Although the Tower of London has had many functions in the centuries since it was built, it is perhaps most infamously known as a prison. In this episode of Footnoting History, we’re sharing the remarkable stories of two of the Tower’s medieval captives: one with royal Welsh blood and one who served as Bishop of Durham. Hi everyone, Christine here! If you’re joining us around the time this episode is released, welcome! It’s our first drop after our June hiatus and we
are happy to have you with us. Please note: if you are looking for a captioned version of this, or any, of our episodes, make sure to visit either FootnotingHistory.com or our YouTube channel, which can be found at YouTube.com/FootnotingHistory. Here, Kristin and I are going to share two stories about people who spent time in the infamous Tower of London. We decided to do this because the Tower is one of those places that has just so much epic history
it's almost impossible to know all of it. In fact, one day, she and I were texting about the Tower, as we do, and we realized that I had a story about it that she didn’t know and she had a story about it that I didn’t know. That led us to hope that maybe some of you out there didn’t know them either…so we’re really stoked to share them. My story has been on my mind since I was gifted my first Sharon Kay Penman novel, Here Be Dragons, which alerted me to the fascinating and complex
history of medieval Wales and its princes. I’ve talked about how being introduced to her fiction right before college influenced why I studied medieval history before and I’ve even done full episodes based on events I first encountered in her books (see, in particular, the time I talked about Guy de Montfort, still one of my favorite topics). Anyway, it won’t be a surprise then, to learn that this historical event was one that I first learned about in Falls the Shadow,
the second book in Penman’s wonderful trilogy centered on medieval Wales. So, for this story, we are going to start in medieval Wales in order to get to the Tower of London. More specifically, we are going to begin in Wales in the very late 1100s. This is where I have to put my disclaimer: I LOVE (all capital letters) Welsh history, however I have extreme difficulty pronouncing Welsh names correctly, especially the double-l.
Please know I’m doing my best and I apologize in advance for all of the imperfections. So we are in Wales in the late 1100s because it was the likely time of the birth of our main character. That main character is a man known as Gruffudd ap Llywelyn ab Iorwerth or, on occasion, Gruffudd ap Llywelyn Fawr. If Welsh naming practices are confusing to you, that’s okay. What you need to know is that
“ap” or “ab” between these names means “son of”. So, for Gruffudd ap Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, it means that Gruffudd was the son of Llewelyn who in turn was the son of Iorwerth. For the second version of his name, Gruffudd ap Llewlyn Fawr, it’s a variation on the theme. Here, instead of listing multiple generations, the use of “Llywelyn Fawr” drops the mention of the grandfather and uses the
word “Fawr” which translates to that Gruffudd’s father was called Llywelyn the Great. I like that last one for our purposes because it tells you that Gruffudd’s father was a really big deal. One doesn’t get a name Llywelyn the Great by sitting around and doing nothing. In the late 12th century, the Welsh had their own rulers and their own laws and practices. Three-fourths of
Wales is surrounded by water, leaving it with only one land neighbor, England. While England’s rulers were already trying to increasingly encroach on and forcibly take over Wales, they wouldn’t fully succeed in this until after our story ends. A big part of the reason why the Welsh were able to fend off the English for so long was due to the actions of Gruffudd’s father and even earlier ancestors.
