Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Mankie listener Discretion advised for the
Speaker 1: guards at the Tower of London. February twenty third, seventeen
Speaker 1: sixteen was a day like any other. A despondent wife
Speaker 1: came to visit her husband, who was scheduled for execution.
Speaker 1: The wife had brought a few family friends with her
Speaker 1: and they each took turns visiting with the prisoner. The
Speaker 1: guards listened at the door as the woman said goodbye
Speaker 1: to her husband for the last time, giving her a
Speaker 1: bit of privacy and the couple there alone time. The
Speaker 1: next morning, the guards came to collect the prisoner to
Speaker 1: bring him to the scaffold. But when they opened his cell,
Speaker 1: they gasped.
Speaker 2: It was empty. The prisoner was gone. How could that be?
Speaker 2: He had been in his cell talking with his wife
Speaker 2: just hours before. What the guards didn't know was that
Speaker 2: this prisoner's wife was no ordinary woman. She was a
Speaker 2: woman of indomitable spirit who wasn't going to take a
Speaker 2: death sentence lying down. When she had been visiting her
Speaker 2: husband's cell earlier, she had been talking to herself. Her
Speaker 2: husband was already making his way out of the tower
Speaker 2: thanks to one of the most creative and audacious prison
Speaker 2: breaks in history. I'm Danish Sports and this is noble blood.
Speaker 2: Winifred Maxwell was born in sixteen seventy two, the youngest
Speaker 2: of six children. Her parents were devoted courtiers of King
Speaker 2: James the Second. Once James was ousted in sixteen eighty
Speaker 2: eight in what would become known as the Glorious Revolution,
Speaker 2: Winnifred's parents moved to France, where Winifred met her future husband.
Speaker 2: William Maxwell, was a Scottish nobleman who, as you might imagine,
Speaker 2: was also from a family of longtime Stuart supporters. With
Speaker 2: their family politics lining up quite conveniently, Winifred and William
Speaker 2: fell in love and were married in sixteen ninety nine.
Speaker 2: The Maxwell clan were power players in British history for centuries,
Speaker 2: known mostly for their fighting abilities. The Maxwell men were
Speaker 2: renowned fighters, and we could speculate that Winifred's spirited nature
Speaker 2: made her a natural match for the man who would
Speaker 2: eventually become the fifth Earl of Nithsdale. Shortly after their marriage,
Speaker 2: Winifred and William settled into a comfortable noble life at
Speaker 2: their manor house in Scotland. They had five children, two
Speaker 2: of whom would survive to adulthood. Aside from those losses,
Speaker 2: which were no doubt significant, life on the manor was
Speaker 2: quiet and largely uneventful for the better part of fifteen years.
Speaker 2: And then King George the First was crowned King of
Speaker 2: England and things got a lot more complicated. For a
Speaker 2: bit of background here, Queen Anne had died, leaving no successor,
Speaker 2: and Parliament appointed as her successor George of Hanover, a
Speaker 2: distant cousin of Queen Anne, who happened to have the
Speaker 2: qualification of being a Protestant. Electing a Protestant German who
Speaker 2: spoke no English to the throne was the not so
Speaker 2: subtle nail in the coffin of the Stuart line. Since
Speaker 2: the Stuarts were by and large devout Catholics. A group
Speaker 2: of Scottish lords immediately began planning a rebellion. Calling themselves Jacobites,
Speaker 2: a derivation of the name James. They formed a plan
Speaker 2: to overthrow the foreign king and put in his place
Speaker 2: the son of their beloved James the Second. The rebels
Speaker 2: would need all the help they could get, so naturally
Speaker 2: they came calling for the son of one of Scotland's
Speaker 2: most notorious fighting families. William Maxwell wasn't necessarily excited to
Speaker 2: leave his peaceful manner home and take up arms against
Speaker 2: a sea of troubles, but how could he say no.
Speaker 2: His family's longtime support of the Stuarts was a cornerstone
Speaker 2: of its legacy. Winifred also came from a family of Jacobites,
Speaker 2: so she could hardly have discouraged him. Their reputation in
Speaker 2: Scotland would be forever tainted if they didn't lend their
Speaker 2: support to the cause, and so William joined in the fight,
Speaker 2: leaving Winifred and the children at home. Unfortunately, the Jacobite
Speaker 2: Rebellion of seventeen fifteen was pretty much over as soon
Speaker 2: as it started. The operation was poorly organized and lacked resources,
Speaker 2: and the whole thing fell apart in a matter of months,
Speaker 2: and the group was easily defeated by the British Army.
