April 22, 2025 • 39 mins
Jon Barinholtz (American Auto, Chicago Party Aunt) helps Arturo infiltrate the Tower of London in the Elizabethan era, uncovering the tale of John Gerard, a covert priest with an uncanny aptitude for orange juice.
Read this episode's transcript on Mental Floss: https://www.mentalfloss.com/columns/greatest-escapes
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ben, Can you give me a little bit of that
special thing you recorded for us please to get us
into the mood?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Yes, of course, oh little green sleeves, Yes, exactly, thank you.
It's the only medieval music I learned.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Yeah, I mean yeah, And I know you played the
dulcimer too, so that's great.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
There's gonna be a hard pist behind me.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hey, guys, this is great as Escapes, a show bringing
you the wildest true escape stories of all time. I'm
Marturo Gastro and I'm joined by the hilarious writer, actor
and producer John Barnholtz.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Whoa did you know that.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Benchuck created that version of the theme song just for
this particular episode?
Speaker 5 (00:54):
Oh? Perfect?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah. Yeah, so we should only speak in Old English,
is what I'm trying to say. Welcome to the show.
So stoked to have you.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
So happy to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
I'm an equally big fan of yours, and I love
escape stories and.
Speaker 5 (01:07):
This just sounded so much fun.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
John, Do you have the greatest escape I do, and
it's in two thousand and nine, right before I moved
out to Los Angeles. I'm born and raised in Chicago,
and I was I think like a week out of
moving to Los Angeles, and over the course of a
month there was a string of muggings in the area.
I lived in Chicago, in Wrigleyville, and I do want
to say I love Chicago. It's an amazing city. I know,
(01:32):
like there's a perception where it's very dangerous and I'm
about to tell a story that, but it's you're fine.
If you go to Chicago, You're fucking fine. It's say
this was a fluke incident. Three improvisers in the area
had gotten blindsided and mugged over the course of like
a month, and it was always the same thing. It
was like around eleven o'clock. They were drunk walking home
(01:54):
by themselves and they got mugged. I knew two of them,
and one that I was leaving Improv Olympic and I
luckily wasn't drunk. Well what time was was this had
more or less at about ten forty five.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
I was like it was before level.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Ooh, mugging hours upon us.
Speaker 5 (02:08):
Right, yes, mugging hours.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
And I was walking home and I I remember I
had left my friend Nick at Improv Olympic and at
the time, if you do, you remember the movie The Room,
It's like that cult Bad Movie by Tommy was say
yea yeah, yah, yeah, yea yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
Franko made a movie on it. Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
So this is two thousand and nine, so this movie
wasn't like widely available yet. There was one DVD, one
copy of that kind of going around the comedy scene
in Chicago, so people could like, like you know, get
high and watch it. And my buddy Nick had it
and he hadn't watched it yet, and I was like, oh,
can I borrow I'm gonna borrow the DVD and watch.
He's like, yeah, yeah, finds like don't lose them, Like
I'm not gonna. I'm walking home and I'll watch them.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
I'll lose him.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I turned down my street and I see a guy
like walk past me and I'm just getting like a hey,
what's up? And he doesn't give anything back, and I
was like ooh, like Spidey senses went on. I was like,
that's not good, kind of like looking at him and
like the eyes on the back of my head like
kind of like turn a little as he passes me.
He didn't turn around, so I'm okay, And just then
out of like my peripher I'll see another guy across
(03:10):
the street, like slowly walking into the street, and I was.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
Like, ooh, okay, okay. I look back. The other guys
now turned around and I'm like okay.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I tried to say hi to this next guy. I
tried to hide him as well.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
People. Yeah, the guy people on my street.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I just had the feeling, right, I was like, this
is happening, and I just started sprinting. I cut into
the street and start sprinting and I run right into
the third guy and they have me in like a triangle,
and I'm like, fuck, they got me, and like luckily
they're not holding anything. I'm like really annoyed. I knew
I was moving in a week. They were gonna get
my wallet.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
So they're like what do you got?
Speaker 3 (03:49):
And remember, in the middle of the street, in this
triangle amongst them, I take on my wallet and I
just like emptied on the ground and throw it.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
There's like no money in it. I take on my phone,
I break it on the ground. No, I'm just I'm mad.
I had a pop pipe on me.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
I break the top, take one last hit, like fuck you.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
I'm holding that DVD of the room and I'm just
I keep holling I was like, they're not gonna take this.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
And the third guy he's like, what's that there?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
I was like the DVD of a really bad movie,
and he's like, give it, my god, damn it, I'm angry.
Speaker 5 (04:24):
I give him the DVD.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
One of the other guys is like trying to pick
up my phone, like what's left of it, like and
my wallet and like all my cards, and the original
guy is like, come with me.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
I'm like, all right, I'm just annoyed. He's just trying
to get me away from them.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
He starts walking me up the sidewalk and he pulls
out a fucking gun, and I went from being annoyed
to being like this.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
Is how it ends.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, And he turns back to his to the two
guys and he goes, fuck it, I'm just gonna cap him.
And as like that word left his mouth, I was
there's like a big tree next to me. I was
like one hundred yards down the street, like I had
never run so fast. I like, as he said that,
and I saw his head was still turned back.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
I just sprint.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I cut in front of the tree so like I
was out of he didn't have like a clear line
of sight on me, whoa, he was gonna shoot me.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
I think he was just trying to scare me.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
But I was gone, man, I like I moved I
think like fifty yards in like Fortus Craze.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Good for you.
Speaker 5 (05:23):
I'm so glad you're alive. I got out, I got out,
they got away, they got all my shit.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
It's so weird because after that, a crime dropped tremendously
because muggers was just obsessed with Tommy Wizzou. After that,
they were just too busy watching the room over and over.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
For one year in Chicago, no one got mugged because
all these muggers were just were just watching.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
They were just like we just wanted to stop people
and be like, how's my impression?
Speaker 4 (05:46):
I did not that I did not the high mug.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Thanks for sharing that story. And I want to ask
you a question. So yes, when I say orange juice
and then I say a prison escape, like what do
you think.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
Orange prison escape?
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I mean, like, off the top of my head, I
imagine like they made the orange juice a cidic and
they were able to melt the locks.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
And yeah, there you go. Okay, no, that's a good one.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Well let's see if you're right, okay, so let's get
into this escape situation. Then, can I get a little
boom boom, we're getting into the escape thing, a little law.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
And order but like, yeah, the English law and order.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Oh yeah, yes, yes, right, governor. Like I don't know,
Ben was doing a real sorry.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Accident earlier and sorry, what do you know about the
Tower of London.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
I was just in London in the summer and I
took a little boat trip and I think we went
past it on the river.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
I just know that it's it currently has the Crown
jewels in it. I think that's right.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
That's right, Yeah, no, you nailed it.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
The Tower of London is known as England's most infamous
historic prison, right, But it didn't start out as just
a prison. In fact, it started off as a castle,
which you can kind of tell by the shape of
it and the general castle.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
Lee vibe that classic castle.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
It's given me castle.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
So it was built by the French King William the
Conqueror after he well, you know, conquered.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
England in ten sixty six.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
Was the year, oh, the Battle of Hastings.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
That's right, man, Good for you.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
I didn't know that until this episode actually, So way
to prove that you're way smarter than the host.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
John Great.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
It's the Battle of Hastings and the Magna Carta are
the two dates I think I remember.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
And Ben take his DVD. Please take his fucking dvd. Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
So the castle was set up by William the Conqueror
basically as a flex. At the center is the White Tower,
which is surrounded by a number of other buildings around
that is two layers of forty five walls dotted with
towers and gates, surrounded by a moat and all this
is next to the River Thames. Paranoid much, buddy, I
presentally like miss moats, you know, like I thought they
(07:54):
were like such a cool thing to.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
Have back in the day.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
It's one of those things like a lot of stuff
from the medieval ages isn't like and beyond should have
gone away, most should have stayed.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Most states great torturing people and you know, religious persecution.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Park can go. But give me the alligators chomping at
the big you know, yes, yeah, it's giving me castle.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Every different tower and wall has its own name, right,
like salt tower, wardrobe tower, cradle tower, brick tower, et cetera,
et cetera, and altogether, the castle is known as the
Tower of London. Oh that's not fucking confusing at all,
Like why, like is it just can it just be
called like the Towers of London.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
No, they couldn't give us a plural.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
So over time, the various Kings of England used it
as a royal palace. Right, they even made it the
Royal Mint where they churned out England's money. Starting in
the twelve hundred, the uses of the tower even included
keeping a large collection of animals inside, which kind of
makes it London's first sue.
Speaker 5 (08:53):
The Tower of London was like happening.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
Yeah, it was like made their money.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
It was a zoom who.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
So in twelve thirty five the king was giving some lions,
and later in the twelve hundreds came gifts of a
polar bear and an African elephant. Imagine how fucking confused
you'd be as the polar bear waking up in the
Tower of London, you know.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
Yeah, and thank you man.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
That bear sounded confused, it really really yeah, what the fuck?
