What Being a Prisoner in the Tower of London Was Really Like

0:00 What life was like in the Tower 1:19 Why the Tower was built 3:36 Escapes and the prisoner’s status 6:00 Torture and interrogation 9:40 Luxury behind locked doors 13:02 Executions and the princes in the Tower 14:48 Two prisons in one What was life really like inside the Tower of London? I explore the sharp divide between luxury, fear and survival behind its walls. I trace the Tower’s origins under William of Normandy, follow escapes by Ranulph Flambard and the Earl of Nithsdale, and examine how prisoners were treated according to their wealth, status and usefulness to the crown. I also look at torture in the Tower, the lives of Sir Walter Raleigh and Henry Percy, the executions of Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey, the mystery of the princes, and the Tower’s later prisoners.