But they had little time to talk about what was past, for they had to arrange for the future. Brave Lady Nithsdale formed a plan, but to carry it out it was necessary to get the help of two other women. She found one in a Mrs. Mills, in whose house she was lodging, and after some difficulty she found another, a friend of Mrs. Mills, called Mrs. Morgan. Now, by this time it was the day before that fixed for Lord Nithsdale's execution, and everything depended on getting him out of the Tower at once. Lady Nithsdale told her companions of her plan, which was to make her husband walk out boldly through the guards dressed like a woman; and for this end she made Mrs. Morgan, who was a little fair, slim woman, wear two sets of clothes one over the other, and one set she meant that Lord Nithsdale should wear. Mrs. Mills was a big, stout woman, with fair eyebrows and fair hair, and Lady Nithsdale hoped that when her husband came through dressed in woman's clothes the guards would think he was Mrs. Mills. When they arrived at the Tower, the poor wife got out and asked to be allowed to take a friend in to say farewell to her husband, and she was told she might take one lady in at a time. Accordingly, she and the thin Mrs. Morgan went in, and while they were in the cell where Lord Nithsdale was, Mrs. Morgan took off the extra clothes she had brought and left them for him to put on. Then she hurried back and told Mrs. Mills to come in. Lady Nithsdale ran to meet Mrs. Mills, who pretended to cry very much, and kept her handkerchief up to her face; and when she got into the cell they waited a little while and talked, for they hoped the gaolers, having seen some ladies passing backwards and forwards, would now forget how many had gone into the cell. After a time Mrs. Mills went out again, and Lady Nithsdale kept calling after her to tell her that she wanted her maid, and that the maid must come quickly, and then she went back again to her husband. She had painted his dark eyebrows fair, and she had put rouge on his cheeks and dressed him up in her own petticoats and the clothes Mrs. Morgan had left; and she had told him not to stride like a man, but to take little mincing steps, so that the guards should not notice any difference. But there was one thing she could not hide, and that was his beard, and she had no time to cut it off; so she tucked it into his cloak in front, and told him to keep his head down and hold his handkerchief to his face and pretend to be crying bitterly. It was now getting dusky, and she was afraid that if they waited any longer the gaolers would bring candles and see what was being done. How the hearts of both husband and wife must have been beating when they opened the door and stepped forth into the anteroom where the guards were! Lady Nithsdale talked a good deal rather loudly, and said she could not understand why her maid had not come, and that she must come at once; and she begged her husband, whom she called 'Mrs. Betty,' to run down to her lodgings to see if the maid were there and send her to the prison. And when they got to the outer door she let him go, and ran back to the cell herself. Then she talked again as if she were talking to her husband, so that the gaolers should hear, and made answers for him in a deep man's voice. Brave heart! she must have been well-nigh fainting with terror, and expecting to hear every minute a noise which would tell her she had been discovered. But after a time, when all seemed right, and when she could talk no more, she left the cell very slowly, and, shutting the door behind her, said to the gaolers that they need not take in lights until Lord Nithsdale asked for them, for he was praying, and did not wish to be disturbed. Then she went down to her coach.
And he really did get safely away; and the King was furious, and said Lady Nithsdale had given him more trouble than any woman in Europe. But Lady Nithsdale went and waited at a friend's house until she heard where her husband was in hiding in a little poor house, and then she joined him, and they stayed there together until things could be arranged for him to get over to France. A friend brought them a bottle of wine and some bread, and on this they lived from Thursday to Saturday. But I do not expect they cared much what they ate, they must have been so happy to be together again.
It was very seldom indeed anyone had escaped from the Tower. Once a man tried to, and let himself down by a rope from his window; but the rope broke, and he fell headlong and was killed. The countess's plan was much better. Luckily, she and her husband had good friends, and one of them lent Lord Nithsdale the livery of his servant, and, pretending he was a footman, took him to Dover, where he got a boat and managed to cross over to France in safety. His estates were all taken from him, but that was a little thing when he had saved his life. His devoted wife joined him in Rome, and they lived abroad for the rest of their days.
Guy Fawkes, of whom we heard before, was examined in the King's house in the Tower, and the judges tried to make him give up the names of his companions; but villain as he was, Guy Fawkes was no coward, and he refused to turn traitor. Finding that he was obdurate, the judges decreed that he should suffer the torture of the rack, and accordingly he was racked again and again. At last in his agony he cried out that he would tell the history of the conspiracy, but not reveal the names of his fellow-conspirators. This was not enough. Once again he was brought to suffer the awful torture, and this time his gaolers told him that some of his comrades had been already taken, and were in the hands of the police. So Fawkes gave way and made a full confession, which was signed 'Guido Fawkes,' and is still kept. This was in November, and on the last day of the following January he and three of his associates were executed at Westminster.
They were brought from the Tower to be executed, and Guy Fawkes was so weak and ill from the terrible tortures he had suffered that he could scarcely climb up the scaffold.
In other parts of the Tower numbers of men and women were imprisoned, but we might as well write a history of England as tell all their stories here. In one tower there is the word 'Jane,' cut in the wall by Lady Jane Grey's husband, the young Lord Dudley, and on many of the walls are names and records cut by sorrowful men and women almost without hope.
It is all changed now. No longer sobs and cries and executions are here, but only the voices of soldiers drilling or calling out to one another, the voices of little children at play on the wharf by the river, or of visitors who come to see the place. The soldiers are in barracks in the Tower, and they drill in the bottom of the deep moat, which is now quite dry.
If we pass from the Tower we shall find outside Tower Hill, where by far the greater number of executions took place. It is just a wide, open space, paved like a street or market-place, and many people walk over it every day without giving a thought to all that has happened there in bygone times.