Speaker 4 (09:26):
His friends would never believe him.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Like, guys, guys, Bob, Bob, I fucking fell asleep, right,
I was hungover and I woke up surrounded by fucking
people with terrible teeth.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
I don't know what the fuck they were saying.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
Of course, I'm speaking of the British back then.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
You guys have an excellent teeth now, yeah, just saying yes,
all the medieval.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
People, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
So eventually the Tower of London became famous for housing
human prisoners. It wasn't specifically built as a jail, but
it ended up being a pretty good, you know, place
for keeping people after keeping out.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
You can hold a polar bear, you can hold person's right.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
People get out, that's right, I saw, I'm trying to leave.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
The British action will change periodically throughout the episode to everybody,
so please forgive us.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
But it is historically accurate. Like sometimes we'll be talking
as like well, they'll be cocking a little bit. Sometimes
we'll be going uppercross British. It'll be it'll be very accurate.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
If everything that we're we're doing a shitty British action,
just know that that's how people spoke back then, okay,
and we just are being historically accurate.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
And the way, there's no way for you to prove
it out there.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
So come at me with some audio files on the
twelve hundreds and then we'll talk.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
So ironically, though, one.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Of the very first people who was locked up in
the Tower of London was able to escape it.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
It was not a polar Bear.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
His name was Hanulf Flamand and he was a French
bishop who was charged with embezzlement in the year eleven
hundred and after he was convicted of the crime, he
was locked up in the Tower of London. But Flamar
was a rich and powerful man, which meant he was
given plenty of free reign even when he was locked up,
so he organized a feast for the jailer.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
The Culinary Tower. So Hanulf's plan started with wines.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
He had so much wine brought in that it was
enough to get all the jailers super shit faced. He
also had a rope smuggled into the prison inside one
of the wine jugs, right, so once everyone else was
super smashed, Hanulf was able to use the rope to
climb down to the outer wall and escape. So congrats
to rich old Hanulf. But his story was only the
(11:28):
first escape. I like his story though, because it's a
real foreshadowing of the bigger story that we're telling today.
Which includes revel priests and financial crimes and smuggling and
and oras.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Shoes and incredible rope escapes.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
So the tower started out as a castle office, I've
told you, but over time it was used more and
more as in prison, until that basically took over what
it was, right, And it actually had a reputation as
a place that was very difficult to escape from. By
the fifteen hundreds, its reputation was even darker. Right, it
was known for the torture and execution of most prisoners
held inside. There were three main kinds of torture used
(12:08):
in the Tower of London at the time. Would you
like to know what they were?
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Yeah, I probably guess one of these hit me hit
table where they stretch you out.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. The Rack, that's right, the wreck.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
So I saw this tweet that somebody was like, hey,
at some point the wreck, like, at one very brief second,
it must feel amazing.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I don't know, it's not that bad.
I kind of needed this and then it goes yeah much.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Yes, the rack is the most famous one, and photos
of old versions of the Rack show that it's a
metal frame with large wooden rollers right where the ropes
were secured. Now the other ends would be tied to
the prisoner's hands and feet. Turning the rolls, pull the
ropes and stretch the limbs of the victim, eventually tearing
apart their joints.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
So fucked up.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
Not good, no good.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Next we have the Scavenger's Daughter, which was like kind
of a cute name for what it actually fucking did.
So this is the opposite. Instead of stretching out the prisoner,
it was designed to crush and twist them. Okay, so
first it forces the prisoner into a newly position and
then compresses the chest so that the lungs filled with blood.
Oh and then we come to the manacles right on
(13:22):
the Tower of London website.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
Yeah, they have a website now, so that's cool.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
They include a first hand account of what it was
like to be tortured by the manacles. You might say
it's like the rack the vice put by gravity. So
the prisoner, his name is also John. He wrote that
to start, they put his wrists in tight iron rings
and ordered him to climb up a short ladder.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Once he was up at the top, they lifted his
arms up above his head and pushed ooh, an iron.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Bar through the rings.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Then they pinned the bar high through the wall and
they pulled the ladder so that left him just hanging
by his hands.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
In the air.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
So obviously this stuff is horrible, So why are we
talking about it?
Speaker 4 (14:01):
Right?
Speaker 1 (14:02):
And it's actually because the escape that we're talking about
today is John's, the man who was describing the torture.
It's a story of how even though he was manical
to the wall, John was able to survive what he
suffered in the Tower of London, and he was able.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
To get the fuck out of there.
Speaker 5 (14:14):
So good for John, happy to sure name with it
with an escape pee.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
John Gerard was his actual name, and in his later
years he wrote down his life story, which is fortunate
for us because he was kind of a badass, especially
if you like Jesuits.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Oh sure, come on, ignacious Loyola.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
So John Girard was born in fifteen sixty four in Derbyshire, England,
which is like smack dab in the middle of the island, right.
The first big event in John's life happened when he
was just five years old because his dad was arrested
and locked in the Tower of London, Oh, come on,
We're just going to barely touch on some of the
fucked up religious politics in England at the time. But
(14:54):
what you need to know is that the queen was Elizabeth,
and she was Protestant, and little John Gerard was born
into a family of Catholics. Sure, Fortunately for the Gerard
family though, they had friends in really powerful places.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
Their cousin was Attorney General.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Of England, which helps, and he had even helped to
defend Elizabeth from other plots and revolts, so he had
earned some goodwill with the crown so he could call
in a favor. So after five years, John's dad was
allowed to return to his family. But even so the
arrest only added to how much John's Catholic family hated
the Protestant queen. I mean that makes sense right by
(15:29):
the time you're ten years old, that your dad's been
locked up in Taro, London for pavular life, Like, how.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
Do you feel? Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Absolutely so John was set on his path resenting the
queen and believing that the Protestants were evil. Right in
his teens, John traveled back and forth between England, his home,
and France, where he was getting a Catholic education. On
one of these journeys, he and a bunch of other
Catholic students were on a ship that was caught in
a storm. They were forced to land at the English
port of Dover, and all the Catholics were arrested and
(15:56):
sent to prison in London except for John. So this
was his arrest and rather than being sent straight to
a royal jail, he was.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
Sent to a kind of like rotating.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
House arrest, Like he was passed around between various Protestants.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
Who were supposed to teach him the ear correct.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, but what would you prefer, like a normal prison
cell or like a concept prey of people trying to
force their religion on you.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Honestually, give me the prison cell with the other Catholics.
If I'm a Catholic, I'm like, yeah, we believe what
we're doing. They don't believe what we're doing, or at
least we're together versus like you have to be in
someone's house and you're very handmade maid's tale issue.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
That's right, that's right. They have to be called offred too.
It was weird, very similar.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah, I got something to say about this actually, because
my family is like cafeteria Catholic.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
You know, we're like, we'll take that.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
We're like, fuck that, no no thing judging people for
their sexual orientation.
Speaker 5 (16:47):
Go fuck yourself.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Yeah, I love the smell of it in sense, Yeah,
we'll do that.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
You know.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
That's when myth.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
We never really went to mass, but there was like
the closest sense to our spirituality I guess was Gothic.
But my my aunt they wanted me to convert to
born again Christianity, and they would take me to the
youth groups and would take and it's just I was
just never buying it. Listen, if that works for you,
that's solely fine. But my caveat against it was that
I remember one time one of these fucking youth groups
(17:14):
handed me this pamphlet. It was kind of like a
comic book, but basically a comic book was about a
kid who didn't convince his parents to convert to born
again Christianity, and so then the last leaflet was his
parents going to Hell and the kid like crying and
like the pit of Hell, being like, I gotta say
that was Marvel, right, That's that was Marvel. I've actually
(17:34):
been casting it. Thank you so much, but I'm just like,
you know, and at the time. It really fucked with me.
I was like, oh my god, even though I'm not
feeling it, should I convert my parents?
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Like how should I do this?
Speaker 1 (17:45):
You know?
Speaker 4 (17:46):
And it just goes to show you.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Whatever version of your of religion is, like pushing your
fucking beliefs on anybody for any reason, just seems it's torturous, man.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
You know.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
So I'm sure a version of that, but way less
pleasant was happening to John. I love that I tried
to make his struggle about me, you know. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, John,
he got arrested, family died a comic book, but I
read a really ugret comic book. So John said that
he got this treatment of convening passed around the Protestants
(18:17):
only because the queen's counsel was friendly to his family.
So when he was finally released, John went straight back
to France and then went to Rome. Now he studied,
he trained, and when John was twenty four, he finally
became a Jesuit like he always wanted. And now that
he was a Gestuit, he was determined to head back
to England, where he wanted to commit some crimes.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Yeah, yeah, he's commando priest. This is where he gets activated. Now.
Speaker 5 (18:40):
When he reached.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
England, John traveled in a secret between the houses of
wealthy Catholics, where he would carry Catholic relics, give the sacrament,
and teach sorry to switch it to tell.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
Him I was so in it. I was like, oh
my god, I just reished.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
I can't keep it up for the entire chapter.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
So, since suggestments were banned, John constantly had to dodge
priest hunters who were on the lookout for Catholic teachers.
But John didn't mind, you know, he said that he
was on a divine mission to bring back wandering.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Souls to their maker.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
A case could be made that like, and don't get
me wrong, I'm on John's side on this one, but
also people really picked hills to die on at the
time of like it was all about whose religion was better, right, Yeah? Yeah,
it felt like an ideology fight more than.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
First of all, I didn't know there were priest hunters
so wild, so wild, But yeah, I think it is. Yeah,
it's it's a it's a I believe this and I'm
going to go spread this and no, we believe that's bad.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
We believe this other thing, and we're going to stop.
