Throughout history there have been incredible escapes from all sorts of so-called secure places. In 1561 Mary Queen of Scots went to Scotland from France, where she was raised in exile. She believed that she was going to assume the throne, instead she was thrown into Lochleven Castle. In 1568 she managed to get out of the castle and secretly got to a boatman that she had bribed. When he noticed who his passenger was he refused to help her. She somehow was able to get back into the castle and her quarters without being seen. In that same year she made a second attempt at freedom. She had befriended an orphan who helped get her out of the castle, into a boat and steal a horse from the stable. Mary made it to freedom.

Jack Sheppard was a notorious English robber who had a short life span, 22 years to be exact. He had managed to break out of prison 4 times in one year and when he was captured on the 5^th attempt, I guess the English authorities had enough of him, because they hanged him. His criminal career only lasted 2 years, but everyone in England at the time, had heard of him. During one escape, Sheppard had been held temporarily in a round house pending further questioning. He removed timbers from the ceiling and got out through the hole in the roof. Sheppard was turned in for the reward by a fellow criminal and sent to New Prison with his mistress and they both escaped within a few days. They had filed off their chains, removed a window bar, knotted sheets and clothes together and slid down to the ground from about 23 feet up. The third time he was arrested when his mistress gave away his location while drunk. This time he was sentenced to death, but escaped again. What happened was that his mistress and a friend visited him and distracted the guards while he loosened a bar at the visitors window. He was slightly built and he was able to get through with only one bar missing. He was then smuggled out in women's clothing. He had one more escape in him when he was arrested the 4^th time. This time guards found files on him and transferred him to the most secure room in the prison known as the castle and put him in leg irons that were attached to 2 iron brackets in the floor. He was then handcuffed and bound more tightly. Somehow he was able to unlock his handcuffs and he removed his chains. He still was in leg irons though. He then removed an iron bar that blocked his way and used it to break through the ceiling. This enabled him to get into the room above the castle. From there he broke through 6 sturdy barred doors and got into the chapel. He managed to get on to the roof of the prison and back to his cell, to get a blanket and then back to the roof again. The blanket was somehow used to reach the next roof. He broke into that house, went down the stairs and out into the street.

One of my favorite escape stories concerns a Jesuit priest named John Gerard. He had been thrown into the infamous Tower of London. History tells us that many people died in this place and it was not easy to get out of. Gerard looked the situation over and realized that the huge door was attached to a stone wall and began to hack at the stones. When the stones were loose enough he opened the door, crept past the guards and got to a very high wall overlooking the moat. A prison warden who had felt sorry for the priest was waiting down by the river with a boat. The warden had tossed a rope up to Gerard and he tied it to a cannon and descended down to the boat and escaped. He was never captured again.

We have all heard about Casanova, the great lover of the 1700s. His full name was Giacomo Casanova and he had enemies. You can imagine that a guy like this must have had many. Anyway, he was sent to Leads prison an infamous prison in Venice. The charge was repeatedly committing adultery of course. Casanova found an old iron rod in the yard and snuck it back to his cell and began to dig. He dug and dug and then the unimaginable happened. They moved him to a different cell. He became afraid to dig because he thought that he was being watched too much. He gave the bar to the prisoner in the next cell, who was a monk and asked him to dig a tunnel between the two cells and a second tunnel to the outside. The monk did and both escaped.

A slave known today as Henry 'Box' Brown figured out a plan to escape from Virginia in 1816. He had a friend that was a carpenter and he had him build a box. The box was just big enough to hold Mr. Brown and he provisioned it with water. On the outside of the box it said “Right side up with care”. He addressed the box to the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, got into it and his friends mailed it. The box had breathing holes cut into it. Along the trip, someone turned the box upside down, which must have been very uncomfortable for him. He made it to his destination however and became a free man.

We have all heard of the Great Escape. That was where allied soldiers tunneled out of a German World War II concentration camp in Germany, but this was not the first time this had happened. It had happened first In World War I. The camp held 550 officers and 100 orderlies. The name of the camp was Holzminden and had the reputation of being the very worst prisoner of war camp in Germany. It was said to be inescapable and the commander was brutal. It opened in September of 1917 and that month 17 attempts to escape took place. Clearly the prisoners were not intimidated. None of those attempts were successful, so the prisoners hatched a plan to dig a tunnel. Incredibly three Germans helped them. They were able to manufacture fake German uniforms and had a camera that they used to forge identity documents. They were able to build a crude air pump to keep air in the tunnel as the digging went on. They worked in teams of 3 for 3 hours each. In July 1918 the tunnel was finished and 60 officers crawled through it to escape. The tunnel collapsed on 30 of the men blocking their way. The tunnel was quite a project, it was 60 yards long and 6 feet deep. One of the 30 turned back to help those in the tunnel. 19 of the 29 that left were captured when a farmer saw them going through his field and raised an alarm. The other ten made it to neutral territory.

Libby Prison was a Confederate concentration camp during the Civil War. It was located in Richmond Virginia. Captured Union officers decided to try and escape. The had a stove in their building and loosened the boards that it was on and were able to dig under it and then replace the boards with the stove on them to avoid detection. They dug day and night using anything from cooking utensils to pieces of wood. They would smuggle out the dirt in pots and pans. Finally in 1864 they had finished a tunnel that was 53 feet long. 109 Union officers made it out through the tunnel. Less than half were recaptured, so the escape has to be considered a huge success.