convicted for murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.  When Ronnie died of a heart attack in 1995, crowds of Londoners lined the streets at his funeral.

Reggie remained in prison, becoming a born-again Christian before his release on compassionate grounds in 2000.  He died of cancer a few weeks later and was buried alongside his brother.

So there you have it – another five (well, six for the price of five!) notables unlucky enough to be incarcerated in the Tower of London.  For more famous Tower prisoners, see this first article in the series.