You pretty mad.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
No, my version of it is better than your version
of it.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
Yeah, you guys are like very very similar.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Yeah, my saints are cooler that your Like.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Okay, there's the same thing. Literally just created a church
to get divorced.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
All stemmed because a king decades ago wanted to be
able to get divorced.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
What's in Henry the fourth, Henry the fifth, Henry the.
Speaker 5 (19:58):
Fifth, May fifth, That's right, it was Henry the eighth. Henry.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Oh my god, we sounded like I said, also blew it.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
But also like, see how quickly I abandoned my own
notion for yours because you spoke with such conviction. You're
like Henry at the fifth, And I was like, John,
I am so sorry until the God voice had to
come to us. Also, like, how come there's never been
a show about priest hunters film Nation, Torri. Let's make
a quick note about what we're going to do next.
(20:29):
So once in fifteen ninety four, a servant of John's
hosts betrayed him to the Justices of the Peace. The
house had a secret room that even the servants didn't
know about many Catholics did at the time, and gave
them the unfortunate name of priest holes.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
Come on.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yeah, so John ducked inside a priest hole. Yeah, that's
what they called him.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
He was really deep in that priest hole.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
And he says that the priest hunters coming soon to theaters.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
Priest hole.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Priest hunter down the priest hole.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
That's the sequel. That's a sequel.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
So they broke down the door and they swarmed the house.
They knew the hiding places were common, so they pounded
on the walls and the floorsh they'd left one place unpounded.
They pried open rooftiles and even measured the walls for thickness,
and they worked for four days without finding John. His
hiding spot didn't show up in their investigation, and that's
because it was actually a cramp space under the chimney.
(21:26):
John said that at one point a hunter even climbed
down the chimney and.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Tapped on the walls. Who can you imagine the stress man.
Yet they didn't see the doorway into his hiding place.
Very very lucky for John.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
When he finally left, John climbed out and he ran
for his life. Hey, he traveled to London, and at
first he thought he had gone away but the servant
who had sold him out the first time was able
to follow him there.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
What come on, leave the guy along. What are you doing?
Speaker 1 (21:55):
It's so hard to travel back, like you're taking like
you're like fucking software.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
In cholera throughout man.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
Blood.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Oh, it's like, how did you not notice there was
only one other fire within like.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
The entire vista.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
You're right, They're like, oh, it must be somebody not
related to me at all. So, just two weeks after
dugging the search party in the country Manner, John was
caught in the city. The priest hunters arrived at midnight
and arrested John at sword point. He was shackled and
held in a priest hunter's own house before being passed
from prison to prison, where he was questioned repeatedly.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
But John wouldn't give.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
His questioners any answers, so finally, in fifteen ninety seven,
after three years, he was sent.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
To the Tower of London.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Now we're getting to the main event, right, John Gerard
is in the Tower of London where he's locked in
the castle's salt tower.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
The salt tower, the salt tower.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yes, so some people think that maybe they used to
keep salt, but we.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
Don't actually know.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
And by the time of this story, it's one of
the prison towers where people were actually in prison. I
guess you could say the prisoners were pretty salty O
whole lot.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Anyway, on his first night there, John is locked in
a cell where he sees a name scratched on the wall.
And the name that he sees on the wall is
Henry Walpole. Okay, when John sees the name, he kind
of freaks out because here's what John knows about Walpole.
He was another Catholic priest who had been in prison there,
and he was tortured fourteen times and injured so badly
that he lost the use of his hands. Then he
(23:30):
was shipped out to the city of York in the
north of England, where he was finally executed. Now, John,
if you're John Gerard at this point, how are you feeling?
Speaker 5 (23:38):
Not good? My friend? Not good? Right?
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Like for like just like fourteen times once and get
it over with guys, and oh my god.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yeah, also that you know that like they must be
such a horrible feeling of like the impending torture and
death right, yes, yes, yes, yes, So John had a
pretty good idea of what lies in store for him
in the Tower of London, especially because it's and is
now gone.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
So there's a new Attorney General in England. He arrives.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Actually, yeah, the new Attorney General actually arrives to interrogate
John and runs him through all kinds of political questions,
you know, had he been working to overthrow the queen
and things like that, right, And of course John had
been imprisoned in question for three years by this point,
and what he said was that he hadn't been involved
in any activities against the government, and he also wouldn't
give up the names of any other Catholics.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
John says that they led.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Him to the torture room, which is kind of like
they led him in a kind of solemn procession with
people carrying candles ahead of them through the dark walls,
Like what would that sound like, benchug.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Oh, yeah, that's what it would sound like. And nobody
refuses to fucking talk to you.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
No, one's like no eye contact. Hey, come on, guys,
contact wrong.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
You didn't say hi to me. I know something's wrong.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
You're being rude. So he was right about one thing.
He got the same torture as Henry Walpole. He was
hung from the ceiling by his wrists. Despite the shooting
pain across his hands, arms, and chest, John says he
didn't give up any information.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
He hung that way for hours and night.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
He was finally taken down and led back to his cell,
but the next day he was hung up again. He
says that after just the second day, he couldn't take
much more of the torture and totally just passed out.
After they had taken him down, John came too, and
they wedged his mouth open with an iron nail and
poured hot water down his throat. Oh damn, these motherfuckers
(25:37):
are brutal. Really, that's the sound effect that we picked
Jesus christ Guys, I'm working. It just sounds more like
somebody that didn't like his food. Like it just sounds
like Christopher walking fucking stubbing his toe.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
I'm so curious because it was hard to fact check
back then in a timely matter. Right, So when you're
asked to give up names, couldn't you have to like
self preservation, be like, uh, Tim Nobly, Chris Waddlesworth.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Yeah, and their address is, well, you go pass a pond.
Speaker 5 (26:12):
I left at the fourth tree.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
And you know, if they came back and they were like,
we didn't find him.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
Like, oh, I'm sorry, it was the third tree.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
I feel like you could have bought yourself more time
to not get tortures.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
You probably could have. But you know what I find.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Impressive is the fortitude that it takes to be torture
and not give up any names, right, because that's just yes.
I don't know about you, dude, but I like you
can guilt me into telling you shit like I am
not as good at lying.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
I don't like silence, so you just asked me the question,
looked at me in silence. I would eventually fill that
silence with information.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
If you force me to say hi to you when
you don't say hi back, I'm just gonna give.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
You my life story.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
So after just two days of this, the man overseeing
John's torture were signed the position. Imagine how bad it
has to be that the head of torture is just like,
fuck it, I'm out.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
You guys are too much. Yeah. I got in this
for the right reasons. It was fun at first, but
this is just fucked up.
Speaker 5 (27:04):
The torture game is out of control.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
That's right, guys, it's it's it's fastest point. It's fastest, Brian,
I'm going back to building motes. So fortunately he was
actually replaced by a kinder soul. The new man gave
up the torture and left John and his cell undisturbed. Now,
for three weeks, John could barely move his fingers. It
was so bad that he even needed help eating. Of course,
he wasn't allowed any visitors doing his imprisonment in the tower,
(27:28):
so that man, it was the jailer himself who had
to feed him. The man fell bad for him, you know,
and started bringing him things that he asked for from
the outside world, like books and money, and eventually oranges.
Here we go, here we go. Also money. Why did
he bring money? He was an early adopter of crypto.
Speaker 5 (27:50):
Please bring me bitcoin.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
So John had noticed that the jailer liked oranges, so
when they were delivered to his cell, John shared them
with a man. But he also had another idea for them. So, John,
how the fuck are you going to escape the infamous
prison with the oranges? We already talked about a little
acidic thing that you're talking about.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
Like, I'm just I'm so curious. I have no idea, Like,
what's he doing okay.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Well, first, he started collecting orange juice in a small jar.
Right at night, John practiced exercises with his hands.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
As the strength came back.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
He started carving orange peels into rosaries that he convinced
the jailer to deliver them to other Catholic prisoners throughout
the tower. Over the next six months, John slowly executed
his plan. He asked her paper to package up his
orange peel rosaries, and then eventually also like, can you
imagine some of the prisoners like them, and others were like, John,
(28:39):
what the fuck is this man? How about you send
me the orange itself. I'm fucking hungry man.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
I'd rather have your money, even though it means nothing
in here.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
I'd rather I mean bringing that you have so many
oranges and you just get to like the ards and.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Crafts with them, like okay.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
He eventually asked for some charcoal to write messages to
his friends outside the prison. Now at this point, he
was pretty tired with the jailer, so he got everything
he asked for.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
His plan is coming together now, like he has Like
he has a plan. I'm just so curious what it is.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
But it seems like he's gaining favor and getting everything
he wants.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
Right now exactly for him. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Anyway, So the moment of clarity for John Gerard was
that alongside the charcoal writing, he also used the toothpick
to scroll invisible words in orange shoe.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Okay, so, I mean just huge headline there. I don't
know they had toothpicks back then. I was like, hey,
why didn't nobody use them?
