ESCAPE FROM THE TOWER OF LONDON - FATHER GERARD

 ESCAPE FROM THE TOWER OF LONDON - FATHER GERARD

Father Gerard's "Autobiography of a Hunted Priest"

Father John Gerard, Nicholas Owen (Father Garnet’s servant) and Father Gerard’s servant were arrested after betrayal by a protestant servant of a recusant family with whom they stayed. Father Gerard, Nicholas Owen and Father Gerard’s servant were initially taken to a prison in Cheapside called the Poultry Compter, a small, privately run prison under the control of the sheriff, where the conditions were very bad and which Father Garnet described as a ‘very evil prison’. (1)

There, according to Gerard:

‘They were both hung up for three hours together, having their arms fixed into iron rings and their bodies hanging in the air; a torture which causes frightful pain and intolerable extension of the sinews. It was all to no purpose; no disclosure could be wrestled from them that was hurtful to others; no rewards could entice, no threats or punishments force them to discover where I or any of ours had been harboured or to name any of our acquaintances or abettors.”

Fortunately, however, the prison officers did not appreciate who they had. The prisoners were tortured, Nicholas Owen said nothing and then languished in the prison until a Catholic gentleman managed to secure his release.

After he had been in the Poultry for 3 months, Father Gerard’s friends paid a bribe and had him moved to the Clink prison where he stayed for 3 years. However, while he was there, Father Gerard was betrayed by an apostate priest who told an official that he had seen him giving Nicholas Owen letters from Rome. The officials, aware now that Father Gerard was in communication with the Jesuit superior in Rome, resolved to torture the details out of him. (2)

So it was that in April 1597, Father Gerard was committed to the Tower of London. There he was questioned about the identity of the man to whom he had given the letters and, when he refused to divulge, they produced a warrant for his torture and handed him over to the interrogators. Father Gerard described the torture chamber as’ a place of immense extent, and in it were ranged divers sorts of racks and other instruments of torture. Some of these were displayed before me and told me that I should have to taste them every one.”

They suspended him by his wrists for hours at a time over several days. Whenever he fainted, he would be taken down and revived, then hung up again.

"The chamber was underground and dark, particularly near the entrance. It was a vast place and every device and instrument of human torture was there. They pointed out some of them to me and said I would try them all. Then he asked me again whether I would confess.

'I cannot,' I said.

I fell on my knees for a moment's prayer. Then they took me to a big upright pillar, one of the wooden posts which held the roof of this huge underground chamber. Driven into the top of it were iron staples for supporting heavy weights. Then they put my wrists into iron gauntlets and ordered me to climb two or three wicker steps.

My arms were then lifted up and an iron bar was passed through the rings of one gauntlet, then through the staple and rings to the second gauntlet. This done, they fastened the bar with a pin to prevent it from slipping, and then, removing the wicker steps one by one from under my feet, they left me hanging by my hands and arms fastened above my head. The tips of my toes, however, still touched the ground, and they had to dig the earth away from under them. They had hung me up from the highest staple in the pillar and could not raise me any higher, without driving in another staple.

Hanging like this I began to pray. The gentlemen standing around me asked me whether I was willing to confess now.

'I cannot and I will not,' I answered.

But I could hardly utter the words, such a gripping pain came over me. It was worst in my chest and belly, my hands and arms. All the blood in my body seemed to rush up into my arms and hands and I thought that blood was oozing from the ends of my fingers and the pores of my skin. But it was only a sensation caused by my flesh swelling above the irons holding them.

The pain was so intense that I thought I could not possibly endure it, and added to it, I had an interior temptation. Yet I did not feel any inclination or wish to give them the information they wanted. The Lord saw my weakness with the eyes of His mercy, and did not permit me to be tempted beyond my strength. With the temptation He sent me relief. Seeing my agony and the struggle going on in my mind, He gave me this most merciful thought: the utmost and worst they can do is to kill you, and you have often wanted to give your life for your Lord God. The Lord God sees all you are enduring - He can do all things. You are in God's keeping." (3)

Eventually Father Gerard fainted so thoroughly that ‘they could not bring me to, and they thought I either was dead or soon would be.’ They hung him up again for a short time but as they were not able to get him to say anything and as he was clearly approaching death they finally gave up and let him be in his cell.

A Catholic prisoner, John Arden, was kept in another tower, called the Cradle Tower, opposite the tower in which Gerard was incarcerated. The Ardens were a recusant family. Shakespeare’s mother, Mary Arden, was an Arden.

Father Gerard and John Arden developed a practice involving bribing the warden to allow Gerard to visit Arden’s cell, and communicating by invisible writing in orange juice, which was able to be read by holding the paper up to the warmth of a candle.(4)

It was arranged that Father Gerard and John Arden escape and that John Lillie and Richard Fulwood, (who had been Gerard’s servant), would come to the outer bank of the moat opposite the Cradle Tower. Father Gerard would throw them a lead ball attached to a stout thread. The rescuers would retrieve the ball and fasten a long rope to the string after which Gerard would pull up the rope and make it fast at his end. They were to come by boat so that a quick escape could be made downriver.(5)

A night was fixed but the first attempt was thwarted by coincidental events which unfortunately resulted in the near drowning of the three rescuers when they were caught in their rowing boats by the swift-flowing and dangerous tides of the Thames River. (6)

Father Gerard and John Arden heard the rescuers crying from the Tower and saw men coming from the bank of the river with candles and getting into their boats to carry out a rescue. The boats couldn’t get close because of the current. Father Gerard says that he recognised Richard Fulwood’s cried even from that distance and ‘groaned inwardly to think that such devoted men were in such peril of their lives for my sake.’