Today it’s important that you know that Llywelyn was the grandson of the ruler of Gwynedd, which is northern Wales. As he grew, Llywelyn made his mark on the Welsh political landscape, working to gain power held first by his grandfather and then by his uncles and expanding his influence until, well, he became the most powerful prince in Wales. And, his eldest illegitimate son was our Gruffudd. In Welsh practice, it must be noted, illegitimate status did not automatically bar you from a nice
share in the inheritance when your parent passed. Now, Gruffudd’s father not only consolidated power and extended influence in Wales, but he developed a necessary (though rocky) relationship with his neighboring king to the east, John. This relationship included solidifying recognition of his power in Wales and marrying John’s illegitimate daughter, Joan. Yes, this will be important quite soon. My favorite Fun Fact about Gruffudd
is that he appears in the Magna Carta. Llywelyn’s relationship with his father-in-law John was not permanently on the up. So, following a period of conflict between the two–when Gruffudd was still quite young–his father was forced to give him up to the English King as a hostage. In this era, this was not an uncommon practice. Hostages, as such, were taken by the winner from the disgraced
(or loser) to ensure their good behavior. Gruffudd wouldn’t have been necessarily abused or anything while held by King John, but should Llywelyn fall out of line in terms of their agreement, Gruffudd would be the one to receive the possibly-fatal punishment. In 1215, a few years after Gruffudd was sent as the hostage, it was King John’s turn to be humbled and humiliated. This happened when his barons were able to force him to sign the document called the
Magna Carta– and Llywelyn had sided with the barons who sought to limit John’s power. As a result, one of its clauses reads, “We will at once return the son of Llywelyn, all Welsh hostages, and the charters delivered to us as security for the peace.” That son is our Gruffudd. He was home free…but happiness would largely elude him. By 1220, Llywelyn had decided that his recognized heir would be Dafydd his son by his wife, Joan, not Gruffudd, despite Gruffudd being older. Again,
in Welsh practice, it wasn’t a given that being illegitimate barred you from inheriting. His actions indicated that Gruffudd would be provided for but he wanted everyone on the same page that the actual successor was Dafydd. Dafydd might have shared paternal blood with Gruffudd, but he had the added benefit of his mother, Joan’s, lineage. By now King John (Joan’s father) had passed away and the new king was his son, Joan’s half-brother, Henry III. Being of both Welsh and English royal
blood was an asset Gruffudd did not possess. As Gruffudd grew into adulthood, he did marry and have several children with his wife, but peace was never the order of the day and he was always discontent. He was given lands by his father, only to have them taken away when they had a fight. He did lead an army to help his father defend Wales, but he was also imprisoned by his father for several years likely due to another falling out. And you can forget about his relationship
with Dafydd. The half-brothers were regularly at odds, particularly given that Gruffudd was Dafydd’s rival claimant to the succession. In 1239 or 1240, around the time of their father’s death, Dafydd captured and imprisoned Gruffudd. Yes, Gruffudd was imprisoned a lot. It was kind of His Thing, though I’m sure he hated it. Gruffudd’s imprisonment by his half-brother is what leads us to the Tower. His wife was understandably upset and turned to the King
of England for help, petitioning him to secure her husband’s release. Henry III agreed, in August of 1241, that he would get Gruffudd freed and determine exactly how much of an inheritance Dafydd was withholding from him. In reality, what occurred was that Henry III went after Dafydd and succeeded in bringing him down enough that he recognized he needed to hand over Gruffudd and
await Henry’s pronouncement. (Henry III clearly saw this as an opportunity to bring Wales further to heel under England’s control which neither brother would have wanted...but there they were.) However, Gruffudd wasn’t released and he wasn’t given an inheritance. He was instead sent to the Tower of London where he remained for multiple years, serving as a living threat to his brother’s power in Wales, for indeed his being fully Welsh made him an appealing candidate to back to some
Welsh magnates. But he was a threat which could take no action. Now, Gruffudd’s life in the Tower of London wasn’t one of huge deprivation and being locked in some dungeon to waste away. He wasn’t the only Welsh captive there, in fact one of his sons was with him. Plus, his wife was allowed to visit and the Crown arranged for him to be treated well, even granting him a decent allowance. Still,
Gruffudd had no intention of staying in the Tower for long. I can’t really blame him. He was held hostage and captive and prisoner so many times…and this time he decided that he was going to escape. My only sadness is we don’t know more about the details of planning this move. What we do know is, he did it at night. The night he chose was March 1, 1244. Interestingly enough, March 1st
is also known as St. David’s Day, with St. David being the patron saint of Wales. Whether or not Gruffudd or someone close to him hoped this date would help achieve a safe escape, I cannot say. But it was not a safe escape. Gruffudd was being held on an upper floor which meant that he had to somehow get from an elevated level down to the ground without being stopped or caught. He decided to do this by taking whatever linens and fabrics he could
find–think bed sheets and tablecloths, that sort of thing–creating a rope out of it. Yes, this is really the traditional story passed down from, and even drawn in a medieval manuscript. Gruffudd then used this makeshift rope to begin lowering himself down the side of the Tower. There was a problem though, an enormous one. Gruffudd was not a small man, he was coming from someplace very high, and the linen rope was nowhere near as strong as it needed to be. The rope gave way and he fell