Speaker 1 (29:34):
I've seen they're all mangled like they're just mainly decorative,
mainly decorative.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
He just wanted people to know that you had him
around your house.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
John says that this is something that a lot of
Catholics were doing to send secret messages, so he was
confident that the other Catholics would know what to do
when they got his note.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
Okay, and he was right.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
John got a package of food back from some of
his friends outside of the prison, and when he held
up the package paper to the candle flame, he could
see that they had responded with their own.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
Ori introduced writing.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
The secret channel of communication was open and it was
fresh as fuck, that's right. The first thing that John
and his friends agreed on was that they needed to
pay the jailer for these notes. Right. John's Catholic friends
started filling the man's wallet, so soon enough he was
happily carrying packages of food between him. The whole time,
(30:27):
John and his friends were working out the details of
an escape plot. So in the spring of fifteen ninety seven,
the Attorney General questioned John again to prepare for his trial.
The interrogation was harsh, and it convinced Jean that he
was soon going to be given a public execution. It
was time John initiated stage one of his plan. He
(30:48):
convinced the jailer to let him visit another cell of
another Catholic prisoner who was locked up in the Cradle Tower.
Side note, fucked up name for a tower.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
Yeah, okay, fucked up. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
It took some serious bribing John's friends, but they had
paid the jail enough. He agreed a few things about
this other man. He had been in the Tower of
London for ten years. The Cradle Tower faced the Castle
moat and the river beyond that. The man cell had
a low down. Actually, correction, the man cell was low
down on the outer law. The cell had the lowdown
(31:22):
on it. The cell really knew what was going down.
Speaker 5 (31:25):
That cell was happening at who knew who who.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
It was such a gossip it was make as so
when the two of them were together in the man cell,
they looked out the window and they agreed that if
they could get their hands on some rope, they could
use it to shimmy down. As long as they had
friends on the outside who could pick him up and
help them with a getaway, they could.
Speaker 5 (31:43):
Have a rope man.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Prison breaks still happened today, and I have to imagine
rope is a big part of it.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Rope doesn't get enough credit, you know, it doesn't get it.
Speaker 5 (31:51):
Doesn't It doesn't get enough credit.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
So, using the secret orange juice writing, John coordinated the
time of the place with his network of Catholic friend
outside that when the night came, John bribed the jailer
and this jaylor is just fucking raking it in to
bring him into the other man's cell. Once they were
locked in together, they used the knife to lose in
a stone around the bolt of their cell door and
climbed onto the roof overlooking the moat, where they waited.
(32:17):
The first night on the rooftop, though ended in failure.
John's friends did arrive in a rowboat, but they crashed
on the river bank near the London Bridge and got
trapped by the current and almost capsides. One of them
even fell into the water and had to be rescued
by a crowd of people who gathered when they heard
him shouting, really giving away his position and I please
(32:39):
come on, I'm.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
Trying to get away. I'm trying to get break my
friend out of jail.
Speaker 5 (32:43):
You just save me so I can break him out.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Fortunately for John, no one suspected they were trying to
help the prisoner escape. They were then even able to
get their hands on another boat and come back the
very next night. This time, rather than climbing to the roof,
John waited in the cell of Cradle Tower. When the
boaters pulled up, the secured a rope to the vessel,
and they tossed the other side to John, who tied
it up inside the cell. Then the two men started
(33:08):
as shimmy down the rope. Even though John's hands were
still in enormous pain, he was able to take it
slow and managed to climb all the way down the rope.
He joined his accomplices in the rowboat and they set
off down river under the cover of darkness. Their first
hiding place was in the outskirts of the city, where
they switched to horses and disappeared into the countryside, throwing
(33:32):
toothpicks everywhere.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
Scavengers, scavengers, scavengers.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Once John had escaped, his friends sent someone back to
the prison. He told the jailer what happened and offered
to get the man out of the country.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
Now.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
When the jailer realized that he would then be executed
for letting John escape, he agreed. He went home, gathered
his family, and fled the country, using the Catholic underground
network to get out. John says that the jailer lived
comfortably for the rest of his life on a yearly
allowance paid by the Jesuit allies.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
Very cool.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
I believe John, I want to believe him. But that
jailer is dead, that jailer is gone, that Jaylor in
his entire family. Yeah, and said where can we find him?
He said, oh, around the pond, the third tree.
Speaker 5 (34:24):
Like, I don't remember, but he just know that he's alive.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
He's thriving. He is just living his best life, you know.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
As for John, he was able to stay in England
for a year, moving between houses of his Catholic friends
and keeping a low profile.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
Would you have the.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Courage to do the same thing again after you were
arrested the first time.
Speaker 5 (34:44):
Oh no, go to France, Go to somewhere. Now you're
in Europe.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
Travel, travel, find yourself.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
You pretty love, you got the whole orange peely or Rostary.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
Things make a business. I'm sure there's a business for it.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
So things got even too hot for John in sixteen
o five, especially on the fifth of November. That's right,
we're talking about the Gunpowder plot when Catholic rebels try
to blow.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
Up Parliament, Remember the fifth of November.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Yes, after that even John got out of England, and
I guess it was the sign that his mission was
over now. John was eventually able to slip across the
English Channel and escape the reach of the Protestant powers
trying to kill him. He made it to the English
College in Rome, where he lived until his death in
sixteen thirty seven.
Speaker 4 (35:29):
He was seventy three years old. Before his death, he
wrote a.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Memoir describing his life, his various encounters with priest hunters,
his imprisonment in the tower, and his escape. These days,
the Tar of London is super popular with tourists like
you said, it's where England's crown jewels are displayed.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
Yeah, review whos.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Actually give the castle a four out of five stars
on Yelp and trip Adviser.
Speaker 5 (35:49):
God, these like amazing historic artifacts are just like.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
They're like not impressed, not impressed, not into it. You know,
there refreshments wearing that gut. The tower was kind of cold. Also,
I don't think that that's how John Gerard.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
Would have like rated his day.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
I would have loved to read as Yelp review being
like the staff was friendly, but my goodness, the daytime
activities were really hard to swallow.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
If I could give zero stars, I would, but it
makes me get them one, so I will give one one.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Interesting little tidbit though. Tower tourism actually started in the
fifteen hundreds. Today people visited as a historical prison and
torture chamber, and it costs about thirty British pounds to
get in, so at least we have the benefit of
distance from the brutal past. But in the same years
that people were being in prison there and tortured inside,
others were pained to visit and do a little disaster tourism.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
Oh my god, you believe wile.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
One account says that in sixteen thirty nine and aristocrat
paid eleven shillings for her tour.
Speaker 5 (36:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
Yeah, they're like, isn't this pleasant? Isn't this beautif?
Speaker 5 (36:51):
That's right?
Speaker 4 (36:53):
I have this stance while these people I haven't.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
Yes, let's go watch a little torture today.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Oh that's positively diblish. Okay, so no RecA fucking crazy
story John visiting torture chambers fun year Nay.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Yeah, contemporaneously with when the people are getting tortured, like no,
like present day, like yeah, like I've been to like
a couple.
Speaker 5 (37:20):
Outside of Rome, old Roman ones.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
Yeah, and then yeah, like out of curiosity, like yes,
but like not like not.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Back then when it's actively being used this one right, No, no, no,
the inquisition museums are so fucked up.
Speaker 5 (37:34):
But I mean to bear witness to the crazy stuff.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Yes, it's worth it.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:39):
Where can listeners find your work?
Speaker 3 (37:41):
I have a little house, uh surrounded by a boat yus,
I said, I know, I'm on American Auto now val
on NBC. I think you can get it on Peacock.
I think we're off Hulu. We're done with Hulu.
Speaker 5 (37:52):
Superstores. That's not that still is on Hulu, I believe,
and and you.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Can also check out the second season of Chicago.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Party and that So congratulations brother, sure Benjin, would you
like to play at convincing each other that we have
to escape this prison? But in the voice of Sean
Connery and Nicholas Cage signing off, like like, let's escape
this spot.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
So who do you want to be?
Speaker 5 (38:16):
I'll take take a little Connrie, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Take Connory right, Okay, yes, at we gotta go now, Conrie,
we have.
Speaker 5 (38:24):
To wait until the gage to sleep. Then we can
make a move.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
Here's some more introduce Sean, what are you gonna do
about it?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
I'm wanna work a little a little nasty note and
slip it pasta goage.
Speaker 5 (38:34):
We can get a help from our friends in the outshot.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Oh fantastic, brother, Thank you, what a pleasure it.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
Thank you so much. John a great.
Speaker 5 (38:41):
Honor, buddy, Thank you so much, so much fun. You're
so funny. Oh man, what.
Speaker 4 (38:45):
A great time that was.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Gratist Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio and Film Nation
Entertainment in association with Gilded Audio. Our executive producers are
me Or Touro Castro, Alyssa Martino and Milanko Pelga from
Film Nation Entertainment, Andrew Chugg and Witning Donaldson from Gilded Audio,
and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio. The show is produced and
edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chubb, who are also, respectively,
our research overlord and music Overlord. Our associate producer is
(39:14):
Tory Smith, who's our other overlord. Nick Dooley is our
technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson. Special thanks to
Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Riizek, Sarah Joyner, Nicki Stein,
Olivia Canny, and Kelsey Albright. Hey, thank you so much
(39:39):
for listening, and if you're enjoying the show, please drop
a rating or review. My mom will call you each
personally and thank you, and we'll see you all next
week
Ben, Can you give me a little bit of that
special thing you recorded for us please to get us
into the mood?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Yes, of course, oh little green sleeves, Yes, exactly, thank you.