Some men let down a basket from one of the houses on the Bridge but the men could not reach it. Very fortunately, a larger rowing boat manned by six sailors arrived and was able to rescue the craft and Lillie and Fulwood. The third man fell into the river but was able to grasp a rope that had been let down from the Bridge and was drawn up to safety. So all survived that night.(7)

Father Gerard was cast down by this setback, but the next day, John Lillie sent him a note:

‘It was not the will of God that we should accomplish our desire last night; still He rescued us from great danger, that we might succeed better the next time. What is put off is not cut off, so we mean to come again with God’s help.’

So once more they made their preparations. With some difficulty the gaoler was persuaded to let Father Gerard visit Arden again.

Father Gerard left behind 3 letters in his cell: The first was to the gaoler justifying himself for escaping and stating he was being detained in prison with having committed any crime. He says that he did this so that the gaoler would not be blamed for the escape. The second letter was to the Lieutenant of the Tower in which he again exonerated the gaoler and mentioned [a] large bribe which he had been offered to allow his prisoners to escape and turned down. The third letter was to the Privy Council assuring them that he would never meddle in affairs of State and only wanted to continue his mission of saving souls. (7A)

On the second attempt at escape, the two prisoners, once more, mounted to the roof: The boat arrived and this time got to shore with no disturbance. They found the lead ball and tied the string it carried to a rope. Father Gerard and Arden had great difficulty in drawing up the rope because it was of considerable thickness. Finally the rope was made fast to a stake on the bank at one end and wrapped around a cannon that was on the roof at the Cradle Tower at the other. Father Gerard had hoped that they would be able to slide down the rope with little effort. This proved impossible however, because the distance was so great that the rope did not slope to any extent so they would have to haul themselves along it.(9)

Arden said a prayer and made his descent. He managed easily enough, says Father Gerard, as he was strong and vigorous and the rope was at that time taut. However, his weight slackened the rope considerably, making Gerard’s descent more difficult.

Father Gerard then commended himself, as he notes, to God, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, his Guardian Angel, his fellow Jesuits, the martyred Robert Southwell and Henry Walpole and all the Saints, and began his attempt. (10)

‘I took the rope in my right hand and held it also with my left arm; then I twisted my legs about it, to prevent falling, in such a way that the rope passed between my shins. I descended some three or four yards face downwards, when suddenly my body swung round by its own weight and hung under the rope. The shock was so great that I nearly lost my hold for I was still weak, especially in the hands and arms. In fact, with the rope so slack and my body hanging beneath it, I could hardly get on at all. At length I made a shift to get on as far as the middle of the rope and there I stuck, my breath and my strength failing me, neither of which were very copious to begin with. After a little time, the Saints assisting me and my good friends below drawing me to them by their prayers, I got on a little further and stuck again, thinking I would never be able to accomplish it. Yet I was loathe to drop into the water as long as I could possible hold on. After another rest therefore, I summoned what remained of my strength and helping myself with legs and arms as well as I could, I got as far as the wall on the other side of the moat. But my feet only touched the top of the wall and my whole body hung horizontally, my head being no higher than my feet, so slack was the rope. In such a position, and exhausted as I was, it was hopeless to expect to get over the wall by my own unaided strength. So John Lillie got on the wall somehow or other (for, as he afterwards asserted, he never knew how he got there), took hold of my feet, and by them pulled me to him and got me over the wall and on to the ground.” (11)

Father Gerard managed to walk to the boat. They rowed for some distance and then separated so that John Arden went off with John Lillie to one safe house while Father Gerard and Richard Fulwood went to a house Father Garnet had in Spitfields. There he met with Nicholas Owen who had horses ready and a little before daylight they rode west for about 20km to Father Garnet’s country house, called Morecrofts, near the village of Uxbridge. They got there by dinner time, to great rejoicing.

Father Gerard was conscientious enough to care for his former gaoler’s safety and sent a messenger to offer him a horse to make his escape and to have a generous 20 pounds per year as a pension. The gaoler accepted the offer on the spot and was about to return to the Tower to settle matters when a colleague met him and said; ”Be off with you as quick as you can; for your prisoners have escaped from the little tower and Master Lieutenant is looking for you everywhere. Woe to you if he finds you!’

Father Gerard had done what was universally thought to be impossible – escape from the Tower of London, the most notorious prison in England. (12)

(1) Tony Reynolds, "St Nicholas Owen", Ignatius Press, (2014), at p. 61.

(2) Ibid.m at p. 64.

(3) John Gerard SJ, "Autobiography of a Hunted Priest", (1952), Ignatius Press, at pp. 135-136.

(4) Tony Reynolds, ibid., at p. 66.

(5) ibid., at p. 68.

(6) Ibid., at p. 70.

(7) Ibid.

(7A) Ibid.

(9) Ibid., at pp. 70-71.

(10) Ibid.

(11) Tony Reynolds, ibid., at pp. 71-72; Father Gerard SJ, "Autobiography of a Hunted Priest, opcit, at pp. 170-171.

(12) Tony Reynolds, opcit, at p 73.