Speaker 2: William was a part of a group of noblemen and
Speaker 2: key insurgents that was brought to London and imprisoned in
Speaker 2: the Infamous Tower. Both Parliament and the new King wanted
Speaker 2: to move on from the rebellion and keep the peace
Speaker 2: between England and Scotland. But they also knew that they
Speaker 2: couldn't just ignore the rebellion that just happened. A few
Speaker 2: people had to be made an example of, if for
Speaker 2: no other reason than to discourage future uprisings. It was
Speaker 2: decided that the seven most powerful leaders would go to trial.
Speaker 2: Unluckily for Winifred, her husband William was powerful enough to qualify.
Speaker 2: He remained locked in the Tower of London awaiting his trial.
Speaker 2: Winnifred had been busy getting the manner ready for the
Speaker 2: holidays just days before Christmas in seventeen fifteen, when she
Speaker 2: received word of William's capture. Like the industrious woman she was,
Speaker 2: she first made sure to safely hide any documents that
Speaker 2: might have incriminated either William or herself, and after that
Speaker 2: she began to make a plan. Winnifred Maxwell wasn't content
Speaker 2: to sit at home and let her husband sit locked
Speaker 2: up in the Tower of London waiting for his fate
Speaker 2: to be decided by Parliament and the King. By all accounts,
Speaker 2: she and William were devoted to each other, and no
Speaker 2: doubt she was terrified by the news that the father
Speaker 2: of her children was facing trial as a trader. To
Speaker 2: the throne. In addition to this completely normal response, there
Speaker 2: also may have been part of Winifred that was used
Speaker 2: to cleaning up her husband's messes, but a little more
Speaker 2: on that later in the episode. Winnifred knew that she
Speaker 2: had to act quickly, so she and her maid, Cecilia
Speaker 2: Evans set off for London. The journey was long and arduous.
Speaker 2: The winter of seventeen fifteen and seventeen sixteen was especially brutal,
Speaker 2: with heavy storms that dumped so much snow onto the
Speaker 2: roads that Winnifred and missus Evans were unable to take
Speaker 2: the family carriage. Winifred, not the type to ever take
Speaker 2: no for an answer, changed her plan and the two
Speaker 2: women set off on horseback. Vicious winds and brutal temperatures
Speaker 2: accompanied them every step of the way. The journey lasted
Speaker 2: over two weeks and included switching up their plans multiple
Speaker 2: times to accommodate the nightmarish weather. It played out like
Speaker 2: a twisted version of planes, trains, and automobiles, minus the
Speaker 2: modern conveniences, and with the very real possibility of freezing
Speaker 2: to death, and instead of a family Thanksgiving dinner waiting
Speaker 2: on the other side, it was a husband being tried
Speaker 2: for treason, possibly awaiting execution in the Tower of London.
Speaker 2: There was also the very real possibility that Winnifred would
Speaker 2: arrive to London and be greeted with the news that
Speaker 2: William had already been executed while she was on the road.
Speaker 2: But when she and Missus Evans did arrive in London,
Speaker 2: Winnifred was greeted with an extreme case of good news
Speaker 2: bad news. The good news is your husband is still alive.
Speaker 2: The bad news is he's facing trial for his crimes
Speaker 2: against the Crown and things aren't looking good. The two
Speaker 2: women found lodging with a Jacobean sympathizer known as Missus Mills,
Speaker 2: and Winifred began her campaign to emancipate her husband, employing
Speaker 2: the same energy she displayed when traveling hundreds of miles
Speaker 2: through a snowstorm. Winnifred got to work. First on her
Speaker 2: to do list was reuniting with her husband. Lord Maxwell
Speaker 2: was being held in the VIP section of the tower,
Speaker 2: known then as the Lieutenant's Lodgings, later renamed the Queen's House.