It's the only medieval music I learned.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Yeah, I mean yeah, And I know you played the
dulcimer too, so that's great.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
There's gonna be a hard pist behind me.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hey, guys, this is great as Escapes, a show bringing
you the wildest true escape stories of all time. I'm
Marturo Gastro and I'm joined by the hilarious writer, actor
and producer John Barnholtz.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Whoa did you know that.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Benchuck created that version of the theme song just for
this particular episode?
Speaker 5 (00:54):
Oh? Perfect?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah. Yeah, so we should only speak in Old English,
is what I'm trying to say. Welcome to the show.
So stoked to have you.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
So happy to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
I'm an equally big fan of yours, and I love
escape stories and.
Speaker 5 (01:07):
This just sounded so much fun.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
John, Do you have the greatest escape I do, and
it's in two thousand and nine, right before I moved
out to Los Angeles. I'm born and raised in Chicago,
and I was I think like a week out of
moving to Los Angeles, and over the course of a
month there was a string of muggings in the area.
I lived in Chicago, in Wrigleyville, and I do want
to say I love Chicago. It's an amazing city. I know,
(01:32):
like there's a perception where it's very dangerous and I'm
about to tell a story that, but it's you're fine.
If you go to Chicago, You're fucking fine. It's say
this was a fluke incident. Three improvisers in the area
had gotten blindsided and mugged over the course of like
a month, and it was always the same thing. It
was like around eleven o'clock. They were drunk walking home
(01:54):
by themselves and they got mugged. I knew two of them,
and one that I was leaving Improv Olympic and I
luckily wasn't drunk. Well what time was was this had
more or less at about ten forty five.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
I was like it was before level.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Ooh, mugging hours upon us.
Speaker 5 (02:08):
Right, yes, mugging hours.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
And I was walking home and I I remember I
had left my friend Nick at Improv Olympic and at
the time, if you do, you remember the movie The Room,
It's like that cult Bad Movie by Tommy was say
yea yeah, yah, yeah, yea yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 5 (02:26):
Franko made a movie on it. Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
So this is two thousand and nine, so this movie
wasn't like widely available yet. There was one DVD, one
copy of that kind of going around the comedy scene
in Chicago, so people could like, like you know, get
high and watch it. And my buddy Nick had it
and he hadn't watched it yet, and I was like, oh,
can I borrow I'm gonna borrow the DVD and watch.
He's like, yeah, yeah, finds like don't lose them, Like
I'm not gonna. I'm walking home and I'll watch them.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
I'll lose him.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I turned down my street and I see a guy
like walk past me and I'm just getting like a hey,
what's up? And he doesn't give anything back, and I
was like ooh, like Spidey senses went on. I was like,
that's not good, kind of like looking at him and
like the eyes on the back of my head like
kind of like turn a little as he passes me.
He didn't turn around, so I'm okay, And just then
out of like my peripher I'll see another guy across
(03:10):
the street, like slowly walking into the street, and I was.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
Like, ooh, okay, okay. I look back. The other guys
now turned around and I'm like okay.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I tried to say hi to this next guy. I
tried to hide him as well.
Speaker 5 (03:24):
People. Yeah, the guy people on my street.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I just had the feeling, right, I was like, this
is happening, and I just started sprinting. I cut into
the street and start sprinting and I run right into
the third guy and they have me in like a triangle,
and I'm like, fuck, they got me, and like luckily
they're not holding anything. I'm like really annoyed. I knew
I was moving in a week. They were gonna get
my wallet.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
So they're like what do you got?
Speaker 3 (03:49):
And remember, in the middle of the street, in this
triangle amongst them, I take on my wallet and I
just like emptied on the ground and throw it.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
There's like no money in it. I take on my phone,
I break it on the ground. No, I'm just I'm mad.
I had a pop pipe on me.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
I break the top, take one last hit, like fuck you.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
I'm holding that DVD of the room and I'm just
I keep holling I was like, they're not gonna take this.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
And the third guy he's like, what's that there?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
I was like the DVD of a really bad movie,
and he's like, give it, my god, damn it, I'm angry.
Speaker 5 (04:24):
I give him the DVD.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
One of the other guys is like trying to pick
up my phone, like what's left of it, like and
my wallet and like all my cards, and the original
guy is like, come with me.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
I'm like, all right, I'm just annoyed. He's just trying
to get me away from them.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
He starts walking me up the sidewalk and he pulls
out a fucking gun, and I went from being annoyed
to being like this.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
Is how it ends.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, And he turns back to his to the two
guys and he goes, fuck it, I'm just gonna cap him.
And as like that word left his mouth, I was
there's like a big tree next to me. I was
like one hundred yards down the street, like I had
never run so fast. I like, as he said that,
and I saw his head was still turned back.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
I just sprint.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
I cut in front of the tree so like I
was out of he didn't have like a clear line
of sight on me, whoa, he was gonna shoot me.
Speaker 5 (05:14):
I think he was just trying to scare me.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
But I was gone, man, I like I moved I
think like fifty yards in like Fortus Craze.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Good for you.
Speaker 5 (05:23):
I'm so glad you're alive. I got out, I got out,
they got away, they got all my shit.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
It's so weird because after that, a crime dropped tremendously
because muggers was just obsessed with Tommy Wizzou. After that,
they were just too busy watching the room over and over.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
For one year in Chicago, no one got mugged because
all these muggers were just were just watching.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
They were just like we just wanted to stop people
and be like, how's my impression?
Speaker 4 (05:46):
I did not that I did not the high mug.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Thanks for sharing that story. And I want to ask
you a question. So yes, when I say orange juice
and then I say a prison escape, like what do
you think.
Speaker 5 (05:59):
Orange prison escape?
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I mean, like, off the top of my head, I
imagine like they made the orange juice a cidic and
they were able to melt the locks.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
And yeah, there you go. Okay, no, that's a good one.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Well let's see if you're right, okay, so let's get
into this escape situation. Then, can I get a little
boom boom, we're getting into the escape thing, a little law.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
And order but like, yeah, the English law and order.
Speaker 4 (06:22):
Oh yeah, yes, yes, right, governor. Like I don't know,
Ben was doing a real sorry.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Accident earlier and sorry, what do you know about the
Tower of London.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
I was just in London in the summer and I
took a little boat trip and I think we went
past it on the river.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
I just know that it's it currently has the Crown
jewels in it. I think that's right.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
That's right, Yeah, no, you nailed it.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
The Tower of London is known as England's most infamous
historic prison, right, But it didn't start out as just
a prison. In fact, it started off as a castle,
which you can kind of tell by the shape of
it and the general castle.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
Lee vibe that classic castle.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
It's given me castle.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
So it was built by the French King William the
Conqueror after he well, you know, conquered.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
England in ten sixty six.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
Was the year, oh, the Battle of Hastings.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
That's right, man, Good for you.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
I didn't know that until this episode actually, So way
to prove that you're way smarter than the host.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
John Great.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
It's the Battle of Hastings and the Magna Carta are
the two dates I think I remember.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
And Ben take his DVD. Please take his fucking dvd. Okay.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
So the castle was set up by William the Conqueror
basically as a flex. At the center is the White Tower,
which is surrounded by a number of other buildings around
that is two layers of forty five walls dotted with
towers and gates, surrounded by a moat and all this
is next to the River Thames. Paranoid much, buddy, I
presentally like miss moats, you know, like I thought they
(07:54):
were like such a cool thing to.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
Have back in the day.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
It's one of those things like a lot of stuff
from the medieval ages isn't like and beyond should have
gone away, most should have stayed.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Most states great torturing people and you know, religious persecution.
Speaker 4 (08:09):
Park can go. But give me the alligators chomping at
the big you know, yes, yeah, it's giving me castle.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Every different tower and wall has its own name, right,
like salt tower, wardrobe tower, cradle tower, brick tower, et cetera,
et cetera, and altogether, the castle is known as the
Tower of London. Oh that's not fucking confusing at all,
Like why, like is it just can it just be
called like the Towers of London.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
No, they couldn't give us a plural.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
So over time, the various Kings of England used it
as a royal palace. Right, they even made it the
Royal Mint where they churned out England's money. Starting in
the twelve hundred, the uses of the tower even included
keeping a large collection of animals inside, which kind of
makes it London's first sue.
Speaker 5 (08:53):
The Tower of London was like happening.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
Yeah, it was like made their money.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
It was a zoom who.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
So in twelve thirty five the king was giving some lions,
and later in the twelve hundreds came gifts of a
polar bear and an African elephant. Imagine how fucking confused
you'd be as the polar bear waking up in the
Tower of London, you know.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
Yeah, and thank you man.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
That bear sounded confused, it really really yeah, what the fuck?
Speaker 4 (09:26):
His friends would never believe him.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Like, guys, guys, Bob, Bob, I fucking fell asleep, right,
I was hungover and I woke up surrounded by fucking
people with terrible teeth.
Speaker 5 (09:34):
I don't know what the fuck they were saying.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
Of course, I'm speaking of the British back then.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
You guys have an excellent teeth now, yeah, just saying yes,
all the medieval.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
People, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
So eventually the Tower of London became famous for housing
human prisoners. It wasn't specifically built as a jail, but
it ended up being a pretty good, you know, place
for keeping people after keeping out.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
You can hold a polar bear, you can hold person's right.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
People get out, that's right, I saw, I'm trying to leave.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
The British action will change periodically throughout the episode to everybody,
so please forgive us.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
But it is historically accurate. Like sometimes we'll be talking
as like well, they'll be cocking a little bit. Sometimes
we'll be going uppercross British. It'll be it'll be very accurate.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
If everything that we're we're doing a shitty British action,
just know that that's how people spoke back then, okay,
and we just are being historically accurate.
