Imprisonment and Execution

For hundreds of years, the Tower served as a prison for people considered as a threat to national security. The first prisoner was the Bishop of Durham, in 1100, and the most recent was Josef Jakobs, a German spy during the second world war, who was executed at the Tower by a firing squad.

Several Kings and Queens also found themselves spending time in the prison. When Queen Elizabeth I was still a Princess, her half-sister and Queen at the time, Mary I, imprisoned her in the belief that she was plotting against her.

Two of King Henry VIII’s wives - Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard - were also executed at the Tower, through a particularly gruesome and typically medieval method known as ‘beheading’. Beheading - the act of cutting off one’s head - took place in Britain from 1100 until the mid-1700’s.

Another famous execution which took place at the Tower was that of Guy Fawkes, who had been found guilty for trying to blow up the Houses of Parliament, which is the story behind the annual Firework Displays which take place around Britain every November.