directly to his death. Eventually, his remains were removed from the Tower and interred in Wales, at Aberconwy. His half-brother Dafydd would die without an heir and it was Gruffudd’s sons who would take up the mantle…something which he would certainly have appreciated. It was an utterly tragic, inglorious end for a man from such an illustrious lineage,
and it’s one of those stories that has always stayed with me. It stayed with me so much that the first time I visited the Tower of London it was the only thing I could think about as I explored the grounds. Maybe, now, this bit of Welsh history will stay with you too…and again I am sorry for the issues with my pronunciation. But we aren’t done yet. Thank you for listening to
my portion. Now it’s Kristin’s turn to share her selected Tale from the Tower. I promise it isn’t quite so bleak and it’s about someone that the Tower of London considers its first prisoner… Hello Footnoting History friends, it’s Kristin, here with a story about a daring escape from the Tower that involves a cask of wine. As all good escape stories do, amirite. This is seriously
one of my favorite Tower stories and I admit I have a lot. Whenever I’m in London – which used to be fairly often, their libraries have a lot of the manuscripts I need – I find myself at the Tower and usually for a long period of time. (Apologies to my husband and my dear friend who once had to walk around with me there for five hours when I swore it would only take us one,
tops. Although that’s really on them, though, because they know me, they should have known better.) Because of the Great Fire of 1666, there isn’t a whole lot of medieval London left. There’s stuff but there’s not a lot. And while many additions to the Tower are a bit later and it doesn’t look quite how it did in the Middle Ages, it’s still pretty good – and I do like the juxtaposition of standing on top of the medieval walls and looking out onto modern
London. It’s kind of crazy to take in how long the Tower’s been around and how much it’s seen. The story I’m going to tell you today is part of that medieval history and happened when the Tower was just a Baby Tower and it happened in the oldest permanent stone structure of the Tower. This first structure would later go on to be called the White Tower after 1240, when it was whitewashed by Henry III, and it’s how it’s generally referred to today.
It’s classified as a “keep,” which is a type of medieval fortification – and it has four square towers at each corner. The White Tower was originally constructed in stone, on the site of a previous wooden one, sometime in the 1070s – and it’s pretty impressive now
and it definitely was then, too. This bad boy is 90 ft. tall and 118 x 107 ft. in area. It was pretty state-of-the-art when it was built – there are these massive stone fireplaces along the walls of some floors and the flues were designed to hide the smoke, so that approaching ships wouldn’t know if anyone was home (from a distance). There were also guarderrobes, which were medieval latrines (that went right into the moat and the Thames, so it
did not smell great but was convenient for those inside). Mostly, it served as a royal residence, it has a Romanesque-style chapel inside, business happened there, arms were kept there, there was just a whole lot going on in the early part of 12th century, which is when our story takes place. This particular prisoner of the Tower, Ranulf Flambard, has sort of obscure origins, as so many medieval people do. You often get a ? or a “c.” when sources provide his life span because
we really don’t know when he was born. Maybe sometime around 1060, so just before William of Normandy’s conquest of England in 1066 and about 15 years before the construction of the tower in which he would be held prisoner. “Flambard” is actually a nickname – it
means “fiery” and so apparently our guy was quite the personality. The writer who gives us Ranulf’s origin story is Oderic Vitalis (and I’m just going to call him Vitalis for short), Vitalis was an English monk and chronicler and he writes a very famous text called the Historia Ecclesiastica – and this is where he talks about Ranulf. Vitalis says that our boy was poor and didn’t come from much. He was the son of a parish priest from Bayeux in France,
who died as a monk of St. Augustine’s in Canterbury. And before you clutch your pearls, it’s the later 11th century and clerical marriage was still kind of a thing in the Roman church, even though it was slowly starting to be phased out at this time. So, that Ranulf is the son of a priest-turned-monk was not that big of a deal (and actually Vitalis was in similar situation – and
so was Ranulf himself, but we’ll get to that). Vitalis does, however, say that Ranulf’s mother was a sorceress, so take that for what you will, and also that he had two brothers named Geoffrey and Fulcher. Ranulf seems to have been something of a smartypants. He started off being educated as a cleric in the court of the local duke and then moved his way into the royal court of William I aka William the Conqueror. By 1085, he was in England and was promoted to the keeper of the
royal seal. The famous Domesday Book – which probably should be its own episode – says that Flambard had two churches in Surrey and a bunch of other estates scattered around England. So, doing pretty good in the 1080s, that scrappy guy from Bayeux. Studying works, kids.
Things got better for Flambard before they got worse. Under William Rufus – the Conqueror’s heir in England, who was not – fun fact – his eldest son – Under William Rufus, Flambard grew more influential and he continued to do well for himself and kept acquiring and
acquiring lands. And this guy seems to have been all over the place – he was acting as a judge in places, he was the head of both secular and religious royal households, he acted as regent for Rufus when he was in Normandy in the later 1090s, all kinds of stuff.