Speaker 5 (10:23):
And the way, there's no way for you to prove
it out there.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
So come at me with some audio files on the
twelve hundreds and then we'll talk.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
So ironically, though, one.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Of the very first people who was locked up in
the Tower of London was able to escape it.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
It was not a polar Bear.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
His name was Hanulf Flamand and he was a French
bishop who was charged with embezzlement in the year eleven
hundred and after he was convicted of the crime, he
was locked up in the Tower of London. But Flamar
was a rich and powerful man, which meant he was
given plenty of free reign even when he was locked up,
so he organized a feast for the jailer.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
The Culinary Tower. So Hanulf's plan started with wines.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
He had so much wine brought in that it was
enough to get all the jailers super shit faced. He
also had a rope smuggled into the prison inside one
of the wine jugs, right, so once everyone else was
super smashed, Hanulf was able to use the rope to
climb down to the outer wall and escape. So congrats
to rich old Hanulf. But his story was only the
(11:28):
first escape. I like his story though, because it's a
real foreshadowing of the bigger story that we're telling today.
Which includes revel priests and financial crimes and smuggling and
and oras.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Shoes and incredible rope escapes.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
So the tower started out as a castle office, I've
told you, but over time it was used more and
more as in prison, until that basically took over what
it was, right, And it actually had a reputation as
a place that was very difficult to escape from. By
the fifteen hundreds, its reputation was even darker. Right, it
was known for the torture and execution of most prisoners
held inside. There were three main kinds of torture used
(12:08):
in the Tower of London at the time. Would you
like to know what they were?
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Yeah, I probably guess one of these hit me hit
table where they stretch you out.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. The Rack, that's right, the wreck.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
So I saw this tweet that somebody was like, hey,
at some point the wreck, like, at one very brief second,
it must feel amazing.
Speaker 5 (12:27):
Yeah yeah, yeah, I don't know, it's not that bad.
I kind of needed this and then it goes yeah much.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Yes, the rack is the most famous one, and photos
of old versions of the Rack show that it's a
metal frame with large wooden rollers right where the ropes
were secured. Now the other ends would be tied to
the prisoner's hands and feet. Turning the rolls, pull the
ropes and stretch the limbs of the victim, eventually tearing
apart their joints.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
So fucked up.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
Not good, no good.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Next we have the Scavenger's Daughter, which was like kind
of a cute name for what it actually fucking did.
So this is the opposite. Instead of stretching out the prisoner,
it was designed to crush and twist them. Okay, so
first it forces the prisoner into a newly position and
then compresses the chest so that the lungs filled with blood.
Oh and then we come to the manacles right on
(13:22):
the Tower of London website.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
Yeah, they have a website now, so that's cool.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
They include a first hand account of what it was
like to be tortured by the manacles. You might say
it's like the rack the vice put by gravity. So
the prisoner, his name is also John. He wrote that
to start, they put his wrists in tight iron rings
and ordered him to climb up a short ladder.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Once he was up at the top, they lifted his
arms up above his head and pushed ooh, an iron.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Bar through the rings.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Then they pinned the bar high through the wall and
they pulled the ladder so that left him just hanging
by his hands.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
In the air.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
So obviously this stuff is horrible, So why are we
talking about it?
Speaker 4 (14:01):
Right?
Speaker 1 (14:02):
And it's actually because the escape that we're talking about
today is John's, the man who was describing the torture.
It's a story of how even though he was manical
to the wall, John was able to survive what he
suffered in the Tower of London, and he was able.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
To get the fuck out of there.
Speaker 5 (14:14):
So good for John, happy to sure name with it
with an escape pee.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
John Gerard was his actual name, and in his later
years he wrote down his life story, which is fortunate
for us because he was kind of a badass, especially
if you like Jesuits.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Oh sure, come on, ignacious Loyola.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
So John Girard was born in fifteen sixty four in Derbyshire, England,
which is like smack dab in the middle of the island, right.
The first big event in John's life happened when he
was just five years old because his dad was arrested
and locked in the Tower of London, Oh, come on,
We're just going to barely touch on some of the
fucked up religious politics in England at the time. But
(14:54):
what you need to know is that the queen was Elizabeth,
and she was Protestant, and little John Gerard was born
into a family of Catholics. Sure, Fortunately for the Gerard
family though, they had friends in really powerful places.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
Their cousin was Attorney General.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Of England, which helps, and he had even helped to
defend Elizabeth from other plots and revolts, so he had
earned some goodwill with the crown so he could call
in a favor. So after five years, John's dad was
allowed to return to his family. But even so the
arrest only added to how much John's Catholic family hated
the Protestant queen. I mean that makes sense right by
(15:29):
the time you're ten years old, that your dad's been
locked up in Taro, London for pavular life, Like, how.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
Do you feel? Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Absolutely so John was set on his path resenting the
queen and believing that the Protestants were evil. Right in
his teens, John traveled back and forth between England, his home,
and France, where he was getting a Catholic education. On
one of these journeys, he and a bunch of other
Catholic students were on a ship that was caught in
a storm. They were forced to land at the English
port of Dover, and all the Catholics were arrested and
(15:56):
sent to prison in London except for John. So this
was his arrest and rather than being sent straight to
a royal jail, he was.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
Sent to a kind of like rotating.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
House arrest, Like he was passed around between various Protestants.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
Who were supposed to teach him the ear correct.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
Yeah, but what would you prefer, like a normal prison
cell or like a concept prey of people trying to
force their religion on you.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Honestually, give me the prison cell with the other Catholics.
If I'm a Catholic, I'm like, yeah, we believe what
we're doing. They don't believe what we're doing, or at
least we're together versus like you have to be in
someone's house and you're very handmade maid's tale issue.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
That's right, that's right. They have to be called offred too.
It was weird, very similar.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah, I got something to say about this actually, because
my family is like cafeteria Catholic.
Speaker 4 (16:41):
You know, we're like, we'll take that.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
We're like, fuck that, no no thing judging people for
their sexual orientation.
Speaker 5 (16:47):
Go fuck yourself.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Yeah, I love the smell of it in sense, Yeah,
we'll do that.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
You know.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
That's when myth.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
We never really went to mass, but there was like
the closest sense to our spirituality I guess was Gothic.
But my my aunt they wanted me to convert to
born again Christianity, and they would take me to the
youth groups and would take and it's just I was
just never buying it. Listen, if that works for you,
that's solely fine. But my caveat against it was that
I remember one time one of these fucking youth groups
(17:14):
handed me this pamphlet. It was kind of like a
comic book, but basically a comic book was about a
kid who didn't convince his parents to convert to born
again Christianity, and so then the last leaflet was his
parents going to Hell and the kid like crying and
like the pit of Hell, being like, I gotta say
that was Marvel, right, That's that was Marvel. I've actually
(17:34):
been casting it. Thank you so much, but I'm just like,
you know, and at the time. It really fucked with me.
I was like, oh my god, even though I'm not
feeling it, should I convert my parents?
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Like how should I do this?
Speaker 1 (17:45):
You know?
Speaker 4 (17:46):
And it just goes to show you.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Whatever version of your of religion is, like pushing your
fucking beliefs on anybody for any reason, just seems it's torturous, man.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
You know.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
So I'm sure a version of that, but way less
pleasant was happening to John. I love that I tried
to make his struggle about me, you know. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, John,
he got arrested, family died a comic book, but I
read a really ugret comic book. So John said that
he got this treatment of convening passed around the Protestants
(18:17):
only because the queen's counsel was friendly to his family.
So when he was finally released, John went straight back
to France and then went to Rome. Now he studied,
he trained, and when John was twenty four, he finally
became a Jesuit like he always wanted. And now that
he was a Gestuit, he was determined to head back
to England, where he wanted to commit some crimes.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Yeah, yeah, he's commando priest. This is where he gets activated. Now.
Speaker 5 (18:40):
When he reached.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
England, John traveled in a secret between the houses of
wealthy Catholics, where he would carry Catholic relics, give the sacrament,
and teach sorry to switch it to tell.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
Him I was so in it. I was like, oh
my god, I just reished.
Speaker 4 (18:54):
I can't keep it up for the entire chapter.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
So, since suggestments were banned, John constantly had to dodge
priest hunters who were on the lookout for Catholic teachers.
But John didn't mind, you know, he said that he
was on a divine mission to bring back wandering.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Souls to their maker.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
A case could be made that like, and don't get
me wrong, I'm on John's side on this one, but
also people really picked hills to die on at the
time of like it was all about whose religion was better, right, Yeah? Yeah,
it felt like an ideology fight more than.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
First of all, I didn't know there were priest hunters
so wild, so wild, But yeah, I think it is. Yeah,
it's it's a it's a I believe this and I'm
going to go spread this and no, we believe that's bad.
Speaker 5 (19:35):
We believe this other thing, and we're going to stop.