Speaker 2: Notable tenants included one time Queen Ann moln and Guy Fox,
Speaker 2: neither of them had come out of the tower alive. Incidentally,
Speaker 2: Winnifred's next order of business was to be the squeakiest
Speaker 2: wheel that Parliament had ever heard. She drew up an
Speaker 2: appeal on her husband's behalf and became a constant fixture
Speaker 2: in the House of Lords. Her fervent dedication to Lord
Speaker 2: Maxwell didn't go an noticed, and if she'd had more time,
Speaker 2: she may have been able to free her husband on
Speaker 2: charm alone. But time was not on her side. The
Speaker 2: trial was swift and merciless, with six of the seven
Speaker 2: men found guilty and sentenced to death, William included. Winifred
Speaker 2: appealed the decision before the House of Commons, where it
Speaker 2: failed by only a handful of votes. Thanks to efforts
Speaker 2: like hers, the country was becoming very invested in the
Speaker 2: fate of the Scottish rebels, with tensions rising between those
Speaker 2: who wanted them freed and those who sought what they
Speaker 2: saw as justice. King George himself got involved and tried
Speaker 2: to smooth things over by pardoning three of the six
Speaker 2: men awaiting execution. Those three men received their royal pardon
Speaker 2: and walked free, but William was not one of them. He,
Speaker 2: along with two others, was set to meet his maker
Speaker 2: in just under three weeks. William begged for mercy, claiming
Speaker 2: that he had been dragged, kicking and screaming into the rebellion,
Speaker 2: but the King's decision was final. An example had to
Speaker 2: be made, and noble William was one of the unlucky
Speaker 2: few were chosen to make it. At this point, most
Speaker 2: women would have visited their priests and gotten their husband's
Speaker 2: affairs in order, but Winifred wasn't most women. She took
Speaker 2: her business straight to the king. Clutching a copy of
Speaker 2: the petition she'd written on behalf of William. She dressed
Speaker 2: as a servant and snuck in through the back door
Speaker 2: of Saint James's Palace, pretending to clean. She made her
Speaker 2: way through the many, many palace rooms until she found
Speaker 2: King George. She ambushed the unsuspecting monarch and began and
Speaker 2: to plead her case, but George understandably wanted nothing to
Speaker 2: do with the loud woman dressed in servants clothes, who
Speaker 2: threw herself quite literally at his feet. According to Winifred's
Speaker 2: own account of these events, written years later, King George
Speaker 2: tried to get away, she writes, seeing that he wanted
Speaker 2: to go off without taking my petition. I caught hold
Speaker 2: of the skirt of his coat that he might stop
Speaker 2: and hear me. He endeavored to escape out of my hands,
Speaker 2: but I kept such a strong hold that he dragged
Speaker 2: me on my knees from the middle of the room
Speaker 2: to the very door of the drawing room. At last,
Speaker 2: one of the servants who attended his majesty took me
Speaker 2: round the waist, while another wrestled the coat from my hands.
Speaker 2: The petition, which I had endeavored to thrust into his pocket,
Speaker 2: fell to the ground in the scuffle, and I almost
Speaker 2: fainted away from grief and disapp appointment. End quote. While
Speaker 2: the admittedly humorous exchange clearly didn't have the desired effect,
Speaker 2: word of the king's harsh treatment of Winifred spread and
Speaker 2: added to the growing public support for this passionate woman
Speaker 2: who would go to any lengths to free the man
Speaker 2: she loved. Sadly, it was too little, too late, and
Speaker 2: by now William's fate was sealed. He wrote letters back
Speaker 2: home to Scotland to try and make sure his possessions
Speaker 2: would go to his son after his death and not
Speaker 2: to the crown. He also prepared the speech he would
Speaker 2: be allowed to give from the scaffold just before being
Speaker 2: put to death. His actions all point to a man
Speaker 2: who had resigned himself to his fate. Fortunately for him,
Speaker 2: his wife had one more trick a per sleeve, and
Speaker 2: this one was a doozy. With the help of her maid,
Speaker 2: Missus Evans, their landlad Missus Mills, and another friend, a
Speaker 2: woman named Missus Morgan, Winifred hatched a plan for a
Speaker 2: jail break like no other. While a typical jail break
Speaker 2: might have involved force or some kind of aggression, the
Speaker 2: women had to rely solely on their intelligence and powers
Speaker 2: of persuasion. Luckily for them, Lady Maxwell had been a
Speaker 2: frequent visitor to the tower over the previous few weeks.
Speaker 2: The guards were familiar with her comings and goings, and
Speaker 2: more importantly, she was familiar with theirs. The Lieutenant's lodgings
Speaker 2: were a hub of activity, with many people in and
Speaker 2: out on any given day. Winifred used that to her advantage,
Speaker 2: as well as the fact that the guards also had
Speaker 2: frequent visitors, usually in the form of wives and girlfriends.
Speaker 2: She knew they were often distracted and preoccupied, and also
Speaker 2: they were no doubt use to this loud woman and
Speaker 2: her drama by now, which was exactly how she wanted it.