There is some disagreement over whether or not Flambard held an actual named royal office but he is described as the king’s chief financial and legal guy, he was the king’s chaplain, lots of good things going for him – and not everyone was happy for him, either because he was kind of a jerk, like Vitalis says, or because they were jealous – I guess it doesn’t have to be
one or the other. Lots of people do accuse him of being an extortionist and he liked to raise taxes and did some questionable things regarding the pay of Englishmen providing military service to the king. Historians are not so quick to just believe all the bad things that Vitalis et al had to say about Flambard, and Richard Southern, who was a very influential 20th century medievalist, did some really interesting work on Flambard and his role in early Anglo-Norman administration,
if you’re interested. (It’s listed in the Further Reading for this episode.) But a lot of people at the time, at the turn of the 12th century, definitely did not like this guy – and probably he took a lot of the brunt of what was a pretty corrupt reign for William Rufus. When the bishop of Durham died, guess who got his job in 1099. Durham’s big, it was an important diocese, it had – still has – a very impressive cathedral (though
it did not look like it does today then). Flambard had to pay the king for the job, but Durham was a big prize and it was worth it. And Flambard did do some good stuff for Durham – he is credited with being a major force behind building Durham castle and fortifying the area. But then William Rufus died in a pretty suspicious hunting accident in 1100 and Flambard’s biggest fan and protector was suddenly gone. The king died on August 2nd and by August 15th,
Flambard was arrested and taken to the Tower. The Tower, if you’ll remember, was still new and Flambard was its first prisoner. He was also the first person to escape. Flambard was at the Tower for about 6 months before he made his move. Since he was a relatively big deal – and a wealthy state prisoner – he wasn’t in a cell in the basement, he had some nice space. And he offered to throw a big party for the guards … as a thank you? I dunno and they
didn’t question it too much. He ordered several barrels of wine for the party. The guards got hammered and Flambard was able to escape out the window using a rope that he’d smuggled in through one of the wine barrels. I’m not entirely sure who was helping him on the outside, but someone was waiting on the Thames in a boat and away they went into the night. He took with him his crozier (his bishop’s staff) and his mom. Not everyone believes this story, which was of course, told by Vitalis.
Historian H. S. Offler says it’s “pure Gilbert and Sullivan,” but you will hear it for sure if you visit the Tower of London, either in person or via their website. It does sound a little too good to be true, but he did get out of there somehow, and man, I really want it to be this way. William de Mandeville, who was the keeper of the Tower, was fined pretty hard for the escape – maybe because he was so stupid or maybe because he was in on it and that’s really how Flambard escaped.
Either way, Flambard ended up in Normandy at the court of William the Conqueror’s oldest son, Duke Robert aka Robert Curthose. And Flambard offered his smarts to Robert and took part in Robert’s 1101 (failed) invasion of England. After that, Flambard started talking to Henry again and eventually he was reinstated as the bishop of Durham. Ranulf Flambard, if you were wondering did have a relationship with a woman named Ælfgifu (she
was either his wife or his mistress) and they had several children together. Some of his sons went on to also have church careers. When Flambard became the bishop of Durham, he had to set Ælfgifu aside, and he married her off to someone from Huntington and whenever he passed that way, Flambard would stay with them. Convenient. I actually first came across Flambard in a medieval mysticism class – it sounds maybe more exciting than some of you might think. I mean, I liked it,
but it was a lot of reading medieval people’s mystical experiences with Christianity. One of the texts was the Life of Christina of Markyate who was Ælfgifu’s niece. And according to this text, which was written by an anonymous monk, Flambard stopped by and tried to force himself on Christina. She tricked him and escaped but he wasn’t happy and made her parents marry her
off as some sort of payback. That’s the story. In terms of taking-or-leaving these stories, this is one that I’d rather leave and one that I hope isn’t true but … it could be, at least in part. It took me years to realize that the Flambard I kept hearing about at the Tower was the same guy from the Christina of Markyate story. But, now you know. Ranulf Flambard died around the age of 70, in 1128 and he is buried in the chapter house of
Durham Cathedral. His tomb was opened in 1874 and his bones were described as belonging to someone almost 6 ft. tall and with a “powerful lower jaw.” So … maybe he really was handsome and striking like Vitalis says. He definitely had an interesting and full life – and in my heart of hearts, I do hope that wine story was true. This has been Footnoting History. If you liked our Tales from the Tower – tune in for this
year’s Halloween episode where I’ll tell you the gruesome story of Margaret Pole. And reach out to us on social media and let us know if you’d like more in this series! You can find us on Facebook and Instagram as Footnoting History. There are a million stories from the Tower and we’d love to tell you some more. Thanks again to all our Patreons and supporters
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