You pretty mad.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
No, my version of it is better than your version
of it.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
Yeah, you guys are like very very similar.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Yeah, my saints are cooler that your Like.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Okay, there's the same thing. Literally just created a church
to get divorced.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
All stemmed because a king decades ago wanted to be
able to get divorced.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
What's in Henry the fourth, Henry the fifth, Henry the.
Speaker 5 (19:58):
Fifth, May fifth, That's right, it was Henry the eighth. Henry.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Oh my god, we sounded like I said, also blew it.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
But also like, see how quickly I abandoned my own
notion for yours because you spoke with such conviction. You're
like Henry at the fifth, And I was like, John,
I am so sorry until the God voice had to
come to us. Also, like, how come there's never been
a show about priest hunters film Nation, Torri. Let's make
a quick note about what we're going to do next.
(20:29):
So once in fifteen ninety four, a servant of John's
hosts betrayed him to the Justices of the Peace. The
house had a secret room that even the servants didn't
know about many Catholics did at the time, and gave
them the unfortunate name of priest holes.
Speaker 5 (20:44):
Come on.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yeah, so John ducked inside a priest hole. Yeah, that's
what they called him.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
He was really deep in that priest hole.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
And he says that the priest hunters coming soon to theaters.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
Priest hole.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Priest hunter down the priest hole.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
That's the sequel. That's a sequel.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
So they broke down the door and they swarmed the house.
They knew the hiding places were common, so they pounded
on the walls and the floorsh they'd left one place unpounded.
They pried open rooftiles and even measured the walls for thickness,
and they worked for four days without finding John. His
hiding spot didn't show up in their investigation, and that's
because it was actually a cramp space under the chimney.
(21:26):
John said that at one point a hunter even climbed
down the chimney and.
Speaker 4 (21:29):
Tapped on the walls. Who can you imagine the stress man.
Yet they didn't see the doorway into his hiding place.
Very very lucky for John.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
When he finally left, John climbed out and he ran
for his life. Hey, he traveled to London, and at
first he thought he had gone away but the servant
who had sold him out the first time was able
to follow him there.
Speaker 5 (21:51):
What come on, leave the guy along. What are you doing?
Speaker 1 (21:55):
It's so hard to travel back, like you're taking like
you're like fucking software.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
In cholera throughout man.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
Blood.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Oh, it's like, how did you not notice there was
only one other fire within like.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
The entire vista.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
You're right, They're like, oh, it must be somebody not
related to me at all. So, just two weeks after
dugging the search party in the country Manner, John was
caught in the city. The priest hunters arrived at midnight
and arrested John at sword point. He was shackled and
held in a priest hunter's own house before being passed
from prison to prison, where he was questioned repeatedly.
Speaker 4 (22:30):
But John wouldn't give.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
His questioners any answers, so finally, in fifteen ninety seven,
after three years, he was sent.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
To the Tower of London.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Now we're getting to the main event, right, John Gerard
is in the Tower of London where he's locked in
the castle's salt tower.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
The salt tower, the salt tower.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yes, so some people think that maybe they used to
keep salt, but we.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
Don't actually know.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
And by the time of this story, it's one of
the prison towers where people were actually in prison. I
guess you could say the prisoners were pretty salty O
whole lot.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Anyway, on his first night there, John is locked in
a cell where he sees a name scratched on the wall.
And the name that he sees on the wall is
Henry Walpole. Okay, when John sees the name, he kind
of freaks out because here's what John knows about Walpole.
He was another Catholic priest who had been in prison there,
and he was tortured fourteen times and injured so badly
that he lost the use of his hands. Then he
(23:30):
was shipped out to the city of York in the
north of England, where he was finally executed. Now, John,
if you're John Gerard at this point, how are you feeling?
Speaker 5 (23:38):
Not good? My friend? Not good? Right?
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Like for like just like fourteen times once and get
it over with guys, and oh my god.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yeah, also that you know that like they must be
such a horrible feeling of like the impending torture and
death right, yes, yes, yes, yes, So John had a
pretty good idea of what lies in store for him
in the Tower of London, especially because it's and is
now gone.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
So there's a new Attorney General in England. He arrives.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Actually, yeah, the new Attorney General actually arrives to interrogate
John and runs him through all kinds of political questions,
you know, had he been working to overthrow the queen
and things like that, right, And of course John had
been imprisoned in question for three years by this point,
and what he said was that he hadn't been involved
in any activities against the government, and he also wouldn't
give up the names of any other Catholics.
Speaker 4 (24:26):
John says that they led.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Him to the torture room, which is kind of like
they led him in a kind of solemn procession with
people carrying candles ahead of them through the dark walls,
Like what would that sound like, benchug.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Oh, yeah, that's what it would sound like. And nobody
refuses to fucking talk to you.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
No, one's like no eye contact. Hey, come on, guys,
contact wrong.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
You didn't say hi to me. I know something's wrong.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
You're being rude. So he was right about one thing.
He got the same torture as Henry Walpole. He was
hung from the ceiling by his wrists. Despite the shooting
pain across his hands, arms, and chest, John says he
didn't give up any information.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
He hung that way for hours and night.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
He was finally taken down and led back to his cell,
but the next day he was hung up again. He
says that after just the second day, he couldn't take
much more of the torture and totally just passed out.
After they had taken him down, John came too, and
they wedged his mouth open with an iron nail and
poured hot water down his throat. Oh damn, these motherfuckers
(25:37):
are brutal. Really, that's the sound effect that we picked
Jesus christ Guys, I'm working. It just sounds more like
somebody that didn't like his food. Like it just sounds
like Christopher walking fucking stubbing his toe.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
I'm so curious because it was hard to fact check
back then in a timely matter. Right, So when you're
asked to give up names, couldn't you have to like
self preservation, be like, uh, Tim Nobly, Chris Waddlesworth.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Yeah, and their address is, well, you go pass a pond.
Speaker 5 (26:12):
I left at the fourth tree.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
And you know, if they came back and they were like,
we didn't find him.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
Like, oh, I'm sorry, it was the third tree.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
I feel like you could have bought yourself more time
to not get tortures.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
You probably could have. But you know what I find.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Impressive is the fortitude that it takes to be torture
and not give up any names, right, because that's just yes.
I don't know about you, dude, but I like you
can guilt me into telling you shit like I am
not as good at lying.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
I don't like silence, so you just asked me the question,
looked at me in silence. I would eventually fill that
silence with information.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
If you force me to say hi to you when
you don't say hi back, I'm just gonna give.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
You my life story.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
So after just two days of this, the man overseeing
John's torture were signed the position. Imagine how bad it
has to be that the head of torture is just like,
fuck it, I'm out.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
You guys are too much. Yeah. I got in this
for the right reasons. It was fun at first, but
this is just fucked up.
Speaker 5 (27:04):
The torture game is out of control.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
That's right, guys, it's it's it's fastest point. It's fastest, Brian,
I'm going back to building motes. So fortunately he was
actually replaced by a kinder soul. The new man gave
up the torture and left John and his cell undisturbed. Now,
for three weeks, John could barely move his fingers. It
was so bad that he even needed help eating. Of course,
he wasn't allowed any visitors doing his imprisonment in the tower,
(27:28):
so that man, it was the jailer himself who had
to feed him. The man fell bad for him, you know,
and started bringing him things that he asked for from
the outside world, like books and money, and eventually oranges.
Here we go, here we go. Also money. Why did
he bring money? He was an early adopter of crypto.
Speaker 5 (27:50):
Please bring me bitcoin.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
So John had noticed that the jailer liked oranges, so
when they were delivered to his cell, John shared them
with a man. But he also had another idea for them. So, John,
how the fuck are you going to escape the infamous
prison with the oranges? We already talked about a little
acidic thing that you're talking about.
Speaker 5 (28:07):
Like, I'm just I'm so curious. I have no idea, Like,
what's he doing okay.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Well, first, he started collecting orange juice in a small jar.
Right at night, John practiced exercises with his hands.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
As the strength came back.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
He started carving orange peels into rosaries that he convinced
the jailer to deliver them to other Catholic prisoners throughout
the tower. Over the next six months, John slowly executed
his plan. He asked her paper to package up his
orange peel rosaries, and then eventually also like, can you
imagine some of the prisoners like them, and others were like, John,
(28:39):
what the fuck is this man? How about you send
me the orange itself. I'm fucking hungry man.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
I'd rather have your money, even though it means nothing
in here.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
I'd rather I mean bringing that you have so many
oranges and you just get to like the ards and.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Crafts with them, like okay.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
He eventually asked for some charcoal to write messages to
his friends outside the prison. Now at this point, he
was pretty tired with the jailer, so he got everything
he asked for.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
His plan is coming together now, like he has Like
he has a plan. I'm just so curious what it is.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
But it seems like he's gaining favor and getting everything
he wants.
Speaker 5 (29:10):
Right now exactly for him. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Anyway, So the moment of clarity for John Gerard was
that alongside the charcoal writing, he also used the toothpick
to scroll invisible words in orange shoe.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Okay, so, I mean just huge headline there. I don't
know they had toothpicks back then. I was like, hey,
why didn't nobody use them?