Speaker 2: On a cold day in February seventeen sixteen, the day
Speaker 2: before Lord Maxwell was set to be executed, Lady Maxwell
Speaker 2: showed up at the tower for a visit. She brought
Speaker 2: along her three friends and a bottle of cognac, which
Speaker 2: she offered the guards, encouraging them to drink. The guards
Speaker 2: needed little encouragement, especially when Winifred told them that they
Speaker 2: were celebrating. She'd made up a story about a last
Speaker 2: minute appeal, and her high spirits, combined with the spirits
Speaker 2: of the alcohol, put the guards at ease. Then her
Speaker 2: plan really kicked into motion. Because of heightened security, only
Speaker 2: two visitors were allowed into William's cell at a time,
Speaker 2: and so began a sequence of mister direction straight out
Speaker 2: of a French farce, a human shell game that was
Speaker 2: confusing by design. The women went in and out of
Speaker 2: the cell in pairs, talking loudly and full of emotion,
Speaker 2: causing the guards to want to give them their distance.
Speaker 2: What the guards didn't know, of course, was that Missus Morgan,
Speaker 2: the tallest of the women, was wearing two sets of clothes.
Speaker 2: Winifred and Missus Morgan went in first. One can imagine
Speaker 2: William's surprise at seeing his wife's friend enter the cell
Speaker 2: and immediately begin to strip. Once her outer gown and
Speaker 2: cloak were off, Winifred told her husband to put them on.
Speaker 2: William may have hesitated at this outlandish request, but he,
Speaker 2: more than anyone, knew not to interrupt his wife when
Speaker 2: she was in the middle of a plan. As he dressed,
Speaker 2: Winnifred took the real Missus Morgan downstairs and switched her
Speaker 2: out for Missus Mills, who'd been pretending to be in
Speaker 2: a heightened emotional state since she entered the tower. Once
Speaker 2: the new pair were in the cell, Winifred produced some
Speaker 2: makeup and a wig that looked very similar to missus
Speaker 2: mills hair. The women were going in and out of
Speaker 2: the cell at such a rate that the guards gave
Speaker 2: up trying to keep track of them. Finally William's transformation
Speaker 2: was complete, Winifred ordered him to put his head down
Speaker 2: and pretend to weep, as Missus Mills had been doing
Speaker 2: all day. At one point, with Missus Morgan alone in
Speaker 2: the cell pretending to talk to the prisoner, Lord and
Speaker 2: Lady Maxwell marched past the guards and exited the tower
Speaker 2: with Lord Maxwell giving the performance of a lifetime. Winifred
Speaker 2: handed William off to her maid and went back upstairs
Speaker 2: to relieve missus Morgan. Then Winifred stayed alone in the cell,
Speaker 2: loudly having a one sided conversation that sounded to the
Speaker 2: outside observer that she was just a woman talking to
Speaker 2: her husband. All the while, her maid and two friends
Speaker 2: were carrying William away from the tower and to a
Speaker 2: safe house. Once Winnifred had bought them enough time, she
Speaker 2: left her husband's cell. She told the guards and servants
Speaker 2: that he was deep in prayer and preferred not to
Speaker 2: be disturbed. She wished them all a good night and
Speaker 2: left the tower for good, joining William and the others
Speaker 2: at the safe house. The next morning, when the guards
Speaker 2: came to bring Lord Maxwell to his execution, they were
Speaker 2: shocked to find an empty cell. They searched the tower,
Speaker 2: but he was nowhere to be found. Only two of
Speaker 2: the three condemned men were executed that day. It's a
Speaker 2: shame those two men didn't have wives like Winnifred. His
Speaker 2: jail break, William Maxwell made his way out of England
Speaker 2: and settled in France with an assist from the ambassador
Speaker 2: of the Venetian Republic. After lying low in London for
Speaker 2: a bit, Winnifred joined him, but not before tying up
Speaker 2: some key loose ends. Always with one eye to the future,
Speaker 2: she went back to Scotland to gather the family papers
Speaker 2: she had tucked away for Lady Maxwell. It was imperative
Speaker 2: that her son inherit his father's title and lands, and
Speaker 2: that they not make their way into the hands of
Speaker 2: the British government. Once the documents were safely installed with
Speaker 2: trusted allies, Winnifred could relax and look to a new
Speaker 2: life with her now freed husband. Once they were finally reunited,
Speaker 2: the Maxwells spent a little time in France at the
Speaker 2: court of the exiled Stuart Monarch James the second, the
Speaker 2: quote King over the Water, as he was known to many.
Speaker 2: When James moved his court to Rome, the Maxwells followed
Speaker 2: him and both obtained appointment as Lord and Lady in waiting.