Speaker 1 (29:34):
I've seen they're all mangled like they're just mainly decorative,
mainly decorative.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
He just wanted people to know that you had him
around your house.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
John says that this is something that a lot of
Catholics were doing to send secret messages, so he was
confident that the other Catholics would know what to do
when they got his note.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
Okay, and he was right.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
John got a package of food back from some of
his friends outside of the prison, and when he held
up the package paper to the candle flame, he could
see that they had responded with their own.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
Ori introduced writing.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
The secret channel of communication was open and it was
fresh as fuck, that's right. The first thing that John
and his friends agreed on was that they needed to
pay the jailer for these notes. Right. John's Catholic friends
started filling the man's wallet, so soon enough he was
happily carrying packages of food between him. The whole time,
(30:27):
John and his friends were working out the details of
an escape plot. So in the spring of fifteen ninety seven,
the Attorney General questioned John again to prepare for his trial.
The interrogation was harsh, and it convinced Jean that he
was soon going to be given a public execution. It
was time John initiated stage one of his plan. He
(30:48):
convinced the jailer to let him visit another cell of
another Catholic prisoner who was locked up in the Cradle Tower.
Side note, fucked up name for a tower.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
Yeah, okay, fucked up. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
It took some serious bribing John's friends, but they had
paid the jail enough. He agreed a few things about
this other man. He had been in the Tower of
London for ten years. The Cradle Tower faced the Castle
moat and the river beyond that. The man cell had
a low down. Actually, correction, the man cell was low
down on the outer law. The cell had the lowdown
(31:22):
on it. The cell really knew what was going down.
Speaker 5 (31:25):
That cell was happening at who knew who who.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
It was such a gossip it was make as so
when the two of them were together in the man cell,
they looked out the window and they agreed that if
they could get their hands on some rope, they could
use it to shimmy down. As long as they had
friends on the outside who could pick him up and
help them with a getaway, they could.
Speaker 5 (31:43):
Have a rope man.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Prison breaks still happened today, and I have to imagine
rope is a big part of it.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Rope doesn't get enough credit, you know, it doesn't get it.
Speaker 5 (31:51):
Doesn't It doesn't get enough credit.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
So, using the secret orange juice writing, John coordinated the
time of the place with his network of Catholic friend
outside that when the night came, John bribed the jailer
and this jaylor is just fucking raking it in to
bring him into the other man's cell. Once they were
locked in together, they used the knife to lose in
a stone around the bolt of their cell door and
climbed onto the roof overlooking the moat, where they waited.
(32:17):
The first night on the rooftop, though ended in failure.
John's friends did arrive in a rowboat, but they crashed
on the river bank near the London Bridge and got
trapped by the current and almost capsides. One of them
even fell into the water and had to be rescued
by a crowd of people who gathered when they heard
him shouting, really giving away his position and I please
(32:39):
come on, I'm.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
Trying to get away. I'm trying to get break my
friend out of jail.
Speaker 5 (32:43):
You just save me so I can break him out.
Speaker 4 (32:45):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Fortunately for John, no one suspected they were trying to
help the prisoner escape. They were then even able to
get their hands on another boat and come back the
very next night. This time, rather than climbing to the roof,
John waited in the cell of Cradle Tower. When the
boaters pulled up, the secured a rope to the vessel,
and they tossed the other side to John, who tied
it up inside the cell. Then the two men started
(33:08):
as shimmy down the rope. Even though John's hands were
still in enormous pain, he was able to take it
slow and managed to climb all the way down the rope.
He joined his accomplices in the rowboat and they set
off down river under the cover of darkness. Their first
hiding place was in the outskirts of the city, where
they switched to horses and disappeared into the countryside, throwing
(33:32):
toothpicks everywhere.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
Scavengers, scavengers, scavengers.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Once John had escaped, his friends sent someone back to
the prison. He told the jailer what happened and offered
to get the man out of the country.
Speaker 5 (33:54):
Now.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
When the jailer realized that he would then be executed
for letting John escape, he agreed. He went home, gathered
his family, and fled the country, using the Catholic underground
network to get out. John says that the jailer lived
comfortably for the rest of his life on a yearly
allowance paid by the Jesuit allies.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
Very cool.
Speaker 6 (34:12):
I believe John, I want to believe him. But that
jailer is dead, that jailer is gone, that Jaylor in
his entire family. Yeah, and said where can we find him?
He said, oh, around the pond, the third tree.
Speaker 5 (34:24):
Like, I don't remember, but he just know that he's alive.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
He's thriving. He is just living his best life, you know.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
As for John, he was able to stay in England
for a year, moving between houses of his Catholic friends
and keeping a low profile.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
Would you have the.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Courage to do the same thing again after you were
arrested the first time.
Speaker 5 (34:44):
Oh no, go to France, Go to somewhere. Now you're
in Europe.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
Travel, travel, find yourself.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
You pretty love, you got the whole orange peely or Rostary.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
Things make a business. I'm sure there's a business for it.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
So things got even too hot for John in sixteen
o five, especially on the fifth of November. That's right,
we're talking about the Gunpowder plot when Catholic rebels try
to blow.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
Up Parliament, Remember the fifth of November.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Yes, after that even John got out of England, and
I guess it was the sign that his mission was
over now. John was eventually able to slip across the
English Channel and escape the reach of the Protestant powers
trying to kill him. He made it to the English
College in Rome, where he lived until his death in
sixteen thirty seven.
Speaker 4 (35:29):
He was seventy three years old. Before his death, he
wrote a.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Memoir describing his life, his various encounters with priest hunters,
his imprisonment in the tower, and his escape. These days,
the Tar of London is super popular with tourists like
you said, it's where England's crown jewels are displayed.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
Yeah, review whos.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Actually give the castle a four out of five stars
on Yelp and trip Adviser.
Speaker 5 (35:49):
God, these like amazing historic artifacts are just like.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
They're like not impressed, not impressed, not into it. You know,
there refreshments wearing that gut. The tower was kind of cold. Also,
I don't think that that's how John Gerard.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
Would have like rated his day.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
I would have loved to read as Yelp review being
like the staff was friendly, but my goodness, the daytime
activities were really hard to swallow.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
If I could give zero stars, I would, but it
makes me get them one, so I will give one one.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Interesting little tidbit though. Tower tourism actually started in the
fifteen hundreds. Today people visited as a historical prison and
torture chamber, and it costs about thirty British pounds to
get in, so at least we have the benefit of
distance from the brutal past. But in the same years
that people were being in prison there and tortured inside,
others were pained to visit and do a little disaster tourism.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
Oh my god, you believe wile.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
One account says that in sixteen thirty nine and aristocrat
paid eleven shillings for her tour.
Speaker 5 (36:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
Yeah, they're like, isn't this pleasant? Isn't this beautif?
Speaker 5 (36:51):
That's right?
Speaker 4 (36:53):
I have this stance while these people I haven't.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
Yes, let's go watch a little torture today.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Oh that's positively diblish. Okay, so no RecA fucking crazy
story John visiting torture chambers fun year Nay.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Yeah, contemporaneously with when the people are getting tortured, like no,
like present day, like yeah, like I've been to like
a couple.
Speaker 5 (37:20):
Outside of Rome, old Roman ones.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
Yeah, and then yeah, like out of curiosity, like yes,
but like not like not.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Back then when it's actively being used this one right, No, no, no,
the inquisition museums are so fucked up.
Speaker 5 (37:34):
But I mean to bear witness to the crazy stuff.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Yes, it's worth it.
Speaker 5 (37:38):
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:39):
Where can listeners find your work?
Speaker 3 (37:41):
I have a little house, uh surrounded by a boat yus,
I said, I know, I'm on American Auto now val
on NBC. I think you can get it on Peacock.
I think we're off Hulu. We're done with Hulu.
Speaker 5 (37:52):
Superstores. That's not that still is on Hulu, I believe,
and and you.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Can also check out the second season of Chicago.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Party and that So congratulations brother, sure Benjin, would you
like to play at convincing each other that we have
to escape this prison? But in the voice of Sean
Connery and Nicholas Cage signing off, like like, let's escape
this spot.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
So who do you want to be?
Speaker 5 (38:16):
I'll take take a little Connrie, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Take Connory right, Okay, yes, at we gotta go now, Conrie,
we have.
Speaker 5 (38:24):
To wait until the gage to sleep. Then we can
make a move.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
Here's some more introduce Sean, what are you gonna do
about it?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
I'm wanna work a little a little nasty note and
slip it pasta goage.
Speaker 5 (38:34):
We can get a help from our friends in the outshot.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Oh fantastic, brother, Thank you, what a pleasure it.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
Thank you so much. John a great.
Speaker 5 (38:41):
Honor, buddy, Thank you so much, so much fun. You're
so funny. Oh man, what.
Speaker 4 (38:45):
A great time that was.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Gratist Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio and Film Nation
Entertainment in association with Gilded Audio. Our executive producers are
me Or Touro Castro, Alyssa Martino and Milanko Pelga from
Film Nation Entertainment, Andrew Chugg and Witning Donaldson from Gilded Audio,
and Dylan Fagan from iHeartRadio. The show is produced and
edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chubb, who are also, respectively,
our research overlord and music Overlord. Our associate producer is
(39:14):
Tory Smith, who's our other overlord. Nick Dooley is our
technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson. Special thanks to
Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Riizek, Sarah Joyner, Nicki Stein,
Olivia Canny, and Kelsey Albright. Hey, thank you so much
(39:39):
for listening, and if you're enjoying the show, please drop
a rating or review. My mom will call you each
personally and thank you, and we'll see you all next
week
Host
Arturo Castro
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