Speaker 2: Winifred and William would live the rest of their lives
Speaker 2: in Rome, and though they were clearly glad to have reunited,
Speaker 2: their lives unfortunately remained fraught with hardship. You see, William
Speaker 2: was notoriously bad with money, and this threw the family
Speaker 2: into strife for the rest of their days. He had
Speaker 2: transferred the vast majority of his estate to his son
Speaker 2: in seventeen thirteen, well before the rebellion. This might have
Speaker 2: been a rare moment of foresight, but it was more
Speaker 2: likely due to the fact that Lord Maxwell was simply
Speaker 2: incapable of handling his own finances. Either way, money woes
Speaker 2: seemed to be the theme of the Maxwell's time in Rome,
Speaker 2: detailed in letters that each of them wrote. They were
Speaker 2: constantly in debt and asking for money right and leftst
Speaker 2: hitting up relatives and friends alike. There was clearly a
Speaker 2: decrease in lifestyle after going from running her own manner
Speaker 2: to being someone else's lady in waiting at a court
Speaker 2: in exile, and Winnifred wasn't shy about letting people know
Speaker 2: about the tragedy of their reduced means and her husband's overspending. Still,
Speaker 2: the couple's devotion to each other and to the Stuart
Speaker 2: monarchy never wavered about his exceedingly clever wife, William said quote,
Speaker 2: there cannot be enough said in her praise. Everyone admires her,
Speaker 2: everyone applauds her, and extols her. For the proofs she
Speaker 2: has given me of her love end quote. Everything Winnifred
Speaker 2: did was for her family, from rushing to secure her
Speaker 2: son's inheritance to cooking up a wild scheme to save
Speaker 2: her husband's life. In a time when women of her
Speaker 2: class were encouraged to be quiet, well dressed baby makers,
Speaker 2: Winifred Maxwell spoke her mind and refused to accept any fate.
Speaker 2: She single handedly threw England into an uproar by taking
Speaker 2: matters into her own hands, and she clearly relished her
Speaker 2: role as a political pot stirrer. In a letter to
Speaker 2: her sister about her time in London, she proudly wrote
Speaker 2: that King George the First told her quote that I
Speaker 2: had done him more mischief than any woman in Christendom.
Speaker 2: She was just doing what she had to do. But
Speaker 2: I imagine that being the pain in the ass of
Speaker 2: a king, especially a king that she hated and saw
Speaker 2: as illegitimate, had to feel pretty good. That's the story
Speaker 2: of Winifred Maxwell and her daring prison escape with her husband.
Speaker 2: But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear
Speaker 2: a little bit more about what Winnifred Maxwell actually accomplished
Speaker 2: for the rest of his life. Lord Maxwell praised his
Speaker 2: wife for her ingenuity in breaking him out of the
Speaker 2: Tower of London, but did she actually do him more
Speaker 2: harm than good? In their book Tales from the Tower
Speaker 2: of London, Daniel Deal and Mark P. Donnelly lay out
Speaker 2: the following quote in an ironic twist of fate. There
Speaker 2: is some historical evidence that King George may actually have
Speaker 2: ordered a reprieve for Lord Maxwell on the same afternoon
Speaker 2: that his wife was busily helping him escape from the tower.
Speaker 2: Even if the King was happy to see Maxwell free,
Speaker 2: the jail break had made both the Earl and his
Speaker 2: wife fugitives from an entirely new set of charges. Quote.
Speaker 2: We'll never know for sure whether or not King George
Speaker 2: actually had given into Winifred's relentless campaigning and order her
Speaker 2: husband to be free. But I like to imagine the
Speaker 2: King finally making the concession to let this relentless woman
Speaker 2: have her way, and signing off on a pardon for
Speaker 2: her husband, and then discovering that she had done the
Speaker 2: impossible and broken her husband out of death row using
Speaker 2: nothing more than a wig and an extra dress. It
Speaker 2: had to feel a little like the warden in the
Speaker 2: Shawshank Redemption, ripping that poster of rock hel Welch off
Speaker 2: the wall. Take that, your Highness. Noble Blood is a
Speaker 2: production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky.
Speaker 2: Noble Blood is hosted by me Dana Schwartz, with a
Speaker 2: ditional writing and research by Hannah Johnston, Hannahswick, Courtney Sender,
Speaker 2: Amy Hit and Julia Milani. The show is edited and
Speaker 2: produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producerrima il Kaali and
Speaker 2: executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For
Speaker 2: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.